I found this travelogue of Danish author Hans Scherfig’s 1950 trip to the USSR. I think it will be of interest to people here so I have translated it. The illustrations are by Scherfig himself.

The delegation arrives in Stalingrad and we get a description of the landscape around the city and of the city as well. Although reconstruction is well underway, the city is still very damaged and conditions are not as comfortable as in Moscow or Kiev. Scherfig is moved by being in that very place where the war turned and civilization triumphed over barbarism.

Travels in the Soviet Union

Table of Contents

Chapter 10

There is a house in Stalingrad called Pavlov’s house. It is a bombed-out residential building a few hundred metres from the Volga, and it was here that the Germans reached in the autumn of 1942. The ruin was surrounded and cut off, but Sergeant Pavlov held his ground here with a force of nine men. Under incessant attacks and under incessant fire Sergeant Pavlov defended his house for 52 days. The ruin was never taken. Pavlov is still alive.

Pavlov’s house is preserved as a symbol of the battle for Stalingrad. The Nazis reached this far, and no farther. Here human civilisation was saved in a battle so fierce and bloody and desperate that it cannot be comprehended. Here men fought as long as they could move; they fought with their bare fists when their ammunition was spent, they fought with their teeth. This city is destroyed like no other city. It has been bombed from the air like the German cities, 2,000 bombs has fallen per square kilometre; its ruins have been shelled by artillery for months; men have fought with machine guns and hand grenades from house to house, from ruin to ruin, from cellar to cellar, until finally the bricks turned to dust.

It is very dusty in Stalingrad. The wind blows in from the infinite steppe, and the dust from the steppe is reddish. But in the city the dust is black from charred timber and bricks and iron. 40,000 Soviet soldiers died in these ruins, and 70,000 Russian civilians died here. How many German soldiers died cannot be said exactly, but it was more than 100,000. Stalingrad is not a tourist city; it is a place of pilgrimage, visited in awe.

We saw the city from the airplane as a narrow settlement along the river. It is about 30 kilometres long and only three kilometres wide. The battlefront ran lengthwise through the city. By then they no longer fought over houses or ruins they, but one foundations and cellars. Seen from above, the destruction is not obvious. The wide streets and boulevards with their rows of green trees gave an impression of order. The fresh greenery looked like an oasis against the withered reddish steppe. As usual, the city lies on the river’s high western bank, a bastion against the Mongol nomads of the steppe: Kirghiz, Nogai, Tatars, and so forth, but difficult to defend against the hordes coming from the west. The Volga was once the eastern border of the Russian realm.

From the air you could clearly see the sharp bend the Volga makes at Stalingrad. From the Don to this point, where the Volga swings nearest toward the west, is only a distance like that from Copenhagen to Korsør[1]; here the Turks already tried to dig a canal centuries ago, for Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to lead his fleet from the Don to the Volga in order to conquer Astrakhan. Peter the Great attempted to have the canal dug as well, setting fifteen thousand workers to the task, but the war with Charles the Twelfth brought the work to a halt. Only now has the canal been completed, so that Moscow is connected by water to five seas. You can see the canal works from above. In general, you learn the geography of a country well from an airplane.

We flew from Moscow in the morning under grey skies, we took off from a military airfield in a special aircraft and flew a little over four hours toward the southeast; during the flight we had to advance our watches by an hour, we were flying to meet the sun. It had been drizzling in Moscow, but then we rose above the clouds and flew straight toward the sun, later the clouds disappeared, and we could look down at the map beneath us. Dark green forests, pale green grasslands, black ploughed fields, white roads and yellow rain-gullies. We saw the Don River as a bright metal band in the green. East of the Don the Ukrainian grassland gradually yielded to dead sand and salt flats — solonchaki — the map beneath us took on a reddish colour. South and east of Stalingrad the steppe is desert-like and unending, toward the south it goes all the way to the Caucasus, toward the east the Kirghiz steppe stretches to Central Asia; Stalingrad’s civilians could not be evacuated this way.

You see pale-green streaks on the red ground; they are the beginnings of the enormous shelterbelts intended to break the southeastern desert wind and alter the climate. I cannot recall how many million trees have already been planted. Fortunately our delegation included a plant physiologist; Gabrielsen could speak to this unlikely experiment with nature, now being conducted across an area of 120 million hectares. The eight principal shelterbelts extend more than 5,000 kilometres. Between them, an endless number of smaller belts are being planted. The work follows a new method invented by Lysenko[2]; several hundred nurseries supply the trees, thousands of kilometres of canals are being excavated, and more than 40,000 water reservoirs are being established. Rivers are being redirected, and mountain ranges breached. This “offensive against drought” began in 1948; in another thirteen years it is all supposed to be complete.

Almost simultaneously with the Don disappearing from our view, we could see the Volga glinting in the sun; the needle on the altimeter began to move backwards, and we got that unpleasant sensation in the ears which, they say, can be counteracted by chewing and swallowing. The machine made a turn over the river and the city and then carried us far out across the steppe, lower and lower. We landed in a desert of reddish sand and stiff clumps of grass and small whitish plants, which Gabrielsen immediately identified as Sea Wormwood or Artemisia maritima , though God knows we were far from the sea. A dry, hot wind was blowing. Out on the steppe you could see two camels pulling a small cart.

A nurse stood ready with a first-aid kit at the gangway, but we had come through unscathed. Our hosts emerged from the airport building to greet us; among them was Stalingrad’s deputy mayor. We drove across the steppe in fine new taxi cars. A wide cement road into the city was under construction, but it had not been finished yet, so we drove beside the road at breakneck speed over potholes and bumps until the springs bottomed out; it seemed far more perilous than any flight. On either side stretched the endless steppe; far in the distance you saw a herd of oxen and goats and a single camel. The city could not be seen yet. We passed a fenced plot with graves. Across the steppe lay the last scattered remains of the war’s debris, twisted tangled of iron, burnt-out car wrecks, rusty parts of tanks, wheels and cannons. Then small houses and sheds began to appear, with lace curtains and potted plants in the windows, and also miserable shacks cobbled together from sheet metal and old car bodies. Then, beyond a rise, Stalingrad and the Volga suddenly appeared. Large white buildings, black ruins, factories and tall chimneys.

The steppe at Stalingrad

The city’s wide streets were orderly. New, shiny buses and trolleybuses ran in the streets. Trees had been planted everywhere, small, slender lindens with whitewashed trunks. There was time enough to water these new trees twice a day. Before the war, the city’s Young Communists had undertaken to plant shelterbelts to stop the dust; now they were starting over from scratch. All of Stalingrad’s new streets are avenues and green boulevards. Half a million people live in this city, and they live in very different circumstances. There are large new apartment blocks where people have moved in. Yet on the barren lots where houses once stood, we saw stovepipes jutting up through the rubble; people were still living there in cellars and burrows. We saw new palaces of culture, theatres, concert halls and cinemas. We were told that there were now 83 large schools in the city, and that 74 of them had been built new from the ground up. The famous Stalin Works — the gigantic tractor factories — were operating at full capacity and had an output greater than before the war. Along the river ran the narrow tracks of a small children’s railway; it was about twenty kilometres long and transported the children out to their own culture park; it ran with a real steam locomotive; the carriages had electric light, and the little stations were new and neat. That was a sight for the former Minister of Transport Alfred Jensen to behold. The children looked after everything themselves, locomotive and stations and workshops. They found means means for this as well in the ruined city. Ice-cream was sold in the street, as well as balloons and lollipops. And there were the usual book stalls, as you see them everywhere in the Soviet Union. There, between the ruins, you could buy the works of the classical authors, The Three Musketeers, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen.

A tiny small old bus which could just accommodate the delegation was put at our disposal. No doubt it was the very same bus John Steinbeck made so much fun of in his Russian diary, but it was still running; rather faster than we cared for, indeed, rattling us about most ferociously. We drove through the city’s long main thoroughfare, the boulevard which formed the front line lengthwise through the city. New residential quarters are being built right down to the Volga, which here is as wide as the Sound at Elsinore[3]. There are new large squares and gardens, and there are also memorials to the dead and common graves covered with many flowers.

The impression of Stalingrad was an astonishing impression of life and death, of destruction and reconstruction. Misfortune and triumph at the same time. A shattering impression of human madness, of senseless and bestial destruction, of misfortune and suffering in an excess which the mind refuses to grasp. So stupid and evil are people. And so brave and indomitable are brave. So industrious and patient and optimistic are they, so cheerful when they start over and reconstruct what the madmen destroyed. You see them walking to water the new trees. These small, slender, newly planted lindens with their whitewashed trunks strike me as symbolic.

Across from our hotel stands a six-story department store. Last year it was still a ruin. It was from the basement of this ruin that the German General von Paulus came crawling out to surrender in February 1943. After that, everyone knew how the war would end. Even in Denmark we sensed it: the police became less zealous, the time of cold feet began. You look at this store with a certain feeling; it was here it happened. Now the great building teemed with shoppers; there were goods of every kind, luxury items too—wine, chocolates, perfume, radio sets, knick-knacks. On the other side of the hotel there were ruins. Behind it, construction was underway; a new white building had risen to the fourth storey, massive cranes lifting materials as in a shipyard. In the square facing the department store stood a small landscaped area with flowers, trees, and sculptures.

For reasons unknown, Anker Kirkeby and I were given the best rooms in the hotel, the same ones Steinbeck and Capa had stayed in two years earlier: a shared bedroom and a sitting room with a balcony overlooking the square. The rest of the delegation were put in rooms where the beds were arranged like a dormitory. Stalingrad is, understandably, no tourist town. Everything was very clean; the familiar smell of soap permeated the hotel. There was a restaurant on the ground floor; in the evenings a jazz band played, and people danced. We were served red caviar and black caviar, vodka, fresh sturgeon from the Volga, boiled goose, mountains of green cucumbers, and pancakes with sour cream. The people of Stalingrad understood hospitality very well, even if the city was not yet equipped for tourists. The dinner-party speeches were brief; you struggled to find words for what it meant to be in this city. Words failed in the presence of those who were our hosts; it feels strange to speak of heroes when you are in their company.

Words are cheap. We saw that in a museum in Stalingrad, where they kept the congratulations and salutations sent by heads of state and ministers to the city. The beautiful words of the American president are emblazoned on a pompous parchment scroll; the words of other presidents and prime ministers are calligraphed on illuminated sheets and bound in weighty leather portfolios. Here all the grand words have been used and worn thin. And today some of those who penned those flowering words to the hero city of Stalingrad are busy convincing their countrymen of the desirability of dropping atomic bombs on the Soviet Union’s rebuilt cities.

Original Danish text

#Rejse i Sovjetunionen

  • Hans Scherfig, 1950

X.

I Stalingrad er der et hus, som hedder Pavlovs hus. Det er en sønderskudt beboelsesejendom nogle hundrede meter fra Volga, og hertil var tyskerne nået i efteråret 1942. Ruinen var omringet og afskåret, men sergent Pavlov holdt stand her med en styrke på ni mand. Under ustandselige angreb og under ustandselig ild forsvarede sergent Pavlov sit hus i 52 dage. Ruinen blev aldrig erobret. Pavlov lever endnu.

Pavlovs hus bevares som et symbol for kampen om Stalingrad. Så langt nåede nazisterne og ikke længere. Her blev den menneskelige civilisation reddet under en kamp så vild og blodig og desperat, at man ikke kan fatte det. Her kæmpede mennesker, sålænge de kunne røre sig; de kæmpede med de bare næver, når ammunitionen var brugt, de kæmpede med tænderne. Denne by er ødelagt som ingen anden by. Den er bombarderet fra luften som de tyske byer, der er faldet 2000 bomber pr. kvadratkilometer; dens ruiner er gennem måneder blevet beskudt af artilleri; man har kæmpet med maskingeværer og håndgranater fra hus til hus, fra ruin til ruin, fra kælder til kælder, så murstenene til sidst er blevet til støv.

Det støver meget i Stalingrad. Blæsten står ind fra den uendelige steppe, og støvet fra steppen er rødligt. Men i byen er støvet sort af forkullede bjælker og mursten og jern. 40.000 sovjetsoldater døde i disse ruiner, og 70.000 civile russere døde her. Hvormange tyske soldater, der døde, kan ikke siges nøjagtigt, men det var mere end 100.000. Stalingrad er ikke en turistby, det er et valfartssted, som man besøger med ærefrygt.

Vi så byen fra flyvemaskine som en lang bebyggelse langs floden. Den er lige ved 30 kilometer lang og kun tre kilometer bred. Kampfronten gik på langs igennem byen. Det var efterhånden ikke huse eller ruiner, man kæmpede om, det var fundamenter og kældere. Set fra luften er ødelæggelserne ikke påfaldende. De brede gader og boulevarder med grønne trærækker gav et indtryk af orden. Det friske grønne så ud som en oase på den visne rødlige steppe. Som sædvanlig ligger byen på flodens høje vestlige bred, en bastion mod steppens mongolske nomader: Kirgiser, nagajer, tartarer o. s. v., men vanskelig at forsvare mod de horder, der kommer fra vest. Volga var engang det russiske riges øst-grænse.

Man ser fra luften tydeligt det skarpe knæ, som Volga danner ved Stalingrad. Fra Don til dette sted, hvor Volga kommer nærmest mod vest, er der kun en afstand som fra København til Korsør, her prøvede allerede tyrkerne for århundreder siden at grave en kanal, sultan Suleiman den Pragtfulde ville føre sin flåde fra Don til Volga for at erobre Astrakan. Også Peter den Store forsøgte at få kanalen gravet og satte 15.000 arbejdere til det, men krigen med Karl den Tolvre standsede arbejdet. Først nu er kanalen gjort færdig, så Moskva har sejlforbindelse med fem have. Man ser kanalbyggeriet fra luften. Man lærer i det hele taget et lands geografi godt at kende fra en flyvemaskine.

Vi fløj fra Moskva om morgenen i gråvejr, vi startede fra en militærflyveplads i en særlig maskine og fløj i lidt over fire timer mod sydøst; under turen måtte vi stille vores ure en time frem, vi fløj solen i møde. Det småregnede i Moskva, så kom vi op over skyerne og fløj lige mod solen, senere forsvandt skyerne, så vi kunne se ned på landkortet under os. Mørkegrønne skove, lysegrøn græssteppe, sort pløjejord, hvide veje og gule regnkløfter. Vi så Don-floden som et blankt metalbånd i det grønne. Øst for Don går den ukrainske græssteppe efterhånden over i døde sand- og saltstepper — solontjaki — landkortet under os fik en rødlig farve. Syd og øst for Stalingrad er steppen ørkenagtig og uendelig, mod syd går den helt til Kaukasus, mod øst strækker Kirgisersteppen sig til Centralasien; man kunne ikke evakuere Stalingrads civilbefolkning denne vej.

Man ser lysegrønne striber på den røde grund; der er begyndelsen til de enorme læplantninger, som skal bryde den sydøstlige ørkenvind og forandre klimaet. Jeg kan ikke huske, hvor mange millioner træer, der allerede er plantet. Vi havde heldigvis en plantefysiolog med i delegationen, Gabrielsen kunne fortælle noget om dette usandsynlige eksperiment med naturen, som foregår over et areal på 120 millioner hektar. De otte vigtigste læbælter er mere end 5000 kilometer lange. Mellem dem plantes en uendelig mængde af mindre læbælter. Der plantes efter en ny metode, som Lysenko har opfundet; flere hundrede planteskoler leverer træerne, der graves mange tusind kilometer kanaler, der anlægges over 40.000 vandreservoirer. Flodernes løb bliver forandret, og bjergkæder bliver gennembrudt. Man begyndte denne »offensiv mod tørken« i 1948; om 13 år skal det hele være færdigt.

Næsten samtidig med at Don forsvandt for os, kunne vi se Volga glinse i solen; viseren på højdemåleren begyndte at gå baglæns, og man fik den ubehagelige fornemmelse i ørerne, som siges at kunne modarbejdes med tygge- og synkebevægelser. Maskinen gjorde et sving over floden og byen og fløj så langt ud over steppen med os, lavere og lavere. Vi landede i en ørken med rødligt sand og stive græstotter og små hvidlige planter, som Gabrielsen straks bestemte som Strandbynke eller Artemisia maritima, skønt Gud skal vide, at der var langt til stranden. Der blæste en tør hed vind. Ude på steppen så man to kameler trække med et lille køretøj.

Der stod en sygeplejerske parat med forbindingskasse ved landgangsbroen, men vi fejlede ikke noget. Fra lufthavnens bygning kom vores værter og ønskede os velkommen, en af dem var Stalingrads viceborgmester. I fine nye taxabiler kørte vi over steppen. Der var ved at blive bygget en bred cementvej ind til byen, men den var endnu ikke helt færdig, så vi kørte ved siden af vejen i rasende fart over huller og buler, så fjedrene gik i bund; det forekom meget farligere end nogen flyvetur. På begge sider så man ud over den endeløse steppe, langt ude så man en flok okser og geder og en enkelt kamel. Byen kunne endnu ikke ses. Vi kom forbi en indhegnet plads med grave. På steppen lå endnu nogle rester af krigens gods, uformelige forvredne jernsager, brændte bilvrag, rustne dele af tanks, hjul og kanoner. Så begyndte der at komme småhuse og skure med blondegardiner og potteplanter i vinduerne, også sørgelige hytter, sammenflikket af blik og gamle bilkarosserier. Og så efter en bakke kunne man pludselig se Stalingrad og Volga. Store hvide huse, sorte ruiner, fabrikker og høje skorstene.

Byens brede gader var i orden. Nye blanke buser og trolleyvogne kørte i gaderne. Det var plantet masser af træer, små tynde lindetræer, hvis stammer var hvidkalkede. Der var tid til at vande de nye træer et par gange om dagen. Før krigen havde byens ungkommunister påtaget sig at plante læbælter for at standse støvplagen; nu begynder man forfra igen. Alle Stalingrads nye gader er alléer og grønne boulevarder. Der bor en halv million mennesker i denne by, og de bor meget forskelligt. Der er store nye boligblokke, hvor folk er flyttet ind. Og på de øde tomter, hvor der før har været huse, så vi kakkelovnsrør rage op gennem murbrokkerne, her boede endnu mennesker i kældere og huler. Vi så nye kulturpaladser, teatre, koncerthuse og biografer. Vi fik at vide, at der nu var 83 store skoler i byen, og at de 74 af dem var bygget nye fra grunden. De berømte Stalinværker — de kæmpemæssige traktorfabrikker — arbejdede for fuld kraft og havde en produktion, der var større end før krigen. Langs floden gik de smalle spor af en lille børnejernbane, den var en snes kilometer lang og transporterede børnene ud til deres egen kulturpark, den kørte med et rigtigt damplokomotiv, der var elektrisk lys i waggonerne, de små stationsbygninger var nye og fine. Det var noget for den forhenværende trafikminister Alfred Jensen at kigge på. Børnene passede selv det hele, lokomotiv og stationer og værksteder. Også det var der råd til i den ødelagte by. Der blev solgt iskager på gaden og balloner og slikkepinde. Og der var de sædvanlige bogboder, som man ser alle vegne i Sovjetunionen. Mellem ruinerne kunne man købe klassikernes værker og De tre musketerer og H. C. Andersens eventyr.

Der blev stillet en lille gammel rutebil til vor rådighed, som lige kunne rumme delegationen. Det var utvivlsomt den samme gamle rutebil, som John Steinbeck morer sig så meget over i sin russiske dagbog, men den kørte endnu, den kørte oven i købet lidt for hurtigt efter vor smag og rystede os på det voldsomste. Vi kørte igennem byens lange hovedgade, strøget som dannede frontlinien på langs igennem byen. De nye boligkvarterer bliver bygget ned til Volga, som her er så bred som Øresund ved Helsingør. Der er nye store torve og haveanlæg, der er også mindesmærker for de døde og fællesgrave med mange blomster.

Indtrykket af Stalingrad var et forunderligt indtryk af døden og livet, af ødedelæggelsen og genopbygningen. Ulykke og triumf på samme tid. Et rystende indtryk af menneskeligt vanvid, tåbelig og bestialsk destruktion, ulykke og lidelse i et overmål, som man nægter at fatte. Så dumme og onde er mennesker. Og så modige og ukuelige er mennesker. Så flittige og tålmodige og optimistiske er de, så muntre, når de begynder forfra og bygger op igen, hvad de gale ødelagde. Man ser dem gå og vande de nye træer. Disse små tynde nyplantede lindetræer med hvilkalkede stammer forekommer mig symbolske.

Over for vort hotel ligger et seksetages stormagasin. Det var endnu i fjor en ruin. Fra denne ruins kælder kom den tyske general von Paulus i februar 1943 kravlende frem og overgav sig. Derefter vidste alle, hvordan krigen ville ende. Selv i Danmark mærkede vi det, politiet blev mindre nidkært, de kolde fødders tid begyndte. Man ser på dette varehus med en vis bevægelse; her skete det. Nu myldrede den store bygning med mennesker, som købte ind; der var varer af alle slags, også luksusvarer vin, konfekt, parfume, radioapparater, nips. På den anden side af hotellet var der ruiner. På grunden bagved byggede man, et nyt hvidt hus var nået op til fjerde sal, store kraner hejsede materialet op som på et skibsværft. På pladsen foran stormagasinet var der et lille anlæg med blomster og træer og skulpturer.

Af ukendte årsager fik Anker Kirkeby og jeg de bedste værelser på hotellet, de samme som Steinbeck og Capa havde haft for to år siden, et fælles soveværelse og en dagligstue med altan og udsigt over pladsen. De andre i delegationen fik værelser, hvor sengene var opstillet som i en sovesal. Stalingrad er forståeligt nok ingen turistby. Alting var meget rent, den sædvalige lugt af sæbe gennemtrængte hotellet. I stueetagen var der restauration, om aftenen spillede et jazzorkester, og folk dansede. Vi fik rød kaviar og sort kaviar og vodka og frisk stør fra Volga og kogt gås og bjerge af grønne agurker og pandekager med sur fløde. Man forstod sig meget godt på gæstfrihed i Stalingrad, selvom byen endnu ikke er indretter for turister. Talerne ved bordet blev meget korte; det kneb med at finde ord for det, man følte ved at være i denne by. Ordene slog ikke til over for de mennesker, der var vore værter; det føles underligt at tale om helte, når man er sammen med dem.

Ord er billige. Vi så det i et museum i Stalingrad, hvor man opbevarede de lykønskninger og hilsner, som statsoverhoveder og ministre har sendt til byen Stalingrad. Den amerikanske præsidents smukke ord er prentet på en pompøs pergamentrulle, andre præsidenter og premierministres ord er kaligraferet på illuminerede ark og i svære lædermapper. Her er alle de store ord brugt og slidt. Og nogle af dem, som har forfattet de blomstrende ord til heltebyen Stalingrad, er i dag beskæftiget med at overbevise deres landsmænd om det ønskelige ved at kaste atombomber over Sovjetunionens genopbyggede byer.

  1. About 110 km. ↩︎

  2. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976), influential Soviet agronomist whose rejection of Mendelian genetics is considered a scientific dead end today. ↩︎

  3. About 4 km. ↩︎