Part IV. The Way to Freedom

10. ON THE WAY TO FREEDOM

IT took me a relatively short time to regain the appearance of a human being. I was met warmly at the Building Section. By common effort my colleagues dressed me in a variety of assorted clothes, and I was able to discard the rags I had been wearing during the preceding period. I began to recover rapidly. My position could be considered fairly secure as my job in the department of the mining administration had the most exalted confirmation of the head of Dalstroy, and the small fry among the local camp officials could not seriously harm me.

I returned to my old occupation – preparation of building estimates. At first I was very busy, staying at the office 12-15 hours a day, and only gradually realizing how far I had fallen behind, living at the gold fields, in almost total ignorance of the events taking place in the world.

I learned that during the past half year there was war in the West between Germany on the one hand, and England and France on the other. I was especially astonished at the fact that all the sympathies of the Soviet government were on the side of Germany with which the U.S.S.R. had concluded a friendship pact after many years of bitter anti-Hitler propaganda. Under camp conditions, this friendship with Hitler reflected itself in a series of privileges to prisoners of German origin. Those who had retained their German citizenship were freed and sent back to Germany, and the Russo-Germans were immediately placed in a favoured position: an example of this was provided by the case of the mechanical engineer Fritz, who was given a job in our department, while serving a ten-year sentence for espionage – an extremely rare case in the history of the administration. In the department he was nicknamed ‘friendly power’ and enjoyed a number of freedoms inaccessible to contras of Russian origin: freedom of movement in the settlement, the right to obtain supplementary products, to send home telegrams and money, and so forth. In contrast to the rest of us, Fritz always went about in a brand-new outfit.

The partition of Poland brought to Kolyma a certain number of Poles from the liberated regions of the Ukraine and White Russia, Galicians and Polish Jews. These, however, were never sent to our administration, but were kept carefully apart from the ‘old’ Soviet citizens somewhwere in the Western Mining Administration, away from possible contact with the other camp inmates. According to rumour, their number was not great, and the conditions of their existence were far below the average Kolyma level.

People greedily read all available newspapers: the events shook everyone. As a result of the pact with Germany, the U.S.S.R. expanded its western frontiers. The Leningrad Military District fought Finland, but there were muffled rumours that the little country was fought not only by one military district, but that a partial mobilization had been carried out throughout the U.S.S.R., with the exception of Siberia and the Far East, and that the westward movement of troop units was in full swing.

In our group political questions were never discussed; newspapers were read avidly from cover to cover, the free employees relayed to us the news they had heard over the radio – there were, of course, no radios in the prisoners’ barracks – but everything was spoken and heard without comment. Indeed, no comment was needed: it was clear enough that the Soviet Union had entered into active international politics, taking advantage of the dependence of a Germany that was waging war in the west on its eastern neighbour. What this could lead to we did not question nor ponder.

Against this background of large events, there were some local developments as well. A new chief of Dalstroy appeared in Kolyma. He was Ivan Fedorovich Nikishov, member of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. and Commissar of State Security, 3rd Grade – a rank equivalent to that of lieutenant-general in the army. Soon the ‘line’ of the new chief became evident, a ‘line’ that was, of course, in consonance with both Beria’s and Stalin’s policies. New works were developed in Kolyma, the geological activities were stepped up, the new Western Administration was expanded, and a South-Western Administration was set up – located geographically in the east. The new projects also included a tin mining administration on the Chaun Gulf, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, the Anadyr Geological Base, an expedition to the mouth of the Neva River on the Indigirka, and a plan for the opening of a mining administration on the river Yana.

The road-building administration was being transferred from Yagodny to the far west, in connection with the shift in the relative importance of road works, and our own Northern Administration was to be transferred to its new location in Yagodny, which we thoroughly welcomed, since the road settlement was much more comfortable and well equipped. The road administration officials, headed by Zaporozhetz, furiously resisted transfer to the wild and undeveloped west, but without success. Incidentally, Zaporozhetz was the last remaining member of the group of leading Leningrad N.K.V.D. officials exiled to Kolyma after the assassination of Kirov. The rest, headed by Medved, had been taken back to Moscow a year earlier, where, according to rumour, they had been shot by Yezhov shortly before the latter’s own fall.

Our department’s building activities expanded considerably during the period that followed my return from the mines. The main task was the construction of a 3,000-kilowatt electric power station on the river Taskan, which was to supply electric power to the entire northern group of mines. The work was done by a contracting office under our control. But the ill-starred powerhouse was beset by endless mishaps from the outset.

In Pavlov’s time an engineering-geological expedition had been sent to the mouth of the Taskan to select a building site. Despite the constant pushing by Pavlov himself, the survey of that area prolonged itself. Pavlov lost patience and made a personal appearance on the spot in the middle of winter, mercilessly berated all the geologists, cast his ruler’s eye over the region, pointed out a site for the erection of the powerhouse, and ordered immediate excavations. Within a week about a thousand workers were herded to the spot, and all winter they dug the ground for the foundations of the powerhouse. However, when the snow melted, it turned out that the spot chosen was in the middle of a swamp and there could be no question of building anything there. Everything had to be started anew. Fortunately for the geologists, the head of the prospecting party had succeeded in obtaining from Pavlov a written order for the starting of operations on the spot determined by the eccentric’s whim, and therefore no reprisals followed the initial fiasco.

By the time I arrived at Khattynakh, the work at Taskan was already going full blast, as was the construction of a high-voltage line connecting the powerhouse with the mines. But the financial state of the project presented a sad picture as a result of the enormous overexpenditures on the unnecessary work of the first winter.

Another big construction job carried on by our department was the laying of a single-track suspension railway. By that time the problem of supplying the mines with construction lumber and firewood had become extremely complicated, since all more or less suitable timber had been ruthlessly destroyed within a radius of 30-40 miles. The nearest forests of suitable size were located along the upper reaches of the Taskan River, separated from the gold fields by a wide stretch of impassable swamps. The lack of transportation facilities and the general acuteness of the problem made it necessary to find some way out of the difficulty; as a result, it was decided to build a suspension railway on piles dug deeply into the earth. Along this railway, suspended cars were to ply back and forth, carrying lumber to the fields. The road was to be laid directly across the swamp, and its total mileage, to begin with, was to be 25 miles.

Two talented constructors were found among the prisoners working in our department – the railway engineer Kasyanov, and the constructor Wallerstein, who developed the detailed plans for the entire project. The authorities seized on the idea and pushed the work in every possible way. Direction of the project was entrusted to Kasyanov who left for the area soon afterward with a large group of workers. Despite the warnings of Kasyanov himself and the cautious Sukhanov, the head of the administration, Mendzyrzhetsky, obtained Pavlov’s approval of the plans, and several hundred people were assigned to the railway construction work during the very first winter.

Since the Industrial Bank refused to grant any funds for so risky a venture, some simple book-keeping manipulations were indulged in, and the financing was started at the expense of basic production – the expense of costs per gram of gold.

The whole story ended ingloriously. Work went on for about eight months, but when spring arrived it became clear that the implacable swamp would brook no intrusion: all the piles that had been driven into the earth in winter began to settle down and sag in various directions as the ground thawed out. The road laid over them, with here and there the rails already in place, turned into such a bent and twisted line that there could be no question of moving cars with lumber along it. Work was stopped. A part of the construction timber that went into the road was salvaged for fuel, and the rest was abandoned without use. The administration wrote off a loss of about a million and a half rubles.

While the work on the suspension railway was still in progress, I had to make several trips to the location, not far from the Taskan village where a deerbreeding Sovhoz was run by a tribe of Orochels.

It must be said that the local natives were everywhere pampered and coddled as no ordinary mortals. The smaller the tribe and the more backward culturally, the more attention it received from the Communists and the government. This was called the Stalinist policy concerning nationalities. The question of nationalities in Kolyma graphically illustrated the general policy.

Before Dalstroy was organized, Kolyma was inabited by several scattered nomadic tribes of deer-breeders and hunters: the Tungus, Orochels, Yukagirs and others. They were supplied with necessities by the trading stations of the Fur Trust in exchange for valuable furs; in the process they were cheated mercilessly since they had no realistic conception of the value of the furs they surrendered. When Dalstroy was organized, the life of these primitive children of nature became immeasurably more complicated. While Berzin was still in charge, the government began to settle the natives in villages built by the camp inmates. The nomads found it extremely difficult to adapt themselves to a settled existence, but this was dictated by Stalin’s policy for nationalities. Later, in the early thirties, under directives from Moscow, these savages were collectivized and subjected to the general antiKoulak drive. As a result, the newly created villages became completely disorganized: the natives ran away to the taiga and the distant tundras, whole tribes escaped to Alaska across the ice of the Bering Strait, driving before them the herds of deer that survived the collectivization. With enormous difficulty, at the cost of promises not to touch the natives’ property and various other bribes, the government succeeded in bringing back some of the savages to the villages built for them. The villages were called Sovhozes, although they bore little resemblance to the Sovhozes established in Russia propter: the natives did not recognize the Socialist character of their property, and their mood had to be respected.

The government set up district Soviets of deputies of the natives; Magadan was the seat of the Regional Soviet, These Soviets were independent of Dalstroy and only natives enjoyed the rights of voting and election.

However, the game of parliamentarianism did not amuse them: they constantly demanded various bribes in return for their acceptance of the Soviet system. These bribes included cloth, alcohol, hunting equipment, and food. Occasionally the natives did some work for Dalstroy, naturally on an entirely voluntary basis and for good compensation. Under pressure from the party organization, our department also had to sign a contract with the natives in connection with the building of the suspension railway: we contracted the Taskan Sovhoz to transport lumber for us by deer. During one of my trips I came to realize the justice of Kasyanov’s complaints against ‘those damned Asiatics’.

One of these heroes would harness a pair of deer in a sleigh and take off to the woods where he would appear three or four hours after the beginning of work; no one would presume to comment on his lateness. Then he would load one log on his sleigh, choosing the thinnest and lightest, and set out on his trip to the building location. After a halfhour or so, his deer (small and weak) would tire and stop to rest. The native would then climb out of the sleigh, take out his saw – stolen from the building site – and cut off a part of the log to make it easier for the deer. Whether because of the lighter load or because they had rested, the deer would resume the journey. After a while the scene would repeat itself: the deer stop, the log be shortened by another metre, the driver get back into his place and again travel a short distance. As a result, instead of the needed long pole, the builders were supplied with a short stump useful only as firewood. In the course of a day’s work, the native would bring two or three such stumps, but his wages were 20 rubles a day, and he also had to be treated to regular drinks of liquor. With great difficulty we rid ourselves of the onerous contract with this Sovhoz, which brought us nothing but losses . . .

These natives knew almost no Russian – at any rate when they did not wish to understand what they were told. They were unbelievably dirty: according to their customs, a man was not meant to wash from birth until death. Once, arriving at the Sovhoz, I witnessed an amusing scene. A new bathhouse had just been erected for the villagers. It was built, of course, by camp inmates on orders from Magadan. But when the baths were ready, no one wanted to use them. Several members of the Young Communist League vainly tried to persuade the natives to go and wash themselves and thus to partake of Socialist culture. Finally they found one old Orochel, a chronic drunkard, tempted him with a bottle of alcohol and a new shirt into agreeing to wash, and led him off to the baths. Behind them walked the old man’s numerous relatives, howling aloud as at a funeral. At last the pioneer of civilization was brought into the bathhouse. I went in, too, interested in the sequel. Once in the dressing-room, the old man became refractory and categorically refused to undress. Persuasion was of no avail. Even an advance payment of several swigs of alcohol failed to inspire the savage with the courage to go through with the ordeal to the end. Then the Komsomols – there were about five of them – lost patience and undressed him forcibly, ignoring the screams and the desperate resistance of their victim, after which they dragged him to the soaping room and there washed off the accumulated dirt of his sixty years of existence.

When he was led out of the baths afterwards, dressed up in his new shirt and scrubbed to a shine, the unfortunate one sobbed like a child and covered his face with his hands in shame. As soon as his family, who waited for him at the entrance, with other curious kinsmen, caught sight of the unnaturally clean colour of his face and hands, they wailed desperately in their dialect and scattered from him in all directions. The sufferer, clutching his honestly earned bottle of alcohol, ran after them, crying . . .

And so the baths remained without further users.

The village also boasted a library, which stood empty for want of literate readers, as well as a male-nurse who was never consulted.

I looked at all this coddling of the natives and thought bitterly about the true carriers of human culture who were being mercilessly exterminated in the nearby camps. How many centuries of progress would have to pass before these savages could produce scientists, writers, engineers and doctors like those who were perishing by the thousand at Soviet penal labour!

March was especially snowy. For a couple of weeks the northern mining area was cut off from the shore, from Magadan which fed all Kolyma. Days of hunger set in once again. Feeling the unpleasant emptiness in my stomach, I thought of those who were at the mines and who surely fared much worse than men like me who had managed to get jobs with the administration. The snow was so high that in many places it was easier to pack down a new road on the snow at the height of six or nine feet above the highway instead of clearing it. And when the snow began to settle down under the sun’s rays, we found that our road ran over a number of cars stranded on their way during the blizzard and snowed under.

When the first trucks arrived from Magadan, I received three letters from my mother – the first in a whole year. They were in answer to the telegram I sent after my return to the administration. In the restrained words and expressions of my mother’s letters I read about the difficult life – scarcely better than my own – which she had led at home. In one of the letters I read: ‘I learned recently that your father is in a place similar to yours. He has been there for the past year and a half and will return seven years after you . . .’ This meant that my father had been sent to a concentration camp in 1938, and was sentenced to ten years.

In another letter my mother wrote that I was the unwitting cause of great difficulties encountered by my younger brother in his efforts to secure an education. Apparently someone had learned that he had a brother in a concentration camp, and he was thrown out of the institute . . . Mother also wrote that she had worked during the preceding summer, together with the pupils of her school, in a kolhoz at some farm labour, and that she received as compensation two pounds of sugar and a pound of candy, which she was saving for my return . . . It was far more painful for me to read her letters than to endure my own life in camp.

The newspapers and radio brought news that great events were about to break in the West, events that would change all life in the U.S.S.R. But in what direction? This no one knew. We occupied the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – after the annexation of eastern Poland, but, by all indications, it was only a beginning. The public speeches of the chief of the Political Section, and the private statements of the top officials contained ever more frequent mysterious hints about the coming greatness of the Soviet Union and the tremendous role it was to play in the future. But no one spoke clearly and openly, either in Moscow or in Kolyma, and therefore the ordinary man preferred to keep silent and think his own thoughts. A few of the free employees voiced a desire to return to Russia before the expiration of their contracts, but the administration rebuffed all such attempts.

During one of my trips to Taskan, while I waited on the left bank for a car travelling in my direction, I entered the roadside dining-room for chauffeurs and asked for a glass of tea. The face of the man at the counter seemed strangely familiar. I sat down with my tea directly opposite him and looked at that face, graced with its long moustache, trying to recall who it might be. Noticing my stare, the man obviously felt uneasy and tried to move away so that I would not see him too clearly. Suddenly I remembered. Getting up from my table, I approached him and said, looking straight into his eyes:

‘Why, hello, Comrade Zakharov!’

With a startled look, he recoiled from me, muttering:

‘You are mistaken, comrade, my name is not Zakharov.’

‘Don’t try to pull any wool over my eyes! You probably don’t recognize me. You have known many like me, but to me you were the only one. Now I am sure I am not mistaken.’

He began to whisper.

‘For God’s sake, don’t tell anyone you know me. You see, I am in the same boots now as you are. I beg you . . . You know our chauffeurs: if they learn that I used to work for the N.K.V.D., they’ll kill me. I wouldn’t have a week to live . . . I beg you . . .’

‘But please, don’t worry, I haven’t the least intention to expose you! You can live out your life as far as I am concerned. I don’t even blame you for my sentence to Kolyma. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else . . .’

The face of my old investigator brightened.

‘Thank you. Thank you. You know that I tried to be a human being even in that filthy job. You know that I never raised my hand against anyone. But you understand . . . Our position . . .’

‘But how did you manage to make the jump from investigator to prisoner? A rather sad conclusion to such a career . . .’ I also whispered, to spare poor Zakharov unnecessary anguish. Fortunately, the diningroom was nearly empty and no one listened to us.

‘In 1938, under Yezhov, during the purge of the N.K.V.D., I was arrested on charges of excessive liberalism toward prisoners. They gave me three years and sent me to Kolyma. The only thing they did – as a mark of leniency – was to keep out of the records that I was an investigator and to change my name: you know how we and former prosecution officials are dealt with in the camps . . .’

I knew. It was true that the criminals – the most active camp element – harboured an organic hatred of all who were or had ever been connected with the militia, N.K.V.D. or the prosecution department. They almost always found some way of liquidating their enemies, or, at best, of poisoning their whole existence. I asked:

‘And what is your present name?’

‘My name is now Fedorov. But, please, promise me . . .’

‘I tell you again, don’t worry about it.’

‘Where are you going – to Taskan? We’ll take care of it at once. Hey there, brother!’ he called out to a chauffeur sitting in the corner. ‘Are you going to Taskan? Take along this man, will you?’ The driver looked up.

‘This one? All right. It’s time to go. Gome on.’ With a nod to Zakharov, I left the dining-room, and followed the chauffeur.

On the way back, I had to stop again for a lift on the left bank, and went into the same dining-room. But the man behind the counter was a stranger. When I asked where Fedorov was, he glanced at me and said:

‘There is no Fedorov here any more. Two days ago he was transferred, I don’t know where. He asked for the transfer himself . . .’

I understood. Zakharov never quite believed me and felt that it was safer to leave the place where he had been recognized.

By midsummer our mining administration was finally transferred to Yagodny, replacing the road administration which was sent West. Yagodny was far more pleasant to live in. It did not have that specific camp atmosphere. Instead, it was surrounded by green things, woods and grass; the river was not muddy and dirty like those that passed through the gold fields, but clear and even suitable for bathing. The houses were clean and neatly built, and the road cutting across the village was smooth and level. We were all very pleased.

Sukhanov went to the Crimea on several months’ leave, and his functions were taken over by our chief engineer, a very young and pleasant fellow, one of the Komsomols. It was easy to work with him – he never interfered in my tasks and never opposed my suggestions.

Time passed, and day followed day almost unnoticeably. There was much work, work that had become interesting, that occupied all my thoughts and all the hours of the day. I became accustomed to paying no attention to the conditions of life in camp, returning to my barrack only late at night to sleep and leaving for work among the first in the morning. I enjoyed relative freedom, having a 24-hour pass and obtaining, wherever necessary, special passes for trips to work locations.

Once I went to the building site of the high-voltage line, to the At-Uryach field, where a sub-station was being built. The local chief was ill, after drinking by mistake some kerosene instead of alcohol. I found him in bed, with a greenish-yellow face, but still full of his usual vitality. He ordered his servant to prepare dinner and remarked, in the course of our conversation, that the servant was a professor of psychiatry who had been sent to camp for unknown reasons after many years of work in one of the larger clinics in Moscow. He treated his professor benevolently, addressing him by name and patronymic, but with a certain contemptuousness which even the best of the free employees seemed unable to escape in their relations with prisoners.

Winter returned with its strong winds and frosts. There were no changes in my mode of life. At moments I began to realize that in some six months my term would be completed and I would again acquire some semblance of a free man. I knew that I would never regain the old rights which were theoretically at my disposal before my arrest: a term in prison, especially for political reasons, always remains as a blot on a man’s biography in the eyes of the authorities. Wherever I went, wherever I tried to obtain work, I would always be followed by a ‘tail’ – my prison record, which would be sent from one N.K.V.D. office to another as I moved from place to place.

The doors of educational institutions would also be closed to me forever, as would many enterprises and offices. My passport would carry a notation which would prohibit my living in the capital city of any Republic, in important industrial regions, near the seashore, or within 60 miles of any Soviet border.

I also knew that under the least suspicion, in every purge, I would again, without question or hesitation, be sent to a camp, behind barbed wire, without trial or investigation; that my company would always cast a shadow on people with whom I associated; that I was deprived of the right to serve in the Red Army and that, in case of need, I could be mobilized only into a construction battalion or some other auxiliary service, with a punitive regime . . .

I knew all this to the last detail from friends working in the camp administration and therefore liberation from camp did not seem so great and desirable an event as it might have under different conditions. Inwardly I had already decided to remain as a voluntary worker for Dalstroy, that penal kingdom where at least a former prisoner did not represent some special phenomenon, where I was known to many officials and where, even under prevailing circumstances, I had a definite reputation and standing.

True, even in Dalstroy there was a dividing line between free employees and ex-prisoners – but here it was at least overt, and my future legal position was quite clear, so that I did not risk striking unforeseen obstacles at every step and receiving heavy moral blows to my selfesteem. I knew the precise extent of my few rights and adhered to them.

It was during the Soviet holidays – the anniversary of the October Revolution. I received an invitation to a party on that evening given by a group of free employees. Several days before the holidays Sukhanov came back, but he knew nothing about it. For considerations of prudency, I did not inform anyone of my impending infraction of camp discipline. Hobnobbing with free employees was officially prohibited, but usually it was overlooked, and I decided to risk it this time. But the affair suddenly became complicated by telegraph instructions from Magadan which ordered all prisoners to be locked in the camp and kept under reinforced guard during the first day of the holiday. I rushed about the camp, trying to think of some way to get out and arrive at the party in time. To ask the commandant’s permission was useless – he would merely gloat over denying it.

Evening came, cold and quiet. I put on my good suit, bought a short time before, and left my tent. Circling around the barbed wire fence, I found a place that was relatively less brightly lit by the searchlights in the watchtowers, and, making sure no one was near by, I lay down on the snow and began to wriggle out under the inner row of wire. I succeeded perfectly, without my clothes once catching on the barbs. There was yet another fence. I had just begun to spread the wire, when I heard a shot and a cry: ‘Lie still, or I’ll shoot!’

Still not entirely certain it referred to me, I nevertheless stopped on the spot, knowing that, under camp rules, the soldier could kill with impunity anyone he saw in the space between the two wire fences. Alas – very soon I found that the cry was addressed precisely to me! Two other guards came running in response to the shot, and talking something over with the sentry on the watchtower, they approached me and turned their flashlights on my face. They could not but recognize me – by that time the whole settlement knew me. Despite this I was ordered again to lie still without moving. One of the soldiers left, and the other stood over me with the muzzle of his rifle staring right at me.

I was extremely uncomfortable and very cold. The snow melted a little under me and my light coat, put on especially for the short trip to the house of my friends, quickly absorbed the moisture and froze. At my least movement, the guard emitted a threatening growl and shouted: ‘Don’t move! I’ll shoot!’

Then his companion returned and whispered something quietly in my guard’s ear. The latter only said, ‘All right!’ and nodded.

Hours passed. I was frozen to the bone and no longer could feel any hands and feet. I thanked fate for my not having perpetrated a desperately foolish thing – putting on my shoes instead of the felt boots. I lay there and thought with anguish about my friends making merry in their warm, cosy room, waiting for me, then giving up waiting and pouring out cups of life-giving liquor for everyone; what would I not have given at the moment for one sip of that nectar!

After a time the guard was relieved by another. I tried to enter into negotiations with him, but in reply received only a few nasty warnings which made me decide to submit and wait for what would come next. I still cannot understand how I escaped freezing to death that night. From time to time the guard called out to me, and I replied with some word or phrase. Then I decided to outwit him and pretend that I was freezing, and stopped answering either his shouts or the kicks of his felt boot, or even the prodding of his bayonet across the wire. My calculation proved correct – apparently the authorities did not include my freezing to death in their plans. After several unsuccessful attempts to get an answer from me, the guard fired a shot into the air. Immediately a second guard appeared, then a third. The first one said:

‘It seems he froze, the son of a bitch.’

‘You think so?’ the other replied. ‘Let’s try. Hey you, answer!’ he shouted to me and poked his bayonet painfully into my back. I kept still. After some more yelling, one of them said:

‘We’ll have to drag him to the punishment cell. Perhaps he’ll come to,’ and spreading the wire, they dragged me out by the feet to the territory of the camp and from there to its far corner where the punishment cell was located. The soldiers who guarded that institution opened the door and I was pushed in. I lay on the floor in the lifesaving warmth of the cell, feeling the numbness of my hands and feet giving way to a sharp, cutting pain, a sign that I was thawing out. Two or three other unfortunates who remained in the punishment shack after the usual holiday amnesty came over and pulled me to the centre of the cell, nearer the brightly burning stove. Recognizing me, these fellows, who turned out to be acquaintances from among the criminals, gave me first aid, and rubbed my hands and feet to restore normal circulation. Soon I was able to move about freely. My story about the attempted escape provoked a string of colourful commentaries about the authorities and the guards. They unanimously expressed their conviction that I had nothing to fear and that the camp, authorities would not dare to keep me in the punishment cell at the risk of a scandal with Sukhanov. However, I did not share their optimism, and I was not mistaken.

As soon as dawn began to break, the doors of the punishment shack opened, and two guards came in and ordered us to make ready to go. No one paid any more attention to me. When we left the shack, we were taken to the gates of the camp, where a truck was already waiting with its motor running. We climbed in – altogether six of us. The guards followed and we started.

I tried to guess where we might be going. The mine was ruled out: in order to send us to the mine, it would have been necessary first to make the transfers formal through the Allocation Office which the camp commandant could not have done since it was a holiday. Consequently, there remained only the places directly connected with the Yagodny camp. Of these, the only possibility was lumbering work in one of the forests as it would have been absurd to send me to building work where I was among the ‘bosses’.

Only several hours later did I realize that I was being taken to the most distant lumbering site, a spot along the At-Uryach River. The truck stopped and the soldiers drove us deep into the woods along a footpath; some time later we emerged in a clearing where a low hut stood, three-quarters submerged in the deep snow. It was the barrack of the charcoal burners who burned charcoal for the needs of the settlement commandatura. Leaving us with the brigadier, the guards departed.

I felt miserable, if only because I was dressed far too lightly. Besides, I was angry at the absurdity of the entire incident which, on the whole, had been caused by my own foolishness.

The charcoal burners’ hut was dark and sooty – even more depressing than the one in which I had lived for a time a year earlier and from which I undertook my attempted escape to Russia. It was lighted by a burning splinter, and the charcoal burners were all old and unshaven men, so that I had a feeling that I had been plunged somewhere into the Middle Ages. However, I could not allow myself to lose time. I knew that no one would ever find me in that hole, and that Sukhanov was already raging in Yagodny, not knowing where I disappeared, while the camp officials were spinning out unlikely fables to account for my absence and refusing to tell him where I was. The brigadier of the charcoal burners, who dozed by the stove – charcoal burning does not require the constant presence of the workers on the spot – told me amiably that if I wished, I could go out to work the next day, but if I didn’t, I might rest another day or two. The prospect of rest did not tempt me in the least, and I left the hut. Taking advantage of the fact that the woods were not yet totally dark, I found the footpath by which we had come an hour or two earlier, and followed it until I came to a road in the snow which, judging by the tyre-tracks, was used by cars. I turned left and walked as quickly as I could, to warm up somewhat with the motion.

There was a noise behind me and a slowly moving truck appeared, loaded with timber. I stopped and signalled to it. When it drew up alongside of me, the truck stopped and the chauffeur’s face appeared in the window:

‘Where are you going?’ I asked, in the authoritative tone of an official. He looked at me and was apparently convinced by my clothes.

‘To Upper At-Uryach, I am carrying poles for the high-voltage line.’

‘Fine,’ I said, opening the door and climbing in beside him. ‘Do you know where the sub-station construction site is?’

‘Of course, I do.’

‘You’ll let me off there,’ I ordered, in a tone that brooked no contradiction.

The truck started. Warming up, I dozed off, tired by the events of the past twenty-four hours. I awoke when the truck stopped. Behind the frost-covered glass I saw the figure of a sentry. We were at a control post. The sentry opened the door and demanded the driver’s documents. He examined them and asked:

‘Who is that with you?’

‘An official from the Building Section. He’s asleep.’

‘What official? From Yagodny? A prisoner?’ the soldier asked, apparently forewarned by the guards who brought me to the woods.

‘No, ours, from Upper At-Uryach. A free employee.’

There was a second of agonizing silence. The bright ray of a pocket flashlight slid up and down my body. The guard hesitated whether he ought to wake me or not. ‘All right, go on!’ he said at last. The truck started, and I breathed more freely.

Late in the evening I climbed out at the sub-station and went into my friend’s room.

‘Petrov! Where do you come from?’ he exclaimed.

I told him briefly about the state of affairs, and he roared with laughter. ‘And Sukhanov, I hear, has already raised a row at the camp. The commandant got a thorough dressing-down. I’ll telephone at once,’ he said, picking up the receiver. ‘Hello, hello, operator, give me Yagodny.’

‘Yagodny? Sukhanov’s apartment, please. Sukhanov? Hello. Do you recognize me? I have news: my detectives have tracked down your fugitive. Petrov has been caught and bound, and now he is lying right here on the floor, by the stove. What? . . .’

I tore the receiver from his hands:

‘Hello, Constantin Grigorievich . . .’

And Sukhanov’s voice replied:

‘What the devil, Petrov? You always manage to land in some mess. Come here at once. I have a man here from the electric station. He has been waiting for you all day . . .’

‘I would be glad to come, Constantin Grigorievich, but I am afraid they’ll seize me again in camp . . .’

‘Don’t worry, they won’t. They’ve got their portion, and an order has already gone out for your return . . .’

‘Yes, but it is night, and there are hardly any trucks on the road. How can I come? . . .’

‘Damn it! You must be here by eight in the morning.’

‘I’ll try, but I may be late . . .’

Sukhanov thought a moment.

‘All right. I’ll telephone the mine director at once to deliver you to Yagodny. Wait and be ready to go . . .’

I hung up. My friend was convulsed with laughter.

‘Instead of bursting with laughter, you’d do better to think about feeding a man,’ I said angrily. He roused himself to immediate action.

‘Hey, professor!’ he shouted to his orderly, ‘get us another supper.’

I had time barely to eat and warm up when there was a knock at the door and a bearded sleigh-driver came in.

‘Who is to be taken to Yagodny?’

‘I am,’ I said, rising and bidding my friend goodbye . . .

The mine director’s sleigh stood waiting at the door.’ I climbed in, wrapped myself in the sheepskin coat lying there, and we started. It was not yet dawn when we arrived. Without going to the camp, I proceeded directly to the office which was steam heated, hoping to catch a nap before work. But my hopes were in vain. At the office I found the head book-keeper from the Taskan electric station, sleeping across three chairs. He woke when I entered and greeted me with joy, and then, having had enough rest, he demanded that we get down to business at once. And so we poured over the papers until work hours. When Sukhanov came, I reported that everything was in order and that the Taskan representative could go to the bank for money. My chief only shook his head.

‘What a madcap you are, Petrov. Now what devil prompted you to crawl under the wire? Don’t you know those scoundrels could have shot you in the best of form? And you have only a few more months to go . . . You are quite mad.’

And that was the end of the incident. There were no further repercussions. The camp officials, big and little, gritted their teeth, but after the reprimand they had received they did not dare to trouble me again, while I, on my part, tried to be prudent and keep out of trouble.

February came, the month when I was to be freed from camp. I was not certain of liberation, since politicals were often served up surprises like the extension of their term a few days before its expiration. I knew that the allocation department in Magadan had long ago requested a statement concerning my activities, both in our office and in camp. The report of the former was more important, and I knew that it was most favourable. The camp report – I was shown it secretly – was very brief and very dull, but contained nothing detrimental. In addition, my old acquaintance, Bazhenov – the head of the regional N.K.V.D. – was to submit his opinion of my character. What he wrote I do not know. I talked to my friends who worked in Magadan, asked them to do everything possible to facilitate the formalities of my release. Several days before the end of my term, I received a letter from one of them who wrote that my personal card was in the file of those to be freed from camp and that, by all indications, there would be no difficulties.

On the surface, the changes in my position would not be too great. I was to occupy officially the post of head of the Economic Planning Section in our department. My functions would be the same. The only difference was that I would move to the free settlement, a few feet away from the camp, and would receive 1,400 rubles a month instead of my present 80.

And yet I looked forward with a certain excitement to the approach of the crucial date. The future remained dark, insofar as I tried to imagine it outside the boundaries of ‘my native Kolyma’. But looking back, I often wondered how a man could pass, relatively unharmed, through all the experiences I had endured. But if I were asked whether I regretted spending six years of my life in such inhuman conditions, I would find it difficult to reply. Of course, all dreams of normal life, of education, all illusions native to youth in all times and epochs, were dispelled without a trace. But the years of prison and camp undoubtedly gave me something – though what, precisely, was still difficult to determine at the time. Perhaps the main thing I learned was the ability to clearly distinguish good from evil, truth from falsehood. And that was no small lesson.

The day finally came which rounded out exactly my six years in camp. Six years – 72 months, 312 weeks, 2,190 days . . . Was it much or little? . . .

Early in the morning I was called to the camp office. Following the established procedure, the office director asked me my name, the term of punishment, and the article of the Criminal Code under which I had been sentenced.

I replied to all the questions, and he checked them against the documents lying before him. There were no errors.

‘Orders have come for your release from camp, in connection with the expiration of your term,’ he said.

‘Right, it’s as it should be,’ I replied.

‘From the present day, from this hour, you are free.’

‘I am happy to hear it.’

‘Sign here that you have been informed to that effect.’

I signed.

‘Do you have a photograph of yourself? Let me have it.’

He took the photograph from my hands, spread mucilage on its back and pasted it to the previously prepared certificate which confirmed my liberation from camp. He put a seal on it and handed it to me.

I thanked him and left the camp, never to return. A new life was beginning. But was it new? . . .

On the way from camp I stepped in to see a friend who owned a radio. The latest news was being broadcast: fierce battles were raging in Western Europe. A vague premonition flashed through my mind – the roar of cannon was too loud, too many bombs were bursting over the cities of Europe.

The day was clear and frosty. Nothing distinguished it from the day before. And I felt pretty much the same.

And yet, a new life was beginning. A life that was still to be realized.