It was nighttime. My sister Galochka wakened up by some strange whispering. I could hear a woman say to my mum: „Wake up the girl!“ The woman was dressed in a black furcoat and wore a head scarf made of goatwool. Soon after, a man in military uniform came in and said: „The girls are to come out of the bedroom and go into the kitchen!“ We noticed Mum’s tear-stained face. When we asked her „where is dad?“ – she replied: „ Over there, in our bed-room“. We went in. The whole apartment had been rummaged through- everything had been thrown into disorder; dad stood there, already completely dressed,and beside him – two soldiers. One of them took out a nagan pistol; and then they saw dad out and told him to climb into a "Black Mary" which stood near the roofed front section of the building.
Mum, my sister and I ran out of the apartment and followed the car. The driver had not yet passed by the enclosure, brought the car to a standstill and the woman exclaimed from the window that we should not ran after the car and that it was not necessary to cry."Tomorrow your dad will be at home again“. This happened on the 13th of February 1937, but our dad did not come home – neither „tomorrow“, nor after a year; he never came back.
The next morning we accompanied mum to the prison, but we did not receive any news about what had happened to our dad and where he had been taken to.
At school, during the first days, nobody knew about the situation at our home. I was crying incessently during the lessons. The teacher noticed that something was obviously wrong with me, and finally I told her everything. She merely shrugged her shoulders. I did not calm down.
On the 18th of February 1937 they announced: „You have been expelled from the Komsomol“ (Young Communist League; translator’s note), and my little sister was asked to leave the pioneers’ assembly. They took away the pioneers' neckerchief from her, as well as the clip with which the scarf was fixed.
Life at school became unbearable: the never-ending humiliations and gross insults uttered by the other children („daughter of an enemy of the people“, „spy“) and – they would pull us by the pigtails or throw into our faces any object they liked.
A few teachers had great sympathy for us and somehow tried to settle the
situation, but did not succeed in doing so - the terrible torture of humiliation
and offense continued. Even some of the teachers suddenly changed their
attitudes: they stopped calling us in front of the blackboard and checking, if
we had done our homeworks.
I went to the 8th grade of school No. 18, my sister to the 4th. I refrained from going to school, but Galochka still went there every day, but she did not understand at all, what was going on there. Mum did not know that I had left school and the teachers did not care.
Dad had worked for the Krasnoyarsk steamship company as first steersman on board the steamship „Maria Ulyanova“. We learned that many employees of the company had been arrested the same night, when they had come for our father, among them captain Alekseev, captain Sidorov, Shumaylov, Parshukov and others.
Time went by, but our dad did not return home. I did not go to school anymore - and I thought that sooner or later I would have to tell this to my mother.
What should I do? I try to find myself a job, but they did not employ me: I had not completed the 16th year of my life at that time. But not without good reason they say: „There is no world
without good human beings!“ I was finally employed as a clerk at the legal advice office of the Krasnoyarsk regional consumers’ cooperative. And after work I attended the school of musics No. 1 in Karl-Marx Street. There nobody knew about what had happened to our family.
We did not know what to live on, how to earn our living; I was paid
miserably. Mother stayed at home doing sewings to order, and sister Galochka
went to school. Everyday the three of us went to the prison, where we left small
parcels. However, they did not tell us anything about our dad. We never learned,
whether he ever received any of the parcels. He probably did not.
Time passed by.
On the 10th of October 1937, at about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening, I returned home. Our neighbour, was standing at the gate and said with tears in her eyes:
„Valenka, do not go home; two military men took away your mum by a "Black Mary", and Galochka, too. They have just come back and are now waiting for you. Run away!“
„They“ had already been to the school of musics, but somehow failed to meet me on my way home. But about these details I only leaned nine years later, when I came back to Krasnoyarsk. Where should I run away to, after all? There was no place I could go to.
There had been seven children in our family. Two girls, Tonia and Tania, had already died before our father's arrest in 1937. Our eldest brother, Innokentiy, lived in Yenisseysk and worked for the stemship company as a skipper. He had stayed in the place where the ships usually moored to pass the winter. The next one lived in Leningrad. He worked for the Baltic Red Flag Fleet. The youngest brother, Mikhail, served in the Soviet army. Our brothers miraculously were not effected by any reprisals themselves. Sie did not live with us in Krasnoyarsk; they were not dad's own children.
Let me now continue my report about my return from the music school. I ran back home, where the soldiers were, in fact, waiting for me. When I came in, one of the soldiers asked me: "Surname? Name We have been waiting for you." They had carried through another house search - everything had been thrown into disorder or tipped over. I noticed that mum and Galochka were not at home anymore. I was shocked about the whole situation and went into hysterics. The presence of the NKVD workers frigtened me. I remember a woman in uniform, who was also with the soldiers. She wiped my face with a moist towel and offered me water to drink. Then they accompanied me out into the street, asked me to climb into a car and took me to the Krasnoyarsk prison.
As we later learned from some adults, the mass arrests among workers of the Yenisseysk steamship company continued.
Having reached the prison yard they asked me to get out of the car not far from the main building. And then we went into the building. There was a long corridor, to the right – a door with a Judas hole; further down the corridor there was another door, which stood open (it turned out to be a room for the guards, investigators, etc.). They led me into the room to the right, the one with the Judas hole, and immediately locked the door.
I found myself in a big room with two barred windows. I was afraid of loneliness. Deep silence reigned, it was about 11 or 12 o’clock in the night. „Go away from the door! Move over to the window and stay there, so that I can see you“, one of the guards shouted through the Judas hole. I did has he had told me to do, as I was terribly frightened.
And then, one night, I was called out to be investigated- The following day someone pushed a note over to me. I remember that guards escorted two arrestees through the corridor, and I was also taken somewhere at the same time. I succeeded in picking up the note from the floor; the guards did not notice anything. What was written on the paper was a lie: „Your dad saw you on the day of your arrest, and they told him that his daughter would be shot, if he did not sign“.
I thought that I would see my dad here in this prison. I was and full of joy and burst into tears.
The truth, however, was that he had already been executed on the 18th of February 1937. But I only learned this on the 23rd of January 1990 from his death certificate. Cause of death: execution. Place of death: Krasnoyarsk.
Due to my naivety I was even content to be in prison: now; I thought; I will meet mum and dad again. But the investigator informed me that they would release me after three days and that I could then go home and see Galochka again.
Well, I remained in that room for quite a while. Then, suddenly the door opened and another soldier, a little older than the previous one, came in and said: "Latrine call! Let's go!"
I looked at him, not quite aware of what he was talking about and where we would go.
I said: "I don't know, what that is". With a strident voice he crudely repeated: "Let's go!" Well, that was a brief interrogation (exchange of words; Anmerkg. d. Übers.)! Afterwards they took me back to the room.
I lay down on the bare bench that stood in one corner of the room and fell asleep. I awakened by wild sreams, crying and undefinable noises. They had began to push lots of women into the room. Some of them carried a couple of belongings with them, others entered just with the clothes they were dressed in. Terrifying sreams could be heard - mothers shouted the names of their children not knowing where they had been taken to. The room got more and more crowded. This went on till the early morning. It seemed as if I was the youngest and most timid girl among them. I was terribly frightened. One of the women asked me: "Tell me. girl, how did you get here, how old are you? Did they arrest you together with your mother?" I replied that this was not the case, that I had not been arrested, but that they intended to ask me a few questions, and had taken me with them for this reason only. And that they had promised to release me after three days. She said: "Oh my good girl, why do they do that to you!" - and ran her hand over my head.
In the morning, around 10 or 11 o'clock, they brought another group of women, and this was when I met my mum. She had been part of the first group of arrestees and had spent the whole night in the women's section of the prison; and now they had brought this group here, in order to take everybody's fingerprints. They also bothered me with this procedure. My meeting with mum defies description. When she noticed me she got sick and was ready to drop. Some of the other women (prisoners) helped her to calm down.
I do not know, whether I will ever be able to describe mum's feelings, when she saw her own minor and entirely innocent daughter in prison. Mum's first question was: "Where is Galochka?" I said:" I don't know". I could have told her, of course, what our neighbour had told me upon my return from the musical school, that they had taken away Galochka by a "Black Mary". Suddenly the door was opened, some of the women were told to line up, among them my mother, and then they were escorted away. It is hard to describe, how miserable I felt. Mum screamed: "Ask them to put you in cell No. 4". I could not imagine, under which circumstances I would ever meet her again. We were in a terrible situation, which even became more difficult by our dreadful fear, all the teras and despair.
The registration and other formalities were finished. We heard the officer on duty shout: "Prisoners to the exit!" We were taken to the women's section. They started distributing the prisoners to the different cells. I do remember that the commander of the guard was a woman named Yudina. I imploringly requested: "Auntie, put me into cell No. 4!"
"And why do you want to get there?" - I replied: "My mum is there". She started to shout in a vicious, harsh voice: "I am not your auntie, you monster of a spy!" She pushed me aside, continued to accomodate the other women in the different cells, until I finally remained standing in that room all alone. She escorted me down the corridor and pushed me into cell No. 8.
The majority of the women in this cell were recidivists, thieves. A woman of about 35 years approached me; she had her child on her arms. At this time mothers with children used to be kept in the same cell. The woman was called Zina; her nickname was "the Queen". Her body was covered with tattoos and she exclusively spoke the language of the hardened professional criminals. The little boy on her arms was about 6 months old. He looked bery skinny, pale, not well-groomed and ill. For a short moment I forgot where I was.
She asked me: „Why did they bring you here?“ - I replied that I had no idea.- „Which paragraph?“ – „I don’t know.“ – „Are you a political prisoner then?“ - „I don’t know; my mum is also here, in cell No. 4. They did not allow me to be with her“.
The women of cell No. 8 curiously started to move towards me, but Zina ordered them: "Stay back!" The women stepped back. Zina addressed me: „You are a neat girl. Won’t you like to take care of my little Vitya?“ – She pointed at the child, and I answered: „If you trust me that much I will do it.“ Maybe it was due to this circumstance that nobody offended or insulted me.
And then something terrible happened in our cell. The women started having extremely rude fights, they undressed the newcomers, took the clothes away from them and talked in a very obscene language. All these poor people were allowed to keep on was their underwear. Someone was even murdered in front of my eyes. They deprived the weak persons of the parcels, which those had received. And all the time I had to listen to the incessant swearing and obscene language of the criminals. Even the guards were unable to master these problems. I suffered hell on earth- it was even worse than hell. I became very fond of Vityushka and this somehow took my mind off my worries to a certain extent.
But I did not forget about mum, Galochka and dad - not a single minute. I often cried, particularly during the night.
For some reason or other our cell was suddenly broken up. The children were separated from their mothers. Due to an error they put me in cell No. 4, where I met my mum. She was nothing but skin and bone and her eyes were swollen from crying. What a never-ending joy, when we saw eachother again. The whole time I stayed with my mum, living in a state of constant fear to lose her again. In the night I often woke up with a start, felt for mum's hands and pressed myself close to her. We talked about everything and cried a lot because of Galochka. Mum tried to give me most of her food ration; she hardly ate anything herself.
The 14th day was a blavk day. We were separated again. They took mum away to the interrogation, and I was not to see her again until 1937. For more than ten years I remained without any information about my parents. I suffered a lot - it is painful for me to call the martyrdom of those years to my mind without bursting into tears, but I had to go through and stand it.
Cell No. 4 was a quadrate room. There were two barred windows with a view of the fence that surrounded the prison area. To the left of the door – a small table for the receipt of the meals, to the left – the latrine bucket. We slept always two of us with heads in opposite directions - under the bed boards, on the bed boards, on the table, under the table, somewhere on the floor.
And this terrible stench! There were more than 60 people in the cell, all adults, and I was only 16 years old. I remember Tamara Dumchenko, who was a little older than I. She was the daughter of some Krasnoyarsk party worker. She must have been about 18 years old at that time and had also been accused of being a traitor to her country, just like me.
They would usually question us during the night. We suffered hell on earth. There even happened to be cases of death and insanity. The women returned to the cell in a deplorable state, with black and blue marks under their eyes. Some were even called out 2-3 times a night, and many of them came back creeping on all fours, disfigured beyond recognition, full of effusions of blood and contusions on their faces ann all over their bodies. People with weak nerves went mad. Very Vassilyevna Malyavkina, the wife of the director of the Krasnoyarsk steamship company suffered from lingering madness, but the prison doctors deliberately denied this fact and considered her as a malingerer. Later, when she lived in exile in Turukhansk, she managed to run away into the tundra inspite of our care, where they later found her - torn into pieces by some wild animal. Only parts of her leather coat and her head with the pigtails were left.
I also remember Yevgeniya Komarovskaya who, day and night, shouted herself hoarse for her son Genochka. Her screams filled us with such a horror that even a recollection after so many years makes us shudder.
Some of the arrested women learned by rumour that her husbands had been executed.. Everyone, who returned from the interrogation brought along some news, which one could either believe or doubt. But I still had not received any information at all - neither about my dad, nor about my mum or my sister.
For the following five months they did not call me out to any hearings; stricken with fear I as waiting for what would happen next. And then came the day I shall never forget. The investigating officer was Sinyushin. he presided over the proceedings. His name is deeply engraved upon my mind.
Investigator's question: " Who were your father's friends?"
Reply: "I believe he had none. He was a very polite man, who neither drank alcohol nor smoked cigarettes. he was courteous towards everyone. He loved his children and our mum".
Question: "What did your father say against the Soviet power?"
Reply: "My father has been a Communist since 1924, he was edeucated in this spirit from the very beginning. He taught us to be true members of the Young Communists' League. He also instructed us singing the songs "Our steam locomotive", "Take courage, comrades, forward, march", "Vastness of my native land"".
The questioning was interrupted; someone had called for the investigating officer. He left his cabinet, and I was taken back to the cell. His harsh voice continued to roar in my ears, and I can still see him in my mind's eye.
The second hearing was carried out in a different way. They asked me almost exactly the same questions, but this time by use of force. The investigator put a pencil between my fingers and then squeezed them together as firm as he could. A shooting pain filled my body, but I did not scream. I did not utter the slightest sound. Otherwise they would have continued
torturing me. It is hard to describe this kind of questioning. They took me back to the cell; I was exhausted, my face tear-stained, my fingers swollen. The women in the cell took pity on me, tears welled up in their eyes, and they tried to feed me with what they had at hand.
The third interrogation. I found it as terrifying as the ones before, but it did not take much time. There were two examining magistrates. One of them literally said: "If you do not know and say anything, then sign here". And he handed over to me an almost empty sheet of paper. Under threat of punishment I finally signed two sheets right at the bottom. While I gave my signature, the interrogator promised that they would soon release me; and then I was taken back to the cell.
Nothing happened; they kept me in prison. Days and months went by. Nobody called me out of the cell anymore, nobody released me from prison. The atmosphere in the cell remained the same. The women returned from the interrogations exhausted and beaten up. They secreamed during the night, woke up with a start, ran to an fro. It was practically impossible to fall asleep - and this went on every night. During the day I tried to calm them a little. I sang them songs and even composed poems. I still remember a couple of verses:
Oh, these black days
Will soon come to an end
And we will live
In freedom again.
We will show strength,
Will keep doing our work.
Give us back our freedom,
We are no enemies!
We will be heroines of
Lenin's country.
Quite a few smiled condescendingly when I recited my poems, others said: " Girl, carry on! Truth will be re-established. We have not done anything wrong!"
Food was tolerably well; we received three meals a day. Once a month they gave us 1 kilogram of sugar, 150 grams of butter and 1 kilogram of fish. On the prison ground there was a prisoners' commissary; those, who disposed of some money could buy a couple of additional foodstuffs there by the assistance of the guards. I did not have any money.
Thus, the days passed by in agonizing uncertainty. The people lived in the hope that they would be released soon and could then return home to their children. But nothing of the kind happened.
On the 25th of November 1938 they called some of the women out of the cell and asked them to line up in the corridor, where they were read out the sentence inflicted on them upon the decision of the Moscow Special Board. I had been sentenced to 5 years of internal exile to be served in the far North. The exiles were transported away in different northerly directions to their places of deprivation of freedom.
On the 28th November 1938 a great number of imprisonned persons was loaded on board the 4-class steamship "Maria Ulyanova" (the men were placed in the holds, the women somewhere in the rare) and taken away to exile camps by water (river Yenissey). The trip turned out to be a rather long one. We were hunrgy; they only gave us dry rations. One idea permanently struck me: that my father had once worked on this steamship as a steersman and that I had spent a part of my childhood here. I was unable to bear this present situation without bursting into tears from time to time. Maybe all this was only a bad dream? But it was no dream at all.
Every now and then they put prisoners on land under escort, for example in Vorogovo, Yartsevo, Chulkovo, Yermakovo, Igarka and in some other places. The others, mainly women, stayed on board. Turukhansk was the final landing place. We were taken to the Turukhansk NKVD office under escort being aware that this was the place were we would have to serve our sentences in internal exile.
We arrived in Turukhansk in the evening. At the NKVD office they were busily issuing documents; various kinds of certificates, written confirmations that we were obliged not leave the new place of residense without official permission and appear for checks and registration at the NKVD office every day.
Well, we are now going to serve our sentence in internal exile, labelled as "enemies of the people". We were lodged in an empty building, consisting of a s ingle room for all newcomers: men, women and minors, among them the 18 year-old Volodya, who still had the mind of a child. Unfortunately, there was not enough space for all of us.
I am at liberty. How lucky I was to be free again after the months I had
stayed in prison. I am allowed to run free, to go where I want to. But I am
surrounded by the tundra, which restricts my freedom of movement. And thus I am
walking along the riverbank, about half a kilometer, until I have reached the
old, destroyed monastery. I am walking, basking in the sun, deeply breezing in
the fresh air, feasting my eyes on nature. I am ready to kiss any leaf of grass
- and burst into tears again. I am crying for joy and happiness, forgetting all
about my grief and do not think about what might happen to me in the future.
On the banks of the Yenissey I noticed a boat. I approached. The bottom was undamaged. I turned the boat upside down. This would be my home from now on. I creeped under the boat - it was okay. I pulled out some grass and spread it on the embankment to dry. I got settled for the night and fell asleep. The following morning, when I woke up, I remembered that I had to go for the daily registration. The following day, around noon, I returned to the house, where the others had been placed. The women were very upset, they had noticed that I was missing.
They had been on the run all night long trying to find me. And then they gave me a talking-to, scolded me that much that even now I still remember the situation very well. They informed me that they had been to the NKVD office to find out all about vacancies; they had been told, however, that there was no work for our contingent. At that time Turukhansk was only a small village. There were no producing firms; the local people lived on hunting and fishing. There was a little hospital, a canteen,a club-house,a tailor's shop and a school. Among the exiled women were a couple of excellent tailoresses; they were in lucky - they got a job, although they had to go through a time of probation first. The remaining exiles, however, were out of work for a long time.
Very few exiles disposed of a small amount of money, which they had been able to hide away during their arrest and later in prison. Now they spent a limited sum on foodstuffs. Before the war, i.e. before 1940, the assortment of groceries had been quite large, but the people did not have any money at that time.
No money, no work! In spite of their bad situation the exiles helped me to survive. I did not want to live on other people's expense - I felt ashamed, and so I started to live under the boat again. I told them that I would go away to live with people, who had taken me in. I subsisted on wild onions, sometimes picked up a fish which fishermen had thrown away and drank the delicious water of the Yenissey. However, I could not keep up this way of life for a long time. Winter was coming, and so I decided to return to the settlement.
I began to take care of the deseased, wipe floors and wash other people's clothes. I suffered hunger and stayed overnight with those people who I was working for. And soon after I had calmed down a little, I suddenly got lost in thought about mum's, dad's and Galochka's fate, about all the injustice that had befallen our family. It broke my heart to see all this before my mind's eye again. I could have cried out with grief.
The year 1939 drew near. I still had no suitable lodging, no work and, which was even worse, - no clothes. It was very cold! Minus 40 to minus 50 degrees. And I was practically running about in rags. They would not release me for a long, long time yet. I realized that my prospects for the future were almost hopeless. I was deeply grieved, depressed, being without any family ties, far away from my relatives. And sometimes I entirely buried the hope of ever seeing any of them again. Why did they punish me this way? What had I done to deserve all this? There was only one reply - it happened due to the outrageous injustice of the authorities.
My sister Valya - Vanda, died in 1996; she did not succeed in completing her handwritten notes. For that reason I took the liberty of continuing to describe the fate of my family. Well then. Let me go in to tell you the story of our "lives".
Sister Valya lived in Turukhansk in internal exile. She was alone, without lodging, without work, being obliged to be checked and registered at the Turukhansk NKVD office every day. To be more exact - she was hardly able to exist on the few kopeks she earned. She took care of ill people and did any kind of work turning up: wipe floors, wash clothes, chop wood, etc. The far North became apparent: severe, crisp frost with temperatures of minus 40 to minus 50 degrees and snow storms. The people neither disposed of any warm clothes, nor did they have enough money to buy some. Strictly speaking the exiles lived there under unhuman, degrading conditions. Many of them did not manage to survive, but died of hunger and cold.
What happened to our mother at this time? She was sentenced by an NKVD troyka
at the Krasnoyarsk prison to a ten years' internal exile, without being allowed
to send letters to her relatives or receive letters from them. She was
transported to the town of Karaganda to serve her sentence in Middle Asia! This
is the place we can compare to Kolyma, Solovki, Norilsk, Dudinka and others, as
far as the structure of convicts and the political motives (paragraphs) are
concerned.
After the new lot of prisoners had arrived, they were distributed to different camp baracks. They had to do hard labour. The food rations were similar to those they had received earlier, when they were in prison. During the last five years mum was released from escort; however, she did not have the right to be assigned a dwelling space of her own. like all the other women she was forced to look for a home herself, and finally found shelter in a dug-out.
Mum built this dug-out all by herself, with a little window and a non-standard door, without a regular floor. She made herself a wooden bedstead with bedclothes and a table - all collected from junk. She heated the hut by means of a stove made of paving stones. Well, this was how the exiles' unhuman daily routine looked like. I wonder how they felt to exist under these conditions. What must have been going on in their minds, when they fell ill, suffered hunger? And they had no cosy home. It is not easy to imaging, how the exiles, how our own mum managed to go through these hard times.
I lost my husband - he was executed; my children were never heard of again. Where are they? Are they still alive or were they killed, as well? And all this happened in the course of ten years. Throughout all these years this immeasurable suffering, this flood of tears, these humiliations and injuries continued. Why? Obviously, someone needed this badly at Stalin's times. Everything the people, my mum and many, many others in our country have gone through during the hard times of reprisals in the years 1937-1938 was a result of the decisions taken by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court - without any reason, under penalty of torture and beating, without witnesses. They sentenced people to many years of confinement, accused entirely innocent people of treachery and espionage. They declared them enemies of the people and sent minors to prison.
How about my fate? At the said time, on the 10th of October 1937, I was 12 years old. In the evening, around 7 or 8 o'clock, a "Black Mary" approached our house and stopped in front of the door. Two men and a woman dressed in the usual NKVD uniform got out of the car. They entered our apartment. At first they made a search, rummaged through the drawers and threw everything into disorder, but as far as I know, they did not find anything suspicious. The woman in uniform lead me out of the house. Someone gave me a bundle (probably containing a couple of necessary things). I had no idea what was definitely in it. I remember having cried my eyes out. I called for my mum, who had already been taken away a little earlier. I probably was in a state of shock for a certain time. I stopped crying, but was unable to realize what was going on. Where had they taken my mum to? Where was my sister Valya? Why had they asked me to get into this dark car with the barred windows all alone? The car started to move. This type of a car was called "Black Mary" at those times. I remember having been thrown to and fro during the ride. I was unable to keep my balance, fell and got up again. The car passed through the Sovietskaya Street which is today called Prospect Mira. The road was paved with huge stones, so that I could feel the slightest jolt. I do not remember how much time passed by. The car stopped twice. The doors were opened and more children had to get into the car. They cried and called for their mums. In the darkness it was difficult to make out, whether they were boys or girls. I remember that they were carrying bundles with them, too.
We drove on. After a certain time the car stopped again. The door was opened. It was dark. They ordered us to get out. The woman in uniform helped the little ones. They immediately pushed us away from the vehicle and made us all gather in one place. A very high gate appeared in front of us, the building looked like a kind of entrance check-point. They told us to go through the corridor one by one. Two or three women were sitting at the check-point. They asked all children to throw their bundles into one corner. And this is what we did. Many other bundles of different sizes lay already in this corner, all scattered over the floor. And when I saw that I knew that they were never return them to us. As we learned later the building they had taken us to was the house numbered Lenin Street 106.
We (10 children altogether) went into the yard; in front of us there was a two-storeyed wooden house, where they lodged us. We heard the wild screams and the crying of children and adults. What we saw there was the picture of misery. These children had all been taken away from home a couple of days or nights before us. We were put into small rooms intended for 10-15 children each. There were wooden bedsteads, bedcovers and cushions. Night had already fallen in. Finally everybody had calmed down. The children fell asleep. When we woke up the next morning, the older children tried to find out where we were. The house was surrounded by a very high barbed-wire fence and beside the gate there was the entrance check-point, where we had passed through the day before. The rooms were mainly occupied by women. The guards wore the uniforms of militia men. I am not able to say, how many children there were, but most definitely not less than 30 to 40-
The atmosphere was tense, the children went on crying. The guards were utterly strict, their glances did not promise anything good. The children were between 5 and 13 years old. They looked frightened, like wild animals which had been put in a cage. And we had to witness all this. The children were mainly from families, whose fathers were working for the river navigation, had a job as a railroad employee or were executives of the municipal administration. I do not remember in detail what kind of food we received; this question probably did not worry us too much. We were under stress, anyway - so that food and drink did not mean the most essential thing to us. Life on prison was based on a certain penitentiary regime: a 15 or 20 minutes' walk in small groups; the way to the latrine we had to go one by one. It was situated beside the fence, which had been stopped up with big stones from below. The authorities obviously feared that prisoners would try to escape through the fence.
The children slowly got accustomed to their situation, but they were aggressive and nervous. To a certain extent I was used to an independent way of acting; so many times I had been on board this steamer with my dad, who would always allow me to spend the days with any recreative activities I liked: take a bath in the Yenissey or go on an excursion through the city, where I knew my way about very well. How to get from the old market place to Nikolaevka, for example. Nothing would divert me from my aim to commit a heroic deed (to escape). And so I did. And how I did it I am going to describe in some more details right now.
My one and only wish was to get out of this cage, to get back home in order to find out what was going on there. Apart from this I wanted to take mum's and dad's photographies with me by all means. Although it might sound strange, but this was my fondest wish. I even did not waste much thought on the consequences of my planned escape. I was of the opinion that my present difficult situation (my presence in this prison building) was nothing else but a piece of ill-luck. I was certainly not supposed to stay here; I belonged home. There was no other way left but escape.
One day the following incident happened - and maybe it happened with God's help. By error we were not taken to the latrine one by one, but by twos. The guards had simply forgotten that one of us had already gone there before and was still there. As already mentionned, a barbed-wire fence of about 2,5 to 3 meters in height surrounded the territory. However, this circumstance did not discourage me at all; the most important thing was that on the other side of this fence I would be at liberty and could go back to my parents' house. Beside the latrine,on the floor, there was a plank stretching over the whole length of the latrine area; it was dirty and wet. I asked the girl, with who I had accidentially happened to get there, to help me lifting the plank up and put it on end at the corner of the fence. I quickly climbed up the slippy board, creeped through the barbed wire on top of the fence and jumped down to the ground.
It turned out that I had got into one of the inner courts of some private house. I was unable to get up immediately, since I felt a severe pain in my leg; I had hurt my foot. But the shooting pain could not stop me. Darkness had already set in. It was difficult for me to find my way around: I almost missed the little gate. The worst of all was that a dog suddenly began to bark. Fortunately, it was chained up. And to crown it all a woman came running out of the house and screamed: " One of these homeless persons escaped again". It seemed that I was not the first who had accomplished such a "heroic deed". In the meantime I had succeeded to pass through the gate and run out into the street (on the same level with number 106). At that time an orchestra of wind instruments used to play in the Gorkiy Park (this was how the park was called then). I knew the town very well, knew my way about in the streets and never lost my bearings. I rushed to the Sovietskaya Street first and from there straight home. I passed the old market place, until I had reached the Sovietskaya Street No. 1.
My strength failed from fear and tiredness; it had been a long way from the priso to our house. Having reached the big gate, I fell and instantaneously lost conscience. It must have been around 10 o'clock in the evening. Our landlord, Uncle Vanya Letvinenko, who stepped out of the gate at that time, found me lying on the ground. He liftet me up, took me on his arms, helped me to regain consciousness and carried me into the yard. He finally decided to take me to the Drobotenko's, our neighbours. These people were so frightened that they had no idea what to do with me. The authorities would certainly accuse them of having been in touch with the children of "enemies of the people"; it was extremely dangerous to associate with such people. However, I learned some interesting news from our neighbours. One of the women from our neighbourhood (who lived in the Karatanov Street) had been released from prison only recently. In the prison she had met my mother. I broke into tears, not only because of the information itself, but because I was full of joy to learn that my mum was alive. I had not escaped in vain! I had heard something about my mum!
The conversation was suddenly interrupted. We noticed that a car of the "Black Mary" type approached the gate. At that time I was in the Zamakhins' apartment. Two NKVD workers came in, seized me and took me out into the street. They opened the door and pushed me into the dark interior. The car started to move and took me back to the place where I had run away from - Lenin Street No. 106. This place was called "Reception and Distribution Point". They did not keep us their for long - only until they had finally decided about our distribution among the corrective and reeducational institutions; maybe we stayed there for 15 or 20 days, I do not exactly remember.
Later, around midnight, we, the sleeping children, were taken up in a hurry
and ordered to put on some clothes. Then they escorted us into the yard, from
where we were taken to the Krasnoyarsk station on foot under intensified escort
and additionally accompanied by guard dogs. Some of the childrens' relatives
must have known about this deportation. They ran up to the marching by children
with bread and other foodsruffs in their hands. But the armed escorts would not
allow them to hand these things over to the children. We walked on in silence.
They loaded us on waggons - and nobody knew, where they were going to take us to.
We were supposed to be sent to an "NKVD special labour colony". On the way they
dropped some of the children; our group decreased in number. Later we continued
our trip on the river Kama, not far from the Ural. And then we reached the town
of Cherdyn, the place of our final destination, the special labour colony.
It was the town of the orphaned and homeless children, the children of the "enemies of the people". Six children were from Krasnoyarsk: Lena (12 years), Nina (10 years= and Volodya (6 years) Demidov, Galya Ignatovich (12 years) and another girl, who's family name I do not remember. We would have to live or, to be more precise, to eke out a miserable existence among homeless children of all age groups up to the age of 18. We were ordered to change clothes. They gave us grey coats, which did not fit at all, boots for boys and strange caps formed like buckets.
We received three meals a day, but it was not enough to eat our fill. We tried to be economic, avoiding to eat up everything at once, but leaving over small pieces of our foof instead. Upon the return from the cantine each of the children hid some bread away from the others under the matress. In 1938 we were called upon to go to school, where we learned together with free pupils. Routine took its course, but we were completely isolated from what is called a normal life.
This is what happened to me once: our teacher came into the class in the company of a woman. As we were informed she was the teacher of the nursery-school, where they were in urgent need of a pupil who was a good drawer. Their choice fell on me. After the lessons I had to work there for 3 to 4 hours every day. In return I received a cup of soup (which, by the way, was very delicious). My task was to design and beautify the big hall, the corridor behind the entrance door, the bedrooms, etc. Apart from the soup the paid me 5 rubels. These were the first wages in my life. I spent them on paper and envelopes.
I set about writing letters into all directions: to Krasnoyarsk, Leningrad, to my brother's wife Anna. The messages were all the same: "Don't you know what has become of dad, mum, Valya, Kesha, Sasha and Misha, the two youngest brothers?" The letters were always returned, and on their back someone had written the following notes: "Addressee unknown", "Refused" and the like. I did not lose hope, found new ways and possibilities of how to search for my relatives - but it was all in vain.
In Cherdyn there was a prison; I approached to its windows trying to direct someone's attention to me by calling out my parents' family name at the same time. People could be seen behind the barred windows; they replied: "They are not here - not in this prison!" (They had thrown a lump of bread out of the window; inside the bread I found this note). I buried hope. Now I had no other possibility but consult a fortune-teller; maybe she would be able to tell me something. I had another 2 rubels and a few kopeks left from the money I had earned at the nursery-school. I found a little old woman (she was not a detained person) and paid her. And then I had my fortune told by means of beans. She calmed me and said zhat I would meet my relatives again in the course of time, although not all of them.
The year 1939 drew near. Some time in June the children from Krasnoyarsk were called to appear before the director of the children's corrective labour colony. We were explained that we should get ready without delay for being sent away to another place. Nobody knew where. First we went by ship and then by train. The train stopped in Krasnoyarsk and later at the river station. NKVD workers - two women in uniform - accompanied us, just as it was required by the special regime for colony prisoners. We were to go on board the steamship "Maria Ulyanova". They placed us somewhere by the engine room. We slept fully dressed on iron floor coverings; we had nothing to make up a bed for the night. Evidently, the guards did not fear that we might try to escape. For that reason we were sometimes allowed to walk around or even go to the lavatory without any escort at all.
One of the heaviest moments for me was the approach to the door of dad's former cabin. I broke into tears and went away. Who would ever have believed that I would once be on board this ship as an exile, as the daughter of an "enemy of the people"? There was a law saying that the children of persons subject to repression, who had fulfilled the 14th year of their life, automatically fell under their parents' case and had to completely serve the same sentence in the fixed area of exile together with them.
Some passengers looked at us, offered us something to eat, gave us bread and other foodstuffs. We were distributed meals twice a day: dry rations. We would so much have liked to eat soup, but ... there was nobody to complain to. Our guards travelled in the 3rd class and relieved each other at duty. But they did not watch us all the time. During the night we were allowed to sleep without the guards watching us.
I grew ill. I had caught a bad cold. In the place where they had lodged us, there was a terrible draught. My teeth also hurt; I had a dental infection, an absess. My left eye and cheek were swollen and I looked disfigured beyond recognition. Racked with pain I cried all day and night. There was nobody, who one could have asked for help or advice, and I was afraid of the guards, although they did not take the slightest notice of me.
Our life of suffering continued. Where were we going? To whom? They did not tell us anything about the travel route, everything was strictly confidential. Well, that's how it was. We were criminals after all. And then we finally reached Turukhansk. It was easy for me to recognize the landing place, since my sister and I had always accompanied our dad on board this ship during the summer, when river navigation was possible in these regions.
We looked at the riverbanks, at the people who had come to welcome us. Thy were mainly adults, men and women.As we later learned, the were all exiles. The guards had us disembark one by one. One the gangway we were six children altogether walking single file. I looked ill, my face was bandaged on one side. But I could see with one eye. From across the riverbank I heard a scream: "Galochka!" Everybody rushed at us. Among the people I saw my sister Valya. She had recognized me, as well. And finally someone told us that they used to take the children of repressed persons, now called exiles, to Turukhansk. My sister pounced on me drained in tears, her joy changed into a wild scream. She hysterically dropped to the ground - full of happiness that we were reunited. The exiles standing next to us helped Valya to get up. The guards approached and said: "Let your sister go now; we have to take her to the NKVD office for registration".
Most people went apart. Only the parents of the newly arrived children and some other exiles, who intended to accompany us to the commandant's office, stayed with us. Finally we were committed to our relatives. Valya and I embraced eachother again and remained in this position for a long time. Both of us were sobbing violently. Then we started asking eachother about mum and dad. But none of us knew anything about them, about where they stayed. It turned out that Valya was unabale to take me somewhere, since she did not have an appropriate roof over der head herself. She finally guided me to a house on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk. There lived a single, very old woman, who had already been exiled to this place at the time when Stalin himself had lived in Turukhansk in internal exile. Her house was dilapidated, with low windows that even reached down to the ground. The entrance door opened directly to the street front, there was no capopy and no annexe, so that all the cold air from outside streamed into the cottage. It is horrible to imagine, how cold it must have been inside - at temperatures of minus 40 or minus 50 degrees. The little hut was blocked up with snow up to the roof.
With tears in her eyes and upon supplication for accomodation Valya finally suceeded in pursuading the old woman to take me in for some time. She agreed. And this was when one of the most horrible moments of our existence began. No money, nothing to eat and no work. Until my arrival, Valya had only received very miserable wages. Every now and then she washed other people's clothes, swabbed the floors, chopped wood or carried out various kinds of temporary work. But such occasions did not turn up every day. We really suffered hunger. Some of the exiles helped us a little, but we often refused. Even the best did not suffer less than we did, due to the lack of regular food.
In the town itself there were no industrial enterprises at all, just a small fishermen's collective. But neither this collective nor the airfield were accessible to u. Even if there had been vacancies at the cantine, club or school, they would never have employed exiles stamped as "enemies of the people". There was no hope to find work in the open air. We did not have any warm clothes, as a matter of fact practically none at all, no shoes. We went around in shabby old coats.
Living with the old woman, who had given us shelter, became unbearable. We were freezing, it was by far too cold to sleep on the floor and we fell ill. Once again we were confronted with the problem of having to find accomodation. And so we took up our residence in a doghouse (yes, indeed, this is not a slip of the tongue). The owner of this hut used to keep dogs in the winter. Such animals are very valued in the far North. The hut disposed of very thin walls and a tiny window with a view of the Yenissey. The whole inside did not give more thn 2 to 2,5 square meters of floor space. There was a wooden bedstead, a self-made stool and a small round iron stove. The procuring of firewood caused big problems.
The other exiles did not live under better conditions either. Remarkable people served their sentence in our company. They had been deported here from almost every corner of the country. There was one of the most famous masters of folk art of our time - Zhzhenov, the artist Yana Khudnutskaya, a ballerina from Leningrad. And many more notable, educated, cultured and intelligent people, whose lives had been marked with a black stamp, who had been humiliated, offended and deeply hurt by insufferable hard labour and cruelty.
The years passed by. Things changed to the worse in all spheres of everyday life. And there still was the problem of where to find an appropriate place to live. Jointly with the Demidovs we decided to nail together a little house, however, there was practically no building material. Merely pygmy birch-trees were growing in the tundra. We selected some of the bigger ones, fell them ourselves, and then the children helped us to drag and haul the trrunks through the tundra to the building site. We carried everything needed to the spot and dried moss. And finally we somehow succeeded in assembling some kind of a house. Under great efforts we stopped up all gaps in the ceiling and the roof. The floor remained such as it was- simple soil, which we then covered with moss, as we had no planks available. We had started to build the house in the summer; when we were finally able to move in with 7 people altogether - the winter had already set in. We were two adults and five children! It was impossible to live their comfortably. The wood was all moist, we had no warm clothes and the iron stove would not heat sufficiently. The only way to rescue us from the frost was to attend school, where it was a little warmer.
Hunger and insufficient feeding, all the strain told on us. Some of the children were incapable of holding out to the end of the lessons. The sat on the school benches and simply fell asleep; they were tortured by lice. They did not wash themselves - there was no bath, there was no soap, and they were starving.
At school there were a few remarkable teachers. They took pity on the exiled children and sometimes released them from the lessons. The headmaster was a great person, too. He had participated in the Finnish War in 1939. He was a very kindhearted man. And the historian Vsevolod Vladimirovich even fed us with some additional food, offering us anything he was abple to put aside.
Life in exile taught us how to survive, how to struggle against hunger and humilitations, but it mainly taught us patience. Our patience often was exhausted.
Our term of exile drew to a close. My sister and I decided to find dad, mum and our brothers. As for das we sent a letter to Moscow. We received the following reply from the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court, dated as of April 5th, 1958 - that Yan Blazheevich Pavliak had been posthumously rehabilitated on the 15.04.1958 (file No. 4n-0139/58).
With regard to mum we received an answer, too: Moscow. Military Court of the Sibirian Military District, dated as of April 27th 1958, file No. 571-58, city of Novosibirsk. They wrote: the judgement of the 9th of January 1938 in the matter of Valentina Yanovna Pavliak has been quashed, the case has been dismissed in lack of factual findings. In fact, Valentina Yanovna Pavliak was fully rehabilitated.
Kirovsk district court, city of Krasnoyarsk, 18th of January 1993, signed by Y.M. Baturow (judge). Resolution: Galina Yanovna Tyutkova-Pavliak has been acknowledged as victim of political reprisals and is being rehabilitated. This decision became effective as of the 26th of January 1993 - in accordance with § 191-197 Civil code of the RSFSR.
The death certificate of Yan Blazheevich Pavliak. He died on the 18th of April 1947 at the age of 44. Cause of death - execution. Place of death - Krasnoyarsk, Oktyabrskiy district. Signed, stamped by the Oktyabrskiy Department of the registry office of the executive committee of Krasnoyarsk dated as of the 23rd of January 1990, II-BA No. 475065.
My sister Valentina Yanovna Pavliak died in 1996.
My brothers: Kesha, front-line soldier, killed in Prussia in 1043; Sasha, front-line soldier near Leningrad, died after the war; Misha, front-line soldier near Voronesh, died after the war.
After our release we met mum again in Krasnoyarsk in 1947; she died in 1967.
This is the story of our family.
After the exile we had to plan our future, be concerned about where to live and how. First and foremost we had to find work, we had to earn our living out of something after all. In this respect I was favoured with luck. Maybe it sounds somewhat i,,odest, but during the following years I worked in good collectives with good people. In 1947 I was conferred upon the title of a "shock-worker" and later, in the 1960s, that of a "Stachanov worker". From 1970 to 1981 I was honoured as an outstanding Communist-way worker and later as an excellent worker for the Ministry of Communications. My work book is full of proofs of gratitude and financial rewards. I am in possession of government awards, medals, etc. In 1980 I etired as a "veterann of labour". And this is how ma modest life of work was rewarded.
I am now 78 years old. I have always been attached to my fatherland. I greatly love my town Krasnoyarsk and its inhabitants. Those, woh tried to label us as enemies of the people, failed in doing so. How much would I like to look that man straight in the eye, who gave the orders to our arrest, the arrest of our parents, the deportation and exile of the children - the NKVD militia man and captain of State security Grichukhin.
Below you can read extracts from a document, representative for the kind of documents they used to issue on arrests at that time, a copy of which was authenticated by the legal advisor of the Krasnoyarsk municipal KGB authorities on the 23rd of December 1991.
The following orders are issued:
1. to arrest Maria Georgievna Pavliak and charge her with §§ (not defined),
2. to arrest Valentina Yanovna Pavliak for being a socially dangerous element and for her capabioity of carrying out anti-Soviet activities,
3. to remove Galina Yanovna Pavliak from her parents' home and take her to the NKVD Special Labour Colony Registration and Distribution Point.
Head of the 1st Department of the
NKVD State security
Lieutenant of Security Tyeplyakov
Agreed:
Head of the XI. Department of the
NKVD State security
Lieutenant of security Anastasenko
Copy certified:
KGB Senior Legal Advisor
Krasnoyarsk,
23.12.1991 (Signature)
