By Gudrun Dometeit

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It is rare these days, in times of the Ukrainian war, that the work of a Russian writer appears on the German book market. If so, they are mostly Russia-critical non-fiction books on current topics, written by Russians who live in exile in the West. With “Permafrost” by Viktor Remizov, Europa Verlag has now published an extremely densely written work of fiction translated into German. The novel is set in the years 1949 to 1953 in the Siberian settlement of Yermakovo, where Stalin, with the help of up to 120,000 Gulag prisoners, pursued a construction project that was as expensive as it was nonsensical — the construction of a 1500 kilometer long railway line between the lower reaches of the Yenisei and the Northern Urals. The “Stalin Railway” is a symbol of Soviet totalitarianism. After the dictator's death in 1953, this and other gigantic construction projects were abandoned. The novel received the renowned “Bolshaya Kniga” literary prize in Russia in 2021 and, as Remizov said in the korrespondenten.cafe on Wednesday, is a bestseller in Russia for the fifth year.

Remizov, geologist and journalist for over 20 years, evaluated archives of the Sakharov Museum and the organization “Memorial” for his mammoth work, which is now banned in Moscow but, in his words, not banned in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. “Memorial” is the oldest civil society organization in Russia dedicated to clarifying Stalin's tyranny and its consequences, but was dissolved in 2021 by decision of the Supreme Court. According to Remizov, his sources, from which he drew inspiration for describing the fates of Gulag prisoners, were freely available. When reading the archival materials, he was particularly shocked by some things, such as the great poverty of local farmers, who were not allowed to leave Siberia. “Even in the 17th century, they did not live as poorly as they did under the Communists.”

Remizov calls his oeuvre a “very Russian novel,” which addresses irrational, incomprehensible ways of acting that the Russians themselves often do not understand. “In the novel, there are people who do not behave rationally at all, who sacrifice themselves in love for one another.” But that was precisely what the author wanted: to show that it is possible to be human and compassionate even under the most inhumane, harshest conditions. A Russian literary critic even called the novel “the most optimistic book I've read so far” in the year it was published, although it doesn't end with a happy ending among the main protagonists.

For six years, the author worked on his work, most of the time on a lake in Finland, “where you are guaranteed not to be disturbed” - interrupted only by many trips and conversations on site in Siberia along the Yenisei, where he recruited an over 90-year-old Gulag survivor and a former river captain as advisors for his book. However, Remizov lives near Moscow and, like many other writers, did not emigrate abroad. Some Western publishers refused to work with him — without reason, but obviously because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “But there is virtually no one in Russia who likes this war,” says the 66-year-old. “We all grew up after the Second World War thinking of 'everything but war. '” Even Remizov doesn't know when it will end.

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Viktor Remizov, Permafrost, 2025, Europa Verlag, translated by Franziska Zwerg

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