“You share, Russian, female share!
Hardly harder to find…”
N.A. Nekrasov

“In 1937 I lived in Novosibirsk. She worked at the Bolshevik factory as an upholsterer. At the beginning of that year, my daughter was born. My husband and I were happy and could not get enough of our first child. But on July 28, two men came to our apartment. At this time, I was going to breastfeed my baby. They said that they were calling me to the authorities for ten minutes and ordered me to hurry. I gave my daughter to my niece and went with them, hoping to return soon ...

I spent more than an hour at the police station. I knew that my baby was hungry, screaming, and asked the policemen to let me go for a while to feed the baby. But they didn't even listen to me. The police kept me until late, and at night they took me to prison. This is how my little daughter was left without mother's milk, and I no longer managed to experience the wonderful motherly joy. I could not imagine why such cruelty to me and to my child. How can it be so inhumane to break a single whole - a mother and a child ... ”

These are lines from the memoirs of Vera Mikhailovna Lazutkina. A woman who spent eight years behind barbed wire. Never. Simply because the local Bolshevik authorities needed to put a tick in the implementation of the plan to “reveal the enemies of the people”.

Studying the materials on the topic “Gulag women”, I experienced a real shock. Before me appeared the true guise of Bolshevism, which, it turns out, I had a rather superficial idea. I saw how hard and uncompromisingly Satan with a star in his forehead took up arms against WOMEN (mostly Slavs). Why, this will be discussed below.

FOR WHAT?

From the very first days of coming to power, the Bolsheviks decided to immediately “kill two birds with one stone”: to wrest from among the people the most honest, conscientious and smart people(because it is much easier for the “cattle” to instill any, even the most insane, ideology into the brains), and at the same time create a free labor force out of them. They used the slightest pretext, which was then blown up to “counter-revolutionary activity”.

At first, at the dawn of Soviet power, this mainly concerned the male population of the country (since a man is more capable of organized resistance to the regime). But by the mid-1930s, the Bolshevik authorities were alarmed. She realized that her enemy to a greater extent than a man is a woman! For the simple reason that her worldview, her character, nurtured for the most part by the Orthodox way of life, is much more difficult to change than that of men. For a woman perceives the surrounding reality not so much with her mind as with her heart. And if a man, with the help of such a “science” as Marxism-Leninism, could be convinced of the justification of the forcible selection of bread from the peasants, the suppression of dissent and numerous executions of representatives of the “exploiting” classes, then a woman, especially a Christian, prone to mercy and forgiveness, such did not accept arguments. And apparently never would. Thus, the Soviet authorities began to sort their opponents not only by class, but also by gender. And first of all, women fell under the blow of the Bolsheviks - relatives and friends of those who clearly needed to be destroyed or isolated from the bulk of people who were being turned into “cogs”. It was for women that such formulations of the criminal status as a family member of an enemy of the people (ChSVN), a family member of a traitor to the motherland (ChSIR), a socially dangerous element (SOE), a socially harmful element (SVE), connections leading to suspicion of espionage (SVPSH), etc.

INTERROGATION

“In the center of the office, a thin and already middle-aged woman. As soon as she tries to touch the back of the chair, she immediately receives a blow and a loud cry. However, you can not lean not only back, but also forward. So she sits for several days, day and night without sleep. NKVD investigators change, and she sits, having lost track of time. They force her to sign a protocol stating that she is a member of a right-wing Trotskyist, Japanese-German sabotage counter-revolutionary organization. Nadia (that's the woman's name) doesn't sign. Young investigators, having fun, make mouthpieces out of paper and shout to her from two sides, pressing the mouthpieces to her ears: “Give evidence, give evidence!” and mate, mate, mate. They damaged Nadezhda's eardrum, she became deaf in one ear. The protocol remains unsigned. What else can affect a woman? Oh yes, she's a mother. “If you don’t testify, we will arrest the children.” This threat broke her, the protocol was signed. It's not enough for the torturers. “Name who you managed to recruit into the counter-revolutionary organization.” But to betray her friends!.. No, she couldn’t… No more evidence was received from her…”

THING

When convicts are brought to the camp, they are sent to the bathhouse, where women who are naked are treated like a commodity. Whether there will be water in the bath or not, but an inspection “for lice” is required. Then the men - camp workers - stand on the sides of a narrow corridor, and the newly arrived women are allowed naked along this corridor. Not all at once, but one at a time. Then it is decided between the men who takes whom…” (from the memoirs of Gulag prisoners).

And - a huge sign at the entrance to the camp: “Who was not - he will be! Who was - will not forget!

SKOT

Coercion of female prisoners to cohabitation was a common thing in the Gulag.

“For the headman of the Kemsky camp, Chistyakov, the women not only cooked dinner and polished their shoes, but even washed it. For this, the youngest and most attractive women were usually selected ... In general, all of them on Solovki were divided into three categories: “ruble”, “half-ruble” and “fifteen-penny” (“five-alty”). If anyone from the camp administration asked for a young, pretty convict from among the new arrivals, he would say to the guard: “Bring me a ruble…

Each security officer on Solovki had from three to five concubines at the same time. Toropov, who in 1924 was appointed assistant to the Kemsky commandant for the economic part, established in the camp real harem, constantly replenished according to his taste and order. From among the prisoners, 25 women were selected daily to serve the Red Army soldiers of the 95th division, which guarded Solovki. It was said that the soldiers were so lazy that the prisoners even had to make their beds...

A woman who refused to be a concubine was automatically deprived of an “improved” ration. And very soon she died of dystrophy or tuberculosis. On Solovetsky Island, such cases were especially frequent. There was not enough bread for the whole winter. Until navigation began and new supplies of food were not brought in, the already meager rations were cut almost by half ... ”(Shiryaev Boris. An unquenchable lamp.)

When violence ran into resistance, those in power avenged their victims with more than starvation.

“Once a very attractive girl was sent to Solovki - a Polish girl of about seventeen. Which had the misfortune to attract the attention of Toropov. But she had the courage to refuse his harassment. In retaliation, Toropov ordered her to be brought to the commandant’s office and, putting forward a false version of “concealing counter-revolutionary documents”, stripped naked and in the presence of all camp guards carefully felt the body in those places where, as he said, it was best to hide the documents ...

In one of February days several drunken guards led by Chekist Popov entered the women's barracks. He unceremoniously threw off the blanket from the prisoner, who once belonged to the highest circles of society, dragged her out of bed, and the woman was raped in turn by each of those who entered ... ”(Malsagov Sozerko. Infernal Islands: Sov. prison in the far North.)

"MUMS"

So in the camp slang they called women who gave birth to a child in prison. Their fate was unenviable. Here are the memories of one of the former prisoners:

“In 1929, on the Solovetsky Island, I worked at an agricultural camp. And then one day they drove past us “mothers”. On the way, one of them fell ill; and since it was evening, the convoy decided to spend the night at our camp. They put these "mothers" in the bath. No bed was provided. It was terrible to look at these women and their children: thin, in tattered dirty clothes, apparently hungry. I say to one criminal who worked there as a cattleman:

Listen, Grisha, you work alongside milkmaids. Go and get some milk from them, and I will ask the guys what they have from the products.

While I was walking around the barracks, Grigory brought some milk. The women began to drink it to their babies... Afterwards, they heartily thanked us for the milk and bread. We gave the escort two packs of shag for allowing us to do a good deed... Then we learned that all these women and their children, who were taken to Anzer Island, died of starvation there...” (Zinkovshchuk Andrei. Prisoners of the Solovetsky camps. Chelyabinsk. Newspaper. 1993,. 47.)

CAMP LIFE AND HARD LABOR

“From the club we were driven by stage to the Orlovo-Rozovo camp. They settled in dugouts dug out in haste. Instead of a bed, they were given an armful of straw. We slept on it ... And when we were moved to the barracks, the camp "morons" (servants, foremen and foremen - V.K.), and with them the criminals began to raid us. They beat, raped, took away the last thing that was left ... ”(from the memoirs of V.M. Lazutkina).

Most of the Gulag prisoners died from overwork, disease and hunger. And the hunger was terrible.

“... prisoners - rotten cod, salted or dried; thin gruel with barley or millet groats without potatoes ... And now - scurvy, and even “clerical companies” in abscesses, and only general ones ... “Stages on all fours” are returning from long-distance business trips - and they crawl from the pier on four legs ...”(Nina Struzhinskaya. For land and freedom. Belorusskaya Gazeta, Minsk, 06/28/1999)
About camp work.

“With the onset of spring, they began to withdraw us from the zone under escort to field work. They dug with shovels, harrowed, sowed, planted potatoes. All work was done by hand. So our women's hands were all the time in bloody calluses. It was dangerous to fall behind. The menacing cry of the convoy, the kicks of the “morons” forced them to work with their last strength ... ”(from the memoirs of Lazutkina V.M.).

Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago contains the words of one of the Yakut prisoners: “at work, it was sometimes impossible to distinguish women from men. They are sexless, they are robots, wrapped almost to the eyes in some kind of rags, in wadded trousers, rag coats, in malachians pulled down over their eyes, with faces - in black marks of frost ... "

And further: “from Kem to the west across the swamps, the prisoners began to lay the earth Kem-Ukhta tract, which was once considered almost impossible. In the summer they drowned, in the winter they stiffened. The Solovites were terribly afraid of this road, and for a long time, for the slightest offense, a threat rumbled over each of us: “What? Did you want to go to Ukhta? ..

The length of the working day was determined by the plan (“lesson”). The working day ended when the plan was fulfilled; and if not fulfilled, then there was no return under the roof ... "

SPIRIT HEIGHT

Among the political prisoners there were people, looking at whom, the prisoners remembered what a person is and what he is called to in this world. Here is an excerpt from the story of a former convict about one “unknown baroness”:

“Immediately upon arrival, the baroness was assigned to the “bricks”. One can imagine how difficult it was for her in her seventies to carry a two-pound load ...

The past, elegant and refined, stood out in every movement of the old lady-in-waiting, in every sound of her voice. She could not hide it if she wanted to... She remained an aristocrat in the best, true sense of the word; and in the Solovetsky Zhenbarak, sometimes amid obscene abuse and in the chaos of brawls, she was the same as they saw her in the palace. She did not fence herself off from the rest, did not show even a shadow of that arrogance with which false aristocracy invariably sins. Having become a convict, she recognized herself as such and accepted her fate as a cross that must be carried without murmuring and tears ...

... Without showing her undoubted fatigue, she worked on until the end of the day; and in the evening, as always, she prayed for a long time, kneeling before a small icon...

Soon she was appointed to more light work- wash the floors in the barracks ...

... When a terrible epidemic of typhus broke out, sisters of mercy or those who could replace them were urgently needed. The head of the USLON medical unit, M.V. Feldman, did not want appointments for this “mortal” work. She came to the zhenbarak and, having gathered its inhabitants, began to persuade them to go voluntarily, promising a salary and a good ration.

Doesn't anyone want to help the sick and dying?

I want, - I heard from the stove.

Are you literate?

Do you know how to use a thermometer?

I can. I worked for three years as a surgical nurse in the Tsarskoye Selo infirmary...

M.V. Feldman later said that the baroness was appointed as the elder sister, but she carried the work on an equal basis with others. Hands were missing. The work was very hard, as the patients lay side by side on the floor and the bedding under them was replaced by the sisters, who raked out the shavings soaked with sewage with their hands. scary place there was this bar.

Solovetsky concentration camp in the monastery. 1922–1939 Facts - speculation - "buckets". Review of the memories of Solovki by Solovki. Rozanov Mikhail Mikhailovich

Chapter 1

Dolyushka female

And on Solovki, as usual everywhere in places of isolation, communication between imprisoned men and women was forbidden, especially physical, sexual communication. For the latter, they could send and sent men even to Sekirka, and women to Zaichiki or Kondostrov, if those caught at the scene of the crime did not have the proper “weight” on the island. In the early years of Solovkov in the Kremlin, before being promoted to the head of Kondostrov, a certain Raiva distinguished himself and became famous in the field of exterminating this “evil”.

“The exiled Chekist Raiva was the approved from above persecutor of love in the Solovetsky Kremlin, its Torquemada and the tireless hunter for (concentration camp) Romeo and Juliet. His figure in a long cavalry overcoat with a dirty cavalry cap on his head was known to everyone, ”wrote Shiryaev (p. 91). For the sake of truth, we must immediately declare in full voice that Raiva and others, vested with power for this, were engaged in catching only those who could not count on strong protection, that is, ordinary Solovki and Solovki women. Zaitsev (p. 112), confirming this, adds that “the vast majority of ordinary prisoners do not have the opportunity to meet, and besides, they are all absolutely unloving.” Some couples met at risk and agreed, at risk they quickly hid for a few minutes, and like courtyards along Saltykov-Shchedrin, with apprehension "lusted and satiated, scattered." Shiryaev damnably prints (pp. 331 and 341) how he and Glubokovsky at night at the Onufriev cemetery behind the Kremlin allegedly watched a similar scene performed by a couple under the lid of an “honorary coffin”, in the so-called “bus” for individual funerals by friends. With all the bestial view of “love” and among the “carriage prostitutes”, who abounded in Solovki at the beginning, and among the inveterate disgusting small-grass punks, it’s still hard to believe that a couple of such offspring climbed into a coffin soaked in the decay of many corpses that had been in it ... The trouble with these writers. It is interesting to read such people, but doubt gnaws ... especially those who themselves visited those places and those years. And by the way, why not allow one single such case in the entire history of the Soviet Solovki? We believe that in Solovki, refusers were tied to shafts (more precisely, to sledges), and horses driven by an escort dragged them into the forest. It was, I think, in 1924 once or twice with punks. So I heard from a crook on the mainland in 1930. But this is given to our topic about women only in order to note the exclusivity of such cases. Out of the ordinary events took place, are taking place and will take place in all places of detention in all countries, but only in the Soviet press about Soviet similar events will never write.

At the beginning, in 1923-1927, out of a hundred Solovki women, 60-65 percent were professional prostitutes of various calibers, from whom the GPU unloaded the capitals, 10-15 percent were criminals of all stripes and the wives of red merchants - Nepmen, and the rest, that is, 20 -30 percent - kaerki: wives of military men, dignitaries, diplomats, landowners, aristocrats, merchants and just peasant women exiled here for the executed husbands and fathers who fought against the Bolsheviks. According to Malsagov (p. 132), in the Solovetsky camp in 1925 there were 600 imprisoned women, of whom he attributes three-quarters to criminals officially exiled for prostitution. Hunters think not by percentages, but by heads, it can be reported that at first there were up to 400 women on the island, by 1927 - up to 600 and later, by the thirties - up to 800, but their number never reached ten percent of the entire population of the island .

At first, almost all women were accommodated in the women's barracks or building, the former Arkhangelsk hotel or a hospice for pilgrims, and only a fined part of them - on Anzer and Zayatsky Island. Then, from the summer of 1925, after the removal from the island of the political - Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Anarchists - some of the women were resettled in Savvatyevo and Muksalma for use in agricultural work: in cattle yards and vegetable gardens. Zaitsev recalls (p. 11):

“The head of the Savvatiev branch was Chekist Kuchma. Returning at night from the Kremlin drunk, he went to check the zhenbarak with the duty officer and camp warden Osnova. They went to admire the sleeping women, mostly kaerok. They woke them up, sat down on the bed with them ... All the girls of easy virtue woke up, gathered half-naked around the authorities and petty-scurrilous conversations began ... "

The most desperate prostitutes who protested against lawless arrests, the camp regime, did not work and, in addition, spread venereal diseases, were transferred from the women's corps to Anzer and locked in some kind of barn or warehouse, putting them on a penal ration. Shiryaev (p. 344, 345), who visited them in the autumn of 1924, in his words, as an educator, conveys such terrible details about the situation of these fiends that it is hard to believe. True, they took such people in the capitals without any formalities from apartments and streets, “without clothes”, but in Solovki then they didn’t cover anyone with anything, except perhaps out of pity - with a bag. They came to the island like this: on top of a mantle, under it - naked. Protesting, even at Kemperpunkt in 1924 they did not come up with anything better (see Malsagova, p. 133), how to go en masse to the bathhouse through the camp, in which the mother gave birth. Over the years, we know, the gepeushniks and NKVDists tamed and reduced this "sexual freemen": some were driven into the graves, others were bridled, humbled and released to bend their backs on the red corvée.

Here mixed with them and lived on Solovki kaerki. Not all, of course, but the least fortunate, if that word fits here. To the “lucky” I include those who, by camp standards, had a chance to serve their sentences tolerably: those who ended up attached in the theater, in the SOK, e, in the infirmary, in offices, in the families of the military authorities as governesses, cooks, teachers of children, and there were such not a little. They usually lived in rooms on the second floor, so to speak, in their little world. The rest of the kaerki, mostly peasant women and less fortunate and more obstinate and proud intellectuals, breathed the same air as prostitutes and thieves, saturated with obscenities, obscenities and din. Zaitsev assigned them a separate chapter NIGHTMARE FOR THE KAEROK (pp. 109-116), from which we now give excerpts, preserving his special style of presentation:

“Several couples were also kept on Solovki, for the most part from a military environment. They were allowed visits for one hour once a month at the duty room. Husbands often returned from a date with darkened faces, having heard from their wives about the conditions in which they have to live in a society of prostitutes who do not give them rest day or night ... , indignant at their excesses ... All these walking girls are infected with venereal diseases ... and you have to eat with them from common tanks ... You can’t list all the hardships from living together ... After laying to bed, voluptuous nymphomaniacs from among cheerful ladies come to light - and there are more than half of them in the zhenbarak - and in pairs they begin to perform the techniques of a same-sex love affair ... Imagine the state of mind at these hours among intelligent prisoners, especially elderly and respectable ones ... Such facts are repeated quite often ... Often, orders were announced to us on verification, in which there were such paragraphs: T. will be arrested for 14 days for a same-sex affair.” These are such constant voluptuous nymphomaniacs that they exhausted the entire cell with their behavior, which they brought to the attention of the administration.

A year, maybe two years later, Andreev (p. 80) seems to confirm Zaitsev's story about lesbians, citing the following episode:

“... In this cell (in the zhenbarak) lived: the fiery red-haired Clara Ridel, Alisa Krotova, the former mistress of the former Japanese envoy and Rimma Protasova, the same Protasova who in Solovki ... founded the order of love, which once flourished on one of the islands Aegean Sea. The order did not last long: the authorities immediately found out about it, and an investigation was launched against Protasova. The head of the medical unit (Then he was the free M.V. Feldman, the wife of a member of the OGPU collegium, according to Shiryaev - see p. 285 - “Communist, atheist, passionate, impenitent Magdalena”, about whom the memory, as a good boss, reached us, the Solovki of the thirties). Feldman, having received the case for a medical opinion, imposed a brief but strong resolution on it: “You can’t trample against nature.” The case was closed."

Neither the strictness of the authorities, nor the zeal of every Rave could eradicate the camp cupids. They only vulgarized "amurism" and improved its cunning and dexterity. Solovki, who had sinned against the ban on love, or, more simply, sexual needs, were routinely relocated to a women's penal camp on Zayatsky Island. There, they were first led by a certain Gusin, allegedly a prominent figure in the Crimean Cheka under Bela Kun (Klinger, p. 190), and then, from 1926, by a seventy-year-old Jew, accountant of the Cheka Margulis (Shiryaev, p. 15). Together with unfertilized sinners, pregnant women also got there. The regime on the Zaichiki was strict, men - a rolling ball, rations - a penalty, the place was bare, the whole island with a chapel, in full view. That is why those who became pregnant, remained in the barracks, but were not caught, hid their condition until the very last day. And when there was nowhere to go, almost on demolition - they "announced", that is, they admitted to being pregnant. Those from the Zhenbarak were sent not to Zaichiki, but to Anzer. There, on Golgotha, they gave birth and breast-fed Solovki babies “in relatively tolerable conditions at light work”, lived in the main building and received the status of “mothers” (Shiryaev, p. 344).

Klinger paints the position of the “mothers” in much darker colors (p. 190):

“By raping kaerki and criminals with impunity, infecting them and making them mothers, the Chekists place their guilt on forced prisoners. Now, after giving birth, babies are taken away from their mothers, and they are sent to Zaichiki, where it is no better than on Sekirka. There, Chekist Gusin from Crimea mocks them, driving them to madness and suicide.

Klinger missed talking about the fate of the babies. But even more monstrous news about the years 1927-1929 is presented to readers by Kiselev himself, authorized by ISO (pp. 98, 99):

“I saw 350 “mothers” at Anzer on Golgotha, all in dirty potato sacks with holes for their heads and hands, and in bast shoes for their bare feet. Babies receive a liter of milk per week, "mothers" - 300 gr. bread and twice a day dirty water in which millet was boiled. In desperation, many "mothers" kill their children and throw them into the forest or into the latrine, and commit suicide themselves. For infanticide, they are exiled to Zaichiki for one year, but usually they are sent to penal work a month later so that they do not sit idle. The question is, how many weeks can “mothers” and children live on such a diet “in a cold huge church with one stove, lying on spruce branches”? After all, these children, when they grew up, were taken to orphanages. From there, a few years later, some of them were selected for special boarding schools of the GPU-NKVD, where they were trained to replace such Kiselev. He knew about it! A person is not lying in the rise! In general, each chronicler conveys about the living conditions of the fined Solovki women, in accordance with his way of thinking, and it turns out - "Who is in the forest, who is for firewood."

I do not presume to judge how over the edge intimidated Klinger in this area. One can only guess about this, recalling the above extract from Shiryaev. During the winter of 1931-32, I worked as a timekeeper at a brick factory two kilometers from the Kremlin. In the spring, on the way from there to the timber industry, I often met these “mothers” with their children aged from several months to 2–3 years on a walk. They were dressed in decent camp skirts and quilted jackets and did not look at all like Kiselev and Klinger described. But who especially touched my callous heart was the illegitimate, but actual fathers of these "flowers of life." God knows how they recognized their seed, but it was so gratifying to see "dads", in most of the respectable criminals, when they gave caramels to their children from their pockets, carefully blocked the ditch, arranging water mills on it or launching paper boats along the stream. And their camp wives stood side by side, and it was clear from their faces that they, too, rejoiced at such proof of loyalty to the camp ties. If the mothers lacked something to eat or clothes, the "dads", I'm sure, would not fail to get into the warehouses and stalls of the camp, and even safer - into the suitcases of intelligent fryers and Nepmen. Fathers - Chekists in these hours, I here, on the road, did not meet something. And in general, there were not so many “mothers” walking around, maybe thirty, no more than forty. And 350 "mothers" on Anzer, counted by Kiselev, could only be if all the Solovki women, except for the elderly and infertile, decided to give birth in a race ...

The ladies on a walk in the Kremlin square, spreading the smells of French perfume, have already been mentioned from the words of Sederholm in the chapter on the movie "Solovki". About the artists detailed information received from Shiryaev. Now let's get acquainted with the kaerki in the Solovetsky offices, not in all - there are dozens of them. Andreev tells about them quite literally, in those years - 1927–1929 - an accountant of the financial and accounting department (pp. 47, 49, 50):

“Next to my desk, the beautiful blonde Valtseva, who was arrested before her marriage to a foreign consul, is tapping on a typewriter. Quiet, sad - life in it just stopped and froze. Her friend Anya Zotova often comes to her... Fat, red-cheeked... a mile away is full of health and cheerfulness from this anarchist, whose youth is spent in exile, prisons and concentration camps... Zotova, fooling around, turns over documents on the tables, along the way slaps me on the back with an account book, disturbs Valtseva, trying to cheer her up. Everyone loves Anya ... she is able to bring people comfort ”(There is an additional touch on this Zotova on page 64 of the first book. M. R.)

“... In the afternoon, at odd hours, I go to the office. In the office sits and cries Valtseva. - What happened, Lydia Petrovna? She drops her head in her hands and cries even harder... I run for water, clumsily soothing: - What is it?.. Drink some water... Well, what could happen?

Raising her head, she points to open door into the office of my boss Shevelev and, sobbing, interruptedly says: - He called me to work ... He called me into the office and attacked me. I broke free, shouted that I would run into the corridor and scream ... Then he left ... Sneaky sexot! ..

Twice I met Shevelev tall, interesting woman, the former owner of a large estate in the Tula province. Shevelev lived with her. But why did he offend Valtseva? After all, he could not help but know what grief he causes to her, who has not yet forgotten her love. But the last two words were more painful: it was known that Shevelev's well-being was based on his too loyal cooperation with the chief Solovki Chekist. With bitterness I recalled his own instruction to me: “Do not trust people!”..

Sometimes, - recalls Andreev - a little Austrian Maria, fragile, graceful, comes into our office. She barely babbles in Russian.

In Butyrki and at the stages, thieves and prostitutes taught Maria several obscene phrases, passing them off as a Russian greeting. On Solovki, in the cell of merry maidens, her vocabulary in this area was expanded even more, and for a long time afterwards she stunned the oncoming ones with harsh abuse, creating a false opinion about herself.

I don’t know if it’s by chance or not, but the situation of women on the island is described in equally gloomy and terrible colors, both by the white officer Klinger about the first years of open terror (1923–1925), and by the worker of the “organs” Kiselev, but about a later and not so terrible period (1927–1930). Here are some examples:

Klinger (p. 201):

“Chekists keep breaking into the women's building at night and doing unheard-of violence there. The head of the financial and accounting department, Sokolov (p. 176), a freeman, from bank accountants, not a Chekist and not a communist, forces all the young women who have arrived in Solovki to serve in his office and, in front of everyone, rapes them with impunity. The whole camp hates him more than the Chekists ... No better than Sokolov is the head of the Kremlin chancellery, Anfilov, a prisoner of officers (p. 171). Complaints about him raped even in Moscow remain without consequences ... "

Kiselev (p. 162):

“Small and medium Chekists in the 9th company (there are over a hundred of them, according to Klinger) openly take kaerok to their rooms and do whatever they want with them. They are silent so as not to get into the forest to certain death ... They eat in a civilian restaurant, and if in a company, then cooks prepare meals for them. One of them was Princess Gagarina… It has long been a rule for Chekists-guards to exchange “marukhs” (concubines), which they agree on in advance (p. 96)… And the ugly ones work in the forest, hauling logs and firewood (p. 95).”

General Zaitsev paints this part of the Solovetsky picture with less bold strokes (p. 112). Either he took pale colors, or Klinger and Kiselev painted with paint brushes, they say, do not be sorry, smear - our tar! ..

“... As for the exiled Chekists occupying senior positions,” explains Zaitsev, “they, unlike ordinary prisoners, satisfy their voluptuousness even too much. All this is done openly, everyone knows, only one authorities shows the appearance that they do not notice this, for they themselves are most criminal in this ... Taking advantage of their position, they attract prisoners for bodily pleasure. If some commanding type or employee in charge of dressing women for work (the head of the labor department - such was the womanizer Rediger) or supervising the zhenbarak - there are many bosses on Solovki - takes a fancy to some kaerka and leads an attack in order to achieve a love rapprochement, then the unfortunate moral kaerka finds itself in a very difficult situation.

Further on the whole page (113th) Zaitsev explains in detail how the “attack” is carried out and what are the consequences for the prisoner if she submits or resists the harassment. From this we can conclude that, nevertheless, they did not tear off the women's linen and did not leave them on the bed. Persuaded, bribed, intimidated - yes! But not everyone gave up.

“In my time,” confirms Zaitsev, “a very interesting and pretty young lady Putilova served her sentence on Solovki with her mother. There were many applicants for it. How much unfortunate she had to suffer and endure! .. Once I saw her working in the field. She was forced to shovel sewage from the latrines across the field. Will she have the courage and strength to maintain her purity to the end?.. I will cite another fact, which I also witnessed. During the liturgy in the cemetery church, when they sang “Praise the name of the Lord,” a loud, hysterical female cry was heard: “God! for what? why?” It was Nazhivina from Tsaritsyn. Her husband was shot, she was given ten years of Solovkov. At home, five children and none of their relatives were left unattended. And then, as they say, the Chekists infected her. Can you think of any more suffering for her?

So far, Zaitsev has been talking about "medium grade Chekists", those from the 9th company. But, according to him, there were also Solovki Don Juans: Eichmans himself, the heads of departments and supervision, the heads of the economy. - the commercial part of E. S. Barkov and A. I. Filimonov and others. Referring to the head of the Kremlin bath, the train driver L. A. Oleinikov, with whom he lived in the same cell under Sekirka, Zaitsev describes how this train driver arranged “bath orgies” for Eichmans himself. Interested in details? They are on page 114 ... It ends like this: “Some (prospective candidates. M.R.) had to be threatened with violence ... The bath, of course, was firmly locked; outside was guarded. Further uninteresting details follow ... "

From whom these “masseuses were involuntarily chosen,” Zaitsev does not write, but he says that, according to Oleinikov, they were shortened their sentences for this, which Zaitsev doubts. In vain. That's quite possible. Easier than leading an "attack" on a recalcitrant. Eichmans could not personally reduce anyone, even a prostitute, even for a day, to reduce the term (but he could send anyone and anyone to Sekirka for three months). The term was reduced or replaced by a reference by the Unloading Commission according to lists compiled by local authorities. Will the beginning of Eichmans refuse? EHF to include in them some Natalia P., "masseur" for "exemplary care of bulls." Who's going to find out the secrets there?!

Worse than Solovkov was for women Kemperpunkt with its first lessons of humility and fear, especially in the early years - in 1923-1925, when Gladkov and Kirillovsky were in charge there. Then, in addition to the categories of ability to work, women were also divided into categories according to their sexual attractiveness. The best were called "ruble", the worse - "fifty dollars", the most ice-cold - "five-ruble". The assistant commandant Toporov had a whole harem of “ruble” ones. He, according to Klinger (p. 210), supplied the Solovetsky authorities for the pleasure of selected "copies". When one day a seventeen-year-old Polish girl pushed a voluptuary away, Toporov undressed her with all the supervision and subjected her to a humiliating search, as if she had hidden secret documents.

No better, but even worse than Toporov was there in those same years, the Lagstarost from the Chekists Chistyakov ... well, yes, we will give a special page about him further. He deserved her...

From the book One Day in Ancient Rome. Everyday life, secrets and curiosities author Angela Alberto

7:10. Women's Fashion Unlike modern era male and women's clothing differ not so much. Women also wear robes. similar to tunics - st?ly (stolae), but longer, reaching to the feet. But these flowing clothes look like Greek chitons

From the book of Kumyka. History, culture, traditions author Atabaev Magomed Sultanmuradovich

Men's and women's clothing Light underwear men's clothing of the Kumyks was a long shirt - goylek and trousers - ishtan. They were sewn from simple cotton fabrics. Over the shirt - beshmet - kaptal. Beshmet sewed from dark matter- cotton, wool or silk.

From the book Eurasian Empire of the Scythians author Petukhov Yury Dmitrievich

Female Triglava In almost all Indo-European religious systems, the king of heaven, the God of Thunder, the lord of electricity, the "element of fire" had a wife who gave rain, the image of which was associated with the element of water and the Moon, "controlling" the tides; have similar functions

From the book On the agenda and on call [Non-cadre soldiers of the Second World War] author Mukhin Yury Ignatievich

The women's company On September 3, our rest ended, and the division began to advance in the direction of the Selishchi - Spasskaya Polist road, where it was supposed to replace the 65th Rifle Division, which was withdrawn into the reserve. Suddenly, the enemy, who was closely monitoring all our movements,

From the book Everyday Life of a Woman in Ancient Rome author Gurevich Daniel

Women's Charity One of the manifestations of the participation of Roman women in public life dates back to the era of Augustus, since it is associated with Italy and the provinces: in Rome, local charity was mainly imperial. In other cities it

From the book Great and unknown women Ancient Rus' author Morozova Lyudmila Evgenievna

Chapter 3. The female half of the family of Yaroslav the Wise Yaroslav the Wise was one of the sons of Princess Rogneda of Polotsk and Grand Duke Vladimir Svyatoslavich. In the general hierarchy of the sons of Vladimir, it is difficult to determine his place, since the prince had many wives with whom he lived

From the book Kremlin goats. Confession of Stalin's mistress author Davydova Vera Alexandrovna

WOMEN'S PRISON On November 7, the government organized a big reception in the Kremlin. Voroshilov did not leave my side the whole evening. He was annoying and persistent. Dancing with me, telling army jokes. Then, taking me to the far corner of St. George's Hall, he whispered: - Vera

author Zabelin Ivan Egorovich

CHAPTER I FEMALE PERSONALITY IN PRE-PETROVSK SOCIETY General features of the position of the female personality in pre-Petrine society. The judgment of Kotoshikhin and the judgment of idyllic researchers. root start ancient Russian society. Tribal life. Idyll of family and communal life. The meaning of gender and

From the book Home life of Russian queens in the 16th and 17th centuries author Zabelin Ivan Egorovich

CHAPTER III THE FEMALE PERSON IN THE POSITION OF THE QUEEN Special conditions of this position. Reasons for such conditions. Sovereign marriages. The history of the sovereign's brides. The calling of the queen's personality. We have seen that the Russian pre-Petrine century did not recognize the female personality

From the book The Great Terror. Book II author Conquest Robert

THE WOMEN'S PARENT A high percentage of women in the camps were criminals. Basically they were rude and shameless. True, there is a recollection of a criminal woman who, in public, even in a bathhouse, never took off her pantaloons: a tattoo on the lower part of her abdomen

From the book Petersburg women of the XVIII century author Pervushina Elena Vladimirovna

Women's clothing Of course, at assemblies and other kinds of ceremonial events, it was necessary to dress in European fashion. At first, the ladies of St. Petersburg did not do it very well, so Peter even had to issue a special decree that read:

From the book In the harem of the Son of Heaven. Wives and concubines of the Middle Kingdom author Usov Viktor Nikolaevich

Women's struggle for power As we have already seen, the emperor's concubines and favorites did not always play the exclusively role assigned to them in the chambers of the Son of Heaven. They actively fought for power, sought either to become empresses themselves, or to make their heirs to the throne.

From the book Field Marshal Rumyantsev author Petelin Viktor Vasilievich

Chapter 6 Women's lot What, it would seem, does not live quietly, calmly, like thousands eminent people? Economic wife, smart, caring, glorious sons, heirs of his count's name, successors of his kind, honor and respect from all those who surround him, who cooperate with him.

From the book God Save the Russians! author Yastrebov Andrey Leonidovich

From the book Report on Affairs in the Yucatan by de Landa Diego

From the book Daily Life of the French under Napoleon author Ivanov Andrey Yurievich

Women's agents "The devil spread his nets wide!" Bad places of the capital - the Palais Royal, the foyer of the Montansier theater (the young first consul did not close it for fear of angering old bachelors), the Italian Boulevard, squares, embankments, markets. At the end of 1799, Fouche announced

Solovki is a terrible, shameful page in history Soviet Union. Broken destinies, crippled souls. More than a million tortured people. Now it is customary to hush up the shameful moments of the country's past. But HistoryTime thinks otherwise, and therefore today we will talk about the most terrible prison in the USSR.

In the beginning there was an ELEPHANT. Do not rush to smirk at such a funny abbreviation. Many citizens of the Soviet Union were afraid of this word, like fire. And how not to be afraid, if it denoted a place from which they did not return? ELEPHANT - Solovetsky camp special purpose. Among the people - Solovki.

It was founded back in tsarist times - especially for the very first revolutionaries, members of the socialist parties. By the time they were imprisoned in the SLON, they were already hardened campers, but the Solovki amazed even them. Absolutely monstrous conditions, sophisticated mockery of the psyche and body ...

There were also criminals. But the most striking thing was that absolutely all the clergy were driven into this camp, which, after the ban on religion, continued to conduct services, give communion and profess the parish.

It is an unbearable torment to walk three of us through the swamp, holding in our hands a bow of a railroad bed weighing one hundred and sixty kilograms. By ten o'clock the three old men were completely exhausted. One of them, Kolokoltsov ... lay down on the ground with the words: “Better kill me! I can't do it anymore!..” Kolokoltsov died of a heart attack at about four o'clock in the morning.

In the second half of the 1930s, when the repressions reached their peak, many scientists, cultural figures, workers of the Comintern who were objectionable to the authorities were sent to Solovki ...

To understand what Solovki is, we can recall the concentration camps Nazi Germany. The Soviet camps, unfortunately, can be called their predecessors. Yes, there is clearly nothing to be proud of.

In desperation, many women kill their children and throw them into the forest or into the latrines, and then commit suicide themselves. "Mamoks" who kill their children are sent by the IDF to the women's punishment cell on the Hare Islands, five kilometers from Bolshoi Solovetsky Island.

Solovki became an "experimental" platform, where they developed the most sophisticated methods of punishment and interrogation, later used in the Gulag. Psychological pressure, physical torture, demonstrative executions... More than a million Soviet citizens passed through the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp from 1920 to 1939. Over a million! The vast majority, as they say, guilty without guilt, suffered from an unfair trial. Only a few hundred returned home. A few hundred out of a million...

People were shot during the day. Well, couldn't it be quiet at night? Why is it quiet? And then the bullet goes to waste. In daytime density, the bullet has educational value. She strikes like a dozen at a time.

They shot in another way - right at the Onufrievsky cemetery, behind the zhenbarak (a former hospice for pilgrims) - and that road past the zhenbarak was called that firing squad. One could see how, in winter, a man was led through the snow there barefoot in only his underwear (this is not for torture! This is so that shoes and uniforms do not disappear!) With his hands tied with wire behind his back - and the condemned proudly, straightly holds on with his lips alone, without help hands, smokes the last cigarette in his life.

In 1937, SLON was renamed STON - the Solovetsky Special Purpose Prison. And it really was a groan - a groan of the people suffering because of totalitarianism in their state.

In 1939, the history of STON was disbanded. Soviet citizens were allegedly given a sip fresh air... but it was immediately blocked. The chronicle began a new shameful page in Soviet history, and it became ...

To be continued…

Solovetsky polygon or
the first experiments in the creation of a concentration camp ...

Years of the USSR.

“The creators of the Solovetsky concentration camp intuitively felt that psychological torture could break a person, making him an obedient executor of the will of the executioner.

The author of the book "Ethics of the Unpronounceable", psychiatrist Beatriz Patsalides, is sure that the victim of torture gradually loses the sense of reality and loses the sense between the past, present and future. Doctor Shirley Spits (book "Psychology of Torture") claims that after torture a person goes into the world of hallucinations, the executioners seem to him some kind of unreal creatures - a source of pain and humiliation. Such people are always depressed and incapable of active resistance, even with a numerical superiority.

For the first time in the history of the camps, Solovetsky executioners began to create such an irrial atmosphere. Later, the German fascists took it into service (executions to the music of Chopin, flower beds of Auschwitz, "jubilee" executions, etc.). "( Alexander Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago". YMCA-PRESS, Paris, 1973.)

Several Chekists occupied the most responsible posts, and all other posts were occupied by former Chekist prisoners. The armed guards consisted of Red Army prisoners or Chekists (former, of course). The prisoners who held these posts sought to keep them at any cost, turning into murderers and sadists. "... the era of equality - and New Solovki! Self-protection of prisoners! Self-observation! Self-control! Company, platoon, detached - all from their midst."

The Solovetsky experience pointed to a trouble-free means of destroying the personality of prisoners, creating an environment of mistrust and fear. The entire camp should be "... layered with informers of the Information and Investigation Unit! It was the first and formidable force in the camp... At the Information and Investigation Unit - Sekirka, punishment cells, denunciations, personal files of prisoners, early releases and executions depended on them , they have censorship of letters and parcels." (A.I. Solzhenitsyn)

. Denunciation as "irrefutable evidence". Surveillance and informers in Solovki.

"But it seems that the first years of the Solovki and the working rut and the task of the hysterical lessons flashed in impulses, in passing anger, they had not yet become squeezing system, the country's economy has not yet relied on them, five-year plans have not yet been established. During the first years, SLON, apparently, did not have a solid external economic plan, and it did not really take into account how many man-days it takes to work in the camp itself. When does the working rut become thoughtful system, then dousing with water in the cold and putting it on stumps under mosquitoes turns out to be already redundant, an unnecessary waste of executioner forces.

From Kem to the west across the swamps, the prisoners began to lay the earth Kem-Ukhta tract, "which was once considered almost impossible." In the summer they drowned, in the winter they stiffened. The Solovites were terribly afraid of this road, and for a long time the threat rumbled over the Kremlin courtyard: “What? To Ukhta wanted?"

It is harder to believe another story: that on the Kem-Ukhta tract near the town of Kut in February 1929, a company of prisoners about a hundred people FOR FAILURE TO FULFILL THE NORMS WERE DELIVERED ON THE FIRE - AND THEY BURNED!

... the length of the working day was determined lesson- the working day ended when the lesson was completed, and if it was not completed, then there was no return under the roof.

"The real Solovki - in logging, in distant fields. But it is precisely about those distant deaf places that it is most difficult to find out anything now, because it was THAT people who did not survive. It is known that even then: in the fall they were not allowed to dry out; in winter deep snow did not dress, did not shoe; several hundred people were sent to unprepared uninhabited places.

They say that in December 1928 on Krasnaya Gorka (Karelia), prisoners were left to spend the night in the forest as a punishment (the lesson was not completed) - and 150 people froze to death. This is a common Solovki trick, you can't doubt it."

"On a business trip" Krasnaya Gorka ", in Solovki, there was a boss named Finkelstein. Once he put 34 people imprisoned on the ice of the White Sea at 30 degrees below zero for failing to do an unbearable "lesson" in logging. All 34 people had to amputate their frostbitten legs. Most of them died in the infirmary. A few months later I had to participate in a medical commission that testified to this Chekist. He turned out to be a severe psychoneurotic hysteric. " (Professor I.S. Bolshevism in the light of psychopathology. )

"That's why, with such ease, they could suddenly change meaningful chores into punishments: pour water from an ice hole into an ice hole, drag logs from one place to another and back. This was cruelty, yes, but also patriarchal."

“A commission went to Solovki, no longer Solts, but an investigative-punitive one. She figured it out and realized (with the help of the local ICH) that all the cruelties of the Solovetsky regime were from the White Guards (Admchast), and in general aristocrats, and partly from students (well, those the most, which since the last century set fire to Saint Petersburg ). Here is the unsuccessful absurd escape of Kozhevnikov (former minister of the Far Eastern Republic), who has gone mad, with Shepchinsky and Degtyarev the cowboy - the escape was fanned into a big fantastic conspiracy of the White Guards, as if they were going to seize the ship and sail away - and they began to grab, and although no one in he did not confess to that conspiracy, but the case was overgrown with arrests.

In total, they set the number "300". They took her. And on the night of October 15, 1929, having dispersed everyone and locked them in their rooms, the Holy Gates, usually locked, opened the way to the cemetery for short. They drove in parties all night. (And each party was accompanied by a desperate howl of the dog Black, tied up somewhere, suspecting that it was in this one that her owner Bagratuni was being led. strong wind were heard worse. This howl had such an effect on the executioners that the next day both Black and all the dogs were shot for Black.)

Those three morphine bastards, the head of the Guard, Degtyarev and ... the head of the Cultural and Educational Department, Uspensky, shot ... They shot drunk, inaccurately - and in the morning the big sprinkled pit was still stirring. Throughout October and into November, additional parties from the mainland were brought to be shot. (The whole cemetery was compared some time later by the prisoners to the music of the orchestra.)

Experience of "economic use"
killed: the second after Solovki - Auschwitz.

“Prisoners who have won favor with the administration by flattery and denunciation are sometimes issued from the “special stocks” of prisoner-style jackets; the rest of the mass of prisoners considers it happiness if they are given shoes and overcoats - to work (after work, things are handed back to the “clothing warehouse, that is, people must go naked during non-working hours). Things are given out a little more generously, clothes, and linen taken from .... those who were shot. Such uniforms are quite in large numbers it was brought to Solovki earlier from Arkhangelsk, and now from Moscow; usually it is heavily worn and covered in blood, since the Chekists remove all the best from the body of their victim immediately after the execution, and send the worst and bloodstained GPU to concentration camps. But even uniforms with traces of blood are very difficult to obtain, because the demand for them is gradually growing - with an increase in the number of prisoners (there are now more than 7 thousand of them in Solovki) and with the wear and tear of their clothes and shoes in the camp, more and more undressed and barefoot people. "

Experience Solovki - " rational use"material values, was successfully repeated by the SS in the Auschwitz concentration camp 20 years later. Its authors, or rather "plagiarists", were hanged by the decision of the international tremonial in Nuremberg as war criminals. The Solovetsky "pioneers" are buried on Red Square in Moscow in the mausoleum or at the Kremlin wall . (A. Klinger. Solovetsky penal servitude. Notes of a fugitive. Book. "Archive of Russian revolutions". Publishing house of G.V. Gessen. XIX. Berlin. 1928.)

Demonstration executions

“People were shot during the day. Well, it was impossible at night, it was quiet? And why is it quiet? - then the bullet is wasted. In the daytime density, the bullet has an educational value. It strikes, as it were, a dozen at a time.

They shot in another way - right at the Onufrievsky cemetery, behind the zhenbarak (a former hospice for pilgrims) - and that road past the zhenbarak was called that firing squad. One could see how, in winter, a person was led barefoot in the snow there in underwear (this is not for torture! This is so that shoes and uniforms do not disappear!) With hands tied with wire behind his back - and the convict proudly, straightly holds on with his lips alone, without help hands, smokes the last cigarette in his life.

Mount Sekirnaya -
Russia's first torture ground

And from other Solovki he learns and more terrible than his eyes see. They say a disastrous word to him - Sekirka. It means - Sekirnaya mountain. In the two-story cathedral there are punishment cells. They keep them in the punishment cell like this: from wall to wall, poles as thick as an arm are strengthened and they order the punished prisoners to sit on these poles all day. (They lie on the floor at night, but on top of each other, overflowing). The height of the pole is such that you cannot reach the ground with your feet. It is not so easy to maintain balance, the prisoner struggles all day long - how to hold on. If he falls down, the guards jump up and beat him. Or: they lead outside to a staircase of 365 steep steps (from the cathedral to the lake, the monks built it); they tie a person along his length to a balance (log) for gravity - and push him along (not a single platform, and the steps are so steep that a log with a person does not linger on them).

Well, yes, you don’t go to Sekirka for perches, they are also in the Kremlin, always crowded, punishment cell. And then they put it on a ribbed boulder, on which you can’t resist either. And in the summer - "on stumps", which means - naked under mosquitoes. But then the punished must be watched; and if they tie a naked man to a tree, then mosquitoes will take care of themselves. Also, they put entire companies in the snow for wrongdoing. Still - they drive a person up to the throat into the lakeside swamp and hold it like that. And here is another way: they harness the horse to empty shafts, tie the legs of the guilty person to the shafts, a guard sits on the horse and drives it through the forest clearing until the groans and screams from behind end.

Denial of medical care

There was no proper medical care in the Solovetsky concentration camps. "... the escort security officer forced sick Professor Minute walk 12 kilometers with all your belongings. After walking 10 kilometers, he died. When, excited, I went to report this to the head of the Sanitary Department, I found the head of the ISO in his office.

After listening to my report, both chiefs neighed with such a terrible laugh that my heart sank ... "That's where he is dear!" Doctor Yakhontov said at last.

Dr. V.I. Yakhontov, a former prisoner (for an abortion that ended in death), after serving his term, remained a civilian. He was a chronic alcoholic with deep mental degradation." (Professor I.S. Bolshevism in the light of psychopathology. Magazine "Renaissance". No. 9. Paris. 1949. Cited. by public Boris Kamov. Zh. "Spy", 1993. Issue 1. Moscow, 1993. S.81-89)

The daily practice of the Solovki Chekists -
extrajudicial executions of prisoners.

In the materials of archival files, documents have been preserved that recorded already during the period of the "Khrushchev thaw" the mechanism of repressive actions used against the "Solovki". Here is an excerpt from the decision of the Presidium of the Arkhangelsk Regional Court of October 12, 1961, which reconsidered the case on charges against Vasily Volgay, a native of the Sumy region: “It must be assumed that in 1937 a criminal case was not initiated against Volgay, no investigation was certificate submitted by the head of the Solovetsky prison, as well as in relation to other prisoners who served their sentences in the Solovetsky prison, without evidence of a crime." All STON prisoners who were executed by decisions of non-judicial bodies were eventually rehabilitated - some earlier, some later. ( Sergei Shevchenko. STON with Ukrainian accent. Newspaper "Kyiv Telegraph" №8. Kyiv. 2003)

Solovki communists set an example

“Read the descriptions of the torture of the Cheka in the Red Terror in Russia. What is worse than in the Gestapo? And Solovki, where people, tied to logs, were rolled up the huge steps of the ancient staircase, and they were flattened alive? Or were they tied by the legs, and the horse she dragged the unfortunate through the clearing with sharp stumps... Bloody tatters remained from the man. The Nazis have no reason to turn up their noses with their Auschwitz and Buchenwald..." ( Valeria Novodvorskaya. Take an example from the communists. Lump, Krasnoyarsk, N21, 03/29/1996)

ELEPHANT - a school for Chinese communists

“But we met an even more fantastic thing in 1974 in the Vladimir prison. They brought to us a real Chinese named Ma Hong. in a new place, in prison, but already somehow on the very first day he managed to steal an extra mattress. So he showed up to us with two mattresses. He got used to us a little, thawed out. The guys ask him:
“Well, Ma Hong, do you like it here?”
“Kalaso,” he says, “very kalaso.”
- What's good? Here is a prison, hunger.
What kind of hunger? - Ma Hong was surprised and points his finger at the flies flying around the cell. Say, there would be a real famine - this game would not have been found for a long time. The guys were already trembling - what are they, poor people, calling hunger in China?

Over time, Ma Hong told about the Chinese famine, when they ate all the leaves from the trees, all the grass. Even if you walk a hundred kilometers, you will not meet a dung beetle.

His real name was not Ma Hong, but Yu Shilin. He was born in 1941 in the province of An Hui, in the family of an official. A few years later, when the communist army attacked, my father fled to Taiwan. The family was left without funds, moreover, they were constantly persecuted for their non-proletarian origin. The more he talked about China, the more we remembered the 20-30s, so-called "Stalinism" . Only, perhaps, it was more abruptly in China. Even more cruelty, cynicism, hypocrisy. There was no need for Solovki there - those who were objectionable were simply killed. For example, all Chinese volunteers who were captured in Korea and returned by the Americans were exterminated without exception. Is it only them? And "class aliens", and "saboteurs", and "opportunists". Of course, first of all, the intelligentsia. The rest were driven into state farms and communes - to be re-educated by labor. "(Bukovsky Vladimir. And the wind returns ... New York: "Chronicle", 1978. - 384 p.)

Materials on this page - quotes and excerpts from the work

Alexandra Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago". Quotations and excerpts from works by other authors have been specially noted.

A chapter from the memoirs of Sozerko Malsagov, dedicated to the situation of women in the Solovetsky concentration camp. An excellent sketch of the manners of the early Soviets.
___
CHAPTER 9

FATE OF WOMEN

Terrible company - How card debts are paid - Chekist harem - "Ruble" women - Venereal diseases.

The greatest benefit that has fallen to the political is that their wives and children do not have to come into contact with criminals. The company of these women is terrible.

There are currently about 600 women in the Solovetsky camps. In the monastery, they are settled in the "women's building" - in the Kremlin. On Popov Island, barrack No. 1 and some others are allotted to them. Three-quarters of them are wives, mistresses, relatives and simply accomplices of criminals.

Officially, women are deported to Solovki and the Narym Territory for "permanent prostitution." At certain intervals in major cities European Russia raids are undertaken against prostitutes in order to send them to concentration camps. Prostitutes, who under the Soviet regime organized themselves into a kind of official trade union, from time to time organize street processions in Moscow and Petrograd to protest against raids and expulsions, but this does little good. The nature and way of life of these women is so wild that their description to anyone not familiar with the conditions of the Solovetsky prison may seem like the delirium of a madman. For example, when criminals go to the bathhouse, they undress in advance in their barracks and walk completely naked around the camp to the peals of laughter and approving exclamations of the Solovetsky staff.

Criminals, just like men, join gambling card games. But if they lose, they can hardly pay with money, decent clothes or food. They don't have any of that. As a result, every day you can be a witness to wild scenes. Women play cards on the condition that the loser is obliged to immediately go to the men's barracks and give herself to ten men in a row. All this must take place in the presence of official witnesses. The camp administration never interferes in this disgrace.

One can imagine the feeling that criminals evoke in educated women from the counter-revolutionary category. The most disgusting curses, along with which the names of God, Christ, the Mother of God and all the saints are mentioned, total drunkenness, indescribable debauchery, theft, unsanitary conditions, syphilis - this turns out to be too much even for a person with a strong character.

To send an honest woman to Solovki means in a few months to turn her into something worse than a prostitute, into a lump of mute dirty flesh, into an object of barter in the hands of the camp staff.

Each Chekist on Solovki has from three to five concubines at the same time. Toropov, who in 1924 was appointed assistant to the Kemsky commandant for the economic part, established an official harem in the camp, constantly replenished according to his taste and order. The Red Army soldiers guarding the camp rape women with impunity.

According to camp rules, 25 women are selected daily from counter-revolutionaries and criminals to serve the Red Army soldiers of the 95th division guarding Solovki. The soldiers are so lazy that the prisoners even have to make their beds.

For the headman of the Kemsky camp, Chistyakov, the women not only cook dinner and clean their shoes, but even wash it. For this, the youngest and most attractive women are usually selected. And the Chekists treat them the way they want. All women in Solovki are divided into three categories. The first is “ruble”, the second is “half-ruble”, the third is “fifteen-penny” (five-altyn). If anyone from the camp administration asks for a "first-class" woman, i.e., a young counter-revolutionary from among the newcomers to the camp, he says to the guard: "Bring me a ruble."

An honest woman who refuses the "improved" rations that the Chekists assign to their concubines, very soon dies of malnutrition and tuberculosis. Such cases are especially frequent on the Solovetsky Island. There is not enough bread for the whole winter. Until navigation begins and new supplies of food are brought in, the already meager rations are cut by almost half.

Chekists and punks infect women with syphilis and other venereal diseases. How widespread these diseases are in Solovki can be judged by the following fact. Until recently, patients with syphilis were housed on Popov Island in a special hut (No. 8). In connection with the subsequent increase in morbidity, barrack No. 8 could no longer accommodate all patients. Even before my escape, the administration "solved" this problem by placing them in other barracks with healthy people. Naturally, this led to a rapid increase in the number of infected people.

When harassment encounters resistance, security officers do not hesitate to take revenge on their victims.

At the end of 1924, a very attractive girl was sent to Solovki - a Polish girl of about seventeen. She and her parents were sentenced to death for "spying for Poland." The parents were shot. And the girl, since she has not reached the age of majority, the highest measure punishment was replaced by exile to Solovki for ten years.

The girl had the misfortune to attract Toropov's attention. But she had the courage to refuse his disgusting advances. In retaliation, Toropov ordered her to be brought to the commandant’s office and, putting forward a false version of “concealing counter-revolutionary documents”, stripped naked and in the presence of all camp guards carefully felt the body in those places where, as it seemed to him, it was best to hide the documents.

On one of the February days, a very drunk Chekist Popov appeared in the women's barracks, accompanied by several other Chekists (also drunk). He unceremoniously climbed into bed with Madame X, a lady belonging to the highest circles of society, exiled to Solovki for a period of ten years after the execution of her husband. Popov dragged her out of bed with the words: “Would you like to take a walk with us behind the wire?” For women it meant being raped. Madame X, was delirious until the next morning.

Uneducated and semi-educated women from the counter-revolutionary environment were mercilessly exploited by the Chekists. Particularly deplorable is the fate of the Cossacks, whose husbands, fathers and brothers were shot, and they themselves were exiled.