Originally known as the “golden belt,” connecting the western and eastern Siberian railway lines, the Circumbaikal railway navigate through tough terrain. It was blasted and chiseled from the solid rock of Lake Baikal’s southern cliffs in the early 20th century. With the cliffs towering above the water by 270-400m, the railway was certainly a physically demanding plan. In some areas, the railway is only 5m from the water. Every kilometer of work required about a wagon’s worth of explosives. In 1901 to 1902, about nine thousand workers were employed. In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War increased the acceleration of work and the number of workers by 50%. Most workers were detainees and hard laborers from a nearby prison. At the end of October in 1905, the railway was completed. Some peopled earned their freedom, while others simply had time deducted from their sentence.
Today, half the line remains with 59 tunnels and 24 bridges between Slyudyanka and Port Baikal, a distance of 89km. Every tunnel, gallery, and bridge was handmade using the stone of the lake’s cliffs. It was a remarkable endeavor that claimed many lives. It is known as an outdoor museum and a memorial.
All along the way, there were ruins of stations from days gone by, abandoned tunnels and galleries from altering the line, and tiny villages, where men and women sold old soviet souvenirs, fresh fish, and, in one town, an old woman sold homemade soup and pelmeni. Yellow larches speckled the terrain of pine—known here as cedar, contrasting the splendid white towers of birch and aspen. I never stopped thinking about the hands of the workers, the lives that they lived, the work that they did. There was a presence to that tracks they laid. I felt as if I could hear the echo of their mallets beating down the stakes, hear the chisel of metal on stone, and feel the vibration of all that work in my own hands.
I see boats moving on the sea, their sails bring me a vague inner desire to be who I was. So all recalls my home self and because it recalls that, what I am aches in me.
-Fernando Pessoa-
Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wondrous, beautiful distance I see you: it is poor, scattered, and comfortless in you; not gladdened, not frightened will one's gaze be at bold wonders of nature, crowned by bold wonders of art, cities with high, many-windowed palaces grown into the cliffs, picturesque trees and ivy grown into the houses, with the noise and eternal mist of waterfalls; the head will not be thrown back to look at great boulders heaped up endlessly above it and into the heights; through dark arches cast one upon the other, all entangled with vines and ivy and countless millions of wild roses, there will come no flash of the distant, eternal lines of shining mountains, soaring up into the bright silver heavens. In you all is openly deserted and level; like dots, like specks, your low towns stick up inconspicuously amidst the plains; there is nothing to seduce or enchant the eye. But what inconceivable, mysterious force draws one to you? Why do the ears hear and ring increasingly with your melancholy song, coursing through the whole length and breadth of you from sea to sea? What is in it, in this song? What calls, and weeps, and grips the heart? What sounds so painfully caress and stream into the soul, and twine about my heart? Rus! what is it that you want of me? what inconceivable bond lies hidden between us? Why do you gaze so, and why is everything in you turned towards me with eyes full of expectation?...And still, all in perplexity, I stand motionless, but my head is already overshadowed by a menacing cloud, heavy with coming rains, and thought stands numb before your vastness. What prophecy is in this uncompassable expanse? Is it not here, in you, that the boundless thought is to be born, since you yourself are without end? Is it not here that the mighty man is to be, where there is room for him to show himself and walk about? And menacingly the mighty vastness envelops me, reflected with terrible force in my depths; my eyes are lit up by an unnatural power: ohh! what a shining, wondrous yonder, unknown to the world! Rus!...
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol Dead Souls
It is difficult for us to carry ourselves back to the days of the early nineteenth century to picture the life of the Russian landowning nobility that produced Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy. There can be no doubt that the life of men of that class disposed them to creativeness. They spent unhurried days, traveled by carriage, had time to think, to read; they produced children and trained them in accepted traditions of chivalry, courage, love of their country; they studied languages, believed in the stability of the state, in their own incontrovertible right of dominion over the peasants; they observed holidays, attended church services; when they were ill they rarely had doctors to attend them, they died quietly, resigned to God's will.
They had everything for their needs on their estates. There were cows, sheep, hogs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, heavy sweet cream, fresh butter, rich breads--a full measure of good things. Dogs and horses played a large part in the lives of these landed proprietors. They took pride in their high-spirited mounts and hounds, made a show of smart turnouts and expert coachmen. No one fussed because of the slowness of getting about, because of snowdrifts, blizzards, lack of bathrooms, remoteness from civilization. They knew no other life.
Alexandra Tolstoy
A Life of My Father
What is it? am I falling? are my legs giving way under me?" he thought, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the fight between the French and the artillerists ended, and wishing to know whether or not the red-haired artillerist had been killed, whether the cannon had been taken or saved. But he did not see anything. There was nothing over him now except the sky-the lofty sky, not clear, but still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds slowly creeping across it. "How quiet, calm, and solemn, not at all like when I was running," thought Prince Andrei, "not like when we were running, shouting, and fighting; not at all like when the Frenchman and the artillerist, with angry and frightened faces, were pulling at the swab-it's quite different the way the clouds creep across this lofty, infinite sky. How is it I haven't seen this lofty sky before? And how happy I am that I've finally come to know it. Yes! everything is empty, everything is a deception, except this infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing except that. But there is not even that, there is nothing except silence, tranquillity. And thank God! . . .
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
War and Peace
As everyone knows, our universe is located in the teapot of a certain Lui Dunbin who sells trinkets at the bazaar in Chanyan. The strange thing is, however, that Chanyan ceased to exist several centuries ago. For many ages already there has been no Lui Dunbin sitting in the bazaar, and long, long ago his teapot was melted down or squashed as flat as a pancake by the weight of the earth above it. In my opinion there is only one rational explanation which may be offered for this strange contradiction in terms--that the universe continues to exist, while its location has already perished: while Lui Dunbin was still dozing at his stall in the bazaar, in his teapot they were already excavating the ruins of ancient Chanyan, the grass was growing thick above his grave and people were launching rockets into space, winning and losing wars, building telescopes and tank factories...
Tai Shou Chuan USSR ( A Chinese Folk Tale)
Victor Pelevin
But the greatest transformation that Sasha sensed was in his own awareness of himself. This was something very difficult to express in human language, and he began barking, whining, and howling to himself in the same way that he used to think in words. The change in his self-awareness had affected the meaning of life, and he realized that people could talk about it, but they couldn't feel the meaning of life in the same way as they felt the wind or the cold. But now Sasha was able to feel it, he felt the meaning of life continuously and clearly as an external quality of the world itself, and that was the greatest charm of his present condition. No sooner did he realize this than he also realized that he was not likely ever to return to his former existence of his own free will--life without this feeling seemed like a long, tormenting dream, dim and incomprehensible.
A Werewolf Problem in Central Asia
Victor Pelevin
Clickety-clack: wheels on rails, we travelled slowly through the day at a slow pace, gazing out over the lake again and again. We stopped frequently and smelled the crisp air, fishy and lightly strewn with burning wood. Small waves lap the shore and then there is the wind, but other than that, the moments were still and quiet. Take me back again and again, Memory.
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