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Activities in Russia
I like Russia, Russian people, and Russian nature.
I have been there almost every year before the pandemic of COVID19.
Dialogues with Russian people and nature influenced my expression of art.
I saw in Russia that the harsh nature trains humans and the sensibility will get deeper.
I hope that you will get to know a little bit about Russia.
*This page shows some of my activities in Russia. I summarized them as a small book, but I have not published yet. If you are interested and would like to cooperate to publish about Russia, the internment and/or Takeshi Tanaka, please kindly contact me. I have notes written by him too.
Spassk-Dal`nii
I met Tanaka Takeshi, interned in the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1949.
He returned to Japan, established a publishing company in Tokyo, and published industrial publications “造” (Zou). At the age of 68, he moved to Khabarovsk, Russia. He was the only one who returned to Russia out of 600,000 Japanese internees. He was a musician as well. He loved Russian people and often gave a concert for Russian people with his synthesizer “Spiron”.
I have been self-researching the Japanese internment in the Soviet Union after World War 2. My grandmother’s brother was interned in the Soviet Union and returned to Japan. I did not know where he was interned. I went to Khabarovsk to ask Tanaka-san to help me to find the internment place in 2019.
He introduced me to a Russian Sasha-san who had documents about the Japanese internees. Sasha-san kindly helped me to search the place. He told me my grandmother’s brother was interned in Spassk-Dal`nii.
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Tanaka-san and I got on a night train at night and arrived at Spassk-Dal`nii at 5:30 in the morning.
We sat down on a bench in front of the city administration and had our team meeting.
At the city administration. He explained to the vice Mayer Lyudmila Vladimirovna that we wanted to go to Japanese labor camps and burial places. She kindly cooperated with us and introduced the director of the museum. They gave us a tour of the museum.
The museum staff and Tanaka-san were singing the Russian song “Crane”. The singing moved other staff listening to their singing. I felt it was beautiful for her to feel this way.
Sergai working in the museum and his friend Ivan guided us to internment places and Japanese burial places.
Official website of Yu Kuramitsu. Yu Kuramitsu is a Japanese abstract painter who expresses spirit, love, and dialogue with nature, and introduces her journey in Russia.
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Labor Camps 1
There was no labor camp anymore.
I felt my grandmother’s brother was here through the wind and the air.
Labor Camps 2
This place did not have a labor camp either. Only the house was there.
Burial Place
The weeds grew too high and we could not get inside, but it seemed there were no gravestones
No Japanese might come here.
People who were the same nationality were buried in places you did not know.
We do not even notice……
Somebody’s spirits were floating, which I always feel in Russia.
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Sergei and Ivan showed me around the city. This city was very clean and beautiful.
They invited us to their home. We sang together.
I like people here make food by themselves. Jams, honey, eggs, and milk…everything is fresh.
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Appreciation concert
After I returned to Japan in summer 2019, I came back to Russia in fall. Tanaka-san and I did an appreciation concert for people in Spassk Dal`nii.
Children and adults were listening to our music seriously. Tanaka-san looked like he enjoyed it very much, and so did I. I like the Russian attitude to art.
The children strongly reacted to the Japanese song “Coconuts”.
Tanaka-san choses songs that resonate with hearts beyond the border.
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A local TV station's news about the concert:
Nahodka
All Japanese Internees returned to Japan from Nahodka
After Spassk Dal`nii, Tanaka-san and I went to Nahodka. Thankfully Natasha-san who I and Tanaka-san met in a hotel brought us to the place of the repatriation ships to Japan.
Tanaka-san said, “There were labor camps all around here.”
I wonder what they felt then……
Burial Place
Some sinking places were used to be burial mounds. All bones were brought back to Japan. Natasha-san kindly guided us to here too.
Khabarovsk
I and Tanaka Takeshi were invited to the festival "Samovar`" in Khabarovsk, Russia, in 2019.
I did a small live painting. Tanaka-san sang with his synthesizer.
We also sang "Lonely Accordion" together. People seemed to listen to us seriously...
Phtographed by Alyona Plaksina
Click here to see the article about the festival.
I am adding more activities in other cities...Pleasee wait :)
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