Robert Conquest Archives - Euromaidan Press

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Magadan Hills, a painting by Mykola Hetman, a former GULAG prisoner, born December 23, 1917 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Background of the picture: In 1932, members of a Soviet geological expedition discovered gold at the mouth of the Utinny River in Siberia. A GULAG settlement was built between the villages of Balaganny and Ola, the hills there destroyed, piers built, and the settlement named Magadan after a nearby stream. Forced laborers were brought in to build roads from Magadan to the gold. Building the roads was incredibly harsh labor in the permafrost. The prisoners were poorly fed and worked for long hours under fierce conditions with rudimentary tools. The sentiment expressed here is that the roads were built on human bones—that every hill, every gully, and every path in Magadan represents human lives and could be the site of a human grave. The sun is eclipsed to symbolize the darkness and evil that cast its shadow over the people of the Soviet Union. The cross represents the enormous burdens the prisoners had to bear. It also symbolizes Christ's trek up the hill of Golgotha, which the artist likens to the prisoners' journey. (Source: thegulag.org)

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