The Russian Village Has Fallen Still

The Russian village has fallen still. Among their pressing problems, the villagers name the cemetery: the authorities will not allot land for a new graveyard, though for dozens of kilometres around the village lie abandoned fields, meadows and forests. "There is no land!" Once the village had its own village soviet serving several neighbouring villages and hamlets; now most of the old village has been overgrown with trees, and the pre-Revolutionary cottages have been pulled down or are slowly falling apart. It is proposed to clear the old cemetery, which huddles on a tiny wooded knoll and dates from the century before last. The road to it runs through an almost impassable forest, a bog, a stream dammed by beavers and a ravine. That is to say, the dying village cannot use this cemetery for its proper purpose: one simply cannot get there. The whole district voted for the Communists, and the deputies, who are local men, promise to take up the matter themselves, a matter to which the officials are deaf