LIFE IN STALIN'S RUSSIA

The extracts below are taken from a series of interviews in the Pskov region of Russia. Over the last year, school children between the ages of 12 and 16, from villages and towns in the region have been conducting interviews with pensioners, the last survivors of the Stalin era.

There has been a lot written about those who were actual victims of repression in the Stalin years. One of the ideas behind this project was to find out how those who were 'left behind' experienced and understood the events of this terrible period; and how the time between - including the collapse of the Soviet Union - has influenced this understanding and the memories. It was also to get a picture from rural Russia, where external influences and sources of information have been thinly spread - even over the last 10 years.

The Pskov region is in the north-west of Russia and borders two of the Baltic States and Belarus - so it was very much part of occupied Russia during the Second World War. Today it is one of the poorest regions in the Russian Federation. It is also heavily militarised and there is a strong strain of nationalism throughout the region, encouraged by the local (and national) authorities and now spreading to the school curriculum.

This was the first type of independent work that most of these children had carried out - and this sometimes comes across quite strongly in the interviews. The Russian originals can be found here, and I am slowly getting round to translating (parts of) them into English. Work in progress can be accessed here, or by clicking on the links below.