In the suburbs of Tbilisi, where most streets are nameless and entire neighborhoods consist of Soviet-era skyscrapers grouped into blocks and then into small neighborhoods, lies Kerch Street. There is nothing worth seeing there—no historic buildings, no fountains, no monuments to great social achievements, just skyscrapers lining both sides of the street and, here and there, a few more buildings tucked in between: the Institute of Light Industry, up on a small hill surrounded by spruce trees; a kindergarten, a high school; the offices of the Housing Board, a small shopping mall, and, at the very end of the street, the Boarding School for Children with Intellectual Disabilities, or, as the locals call it, the School for Idiots.
No one can remember whose idea it was to name a street in Soviet Georgia after a small town on the Crimean peninsula in 1974; in the small town where one fine day in October 1942, while the breeze was still carrying the summer heat from the Black Sea to the land, the Nazi army captured and executed 160,000 people. There are no ships here. There is no breeze coming from the sea. It's the last days of spring and the sun is burning, steam is rising from the asphalt and tall maple trees are drying. Sometimes cars will pass and maybe a dog lazing in the street will barely get up and start barking at him until he's out of sight and there's nothing left for him to do but stare disconsolately after him, before going back to rolling in the dust.
Unlike the city of Kerch, Kerch Street does not have its own heroes. When the Nazi forces began exterminating the inhabitants of Kerch, Jews and all, ten thousand besieged Soviet soldiers put up a fierce resistance. However, in the end they were still defeated. This is perhaps the reason why, after the war, the Soviet government decided not to grant the city of Kerch the status of "Hero City". Their decision meant that the city would not receive any state aid, but would have to rebuild itself. It was only in 1973 that Kerch was granted the status of "Hero City". A year after that, the first part of the road leading from Tbilisi to Tianeti was renamed Kerch Street. One by one, the townspeople who survived the Great Patriotic War began to die: those men who walked the streets on national holidays with decorations on their uniforms, dignified men who were splattered and walked up and down in the sun; men in whose living rooms a picture of Stalin hung on the wall. When their lives drew to a close, they would entrust their homeland to their children and grandchildren, who still live on or near Kerch Street today. They move back and forth between their homes, kindergartens, schools, shops and jobs, their entire lives taking place in this neighborhood. When the Soviet Union fell, their lives were shattered. Some residents found refuge within the four walls of their homes. Others decided to leave their homes and spend their time on street corners, or hour after hour at rallies or protests. Some took down Stalin’s paintings from their living room walls. And some simply left this world too soon.
Translated from English by Leyla Dzhanko