The inventory of old jails, inherited from the Romanov dynasty, was, of necessity, looked after, remodeled, strengthened, and perfected. Certain central prisons, like the one in Yaroslavl, were so well and suitably appointed (doors plated with iron; table, stool, and cot permanently anchored in each cell) that the only thing required to bring them up to date was the installation of “muzzles” on the windows and the fencing in of the courtyards where the prisoners walked in order to reduce them to the size of a cell (by 1937 all the trees on prison grounds had been cut down, all vegetable gardens plowed under, and all grassy areas paved with asphalt). Others, like the one in Suzdal, required new equipment, and the monastery arrangement had to be remodeled, but, after all, self-incarceration of a body in a monastery and its incarceration in a prison by the state serve physically similar purposes, and therefore the buildings were always easy to adapt. One of the buildings of the Sukhanovka Monastery was adapted for use as a prison for long-termers. Of course, it was also necessary to make up for losses from the Tsarist inventory: the conversion of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad and of Schlüsselburg near Leningrad into museums for tourists. The Vladimir Central Prison was expanded and added to—with a big new building constructed under Yezhov. It was heavily used and garnered many prisoners over those decades. We have already mentioned how the Tobolsk Central Prison was inaugurated, and that Verkhne-Uralsk was opened in 1925 for continuous and abundant use. (To our misfortune, all these isolators are still in use and are in operation at the moment these lines are being written.) From Tvardovsky’s poem “Distance Beyond Distance” one can draw the conclusion that the Aleksandrovsk Central Prison wasn’t empty in Stalin’s time either. We have less information about the one in Orel: it is feared that it suffered serious damage during World War II. But not far from it was the well-equipped prison for long-termers in Dmitrovsk-Or-lovsky.
During the twenties the prisoner’s food was very decent in the isolators for politicals (still called “politizakrytki”—“political lock-ups”—by the prisoners): the lunches always included some meat; fresh vegetables were served; milk could be bought in the commissary. In 1931–1933 the food deteriorated sharply, but things were no better out in freedom at that time. Both scurvy and dizziness from lack of food were no rarity in the prisons for politicals in those years. Later on the food improved, but it was never the same as before. In 1947, in the Vladimir TON, I. Korneyev was constantly hungry: one pound of bread, two pieces of sugar, two hot dishes which were not at all filling; the only thing available in unlimited quantities was boiling water. (It will, of course, be said once more that this was not a typical year and there was hunger outside in freedom, too, at the time. This was when they generously allowed freedom to feed prison: unlimited parcels were permitted.) The light in cells was always “rationed,” so to speak, in both the thirties and the forties: the “muzzles” on the windows and the frosted reinforced glass created a permanent twilight in the cells (darkness is an important factor in causing depression). They often stretched netting above the window “muzzle,” and in the winter it was covered with snow, which cut off this last access to the light. Reading became no more than a way of ruining one’s eyes. In the Vladimir TON, they made up for this lack of light at night: bright electric lights burned all night long, preventing sleep. And in the Dmitrovsk Prison in 1938 (N. A. Kozyrev), there was light in the evenings and at night—a kerosene lamp on a little shelf way up near the ceiling, that burned away and smoked up the last air; in 1939 there were electric lights that glowed red at half-voltage. Air was “rationed” too. The hinged panes for ventilation were kept locked, and opened only during the interval of the prisoners’ trip to the toilet, as prisoners recall from both Dmitrovsk and Yaroslavl prisons. (Y. Ginzburg: The bread grew moldy between morning and lunchtime; the sheets were damp, and the walls green.) In Vladimir in 1948 there was no lack of air, because the transom was open permanently. Walks outdoors ranged from fifteen to forty-five minutes at various hours in various prisons. There was no such thing as the communication with the soil that had existed in Schlüsselburg or Solovki; everything that grew had been torn up by the roots, trampled, covered with concrete and asphalt. They even forbade lifting up one’s head to the heavens during the walks: “Look at your feet!” This was the command both Kozyrev and Adamova remember from the Kazan Prison. Visits from relatives were forbidden in 1937 and never renewed. Letters could be sent to close relatives twice a month and could be received from them in most years. (But in Kazan they had to be returned to the administration the day after they had been read.) Access to the commissary to make purchases with the money sent in specifically limited amounts was usually permitted. Furniture was no unimportant part of the prison regimen. Adamova wrote eloquently of her happiness at finding a simple wooden cot with a straw mattress and a simple wooden table in her cell in Suzdal, after having had only cots that folded into the wall and chairs anchored to the floor. In the Vladimir TON, I. Korneyev experienced two different prison regimens: Under one, in 1947–1948, personal articles were not removed from the cell; one could lie down during the day; and the turnkey very seldom looked through the peephole. But under the other, in 1949–1953, the cell was locked with two locks (the responsibility of the turnkey and duty officer respectively); one was forbidden to lie down, forbidden to talk in a normal voice (in Kazan, only in a whisper); personal articles were all taken away; a uniform of striped mattress ticking was issued; correspondence was permitted only twice a year and only on those days announced without warning by the chief of the prison (anyone who missed that day couldn’t write), and only a sheet of paper half the size of a postal sheet could be used; violent searches and unscheduled visits were frequent, requiring the complete turning out of one’s belongings and undressing down to one’s skin. Communication between cells was prohibited to such an extent that the jailers went through the toilets with a portable lantern after each toilet visit and searched in each hole. The entire cell would get punishment cells for graffiti in the toilets. The punishment cells were a scourge in the Special Purpose Prisons. One could get into a punishment cell for coughing. (“Cover your head with your blanket. Then you can cough!”) Or for walking around the cell (Kozyrev: “It was considered to be rebellious”); for the noise made by one’s shoes. (In the Kazan Prison women had been issued men’s shoes that were much too large for women’s feet—size 10½.) Incidentally, Ginzburg was correct in concluding that periods in a punishment cell were meted out not for any particular misdemeanor but according to a schedule: every prisoner was required to spend some time there in order to learn what it was like. And the rules included another generally applicable point: “In the event of any display of unruliness in a punishment cell [?], the chief of the prison has the right to extend the term of incarceration there to twenty days.” Just what was meant by unruliness? Here’s what happened to Kozyrev. (The descriptions of the punishment cell and much else in the prison regimen tally to such an extent among all sources that the stamp of a single system of administrative rules can be detected.) He was given another five days in the punishment cell for pacing back and forth. In the autumn, the building containing the punishment cells was unheated, and it was very cold. They forced prisoners to undress down to their underwear and to take off their shoes. The floor was bare earth and dust (it might be wet dirt; and in the Kazan Prison it might even be covered with water). Kozyrev had a stool in his. (Ginzburg had none in hers.) He immediately concluded that he would perish, that he would freeze to death. But some kind of mysterious inner warmth gradually made itself felt, and it was his salvation. He learned to sleep sitting on his stool. They gave him a mug of hot water three times a day; it made him drunk. One of the duty officers, in violation of the rules, pressed a piece of sugar into his ten-and-a-half-ounce bread ration. On the basis of the rations issued him, and by observing the light from some faraway, tiny, labyrinthine window, Kozyrev kept count of the days. His five days had come to an end, but he had not been released. His sense
of hearing had become extremely acute and he heard whispers in the corridor—having to do with either “the sixth” or “six days.” This was a provocation: they were waiting for him to say that his five days were over and that it was time to let him out. That would have constituted unruliness, for which his stay in the punishment cell would have been prolonged. But he sat silent and obedient for another day, and then they let him out, just as if everything had been the way it was supposed to be. (Perhaps the chief of the prison used this method for testing all the prisoners in turn for submissiveness? And then he could sentence all those who weren’t yet submissive enough to further terms in the punishment cell.) After the punishment cell the ordinary cell seemed like a palace. Kozyrev became deaf for half a year, and he began to get abscesses in his throat. His cellmate went insane from frequent imprisonment in the punishment cell, and Kozyrev was kept locked up with an insane man for more than a year, with just the two of them there. (Nadezhda Surovtseva recalls many cases of insanity in political isolators—she herself recalls as many as Novorussky totaled up in the whole chronicle of Schlüsselburg.)
Does it not at this point seem to the reader that we have gradually, step by step, mounted to the very point, the peak, of the second horn—and that it is probably really higher than the first? And probably sharper too?
But opinions are divided. With one voice the old camp veterans consider the Vladimir TON of the fifties a resort. That is how Vladimir Borisovich Zeldovich, sent there from Abez Station, regarded it, and Anna Petrovna Skripnikova, who was sent there in 1956 from the Kemerovo camps. Skripnikova was particularly astonished at the regular dispatch, every ten days, of petitions and declarations (she even began to write, believe it or not, to the United Nations) and by the excellent library, including books in foreign languages: they used to bring the complete catalogue to the cell and you made out a list for a whole year ahead.
It is also necessary to keep in mind how elastic our law is: thousands of women (“wives”) were sentenced to prison, to tyurzak. And then one fine day someone whistled—and they were transferred to camps. (The Kolyma hadn’t fulfilled the gold plan.) And so they switched them, without any trial or any court.
In fact, does tyurzak actually exist at all, or is it only the vestibule for the camps?
* * *
And only here, right here, is where our chapter ought to have begun. It ought to have examined that glimmering light which, in time, the soul of the lonely prisoner begins to emit, like the halo of a saint. Torn from the hustle-bustle of everyday life in so absolute a degree that even counting the passing minutes puts him intimately in touch with the Universe, the lonely prisoner has to have been purged of every imperfection, of everything that has stirred and troubled him in his former life, that has prevented his muddied waters from settling into transparency. How gratefully his fingers reach out to feel and crumble the lumps of earth in the vegetable garden (but, alas, it is all asphalt). How his head rises of itself toward the Eternal Heavens (but, alas, this is forbidden). And how much touching attention the little bird on the window sill arouses in him (but, alas, there is that “muzzle” there, and the netting as well, and the hinged ventilation pane is locked). And what clear thoughts, what sometimes surprising conclusions, he writes down on the paper issued him (but, alas, only if you buy it in the commissary, and only if you turn it in to the prison office when you have used it up—for eternal safekeeping . . .).
But our peevish qualifications somehow interrupt our line of thought. The plan of our chapter creaks and cracks, and we no longer know the answer to the question: Is the soul of a person in the New Type Prison, in the Special Purpose Prison (the TON), purified or does it perish once and for all?
If the first thing you see each and every morning is the eyes of your cellmate who has gone insane, how then shall you save yourself during the coming day? Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, whose brilliant career in astronomy was interrupted by his arrest, saved himself only by thinking of the eternal and infinite: of the order of the Universe—and of its Supreme Spirit; of the stars; of their internal state; and what Time and the passing of Time really are.
And in this way he began to discover a new field in physics. And only in this way did he succeed in surviving in the Dmitrovsk Prison. But his line of mental exploration was blocked by forgotten figures. He could not build any further—he had to have a lot of figures. Now just where could he get them in his solitary-confinement cell with its overnight kerosene lamp, a cell into which not even a little bird could enter? And the scientist prayed: “Please, God! I have done everything I could. Please help me! Please help me continue!”
At this time he was entitled to receive one book every ten days (by then he was alone in the cell). In the meager prison library were several different editions of Demyan Bedny’s Red Concert, which kept coming around to each cell again and again. Half an hour passed after his prayer; they came to exchange his book; and as usual, without asking anything at all, they pushed a book at him. It was entitled A Course in Astrophysics! Where had it come from? He simply could not imagine such a book in the prison library. Aware of the brief duration of this coincidence, Kozyrev threw himself on it and began to memorize everything he needed immediately, and everything he might need later on. In all, just two days had passed, and he had eight days left in which to keep his book, when there was an unscheduled inspection by the chief of the prison. His eagle eye noticed immediately. “But you are an astronomer?” “Yes.” “Take this book away from him!” But its mystical arrival had opened the way for his further work, which he then continued in the camp in Norilsk.
And so now we should begin the chapter on the conflict between the soul and the bars.
But what is this? The jailer’s key is rattling brazenly in the lock. The gloomy block superintendent is there with a long list. “Last name, first name, patronymic? Date of birth? Article of the Code? Term? End of term? Get your things together. Be quick about it!”
Well, brothers, a prisoner transport! A prisoner transport! We’re off to somewhere! Good Lord, bless us! Shall we gather up our bones?
Well, here’s what: If we are still alive, then we’ll finish this story another time. In Part IV. If we are still alive . . .
END OF PART I
Part II
Perpetual Motion
And then we see it in the wheels,
the wheels!
Which never like to rest,
the wheels! . . .
How heavy are the stones themselves,
the millstones!
They dance in merry ranks . . .
the millstones!
W. MÜLLER
Viktor Petrovich Pokrovsky
Aleksandr Shtrobinder
Vasily Ivanovich Anichkov
Aleksandr Andreyevich Svechin
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Reformatsky
Yelizaveta Yevgenyevna Anichkova
Chapter 1
The Ships of the Archipelago
Scattered from the Bering Strait almost to the Bosporus are thousands of islands of the spellbound Archipelago. They are invisible, but they exist. And the invisible slaves of the Archipelago, who have substance, weight, and volume, have to be transported from island to island just as invisibly and uninterruptedly.
And by what means are they to be transported? On what?
Great ports exist for this purpose—transit prisons; and smaller ports—camp transit points. Sealed steel ships also exist: railroad cars especially christened zak cars (“prisoner cars”). And out at the anchorages, they are met by similarly sealed, versatile Black Marias rather than by sloops and cutters. The zak cars move along on regular schedules. And, whenever necessary, whole caravans—trains of red cattle cars—are sent from port to port along the routes of the Archipelago.
All this is a thoroughly developed system! It was created over dozens of years—not hastily. Well-fed, uniformed, unhurried people created it. The Kineshma convoy waits at the Moscow Northern Station at 1700 hours on
odd-numbered days to accept Black Marias from the Butyrki, Krasnaya Presnya, and Taganka prisons. The Ivanovo convoy has to arrive at the station at 0600 hours on even-numbered days to receive and hold in custody transit prisoners for Nerekhta, Bezhetsk, and Bologoye.
All this is happening right next to you, you can almost touch it, but it’s invisible (and you can shut your eyes to it too). At the big stations the loading and unloading of the dirty faces takes place far, far from the passenger platform and is seen only by switchmen and roadbed inspectors. At smaller stations a blind alleyway between two warehouses is preferred, into which the Black Marias can back so that their steps are flush with the steps of the zak car. The convict doesn’t have time to look at the station, to see you, or to look up and down the train. He gets to look only at the steps. (And sometimes the lower step is waist-high, and he hasn’t the strength to climb up on it.) And the convoy guards, who have blocked off the narrow crossing from the Black Maria to the zak car, growl and snarl: “Quick, quick! Come on, come on!” And maybe even brandish their bayonets.
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1 Page 55
