The story
Days of the White Cranes Gamzatov Literary Festival in Makhachkala
Makhachkala hosts the International Gamzatov Literary Festival, Days of the White Cranes, each September around the birthday of Dagestan's national poet Rasul Gamzatov. Poets, writers, translators, and critics from across Russia and abroad gather for readings, roundtables, and meetings with students, honoring a holiday Gamzatov himself established as a tribute to poetry and to soldiers who never returned from war.
Rasul Gamzatov, Dagestan's most celebrated poet, wrote a poem in which soldiers killed in war do not simply vanish but turn into a flock of white cranes, calling out from the sky to the living below.