Gulag: a history of the camp system. Kolyma Tales: A Conversation of Lawyers

On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. On this day, the site publishes a monologue by Maria Semyonovna Shinkarenko, a former prisoner of two concentration camps - Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She spent almost three years behind barbed wire.

With grandmother Manya, as she calls herself, we met at the bus stop, got to talking. She was wearing a short sleeved dress, so it was hard not to notice the number 75490 tattooed on her arm. The SS label with a number, received by the girl Masha in the Auschwitz concentration camp, has since become another of her names. After some time, I ended up visiting her. I asked questions, she answered, but it seems to me that her story will look best as a monologue. Read it to the end. It may seem long to you, but everything she tells about her terrible past is important to know today.

The beginning of the war and sending to the camp

I was born in the Kursk region in a family of workers. We lived in poverty. There were six of us children, three of us died. When the war started, I had just entered the sixth grade, but I had very little time to go to school. When the war began, all schools were closed for infirmaries. A week later, my father was taken to the front.

Komsomol members were urged to work - to unload ammunition. I come to the military unit, I say: "Take me to work." They asked me who I live with, the boss took pity, and they took me. For work they were given 500 grams of bread. It was very cold in the barn where we worked, everything was covered with frost. I was quite a youngster, everyone was afraid to catch something and explode. I was transferred to the dining room to serve bowlers to the soldiers.

And so it worked until June 1942, when the Germans broke through the defenses and occupied our area. In the beginning, we were driven to restore the railway, and then they began to take out young people. On December 3, I turned 15 years old, and on December 10 I was taken away by the last echelon. There were three soldiers of prisoners of war in the car, the rest were guys, girls - all adults, all 18 years old and more. Nadia Pronkina was from my street. She was born in 1923, and I was born in 1927.

The train stopped at one of the stations. When the German began to close the door, I put my finger in there to pinch him (you see how crooked it is). Thought I was going to be dropped. What is there! Prooykala, cried all the way. I never traveled by train. Before the war, I didn’t even see any cars - neither combines nor tractors. I was stolen on December 10, 1942, in January 1943 - Kursk Bulge. Our people came, and I was already in a concentration camp.

They brought them to some transit point, straightened everyone to work, and Nadya Pronkina accidentally scalded her legs with boiling water on the way - the train jerked, the boiling water, which we prepared from the collected snow, splashed out on her legs, took off her stockings with leather. As soon as we managed to heal her a little, we made an escape. It was near the city of Breslau. We were caught, tortured, everyone didn’t know what they wanted, and how the saboteurs were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Of course we didn't know what it was. We ended up there in the winter of 1943. The camp itself is surrounded by barbed wire under current, it is impossible to approach the wire closer than three meters. We were dropped off about 60 people from all prisons. And I look: "Oh, what a beautiful city, all in lights." At night, the lights are on all around. We were immediately surrounded by Germans with dogs - they bark, they almost grab our legs! - and set out on foot. We approached the camp - we see people walking behind the wire in striped clothes, only their eyes are visible. We were brought in not through the central gate, but from the side, because it was evening and the camp administration was already resting. I will never forget this key that unlocked the gate. I then thought: "Probably, we will never leave here."

We spent the night in the barracks, in the morning a German Ayvazerka comes (I don’t know how to translate this), with several other prisoners with her. First they gave us numbers. You see, what a neat number I have, as if with a stamp - 75490. Nadia walked ahead of me, she has 75489. Prisoners were forced to prick the numbers. Probably, a competent prisoner pricked me, she first pulled the skin, and Nadia's number came out large. They pricked us, the mascara mixed with blood, they took our clothes away, cut our hair off, and drove us into the shower. Who had time, washed up, who did not - so no.

The floor is cement, it's cold. We are like sheep pressed against each other, we do not recognize each other. Nadia's braid was waist-deep, but now there is no hair. We cry. They brought us clothes, they gave us: a striped dress, a striped jacket, a scarf, stocks - the sole was wooden, and the top was canvas. There were pads and wooden ones, but we got these. This number is on a ribbon, written in white, and here the triangle is red, and on the sleeve such a number was sewn on a jacket. It means: political prisoner.

camp life

All nations were in the concentration camp: Jews, Gypsies, and Russians. Our prisoners of war were brought in echelons, they were not even given numbers, but were driven straight to the crematorium. There were four crematoria around the camp. Since June 1944, families have been brought in by echelons. They no longer had their numbers pierced, but were driven straight to the crematorium. Prisoners also worked in the crematorium, only men.

The rise was at three o'clock in the morning. There were a thousand people in the barracks. The hut is brick, and the roof is slate, the floor is made of slabs - pressed chips and three-tiered bunks. 12 people each, we are on the third shelf, on the second and below, 12 people each. Mattresses stuffed with shavings and two flannelette blankets. They took turns lying down: today I am on the edge, tomorrow in the middle.

You get up in the morning - someone among us is dead. And yet the work begins. They took out buckets, and then went out in front of the barracks for a check. They stood in fives. There were Poles in the barracks, there were no Russians.

I spoke Russian with Nadia, Czech with the Czechs, the languages ​​are similar. When I heard the Polish language, I think that they shock and click? And then they explained to me that they were Poles. We stand in fives, like soldiers, and the senior barracks counts. We are like new, ahead. Winter, cold, I hid my hands in my sleeves. And the Pole, who was counting, hit me on the hands, I didn’t understand why. Passed - I again hid my hands. She counted: so many alive, so many dead. She hit me again, even harder. Then it was already explained to me that I lowered my hands. A German Aivaser came. They began to check who drowned in the toilet, while they are checking that the male and female camps are standing.

They stayed for three hours. After that, they gave us half a liter of warm "coffee" brewed out of nowhere. Then they drove to work along the main street, Lagerstrasse. They walked across the platform, where an orchestra of prisoners was playing a march. The drum, double bass and violin played their marches, and these commanded: "Left, left." I made a mistake once, they pulled me out and started beating me with a crutch. I don’t know how long - I lost consciousness, lay in bed until the evening. In the evening she came to her senses, crawled on all fours to her barracks. Then she wasn't wrong.

The International Red Cross helped everyone, handed over parcels, but not to the Russians. Auschwitz was located on Polish territory, and even a parcel was handed over to the Poles. In the evening, when you come home from work, from five to eight you stand at the divorce and then they give you "herbat" (in Polish - tea), and a loaf of bread for 12 people, your piece for you in the evening and in the morning. If you want - eat right away, if you want - divide, if you want - leave it for the morning. Well, we Russians ate right away: who knows whether you will live until morning or not. In the morning they drank empty coffee, in the afternoon they ate gruel, and in the evening - tea with bread.

In front of the musicians was a children's hut. Women were taken both pregnant and with children, children were selected for Dr. Mengele. He did all sorts of experiments on them. Older children took blood for the soldiers. Mengele, the bastard, fled, died tragically in 1974. He had an easy death. I heard on TV that he drowned, and his son says: "Thank God, a stone has come down from my soul."

Those who worked at the chemical factory had a special barrack. They walked around in red scarves, what they did there - I don’t know, but their faces were so yellow-yellow. We were guarded by SS soldiers with dogs, commanded by a German woman, a black armband on her arm, "kappa" is written in yellow on it, she only shouted: "Work faster!" We dug ditches, dragged and laid stones, planted trees. Right now there is a forest, I planted it with bushes. Then there was a swamp. You go to the toilet, a little knee-deep in mud, and that's it. Polka once shouts "Lady, pull it out!" Well, I gave her my hand, pulled it out, but the block remained there - then figure it out yourself, no one has the strength.

They brought to work a soup with swede, the color of a turnip, yellow, and shaped like a sugar beet. Cut into cubes. Rutabaga and water - that's all, such a gruel. Half a liter was brought to work. From work to work on foot 1.5-2 kilometers. You can barely drag your legs, you don’t come, but crawl.

I was separated from Nadia in the camp, she was sent to another barracks, and they brought Renya and Emma to us - newcomers. Their mother was also shot for their connection with the partisans, and three of them - two sisters and a brother - were sent to Minsk prison, and from prison to Auschwitz. Emma had the number 81460 - Emma, ​​but she had already forgotten her renin. Kingdom of heaven, both died. Renya, Emma, ​​Valya from Taganrog, Emma from Nikolaev and I from Kursk. Here are our top five.

death road

Auschwitz our Soviet troops we were released on January 27, 1945, but we, who were able to work, were picked up the night before and driven somewhere. If you fall behind - there are no forces, two steps to the side - a shot in the temple, and the column drives further, we walked - the corpses lay. How did I get through all this? The Lord gave strength. I have been a believer since the age of five, I prayed, Renya and Emma too. They are Catholics, they prayed in their own way.

They are chasing us, but I rubbed my legs with pads, I can’t walk, I ask: “Renya, leave me! Well, there will be a shot in the temple, and that’s it.” Renya told me: "Maybe there will be a halt somewhere." And there is no halt for three days! They are driving somewhere, intelligence reports that the Russians have occupied this place, and they, like mice, do not know where to run. Finally, they brought me to some estate and said: "Sit where you want." They lay down in a chicken coop. Then they found civilian shoes in the house, took out men's shoes and put them on. And my Nadia and her friends in the hayloft dug into the hay. When everyone left in the morning, the Germans with dogs were poking hay in the hayloft with bayonets, the dogs were dragging it there, they say, there is a person. And the girls sat under the hay for three days and did not come out. They left only when they heard Russian speech.

On the way we were given a loaf of bread - and everyone, of course, hungry, they all ate on the first day. And we found a small pot with melted lard, apparently, the owner hid it. Well, is there something like? There is no bread. And some had pieces. We, then, give them such a piece of lard, they give us such a little piece of bread. We exchanged.

Bergen-Belsen

They drove to some station, drove into open wagons - pullmans. We were so tightly pressed against each other - the train will stop, the crush begins. We were brought somewhere near Hamburg to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It was an infirmary for our prisoners of war, empty. Commandant Josef Kramer and his entire camp administration came. Well, here, of course, there were not 1000 people in the barracks, but the regime was the same.

There is no crematorium, and people were dying every day. There the living were burned, but here the dead have nowhere to go. They piled it up. February, March, April - the very spring, warming. A person dies - in a heap. And before that they were exhausted that they hooked the corpse below the navel and dragged it together.

I also got typhoid here. In Auschwitz, of course, they would have burned me, but here until you die yourself. She lay unconscious for 10 days, she was thirsty, but there was no water. Renya and Emma gave their portions of bread for a glass of herbata tea and prayed, when the ayvazerka makes a check, I lay calmly. They said that sometimes I took the board from under me - and waved the board, drilled God knows who. If it were with the aizer, she would have shot me. God gave, got out! Woke up, regained consciousness.

And before that allied forces The second front was already opened, when ours had already, consider, almost occupied the whole of Germany. Volleys began to be heard. We will get together and dream: "If the camp is liberated, will they feed us at least potatoes in their uniforms?" And then I fell ill with typhus, got up, but I can’t go to work. At work, they were forced to uproot stumps for the site for the crematorium. I said: “Renya, what if they are released, and I stay in the camp. Take me with you to work. Put me in the middle and somehow support with your elbows so that I don’t stagger.” Agreed and accepted.

We went out, stood until 10 o'clock in the morning, nobody let us out of the camp. We were returned to the barracks again, and then the administration hung out a white flag, they decided to poison us. In the evening they only gave herbat, and here they prepared a gruel. We expected that the Allied troops would come in the evening and they would give us this gruel. And the allied forces were ahead of their plans.

At three o'clock in the afternoon an allied tank passed between the barracks, and commandant Josef was sitting on the tank. The Jews rushed at him, they were ready to break the tank, shouting: "You burned my mother, my family!" In all languages, it was broadcast through the mouthpiece that from today we are free, and soon everyone will be sent to their homeland. Some, probably, had a broken heart from joy. Lord God! Here and joy, and tears, and cry! It is impossible to convey and imagine.

The people were hungry, especially the men, they had a kitchen at the camp, the women also broke the wire, whoever could. I say to Rene with Emma: "I'll go too, maybe I'll take something in the kitchen." And after typhus, it's like a grid before my eyes. "Well, where are you going, you'll fall over!" the girls say. “But I got through, I went. And there… The men came first and ate all this poison, only the corpses were lying around. I cried so much. The Lord God did not allow me not to be poisoned. I found one large swede covered with earth, grabbed it, pressed it to my chest. We washed it and ate it.

And the Americans, the Allied troops, wanted the best, prepared potato soup for us, gave us such a jar of stew with a key, and gave us a half-kilogram loaf of bread for two. And the people are skinny, guts like tissue paper. Renya was the eldest in our five, we listened to her like a mother. We ate a spoonful, she says: "Put it down." And we look at it, we were shaking like alcoholics: "Put it?! Here it is - food, we want to eat!" She says, "Put it down." Well, we could not disobey, put the spoons. A minute later she: "Another spoon." And so she saved herself, and we, we didn’t have any volvulus of the intestines, there was nothing.

On the second day, everyone around lies on the spot. Soldiers run around giving some pills. On the third day, they decided to take the healthy ones out of the camp to a military camp, apparently, some kind of German one, in the forest, around the forest, two-story houses.

We were asked: "What do you want?" Well, what did we want? Green bow. So they probably cut off all the fields from the Germans. Whatever we ask, we all give. Now I remember, I ate a kilogram of sugar sand with a spoon, without water, swallowed it like soup! We were fed, reinforced, civilian clothes were given. And out of habit, we walked like fives, mechanically, looking back so that the dog would not bite.

On Victory Day, these allied soldiers brought anti-aircraft guns, machine guns to the site - everything was pulled, they started shooting, and we - head under the bed, do not know where to run. We thought they were shooting back, and then our colonel came and said: "The war is over!"

The way home

Our government demanded from the allies that we all be returned to our homeland. We were offered there, if someone does not want to go to Soviet Union, maybe anywhere - some to England, some to America. What is there? Everyone wants to go home! At the end of May, they gave us three bars of chocolate for the journey, put us in cars and took us. We were taken out of this camp, taken along the Elbe. Allied troops on this side, and ours on the other side! We saw our soldiers! They are in tunics, - the salt has already come out, they are so sweaty. They shout: "Hurrah!"

And we are being driven and driven, all the bridges have been blown up. We were transported to Cologne, we were handed over in this city. In the morning we were collected, passenger cars were delivered and brought to the city of Furstenberg. Our military unit was sent here, which was engaged in the reception of repatriated citizens. There is also some kind of transit point - barracks, mud. Major Mezin gathered us among these barracks, said that from today it was possible to write letters to our homeland, but they could not send us home, because we arrived first, and a place had to be prepared for those who would come next.

Must means must. I was the head of the barracks, I took three regions into my barracks - Kursk, Voronezh and Oryol. Renya and Emma took Minsk, Mogilev and some other.

I also had an appendicitis attack there. The operation was performed under local anesthesia. They cut the skin - it didn’t hurt, but the intestines - I can hear it. As I began to gurgle on my stomach, I say: "Doctor, don't pull out all the intestines!" He says: "I'll leave half for you, I'll leave." They sewed it up, put it in the barracks. Renya me chicken bouillon got it in the officer's canteen. Then, as I started to get up, I will clamp the seam - and go. I met the doctor, he told me: "Why are you walking like that, baby?" And I say: "Yes, I'm afraid, I will straighten up - my seam will burst and the intestines will fall out." And he laughed, shook his head and said: "If you walk around like that, no one will marry you." Well, then, of course, I began to straighten up - I got scared!

I came home only in December. Emma and Renea landed in Minsk, and they lived in the Minsk region, Krupsky district, the village of Shinki. Knee-deep snow, frosty winters, they found some grandpa on a sled, and off they went. And we were taken further. I was dropped off in Kharkov. Where the train went, what route it had, they did not say. In Kharkov, the station is broken, some barracks, everything is on the street. And there were crooks! .. I had nothing to steal - a duffel bag, a blanket in a duffel bag, so the Germans covered horses.

From Kharkov I drove to Valuyki, and then to Chernyanka. Some soldier went to the Donbass for salt, salt then cost 120 rubles a glass. He jumped out, threw his things, then mine, helped me carry it. Went for mother. We lived in the third house from the market, and not far from the station.

Came home. Mother's brother and sister. House - no stake, no yard. Three hens on the stairs in the senks. The mother went to cut the chicken. Brother shouts: “Mom, not mine!” Sister screams: “Mom, not mine!” At six o'clock, when the guests arrived, the chicken was ready. I don't know what she killed there. I celebrated my 18th birthday at home, in my homeland. Mother does not have a soul in me. A funeral came for my father from the front, my mother herself was shell-shocked, and her hands were broken, she had a disability of the third group.

Maria Semyonovna after the war. Photo from the personal archive of M.S. Shinkarenko

In 1946, Renya sent me a letter: "You need to study in order to acquire a specialty." I told her: "How can I study, such a tall one!" She advised me to enter the school for working youth. I went to the director of the school (he returned from the front), he gave me a certificate that I had completed six classes. I collected the documents and took them to the working youth school in Stary Oskol. She arrived, and the director of the school, Stebeleva Faina Grigoryevna, said: "I can't accept you. We have a school for working youth, but you don't work anywhere." I burst into tears. When she found out that I was in a concentration camp, she took care of me, and they accepted me, and even gave me a bread card.

After the war

My husband is a veteran of the war. He also finished six classes before the war, and worked in a watch workshop. We met and got married. She finished school and typist courses at the same time. went to work in people's court Chernyansky district, clerk-typist, printed sentences.

My daughter was born. I rushed to work to get a job, but not so easy. When I got married, I began to change my passport, instead of “working” I was given “employee” in my passport, but I worked as a secretary. I think what's the difference. And I came to Moscow and realized that the difference is big. I came to the construction of houses in Chertanovo, but they don’t accept me, I am an employee, but they take workers. Well, I got it sorted.

We are told by staffing We need a typist, but we don't have a typewriter right now. I say, "Take me a track worker." So they took me temporarily. Then they opened the Moscow District Railway, now they made the metro, and then there was the Moscow District Railway for road repair. Four carriages - a hostel. Freight wagons, four people in each compartment: four people on one side and on the other. The stove was heated with coal. Water dispenser. Lived in this boxcar for 10 years! You drown - it's warm, the stove went out, you sleep at night, you wake up in the morning - derg-derg! - the hair is frozen.

While working at the Department of Defense. In the foreground is cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolaev. Photo from the personal archive of M.S. Shinkarenko

I worked as a track worker for three months in 1953, January, February, March, in March they received a typewriter. The machine is heavy - "Bashkiria", until now, probably, that's why the fingers are numb. Well, then I worked in the Ministry of Defense from 1971 to 1994. I saw everyone there. Minister Marshal Grechko, cosmonauts - Gagarin, Tereshkov.

Nadia, when ours found them, went to the hospital as a nurse, and then to the active army until the end of the war. And Rena and Emma - I went to visit them. They had a big house in the village. Renya then worked as a teacher, did not marry. Emma went to college to study, raised two children - Sasha and Vitalik.

The Germans paid us compensation, who was in the concentration camp, they paid compensation - in marks, then - they paid euros, paid them in full. And ours - 1000 rubles each! I was in a concentration camp, maybe, well, at least a little more?

Medicine has failed. Well, who came up with this: 10-12 days - and they are discharged from the hospital for aftercare at the place of residence, and these polyclinics have been united at the place of residence, you can hardly sign up. My daughter died two years ago - in three days they missed with pneumonia. I was in the hospital, coughing, coughing, no one came, I went myself, looked at the fluorography, and I have pulmonary edema! A little more - and I would give the ends. In the polyclinic, the doctor prescribed medicine for my daughter, and it made her feel even worse, they brought her to the hospital, to the same department where I was, and she died in the evening. Left a granddaughter, Julia. She wanted to sue, I say: “Julia, don’t get on your nerves or yourself or me, you won’t achieve it and you won’t return your mother.”

And recently I wrote a letter to Putin. This Ukrainian nonsense that they tell us on TV is disgusting to listen to it. My son lives in Ukraine, married, from the Donbass. And here we hear "Russia is the enemy! Russia is the aggressors, they occupied the Donbass, they took the Crimea!" Why are they doing this anti-Russian propaganda on TV. Now there on some talk show there was one mustachioed, Kovtun, or what? Angry, even the cheekbones are shaking. And the look is like that of an SS man. I've seen those eyes before.

War films are all true. Victory Day for me is really a joy with tears in my eyes. Yes, it should be celebrated. I always say: "People, take care of the world! Whatever it is." The day the war began is hard to forget, and Victory Day will never be forgotten. Thanks to our soldiers - both fighters and officers who freed us!

We lived hard, hard, thank God, I survived, this year will be my 90th birthday. I hope I live.

Lesson Objectives:

1. To acquaint students with the pages of the novel by A.I. Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago".
2. 2. To develop the skills of text analysis, preparation of a detailed answer to the question.

Lesson objectives:

1. Formation of students' idea of ​​scale mass repression in USSR.
2. Development information culture students and an objective attitude to the historical past of the country.
3. Attracting students' attention to the problem of memory.
4. Raising a sense of citizenship and responsibility for the fate of the country.
5. Formation of self-awareness of students on the basis of historical values.

Type of lesson: lesson-seminar (2 lessons of 40 minutes each).

Form of work: group.

Equipment:

1. A.I. Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago".
2. Portrait of a writer.
3. multimedia presentation .
4. physical map.
5. Candle.

DURING THE CLASSES

I. Organizational moment

On the board is a portrait of A.I. Solzhenitsyn, an epigraph to the lesson.

(Slide #1)

II. Introduction to the topic

Against the background of music (Oginsky's polonaise "Farewell to the Motherland") performed by the student, A. Andreevsky's poem "From Moscow to the Outskirts" sounds. (Slides No. 2,3,4 flash by).

What is the issue raised in this poem?

What poets and writers of the 20th century touched upon this problem in their works?

What do you think the topic of our lesson is?

III. teacher's word

Yes, today in the lesson we will talk about totalitarianism, about the crimes of the ruling regime against its people, about mass repressions, about punitive institutions, and, most importantly, about the survival of a person who has not killed the human element in himself in the "wild" conditions of exile. And the novel by AI Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago" will help us to understand this.

goal setting;

What do you think are the objectives of the lesson?

(Slide number 5)

IV. Analysis of the chapters of A.I. Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago"

1. The words of A.I. Solzhenitsyn sound (Epigraph to the lesson).

I dedicate
to all those who did not have enough life
tell about it.
And may they forgive me
that I didn't see everything
don't remember everything
didn't think of everything.

Who do you think A.I. Solzhenitsyn is addressing?

What did the writer want to convey to us?

(Slide number 6), (Slide number 7. Lesson plan).

2. Work in groups.

(Each group was given task cards).

(Slide number 8)

Part 1 ch.2 "History of our sewage".

• What's happened totalitarian regime?
• When did the repressions start?
• How was the "History of Our Sewerage" created?
• For what purpose were repressions carried out in our country?

According to AI Solzhenitsyn, the repressions in our country did not unfold in 1937, but much earlier. In the novel The Gulag Archipelago, he proposed his own periodization of the terror that unfolded in our country after the revolution.

Over the course of 3 volumes, one after another, there are endless stories about unjust arrests, dungeon atrocities, crippled destinies.

(Slide number 9)

ch.

GULAG - WIKIPEDIA "GULAG statistics",

• What are the statistics of the Gulag?
• What National composition prisoners?
• What impression did the chapter "Male Plague" have on you?

Until the late 1980s, official statistics on the Gulag were classified, so estimates were based either on the words of former prisoners or their family members.

Analyzing the chapters, Solzhenitsyn also does not give the total number of convicts, but the figures given are horrifying.

(Slide number 10)

part 2. Chapter 1 "Ships of the Archipelago".

Part 2 Chapter 2 "Ports of the Archipelago"

Part 2, Chapter 3 "Slave Caravans".

• How would you place the Archipelago on a map?
• How and under what conditions were people transported?
• Where were the ports of the Archipelago located? (Show on the physical map).

(Slide No. 11 "Map of the Archipelago")

"Close your eyes, reader. Do you hear the rumble of wheels? These are the Stolypins. At every minute of the day ... Every day of the year. But the water is squelching - these are the prisoner barges. But the motors of the funnels are roaring. "They squeeze in. And this roar? - overcrowded transfer cells. And this howl? - the complaints of the robbed, raped, abused."

It will be worse in the camp.

Unfold a spacious map of our Motherland on a large table. Put bold dots on all regional cities, on all railway points where the rails end and the river begins, or the river turns and the footpath begins. What is this?

The whole map is infested with infectious flies. This is what you got a majestic map of the ports of the Archipelago. Its ports are transit prisons, its ships are wagons - zaki"

(Part 2, Chapter 2 A.I. Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago").

Teacher's word.

Man - that sounds proud!
The man is the truth!
You have to respect the person!
(M. Gorky)

Was it so in the years of Stalin's repressions?

(Slide number 12)

• What kind of torture was used on prisoners?
• part 1, chapter 3 "Consequence".
• Part 1. Chapter 11 "To the highest measure."
• Describe the life of the prisoners.
• part 3, chapter 7 "Indigenous way of life"
• How did people try to survive?

part 4, chapter 1 "Ascent"

part 11, chapter 4 "Change fate"

part 4, ch.6-7 "Convinced fugitive"

part 4, chapter 10 "When the earth is on fire in the zone"

Of course, writes emphasizes, in the camp it was important to survive "at any cost", but still, not at the cost of losing the soul or spiritual deadness.

This was the "Russian character": it is better to die in an open field than in a rotten nook.

Teacher's word.

"There are a lot of grins near the Archipelago, a lot of mugs. You won't get lost from any side, approaching him. But, perhaps, he is the most disgusting of all from the mouth from which he swallows youngsters" (Part 2, Ch. 14 "Gulag Archipelago" ).

(Slide number 13)

Ch.2 Ch.17 "Youngsters".

• Who are the minors?
• Why were the children judged?
• camp education.
• Children's native labor.

"Stalin's immortal laws on youngsters lasted 20 years

(until the Decree of 24.4.54):.

They reaped twenty harvests. For twenty ages they have gone mad in crime and debauchery,” writes AI Solzhenitsyn.

In the 1930s alone, there were about seven million street children.

Then the cause of homelessness was solved simply - the Gulag helped. These five letters have become an ominous symbol of life on the verge of death, a symbol of lawlessness, hard labor and human lawlessness. The inhabitants of the strange Archipelago turned out to be children. . .

Of course, it is necessary to know what happened to children who ended up on the street or lost their parents (most often through the fault of the state). It is necessary to talk about children's destinies, distorted by the Stalinist regime.

In our time, the attitude of the state towards children has changed, but the problems remain, although attempts are being made to somehow solve them.

The President of Russia admitted that almost five million homeless or street children are a threat to the national security of the country.

Teacher's word.

One of the most tragic and cynical pages in the annals of the Gulag is undoubtedly the one that tells about the fate of the woman behind the barbed wire. A woman in the camps is a special tragedy, a special topic. Not only because the thorn camp, logging or wheelbarrow is not compatible with the idea of ​​the purpose of the fair sex.

But also because a woman is a mother. Either the mother of children left in the wild, or - giving birth in the camp.

6 group. Part 2. ch.8 "Women of the Gulag".

(Slide number 14)

• How did the women get into the camp?
• camp life women.
• Hard labor.
• "Mums".

(Slide number 15)

I saw a woman in a harsh square:
Before the Solovetsky stone she wept:
"Do not let, Lord, that it was again,
Blessed be, unfortunate country!"
(Anatoly Alexandrov)

V. Generalization of the material

teacher's word

The lessons of the Gulag, as one of the most tragic pages in the history of mankind, still require their impartial reflection and study.

Much of what our compatriots experienced half a century ago, of course, is terrible. But it is even more terrible to forget the past, to ignore the events of those years. History repeats itself, and who knows, things could happen again in an even harsher form.

"If the Gulag" was printed in the Soviet Union, in a completely open circulation and in unlimited quantities - I always believed that the Soviet Union would have changed. Because after this book: "life" cannot continue in the same way, "- so A.I. Solzhenitsyn argued.

Against the background of music (Oginsky's polonaise "Farewell to the Motherland"), the student performs V. Dokunin's poem "Let's remember all the innocently killed."

(The candle lights up.)

VI. Reflection

(Slide number 16)

• What got you excited about the lesson?
• I want to leave the lesson (with what?):
• I remember in class:
• Do posterity need to know this?

VII. Homework

• Essay-reasoning "What did the chapters of A.I. Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago" make you think about?
• Essay-review "My reflections on the novel".

Literature.

1. New Newspaper " female face Gulag". http://www.novagazeta.ru/gulag/44070.htme
2. "New Newspaper". Grishchenko V., Kalinin V., "Women of the Gulag".
3. Ovchinnikova L. "Children in Stalin's camps".
4. Richter T.V. "Characteristics of the work of A.I.. Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago".

Presenter: Boltyanskaya Natella

Guest: Yuri Brodsky

N. Boltyanskaya: Hello. You are listening to Ekho Moskvy, you are watching the RTVi TV channel, the cycle of programs “In the Name of Stalin” together with the Russian Political Encyclopedia publishing house with the support of the foundation named after the first president of Russia Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. In our studio, the researcher of the history of Solovki, the author of the book "Solovki: 20 years of Special Purpose" - I'll show it now - Yuri Brodsky. Hello, Yuri Arkadievich.

Y. Brodsky: Hello Natella.

N. Boltyanskaya: And our topic today is, you know, such everyday life, the life of a person from this entire camp empire. That is, you see, I do not require you to give strict numbers, although I assume that, probably, in this book and in the book that is now being prepared for publication, there are some numbers. I want our listeners, our viewers to try on for themselves how the life of a person who got into this car went. By the way, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, “Gulag Archipelago”, “ steep route», « Kolyma stories» Shalamova, enough a large number of Literature, there, Lev Immanuilovich Razgon, who has not yet been listed? "Pass it on" by Anna Nikolskaya, many books. To what extent? Here you, as far as I understand, have recently returned, 4 months in Once again spent on Solovki. To what extent is the picture recognizable to you as a researcher? An artistic picture presented by Russian writers... What are you thinking about, huh?

Y. Brodsky: Well, it's difficult... You see, I'll answer a little indirectly. That's when they did the "Steep Route", theatrical production, then former prisoners were gathered as consultants, including Marchenko Zoya - this is a person whom I know well, she was also invited. And these former prisoners quarreled among themselves. Because one said, “The food was served to us through the feeder, plates or bowls of some kind, gruel was served,” the other says, “No, they gave us a boiler and we shared it in the cell.” And so a dispute began even between people on such grounds as to how much truth is there or not there? Everyone is right, in fact, and there is no single truth about how it happened.

But Solovki is interesting because it is the first camp administration in the USSR. The administration, which worked out the norms that would be walking around the country - how many calories are needed per prisoner, where to shoot during execution, how to get rid of corpses, how thick the layer of earth should be, how many rows of bodies should be in the pit - 5 rows. The thickness of the earth layer, as it was later found out, is a quarter of an arshin, 17 centimeters. Here is how to dress, how to use prisoner labor, categories of prisoner labor. All this was developed on Solovki and from 1925 then splashed onto the mainland.

N. Boltyanskaya: And why? Why there?

Y. Brodsky: The point, apparently, is this. This is one answer, of course. Here is Andrei Bitov when he creates a list of events that led Russia to the Gulag. Here is the first item of this list - it is called "GULAG as a civilization". Here is the first item in this list - this is the formation of the Solovetsky Monastery, 1429, oddly enough. And here Solovki is gradually moving, in the 15th century a monastery appears, in the 16th century it is a prison, a political prison for prisoners who have committed not criminal, but actually political crimes, the largest prison in Rus'. And this prison will eventually exist until the 20th century. And then the Bolsheviks, without inventing anything new, will simply sharply increase the scale.

N. Boltyanskaya: It's clear. Well, after all, as it is, we will destroy the whole world of violence to the ground, and then - from some point they believe that they are building new world. And from a certain moment they simply consider, from a certain moment they are building this new world under the leadership of Comrade Stalin. And so you said that many norms were worked out precisely on Solovki. In your opinion, was there a special contingent of those who worked there? Is this only due to historical background, or are there any logical answers to this question?

Y. Brodsky: Creating a system of camps, it was necessary to somehow organize them. And this happens in Solovki in a natural way, that is, no one thought that it would be, in the end, like this, that there would be mass executions in 1937. And the terms at first were minimal - 3 years, 5 years, only then they were extended and extended.

N. Boltyanskaya: And what did the people who ended up, well, in particular, in Solovki, do some kind of socially useful - I don’t put a shadow of irony into this question now - did they carry out activities?

Y. Brodsky: This was also developed on the islands. At first, labor was only a means of humiliating a person, suppressing his will. That is, they dragged stones from place to place, rolled logs from place to place. They counted seagulls - a seagull once, a seagull two, a thousand seagulls.

N. Boltyanskaya: Why were seagulls counted?

Y. Brodsky: Well, just to humiliate, to force a person. Or, there, sing or shout the Internationale for hours on end. Moreover, you have to yell, because if you don’t yell, then two or three are killed, and then people stand and yell until they start to fall from exhaustion - this is at night, in the cold. Or carry water from hole to hole running. And the contingent, of course, is special in Solovki - that's for sure.

N. Boltyanskaya: Did he differ in some way from the contingent throughout the GULAG empire?

Y. Brodsky: There was no Gulag yet, Solovki is the forerunner of the Gulag. And Solovki - this is the position that Unshlikht wrote about Solovki, this is 1923, there it is like this: “Solovki gather people, some have committed some kind of crimes, and people who are potentially dangerous to the regime get there.” That is, these are philologists - because the new spelling and the bearers of the old knowledge must be temporarily isolated. These are historians - because it is written new story countries.

N. Boltyanskaya: Oh how. That is, those who did not get on the Philosophical steamer got ...

Y. Brodsky: Of course, absolutely. And a lot. These are lawyers - because classical Roman law is no longer needed, and the bearers of the old knowledge must be temporarily isolated. These are priests of all denominations, popular among the people, they must be temporarily isolated. It is the military who can lead the resistance. And it was believed that these were camps for the socially alien, who needed to be temporarily isolated, but in fact they were camps for the gene pool of the people who were gathered there and then destroyed. Maybe not right away, but, now, they were released, then imprisoned again, and there are a lot of such stories. Here, Oleg Volkov was twice imprisoned in Solovki.

N. Boltyanskaya: Boris asks the question: “What was the difference between life in the camps in the 1920s and after the start of mass repressions? Is it possible to consider this on the example of Solovki?

Y. Brodsky: Very radically different. The 20s are the search for a genre. Even the first time there are some theaters. There were 7 theaters on Solovki, not even 7, but 8 - the 8th theater was recently found, "Gulkin's nose" was called. 8 theater venues. They publish their own newspapers and magazines, and research on nature is conducted on a camp-wide scale. I mean, that's what they thought. But then, you know, a tree grows and no one knows where the branches of this tree will go. That is, it is already in the genes what the bark will be, what the shape of the leaves will be, but no one knows what the seeds are. And this is how the camp grows, and camp theaters, camp scientific societies gradually disappear and a prison grows on Solovki - by 1937, by the beginning of the executions, the prisoners no longer work, their labor is not used in any way. They sit with their hands on their knees, you can only walk around the cell barefoot, so as not to give a signal to the next cell, you need to talk in a whisper, if you have been sent a letter, then they show it to you, but do not give it to your hands and file it into the file. The photograph is shown, filed into the case. A pen is no longer given to write a statement, they are given only a pencil lead, and the prisoners make a mandrel out of bread and write all sorts of statements with this pencil lead. In the toilet, you need to show the paper to the guard that he used it for its intended purpose, and did not write a note. On a walk you can not cough, so as not to give a signal to the neighboring paddock. Look only at the feet of the person in front, no matter what happens, otherwise they deprive the whole cell of walks. And this is the difference...

N. Boltyanskaya: Well, that is, it is, as it were, such a special zone within the zone, right?

Y. Brodsky: Well, it's a search for a genre. And they thought that this prison is the pinnacle of the Soviet penitentiary system. It turned out to be a dead end.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yuri Arkadyevich, but, on the one hand, you are talking about a dead end, and on the other hand, many camps worked and produced a huge amount of necessary, useful things.

Y. Brodsky: No. Well, the intelligentsia was gathered in Solovki.

N. Boltyanskaya: That is - what to take from them?

Y. Brodsky: And since 1925, they decided that the slogan of the Solovetsky camps was “Pine smells like currency,” and people mined currency. But professors, scientists who are forced to cut down trees, they cannot do it, they cannot carry these trees. And the best die first in general.

N. Boltyanskaya: Tell me, please, the people who led this particular department of the empire, namely Solovki, did they differ in some way from their colleagues?

Y. Brodsky: No. Usually very low educational level almost everyone. And this is a product of Soviet propaganda. This is Gorky who says that if a person is called a pig for 6 months, then on the 7th he will grunt. These people are a product of propaganda, they were told that they were guarding the enemies of the people.

N. Boltyanskaya: But wait. You yourself say that the Solovki developed regulations, which were then distributed throughout the country - how many calories, how to deal with the living and the dead, what kind of labor and how and where you can use it. Or the people who developed it are only performers, they are not required, as they say, seven spans in the forehead?

Y. Brodsky: Most of them are performers. And, as a rule, they forced the prisoners to do it all.

N. Boltyanskaya: So they developed it themselves?

Y. Brodsky: Yes. The guards are also prisoners. Here comes new stage, they ask: “Who served in the NKVD? Who worked in the Soviet bodies? Who is in the Red Army? Two steps forward, three steps forward", party members are called first. They are offered that if they give a subscription not to mix with the rest of the mass of prisoners, then they receive special form, live in a special company, the 9th, the prisoners called it the "leg company", and suppress other prisoners. And so they write reports, they write projects, they manage theaters. But today they lead, and tomorrow they are shot.

N. Boltyanskaya: But Yuri Arkadyevich, this is such a textbook example from Evgenia Ginzburg's book “The Steep Route”, I mention him very often here, but it seems to me that this is such a landmark example when they refer to it. She works, in my opinion, at the bread distribution, and they say to her: “Listen, there is your fellow countryman, Kazan Major Elshin, he was not a harmful man, he gets it at all, give him a piece of bread.” This, however, is not Solovki, this is the Gulag. Again, how exclusive this system was for Solovki, when from former employees organs allocated the backbone of the camp?

Y. Brodsky: They were different too. It cannot be said that all former communists were bad and that all ...

N. Boltyanskaya: So no, you can’t scratch everyone with one comb. But you say that former employees organs, so to speak, were singled out into managers - forced, but managers. Or is it typical only for Solovki?

Y. Brodsky: It seems to me that this is only for Solovki. Because in 1932 there was a sharp strengthening of the regime, and at the same time the Solovki were already spilling over onto the mainland, and a new system camps, and there the guards and the management of the camps were already formed in a different way. There are very few civilian employees in Solovki - this is very typical for Solovki.

N. Boltyanskaya: Here you have received a message from a man who writes: “My grandfather met with Volkov, the author of Plunging into Darkness. Question to you: please tell me when we are talking about a camp prisoner, according to some, then a person who has committed a certain crime, we put quotation marks, must atone for him. He ends up in the camp and, accordingly, he redeems. Another theory is that the camps were extermination camps. As far as I understand from your words, the Solovki were precisely the extermination camps. So?

Y. Brodsky: No, not really. This turned out to be true, but at first the Bolsheviks sincerely believed that these were temporary isolation camps. I don't think there was some evil genius who came up with all this. Because it's just the logic of life. If they went along this road, it will lead there, if they said "A", they must say "B", and then "C". And in the end we will come to this prison. You know, I want to tell this man who met with Volkov that this wonderful person at all.

N. Boltyanskaya: I understand, thanks.

Y. Brodsky: No, no, no, sorry, I just want to tell him a very important thing about the camps. I don't think it was published anywhere. I recorded the memories of about 50 people, former prisoners. And so I asked them all, well, how did I come up with: “What helped you survive in the camp, what is the quintessence of the camp for you?” And Volkov said: “I decided to wash my hands every day and not swear.” And the man who was with me smiled, he said, "Don't think it's so easy." To keep the purity of hands, but in fact to stand out from the crowd with something, to keep the purity of hands, the purity of the soul. And it helps to survive. And Volkov served 25 years.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yuri Arkadyevich, the sensations mentioned by the authors of the books I mentioned are hunger, cold and quite hard work. So what are they made up of? You mentioned the number of calories. I read somewhere that the number of calories of an ordinary prisoner was less than the number of calories, there, I don’t know, in besieged Leningrad - is that so?

Y. Brodsky: Also differently. Well, Solovki went through several stages before it turned into a prison. And at first it was possible to buy food in stalls, unless, of course, some parcels or money came from home. This was not the case in other camps. Camp money signed by Gleb Bokov, special.

N. Boltyanskaya: By the way, you have pictures of money in the book.

Y. Brodsky: Yes, yes, yes, there is also a photograph of money. It also went through several stages. There was a canteen, Mikhail Yegorov opened a canteen for prisoners inside the camp, where they could get food for money. In the 2nd camp, this is already in Kemi, a restaurant was set up in the transit camp, where the prisoner could come and even order beer for himself. But then it all dies altogether.

N. Boltyanskaya: Then - when?

Y. Brodsky: In the early 30s.

N. Boltyanskaya: That is, you are now talking about Solovki, so to speak, at the end of the 1920s, right?

Y. Brodsky: Mid 20s.

N. Boltyanskaya: Fine. And tell me, please, again, if you believe the information obtained from books, a lot of prisoners in the Gulag empire died, so to speak, from natural causes that no one wanted to fight, such as hunger, weakness, difficult climatic conditions, exacerbation of chronic diseases ... Well, what am I listing for you? You mentioned shootings several times. Let's just say that for Solovki, as I understand it, this is a kind of special story, right?

Y. Brodsky: No, I think that in all the camps there were executions, and there were unauthorized executions, there were executions or murders for boots, for a sheepskin coat - that's pretty mass phenomenon was. For the gold teeth that the prisoner had, they could be killed. No, it was quite widespread.

N. Boltyanskaya: But you mentioned some provisions on executions. Have you seen these documents?

Y. Brodsky: I saw, partially saw orders for executions with signatures. But this is the 30s already. In the 1920s, acts were drawn up in 4 copies, one was sent to Moscow - they were also preserved. The death of people from difficult living conditions, as they wrote in Solovki, is also all the time. Because executions are Sekirnaya Gora, well, the official place of executions. But on Calvary - this is already on Anzer - there people really died from difficult living conditions. And in 1929 - these were the acts of the Shanin commission - the Shanin commission came, the commission of the NKVD, according to these acts, during the winter there were 2 pits of 800 people each, in which the corpses of people lay. That is, 1,600 people who died during the winter from difficult living conditions is quite a lot.

N. Boltyanskaya: Max asks you to tell more about Sekirnaya Gora. I don't know how it is possible to make such a request to a researcher.

Y. Brodsky: Of course it is possible. Sekirnaya Gora is from the very beginning, as it were, a punishment cell, a monastic one, after the closure of the monastic prison in 1903, fines were exiled there - photographer Sorokin, in particular. And in the 1920s, when the Bolsheviks came, they came to Solovki in 1920 and immediately created a camp for prisoners of war civil war, which in 1923 grew into SLON - the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.

And at the same time, Sekirnaya Gora turns into a punishment cell and a place of executions. Opposite the altar was a flower bed made of stones - that is, not flowers were planted, but whitewashed stones. And there were arrows at the altar, and on the other side of the circle, there, then, a flower bed is a star in a circle, in general, it is also such an icon.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yeah.

Y. Brodsky: On the other side of the circle there were prisoners, they were taken out by 5 people and there was work for them every day. And it is very characteristic that all civilian employees of the camp were to take part in the executions. That is, a doctor, the head of a radio station, a projectionist.

N. Boltyanskaya: And who came up with this?

Y. Brodsky: Camp leader.

N. Boltyanskaya: Everyone was smothered.

Y. Brodsky: That is, bind everyone with mutual responsibility, and then drink it, like the guardsmen, drink ...

N. Boltyanskaya: You have an episode here in your book - this is a fragment from a case where there is a note on the calendar: “You must be drunk” - what kind of story is this?

Y. Brodsky: This is an executioner who is arrested due to abuse of power, and he is given a characteristic that he is politically reliable, that he is a dedicated person, which deserves indulgence. And among the investigative materials, in the Petrozavodsk archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, his file is located, there is a leaflet on which it is written that such and such a number of executions, and he writes to himself: “You must be drunk,” before being shot.

N. Boltyanskaya: You know, I recently found an old "Spark" somewhere with a friend, which contains an interview with a man who took part in the executions. And he writes that, yes, we took part in this, but it was necessary to be drunk, and no one enjoyed it. In no case am I trying to justify these people, but the question - I will ask you now, and you will answer it after a pause. Initially, the camps were conceived not only for punishment, but also for the re-education of prisoners. What were the educational elements? Let me remind you that our guest is Yuri Brodsky, the author of the book "Solovki: 20 Years of Special Purpose". Now getting ready to go A new book Yuri Arkadievich. We will continue our conversation after a short break.

N. Boltyanskaya: We continue our conversation with Yuri Brodsky about the life of prisoners. And the question that I asked you before the break: so what were the educational elements, if I may say so?

Y. Brodsky: You know, it seems to me that there was no re-education there, that it was such a fig leaf, well, such a window dressing. She helped some people survive. But such a re-education program could not and could not exist, because the people who were in the camp were many times more educated, much smarter than those who kept them in the camp. Well, who could be their tutors? Anisimov, there, or Zhurakovsky (inaudible).

N. Boltyanskaya: But, pardon me, because you are now investing in this concept a certain positive meaning. People needed, as I understand it, to be combed with a common comb, to be forced to stop being dissidents. So?

Y. Brodsky: Undoubtedly.

N. Boltyanskaya: And here, excuse me, the educational level is not important, it is important ...

Y. Brodsky: No, in this sense, the task of the camps was precisely this - it is Kurilko who says in his testimony, one of the executioners, who himself was later shot - that everyone should be forced to walk on the same rug, this is a camp term such that everyone is the same. And in order to survive in the camp, it was just what Volkov said - to save something of his own. Here Academician Baev says: “I survived because I learned English in a cell where it was impossible to even speak Russian.” Well, find something of your own. Someone was engaged in mathematics, someone solved puzzles, who did what. Well, here, do not turn into a mass.

N. Boltyanskaya: Question from Alexei from Kazan: "Are the regulations of the Soviet and Hitler camps similar? Is it true that the Nazis came to gain experience in the camps during the period of Stalin-Hitler friendship?"

Y. Brodsky: Apparently yes. In 1934 there was a delegation from Germany. Delegation for the exchange of experience. In any case, Academician Glazychev told me about it. And indirect confirmation... I haven't seen the documents, so I won't presume to say, but, let's say, on the gates of Auschwitz the inscription "Work makes you free" is known - this mocking inscription. In Solovki, 10 years earlier, the inscription “Through labor to liberation” appeared on the Nikolsky Gate. That is, the difference is only in the translation. I think that there was a lot in common, both in architecture and in literature. Well, it's just that the systems were similar, so similar techniques were used.

N. Boltyanskaya: And tell me, please, after the repressions of 1937, the Solovetsky camps continued to be some kind of special camps in the entire system? Or was everything going on in them, as well as throughout the country?

Y. Brodsky: No, Solovki continued to be special camps, but in a different way. After 1937, after the executions of 1937, Solovki was turned into a prison. Often it is called STON - Solovetsky Special Purpose Prison. Well, there was no STON word, in fact it was a prison of the main department of state security. The prisons and camps belonged to this administration. But this prison was with an incredibly cruel regime, and it was believed that this was the pinnacle of the Soviet correctional system of the Soviet.

N. Boltyanskaya: Wait, but how? The pinnacle of the penitentiary system and, to some extent, the starting point - a lot of people were shot very much. Who and why, after this wave of 1937, fell precisely on Solovki? Is there any, I don't know, statistics? Is there any information that allows you to generalize?

Y. Brodsky: Well, after 1937 there were certainly more intelligentsia anyway. But the composition is completely contradictory. Because the engineer sent by Ordzhonikidze to study in America comes from America and ends up in Solovki. A prominent economist, writer Gorelov, Minister of Health of Belarus Oliker.

N. Boltyanskaya: And how long did people, so to speak, survive in Solovki? You mentioned someone with a 25 year sentence. But I understand that this is not all ...

Y. Brodsky: No, no, this is not Solovki - this is Volkov who served 25 years, Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov. Well, there are many of these. The longest term I know is 39 years. But this is not Solovki, but in general, as it were, a person - they took it, let it out. Here Volkov - they took him, he served 3 years, he was released. Then they imprisoned him again, once again served time in Solovki, then in other camps, then ended up in Kolyma.

N. Boltyanskaya: Well, that is, if it was the worst prison, then people still got there by accident? If it was a prison within a prison, a zone within a zone, so to speak.

Y. Brodsky: By what criteria, I do not undertake to say why Solovki was for them. But it was a dead end, of course, because at that time only 3 thousand people were sitting there, and more than a thousand were guarding them. Those guards were just as unhappy because...

N. Boltyanskaya: A little more freedom, and so - everything is the same.

Y. Brodsky: Yes, everything is the same. They were constantly provoked there. We came across documents in Petrozavodsk in the archive: “Please let us know that you know if there are any compromising materials on Shokhina, who works as a cleaner in the Solovetsky prison?” From the Zvenigorod district of the Moscow region, the answer was: “Yes, Shokhina’s father in 1919 prevented grain procurements.” The next query: “Do you know if Shokhina’s husband, a guard of the 2nd category, knew that his wife’s father interfered with grain procurement?” In the end, they are all arrested, the poor, the unfortunate too - the cleaning lady, the guard of the lowest category. And they are the same victims of this system, of course. And in general, you know, I should probably say - this is important now, maybe this is not quite the answer to the question. But everyone who created these camps... For example, the man who proposed to set up camps on Solovki - Ivan Vasilyevich Bogovoy, this is an Arkhangelsk figure - was shot. The man who raised the red flag over Solovki ended up in the Solovetsky camp as a prisoner. The first head of the camp, Nogtev, received 15 years, was released under an amnesty, did not have time to register in Moscow, and died. The second chief of the camp, Eichmans, was shot as an English spy. And they are shot farthest of all for the most insignificant reasons - for an accident with an airplane, for the loss of party and Chekist flair, it happened. And it turns out that about a million prisoners passed through Solovki, generally large Solovki - branches of the camp on the mainland, but they were also called Solovetsky camps, this is not so much for the country. But a million are sacrifices. And those who created the camps are also all the victims, that is, no one won there. It turns out that both of them turned out to be victims of the system, and the system itself was anti-human, because we all turned out to be its victims.

N. Boltyanskaya: But still I can't understand, I can't get an answer from you to this question. Here, there was already a peak of repressive executions in 1937, and already, so to speak, everyone realized that they could shoot anyone at any moment. Nevertheless, there are people who are sent, conditionally, to cut down the forest, and there are people who end up in prison, that is, in a prison regime. Why? Is it by chance? Is there any pattern to this?

Y. Brodsky: I don't know, I can't answer. There is no logic. Because, say, a girl who graduated from an agricultural technical school, who refused ... Well, more precisely, she was forced to admit that she was connected with the world bourgeoisie could get into prison - it was necessary to fulfill the plan for arrests - and she ends up in prison for some reason - That. Well, what did she know? What danger did she pose? But, nevertheless, she ended up in the Solovetsky prison. Can not say. In general, this is all the theater of the absurd, everything that was there.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yuri Arkadyevich, but, let's say, at the end of the 30s, there are some comparative data on, I don't know, the supply of people who are in prison in Solovki and people who are felling the same forest in Kolyma?

Y. Brodsky: Well, nobody starved to death in prison, anyway. It was a very cruel ration, but enough to keep him going. I am not a great specialist in Kolyma, I do not dare to speak. But Solovkov, the entire contingent of prisoners, or almost the entire contingent, was sent in 1939 to build the Norilsk Combine, the copper-nickel plant, the current Norilsk Nickel, at the request of Ordzhonikidze, by the way, who also became a victim of the system.

N. Boltyanskaya: And who initiated the creation artistic groups created in a number of camps? Mostly camp management or sometimes prisoners?

Y. Brodsky: Only prisoners and below. The leadership of the camps simply did not interfere - the head of the camp, this is Eichmans, basically, he was there for quite a long time. He didn't interfere. But in general, then a picture emerged when the heads of different camps were proud of their theaters - who better theater. It was such a serf theater, and prisoners were specially arrested, more precisely, actors, singers on the mainland, so that they ended up in the camp, and such stories are known - in order to create their own theater.

N. Boltyanskaya: Well, by the way, I won’t deny myself the pleasure of recommending - I don’t know where you can find it now, I bought it many years ago in Alma-Ata - Anna Nikolskaya’s book “Pass it on” about the creation of such a camp theater. And its leader is imprisoned under Article 58, she is constantly removed from her post, but then it turns out that there is no one else to manage the theater. What is the origin of the term "socially close", you know?

Y. Brodsky: No.

N. Boltyanskaya: Unfortunately, I don't know either.

Y. Brodsky: But parallel to it is “socially alien”, of course.

N. Boltyanskaya: Well, of course, yes. “Something you went too far with the extermination camps,” writes Leonid. - The extermination camp was Auschwitz, where about 900 thousand people died in 3 years, and the corpses were burned in furnaces. In the Union, for the entire reign of Stalin, which is about 30 years, 1.7 million people died in the Gulag. Well...

Y. Brodsky: Well, one can argue here. I believe more, after all, for all that ... the surname jumped out, sorry. Deceased presidential adviser on the repressed.

N. Boltyanskaya: Pristavkin?

Y. Brodsky: No, not Pristavkin, no, no. Member of the Politburo.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yakovlev.

Y. Brodsky: Yakovlev Alexander Nikolaevich He talks about 25 million who died for political reasons.

N. Boltyanskaya: Those who died for political reasons, as I understand it, may also be victims of famine as a result of the same Holodomor, it can be many people. And the victims of deportations are dying. That is, there are not only those who were forcibly destroyed by some active actions, there, executions, and some other. The question is what. Tell me, please, why did you, in fact, study the history of Solovki? Are you personally?

Y. Brodsky: Well, it just kind of happened. That is, I got to Solovki in 1970, and there were just a lot of traces of the camp. There were inscriptions on the walls, for example, "Soviet power does not punish, but corrects." I photograph this inscription and tell everyone how I found it. Guys appear who knock down this inscription with hammers, chisels - the inscription has disappeared, I am prophylactic after that. Some other inscriptions appear, double bars on the windows. And I realized later - well, they themselves had already told me about this - that the chief of police, the party organizer of the island were responsible for destroying traces of the camp. Well, I'm a professional photographer who sees them. And I shoot, I just take photographs, and then I agreed with Fedor Alexandrovich Abramov - we were friends - that I would collect materials and he would write a novel about it. And for him, I already flew around the country, writing down the memories of prisoners. And then when he died, I told this story to Bitov. Bitov's father, Georgy Shambaran, also sat on Solovki, and they thought that Bitov would write. And so, for Bitov, it seems, I tried to collect material.

N. Boltyanskaya: It's clear. That is, you have such a passing ...

Y. Brodsky: Well, by accident. In general, just no one else did, and then I did this work myself.

N. Boltyanskaya: Tell me, please, what is the brightest thing that you remember the most from all the stories that you heard?

Y. Brodsky: You know, after all, I will repeat. Oleg Vasilievich Volkov. That is, its some...

N. Boltyanskaya: To wash hands?

Y. Brodsky: Not angry. Here he kept human dignity. Well, probably the biggest personality. Even though I asked a lot of people. Well, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev recorded, enough famous people. The brightest story... No, I can't even say that it's the brightest one. I can't answer right off the bat.

N. Boltyanskaya: But with all this - after all, a normal situation, this is confirmed, as it seems to me, to some extent by the hero of Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in Ivan Denisovich" - to bend somewhere, to fuss somewhere, somewhere, so to speak. ..

Y. Brodsky: No no no.

N. Boltyanskaya: Well, remember!

Y. Brodsky: No, Solzhenitsyn's hero - yes. And not only Solzhenitsyn, real heroes many, of course, were different people. But, nevertheless, here is the same Volkov - he never caved in. You know, well, maybe it's not a very serious example. But here I was with him in 1980, when they took away from the former prisoners the weapons that they had at home, because the Olympics. And he was taken away. And for the first time in his life he turned to the Writers' Union and asked to be protected. And they wrote a letter there, apparently, and when I was with him, a local policeman came and said that you can take your gun. And Volkov told him, well, he just said: "You took it, you bring it." But the way he said it, the way he... So he did not cave in, he retained his dignity.

N. Boltyanskaya: A few questions. Were there escapes from Solovki, were there uprisings?

Y. Brodsky: There were no uprisings. There were provoked uprisings, of course, as if there were provoked actions, people were shot for this cause, for preparing an uprising. But these were not uprisings, they were provocateurs. Moreover, the provocateur of the largest, largest uprising, the so-called Kremlin conspiracy, was later hanged by the prisoners on an aspen tree. And in the investigative file it was written that he hanged himself as a result of reading Yesenin's decadent poems. But there were a lot of escapes. Until 7 days, it was not an escape at all, but only an absence - this was not reported to Moscow yet. Like this. There were dozens, hundreds of escapes. But we only know about those escapes when people fled abroad and wrote more memoirs. Because when they fled in Russia, they changed their names - I know of several such escapes. But they didn't pop out. But those who went abroad - well, there are dozens of them after all. And here are desperate escapes, absolutely incredible in their determination. But for some reason there were no uprisings, indeed, although there were both military and front-line soldiers in 1914. And for me this is a mystery, and I would very much like to comprehend why it was not - whether we are unable to unite, the intelligentsia is not capable, I don’t know.

N. Boltyanskaya: And tell me, please. When you said, for example, that many of those who ended up in Solovki, in particular, ended up by accident, one of our guests, a foreign historian, believes that people who were taken for spikelets, for a 15-minute delay to work - they were all repressed too, right? Did such people get to Solovki?

Y. Brodsky: There were those too. There were Ukrainian women, 200 people who ate children during the Holodomor, the doctor Olga Monem told me about them, she courted them, as it were. They were completely different. That is, of course, there were also criminals, but they did not dominate the camp, neither one nor the other. And yet, it was mostly intellectuals.

N. Boltyanskaya: There is a legend about scientific activity on Solovki during the time of the ELEPHANT, it is often repeated in books. And in your opinion, were there conditions for doing science in Solovki?

Y. Brodsky: No, of course not. No. On Solovki sat Pavel Ivenson, the man who built a completely unique glider at the age of 16. Well, a glider is like building a new plane, like building a new bicycle. And he came up with a glider. They took Tukhachevsky, they took him too, they also forced him to confess in connection with the world bourgeoisie, well, some incredible things. And he always asked alone, because he figured out how to land planes at high speeds. He says it could have changed the course of the war, shorter runways would have been. This is not profitable for the head of the camp, he did not let him work at all. He then ended up in the Irkutsk camp, he invented a coal mining combine. He was released, he became the lead designer of the Proton space complex. In camp, no.

N. Boltyanskaya: Yuri Arkadyevich, tell me, please, they write a lot and say that when the heads of these most repressive departments changed, a lot of people from their posts flew after them. But if we talk, say, about the leadership of the same Solovki, how was this reflected there? Yagoda, Yezhov, these dances?

Y. Brodsky: Definitely, yes, yes, yes. Removed the heads of departments, removed lower-lower-lower. And on Solovki, not only these leaders themselves suffered, but the personal chef, the driver, even to such an extent, not to mention relatives.

N. Boltyanskaya: Despite the fact that the historian Nikita Petrov said that, for example, Stalin ordered the firing squad to be spared, even called such a surname, Petra Maggo, in my opinion. I don't know how accurate my emphasis is. And the same firing squad - from your words it turns out that it was the entire staff of the camp? Or was it some short period?

Y. Brodsky: It wasn't always the same either. Well, in different ways. Well, here are the firing squads of 1937 - they all died, everyone who took part in the executions. They were first awarded with valuable gifts, given the title of honorary Chekists, and then they were destroyed anyway. But they were destroyed not because they knew some secret, because they were somehow connected with others. It was just some kind of jar with spiders, where rotation took place all the time and they were destroyed.

N. Boltyanskaya: And tell me, please. Here, within the framework of the memorial project “The Last Witness”, one of these witnesses told how his father, who fought at the front, came to visit him, a camp prisoner. And the head of the camp was also a front-line soldier, and 2 front-line soldiers agreed among themselves, and, so to speak, succeeded. In general, he recalled this head of the camp as a more or less adequate person. In the history of Solovki there were such, I don't know, so to say, Schindlers?

Y. Brodsky: Undoubtedly. And they are all different just the same. But Nogtev is an executioner, for example, Uspensky is an executioner, Dmitry Vladimirovich. And Eichmans - he saved a lot of people. He gathered the priests in one company, this is the head of the camp, I mean. Allowed prisoners to open theaters. And then he was also shot as an English spy. The most, probably bright personality Solovkov is Natan Frenkel. He was slandered by Solzhenitsyn, he was slandered by the communists, it was to their advantage. But here I know a few stories when he just really saved people, quite specifically, and without asking for anything in return. If you want, I can talk about it in more detail.

N. Boltyanskaya: Already, unfortunately, a minute and a half. Very short.

Y. Brodsky: Well, just, here, he sees a woman who worked as a hooker. This is (inaudible), which pushes from behind, and in front - this is a hooker. And so he asks: "Who?" And she must answer: “Prisoner such and such, term such and such, ends at such and such.” She suddenly says: "Natalya is such and such, an architect." Confused. And that's all. It's a few seconds, she never saw him again. She was transferred as an accountant, somewhere else. And when there was rehabilitation in 1956, they ask her: “How did you survive?” She says: "You won't believe it, Frenkel helped." Prosecutor: "I know many such stories." Well, this is my relative.

N. Boltyanskaya: It's clear. Here, they bring books about escapes. Bessonov "26 prisons and escape". Solonevich "Russia in a concentration camp". "Infernal Islands" by Malsagov. And, apparently, there is some other literature?

Y. Brodsky: Yes, there are many such books. A lot of books. These are all brilliant people, incredibly talented.

N. Boltyanskaya: Unfortunately, our time is running out. Let me remind you that our guest - Yuri Brodsky, the author of the book "Solovki: 20 Years of Special Purpose", is now preparing to release another book. A cycle of programs "In the Name of Stalin", prepared jointly with the publishing house "Russian Political Encyclopedia" with the support of the Foundation named after the first President of Russia Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. And I want to remind you that from October 9 to 11, the second conference “The History of Stalinism. repressed province. I thank Yuri Brodsky, I remind you that this is the program “In the Name of Stalin” and I, Natella Boltyanskaya, say goodbye. Thank you.

Tyumin Alexander Vasilievich. Born in 1928. Arrested on March 19, 1953 on charges of committing a crime under Art. 58-10 hours 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-Soviet agitation). Sentenced to 8 years in prison. He served his sentence in Pevek, where he still lives.

In December 1948 he was called up by the city military commissariat of Rybinsk for a real military service. I passed it in a military unit located in Chukotka.

"On February 23, 1953, our entire team, as usual, celebrated the anniversary of the Red Army. As expected, they drank alcohol, it was then included in the soldier's rations, for her, dear and invincible. We talked about life - being a civilian. Alcohol untied the tongues .touched and peasant theme. I knew something, and expressed my thoughts, they say, wool is pulled from the peasants, like from sheep, almost all products are taken away. He even sang a ditty: "Grandma, where are you going, what are you carrying under your apron? They are asking for wool for tax, I am bringing the last tuft." It seemed like everyone laughed. But that laughter turned out like this for me.

In our company turned out to be a snitch, Senka-kok. He ran to the commander, laid out everything, and did not forget about the ditty. In the morning the commander lined us up, sternly read out the order by which he announced to me for slandering Soviet power 20 days of guardhouse. They took me to the lip. He stayed there until March 5, when rumors reached that Joseph the Terrible threw back his tail. Everyone who sat on the lip began to expect an amnesty. They came for me, took me to the unit. Well, I think it's gone, it's all over.

But it was not there. Approximately on March 12, during a snowstorm, it was very windy, a sled arrived from Ureliki to our unit, and on it a senior lieutenant. It turned out, behind me, the command of the unit, as it was supposed to, reported about my slander on the authorities to a special department. I collected my things and they took me. They arrived in counterintelligence, placed alone. At night, interrogations of who you are and what you are, who are your parents, where you were born, where you were baptized, who else carries, like me, anti-Sovietism, and so on, and in the same spirit. This is how it went for a month. I won’t lie - no one allowed rudeness, scuffle. They treated me like an ordinary soldier. Feeding was from the soldiers' kitchen, you can live, they took you out for a walk regularly, at dawn, while everyone was still sleeping. But in such a frost in a spikelet without buttons and a belt you will not stand for long. You take a sip of air like a fish and dive into the chamber.

A month later, a meeting of the "troika" was held. Such a decrepit Colonel Petrov dominated, a little shibzdik, like Yezhov, no bigger. He must have been in his seventies at the time. No matter how much he spoke, he never once looked at me, the defendant. It's probably a habit he's developed. The meeting lasted 12-15 minutes, no more. The questions were about the same as before, who are you, and so on. After that, they sang me and the corridor - the "troika" had to confer. I didn't have time to smoke my cigarette before they took me back.

After the trial, they were sent to the garrison prison. Before my arrival there was such an incident. Some of the prisoners dug under the wall and robbed the polar trading stall. The next morning everyone left the cells and went to the dining room for gruel, like intellectuals, in brand new, brand new suits, chrome boots and caps. Of course, everyone was driven back - undress, return everything stolen! But the prisoners, having entered the prison, barricaded themselves, not letting the guards in. Then the Vokhrovites climbed onto the roof, threw a smoke bomb into the chimney, and closed the chimney. The smoke poured inside, the prisoners realized that it was no longer possible to joke, they opened the door. A green lieutenant rushed into it with a pistol in his hands, he decided to catch up with fear on everyone. But it turned out the other way around, they took away his gun and threw it behind a bulk wall so that they didn’t find it later ...

The prison has calmed down. They took out the instigators, and then we were soon sent to the bullpen of Providence. There is one cellmate, a young boy died. It is not clear why - he seemed to be healthy, and his term was only a year and a half. Maybe he died from the fact that he internally tortured himself? Don't know. We buried him, we were all allowed to go to the cemetery. And then at the end of July we were sent to Anadyr by plane. There was a prison on the bank of the Cossack. We sit for a week. We are sitting two. Boring! Time seems to have stood still. Once, when a senior sergeant by last name, as I remember now, Izmestiev, a good uncle, came into the cell, we asked him - how long will we sit idle? And he asks: "What can you do?" I tell him about myself, I can carpentry, carpentry, paint, fitter, lay stoves. "Stoves?" - asks again. Yes, you will have so many orders that you won’t dismiss it. The sergeant promised to find me a job the next day, he only advised me to take an assistant. I chose Volodya Shichkov, a former fish inspector from Anadyr.

Since then, we have a different life with him. In the early days, a policeman walked with us, but after half a month we became without escort, the guards realized that we were not even thinking about escaping. And where in Chukotka will you run away, especially at that time? We really had enough work orders, the sergeant turned out to be right. The hostesses remained satisfied and did not offend us - they fed us and watered us, and even gave us to prison with them. You come back, it happened, your tongue is on one side from drunk alcohol - then, after all, the beginning, and the middle, and the end of the work were poured. This is how we lived.

After November they began to touch our people. The first stage was sent to Iultin. And then, on December 30, eight of us, accompanied by a policeman, were put on a plane and taken to Apapelgino. We landed, the airfield was then on this side of the Apapelhin River. They put us in a room, and there was no bench or shit in it. Placed on the floor, you want to eat, but there is nothing. We heard that there is a bakery in the village, maybe we should go there and dig up something? We also heard that a day before us, in the same room, six people who had been released had been massacred. So the situation was not pleasant for us. But hunger is not an aunt. Who will go to the bakery? Nobody decides. It seems to be paw ready to suck. Then I took one guy, and went with him. There were two bakers in the bakery. They seated us at the table. They gave me bread, cut up a piece of lard, put a bottle of alcohol. We ate, we were numb in the smoke, the bakers loaded us with a bag of bread - feed your own! And it's all free, not a penny. So I don’t know who they were - freed or free.

We fed ours. We spent the night. And in the morning there is no transport to Pevek - the road the day before was heavily skidded. Wait until they clean it up. I persuaded the policeman and the others to go on foot. Let's go, we went through the warehouses of the district GRU, at the Luch motor depot (the Pevek motor depot is located there now. - I.M.), they caught a car. The driver took us to the police station. It was then located in a larch barrack, standing on the spot where the Chukotka cinema was later built. We had to stay in the regional department for quite a bit. The neighbors in the cell were very furious: "Throw us a couple of fresh ones, we will make Marusek out of them!" The chief did not dare to leave us for the night, he decided to remove us from sin - he sent us to the central camp, which was located in Morgorodok. Jumped over there. They arrived, and it was on December 31, just before the new year of 1954. There was nowhere to place us except for the BUR (high-security barrack. - I.M.). They sent it there. We went into the cell, and there the window was broken, there was a slope of snow on the bunk, the frost was 30 degrees, no less. We were given a couple of blankets each night to keep us warm. As soon as they brought us there, they started knocking from behind the wall, asking: "Who are you and where are you from?". They tell you to go up to the wall. I approached, answered that from Anadyr. "Are there bitches among you?", - asks new question. “Where did the bitches come from,” I answer, “just men,” I still didn’t know either the nicknames, or the fact that the struggle between thieves in law and the bitches was in full swing ...

In the morning they took us to the camp. At the checkpoint, the sergeant began to frighten, they say, to be torn to pieces by criminals, I’ll throw it away. They brought me to a barracks for a settlement - this barracks, by the way, is still standing. I got a place not far from the corner, below, and above me the thief in law was sleeping. It was warmer there, so they occupied the second tiers. A few days later, on January 4, they sent me to work at the Chek, because I various equipment he was familiar even before serving in the Army on rack and pinion ships, he walked along the Volga, and he had 9 classes of education. At the time, that was a lot. The power plant was like this. It was divided into a diesel station, in which there were 10-12 diesel engines with a capacity of 400 to 800 kilowatts (among them domestic, American and German cars) and a steam station with five Swedish and American-made turbines. They sent me to courses - technology. Two months later I was already an assistant driver on the "Laval" - a Swedish turbine. Then they changed it to American...

What can I say about Pevek? In the central camp, it seems to me, there were at least a thousand prisoners, probably the same number when I was released. They worked mainly at the Chek, TsRMM, P-4 - these were objects located next to the current thermal power plant. Of course, they also worked seaport . Pevek then seemed to consist of watchtowers, everywhere you look, towers and towers everywhere! Everything around is fenced. In winter, a fresh lake was surrounded with a thorn, towers were placed on the shore so that no one would mess up - then the fresh lake was the only source of drinking water. In the same summer, 1954, a geodetic expedition appeared in Pevek, which began to recruit workers. The conditions on the expedition seemed tempting, and the most important thing was access to a free settlement, that is, there was an opportunity to get some freedom. We fell for these conditions with my friend Vovka, who was imprisoned for murder and had 10 years in prison. He was a literate guy, he graduated from a technical school, so he campaigned for me. They went on an expedition. They were engaged in laying out the bypass road in Pevek and the tracks, walked from the village to the turn to Gyrgychan, hammered wooden pegs into the ground. But this life is over for us. Somehow, the geologists of the Chaun district GRU RECEIVED a salary, but could not immediately give it out in full and left it in a backpack in one of the rooms. The orderly noticed this, adapted himself, hooked up the backpack with a wire, piled up as much money as he could hide without leaving the post. The rest of the backpack threw in place. After this incident, all those who were escorted into the zone were herded. And then we were transferred in 1955 to the Kuiviveem mine. Having learned that there was a seaport there, I asked to be there to unload the lighter with the cargo. I quickly got used to it, but I knew a lot from a citizen. And then a misfortune happened that winter, during the Yuzhak, two people in our barrack burned down. And then we were sitting in another barracks, where we ran lightly dressed. Through the window they saw how the hut was on fire, but the south was such that it was impossible to approach, and with what to put out? Shovel and snow? We went along the ravine to the mine, which was 12 kilometers away. They came and told us about the fire, but they didn't seem to believe us. They took it back and investigated. One person, a stump without arms and legs, was found, the second's back burned clean. After making sure that we really had nothing to do with the fire, they left us at the mine for the winter. We built instruments, and when they began to spin and the sea opened up from ice, we, taking into account experience, were again sent to the seaport. I became there both for the foreman and for the boss - work, in general, not difficult. Yes, and not a burden. It was reported that it happened that a lighter from Pevek was coming, we called a couple of bulldozers from the mine in order to prepare a "pier" - a heap of soil in such a way that cars could approach the side of the lighter before the ship arrived. That's how they worked. The food was not only tolerable, I would even say good. To be honest, the men managed to steal food, sweets, and alcohol during unloading. Complain to someone, and even more so to prohibit or shame, God forbid, it’s impossible, they’ll kill you right away. Life is more precious. One day I’m going to the mine by car (by that time I had learned to drive cars, work on tractors), and they stopped me at the zone - let’s go, they say, quickly to the accounting department, get paid - you are os-in-God-yes! And I'm neither a dream, nor a spirit, about it. I don't believe it's a prank? I haven't expired yet. But everything turned out to be true. I ran, as ordered, for the calculation. They gave me new tarpaulin boots, a draped sackcloth suit, a quilted jacket, and a cap. We arrived at the Pevek transit, from where I had to start my dissey. Called to the commission. Some woman read out the decision of the Presidium Supreme Council about liberation. She advised me not to talk anymore. Yes, I already knew without her that it was better to keep your mouth shut. For ignorance of this simplest truth, I served 3 years and 4 months - that's what the ditty cost me ...

And then somehow at the Chek it took me to go out of need. I called the shift, the turbine could not be left unattended. Passing by the firebox, I noticed a group of people who, in the mattress, are shoving something long and thick into the firebox. It dawned on me - they are going to burn a person! Like the wind blew me back to the turbine, I forgot why and left. But I will say that no one touched me personally. Maybe because I immediately learned - if you want to stay alive, you need to know, see, and hear less. But maybe it was also saved by the fact that I was friends with Vovka, and such people in the camp enjoyed great authority, so he was a kind of cover for me.

But once all the same, I got it. In the spring it was already melting. Somehow they passed us, a group of prisoners standing not far from the watch, the head of the regime with his young wife. One of our fools rolled up a snowball with pebbles inside, and threw it at the young man. Got under her eye. She, of course, screams. And I loudly said to the fool that it would be necessary not for her, but for him - I point to the head of the regime. As soon as he said this, he felt a strong blow to the head. And then I don't remember anything. I came to my senses and found out that three ribs were broken, my knee was broken, and my face was so decorated that my eyes could not see anything. Even more firmly I learned the rule, not to hear, not to know, not to see ...

In the camp, I heard that a few years before my arrival, approximately in 1950-1952. the prisoners in the camp rebelled so much that they laid down a lot of them, guards with machine guns came from the land, and a boat with a machine gun came in from the sea. This is how it was cut from both sides. But for what, I don't know. When I saw this, I mean on such a scale, it was not. Although, of course, I had to see how, at the turn to the current water station, the guards shot two prisoners. I saw corpses washed ashore by the sea. And once they threw out a barrel in which a corpse was brewed. I have not heard of any escapes taking place in my presence. But they said that even earlier, one team from the Valkumey mine completely left, so much so that they were not found. They also said that they tried to hijack the Catalina plane twice, but failed both times. I know and have seen more than once how prisoners were buried, ammonite would tear up the frozen ground, a bulldozer would drag 40-50 corpses from the camp morgue on a drag. The corpses will be dumped into a hole, a tag will be attached to the leg of one or the other, and a bulldozer will rake in the hole. At that place, a sign was erected with the names of only those who were listed on the tags. The rest disappeared without a name. I didn’t see them burying one by one - there wouldn’t be enough ammonite ...

Such was camp life, which, as it seemed to me, did not surprise anyone, did not revolt, it was taken for granted. Even death was treated with indifference - it's not my turn yet."

That's the whole story. I would like to ask Alexander Vasilyevich and other innocent and injured people for forgiveness. Although personally I have not done anything bad to any of them. But still...

I would like to tell him, to all the innocent victims - forgive us, practically the same as you, destitute, but with the only slight difference that we were not thrown around camps and prisons and we were not interrogated by investigators.

Sorry if you can!

Forgive me for the humiliation that you had to experience in the days of your ruined youth, unsettled adulthood and the impending joyless old age.

Forgive us for sometimes believing that you, not the System, broke the law.