Kreenholm crumbling giant
green island, red with
rust, with butter
cups, and water
falls, slow
dripping,
all cho
ked
up
.
K
reen
holm cru
mbling giant
Slavs, enslaved,
dust-up lungs, man’s
reinvention as machine
a mother that will beat you up.
Background
For well over 150 years, from 1857 to 2010, Kreenholm was a gigantic textile factory in Narva. Over the decades, Kreenholm survived wars, strikes, regime changes, dwindling economic circumstances, revolution, but eventually faced inevitable decline. At its peak it was the home of over 12.000 Soviet workers that worked six days a week 12 hours a day in hazardous conditions and was for most of its long existence the primary employer of Narva.
Kreenholmi Manufaktuur was situated on the banks of the Narva river, in its time one of the most powerful rivers in Europe. In the early days, the immense water power supplied by the Narva waterfalls was mechanically leveraged to run the hundreds of heavy carding and spinning machines. Until the creation of the Narva Dam in 1955, built to power the Narva Hydroelectric Station that today is located on the Russian side of the border, causing the marvelous Narva waterfalls to fall dry.
Situated Poetics of Narva
This poem is a part of Situated Poetics of Narva, a community-led AR poetry project in which I’m trying to capture the many embodied experiences of the residents of Narva in augmented reality poetry. You can view this poem on location at the Kreenholm factory in Narva using the AR poetry viewer: https://arpoetry.bkuipers.nl/
