The 7 Best Points of Interest & Landmarks in Magadan Oblast, Far Eastern District

Reviewed By andrewmU2655XD

This monument is located approx. 3 km outside of Magadan. It is a 2 km drive from the city center, a left turn on Popova street, and a further 1 km to the top of Krutaya hill, which is approx. 200 meters high. It was dedicated in 1996, and sculpted by Ernst Neizvestny. The year of dedication and other relevant information, is found on a plaque at the rear of the statue. A model of the monument site and of the mask is in the local museum Gulag exhibit. The location of the site was specially selected, as a transit camp for Gulag prisoners was located at the bottom of the hill. We had visited transit camp locations in Vladivostok and Komsomolsk on Amur during our vacation.The car park below the statue offers beautiful views of Magadan City and Bay area, but we were unable to enjoy this view because of the fog, which is quite usual Magadan weather. The walk to the monument will take a few minutes, as it is necessary to climb 100 steps, after passing through a small arch in the car park. On the right side of the steps are memorial stones and concrete models of the names of Gulag camps in the Magadan area. On each of the stones there was a symbol. The symbols were difficult to see due to the overgrowth of the shrubbery and grass where they were placed, but we got a good photo of a soviet star and hammer and sickle insignia which was on a stone near to the path. The concrete names related to eleven of the Gulag camps, one of which was Dneprovsky, where we had camped overnight on the previous day. The monument itself is approx. 19 meters tall. It is a concrete mask design which has tears in the shape of human heads falling from it's left eye, and a prisoners number UU937 under it's right eye. There are steps leading to a door, up the right cheek of the mask. The door is behind the nose of the mask and was closed.The back of the mask is hollow, and depicts a bronze sculpture of a woman sitting on her haunches and weeping in a prison cell. Above the weeping lady is a cross on which a headless figure is positioned, above which is a skylight. In the upper car park, which is on a path behind the monument, there is another cross on a hill. This cross was not a part of the memorial, but it didn't seem to be out of place either in this solemn area. We had driven more than half of the 2,000 km Kolyma highway (road of bones), and visited the many monuments and memorials along the way. The visit to the Dneprovsky camp and the local museum gave us a better understanding of the suffering of the Gulag prisoners. We had also visited a mass grave site in Vladivostok which was related to the time of Stalin;s purges.The Gulag was a very sad part of Russia's history, and there is a saying in Russia that every family was affected by Stalin's Great purge. This monument is a must see when visiting Magadan.