Stalin's Vestal Virgins

When Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, the centuries old tradition of keeping dancing bears was banned in the country. The Austrian Four Paws foundation purchased the animals from their keepers, and carried them to the bear park of Belitsa, where they have been gradually teaching them how to live, move about, copulate and obtain food as free bears do. Yet, when they see a man, these bears stand again on two feet, and start dancing. As if they were calling their former keeper to come back and take their control in his hand again. As if they were telling: “Let him beat me, let him treat me badly, but let him relieve me of this goddamned need to deal with my own life”, writes the Polish star journalist Witold Szabłowski in his 2014 book Tańczące niedźwiedzie (Dancing bears. True stories of people nostalgic for life under tyranny).

Szabłowski devotes the first chapter to his conversations with Gypsy bear keepers and animal rights activists. But, as the subtitle of the book indicates, he also uses the figure of the bears longing for their former life, captive but without responsibilities, as a metaphor. While traveling through Eastern Europe, from Estonia to Grece, he shows in a series of reports how nostalgic these peoples are of the past dictatorships as a period of security in all sorts of ways, and how this nostalgia becomes a fertile soil for new dictatorships.


Chapter Eighth is about Georgia, and one of its emblematic buildings, the Stalin Museum in Gori. This was founded in 1957 by Gori’s council next to the modest birthplace of the Leader, which was surrounded by a stunning Stalin Baroque protective building as a sarcophagus. The foundation was indirectly inspired by Khrushchev’s secret speech on the 20th party congress of 1956, in which he condemned the sins of Stalinism. Although Georgia suffered a great deal from Stalin’s and Beria’s terror, the Georgians considered the speech as the plundering of their national pride, and two weeks later, on March 5, the anniversary of Stalin’s death, they went to the streets to protect Stalin'ş memory, absurdly, against the Soviet government. The demonstration, which lasted for several days, was finally suppressed by the tanks of the Soviet army, leaving dozens – or hundreds – of dead after them. From the on, the Georgian party leadership kept distance from the Soviet one, and one of its first gestures was the founding of the Stalin Museum, the memorial place of “the real Stalin”, in Gori.

In the 1990s, the museum was closed down for a long time, but the exhibition was not suppressed. They planned to reorganize it so it would also display the sins of Stalinism, but nothing came of it. After the reopening in the 2000s, the exhibition remained the same, only a couple of tableaus were added to illustrate the Georgian historical background. And the spirit of the museum and of the museum workers has also remained the same. This spirit has been captured by Szabłowski in his conversations with the museum staff, from which he compiled the following chapter, entitled Stalin’s Vestal Virgins.


“He comes to me at night. He gazes at me, puffs on his pipe, and twirls his mustache. He smiles, and then heads for the door. Then I weep and cry for him to stay. But what guy would be bothered by a woman crying? Georgian men are like that: they have a drink, enter you, come quickly, and fall asleep. I hate men who drink. But here in Gori there’s no other kind. The other kind only exists in American movies.

“Stalin was a different matter. Highly civilized. He knew how to take care of a woman, how to pay her a compliment, how to smell nice. He lived modestly, but he wore smart clothes. And he didn’t drink too much. And if he did, it was only good, foreign alcohol. I hardly need mention the fact that he conquered fascism and Hitler. So I said to myself many years ago, ‘Tanya, why the hell should you have to squabble with drunks? Why the hell, when you can live with Stalin?’”


Anna Sreseli: He’s like family

“We’re standing outside the house where Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was born. His parents lived in poverty. His mother did laundry for the local priests. His father was a cobbler. As you can see, his house has had a structure in the classical style built around it, and the neighboring ones have been demolished. Yes, the entire district. No, I don’t think there’s anything odd about that. Would you be happier if there were hens crapping here, and children playing ball?

“My grandmother lived in one of the houses that was demolished. She was given an apartment in a block. To the end of her life she kept saying, ‘How happy I am to have been born next to Stalin’s house. And that I can still see it from my windows.’

“Grandmother could remember Stalin’s mother. He lived here for more than a decade. She lived here almost to the end of her life. For us, it was a big source of pride. The biggest. Because in our town there’s nothing else going on. If it weren’t for the museum, the town would have ceased to exist long ago.

“A few years ago we had a war. The Ossetia border isn’t far away. A hundred Russian tanks drove into Gori. We fled to Tbilisi. I wasn’t afraid they’d blow up my housing block and my apartment, only that they’d blow up the museum. But they didn’t damage anything. They’re still afraid of Stalin. They didn’t touch the smallest patch of grass. They just took photos of each other by his statue. And that’s how Stalin saved us from beyond the grave.

“When I was at school, some of the girls dreamed of working in a store, others longed to fly into outer space, but I wanted to tell people about our great compatriot. I steered my entire life toward making it come true. I chose to study history. And after college I ran straight to the museum to ask for a job.

“But by then the Soviet Union had collapsed. The museum was closed and had barely survived. They had only recently begun to employ people again. I was the first person to be accepted in the new intake. Meanwhile I’d started to teach history at the high school—so I work part time at the museum.

“When I was at college, we were still taught that Stalin was an outstanding statesman. But the system changed, the curriculum changed, and now I have to teach that he was a tyrant and a criminal. I don’t think that’s true. The resettlements? They were necessary for people to live in peace. The killings? He wasn’t responsible for them—it was Beria. The famine in Ukraine? That was a natural disaster. The Katyn massacre? I knew you’d ask. All the Poles ask about it. But there was a war on—in wartime that sort of action is a normal thing. And before you start ranting, please let me finish. Are you feeling calmer now? All right, I’ll tell you my personal opinion.

“I regard Stalin as a great man, but I can’t say that, either to my students or to the tourists, so I say, ‘Some regard him as a dictator, others as a tyrant, and others see him as a genius. What he really was, you can decide for yourselves.’”


Tatiana Mardzhanishvili: O Christ, take me to dear Stalin

“When I see what they’ve done to our beloved Stalin, my heart bleeds! How could they? How could they make such a good man into a monster, a cannibal, an ogre?

“Once upon a time, bus after bus came to our museum. People stood in lines several hundred yards long. I used to look at those people’s faces, and I could see the goodness emanating from them. But nowadays? One would bite the other. That’s capitalism for you.

“Now I don’t go there anymore. First, because of regret—for my youth, my job, and my friends. And second, because my legs are weak. I can’t even get down the stairs on my own. In March I’ll be eighty-two, and you can’t expect a person to be healthy all their life. In the morning I get up, cut a slice of bread, make the tea, sit down, and say to myself, ‘O Christ, why did you let me live to see times like these? Why do they badmouth our darling Stalin?’

“But later I think, ‘Just remember, Tanya, how much Stalin suffered for the people. It was for you too that he went without enough food and sleep. He fought against fascism so you could finish your education.’ And then I fetch the medal with Stalin’s face on it, which I was given when I retired. I stroke the darling man’s mustache, and somehow I feel better.

“I worked at the museum from 1975. As a nabliudatel, a person responsible for the order and safety of the exhibits. If anyone tried to touch them, we had to go and shout at them.

“It wasn’t easy. Old women used to come from the villages and throw themselves at our Stalin. They had to kiss each picture in the display, like icons in a church. And there are over a thousand of those pictures! If a whole busload of those old crones drove in, and they all wanted to kiss them, what was I to do? If the director was looking, I’d go up and shout. But if he wasn’t, I’d say, ‘Kiss away, ladies. May God grant you good health! But don’t touch the mask! Under no circumstances.’ The mask is the most sacred object in the entire museum, because it’s his death mask.

“Before, I worked at the National Museum in Tbilisi, but my second husband was from Gori, and I managed to arrange a transfer. It wasn’t easy. The Stalin museum wasn’t a place you could just walk into off the street and ask, ‘You don’t have a job opening, do you?’ Public opinion counted. I was a divorcée. My first husband drank and beat me—the less said about him the better. At the time, I was afraid the divorce would be a problem. Luckily, I had a very good reference from the museum in Tbilisi.

“The smartest people from all over the world used to come and admire Stalin’s house. From all over Russia, Asia, and America. Journalists, ambassadors, and artists. And I stood among the exhibits with a small card showing my name, as proud as could be. That job meant everything to me. The museum was like a home to me. “My husband didn’t understand. I had nothing to talk to him about. Although I only guarded the exhibits, I used to read books and got to know new people. But he drank too. He tried to beat me, but this time I wasn’t having it. Later on, he fell sick and went on welfare. He’d spend all day long sitting in the apartment, or at his mother’s. He used to say nasty things about Stalin, just to spite me.

“When the USSR collapsed, he stuck out his tongue at me. It gave him great satisfaction. And then he died.

“It’s a shame he didn’t live to the present times. Now I’d be sticking out my tongue at him. What do we need all this capitalism for, all these American cheeses, juices, and chocolate? You can’t even buy normal milk anymore—it has to be in a carton, because that’s how it is in America. I think, ‘O Christ, take me off to my dear Stalin. Take me away from this world, because I can’t bear it here any longer.’”


Nana Magavariani: Whenever I see him, a shiver goes down my spine

“My job title used to be ‘head of personnel.’ Nowadays it’s ‘manager.’

“The museum has a total of sixty-three employees. I am responsible for their recruitment and employment. There are ten tour guides, eleven custodians, and two cashiers. Since last year, we also have a pioneer—a girl in a uniform and a red scarf who sells postcards and poses for pictures. That was my idea, for which I received a personal commendation from the director. ‘A tourist has to have something to be photographed with, sir. Otherwise he won’t praise our museum, and as a result we’ll have bad PR.’ I know, because we’ve had special training on tourist activity within capitalism.

“In the past, people used to come mainly from the Soviet Union. Russian was enough for us, but we also had two ladies who knew English and French. Nowadays a Russian tourist is a rare occasion for celebration. If one turns up, half the personnel comes to look at him. And we give him the best possible tour. Let them see that politics is politics, but the Georgians are their friends.

“These days most of the tourists are from America and Poland. And that’s a problem, because not all the ladies know English well enough to provide for that sort of tourist—here each tourist has a personal guide. What can we do? It’s not as if I’m going to fire the ladies before their retirement, or teach them English. They can see that in the new times they’re not needed, and that they’re a sort of burden for the museum. But we never talk to one another about it. I know what it means to lose your job in your prime.

“I used to work at a clothing factory. In the personnel department too. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the factory collapsed with it. And everything was looted—even the glass was stolen out of the window frames. In Stalin’s day something like that wouldn’t have been possible. The culprits would have been punished. So these days when I hear the stories they tell about him, I say, ‘People, you’ve lost your minds. Remember the Soviet Union. Everyone had work. The children had a free education. From Tbilisi to Vladivostok.’ If it weren’t for Communism, I, for example, would still be living in the countryside. I would never have thought of occupying a managerial position, because only men had those jobs before then. No system has ever given women as much.

“Since its collapse, everything is worse. In the past, the doctors couldn’t refuse to help a poor person. Now the health service is private, and even if you break a leg you have to pay. It’s the same with education. A retired person used to have the phone for free, and paid less for electricity. But now? You get a pension of twenty dollars, and the prices are like in the West.

“And life gets worse and worse for women. In the USSR men had a good life. There were no wars. And if a man hit you, you could go and complain to the party committee. The committee informed the party cell at the factory, and the abuser could get into big trouble.

“These days the men have no work and they’re frustrated. And when one of them hits you, you’ve no one to defend you.

“But at our museum most of the staff are women. Even in the support services, which I haven’t encountered at any other workplace of this kind. Most of the space here is dedicated to Stalin as a son, a husband, and a father. Less to him as a soldier or as a strategist. Women are much better suited to this.

“I also think Stalin’s magic is at work here. Women were always mad about him. The wives of diplomats wrote in their diaries that he was very attractive.

“Something of his charm remains to this day. Sometimes when I stop at his death mask, I only have to glance at it, and it sends such a shiver down my spine that I have to go outside into the fresh air for a while.”


Larisa Gazashvili: I love his poetry

“My parents were the Romeo and Juliet of the Stalin era.

“My paternal grandfather was a Georgian prince. He rode a white horse, he had a large estate, and in his house he kept a padlocked chest of gold. When Communism came along, they called him a kulak,* they took away his land and his gold, and left him with nothing but the chest. I still have it to this day.

“My maternal grandfather was from a peasant family. Thanks to Stalin, he went to school. Thanks to Stalin, he worked on a collective farm, and later on—also thanks to Stalin—he became its manager.

“The worse life became for my paternal grandfather, the better it was for my maternal one. When my parents fell in love, neither of their fathers would hear of them getting married.

“My grandfather, the manager, shut my mother in the house under lock and key. Later on he sent her to college in Moscow. He sought out suitors for her among the sons of his friends.

“My other grandfather, the prince, sought a wife for my father from the former aristocracy. Later on he shouted at him. And even later he cursed him.

“But as we all know, when young people dig in their heels there’s no one more determined. My parents got married, with neither set of parents present at the wedding. They never went to visit each other, and pretended not to know each other. So it was to the end of their lives. “So when I got a job at the Stalin museum, my grandfather the manager kissed me heartily. And my grandfather the prince was mortally offended.

“At the museum I was responsible for propaganda. It was a very serious role. We used to publish a newspaper, Stalin’s poetry, and other literature. He wrote beautiful poems. Romantic, tugging at the heartstrings. If he hadn’t become a politician, who knows, maybe he’d have won the Nobel Prize?

“The newspaper was called Bulletin. Or rather at one time it was called Bulletin of the Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin Museum. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was reduced to Bulletin. To avoid hurting anyone’s feelings.

“When the USSR collapsed, we had awful confusion. First they closed our museum; then they opened it again. They changed the exhibition, then went back to the old one. Nobody had the money to replace the entire display. Nor did anyone have the courage to close the museum down entirely. Too many Georgians still love Stalin.

“Now, unfortunately, there’s no money to publish the Bulletin. And I’m a tour guide.

“I went to college in Kaliningrad. I had a good life there. I worked at a school, but when Mommy fell seriously ill I had to come back to Gori.

“Some people we knew said a woman at the Stalin museum had gone on maternity leave. So I went to the party committee to ask about the job. They said first I had to pass an exam.

“The exam was hard. I had to quote by heart from the history of the Communist Party, Stalin’s biography, and the history of the USSR. But I had studied history. I knew it all by heart. So I passed with flying colors.

“So many bad things are said about Communism, but in the past the director understood that on Sundays I had to have the day off because I’m a churchgoer. Yet now they’ve put me down for Sundays. Out of malice, I’m sure.”


Tatiana Gurgenidze: I’d have been good to him

“I was born in a bad system. Because I have the mentality of a socialist hero of labor. When something needs to be done for society, I go and do it. I’ve produced a wall newspaper for the employees and classes for single mothers bringing up children on their own.

“In the Communist era, everyone would have respected me. But now that we have capitalism, they look at me as if I’m an idiot.

“So when I really can’t manage anymore, I come to the museum to calm down. And I say, ‘Mr. Stalin, I know you’d appreciate it.’ And it helps. And when I dream about Stalin—as I told you, he looks at me, twirls his moustache, and leaves—it’s usually a few days after one of those relaxing museum visits.

“I’m not really in the right era when it comes to my attitude to men either. You see, there wasn’t any sex in the Soviet Union, at least not obviously. There was ‘intercourse between the genders.’ There wasn’t any of what the young people watch on television these days. All those music videos and naked butts, if you’ll pardon the expression. Instead of a kiss, someone just lightly stroked someone else’s arm, and that was enough. A woman had to be a good worker, dress and behave modestly. So whenever I’m shocked by the sight of today’s young girls, I go to the museum too. And I say, ‘Mr. Stalin, you wouldn’t like it either.’ And once again it helps.

“I don’t like drunks. Or drug addicts. Our president upsets me, because why does he have to antagonize Russia? It’s a known fact that you can even come to terms with a bear if you want to. But Saakashvili* is insistent—with Russia just across the border—on making a second America here. We’ve had a war because of him, and we’re sure to have another one too. When the war was on, they closed the museum, so I came to the park, to the statue, and I said, ‘Mr. Stalin, you’d have got a firm grip on it all, and there’d be peace.’

“And sometimes I go and say to him, ‘If you were alive, maybe we’d be together. You’d have a good time with me. I know how to cook, I’m a cheerful person, and I can sing well too.’ And I fantasize about how nice it would be to be Stalin’s wife. But later on I reject those thoughts, because I’m behaving like an idiot. Stalin is dead. Communism has collapsed. It’s over. It’s finished. Been and gone.

“If I dream about him when I’m feeling like that, I’m very cold and official toward him in my dream.”


Natia Joldbori: son, be like Stalin

“My momma told me, ‘Darling, don’t go for that job. Of course Stalin was a great man. But something like that looks bad on your résumé these days. One day you’ll want a different job, and they won’t give it to you. Besides, it’s embarrassing to work there.’

“But I have a small son, and I needed the money. In Gori, if you have any ambitions, there’s no choice. You can teach at a school or work in the local administration. Or at Stalinland—that’s what some people call our museum. Young people especially like to make fun of it. They call the women who work here the Stalinettes or the vestal virgins—because it’s as if they’re doing their best not to let the flame of Communism go out. I keep all that at arm’s length, though I can see that for most people in Gori the world ended when the USSR collapsed. I have one elderly colleague whose grandfathers were both killed in the Stalin era, but even so she’ll never stop defending him and loving him.

“I can hardly remember Communism. I was born when it was in its decline. I remember seeing the tanks in Vilnius on TV. When we regained independence, my dad and I went to the main town square with a Georgian flag. Those are fine memories.

“Dad soon understood the new times. He sent me to learn English when I was just seven years old. Thanks to my English, I got my job at the museum. There are only two of us here who can speak it. As a result, we have the most tour groups, while the ladies who are deeply in love with Stalin sit and make themselves cup after cup of coffee. Afterward, we get the same salary as them. But I’m not complaining. The main thing is that I have a job.

“My son doesn’t know a single word of Russian. He’s had English since preschool. It’ll be a totally different generation. Stalin? A completely abstract concept.

“What do I think about Stalin? Here, in Gori, it’s customary for parents or grandparents to take their kids to the museum and tell them about him. I brought my toddler here too. And I told him, just like it says in those American guides to success, ‘He was much worse off than you are. His father drank, his cottage was falling down, and the other kids were good-for-nothings. But he was hardworking, thanks to which years later he ruled the entire country. If you study, you can achieve a lot too.’”


Anna Tkabladze: we boycott the carve-up of Poland

“Here we have his favorite cigarettes. Here’s the watch he was given by his mother. He was a good son. An affectionate husband. A loving father. He cared for his staff as if they were his own children.

“Nowadays they say he was a bad man. But in the archive we have pictures of him planting apple trees in the summer. I think a bad man would have been beating someone up or killing them, not planting trees. You have your views. That he murdered millions. But there’s no proof of that. All the documents were faked by Beria. Stalin only made one mistake—he was too good. He put too much trust in others.

“I can’t say all that to the tourists. The management writes scripts for the guided tours. What’s in them? Just like I said: he was a good son and an affectionate husband. We can also mention that he defeated fascism. But not much more. Murders? I’ve just about had enough of you. Here we have a sort of unwritten agreement that if a tourist really gets under our skin, we can go outside the museum to argue with him. But right now we are inside the museum, and I have to stick to the script.

“They’ve even posted a sign about the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Of course, it was wrong from the start. Because for Poland it certainly wasn’t a good pact at all. But it gave the USSR a few years to arm itself, thanks to which fascism was defeated. But we’re supposed to give the impression that the carve-up of Poland was a myth. So we leave that sign out of our tours. It’s our silent boycott.

“I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t know what to think about the Poles. On the one hand, when we had the war with Russia here, you people helped us a lot. Trucks full of clothes and food kept arriving every day.

“But nobody harps on us as much as you people. Everyone else comes through here and listens with interest, but the Poles shout at me as if I were Stalin himself and had carved up Poland in person. And now they’re saying Poland is going to help rebuild the Stalin Museum as the Museum of the Fight against Communism. If that’s true, all Gori will come to a standstill. Because we have nothing here except for our Stalin.”

The introductory motto of the exhibition is: “Man does not live forever. I also die. What will be the judgment of the people and of history about me? There were a lot of mistakes, but were there were no achievements as well? The mistakes will of course be attributed to me. A large pile of garbage will be collected on my tomb, but the day will come, when the wind of history will implacably blow it away.”

A Happy Birthday

I am exactly one month late in the celebration. In vain, all through October, I wanted to report on the Russian press on that day. But, actually, this birthday is much better suited for the 7th of November than that of October.

“Find the seven small differences!”

From the countless festive commemorations I only present a few to mark the importance of the celebration, the devotion to the celebrated, and the inventiveness of the celebrators.

A popular exhibition opened in Moscow, where Putin achieves again the twelve glorious labors of Hercules, of course updated. He defeats the Chechen terrorism in the guise of the Nemean lion, by killing the Lernaean hydra he cuts the hundred heads of the international sanctions, instead of the Stymphalian birds he shoots down the American bombers, the taming of the Cretan bull symbolizes the regaining of the Crimea, the Erymanthian boar keeping an oil well under his feet is for the oligarchs enchained, and so on. In the shop of the exhibition, long lines wait for festive T-shirts.

In seven big cities, seven huge exterior walls were painted with the allegory of a concept, that characterizes Russia under Putin’s rule: strength, memory, the conquest of the Arctic, independence, history, security, and the Sochi Olympics. The emphasized initials add up the word СПАСИБО, “Thank you”. “These words – explains one of the young organizers – mean a lot to us: that Russia again has taken its rightful place in world history.”



However, the most moving item is the film, where the Petersburgian little ones greet the President of Russia, bringing him their favorite toys as a gift. The professionally made film shows, that post-communist propaganda finally has broken free from the historical legacy of a mandatory pseudo-naive style, and it can now disguise its nature as propaganda by using state-of-the-art Hollywood visual culture. As it was predicted already twenty years ago by Pelevin.

Есть на свете человек – Петербуржец, как и мы. Жизнь его, как сотни вех, Знаковая для страны! Всё свершится, сбудутся надежды, Пусть и дальше много лет, как прежде, В добром сердце – торжество и сила! С днём рожденья, Президент России! С днём рожденья, Президент России! С днём рожденья, Президент России!

There is a man in the world – Petersburgian, like us. His life, as hundreds of milestones, a sign for the country! Everything is completed, hopes are fulfilled, Go on for many years, like before, In the good heart – triumph and strength! Happy birtday, President of Russia! Happy birtday, President of Russia! Happy birtday, President of Russia!

Colossus

The final scene in the Czechoslovak film Holubice (“The White Dove”, František Vláčil, 1960) may contain a little surprise for audiences nowadays, if they know Prague, and if they look closely. The scene consists of a single shot, from a camera placed at a high vantage point somewhere on ul. Revoluční, during which the camera pans nearly the entire daytime skyline of Prague at the time of the film’s production, ca. 1959-60.


As we look up Revoluční to the south, we soon see the arched windows and crenellations of what is today the Palladium shopping center (then Josefská Kasárna, barracks for the Czechoslovak Army). Further around, other familiar buildings pass by, as Prague’s many famous turrets and spires can be seen through the haze. The twin gothic spires of the 13th-century Church of Our Lady before Týn float past, and far in the distance on a light gray hilltop is the Petřínská rozhledna of 1891 (a lookout tower inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris), which marks the hill of Petřín. After the second rooftop television antenna, we see what is probably Prague’s most identifiable landmark, the Prague Castle, Hradčany. Then, we come to a mystery.

What in the devil’s name is that?


Those familiar with today’s skyline will no doubt remember that atop the hill at Letná (the red arrow in the photograph), which overlooks the city from one end of the bridge named for Svatopluk Čech, stands a monumental kinetic sculpture resembling a metronome. In 1959, however, something very different stood there. We can see, in the picture above, the rather dim outline of a fat slab of rock, but from this indistinct image taken from afar, we cannot decisively make out what it was.

For reference, this is what stands there now.


The kinetic sculpture entitled Stroj času (“Time Machine”), by the sculptor Vratislav Karel Novák, is popularly known as the “Prague Metronome,” although the mechanism is completely different from the familiar metronome invented by Mälzel. It was erected in 1991 to mark 100 years of industrial exhibitions in Prague, and reflects that theme in its use of industrial forms and materials. It was intended to be temporary, but, as we will see, the temporary can unintentionally become permanent, while things intended for permanence may endure only for a shockingly brief time.

And, as we will further see, this post will end with a bang.

A Monument for the Ages

In 1948, soon after the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia, a decision was made to honor Stalin for his 70th birthday with a large monument for a prominent location in Prague. But the internal politics of various planning committees and other forms of political oversight virtually guaranteed that the project would take longer than expected. Much, much longer. It was over a year before a competition for the design was officially announced in 1949.

The artists of Czechoslovakia were invited to volunteer their visions for the monument, one of which would be selected for construction on the hill at Letná, a high vantage point that overlooks the city center. It was widely understood that, if you were a sculptor of any prominence, your voluntary submission was, in fact, mandatory.

The story is told that the artist Otakar Švec, a recognized sculptor who had created a noteworthy body of work during the interwar period, sat down over a dinner of goulash with a painter friend, and asked him to sketch a design. Švec liked the sketch, made some adjustments, worked it into a proposal, and submitted it, probably believing the matter closed.

Švec did not anticipate winning the competition. He had simply assumed the outcome would be politically fixed, and was quite surprised when he found out that his design had been selected from among the 90 works submitted. The casual manner by which it was designed (apparently his friend had sketched it on a napkin) suggests that he did not really care to put a great deal of thought into the project.

Švec was suddenly trapped. The competition bureaucrats subjected him to an unending series of official visits to his studio with nitpicks and small adjustments with which Švec really had no choice but to comply. As the delays accumulated, it became clear that a simply large monument wasn’t enough; it would have to be gigantic. In fact, what started as a napkin sketch morphed into the largest monument to Stalin anywhere in the world, and the largest group statue in Europe.

It would represent Stalin at the front of two lines of figures, the ones on the left representing the Soviet Union, and on the right, Czechoslovakia. It was to be more than 15 meters high and 22 meters long. Alone, Stalin’s head would weigh 52 tons; the entire work, 17,000 tons. A team of over 600 people, artists, builders, stonemasons, were employed working on the monument. With an understructure of reinforced concrete and an outer cladding of high-quality Czech granite, it would be monument built for the ages.

Сталинский закон. Пётр Киричек, дуэт с С. Хромченко

The following eight photographs of the Stalin monument were taken from the Fortepan online community (fortepan.hu), a continuously growing Hungarian archive of private photographs shared voluntarily by their owners. They are published here for the first time outside of the Fortepan site.

The unfortunate Švec probably knew that he had given birth to a monster, and entertained doubts that it could ever be constructed. He believed, perhaps hoped, that not enough high-quality granite could ever be found, but eventually, matching granites were found in two places. At the time, no crane existed in Czechoslovakia that could manipulate such massive pieces of stone, and so German „Panzer“ tanks, spoils from the war, were used to move the stone blocks. Pressure from the Kremlin seems to have been strong. To accommodate the transport, roads into Prague had to be widened, and bridges strengthened, all at great expense.

The construction phase began in earnest on 25 February 1952, an official holiday called „Soviet Army Day“, when the first blocks of granite were laid. Stalin was dead within a year, but the work, of course, continued. It was too late to back out now. Švec apparently became increasing mortified at his involvement in the project. Once the small napkin sketch was enlarged to such epic proprortions, its deficiencies became glaringly obvious. Švec solved some of the design problems by simply putting flags in the figures’ hands to obscure empty surfaces not accounted for in the original sketch. One account states that he was humiliated one day when a taxi driver pointed out that the third figure on the Czech side of the sculpture, depicting a woman, seemed to be reaching for the crotch of the man following closely behind her.

Jan Lukas: March 1953 (Stalin and Klement Gottwald)

Funeral march in Prague’ St. Václav’s Square on the day of Stalin’s burial, 9 March 1953

The monument was finally dedicated on 1 May 1955. The verdict of Comrade Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev: “Too big, too late.” Local wags dubbed the monstrosity “fronta na maso” – the waiting line for meat, a none-too-subtle reference to food shortages under centralized planning. The artist, Otakar Švec, was not present at the ceremony. He had commited suicide a few weeks before, possibly due to the earlier suicide of his wife, combined with his remorse over the monstrosity he had created, perhaps in combination with the pressure of constant surveillance by the secret police.

Khrushchev in Prague. “Too big, too late”

The precise date of Švec’s death has seemed, until recently, difficult to pinpoint, and has enjoyed something of the quality of legend. Some sources have casually declared that he died the day before the dedication of the monument on 1 May, as if to state that the sculpture itself was the overriding reason. But the Czech Wikipedia entry on Švec marks the date as 4 April, while the English Wikipedia entry puts it on 3 March, a month earlier. The latter date seems to be a result based on Czech archival sources, uncovered as research for the book Gottland, by Mariusz Szczygieł, published in 2008, and so seems the most credible.

An Eternity of Only Eight Years

On 25 February 1956, three years after the death of Stalin, Khrushchev addressed the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. with a report entitled, О культе личности и его последствиях (“On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences”). It was a sharp denunciation of Stalin and the cult of personality that had formed around him. From that day on, the Prague Stalin monument’s days were suddenly numbered. It had swiftly been transformed from a prestigious and very public project into an outright embarrassment to the Communist Party. It would have to go.

Much as they no doubt would have liked to, the Party could not destroy such a massive structure in secret. Instead, they chose to undertake demolition of the monstrosity in a quick, cataclysmic manner using dynamite. In November, 1962, eight hundred kilograms of explosives were used to blow it up. Although the blasts were no doubt heard clearly throughout the vicinity of Letná, on this matter, the Czech press of the time were entirely silent. It was officially forbidden to document it photographically, but some images were created, nonetheless.

It took about a year to clear the platform of the pieces of the monument that remained after the detonations. The platform then stood embarrassingly vacant for the next 29 years, until the “Prague Metronome” was finally found its place there.

A Reservoir of Public Memory

Another film gives us a look at the what happened after that. Made in 1963, not long after the demolition of the Stalin monument and after all the rubble was cleared away, the film Postava k podpírání (“A Character in Need of Support”), a Czech film that presaged the coming New Wave, was produced in Prague. The filmmakers Pavel Juráček and Jan Schmidt made prominent use of the vacant platform in a significant image near the end of the film, going so far as to overdub the sound of a man falling down some stairs while carrying a boiler tank (extending the sound from the previous scene) at precisely the moment when the stone Stalin, now gapingly absent, should have made its appearance.


This image seems to proclaim a change of polical weather; a loosening of the contraints, a thaw. The main character’s futile search for the elusive bureaucrat Josef Kilián, in an effort to free himself from the burden of a rented cat, was inevitably described as “kafkaesque” by foreign critics, and marked a fresh tolerance by the censors for implicit criticism of the workings of the state. Freed from Stalin’s stony panopticon gaze that once looked directly into the heart of the city from on high, the sun finally came out. The Czechoslovak New Wave would then blossom, and after it, a Czech Spring, born of optimism at the promise of a new “socialism with a human face.” We all now know of course that that optimism was, tragically, premature.

Interestingly, the public memory of the Stalin Monument has been much more resistant to destruction even than granite and reinforced concrete. There are people in Prague who still say “meet me at Stalin,” instead of “meet me at the metronome.” The site is a reservoir for public memory, and its vibe has been exploited again and again since the Velvet Revolution for politics and publicity. In the early 1990s, the pirate station Stalin Radio operated out of the chambers under the platform. In 1996, an effigy of Michael Jackson was placed there to promote a concert tour. During parliamentary elections in 1998, a billboard promoting Václav Klaus’ candidacy appeared there.

In honor of Švec’s work, and to commemorate the 51st anniversary of his suicide, the Czech artist Martin Zet in 2006 prepared the exhibition Osud národa - sochař Otakar Švec (“The Fate of a Nation - The Sculptor Otakar Švec”), including images of Švec’s earlier work. The venue for the exhibition was Artwall, the outdoor gallery mentioned in this post, and which lies on the riverside face of Letná hill.

In 2011, as part of the Prague Quadrennial festival, the words “The Tears of Stalin” appeared in six-meter-high white letters in front of the metronome, likely in part a reference to “Stalinovy slzy” (Stalin’s Tears) a brand of vodka sold in Prague tourist traps. Most recently, on the first day of the 2013 parliamentary elections held in October, a huge poster depicting Russian Federation President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, costumed as a Stalin-like dictator, was raised on the site by a group seeking to warn against the threat of a return to a communist government in the Czech Republic.

There was once a common saying in the Eastern Bloc, sometimes stated in earnest, sometimes with bitter irony, “Пока Сталин живёт, всё будет хорошо” (“As long as Stalin lives, everything will be all right”), which, these days, can be heard paraphrased thus: “So long as the metronome stands, all is well in Prague.” The Prague Stalin Monument is long gone, but none the less, the site atop Letná hill holds a strong political charge, still vivid in public memory, that has yet to dissipate.

One more May Day

Now that I have written about three Day Mays in a row, I must also add a fourth, photographed the day before yesterday in London by Rustem Adagamov.



Judging by the score, the brass band plays R. B. Hall’s popular Death or Glory march (1895)

The previous posts about the Soviet, the Nazi and the Putinist May Day well outline the frames of interpretation of the pictures and of the event. In the socialist and corporative societies, as well as in those in perfect national unity, the working class has already reached every goal. Thus they do not come under the leadership of their trade unions to the May Day rally to demand their rights, but rather to express their joy before the state leaders who ensure those rights. And the momentum of their former protest against their class oppressors now turns against the imperialists of other nations.

In the backward capitalist societies, however, the trade unions, as ever since 1889, march on May Day for more wages, better working conditions, and to demonstrate their own lobbying weight. Therefore the images of Lenin, Stalin and Mao carried by them, though exactly the same as those carried in Moscow, represent completely different persons. Not the mass murderers well known from history, but merely the personifications of the antithesis of the existing system. Or so I hope.

The Communist parties of Iran, Turkey and the Kurds, illegal at home, also rally in London, of course strictly separately

The dog is patiently waiting until its master listens to all the speeches

Yanks meet Reds

Almost a year ago I already wrote some apologetic rambling on why I do not write so often. One justification is that too often while collecting materials for the next story I stumble upon many side stories. Following a new thread you collect more information, more images and documents, as well as make new inquiries. As a result, similar to Achilles in Zeno’s paradox, you never seem to catch the end of your journey for the ultimate story. Here is one of such side stories, which emerged with a wartime photo I found while preparing the story of soldier letters sent in 1941 that never made it home.

Who is on the photo?

I came across this photo almost two years ago, in a German photo-archive just by searching for “Aserbaidschan” i.e. “Azerbaijan”. The photo by a world famous author of many iconic World War Two photos, Yevgeny Khaldei (1917-1997) has a short title – “Berlin”. The date indicated is July 1945 – the time when American, British and French troops were let into agreed sectors of Berlin, captured by the Soviet Army.

“Berlin” by Yevgeny Khaldei. Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz‎ Inventar-Nr.: 1191

If you pay attention to the uniforms, it is obvious that the image is a mirror inversion. The description reads as “Zwei Soldaten, ein amerikanischer und ein russischer aus Aserbaidschan.” i.e. “Two soldiers, one American and one Russian from Azerbaijan”. It does not reveal the names of the two soldiers, so in this case it is hard to say if “Russian” should be read as “Soviet”.

Searching internet you will find the same photo, accompanied by two different captions that contain exact names of those who are on the photo.

The Soviet soldier is described as Ivan Numladze, bearing a Georgian surname. The online database of documents on Great Patriotic War awards and battle documents of the Ministry of Defense of Russia did not return any result on my search for this surname. It is not strange since the database is not complete yet. But their online archive of “irretrievable losses” returned one person: Grigoriy Numladze, who was freed from captivity in Romania in October 1944.

Confusion starts with the name of the American soldier indicated either as Buck Kotzebue or as Byron Shiver. But the date and place are the same – April 1945, somewhere near Torgau, Germany, where 1^st American Army and 5^th Soviet Guards Army linked up at Elbe River.

The map produced by Americans for the Elbe River linkup ceremony.
Source: The Fighting 69th Infantry Division Website.

First Lieutenant Albert L. ‘Buck’ Kotzebue of the Company G of the 273^rd Infantry Regiment was leading one of the three American patrols that made contact with the Soviet troops on 25 April 1945. The above map shows roughly the place and time, when the second patrol led by 2nd Lieutenant William D. Robertson of the same regiment met the Soviet patrol led by Lieutenant Alexander Silvashko (1922-2010) of the 58^th Guards Division – on a damaged bridge over the Elbe in Torgau. By a twist of fate, back then exactly this meet up became the ‘official’ one in the West, and a photo of these two officers, taken by an American photographer, became the symbol of the Elbe linkup. The same image was chosen for the cover of the book published in 1988, both in the US and the USSR, with different titles. “Yanks meet Reds” in English and “Встреча на Эльбе” (Meeting at the Elbe) in Russian contains recollections of veterans from both sides of the Elbe. There was also a third patrol led by Major Fred W. Craig, which was sent to find out what is up with Kotzebue’s patrol that left a day earlier.

The cover of the book Yanks meet Reds: recollections of U.S. and Soviet vets from the linkup in World War II, Capra Press, August 1988. Source: ebay.com

So, later investigation showed that the first contact was in fact made by Kotzebue’s patrol. On their way from Kuhren to Strehla, at around 11:30 they met a “Russian” cavalryman at a farmhouse courtyard in Leckwitz. This was actually an ethnic Kazakh, Private Aytkali Alibekov conscripted in 1943 from Tashtagol District of Russia. The patrol got some directions from him, he also advised to take a freed Polish prisoner of war as a guide. The major encounter happened some hour later with the Soviet company under command of Lieutenant Grigori Goloborodko of the 175^th Guards Rifle Regiment.

Map of the three Elbe Day link ups. Source: The Fighting 69th Infantry Division Website.

Apparently there is no publicly available photo evidence of this first meeting. But US Army artist Olin Dows (1904-1981), who later witnessed the meeting of allied forces, depicted the moment in one of his paintings with this not quite accurate description of the event:

“At 11:45 on the morning of April 25, 1945, from the Strehla bank of the Elbe River, Lt Kotzebue fires two red and green flares from a carbine as a signal of identification to the Russians on the opposite bank. Below is the boat which he and five men from his patrol used to reach the Russian side. In the background is the drifting German pontoon bridge which has been knocked away from its moorings by shell fire and the mixed German military and civilian convoy which was trying to cross the Elbe when destroyed by Russian tanks.”

“Signal to the Russians” by Olin Dows. Source: U.S. Army Center of Military History

Going back to the initial photo of two soldiers, the American depicted on it apparently is not Kotzebue. First, because he is not a lieutenant, besides on other rare photos Kotzebue looks quite different with his binoculars, wearing a jacket and smoking a pipe.

So, the young American soldier with a shining smile is Private Byron Shiver, native of Florida, from the same company, who was part of the Kotzebue’s patrol. He appears in some other photos, taken during the subsequent meetings the day after.

It seems that the cause of this confusion is the photo caption that appeared in the 29 April 1945 issue of the official newspaper of the People’s Commissariat for Defense of the USSR Красная Звезда (Krasnaya Zvezda/Red Star). The bottom photo at page 3 obviously shows the same scene with two soldiers from a different perspective. The caption read as: “THE LINK UP OF THE TROOPS OF THE 1^ST UKRAINIAN FRONT AND ANGLO-AMERICAN FORCES. On the picture above: Soviet and American officers chatting. Below: The Red Army guardsman Ivan Numladze, a native of sunny Georgia, and the American soldier Buck Kotzebue, a native of sunny Texas. Pictures by our special photo-reporter Captain G. Khomzor.”

“Krasnaya Zvezda”. 29 April 1945, Sunday. No.101 (6089).
Source: Archive of Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, 1941-1945

Indeed, Lieutenant Kotzebue was native of Houston, Texas. An interesting fact is that he believed that his ancestors were loyal subjects of the Russian Empire, ethnic Baltic Germans. Captain Otto von Kotzebue (1787-1846) was famous for his explorations of Alaska – there is a city and a sound named after him there. Perhaps, Kotzebue was chosen for the caption because of the familiar ‘sunny Texas’ cliché, and Numladze may well be a curtsey to the Comrade Stalin, also ‘native of sunny Georgia’.

That would not be strange – for a long time official Soviet version credited Georgian Jr. Sergeant Meliton Kantaria and Russian Sergeant Mikhail Yegorov for raising the first Soviet flag over the Reichstag. In fact, a red flag was raised as early as the night of 30 April by a small group of volunteers, which included Sergeant Mikhail Minin, Sr.Sergants Gazi Zagitov, Alexandr Lisimenko, and Sergeant Alexei Bobrov. The papers show that they were recommended for the Hero of the Soviet Union decoration, but got a lower rank Order of the Red Banner.

This looks like a scanned image from some book. Source: Picasa page by Ivanov Sergey.

Poemas del río Wang already wrote in the “Soviet Capa” about the iconic photo “The flag of victory over the Reichstag” by Khaldei. For a long time it was widely unknown that the photo actually is staged and people on the photo are Private Alexei Kovalyov from Ukraine and Sergeant Abdulhakim Ismailov from Dagestan. Now it is also known that the photo was retouched to remove a ‘second watch’ from Ismailov’s right wrist as this could cause questions about looting. By the way, apparently the Soviet soldier in the ‘two soldiers’ photo has got two rings on his left hand.

All in all, the question was still open for me – is it ‘Numladze, a native of sunny Georgia’ or a soldier ‘from Azerbaijan’? On 4 February 2014, I finally thought why not to send an email and ask the photo agency.

Dear Sir/Madam
First of all, I would like to thank you for your noble work of storing historical images and making them available through your online services. My request concerns a famous 1945 photo, which is also stored in your archives:
The caption in German says: “Two soldies, one American and one Russian from Azerbaijan.” Fotograf: Jewgeni Chaldej / Zwei Soldaten, ein amerikanischer und ein russischer aus Aserbaidschan. / Aufnahmedatum: Juli 1945 / Aufnahmeort: Berlin / Inventar-Nr.: 1191. I wonder if your colleagues could give more insight about what was the origin of this caption.
The reason for this request is that other sources give different captions - for example http://victory.rusarchives.ru/index.php?p=31&photo_id=389 It says “Soldier of American Army Buck L. Kotzebue and Red Army soldier Ivan Numladze at the moment of meeting on Elbe. – Солдат американской армии Бак Л. Кацебу и красноармеец Иван Нумладзе в момент встречи на Эльбе.” In fact, this caption is not accurate at least about the American soldier, since he is U.S. Army Private Byron Shiver of the 273rd Infantry Regiment.
Any additional information on the matter would be very much appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Many thanks, Araz

I received a short answer the day after:

Dear Sir
Thank you for your message. bpk distributes digital images by Chaldej on behalf of the agency Voller Ernst http://ernstvolland.de/en
I presume it’s the photographer’s original caption. We don’t have further information on the portrayed soldiers.
Best regards, Jan Böttger

A man with a camera

Further explorations revealed that my question may not be the right one. It seems that the meetings initiated by Robertson’s patrol are covered solely by American photo-reporters, while Soviet photographers were shooting mainly the meetings at the East side. Who were these photo-reporters, was Khaldei among them?

A Soviet and an American soldier at one of the streets of Torgau. Source: RIA Novosti

One was obviously the special photo-reporter of Krasnaya Zvezda Captain Georgiy Khomzor (1914-1990). The photo of ‘two soldiers’ is most probably taken by him, since a very similar photo above is also credited to him. It is strange though that Khomzor’s photo, published in Krasnaya Zvezda with the caption that mentions Kotzebue and Numladze, was taken from a totally different angle.

Actually his surname is Khomutov, but during his early career as a retoucher he was signing his works with “Хом. 30 р.” meaning “Khom(utov). (Price: )30 r(ubles)”. This looks like “ХомЗОр” i.e. “Khomzor”, so this pseudonym stack to him. This frontline photo-reporter quickly earned great popularity during the war. Executive editor of “Krasnaya Zvezda” David Ortenberg remembers that when in May 1945 he was recommended for Order of the Patriotic War 2^nd class decoration, the commander of the 1^st Ukrainian Front Marshal Ivan Konev (1897-1973) corrected the list and changed it to a higher rank Order of the Red Banner. The section titled “the brief, concrete description of personal feat of arms or merits” in the decoration paper mentions that “At the Elbe River, he was photographing the historical meeting of the troops of the 1^st Ukrainian Front with the American Army”.

A rare photo showing Lieutenant Kotzebue smoking his pipe by Khomzor. Source: RIA Novosti

Despite of this, today there is not even a Wikipedia page dedicated to him or a photo of him in the Internet to identify if the man with a camera on the picture below is Khomzor. Judging by his decoration he is not, it is not clear either if he is Captain or Sr. Lieutenant. The decorations on the person’s uniform match better Captain Alexandr Ustinov (1909-1995), photo-reporter of Pravda newspaper, who by July 1944 was already awarded Medal “For Courage” and Order of Red Star. But unlike this man Ustinov had a splendid chevelure, and his medal must have been of old 1939-1943 version with a short mount.

A man with a camera on one of the photos presented to the veterans by photo-reporter Ustinov. Shiver’s smiley face is visible behind. Source: Yandex photo album by user kleck1127

A photo of the same scene, taken by American Private Igor Belousovitch who was in Major Craig’s patrol (Craig is the leftmost American – they all put helmets on), shows most probably Ustinov working.
Source: The Moscow Times

This photo was in the album Ustinov presented to the veterans including Silvashko, who after the war was a village school director and history teacher in Kletsk district in Belorussia. Silvashko later presented it to the Kletsk city museum and the scanned images appeared in the Internet.

Kotzebue in his recollections mentions that one of the first three “Russian”s they met at the Elbe River was a photographer in the ranks of Captain, who took their photos. This must be Khomzor, since Ustinov writes in his memoirs С «лейкой» и блокнотом (With ‘Leica’ and notebook) that he arrived at the Elbe River crossing only on 26 April. He also mentions that “Later a large group of American journalists, cameramen and my colleagues – photo-reporters got over to our side. Among Soviet reporters were Konstantin Simonov, Sergey Krushinski from Komsomolka, and Georgiy Khomzor – photo-reporter of Krasnaya Zvezda”. Interestingly, many sources, including Ustinov’s daughter claim that Ustinov was “the only Soviet photo-reporter, who witnessed the meeting at the Elbe”.

By the way, the title of the book “With ‘Leica’ and a notebook” is taken from a popular “Song of the war reporters”, written by Konstantin Simonov (1915-1979) and composed by Matvey Blanter (1903-1990) – the composer of the famous “Katyusha”. Simonov wrote it in 1943 as “Reporters’ drinking song”, but some words were censored for the popular official version.

От Москвы до Бреста Нет такого места, Где бы ни скитались мы в пыли, С “лейкой” и с блокнотом, А то и с пулеметом Сквозь огонь и стужу мы прошли.	From Moscow down to Brest There is no such a place, Where we did not wander in the dust. With “Leica” and a notebook, And sometimes with machine gun The fire and the frost we passed through.
(Жив ты или помер – Главное, чтоб в номер Материал успел ты передать. И чтоб, между прочим, Был фитиль всем прочим, А на остальное - наплевать!)	(Be you alive or dead – Main thing: for this issue You would pass materials on time. By the way, let it be A wick to all others, As for other things - don’t give a damn!)
Без глотка, товарищ, (Без ста грамм, товарищ,) Песню не заваришь, Так давай за дружеским столом (Так давай по маленькой хлебнем!) Выпьем за писавших, Выпьем за снимавших, Выпьем за шагавших под огнем.	Without a toothful, comrade, (Without a half-pint/100-gram, comrade) A song one would cook hardly, Around a friendly table let us have (Come on, let us gulp down it bit by bit!) A drink to who were writing, A drink to who were filming, A drink to who were marching under fire!
Есть, чтоб выпить, повод - За военный провод, За У-2, за “эмку”, за успех... Как пешком шагали, Как плечом толкали, Как мы поспевали раньше всех.	For drink we have a reason To military farewell, To U-2, to the “M’ka”, to success… How afoot were marching With shoulder we were pushing, And how we were on time ahead of all.
От ветров и стужи (От ветров и водки) Петь мы стали хуже, (Хрипли наши глотки,) Но мы скажем тем, кто упрекнет: – С наше покочуйте, С наше поночуйте, С наше повоюйте хоть бы год.	From the winds and the frost (From the winds and vodka) Started singing we worse, (Our throats became hoarse,) But we shall say to those who blame us: – Roam as much as we did, Overnight as we did, Fight as much as we did just a year.
Там, где мы бывали, Нам танков не давали, Но мы не терялись никогда. (Репортер погибнет – не беда.) Но на “эмке” драной И с одним наганом Мы первыми въезжали в города.	There, where we have been, Tanks we never did get, But we never ever lost our heart. (A reporter would be killed – so what.) On an “M’ka” tattered And with one revolver We were those who enter cities first.
(Помянуть нам впору Мертвых репортеров. Стал могилой Киев им и Крым. Хоть они порою Были и герои, Не поставят памятника им.)	(We need now remember Also dead reporters. Kiev and Crimea are their grave. Although they were sometimes They were sometimes heroes, One won’t put a monument up to them.)
Так выпьем за победу, За свою газету, А не доживем, мой дорогой, Кто-нибудь услышит, Снимет и напишет, Кто-нибудь помянет нас с тобой.	So, let’s drink to the victory, And to our newspaper, And if we don’t live to see, my dear, Somebody then will hear, Will then film and will write, Someone will remember us with you!

Photos of the similar scenes credited to Khomzor (left) and to Ustinov (right) differ by slight changes of the shooting angle. Were they working simultaneously or perhaps they shared photos for publications?

In short, the ‘two soldiers’ photo is almost certainly not taken by Khaldei. But it well may be that he took another photo of ‘two soldiers, one American and one Russian from Azerbaijan’ in Berlin. The “Spiegel” article, the “Soviet Capa” refers to, mentions an exhibition “Yevgeny Khaldei – The Decisive Moment. A Retrospective” shown at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin from 9 May to 28 July 2008. An old blog post by one of the visitors of this exhibition mentions this photo caption, but unfortunately the image links are broken, so we cannot check it visually.

Our hope is that knowledgeable readers may help with additional information in finding answers to the questions that still remain open.

I could stop my story right here, but while reading through the articles and books about the historical meeting at the Elbe, I came across a story I never heard before.

Oath of the Elbe

The historical link up was widely known to citizens of the USSR and “Встреча на Эльбе” i.e. “Meeting at the Elbe” was a catch-phrase in a popular Soviet culture. But I doubt that many heard about the Oath of the Elbe and a small group of veterans, who have been faithful to the memory of their first meeting during the Cold War years of distrust.

Photos by Ustinov in Komsomolskaya Pravda, 28 April 1945, Saturday. No.100 (6120).
Source: Archive of Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, 1941-1945

The above mentioned book, Meeting on Elbe collected mostly first hand, sometimes slightly conflicting accounts of the link up on 25 April 1945. Kotzebue gives dramatic details of their first encounter at the Elbe. They saw people wandering among the debris of destroyed column of cars on the other side of the river, next to the blown up pontoon bridge. Judging by their decorations shining in sunlight, Kotzebue guessed that these are Soviets. On his command Private Ed Ruff fired two green rockets as an agreed identification signal. Their Polish guide, who joined them in Leckwitz, shouted “Americans”. ‘Russians’ got closer and shouted back calling them to the other side. This meant a lot for ordinary soldiers – the soldiers in front of you are not your enemies anymore – the war is over.

But six joyful Americans and their Polish guide witnessed a dreadful scene at the East side: to reach the coming down Soviets they had to get through heaps of charred bodies of German refugees, apparently killed when the bridge was destroyed. “Suddenly I realized that among all the rejoicing we were standing in the midst of a sea of corpses” remembers Private Joe Polowsky, who was among the Americans. Most of the killed were civilians – elderly, women and children. Polowsky recalls that Kotezbue asked him to translate “Let this day be the day of remembrance of innocent victims”. This is how they took the Oath of Elbe – a promise to do everything to not let this happen again. And quite symbolically the allies were communicating with each other in the language of their enemy – in German.

The dreadful scene of killed refugees in the background could be the reason why photos taken at this first meeting by the present photo-reporter, apparently Khomzor, are not public. Another reason may be the fact that Kotzebue later continued his careers in the US Army. He fought in Korean and Vietnam proxy wars with the Soviets, retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1967.

It seems that none of the photos in the Soviet newspapers are taken on 25 April, rather on 26-27 April, when official meetings between the allies continued. There were also many unofficial meetings – soldiers of two countries with hostile ideologies were spontaneously meeting and fraternizing for several days.

American Lieutenant Dwight Brooks (center, in helmet) smiles as he and other members of the 69th Infantry Division pose with Soviet officers from the 58th Guards Division in the German town of Torgau, Germany, late April, 1945. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images. Source: waralbum.ru.

The same group of Americans with Major Anfim Larionov, ‘zampolit’ i.e. deputy commander for political affairs of Silvashko’s 175^th Guards Rifle Regiment. Source: waralbum.ru

Again, the same group of Americans with possibly Captain Vasiliy Neda, commander of Silvashko’s battalion. Source: waralbum.ru.

The front page of the Komsomolskaya Pravda from 28 April, shown above, features official letters of congratulations from the leaders of the three allied nations – from Stalin, Churchill and Truman. Before this, goes the order of the supreme commander-in-chief Stalin to fire a salute of 24 salvoes from 324 cannons on 27 April 1945 as a tribute to the participants of the historical event – 1^st Ukrainian Front and Anglo-American troops.

But in fact, both Kotzebue and Robertson’s patrols met Soviet troops despite the order not to leave a 5-mile zone from their positions at the Mulde River. What saved them from a tribunal is that the commander of the 1^st American Army General Hodges was very positive when heard the news and congratulated his generals. Both Major Larionov and Captain Neda, who together with Liutenant Silvashko and Sergeant Andreyev accompanied Robertson’s patrol to the headquarters of the 273^rd Infantry Regiment late on 25 April, were soon after expelled from the Communist party and the Soviet army. Many participants of the link up recalled that after few days the troops that made contact with Americans were send back.

The members of Kotzebue’s patrol including Shiver appear on many photos in Ustinov’s album. It is easy to distinguish Americans – they all have got steel helmets. Soviets have not; instead they have got all their decorations on. Interestingly, the Soviet troops on the potential contact line received a special order to have a neat outfit, on meeting Americans to act friendly, but reservedly.

Judging by numbering, these photos apparently are taken on 26 April at the East bank of the Elbe, sometime around the official meeting between the commander of the American 69^th Infantry Division Major General Emil F. Reinhardt and the commander of the Soviet 58^th Guards Division Major General Vladimir Vasilyevich Rusakov. By the way, documents show that later in May Rusakov was awarded the highest decoration of the Soviet Union, Order of Lenin. But the only fact I could find about his subsequent fate is that he passed away in 1951 at the age of 42.

So the scene at the ferry-boat crossing is probably a ‘reenactment’ of the meeting, which happened on 25 April, an hour after the initial meeting at the pontoon bridge.

Americans on the raft (from left to right) are Bob Haag, Ed Ruff, Carl Robinson and Byron Shiver. This photo appeared in the Komsomolskaya Pravda issue shown above.

Nurse Lyubov Kozinchenko gives flowers to paramedic Carl Robinson. Leftmost is the commander of the 6^th Rifle Company Lieutenant Goloborodko, rightmost is the chief of the division artillery headquarters Major Anatoliy Ivanov and next to him is the commander of the 175^th Guards Rifle Regiment Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Gordeyev.

The photo above shows also one of our heroes – „Numladze” – the rightmost standing, he looks exactly as on the ‘two soldiers’ photo. But the hero of the story about the Oath of Elbe is the American standing on jeep – Private Polowsky, native of Chicago.

The outburst of positive friendly rhetoric between the Western powers and Soviets quickly faded away. Few years later Mosfilm film studio was already shooting propaganda movie ‘Encounter at the Elbe’, which portrayed Americans as capitalist occupants of Germany in contrast to humanist Soviet troops. Victorious allies quickly became insidious enemies in the Cold War for decades.

But it seems that all these years for Polowsky the haunting image of killed children was a reminder of the Oath of Elbe – the promise to not let this happen again. Back at home he started a small American Veterans of Elbe Meeting / Veterans for Peace organization, keeping in touch with fellow veterans including some of the ‘Russians’ he met at the end of the war. Polowsky was sending petitions and open letters to world leaders, urging them to stop spreading of nuclear weapons and was campaigning for recognition of the Elbe Day as the day of peace and remembrance of all innocent victims of war. It seems that he succeeded in making his voice heard as the minutes of the UN General Assembly 197^th Plenary Meeting, dated 25 April 1949, include the following statement by the President of the General Assembly:

The PRESIDENT announced that the following draft resolution had been presented by the delegations of Lebanon, the Philippines and Costa Rica:
“The General Assembly,
Recalling that on 25 April 1945 the representatives of fifty nations met together at San Francisco to establish the United Nations in a spirit of understanding and dedication to peace;
Recalling that on 25 April 1945 the soldiers of the Allied armies of the East and of the West joined together at the River Elbe in a spirit of common victory and devotion to peace;
Recommends that on 25 April and each year thereafter on this date the States Members of the United Nations commemorate with appropriate ceremonies the anniversary of that significant day in world history.”
The Assembly would not be able to examine that draft resolution during its third session, but the President had felt that he should inform the delegations of the matter.

A small footnote to this note reads “No official document issued.” It is evident from the rest of the minutes that the General Assembly was captured rather by political ‘exchange of fire’ between the West and the Soviets. Later that year Germany was divided, as the western occupation zones were merged under the Federal Republic of Germany on 23 May and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic on 7 October. A year later, in 1950 a war broke out in divided Korea, brining the USSR and the US to an indirect military confrontation.

Soviet posters from 1945 “…Red Army together with the armies of our allies will break the backbone of the fascist beast (I. Stalin)” (left) and 1947 “Don’t Fool Around!” (right).
Source: Yandex photo album by user Unter Sergeant.

In the heat of anti-soviet propaganda Polowsky continued sending his open letters calling to “Renew the Oath at the Elbe”. He reportedly wrote down the formal version of the Oath in 1947, but I could not find its text in the Internet. One could ask if the oath was actually written on paper and signed. Short news from Associated Press, dated 22 April 1950 and entitled ‘Veteran Tears up the Elbe Peace Oath’, suggests that it was. The news quotes Polowsky’s companion in arms Ed Ruff saying “It’s not worth the paper it’s written on anymore… Instead of living up to that oath, the Russians have done everything to provoke another war”. It was probably at that time when Polowsky was prosecuted for ‘un-American activities’.

On the tenth anniversary of the Meeting at the Elbe the Americans sent an invitation to their fellow veterans from the USSR, but the ‘Russian’s declined it, some say because they were asked for fingerprints to get the US visas. Instead an official invitation came from the Soviets to visit Moscow on 9 May 1955 for the Victory Day celebrations. It seems that this was considered as a good occasion for normalizing relations between the two countries.

Elbe veterans visit Soviet Ambassador. Soviet Ambassador Georgi Zarubin, left, shakes hands with Murray Schulman of Queens Village, N.Y. as a group of U.S. Army veterans who participated in the Elbe River link-up with Russian troops 10 years ago call on him. April 25, 1955 the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Left to right are: Edwin Jeary, Robert Haag, Byron Shiver, John Adams, Charles Forrester, Zarubin, William Weisel, Yuri Gouk, Soviet second secretary, Elijah Sams, Schulman, Robert Legal, Fred Johnston and Claude Moore (AP Photo/John Rous). Source: AP Images.

A group of some ten American veterans, including Polowsky and Shiver, got together in New York on 3 May. They have got their visas, but were short on funds for return flights to Paris, where Soviets were planning to meet them and bring to Moscow. To raise the required money Polowsky appealed to media, but without any response the group decided to break up and go home the next day. A telephone call close to midnight changed the situation – they were invited to a CBS television charity show “Strike It Rich”. Polowsky said that “they intended to represent the American point of view and be a credit to President Eisenhower and the American people”. The viewers from many states called the show to support the veterans. Eventually the sponsor of the show offered to underwrite $5,580 veterans needed and they started their journey on 6 May.

They arrived in Moscow late in night on 9 May. The following days they met the Soviet veterans, toured places of interest in Moscow, visited a kolkhoz farm, and had few official banquets in the US Embassy and the Central House of the Soviet Army. Interestingly, as a decade ago Ustinov was there with his camera and at the end of the visit he presented each of the veterans an album with photos from 1945 and 1955.

Shiver shows himself on the photo from 1945. Silvashko is the second from the right.

The Soviet and American veterans pose in front of the Central House of the Soviet Army.

Americans take a ride in the Moscow metro.

Polowsky (third from right) and Golobordko (first from right) toast at a banquet. The leftmost is probably Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky.

Three years later, in 1958, five Soviet veterans, led by writer Boris Polevoy (1908-1981), who was a frontline reporter of ‘Pravda’ during the war, were on a reciprocal visit in the US, touring New York and Washington. Polowsky and his friends had to borrow money for entertaining their guests. Without official support from the US government this visit went unnoticed for public. With one exception: The Soviet veterans were invited to a baseball match at the Griffith Stadium between the Washington Senators and the New York Yankees. When the commentator announced that there are World War Two veterans in the stadium, more than 10,000 spectators applauded as the guests were brought to home plate to meet slugger Mickey Mantle.

Another reciprocal visit followed next year, and there were few reunions in 1970s.

For a decade, every 25 April, loyal to his oath, a Chicago taxi driver Joseph Polowsky held a personal vigil to commemorate the Elbe Day. On Michigan Avenue Bridge he would tell passer-byes the story of friendship at the Elbe River, call for stopping spread of nuclear weapons and for peace in the world. Polowsky’s last vigil was in 1983, he died of cancer in October that year. Knowing that he is terminally ill Polowsky made all arrangements for his last will – to be buried at the Elbe River in Torgau, East Germany. All permissions were granted and Polowsky’s funeral once again brought together Yanks and Reds at the Elbe in November 1983.

Visiting Polowsky’s grave became an important part of the annual Elbe Day celebrations in Torgau. He became a symbol of loyalty to the Oath of the Elbe, to the spirit of friendship. An American activist and songwriter Fred Small dedicated the song ‘At the Elbe’ from his 1988 album ‘I Will Stand Fast’ to Polowsky. I also came across an award-winning 1986 documentary ‘Joe Polowsky – An American Dreamer’ by West German director Wolfgang Pfeiffer. Unfortunately, I could not watch the film online, but the film still used for information page the image of two soldiers, my story started with.


On the photo above Sylvashko pays tribute to the memory of his companion in arms. Probably the last Soviet survivor of those historical events, he passed away in 2010, at the age of 87. The American, shaking hands with Sylvashko on the famous photo – Robertson passed away back in 1999. All people, who took the Oath of the Elbe 69 years ago are no more. But the Cold War is still raging over the planet, spreading around the hot zones of many regional conflicts.

Other interesting links

“Встреча на Эльбе” (Encounter at the Elbe) – the 1949 Soviet propaganda movie in Russian that depicts the link up at the Elbe and subsequent division of Germany to occupation zones: https://video.yandex.ru/users/cuvschinov-a/view/2478/

A 1980s interview with Joe Polowsky by American prize-winning author and radio personality Studs Terkel: http://studsterkel.org/results.php?summary=Polowsky Part 1 and Part 2.

“Встреча на Эльбе” (Meeting at the Elbe) – this 1990 documentary in Russian features the 45^th anniversary celebrations of the link up in Germany: http://net-film.ru/film-20264/

“Алтарь Победы: Встреча на Эльбе” (The Altar of the Victory: Meeting at the Elbe) – this 2009 documentary in Russian from NTV series interestingly follows the criticism line of the movie released 60 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB4Rj3EoIhI

“Встречи” (Meetings) – this 2011 documentary in Russian is about Igor Belousovitch, born in Shanghai son of Russian emigrants, who was part of the Craig’s patrol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQDcJG-ms2o