Library Readers Discuss the Mezen Problems

A readers’ conference devoted to Fedor Abramov’s work “Once upon a time there lived a small salmon” was held on October 19 in the library of Usogorsk village. The conference was arranged within the frames of cooperation between the Silver Taiga Foundation and the Udora centralized library system (further – Udora CLS).

The leading librarian Svetlana Vysokikh made a presentation on Fedor Abramov’s works, followed by a discussion of a story of this outstanding Russian writer, born in the neighboring Arkhangelsk region. “The history of one life” – that’s how Eliza Alekseevna Mitina, a teacher of the Russian language and literature of the Usogorsk school, presented the story “Once upon a time there lived a small salmon”. The conversation was further continued by Valentina Aleksandrovna Scherbinskaya, also a former teacher of literature. Ekaterina Nikolaevna Nikiforova, born as Fedor Abramov in the Arkhangelsk region, told about the museum in Verkol – the writer’s motherland…

After exchange of opinions and impressions from the book under discussion, the conversation smoothly came to a keen discussion of the Mezen problems.

This is what Lyudmila Popova, the leading librarian of the Usogorsk branch of the Udora CLS, says on this topic: “This story-fairytale is penetrated with a moral and philosophic meaning. A salmon, small salmon – that’s how the author tenderly calls the fish. Why there are so many talks about particularly this fish, though there are different species of fish in the river? How does the salmon distinguish itself among the others? How are the things going with the Mezen salmon and what is the situation in the Udora region? What is the Model River Mezen project, initiated by the Non-Profit Foundation Silver Taiga, about? These and other questions have been answered by the conference participants…”

L.I. Popova has told about the tasks of the Model River Mezen project and the progress of its implementation. The Udora members of the Model River Mezen project Working group – the writer Aleksey Vurdov, the Head of LLC “Ozherelye Udory” Aleksey Morozov, the Director of CLS and the Head of the regional office of the IPM “Komi Voityr”, as well as local area ethnographers, teachers, kindergarten teachers, librarians, school teachers, and pupils have taken part in the conference work. The tenth grade pupil Ivan Kharin, the prizewinner of regional contests, arranged in the frames of the Model River Mezen Project, and a diploma-winner of the all-Russian contest “Libraries and ecology”, has presented his work to the meeting participants. Ekaterina Danchenkova, the eleventh grade pupil, has read her contest composition on the topic “Imagine that you are a salmon”. Supplementary education teachers D.I. Chuprova and N.S. Morozova have told the meeting participants about the expeditions with pupils participations, organized in the frames of the project.

By the way, the pupils of the creative association “World of fantasies” at the Children’s activity center of Usogorsk (headed by Darya Korotkikh) have become off-site participants of the conference. The exhibition of their works, made in different techniques and out of different materials, “The river world through children’s eyes” has became a true decoration of the meeting and bewildered all participants of the readers’ conference.

According to the conference participants, the conversation turned out to be very interesting but at the same time worrying because of the critical condition of the Mezen river biological resources.

Readers’ conferences on the books of Russian and Komi writers, devoted to river topics and river resources use issues, are held this year, announced as the Year of Literature in Russia, in other branches of the Udora CLS as well.