European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 7, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Opening the gulag tourists in Magadan mingle with the ghosts of gulag victims the people of Magadan live with the constant reminders of a grim past the deaths of 3 million countrymen by Julia Rubin the associated press Andrei Gorbachev went through the history museums new exhibit in Magadan slowly examining yellowed newspapers Rolls of rusted barbed wire and wooden stakes that once marked the Graves of people identified Only As d-14, g-25 Orv-14. The 22-year-old wanted to learn about his Grandfather one of millions imprisoned in the stalinist slave labor Camps that scarred the permafrost around this soviet far East City. Magadan was Gateway to the Frozen Kolyma Gold Fields where an estimated 3 million people died. It was the deadliest District in the soviet gulag Crea de in the 1930s by dictator Joseph Stalin the City itself founded in 1939, was built by soviet slave labourers joined later by japanese prisoners of War its very name became a synonym for terror Quot we needed this earlier Quot Gorbachev said sadly of the year old exhibit. The display did t go far enough in exposing the causes of the Camps he said but what it did show Shook him. Quot it hits hard Quot he said Quot its set up nicely but what s in it is agonizing Quot closed to visitors for decades Magadan now is struggling to come to terms with its past for itself and for the foreign tourists who began arriving this summer. Alaska airlines began regular service Between Anchorage Magadan and Khabarovsk in june and business and cultural ties Between Magadan and Alaska Are growing. The airline is pitching its soviet Tours As adventurous add on to Alaska cruise vacations. Tourists Are taken to former Camps and execution grounds by guides Reading passages from survivors memoirs Magadan is full of victims and relatives of witnesses and reminders Only recently residents say did they feel Safe talking openly about the Camps. Some Are trying to discover what happened in some of the prison buildings they pass daily but they also worry about adding to the Hurt and shame that hang Over Magadan. Quot it s like a very sick person and you re picking at the wounds All the time Quot said Larisa Kozlovskaya of the local government tourism Agency Quot i was t against discussing the gulag we want to work More and More on that Issue but i was against showing the actual  Gorbachev wishes More soviets were willing to contemplate Magadan s history Quot it s very difficult for people to come to this exhibit tie said Quot some people never dreamed something like this would exist. But people live too fast. They have no time to think about this a to imagine what  Page 14 the stars and stripes we did indeed seem to have reached the Back of beyond yet we kept on travelling or rather being transported in open trucks packed together and stiff with cold like sheep to the Slaughter. Nor was there any end to the icy wastes or the sugar loaf Hilts that hemmed us  a Yevgenia Ginzburg journey into the whirlwind a the hour Long Road North from Magadan to its Airport winds through Gray mountains carpeted with the thick Forest known As taiga. It is the beginning of the Kolyma Highway which locals say was built on human Bones a those of prisoners who died Clearing the Road to the Kolyma Camps prisoners arrived in Magadan by boat from railway Points to the South sometimes As Many As 12,000 people packed in the holds. Occasionally the ships got stuck in the ice. The Numan cargo perishing from starvation and cold. Just How Many were sent to the Kolyma gulag during the Talin years has never been determined but it is estimated the permanent prison population was 500 000, constantly being replenished. Even in summer Magadan s port on the sea of okhotsk is often shrouded in a Chilly fog. Prisoners were sent on to any of dozens of work Camps As far North As the Arctic Ocean. Many of those who died in the mines of Kolyma where they could not survive for Long produced Gold for the state Only in the form of their own Teeth which were knocked out Ter they died Quot wrote Var Lam Shalamov who survived 17 years in Kolyma and became its chronicler. Ragged prisoners worked 16-hour Days on starvation rations in temperatures that frequently fell to 70 degrees below Zero disease swept the Camps. Mass Graves were dug in the permafrost. At one intersection Aton Doday s Road is a Small Clearing that Volunteer tour guide Zinaida Orekhova identified As a former execution site it was one of a few such Sites she pointed out around the City. She also noted an Airstrip along the Highway where american lend lease planes landed from across the Bering Strait during world War it. According to some prisoners accounts american bulldozers were used to help dig mass Graves in Kolyma Orekhova apologized for Magadan s crumbling roads and houses its temperatures in the 40s and 50s even in june it is a place she said Quot where you la see How evil spirits and Good spirits struggle with each  said another guide Quot of course Magadan is not the land of milk and Honey. Its not the Best City in the world. But you must remember it was built on violence despair and the crushed ideas of Many  a the local gulag big shots sat haughtily with their wives in the first rows and watched their slaves with curiosity and contempt. And the Convoy guards sat behind the scenes and in the boxes with their automatic pistols. After the performances those players who won applause were taken Back to Camp and those who had fallen on their faces. To punishment  a Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The gulag archipelago today Rich hardship salaries draw Young educated people to Magadan. Many Wear smart clothes from Anchorage Magadan s new sister City which they have visited on exchanges. But they fret Over a Lack of culture in town. Talented artists rarely stay in this outpost about 4,000 Miles from Moscow fifty some years ago however the Magadan theater was renowned for the leading actors writers and directors sent there As prisoners. The Camps swallowed up Many of the soviet Union s most prominent people a scientists artists military officers. Poet osip mandelstam and critic . Mirsky died on the Way to Kolyma. Rocket scientist . Korolev spent several years in Kolyma before he was transferred to a special Institute to do research still As a prisoner. Quot my Mother said the culture was very High a some prisoners taught my sister French Quot said Galina Lugovaya curator of the museum exhibit. Her parents moved to Magadan in 1956, drawn by the Promise of High paying jobs. Some prisoners who survived Kolyma sentences were forced to Settle in the area for the rest of their lives. Vadim Kozin a singing Star of the 1930s and �?T40s, continues to live in Magadan at 87 because he has said it is affordable he was sent there in 1942 for refusing to sing a song praising Stalin Kozin has said he admired the dictator so much he Felt unworthy of making such a tribute. Now soviet emigre sculptor Ernst Neizvestny has designed a towering memorial in Magadan to Stalin a victims. Slated for completion in about two years it is a collection of masks representing millions of nameless victims. A in Kolyma bodies Are not Given Over to the Earth but to Stone. Stone and the permafrost keep secrets and reveal them. All of our loved ones who died in Kolyma All those who were shot beaten to death sucked dry by starvation can still be recognized decades  a Shalamov Kolyma tales memory lives along Magadan s Busy sidewalks As Well As m its cold unmarked Graves Lenin Avenue in the heart of town is lined with faded five Story apartment buildings Vasily Kovalev approached an american visitor there to Point out buildings he helped put up As a prisoner prisoners began being released after Stalin s death in 1953. But the Camps remained in existence for Many years later. Kovalev now 61, arrived As a prisoner in 1950 he was jailed As an enemy of the people Quot for six years he said producing an old Mug shot and copies of prison documents. Quot i was building communism Quot he said with a Wink Quot at tirs voluntarily then  Anatoly Levy a Trade Union official also remembers watching Many of Magadan s buildings go up. He was 3 when his family moved to Magadan with the military they lived next to a prison full of japanese prisoner of War taken after the soviet Union s late entry into the War against Japan Quot the japanese would carve us children wonderful Little toys out of Wood Quot Levy said Quot they d give us the toys for  along a downtown thoroughfare stands a Monument to Reingold Berzin director of the Kolyma Camps until his arrest and execution in 1937, Camp conditions under Berzin were strict but not entirely inhumane prisoners received adequate food and clothing and could shorten their sentences by hard work. Such Quot coddling Quot of prisoners Berzin s prosecutors charged was part of a japanese plot to wrest the far East from the soviet Union. Under Berzin s successor . Pavlov Kolyma became a virtual death Camp. Quot it is difficult to know what to think about Berzin Quot a Magadan woman said recently As she stood before his Marble bust. Quot certainly things during his tenure were terrible but he had some respect for human  . Kolyma you Distant land where it s Winter Lor 12 months of the \ ear. And summer Tor All the rest1&Quot Magadan was built in 1939 by Watava labor. Folk song tourism Otti vials in Magadan Hope fishing Hunting and wilderness trips eventually will be the area s Mam draw Kozlovskaya said it was at Alaska airlines urging that former Camps have been included on Tours one Ait line advertisement pictured a Remote Camp and the announcement Quot this year 4.000 non conformists Wilt to sent to  that Camp still littered with human Bones actually is of limits to tourists because of radioactivity from mining american tourists in Magadan this summer said they simply wanted to go somewhere exotic. Quot the reaction of our friends was so strange Siberia what do you want to go there for and we said Why not it s part of the world Quot said Catherine big lord of Kent Wash. Quot this is new territory unspoiled and to believe people Are going to be really  Marilyn bar naga of Castleford Idaho said she saw Magadan mentioned in a brochure trom the cruise company Holland America. Quot i thought. Gee that sounds interesting. Well be one of the first to go there a Quot Many tourists had not realized Magadan was a Center of the Camps. Barinaga s verdict on leaving the City Quot the people were so Friendly but it was  on the outskirts of town is the abandoned Novara Vesyolaya new cheerful prison. After years of neglect its history is murky the floors of the Barracks style buildings now Are covered with junk a old clothes mattresses and pipes a and the sidewalks and roofs Are edged with barbed wire. But one building in the Complex has been repaired to House a budding Quot Enterprise Quot a Semi Independent business of the kind now sprouting up around the soviet Union Stanislav Zelent is chief artist of the action company which makes native style crafts out of fur scraps. He proudly describes How the company begun in april Hopes to sell the pieces to tourists and abroad it employs about 20 people Many of them Young women who sit at tables sewing scraps together. Zelent s concerns Are with the soviet Union s current profound economic and political changes it does t much Malberto him anymore what happened in this particular building Quot i Haven t paid much attention to that Quot he said. Quot we re interested More in what s going to  saturday september 7, 1991even when in use Novara Vesyolaya prison belled a name which Meane Quot new  stars and stripes Page 15