I have lived in the Unites States for 18 years already, and it is 4 years longer than 14 years in the Russian Arctic. We've been in Florida for practically 14 years already.
I was born in Tajikistan, where my mom, a military doctor at that time, was working in a Hospital. The same year she was decommissioned, and left for middle Russia. That's where I grew up, graduated from the University. After graduation my wife was sent to work to North Urals and we lived there for 3 years, that she had to complete before having the right to move to any other place.
After the Urals we made an apartment swap and went to the Arctic site unseen. The reason being that in the Arctic they paid more, and we, school teachers, were exhausted of living on a penny budget. That's how we ended in Vorkuta, a coal mining place above the Arctic Circle very close to the Arctic Ocean.
Because of the swap, we had a 3 room apartment in a 5-story building, a luxury at that time. Now I understand that we were there at the most prosperous time for the region. The coal mines were at their peak, there was money, there was enormous optimism, there were jobs. It seemed as if unthinkable - a fully functional city of about 200,000 people living above the Arctic Circle pretty much the same way they lived in any other place in the country - was made a reality. We were building communism, and it even seemed reachable.
There was its own musical and drama theater, puppet theater, a coal mining college, about 50 schools, there were hospitals maternity wards.... Huge coal mines, and supporting industrial infrastructure and all this in the place where there were no automobile roads going anywhere out of Vorkuta, so it was either railroads or by air. There were very few private cars, as in winter it was impossible to shovel them out. Garages were covered over their rooftop with snow. Having a bulldozer clearing the way was costly and impractical.
Somewhere in the background, we knew that this was a horrible GULAG place, the most northern Gulag place in the European Part of Russia, right by the Polar Urals. There were no visible signs of the past, unless you venture to tundra and see rusty barbed wire. Permafrost is treacherous and hides any signs within just a couple of seasons.
Mid 80s brought Mikhail Gorbachev and Perestroika and Glasnost, After so many years in the darkness, we felt the breath of fresh air. People started talking, people started reopening life and history. For Vorkuta it was beyond ugly. Dead in the millions, but nobody knows exactly. And many did not want to know. They did not want to be reminded. All they wanted was to have food on the table and heck with those who died. A very common notion in Russia.
I was working at school, and that summer of 1987 during the summer break worked with a group of boys building a school shooting range for military training course, which was mandatory for 2 last years in high school for both boys and girls. Working with kids, we had lengthy discussions about everything. I had a plan to go to a site, which was right off the major road, and try to clean a piece of a cemetery, which otherwise was not seen from the road because of the short bushes. When asked, I told the boys about my plan for Sunday, and that's how they first learned about the dark history of Vorkuta.
Next day I went there accompanied by a dozen of boys, my whole team. We had a few saws, and couple of axes, shovels and a lot of enthusiasm. The cemetery was high up the hill. It was about 100 meters wide and 250 meters long. There were sticks with numbers written on square pieces of plywood with a letter and a number. Not enough to find who was buried there (Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about it in Gulag Archipelago).
Our team was very small for the job, but after a few hours we were able to clear just enough to open the cemetery to the view from the road, so people in the buses would see it. It was an eyesore for so many, and this was exactly the plan. There were people unhappy with what we have done. They did not want to be bothered, they did not want to know. I am not sure about others, but I know that the boys with me on the hill that Sunday learned a lesson. Maybe the most important lesson.
I later asked an activist from "Memorial" Society about the number of people buried there, and he said it was about 60,000. What? It was impossible, the place was too small. I now know he was right. They were burying in the same graves one on top the other. With permafrost, it is easy. They sink.
There are still a lot of people whoes memory serves them well. What they do not see, did not exist. Ever.
Gorbachev's perestroika, and then Yeltsin's shy attempts at something resembling market reforms dealt a deadly blow to this area. With skyrocketing cost of transportation, the cost of coal became prohibitive, mines were getting older and needed a lot of investment to keep them operational, and there was no money. People started leaving. Housing, which was in such demand, suddenly was not a problem. Plenty of empty buildings. The population shrank to way under 100,000.
But this is all in post our time there.
I do not have photos of Vorkuta, that I took. Now there is no shortage of them on the Internet, and sometimes I am looking at them. It is a strange feeling. I can't even describe it. It is sort of surreal "reality". It is the knowledge, that does not click. I have to get my feelings numb to live on. I was not one of them, I was a lucky one.
I was looking at Youtube to show you a video of Vorkuta, but some are half-hour long, and many are in Russian, and will require translating. And then I found this short video clip from CNN. Not much, but it is rather decent.
Jon, that is a sobering video and also your post. You have a special perspective to share with here in Active Rain - to help us keep the proper perspective for those who want to glamorize the communist and socialist life.
Sharon - I guess we have seen the peak and there was nothing glamorous about it. Even at the peak. Why some think that they can do it better is beyond me. It never worked, never, and still there are people who think that this was because they did ot do it right. As long as they are not in power, they are just nice misguided people. When they are in power, they are very dangerous. Give someone a machine gun, but do not teach them right from wrong, and you get a disaster.
Wow. You're almost closer to Mongolia or Sweden than you are to Moscow in Vorkuta. Life looks so rough there now. So desolate. You sure have interesting stories, Jon. Thank you for sharing them.
Lenn - Yeltsin is a forgotten figure. He was defiant, he was drunk, he was a communist leader navigating a new course, and he was confused, corrupt, and so many people hated him, and actually the communist party came very close to winning the elections (his 2nd elections).
Many Americans, have warm feelings towards him and Gorbachev. Much more than many Russians. By the same token, there were very many of us there, who was a fan of Reagan. I still think that with all love to monuments, that Russia has, they should have a monument to Reagan.
Hi, Jon. Your memories serve us to appreciate what we have here in the US. I recall that Yeltsin didn't really serve long enough (thank goodness), and I don't understand the fascination for Gorbachev, when President Reagan was more instrumental in helping dissolve the USSR. Gorbachev reminded me of Obama--lots of style, but substance--not so much.
I know how hard it is to read this. I can only imagine how hard it was to write and live. It brings a tear to my eyes, but I don't know if it's for the Vorkutaens or our own rush towards totalitarianism.
It's sad that so few know or learned from the Russian experience. There is hope in the young couple that wereinterviewed. Big government has never worked, man needs to face failure to succeed!
Jon. No arguments here. Reagan was the hero of the end of the Soviet Union. No doubt in my mind.
No warm feelings for Gorb.
Yeltsin showed courage when he took office and I always admire a leader that does more than talk, talk, talk. My recollection is that he opened things up a bit, confronted the military and sadly, lost it with an addiction to the bottle.
We can only see what we see. We weren't there.
Elizabeth - we were still not that far from Moscow. An Express train took only 39 hours. Mongolia is very far. Sweden was further than Moscow, but when ouare in Russia, Sweden could have been very close and still unreachable, as everything beyond borders.
We lived ony a bot over a hundered miles from the Arctic Ocean, and I aways wanted to go there and to look at the Ocean, andnever did. It was all militarized zone. Nobody knows what was there. I know that in one of the villages around Vorkuta there was a stratefic forward bombers Air Squadron, and we can only guess what else was and still is there.
Yolanda - it is a funny comparison, but the difference was that no matter what Gorbachev was saying, we loved him, as he at least could say something (LOL). He could react to the situation. Brezhnev in his last years has an advanced Alzheimer or dementia. It was terrible.
At time Gorbachev came to power, he had unlimited support of people. We were ready to work, to suffer, just to end these terrible years of wasted everything. But he kept talking, and talking, and talking, and it was like a broken gramophone disk, when it stutters.
And, of course, he did not have the money ans wealth, that Obama has at his disposal. Gorbachev could only dream of that. He was a weak, indecisive politician, who wanted to be likable by everyone. He did not have the vision. His big plus is that it could happen that a lot of blood could have been shed, but it did not happen. He wan't the one who did not allow the bloodshed, and there was Tbilisi in April 1987, and Lithuania a year later... but there could have been way more. If there was his role in it, I would say 'Thank you' for that.
Bill - time works against history. Russian lost so many lives in the WWII and where the skinheads find themselves at home? In Russia, right in the heart of downtown.
Millions perished in Holocaust, and the President of a country declares it a myth. How can that happen?
But then remember what happened only 8 years ago in Manhattan, and as a united nation we lasted only a short time, and people like Jesse Ventura come with incredible theories that we self inflicted this upon ourselves. that we orchestrated this against our own people. Such a big guy, such a small brain...
Unfortunately we feel only our own pain, not of those who lived and died before us. We only get really strong when we suffer, not when we prosper. We fail the test of prosperity.
We do not learn from the mistakes of others, We do not learn even from our own mistakes, and this is unfortunate
Lenn - of course. Russia was destined to get someone like yeltsin, someone with the authority (hi last was in the Central Party Committee in Moscow, and was verypopular in Moscow). Russian feels strongly for the authority, and he fit.
When he came, he surrounded himself with 25-30 brilliant men and women, and you could hear their voices in his speeches, but he soon figured that he did not want to go that road. They were westerners, and he was a communist, who just happened to confront other communists.
And then he carefully picked the successor. There were a whole bunch of Prime Ministers, and they were replaced oly after 2-3 months in office. Not because they were bad... Yeltsin needed someone who would guarantee the immunity for Yeltsin and, what was even more important, for his family. Putin, rooted in KGB and a man of his word, fit well. And he kept his word. The family members have never been touched, and there is huge money in this family laundry machine.
Jon, Your blog was very interesting. You bring with you so much life experience that others can only read about. I cannot imagine living in such an inhospitable climate.
Based on your experiences in Russia, you can appreciate our freedoms and our struggles at this time in our history.
I came looking for Molotov... R? Molotov Ribbentrop
but stayed to read your post. What a great story of your past and your native countries.
One of my favorite classes in high school was Russian history. I love history but had little exposure to anything but American history. My sister took the class the Russian history class the year before me, I think my brother took it the year after me. The teacher was such a great story teller. I preferred pre 1917 personally... My sister studied the Russian language in college. We were all so inspired by Mr. Kazmarek (?) our Russian history teacher.
Just reading the word Arctic makes me cold. I've read a few of your stories. It's so hard to fathom. And in that video, part of that housing area looks like a war zone.
I wondered something though. The older lady said that everything has to be imported because nothing grows there... Have they ever tried building greenhouses? Or are there any?
Lisa - they actually have a few greenhouses, but it is not something that can feed a 200,000 city. And with the hurricane force winds and snow covering 3-story buildings, it is not really practical. Our windows were 3 layered. On a greenhouse glass because of the temperature, the ice start growing and it will crush the glass.
Greenhouses were not the most important, the buldozers were cracking in the frost, that was more important
Very fascinating reading Jon - what a life you've led- I came from croatia and in university received my degree in political science with a specialty in eastern european politics - this area has always had a great interest for me.
Liz - Thanks for the comment. Maybe you too were a lucky ne when there was a full blowin war teraing apart previously brotherly Yugoslavia, where nations lived in peace. Or they made us think so.
You reminded me how on Pushkin Square in Moscow, the place where people come to voice their opinions and tempt riot police, I met an American. I could speak English rather fluently, and communicating was not a problem, even though my English was coming from studies and this was my first contact(the word that KGB loved so much) with a real American. There was several people who surrounded this gnetleman in his mid 40s. We were eager to listen about America, but he was fascinated with what was happening in Russia (USSR at that time - in 1988).
he was saying that we did not understand how intereesting it was, that America was boring.... blah, blah, blah.
And I remember thinking that we were on different sides of the fence, and more than that. What was hapening in the USSR was very interesting ... to watch if you had an American passport. We had different views on that, but this was not really surprising: the cockroaches killing each other in a glass jar have a different perspective of this event from someone standing outside and looking at who wins.
It is so different when we look at it from here, even if we physically go there.
Bonnie - People get used to living in the most inhospitable places, and this still was a fufnctioning city. Life was not pure sugar, but it was quite civilized. Heated buses, street lights, realtively decent (by Russian standards - and you can see it from the video clip) housing.
Of course, when I was not in Vorkuta (we called it on the "continent"), then people were looking at you with respect, and you start feeling yourself special, but wehn you are in the arctic, everyone else is in the same shoes, so there is no sense to look in the mirror and feel proud. It was simply life.
Maureen - maybe some day I will dare to venture into one aspect of Russian history. What we thhink of Russia is that it si pretty much the opposite of America. However, there was a moment in history, when we were so close, so similar. It is simply mind boggling how far apart they went from there
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Jon, that is a sobering video and also your post. You have a special perspective to share with here in Active Rain - to help us keep the proper perspective for those who want to glamorize the communist and socialist life.
Sharon