’Murmansk commands my memory’

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 15

’Murmansk commands my memory’

By

VLADIMIR KYUCHARYANTS,

Novosti Press Agency

It is called the capital of the Arctic, because in the higher altitudes no other town is larger than Murmansk. The world’s biggest non-freezing port with a population of almost 400,000, Murmansk reclines along the shore of Kola Bay of the Barents Sea.

It is, also, the acknowledged “second city in the world" of the New Zealand poet, Denis Glover. Every year hundreds of ships from other countries call at 19 berths of its huge commercial port, which begins just in the centre of the city: . via Murmansk, .the Soviet Union does business with nearly 30 countries. The main role of the port, however, is to serve as a communication centre in the development of the

country’s extensive northern and eastern territories. It can well be called the “Gate of the Arctic,” because the northern sea route from the European U.S.S.R. to the shores of Siberia and the Far East begins here. Vladimir Kolotnev, captain of the port of Murmansk, says that it handles seven to nine million tons of cargo annually. As for the fleet, the steamship line founded 40 years ago runs nearly 80 transport, passenger, and ice-breaker ships, among which are such giants as the ice-breakers Sibir and Arktika. In world shipping Murmansk plays a significant part. Here is one example: the joint cargo lines Polarctic, operated by the Soviet Arctic line and the Polish

Ocean Lines, offers a year-round service, linking Soviet and Polish ports with those in Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, etc. If this is your first visit to Murmansk, you are sure to feel there is something lacking from the usual aspect of a city. Then it will dawn upon you: trees are very few. The Arctic is the Arctic. Still, the city authorities are doing all they can: laying out public gardens and planting bushes and flowers. Lenin Avenue — the central thoroughfare is lined with trees.

Murmansk is a city easy to breathe in. The clean air is largely the result of human effort. Experts say that big cities are being choked by motor transport. Here the preference has been given to electric

conveyances. Trolleybus services run through the breadth and width of the city. This, however, does not mean that motor vehicles are taboo, but they are used mainly at week-

ends or when holidaying down in the south. The public transport “horse” is the trolleybus. Official statistics indicate that as far as communal amenities are con- . cerned Murmansk is near the top of the list in the Russian Federation, but as any city it has its headache —housing. “That is natural,” the Mayor of Murmansk Yury Balakshin, says. “The city’s population is

constantly growing. Over the past four years alone we have built a virtually new town — about a million square metres of living floor space. But even that is not enough. We

have a high birth rate and besides people are arriving from all parts of the Soviet Union to work here. So we build on and on. “In 1982, construction . of another neighbourhood unit — the fourth terrace, so called —■ will, begin in the eastern part of Murmansk, adding a further million square metres of dwelling space.” . . . All of a sudden, in the northern landscape against snow-covered hills,

you catch a glimpse of a decorous building faced with coloured tiles. The monotony is also exploded by blue, red, and greenpainted dwellings, and sharp vertical lines which are not typical of the Polar Circle.

It is a matter of public knowledge that the rocks on which Murmansk lies and the permafrost soil preclude any upward growth', but an 18-storey hotel is in the final stages of construction. This, perhaps only, high-rise building in these altitudes is rising on the site pf the former Arktika restaurant where the German command never held a banquet, but for which they named the hour and issued invitation cards, so confident were they of capturing Murmansk. . .

After the Second World War the city had to be rebuilt practically from scratch, on the ruins and cinder to which German bombers had reduced it. Raids had continued uninterrupted day and night: Murmansk, which for the Germans was an impregnable fortress on the northern flank, played a key role in supplying the fronts. It was the destination point for allied convoys bringing military equipment.

In those days the city defenders and inhabitants displayed unparalleled valour, because the ing proceeded without a break under a rain of bombs. A reminder of that courage is a giant monument on the top of a hill — to the Defender of the Soviet Arctic.

When a fog rises from the sea and gradually dissolves the outlines of the hill, the 40-metre tall figure of a soldier seems to hover above the city, as if it were • a materialised memory of thousands of

people who stood up against the fire and metal meant for the city and defended it. . . Among those people were allied seamen: New Zealanders, British, Americans. . . The New Zealand poet, Denis Glover, was among them. Two wounds and a Soviet War Veterans’ Committee award still remind him of those stern days.

Comradeship-in-arms brings people closer together as nothing else. Maybe that is why that time knew no language barrier. In the few hours of calm lads who spoke English went to call on Russian families. Among the allied personnel there was an unwritten order: if you go visiting the Russians, remeber that one hour of hospitality costs them a month’s food ration.

“The allied seamen literally besieged the hospital. They formed long lines to donate blood to seriously wounded Russians. They came again and again. . . Such a thing is not forgotten," says Pyotr Bayandin, head surgeon of the Murmansk regional hospital. In 1975, or 30 years later, Denis Glover came to Murmansk again. It is difficult to describe the feelings of a veteran who is back where he once fought and does not recognise the place: an entirely new city and a new generation. Time also changed people: they did not recognise each other in the first moment.

But memory of the joint struggle, of dead friends and the common victory proved stronger than time. And this Denis Glover wrote in his book: “It is Murmansk commands my memory. . . Murmansk, my second city in the world.”