Home » Russia » Magadan - Russia’s Auschwitsz

I have now been in Magadan, NE Russia, for just over one week, making preparations to fight my way on a bicycle through the encroaching Siberian winter - the first leg on a 15,000 mile ride back home.For me, Magadan has seemed a most haunting city. The strange presence of sorrow is tangible. Stalin condemned over 2 million innocent people to work to their deaths in the local gold mines, earning it the nickname “the gateway to hello?. It was generally understood that “if you were sent to Magadan, you never came home?.

Magadan - Russia’s Auschwitsz

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:21:34

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http://www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com/

I have now been in Magadan, NE Russia, for just over one week, making preparations to fight my way on a bicycle through the encroaching Siberian winter - the first leg on a 15,000 mile ride back home.For me, Magadan has seemed a most haunting city. The strange presence of sorrow is tangible. Stalin condemned over 2 million innocent people to work to their deaths in the local gold mines, earning it the nickname "the gateway to hello?. It was generally understood that "if you were sent to Magadan, you never came home?.

Perhaps Magadan haunts me because those curses and prayers of anguish which rose to heaven fifty years ago still hang in the air, unable to move on or let go. Father Michael, the amazing Catholic Priest whose community I am staying with, tells me that every day since he was called here, he has felt something of this spiritual depth. God is indeed present in the
place of sorrow. Father Michael now works tirelessly and gracefully to raise a beacon of hope and love in the wasteland of despair, corruption, alcoholism and desperation which is post Soviet Russia.

Russia, it seems, has been unable to free herself from her past. For the majority, the hope that an allegedly new political system would bring opportunity, is now lost. One commentator claimed that in fact 'darkness has followed the dawn'. Corruption holds virtually all offices of power, and a baffling, pointless and dehumanising bureaucracy strangles the will of any who have aspirations for noble endeavour or honest employment. It has taken me an astonishing 8 trips to the local visa office to try and get my visa registered - I must go for the 9th time tomorrow! As Kafka once said of such a system of bureaucracy: "?one is more an object, a thing, than a living creature?.

This said, the Russians i have got to know so far have proved themselves a very good people. They are friendly, generous, helpful, interesting... and they speak barely a word of English!

With Al plus Beryl (his bike) now here from Alaska, our panniers are all packed and we are ready to start riding on the challenging first leg through the Kolyma Mountains to Jakutsk. Apparently the snow is already falling inland and temperatures are now dropping below zero. We must move fast - the Siberian winter is on its way.