5. LIFE ON THE RAILWAY

EVERYTHING after Irkutsk carried the imprint of war, everything that could be seen and heard along the great Trans-Siberian Line, with its countless long stops at stations of all sizes. Only numerous camps on both sides of the tracks remained as reminders of the prewar Siberian scene. The guard towers still stood at the corners of barbed-wire fences; wooden arches still held their coloured slogans, quoting from the pronouncements of the ‘Father of Peoples’. One could still see groups of people dressed in grey, escorted by guards with antediluvian rifles. None of this had changed since my trip from Leningrad to the Kolyma six years before.

But something new had appeared. The crowds at each station were the most noticeable change, with their suitcases, bags, knotted bundles, or just packages. They seemed to be old residents of the stations. Men and women of all ages and little children were sleeping on blankets under benches, sitting on the dirty floors, crowding the lunch counters. Often it was impossible to force your way to the exit through the sitting, standing crowds of grimy people with a hungry glint in their eyes.

These were refugees evacuated by the government from the regions being given up to the advancing German armies. Except for two bowls of cloudy soup issued every day without charge at the station counters, these people were devoid of help from the authorities. They spent weeks in the filthy and almost unheated stations. Only much later were they allocated to collective farms by the local authorities or sent to factories and mines.

At each station, before the train had even stopped, little children in rags would run alongside the cars shouting, ‘Bread, Uncle, a little piece of bread!’ The station police would chase them off the platform.

After a long stop in Krasnoyarsk one of the passengers, a responsible official, judging from his well-fed look, told us:

‘A girl came up to me at the station and asked me for something to eat. I told her I didn’t have anything. She kept on begging and said that if I gave her something, she – do you understand? – in other words, she was ready for anything, absolutely anything. So I went back to the coach, got a loaf of bread and some fat, and gave them to her.’

The eyes of a lieutenant who was riding with us began to gleam. ‘And then what?’

The passenger giggled in an embarrassed way.

‘My, aren’t you curious! I got what I wanted.’

The lieutenant jumped up without saying a word and hit the man twice with his fist. Then he wiped his hand on his shirt and sat down again. The other was speechless for a moment; then he shouted, ‘How dare you? I’ll call the N.K.V.D. and you’ll see the inside of a jail!’ He rushed out of the car.

The fellow was soon back with one of the N.K.V.D. men who always rode on each train. He was telling him something and showing him some papers. The N.K.V.D. man began to question us and everyone started talking at once. Only the lieutenant remained silent.

The N.K.V.D. man listened to us and then turned to the one the lieutenant had hit. ‘Collect your things. Quick!’

‘What? What’s the matter?’ The passenger looked as if he could not believe his ears.

‘I’ll show you what’s the matter, you bastard,’ the N.K.V.D. man yelled and struck him a tremendous blow on the head. ‘The country is fighting the Germans while you enjoy your dirty little affairs. Let’s go! Move fast!’

And he began to drive the man toward the end of the train, with shoves in the rear.

Another circumstance which showed that the nation was at war was the total disappearance of food at the stations. Cucumbers were the only things brought to the train by the peasant girls; if there happened to be anything else it was sold secretly at fantastic prices. Kostya and I had either eaten or given away our food supply and we were beginning to be sorry. Though we had money, it was often impossible to get food.

The stations between Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk were also overflowing with refugees, but of German descent. We quickly learned that these were all former citizens of the so-called Soviet Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans.

The ancestors of these Germans were settled two hundred years ago on the left bank of the Volga, not far from Saratov. Only their language, an archaic German dialect, and a few customs remained from their German origin. These and their Protestant religion were the sole features which distinguished them from other Soviet citizens. They could speak Russian well and had their own Communist party, which was part of the All-Union Communist party. They also had the same Soviet administration, collective farms, and so forth as the rest of the country. Yet as soon as war started with Germany all 500,000 of them were ‘resettled’ to Siberia in a period of a few days. The whole ‘operation’ was carried out brilliantly. Strong units of the special troops of the N.K.V.D. were moved into the area of the former ‘Republic’, as well as the railroad personnel necessary for military transportation. In a week all the towns and villages of the ‘Republic’ were deserted. The people were given two or three hours to pack and were allowed to take along one or two small bags of food apiece. Everything else was left behind.

While still in transit, all the men between sixteen and fifty-five were taken off the trains at small stations and sent to unknown destinations. Only the women, children, and old men arrived in the far reaches of Siberia and their situation was even worse than that of those refugees we had seen earlier along the way.

I lay on my shelf and tried to think why the government had acted this way toward its own subjects. They had had no contact with Germany for a very long time and they had little more reason for sympathizing with the enemy than all Soviet citizens had. Moreover, they lived a good 500 miles from the front. Yet they had been thrown off the land where their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers had been born; deprived of everything, and in fact condemned to slow extinction – all without having committed any crimes against the Soviet authorities. Their ‘Republic’ had ceased to exist. The very names of their towns and villages were immediately changed by order of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., so that even the memory of the Germans on the Volga would vanish. The Constitution of the U.S.S.R. was amended to omit mention of this ‘Republic’.

I tried to avoid getting off at the stations after this . . .

We got into Novosibirsk at night. The enormous new station was completely filled with evacuees, and for the first time we saw wounded returning to the front after convalescing.

Novosibirsk was the first lap of our journey. Here in the morning we would have to choose a new route and buy tickets. But meanwhile Kostya and I managed to find a place on the station floor and settled ourselves on our bags not far from a group of officers, deciding to spend the rest of the night there. It was impossible to think of sleep. We looked around us and talked over our impressions.

Our attention was soon attracted by the officers. They were talking loudly. One, a tall, thin captain, was saying, ‘The Germans are occupying the Donets Basin, and our men are being bowled back and can’t seem to hold on. The staffs are full of fools, or traitors. The commissars are being shot in the back. If things keep on this way, it won’t be long before the war is over.’

This was very strange. Never in my life had I heard such criticism of the High Command.

Somebody we could not see said, ‘The party men are getting the medals – the parasites. When it comes to battle they’re sick and stay in the rear, but when it’s medals they’re out in front. We’ve shot two of them already in my outfit . . .’

A small lieutenant was talking, ‘In our outfit someone shot the chief of the Special Section [the army N.K.V.D.] in the back of the head during a German barrage. After that they didn’t appoint another. The regiment just had no Special Section.’

‘Those are all trifles,’ said the captain. ‘The important thing is that we’ve been retreating for six months now without a let-up. Three five-year plans were spent getting the army ready, but our equipment isn’t worth a damn. We’re short of everything, and the soldiers are hungry in the trenches. The Germans have tanks and trucks; our men are always on foot. Rear headquarters spend their time drinking and fooling with girls, and evacuating themselves farther and farther from the front . . .’

The one we couldn’t see interrupted the captain again. ‘The commissar calls a meeting and shouts, “Let us die, comrades, for World Revolution, for the Communist party, and for Comrade Stalin!” And then one of the boys lets him have it in the back with a rifle butt, and he topples over. I guess something must have been damaged; he died the next day – for Stalin.’

I felt extremely uncomfortable. Kostya had been glancing around with a worried look for some time. He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘We’d better get out of here. They’ll grab them all for talking that way and send them to the Kolyma. And they’ll grab us, too, for listening.’

I agreed and we moved to another place, as far away as possible, near a group of refugees.

As soon as it was light we went out into the city. We knew that Novosibirsk was crowded. Several ministries, a large number of trusts and other organizations, and a few theatres and institutes had been transferred here from Moscow. Though it was very early people swarmed on the streets, hurrying somewhere. Queues of several hundred each had formed in front of stores and restaurants. It took us about four hours to get breakfast, but the time was profitably spent in questioning the people around us about the local situation.

One talkative ex-resident of Moscow advised us not to try to go any farther west.

‘Don’t even think of it,’ he told us. ‘You won’t get to Moscow in any case; they won’t let you get beyond Kazan. There are only unheated freight trains from here on, and the temperature as you can see is 55⁰ below. It would take you a month at least. Not only that, but sometimes they draft people right out of the trains, so you’ll end up in the army instead of in Moscow.’

‘But my family is in Moscow,’ said Kostya, ‘that’s the only place I want to go.’

At least that’s what he told the stranger. I knew that Kostya, with his ex-political prisoner’s passport, could not legally, under threat of long imprisonment, go closer than 65 miles to Moscow.

‘Forget about it,’ the Muscovite said in a low voice. ‘The Germans will take Moscow any day now and your family will find themselves “abroad”. I’m a fool – I went away and left everything . . .’

His information was corroborated by others. Only troop trains were allowed through to the west, and only refugees and dismantled factory equipment were being shipped to the east. An engineer told us that he had been made to accompany the equipment of his factory.

‘. . . I had to leave my family and give up my apartment. And for what? As soon as we got past the Ural Mountains there was an order to unload the equipment immediately. They wouldn’t even let us do it at a station. We were taken to an open field a few miles away and had to dump all the machines into the snow. When you get farther west on any line you’ll see the stuff lying around in the snow from Novosibirsk to the Urals. My advice to you is go south, to Tashkent. That’s an easier trip. When you get to the Caspian you can cross over to Europe. That is, if the Germans haven’t taken the other shore by that time.’

Kostya and I had already discussed this last alternative for our journey. Central Asia was better off than all the other parts of Russia, except possibly the Far East. And they still had passenger trains there.

And so, having considered all the circumstances, we decided to go to European Russia by way of Tashkent. Kostya gave up his hope of getting to Moscow and decided to accompany me to my destination, where we still had a chance of arriving before the Germans. We had no concrete plans for the future. Our friendship and mutual desire not to get into the army held us together. To die for Stalin and World Revolution was not what we wanted to do.

Novosibirsk had nothing to make us want to stay there. The city was so full of new residents that not the smallest corner could be found to live in. Many people who already had jobs were still living at the station.

However, it was almost impossible to leave the place. Half an hour before the departure of every train a couple of dozen tickets were sold to the public; and there was always a line of several hundred people at the ticket window. All the other tickets, according to the glorious Soviet tradition, were sold somewhere, in a place unknown to the public, to various ‘responsible workers’ making trips in connection with their duties, to officers, medal winners, and other representatives of the Soviet aristocracy. The ticket agents were said to do a fine business taking bribes from ordinary passengers; but when Kostya finally found himself at a ticket window after a thirty-hour wait and offered the cashier an extra 100 rubles if he would sell us two tickets to Tashkent, the cashier began to shout that he was being insulted and Kostya had to make himself scarce. Either 100 rubles was not enough (as the other passengers claimed) or the cashier was scared to take money from strangers.

We lived three days at the station. Every new train from Moscow enlarged the crowd. Only the wounded were found places somewhere in the city. All our attempts to get tickets were unsuccessful, and Kostya had caught cold from lying on the cold floor. We had to do something about our situation quickly.

Having chosen the most impressive documents from the pile we had bearing the big seal ‘Dalstroy, N.K.V.D., U.S.S.R.,’ I took my place in the queue leading to the station manager’s office. Although it was 4 a.m. there were ten people ahead of me. Five hours later the office opened.

Carefully I placed five 1oo-ruble bills between the documents, and when it was my turn entered the office.

‘What do you want? Make it quick!’ said a man in military uniform who was sitting at the desk.

‘My friend and I are on our way from Dalstroy to the Caucasus to join the army at our place of residence. We need two tickets to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea,’ I said immediately.

‘That’s impossible. There are no tickets for the public.’

I started to explain to him heatedly the circumstances leading to our arrival in Novosibirsk.

‘Your papers!’ he interrupted.

I handed him the batch I had prepared. He took the documents and looked through them hurriedly.

‘All right. You’ll get your tickets. But see that no one knows about it,’ he said, returning the papers to me. He wrote out an incomprehensible message and added, ‘Go to window 18. That’s all. Next!’

I dashed out of the office overjoyed and ran to tell Kostya. Of course the money was gone. I had not even noticed him take it from among the papers.

At window 18, where tickets were usually sold to railroad personnel, we presented the station manager’s message and were promptly sold tickets. There were no other people at the window.

That evening we were on our way south. There were a great many passengers. Normally, only as many people are allowed in a Soviet train as there are seats, and the seats are numbered. But railroad personnel must find some way to eat and live. The manager sells tickets, the ticket agents sell tickets, the train conductors sell tickets – without seat numbers; and the porters allow people into their cars for a sum of solid cash. As a result, there are at least twice as many passengers as seats.

But we had seats on benches, since our tickets were ‘most correct’.

Through the windows we saw the endless steppes of Kazakhstan. The railroad was single track, so again we spent hours at the stations, letting military trains pass in both directions. The stories we had heard in Novosibirsk turned out to be true: at every station there were piles of machine tools, electric motors, and other equipment removed from European Russia. Part of it was packed in boxes but much had no covering at all. In some places equipment lay in the open steppe, by a railroad siding, covered by a thin layer of snow.

The passengers in our train were for the most part Moscow people who had been evacuated from the capital. They were all very pleased to be going south. They considered themselves extremely lucky. Only a few privileged people were allowed into Central Asia. Here, it was said, life was still good, almost prewar: you could buy anything and even find a room.