Last marasm of Stalin: Pivan tunnel on Amur.

[russian pavel]

              Unknown Russia Pavel Popelsky: Last marasm of Stalin. Amur River, Stalin tunnel Pivan village.

               The fourth time I go there, of this amazing village in front of Komsomolsk - on - Amur. The first three trips were on the trail of my student memories associated with pivan tunnel and its transformation in 2012. August 2014 I went not only to the tunnel for which the firefighters gave a huge spotlight. I wanted to find the mysterious tunnel buildings around the village, barely mentioned in the press and on the web. This is my investigation - almost the first full review of the lost artifacts Pivani in the open press.

              On the morning of the Amur fell mist filling in a tunnel, and the ravine in front of him. You will not believe, but I reached there. Standing in the mist clubs in the light flashing from moisture spotlight over the 74 - year old trolley rails and under the arch of the same-old, and water dripping from the top - the most mystical feeling of my life. It would come back in the afternoon, but there was a problem: two backpacks and a change of clothes had to leave somebody.

              Returning along the main street, I was literally at random knocked at the gate house of the coastal part of the village. I explained and said that published in the newspaper. The young owner of the house brightened, agreed to put me on the day. And when led to his house, said that it is the last ... House - Gulag office in the Far East! Control - checkpoint, communicating to the prisoners on the territory of pivanskogo camp. Gable roof and hallway were fastened to it later. The walls of adobe, mud, sometimes with bare shingles criss - cross. So really we built camp facilities in Komsomolsk.

              While around the fog, the tunnel is not coming, I climb onto the roof. Gable roof fastened, - beneath the ceiling of the house passes a steel beam, fastened up brackets and screws. From there, continue to top the stove outlet pipe. I've never seen anything, but there Magadan camp adobe house with a gable roof.

               Stupor from such a strange design, enter into this very old house. And immediately I understand: there was not room for housing. It is divided into sectors by partitions ribbed style 1930 - 40 years, both - would be designed for glass, for service purposes. Furniture - wardrobe, chest - early 50's. In the middle of the oven rises, like riding a pagoda, and again I thought of Japanese prisoners of war. Below two flaps furnace. On top of the factory stamp 40s. But at the bottom - a five-pointed star, the two ends of the inverted top! The symbol of Satan, Baphomet, a symbolically appropriate that place! The owner himself first drew attention to it, supposing that the prisoners accident at a laying of the furnace turned flap. And, perhaps, not by accident.

               But I do not exactly by chance in the corner hung an old icon, behind which could be seen in the spirit of the inscription "Abandon all hope ye who enter here!" It was written, it seems, later tenants, here I will dwell in the 50th and transmits hospitable house my companion.

                Of course, he did not like the neighborhood with such a situation, and in November 2014 he wanted to demolish this house. So if there is still the last bastion of the Gulag in the KhabarovskTerritory, and was only my photo and video shooting, I do not know. The discovery, of course, sensational. And while I was in the house, the host asked me a small flashlight and decided to look into the cellar, standing over him pushing a half-century chest. There was nothing but a paper confirming affiliation GULAG house, the guy gave deposited in Komsomolsk.

                Outside, the fog lifted, and by charging a spotlight and camera, I went to the tunnel, intending to go to him not from the top, through the tunnel outside, but from the bottom, straight through the ravine, the former track. Sleepers its partition off - for the life of the villagers are afraid diggers. Crash fear - not to go into the tunnel, came because ...

                Coming within 30 meters, but now, no fog, a searchlight fireman, I estimated its size. The width of the tunnel eight meters, height - almost ten. Through him, I may have to go to a locomotive with a pipe, and dragged along the rails only trolley. Login sat half sealed a huge pile - cap, who introduced me astray in 2011.
                That's because - of these - the size of the spotlight scattered, and it was difficult to make good pictures. fed conditions. Generally, a good shot of the tunnel is only possible with the proper equipment, and Khabarovsk expedition, exhibit photos on the web, generously paid for by sponsors.
                From - the dam cork peep rusty rails to redness forties. Further to their place decayed from moisture ties. Lying fastening rails crutches and braces. Their sleepers with pieces I brought back to his home. On the rails stigma "Stalin" no.
                Semi-oval arch tunnel lined with concrete, which is poured over the top of the pipe sticking out everywhere, adopted me in 2011 for ventilation. Anecdote is that the concrete lining at the base of the wall made of ... sawn tree trunks! Sticking still black, rotten planks propped up a huge arch tunnel bottom, look out from the walls, attacking concrete. So I'm not surprised to see on the huge collapse of the ceiling of the second bunch of obstructing the tunnel. You can only climb over meter crevice on the side, but in my case it was dangerous. Before rubble lying on its side lone rusty trolley without wheels - and these were taken here on the tracks. At the bottom of the wall I discover niche - supporting the arch of the tunnel.
               Coming back and having passed the gully - track, I suggested that she should go to the hill opposite the village. I went down the road from the ravine to the creek, leading to the rickety fence and on to the pond. And I see - standing on a creek in the thickets of trees arch high, semi-oval, like a tunnel. Whether concrete, whether made, concrete bonded stone blocks. Faceted tiles laid out inside, or the surface is such blocks. Outside overgrown with moss, vines through the cracks. Mound on it was to take place for the rails, and the tunnel of the ravine, for steam locomotives! A stream flowed to the arch. The tunnel was closed during the war, the mound did not, there was one Running Water Arch. Her first photo in the press, I give you.

               Meters for eight arch over the stream in the bush stick rotten boards, too, like the tie or the basis that - something else. It should be studied as the forest it's not hidden.
               I returned to the "Gulag office", drank tea with the owner and went to the shore, in the direction of the pier. In the former quarry cliffs towering four towers - foundation stone crushers 40s. Above them, someone - the cubic foundation. Past the towers rising from the bottom upward path leading to private homes. Behind the fence of the second of them in the garden, it is a concrete ring structure. Residents say they like the restaurant residue which serves passengers rail ferry, transporting to 1975 trains Pivan. Or something the water, and then - the foundation of the monument to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, stood until 1956 either on a rock, or under a rock.
             I passed with the owners up to the ridge of rock and saw the old - old fence with 40s standing. A short distance away - the rest of the geodesic sign on a cliff.
             But I wanted to descend back down, I pivantsy conducted to stone crusher and shown on the opposite hill villages. Look: there among the houses which dominates - the column. And the villagers to me: "This is not a column, it is a cypress or Lombardy poplar. The only such in the Khabarovsk region and one of the few in the region. If you are not afraid of packs of dogs, running around without a leash, go to him and show to all the people. " As far as I know, Lombardy poplars are growing, and it is very rare, in Vladivostok. Where did it here, locals do not know.

               A flock of dogs was barely fought back and forth. Yard hardly went to the road, bristling at the closed gates of the old cemetery. To the left of the road between the residential buildings is an abandoned site. Who was the owner - no one remembers, we moved out a long time.
               Fence dismantled. Neighbors said that there can be passed. Old, dried vegetable beds. Until now blooming lily in outhouse. And over the outhouse and abandoned the beds rises fifteen meter Lombardy poplar. Not cypress. In tightly closed silver branches rustling emerald, similar to hearts, foliage. Two overgrown - kids under the poplars. Why is it next to the old cemetery? House of my elderly relatives looked on its branches and gasped: poplar - then 70 years old he is! So they put him simultaneously with the tunnel construction site. With the camp. Do Lombardy poplar - the only living contemporary of the Gulag, the nearly century-old guardian of his fantastic ..!
               But this seems to be an amazing miracle, it was not the result of my expedition.

               Going down from the poplars to the bus stop, I was talking with a local grandfather. On the contrary we have a pond - the garden in the barbed wire. Part of the Gulag, although the wire later. Grandpa says. "Office", where I was staying, not one, houses still have a couple of times since then (if they, too, are not torn down). Gardener's Association grew after the war around the tunnel - then the camp houses used for housing. Where - that the port is a mysterious cube. And, bypassing the marina right in the bottom of the cliff stands a pedestal, lined with tiles of the same faceted as the Running Water Arch near a stream. Top of the pedestal are two beautiful stairs - parapets. This grandfather remembers that on the pedestal to the 60s was a stone ... Globe, Earth model (poplar "resting")! And they are with friends the globe slip into the Amur, where he lay on the shore so far!
               But there is another version. Native 80-year-old resident of Komsomolsk assures me that stood on the podium is the largest on-Amur ... a monument to Stalin! Interestingly, his two second independence of old the inhabitants of Komsomolsk-on "Debri.DV". So which one is the monument to Joseph Stalin: Based on the round top or the bottom of the crusher rock?
               Yes, step pedestal is really strange in a special recess, a niche in the rock. And in place of that towered on it for a long time already on the edge of the red-brick former public toilet ... also abandoned!
               That's how life is ordered. Pivan - continuous manual moral laws of history. Visual Truth: do not do it, kids! Otherwise it will suite, office destroyed and sadly silent guardian nepostroennymu idiocy.
               However Pivan Pivanyu would not be, if not spectacularly good-bye to me.
               Sail on the ship "Om" at six o'clock in the evening, I saw the tunnel on the shore in all its glory. Like so much in my article, this image first published in the press.
                Between the two high cliffs above the beach in a recess of the rock - stage, a man-made terrace. Left - formed by blasting stone "chrysanthemum", they gravelly mound. On the right - the same mound, a path leading to the gaping black hole of the tunnel. On the terrace - growing stage relic microbiota, succulents. And because of this terrace - the second held to her side, and filled the tunnel section. That is, the two branches. On a cliff above the terrace and the tunnel - a memorial cross. I think it once and hammered on the methods of that era. For more visual symbol of her senility can imagine! ..

Pavel Peter Popelsky (Popelskii). Photo by the author.

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