A huddle of elderly people trudge through ankle-deep snow, pushing a wooden freight car along a barely visible set of tracks. The women are wrapped in headscarves, the men wear fur hats and thick gloves. These are the last remaining inhabitants of Workers’ Settlement No. 3, and the subjects of Sergei Dvortsevoy’s remarkable 1998 documentary Bread Day; the freight car is bringing the weekly delivery that helps them survive. The village itself consists of little more than wooden sheds or barracks, interspersed with small garden plots. Many of the buildings have collapsed into themselves; others have been taken over by goats or stray dogs.

LRB 6 December 2012 | PDF Download