Part II. The Mines of Kolyma

4. MAGADAN-CAPITAL OF THE KOLYMA

ILAY on the ground for a few seconds under the laughter of the guards, and then with difficulty got up on my feet and, mastering my pain, approached the crowd of prisoners, already formed in ranks.

I sat down on an empty crate and became lost in thought, with my head bowed. I don’t know how long I remained in this almost unconscious condition, but when I came to myself at the shouts of the guards, the sun was already at the horizon.

Our column had reached an imposing size, and when we left the port area, surrounded by a convoy, and began to ascend a hill, a grey line of new convicts of the Kolyma stretched for three hundred yards along the road. There were no women with us; they were left on the ship until next day, and God knows what they had to go through that night.

Hurried on by the cries of the convoy, the men walked faster. It was very hard for me to walk, and gradually, lagging behind more and more, I found myself in the rear ranks of the column where old men, invalids, and sick men like myself straggled.

Soon lights appeared in front of us and buildings began to come into sight at the side of the road; in another half-hour we entered some kind of settlement and, apparently by-passing the centre, we began to move along dimly lighted streets. The streets were unpaved and very dusty. This dust, illuminated by the light of a lantern here and there, seemed completely to envelop the column, and getting into nose, mouth and ears, made it hard to breathe. The shouts of the guards became louder. Apparently they were in a hurry.

Our procession came up to a high, dark fence, turned to the left, and, at last, crawled through a wide-open gate over which shone an illuminated sign: Magadan Transit Camp.

We came into a wide yard and halted. The strong glare of searchlights hurt our eyes. When the tail of the column had pulled into the yard, the gates closed. New faces appeared around us, apparently the local administration. From one side shouts came: ‘Quiet! Quiet!’ Conversation stopped in the crowd.

An unseen voice shouted:

‘. . . and to welcome you to Magadan. Now sit down where you are and you will be taken by sections to the baths. After that, you will be put in tents and you can rest after the road. In the baths you will get new equipment. Life in the Kolyma, Comrades, is a good life; you will soon be convinced of this.’

There was a movement in the crowd and our column finally broke ranks. Some sat down, while others just toppled over on to the dusty ground. My friends and I lay down side by side. Over me was the dark sky, strewn with stars.

Without noticing it, I dozed off. I woke up feeling someone tug at my hand. Mikhail was saying:

‘It’s our turn to go to the baths now. Get up.’

I looked around. The yard was half empty already; guards came up and, counting off fifty men, led us out of the gates. After walking for a half-hour through dark streets, we came to the baths – a low building made of logs. We entered in a crowd. The baths were of the usual camp construction and arrangement: the undressing-room, where we left all our things; the washing section, where we hastily washed ourselves and were shaved; and finally the dressing-room which we entered comparatively cleaner men. One by one we neared a counter standing by the wall, upon which the equipment was laid.

First cards were filled out, which we signed as receipts for the equipment issued. Then we passed on to a man in a white apron who stood there with a hypodermic in his hand and injected a dose into each man, apparently without changing the needle; it was an inoculation against an unspecified disease. After this we finally went up to the counter and were issued the new things: soldier’s underwear, a military shirt, riding breeches, a cap, a towel, and a bushlat, a grey coat with a cotton lining, covered with bombazine. Then each of us chose for himself a pair of rude but solid new shoes out of a large pile. Here we quickly compared our new clothing for size, trying to find a good fit, trading pants, shirts, shoes; I managed to find roughly the right size in everything, except for the pants which were much too big for anyone. Tightening my belt – the only item we were allowed to keep of our old things, except for photographs and letters – I went out on the street with the others. In spite of my great fatigue, I enjoyed being clean and dressed in new clothes.

It was beginning to be light already when we returned to the Transit Camp, and we were immediately taken to a large tent arranged in the Vladivostok style – with double shelves on both sides. Climbing up on the top shelf with the help of my friends, I fell asleep immediately.

The day was sunny and bright when I awoke. There was almost no one in the tent. Next to me stood a big piece of bread and a tin cup with luke-warm tea which someone had brought. Having regained some strength, I climbed down and went out into the sunlight.

By the entrance gates there were several buildings of a more attractive type which contained the camp headquarters with the inevitable office for the commander, the dispensary, and the guard room. I came up to the dispensary where there stretched a long queue of sick men, awaiting their turn. Having reserved myself a place at the end of the line, I went off to the side for a short distance and squatted down, leaned against the wall of a small building and warmed myself in the sun.

Suddenly a group of several men got in my light. I looked up and saw that this was the command. They had stopped to look at me. Staggering, and holding on to the wall, I got up.

‘Arrived yesterday?’ asked a tall, stout man, with special insignia of a medical officer on his military uniform.

‘Yes, yesterday,’ I said.

‘What’s your complaint? How are you sick?’

‘I have scurvy. I’m not complaining about anything.’

‘What were you convicted for? Counter-revolution?’

‘Yes, 58 – 10 and 11. Term six years. One and a half already served. In camp for the first time,’ I answered, anticipating the next questions.

‘What were you before?’

‘A student, in Leningrad . . .’

‘Ah! So you are a countryman of mine – very good,’ said the doctor, patting my shoulder patronizingly. ‘But you seem to be pretty sick.’

‘Yes, things are bad with me, Citizen Commander. I’m afraid that I’ll stretch out my legs for the last time here in your Kolyma . . .’

‘Nonsense, we’ll have you on your feet in no time. Our medical department is excellently organized here. Have him sent to the hospital,’ he ordered, turning to one of his staff. Then, turning to me again:

‘Well, goodbye, countryman, and get well. I’ll come and check on you at the hospital. Don’t get discouraged.’ And with these words he walked on. One of the staff remained behind and wrote down my name and tent number. The men standing by the dispensary who had heard my conversation with the Commander with envy surrounded the tall doctor as soon as he had left me, but he went on further without listening to anyone. ‘Go into the dispensary,’ he said. ‘There a doctor will look you over and will see what is necessary.’

The medical director had told the truth. In a couple of hours one of the camp officials came into the tent and told me to get my things together quickly and go to the hospital. I walked out of the tent and in the doorway bumped into two medical orderlies who were bringing in a stretcher. The orderlies caught up with me after I had taken less than ten steps toward the gate, and, having asked my name, which was confirmed by the official, laid me on the stretcher. Outside the gates stood an ambulance.

We started off. Lying on my side, I looked out of the window with interest. I could see the streets of a spacious settlement. All of the streets were unpaved, and narrow boardwalks, built on logs on both sides of the street, served as a path. The houses were all of a monotonous grey-brown colour. They were big and little, built of logs or boards, some having one story, some two. There were not many people in the streets, and very few of them women. I saw no children at all. I caught a glimpse of two or three shops with small show windows, and a big wooden building, evidently some sort of an institution. After this we passed fewer and fewer houses, the road began to go up a hill, and, at last, coming up to a group of large single-storied wooden buildings, we drew up in front of one of the doors.

I was carried into the building, right into the bathroom. I didn’t feel at ease lying on the stretcher because I wasn’t as helpless as all that, but nevertheless I was permitted no independent movements. They undressed me, put me in a bath, washed me again, and then gave me a warm wrapper and helped me into the ward where there were four beds in addition to mine; three of them were occupied.

With indescribable pleasure I stretched out on the bed which was made up with clean linen, an enjoyment I had been deprived of for a year and a half already. The ward was bright, there were no bars on the windows, the log walls had a smooth finish, and there was nothing to remind me that I was in reality a prisoner. I had not had time to become acquainted with my neighbours yet, when a woman accompanied by an orderly entered the room. She was dressed in white and wore a little cap, and was very young looking.

She sat down beside me, and having asked some short questions as to who I was and the nature of my ailments, she proceeded to examine me carefully, making entries in a notebook and giving instructions to the orderly. Then, with a pleasant word of farewell, she left. Five minutes later the orderly who had accompanied her returned and brought me a huge, soft feather mattress, the like of which I had not slept on even in my student days, remade my bed, brought me another pillow, and informed me that an intensified diet had been prescribed for me and, as medicine, extracts from currants and wild roses. In addition to this, I was to drink lemon juice and eat porridge made from raw potatoes.

My delight reached its furthest possible limits when supper was brought in. The things I found on my plate exceeded all expectations. There was a good soup with rice, well-made bread, a good piece of fried meat with potatoes, and a sweet dried fruit compote – all the things about which I had not even been able to dream for so long.

After supper I began to get acquainted with my neighbours. Next to me lay an old man with an eastern type of face, with intelligent, lively eyes. He told me that he was a Georgian, that his name was Kavtaradze, and that he had once been the secretary of the Georgian Central Executive Committee, but then he had entered the party opposition, joining Trotsky, and after the exile of the latter, the old man had been exiled to Alma Ata. Then, after a few years, he had been arrested again. He was tried in absentia and administratively sentenced to five years in a concentration camp. He suffered from stomach ulcers, contracted in prison. He had come to the Kolyma a month before I had – before that he had been in Maryinsk, one of the Siberian camps of the N.K.V.D.

One of the two others in the ward was a Moscow book-keeper who had received five years for telling anti-Soviet anecdotes; the other was an expert habitual thief who had been caught ‘in general’ – that is, not for any particular crime, but just because his profession was known. He had been given, also administratively, four years in the camps, not on any particular article of the code, but in absentia on the so-called ‘letters’, SHE – socially harmful element. Later I discovered that the N.K.V.D. awards ‘letters’ to all those whom it found hard to convict on a particular article of the Criminal Code, in spite of the prison proverbs in the U.S.S.R. which say: ‘If there is a man, an article will be found for him.’ I have come across the following ‘letters’: SDE (socially dangerous element), which is given to those accused of political rather than criminal acts; CR (counter-revolutionary – without verification); SE (suspected of espionage); ST (suspected of terrorist intentions); and for women, SP (suspected of prostitution).

Of our small but quite colourful company I became most friendly with the old man, Kavtaradze. He was one who had been around and seen a great deal in his life – personally and closely acquainted with Stalin as well as with the other Caucasians then at the helm: Ozhzhonikidze, Yenukidze, Mikoyan, and the rest.

He spoke carefully and with restraint in telling me the story of the party oppositions, not as we knew it from the papers but as it had actually occurred. Never accusing anyone directly, he characterized the party leaders so vividly that the picture of eternal quarrelling and intrigue within the party stretched out in front of me in all its colour. It was Kavtaradze who warned me that in the camp I would meet two categories of political prisoners, former members of the All Union Communist party. One of these, the minority, had gone into opposition on idealistic grounds and had remained irreconcilable to Stalin’s rule; the other, the majority, had been in opposition earlier, counting on its victory, but had confessed its sins after the defeat of the Trotskyites. These last, even after finding themselves behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp, continued to praise Stalin and the general party line as much as they could, and made every effort to prove their loyalty to the regime by writing reports on their fellow prisoners. The ‘confessed ones’ were proud of the name ‘General Liners’* which they had received, but for some reason the high administration of the Kolyma didn’t think much of them.

And so my days passed – in conversation with the old Georgian, in reading a few books, which found their way into the ward, and in the local daily newspaper, on whose masthead was printed the warning: Not to be circulated outside the camp. Incidentally, it was as hard to imagine the picture of life in the Kolyma from this paper as it was from any other Soviet papers in general.

Every day Elena Vasilievna, our doctor, visited us, always treating everyone with great consideration. About ten days after my entry into the hospital, she sent me to be X-rayed, and the next day sympathetically told me that I had tuberculosis. A blood analysis confirmed the unpleasant discovery in the form of Dr. Koch’s microbes. This then had been acquired in prison.

In addition to vitamin extracts, other medicines were added to my daily ration, and my diet was further strengthened. I began to feel better; apparently the scurvy was leaving me.

Once my saviour, the military doctor who had sent me to the hospital, visited me. He turned out to be the head of the medical administration of the entire Kolyma, the medical aide to Berzin himself – Berzin, the boss of Dalstroy, who had unlimited powers in the whole region.

Entering the ward, the medical director recognized me immediately, questioned Elena Vasilievna about me, and again asserted that there were no diseases which could not be cured in the Kolyma, cited the especially healthy dry mountain climate of the region. He assured me that my tuberculosis would leave me as if by magic as soon as I arrived at the north – the region of the gold fields. This assurance proved correct after the lapse of a year and a half.

Kavtaradze also told me about Berzin, the director of the N.K.V.D. trust, Dalstroy. Edward Petrovich Berzin, a Latvian by descent, commanded one of the regiments which upheld the revolution in the civil war. He had at one time been the commandant of the Kremlin, and later together with Stalin, a member of the Revolutionary War Council of the Southern Front. Afterward he occupied various positions in the Cheka, G.P.U., and N.K.V.D., and before his appointment to the Kolyma, had been the director of another camp, Red Vishera, in western Siberia. In this, one of the northernmost camps of the Soviet Union, he had done so well in the eyes of Moscow, that when Stalin ordered a concentration camp for the mining of gold on the Kolyma to be organized, Berzin turned out to be the leading candidate, and he arrived there accompanied by a group of his former assistants, as the all-powerful boss. Berzin’s arrival in the Kolyma in December, 1931 is considered the date of the founding of Dalstroy.

Among the thoughts which occupied my mind at that time was the one of my last Leningrad affairs, about my revelations, about Berdichevsky’s visit and the consequences of that visit. Having thought it over very carefully, I decided to raise the whole matter again and wrote a detailed report, addressed to Berzin, which contained the story of Mikhail, and in addition an account of my adventures in Leningrad after Berdichevsky’s arrival. A few days after I sent off this report, I was summoned to the office of the chief surgeon of the hospital. When I walked in I saw a youngish looking stranger with an extremely pleasant appearance. I managed to spot the insignia of the N.K.V.D. underneath his white garment.

This man informed me that his name was Andrey Andreyevich Mosevich, that he was the chief of the Secret-Political Branch of the N.K.V.D. in Dalstroy, and that Berzin had instructed him to investigate my report. I felt well-disposed toward him at once, and without misgivings I told him the whole story quite frankly. He interrupted me occasionally, asking questions and taking notes of some sort. However, his familiarity with Leningrad affairs struck me as somewhat strange.

When the conversation had ended, he shook hands with me warmly and told me that he would take all necessary measures and that I was not to think about this affair any more.

Returning to the ward I asked Kavtaradze if he knew Mosevich. It turned out that Mosevich was well known to all the local Trotskyites and that it was because of him that the majority of the General Liners’ reports had no consequences for the irreconcilables. Kavtaradze also informed me that before coming to the Kolyma, Mosevich had worked in the Leningrad N.K.V.D. I sat up straight in my bed when I heard this.

‘What? In the Leningrad N.K.V.D.? Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Because you didn’t ask me. He worked there before the assassination of Kirov, when the entire head group of the Leningrad N.K.V.D. was arrested, sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and sent to the Kolyma, thanks to the intercession of Berzin. All of them, Medved, Zaporozhets, Fomin, Yanishevsky, Mosevich, and the others occupy important positions in the Kolyma, although technically they are prisoners. Well, what do you expect? Crows don’t peck out each other’s eyes!’

My morale dropped immediately. I had scarcely arrived here when I had already made my position worse by complaining to Mosevich – a very influential figure in Dalstroy – about his Leningrad colleagues. This could cause the most unpleasant consequences for me. The irony of the whole situation was amusing though. Men are arrested for such a famous crime as the assassination of Kirov, sentenced to five or ten years of penal servitude, then suddenly they turn out to be the big bosses in one of the biggest camps of the U.S.S.R.

That conversation with Mosevich was my last conversation on that subject. After that I never said a word to anyone about my investigations in the field of internal plots within the organs of the N.K.V.D., and tried to forget about it completely. A healthy instinct of selfpreservation took the upper hand over what remained of my idealistic loyalty to the Soviet regime.

Later I met Mosevich once again in Magadan. After talking a bit on various unrelated subjects, and just before taking leave of me, Mosevich looked at me searchingly, apparently expecting me to question him about the measures he had taken in regard to that affair. I looked back at him with a simple, innocent look. At last he could no longer contain himself.

‘Do you remember our conversation in the hospital?’

‘Conversation in the hospital?’ I knitted my brows with surprise. ‘I remember that you and I talked about something, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.’

‘Have you really forgotten?’ asked Mosevich with a slight smile.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die. What did we talk about?’ I answered, with a look of amazement.

‘Well, isn’t it a pity, I’ve forgotten also,’ answered Mosevich. ‘Well, it’s not important. Goodbye. I predict that you will go far if you are careful and make no slips. If you need anything, you know where to find me.’

I thanked him and said goodbye. It had been a good lesson. But how many other mistakes would I still make in the future. . . .

Time went by. The symptoms of scurvy no longer bothered me. I got stronger and I walked briskly around the corridors of the hospital. I even began to feel oppressed by the monotony of the surroundings. At one of Elena Vasilievna’s visits, I asked her to discharge me.

‘Are you bored already?’ She was genuinely astonished. ‘Everyone here tries to stay with us as long as possible, but you want to leave us. Well, if that’s the way you feel, I’ll discharge you in a couple of days.’

She kept her promise, and soon I was walking through the entire settlement, accompanied by an official sent from the camp, having traded my hospital wrapper for my prison uniform, with a supply of anti-scurvy extracts in my pocket.

Instead of taking me to the Transit Camp, my guide led me to another camp, situated almost in the centre of Magadan. The open gates and the lack of a sentry there made me like the place immediately. We entered a small building right by the gate on which there was a sign that read: PERSONNEL ALLOCATION OFFICE. I gave my sealed envelope of documents to an official seated at a desk.

Looking over my papers hurriedly, the official asked me what I knew how to do. I began telling him, but he cut me short:

‘Do you know how to make designs?’

‘Of course, I studied at the School of Building Techniques.’

‘That’s fine. Tomorrow you will go to work at the Building Office. We have a request from them for a draftsman. And now they’ll show you where you are going to live,’ he said, and he began to give directions to a middle-aged man sitting at the door.

We left the Allocation Office, went into the interior of the camp up to a long barracks where we entered. It was empty, except for an old man who was cleaning up the spacious room which was divided into sections by light partitions. Along the walls stood wooden beds with mattresses, covered with uniformly grey blankets. Night tables stood between each bed. It was comparatively clean.

The old man, who turned out to be in charge of quarters, showed me to an unoccupied bed. Then he took me to the camp supply room where I was issued bed linen and a blanket, and also the food cards. On the way back he showed me the camp mess hall.

Between five and six o’clock in the evening the barracks began to fill up with the men coming back from work. Most of them, noticing my presence, asked me no questions and went about their own affairs. This was somewhat strange.

Suddenly the familiar figure of Prostoserdov appeared. At first he didn’t recognize me, but when he did, he couldn’t believe his eyes – I had changed so much in the hospital.

We sat down on a bed beside each other and in a low tone began to exchange our impressions of the period of time which had passed.

I asked him about the people living in the barracks. The answer was not encouraging:

‘Without exception they are all Trotskyites. The trouble is that out of forty men there are only about five decent ones. The rest are all General Liners and terrible stool pigeons. On the second day after I arrived in the barracks I was summoned to the N.K.V.D. and shown three reports stating that I had cursed Stalin.’

‘With whom did you speak?’

‘Mosevich. Do you know him?’

‘I do. And what did he tell you when he showed you the reports?’

‘That I should stop reviling the Soviet regime, or things would go badly with me.’

‘And what did you say?’ I was very interested.

‘I said that the possibility of cursing at Stalin is the only joy that I have in prison and on forced labour, and that it is impossible for me to renounce this pleasure.’

‘And . . .’

‘He answered that I am not on forced labour but that I am working as an accountant, but that he could send me to the gold fields where I would have every reason to curse. Then I promised him that I would hold my tongue as much as possible, and we parted friends.’

The picture was clear. It was necessary to watch oneself very carefully to avoid getting into trouble. However, the General Liners, seeing that I was acquainted with Prostoserdov and that he had warned me about them, did not try to involve me in provocative political discussions and our further relations were limited to purely everyday matters.

But it was very interesting to watch this crowd. These former Communists couldn’t live without politics. They discussed even the most minor questions from the point of view of dialectic materialism and the general party line, reading newspapers through and explaining to each other the political meaning of each event. They were all literate, and among them there were some so-called ‘Red professors’, graduates of the Academy of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin.

More than anyone in the world they cursed Trotsky and other opposition leaders and lauded Stalin to the skies, finding such wonderful qualities in the man that sometimes I began to think that they were just ridiculing the poor Georgian. But the most interesting part came when, after quarrelling among themselves about a cup taken without permission or about a towel knocked on the floor by mistake, they would begin to remember the opposition activities of the offender.

‘Don’t you remember, Nikolai Abramovich, how you went to Moscow in 1926 to pay your respects to Trotsky?’ one would jeer.

‘Why I went there, you don’t know, but I have definite information that you circulated Radek’s proclamation illegally!’ Nikolai Abramovich would answer.

‘Naturally, you know about that, most respected one. After all I got them from you. You took advantage of my political inexperience!’ the first would say.

‘So! You were innocent then, were you? And I thought that you already had a wife and two children, and that you had been to the doctor several times to be cured for nasty diseases . . .’ Nikolai Abramovich would announce in an annihilating tone of voice.

And so it would go. Two of them would get into an argument, each trying to better the other. Then, a third one would mix into it. The original ones would attack him and list his entire genealogy. These Trotskyites knew each other perfectly. I think that Mosevich had several extremely detailed biographies on each of them, written by one of the others.

As soon as Elvov (formerly Gubelman – Yaroslavsky’s secretary) returned from work – he also worked as an accountant, but in a better place, the N.K.V.D. mess – he would lie down in his bed. Always he had with him Stalin’s book, Questions of Leninism. He would sink his face into the book and just lie there, speaking to no one.

Once I came up to him and saw that he was holding the book upside down. I sat down on his bed and asked him in a low voice:

‘What sort of reading are you doing? The book is upside down!’

‘Sh-h-h’ – His eyes opened wide. ‘No one should know this. I have read this book 666 times in its proper order, and I have learned it by heart like a poem. Now I’m reading it upside down, and I’m going to learn it by heart backwards from end to beginning. But the main thing is,’ and here he looked toward his colleagues, ‘this book is something like the Bible – it drives devils away. If a man is reading Stalin, he must not be disturbed because he is attaining the highest wisdom.’

I just shook my head.

In spite of his cheerful character, Elvov was a deeply unhappy man. He was terribly tortured by the separation from his family – a wife and three little girls, from three to eight years of age. He sent them all his earnings, wrote letters home every day, and once when I awoke at night I saw him half covering himself with a blanket and looking at the photograph of his little girls and crying like a child. The poor man had been recently given eight years in prison for attending underground Trotskyite meetings in 1928.

I reported the next morning to the Magadan Building Office, accompanied by a camp chaser – a man who accompanies prisoners to work. I was taken to the Construction Section, introduced to the head engineer, a pleasant little Georgian, Kotetashvily by name, and was seated at a drawing board and shown some sample work to do. Naturally I made every effort over it, and the result was satisfactory.

During the lunch hour, my neighbour, also a draftsman, told me that of the eight men working in the Construction Office, four were prisoners, and four had come to the Kolyma on voluntary applications. Although the free workers were also engineers and draftsmen, they preferred the prisoners, among whom there were two very good engineers, to do the hardest jobs.

In a few days I got to know the voluntary workers in the camp who worked as technical-administrative personnel.

The story behind these people turned out to be an extremely interesting one.

At the end of 1931, when the creation of Dalstroy was decreed by Moscow, Berzin realized what difficulties he would encounter in the Kolyma in the organization of mass gold mining, and he persuaded Stalin to grant privileges and incentives both for the future forced labourers and for the voluntary technical-administrative personnel.

In several of Russia’s big cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Odessa, agencies of Dalstroy were established. It was their mission, in addition to the purchasing of food and technical supplies for the Kolyma, to recruit voluntary personnel. The conditions of work at Dalstroy were marvellous. As a minimum, employees received sixty per cent more than the salary established by the government for Moscow. At the end of every six months, the pay was increased by ten per cent until it doubled. The contract was for three years, including eight months vacation with pay. An employee who voluntarily gave up his leave was reimbursed for it. The contract could be extended automatically for two years, including a five months’ leave. Transportation was paid for in both directions. Expense accounts were paid on the spot – two months’ pay. Upon final separation, another month’s pay was given as separation wages.

To all this special incentives were added – men serving in the Kolyma were exempt from military service. In addition, and this was probably the biggest attraction for the public, the N.K.V.D. had no right to arrest a voluntary Kolyma worker without personal permission from Berzin in every individual case. And he very seldom granted such permission.

These conditions attracted a large number of volunteers. But they were hired with care. A preliminary investigation by the N.K.V.D. was mandatory. It became a tremendously desirable thing to get into Dalstroy, in spite of the far-away location and the severe climate of the region. People used all their friendships and connections to get to these, by Soviet standards, heavenly places.

But thanks to the established obstacles, the Kolyma often received people who were perhaps politically reliable but technically only half qualified. To overcome this circumstance, Berzin had Stalin’s permission to use Kolyma prisoners at his discretion even in the most responsible posts. I won’t take Medved, Mosevich, and other Leningrad men sentenced in connection with Kirov’s assassination as an example. These people were special cases because of their long membership in the N.K.V.D. But apart from them, in Magadan, and especially in the gold fields in the taiga, many prisoners worked as field-bosses, chief engineers, foremen, and so on. In those years one could very easily find among the prisoners very great and highly qualified specialists, some of whom were placed in concentration camps just for that very reason – so that their services could be more easily and cheaply exploited.

Under Berzin, the prisoners were also very well paid in the Kolyma. They received the pay of voluntary workers, without the rises, and only 500 rubles were retained for the benefit of the camp in the case of the white collar workers, 280 in the case of labourers. Voluntary labourers, however, belonged exclusively to that category of prisoner who had finished his turn and preferred remaining at Dalstroy to going home.

In those days in the Kolyma there was also a very high credit for working days – a shortening of the sentence for those who worked. Men sentenced for criminal acts received credit for 100-150 days per year, and sometimes for two hundred. Those sentenced for counterrevolution only on 58-10 (agitation) received fifty days credit per year. Only the remaining others who had been sentenced on the more serious articles of the code received no credit at all.

The sum total of all this is what created the exceptional conditions in the Kolyma which enabled Berzin, in such a comparatively short period, to achieve such significant results – to organize and launch the greatest gold-production trust in the Soviet Union and in an almost deserted, wild and severe region. People worked there, as distinct from the rest of the Soviet Union, willingly, and not from fear.

As I have already said, I was accepted as a draftsman in the Construction Office. At first my duties in the office were limited to copying various drawings. But at the same time I kept my eye on designing. My knowledge which had survived from the time I lived in Moscow and studied in the Building Technical School helped me in the task of familiarizing myself with this new branch of construction. It turned out to be not complicated, and rather interesting. There was a lot of work in the office and at the end of my first month there, I was able to undertake independent designs and simple technical calculations.

A direct result of this success was a rise in my pay. In our office we were paid according to the amount of work done. The first month, in my capacity as a draftsman, I made 800 rubles – minus 500 for the camp, leaving 300 for myself; the second month, when I had completed more serious work, I received 1,000 – 500 for myself; the third month 1,200 – 700; the fourth 1,300, and so on.

All in all I became the possessor of a somewhat substantial sum of money, more than I had ever had before my arrest. I was able to send money to my mother, who needed it all her life, and in addition to this I was able to dress decently. Expenses for life in camp were insignificant, and although, officially, clothes were not sold to prisoners, it just naturally happened that everyone was able to get everything. There were voluntary employees working in our office, not too good at their specialities, but nice fellows. For small services, such as making an extra drawing, they bought us anything we wanted in their own stores. By the end of my stay there, I became such friends with my fellow workers that they used to ask me themselves, all the time, whether or not I needed anything. In this way I acquired two suits, a watch, shoes, underwear, and other things which I could not have obtained in freedom, and I received permission to eat outside of camp in a very good mess for the more privileged prisoners. I always had all sorts of good things to which I continually treated my less fortunate friends.

Finally, and this I considered a great success, my various voluntary acquaintances began to invite me to their places where we whiled away the long evenings playing cards. I received a special pass which gave me the right to leave the camp at any time and I completely ceased to experience the discomforts of camp life.

In those years, in comparison with the rest of the U.S.S.R., the Kolyma was in an especially privileged position in regard to the presence of various goods and produce. In the Kremlin the efforts of Dalstroy in increasing gold production were much appreciated and a full measure of everything was shipped out there.

Magadan, as I saw it in 1936, was a rather sad sight. The only brick buildings were the post office, the automobile repair plant, and the power station. Everything else was made of wood, mostly of logs. With the exception of the Kolyma Highway, all the streets were unpaved. After the rains the mud was impassable, and even on the platforms built next to the houses, one had to walk with great care. The illumination was very dull, and few corners had street lights. Three-quarters of the population were prisoners.

Attacks and robberies were rare, because the careful administration retained only the quiet elements in town – those convicted under the less serious counter-revolution charges, and the best part of the privileged class, embezzlers, speculators, chiselers, bigamists, the most flagrant violators of the alimony laws, and others composing the cream of Kolyma society.

Two-thirds of the military guard were composed of prisoners, but only those ‘socially elect’ who had completed more than half of their terms were accepted for duty in it. The military authorities did not interfere with the life of the camp’s permanent inhabitants very much. Anyone who got into trouble – for theft or for being caught making love – was immediately shipped to the gold fields, which was considered a very heavy punishment.

The voluntary part of Magadan’s population lived in no less discomfort than the prisoners. There was nowhere to spend the large sums of money they earned. Cards were popular here, too. The shabby little theatre which usually showed movies, but which sometimes gave stage performances put on by dramatic talent from among the prisoners, could not hold all those who wanted to attend. Men wore themselves out in the search of alcohol – the sale of which was rationed in the Kolyma – and if they found any they would drink themselves into unconsciousness. There were cases of men whose time was finished and who could have gone home on leave, but they had drunk and gambled away all their money. Then these men would draw their compensation pay, gamble away the rest out of regret, and remain for another term.

The female question was the crucial one. There were few women in Magadan, and most of them came in search of easy earnings. A beauty would arrive for three, perhaps five years. She would work somewhere for appearance’s sake, attach herself to some director with a large salary, save her own money, live on his, and in addition, grab all she could out of him. After bleeding him dry, she would attach herself to the next man.

Occasionally husbands and wives would arrive together. But all these marriages easily dissolved in the Kolyma. Sometimes even on the ship on the way from Vladivostok wives changed husbands a couple of times before finding a ‘suitable’ one. After they arrived in Magadan, such things would happen as a rule. I knew one couple – our bookkeeper and his young wife. After coming to Magadan, by mutual agreement they pretended that they were strangers to each other. He got a good job and she did, too. But the girl immediately started going ‘from hand to hand’, but cleverly. Finally, at the end of the agreed period, she had managed to fleece ten men and had earned several times more than her husband. And when the period ended, the enterprising couple went home, the best of friends. This satisfied pair almost ruined themselves giving a farewell party. I think they took 150,000 home with them.

Scandals often happened because of women, even up to the point of shooting. But these affairs were usually covered up and every attempt was made to prevent any consequences.

However, the problem was often solved thanks to the women prisoners, because the bachelors in more or less high position chose maids for themselves according to taste from the women’s camp.

The correspondence which had been established between my mother and myself was a source of great joy. I didn’t write anyone else, but I wrote to her very often. My large amounts of money made it possible to send telegrams of fifty words or more. Officially, all correspondence was subject to camp censorship, but this regulation remained on paper only, since no one could prevent me from going to the post office and sending a letter or a telegram. Letters took about a month, but only during the period of navigation. From December to April, when the sea was frozen, the telegraph was our only means of communication with the ‘mainland’ as we called all of Russia west of Vladivostok.

Month after month passed in this way. The mild and damp autumn came, and with November the first snow fell. In general the entire coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk has a climate which is very different from the inland part of the Kolyma. There are no severe frosts; the winter lasts only four months, and it is never too cold. The minimum temperature recorded in Magadan is 45 below zero, Fahrenheit.

I had become so accustomed to my life in the Kolyma capital, so used to the surroundings, and so engrossed in my work that I was almost satisfied with my position. I developed a group of friends and acquaintances in the camp and outside of it, and even had connections in the Main Administration of Dalstroy.

My technique of designing improved steadily and after a few months I was able to complete jobs independently which were supposed to be done only by engineers. Once I even received an extraordinary reward – a good coat for the fast completion of a heating plan for a large brick house which was being built on the Kolyma highway. However, I suspect that this reward was a false one, and that the coat had been bought with the secret contributions of my voluntary colleagues.

But the greatest pleasure for me was an event which rarely happened in camp.

Once, while I was working, I was summoned by the office manager.

‘How do you like it with us?’ he asked.

‘Very well. So well that I am ready to sign a contract before the end of my term,’ I answered.

‘What would you like more than anything else?’ probed the manager, smiling.

I stood in bewilderment. What else did I need? As a counterrevolutionary, I couldn’t be freed before the end of my term. Money? I had enough for my needs . . .

‘I don’t know, Mikhail Andreyevich. I don’t seem to have any special wishes. I’m satisfied with everything.’

‘Well, how about this?’ He stretched a paper toward me. I took it and saw that it was a special N.K.V.D. document which gave me permission to live outside the camp, within the territory of Magadan. Signatures, seals, and even my photograph were all in order. I thanked him warmly and rushed back to my office to show everyone this amazing document. It was immediately decided that I would move into the voluntary workers’ barracks, not far from the office, where two of our office workers lived.

That same evening I shifted all my things from the camp to their house, where I occupied a bed in one of my friends’ rooms. The room was not big but it was sufficient for two. I felt at the height of my bliss.

However, the new situation brought new temptations with it. In the camp I had led a Spartan life, only occasionally had I visited friends to play cards or go to see a family of imprisoned Trotskyites – a man, his wife, and a child, who had a permission similar to mine and lived modestly in one of the city dormitories. Except for these two places, I limited myself to short walks.

Now the situation had radically changed. As soon as it was evening, my friend would take me to one of the rooms in our house where a card game was in progress, if, indeed the company had not assembled in our room. And I was forced to play. In spite of the fact that most of the people living in our house treated me pleasantly, I had to be on my guard always, never forgetting my position. In the card games I was more afraid of winning than of losing, and I won most of the time. If I tried to play in a small way they were insulted. Once I tried to return my winnings to the heavy loser – another faux pas. Not to go at all was also impossible. I liked my sleep, but they would sit until three or four in the morning, sometimes until dawn.

In other words, my new life was a constant source of worry. It was worse when there was a liquor ration. Everyone would get completely drunk, and start to argue and fight. They would break into the two or three rooms where married couples resided. It was not good to drink, but you couldn’t refuse. Sometimes I seriously contemplated giving up the free life and returning to camp. But I didn’t have the courage.

And that is how the time passed – cards, drinking bouts, and fights. But my free life ended suddenly, and in the most unexpected manner.

A family had arrived on the last boat from Vladivostok and settled in our house – a middle-aged couple with a fifteen-year-old daughter. The parents worked in the main office, while the daughter usually remained at home.

Once, returning from work a little earlier than usual, I lay down on my bed with a newspaper, but before I had read ten lines, I heard a penetrating childish scream. There was no one else in the house – they had not returned from work yet.

‘Help! Save me!’

I understood immediately that it was the newly arrived girl who was screaming, and without thinking I forced my way into the room, tearing the hook off the door with the strength of my push.

I got there just in time. The girl was rushing around the room in a torn dress, pursued by my neighbour, a mechanic from the auto repair shop, a healthy fellow, a member of the Komsomol. I grabbed him by the arm, but he lunged at me, demanded that I get out, swearing and saying that that counter-revolutionary swine had no business there. I hit him in the face with the full strength of my fist, and a fight started, a fight which I had no chance of winning since my opponent was stronger than I. The parents and the other neighbours returning from work saved the situation. We were separated, and my opponent, cursing wildly, announced that things would go badly with me.

I returned to my room feeling very badly about what had happened, because in spite of the approval of all the people in the house for my action, I knew that he would always be right, that the law was on his side, and that I was really in trouble. My smashed and bleeding nose did nothing to cheer me up.

In less than two hours, during which I took the only action that was possible – I informed my boss about what had happened – two officials from the N.K.V.D. arrived at our house together with the insulted Komsomol man, and ordered me to collect my things. The weak protests from the parents of the girl were ignored.

I packed quickly and they took me to the camp, confiscating in advance my permission for residence in town. They took me to the very centre of the camp where the guard house was, and there my escort turned me over to the soldiers on guard.

The soldiers took my suitcase away, and, with a hard blow on the head, pushed me into a dirty, half-dark cell, with bars on the windows. Still dressed, I stretched out on the rough bed whose mattress had been removed, and began to curse myself in every possible way, taking an oath never as long as I lived to interfere with any affair which did not directly concern me. Let them kill a child on the spot – and I wouldn’t move a hand to save it.

I promised myself that I would always be humble and submissive to everyone more powerful than I, always to know my dog’s place, and to refuse all privileges which did not correspond to my position. . . .

Belated repentance! I understood the hopelessness of my position only too well. To interfere with the affairs of a volunatry employee, and in addition to beat him on the face and other parts of the body, was an unforgivable act for a prisoner. I knew that punishment was always meted out for this, and very severely.

The minimum punishment would be – exile to the gold fields. And they could decide to add on five more years to my sentence for hooliganism if they wanted to. However, I was not too much afraid of the latter, because in such a case my Komsomol friend would have to appear at the hearing, and his role also would not be an enviable one.

Through the walls I could hear the guardhouse slowly filling up with people. Apparently my incident had served as an impulse for a purge of the camp of all manner of disturbing elements, which was initiated from time to time. Finally, two men were pushed into my cell whom I recognized as two of the Trotskyites. One of them informed me that Prostoserdov had been arrested too and was sitting in the next cell.

‘Nicolai Nicolayevich, are you there?’ I shouted.

‘You here too? By what fates? What did I tell you?’ his vigorous voice sounded. ‘They’re all bastards! Our paradise here didn’t last long. Wait, they’ll show us soon where crayfish spend the winter. And our Berzin is just as much of a swine as his boss in Moscow.’

It was clear to me now that we would start for the north that day.

They brought us each a piece of bread. I had lost the habit of eating such food, but there was nothing to be done about it. I was hungry and ate every crumb. We demanded water. Instead we were brought snow in a cup. This was a sheer mockery because the camp had a water main, but we were hardly in a position to argue. We began to wash the bread down with snow.

I regretted my lost things and my work, but experience had taught me already never to surrender to unnecessary regrets, and I was almost calm.

At last the guards came into the house and herded us all out into the yard. Directly in front of the door, black against the snow, stood an open truck with its motor running. The camp commander stood there, and one by one we approached him. He was making up the roster on the spot. I didn’t even try to explain anything to him, seeing his angrily smirking face.

‘Ah, and the volunteer is here too? That’s nice!’ he said.

I climbed silently into the truck after the others. The guards climbed aboard.

We were on our way.

* From ‘General Line of the Communist Party’, headed always by Stalin.