The Abandoned Deserted Island is a short story adapted from a novel by Ivanov Aleksei. Its use of first-person narration, which gives the story a genuine and intimate feel, is one of its defining features.
The story follows a Muscovite who, worn down by mundane troubles and the clamor of the metropolis, is tormented by restlessness and frustration. On a friend's recommendation, he flies to a remote village in central Russia to go fishing. He takes a motorboat he had left there beforehand and travels upriver, meeting a local forest ranger, the ranger's granddaughter, Khariton, and others along the way. While chatting with them, he learns that as early as the 1950s and 60s, the Soviet Union had begun building a large labor camp in the area. It is said that at its peak, the camp held more than 200,000 people. In their search for uranium and cobalt deposits, the authorities once resorted to brutal, exploitative methods, including explosives, causing severe damage to local vegetation and soil. Even more appalling, they used large numbers of forced laborers to exploit the region's abundant forests, cutting down vast tracts along the river. The timber was floated downriver to the estuary, where it was salvaged and bartered with British, Dutch, and other merchants. Huge quantities of timber sank to the riverbed, polluting the waterways, ruining the soil, worsening the environment, and killing large numbers of fish and other aquatic life. The area suffered an ecological disaster of devastating proportions.
