Wednesday, July 30, 2008

"THE MASK OF SORROWS"

Yesterday was a nice day weather-wise, so time for a trip out of town to visit Magadan's most famous landmark

"The Mask of Sorrows" is to mark the period of "Stalin's repressions". It is the work of a Russian-American artist with some Russian help, and we were later surprised to learn that it is one of three identical sites, the other two in Siberian cities

Quite sobering to think that this is the most visible way of marking the murder and most inhumane treatment of hundreds of thousands of people. We were also reminded not all were Russians, there were Bulgarians, Poles, Romanians, and even Japanese POW

There was a Council cleaning crew of 2 young woman working with brooms, whilst the 2 guys looked on. They had collected a huge bin of mostly liquor bottles ; a couple of young guys sitting up on the hill were about to contribute some more

Nikita and the RP collected wild flowers for the Memorial

You can see all over Magadan itself and down the harbour too

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