Alexei Gastev considered the sound produced by factory work to be the new kind of poetry. Here you can see the poet in action during 1920s.
Krasnoyarsk — Krasnoyarsk literature museum shows an exhibition on Aleksei Gastev - and important Russian bard of industrial age. The interactive display inspired by his fantastic essay «Express. Siberian Fantasy» written and published in the local literature magazine «Siberian notes» while he was in imprisoned at Turukhansk in 1916 (the same time and place Josep Stalin was there in exile). The text one inspired Evgenii Zamyastin to write his anti-utopian «We» during early 1920s - the novel which is considered to be the precursor of George Orwell’s 1984.
Gastev who was anarchist, trade-union leader, locksmith and professional revolutionary painted in words the picture of future Siberia developing over the spine of fantastic Transsiberian transportation rail artery. Each city his express came through had its own character, professional profile and hint. For example Kurgan, the city of cooperatives, was called «the kitchen of the world». Partly it reflected the reality at the period of writing - Siberian butter from Kurgan had just gained the British market in 1910s and was more exported that the French one.
Lately Alexei Gastev became one of the organisers of industrialisation coming from poetry to labour organisation. Permanent pen pal of Henry Ford, he was shot as the enemy of the state in 1938. But the express runs through Siberia 101 year after it was once caught in a fantasy.