All I now recall to my mind took place more than forty years ago; it is a painful rememberance. Everything I call to my memory is probably very subjective. Please accept my apologies for this.
Before I landed up in Sora, I had worked for a cold-placer mine being not at all familiar with ore deposits. In 1950, however, I was offered to take the responsibility for the nearby molybdenum mine. I felt I could not take the job with them, since I was well aware of my incompetence. But I was told that this was an order and that I did not have the right to refuse.
Apart from that they promised to send me a competent expert from among the prisoners, who were just serving their sentences (section 58), and this decision, in fact, turned out to be a great help to me. And this was the moment, when Yuriy Fedorovich Pogonya-Stefanovich entered my life. In the spring of 1950 three specialists accompanied by armed guards arrived in our Sorsk geological survey section: Pogonya, Dmitriy Ivanovich Musatov and Boris Ivanovich Badunkov. Pogonya agreed to work with me.
Thus, Pogonya was transferred to one of the Sorsk camps.
He came to work under escort - a young soldier armed with a gun. In spite of all warnings we lavished attentions on this
, detained expert; he himself behaved very casually and in a self-assured manner. He spoke like a well-bred, intelligent man.
The employees in our section immediately started to show a lot of sympathy towards Pogonya.
During the working hours an armed guard always stayed in the corridor. He obviously felt ill at ease. Whenever we went out with Pogonya in order to execute field work, the guard was permanently behind us; one could tell by his face that the heavy gun was somewhat cumbersome and inconvenient and that the whole situation itself weighed on him.
Thus we were working throughout the summer. A problem arose: where were we supposed to carry out the geological office and laboratory work? Pogonya proposed to the group leader that I should execute them in Krasnoyarsk, at the OTB-1 (Special Technology Office No. 1; translator's note), and he promised to try his best in convincing the management there that my presence at the OTB-1 was absolutely indispensible. In the autumn I left for Krasnoyarsk in actual fact.
I spent a couple of days with various kinds of trouble - I had to ask for a permit and find accomodation. And then, finally, I found myself in the zone, where Pogonya worked and lived, as well. My first impression was a terrifying one. Everything was entirely different from what it had been in Sora: the sky, the air, the ground, the houses. It was a completely different planet! And first and foremost, before allowing me to move to this new place, they had made me realize that I would exclusively meet nobody else but enemies of the people and that I was to keep away from them at all events.
The prisoners of the OTB-1 were very polite and obliging towards me, and Yuriy Fedorovich contributed a considerable share to this behaviour. I was placed in the intercommunicating room, where a professor, a scientist from Leningrad, Mikhail Mikhailovich Tetyaev, worked. He was quite a splendid man. I will always keep him in fond and grateful remembrance. I feel ashamed having to admit that, if we had not been in such an unpleasant situation, I would probably never have met such good people and experts disposing of such a high level of intelligence, and I would never have had the chance to work with them, either.
Little by little I got accustomed to the strange surroundings, but the time while I was working there, did not leave any feeling of anxiety with me. And later I was feeling some kind of moral pressure for many years, and I have the impression that this sentiment has not faded away until today.
Pogonya used to work in this room, too. A wooden cabinet separated us from the people who passed through. The only window was at the entrance, the room was dark, so that we had to work by electric light. This was a strain for my eyes and I felt quite worn-out and weary. I lived in various lodgings - sometimes in an inn, but more often, when I was in luck, I found a place in a corner of somebody else's room. I did not earn enough money to rent a room of my own.
Work took up all my time: "at home" I started learning everything about geology - from top to bottom. And Pogonya gave me to do a lot of "homework". At work I strengthened the newly gained knowledge in practice. Nobody refused to give me information and assistance. Scientific experts, like professor Alexander Yakovlevich Bulynnikov, gave me some good advice with regard to petrography (study of the origin, occurrence, structure and history of rocks; translator's note) - a discipline which was a must to me. I will be grateful to him for the rest of my life. My workmates (I hope I will be allowed to call them such), the doctor of science, professor Vladimir Mikhailovich Kreyter, the academician Mikhail Petrovich Rusakov and, of course, my dear Mikhail Mikhailovich Tetyaev, had a free and easy manner in this terrible situation of being prisoners and did not give the slightest impression of being enemies. Quite the reverse! They were polite and obliging people. Nothing made me ever doubt their honesty, no matter who it conerned.
I liked my work (but I was not content with my private life at all). We disposed of an excellent equipment and very good appliances, completely unlike those that we had in our previous group. The prisoners were allowed to order whatever they considered necessary, and the management was not sparing with money. The "Yenisseystroy" was a rich organization.
The first phase of our geological office and laboratory work came to an end. I returned to Sora, was disappointed and melancholic. There I immediately noticed with sorrow that I was ignored and not in such intellectual surroundings, which I had got so well accustomed to at the OTB-1.
In Sora I prepared for geological field-work, waiting for my great assistant - Pogonya-Stefanovich. I feared that for some reasons or other he might be unable to come here and that I would not be in a position to master the long period of approaching surveys without him.
But Pogonya came. He appeared unexpectedly, accompanied by his "guardian angel" - cheerful, sparkling with wit, unabashed. The atmosphere in our group changed straightaway. He spread an element of freshness, courage and brightness and most readily rushed to anybody's help whenever necessary. The guard gradually wearied of dogging our every footstep. He finally asked us for permission not to go with us into the mountains anymore, but wait for us at the setting-off point. We were kind enough as to do him the requested favour and allow him this great liberty! Pogonya even said that he was now almost free. And once, when we took a break, he informed me about having received a letter of notification saying that his wife had filed a petition for divorce.
"Now I got freed of something else - the chains of Hymen" (Greek god of Marriage; translator's note).
"But one chain still exists, and it will be long before you get rid of that one, too", I added, but immediarely felt sorry for my remark, since it had been absolutely out of place. He, however, replied:
"I am sure I will not have to serve the whole sentence. And, if you do not refuse the affection I feel towards you, then I would be very happy, indeed".
Well, this was, how he modestly proposed to me.
I do not remember any further important events, which happened during that season. Our work went on successfully. I learned a lot and read a great deal.
They somehow suspected one of the guards of slanders. the lads of our group made him drunk, and afterwards Pogonya had to drag him and his heavy gun back into the zone. He was quite displeased about the situation, since he was afraid of being consequently transferred to Krasnoyarsk, and then all of them would have gotten into considerable trouble. But nothing of the kind happened - everything went off smoothly. We were really happy that the incidence ended up well after all and later even recalled it with a laugh.
However, the occurrance did not go completely unnoticed. During my next conversation with the "oper" (security officer; translator's note) he asked me, whether all this had been produced on my initiative, whereupon he recalled to his mind an instance, which had already happened two years before. At that time they had partitioned off a small room from the improvised canteen in Sora, and fixed a scrap of drawing paper on the entrance door marked with the words: "For officers only". And underneath I had additionally put the words: "No admittance for engineers and dogs". Of course, the had called me out to give me a stern lecture.
During the second summer I was already feeling much easier in my mind. Although I had settled into my surroundings, a certain strain had remained. Sometimes Pogonya's friends from other work sections dropped in. They were interested to learn, how "Pogonya's girlfriend" looked like.
One of them was Igor Leopoldovich Ganz (Pogonya called him "Tiger Leopoldovich" or simply "Tiger"). He had a wonderful baritone voice and sang very well. Once they called me out to the landing and I heard him sing the aria of "Robert" from the opera "Yolantha". And Pogonya said: "That's a serenade for you. Sergey Karlovich (I do not remeber his surname) also came in from time to time. He was from Odessa, and when we reminded him of this fact, he asked: "Is something missing with you?" And when Pogonya told him that he (Sergey) was an Odessite, that one replied: "And you are a swine!" And this way they made fun of eachother.
And then there was Shifrin, a photographer - he invited me to come to his studio promising to take my portrait photograph. I was so afraid that I did not go there at all, and my behaviour hurt his feeling considerably.
I was flattered to think that the men paid so much attention to me, but I also found it terribly disquieting. And this permanent fear spoiled and impaired my whole way of life. Mikhail Mikhailovich and Yuriy Fedorovich noticed my confusion, whereupon Mikhail Mikhailovich proposed to help me making the acqaintance of a couple of "free" colleagues, i.e. girls of other work units. And so Yuriy Fedorovich introduced me to Tamara and Lilya.
I have to tell you a little bit more about Lilya. She was a remarkable girl. At first sight she had nothing unusual about her: she was of slender build, had close-cropped, fair hair, which was neither set nor curly by nature. The look of her face did not indicate the use of cosmetics. She was dressed simply, but elegant. She had a self-assured manner, but was not arrogant at all, and gave a calm impression.
Although she had achieved great success, she did not show off and was ever the same friendly and polite person. Her authority was indisputable. Lilya ridiculed me concerning my complaints aboutmy discussion with the security officer: "Oh, he calls me out almost every week, and if he doesn't, I always start getting worried, fearing that Kocherga might have fallen ill. Don't take it to heart that much - maybe he also likes you?" - and then they both burst into laughter.
The girls helped me to more or less cope with the atmosphere of distrust and fear that poisoned my life.
One day Lilya disappeared and nobody knew the reason. Only after a certain time it became apparent that she had quit her job on the same day, when one of the experts was released from camp detention. I neither remember his name, nor the section he had worked for. She had gone away with him. Nobody had been aware of the fact that they were a couple in love.
The people working for the OTB-1 mainly were the wives of officers, "free" employees or simply any women or girls, who had gone through a strict selective procedure. But there circulated rumours and gossiping, there ocurred dramatic scenes, scandals and transfers for disciplinary reasons - in this place one could experience every kind of incidents that also use to happen in everyday life, except that this was an entirely different planet. A planet of fear.
In the company of these girls I was able to pass through the zone a little more courageous. There was a rather shabby shop, as I had never seen one before: all one could buy there was a mere nothing. Only rags and cheap and nasty cigarettes. I cannot think of anything else having been available there, and having been there once, I never went there again.
Shortly before the beginning of the year 1953 the specialists were offered new clothes - suits made of finest cloth and tights. They all went to the store and chose something corresponding to their size. I wish to point out that they did not sell working clothes, but holiday and Sunday clothes. The experts mainly used to wear clothes they had been sent from home - old, worn-out clothes; those, who did not receive anything from their relatives, usually put on cotton suits, just like gang laborers. Of course, they were ful of joy of being able to put on new suits now.
Any kind of joy brightened the life of the prisoners. But about two weeks later many of the new suits started to look worn and torn, the sleeves frayed and the seat of the trousers as well as the knee-pieces became threadbare. And yet the had paid for them, as if they were new clothes of high quality! They had even charged us with the full amount.
When, in addition to that, the prisoners were soonafter offered silk underwear, they all refrained from buying some. Only Pogonya decided to chose some, but, of course, spent his money for nothing. The underwear immediately ripped. Who else, except the intellectuals, could one sell such an underwear to? Maybe to the urkas (hardened, professional criminals; translator's note) - the "enemies of the people"?
I decided to sew Pogonya a jacket with a zipper; it was made of wool and some other blended yarn (a second one I made for Leonid Kharitonov). The jacket helped him a little out of trouble. We called it "zipper jacket".
The year 1953 started unpleasantly. It was determined by hope and expectations, by the unbearably sluggishness of the government and a state of constant fear. We did not work, but I had to finish the written report on our work activities, and we hurried up with this task. Sometimes I stayed in our section in the late evening. For this I had to address an application to the supreme authorities. It was not allowed to stay within the section late at night without any official permission, and it would usually arouse suspicion. It was quite common that a jailor from among the commissioned officers, who belonged to the guards battalion, came into the room, while we were sitting there. One of them told us about the incidents that happened in the town at night. All this had a rather depressing effect on Pogonya; he sent me home.
The people in town were in a state of unrest at that time. Nevertheless I went home on foot and always arrived safely.
Early in March the people become worried: rumours spread and information leaked out that Stalin had fallen seriously ill ... In the OTB-1 there were only a few loud-speakers, but the camp authorities disposed of quite a lot of them. And the pirsoners knew everything a long time before we finally heard of it. In my room the colleagues were waiting for me with all kinds of news, to which I had nothing to add: I did not know more than they knew themselves. At that time I lived in the kitchen of some private household, where they had no radio, either.
It is not easy for me to describe the atmosphere that enclosed "our planet". Everybody behaved in a mysterious and withdrawn manner. A certain expectant mood began to show particularly with the officers and escorts. In general, the number of searches considerably decreased, but our intercommunicating room became subject of strict controls.
I did not smuggle goods very often: each time I did, I nearly died with fright. From time to time I brought along tea, once vodka and, well, delicacies within our reach: cheese, sweets, fresh sausages - whenever there was a possibility to buy them. They did not always have sausages in Krasnoyarsk, but when they were available at certain times, then they turned out to be very delicious: tea sausage, "Doctor's" sausage, sausage made of ox tongue and others.
Then came the 5th of March 1953. At 4o'clock in the afternoon I was asked to come to the operational department. For the hundredth time I was dying of fear, but I went there. Kocherga awaited me with a severe glance. There was no casualness at all.
"Today at 5 pm they are going to announce the death of comrade Stalin on the radio. You will bear the responsibility that everything remains in good order. All prisoners of your unit are to gather in Dmitriy Ivanovich Musatov's cabinet then. See that there will not arise any provocations; elsewise I will call you to account and take measures against you!"
I rushed back to my room. The others had already waited for my return. As usual they had been very worried about the fact that I had been ordered to come to the "oper". I immediately blurted out the news. Mikhail Mikhailovich said: "Thank God, it happened as we expected!"
I went to the next room, where the colleagues of our unit were working. It was a large room; there was enough space to accomodate ten people. I did not enter this room very often and, for that reason, was at once paid full attention to.
I said: "Dear comrades - listen!" And then I repeated what they had told me in the operational department.
Silence - a silence which did not compare to anything else. An ab-so-lute silence! The academician Rusakov got up, approached me and said:
"My dear, I thank you very much for these good news; now everything will change into what it should be. Please don't worry".
At 5 o'clock we all gathered in Musakov's cabinet; he disposed of a radio set. They stood there in silence, listened to the announcement and then parted company again. Nothing "special" had happened. Nobody was able to get back to his work.
Do we need to recall every single conversation? In my opinion everything becomes evident even without.
We decided to celebrate the news about Stalin's death. And there was another festive occasion, too: the International Woman's Day on the 8th of March. At that time this was a usual working day. I did not risk less than my freedom, when smuggling two bottles of cognac into the zone. That very morning I had every reason to die with fright - and not only once: when I passed by the fence that surrounded the zone, an unknown woman came towards me, and when we were abreast she whispered: "They are searching again!" I resolutely enterned the intercommunicating room, half-dead with fear. But there was God, there was justice - I passed without hindrance. The well-hidden bottles reached their final destination. We poured the cognac into tea cups, distributed tea spoons and put a couple of flasks for chemical laboratory tests on the table. Then we cut some apples into pieces (which I had also brought along) - they were not subject to any prohibition.
The warder came in (that was all we needed!): " What does it smell of in here?" He kept standing there and would not budge. I said: "Enjoy the apples!" He refused and left the room. The others forced me to drink a little cognac, which brought me back to life.
My work for the OTB-1 was finished. I left for Sora early in March; it was already getting warmer, and I had a feeling of freedom: the report of activities was almost ready, the geological examinations completed.
The group asked me to deliver my opinion on the dissertation of a certain Gorbunova from Irkutsk. I took her abstract of thesis, read it through ... and with utmost consternation recognized my own report of activities! The whole dissertation was nothing else but a copy. Gorbunova had taken advantage of the second copy of our first draft. In her paper were even left all those mistakes, which we had not corrected on the first copy.
I did not deliver any opinion, but tore the copy into pieces - because this was the only way to express my protest. Nevertheless, the Gorbunova wrote her dissertation. I was convinced that she had received the written material by agreement with the chief geologist of the Sorsk group, M-F- Solovyanovich. How else could these secret documents have fallen into her hands? Pogonya was a man deprived of all rights, and I did not occupy the position of the chief executor - who would believe us? Who would take us seriously? When Pogonya learned about this story, he was at a loss for words and became very angry. He said:
"I proposed M.F. an honest deal: I am going to prepare the dissertation for her, and she will try to get me a passport". What an advantage did she have from this deal?"
Summer was coming. Pogonya was transferred to one of the Sorsk camps and now had to do construction work - gang labour.
One early Sunday morning, when I left the house, I looked at the roof of my small room for some reason or other and - noticed a living bundle lying there. It needed help, of course, and thus I carried it home. It was a little boy. I washed him and put hi to bed. Nobody came to ask for him, neither on this day, nor on one of the next. Nobody obviously missed him. It was a pretty child, approximately one year old. When the little boy woke up, he stretched out his hands for me and said: "Mama!" And this was, how I happened to get to a son - or we, respectively. His name is now Oleg Yuryevich Pogonya-Stefanovich.
The geological group used to invite Pogonya from time to time - they applied for the permission at the camp authorities, and then he went there under escort. When he came there the next time, he sent for me and asked me to come to the oil-rig. And there I had to tell him that I had not yet succeeded to leave the child with somebody else and that I had not officially entered his name with the day nursery: I had only taken him in the day before, after all.
"You are leaving already? For the day nursery?"
We went to have a look at the child. Oleg greeted Pogonya stammering the word "Papa!" He was still unable to walk and speak properly. He just articulated various sounds.
Pogonya was released in November 1954. I lived and worked in Chernogorsk, Khakassia. After the reorganization of the "Yenisseystroy", when Oleg and I had been without means, I had been forced to change the place of residence. I then purely accidental learned that a petrograph was wanted for the newly organized Minusinsk Oil and Gas Prospecting Trust, and for that reason I had left for Chernogorsk.
I still had not become a full petrograph by that time, but one had to earn one's living of something. Pogonya helped me again. He often wrote to me, geve me important advice and recommended me what to read in the first place. I was quite skilled in the field of rock stratums; they had even made an entry in my workbook - as a proof of gratitude.
Pogonya sent me a telegramme, and I went to Abakan. The train arrived earl. One can imagine, how Pogonya felt, while I barely reached the station ... The bus did not wait for us. And so we went by truck, in the body. Pogonya wore an interseasonal coat, boots and a peaked cap.
We left Chernogorsk, although the chief geologist, Ivan Yakovlevich Marchenko, insistently tried to hold Pogonya back, trying to convince him that he should stay and continue to work for the trust. But Pogonya had well understood from several conversations with Marchenko that either there ws no source of mineral oil in the Minusinsk basin at all, or only very little - in other words: this territory did not open up any prospects. Until that time they had not discovered any oil, but had already started to build a factory for its subsequent treatment. In all probability one can still today find the iron skeleton not far from Chernogorsk, which serves as a monument of dilettantism shown to geology.
We went to Teya, Askiz district, Khakassia. That was one hell of a solitude! Absolutely unusual - something like that does not even exist in a fairy tale, and nobody would believe it, either ... In February my father died - the telegramme reached us 16 days later. I still had not found a job and for that reason stayed at home for about three months. The promised iron ore deposits did not turn out to be such. Early in March we went to Moscow, in order to re-establish some contacts. pogonya did not have the right to live in Moscow, but he entertained hopes that friends would help him.
We left Oleg behind with my mother in Abakan. In Moscow we found accomodation at the home of Pogonya's sister. Pogonya phoned several acquaintances. Not all of them were enthusiastic about his sudden appearance. The numerous visits to offices, where we hoped and tried to find a job or some other help, gave him a lot of trouble and was hard on the nerves. We only had little money; it was impossible to stay in Moscow for a long time.
Pogonya introduced me to some very respectable people: the academicians .D. Afanasyev, K.A. Nenadkevich, the presidenet of the Academy of Sciences - D.I. Shcherbakov, and others, all of them rather influential people. But none of them was ready to help.
Once, while I was waiting for Yuriy Fedorovich in the corridor of some institution, I purely coincidentally witnessed the following conversation:
"Do you know, who arrived here?"
"Who?"
"Yuriy Pogonya".
"For work?"
"I don't know. What are you going to do?"
They went away, not devoting the slightest attention to me: I was an unknown person to them, after all. I told Pogonya about this conversation. It was very embarrassing for him, but he was unable to say with any certainty, who the two men had been.
He strived for a meeting with V.M. Kreyter who, however, reported himself sick and was not willing to receive us. Later, when we were already working in Krasnoyarsk, one of his colleagues brought us a booklet, published by Kreyter, in which we found allusions to Pogonya on almost every page - up to 16 such hints per page. The details mentioned therein came from some confiscation archives, which had given him an insight into the materials they had on hand, and he had disposed of them for his own benefit.
Having not achieved anything in Moscow, we went to Leningraed, in order to meet with Mikhail Mikhailovich Tetyaev. The Tetyaevs lived in an old villa, where the American embassy had been housed before the revolution. There apartment consisted of a bedroom, a big cabinet and an entrance hall, which had been divided into a dining room and a kitchen.
They received us very kindly. But Mikhail Mikhailovich was also not in a position to help Pogonya: he felt himself insecure; his son Alexander was still in Kolyma and they had lots of trouble with regard to his release. It was a difficult situation.
When we gathered around the table in the evenings, we thought back to the OTB-1. Mikhail Mikhailovich's wife (I do not remember her first name) was very astonished about what she learned from us. I can still see them serving the "2nd course", and then they would eat the vegetables and give the cutlets to us.
"Almost like meat", Mikhail Mikhailovich said and began to speak French. Pogonya acted as an interpretor: "They did not do so because they had already had enough, but because you were so hungry". And today we find that ridiculous.
We returned to Moscow and only then noticed that we looked quite strange: we wore jackets with thick, wadded shoulder-pads, wide, long trousers. In Moscow they used to wear fashionable tight trousers, and the people there did not have shoulder-pads. However, we did not feel ashamed at all. We did not feel embarrassed - we were not in the mood for that.
From Moscow we returned to Krasnoyarsk. No money, no work, no domicile. Pogonya was offered a job in Uzhur. There we met Neller (I do not recall his first name) from the OTB-1 and Yevgeniy Nikolaevich Grigoriev (who had served a sentence for having been a prisoner of war, but I do not know where he had been detained). In the summer we made excursions into the taiga, into the Sayan mountains, and returned to Minusinsk in the autumn. The scientific expeditions had been centralized. The reorganizations went on. We withstood the winter, and in the spring of the year 1956, on the proposal of Andrey Alexandrovich Predtechenskiy, also a former victim of reprisals, we were transferred to Krasnoyarsk to work for the geological field surveying expedition.
We lived in someone's private apartment. Only in 1964 we received a piece of "paradise" - a one-room apartment in one of the typical Khrushchev buildings. On the 10th of May 1973 Pogonya died from a heart attack at the age of 59.
And that was it! "The pains of live of a poor wretch have come to an end, completed by God" (A.S. Pushkin), and I lend others a helping hand once again, hoping that it might serve something good.
P.S. Some people write down their memoirs, they cannot help it; others scratch themselves, because something is itching.
Valentina Georgievna Perelomova