Dear Vladimir Georgievich -
a good fellow you are!
I am now in a position to inform you, how my life in Norilsk turned out to be. But first of all I have to tell you that, at that time, I had not served my whole sentence in Norilsk yet.
They transported me away from Norilsk in 1945, well, together with my comrades, of course, because of my poor physical condition. From Norilsk to Dudinka - a distance of 120 kms; there they had lain rails for the narrow-gauge track. The train was pulled by a locomotive from the OV series, the so-called "Lambkin" or "Cuckoo", I cannot remember this exactly. And furthermore I have to tell you that I worked there in the factory kitchen for the last three years - as a cook and shift worker. There were about 15000 prisoners and 40 cooks, who worked there in shifts. Oh, it was hard to work there. Just imagine 15000 men, who are forced to live under the conditions of the polar north; that is not easy, the more since they were all prisoners, who had been deprived from their human rights and suffered from malnutrition during the whole time. But what was one supposed to do - the war was on, and during the war people usually would not get enough food, not to speak of the situation in the besieged and blockaded Leningrad. Nerves and health were shattered, so that the doctors recommended to me to leave the place and go to the Big Land (in the polar regions of Siberia this term is used for the more southern part of the country with which the polar regions are linked only during the 4-month period of river navigation or by air; translator's note). This is what they called it, and as far as I understood they were all no Russians - those Karls, Janoshs and Jans. The Janotchis all sat there in the matter of A.M. Gorki's (some case of poising). Of course, I did not tell them about my leaving, because each of the prisoners was all the time dreaming of this Big Land, the more since the war was nearing its end. As far as the year 1943 is concerned, I have to mention that all foodstuffs were available in Norilsk at that time, even laced shoes with these thick rubber soles, all of American origin, and butter - although it was lard, in fact, which, however, did not differ in quality from other products of this kind. You heat it and it melts away - like water: no smell, no taste. But the dried carrots, cabbage, leek and garlic (powder) were an excellent means against scurvy. Well, in spite of the fact that I did not have to starve, I was finally written off and sent to the Big Land, since my nerves were quite ruined.
Having reached Dudinka I had nothing more urgent to do than climbing up to the upper plank beds, in order to get a long sleep; I do not know how long I had been asleep, when the person who assigned work came running along shouting: „Shumilov, Shumilov!“ – „Shumilov, that’s me“. – „Let’s go! The Vlasovites (former Soviet serviceman who was sentenced by a Soviet court for serving in Vlasov’s army during World War II; translator’s note) have to be feeded (in my file it said that I was a cook by trade)!“ Well then, and so I fed the Vlasovites – over a period of four days and nights. As far as I understood, most of them were entirely uneducated, uncultivated and undeveloped people, who were neither able to read nor write – all from the West-Ukraine. And they all shouted at me: „Ne ley aliyu“, which meant „vegetable oil“, but I was to give them everything that was defined within the norm: 15 grs fat and 10 grs sugar.
I have no idea what happened there afterwards. On the 13th of September 1945, after having received a food supply for 13 days and nights, about 1700 people, including guard details (I do not exactly remember all this), were loaded on board a barge at the port of Dudinka and taken to Krasnoyarsk up the river Yenissey. They had given us food rations for 13 days and nights, but we reached Krasnoyarsk only after 37 days. Without the „Klim Voroshilov“. At that time a side-wheeler with this name was run there – one day and one night the people used to travel on the water and then the ship made fast for about 2-3 days and nights. We ran short of foodstuffs. Whenever we had reached a landing place, we disembarked and tried to gather all the frozen potatoes which had been left behind on the riverbank after the loading of other barges. And in this way our trip continued till Pridivinsk, when the passenger steamer „Turgenyev“ came towards us and we had to change ships. The head of the guards (he was a really stupid person, and I was a blockhead, too, because I listened to him) gave me the order: „Cook! Come and get us something to eat, so that we can stuff ourselves until we are full to burst!“ I was to leave off barley and flour and fed them all with meat – salted deer meat. As a result of this sumptuous meal many of the weakened and exhausted people started suffering from twistings of the bowels, and the end of the matter was that 96 individuals died during the trip. As a cook I knew the facts and the exact number of the dead, as - every day - I had to keep a record of the physical condition of the people, of how many people had to be taken off my list and who I was to supply with a daily ration.
Well, we reached the landing stage in Yenissey(sk?) in October. Automn, winter. In this transit forced labour camp sub-sector I stayed for about one month.
One day some „customer“ came over from the factory today known as the „non-ferrous metal company“, which at that time was called non-ferrous smelting works. There they were dealing with entirely untreated raw materials, for the BOF, the ore-dressing plant in Norilsk, was still being under construction. And I was then still being kept in quarantine, but they nevertheless called me out, looked through my file and asked: „Cook?“ – „Yes – cook!“ – „Then off with you to the kitchen! See that you get the people something to eat!“ The head of the kitchen was Fedya Kosarenko – a professional cook. Well, I also had worked as a cook and pastry-cook before, though as a temporary helper only, but Fedya was more experienced and 10 years older than I. And so I started to cook my camp soap: I cooked, fed the people and carried the lunch over to the factory, until I had only 7 months left till the end of my term. Once I had a conversation with my comrades; they recommended to me to leave the kitchen and better join one of the brigades working for the factory. And that is what I finally did.
It was a great thing for me. So I started working for the factory – in two shifts: day and night. The prisoners worked there in company with free workers, women and girls. They took me into one of the brigades. Yasha Gorkushenko was the brigadier at first; later, after his release, Ivan Gerasimovich Ilin (he has already passed away) became the head of our group. He assigned me to work at the pumps, although I did not understand a thing about it; all stuff and nonsense that was, but there were guys like Volodya Vipritskiy or Vladymyr Semenych, as his Uzbek babay (grandfather; translator’s note) had called him. Volodya was three years younger than I and dragged himself along in the camp for 10 years, because his father had been some boss and appeared as a pretended „enemy of the people“ – and he had tried to protect his father from all heavy charges preferred against him. He told me: „Redhead, that’s not your business; your business is to dabble in politics, and the babay and I will undertake all necessary steps“.
And so we somehow organized our lives and went to work.
Our overseer was Vera Prokovyevna Loboda, who later became my wife.
I was released on the 19th of June 1948, which was even 16 days earlier than the expiration of the sentence.
And this is exactly the time when my life of suffering began. Vera was no party member, she was just a simple technician, who had finished her studies at the technical school for non-ferrous metals; and her sister Yelena Loboda, as I uased to call her, was and is still a Stalinist grand-daughter. As soon as I came there, they started conversations about the authority of the party. And I had been deprived of all rights, which also meant that I was only permitted to chose my permanent residence within a radius of maximum 101 kms away from Krasnoyarsk. I did not know anything about that, but as they said in former times, there is no world without a few good people in it. The head of the URO (Registration Distribution Department of the administration of a forced labour camp; translator's note), Danil Danilovich Popov (he has already passed away) said to me: "Red-hair, don't worry, I am going to help you!" And this is what he did: he introduced me to the head of the passport office of the Krasnoyarsk district of Leninsk, Yevgeniy Grigorievich Zelenskiy. Well, this man said to me: "I will register you in due order, but I have no idea, where and how to get you work". And then I made an additional request to him: "Yevgeniy Grigorievich, I have a great favour to ask of you". I showed him my release papers and told him that I did not want to be called Yosif by forename. "And why not? What reason for?" Well, I tried my best to explain to him that there once had been a time, when I seriously intended to let my namesake have it, in other words to kill him. "And then, you see, I was forced to work for 10 years and was additionally given a 5 years' deprivation of all rights. And that is why I do not want to be called by this name". Yevgeniy Grigorievich hesitated for a moment, then asked me in a thoughtful mood: "And how would you like to be named instead?" - "I don't care at all", I replied, "only this name of Yosif I am not willing to accept any longer". - "Allright then! We will call you Lenka!" No matter which forename, as long as it was not the forename of my namesake Yosif. And so I was given the name of Leonid Alexeyevich Shumilov. I hope God will forgive me this sin, the more since my own grandfather Ivan Kupriyanovich Ulyanov baptized me. He was, in fact, a pious old man, who did not have a great deal of difficulty to pray for my sins - and, finally, God loves all people. At least I do hope that I will be guaranteed a place in paradise.
Although it is written in the Holy Scriptures "you rose from the ashes, and you are supposed to become ashes again", I believe that the human soul is to be identified with the human consciousness, honour and dignity, and not with what popes and other clergymen are trying to tell us all the time: that the soul has the form of a little child with wings - it flies away and waves its tail. Well, it seems that I have my head somewhere in the clouds, but there is nothing to do for me. May the holy fathers deal with these matters, while I, a poor wretch, will try my best to make up my mind about all my sins before I have to die. Oh, dear me - there are so many of them. [...].