A lyrical digression – in Ust-Omchug. | Nota Bene: Eugene Kaspersky’s Official Blog

We’d checked out the Natalka gold-ore deposit and the mining-and-processing plant of the same name, but what else was worth a contemplative look at out there – further down Route 44N-4 (also known as the Tenkinskaya Highway, or just Palatka–Kulu–Neksikan)? Why – the settlement of Ust-Omchug! ->

Here it is on the map. Yes, it is very, very far away. But not too far from Magadan :)

It brought to mind a lyric in a song by Anatoly Zhigulin: “The geese flew off beyond Ust-Omchug – to the Indigirka meadows“. And now for a lyrical digression…

Back in the 1980s, the Gulag theme was hugely popular – no matter how dark it got: the history, the facts, the horrors of those places and times. And folks sang songs about it too.

Anyway, in that fateful decade – which brought us, among plenty of other things, perestroika, glasnost, and an anti-alcohol campaign – there was a real appetite for self-flagellation. But, like, of course there was. The Red Terror, dekulakization, the Gulag, and the “enemies of the people” – it was a hellish bloodbath (on my grandparents’ side I have no relatives left at all – they were all wiped out; in spite of everything my father was born and survived against all odds). And because all of this had been hushed up for so long, the 1980s brought a kind of “dam effect”: hold something back long enough and it eventually bursts through; but then it slowly drains away and gets forgotten (at least that’s how I read that surge of interest in the Gulag theme at the time (it later faded)).

But that’s beside the point. Now, back to those songs folks sung…

Very popular were the rather good-sounding ones set to verses of famous Gulag prisoner Anatoly Zhigulin (who, incidentally, did time for underground activity). Anyway! His poems weren’t bad. Including the one mentioning Ust-Omchug.

Why am I bringing this up here? Simply because of the Ust-Omchug mention! And here it sits in the basin of the Kolyma River! It’s 350 kilometers from here to the upper reaches of the Indigirka, and there’s no way geese cover that distance in a single go. Yes, I’m a perfectionist. Insufferably so, at times. But now I’ve got one fewer song on my list of “not bad” ones. Because it’s a fib. Anyway. Moving on!…

So what’s it like there? Well, I’ll just show you the photos: you decide…

A lot of the buildings are alive and well, if in need of a lick of paint:

They’ve built a new sports complex with a swimming pool (or renovated the old one? – I don’t know).

A lot of the buildings are brightly painted and upbeat as if signaling an optimistic faith in the future:

But we’re not here just to drive around the settlement – we’ve come to visit its museum, which is housed in the old school building. Yes, the population is falling: there used to be two schools, but now there’s just one:

Three of the former classrooms have been given over to exhibits: geology, the Gulag, and the district’s history. And you won’t believe it – it’s actually really interesting!

Maps that geologists drew by hand back in the 1930s and ’40s:

// A reminder: after the economic catastrophe that befell Russia from 1917 and into the 1920s, its frantic recovery was funded in part by Kolyma gold. Which is to say – from right here.

Next up – the prison-camp theme:

Just about every inhabited and gold-bearing site was a Gulag camp:

Artifacts from those not-so-very-long-ago times:

Well-known figures who had the misfortune of ending up behind barbed wire in these parts:

A very interesting flag – it shows only 12 Soviet republics (eventually there were 15) ->

The settlements of the surrounding area and their history – not the most interesting part:

What was striking was the pace of the population outflows:

Naturally, as long as the USSR was pouring untold resources into this place there were plenty of people here. The moment the local operations switched to a rotational-shift system, the population somehow went off to more comfortable climes. So that’s the picture you get. Siberia is enormous, but not many people dream of actually living there.

Thanks to the school for the museum and the tour!