Books
MAGNETIC MOUNTAIN

Stephen Kotkin

Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization 

In May of this year we where traveling to the Ural area and on this occasion we where also visiting the city of Magnitogorsk. Founded in 1929 as a „utopian project“ the city was built complete from scratch around a mountain of iron ore. This book is telling about the Komsomolsk (member of the communist youth movement) which went there to built out of nothing not only the steel work (actually still the world largest Iron- and Steelwork) but a complete city (which has now a population of about 450.000). And it is showing the other side of stalinism too: Forced labour (Magnitogorsk was also part of the gulag system), the purge of 1937/38, all the mismanagement and utopian dreams which never came true. If you want to learn more about this time, about the utopian visions of the UdSSR, about hardship and idealism this book is really worth reading...

Synopsis from Amazon

Stephen Kotkin was the first American in 45 years to be allowed into Magnitogorsk, a city built in response to Stalin's decision to transform the predominantly agricultural nation into a "country of metal". With unique access to previously untapped archives and interviews, Kotkin forges a vivid and compelling account of the impact of industrialization on a single urban community. Kotkin argues that Stalinism offered itself as an opportunity for enlightenment. The utopia it proffered, socialism, would be a new civilization based on the repudiation of capitalism. The extent to which the citizenry participated in this scheme and the relationship of the state's ambitions to the dreams of ordinary people form the substance of this story. Kotkin depicts a whole range of life: from the blast furnace workers who labored in the enormous iron and steel plant, to the families who struggled with the shortage of housing and services.

BORDERLINES [I]

We used the holidays of last week for a "short" trip to the Ural (with a distance of about 1,900 km between Moscow and Yekaterinburg "short" is relative…)…

The borderline between Europe and Asia at the River Ural near Magnetogorsk

During our trip we crossed for many times the borderline between Europe and Asia. We visited beautiful places and locations which are more close to a vision of apocalypse. We went to many different towns, one of them more then 4,000 years old, another one founded just 80 years ago. And we got many impressions of this part of Russia, which lays on the borderline between two continents.

This is the first part of our journey to the edge of Europe…

Day 1

After a drive of about 1,000 km we arrived in the evening at Kazan. Laying at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka River, Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan. 

The multi-ethnic city is famous for Muslims and Christians living side-by-side in peace.

The Kazan Kremlin is a World Heritage Site listed by the UNESCO

Day 2

Driving on in direction Ural we passed through typical forrests, colourful villages and agricultural regions with former kolkhozes.

The Ural Mountains - not very high but anyway full of impressive nature.

We spent the night in a former Sovjet Sanatorium which is now a hotel but nevertheless has kept a lot of the "charm" of its former function. 

Day 3

While around Moscow it is already spring with green trees and flowers everywhere, here in the Ural there was still a lot of ice and snow around.

On the way to Karabasch. The Nature seems to be in best order...

Our target for this day was Karabasch, a mining town in the Chelyabinsk Oblast. Karabsch is concidered to be on of the most polluted regions in the world. A copper smelting plant is situated in the town, and its toxic waste has created extremly large amounts of pollution and serious health problems for the inhabitants. The averager lifespan of a male inhabitant is 42 years... 

More about Karabasch and the rest of our journey to come soon.