With Much Love and Kisses

The Russian tsars also used the penal colony on the Solovki Islands in the White Sea, but it was never as notorious as under Stalin's regime. Thousands of Russians, including many intellectuals who were considered "enemies of the people," were arrested and transported to this barren place in the 1920s and 1930s. And many of them died there, victims of continued hardships or the firing squad. In a group of people travels to this northern camp by train to commemorate their deceased relatives. The film alternates images of their trip with grainy black-and-white archive footage. On the basis of photographs, diaries, letters and the recollections of various survivors, we get an impression of the degrading conditions in the camp. Stories about executions, mass graves and solitary confinement in a freezing cell explain what happens to a human being when his freedom is taken away. What remains of his human dignity if all he can think about is hunger and cold?