Delhi’s most enigmatic library.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Here pin-drop silence marinates amidst thousands of books. The library at Russian House, a Russian government enterprise, is in Delhi’s heart, but the third-floor windows show nothing of the city, except for the sky, and the treetops of Feroze Shah Road.

Most books are in Russian, and almost all are beautifully produced hardbacks. The mere act of holding a random volume is like drifting closer to an otherwise remote world. This is easy to explain. The icy frozen Russia is geographically closer to Delhi than Western Europe, but London-Paris appear more accessible to us than Moscow-Saint Petersburg. Maybe because the former cities are more thoroughly enmeshed into our popular culture. Whatever, this idea renders certain titles in the library with a particularly fairy-tale appeal; such as Glimpses of Siberia, Azerbaijanian Poetry, and Bridges of Leningrad.

Steeped in hushed awe, the Russian House collection is notable for harbouring a literary landscape that has given the humankind some of its greatest novelists and poets. The English section is stacked tight with translations of Tolstoy and Chekhov, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, Gorky and Sholokhov. The poets include Anna Akhmatova, communist Russia’s most regal, tragic and ill-treated writer; Osip Mandelstam, who perished in Stalin’s gulag; Vladimir Mayakovsky, who died by suicide; and of course Pushkin, the poet possessing the status of a saint.

The library’s surreal aspect lies in its extensive Soviet-era collection. In fact, many books happen to be stamped with the blue seal of Delhi’s then USSR embassy. The seal is the souvenir of a time when the possibility of superpower Soviet Union’s extinction was unthinkable. To stand in front of the shelf containing all the 31 black hardback volumes of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (English translation!) is like coming face-to-face with the USSR’s embalmed corpse.

It must also be pointed out that books on the USSR founder are a tad too many. Consider some of the titles—Lenin in Soviet Poetry, Lenin’s Geneva Addresses, The Central Lenin Museum: A Guide, Lenin the Revolutionary, V.I. Lenin Memorial Places in the USSR, Lenin in London, Lenin in Siberian Exile, Places Associated with Lenin in and around Leningrad, Lenin Through the Eyes of the World, Stories about Lenin and the Revolution, Lenin Talks to America, Lenin’s Name, Lenin and the Leagues of Struggle… this could be a bibliophile’s version of Lenin’s Tomb!

Additionally, the darkened hall beside the library forcefully demands the visitor’s attention for its mysterious atmosphere. The walls are decked with black-and-white photos of the old life in Russian countryside. While a sofa remains unoccupied, as if real action-filled life must be unfolding somewhere else—just as it does in Chekhov plays.

Lenin’s tomb

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