Taissiya's
family lived in a place called SCHEYN-MAYDAN, district of ATYASHEVO, MORDVINIA.
In the 1920s this was a big Russian village with five streets and settlements.
In the spring of the year 1930 they deported the families of three farmers. They were taken to ATYASHEVO station in rack wagons, where they were kept in a storehouse for eggs, closely guarded, together with deportees from other villages, and finally loaded on goods wagons.
The PAVLOVs had four other children, but they and their families lived separate from the parents and were not affected by the deportation. However, later, some of them moved to the place where their parents lived in internal exile.
The exiles were not permitted to take any of their belongings, and it even came to the point that they took away Taissiya Afanassyevna's little felt boots (she was 12 years old at that time).
At ATYASHEVO station a whole train was loaded with exiles. They were on the way for two or three 3 weeks. Whenever the train stopped in deserted places, far away from any station, they were allowed to get off and relieve themselves.
The deportees were unloaded at SHILKA station (today CHITA region) and taken to UST-KARA, province of SRETENSK, on barges. From there 400-500 people (half of them were children) were carried off on foot, several kilometers farther until they had reached the TSELIK gold mine. The snow had already melted away. In former times Chinese gold prospectors had worked in this mine, leaving behind numerous dugouts. Some of the exiles were accommodated in two large barracks, and the rest in these former Chinese dugouts.
All three families that had been deported from SCHEYN-MAYDAN found themselves in this gold mine, together with the teacher Savva SOBAKIN (born ~1875) and his family, Ivan ZEMSKIKH (born ~1875) and his family, among them his son Ivan ZEMSKIKH (born ~1915), KAZEYEV (born ~1875) with his family, ZHITKOV (born ~1875) and KARMAYEV, also with his family. They had all been deported from MORDVINIA on the same prisoner train.
The mushrooms and berries growing in this region in plenty were very helpful to the exiles. They meant some additional food for them. All children used to gather and pick them. There was no school at all.
After half a year, in the winter, late in 1931 or beginning of 1932, all exiles from TSELIKA were called together and taken to UST-KARA, loaded on trucks and taken away to SRETENSK across the frozen river SHILKA. Here they had to get into wagons and were taken to Krasnoyarsk. They were forced to get off the train at the right riverbank and then kept in barracks. Soon after they started sending all able-bodied men to the north; their families, as well as ill people, stayed in the barracks until the summer. In the spring of 1932 Pavel MAYOROV and his wife starved to death in this place.
In the summer, when navigation on the river set in again, the exiles were taken from KRASNOYARSK to YENISSEYSK on barges, and from there to the district of NORTH-
YENISSEYSK. The PAVLOVs, SOBAKINs, KAZEYEVs, ZEMSKIKHs and A. (P.) MAYOROV came to the district center, the settlement of SOVRUDNIK (today NORTH-YENISSEYSK). The ZHITKOVs were taken to the PROLETARKA gold mine.
Already in 1932, a camp was being operated in SOVRUDNIK, and later there also emerged camps in TEYA, MIKHAILOVSKIY and other settlements of the district. In the 1940s these camps belonged to the YENLAG (YENISSEYLAG).
In SOVRUDNIK A. (I.) PAVLOV worked as a foreman for the supply of mine timber in the “mine factory,” i.e. in the gold mine. Savva SOBAKIN worked in the pit. Ivan ZEMSKIKH worked as a driver for the “food supply section.” KAZEYEV had a job in a sausage factory.
Later, in the middle of the 1930s, they brought deportees from the KUBAN region to SOVRUDNIK. At the beginning they suffered hunger and asked for bread for their children.
Among the deported persons in SOVRUDNIK there were some former political convicts: Klimentiy (son of Konstantin) BANDOVSKIY (born ~1885), for example, who taught chemistry at the secondary school, and PISANYUK (born ~1885), who gave lessons on mathematics at the same school. The exile VOYTSEKHOVICH gave instructions in physics.
Taissiya (daughter of Afanassiy) attended this school together with many other children. Among them was the daughter of the Finnish family LANKINEN and Katya MATAFONOVA, who had been deported from Transbaikalia.
During these years SOVRUDNIK numbered about 6,000 inhabitants, most of them exiles.
In the February of 1938 mass arrests started moving in SOVRUDNIK. The arrestees were detained in underground places, in any kind of adits, for about two weeks, then loaded on trucks and taken to YENISSEYSK. They also arrested the teachers PISANYUK, K. (K.) BANDOVSKIJ and a German, who taught German at school; they also arrested a neighbor of the PAVLOVs, the Ukrainian Filipp (or Filimon) ZHURAVEL (born ~1896), bookkeeper for the wood supply office, as well as SOBAKIN, KAZEYEV and ZEMSKIKH (the father).
ZHITVOV was arrested in the PROLETARKA gold mine, VESELOV (born ~1880) in the mine in TEYA. In SOVRUDNIK they arrested BAZHENOV, who had been deported from TRANSBAIKALIA.
A. (I.) PAVLOV was picked up on 12.02.1938. He was sentenced by a troika on 07.05.1938 and shot by a firing squad in Yenisseysk on 25.05.1938. He was posthumously rehabilitated by the Krasnoyarsk district court on the 22.09.1956.
Savva SOBAKIN was also executed in YENISSEYSK.
In February of 1938 they also arrested A. (P.) MAYOROV, I. (I.) ZEMSKIKH and another young lad. These three were released from the prison in Yenisseysk, where they had been held together with other arrestees, in the spring. They returned to SOVRUDNIK.
Before the war, in 1940 or 1941, SUSOROV, who had probably been arrested already in 1937, returned from custody. Maybe they had compiled a report indicating the impossibility of using him as part of the workforce due to invalidity. After his return he stayed alive for only one month. The only thing he was able to tell was that he had been held somewhere in the taiga, somewhere in the east.
In the 1940s, Taissiya was compelled to stay in the zones of SOVRUDNIK and TEYA. The zone in SOVRUDNIK was a mixed one with men as well as women. In the camp they arranged concerts and theatrical performances. The young people of the settlement succeeded in persuading the guards to let them enter the zone to listen to the concerts or watch the performances.
After the war new exiles appeared in SOVRUDNIK. Early in the 1950s a Latvian, the surgeon Oskar (son of Otto) ALKS, was working in the district hospital. It is said that before he went into exile he had been kept in custody for 12 years. Later, in the second half of the 1950s, he became the head of the hospital. Another doctor, professor OKSYANTSEV, also an exile, worked in this district hospital, too, late in the 1940s or early in the 1950s.
06.01.1994, recorded by V.S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, “Memorial” Society
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