Krasnoyarsk Region
Nizhne-Ingashsk district, settlement of Reshoty
September 31, 1989
Prokopiy Stepanovich Gryazanov was born in the little village of Nadezhna, Tarbagataysk district Buryatian ASSR, in 1905. The village numbered about 300 farms. In the 1930s he was working as an accountant clerk. He was arrested in the village of Kuytun, 6 km away from Nadezhna, on the 7th of December 1937. With him they arrested another 20 men, among them Safon Ivanovich Zaytsev (born around 1903), worker in a spirit factory. A little earlier, in November 1937, they had already arrested Ponkrat Yerepevich Zaytsev (born around 1904) and Foma Sysoyevich Trifonov. They became prisoners of the Kraslag, too. During one of the prison transports F.S. Trifinov happened to get on the same freight car as Prokopiy Stepanovich. After his release P.Y. Zaytsev stayed to live in the Nizhne-Ingashsk district. He died a few years ago.
P.S. Gryazanov still remembers that in 1930 farmers from the village of Nadezhna were exiled to the Turukhansk region, to the Irbeysk and Plansk districts.
In the district town the arrestees were pushed into little log huts which served as an NKVD prison; they were already keeping 20 other men in there. And this was the place, where they started with the interrogations. It utrned out that obviously the entire district nomenclature had been mobilized to deal with the prisoners and the ""crimes" they had been accused of: Prokopiy Stepanovich was alternately questioned by Prokhortsev, the head of the road-building department, Fedorov, the bank manager, Skvortsov, the head of the district domestic trade organization, and besides by Innokentiy Stepanovich Mordvin, a militiaman. The interrogations took place without a break from December 11 until December 19. Finally, Prokopiy Stepanovich was guarded to the head of the NKVD district department, Vershinin, who started to brandish big heaps of paper in front of his eyes by secreaming that these were all the "materials" they had gathered about and against him. Then Vershinin went out of the room leaving an officer candidate behind, who immediately fell asleep. When Prokopiy became aware of this, he stepped towards the table and unfastened the file, in which he found all kinds of documents and writings, which did not have the slightest connection with his person. During the interrogations they punched him below the costal arch to avoid him falling asleep. When they had finally taken him back to the cell, he dropped to the floor and slept there all day long and all through the night, until the other inmates gazed at him more carefully to find out, whether he was still breathing.
Late in December the prisoners were forced to go on foot to Ulan-Ude (45 kms away). There they were crammed into a leather factory; about 200 other prisoners were already working there. In 1938 the camp authorities began to call out about 30 men from their cells every night. It was rumoured that some of them were taken away for execution. Some time or other it was Prokopiy Stepanovich's turn to go as well; the prisoners were ordered to undress till the waist-line, and then they were to enter some kind of workroom one at a time, where they were read out the sentence of the judicial three-member board. Judging from the fact that all of them had to take half of their clothes off, they probably carried out some medical examination in that place, too. The written sentence shown to Prokopiy Stepanovich said: "10 years concentration camp".
Early in February they started to make up a prisoner transport, and around the 15th of February the train reached Ilansk. In each of the 40 waggons there were about 40 prisoners, not less than 1500 individuals altogether. They were sent to work for the State timber industry enterprise, 17 kms away from Ilansk and about 2-3 kms away from the Algaskisk village Soviet. It was just this prisoner transport from Ulan-Ude by which Prokopiy Stepanovich, P.Y. Zaytsev and F.S. Trifonov (kolkhoz farmer, born in 1902 or 1903) happened to get to the Kraslag. Last-named and Prokopiy Stepanovich had been in the same waggon. In this transport was also Yegor Yefremovich Kolesnikov (kolkhoz farmer from the village of Kuytun, born in 1902 or 1903, died in 1948) and Oleg Petrovich Nemchinov (1910-1955, bookkeeper from Kyakhta), who had also been jailed in Ulan-Ude. Before his arrest he had worked in a leather factory.
The camp near Ilansk was called "Block 17" and numbered about 1000 prisoners. Merimov was the chied of this camp. The chief of the Ilansk forced labour camp sector was Barats.In the 1940s a good many people were sentenced once again receiving an additional term of 10 years. At the same time they also imprisoned the chief of the Kraslag - Yefim Samuilovich Shatov-Levshin, as well as his deputy from the industrial sector.
Later 700 prisoners from this camp were transferred to the camp "Mamontov Log" (Mammoth Ravine"; translator's note), behind the village of Yuzhno-Alexandrovka on the river Poyma, in the south of the Ilansk region. This happened late in 1940. A little later Prokopiy Stepanovich was transferred to the camp "Cheremshany Log" ("Ramson Ravine"; translator's note) also situated in the Ilansk region. He had to work for the woodcutting industry and do gang labour. All these forced labour camp sub-sectors belonged to the 1st forced labour camp sector in Ilansk. In 1945 Prokopiy was transferred to Reschoty, where he was assigned to work for the woodcutting industry as a bookkeeper.
P.S. Gryazanov was released on November 8, 1947; he was released early from confinement for highly-productive labour. After his release Prokopiy Stepanovich continued to work for the woodcutting industry. He intended to send for his family to live with him in Reshoty, but it was not permitted to travel through Irkutsk, a little further to the east, without pass. The commandant's office in Reschoty did not issue and hand out such travel permits. They replied that such documents could only be issued in Krasnoyarsk, but that it would not be recommendable to go there, because they would not give him any pass, either.
The management of the office, where Prokopiy Stepanovich was working at that time, behaved well towards him, but the chiefs were not in a position to exert any influence on the issue of the desired travel permit. For that reason the chied decided to allow him at least to make an official trip to Ulan-Ude. However, at the station the man at the ticket window refused to sell him a ticket, unless he would be able to show him a valid pass. Finally he succeeded in obtaining the necessary ticket by the aid of the deputy staionmaster, who he knew quite well and who had taken pity on him. Behing Irkutsk militiamen began to patrol through the waggons and control the passengers' travel permits. Prokopiy Stepanovich sat down beside a group of soldiers, who were on their way back to Vladivostok from holidays. These had noticed that he looked quite alarmed, and when they learned about the reason for his worried appearance, they had him lie down on one of the upper sleeping berths and covered him with an overcoat. When the patrol approached the soldiers told them that one of their comrades was fast asleep - and the militiamen made do with this explanation.
Prokopiy Stepanovich fetched his family and returned to reschoty. On the way back there were no such patrols anymore.
P.S. Gryazanov was arrested for the second time in 1949. He was transported away to Krasnoyarsk. First they detained him in the remand prison for about one month; then they transferred him to the transit prison (on Mayerchak street) for another period of 5 months. On the decision of the OSO (Special Board; translator's note) he was "soldered on" a life in internal exile and sent to Bogotol in a prisoner transport. From there all 50 exiles were taken to Tyukhtet by truck. The head of the local NKVD was major Fradkin at that time and later, in the 1950s - major Yeremeyev.
In Tyukhtetthere also was a public prosecutor from the Crimea peninsula (Prokopiy Stepanovich does not remember his surname), who had been a friend of Vyshinskiy in the 1930s. After his release from the camp this public prosecutor went to Moscow, in order to lodge a complaint with Vyshinskiy about what had been done to him; immediately after his return from the trip to Moscow he was sent into internal exile.
Six exiles from the district town were sent to the Kirov kolkhoz farm (in the village of Medvedka, Rubinsk village Soviet), where they were forced to stay until 1950; afterwards they worked for the timber felling industry until 1951. Only one of them Prokopiy Stepanovich is unable to recall; the other four were about 50 years old (born between 1900 and 1905). They were:
After having worked for the timber felling industry for a certain timber, Prokopiy Stepanovich was employed at the Chulsk machine and tractor repairing station in Chindat. The exiles had to appear at the commandant's office twice a month for registration.
The internal exile was abolished in 1954, and after November 7 P.S. Gryazanov went to Reshoty. In December of the year 1956 he was rehabilitated on the basis of the two resolutions of the 29th of December 1937 and the 25th of February 1950 (the rehabilitation document is dated as of January 2, 1957).
Prokopiy Stepanovich receives a monthly pension of 120 rubels. His hearing is bad and, for that reason, he is in urgent need of a hearing aid.
Krasnoyarsk, September 10, 1989
Recorded by V.S. Birger
"Memorial" Organization