Woebegone lessons of history
The Cossack settlement of Tinskaya in the Sayan District, Krasnoyarsk Territory, can rightly be called the little home of many repressed citizens of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, as well as of a great number of Volga Germans.
One of the rotational waves of repressions affected the inhabitants of Tinskaya late in the 1920s. The government considered it absolutely necessary to submit the existing economic policy to a strict reorganization. The fundamental idea of this process was collectivization, which also applied to the inhabitants of Siberia, including the residents of the Cossack village of Tinskaya.
The main wave of dekulakization (dispropriation) started in 1929. Everybody who tried to oppose to this action was sooner or later affected by repressions.
In September 1941 hundreds of German families were deported to the Sayan District, more than 3000 individuals in all. One of the families from the Cossack settlement of Tonskaya were German resettlers – the Wamboldts; their patriarch was called Friedrich Petrovich, his wife Maria Ivanovna. They had four children: Mina, Lusya, Arnold und Silva.
The eldest of the four children, Mina Friedrichovna – was kind enough as to entrusting us with her memoirs.
I was the eldest child in our family. I was born in the settlement of
Aleshniki, in the Zhirnovsk District, Volgograd Region, on the 28 July 1931.
Before the war my family had built themselves a nice, solid framehouse: three
rooms and a kitchen. We had enough furniture and everything else which is
absolutely needed in any household. We owned a fruit orchard and a vegetable
garden, and held a couple of domestic animals: goats, a cow, pigs, chicken.
Father was working as a blacksmith, mother had a job with the brickworks as a
technician. My parents made good money, the family was well off. The town of
Paltzer (Balzer), where we lived until 1941, was a nice, big town. When the war
broke out, all German families were officially informed (mixed marriage families
were not affected), that they would be resettled and for this reason were to get
a few belongings packed and then get to the staging area without delay. The
personal bundles were rated in accordance with their weight. All they were
forced to leave behind was locked in and the key handed over to the commandant
of the town for safekeeping. During the trip my parents slaughtered one of their
goats. They cooked the meat, which then became the principal meal of the family.
They were promised that they would retrieve all their belongings which they had
left behind. They took us to the banks of the river Volga on vehicles. We were
reloaded to some steamship. Several hours later we had to debark and were asked
to board a train. They treated us like cattle, since we were locked in wrecked
freightcars, such which were normally used for the transportation of cows, sheep
or horses. These waggons were not at all convenient for the carrying of human
beings. They train moved very slowly, there were lots of long-lasting train
stops. During such stops we always tried to build up stocks of water and find
some toilet. During the trip we had to patiently hold out, for there was no
space where we could have emptied our bowles. It was particularly hard for
those, who had little children. And then, finally, we reached the Krasnoyarsk
Territory, the town of Uyar, where they immediately started to make arrangements
for our accommodation. We were assigned to the Partizansk District, to the
village of Stoyba, where we one of the local women put us up. Just two days
later, literally, representatives of the authorities came to mobilize our father
- Friedrich Petrovich – to the labour army. He came to the Perm Region, Kudaysk
District, to a camp called N° 244 „A“, where he was supposed to work as a
blacksmith. However, he was not in a good state of health at that time, he
suffered from a serious disease of the stomach. He wished nothing else but see
his parents once again, but the camp authorities would not allow him to leave.
Three years later our Daddy died; we learned about his death from a letter which
reached us from the camp. Mum was working in the village, but her salary was by
far not enough to support the family; thus, she had to go from one village to
the next and beg for foodstuffs. They were forced to eke out a living.
Once she went to Tinskaya, where she met her husband’s brother (who had also been resettled). A few days later she returned to Stoyba. During her absence her children almost starved – they were no longer able to leave their bedsteads. I recall that we lived in some communal apartment at that time, together with another family. Nonetheless, Mum contrived to get the situation under control; the children regained their strength, their lives were saved by foodstuffs which Mum collected by begging. I do not know what Mum fed herself upon; I never saw her eat and it seemed to me as if she gave all edibles to her children.
In the spring we removed to Tinskaya, where Aleksander Wamboldt (father’s brother) lived with his four children. Mum found a job as a technician for the school; she was alloted a small wooden hut in the midle of which there was a Russian stove. Unfortunately, there was no vegetable garden attached, and it was not permitted to us to lead any kind of farmyard business, either. However, we were very happy, when they alloted us a little piece of land, where we could cultivate potatoes, and in the following autumn the harvest was, in fact, so successful that we managed to fill up ten sacks! We sold some part of the potatos in order to purchase a cow. In the summer we would keep the animal outside, in the winter we took it inside the house, for there was no warm cow barn around.
After the war we bought our own wooden house, and we, the children, attended the 4-term-school.
As from the age of 12 I worked on the farm as a swineherd. One year later I was assigned to take care of the calves and another three years later I got a job as a milkmaid. I had to milk 15 cows by hand.
In1953 I got married to Konstantin Blyumoy. One year later our daughter Lida was born. I had to work in the fields, get the elevators prepared, take care of the drying plant, where they used to dry grain; roughly speaking, I was an all-round worker appearing in any place where helping hands were needed and where I was assigend to. In 1956 Masha was born, and at this time they also abolished the commandant’s offices: we did not have to go there regularly and get registered anymore; before, there was compulsory registration, and we had to follow this procedure once a month. I was assigned to work for the kindergarten as a nursery-school teacher, brother Arnold left for Kazakhstan, to the Kustanay Region, to live with father’s relatives. Silva and Mum followed him some time later.
In the 1960s my brother decided to undertake a trip to our home on the river Volga. But our house had already been occupied by strangers. We were refused the restoration of our property.
Today I live in Sosnovoborsk with my children. After many years of annoyance and back-breaking efforts I finally succeeded to obtain a certificate A150151 „About the rehabilitation of victims of political repressions“. I was subject to state benefits, but what kind of benefits do I need? The most wonderful thing in the world is the love and care which my children and grand-children show to me. I am so rich, I have seven grand-children and a great-granddaughter. The country held me in high regards, decorating me with several medals of honour. „For heroic labour during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945“ and another one on the occasion of the 50th and 60th anniversary of the victory gained in the Great Patriotic War; apart from this I was invested as „Veteran of Labour of the Russian Federation“. There is nothing I could be hurt or angry about.
I would like to thank the Sosnovoborsk Organisation of victims of political repressions as well as the „Sosnovoborsk Newspaper“ for this special column, where the memoirs of people who suffered from repressions can be published. May these memoirs be a legacy for our children and grandchildren, in order that they will never allow such injustice and humiliations, as we were forced to go through, to happen again.
With best wishes for a peaceful life
M.F. Blyumova
„Sosnovoborsk Newspaper“, N° 47 (249), 04.12.2008