Spuren im Schlamm – Das Ende des Bäuerlichen Lebens in Russland

Within the six years of forced collectivisation between 1929 and 1935, 30 million farmers were branded as “koulak”. Several millions of them died in deportation. After Stalin’s death, they massively fled Kolkhozes. This phenomenon is still going on today and thousands of villages are only heaps of ruins. Polykino, some 200 kilometers north of Moscow, is one of those villages. In 1970 there were still 160 inhabitants, a school, a cinema hall, a library, and a shop. Now there are only four old women left. Their children left for town a long time ago. Those four women manage to survive in this Godforsaken place thanks to a cow and a few hens. The closest shop is a few hours’ walk away, through muddy paths. When it rains heavily, only a tractor can cross those muddy tracts of land. “What shall I remember ? There were, perhaps, a few happy days. The past was not always bleak. But when ? I can’t remember… Time has fled. Maybe the past was happy, maybe not.”