Memorials to the Unmemorialized

Shirokorechinskaya Graveyard, just a couple of kilometers from the city center, is curious in that it is devoted to (a)gadflies silenced by Jozef Stalin's purges and (b) casualties in the 1990s Mafioso wars. The postmodern detail seen on each of these tombstones is amazing and eerie, with some of them lithographically posed in James Dean, Bing Crosby or Elvis Presley style. One memorial even potrayed a giant hand dangling an absurdly garguantuan set of BMW keys. Truly unique, though I felt that I may be two seconds from taking a bullet myself for snapping photos with all the thick-necked, sunglassed flatheads shuffling about.


The second notable sight today was a breathtaking memorial here in Ekaterinburg to soldiers killed in Afghanistan, often referred to as Russia's Vietnam. In a country obsessed with the military, especially in its art, the tragic figure shown, his sadness, is simply rare. Perhaps the most human war memorial I've seen, perhaps surpassing our own Vietnam Memorial in its gut-wrenching power. In the back, out of view, is an ancillary memorial to soldiers killed in Chechnya. I watched in awe as two workers prepared to install a new slate of casualty names, a fresh reminder that Russia itself is in the throes of internal conflict and terrorism.