20.01.1940
My dear child Inusya,
Once again I am sending you greetings,
How are you, honey.
Send me some reply soon.
You often appear to me in my dreams,
It seems as if you are already quite grown-up,
But I feel aggrieved, for this is not the case at all, my darling.
The third year we have all been separated from eachother,
And how knows, how long this situation will be going on yet.
All the bad luck, bother, unease and worries
Make up your present fate, my poor.
I know that your heart is weighed down with sorrow.
You wonder whether you will be able to continue attending school,
Whether you will be able to realize your teenage ambitions
Or whether your plans will be doomed to failure.
I am also aware of the fact sighs often escape your lips,
Sighs about your miserable, damned life,
For now more than ever you are in need of
Paternal care and support.
But please do understand me, my little one,
Confide in me, my golden baby girl.
I cannot get rid of my restlessness,
Neither during the day nor at nighttime
I am dreaming and thinking of you all the time – pining for you.
But please do not swear at me,
Do not forget about me in intractable situations.
Be humble and do not be afraid of any adversity, mischance
and bad luck that might occur..
And do not shed so many bitter tears.
Do not lose courage, pull yourself together and study assiduously.
Try to fight unwaveringly against all difficulties.
And accept your father’s final advice:
Always love your Mum.
Dear Inusya! Why did you stop writing to me,
Did I displease you or hurt your feelings?
Along time ago Mum wrote that you will write
A letter to me within the next few days;
Then I received another letter from her,
But I have not yet received the one you promised to send.
How about school, darling, what about the marks
You received during the first term?
For some reason or other Mum does not mention
Anything about you in her letters,
And you do not write at all. Maybe,
I do not receive all letters, for those
Who weresentencedon our section are now
Subject to special rules, which means that we
Are allowed to send only one letter per quarter,
Every threemonths only.Although, until now, it seems that they
Have not made any use of this regulation yet,
So that I will try to write to you whenever it is possible,
Please write to me, as well.
Tell me, how you spent the vacation, let me know, whether you were able to relax well; elsewise, I will have the impression that life might be particularly hard for you this year. Did you appear as a singer in the evenings? Judging from your last letters, as well as from Mum’s, you are absolutely determined to continue your studies towards the autumn; I would like to know everything about it: which special subject you chose and where you will take up yoir studies.
At the moment, they are still keeping me in the same place as before; however, I do not know, how long I will yet be staying here; more probably than not they will send me to some other place by prisoner transport soon, for many of us have already left.
My state of health has remained unchanged. I am afraid of the trip, which might take along time, although there is nothing good about this place either. And it even might get worse when they transfer us to another place; it will be particularly hard forme to bear the rare exchange of letters.
How do you live, after all? What about your and your Mum’s state of health? Do you still have problems in obtaining heating material?
Which news can you report fromour Abakan. Schoolis now far away from home; you somehow wrote that you have a new grammar school there.
Well, then! Be healthy! Many, many hugs –as usual. Embrace your dear Mum and pass my kisses to her.
Your Dad - I.Distergoft
My dear little girl,dear Inusya!
Tell me, how you are doing,Inusya.
What about nature in spring? Does it look beautiful?
All I can see here, are black clouds,
Tears are running down my cheeks.
I am so much longing for you.
I am unable to rejoice in the first days of spring and the sunshine.
I do not think in the same way the others do.
My thoughts are full of concern about you,
And this cut me to the quick.
I would like you to have an easier life.
Unfortunately, I am now categorized as an individual
Deprived of all civil rights.
There is actually nothing I can assist you with.
I dare say I will not see you again for along time,
My dears,
I have to serve a hard sentence.
I often think about or Volga river.
The days are passing by too slowly.
And while you are waiting for your dear Dad,
Your youth is trickling away, too.
You can neither feel nor see your father’s care and benevolence.
I am so concerned about you.
Maybe I will never see you again, my dear little girl.
I am dreaming and fantasizing about
Your happy life all in vain.
These are the days of your youth, the prime of life.
You should dress well, have the chance to learn and study;
You will execrate me for this.
But I want you to learn a lot! I want you to get a good education
And graduate from school one day.
We are from among a poor but upright people:
Grandfather, great-grandfather, mother and father.
Yes,in fact, I experienced a good deal of misery,
At the time when I was still a minor criminal.
When the teachers gave lessons, I went to school,
During the vacation I was working as a herder.
I was forced to work in order to earn my keep.
And this is what I did, until I was finally 14 years old.
I somehow managed to finish five classes.
“It’senough!” –may father said one day.
And since then I have been working as a farmhand, a common, unskilled worker,
Until the Soviet power finally released me from this job.
Thus, my childhood and teens passed by imperceptibly,
Joyless and without any luck.
And then, having resumed my liberty
And having turned into agrown-up fellow,
I could have caught up on everything – learn and
Get a good education, but then I forgot all about it ….
I fell in love with a brunette girl,
Her brown eyes cast a spellon me.
I decided to get married to her.
Well – there she is, your Mum.
Let us have a look at her childhood and her youth:
There was no day without reproaches and tears.
And it seems as if you are going to inherit our
Painful, troublesome path of live, in order to
Learn it the hard way.
Do not commiserate about your lot, do not lose courage, my dear Inusya!
Go and study obliviously, learn your lessons!
Try to set a good example in everyday life and when learning.
Do not get bogged down in unimportant trivia.
Here is my final paternal advise:
Always listen to what your Mum says.
May be, I will come back home one day,
Maybe, our family will then get reunited.
Do not forget your father,write to himmore often.
He is not going to put you out anymore.
Innochka, I have been trying hard to write this letter as a poem; I did not succeed in doing so.
It came tonothing. It looks as if I were a bad poet, after all; do not reprimand me.
Throughout the whole month of April we have been having nasty weather here – it is cold, and it was partly cold in May, as well. At present, it is warm during the day, but still very cold at night. In the far distance I can see green grass growing, the trees put forth their first buds; on the whole, it is very springlike – but I feel sad and deeply depressed. I am going to be a prisoner for a long time yet, and I will see nothing but construction work, hard labour, barracks, poor food rations, tired and exhausted people. You represent my only contact with the outside world; the only thing I have is your letters, which I receive utterly late; I have no idea how these irregularities can be explained; I have not received any letters from you since the 29.04.