Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

One of the best things about Russian Life are the images it brings from all corners of the huge country. In the current, May/June number – as well as the stunning landscape of  Khakassia – you show us the familiar Pushkin statue by Mikhail Anikushin in St. Petersburg, but also images of the remote Baikal-Amur Mainline zone. Is there a link between the last two articles, not made in the magazine?  

Your correspondent’s photograph of the First Builders (of the BAM) Monument in Komsomolsk is so strikingly similar in style to Anikushin’s sculptures on the Monument to the Defenders of Leningrad (in St Petersburg), that I wonder if he was also responsible for the animated figures in Komsomolsk?  The outstretched arm of the left-hand figure in the latter even recalls Pushkin’s eloquent gesture, as well as that of one of the Defenders.

Susan Causey

London

Dear Susan:

We too love all the fascinating and serendipitous connections which spring from each issue. We have researched your question (with special thanks to Rashit Yahin in Severobaikalsk), and must report that this is unfortunately not one of those instances. At least not directly.

The Severobaikalsk monument was actually a collective work led by the sculptor Vladimir Gorev (assisted by S.A. Kubasov, N.M. Atayev). Yet lead sculptor Gorev was likely a student of Anikushin, as he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Art, Sculpture and Architecture in the 1960s (in 2002, a monument he crafted to Catherine II was unveiled in the town of Novorzhev, Leningrad region; the next year, one to Alexander Nevsky was opened in on the site of Nevsky’s victory over the Teutonic Knights, in Ust-Izhor). The bronze monument – unveiled June 9, 1982, in Komsomolsk-na-Amur,  on the 50th anniversary of the city – was also poured at the Leningrad factory “Monument and Sculpture.”

– The Editors

To the Editors:

In regard to the May/June 07 issue of Russian Life, Maximilian Voloshin will live on forever through his words.  He may not be well-known, but he left a legacy and even now he is talked about in your publication.  He is a survivor of those wars, because it was meant for him to relay messages and those messages came from his writing.  

Mr. Voloshin lives on forever!

Paul Dale Roberts

Elk Grove, CA

To the Editors:

In 2001 I had a wonderful trip on BAM to Severobaikalsk with my Siberian friend from Irkutsk, and so appreciated your recent article very much. While there, I snapped an identical photo to that shown on page 50: “A scenic view along the BAM.” 

Although there are many scenic views from the railway, this is not one of them;  the railway descends from the mountains to the NW directly into Severobaikalsk and then follows the northern shore eastwards, while this scenic view is about halfway along the 60 km road from the town to the ancient fishing village of Baikalskoye,  on the western shore of the lake.  This spot is atop a high cliff where it is said that in ancient times local tribes sacrificed to the lake gods.

Nancy Scarth

Osgoode, ON, Canada