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# In the Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House there are poetry collections with pages pasted shut
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-muzee-akhmatovoi-v-fontannom-dome-est-sborniki-stikhov-s-zakleennymi-stranitsami/
- Published: 2020-10-21T12:46:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:28:11.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Museums, Society, People, Saint Petersburg

In the Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House there are poetry collections with pages pasted shut. It is reported that Akhmatova herself pasted these pages shut. What is on them? Akhmatova's poems about Stalin. It is believed that Anna Andreyevna was compelled to write them in order to help her son. The poems themselves are as follows:

**21 December 1949**

Let the world remember this day for ever,  
Let this hour be bequeathed to eternity.  
The legend speaks of a wise man  
Who saved each one of us from a dreadful death.

The whole country rejoices in the rays of the amber dawn,  
And there are no barriers to purest joy,  
Ancient Samarkand and polar Murmansk,  
And Leningrad, twice saved by Stalin,

On the birthday of the teacher and friend  
Sing a song of bright gratitude,  
Though the blizzard may rage all around  
Or mountain violets may bloom.

And echoing the cities of the Soviet Union  
Are the cities of all the friendly republics  
And those toilers who are choked by fetters,  
But whose speech is free and whose soul is proud.

And freely their thoughts fly to the capital of glory,  
To the lofty Kremlin, fighter for eternal light,  
From where at midnight a majestic anthem sounds  
And rings out over the whole world like help and greeting.  
21.12.1949

*Literal translation*

**Volga – Don**

In the menacing howl of the steppe hurricanes,  
Cleaving the breast of the earth,  
Past the ancient Scythian burial mounds  
The Volga makes its way to the Don.  
If the sky is wrapped in mist,  
The searchlight's beam is bright and straight,  
The excavator, a living giant,  
Strides across the boundless steppes.  
What was Peter's dream  
Has become reality in our wise age.  
Here man will triple his efforts  
To achieve everything.  
And stronger than Izhevsk steel  
(That means, stronger than anything)  
Is the word that Stalin said to us,  
Our glory and our triumph.  
02.1951

*Literal translation*

**\*\*\***

And the Leader with eagle eyes  
Saw from the height of the Kremlin  
How richly the transformed earth  
Is flooded with rays of light.

And from the very middle of the century,  
To which he gave his name,  
He sees the heart of man,  
Which has become bright as crystal.

Of his labours, of his deeds  
He sees the ripe fruits,  
The masses of majestic buildings,  
Bridges, factories and gardens.

He breathed his spirit into this city,  
He turned misfortune away from us,  
That is why so firm and young  
Is the invincible spirit of Moscow.

And the Leader hears the voice  
Of the grateful people:  
"We have come  
To say that where Stalin is, there is freedom,  
Peace and the greatness of the earth!"  
12.1949

*Literal translation*

*A little later, around 1962, the following poem appeared:*

**To the Defenders of Stalin**

These are those who shouted: "Release Barabbas  
to us for the feast", those  
Who ordered Socrates to drink poison  
In the deaf confinement of a prison.

They should be made to pour this very drink  
Into their innocently slandering mouths,  
These dear lovers of torture,  
Experts in the production of orphans.

*Literal translation*