Artist Examines Former Soviet Union Family History

 

Pavel Otdelnov remembers that as a child he saw his mother heating water to clean his parents’ bedding every day.

His father worked in the factories of Dzerzhinsk, a Russian city about 400 kilometers east of Moscow. That city was the chemical manufacturing center of the former Soviet¹ Union.

The chemicals that made the bedding turn yellow passed through his father’s protective equipment and reached his skin.

“Dad was born in a workers’ camp and gave his entire life to chemical industries around Dzerzhinsk,” Otdelnov wrote.

His notes are part of “Promzona,” an exhibit at Moscow’s Museum of Modern Art. The new show has both his paintings of industrial ruins and objects from workers’ lives.

The artist’s large, architecturally correct paintings of ruined and collapsing² factories show what he calls “the ruins of a Soviet mythology⁴.”

Many of the chemical factories are now empty in a city filled with toxic⁵ waste. Yet, they once were an important part of Soviet history.

Otdelnov says the worker mythology never became a reality for all the people.

“People who worked in those factories understood a long time ago, in the 1970s, that the Soviet idea, communism, was a myth³ and would never be realized,” he said. “They understood that a long time before the collapse⁶ of the Soviet Union.”

Otdelnov’s paintings can be seen in the Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery and in the homes of private collectors.

Otdelnov was born in Dzerzhinsk and comes from several generations of chemical workers, starting with his great-grandfather. Just before World War II, his grandmother moved to the city from another village.

The Soviet Union started manufacturing chemical weapons in Dzerzhinsk in 1941. The artist’s grandmother was a factory worker who put together the bombs.

After the war, she met her husband in the same factory. He was responsible for plexiglass, the clear plastic it produced for military and civilian⁷ purposes.

Otdelnov’s father and aunt worked in the same factory after they finished school. Otdelnov’s cousin works in a Dzerzhinsk factory laboratory now.

It is not clear when the city’s factories stopped making chemicals designed to be weapons of war. Some people believe it may have been as late as 1965. Huge amounts of the deadly chemicals were stored away and kept in the city’s industrial area. Eventually, they were moved to other areas, where they were destroyed under an international chemical weapons ban in the 2000s.

Dzerzhinsk still has a chemical industry that makes products for military equipment, plastics and fertilizers. Many factories that worked for the military did not survive the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their toxic waste, however, remains⁸ buried in underground dumps.

Dzerzhinsk often is listed as one of the world’s most-polluted cities. The Ecology Committee of the lower house of Russia’s parliament put it among the 10 with the worst pollution in the country.

Last year, Pavel Otdelnov used a drone aircraft to record the industrial ruins from the air. A camera captured images of a huge multicolored lake of chemical waste, open to the sky, nearby.

The Museum of Modern Art exhibit includes a room with everyday objects like factory newsletters and safety films. Gas masks from the old chemical factories are on the floor of another room.

Heard through the show are the voices of the people of Dzerzhinsk. Their stories were recorded by Otdelnov’s father and written on the exhibition walls.

Otdelnov’s grandmother describes a 1960 factory explosion that killed 24 workers. Soviet officials never spoke⁹ about the deaths. The workers were buried in different parts of the city’s burial grounds to stop questions about why 24 factory workers died on the same day.

These personal stories often show the humor factory workers used in a toxic environment.

“Humor helped them…with their reality but they weren’t especially heroic. They just got used to it,” Otdelnov said.

On a cold February night, many people visiting the exhibit were young people. Anna Kiselyova, a 23-year-old teacher, said the show provides valuable political lessons for Russia’s younger generation, not just its factory workers.

“Our present government tells us this all happened such a long time ago,” she said. “It may seem like a very different world, but I don’t think it’s just a problem of the past, and we need to be aware of that.”

I'm Susan Shand.

Words in This Story

architecture – adj.of or related toarcheology, the art or science of designing and creating buildings

toxic – adj.poisonous

mythology – n.ideas that are believed by many people but that are not true

plexiglass – n.sheets of strong, clear plastic

drone – n.a small aircraft that flies without a human pilot

mask– n.a cover or partial cover worn over the face

multicolor– n.many colors

cousin – n.the child of a parent’s brother or sister

aunt– n.the sister of one’s mother or father; the wife of a parent’s brother or sister

1 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

2 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

3 myth   

n.神话，神话故事

参考例句：

• The story has points of resemblance to a Hebrew myth.这个故事与某个希伯来神话有相似之处。
• The story is a pure myth.这故事纯属虚构。

4 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

5 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

6 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

7 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。