IVAN IVANOVYCH RUSYN. At 33 Volodymyrska Street

Though I knew that life is like a long, tilled field, I still didn’t expect this. We were all caught off guard by that KGB operation in the mid-sixties, by that first haul after the Khrushchev Thaw, because we were completely unprepared.

A lot of time has passed, but I still remember how scared my wife and I were. Apparently, the terror comes from the possible impact of repressions on one’s family; this was still a vivid memory from childhood.

For some reason, both at that moment when they knocked on the door at five in the morning and all the time afterward, I kept thinking that I was causing my loved ones terrible sorrow.

And that’s why it’s best for those who have no family. That’s the truth. I thought so then and am still convinced of it now. Although I encountered many opposing views when I was being transported in stages to the zone, and in the zone itself, in Yavas in the Mordovian Republic. Many people simply envied me, in a very human way, for having a faithful wife and a daughter, for having someone to wait for news from, for having someone to wait for me.

...Everything happened unexpectedly, suddenly, at dawn, so that we couldn’t even grasp what they wanted from us.

Perhaps the neophytes were on a higher level of awareness in their actions; they gathered in catacombs, they probably knew and prepared for some countermeasures.

We each went our own way, bearing no responsibility for one another. It seemed to correspond to the spirit of the times, which in literature was called the “Thaw.”

These, of course, are my personal views on that now distant mid-sixties. It was a period of great spiritual uplift, a true spring of hope, those glorious years. It was the time of the founding of the Club of Creative Youth, led by Les Tanyuk, Alla Horska, Ivan Svitlychny, Ivan Dziuba, and many others, who later went their own various ways. More on all this will come later, in connection with my encounters with them, both in person and through literature, including when I became acquainted with the materials of investigation case file No….

It was a time of revival for Ukrainian literature, art, and the spirit of the nation in general.

In poetry, Vasyl Symonenko, Lina Kostenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky, Ivan Drach, and others came to the fore. In art—Zaretsky, Horska, Zalyvakha, Semykina, Sevruk, and many others as well.

It was 1963.

The first writer whose work I became acquainted with was Ivan Drach, who had published a poem, “On the Death of Shevchenko,” in the magazine “Vitchyzna.” Around the same time, I attended an Eddie Rosner concert at the October Palace. Yevgeny Yevtushenko was there; Maya Kristalinskaya was singing songs with his lyrics. They asked him, Yevtushenko, to come on stage. And he introduced Ivan Drach to many Kyivans in a very peculiar way. After reading some of his own poems, Yevtushenko said that we also have wonderful young poets, in particular, Drach, and that he had translated his “Sonyashnyk” (“Sunflower”), and he read the translation. Then he called out into the audience: “Vanya, ty zdes?” (“Vanya, are you here?”) And from above, a voice was heard, and an umbrella was waved.

“Ya tut,” (“I’m here,”) Drach called out.

A storm of applause. I think many of those present became interested in Drach’s work then, thanks to that peculiar advertisement.

I became acquainted with Symonenko when he was no longer alive. I’m referring to his “Diary” and his unpublished poems.

But I have strayed a bit from the main subject I wanted to share in these memoirs.

So, a knock on the door. My wife and I jumped up. The door opened without an invitation, because we lived in a communal apartment, but we didn’t lock our door with a key.

We didn’t hear whether they rang the main doorbell or if our neighbor let them in by arrangement. We never found out, and she never admitted to collaborating with the authorities.

Lieutenant Leonid Pavlovych Berestovsky arrived, who would later be my investigator—he was a nimble KGBist, but I’ll speak of him in due course in connection with his actions. Captain Morozov, an operative, also came, along with two janitors from neighboring buildings, the so-called attesting witnesses. And so the search procedure began.

Having read out the prosecutor’s order-warrant, they proposed that I voluntarily surrender any weapons and other forbidden items, documents, and literature.

Of all the things I had, the text printed on cigarette paper titled “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky” seemed to me the most seditious. I remembered where it was, as I had recently read it. I stood up and walked to the credenza (where we kept our books) with the intention of destroying that piece of sedition. For some reason, a scene I had once read about somewhere came to mind, and it suggested the solution to me—I must eat it.

But I did not succeed; they lunged at me like panthers (especially that Berestovsky) and tore it from my mouth. One has to admit, they were well-trained.

After that, they no longer trusted me; they didn’t ask me to hand over or search for seditious things myself.

They sat me and my wife apart, not allowing us to talk or communicate at all. This warning was constantly violated by our daughter, who was nine months old at the time. So they had to watch to ensure nothing was passed or placed in the crib. And they began to rummage around themselves. Truthfully, they are called “rummagers.”

In addition to the aforementioned text about the fire at the Academy of Sciences Library started by that Pohruzhalsky (he did it professionally, sprinkling the most valuable books with phosphorus, for which he was given seven or eight years, as if for the common arson of some barn), they confiscated “The Memoirs of Sofia Rusova,” Hrushevsky’s *History of Ukraine-Rus’*, poems and a diary by V. Symonenko, and some poems by Drach and Vinhranovsky.

They also confiscated a typewriter. This “shakedown” lasted about four hours. They drew up a seizure report and took me with them to the regional KGB headquarters, the one on Rosa Luxemburg Street. And there, the establishment of the truth began.

Two questions were posed about each “document.” Where did you get it? And to whom did you give it?

Here, one already had to think or, as investigator Berestovsky liked to say, “squirm out of it.”

About the books, I answered clearly right away that I had bought them. Where, that was a bit more convoluted, but mostly I said I didn’t remember. For some reason, this elicited a characteristically ironic, professional smile from Berestovsky.

Regarding the poems and other typewritten works, I gave the same explanation: that I didn’t remember who gave them to me to read. True, the presence of entire caches of reprints somewhat complicated my explanations.

It was also necessary to give an assessment of these “documents” and their duplication.

The answer was also unequivocal: that I do not consider these works anti-Soviet. Because that was precisely how the question was put. I said that Hrushevsky had written his history before the revolution, and the authors of the poems were Soviet writers, and so on.

As for the typewriter, I also firmly stated that I had bought it from someone at the flea market.

The investigator diligently recorded all my answers in silence. True, there were warnings that truthful testimony would reduce my guilt. I listened understandingly to the texts of certain articles of the code and continued to say the same thing.

This preliminary conversation ended at about eleven o’clock at night. Some conversation, from five in the morning until eleven at night.

And they took me somewhere else. As we drove, I realized they were taking me via Khreshchatyk to Volodymyrska Street.

In the courtyard of that gray block stands a four-story building, it seems, a kind of box. And it is called the internal prison. That’s where they took me in for a stay.

I must have looked awful. I felt quite ill, especially when they ordered me to undress. But it went off without a hitch. If only I had known that this was an instructional procedure for a so-called “personal search,” for the documentary verification of any special identifying marks.

So, after a thorough inspection of my whole body, having looked everywhere, carefully patting down every scrap of clothing, they cut off all the metal trinkets from my clothes, removed my belt, cut the buckles off my sandals, and, after piercing the soles with an awl, ordered me to get dressed. I can’t help but record an interesting detail. I was undressing slowly, because they were slowly patting down every seam. I was standing undressed, in my sandals, when I looked up and saw a guard approaching me with a large awl, a very unsympathetic type. The things you think of, especially when you have an imagination. But he barked: “Snimai botinki!” (“Take off your boots!”) and began to pierce them. That’s the trouble when you have no experience.

After getting dressed, I listened to the arrest warrant. They also read out the rules of conduct in the “isolator.” They ordered me to follow the guard, I think to the third floor, to the end of the corridor.

I took a rolled-up mattress (a black sack) and trudged after him. The settling-in procedure is apparently the same as in all pre-trial detention centers.

The KGB ones are distinguished only by solitary cells.

The cell was about 2 by 4 meters, and maybe four meters high as well. An iron bed with 20 by 20 cm squares, made of 5 cm wide iron strips, was attached to the floor. This is called a *nary* [bunk]. In the corner, under the window, was a small table and a stool, also immovable. The window, probably about 40 by 50 cm, was high up with bars and also boarded up from below with a shield (they called it a *baraban* [drum]), so you couldn’t see the exercise yards below. You could only see small squares of sky. The floor was parquet, the walls were painted, and the radiator was in a deep, grated niche. So, complete isolation with comforts.

All this, of course, I examined in the morning. At the time, I didn’t care; I felt a terrible exhaustion. I went in, threw down the so-called mattress, and fell onto the bunk. I heard the locks grinding in the double doors, and then I sank into the night. That’s how my life under the care of the KGB began. Although—no, under their maintenance, because, as it turned out, they had already been “taking care” of me for at least six months.

Later, analyzing my actions, I established more or less precisely when I had landed in hot water and who had put a “tail” on me.

Apparently, I got on the list of the unreliable through the list for “Zhayvoronok” (“The Lark”). This was an amateur choral group. The head was Borys Ryaboklyach, and the deputy was Volodya Zavoisky, around whom the youth in fact gathered. The conductor Polyukh worked with us selflessly on a volunteer basis, dreaming of creating an original a cappella choir out of us.

And so, somewhere at the beginning of these singalongs, they “demanded” a list of participants with their addresses and places of work. Such an old and reliable trick. This, of course, is not necessarily a pretext, but the KGB considers anyone who takes any part in Ukrainian cultural and educational activities a potential anti-Soviet nationalist. They immediately send in or recruit informants, so-called snitches, and soon find out what the spirit is like in that group or circle. They are especially concerned if there are any monetary collections or group trips. At that time, we were collecting money for a monument to V. Symonenko.

The method of checking lists, voluntarily compiled by the group leaders, was apparently the most effective in the KGB’s operations, because they used it all the time. This later happened with the “Homin” (“Echo”) choir as well, whose organizer and inspirer was Leopold Ivanovych Yashchenko, who, for this, evidently, suffered for many years. And the most notable thing was that after the so-called registration of participants, the doors of either the “Bolshevik” club or other premises that had been provided for our rehearsals would be closed to us. So we had to gather on the slopes of the Dnipro, but even there they didn’t leave us in peace, sending provocateurs and hooligans.

But here I have strayed a bit again.

So, at six o’clock on the morning of Sunday, August 29, 1965, I was awakened by the click of the “kormushka” (this is a small hatch in the door, 20 x 30 cm, through which food is passed and all communication is conducted). A guard commanded: “V tuvalet” (“To the toilet”).

And so my stay at the full expense of the state of KGB-eria began.

And it lasted within the walls of that mighty state for one year.

Now, describing it, it sounds almost strange—only one year, and in the KGB at that.

It’s now somewhat forgotten that those were the post-Thaw times; the Ukrainian KGB was still headed by Nikitchenko, and Ukraine was ruled by its last hetman, Petro Shelest. They, in my opinion, compared to the later Fedorchuks, were liberals. They even tried to listen to us, arranged something like a reception for each of us. They studied us at the highest level, formed impressions.

I recall from history that Tsar Nicholas I listened to those whom he would later personally and cruelly punish, and even that was only at the beginning of his tsarist service.

So one day, near the end of the investigation, they arranged a reception. A company of KGB generals, and even people in civilian clothes, apparently the hetman’s envoys, listened to our explanations, our “credos” and “concepts.” This was the main question.

They prepared us as if for a real reception: we were cleanly shaven, washed, even given clean long johns, and were repeatedly instructed not to do or say anything inappropriate. I don’t know what they were afraid of, because there were so many of those guardians running around us that it somehow lifted our spirits. Colonel Borovyk, the then-head of the investigative department of the regional KGB, was especially troubled. They led us across the courtyard, then through many corridors and rooms, no longer cells, but rooms where we awaited that reception, although we didn’t really understand what was supposed to happen.

They let me into a large hall. I was quite bewildered. So many new uniforms and faces at once! It’s hard to describe. You have to have an imagination to picture such a contrast. We had been in solitary cells for about half a year already. Our eyes were used to monotony, our ears to certain sounds and the silence, which was sometimes only broken by commands like “V tuvalet” or “K следователю” (“To the investigator”). On the way, through the corridors, the guard constantly clicked his fingers. This was a kind of signal for anyone approaching.

So, I looked ahead and didn’t know where to go, because they literally pushed me in and closed the door.

One of the generals, a kind man, helped me out and even invited me to sit down.

I can’t remember what the conversation started with. It seems that Borovyk read our personal files, “introducing us,” as they say, because the investigation was almost finished, it was already known who had done what. They demanded that we appear before that high assembly in our own person. That is, apparently, they were deciding how to punish these new “dissenters.” Or perhaps they, the powers that be, were interested in seeing who these dissenters were. They asked some questions. I remember convincing them that those “documents” were not anti-Soviet. One of the generals declared that, supposedly, Sofia Rusova had collaborated with Dontsov and something else. In the end, Nikitchenko said: “Well, all right, you may go. The court will sort out your guilt.”

But here I’ve jumped six months ahead.

What actually happened was that Sunday began. I was alone, in a semi-dark cell, because, as I’ve already mentioned, the window was boarded up from the bottom to the halfway point with a “drum.” I don’t remember seeing any sun.

From that time on, my conscious feeling of losing my orientation in time and space began. I mean counting time in the literal sense and complete informational isolation. That Sunday was especially hard for me, because of the sudden relocation into Mutism, for a voice was forbidden: no talking, no singing, and even the guards addressed me in a whisper. Such psychological mockery. But it was good they let me sleep, because stories of the old methods came to mind, when there was neither sleep nor rest.

I, and everyone else, as it turned out later in the zone, had no idea how they would treat us. The institution was the same, the premises, and the same school of thought, which had been perfected for 50 years.

My pacing in the cell was interrupted after a while by the clicking of the kormushka. Through the small window, they passed me half a loaf of bread, a metal mug with a measure of sugar, and a teapot with boiling water. Then, after some time, they gave me a piece of herring.

And again, I was alone with myself. Bliss. If you want, walk; if you want, sit, only lying down was not allowed, so as not to get lazy. And think, think. The things I thought about…

The passage of time during the day was marked by commands: “Podyem” (Reveille), “na opravku” (for toilet), “khleb” (bread), “zavtrak” (breakfast), “obed” (lunch), “progulka” (walk), “uzhin” (dinner), and again “v tuvalet” and “otboy” (lights out). This was when they didn’t call me for interrogation. Well, and interrogation was just interrogation. They usually took me right after breakfast. After lunch, it would sometimes drag on late, until about 10 or 11 o’clock at night. This probably happened when they were under some kind of pressure. For example, the end of a business trip for investigators from other cities. Later, I had a Captain Kolpak, from Kharkiv. Sashko Martynenko had one from Odesa. There were also ones from Dnipropetrovsk and other cities.

This was their “training” on the national question, a sort of exchange of experience, because those “Varangians” had little knowledge of nationalist problems. There, in the southern and eastern cities, this question had obviously not yet arisen.

So, having gained experience in Kyiv, they later initiated cases in Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and other cities.

...And again night in a lit cell, and again day, August 30, a Monday. The same morning commands and their execution.

After breakfast, they brought something to read, two volumes by Vasily Narezhny. The first: “The Adventures of Prince Gavril.” And the second—a collection of novellas on historical Ukrainian themes (“Bursak,” “Harkusha,” and others). It was then that I recovered a little after such two strenuous days.

After lunch, the investigation began. At the beginning, investigator Berestovsky (by the way, at the start of perestroika, he was kicked out of the KGB and became a lawyer. But he will be mentioned more than once) announced to me the order “to initiate a case...” under Art. 62, Part 1, that is, for the possession, production, and distribution of anti-Soviet nationalist documents and oral agitation against Soviet power. He also proclaimed the prosecutor’s sanction for my “detention” and place of confinement (pre-trial detention center). It turns out they have the right to hold you for three days even without a prosecutor’s sanction.

And so began the “discussion” according to the rules of socialist democracy of the stagnant times. It started with a grim severity, reading articles of the codes about the aggravating influence of false testimony and so on. It must have been the “protocol.”

The same Berestovsky who had arrested me, and who then on August 28 had recorded my explanations in the protocol of the seizure of the so-called anti-Soviet documents, items, and materials, asked almost the same questions. Where, when, from whom, to whom, etc. I, of course, tried to repeat what I had said the first time.

I won’t describe all those dialogues, because they were repeated many times. I will just give one example. For a long time, listeners perceived it as a joke, and for some reason, they still laugh heartily.

Here’s what happened. Mostly, to my answers, Berestovsky would write in the protocol: “You are not telling the truth; we know that it is not so at all, so answer the question again.” And I again, without batting an eye: “I am telling the truth,” etc.

And this is where Berestovsky says to me: “Ivan Ivanovych, you’re going to end up like that fellow Abram. Abram comes home with a black eye. They ask him how it happened. He says he got into a bit of trouble, they wanted to give him a kick in the behind, but he dodged, so it landed under his eye.”

We laughed together. This was somewhere in the second week of the investigation, when it was already clear what they knew and what they wanted, I was already somewhat calm. That is, I already allowed myself to joke sometimes, declaring that it was all nonsense.

By the way, it is very important to maintain a sense of humor and optimism in yourself.

There were episodes during the investigation when I changed my testimony, although I believe I could have not changed it. I became so wise afterward. They, the investigators, resort to various methods of inquiry. For example, a confrontation. But you can still say one thing, even if the other person says something else. The investigator must record everything, as they say, only summarizing what is true and what is not. This also doesn’t mean anything yet. Only the court can assess the result of that confrontation, which is repeated at the trial. This is from my own experience.

Let me explain what “changed my testimony” means. In the episode with the typewriter that was confiscated from me, for which I had explained that I bought it at the market for 50 rubles, there was a continuation. A lot of time had passed, they had already changed my investigator to Kolpak, Borys Antonovych, on assignment from Kharkiv. So he goes over the case again, asking questions, and records the answers.

He asks where the typewriter came from. I repeated that I bought it. And he suddenly says, after having first clarified my relationship with Sashko Martynenko, that O. Martynenko says that he had brought the typewriter to my apartment on such-and-such a date to retype some texts for himself. What a surprise! That was the first such blow, like the one to that Abram. I was twisting myself into a knot, taking the fall, and Sashko was honestly explaining what had actually happened. What was I supposed to say? I must have been caught off guard, because Kolpak laughs and says: “Well, who’s telling the truth?”

So you can say whatever you want. In Kyiv, they didn’t resort to physical pressure then. And if someone did crack, it was of their own free will. This was true for both the suspects and the witnesses. They let you read all the testimony of the witnesses and accomplices when you get to familiarize yourself with the case file, after the investigation is over. It was interesting.

By the way, at that time, those whom the KGB managed to “crack” were released, with the case being closed on the grounds that their continued presence at large did not pose a threat to state security.

As I have already said, the entire six-month period of solitary confinement during the investigation is not worth describing, because it was, for the most part, schematic. I will limit myself to only the most characteristic episodes.

So Kolpak, being on assignment in Kyiv, worked intensively with me periodically, obviously rushing to complete some plan before the end of his current assignment.

Over four months, we had already become friends. I had already taught him the language. He promised to send his son to a Ukrainian school. I just don’t know if there was even one Ukrainian school in Kharkiv at that time. He behaved quite peacefully, apparently playing the simpleton, or maybe he was one. Although, obviously, he was noticed, because on January 12, 1972, when they were holding me in the KGB, at about eleven o’clock at night, he came to greet me and boasted that he was handling the case of Danylo Shumuk.

And back then, he would ask me to correct the mistakes in his historical writings. He wrote them twice, a rough draft and a final copy. He tried hard.

Things were coming to an end. It had already become known that they had merged the three of us into one case: Yevhenia (Yivha) Fedorivna Kuznetsova, Oleksandr Martynenko, and me, although I didn’t know Kuznetsova at all. When I familiarized myself with the case, I learned a lot of interesting things about her, a pioneer of university dissenters, a native of Shostka in the Sumy region. Her testimony was dignified; she didn't implicate anyone, which obviously angered the repressors, who demanded five years of a strict regime for her. The case also contained some of her interesting discoveries, which she made while observing physical phenomena. For example, about the sun as an artist, and others. And so she quietly, alone, went to trial, earning four years of a strict regime. She was released quietly after finishing her term and, after a short illness, quietly passed away.

This little digression is to say that it would be worthwhile to research her contribution to the cause of national awakening. Unfortunately, we still have forgotten ones, although overall there were not that many of them.

So Kolpak was already promising me no more than three years, because, he said, the other two had significantly more “episodes of crime.”

They say that in war, as in war. One could say that in prison, as in prison. The hardest are the first day, the first week, the first month. Everything is relative. A person gets used to everything. And, most importantly, not to lose optimism, and for your conscience not to torture you. That is, not to feel guilty before anyone, meaning not to “snitch” on anyone, even if supposedly unintentionally, or for noble reasons. Literature has already cited cases of “cracking” for precisely “noble” reasons.

So you must always remember about silence. You have to speak as little as possible to the investigator’s questions. Literally brief: yes, no, I don’t know, I don’t remember, I’ve forgotten due to the passage of time, and so on. Because whatever you say will, in the end, turn against you. If you lie, and the investigation still manages to establish the truth, and you are then forced to confirm it—this complicates your situation.

When you tell the truth, you are inevitably forced to “implicate” someone, and you add to your own number of episodes. So “molchi glukha, menshe griekha” (“keep quiet, deaf one, less sin”).

And a few sentences about the so-called “planted ducks.” This is also something to always remember. They planted them on me three times.

Somewhere in the fourth month of solitary confinement, they put an old man in my cell. He later started talking, said he was from Pryluky, Ivan Danyk, even gave me an address as he was leaving after five days. He told me about his case, that sometime after the war he had worked in Dolyna, and they were incriminating him for connections with the Banderites. He didn’t seem to question me. Maybe they were interested in my attitude toward such a case. One could have not suspected him, but at that address in Pryluky, no such person had ever lived. I checked this later, when I was in Pryluky.

There were two others, but I couldn’t verify if they were who they claimed to be.

Of course, you can’t consider everyone a snitch, but you have to be mindful.

The investigation, like all actions, has a beginning and must have an end.

So for Kolpak and me, the “case” was coming to an end, although two episodes had not yet been cleared up. This was the source of that most seditious item, “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky,” because I consistently maintained that I didn’t remember, and no one else spoke of it; it hadn’t been confiscated from anyone else. And they didn’t believe me that I had bought S. Rusova’s “Memoirs” but couldn’t remember from whom.

But, regardless of that, Kolpak writes an order to close the investigation and establish the fact of the crime under Art. 62, Part 1.

I signed it, and Kolpak and I parted ways, although by the end, he no longer denied that his name was Kovpak.

My heart felt light, calm. You know what you’ve done, what crime you’ve committed. All that remained was to “hope” for a just verdict.

But this state was soon interrupted; I had relaxed too soon.

Two days later, they call me for interrogation again. It wasn’t enough yet. I go…

They lead me much further, through many more corridors and doors. We stopped somewhere, a guard peeked through some door and said to wait. We are standing. And there, from the end of the corridor, from behind a door, a noise, a scream is heard. I listen closely. It’s clearly audible: “Oy, ne nado” (“Oh, no”), dull sounds of a fall. Well, like the reaction of a victim to violent interrogation methods, like they show in the movies. And this went on for maybe a minute, maybe more, and we stand and wait until they call me into the office. I enter and... Oh! Who do I see! Berestovsky, my first “benefactor,” the one who started to set me on the path of truth. He sits there sullen, official. And says that my wife has brought a package. And he pulls aside the curtain from the window and tells me to look. I look: there stands my poor, long-suffering wife, across the street, on Irynynska Street. Frozen, bluish-gray, with bundles in her hands, and with such hope she looks at those barred, curtained windows of that gray fortress... I felt terribly sorry for her. Literally, spasms clutched my throat. And he, like that executioner-benefactor, watches this silent scene. I hated him so much, to the extreme. I say, close the window. It was cold and damp outside, the end of February.

He closes the curtain and says in Russian, literally verbatim: “Ty delal Kovpaka kak khotel, poetomu my prodlili sledstvie” (“You did whatever you wanted with Kovpak, so we’ve extended the investigation”). And he reads me the order to cancel Kovpak’s order and that the investigation is being continued.

I am silent. He gravely takes protocol forms, inserts carbon paper, and asks: “What do you want to add to the case?” I say that I have said everything. He continues to ask questions about that article, about the fire at the Academy of Sciences library. I answer that I told investigator Kolpak everything I knew. The bastard laughs. A sly, Jesuitical smile. Such was Leonid Pavlovych.

By the way, we met about five more times after that.

The first time, when I was on a business trip to Bohuslav, we were getting on the same bus. He was already a senior lieutenant, meaning he had earned his star. This was shortly after, in 1966, because I had been hired back at the institute where I used to work. The director was a good man, a liberal named Melnikov; he secretly sympathized with me. The second time was at the “Ukraina” Palace, at some ethnographic concert.

The fourth time, already in 1992, Berestovsky was trying to befriend me, was offended that he had been kicked out of the personnel. We somehow got to talking about the occupation times. They were celebrating the memory of Olena Teliha then. And he declares that he was under occupation, at the age of ten, you see, he also wore a badge—a trident. And the fact that he worked for the KGB was a mistake, he was carrying out assignments, and he is so good, so sympathetic. He works as a lawyer now at the consultation office, opposite the Golden Gate. I was somehow so stunned that I didn't say anything bad to him. He was also complaining about Mykola Kholodny, that he had allegedly written some complaint against him and so he was summoned to the Committee for an explanation. A comedy, and nothing more.

The last time, we met very recently at the No. 15 trolleybus stop. He already looked alarmed: for some reason we meet often. I wanted to confirm some KGB methods with him, remembering how he had repented for his investigative actions. I even reminded him of General Kalugin. But he was in some hurry and didn't confirm the facts, only referred to the fact that he was carrying out the instructions of that “gang” headed by Shcherbytsky and that Fedorchuk was a scoundrel and so on. And then he fled.

But let me continue. Berestovsky then says: “Vy peredachu khotite poluchit?” (“Do you want to get the package?”). He spoke in Russian then, but wrote the protocols in Ukrainian at my request. He asks as if to mock. I pretended not to hear the question and said: “I have said everything and have nothing more to add.” Something else was said, not recorded. And he calls for them to take me away. He says to me: “Vy khorosho podumayte, chtoby ne pozhaleli” (“You’d better think hard, so you don’t regret it”).

So I left. His mission ended there. They didn’t summon me anymore, until that farcical spectacle with the generals in the main KGB hall, which I have already described above.

Sometime later they announced the end of the investigation, moved me to another floor to live, and gave me newspapers. And after some more time, they began to familiarize me with the case.

This is also quite an interesting period. They let you read all the volumes, all the materials, all the seditious literature that was confiscated from Yivha Fedorivna Kuznetsova, Sashko Martynenko, some witnesses, and all the testimony of those questioned in the case.

This is where I became enlightened. I read so much! I went to learn for about a week. Yes, yes, precisely to learn. There was Koshelivets, Vynnychenko, and Dontsov. And how much “seditious” literature without an author! And the testimonies themselves! What are the discussions between Yivha Fedorivna Kuznetsova and the investigator worth alone. It’s just a pity that human memory is not capable of retaining what has been read for long.

One can only imagine the dialogues Ivan Svitlychny had with them, because even my Kolpak said that he was a serious and complex person. They truly learned from us.

By the way, another scene comes to mind. This was still with Berestovsky, at the beginning of the investigation, when debates on the national question were being held, when they wanted to convince us that everything national is nationalistic, that is, anti-Soviet. So, I often referred to Lenin. Berestovsky in a fit of temper shouts: “Chto vy ukhvatilis za etogo Lenina!” (“Why are you clinging to this Lenin!”). And I caught him on that word: what does such disrespect as ‘this Lenin’ of yours mean? He got his bearings and said: “Da net, ya nichego” (“Oh no, I didn't mean anything”). And that’s when I became convinced of what their principles were.

But further, about familiarizing myself with the case.

Some man named Loginov was present at these sessions of mine. Oh, how he hurried me. “Zachem vy sebe golovu zasoryaete” (“Why are you cluttering your head”), he would say. But there was nothing to be done. The defendant, which we had already become after the end of the investigation, must, according to the code, familiarize himself with the case, and sign the protocol of familiarization.

So I read, and I was in ecstasy. Where else would there be such an opportunity to read so much, and, most importantly, without being punished for it? A comedy, and nothing more. I never thought such a thing could happen, because how would one know, they didn’t teach us that. I read the testimonies of almost all my friends or acquaintances. It turns out the KGB had been monitoring my communications for some time. The testimonies were mostly all positive. That is, I know him as a good person, and he didn’t give me anything to read. Only a few of my colleagues were aggressive. One said that I reproached him for sending his son to a Russian school. Another said that I cursed Khmelnytsky. One Jew wrote that I was an anti-Semite. Such testimonies were attached to the case. Why—I don’t know. Whether this was also anti-Sovietism, or perhaps just for a general character reference for the court, because the court uses such an expression: “taking into account the person.”

An interesting detail from that familiarization with the case. I am reading Volodya Zavoisky’s testimony. Little is said about me, and it's positive. He had a lot of trouble with Hryn and Martynenko. In the protocol of his interrogations, I see the name of the same Loginov as the investigator. I ask him how Volodya Zavoisky is doing. And he says: “He’s fine. Podpravil ya yemu mozgi. Budet rabotat” (“I fixed his brains. He’ll work”).

I look at him and it’s just laughable. This puny thing, a muzhichok s nogotok, a jr. lieutenant, obviously someone’s protégé, because he clearly stands out from the row of those “che-kist fighters.” And it “fixed the brains” of Zavoisky! My God, my God... By the way, at my last meeting with Berestovsky, when reminiscing about people, he told me that Loginov had drunk himself to death.

I keep leafing through those volumes of confessions, as they were called, although not everything in them could be called a confession. I even made notes for myself, because there is such a right when preparing for trial, for one’s defense.

So I read up, got enlightened, gathered some borrowed wisdom, and signed the protocol on familiarization with the case.

And I began to wait for the trial. One day a guard summons me. He brings me to the first floor of the isolator. A similar cell, only without the “drum” on the window. A table and two stools. At the table sits some man, asks me to sit. I sit, and he introduces himself as a lawyer who intends to defend me.

I, after familiarizing myself with the case, had decided not to hire a lawyer, about which I had written a statement. For some reason, I was sure it was a farce, because from what position could a lawyer, a member of the Party, defend me?

He says that my brother hired him. I ask about his defense strategy. His surname was Kotlyarsky. I thought maybe he was a fellow countryman, because in our Horodok there were people with that surname. He was a middle-aged Jew. He was explaining something to me, referring to some articles, to the humanity of Soviet legislation, until I got sick of it. I tell him that he doesn’t need to defend me, that I wrote an official “paper” that I don’t believe in that defense, that I will defend myself.

He didn’t argue, but said that he had been paid and had to earn his fee, that he had to come to the court session, and there I could officially demand his absence. And so we decided, because he had been paid for his services after all.

At last, the day of the trial arrived.

They shaved us again, gave us haircuts, and changed us into clean underwear. They prepared us as if for a holiday.

A vehicle came for us, the kind they use to transport bread or meat. Do you remember how Solzhenitsyn described the movement of those vehicles through Moscow? Back then, they would write on them in a foreign language that they were carrying meat.

It was a regular “black raven,” as the people say. They loaded us into boxes, one by one. You could hear that there were three of us. We called out to each other, recognized one another. We didn't travel for long, as it was nearby, on the same street, the KGB fortress and the so-called “government offices”—the city and regional courts.

And so when they brought us, when they were leading us out, an incident occurred, or as the guard later said, a “glitch.” Our friends met us with flowers!

Lina Kostenko, Alla Horska, Nadiyka Svitlychna, Ivan Dziuba, and others were there. They cheered us on, but were rudely pushed away. Someone threw red carnations. It's hard to describe it all. This instilled strength in us, it gave us spiritual fortitude. This will not be forgotten. Relatives and acquaintances were there too, but no one was allowed into the trial. The trial took place behind closed doors. To this day I wonder what they were afraid of, what are they always afraid of? Why do they inflate the ranks of the KGB, the internal troops?

So, the court session was held at the level of the regional court. Everything was as written in the code: three judges, a prosecutor, and lawyers. Regarding mine, Kotlyarsky, the procedure was carried out according to the code. I dismissed him, and the court granted my request. He left. And the farce of a court session began, which was closed without grounds. The trial was orchestrated by the blue caps, because there were many of them, they were constantly bustling about. Our supporters, our relatives and friends, must have been giving them no peace.

The session lasted about a week. Reading those volumes took up a lot of time.

Witnesses were heard. They looked poorly, confused. They were obviously very frightened. They repeated everything they had said during the preliminary investigation. My colleague, Mykola Todor, repeated that I had allegedly condemned or cursed Khmelnytsky. I asked him to recall whether I had said that, or had I been reading Shevchenko’s words. He confirmed without hesitation that yes, it was in Shevchenko’s poems. Then I ask him, so why did you lie and sign such testimony? Here the prosecutor intervened. Todor remained silent. And so they cleared up this episode of oral anti-Soviet agitation, that is, they left it unchanged, because obviously, the fate of each of us had already been decided according to the script. They were just playing games…

There were no more “glitches.” They brought us in early, the entrances to the court were securely blocked.

The session itself does not deserve any special assessment. Everything was as planned, as in the “most humane” socialist court, the “people’s” court.

Except perhaps for a few sentences. Yivha Fedorivna’s defender focused only on the humanity of Soviet legislation, saying that women could not be sentenced to a strict regime. The court confirmed this, but added that, unfortunately, we do not have an article for a general regime, nor do we have camps of that specific type—for a general regime of detention.

Martynenko’s lawyer also mumbled something, trying to soften the judges. Look, he said, how young they are, and their lives will be broken, he even, like an actor, made himself feel pity, shedding a tear. I wonder, was he really such a soft person, or maybe he’d had a little something for courage… After all, he had to defend a state criminal, as if contradicting the KGB, and what if something came of it later.

The prosecutor requested: for Yevhenia Kuznetsova—FIVE years, for Sashko—FOUR, for me—TWO. And they went to deliberate. They deliberated, showed leniency, or as they wrote, taking into account the persons, and announced our VERDICT.

They reduced everyone’s sentence by a year. And that was that.

I didn't file an appeal. Apparently, my co-defendants didn't either. The wait for dispatch to the transport began.

Among the service staff, there was one seemingly decent man, a librarian, hairdresser, and bathhouse attendant. He told me that they would be taken to Mordovia. As for me, I would probably be kept here, because I had a little more than three months left, and it made no sense to take me to a camp.

But fortune was kind to me and gave me the opportunity to go the full way from the ISOLATOR to the CAMP, to the ZONE of a strict regime, where I, once again, went through an accelerated course of “universal education,” where fate gave me the opportunity to personally meet great PEOPLE: Mykhailo Soroka, Svyatoslav Karavansky, Panas Zalyvakha, the Horyn brothers, Osadchy, Daniel, and many others.

In general, everyone treated me very well, trying to pass on their dreams to here, to the big zone. I was even sorry to leave them so soon, that glorious Ukrainian community. But that is for the second part: about the transports and the camp.

Journal “Zona,” No. 5 (1993), pp. 217-233. With the author’s corrections from May 2007. Prepared by V. Ovsiyenko. Final reading August 4, 2007.

Ivan RUSYN

THE TRANSPORTS

A wise person once said: “Those who in a great war take the first blows rarely celebrate victory. But the memory of them lives on for centuries and echoes in the hearts of descendants with a poignant pain and filial gratitude...”

Finally, the mock trial ended, and the verdict was announced. So, the verdict was in. There were no appeals from us (Kuznetsova Yivha Fedorivna, Martynenko Oleksandr, and me—Rusyn Ivan). None of us knew where we would be taken for our further places of residence. They shaved our heads, cut our hair, gave us our underwear and clothing, but when and where—they wouldn't say.

True, the librarian, who was also the barber, told me that I would probably be kept in this very KGB prison, as I had less than four months left until the bell of freedom. But it didn't happen that way, probably because they were forced to follow the sentence’s prescription, which specified the place of residence—a strict-regime camp. And so one day there was a commotion in the corridor, and soon the “kormushka” (the small door hatch where food and all sorts of instructions were passed) opened, and the command “s veshchami” (“with your things”) was sounded.

It was somehow unexpected, as we had grown accustomed to the quiet regime of confinement. We were no longer being called for interrogations or to court, or anywhere else. They gave us food and even allowed packages from home. In short, people are people, they get used to everything and don’t want extra trouble or changes. But what can you do, the master knows what he’s doing. If it’s necessary, it’s necessary; he knows better where we’ll be more comfortable living and how.

So I grabbed my bag, sat down for a moment for the road, looked around the cell to remember the interior, so I could later tell where my primary education began. Primary because my “universities” were actually in the camp, in Yavas, Mordovia. They loaded us into the “voronok” [black van] one by one in the prison yard. They weren't in much of a hurry, so I was able to get a good look at the rather extensive courtyard inside the KGB block. The so-called internal prison looked like a four-story brick box, placed in one of the corners of the yard. A typical Stalinist architectural structure.

They placed us (Yivha Fedorivna, Sashko, and me) in “boxes” one by one and took us to the train station. But they brought us somewhere far away, because the station building wasn’t visible, and in fact, no one was visible at all. Apparently, the place where the so-called “vagon-zak” [prison car] was formed and equipped was a track specially set aside for such matters.

With vicious dogs and assault rifles, the convoy guards transferred us to the railcar. The “vagon-zak” is a special, seemingly couchette-style car for transporting “zakliuchonnyye” [prisoners] on transports. That's why it's called a “zak.” The compartments in this car have transparent, barred doors with strong bolts. Guards are constantly scurrying along the corridor-passageway, and they took it upon themselves to look after us from that moment on. They can see everything that happens in those compartments and hear what is said. Sometimes, if they feel like it, they give a little water and take you to the latrine. But all this happens after long requests, demands, and a general outcry, because everyone feels these requests. This is a kind of solidarity-based support.

And all that communication is solid profanity, or, as some philologists say—in the “Turkic dialect.”

They put me and Oleksandr Martynenko in one compartment, I think the first one. Yevhenia Fedorivna Kuznetsova was nearby, in the second compartment, alone. It was here that we felt a certain advantage of being political prisoners, that is, they separated us from the rest of the people. And there were people aplenty. Probably ten people, maybe more, in one compartment. Between the upper bunks, a platform folded out over the aisle, which made it possible to accommodate 5-6 people lying down on the second tier of the compartment. Just try to imagine such travel conditions. Below, 4-5 people sit on each bench. There were cases when they stuffed people under the benches, too, as there are no luggage spaces there. And, as they later explained to me, the so-called “petukhi” [roosters] crammed in there. The things that happen in this sinful world.

As for food. The road ration was well thought out: herring, mostly a bit rotten, and half a loaf of bread. And water, as already mentioned, was hard to beg for. Technology.

And all those compartments, both men’s and women’s, were completely packed. But those passengers apparently didn't feel any discomfort, as they were probably used to such journeys. It was we who were shocked by what we saw and heard. For Sashko and me it was so-so, but that poor Yivha huddled in a corner of the compartment and just prayed.

I had not been acquainted with Yivha Fedorivna before the arrest, although they had made us co-conspirators. Only while familiarizing myself with the case file after the investigation did I get to know her in absentia as a highly moral person. So for her, this was a real shock. Apparently, with further transports she saw and heard even more of that filth. I never saw her again.

They later said that in the camp she was in an extremely depressed state, became seriously ill, and soon after returning to Ukraine, she passed into the other world, as if freed from the “big zone.” In her last days, she was under the care of her son, who buried her as God commands. Unfortunately, the nationally conscious Ukrainian community has not yet honored her properly. Perhaps because she was not a public figure. She worked as a lecturer in the chemistry department of Kyiv State University. She conducted, as the repressive KGB authorities later qualified it, anti-Soviet nationalist propaganda and agitation among students and lecturers. She was tracked and arrested. The punitive lackeys considered her underground activities the most significant crime, and she was the “locomotive” in our joint case.

They sentenced her to 5 years, Sashko to 3 years, and me to one year of strict-regime camps, although the Code of Criminal Procedure did not provide for a strict regime of confinement for women and first-time prisoners. But what can you do. Such was the “most humane Soviet justice.”

This, of course, is a kind of lyricism. So forgive me for digressing from the topic of the transports. Similar lyrical digressions may occur later as well.

So, we sat in that “couchette” car for probably about six hours, until the entire northeast-bound train was filled with “passengers.” They attached us to some mail train, and somewhere in the evening we set off. And it was here that those dialogues began, which I’ve already mentioned a little. You see, our crew didn't want to soil the tracks before the train started moving. But if only it hadn't been for such a long wait, and in the heat at that, as it was already May. True, in extreme situations the convoy guards would provide some containers (bags, bottles). But that was with a huge scandal.

The mail express trudges along slowly, with frequent stops. And yet the journey was not dull; one could hear countless disputes, quarrels, and even fights. And all this was accompanied by that powerful “dialect.” For us, this was a certain education, as we had never heard or seen such things before. A real cesspool. I think it's hard to even imagine.

Something of what I saw. I recall such scenes. A guard leads one or two zeks to the toilet. Passing by a women's compartment, a zek asks: “Flash me your soul.” But stopping is not allowed; the guard pushes him further. But when they go back, they have the opportunity to view a great variety of those “souls.” The women, probably also very bored, expose all their charms with such enthusiasm that the souls of the observers rejoice at the displayed “souls.” And everyone is satisfied, everyone becomes cheerful. Especially when they push each other away from that barred opening. Those “salabon” [rookie] guards also enjoy it, though they command them to “prekratit’ bezobraziye” (“stop the outrage”). Such “merriment” lasted quite a long time. If it's only a human-like creature, what can you expect from it. Apparently, some people also become creatures in extreme situations. That's how my journey to that “university” began.

Eventually, the passengers calmed down a bit, quieted down. They settled in somehow and, apparently, dozed off. Our neighbor Yivha was silent the whole time, or maybe she was drowsing. To one of Sashko’s appeals, she replied with a single phrase: “May the Lord protect you.” A rather lively conversation was going on between Sashko and me. It started with clarifying some circumstances of the investigation. I wanted to clear up a lot of things...

A short backstory. We met in Kyiv in 1964, although we had studied at the same geology and prospecting faculty of the Lviv Polytechnic Institute. I graduated from the geodesy program in 1959, and Sashko Martynenko graduated in geophysics about two years later. We grew close at rehearsals for the “Zhayvoronok” choir. We had interesting conversations on historical and patriotic themes. A lot was said about literature and poetry. I recall he even scribbled some poems. At that time, I was fascinated by the modern poetry of young poets. Eventually, we moved on to samizdat. We jokingly called it “sedition.” The KGBists later enlightened us: with the help of learned experts, they explained to us that these were anti-Soviet, and mostly nationalist, documents or materials. But to read or discuss, to “philosophize,” as my grandmother used to say—that doesn't require much intelligence. We needed to do something ourselves.

So Sashko found a typewriter somewhere and brought it to me, because he himself lived in a rented room. I arranged with Lida Melnyk, who knew how to type because she worked in some editorial office. And the work of reprinting samizdat began. At first, it was poems by Vasyl Symonenko, some by Ivan Drach, Mykola Vinhranovsky, and Lina Kostenko. Then it came to Vasyl Symonenko’s “Diary.” And then we got to real sedition, such as “Svyatoslav Karavansky’s Lawsuit against the Minister of Education Dadenkov” and “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky.” This was about that scoundrel who set fire to the archive of the National Academic Library, sprinkling the books with phosphorus. Later, we organized the photocopying and duplication of works by Ivan Koshelivets and others.

It was still the time of the “Khrushchev Thaw,” and we, one might say, paid no attention to deep conspiracy. And we were later taught a lesson for such recklessness. But Sashko and I were not the only such uneducated neophytes. Even such “masters” of the Sixtiers as Ivan Svitlychny and his closest circle did not recommend playing at being an underground, conducting any kind of literacy campaigns in catacombs. One could talk a lot about those years 1964-1965. Some things, of course, have been forgotten, and there's nothing to be done about it.

What has a beginning must someday have an end. So the time for our “underground” to pay the price also came. On August 28, 1965, a roundup was conducted, or as it was later called, the “first harvest.” And all of us, those primitive “undergrounders,” were swept up without warning, suddenly. But the KGB prepared well and carried out this action simultaneously in many cities of Ukraine. More than two dozen, maybe even more, members of the nationally conscious intelligentsia were arrested.

While in the camp, in a calm atmosphere, we analyzed that repressive action. And the vast majority agreed that we had been very naive and inexperienced. Or, generalizing, one can confidently say that the neophytes in the catacombs were much more organized and experienced.

True, this may only apply to those who allowed themselves to be swept up by that KGB broom at the end of August 1965 in Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lutsk, Odesa, and other cities. Because I cannot believe that the resistance to the Communist-Bolshevik empire in Ukraine was held up by those twenty or so individuals who were later called the “Sixtiers.” I am sure there were very, very many times more. Because such a great nation cannot remain in bondage for a long time. Revolutionary upsurges occur in waves. Each generation pushes its leaders to the top, who become the engines of progress, perhaps even heroes. It often happens that they are repressed by the ruling regimes, even die for an idea. But all this has never been in vain. The struggle, blood, and suffering for freedom always, with God's help, bring freedom to the people and independence to the state.

But, apparently, that’s enough, because I’ve gotten too chatty and have strayed too far from that vagon-zak, from that two-person “political” compartment, which is traveling in stages to places “not so remote.”

The “Khrushchev Thaw” continued by inertia, and they were not yet sending people to the Urals and Siberia. All “anti-Soviets” at that time ended up in Mordovia. Apparently, we were heading there too. So our mail train slowly trudges along; the passengers must have dozed off, because everything has fallen silent. Oleksandr and I did manage to clarify some issues from the investigative period. In general, a frank, sincere analysis of the testimonies did not emerge. He somehow retreated into himself, remained withdrawn even in the camp. Something was weighing on him. Maybe something family-related, maybe a certain dissatisfaction with the investigation and the verdict. He once said something like: “It’s good for you, you’ll be back soon, your wife and child are waiting for you, but I only have an old mother, who may not live to see me.” There’s nothing to argue with here. But still...

Our sentences, compared to the subsequent repressive punishments in the 70s and 80s for the same “crimes,” were childish. That is, later they would sentence people to 5 to 10 years, plus 5 years of exile to the remote regions of the empire, all the way to Magadan.

They brought us to some station, or rather, to some siding, early in the morning. And again, in the same way, with vicious shepherds on both sides, with shouts of “Begom, begom” (“Run, run”), they loaded us into black “voronoks” and brought us to a prison, which later turned out to be in the city of Ryazan. There they received us one by one, according to the number of “dels” [case files], i.e., folders, and pushed us all together into some hall. It was here that Sashko and I finally saw and felt the delights of the criminal environment. At first, they rushed to ask where everyone was from, looking for countrymen, or more correctly, “huddling together by zones.” Right there, while the guards were sorting out the accompanying cases, they started to brew chifir. This was done in a half-liter aluminum mug, burning a folded newspaper under it. There were three or four such brewing stations. The place filled with smoke. By the time the guards realized what was happening, the tea-chifir was already brewed and hidden to steep. At the same time, the inspection of bags and sacks began. That is, a voluntary-compulsory “dilyozhka” [sharing] with their neighbors. In this way, Sashko and I got rid of our excess baggage, our “sidors” [knapsacks] with packages from home for the road and some things bought in the pre-trial detention center’s kiosk. They also took or exchanged our clothing. They gave us nicknames (klikukhi), as they all communicate using those nicknames. Oleksandr became “muzhik” [man], and I became “ochki” [glasses]. We intuitively understood that we shouldn’t resist.

Their ritual of getting high began. They sat in circles, obviously by regional-zone affiliations. They invited us too, but we refused. No one insisted, as there would be more for them. They sliced our Ukrainian salo with razor blades, set out the drink, and began... This mug circulated in a circle. You have to take two sips, no more, or there could be a reaction in the neck. It was strange to us, and maybe even annoying, but all these impressions from what we saw somehow balanced our mood, because education doesn’t come for free. And such spectacles on top of it. After the chifir, they started smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Probably with some “durka” [dope] in them, because those cigarettes also went around in a circle. Afterward, each one sort of half-reclined—and went into themselves. They called that state “gnat' kino” [running a movie].

Sashko and I also lay down somehow. But they didn’t let us doze off. The bolts clanked, and through the open door, they shouted out our Article 62. And they snatched us from that “honest company.” They placed us separately in boxes. We sat in those kennels (0.8 x 1.0 m) for maybe an hour, and then they took us further on the transport. The transfer to the train took place according to the charter of the guard service. The same mutts, the same red-epauletted men with assault rifles and commands to move at a run.

There were already three men in the compartment. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses. At that time, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, and some other sect were also persecuted and convicted under Article 62. They tried to start a conversation about their own matters, as if to recruit us, but found no support and left us alone. The car was not overcrowded, so they took us for a walk to the toilet rather quickly. There were no cheerful situations like the previous evening; we had dinner of the same herring with bread, washed it down with water, and went to bed. We met the dawn in a large city, in Penza. In the same way, with dogs, with armed guards, and at a run, we were transferred to the prison.

When they were processing us and conducting the sanitary treatment (haircut, wash, and all clothing put in a delousing chamber), one of the intake officers asked where we were from. Hearing the answer, he said meaningfully: “Oh, the khokhly are coming through again.” They put the two of us in some strange cell, which was taller than it was long or wide. The walls were concrete, unpainted, not smooth. Under the ceiling was a tiny barred window. There was a slightly raised platform for lying down, there was also a toilet and a water tap. Later we were told that these were death row cells. They passed some kind of soup, a bread ration, and boiling water through the “kormushka.” Sometime later, they even took us out for a walk. After moving around a bit, we started to look around. That prison is a very solid structure of red brick. Huge, two and three stories high. It seemed to me as if it were on a hill. And this prison, as they told us, was from the “Catherine the Great era.” The guys who were transported through Kharkiv told us that the Kharkiv prison is of the same type. And also on a hill, on the so-called Cold Mountain. Such symbolic hilltop structures. In Soviet times, prisons and “zones” were built in lowlands, with a high groundwater level, so that it would be impossible to dig tunnels. We sat there, in that citadel, for six days.

One day in the evening, they took us on a transport again. The procedure of moving from the prison to the train was the same as prescribed by the charter. Boarding the car, the compartment, and all subsequent measures prescribed in the rules for transporting zeks, right up to “otkhod ko snu” [going to sleep], passed uninterestingly, with nothing memorable. We met the early dawn in Ryazhsk. It was still a bit dark, and the guards were very nervous, very afraid of something. Their anxiety was transmitted to the dogs, which began to bark furiously. For some reason, there were no vehicles, and they hustled us at a trot to the prison. It was a good thing it wasn’t very far and we didn’t have heavy bags. Otherwise, we would have suffered with those “sidors.” They received us, breathless, from the breathless dog handlers at a wide-open gate. And again, one by one, according to the number of folders, they counted us and herded us for sanitary processing. Then they led both of us into a huge hall with multi-rowed iron two-tiered bunks, or maybe it was also a cell. We found some old man there. Later, they gave us something to eat and after some time, they took us out for a walk. There was nowhere to look, as the exercise yards were enclosed by a high wall. In general, a prison is a prison, without any special features. Maybe, true, I had already gotten used to those peculiar conditions of confinement.

We gradually started talking. He asked us where we were from, under what articles, and where we were headed. And then he began to “enlighten” us, because he had long been a long-term prisoner. He told us a little about himself, that he was heading to Moscow, that he “resides” permanently in zone 385/11 in the settlement of Yavas in Mordovia, where, apparently, we were also being transported. He also informed us that the camp held prisoners from the war and post-war times, mostly nationalists from Ukraine, the Baltics, and a few from other regions of the empire. Later, taking advantage of our willing ears, he got carried away with telling his “legend.” His surname was Ivanov. He had allegedly been a colonel in Vlasov's army and had made it to Paris at the end of the war. There was a lot of talk about the beautiful life in France. And suddenly, in 1946, in a restaurant, a waiter passes him an invitation to a telephone conversation. In the telephone booth, they grabbed him, put a gag in his mouth, and with a pistol in his side, led him out, pushed him into a car, and took him to the embassy. And then to the Union—and to the tribunal. They gave him the highest measure of punishment—execution by firing squad. But why, he himself didn’t know. Then his treason was re-evaluated to 25 years. Such cases happened a lot. I remembered this legend of his because he said in all seriousness that his brother, also named Ivanov, is a general and perhaps the chief of the Moscow commandant's office. And that he had been taken to see him more than once, and they always want some kind of statement-information from him. I just didn't quite grasp what kind, whether it was Vlasov-staff-related, because he presented himself as a deputy chief of staff. In the camp, I found out that he was one of the snitch-informants. So that’s how, apparently, he traveled to give information. We lived in Ryazhsk for about three days.

Next was Ruzayevka. A prison without adornments, gray, obviously typical, like all Soviet buildings. They kept us there for less than two days and again, with all honors, took us on for the next stage of the journey.

And the last transit prison was at the Potma station. From here began a narrow-gauge railway line, along which there was a penal camp at every kilometer. This was one of the former Stalinist archipelagos of camps-zones. There were no fewer than twenty of those camps in that archipelago. Of these, at that time, there were about 6 or 7 special ones—political. Of course, conditionally political, because what kind of politics did those policemen or Vlasovites have. But that's by the way. More details about them will be in the section about that zone 385/11.

They herded us all together again, of various kinds, into a rather large cell. Along the walls, slightly raised from the floor, were plank beds. People lay and slept there. The building itself was a one-story, barrack-type structure. And it was here that I first saw a classic “parasha.” It is a rather large metal barrel, much larger than the so-called “vyvarka” [wash boiler]. And manufactured, obviously, in serial industrial production. It has strong horizontal handles, so that two people can take it from each side, because in the morning and evening this “parasha” must be cleaned and disinfected. Forgive the detail, but many have heard this word, and few can imagine what it is.

Sashko and I were also taken aback by the medical service. Every day, after the so-called breakfast, there was a medical examination. The “kormushka” would open, and they would ask if there were any “bolnyye” [sick people]. Almost everyone would shout that there were, and they would stick their hands into this little window. There they would be given two or three white pills. The same for everyone, because they don't ask what's wrong with you. There was one diagnosis for all—"bolnyye.” After the window was closed, these pills would be poured for two or three “sick people,” and they, chewing them thoroughly with water, would swallow that mush. Then they would lie down and wait for the “prikhod” [high]. Whether they got any “high”-stupor from that white mass, I don’t know. Most likely, they got their “high”-stupor from the ritual itself. They kept us there for about three days as well.

As always, without warning, the cell opened, and on the command “s veshchami,” they began to sort us all out according to the address indicated in our “delo” [file]. Then the convoy took us under its care, and they loaded us into the narrow-gauge train cars. They fussed for a long time with dividing us into the fenced-off sections of the cars. It was very hot, and they didn’t give us any water. And in general, they didn't listen to anyone, because all the guards were very nervous. Even the dogs.

Finally, the train started on its long journey for long, long years. Of course, this is from a lyrical point of view, but in life, everyone has their own road and their own years. There was a stop at each camp and a disembarkation according to the same statutory rules and actions with dogs and assault rifles. At the eleventh stop, they disembarked Sashko and me and four other believing sectarians. Thus ended the journey in stages to the zone, which became my university with an accelerated course of study. This travelogue could be enriched or embellished with many more episodes from those transits. People, especially zeks, in extreme conditions, need to talk. And each one develops, creates their own legend.

ZONE ZHKh-385/11

The number 385 is the number of the Mordovian micro-archipelago from the great imperial, Soviet archipelago GULAG. And there were probably many times more of them throughout that vast evil empire than the 385 of the Mordovian one. The criminal zones of the 385th archipelago were mainly populated by people from the Moscow region. The special, that is, political zones, were populated from all over the Union. Our eleventh camp held about 1,200 people from all the republics. The vast majority were Ukrainians, among whom the largest group were former soldiers of the UPA, OUN members. There were a few SB men (Banderite security service). They were the most organized and monitored the relationships between different political or national groups. That is, they maintained internal order. This is perhaps somewhat similar to the role of the “pakhans” in the gangster-bandit zones.

At the time of my stay in the zone, all the politicals, or dissenters, or as they were later called, dissidents, were grouped mostly along ideological lines. Such as the Banderites and Melnykites, Social Democrats and Liberals. But only the Ukrainian nationalists had the luxury of being divided, probably on the principle of “for we are many.”

The Belarusian nationalists adopted the name “Litvins,” and called the citizens of modern Lithuania “Zhmuds.” Their leader was highly educated, a former teacher. He had a fine collection of literature on history and geography, as well as a considerable body of research on his historical ethnos. Here I want to note that that period of camp confinement was still quite liberal. It was the time of the Khrushchev Thaw. That is, it was not forbidden to have small book collections, to write and draw, to create societies of countrymen, and to hold debates.

Again, I want to warn the reader that my stories will not be in black colors; perhaps even romantic at times, because I perceived everything I saw and heard as if I were a tourist in some unknown country. I didn't feel the pressure of the years of slavery. I wanted to get a certain education and use it to at least somehow tell about what I had seen and heard. But, as it turned out later, that country was not so unknown after all. It was the “small zone.” Almost the same as in the “big zone,” which was called the Soviet Union.

I was actually lucky, because by the end of 1966, they started to “tighten the screws.” That is, later all privileges were canceled and the regime of confinement became worse than even prescribed in the code. This was later recounted by those who were released after me. These were Mykhailo Osadchy, Viktor Kuksa, Oleksandr Martynenko, and especially Opanas Zalyvakha, who was punished for 5 years. Precisely punished, because they forbade him to paint. Thus the Communo-Fascists deprived Ukraine of almost five years of the creative work of such a prominent national artist.

So let’s return to that narrow-gauge train, that last stop of my adventurous journey. They unloaded us from the car as usual. A “voronok” took us to the gates, or as they said, to the *vakhta* [guardhouse]. There they stuffed us into “boxes”—and again, languishing in the heat without water. Then, through “sluices,” they handed us over to the camp guards. They counted us, checked our faces against the “delami” [files], opened a corral with a turnstile, and let us into Zone No. 11.

It was a strange feeling. No need to keep your hands behind your back, no commands like “step to the left” or “step to the right”... Well, like some kind of freedom, because you don’t notice the barbed wire fence right away, but you see space, trees, an unbarred sky. And a little in the distance, buildings and people. So the zone is a certain kind of freedom. Firstly, you can walk all over the territory, although it is limited by three rows of barbed wire fences. Secondly, you can communicate with whomever you want. This is especially felt after an almost month-long transport journey. General relativity is very clearly realized in those extreme conditions. Imagine such a “box” of 0.7x1.0 meters in a voronok during transportation from a prison to a train or vice versa. Or a long wait for a transport, or transportation to court, or elsewhere. And the same railcar compartments, where they cram 10-15 people, and they suffer there for 10-15 hours of the train's journey. And suddenly a completely different reality. You can stretch out your arms, run, see birds and blooming flowers. And it seems no one forbids anything. Such is relativity. Of course, this was a momentary emotional outburst. Soon everything became reality.

The first to greet us on that island of the GULAG archipelago were Yaroslav Hevrych, Ivan Hel, and Mykhailo Ozerny. They were all from our last year’s August “draft.” The old-timers, there were a few of them, watched our joyful, hugging meeting. Afterward, they led us to some two-story building. They took us to a small room, which was the “workshop” of the so-called camp artist, Roman Duzhynsky. He wrote or painted all sorts of camp announcements there, posters like “To freedom with a clear conscience,” and such. Sometimes he practiced portraiture. He liked to make copies of significant works by great artists. I found him working on a reproduction of Repin’s “Zaporozhian Cossacks.” In general, at that time, he had created several quite successful works. In particular, a portrait of the long-term prisoner Svyatoslav Karavansky, which, by the way, they managed to get out of the camp and take all the way to America, where Svyatoslav himself and his wife Nina Strokata later ended up, forcedly. Somewhere in the early 90s, Roman Duzhynsky managed to go to the USA and present some of his camp and post-camp works in some American cities. Apparently, he sold a little too. In 1995 in Detroit, I had the opportunity to see some of his works. They were exhibited, and perhaps are still displayed, in the Art Gallery of the Ukrainian Cultural Center, which is managed by the Kolodchyk family.

But please forgive me, for I tend to get carried away from time to time, and one can lose the integrity or sequence of the plot. So, in that workshop, which in zek-speak was called the “shursha,” they held the solemnities of our meeting with a “vypivon” [drink], which they called chifir. Viktor Solodky, Vasyl Pidhorodetsky, Stepan Soroka, Roman Duzhynsky as the host, and Yurko Shukhevych were there. These were the peculiar activists of the Ukrainian diaspora in this Mordovian “sanctuary.” Once, such sanctuaries bore the names of Beria or Yezhov, and even the leader himself, because there were children of all the peoples of the Soviet motherland there, and he, as propagated, loved children very much.

And then—like in that fable, when three gathered and almost without words instantly organized half a liter. Duzhynsky, as the host or chairman, exclaimed: “Well, so what...” And Yurko Shukhevych, with full understanding, rushed to find a pot, because an aluminum mug was clearly not enough. While we chatted, told about the journey, how long it took, through which “transits,” the brewed tea, or as they said, “harbatka,” was ready. Yurko Shukhevych was an unsurpassed master of the “high” business. There was a whole school of masters there, some for tea, some for coffee. They even founded the Ukrainian Chifir-Balm Society. By the way, I later also went through that school and, when I was being released, they even gave me a diploma with a number and a wet seal. The chairman of the society was Yu. Shukhevych. The secretary was V. Savchenko. So everything was in order, by the book, as in the good old days.

We arrived, apparently, on a Sunday, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to arrange such a solemn meeting in broad daylight, with our acceptance into the fellowship. After the solemnities, they dispersed us to the barracks, according to the orders indicated in our referrals. They introduced me to the senior “dnyuvalny” [orderly], who was a Georgian general; unfortunately, I don’t remember his name. But I remember his life story, which he told me before my release. He was already quite old, completely gray, hunched over. He had already served more than ten years of a fifteen-year sentence. He didn't make it to freedom, he died in the camp. A tragic fate befell him in March 1956. He was the commandant of the Tbilisi garrison, a Georgian one, because until that time, almost all Georgians served in Georgia.

When Khrushchev began his anti-Stalin campaign and they started to tear down sculptures of the idol and discard all mentions of the “father of nations,” Georgians, and especially Tbilisi students, began to protest. The protests began on the day of Stalin's death. On March 9, the protest turned into uncontrolled demonstrations with slogans of independence. And so Moscow ordered to stop the disorder. But the general did not order the suppression of the uprising. He knew that the Georgian soldiers would not beat their brothers and sisters. He was arrested, the garrison was disarmed and disbanded. A division from Tashkent was airlifted in. He said that Ukrainian officers commanded it. This demonstration was literally shot up; there were many victims. This whole story could have been his legend. But...

In 1958, I was on pre-diploma practice in the Caucasus, in Svaneti. There were two Georgian technicians in our geodetic brigade. One of them, Djumber Kalandadze, was a student at the Tbilisi Topographic Technicum at that time. He was a participant, a witness to those events. He showed me the mark of a deep wound from a shot through the shoulder. I didn’t really believe his stories and marks then. In that totalitarian society, few knew about the events in Novocherkassk, where peaceful demonstrations were also brutally suppressed with weapons. The same thing happened in Tbilisi in 1989. Clearly, the Georgians are atoning for the actions of their fellow countryman, that bloody executioner of the “friendly family of nations.”

When the old general told me about those brutalities, I remembered the story of the participant and victim of military punitive violence and I believed them. Such was that “Khrushchev Thaw,” such was democracy with a Khrushchev face. Or in 1989, with a Gorbachev face. Obviously, that Communist-Bolshevik state system could not have been otherwise. For empires have always been held together only by violence. And the Soviet empire was held together only by fear, by a huge militaristic regime of the NKVD and KGB. It was worth weakening the regime a little, and this rotten mega-structure on a clay foundation crumbled. And there is no future for the successor of the union empire, because it too is held up by military force. It will fall, and numerous small nations, persistent in their struggle for independence, will achieve true freedom.

Dear reader, please do not frown. I did warn that there would be “lyrical digressions.” And once again I remind you that the time of my stay in the camp was the period of the end of the “Khrushchev Thaw.” In the camp, one could write and draw, spend leisure time at one's own discretion. There was a plot planted with guelder-rose, where friends or like-minded people gathered for celebrations, where they debated. And, most importantly, openly—no one interfered. Like a kind of strict camp with a human face. It was possible to receive packages or parcels with salo, tea, coffee. Nadiia Svitlychna even sent us collections of V. Symonenko, M. Vinhranovsky. Censorship was very weakened. As I have already mentioned, it was possible to take out one's own, and not only, records, portraits. Yes, they allowed me to take out my portrait done by Panas Zalyvakha and Roman Duzhynsky. Knuts Skujenieks, a Latvian poet and translator, also took out his portrait by P. Zalyvakha. Vasyl Pidhorodetsky somehow passed his out to freedom. Many other works by Zalyvakha also saw the light of day then. By the way, I also managed to bring out a letter—an open appeal to Ivan Drach condemning his then-collaboration with the leadership of the Communist Party. He was sent with Dmytro Pavlychko to represent Ukraine at the UN, where they boasted about how well and freely people lived in the Land of the Soviets. I also had a message for Ivan Dziuba and Lina Kostenko, which proclaimed support and pride for their creative-patriotic work and organization of human rights actions. All this information is provided for a general understanding of that contradictory short “Thaw.”

Already by the end of 1966, and then more and more tightly, they began to tighten the regime’s screws. And not just the regime of confinement and food. All conditional privileges were eliminated. The “kums,” or as they were also called “zemlyachki” [countrymen], these operatives of the Ukrainian KGB, lived almost permanently in Yavas. Constant “shmons” [searches] were conducted with the seizure of all records. Panas Zalyvakha and other creative individuals were forbidden to “write and paint.” I remember how exhausted Mykhailo Osadchy looked. He was released a year after me; he had two years. And all those who returned afterward were tormented and exhausted. And Opanas Zalyvakha, who suffered for 5 years, was hard to recognize. Completely gray, gaunt, hunched over. He found it hard to endure the moral violence, that prohibition to write and paint…

I have gone too far again, I must return to the plot line.

So, we return to the first days, or what happened next. The weather was fine summer weather, although it was still May. It was a Monday. After breakfast, everyone was lined up on the parade ground for the morning check and dispatch to work. Viktor Solodky, one of those who had greeted us yesterday, informed us what and where we had to work. He was obviously the assistant to the “naryadchik” [work assigner], perhaps just one of the “pakhans” already mentioned. But the meaning of that word is not at all the same as in the criminal zones. Eventually, they assigned me to a construction brigade. Oleksandr Martynenko went to the industrial zone, to the woodworking shop, where they made casings for radio receivers. Ivan Hel was already settled there as some kind of mechanic. Yaroslav Hevrych was set up as a medical assistant in the infirmary. Those who worked “v bolnichke” [in the hospital], in the library, or like the aforementioned camp artist—they were called “pridurki” [shirkers], because it was easy, stupid work.

I found out about this later, ten years later, when in 1976 I was sentenced to seven years and sent to the strictest, in terms of regime, criminal zone No. 93, in the Novo-Danilovsky quarry of the Mykolaiv region. There, such positions were given to the “kum’s” workers. In our zone 385/11 back then, the “kums” did not yet have a monopoly on this. A year later, everything became as it should be. Hevrych was kicked out into the industrial zone, Hel was deprived of his position as a mechanic-inspector. That is, everyone who was not going to repent was forced to “pakhat'” [toil]. In zone 93, in such a situation, specifically about me, the Kyiv KGB chiefs shouted at the camp kum: “V karyer ego, v kanavu, gnoit’ ego, suku” (“Into the quarry with him, into the ditch, let him rot, the bastard”). And they did remove me from construction and sent me to “rot.” But this is just as an example, of how everything is relative.

Since I had not much “time left to pull,” the old-timers advised me not to try too hard, just to serve my time quietly, without problems. And not to take part in repairing the fence, because that was considered “zapadlo” [taboo]. This suited me perfectly; I tried not to “stick my neck out” and “filonyl” [shirked] to the fullest extent. The convoy guard occasionally chased me back to the group. I had a bit of a conflict with the foreman at first. He was a former policeman, some Pylypchuk from Volyn, who was finishing his sentence and trying to earn more money. In the zones then, and later too, those who wanted to work conscientiously and leave for freedom with a clear conscience had the opportunity to earn some money. One could make transfers to relatives from that money or receive it upon release. My conscience didn’t bother me, so there was no need or desire to conscientiously repair barbed wire fences or level sandy strips between the barbed wire rows with a rake. So I tell that foreman as it is, that I don't need money and to leave me alone. He, a policeman’s soul, took this aggressively and tried to “snitch” on me. But our senior guardians intervened and he quieted down, stopped noticing me. And so I “reformed myself” during working hours, “atoning for my guilt” until the end of August.

But that was still a long way off. Everything in its own time. The toils of life, both in the “big zone” and in the “small, barbed-wire zone,” pass differently for everyone. It all depends on how you set yourself up. I recall how, in that Zone 93, I often heard the phrase: “He who lived well under the Germans will live well here too.” I never managed to grasp the full meaning of that sentence. But there must be something to it, and everyone, evidently, understands its meaning in their own way.

Everyone followed the daily routine as much as possible. Reveille, breakfast, then a head count in each barracks and dispatch to the work zone. To and from the residential zone, we passed through a sluice gate with a strict count. Those in the work zone had lunch there. Everyone had dinner together in the mess hall. At that time, there was enough food, and bread was available in unlimited quantities. Then we had almost two hours of free time. We mostly spent it in conversation, strolling around the parade ground-stadium where the morning and evening roll calls were held. At 10 p.m. it was “lights out,” and everyone went to their barracks and bunks. There were also nighttime raids to check if all the bunks were occupied.

A week passed like this, and then another. I listened to and observed everything, and I started making some acquaintances. And I began to gain knowledge through an accelerated program. For me, time flew by quickly. Then, reinforcements arrived. They brought Mykhailo Osadchy, the brothers Mykhailo and Bohdan Horyn, and Panas Zalyvakha. The meetings were very warm, perhaps even joyous, if one can use such epithets for such circumstances. Yaroslav Gevrych and Mykhailo Ozerny, as our old-timers, instructed them on what to do and how. They were housed according to the same scheme as us. And again, there were festivities to mark their arrival, again the special collective ritual of drinking chifir from the masterful hands of Yurko Shukhevych. And a real spread from their homemade supplies. It seemed that only Sashko and I had been robbed by those cell-block “muggers” at the transit prison.

A little later, we recovered, calmed down, and began to settle into the environment. One of the sharp-witted old-timers calculated that I was due a food parcel and a package, as more than half of my “sentence” had long passed. So, a permit had to be requested, which was done. Soon I received a package from my wife with smoked salo and a small bag of coffee beans. A little later, I also got a parcel with tea from my brother. So, as they say, “let the good times roll.”

A month, maybe more, passed under “festive banners.” And the rest of my term didn't weigh heavily on me. There was no time to dwell on myself. The barrier of suspicion and alienation was overcome. My fellow countrymen, the old-timers, were convinced that I had not been sent on a special three-and-a-half-month assignment. Especially after Mykhailo Osadchy arrived with a two-year sentence, and then someone else with a year and a half. At first, they told me that I must have told Khrushchev to go to hell. They also joked that with such a short term, one could even “sit it out on the slop bucket.” In general, everyone was amazed at the KGB's stupidity, sending someone for such a term to a zone where half the inmates had been sentenced to death. And such camp “masters,” or aksakals, as the Caucasians called their gray-haired Georgian general, like Mykhailo Mykhailovych Soroka and Sviatoslav Yosypovych Karavansky, said that I was very lucky to have been admitted to this University. They said I could learn many good and valuable things, albeit through an accelerated program.

So, I tried to learn and know everything. Most of those teachers or professors, knowing that I would soon return to the “big zone,” tried to impart to me their Ukrainian ideas or plans for achieving independence, dreamed up over the years. In other words, they were taking advantage of a willing pair of ears. Because, as I later realized, they no longer listened to each other. Apparently, they already knew everything about everyone, or who was “peddling” what. For instance, there was an interesting man named Mykhailo Lutsyk. I don't know what his education was or who he used to be in that other world. But the fact that he had learned many different things and evidently perfected his knowledge in those camp universities was clear, as he was also finishing a 25-year sentence, or perhaps had even more. In the camps, it's not customary to ask who is serving how much time and for what. So, I didn't ask. Well, this Mykhailo had an idea—maybe it was a fixation. Having learned that I had been involved in construction, he decided to entrust me with a mission of paramount importance, something truly legendary. According to his plan, the following had to be organized: during the demolition of an old building in the center of Kyiv, while destroying the foundations, a vessel had to be found containing a letter or something from Lenin to Skrypnyk. This letter, or perhaps a charter or treaty, would affirm the guarantee of Ukraine's independence. Just imagine! And this whole event had to be witnessed by journalists with film or television cameras! The presence of foreign witnesses was desirable or necessary. What an idea, what a fantasy! And all this was said in complete seriousness.

He was also preoccupied with school geography, where the future territories of Ukraine were marked out. In the east—including the Don River. In the northeast—the Voronezh, Kursk, Oryol, and, I believe, all the way to Smolensk regions. He did leave Minsk to the Belarusians, but the Brest and Gomel regions were ours. He agreed on the border with Poland along the Vistula River. As for the southwestern borders, they would follow the Danube. What a State that would be! I didn't have much time to "daydream" with him, but I didn't argue and shook his hand firmly, with admiration. Let him have his fun. These were the dreams of his conscious life. This episode of acquaintance with fantastic projects seemed to be over. But no. At the dawn of independence, when the first presidential elections were to be held, the gentleman Mykhailo Lutsyk found me in Kyiv. He wanted to be president. And I joined in to help him collect signatures of support. I couldn't refuse him. I also helped him with money for a trip to the Donetsk region. For some reason, he expected great support there. He never contacted me again after that. It was said that he did collect quite a significant number of signatures, but not enough to be registered.

Vasyl Pidhorodetsky deserves a special mention. He was a classic member of the SB OUN. He was a true fighter against the communist hydra, a fanatic believer in the independence of Ukraine. He dedicated his entire conscious life to the struggle for Ukraine's freedom. He always remained a faithful optimist. I don't know what his basic education was, but in conversations or debates, he conducted dialogues skillfully, with a deep knowledge of the subject. When asked how many years of hard labor he had left, he would answer: “Until the end of Soviet rule.” That government kept adding years to his sentence. He was captured insidiously somewhere in the Donetsk region in the late 1940s. He was the leader of a group sent to establish underground work there. As he entered a safe house at night, they threw a net over him from the attic in the hallway, tied him up, and literally a few days later a tribunal sentenced him to death. It was later commuted to 25 years. During camp uprisings, another ten years were added. And only thanks to the collapse of the evil empire did he return to Ukraine. He lived in Lviv. Until his death, he was never duly honored in the state of his dreams. This government, supposedly no longer pro-communist, still cannot or will not honor true national heroes.

An exception might be the heroization of Levko Lukianenko or the Shukhevychs, father and son. Or the heroization of the last UPA commander, Vasyl Kuk, although many questions remain that have not been clearly answered. Perhaps one day the Ukrainian SBU will open its archives, and we will be able to learn how he became the successor to Roman Shukhevych, how he allowed himself to be caught, and how he received an apartment and a creative job in Kyiv.

And a little more about Yurko Shukhevych. As already mentioned, Yurko was a universally recognized and, evidently, the best chifir-brewer. Perhaps it was for these merits that he became the head of the UChBT (Ukrainian Chifir-Balm Society). I never had any substantive conversation with him about the past or present. And that's understandable. In fact, he had nothing to share or boast about in terms of his accomplishments and actions. Except perhaps for being the son of the UPA commander, who was caught at the age of 13 and imprisoned for many long years for nothing. For some reason, there were no stories about how he fared all those twenty years. However, others said that he was under the care of the Banderite prisoners as an orphan and the son of General Chuprynka. He was released after serving 25 years of hard labor. He was not allowed into Ukraine. He settled in Nalchik thanks to Nina Strokata, who exchanged her apartment in Odesa for one in Nalchik and gave it to him. After the collapse of the empire, he moved to Lviv with his family. There he joined UNA-UNSO and even became the leader of a branch of that organization. He vacillated and often made quite contradictory statements. Such were his vacillations regarding support for one or another of Ukraine's leading political figures. When he made a notable and timely swing in favor of President Yushchenko, he, as the Russians say, “snagged” the title of Hero of Ukraine. Yushchenko handed out a great many of those hero titles, where needed and not needed. But that's their business. History will be the judge.

A very colorful figure in the camp was Sviatoslav Yosypovych Karavansky. I knew him by hearsay. The well-known poet and translator Dmytro Khomovych Palamarchuk had told me a lot about him in Irpin, in that famous writers' oasis where he lived. They had graduated from Odesa University together. They seemed to have known each other from the Stalinist camps. And what also significantly helped our acquaintance was my reading of his seditious work. Perhaps the most significant charges against me for reproducing and distributing anti-Soviet materials were precisely his “Lawsuit against the Minister of Education Dadenkov...” and “Regarding the Trial of Pohruzhalsky.” So, we met like old acquaintances. He knew about my arrest from Dmytro Palamarchuk, as he was arrested later. But he was brought to the camp sooner because there was no prolonged investigation with him. Immediately after his arrest, he was sent to serve out the remainder of his 25-year sentence—a little over nine years.

He was released, with a reduced sentence, sometime right after the tyrant's death, in the hope that he had reformed. The NKVD and KGB practiced such releases then and all the time later. But one had to write a “petition” with some remorse, a condemnation of one's actions, and, figuratively speaking, sing about “how good it is to live in the Soviet country.” He wrote something, too.

He managed to complete his philological education but was not allowed to work as a teacher. Despite this, he carried out national-enlightenment work in Odesa, right up to creating and distributing samvydav. The KGB camarilla tracked him down and arrested him. He flatly refused to talk to the KGB agents. And on the pretext that he had not reformed, they sent him to serve out the sentence he had once been given.

This was a man of a mighty Cossack build. He was in robust health. He often held protest hunger strikes. He was not an open character and did not show a need for communication. Perhaps that is my personal impression. But, evidently, the most significant reason for his state and relationships was his former petition and a KGB certificate about him, which were posted on the board of official announcements, stating that he had been an employee of the Romanian “siguranța,” for which he had received the death penalty, commuted to 25 years. Those materials hung there for a long time, and some people, of course, reacted.

I paid no mind to this and communicated with him sincerely, as a friend. We recalled our recent freedom, talked a lot about poetry and translations. He was also working on dictionaries. He was a very hardworking man in the field of Ukrainian linguistics, and he still is. His “Dictionary of Rhymes of the Ukrainian Language” and “Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary of Complex Lexicon” were published, and his “Dictionary of Synonyms” was published twice with additions. Many works on linguistics and literary studies have been published. A collection of poems and translations, in particular sonnets, was also published.

He befriended Mykhailo Osadchy as a fellow poet and communicated with him closely. We considered him one of our own, a Sixtier. One day, he declared a hunger strike in protest. In political camps, and in prisons too, this is perhaps the only effective form of protest. There are individual hunger strikes or collective ones with support. When Osadchy and I found out about it, we decided to organize collective support. We gathered all our people on that “meadow of free speech” mentioned somewhere above. There's a rule: a collective decision to support a hunger strike must be discussed and adopted. Democracy. So, Sashko Martynenko informed everyone of the fact and the reason and proposed that everyone support it. Mykhailo Osadchy and I also asked for general support. But the Horyn brothers, Ivan Hel, and Mykhailo Ozerny began to object. They argued that he should have consulted with all of us first. Someone else said that he often goes on hunger strikes, and over matters that are not critically important, and that these hunger strikes devalue the most radical form of prisoner protest. In short, there was a lot of talk, but they did not support the hunger strike. By a majority vote, they adopted an appeal to Sviatoslav Karavansky to stop the hunger strike. He did manage to have his demand met and, of course, ended the strike, regardless of our appeal.

From that episode, I remember the process of discussion and voting. Believe it or not, but even in captivity, the division of Ukrainians into Galicians and Dnieper Ukrainians manifests itself. This is a very sad precedent. Such things happened in the past and are repeated to this day. But this is just an aside. I hope that this Galician “high society” trait has been left in the past, as the “high society,” evidently, has all moved to Kyiv, on the Dnieper.

The second such classic “master” of that camp aristocracy in my memory was Mykhailo Mykhailovych Soroka. He did not have a large, imposing stature. He was of medium height with an athletic build. He systematically practiced gymnastics, especially “yoga.” For some reason, upon first meeting him, it seemed to me that he looked very much like Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. People spoke of him as an absolute authority. Throughout all his endless camp and prison trials, he never once faltered, never betrayed anyone. And most importantly, evidently, he never once wavered or doubted the coming victory of his life's dream. He believed in Independence. But he did not live to see it. He died in the camp. His remains were reburied in Lviv's Lychakiv Cemetery with his wife, Kateryna Zarytska, who also for many years, almost her entire conscious life, suffered in the inhuman conditions of the totalitarian communist-Bolshevik empire. (M. Soroka died on 06.16.1971 in camp ZhKh-385-17A, Ozyorny settlement, Mordovia. Kateryna Zarytska, after serving 25 years of imprisonment, died on 08.29.1986 in Volochysk, Khmelnytskyi Oblast. Their solemn reburial took place on 09.28.1992. – Ed.). Their married life in freedom was very short, a little over a year. (Only 4 months: both were arrested on 03.22.1940. – Ed.)

After our introduction, our conversation was on general topics. He didn't try to pry anything out of me or impose his own views. I got the impression that he knew everything about the “big zone.” This impression was later confirmed by his stories. He was often taken to and around Ukraine. They wanted to convince him of Ukraine's great progress during his absence. They dressed him up like a gentleman with a tie. They took him to theaters and exhibitions, drove him to leading collective farms and successful factories. Even to sanatoriums and hospitals. Evidently, to Feofania. And all this was so that he would renounce his ideas, condemn nationalism, and, of course, praise the Soviet leaders.

Later, around 1977-78, a Kyiv KGB agent “in civilian clothes,” Hanchuk, and a Mykolaiv colonel, Bryk, in uniform, brought me several newspapers in Zone No. 93. There, confessional statements had already been marked, and they all ended with praise for life in socialist Ukraine under the leadership of the Communist Party, that is, the KGB. I remember the confession of the writer Vasyl Zakharchenko, after which he was released and was supposedly even awarded the Shevchenko Prize. And of the Martynenko brothers. I don't know why they were put under such pressure. Sashko was working somewhere in the North in a geophysical expedition in the seventies. And his brother Leonid, a former political prisoner released after the dictator Stalin's death, was living and working somewhere in a village near Hadiach. I read them. They were all of the same type and nearly identical.

Some time later, both KGB agents came again and also demanded a “paper.” There were several such “friendly” meetings. I defended myself by saying that I had “broken with the shameful past” ten years ago. And don't touch me, because I am under the jurisdiction of a different department and I will complain. They became very angry and, with curses, ordered the camp administration to “drive him into the trench, into the quarry; let him rot, the son of a bitch.” But this is an aside. Perhaps one day I will manage to tell about the adventures in that Zone 93 over seven years.

So, the highly respected Mr. Mykhailo gave them no hope, and they eventually left him in relative, and then absolute, peace.

I heard from many about his very long time behind bars and barbed wire. No one said exactly how long. And I didn't inquire, because I already knew it was not good to ask. And yet, somehow later, I dared to ask him himself. So I ask: “Mykhailo Mykhailovych, forgive my curiosity, how long have you been in?” After a pause, he asks: “Ivas, how old are you?” I say I was born in 1937. He softened, became generous, and began to tell his story. He was imprisoned by the Polish police (defensywa) in 1937. He was held in the “Bereza Kartuzka” concentration camp until the autumn of 1939. “Our people” freed him after the defeat and partition of Poland. Sometime around then, he immediately married Katrusia (as he always called her) Zarytska, the daughter of a renowned family of mathematicians. But everyone has their own fate. And so he was imprisoned again by the police, only this time it was the communist-Bolshevik, “liberating” police. And this time it was “until the end of Soviet rule.” For him, it turned out to be until the end of his life. It was then, in 1940, that their son was born. Grandfather and Grandmother Zarytsky raised their grandson. During the Soviet and German occupations, his mother worked in the underground. In the UPA, she was in charge of communications with the international “Red Cross.” In the late 1940s, she was tracked down and sentenced to many long years. (K. Zarytska gave birth to her son Bohdan in prison in September 1940. At the age of 8 months, she gave him to her parents to raise. In June 1941, she escaped from a bombed-out prison. She became the leader of the women's OUN, and later, until her arrest on 09.21.1947, she was the head of the Ukrainian Red Cross of the UPA and a liaison for the Commander-in-Chief of the UPA, General Roman Shukhevych-Chuprynka. She was imprisoned for 25 years, which she served in full, almost the entire term in prison. – Ed.). He said that in Mordovia, in the hospital, which was in a shared fenced area with the women's camp, he spoke, that is, shouted back and forth, with Katrusia. Such things happen. And only a grave in their native land united them forever. May the earth be a feather for them, and may their souls be forever in Heaven. May they ask God to help Ukraine become the model of their dreams. And may their memory be eternal on earth.

The Soviet authorities allowed the de facto orphan to be raised by his grandfather and grandmother, though they could have taken him and placed him in a “detdom” (children's home). How they managed that, I won't say. The grandson of the academicians Zarytsky obtained a higher art education and is now a well-known graphic artist in Ukraine. Mr. Mykhailo spoke with regret about how his son was brought to the camp for visits. Twice, it seems. Once when he was a Pioneer, and then later as a Komsomolets. The son even tried to re-educate his father. He probably had to. When he spoke of this, his eyes were full of tears. Such were the heavy chains that this stoic man wore on his shoulders.

During those long conversations, he advised me to be careful. Not to speak out “at the seminars,” but only to listen to the “lectures.” Because the times were uncertain, they could add to one's “term” for some trifle. And such things happened very often in those zones. He did not ask me to pass on or convey anything. Evidently, he was realistically aware that he had been forgotten and there was no one left there, and those few who might still remember him were far away. He also did not speak about his participation in the OUN. He said, if I had such a need to know, let the “historians” tell me, and there were plenty of them in the camp. He even showed a little irony about it.

I had less and less time left. There was no shortage of lecturers, including “historians.” And each tried to share his creative work. Some of the old-timers closest to me, like Vasyl Pidhorodetsky and Roman Duzhynsky, began to warn me against unauthoritative “professors,” because precious time could not be squandered. It was like with the “shagreen skin.” For someone unfamiliar, it's hard to imagine, but it was really like that. There was such an outburst of ideas and thoughts, such a period of camp liberalism “with a human face.” And I truly didn't have enough time to listen to everyone who wanted to be heard. Panas Zalyvakha often later recalled a precedent of relativity: there was a man in the camp who sincerely considered his sentence too short. He said he couldn't manage to cover the educational program. Listeners considered this a certain eccentricity. It might have seemed so after reading the memoirs of Vasyl Ovsienko. Or even Mykhailo Kheyfets. But that's how it was then. But the “music didn't play for long.” And the camp regime with something resembling a human face did not last long. In the 70s and 80s, a cold spell set in, reaching the severity of Siberian permafrost.

Concluding the stories about my meetings with M. M. Soroka, I want to emphasize once more that he stood firmly and steadily on his feet throughout all the long prison and camp years. Not once was he tempted by the illusory freedom in the “big zone,” he wrote no petitions and carried his cross, without falling or stumbling, to his death.

I could write at length about others as well. But that would probably be too much. If you want to read more of the same, just say so. And I will add it in a reissue. That's a joke.

It seems that everyone has their own fate, but the paths of those who were to be imprisoned until the end of Soviet rule are, for the most part, similar. Arrests, torture, tribunals of three, torturous hard labor across Siberia in the Gulag archipelago, a brief gasp of oxygen during the short thaw. And again, in the 70s and 80s, the Ural concentration camps, where many could no longer endure the torments of the regime and passed into the other world. This is the philosophy of life and struggle. Both in the “big zone” and in prisons or “small zones,” the irreconcilable always come into conflict with the authorities or the regime. And then, it's as God watches over each one.

So, I will focus only on individual brushstrokes for the portraits of some people.

Stepan Soroka was captured as a young man in the late 40s. He was a courier. He had a weapon at the time of his arrest. They gave him 25 years. He was evidently a sharp boy. Through self-education, he acquired great knowledge of history, literature, and especially philosophy. Our conversations were very interesting. He was pleased to have an attentive listener because there, no one listened to him anymore. Over all those long years, each of those intellectuals had built his own concept and was attached to it. It was already in Zone 93 that I learned that this state is called “pushing.” That is, everyone “pushes” their own “movie” in their own way. I saw him at the second congress of Rukh. He looked a bit lost. He was evidently aware that his theoretical concepts were outdated. And then he disappeared. (Died in 1999. – Ed.).

There was a Belov from Leningrad. I don't remember why he was imprisoned, whether as a dissident or perhaps he was from the group of plane “hijackers.” But he had a considerable term. He had a degree from Leningrad University. I think he was even a Ph.D. In short, a great erudite in poetry, literature, and the history of religion. It was interesting to listen to his lectures, and he was glad to have caught a listener with free ears. But after two or three lectures during a walk around the stadium, one of the “well-wishers” calls me aside and says: “What are you talking to him for? He's a homosexual.” Well, I'll be! A homosexual, or a “pivn,” in the zone is like a Black person in the former America—you don't associate with them publicly.

I will also be brief about Yuliy Daniel. He was brought in with a five-year sentence sometime in July 1966. He had been arrested along with Sinyavsky for the book of pamphlets “This is Moscow Speaking…,” which they published abroad. He carried himself with independence, even pride. Every Sunday, friends and his wife, Larisa Bogoraz, would come to the zone. He would climb onto the roof of the two-story barrack, and from a hill beyond the fence, they would tell (shout) him all the news. Before my release, I had a couple of confidential conversations with him. He asked me to pass something on to his wife. I stopped by and stayed the night there. I even managed to read that seditious book. It was very interestingly written, I remember it well. I still recount the plots of those novellas. Here is a short one, “Hands.” In a sanatorium in the south, a young man and an older, respectable man, whose hands are constantly trembling, are sharing a room. When the opportunity arises, the young man asks him how long he has been ill. And he hears a story about how, perhaps forty years ago, in the twenties, he served in the OGPU and worked as an executioner. A job like any other; in one shift, he had to execute up to ten people. One day, he stood “at the barrier” and waited for whomever they would bring out to him. A large, gray-haired old man with a big beard appears. He crosses himself, prays, and sends curses upon them. The executioner shoots, but the man doesn't fall. He shoots again, but the man walks towards him with his hands raised. He fired another three times or so and fell down in fright, losing consciousness. They treated him for a long time, and he seemed to have recovered, but God had punished his hands. As it turned out, his buddies had played a joke on him. They had given him a rifle with blank cartridges.

And “This is Moscow Speaking…” is a multi-plot, substantial novella. One Sunday, the famous voice of the announcer Levitan broadcast a decree declaring a certain day in September as a day of open murders. That is, anyone who wished could kill whomever they pleased without consequence. It was late summer, with fine weather. People were at their dachas, and not everyone could have heard the announcement, as there were still few portable radios back then. But rumors spread quickly. And everyone waits for confirmation of the announcement in “Pravda.” The authors present many scenarios of how different people prepare for it, even without official government confirmation… But you have to read it, because there are so many of those plots about individual fears, desires, and possibilities. Everyone ponders how to protect themselves or take advantage of such a decision by the dear Party.

I have already written about Roman Duzhynsky. Now I will focus on two “brushstrokes.” So, Roman, or Veniamin, as he was also called in the camp, set about painting my portrait. He struggled for three days, but it just wasn't coming out right. We were both tired. So he calls Panas Zalyvakha to help. Panas did not need to be asked twice and immediately set to work. To begin with, he says, let's take off the glasses and remove all the grayness. He left only a similar composition. And in about three hours, while reciting lines from Vasyl Symonenko's poetry, he finished the portrait. It was a Sunday, and there were many “onlookers.” When Panas allowed them to look, most were very surprised. Duzhynsky and Pidhorodetsky almost indignantly declared that he had “disfigured the man.” But the art critic Bohdan Horyn assessed Panas Zalyvakha's work as one of his best. This was Zalyvakha picking up a brush after an almost year-long forced break. He finished the backdrop or canvas, reciting: “Хай палають хмари бурякові...” And he signed it. Duzhynsky was not slow to immortalize his own autograph as well. For a long time, at the request of Lina Kostenko, that portrait was exhibited in her home.

So, Roman Duzhynsky was released somewhere in early October of that same year, 1966. He was given a fine welcome. He immediately wanted to visit Kaniv. And Lina Kostenko volunteered to accompany him by steamship. She was an ardent admirer of the prisoners of that time. So there was a certain piety towards him as an artist as well. After the trip, over dinner (because he had stopped at our place), Roman says: “Ivan, I'm getting married.” It was like in that joke. A man comes to a friend and says he wants to get married. The friend says, “So what's the problem, who's stopping you?” And the man replies that no one is. So I also ask, what's the problem, but why so suddenly, and who is the bride? And he says that he has declared his love to Lina. My wife and I were very taken aback by this. And somehow, little by little, we brought him back down to earth. Such things happen with creative people. And Lina Kostenko was a real beauty back then. Obviously, many men would have confessed their love to her if they weren't afraid. Because she was unattainable, as if on a pedestal. We had our Amazons back then, like Alla Horska and Lina Kostenko.

Here, by the way, I'll add a little episode. It's about the present-day Oksana Pakhlyovska. She was a girl then, maybe in the sixth grade. She comes home from school one day with scratches and bruises. Her mother and grandmother are in despair: what happened? And Oksana proudly answered: “Nothing. I was fighting with my classmates because they were calling Mom and me nationalists. So I taught them a lesson.” And she was a tall, strong girl. And she also says: “I want to be like you, Mom.” So that's what genes are like.

And one more brushstroke for Lina's portrait, because where else will I have such an opportunity to tell it? She lived then, in 1966-67, with her mother and daughter near the Pecherskyi Bridge. They were effectively living on her grandmother's pension. Ivan Svitlychny, who was her close friend, introduced us. And so one time, I secretly placed a sum of money equivalent to an average monthly salary under her book. It was normal back then—to help those whom the authorities did not allow to earn a living through their creative work. Later, many things changed in her life. She married the director of the Dovzhenko Film Studios. It was said that her husband, Tsvirkunov, shielded her from her former friends. She stopped going out “among people.” And then the years of brutal KGB terror began. Almost all her friends were imprisoned for long terms. And then, somewhere in the late 90s, we met by chance in the metro. More than 30 years had passed. We got off together at the “Universytet” station. She approached, greeted me, and began to search for something in her handbag. She takes out some money and gives it to me, saying that she owes me a debt. I was bewildered and couldn't figure out what she was talking about. She carefully reminded me of that incident, with a logical explanation: “Only one of you Ivans could have left the money. And since Svitlychny had no money, as he was supported by his wife Liolia, only Rusyn could have left the money.” Such is female logic. After some of my refusals and after her threat to leave the money there somewhere, I had to take it. Such a detail of human memory.

I seem to have strayed too far from the camp meetings again. Forgive me and read on.

Knuts Skujenieks. A Latvian poet and translator. He served eight years. He was released a little before me and invited me to visit. He also took his portrait, a work by P. Zalyvakha, with him. In the camp, he learned the Ukrainian language and translated Lesya Ukrainka. When I visited him in 1968, he gave me a collection of his translations of Lesya Ukrainka's lyrics, published in Riga in 1967. He showed me a collection of translations of Vasyl Symonenko that was almost ready for publication. He lived in his own house in the town of Salaspils. No one bothered him. Evidently, by that time in the Baltics, the “Russified foreigners” had all died out. In Ukraine, they are resilient and prolific.

Of the Muscovites, I only remember the Jews. They called themselves social democrats. Among them was an interesting fellow, an Ilya Bromberg. Or a similar name. But he was a great “smarty-pants” on all subjects. He knew everything and had his own opinion on everything. He often came to our clearing and listened attentively to our conversations. By the way, he learned Ukrainian in the camp. He was serving out his term. They gave him 5 years for some speech near the Pushkin monument. He said that was a seditious place for them back then, where free-thinkers would gather and where they were beaten and dispersed. He called the ruling gang “salamanders.” That would have been one thing, but he was a cripple, twisted and short. To have annoyed them so much… And that was already under Khrushchev. He was released a little before me and asked me to visit him.

So, after visiting the Daniels and spending the night there, I went to look for Ilya. I found the street and the house. A nice building and a clean entrance. But no one answered my rings. When I started knocking, a neighbor opened her door. An old woman, also Jewish. She informed me that they were all at the dacha. Evidently, she was a friendly neighbor, because she talked a lot about their affairs. She felt sorry for Ilya and said they had taken him away “to recover.” And she finished with what we had all told him and asked him: “don't be too clever and don't stick your neck out.”

One more interesting memory of those old-timers of ours. There was a Mykola, whose last name I've already forgotten. He had been languishing in captivity for quite a long time, maybe 15 years. He was a good master woodworker, and he was valued for it at work. He loved to make various ornaments with inlays. I still have his gift—a beautiful chess set. He was also a great, perhaps second only to Yurko Shukhevych, master of the “buzz-making” craft. And also a good master-husband, because after every visit with him, his wife gave birth to a child. Visits were allowed once a year. It had already become a bit of a running joke. But he was pleased. Do you remember the saying about “our little calf”?

So, one winter evening, someone rings the bell. I open the door—and who do I see? Mykola in a sheepskin coat, for it's winter. It had been maybe six months since we'd seen each other in the zone. It turned out that God had somehow helped him. His case was reviewed for some reason, and they found a mistake. That is, they had sentenced him to such a long term under the wrong article. And it turned out that he had overserved by more than seven years. They released him without warning. They took him from the zone with his belongings, as if for transfer. But at the guardhouse, they give him a release certificate and some money he had earned. And in addition, a certificate to have those 7-plus years credited to his work record. Only, the scoundrels cheated him here too: they didn't count one year as three. Such oddities happened too. This is all from his stories. It's somehow a bit strange for that time. Well, there were cases when they released or reduced sentences after a “confession.” But to admit they were such bastards, and not even to apologize… What a scoundrelly system that was. I don't want to think it was the result of some “paper” of his, because he wasn't a “theorist,” but an ordinary village peasant, so he couldn't have been an example for anyone.

Now, a little about my contemporaries—the Sixtiers. Much has already been written about Oleksandr Martynenko. We didn't often meet in the camp. He worked in the work zone, and I, in my free time, listened to “lectures.” The guys later said that Martynenko wrote poetry and played the violin. When he was released, his mother had already passed away. He was directed to Kyiv, but he wasn't given residency registration or a job. He got a job in the Poltava region in a geophysical exploration expedition. He got married and later, for some reason, went to the North. We saw each other again sometime in the 90s. He was seriously ill and died in a hospital. He is buried at the Baikove Cemetery.

I'll also add a little about Yaroslav Gevrych. As already mentioned, the regime became harsher. He had to serve the remaining three years of his sentence in hard labor in the workshop. He had a referral to the Kyiv region, but nowhere would they register him. He wasn't admitted to the institute either. When he was “fighting for his rights” and went to the head of the Brovary district police, the man literally threw him out with curses and threats that he wouldn't even see his mother. Thanks to Yuliy Daniel, he was admitted to the third year of the Smolensk Dental Institute. Such was Jewish solidarity and help. After graduating, he worked as a dentist in the town of Turka. This was not the worst option under that government. Almost in his native parts, as he was from Kosiv.

Mykhailo Ozerny also had to suffer for three years. Before his arrest, he worked as a teacher. In the zone, he was very active at first. A good debater. He loved to tell his life's adventures. He had the charisma of a leader. Later, he moved away from nationalism and joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. Evidently for practical reasons, as he later became a preacher among them, and even of a high rank.

Mykhailo Osadchy was sent to Lviv. But he was not registered there, although he had his own living space and a wife and son. They couldn't forgive him for such a betrayal. Because he had been a communist and even an instructor of the party's regional committee, a successful university lecturer, he had completed his doctoral dissertation, and a collection of his poems had already been printed, but it didn't manage to be published. It was cut up after his arrest. The Lviv KGB agents gave him a recommendation to the Kherson Pedagogical Institute. He went there, but evidently, he was not hired as a lecturer there either. They wouldn't let him live at home because he wasn't registered. After some time, he wrote the famous novella “Cataract,” which was published in the West. After that, he was arrested again and sentenced to 10 years of special regime. Towards the end of “perestroika,” he was released with broken health and died shortly after. He is buried in Lviv. By the way, maybe those Lviv oppressors pressured him so harshly also because he wrote and made public a complaint against investigator Major Galsky, who had hit him several times during the investigation.

One cannot speak briefly about people like Opanas Zalyvakha, Mykhailo Horyn, and Bohdan Horyn; they need to be professionally studied, and only then written about. Panas has already been mentioned. Here I will only say that he was an artist-philosopher and a consummate optimist.

I met Mykhailo Horyn in the camp. We did not become close. He kept a certain distance. He had the longest sentence among us—six years. He was cautious, didn't make friends. He communicated mostly with himself, being a psychologist and an analyst. He composed and brought up for discussion an open letter-appeal to Ivan Drach, condemning his collaboration with the communist camarilla. After discussion, a letter of appeal was adopted to Ivan Dziuba, Lina Kostenko, and other like-minded people, thanking them for their support during the investigation and the sham trials. In it, we wished them strength of spirit in the fight for our and their freedom. I managed to transport those letters and personally deliver them to the addressees. Drach tried to justify himself, but I did not stay to listen. Mykhailo was released after his “bell rang” in 1971. He returned to Lviv, to his family, and worked somewhere as a stoker. I don't know if he was registered then. Sometime after the second big “harvest” of arrests, maybe in 1974, I had a brief meeting with him. Samvydav was barely surviving. Yevhen Proniuk and Vasyl Lisovyi had already been imprisoned; after the crackdown of 1972, they had managed to publish two or three issues of the “Ukrainian Herald.” (One issue. – Ed.). So, my acquaintance, Yevhen Vasylyovych Mykhailiuk, who was supposedly working on preparing further issues of the “Herald” at the time, asked me to introduce him to Mykhailo Horyn. We arrived in Lviv, and I found him. With a certain degree of conspiracy, I tell him the purpose of my visit. He said he didn't want any extra “friends.” He asked me: “Ivas, are you that eager to go back to prison?” The meeting ended... For a while, God protected him from “friends.” I was imprisoned for the second time in the autumn of 1976 for 7 years. He, a little later.

In relation to this story, I will provide just one episode involving Bohdan Horyn. In the camp, we didn't have “heart-to-heart” talks. We didn't discuss the “episodes of the crime,” or how one defended oneself during the investigation and trial. But someone said that the KGB caught him on a “Raketa” hydrofoil or boat on the way to Kaniv with a briefcase full of “seditious material.” And he, without batting an eye, says that Biniashevsky gave it to him. I don't know how they sorted out that episode.

I had known Erast Biniashevsky for a long time. He was a very impressive personality. He stood out for his tall stature and was always fashionably and tastefully dressed. He was a top-class orthopedic specialist. A great expert on literature, history, and especially ethnography. He published an album about Ukrainian pysanky. He was one of the organizers of the Club of Creative Youth. A very interesting person. But for some reason, rumors began to circulate about him that one should be careful with him, that he was some kind of major or captain in the KGB. In the camp, Gevrych and I discussed this topic. I personally had no reason to believe these rumors, because I never spoke with him about “seditious” matters. So, after returning to Kyiv, I desperately needed to get some scarce medicine for someone. I remembered that Erast Volodymyrovych often helped in such matters, as he had extensive connections. So I go to him. We got to talking about the past; he asks how the boys are, as he knew many of them personally. I briefly told him something. And Biniashevsky then, almost in despair (he was an artist), says: “Ivan, do you know what a disappointment I had in Bohdan?” And continues: “I hadn't heard a thing about it and didn't know, and the KGB men are incriminating me with a full briefcase of samvydav and asking if it's mine.” Supposedly there was a “confrontation.” I didn't continue that conversation. I will only say that many others also passed off Biniashevsky as the primary source of their “evidence.” The investigators wrote it down, although they did not believe the testimony. But Biniashevsky's discrediting took place; he was removed from the active educational process. And also, by the way, Gevrych said that there was some KGB operative, a captain, who looked very similar to Biniashevsky, who took him off a bus somewhere near Kosiv. Such things also happened.

One could tell much more about that “neophyte” time with well-known or already forgotten personalities. Some have passed away, others have had their day, and still others have come along. But all together, they did achieve their goal and won the long-dreamed-of Victory.

So I won't tire you any longer; I will return to the topic and briefly conclude the story of my first “stint.” Everything has a beginning, and everything comes to an end someday. I behaved very politely during my last week. I even asked to go to the work zone. I wanted to see what people were doing at the furniture factory. It was almost like at the production facilities in the “big zone.” Those who need money and want to work, work. And those who don't, sunbathe somewhere among piles of planks or containers with finished products. At that time, there was not yet a system of exploitation and coercion. It was only important to go out to the work zone and not to violate the rules of the regime there. There were many drunks from denatured alcohol or acetone, extracted from lacquer paints.

In three and a half months, I earned nothing, and the warden had to give me 25 rubles and buy me a train ticket home. There was a lot of laughter about this because such a thing had never happened in that zone before. August 28th in 1966 fell on a Sunday. So they were forced to kick me out on Saturday, a day early. The farewell “party” took place on Friday evening. At the “razvod” (work detail assignment) on Saturday, I said goodbye to my friends and began to wait for the “bell.” Around ten o'clock, they called me to the guardhouse with my belongings. They returned my clothes. They cursorily inspected my things. They gave back the portrait and all the rest of my writings. They even allowed me to take a Zek's cap as a memento, which Nadiika Svitlychna later asked me for. I also took an aluminum spoon, which I later, according to camp tradition, threw over the fence into the zone.

Accompanied by some lieutenant, I traveled to Potma on the same narrow-gauge train. He got my passport at the passport office, gave me 25 rubles and a ticket to Moscow and to Kyiv. He wished me a good journey and—not to return. It was somehow a bit unusual. There was no feeling of the euphoria of freedom. But what can you do: I now had to manage myself. I went to the post office and sent a telegram: “Received my freedom.” At home, they received: “Am coming to you.” I reached Moscow without incident, found the Daniel family. And then, on some mail train, I went to Kyiv. As we were crossing Khutir-Mykhailivskyi, I remembered B. D. Antonenko-Davydovych's novel “Behind the Screen.” And I must tell you, the feeling was almost exactly as he described it. Indeed, there is a difference between Russian landscapes and buildings and our houses in orchards and flowers.

My wife Zhanna and close friends met me at the station. A day or two later, I went to my old job, because I was tired of “fooling around” for a whole year. As the classic said: “One desperately wants to work.” They hadn't forgotten me there yet and took me back as a geodesic engineer without hesitation. Such was the advantage of an engineer over a humanities major. But I must remind you again that those were the remnants of the “thaw-liberalism.” Soon, the chief Ukrainian KGB agent Nikitchenko was replaced by Fedorchuk. And later, Petro Yukhymovych Shelest was “promoted” to Moscow...

Scanned and proofread on May 16 and 29, 2009, by Vasyl Ovsienko, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.