The brief stop we make tempts us to go out and leave the train for brief stroll on the cold platform. We find that we are not alone. The very specific smell of Russian cigarettes bring me back to the cruel irony of the Belomorkanal papirosa, introduced to commemorate the construction of the White Sea – Baltic Canal, one of the Gulag projects that killed most of Gulag prisoners. I reflect on how the papirosa maybe even had more victims in lung-cancer than the Belomorkanal death-toll.
Smell of papirosas still lingers after we leave Birobidzhan
From Wikimedia Commons
Linked to Carpe Diem
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January 22, 2014
Björn Rudbergs writings 
another nice bit of history here Bjorn – really brings the haiku to life.
That word really snaps me back to Russian language school 1973. Nice and powerful write.
Very good haibun indeed. You knew what you were doing putting the word ‘lingers’ in, you made that haiku line linger itself! Fascinating information, and an interesting hypothesis.
Really interesting where you have taken this, Bjorn. Original, bringing along the Belomorkanal smell from the past, vividly. 🙂
far too many taken out with cancer…lung cancer as well…sad though these places of destruction of life…and the smell of the smoke is probably better than that of bodies….