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Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Last week at the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Štěpán Černoušek, founder of the Gulag.cz Association, presented A Journey to the Gulag, a film he made of a 2016 trip to a Gulag camp in Siberia.
The camp was one of the labor prisons which originally got their start in 1919 under Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) and surged under the leadership of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) who used them for cheap labor and as a place to stash recalcitrants or anyone who remotely may have been deemed suspicious of Stalin's goals, whatever they were.
Mr. Hynek Kmoníček, the ambassador of the Czech Republic to the U.S., welcomed guests to the Kennan Institute and introduced Mr. Černoušek/Photo by Patricia Leslie
With a team of photographers and videographers, Mr. Černoušek's group traveled by air, water, and foot to an abandoned camp in a remote region 120 miles from the closest town, one of four labor camps Mr. Černoušek
visited between 2009 and 2016.
On the way, the
boat they rented for lake travel broke down, and they had to wait for a
passing rescue vessel to carry them on their journey, rushing, since
time was limited for them to catch a return flight home before winter advanced.
It
is cold in September in Siberia, especially when traveling at high
speeds across a lake in an open boat.
From left are Mr. Štěpán Černoušek and Steven Barnes at the Kennan Institute/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Reaching the coast, the men tore their way through the thick tagia to the site, fearful of bears but none were shown.
In the remote forest they found a ghost site with few remains save broken railway tracks covered by the tagia, and barbed wire, practically hidden by the overgrowth.
The tagia is beautiful, like jewelry treasures of the woods with its stripes of many colors and varying heights and widths, reminiscent of giraffe statues, in contrast to the harsh conditions the former residents lived at the camp.
The tagia and 'Part of 'Project 503' to build a railroad from Salekhard to Igarka near Turukhansk on the Yenisey River, close to the site Mr. Černoušek and his group found /Photo by Dr. Andreas Hugentobler - Own work, CC BY 2.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=818367
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
At the remnants of the camp's hospital, the men found a prisoner's diary written by an engineer, and a dark, sad solitary confinement cell about the size of a parking space with four high walls and single window near the ceiling, much like today's solitary cells in Virginia prisons. (Thank you, ACLU of Virginia for filing a class-action lawsuit.)
An estimated 20 million persons from Russia,
the U.S., Poland, France, the Netherlands, and other European nations
were confined in subhuman conditions to the camps. (Americans ventured
to Russia to work on construction projects, Mr. Černoušek said.)
He finished the film in February.
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
Outside Yekaterinburg, Russia, a memorial to the estimated 130,000 area identified citizens seized in the Gulag/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July, 2018
After the Kennan screening ended, a line of guests formed to try virtual "augmented reality" and experience more of the camps through special lenses.
Moscow
has a Gulag museum which is not big, Mr. Černoušek said. When President
Vladimir Putin opened it last year, he never mentioned Stalin's
name.
Introducing Mr. Černoušek was Hynek Kmoníček, the ambassador of the Czech Republic to the U.S.
Mr. Černoušek is a Czech citizen and a Russia scholar who, like many enthusiasts, began his study of the Gulag as a hobby, to satisfy his curiosity.
"I never dreamed [his hobby] would end up in Washington, D.C. at the Kennan Center," he said. His goal is to "share my experience" using new technologies and 3-D with as many persons as he can.
"It's necessary to speak more about it [now] because it's an international topic," Mr. Černoušek said.
"Some young people in Russia do not know what the Gulag was."
He intends to document the sites and educate the world about the Gulag (an acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration).
Recently he visited California's World War II American internment camps for the Japanese.
For him, finding and learning about the Gulag has been "a great adventure" which continues, and his team, all of whom enjoy the outdoors, wants to go back.
Appearing with Mr. Černoušek were Steven Barnes, associate professor of history at George Mason University, and Izabella Tabarovsky of Kennan, the moderator.
In 2016 Ms. Tabarovsky discovered that her great-grandfather, Leonty Briskin, was taken in 1941 from his family to the Gulag. Fifteen years later he was "rehabilitated" in the "Khrushchev Thaw," and his case closed, which was the same year, 1956, his family learned he died in prison in 1944. Still, she writes, even today some Russians are ashamed that their family members, although unwilling participants, were part of Gulag camps.
I wanted to ask Mr. Černoušek about the source of his funding.
patricialesli@gmail.com
An apple orchard hundreds of years old grows in the heart of Yekaterinburg with a kind resemblance to Monet's garden/Photo by Patricia Leslie
In the heart of Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city, grows an apple orchard hundreds of years old.
This unique place (unknown in any large American city) has different names: "Museum of the Middle Urals Fruit Gardening," "Fruit Gardens Museum of Central Ural Mountains," or
what the label on the side of the house in the orchard, says: "The
Museum of the History of Fruit Horticulture in the Middle Urals."
You get the picture: It's got fruit...and beauty, besides!
An apple orchard in the heart of Yekaterinburg. My guide and the curator/Photo by Patricia Leslie
This is the identification on the outside of the Kazantsev Manor house which I believe says the owner, Mr. Kazantsev (1875-1942) lived here from 1913-1942/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Whatever the name,
it's an oasis in the middle of a bustling, industrial city (not far
from the new Boris Yeltsin Center), and there are plans to uproot the
very old trees, plants and farmhouse.
It seems that the owner, the government, plans to sell the property for more lucrative use (shades of the western world!). It's a
controversial topic which the curator (pictured) has been fighting
probably the whole nine years he's been curator. He was a energetic
fellow who talked non-stop to my guide (and I may have been lucky that I do not understand Russian).
Inside the Kazantsev Manor house/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Inside the Kazantsev Manor house/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Inside the Kazantsev Manor house. Note the record player! I bought a marvelous CD here which I'll photograph the cover and upload. True Russian music!/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Some of the delicacies offered tourists at the History of Fruit Horticulture, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Being a preservationist, I do hope the government leaves the property alone for entering the grounds takes you on a trip to another world, an earlier century where the greens and soothing environment can calm down almost anyone. It reminded me of Monet's garden which I've never visited, but I've seen his work, and perhaps Monet came to Yekaterinburg to paint.
I had wondered (and so did my guide) why my tour company would take me to an apple orchard, but when my expectations are low, I have learned, they are always exceeded, and they were!
This is another world not to miss in modern-day Russia.
patricialesli@gmail.com
The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
This is the church built on
the site where Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, their five children
and four staff members were shot and bludgeoned to death on July 17, 1918. Its formal name (based on a plaque pictured below) is Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg. It was consecrated in 2003.
The murders happened in the basement of the Ipatiev House which stood here until the Soviet government demolished the house in 1977. The main altar on the first floor of the church is directly over the site of the murders.
The Ipatiev House was the last place the Romanovs lived, imprisoned there for 78 days until the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, ordered their deaths.
The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
A statue of the Romanov family at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Nicholas II holds his son, Alexei, at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Another view of the statue at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The statue as seen from the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The statue as seen from the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Another view of the statue at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Inside on the top floor of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The ceiling of the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The Romanov family tree at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
In honor of Nicholas II's patron Saint (Stephen?) at the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
On the ground floor, a few steps from the execution site, is an exhibition with photographs and artifacts of the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
In the exhibition is a framed newspaper photo of the demolition of the Impatiev House which stood at the site of the Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Romanov artifacts at the museum at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
A display at the exhibition in honor of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, who became a nun after the 1905 assassination of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the fifth son of Tsar Alexander II, assassinated in 1881. The Grand Duchess was Empress Alexandra's older sister, they, the granddaughters of Queen Victoria and great-aunts of Prince Philip of Great Britain (whose DNA helped identify the bodies of Alexandra and the children). Because Elisabeth was royalty, she was one of many family members killed by the Bolsheviks who beat her and others on July 18, 1918, threw them down an iron pit and when they kept singing hymns and would not die, tossed lighted hand grenades down on top of them in the pit. When the prisoners continued singing, the killers ignited a bon fire. Despite all this, three months later when their bodies were recovered, it was discovered that Elisabeth was able to bandage a fellow victim's wounds while they all were undergoing torture in the pit.
After he learned of her death, Wikipedia quotes Lenin: "Virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars."/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Members of the clergy who were killed by the Bolsheviks, in a display at the exhibition at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
This is the Royal Spiritual and Educational Center on the side of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
Note the flowers and large photographs of the Romanovs (center, above the flowers) at the front of Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The front of Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg with large family photographs displayed outside the church/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
A plaque in Russian and English languages at Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
From the Vysotsky Viewing Platform, Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, Yekaterinburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
At right center in this photo of the city of Yekaterinburg, is Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia, taken from the Vysotsky Viewing Platform/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
The Church-on-the-Blood in the Name of All Saints Shone Forth in the Land of Russia occupies the sky from all angles in Yekaterinburg. This was taken from the new (2015) Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center/Photo by Patricia Leslie, July 25, 2018
On July 27 or September 6 or September 15, 16, and 17 or 22 (Wikipedia and other sources list different days but they give the same year: 1977), the Ipatiev House was destroyed under orders of the Politburo of the Soviet government.
Alarmed by the increasing number of curiosity seekers, historians and religious members who came to the house, and the growing interest shown by Western governments, the Soviets feared the reality of rumors that the Ipatiev House might become a UNESCO World Heritage site.
They were afraid the site would become a shrine.
It has become a shrine.
The public reason the Soviets gave for the demolition (which was carried out in the middle of the night like the murders) was a "rehabilitation of the street."
Which they covered with asphalt.
Boris Yeltsin, the local Soviet leader in 1977, states in his autobiography, that he was ordered to destroy the house, and he, most agree, had no choice. Documents support him.
At this link is his description that visitors "...even came to look at it [the house] from other cities.
"I can well imagine that sooner or later we will be ashamed of this piece
of barbarism. Ashamed we may be; but we can never rectify it."
Pictures are not permitted in the holy space where many icons of the family, crosses, candles, and kneeling pads exist to help visitors assuage their pain and agony, and pray for hope, it will not happen again.
A large icon like this one above of the Imperial Family, Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, and their children, Maria, Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Alexei, the youngest and heir to the throne, hangs adjacent to the execution spot at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/From the website of the Church
Some of the first icons of the family have been found in Serbia, made in the 1920s.
On the centennial of the deaths on July 17, 2018, the Vatican estimated a crowd of 75,000 turned out for a liturgy at Church-on-the-Blood. Then, thousands walked four hours, about 9.5 miles, along the route the bodies were carried and dumped in an abandoned mining shaft, Ganina Yama.
75,000 came to honor the memory of the Romanovs on July 17, 2018 at Church-on-the-Blood, Yekaterinburg/
From the Vatican
Two days after the murders, on July 19, 1918, the killers carried the bodies to another site, fearful their enemies, the Whites who were fast approaching, would try to rescue the Imperial Family and use them for oppositional purposes.
Here is a link to an interview dated July 2, 2018 with the head of the Department of Archives of the Sverdlovsk Region, Alexander Kapustin about the possible reconstruction of the Ipatiev House. Kapustin says: "...the foundation of the Ipatiev House is
actually buried under the road. Therefore, we are not talking so much
about reconstruction as that of a new construction."
The link contains more information about the Ipatiev House, including a 3D video of the reconstructed house.
patricialesli@gmail.com
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