Something Soviet-esque

I was looking through my pics the other day and realized I never posted the photos I have of some very, very Soviet-esque monuments. So here you are. (It’s weird to be looking at these pictures of sun and short sleeves when everything around here is now covered in snow!)

Park Panfilovna, or more fully, 28 Panfilov Heroes Memorial Park was named for the division of the Kazakhstan Army fighting against the Nazis in WWII. The park is huge, and sports a very, very old Orthodox Church on the other side of it. Yes, the juxtaposition of a place of worship and a communist monument seem strange. But under communism, the church was turned into a museum. (More on the church below.)





Here’s a shot of the eternal flame. It lists how many Kazakhis died in the “Great Patriotic War for the Motherland,” or Great Patriotic War as WWII is more commonly referred to in former Soviet countries. Dude, they lost 16 million people during the war. Nearly all men born between the years xx and xx (sorry, I forgot the years) died. The Soviets took the biggest hit, casualty-wise, out of all countries engaged in the war. I think that gives them the right to call it whatever they want. (Read about the blockade in St. Petersburg…I watched a documentary about it and it was enough to make you want to renounce being human.)

Here’s another. I see this style of monuments as the Soviet style: Massive, in-your-face, and slightly scary. (I remember a similar monument to freedom fighters, including Goce Delchev, in a park in Skopje and feeling awed and slightly afraid of it as a child.) As Steve said as we were looking at it: There’s nothing subtle about the message that they were imparting upon you. Nor was the style subtle.

I don’t know. Maybe if you grow up being around monuments, parks, and buildings like this, you find it normal and not slightly disconcerting. So perhaps my Americanness has something to do with my interpretation of such Soviet-esque places and things. But sometimes I feel myself sagging under the weight of their enormousness, their heaviness, their hammering me over the head with their emphasis.

Now onto the shiny, happy, yellow church. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Once upon a time, the city of Almaty was called “Verniy,” which translates into “faithful.” This was back when the Kazakhs asked the Russian empire for protection from some warring invaders (I think some tribe living in China). The tzar dispatched several divisions, who built a fort around the city of Almaty. Then this church was built in 1870, and the name of the city was changed from it’s Kazakh name to the Russian “Verniy.” By the by, Almaty in Kazakh means “father of apples.” And yup, scientists have traced the apple back to this place. (Too bad people have razed ancient trees to build McMansions, but that’s another story….)

Almaty is earthquake prone, and so the engineer building the church took that into consideration. In addition to not using one nail while building it (it’s all wooden pegs), he built the beams with some “play” in it so that it can move when the earth move. When this big earthquake hit in 1887, the story goes, all of the buildings in Verniy started crumbling to the ground, except for the church. So all of the townspeople flocked to the church for physical (as well as spiritual, I’m sure) security after the earthquake. Which just reinforced the notion of a faithful people, thus reinforcing the name of the city.

The church is as lovely on the inside, a typical Orthodox church. On the back wall before you exit the church there are a number of frescoes on the walls, depicting burning in hell and such. A not-so-subtle reminder not to sin as you’re heading on your way out…