Horizon

Ben -- Do you mean the captions on the photo essay at http://shatoon.ru/gallery.php?action=show&gallery_id=113&p=2 or is there a large single interview text that I'm missing?

Unfortunately the cache of the Post article at the Detroit News has expired but it can be previewed (or purchased) in the Post archive. I went to college with the author, Susan Glasser. She's a very good reporter.

Actually it's just the captions to the five photos I hotlinked that I'm interested in. Let me try to collect them and paste them here:

Один из двух местных жителей — Юрий Ополонский.

Не хочет ни на что менять кадыкчанскую прописку.

Проводит своеобразную экскурсию по Кадыкчану — рассказывает, что в каком здании находилось.

Потомственный шахтер показывает руки, сбитые в мозоли работой «металлиста» — не скрывает, что живет тем, что ищет и сдает цветной металл.

Юрий звал нас в гости (живет он в частном секторе). Но никакого желания задерживаться в Кадыкчане у нас не было.

Here we are, with more resort to mechanical translator and dictionary than I would have preferred:

- One of the two local residents is Yuri Opolonsky.

- He does not for any reason want to change his Kadykchan residency permit.

- He leads a one-of-a-kind tour of Kadykchan - he recounts what was located in each building.

- He comes from a family of miners, and shows his hands, which are callused by the work of a "metallist" -- he does not conceal that he makes a living by seeking out and selling non-ferrous metals.

- Yuri invited us to stay with him (he lives in the personal* sector). But we did not have any wish to remain in Kadykchan.

*Literally you could translate "в частном секторе" as "in the private sector," but "частной" can mean "private," "personal," or "local" -- so I'm not sure, it may mean that he lives in the part of the town that is/was for individual private residences as opposed to industrial or prison use, or perhaps in a section that is or was privately owned. Maybe someone else can help here?

Thank you for the translation, Martha -- that was exactly what I was looking for.

Thx. It was good exercise.

Interesting they say there was a coal mine. My Solzhenitsyn is rustier than my Russian but I'd thought timber was the main work of the Kolyma camps.

According to what I could gather from the Post article, Kadykchan was not exactly a camp -- apparently it was a coal mining town whose infrastructure was built by gulag labor, but whose population was drawn (after the fifties) from the rest of the USSR, induced to move in and mine with more pleasant incentives.