Chapter 24 Chapter 3 Prisoners Return Team

The "Zeck Car" was torture, the "Crow Car" was miserable, and the deportation station was a tortured place.It's best to avoid these levels and take the red stuffy tank car directly to the labor camp. Here, as in everything, the interest of the state and the interest of the individual are completely identical.Sending criminals to labor camps by direct trains would be beneficial to the country by relieving the burden on inner-city rail lines, motor transport, and deportation station personnel.The Gulag understood this early on and made excellent arrangements: convoys of red trains (with red wagons for livestock) and barge convoys, convoys of prisoners on foot in areas without tracks or waterways (no permits allowed) Prisoners used horses and camels).

Whenever the high-speed work of the court somewhere or the deportation station somewhere is overcrowded, it shows the great advantage of the red train-it can deport a large number of prisoners at one time.From 1929 to 131, millions of peasants were repatriated in this way.Leningrad was moved out of Leningrad in the same way. "The colonization of Kolyma in the 1930s was also achieved by this method: Moscow, the capital of our motherland, spit out a red train to Port of Soviet and Port of Vanino every day. Every provincial capital also sends out this kind of train, but not every day One trip. In 1941 it was used to move the Germanic republic on the Volga River to Kazakhstan, and later it was used for other nationalities in the same way. In 1945, this train returned to Russia from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria The prodigal sons and prodigal daughters, or those who returned on their own, were transported back from the western border. In 1949, the fifty-eight prisoners were concentrated in special labor camps. This kind of transportation was also used.

The "Zek Carriage" runs according to the mundane timetable, and the red trains run according to the majestic orders signed by the Gulag's majestic generals. The Zeke Car cannot be parked in an open field, it must end in a station building, a small town, albeit a very poor one, and a prison cell with a roof.But the red train can go even into a vacuum, and where it stops, a new island of the archipelago rises immediately beside it from the sea of ​​steppes or forests. Not just any red car can be used to transport prisoners immediately - it must be prepared first.Conditioning does not mean, as the reader may imagine: sweeping it out, removing the coal dust and lime left over from its previous loading for freight - such things are not necessarily done every time.The meaning of maintenance is not to fill the gaps in the wagons and install the stove. (The line between Knyazh-Pogost and Ropcha was put into transporting prisoners as soon as it was built, before it was integrated into the national railway network. There are no wagons with stoves and no berths. In the winter, prisoners lie on the floor of the frozen and snow-covered carriages, and there is no hot food, because the time for the train to complete this section is never more than a day and night. Imagine being able to lie there for eighteen to twenty hours and still survive!) Preparatory work refers to the following things: check that the bottom, wall, and roof are intact and firm; A solid iron fence should be installed on the top; a drain hole should be made on the bottom plate, and the surrounding area should be specially reinforced with iron sheets and dense nails; some platforms should be evenly distributed on the whole train according to the necessary density (there should be escort posts with machine guns on the top). If there are too few, it needs to be built temporarily; a ladder to climb to the roof of the car needs to be installed; the location of the searchlight must be carefully arranged and the power supply must be unblocked; a long-handled mallet must be made; , then prepare a few well-equipped and heated camping vehicles for the captain of the guard, special operations commissioners, and escort team members; set up a kitchen for the escort team and prisoners to cook.When everything is ready, you can walk along the front and back of the train, and use chalk to write "special equipment" or "perishable goods" on the wagon wagon. (Ye Ginzburg's "The Seventh Carriage" has a very vivid description of the escort of the red train, so I won't repeat it here.)

After the preparation of the train was completed, the task now faced was to load the prisoners into the carriages, which was a complex combat operation.To do this, two important goals must be met: --To make it impossible for the common people to see getting on the bus, and --to terrorize the prisoner. It is necessary to hide from the local residents when boarding the train, because a train has to carry a thousand people (at least twenty-five wagons are attached), which is different from the small group carried in the "Zeke carriage". Escorting in public is also okay.Of course it was well known that arrests were made every hour of the day, but no one should be frightened by the sight of large numbers of prisoners coming together.In Orel in 1938, there was not a single family that had not been arrested. The square in front of the Orel prison was full of carts from the countryside, and standing beside them were crying rural women, just like Surikov's " Shooter Execution Ground" screen. (Ah, when will someone draw us a picture! Don't count on it: it's out of fashion, very out of fashion...) There was no way to hide such things back then.But why do we have to show in front of our Soviets that as many as one train was caught in one day (the people arrested in Orel could make up one train in a day), let alone the young people who saw this--youth is our future.So it's only done at night - a black detachment detachment walks from the prison every night to the station ("crow cars" are being used for new arrests) every night for months on end.Admittedly, women are alert, women have a way of finding out, they sneak up to the station in the middle of the night from all over the city, keep an eye on the trains on the back line, they run along the train, stumbling on the sleepers and the tracks, They yelled into a car: Is someone here? ... Are so-and-so and so-and-so here? ...

Then they ran to another wagon, and then some other people ran to this car and asked: Is there such-and-such a person?Suddenly, a reply came from the sealed compartment: "I! I'm here!" Or: "Go find him! He's in another compartment!" Or: "Sisters-in-law, please help me, my wife will She lives near the station, please run and tell her!" It is the faulty organization of the boarding that allows such scenes, which are detrimental to the honor of our time, to take place.The authorities learned a lesson from their mistakes, so starting from a certain night, a group of barking wolf dogs formed a warning circle and surrounded the train from a distance.

It is the same in Moscow, whether it is the old Sledinka deportation station (even the prisoners do not remember this place) or the red Presnya deportation station, the loading of prisoners on the red train is only allowed at night, this is abided by law. However, although the light of the day is superfluous for the escort team, they use the little sun at night-searchlights.These are handy because their beams can be focused where they need to be - the pile of panicked prisoners sitting on the ground.There they waited for orders: "The next batch of five-stand up! Target-carriage, run!" (Everything is "run!", lest they look around, lest they make up their minds, make them feel like Chased by a pack of dogs, just run, don't fall); searchlights on the rough paths they run on; on the car steps they climb.The eerie beams of searchlights were not just for illumination: they were an important dramatic device to intimidate prisoners.Then there are the shouts and the slams of rifle butts on the laggards; there are the orders "Sit down!" Once, a thousand people fell to their knees like modern-day pilgrims.); and the running march to the carriage, which was unnecessary in itself but had a great deterrent effect; and the howling of the police dogs; muzzles (rifles in the early years, and later automatic rifles); all belong to this means.The main purpose was to overwhelm and destroy the will of the prisoners, to prevent them from thinking of fleeing, and to prevent them for a long time from comprehending their new advantage: they had been transferred from a stone prison to a carriage made of thin wooden boards.

But in order to quickly load thousands of people into the carriages overnight, the prison authorities must take the prisoners out of the cells the morning before for pre-release treatment, and the escort team will spend a whole day in the prison for a long time And the reception is strictly carried out, and the prisoners who are received are also responsible for being guarded for several hours, but they are not placed in cells, but concentrated in the compound, so as not to mix with the remaining prisoners.So the nighttime boarding was nothing more than a relieved end to a long day's ordeal for the convict.

In addition to the routine counting, checking, shaving, steaming clothes, and bathing, the main content of the preparatory work is the general search.The search is not presided over by the prison, but by the escort team who came to receive them.In accordance with the Red Train Escort Regulations and out of the consideration of the escort team's own combat operations, the search must not leave any objects that will help the prisoners escape: confiscate all pointed and bladed things; in order to prevent the prisoners from All kinds of powdered things (such as tooth powder, sugar, salt grains, tobacco powder, tea leaves, etc.) must be confiscated in the eyes of the escort officers; any ropes, no matter thick ropes, thin ropes, or belts, must be confiscated. Because they can all be used to escape. (The small belt is no exception, of course! A one-legged man's small belt was cut off from his prosthetic leg, so the crippled man had to carry the artificial leg on his shoulders and jump forward with the help of someone next to him.) Other things, including According to regulations, all valuables and suitcases should be sent to a special storage compartment, and returned to the original owner at the end of the escort.

But for Vologda or Kuibyshev's escort team, the authority of Moscow's regulations is weak and loose, but for the prisoners, the authority of the escort team is concrete and tangible, and this factor determines the boarding operation. The third purpose of the law: In order to maintain justice, all valuable things of the enemies of the people must be confiscated and provided to the sons of the people. "Sit down!", "Kneel down!", "Take off your clothes!"--these few sentences of the escort command stipulated in the regulations embody a fundamental authority that cannot be disputed.You know, a naked person has a weak heart, and he cannot proudly puff out his chest and talk to a clothed person on an equal footing.The search began. (Kuibyshev, Summer 1949.) Naked people came one by one with their belongings and undressed clothes, surrounded by a large number of heavily guarded armed soldiers.The atmosphere doesn't look like a solution, but they are going to be pulled out to be shot or sent to the gas chamber to be burned to death.At this time, people no longer care about external things.The escort team made everything blunt and rude on purpose, not a single word was uttered in an ordinary human voice, because the purpose was to intimidate and overwhelm.The boxes were all shaken out (shaking things out into the ground) and thrown into a big pile.The prisoners' cigarette cases, wallets, and other pitiful "valuables" were all sorted out, without names, and thrown into a large wooden barrel next to them. (No safes, no crates, no big boxes, but big barrels—this has somehow a special pressure on naked people, making them feel that resistance is useless.) The naked people had to Quickly picked up the remaining tatters from the ground after the search, and stuffed them into small bundles or into luggage rolls.Felt boots?You can deposit it, throw it in this pile, and sign the registration form! (You are not given a receipt, but you have to sign yourself to prove that you have thrown something into this pile!) It was already dark when the last truck carrying prisoners left the prison compound. They swarmed up, snatched the best suitcases from the pile, and picked the best cigarette cases from the big wooden boxes.Then the guards came to pick up some bargains, and then the handymen at the deportation station.

That's the price you have to pay to get on a tank truck in one day!Well, now I finally breathed a sigh of relief, climbed in, and put on the prickly planks.But there is no relaxation here, what kind of heating camper is this? !Prisoners were once again caught between cold and hunger, thirst and fear, thieves and escorts. If there were thieves in the tank cars (and in the red trains, of course, they would not be separated by themselves), they would occupy the traditionally good place on the upper bunk next to the window hole.It's summer.We can guess where they are in winter.Of course, leaning against the stove, forming a tight circle.Minayev, who had been a thief, recalled that in the harsh winter of 1949, during the whole journey from Voronezh to Kotlas (several days and nights), they received three pails of coal for their "heating camper"!At this time, the thieves not only occupied the position by the fireside, not only took away all the thick clothes of the "Fulaier" and put them on themselves, but even their foot wraps were not disliked, and they shook them out of their shoes. Come out and wrap yourself around your thief's feet. "Today it's you, tomorrow it's me!" The problem of food was slightly worse - the rations for the whole car were collected by the thieves, who kept the best or what they needed.Roshirin recalled the three-day and three-night deportation from Moscow to Perepol in 1937.Because there are only three short days and nights, it is not worth cooking hot food in the train, so only dry food is distributed.The thieves kept all the bonbons for themselves, and the bread and fresh fish were allowed to be divided among others; this showed that they were not hungry at the time.When hot food was served, the thieves were at hand and the soup was distributed among them (three-week deportation from Kishnev to Pechora, 1945).Besides, the thieves did not dislike ordinary petty robberies on the way: they found an Estonian with a gold tooth, knocked him down, and knocked it out with a poker.

Prisoners believe that the biggest advantage of the red train is that it provides hot food.At a remote station (still in order not to be seen by the common people), the train stopped, and vegetable soup and gruel were delivered to each carriage.However, there are always some crooked methods when distributing them.They may (such as the Kishnev train mentioned above) pour vegetable soup into the coal pail.There is no water to wash!Because the drinking water in the train is rationed, which is less than vegetable soup.Just eat your soup and crunch your coals.Or they brought vegetable soup and porridge to one carriage, but they did not give enough bowls, only twenty-five bowls for forty people, and at the same time ordered: "Eat quickly! Eat quickly! We have to send to other carriages." , not your section!" May I ask how to drink it?How to divide!It is impossible to evenly distribute according to the bowl, so you can only grasp it with your eyesight, and keep your hands tight so as not to overdo it. (The person who drank first yelled: "Stir and stir!" The people behind were silent: let it thicken a bit!) The first wave drank, and the second wave waited.drink it quickly!I was so hungry that I panicked, and the porridge in the bucket was getting cold.The outside was already urging: "Hey, is it over? Is it coming soon?" Then it was the second turn to scoop the porridge.It must be scooped no more or less, neither thick nor thin.After distribution, it is necessary to estimate how much each person can add. This time, at least two copies can be scooped up in one bowl and distributed to all.From the beginning to the end, these forty people were not eating, but staring at the porridge and suffering in their hearts. No heating, no tying up thieves, no enough water to drink, no enough food to eat -- and no sleep at all.During the day, the escort can clearly see the entire train and the line behind the train, and know whether anyone has jumped off the train or lying on the track.At night, vigilance takes their toll.At every stop at night, they used long-handled mallets (all Gulag standards) to bang on every car board: Don't be sawed off by those guys, right?On some stations, the doors are flung wide open, and beams of flashlights, and possibly even searchlights, are beamed in: "Check!" This means jumping up immediately, standing up, and getting ready to drink -- all running to the left Still run to the right.Escorts with mallets rushed into the compartment (others with automatic rifles lined up outside the doors in a semicircle), and they instructed: Left!This means: the person on the left stays put, and the person on the right must immediately jump from one head to the other like a flea, and stand wherever they can.Whoever's legs and feet are not flexible, and whoever is in a daze, -- the waist and back need to drink water, which is to give him a refreshment.At the same time, the boots of the escort are already trampling on your beggar's den and throwing away your rags.Light here and there and hit with a mallet -- look for sawn seams.No!At this time, the escort will tell you to walk from the left to the right one by one. They stand in the middle of the carriage and count: "One! Two! Three!..." Originally, simply counting and simply pointing with your fingers is enough. up.But it's not scary to do that, so it's more intuitive, more accurate, more refreshing, and faster to use that wooden figure to "point" on your waist, shoulders, top of your head, or anywhere else.After counting, there are a total of forty people.Now it's time to throw, search, and beat on the left.At last it was over, and we left, and the carriage was locked.You can sleep until the next time you park. (It can't be said that the escort team is asking for trouble for nothing--capable people have indeed escaped from the red train. For example, when they knocked on the car boards, they sometimes found that there was a saw seam in one piece, or that the vegetables were sent out early in the morning. When I was eating soup, I suddenly found: among a group of unshaven faces, there were a few people who had just shaved. The escort team surrounded the car with automatic rifles: "Hand over the knife!" These are the thieves and those who approached them People are particular about their stink: they are "tired" of having big beards. Now they have to hand over their razors. The difference between the red train and other long-distance direct trains is that people who get on this kind of train don't know whether they can get off.When a train from the Leningrad Prison (1942) unloaded at Solikam, the entire embankment was strewn with dead bodies, and only a few arrived alive.In the winters of 1944145 and 1945146 prisoner trains from the liberated territories (Baltic coast, Poland, Germany) arrived at the railway village (Knyazh a wave Gost), as well as all the major junctions in the extreme north, with a wagon or two of dead bodies on it.This means that on the way they carefully checked out the dead from the living compartment and put them into the dead compartment.It's actually not done very often.Many times at the Suhebezvodnaya Railway Station (Onzhrag), the distinction between the dead and the living is done like this: After the train enters the station, open the door of the carriage, and anyone who cannot climb out is considered dead. It was terrible and deadly to travel on such trains in winter, because the convoy was too focused on vigilance to pull coal for twenty-five stoves.But riding this kind of car on a hot day is not so sweet: two of the four small window holes are sealed, and the roof of the car is scorching hot; as for drinking water, if there is not enough drinking water for a "Zeke car" , but insisted that the escort team fetch water for a thousand people, wouldn't they be too busy?Prisoners therefore consider April and September to be the best months for deportation.But if a train takes three months on the road (from Leningrad to Vladivostok, 1935), even the best quarter is not enough.For the train scheduled to run for a long time, careful arrangements will be made for the political education of the escort team and the spiritual attention of the imprisoned souls: a "godfather" must be assigned to this train--a special commissioner, who will take a separate compartment.The Special Operations Specialist had prepared for this escort in the prison, and the prisoners were not randomly arranged in each car according to the list he approved.He approves the chief of each carriage, trains and installs the eyeliner of each carriage.Every time he stops for a long time, he always finds a reason to call this person or that person out of the car and ask people what they are talking about inside.If this kind of special agent still can't come up with any ready-made results at the end of the journey, he will be ashamed to face others.He promised that someone would file a case for investigation on the way, and just wait and see, that person would be sentenced to a new sentence as soon as he arrived at the destination. Forget it, to the devil of this hideous red cattle train, with its through and through!Those who have experienced such a deportation will never forget it anyway.Let's hurry to the labor camp!Get there quickly! Man is a creature of hope and impatience.As if the camp operatives would be more humane, as if the eyeliners there would be less conscientious, (actually the opposite!) as if when we got there they wouldn't force us to sit underground with the same threats and the same police dogs , ("Sit down!") It seems that the heavy snow that is blowing into your red cars now will not accumulate thicker on the ground outside the cars.It seems that we have reached our destination when we get off the car now, and we will not be loaded on the open-air platform car to continue along the narrow-gauge railway. (However, how to transport the prisoners on an unshielded platform vehicle? How to guard them?--this is indeed a difficult problem for the escort team. The problem is solved in this way: order us to huddle and lie down, and cover them with a whole piece of canvas On it, like the sailors on the cruiser "Potemkin" before they were shot. Thank you to them for covering this canvas!) Olenev and his companions in the northern ten During the month, I sat on the open-air platform car and waited all day (people have already loaded the car, but the locomotive has not been transferred. First it rained, and then it was freezing, and the prisoners’ rags were all frozen ice).Small trains jolted violently in motion, and the side rails of the platform cars were often cracked and snapped, and a jolt could throw someone under the wheels.Well, I ask you to guess: starting from Dudinka, in the arctic cold on a platform car along a narrow-gauge railway for 100 kilometers, where is the thief sitting?The answer: in the middle of each platform car, so that the animals around them would keep them warm and protect them from falling under the train.bingo.One more question: what will the prisoners see at the end of the narrow-gauge railway (1939)?Will there be a house there?No, there isn't one.Land house?Yes, but it's already full.That's not for them.So, do they have to dig their own grounds first?No, because how can you dig in the arctic winter?Instead of doing this, they were taken to mine for gold. "But where do they live?" "What? - live? . . . oh, yes, live... live . . . - live in tents." But you don't need to take another narrow-gauge train every time, do you?No, of course not.There is a direct one by large train: Erzovo Station, February 1938.In the middle of the night the carriage door opened.Piles of bonfires were lit along the entire length of the train, and in the light of the fires people got out of the cars and stood in the snow.Points, stand in line, and count again.The temperature is thirty-two degrees below zero.The convicts came from the Donbass, were arrested in the summer of the same year, and wore short leather boots, sandals, and sandals.Whoever wants to keep warm by the fire, the escort team drives him away immediately: the bonfire is not prepared for this, but for lighting, fingers are frozen to wood in the blink of an eye, and snow is stuffed into thin shoes without even melting .There was no tolerance, only the voice of the command: "Stand in line! Keep in line! Whoever leaves the queue one step to the left or right, we will shoot without saying hello...Let's go!" The police dogs on the chains were excited by their beloved password and this exciting moment screamed.The escort team members in sheepskin coats walked away, and the doomed people in summer clothes also walked towards a certain place in the taiga forest along the completely untrodden road with deep snow.There was no light ahead.The Northern Lights are shining.It was the first and probably the last time in our lives to see the Northern Lights... The spruces were crackling in the bitter cold.The shoeless men measured the depth of the snow with their frozen soles and calves, and trampled it down. Or take the case of reaching Pechora in January 1945 ("Our army captured Warsaw! . . . our army cut off East Prussia!").The desolate snow field drove people out of the carriages and told them to sit in the snow and line up in six rows.Then they started counting endlessly.If you count wrong once, count again.Then the prisoners were asked to stand up, and they were escorted to walk six kilometers in the snow field where there was no human trace.This group of prisoners also came from the south (Moldavia), and all of them wore single leather shoes.The wolfhound followed closely behind them, pushing the backs of the last row of men with their front paws, blowing dog's breath on the back of their heads. (In this row are two priests—the silver-haired, elderly Father Fedor Floria, and the young Father Victor Spovarinikov, who is supporting him.) Using police dog techniques how?No, how much self-control do police dogs show? --You know how much they want to take a bite; Finally arrived at the destination.The in-camp shower room; first undressed in one hut, ran naked across the compound, and bathed in another.But for the present it was all bearable: the chief sin had been suffered.Now it's finally here!It was getting dark.Suddenly I heard: there are no vacancies in the camp, and no new prisoners can be accepted.So after taking a bath, the prisoners were called out to line up and count, and police dogs were arranged around-everything again, dragging their own things, the original six kilometers, they stepped on the snow to return to their own train, but This time it was in the dark.In the hours after they left, the door of the carriage was kept wide open, and it turned out that the poor heat had already gone away.Moreover, all the coal on the car was burned before arriving at the destination. Where can I find it now?They had a night of freezing, and in the morning they were given dry groupers to chew (who wants to drink water—chew snow!), and then took them back to the labor camp the same way. This is still a lucky case!Because there was still a labor camp anyway.If you don't receive it today, you will receive it tomorrow.And the red train, by its very nature, usually goes to a vacuum.The day a deportation ends is often the day a new labor camp is opened.Therefore, the train can stop directly in the taiga forest under the illumination of the northern lights, and nail a small sign on the spruce trunk: "the first independent labor point" (independent labor point).In this kind of place, the prisoners have to eat dried mullet for a week and swallow flour mixed with snow to survive. If there had been a labor camp opened even two weeks ago, it would have been quite comfortable; hot food could already be cooked.Although there are no bowls, the thin and dry ones can be mixed together, one serving for six people, and served in the bath tub.Six people stood in a circle (there were no tables and chairs), two of them held the handle of the bathtub with their left hands, and grabbed food from the basin with their right hands next to each other.Is this repeating what I said earlier?No, this is Perepor in 1937, according to Roshirin's introduction.I am not repeating, the Gulag is repeating. ... Then, they will send some old prisoners to serve as homework monitors for the new prisoners.These veterans are quick to teach them how to live, find tricks, and cheat.Work is due early the next morning, for the bells of the great age are ringing and time waits for no one.Our place is not Akutai, a place of hard labor in the tsarist era, where newly arrived prisoners had three days to rest. The economy of the islands is booming day by day.New branches of railways are everywhere, and many places hitherto only accessible by water can now be transported by trains.But some old natives of the archipelago are still alive, and they can tell you how they sailed on the Izhma River in a real ancient Russian wooden boat.There are a hundred people in a boat, and the prisoners row the oars themselves; they can tell you how they arrived at their camps in small fishing domes along the Ukhta, Usa, and Pechora rivers.At that time, even going to Vorkuta was escorted by barge: first, a large ship was used to pass to Azwawom, where a transfer station for the Vorkuta labor camp was set up.From there, say, to Usterusa, which is just a stone's throw away, is ten days' journey by shallow-water barge.There were so many lice that the whole barge trembled, and the escort team allowed the prisoners to go on the deck one by one to shake the lice into the water.The deportation by water is not direct either. You have to change boats, tow the boat across a section of land gorge, and disembark on foot. In these areas there used to be their own deportation stations - huts or tents made of sticks (Ustusa, Pomozkino, Sheryayur).There also has its own set of special order, its own rules of escort, and of course a set of special methods of punishing prisoners.But it is obviously not our task to describe this kind of exoticism, so we will not start to do it. The Northern Dvina, Ob and Yenisei rivers know when the transport of prisoners by barge began - it was during the extermination of the kulaks.These rivers all flow to the true north, and the barges are big-bellied and large-capacity guys. Only by relying on them can they complete the task of throwing such a huge gray group from the living Russia to the lifeless Quanbei region.People were dumped into a barge hold that looked like a big wooden trough, where they lay piled on each other, moving slightly like a bunch of prawns in a basket.The sentry stood high on the side of the ship, as if standing on a rock.Sometimes we just transport this pile of things without covering them, and sometimes we cover them with a large canvas—maybe it’s to prevent them from being seen, maybe it’s to make it easier to be vigilant, but it’s definitely not to protect them from the rain.This kind of barge escort is no longer deportation, but execution in installments.In addition, there is almost no food provided on the way.After dumping them into the tundra, there is no food at all, and they are left to fend for themselves with nature. The deportation of barges on the Northern Dvina (and the Vychegda) did not stop until 1940.Olenev has experienced such deportation.The prisoners stood close together in the cabin,--and it wasn't just a day.Urine was spilled in glass jars and passed to the porthole to be emptied.If it is a more serious problem than this, then I have to solve it in my own crotch. The barge deportation along the Yenisei River became a regular flight, which has not been interrupted for decades.In the thirties a number of sheds were erected on the banks of the Krasnoyarsk river.In the cold Siberian spring, the prisoners awaiting shipment shivered for a day or two.The barges transporting prisoners on the Yenisei River have a fixed structure, and the cabins are dark and divided into three floors.Only the hatch where the ladder was installed allowed a little refracted light.Escort members lived in cabins on deck.Sentinels guarded the hatches and the water, watching for escapes from the water.They never go down the cabin, no matter what groans and cries for help may be heard from within.Prisoners were never allowed to come up and let the wind go.In 1937138, 1944145, no medical assistance was provided to the people in the cabin during the deportation (and, presumably, the years between the above two periods).The prisoners lay on each deck in two rows, one with their heads toward the side of the ship and one with their heads toward their feet.To get on the toilet, you can only step over the person.The toilet buckets are not always allowed to be emptied in time (you should imagine how to climb the steep ladder with a full bucket), and the excrement overflows outside, flows on the deck, and leaks to the lower floors, where it is also lying. It's full of people!When the meals are served, the cooks (drawn from among the prisoners) distribute the vegetables in wooden barrels to each floor.In the perpetually dark cabin (perhaps now equipped with electric lights), the prisoners were distributed by the light of a "Bat" kerosene lamp.Such a deportation trip to Dudinka sometimes took a month. (Now, of course, only a week would suffice.) When grounding or other obstacles in the waterway prolong the journey and carry insufficient provisions, they simply do not start for several days at a time. (Of course, the rations that are "overdue" for the past few days will not be reissued in the future.) At this point, the astute reader may add without the author's prompting: the thieves occupy the uppermost deck in the hold, near the hatches--in other words, near the air and light.They may enjoy the full privilege of distributing bread according to their needs.If the conditions of the journey were particularly difficult, they would unceremoniously drop the sacred crutch (in other words, take the rations of the gray beast - the political prisoner - one).The thieves pass the time playing cards during the long journey.The playing cards used for gambling are made by ourselves.But the capital of the bet was obtained by searching for "Fulaier".They selected a certain area in the cabin and searched the people lying there one by one.The things collected were handed over repeatedly among them according to the winning or losing of the game within a period of time.最后全都会"浮"到顶上去，脱手给押解队。对了，读者现在什么全能猜到：盗窃犯和押解队是挂着钩的。押解队或者把赃物留给自己，或者在码头上卖掉，然后给盗窃犯们带来吃的作为报酬。 有反抗吗？有，但是很少见，流传下来一个事例。一九五0年，在一艘与上面所讲的情况差不多只是稍大一些的驳船（是一艘海船）里面，在由符拉迪沃斯托克驶往萨哈林岛的途中，七名手无寸铁的年轻的"五十八条"犯人对盗窃犯（这是一批"母狗"）进行了反抗，对方总共有八十来个人（其中照例会有人带着刀子）。还在符拉迪沃斯托克的"三?一门"递解站里面，这批"母狗"就曾对犯人们实行过一次搜身。他们搜得非常彻底，一点不比狱卒们干得差劲。他们熟知一切的隐藏办法。但是不管怎么搜，要发现一切公办不到的。他们明白这个，所以在船舱里面假意宣布："有钱的可以买马合烟！"米沙?格拉切夫拽出了缝在棉坎肩里的三个卢布。 "母狗"沃洛吉卡?塔塔林朝他喊："喂老鸹的死尸！你不交税啦？"说完就跳过去夺。可是陆军准尉帕维尔（姓氏没有传下来）一把推开了他。沃洛吉卡?塔塔林用手指头分成"两股叉"去戳帕维尔的眼睛，帕维尔把他撂倒在地上。立刻就有二、三十个"母狗"拥了过来。前陆军大尉施帕科夫；谢廖沙?波塔波夫；沃洛尼?列乌诺夫，沃洛甲?特列久兴（这两个人也是前陆军准尉）；还有瓦夏?克拉夫左夫等人挺身而出，毅然站到格拉切夫和帕维尔身边。How is the result?仅仅是互相献了几拳就了事。不知道是贼骨头们祖传的真正的怯懦（他们总是用虚张声势的果敢和满不在乎的放肆把它遮掩起来）现了本相，还是因为附近有哨兵（事情发生在舱口下面）妨碍了他们。他们现在需要保存实力，因为他们此行负有一项更加重要的社会使命--从正经盗贼手里夺取亚历山大罗夫斯克递解站（就是契诃夫曾经描写过的那一个）以及萨哈林建设工程（夺取的目的当然木是为了建设）。总之是他们退却了，仅仅限于虚声恫吓，说："要把你们变成一堆垃圾！"（架没有打起来，谁也没有把这几个小伙子变成"垃圾"。这帮"母狗"在亚历山大罗夫斯克递解站遇到了麻烦：那地方已经被正经盗贼们牢牢地掌握在手里了。） 开往科雷马的海船，在一切方面都和驳船很相似，只是规模大一些。不管多么奇怪，一九三八年乘坐由"克拉辛"号破冰船开路的"珠尔玛"、"库鲁"、"汉瓦工程"、"第聂伯工程"等几艘旧套鞋似的破船被遣送到科雷马去的那一批犯人（即有名的"克拉辛远征队勾当中，今天竟有几个人还活着。这几艘轮船的寒冷肮脏的贷舱也是分作三层，但是在每层上面又用树村搭成了双层的统铺。并不是到处一片漆黑，有的地方点了几盏油灯。允许犯人们以隔舱为单位上甲板放风。每条船装三四千人。一次航程要用一个多星期，在符拉迪沃斯托克领的口粮在路上就发了霉，因而一天的口粮定量由六百克减少到四百克。还供给成鱼，至于饮用水……。是的，是的，没有什么可幸灾乐祸的，在水的问题上我们的确存在着暂时的困难。与内河递解比较起来，这儿还增加了风暴和晕船。精疲力竭的人们呕吐不已，已经没有力气从呕吐物中站起来，整个舱板覆盖了一层令人作呕的秽物。 旅途中还有一段政治性插曲。船队要通过拉彼鲁兹海峡"，和日本列岛距离很近。这时候轮船了望塔上面的机关枪消失了，押解队换上了便服，舱口紧闭，禁止上甲板。从符拉迪沃斯托克出发时就早有远见地在船舶文书上注明了船内装载的……不，上帝保佑，决不是犯人，而是应募去开发科雷马的工人。许多日本小汽船和木船在部队周围转来转去，一点没有产生疑心。（另一次，一九三九年，"珠尔玛"号上发生了这么一件事：盗窃犯们跑出货舱潜入了财物保管室，抢光了东西，放了一把火。这时候船恰好在日本附近。"珠尔玛"号浓烟滚滚，日本人要来救援，但是船长拒绝了他们。他甚至没有下令打开舱口！离开日本较远以后，被烟呛死者的尸体全扔进了大海，烧焦了的半腐烂食品后来移交给劳改营充当犯人的口粮。） 自那以后几十年过去了，现在国际公海上运输的似乎已经不再是犯人，而是苏联公民。但是有多少这样的事例：苏联人遇到海难的时候，拒绝外国救援，原因仍是这种冒充为民族自豪感的封闭性。宁愿让鲨鱼把我们吞进肚里，也不能接受你们的援助之手！封闭性--这是我国的毒瘤。 船队在马加丹港外被封冻在水里。"克拉辛"号也无能为力（还远远不到航行的季节，但是他们急于往那里输送劳力）。五月二日。犯人们被卸到离海岸还有一段距离的冰上。当年马加丹的悲惨景象展示在来客们的眼前；死气沉沉的山岗，没有乔木，也没有灌木，更没有鸟类。只有稀稀拉拉的几间小木房和一座远北建设工程局的两层楼房。然而他们却受到远建局乐队的欢迎。因为当局这时候还在继续表演着"改造"的闹剧，换句话说是做出副样子，好像他们不是运来一堆为盛产黄金的科雷马铺路的白骨，而是一批将来还要回到创造性生活中去的暂时受隔离的苏维埃公民。乐队演奏着进行曲和圆舞曲。一群受尽折磨、半死不活的人们排成灰色的长队在冰上蹒跚行进。他们拖着从莫斯科带来的东西（这一支庞大的政治犯队伍在路上几乎还没有遇到盗窃犯），背着另外一些半死不活的人--风湿病患者和失去双腿的残废（对没有双腿的人也同样判刑）。 但是，我发觉我又要重复；写下去将是乏味的，读下去也将是乏味的，因为读者预先就已经知道了一切：现在将会用卡车把他们装运到几百公里之外，然后还要押着他们步行几十公里。到达目的地以后他们将开辟一些新的劳改点，而且到达后一分钟之内就必须出工。吃的将是鱼和面粉，是和着雪一起吞咽下去的。睡的将是帐篷。 是的，不错。但是头几天他们暂时被安置在马加丹，住的也确是北极帐篷。在这里他们还要受到一次体检，也就是要他们脱光衣服，根据每人臀部的状况确定他是否适宜于劳动（检查的结果一定是全体都合格）。当然还要把他们带进洗澡房，命令他们把皮面大衣、罗曼诺夫羊皮大衣、毛线衣、高级毛料西服、毡斗篷。长筒皮靴、长筒毡靴留在洗澡房的脱衣室（要知道这一批来的人不是土里土气的乡巴佬，而是党的上层人物-一报纸编辑、托拉斯和工厂的经理、省委负责干部、政治经济学教授等等。所有这些人在三十年代初对于高档商品已经很懂行了）。"那由谁来看管呢？"新来的客人们疑惑地问。"快去吧，谁希罕你们的东西？"澡堂服务员显出受侮辱的样子，"进去，放心洗去吧！"于是他们就进去洗澡了。然而出口却是另一个门。出门的时候每人在那里领到一条黑布裤子和一件军便服上衣、一件没有衣兜的劳改营棉背心、一双猪皮鞋。（哦，这可不是一件小事！这是与你原先的生活的诀别--也就是和你的头衔、职位、尊荣的诀别！）"我们的东西呢？"他们哀号了。"你们的东西--留在家里了！"一个首长模样的人朝他们大声呵叱。"劳改营里什么东西也不属于你们。我们劳改营里是共产主义！带队的，开步走！" 既然是共产主义，那么他们有什么可以反对的？他们不是把生命都献给了这个事业了吗？ 还有几种递解方式--坐大车或者干脆步行。诸位记得里在一个阳光明媚的白天一队犯人从监狱被押着走向火车站的情形吗？然而在米努辛斯克，一九四……年，犯人们已经一整年没有放过风，已经木会走路了，不会呼吸了，不会看光亮了；一年以后，把他们带出屋子，列队，驱赶他们步行二十五公里，到阿巴坎去。路上死了十来个。这件事情可没有人去写成一部伟大的小说，连一章也没有人写：住在坟地里，顾不上为每一个死人哭丧。 徒步递解--这是火车递解、"泽克车厢"、红色列车的老祖宗。这种方式现在越来越少见了，除非是在木可能使用机动交通工具的地方。例如，从被围困的列宁格勒遣送犯人，就是让他们徒步通过拉多加湖上的一段冰路，然后装上红色列车（让女犯和德军俘虏走在一起，用刺刀把我国的男犯从女犯身边赶开，免得他们抢夺女犯的面包。倒在路上的人，不管是死是活，一律拽掉靴子，扔到卡车上）。三十年代，从科特拉斯递解站每天发送一百名犯人徒步去乌斯特维姆（约三百公里），有时候去奇比尤（五百多公里）。一九三八年有一批女犯也是用这种方式递解。这种徒步递解一天要走二十五公里。押解队带着一两只狗，他们用枪托于驱赶掉队的人。诚然，犯人的东西、锅灶和食物是用跟在队尾的大车拉着。在这一点上，这支解犯队伍和上一世纪古典的流刑图有些相像。途中也有宿泊的房屋--被消灭的富农的缺门少窗的残破农舍。科特拉斯递解站的会计室发给每一批解犯的食品是按照理论上的旅途时间计算的，其前提是一路诸事顺利，从来不多计算一天（这是我国会计制度的普遍原则）。如果选中发生耽搁，食物就匀开吃，只供给不放盐的黑麦面糊糊，有时候索性就停伙。在这一点上，他们背离了古典的模式。 一九四0年，奥列涅夫等一批解犯下了驳船以后，被押送着徒步穿过泰加森林（从克尼亚日-波戈斯特到齐比尤）。一路上根本不给饭吃。喝的是沼泽里的水，痢疾迅速地蔓延开来了。许多人体力衰竭，倒在地下，警犬撕扯倒下的人们的衣裳。在伊回马河里，犯人们用裤子捞鱼，生着就吃进肚里。（最后走到了一块林间空地，当局向他们宣布：你们就在这里动手修建科特拉斯-沃尔库塔铁路吧！） 我国欧洲部分极北地区的另一些地方，也一直是采取这个办法，先是遣送一些徒步的犯人到划定的线路上去修路基，直到快乐的红色列车开来，运来第二期工程的犯人。 在经常和大量采用步行方式的地方，制定出了一整套徒步递解的技术。一批犯人从克尼亚日-波戈斯特出发，沿着泰加森林中的小道，被押往维斯良纳。一个犯人倒下了，再也走不动了。what to do?请合理地考虑一下，怎么办？你是不会让整个队伍停下来的。你也不会为每一个倒下的和掉队的人留下一名带枪的兵--带枪的兵很少，犯人很多。这说明应该怎么办呢？ ……一个带枪的兵留下来和这个人稍呆一会儿，随后他一个人匆匆地赶上队伍。 从卡拉巴斯到斯帕斯克的固定步行递解班次保持了很长时间。那一段路总共才三十五至四十公里，可是必须一天之内走到。每一批一千人，其中很多人身体很虚弱。可以预料到，一定会有许多人倒在路上，掉队，他们会带着濒死者的无所求和无所谓的表情--哪怕你如他们开枪，他们也不能再挪动一步。他们已经不害怕死亡了，--但是棍棒呢？没完没了地劈头盖脑地打下来的不知疲劳的棍棒呢？棍棒他们是会害怕的，他们会继续走下去！这是一个屡试不爽的方法，保证有效。因而在解犯纵队五十米之外不仅有一圈自动枪手的散兵线，而且里面还有一圈仅以棍棒做武器的士兵。落后者是要挨打的（实际上斯大林同志早就有言在先）。七打八打，那些一点力气也没有了的人们居然走起来了！其中的一些人竟能奇迹般地走到目的地。他们不知道这叫做"棍棒考验"，不管你怎么打仍是躺着不动的人，将由跟在后面的大车收容起来。这是一条组织工作的经验。（可能有人提问；为什么不一开始就全用大车拉呢？……可是到哪儿去找足够的大车？马匹从哪儿来？我国毕竟已经普及拖拉机了。况且如今燕麦是什么价钱？……）上面说的这种递解在一九四八一五0年依然是十分大量的。 然而在二十年代徒步递解曾是主要方式之一。当时我还是小孩，但是记得很清楚：士兵们押着犯人的队伍大大方方地走过顿河罗斯托夫市的街道。顺便说说，那句有名的命令："……不予警告即可开枪！"在当时的说法稍有不同，原因在于军事装备的差异：要知道，当时的押解队往往只有马刀。所以当时是这样命令的："凡擅自离开队列一步者，押解队即可开枪或刀劈！"多么铿锵有力："开枪、刀劈！"马上就产生一把战刀从背后劈下你的脑袋的感觉。 不错，甚至到了一九三六年二月，还押着一批从外伏尔加地区抓来的大胡子老头儿们徒步经过下诺夫戈罗德城。这些人穿的是土布袍子，脚下穿着桦皮鞋，包着脚布。"正在消失中的俄罗斯……"突然间，三辆小汽车正好横穿他们前面的马路，汽车上坐着全俄中执委主席加里宁。解犯队伍停下。加里宁坐在车里开过去，他对这些人没有产生兴趣。 读者，请闭上眼睛。听见了吗？车声隆隆……。这是"泽克车厢"在铁轨上行驶。这是红色列车在运行。一天二十四小时，一年三百六十五日，没有一刻稍停。听见了吗？水声激荡……这是囚犯驳船在破浪前进。耳边又传来"乌鸦车"马达的吼叫声。每时每刻都有人被投入监狱、塞进囚车、辗转递解。这一片嘈杂声又是来自哪里？它来自递解站过于拥挤的牢房。而这哭号声呢？它是被抢劫者、被奸污者、被毒打者的怨诉。 我们考察了各种遣送方法。我们发现它们一种比一种更坏。我们环视了递解站，但是没有找到一个好的。甚至人们最后一个希望--下一步会好一些，在劳改营里将会好一些--也是一个骗人的希望啊！ 在劳改营里将会……更坏些。