The far mysterical land between Europe
and Asia, attractive and repulsive at
the same time. The country of great
medieval culture - two of its magnificent memorials you can see on this page - and the country of barbarian rules towards human rights and human life. The country of
enormous quantity of natural treasures:
gold, petroleum, gas, coal, metal ores -
and the country of overall poverty: the
average income of Russian citizen at the
beginning of new Millenium is 40-50 times
less, than of his collegue with the same
speciality in Europe or USA.
The tragedy of this land consists in one
simple thing: beginning from 1917, its
leaders and its people decided that the
general laws of development of humanity,
based on the rights of each person inside community, have been written not for
Russia. The country and its human crew
went by their own way, leading far from
paths of civilized development - and
finally far from civilized life.
My family knows it on itself. Nearly
a half of my father's family died from
hunger in Ukraine in 1932-1934: all crops
of farmers were taken away by Communist Party decision. My mother's family had to rescue in 1931 from their
village to Donbass coal mines: the
Communist Party decided to ruin
so-called "rich farmers", who had more
than one horse to treat their poor land...
Some people call all that as "Stalin's crimes"
by the name of most bloody Russian leader
of XX century. It's a truth - but only small
part of the truth. When my father was dying from cancer in 1982 - 29 years after
Stalin's death! - I couldn't go to him and
see him alive, because Soviet citizens had
no right for free travel from one city to
another in their own country. I went only
to his funeral: only this reason was enough
to receive a police permission to attend
the city I had to go to,
the city of my childhood ...
Ten years of independency transformed
Russia to economical ruins. The
ex-industrial country lives now, selling
its natural resources, oil and gas at first.
The greater part of its citizens lives below
the poverty level with average monthly
income less than 200 US $.
The population of my city of Magadan:
year 1986 - 180.000
year 2002 - 99.000
It is the result of our so-called reforms.
Some people in Russia and in the whole
world beleive that Russia will restore
from today's situation and will live as
a normal country. But after the economical politics of last years, after two dirty internal wars in Chechnya, after returning the ex-KGB team to state power - I don't beleive in it.
That's why I had to leave my motherland forever at July, 28th, 2003.
I don` regret about my decision.
Bogolubovo village, Russia
built in year 1165
Vladimir city, Russia
built in years 1193-1197
Kolyma Land, Russia
built in years 1936-1937
And that` enough...
ruins of the station Dubrava on the dead railroad Kokoshino - Pikhtovka
(Siberia, 1998)
Railroad was built in 1933-1956, mostly by prisoners.
Closed in 1997. Now is ruined completely.
The dozens of villages on it have disappeared from the map.
The best symbol of contemporary Russia can hardly been found...
