The stately Kazakh ambassador, Erlan A. Idrissov, noted the “moral and spiritual meaning” in these paintings, which convey “the cruelty of the gulag system to the world.” Kazakhstan itself was home to “the most cruel” camps, even the ugliest one, “for the wives of the betrayers of the motherland.” One sixth of the world “witnessed a very huge social experiment under Stalin,” he said. Stalin’s regime tortured 60 million people, and 25 million did not survive.
We can't imagine the size and scale
Of suffering caused by a devilish mind;
At one man's torture we cry and quail,
Much more at millions of our own kind. -JRM