MODERN ARCTIC-AREA RUSSIA

"I was quite happy in Arkhangelsk. Subsequently, I was sent to a village. I liked it in its own way because it sounded to me very much like the tradition of a hired man in any world-class poem. That's what I was, a hired man. I was working for a collective farm." - Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet, Nobel Prize recipient, and ultimately U.S. Poet Laureate

Our visit to Russia after St Petersburg was supposed to be comprised of three locations: Murmansk (site, above the Arctic Circle, of a Russian naval base), Solovetsky Islands (site of a monastery that was used as a gulag), and Arkhangelsk (founded on the site of a medieval monastery named for Archangel Michael). Things didn’t work out quite as planned, at least for me. In Murmansk, I was just getting over a cold, and the rainy chill of the climate led to a decision to stay onboard for the day. Our call at Solovetsky Islands was cancelled due to rough waters.

So my sole visit in this region was to Arkhangelsk. And this is where I realized that it was time to check my cultural chauvinism at the door (or the dock, as the case may be). My first impression was that the city and its surroundings were incredibly run down and poorly kept. But the more I saw and the more I heard, the more I realized that what I was looking at priorities, expectations, and conditions quite different from where I come from.

Arkhangelsk is set just near the Arctic Circle in a harbor that freezes over in the wintertime. And much of the year is wintertime. The city is often covered in snow, and the sun does not rise at all for forty days of the year. So climate is one challenge faced by the city and its populace.

History is another challenge. Arkhangelsk is a city that suffered mightily during WWII. Famously, some 1.5 million people starved to death during the 872-day siege of Leningrad (St Petersburg) during the war. Less famously, some 100,000 starved to death in Arkhangelsk. Not because of a siege, but because of a combination of climate and distribution issues. Little can grow here, so raising their own food was beyond the populace. The area was hard to access by air or rail during German bombardments. The port would freeze over in the winter.

However, western allies such as the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain joined with Russia to form shipping convoys that included icebreakers to bring supplies in. Over a period of four years, 78 convoys with a total of 1,400 merchant ships came to Arkhangelsk and/or Murmansk. More than 100 ships, and more than 3,000 seamen, were lost to weather or warfare.

Monument to the convoys

 So, with the arrival of supplies via these convoys, why did so many starve? In part, it was the timing of the successful convoys that left gaps in deliveries. But in large part it was due to a distribution system that failed much of the populace as Soviet central planning failed to get food to those who needed it most, and moved many of the supplies past the people in the ports at which they arrived.

Those who survived lived to a great extent on seal-hunting. The linguistics student who served as our translator/guide told us of how her grandmother talked of eating seal: vile-tasting and hard to prepare, but it was food and it kept her alive during the darkest days of her childhood.

Monument to the Seal--the Savior of
the Citizens of Arkhangelsk

Today’s Arkhangelsk bears the memories of WWII and the Soviet era, when it was at once an important port and an area subject to shortages and deprivation. The gray cinder block construction of the Soviet period is evident throughout the city and its environs, and remains the primary source of housing and commercial centers. New housing is being constructed, but the brutality of the winters makes maintenance and cheerfulness somewhat difficult.

Coming into this city with my western eyes, at first all I could see were drab, dilapidated buildings and yards, and public spaces overgrown by weeds. Over the course of the day, as I saw more and more aspects of the area, another picture started to arise, and perhaps coalesced on Chumbarovke Prospekt, a pedestrian street park area filled with local families out enjoying a Sunday afternoon of rare mild weather. The street was filled with statues either of local writers or of scenes from books by local authors. Craftspeople were selling their wares to their neighbors and children were playing. Boom boxes were blasting Russian rock music. It looked like any park in any relatively prosperous city anywhere in the world.

Our translator/guide Maria and statue
portraying scene from book by local
author Stepan Pisahova

 “Kozma Prutkov,” a fictional author
 whose name was used by writers who did want
 their own names attached to their writings.
An entire biography was developed for him,
as was this image of his appearance.

Family day in the park

And there is prosperity here. Look closely at the balconies and into the windows of those dilapidated buildings and you see tasteful furnishings and no small amount of comfort. Among the weeds were benches and bursts of floral color. What I at first saw as depressing started to emerge as people fighting back against the elements and largely winning.

When your growing season is barely two months long, things like landscaping and yard care seem low on the priority list. It’s rather like southern cities in the U.S. that don’t invest much in snow removal equipment because the limited need does not justify the cost. And with so little growing time, a gardening culture is unlikely to emerge. Weeds being weeds, they will take over. At least they are green. And if you can plant some benches and a few colorful annuals in the midst of such conditions, you’ve done a lot.

As for the condition of the buildings, that seems a bit of a leftover from the Soviet system. After the collapse of the USSR, ownership of homes and apartments was largely turned over to their occupants. But, like condominiums in the west, exteriors were not the individual owners’ responsibilities. Instead, the owners pay into a central fund that is responsible for upkeep. But, unlike western condos, these are not homeowner associations. Instead they are municipal funds, where a central agency is responsible for allocation of those funds. So, somehow, the money is more often spent on public works than on upkeep of building exteriors.

Typical housing in the "soviet section" of
Arkhangelsk

I don’t think I was entirely able to drop my cultural bias, but by the time I left Arkhangelsk, I hope I saw a bit through the exteriors to a way of life in which happiness can be found.