In commemoration of my wife Tamara
who has been living with me in the
Taimyr Region for many years.
Until 1941 I lived in the blooming Republic of the Volga Germans, the Volga
Region. And then, one of these days, more than one million people were deported
to Siberia in freight-cars. Among them - my family. In the deep of the night we
arrived in Kansk. Many local inhabitants had appeared to have a look at these
true-born Germans (the war against Germany was in full swing after all!). But
who did they expect to see – Russian-Germans?
We went to work for the sovkhoz in the village of Checheul. We had to overwinter in the premises of the Kansk poultry farming sovkhoz. Then, in 1942, they sent father to the labor army and my mother and me to the north – to catch fish. Hence I got to Potapovo in the month of September, where I lived ten years. Here I passed seven grades of school, here I got the first entry of employment into my workman’s passport. Beforehand I would like to say that I am proud till this day of having received a medal for all the hard labor I performed in the far North, under extreme conditions during the Great Patriotic War.
It was a horrible time: my father had to serve a three years‘ sentence for no reason at all. According to standards of that time he got off lightly; apart from this, he was released ahead of time. I remember my father’s report on this issue:
- The examining magistrate interrogated me, I answered his questions. Then, all of a sudden, he got up. The walls between the offices were very thin, you could hear everything that was said in the neighboring rooms. And I heard the magistrate say that they had obviously seized the wrong person – that this one was evidently innocent….
People who had been convicted wrongly, could also be found in the hamlet of Potapovo, which is situated about one-hundred kilometers away from Dudinka. Along with representatives of the local population (Nenzes, Dolganes, Evenks) there lived special resettlers (Germans, Russians) as well as prisoners from among those who were no longer under permanent custody. The sovkoz in Potapovo was a place of internal exile during the war and afterwards - till 1949 it turned out to be an affiliate of the Norilsk Combine and one of the MVD reform labor camps.
Next to the reindeer breeding sovkhoz they founded the Taimyr experimental complex for reindeer breeding and, associated with it, the experimental production enterprise (which basically was the former reindeer breeding station). This big enterprise in the districts of the far North was involved with reindeer breeding, fishery, the exploitation of lumber and hay, berrying, transportation by means of harnessed reindeer teams, the keeping of farm animals – cows and horses. On one hectar of ploughed arable land there were greenhouses, hothouses and cold frames. The sovkhoz was part of the Norilsk Combine.
Here I met a remarkable man - Vasiliy Valerianovich Semyonov. In 1937 he was sentenced for being an enemy of the people. Having served his sentence he intended to go back to Moscow, his former place of residence. He was explained, however, that people who had served a sentence, were not permitted to live in Moscow or any other district capital.
Hence, Vasiliy Valerianovich got to the little town of Taganrog. There he settled in with a family with three children and took up a job with the local vocational school of technics.
Several years passed by, the power recalled the existence of former enemies of the people and resumed to sending them to remote areas for being politically unreliable persons. Vasiliy Valerianovich got to the hamlet of Potapovo (more precisely – the little Siberian settlement of Potapovo). He was a highly cultured man, but completely inapt for any manual tasks …
Vasiliy Valerianovich eradiated an utterly uncommon kindness and was respectful towards his fellowmen. There never occurred complications when associating with him, and he was able to tell never-ending stories about his previous life. He reported about the civil war which he had participated in and about his being honored by the military order of the red banner. Moreover, his order was bearing a number from among the first hundred. While he was serving his sentence in one of the camps of the Kolyma, they came for him and took him to Moscow. Together with other imprisoned engineers he was received by Beriya, who decided that he should work in one of the engineering offices, a so-called “sharashka” with the famous design engineer A.N. Tupolev. His job was linked to the construction of engines. Vasiliy Valerianovich was the first who told me about airplanes, about Tsiolkovskiy, nuclear fission, the enormous power of uranium and many other issues. At that time I also learned from him about V.I. Lenin’s famous letter about Stalin, the publication of which was strictly forbidden. All this was very interesting. I was an attentive and curious listener, and Vasiliy Valerianovith spent much time for my illumination. This is how we made friends. He was happy for my when I began to attend evening classes, was always very interested in matters concerning me and inspired me to study at the institute.
Our friendly relation arose under conditions of limited freedom. Both, Vasiliy Valerianovich and I were under permanent surveillance by an MVD commandant; we had to go to his office once a month to get registered - we were forced to strictly adhere to this indispensable duty. Even if you intended to just go into the tundra for some reason or other, you had to secure a formal permission, allowing us to walk on determined paths only. In the cause of justice I have to admit that most of the commandants were good souls, who behaved in a rather loyal way towards those who were supervised by them. Some of them had even served sentences themselves in one of the settlements where they were no on duty. Once, for example, major Nikolai Ivanovich Mickailyuk held the office of a commandant – he had been sent to the far North from the Ukraine, and whenever he was primed, he would sing all kinds of songs about the “curly shock of hair”.
With utmost gratitude I recall my last commandant in Potapovo – captain Torgashin (I am ashamed to admit that I cannot remember his father’s name). After he had noticed my burning desire for vocational training and education, he persuaded my parents to send me to Dudinka. He helped me to find a job with the port, sign up for courses with the evening school for young workers and then personally arranged for me to get in the area of responsibility of the commandant’s office in Dudinka, where I had to go and get registered regularly for another period of four years.
… Sometime later Vasiliy Valerianovich took over a different job – he became shopman of some sales booth at Lake Taimen, about 40 kilometers away, situated on the left banks of the Yenisey…
In any case, Vasiliy Valerianovich used to reach out quite strange and inventive sales receipts: a short note written on one of those small pieces of cigarette paper which were in circulation at that time. He signed and added the current date.
V.V. Semyonov enjoyed the unlimited confidence of all herders and fishermen, which had not been the case at all with the previous shop man called Yurlov, who had always tried to cheat people in a very outrageous way by miscounting in his favor. Valeriy Valerianovich, however, always used to accompany each buyer all the way up to his snow-covered hut and see him off by wishing him "bon voyage". Gradually, these two words „got stuck“ to Vasiliy Valerianovich as an expression of mutual friendship and respect. Among themselves reindeer breeders and fishermen always used to call him „Bon Voyage“ when talking about him.
The local inhabitants respected and cherished Vasiliy Valerianovich. He often spent his free time in loneliness. While waiting for the next wanderer or buyer, he was reading official literature in order not to stay behind his time, as he would call it himself. Thus, he read L.N. Tolstoi‘s „War and Peace“ so many times that the book finally was all tattered. He made a lot of notes and marks on the margins, which only he was able to decode and understand. Much to my regret I did not take down his poem „The Larch“. It left with me a strong feeling of the author’s pertinacity and human mind …
… Whenever I walk through the settlement of Ozero Beloye (White Lake;
translator’s note),
I recall all the woebegone experiences I had to make in my life. And then I wish
from the bottom of my heart that the name „Bon Voyage“ given to the Northman
Vasiliy Valerianovich Semyonow at that time, would become a symbol for our
future – a future without mass repression, persecution and humiliations of
peoples …