#kolyma

[389]

The Mask of Sorrow is a 15- meter -tall monument dedicated to the memory of the victims of mass repressions in the Soviet Union, who were placed in the Gulag labor camps in Kolyma.

[my-russia]

Jack London lake, Magadan Oblast 📷: Vladimir Ryabkov

[synintheraven]

Arnas Fedaravičius as Kolyma - Siberian Education 

[nicklloydnow]

“The mountain had been laid bare and transformed into a gigantic stage for a camp mystery play.

A grave, a mass prisoner grave, a stone pit stuffed full with undecaying corpses of 1938 was sliding down the side of the hill, revealing the secret of Kolyma.

In Kolyma, bodies are not given over to earth, but to stone. Stone keeps secrets and reveals them. The permafrost keeps and reveals secrets. All of our loved ones who died in Kolyma, all those who were shot, beaten to death, sucked dry by starvation, can still be recognized even after tens of years. There were no gas furnaces in Kolyma. The corpses wait in stone, in the permafrost.

In 1938 entire work gangs dug such graves, constantly drilling, exploding, deepening the enormous gray, hard, cold stone pits. Digging graves in 1938 was easy work; there was no "assignment," no "norm" calculated to kill a man with a fourteen-hour working day. It was easier to dig graves than to stand in rubber galoshes over bare feet in the icy waters where they mined gold - the "basic unit of production," the "first of all metals."

These graves, enormous stone pits, were filled to the brim with corpses. The bodies had not decayed; they were just bare skeletons over which stretched dirty, scratched skin bitten all over by lice.

The north resisted with all its strength this work of man, not accepting the corpses into its bowels. Defeated, humbled, retreating, stone promised to forget nothing, to wait and preserve its secret. The severe winters, the hot summers, the winds, the six years of rain had not wrenched the dead men from the stone. The earth opened, baring its subterranean storerooms, for they contained not only gold and lead, tungsten and uranium, but also undecaying human bodies.

These human bodies slid down the slope, perhaps attempting to arise. From a distance, from the other side of the creek, I had previously seen these moving objects that caught up against branches and stones; I had seen them through the few trees still left standing and I thought that they were logs that had not yet been hauled away.

Now the mountain was laid bare, and its secret was revealed. The grave "opened," and the dead men slid down the stony slope. Near the tractor road an enormous new common grave was dug. Who had dug it? No one was taken from the barracks for this work. It was enormous, and I and my companions knew that if we were to freeze and die, place would be found for us in this new grave, this housewarming for dead men.

The bulldozer scraped up the frozen bodies, thousands of bodies of thousands of skeleton-like corpses. Nothing had decayed: the twisted fingers, the pus-filled toes which were reduced to mere stumps after frostbite, the dry skin scratched bloody and eyes burning with a hungry gleam.

With my exhausted, tormented mind I tried to understand: How did there come to be such an enormous grave in this area? I am an old resident of Kolyma, and there hadn't been any gold mine here as far as I knew. But then I realized that I knew only a fragment of that world surrounded by a barbed-wire zone and guard towers that reminded one of the pages of tent-like Moscow architecture. Moscow's taller buildings are guard towers keeping watch over the city's prisoners. That's what those buildings look like. And what served as models for Moscow architecture - the watchful towers of the Moscow Kremlin or the guard towers of the camps? The guard towers of the camp "zone" represent the main concept advanced by their time and brilliantly expressed in the symbolism of architecture.

I realized that I knew only a small bit of that world, a pitifully small part, that twenty kilometers away there might be a shack for geological explorers looking for uranium or a gold mine with thirty thousand prisoners. Much can be hidden in the folds of the mountain.

And then I remembered the greedy blaze of the fireweed, the furious blossoming of the taiga in summer when it tried to hide in the grass and foliage any deed of man - good or bad. And if I forget, the grass will forget. But the permafrost and stone will not forget.” (p. 178 - 180)

[lilbluntworld]

"What do we know of others' grief? Nothing. About others' happiness? Even less."

- Varlam Shalamov, Sketches From The Criminal World

[philippequeau]

Âmes chamanes

“Chaman Yukaghir, en 1902.” Le chamanisme n’est-il qu’« une technique archaïque de l’extase »i ou bien est-il plutôt ce qu’on a pu appeler « un art du voyage mental »ii ? Autre hypothèse encore, ne serait-il pas les deux à la fois, une technique et un art, auxquels viendrait s’ajouter surtout le fait brut d’une révélation spirituelle, octroyée après une longue et difficile initiation, ou bien…

[preponias]

Kolyma River

[lejournaldupeintre]

Kolyma

Ink on cardboard / 30 x 22 cm / Briat 2022 Le journal du peintre Les tableaux du peintre Painting news project Twitter – – – – – – – – – – – Le journal du peintre Les tableaux du peintre Painting news project Twitter – – – – – – – – – –

[sheltiechicago]

Mask of Sorrow: The Crying Monument of Magadan

Mask of Sorrow is a brutalist monument located in Magadan, Russia. The statue was designed to commemorate the people in the Gulag prison camps in the Kolyma region of the Soviet Union who lost their lives under harsh conditions. Ernest Neizvestny created the design; the monument’s constructor was Kamil Kazaev, and it was unveiled in 1996.

Photographer: buttonartorg

lyubatours

one_love_magadan

oksana_lobanova

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

🦋

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

My favourite story from my thesis research, which I think about all the time:

In February 1947, Evgeniia Ginzburg was released from Elgen, a camp in the Kolyma gulag system in Siberia. By this point she had served a 10-year sentence, split between several different camps and villages — this was a common experience for gulag inmates —, during which she worked for a time as a nurse under Anton Walter, a Crimean German doctor and her future husband, in the village of Taskan, 22km (13.6 miles) from Elgen.

So on the day of her release, she calls Walter — sentences were often unexpectedly extended at the last moment, so she needed to let him know it had actually happened so he could come pick her up with a horse and sleigh borrowed from his boss and take her back to Taskan — and he tells her there's a blizzard coming in, that he's arranged lodging for her for the next three days and he'll come get her as soon as it's over. And it's Siberia, and the middle of winter — but she's been in prison for ten years, and the sky still looks clear, and the distance isn't anything she hasn't walked before.

The blizzard sets in when she's maybe halfway there. "It conveys a feeling of man's primal defenselessness," is how she would describe it in her memoir, two decades later. "You are indeed naked on the naked earth." It's freezing, and dark, and she has no idea how far she's walked or how far she has left to go — and she's been alone on the path all this time but suddenly there's someone walking towards her. And it's Walter, because he'd only managed to speak with her for a handful of minutes through the terrible reception of the camp phone that cut off half their words but he knew she wouldn't stay in Elgen, not even for another three days, and he came to get her.

[rapid-apathy]

Friendship never arises in a state of deprivation or misery. The “difficult” conditions of life, which writers of fairy tales tell us are a precondition for friendship, are simply not difficult enough. If deprivation or misery ever gave people solidarity and friendship, then the deprivation was not extreme and the misery was not very great. Grief is not acute or deep enough if you can share it with friends.

Kolyma Stories - Varlam Shalamov 

[artemholubievgolubev]

This is the forest European rhinoceros "Merka". He lived next to the forest elephant, the European hippopotamus and the water buffalo. Unlike most modern rhinos, it was covered in hair and looked like a Sumatran rhinoceros.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[queenlucythevaliant]

Time to share another of my favorite Christian poems with you all. It’s a martyrdom poem by Varlam Shalamov, a victim of the Soviet gulags and also the writer of Kolyma Tales. A few favorite stanza are written out here; the entire poem is typed out below. It’s a little on the long end, but entirely worth it. 

“Avvakum in Pustozyorsk” by Varlam Shalamov

The walls of my church

  are the ribs of my heart;

it seems life and I

  are soon bound to part

 .

My cross now rises,

  traced with two fingers.

In Pustozyorsk it blazes;

  its blaze will linger.

 .

I’m glorified everywhere,

  vilified, branded;

I have already become

  the stuff of legend.  

 .

I was, people say,

  full of anger and spite;

I suffered, I died

  for the ancient rite.

 .

But this popular verdict

  is ugly nonsense;

I hear and reject

  the implied censure.

 .

The rite is nothing—

  neither wrong nor right;

a rite is a trifle

  in God’s sight.

 .

But they attacked our faith

  in the ways of the past,

in all we’d learned as children

  and taken to heart.

 .

In their holy garments,

  in their grand hats,

with a cold crucifix

  in their cold hands,

 .

in thrall to a terror

  clutching their souls,

they drag us to jails

  and herd us to scaffolds.

 .

We don’t mind about the doctrine

  books and their age;

we don’t debate virtues

  of fetters and chains.

 .

Our dispute is of freedom,

  and the right to breathe—

about the Lord’s will

  to bind as he please.

 .

The healers of souls

  chastised our bodies;

while they schemed and plotted,

  we ran to the forests.

 .

Despite their decrees,

   we hurled our words

out of the lion’s mouth

  and into the world.

 .

We called for just vengeance

  against their sins;

along with the Lord,

   we sang poems and hymns.

 .

The words of the Lord

  were claps of thunder.

The Church endures;

   it will never go under.

 .

And I, unyielding,

  reading the Psalter,

was brought to the gates

  of the Andronikov Monastery.

 .

I was young;

  I endured every pain:

hunger, beatings,

  interrogations.

 .

A winged angel

  shut the eyes of the guard,

brought me cabbage soup,

  and a hunk of bread.

 .

I crossed the threshold—

  and I walked free.

Embracing my Exile,

  I walked to the east.

 .

I held services

   by the Amur River,

where I barely survived

  the winds and blizzards.

 .

They branded my cheeks

  with brands of frost;

by a mountain stream

  they tore out my nostrils.

 .

But the path to the Lord

  goes from jail to jail;

the path to the Lord

  never changes.

 .

And all too few,

  since Jesus’s days,

have proved able to bear

  God’s all-seeing gaze.

 .

Nastasia, Nastasia,

  do not despair;

true joy often wears

  a garment of tears.

 .

Whatever temptations

  may beat in your heart,

whatever torments

  may rip you apart,

 .

walk on in peace,

  through a thousand troubles

and fear not the serpent

  that bites at your ankles—

 .

though not from Eden

  has this snake crawled;

it is an envoy of evil

  from Satan’s hand.

 .

Here, birdsong

  is unknown;

here one learns the patience

  and the wisdom of stone.

 .

I have seen no color

  except lingonberry

in fourteen years

  spent as a prisoner.

 .

But this is not madness,

  nor a waking nightmare;

it is my soul’s fortress,

  its will and freedom.

 .

And now they are leading me

  far away in fetters;

my yoke is easy

  and my burden grows lighter.

 .

My track is swept clean

  and dusted with silver;

I’m climbing to heaven

  on wings of fire.

 .

Through cold and hunger,

  through grief and fear

towards God, like a dove,

  I will rise from the pyre.

 .

O far-away Russia—

  I give you my vow

to return to the sky

  forgiving my foe.

 .

May I be reviled,

  and burned at the stake;

may my ashes be cast

  on the mountain wind.

 .

There is no fate sweeter,

  no better end,

than to knock, as ash,

  at the door of the human heart.

[synintheraven]

So last night I attempted to watch Siberian Education because (baby) 💫Arnas💫 - wasn't my cup of tea and couldn't stand the fake russian accents (plus some of the actors lost it mid conversation, lol) but hey I tried and at least he looks so cute 🥺

[nicklloydnow]

“Love didn't return to me. Oh, how distant is love from envy, from fear, from bitterness. How little people need love. Love comes only when all other human emotions have already returned. Love comes last, returns last. Or does it return? Indifference, envy, and fear, however, were not the only witnesses of my return to life. Pity for animals returned earlier than pity for people.” - Varlam Shalamov, ‘Kolyma Tales’

[bellmandi86]

The end of their arc is upon us

After months of reworking and many o’ dice roll, the penultimate chapter of Siren Song is uploaded. Thanks to all that have been reading, and we hope you hang tight for the final chapter.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!