Bureacrats and Bean Counters

Another day in the archives with my Dead Russian Guys. As the week progresses and I photograph more and more of their documents my back slowly begins to rebel. At first it is a twinge and gradually it grows to a steady stabbing pain and eventually I have to give in.
These guys just produced so much paper! This is great in one respect as I have so much evidence to go on. On the other hand they must be responsible for significant deforestation! I have been looking at the minutes of their meetings this week and it is clear they liked to talk! Almost every day in the early years! Not only talk, but numbers too! If they could find a column of numbers to add up they were seriously happy! Bureaucrats and bean counters, every one of them!
I don’t mind when they use decent paper but a lot of the time, especially their financial reports and accounts are on poor quality paper similar to tracing paper. It is flimsy and difficult to photograph. Not only because it is transparent but it is invariably folded, scrunched up or torn making it more difficult to get a legible picture I can work with. Most of the boxes this week contain 50-60 files, each one representing a meeting with attached reports, decisions or accounts. Sometimes the minutes are only a couple of pages which are easy to photograph and move on to the next one. Even the added reports are generally not too difficult as long as the pages turn easily. The accounts are always a problem.
All the documents have been folded along the margin and sewn into a paper folder. Not a great deal of care has been taken to ensure that words and numbers are left out of the fold and therefore able to be read without trying to tear the document out of the folder! This is generally frowned upon by archivists!
I bought two more memory sticks for the camera today and will probably use them all up by tomorrow. Even if I cut my dates down from 1930 to 1925 there is a mountain of paperwork to get through. Hopefully once I get through all the minutes of meeting it will begin to get easier...I doubt it! Even with all these difficulties I still love these guys. Not only were they bureaucrats and bean counters they were capable humanitarians who provided a valuable service to vulnerable refugees over a long period of time.
This is my favourite story at the moment. The local representative in each refugee location was responsible for the welfare of the refugees and did their best to help in any circumstance. One of their duties was to make sure there was material to make coffins in the event of a death in the refugee camp. In Gallipoli on one occasion a refugee came to the office saying there were no materials to be had to make a coffin for a recently deceased refugee in the camp. What could the representative do? He ordered the wall between his office and his living quarters to be taken down and used to make the coffin. That is why I love these guys. They used what they had and did what they could to alleviate the suffering of fellow Russians in desperate situations.
On another note, the food in the hotel is fantastic. I have chosen something different every evening and it has all been great. I love being able to get in after a hard day, go down to the restaurant and have wonderful food placed in front of me. This happens at home of course but here I don’t even have to do the washing up!