Babych, Serhiy Oleksiyovych. Down the Road of Absurdity. - Zhytomyr: Ruta. 2016

Zhytomyr

“Ruta” Publishing House

2016

Down the Road of Absurdity

This story is for those who have managed, at least for a moment, to rise above themselves, like a fish out of water.

—The Author

It has been a very long time since I was cast down from Olympus. I descend lower and lower—of the great bonfire that snatched all surroundings from the darkness, only smoldering embers remain.

No, I have not become a happy Sisyphus, for there is still the memory of my time on the summit, of the sentence to absurdity. But I have descended to the people so closely that I have undertaken to write to people. To whom else?! Not to the trees in the forest, though what difference is there between them—only that people can move. (Perhaps I have indeed become a little infected, since I’ve taken to writing).

Life is a continuous current. My story about life will also be continuous.

I don’t remember, but according to my birth certificate, I was born on December 13 (“on St. Andrew's Day.” They were going to name me Andriy, but Grandma Nastya was against it—probably because of some other Andriy) in the village of Rohachiv, Baranivka Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast. Like everyone, I came into this world not of my own will—it was the will of nature, or perhaps of God. And I don’t remember how I perceived this world, my appearance in it: with protest or acceptance—whether I screamed, cried, or laughed. I only know from my father's story that when I was being baptized, the godfather—my father's brother Oleksandr—had to hold my hands because I was slapping the priest in the face. And why I was slapping him—I don’t remember that either. Perhaps that priest was a great sinner, or perhaps I didn't want to accept baptism.

My parents: my father, Babych, Oleksa Savych, from Rohachiv. When the first “Babych”—Hnat Babych with his wife Olena—appeared in Rohachiv and where he came from is unknown. It is only known that Hnat Babych, who started the Babych line in the village, had six children; that his eldest son, Fylip, married in 1804 at the age of 21; that Hnat’s son Tereshko (Terentiy) lived on a khutir (a farmstead; his house stood behind the church, 350 meters from the highway, then a dirt road from Baranivka to Zvyahil). That over time, other peasants also began to build houses there, and thus, a street named “Tereshkova” after my great-great-grandfather appeared in the village. Tereshko's house stood on the left side of the street. His son Lukyan also lived on Tereshko's homestead. And Lukyan passed it on to his son Sava, my paternal grandfather.

Hnat’s sons—Fylip, Mykhailo, and Tereshko—were serfs, as evidenced by the parish registers of the 1830s and 40s. When they were enserfed is unknown.

The surname “Babych” appeared long ago. In the 15th century, five princes (brothers) had the surname “Babych.” (Their father, who died in 1436, was “Baba”). They were the Hiedyminid (Olherdovych) princes: the Drutsky family (N.M. Yakovenko, “Ukrainian Gentry”). This surname is quite common. In 1962, when I was imprisoned in Camp No. 7, I met a Cossack from Kuban with the surname “Babych.” He told me that during the war, his military unit was stationed in a Yugoslav village. It turned out that most of the residents of that village had the surname “Babych.” When they learned that he too was a “Babych,” they began to treat him, taking him from house to house and assuring him that he was their distant relative.

My grandfather Sava (who died in the mid-1930s) married a Polish woman, Nastya Yagelska from the village of Klymental, in 1901. Sava was 20, and Nastya was 17. By that time, Nastya was already Orthodox. In addition to my father, Oleksa (1904-1985), they had Oleksandr (1902-1961), Natalka (in the parish register Pelahia, 1908-1974), and Maria (who died of gangrene in the 1930s before reaching adulthood).

Sometime in the late 1920s, my father married Olena Holub. They had two sons—Vasyl (1928-2006) and Pavlo (1930-2002). In the early 1930s, the family fell apart. Vasyl stayed with his father (living with us until he was 16), and Pavlo with his mother. After the war, his mother gave them the surname of her second husband, who died at the front—Zavalnyuk. She did this to receive some, albeit meager, government assistance for her sons. (That assistance did not save Vasyl from prison. In the post-war hungry years, Vasyl had to serve time in prison for a basket of potatoes from the collective farm field). Why did the family fall apart? It is only known that it was due to constant quarrels (Olena associated with members of the Komnezam, the Committee of Poor Peasants). Due to the family conflict, my father even had to spend about six months in the Zhytomyr prison. After a fire occurred (there was suspicion that someone had set the house on fire), he and his parents left Tereshkova street, building a house near the swamp, about halfway between Prapor and the Kykivsky poselok (settlement), which appeared later, before the war. (Incidentally, the Honcharuks later built on Tereshko's homestead. While digging a pit for a root cellar, they found a stone hammer and a sharp flint knife). In 1934 or 1935, my father married my mother, Pavlyuk, Maria Lukashivna (Lukivna) from the village of Kykiv, who at that time lived on a khutir next to the later-formed Kykivsky poselok (now called “Ukrainske” (?!), as if the surrounding villages were not Ukrainian). The family was enserfed—forced into a collective farm.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Pavlyuk family in the village of Kykiv was quite numerous. In some parish registers, it is indicated that certain Pavlyuks belonged to a certain landlord. From this, we can conclude that all the Pavlyuks in the village of Kykiv were enserfed. This is also somewhat confirmed by what remained in my mother's memory from recollections of those old times.

The maternal lineage could only be traced back to my great-grandfather Mosiy (Moisey), who died in 1907 at the age of 65, and his wife Paraska, who in 1887 had my maternal grandfather Lukash (Luka).

In 1906, Lukash married Yavdokha Tymoshenko. Both were 19 years old. They had: Sozont (b. 1907—was alive in 1928. His fate is unknown), Maria (1912-1989—my mother), Kindrat (1919-2003), Hanna—my godmother (1922-1983), Vasyl (1923-1942—died in the Oryol Oblast in the village of Zheleznivka), Maksym (1928-1977), Oleksa (b. 1930), and Khrystia (1932-1933).

Grandfather Lukash, Grandmother Yavdokha, and their older children were very good singers. Young people constantly gathered at Grandfather Lukash’s khutir. Grandfather Lukash played the sopilka (a Ukrainian flute) and beat the bubon (a tambourine), both of which he made himself. The youth danced and sang. Those were the 1920s. That was all the joy there was in my mother's life. (From the memories of my uncle Oleksa about Grandmother Yavdokha and Grandfather Lukash: I was with my mother in the field. She was harvesting flax, sweating, and then it started to rain. My mother caught a cold and fell ill. A large swelling appeared around her neck. Father took her to the hospital in Novohrad, but it didn't help. She died in '33 or '34. When they were making her coffin, and it was summer, I was playing with scraps of boards. I also remember us, sitting on the stove, banging our heads against it out of hunger and screaming “I want to eat!” My sister Khrystia was lying in the cradle, also crying from hunger. And Mother lay motionless in bed. Around that time, Khrystia died. It must have been '33. And Father died in '44 on the feast of John the Baptist... I was sitting by the stove in a greatcoat and a Budyonovka hat. That was when the Germans were retreating. German soldiers came into the house. Seeing me, a soldier immediately pointed his rifle at me and shouted: “Partisan!” Father grabbed the rifle and pushed the barrel aside, exclaiming: “Small! Small! A child!” and began to undress me. The soldiers left, but my father was very distressed. Soon after, one evening, he went outside. He wasn't there for long. He came back into the house, lay down, exhaled strangely a few times, and he was gone. It must have been a heart attack).

My mother's first husband was Naum Rybak, from the village of Kykiv. They lived on a khutir on the left side of the highway outside Kykiv. They had a son, Ivan. In 1933—the famine. The son, husband, and father-in-law die of starvation. Mother lies swollen in the house—already awaiting the end. But her father, Lukash, comes and takes her to his place. This saved Mother from death. And starvation had wiped out many then. (Miraculously, a list of those who died in 1933 in the neighboring village of Kyyanka has survived and is in the regional archive. In this small village, from January 6 to December 29, 1933, 199 people of all ages died.) Mother rarely spoke of that famine. Probably because she always had to think about how to survive, how to feed her children. Periodically, I would hear her talk about Mykhalko (Naum's younger brother), who lived in the village of Kanuny. Mother, being at the market in Novohrad-Volynskyi, would accidentally meet him and tell us about it at home.

So, after my release in the 90s, I began to think that I should go to the village of Kanuny and see that Mykhalko with whom my mother used to talk. One day, while waiting for a bus in Novohrad, I started a conversation with some young women. It turned out they were from Kanuny. I asked about Mykhailo. "There is such a person," they told me. To be honest, I hardly hoped he was still alive, as it was already the summer of 1998. I decided: I must go immediately.

Having arranged a trip with Uncle Kindrat, I drive to Novohrad, pick him up, and after visiting our relatives' graves at the Kykiv cemetery, we turn towards Kanuny. We enter the village. His house is right after the small bridge. We go inside. Mykhailo is lying in bed. He is in such a state that he cannot even get up. Approaching him, I say:

—“I am the son of Maria, with whom your brother Naum lived.”

—“What! Are you not dead? You’re alive?!” Mykhailo says in astonishment. For some reason, he thought I was that little Ivan from '33.

In 1939, due to the liquidation of the khutir system, my parents moved their house and barn to the village of Rohachiv, building on Smoldyriv road, on the right side, at the exit of the village.

My parents had six of us children: Nadia (1936-2011), Sashko (b. 1937—died after a year and a half), Mykola (1942-2000), Olha (1945-2013), Andriy (1949-2010), and me—Serhiy. I might not have come into this world. It was about two months before my birth: my mother went for water and, while drawing a bucket with a long pole, she leaned over and fell headfirst into the well (it must have been me who pulled her into the well). But she managed to turn over and splash into the water feet first. The well was lined with stone and not deep. Clinging to the stones, my mother got out of the well and came home, soaked to the waist.

In the same year, my father had to do some fighting. He was mobilized and took part in the war with the Poles. During one attack, he came under machine-gun fire. But he hit the ground in time, and it all ended without consequences. He was also an interpreter (he knew some Polish) during the interrogation of prisoners. And in early 1944 (when the Soviets arrived), he was mobilized again and thrown to the front. He didn't fight for long because in the trenches near Shepetivka he got frostbite on his toes; some of those sitting in the trenches with him froze to death. Father was sent to a hospital in Tambov, where his frostbitten toes were amputated. Kindrat and Vasyl were also at the front. (Kindrat was not only at the front. In the late 1940s, being hungry, he stole something edible and ended up in a camp in the Krasnoyarsk Krai. I remember: it was evening, Mother was sitting by the stove, in which a fire was blazing, and crying, remembering Kindrat). Already in the camps, I was amazed: how could they have participated in that war after such a famine? After all, if you take my father, when the front was approaching, he could have put his family on a cart (which I told him many times) and moved west. Moreover, both he and others knew well that the Soviets would mobilize them, and if they didn't die at the front, the collective farm and the NKVD would await them again.

Here I want to mention the family of my father's sister, Natalka. Her husband Kyrylo, like my father, was mobilized and died. Six children were left as half-orphans. And in 1948 or '49, they started rounding up young people in the village (just like under the Germans) and sending them to Donbas to mine coal. They tracked down Kyrylo's daughter—Zhenia—at night (she was hiding), caught her, and took her to a mine in Donbas. I was also amazed by the Germans: they knew that men fit for mobilization would be mobilized by the Soviets after their retreat and would fight against them. There was only one way out: either these men—the future reinforcements of the Soviet army—move west; or, if caught in the territory they were to abandon, they would be destroyed. And such a measure would undoubtedly have been advantageous both to the Germans and to those who did not want to be mobilized and die at the front for the interests of those who had driven them into collective farms, starved them, tried them for an ear of grain, and shot them.

Father maintained neutrality—“it's none of my business.” He was drawn neither to the Soviet partisans nor to serving the Germans. As for fighting both occupiers—for an independent Ukraine—he had heard about the UPA unit of Derkach raiding our area, but for him, as probably for everyone in the village, this was something distant. Father did not go to the partisans, but the partisans came to him. Someone informed the partisans that father had a new sheepskin coat. The partisans came to our house at night and demanded it. Of course, if the coat had been hanging in the house, they would have taken it, and that would have been the end of it. But father already knew that partisans were rummaging through houses at night, so he hid it well and said that he had no new sheepskin coat. Then they took father out behind the house to the ditch. A partisan clicked the bolt of his rifle and said: “The coat or death!” In addition to a couple of coats, they also took a heifer.

Father also had dealings with those who served the Germans. One day, he was summoned to the village elder, whose office was in the former village council building. As soon as my father arrived, the elder gave him a rifle and said, pointing to a man sitting on a bench:

—“We caught a partisan, guard him.”

And soon after, he came to my father again:

—“Take that broom and sweep the floor.”

Father puts the rifle in the corner, takes the broom, and sweeps. Seeing this, the partisan darts through the door, jumps out onto the street and, leaping into a horse-drawn cart, disappears. I heard about that partisan’s heroic escape more than once at the club during the celebration of another anniversary of the Soviet victory. The name of the man who swept the floor was not mentioned. Undoubtedly, although my father was not in the police, if that partisan had known my father and pointed him out, my father would have been not at the front, but somewhere in the North with the policemen. But what is strange is that this partisan’s hands were not even tied. And so the question arises: wasn’t it the elder himself who organized that partisan’s escape in this way?

And yet, my father did not entirely stick to “it's none of my business.” I don't know under what circumstances it was, but risking his life, he undertook to help one of two or several Jewish women who managed to escape being shot. Even as a child, I heard that a Jewish woman was hiding in our house. And when I gave an interview in 1989 for the bulletin “A Prisoner’s Page,” I told this episode, but with some mistakes. Later, while visiting my brother Vasyl, I asked about the events in the village during the war and, in particular, about that Jewish woman who was hiding with us. This is what he told me: “Sofiia Abramivna was my teacher. She hid in our house. In the summer, she would also sit it out in the khvos (ditch) overgrown with bushes. I would bring her food there. When they were burning houses, she was in the house. There was no certainty that they wouldn't burn ours. She needed to be led out of the house. So then, when you were watching the house burn (and that was when the Germans were burning the houses of those about whom they had some information regarding their connection with partisans), my father and mother, shielding Sofiia with their bodies, moved her to the barn. Sofiia stayed with us for a few more months, sometimes going out into the village. What happened to her—I don’t know. She left and didn't return. The police probably caught her and shot her.”

Sofiia Abramivna did not appear in the village. Thus, her life ended tragically somewhere, just as it ended for the Jews of the village of Rohachiv in the fall of 1941. That fall, the Germans gathered all the Jews (over 400 people. I. Liberda, “The Village Remembers”), took them to the Kamianobridsky forest, and shot them. Only a few people were saved. Incidentally, a third of the village’s inhabitants were killed, and the authorities never mentioned them. Their graves were treated the same as the graves of those killed by starvation in 1932-33. As if they had never existed.

In the village, the Jews lived compactly (in the mid-19th century, there were more Jews in the village than Ukrainians and Poles combined). And when three collective farms were established in Rohachiv in the 1930s, one of them was a Jewish collective farm called “Pyatyrichka” (Five-Year Plan). This collective farm also had a number of Ukrainians. I remember a villager’s story about those collective farms: “It was easier in the Jewish collective farm. If a woman didn't have time to bake bread before going to work, the head of the collective farm, coming into the house, would say to the woman: ‘Hurry up and finish and come to work.’ And he would leave the house. But in our collective farm: he came in, saw that a woman was kneading dough, and a fire was blazing in the oven, without saying anything, he grabs a bucket of water and throws it into the oven.”

In the first days of January 1944, the Soviet army was already in Rohachiv and took up defensive positions on the outskirts of the village, on the side of Novohrad-Volynskyi (that part of the village was called “Pletianka”). A certain military unit also arrived at our house. Upon arriving, they dismantled the northern wall of the large room, rolled a cannon in there, and from that cannon, they fired at the German troops, who were moving in a column along the highway from the direction of Novohrad-Volynskyi. Encountering the ambush, the German troops, having suffered losses in manpower and equipment, were forced to turn into the field and move along the snow-covered trackless terrain towards Smoldyriv.

For a long time, almost until the end of the 1940s, burned German trucks stood on the left shoulder of the highway outside the village. And the fallen German soldiers lay in the field and ditches until spring. When the snow was gone, they gathered teenagers, appointed one of the adults as a brigadier, and sent this brigade to collect the corpses. Brother Vasyl was in that brigade. As he later told me, they would drag the corpses with a horse to two former silage pits, which were in the field not far from the highway, right outside the village.

A comical incident also happened with their brigadier then: among the corpses was the carcass of a large draft horse. They dragged that horse over but couldn't push it into the pit. The brigadier came to help. Standing at the edge of the pit, he grabbed the tail and pulled. And then the tail, which had already started to rot, broke off, and the brigadier flew into the pit onto the corpses… (This happened at a time when the Soviets, after the German occupation, had not yet driven the peasants to complete impoverishment—to starvation. If that horse had died a little later, it would not have lain until spring. The peasants would have eaten it).

I remember myself before I was four years old. This must have been in the early autumn of '43. There was no snow yet. As I see it now: I am standing by a stool, on which there is a large frying pan filled with yellow cracklings, and in the other room, people are standing by the window, looking out. The people are anxious. This anxiety was transmitted to me. And I, leaving the pan of lard, go to that room and climb onto a bench. I look out the window and see: diagonally across the road to the left, a huge flame, and not far from that flame, someone is standing dressed all in black. I look at the flame. I also see my father, who is walking around the yard. My father is also somewhat anxious. It was only later that I learned that it was the burning house where the Antoniuk family (nicknamed “Kachurs” in the village) was living at the time.

I also remember how we were riding through the field in a blizzard on a sledge (hryndzholy). That winter, my parents, fearing that we too might be burned, fled from Rohachiv to the Kykivsky poselok. That was my first contemplation from what was left in my memory of the world around me and some vague reaction to it. My first comprehension of the world and myself in it—my reflections on life—formed somewhere at the end of March or the beginning of April of '45.

So, although so many years have passed, it's as if it's before my eyes: I am sitting near the threshold on the pryzba (a raised earthen bench along the outside of a rural house) warming myself in the sun, which is sometimes hiding, sometimes rolling out from behind small dark clouds; I am looking at the white snowdrifts with thawed patches and, in a very depressed state, I think: mother will die, and father will die, and I will die. And such a previously unknown sadness and hopelessness enveloped me that it is difficult to describe. I don’t know why I thought so much about it then. But I think the cause of this sadness was the death of Grandma Nastya (March 18, 1945). I remember her only as being ill. She was lying in bed, and I would bring her water, sweep the floor, always fussing around her to help with something. I remember the funeral too. The house was full of people. I was also holding a candle. But melted wax dripped on my hand, and I dropped it. Grandma loved me and always gave me a piece of something tasty that they got for her, being sick. Probably, that was when I first realized that death awaits a person.

My childhood, like that of almost all the children in the village, was spent in such poverty that it’s even surprising how I and everyone in the family survived those hungry years. When spring came, one of my activities was to go with my sister Nadia across the Sluch river and look for sorrel on the riverbank. And we didn’t always manage to gather enough of it, as many children were picking it. So we also went to the fields to pick what was called “rabbit” sorrel. A gang of kids would also raid the collective farm's vegetable garden. And one time Rud (he held some position in the collective farm) caught me in the pea patch and hit me on my soft spot a couple of times with the belt he held in his hand. He yelled at me, and it scared me a lot. That was in '46. Peas were a delicacy, especially when boiled. Sometimes, at dusk, Nadia and I would pick two bags, bring them home, and mother would immediately boil them in a large pot, and our whole family would feast. And yet, from '47 to '49, it was somewhat easier for us than for others. At that time, father was in charge of a small farm (in the 30s he had completed some veterinary courses), so I would go to the farm with my younger brother Mykola, and one of the milkmaids would treat us to some milk.

Yes, that was in the summer of '47. We had already drunk our milk and were walking home from the farm. Our stomachs were full, and it was a bit hard to walk. It was especially hard for Mykola because he was still very small, and besides, he had a big belly, while his arms and legs were thin. We rested in an orchard near the road—all that remained of the Matviychuk khutir—and then walked on. We often went to the farm to drink milk. And then father became a storekeeper. It seems we had enough bread then because I could take a piece of bread out of the house and give it to one of my friends. Sometime in '49, my father was removed from this position. I know that while in this position, he helped others as much as he could. And he bailed them out. One time, a woman who worked in the warehouse took some flax fiber (which means she stole it) and was taking it home. On the way, she was intercepted, and they found the fiber on her. But, luckily for her, one of the villagers witnessed this event and immediately informed my father. Knowing the woman's explanation, my father entered her surname into the list of those who took fiber home and forged her signature. Soon, those who had intercepted her appeared. Father confirmed what the woman had said and showed them the logbook. This saved that woman from a possible prison sentence.

What also helped us was that my mother had a weaving loom, and she often worked even at night, by the light of a kahanets (a simple oil lamp), weaving linen and coarse cloth to order. I helped her in this as best I could—by winding spools. Others wound them too, but I had to do this work the most because I knew that my spools were better than those wound by others. Mother always praised me.

And one time, people from the village council came and said: pay the tax. But there was nothing to pay with. So they took a roll of linen from the loom, which my mother had just woven, and left the house with it. If anyone got it hard, it was my mother.

It’s chilling to remember sometimes. The collective farm quotas, the vegetable garden, the house that had to be kept in decent condition, the household chores, the children; processing hemp into fiber, spinning thread from this fiber and wool on a spinning wheel, weaving and sewing clothes—from pants to a svytka (a traditional outer garment). It's terrifying! It’s easier in prison. Besides—it was voluntary, not like in prison. One could have run away somewhere—even to prison. How was it possible to endure such a thing?! I don't know. But what's also strange is that in such poverty, young people came together, even had some sorts of weddings. People lived in such destitution, had so many troubles, yet they "produced" new people, creating additional trouble for themselves. (Later, in the camp, recalling that period and analyzing the life of the poor in general, I came to the conclusion: the poor who have children do not deserve sympathy. Is it worth sympathizing with the poor who have nothing to feed their children with?! And their children?! After all, when they grow up, they will repeat what their parents did. It is better to pity a hungry dog. So if you see a hungry woman with a child and a bitch with a puppy, throw a piece of bread to the dog—its “head is smaller.”)

Sometimes my parents would reminisce about their childhood, their youth. In their memories, there were roasted piglets and all sorts of delicacies. And their own horses. To me, it was something unreal. They also recalled bits and pieces of '33. My father often remembered how he was walking from Rohachiv to Novohrad-Volynskyi, and there were corpses lying on the roadside. Those were the people who were trying to get to the city to save themselves but didn't have the strength. Some of those lying there still showed signs of life. One of them raised his head and asked: “Give me a glass of milk—and I’ll go on.” He didn't even ask for bread, because he knew no one had any. But where could my father get that glass of milk...

In 1947, I started school. My sister Nadia brought me to the classroom (a small room in the village council), sat me down at a desk. Then came recess. I grab my notebook and—head home. I thought classes were over. I didn't have a primer. And not just me, many didn't. So I started reading somewhere around New Year's when they got me an old primer. I studied haphazardly. But I was fascinated by fairy tales, eagerly immersing myself in that world someone had invented. The first fairy tale I read, which was the best of all fairy tales for me, was called “Kotyhoroshko.” I read with pleasure and retold tales to the little ones. This wasn't difficult for me because in the first years after reading a tale, I could retell it word for word. (Still, I must say that all those fairy tales and myths are harmful because from childhood they implant in a person’s subconscious the possible existence of all sorts of devilry). And later, I read works that my sister brought for herself. Neither my parents nor the teachers paid much attention to me—he’s studying, so let him study. So even though my father discovered before I started school that I had poor eyesight (hereditary myopia—from my mother), it somehow happened that no one wondered if I could see anything on the blackboard. The teachers probably didn't even suspect. I kept quiet and didn't even know at first that I needed to use glasses, as in the first years of school, no one in the class wore them. It's possible that they were not so easy to buy in those years. Because of this, I constantly had to look into my neighbor’s notebook because I couldn't see what was written on the board (especially in mathematics).

This, I think, to some extent affected my success in acquiring knowledge, my desire to learn. And in general, I don’t remember ever having a penchant for acquiring the knowledge that school could provide. I remember those children who studied in the 40s: hungry (some would even take pieces of bread from others), ragged, barefoot. A particular incident also stands out vividly in my memory. The winter of '49 or '50. During recess, someone said that a dead man was lying on the road not far from the school. We run out of the classroom and go to look at him. It was not far, so we immediately saw a black spot on the snow near the grave of the fallen soldiers in the center of the village. We run up and examine with curiosity and some fear an unknown man who is lying almost face down, with his legs slightly bent, half-covered with snow. We look and run back, leaving a dead person, needed by no one, on the highway in the snow.

And another scene from those years: spring, the snow has already melted from the gardens, melted from the collective farm field not far from our house by the ditch (potatoes grew on it last year), and the field is full of people. Mostly children and teenagers. All with spades—we are looking for last year’s potatoes in the ground. The potatoes are already rotten, but you can still bake something resembling deruny (potato pancakes) from them.

Still, despite this extremely impoverished life, I did not hear anyone at school complain about this destitution, or blame the authorities for what was happening around us. On the contrary, we read with fascination works that glorified the Cheka, the Red Army, and their struggle against the kulaks for the establishment of the collective farm system. So I, like everyone else, avidly read the works of Soviet hacks in which only the Bolshevik-communists fought for justice, were those to be emulated. Gradually, thanks to the school, the works I read, and the films, which were a rarity for us at that time (but it was great luck to get into the auditorium; we also watched through the window), we were becoming Soviet patriots and were ready to repeat the feats of those child partisans about whom we read in books and saw in films. This is how the zombification of children took place, and parents were afraid to open their mouths, for how could they know that their child would not tell someone about it at school. I remember that by about the fourth grade, I was proving to my parents the advantages of collective farming over the private farming they so often reminisced about. But that was in theory, because when I broke away from the tools of zombification, I fell into a kind of duality caused by what was real—our impoverished life.

Perhaps my parents were also afraid, because they did not openly blame the authorities, only in a veiled form. And since in those years the chant "Long live Comrade Stalin!" was constantly heard, my father, after looking through a newspaper, would very often repeat: "May he live long, graze, and lay eggs on the nest!"

But despite my pro-Soviet attitude, I, unlike others, for some reason did not recognize communist paraphernalia. I could not put on a Pioneer pin and necktie. To me, it was something unnatural, superfluous. Only once, when the whole class was being photographed, they brought a necktie, and the teacher with the students, surrounding me, almost by force put it on my neck. Thus, I was photographed in a necktie. It is still unclear to me why I resisted so much then. Perhaps from a young age, I had an aversion to any kind of insignia and symbols that had to be worn on one's person.

Incidentally, I want to say that no one did as much harm as the schools, writers, and cinema. They instilled a negative attitude towards private farming, towards those who fought for it. They also instilled a love for the Chekists, the Soviet army, a love for the capital, Moscow. And no matter what talent those Honchars, Dovzhenkos, and those Korolyovs had (it would have been better if that Korolyov had not returned from Kolyma), of whom the so-called Sovieticuses and the feeble-minded are so proud, this talent gives no grounds to absolve them of guilt. (After what the Bolshevik-occupiers did, there could be no creative cooperation with them. Therefore, one should not grieve too much for that “Executed Renaissance”). And the greater the talent, the greater the harm done. It would have been better if they had no talent. It would have been better if they had worked on a collective farm instead of carrying a “fig” in their pocket while simultaneously praising in their works everything that should have been cursed. And perhaps it would have been better if children had not gone to school at all. Although that, of course, would be a paradox. And yet, if Ukrainians, like the Roma, had attended school less, then, perhaps, they would have been much better preserved as a nation. (As Prime Minister Nehru of India truthfully said: “An intelligentsia raised by an occupying power is an enemy of its own people.”)

In April 1951, our whole family left on a recruitment program for the Odesa region. Besides us, several other families left the village. My father's brother, Oleksandr, and his family also left. Everyone was looking for a better life. Perhaps my parents would not have left if the collective farm had given them at least what they had earned for the trudodni (workday units) they had from the previous year. But they didn’t. And here was this rosy picture of the life that awaited them—according to the recruiter. In addition, the authorities provided those who relocated with significant (by those standards) material assistance.

At the end of April, we were taken by truck to the Dubrivka station. About a day later, we loaded into wagons. It was a train of about ten wagons, filled with recruited people. We were riding in a boxcar. The wagons had two-tiered bunks on the sides of the doors, with a potbelly stove in the middle and a small hole in the floor—the toilet. At the top were two small windows. Probably, those wagons were used to transport prisoners to the north, and here they were used to transport settlers. We traveled for several days. We had long stops at large stations. At such times, we stocked up on water and fuel for the stove. Mostly it was coal, which was stolen from wagons standing at the station. And at one of the stations—either Koziatyn or Zhmerynka—we went through a sanitation checkpoint and took a shower. There were about five families in the wagon, so it was noisy, I would say, even cheerful, although everyone had some sadness in their soul, because they had left behind their native places, relatives, and friends, whom they didn’t know when they would see again. Nadia and I mostly sat on the upper bunks by the window, watched the passing landscapes, and often sang mournful songs: we felt sorry for what was left behind, somewhere far away. (By the way, I should also mention that although we all had some talent for singing, Nadia and Andriy stood out with their voices. Especially Nadia, who captivated listeners with her performance of lyrical songs. She was one of those who, with a favorable fate, could have become famous singers).

Finally, the last station—Buyalyk. Families are being distributed among the villages. Or rather, among the collective farms. A truck comes for us too. After loading our belongings, we go to the village of Pavlynka, Ivanivka Raion. Upon arrival, we settled in a solid house with a galvanized tin roof, occupying one of two large rooms; the kitchen was shared. That house had been one of the school buildings before the new school was built. Soon, my parents received additional assistance for the settlers. So there were no more problems with bread. My parents immediately went to work on the collective farm, and I, along with Nadia and Mykola, went to school. Besides us and my father's brother Oleksandr's family and a family from the village of Ostrozhok, several other families lived in Pavlynka—settlers from Western Ukraine, who had arrived in the village a few years earlier. The elders among those settlers differed in their dialect not only from the local people but also from us. In fact, we who had come from the Zhytomyr region had no noticeable language differences with the locals, and so we felt that the local population perceived us as their own. We were to settle in this village for good. They immediately allocated us garden plots on the outskirts of the village, and we began to build houses from the edge of these gardens. The construction went quite successfully because by August the houses were walled up. All that remained was everything related to carpentry. Those houses, of course, were not given for free; the costs had to be repaid.

We—the children—gradually grew into that steppe village, which was foreign to us. And when summer came, we immediately felt the limitations in summer entertainment, because while in Rohachiv at that time we would run to the river, the pond, or even splash in the ditch when there was enough water after the rain, here there was nowhere to swim. Moreover, the summer was hotter, cloudless. There was no pond yet, and although we could have swum in the village pond not far from the Koshkove halt, we kids for some reason made our way to the Kuyalnyk Estuary, which was about seven kilometers away. So, a gang of us local boys would walk along the steppe road to the estuary, swim in the very salty water, and walk back. There was nothing pleasant about those trips. I remember how my brother Mykola also wanted to join our gang. I tried to talk him out of it, explaining that it would be too much for a little boy like him, but he still ran after us. Then, to get away from him, we would run at such a speed that he could no longer keep up with us. Seeing that we were already far from him, Mykola would stop. I felt sorry for my brother, as he also wanted to splash in the water, but how could we take him with us?

p>

That summer, I almost died. This was already in August. We were playing soccer. We were sweating. I get a bucket of water from the well and pour it over myself. Soon, I felt some kind of malaise, which completely knocked me off my feet. I lay in the room for days. I had periodic hallucinations: a ball, some other object would grow from its normal size into a huge one, then shrink until it disappeared. From time to time, I would lose consciousness. Finally, they take me to the hospital in the village of Severynivka. My temperature was over 40°C. I was in the hospital for over a week, and when my mother came to visit me for the umpteenth time, she was allowed to take me from the hospital. I still felt weak, but I wanted to go home, and I was very glad that they were letting me out of this strange building. Shortly before sunset, we were already in Pavlynka.

In September, we were moved to an old house with several rooms. In one of the rooms lived the owners of this house—a very old grandfather and grandmother, whose son was soon to take them to live with him in Odesa. And they left soon after, leaving us that house, which had already served its time. The house was not far from the club. And behind the garden was the school. The location was not bad. Besides, there was an orchard. I also made friends here—Koliunka and Marko. Mykola's house, whom everyone for some reason called “Koliunka,” was nearby. We would visit each other. And Nadia was friends with Marko’s sister. Their mothers (their fathers had died) also used to visit us. While visiting us, among other things, they would talk about how they had lived earlier, in the post-war years. I remember that Marko's mother, to feed her children somehow, moved from the city to the village, and Koliunka's mother, working near the grain (probably on a threshing floor—grain heaps in the steppe), would pour grain into her boots and thus bring it home.

For some reason, my parents did not plan to wait until a new house was built for them, although it was clear that in a year or a year and a half, the house would be ready for occupancy. As early as the spring of 1952, having found a house in the village of Severynivka, my father went to Rohachiv and sold our house. Upon returning, he bought one in Severynivka. Why he did this is hard to explain. After all, no one was kicking us out; we had a place to live. And the house in Rohachiv was not empty. And besides, Severynivka at that time was a less convenient place to live because there were no buses then, and the only way to get to Odesa, 40 kilometers away, was by catching a ride, and only when the road was good (it was still a dirt road). Or via Pavlynka to the Koshkove halt, where a suburban train stopped. And that was over 12 km away. From Pavlynka, it was half that distance. In winter, settlers from Rohachiv who lived on a khutir in Severynivka would sometimes spend the night with us. Arriving late in the evening in Pavlynka from the halt, someone from that family would stay with us overnight, and at dawn would set out for Severynivka, pulling a sledge or carrying a bundle of purchases on their shoulders. Perhaps the desire to socialize with this family and two others, one of which lived in Severynivka and the other in Oleksandrivka, not far from Severynivka, was the reason for the move.

We left Pavlynka when the apricot trees were already in bloom. The dwelling that my father bought was half of a large house with a tin roof; the other half was occupied by the family of a collective farm brigadier. Adjacent to these halves were also sizable garden plots, divided in half by a low stone wall. At the end of these plots grew half a dozen huge old pear trees and young trees. All this was enclosed by a meter-high wall of stone, of shell rock that is quarried in the Odesa region. And behind this house stood another one, from which it was about 250 meters to the village. The Yukhymenkos lived in that house, and our family was friends with them. So we were like on a khutir of two houses—between Severynivka, which stretched along the hollow along the western bank, and a khutir of several dozen houses that stretched under the high eastern bank of what was once, probably, a large river that flowed into the Black Sea, and later became the Kuyalnyk Estuary, which was a few kilometers from the village. And to the north of us, beyond the small bridge over the Kuyalnyk rivulet, which, bypassing the Yukhymenkos' house and gardens, flowed into the estuary (it dried up in the summer), stretched a still young forest into the distance.

And again, my parents went to work on the collective farm, and we, the older children, went to school. For us children, there were significant advantages in Severynivka. Here, all summer long, we swam by the little bridge in a small reservoir and in a much larger one in the forest. We also went to the forest often, played various games, mostly, of course, "war." We also went to help our mother weed her quotas. And in winter, there were places to ice skate. Compared to Pavlynka, it was simpler here, perhaps because we were living as if on a khutir.

It was then, amidst the fun and minor mischief, that I committed an act that I later regretted. This is what happened... Half of the house my father had bought belonged to a family that had been deported from the Carpathians a few years earlier. I think it was a forced resettlement. That gazda (master of the house), with the surname Savytsky, having settled in that house, had put up, as was probably customary in his area, a figura—a large cross (over three meters high) with an icon of the crucified Jesus on it. The cross stood not far from the house in the garden that bordered the road. I had never seen such a large cross standing next to a house. To me, it was like something alien, obsolete, something that had no place near a house. It was truly like a challenge to everything that declared religion the opiate of the masses. And the strange thing was that the cross stood there, and the authorities took no measures to remove it. I didn't like it, and I told my father that it should be taken down, but my father said: "We didn't put it up, and we won't take it down. Let it stand." I often played with my friends by the cross in a game popular among the village children at the time: a column of about five small stones was set up, one on top of the other. Holding the end of a flat stone with your fingers, you threw it from a certain distance to knock down this column. The winner was the one who achieved this result. (We loved this game, so we didn't even go to school, where they were broadcasting Stalin's funeral on the radio). I don't remember what pushed me to it, but one day I took a small stone and threw it at the crucifix. The glass from the icon shattered on the ground. This was sometime in the summer of '53. Years later, remembering this incident in my cell, I thought: why did I do that? After all, you cannot hate someone who is against hatred, you cannot throw a stone at something for which Jesus is a symbol, you cannot throw a stone at Jesus. No, I was not a Christian, but I understood that it was unjust on my part.

As for that gazda, before selling his half, he built a new house on that khutir, later explaining to my father that it was closer to the collective farm fields for him. And indeed: he went up the hill, and he was already in the field. Not like for us, who had to walk about a kilometer across open terrain. His son Mykhailo also often visited us; there is even a photo preserved: he is in the middle, with Nadia and Valya Yukhymenko on either side. Later, this family left, probably returning to their homeland in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

In the Odesa region, life was somewhat easier, especially for my mother, because here they didn't grow flax, potatoes, and some other crops. This was a steppe region, where the main crops were wheat, corn, and sunflowers. In addition, the fields were mostly cultivated with machinery. And in winter (except for work on the farms), there was nothing to do. So the quotas were much smaller. It wasn't like in Polissia, where in winter, in unheated "points" (processing sheds), flax was manually processed into fiber. (I went to such a "point" for shives. I saw women working even in the severe cold in that dust—there was no ventilation). Mother no longer wove. Although even in Polissia this craft was going out of use; civilization was asserting its rights.

But poverty remained, as it had been. We could have lived better, but for that, we would have had to steal at least from the collective farm field, and my father couldn't bring himself to do that; he just couldn't adapt to life on the collective farm. (Like his brother Oleksandr, an overly delicate soul: when a chicken needed to be slaughtered, his wife Khrystia would do it). Even the guard at the threshing floor, noticing that my father never took anything for himself in his cart (he sometimes worked as a driver), was dissatisfied with my father and once told him: "We're afraid of you. You don't take anything." Later, reminding my father of what the guard had said, I even reproached him for not being more active in obtaining at least edible supplies. And living in Pavlynka with his brother Oleksandr, they soon moved to different villages, instead of staying together, helping each other provide for their families from the collective farm field, or even from the farm, where there was plenty of meat. So when the flour, milled from the grain given for the trudodni, ran out, we had to carry milk on our shoulders and something else that could be sold at the market in Odesa, and having walked to the Koshkove halt, take the suburban train and, after selling our goods in Odesa and buying bread, sugar, and a few other things, make our way back home.

We stayed in Severynivka until April 1954. It was decided—we were returning to Rohachiv, as we received news from our correspondence that life in Rohachiv had somewhat improved, not like it was before our departure from the village. Besides, my father started to get sick often, and the doctors said he needed to change the climate. My father missed Rohachiv, probably also because, among other things, he had two other sons there from his first wife. As for my mother, she didn't want to go back, as she knew what awaited her there, what she had left behind. But still, she didn't defend her opinion very strongly. As for us children, what did it matter to us: if we're going, we're going. It was even interesting—we would travel again. And we would meet our old friends, with whom we occasionally corresponded. So in April, without any reconnaissance, my parents sold the house and we started preparing to move. Finally, everything we could take was packed in sacks, and we left for the Buyalyk station in a hired truck.

We were leaving with a smaller family. In the fall, Nadia had married Pavlo Nazarenko from Oleksandrivka and moved to live with him in Odesa. We are leaving, but with sadness in our hearts, because we are leaving Nadia for good, and everything here has become dear to us. With sadness, we part from those we were friends with, with whom we played various games. Especially with our neighbors, the Yukhymenkos, with whom we socialized the most: Olha and Pavlo. But it’s all over now, we have to go.

The neighbors who came to say goodbye to us were left behind, and our little dog, Dzhulbars, about a year old, ran after the truck for several kilometers, sometimes falling behind, then catching up again. It fell behind for good when we were leaving Oleksandrivka, climbing out of the hollow towards Buyalyk. After unloading at the station, we wait for the train to Odesa. And here my father, for some reason looking into one of the sacks, discovered my saber, which I had secretly hidden when we were packing. Although this saber was very rusty, I didn't want to part with it. But what could I do?! I didn't throw it away, but right there at the station, I tucked it under a piece of turf, hoping that I would come back later and retrieve it. What comforted me a little was that at the bottom of a sack lay a German bayonet, and I would get it to Rohachiv.

At the train station in Odesa, Nadia came up to us with her husband. Crying, she says goodbye to us. We return in comfort. We have a separate compartment, even with mirrors in it. Everything is clean, comfortable, not like it was in that boxcar. Upon arrival in Rohachiv, we lived with my father's sister Natalka for several weeks. My father was looking for a house, but there were none for sale in the village. He found one in Tartak, moved it, and started building in the poselok, not far from the technical school, which had appeared before the war as a result of the liquidation of the khutirs. We moved from our aunt's place, who also lived in the poselok, into a shack and lived in it all summer until they built that tiny, two-room hut. My father already regretted coming back, but there was nowhere else to go; he had to settle in somehow. And how much simpler everything would have been if the house had not been sold, and upon our return, we could have settled into our own home. But as it was—we had to build, we had to go to work on the collective farm, and we needed something to eat.

I stopped going to school; I spent the whole fall helping my father look after calves. And for the next two years, in the warm season, I worked at the technical school at various jobs and on the construction of collective farm pigsties. Of course, the wages were paltry, and I couldn't provide financial help to the family. What I earned wasn't even enough for me to live on. What helped us to a great extent was that the collective farm fields were nearby, and my father and I would drag things from there. Mostly potatoes and beets. And more so in winter from the clamps, because it was much easier on a sledge. We did this quite often. But as for getting grain or some livestock for meat, that was "taboo" for my father. I once hid about ten sacks of rye and wheat in the corn near the house. When it got dark, my brother Mykola and I carried that grain all night. When we were on our last trip, it was already getting light. And my father just grumbled disapprovingly, frightening us with prison. But after some time passed, he didn't hide his satisfaction that he was provided with grain.

In those years, the best for me was 1957. Having bought a new bicycle in the spring, I and my friends, most often with Anatoliy Kovalchuk, would race around the village, to the river, to the forest to the swing behind the village of Rudnia, where young people constantly gathered. I also traveled with one of my friends to neighboring villages—just to meet some girl who was more to my liking. Those girls were like toys for a child—the more, the better. Nothing serious ever came of it. I never told any of them that I liked her. And I never brought flowers to any of them. All those acquaintances were just fun, a pleasant way to spend time. It couldn't have been otherwise, because from childhood my role model was “Сагайдачний, що проміняв жінку на тютюн та люльку.” (And yet I must say that in my childhood, I fell in love three times with blond-haired girls. The last of them—that proud girl (it is of such that they say: “...Ой, ти, дівчинонько гордая!”), I confessed to when she was already in her 72nd year. And it's a good thing it was so late because it could have ended as it usually does. But is it worth writing about such things?! After all, it's physiology. When you see a couple frozen in an embrace (there was no such thing in the years of my youth), you immediately associate them with a similar couple of frogs frozen in a swamp. Of course, this would be another story about being in love. But there would be nothing new in it, because for as many people as there have been and are—that’s how many stories of love there are. And they are all cut from the same cloth. The nuances are not worth attention. I will only say that if people walked around naked, there would be less poetry—and delusion).

And I was working on construction (they were adding the second half) of the Rohachiv secondary school. By the way, on the site of this school, there used to be a cemetery and the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos stood, which already existed in 1796, but when it was built remains unknown. It is only known that the day of its consecration is September 21, which the village still celebrates annually as a "feast day." When the communists dismantled the church, either in 1929 or already in the 30s, the old cemetery also ceased to exist.

The workday was 8 hours, so there was enough time for fun. Yes, that was the best year, and there was never another one like it. It was as if I had a premonition that there would not be another one, because I remember, already in the fall, returning from Ostrozhok in the evening and sitting down on the aftermath hay, I said to my friend, with whom I had worked and hung out everywhere that summer, Anatoliy Kovalchuk: "There will never be another summer like this."

Already in January 1958, I joined a construction brigade of carpenters and worked in this brigade until the frosts set in: we made roofs, doors, and windows for cowsheds and a “point.” We worked on contract, so we worked from sunrise to sunset. There was not much time left for fun. But under the guidance of my distant relative, Andriy Kostrytsia, who was a remarkable joiner and carpenter, I quickly mastered the carpentry and joinery professions and began to make doors, windows, and other things on my own. That autumn, I was supposed to go to the army with my peers. But I didn't. They went, and I was given a gray ticket (rejected due to myopia). Although I really wanted to join the army—I was drawn to weapons. And it was somehow awkward in front of others: they went, and you were rejected. And it was not the first time I was rejected. It had happened before. In the fall of '57, my friends Mykola Tymoshchuk and Andriy Dilodub and I decided to go to Donbas to an FZO (Factory and Plant Apprenticeship School). We were brought to the assembly point in Zhytomyr. We go through the medical commission. Knowing that I might be rejected due to myopia, I sent one of the guys to the eye doctor. It worked, and it seemed that everything was behind me. I go to the last doctor, the "ENT." The doctor looks up my nose and says: a polyp in the nose. You won't go to the FZO, because you need surgery first, and only then will you be able to go. My pleas (neither my friends nor I wanted to part) did no good. I had to return home.

By late autumn, the brigade had completed everything that was in the contract. And I had no desire to work on the collective farm anymore; I didn't want to be a collective farmer, which I had automatically become (like the sons of serfs once were), without applying to join the collective farm. I started thinking about how to get out of the village and find a job somewhere in the city. I went to the village council to get my registration removed. I already had a passport because when I wasn't allowed to go to the FZO, my friends, whom I had seen off to the station, begged the escort to give me my passport at the station. That passport was without registration, and therefore invalid. There was nothing left to do but to register in Rohachiv. So now the issue was deregistration. And so it began. I go to the village council, and the head of the village council sends me to the collective farm because "kolhospnyk" (collective farmer) is written in my passport. "Let the head of the collective farm give a 'spravka' (certificate), then I will deregister you," says the head of the village council. But he doesn't give it. And I started traveling to Baranivka, to Zhytomyr: to the raion committee, the raion executive committee, the oblast committee. And all in vain. Then—it was already somewhere in April 1959—I wrote a letter to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Podgorny. I wrote that I had a fiancée in the Odesa region, that I needed to move to live with her permanently, that we couldn't get married because they wouldn't deregister me from the village. I didn't really have much hope. But in the second half of May, accidentally meeting me in the center of the village, the head of the village council comes up to me and says:

—“Bring your passport. I will deregister you.”

—“What about the spravka?” I ask.

—“It's not needed anymore,” answers the head.

Apparently, there, at the “First” Secretary’s office, they thought: what difference does it make to us in which collective farm he will work? Let them pair up and produce collective farmers for us.

Thus, only through deceit did I manage to deregister and have the opportunity to move freely around the country.

Taking a certificate from my place of work (I had been working for about two months on the highway section Rohachiv - Dovbysh, making concrete rings for bridges), I went to Zhytomyr in the first days of June and after a two-day search (I slept at the train station), I got a job as a carpenter in the NGCh ("chief of the civil section"—one of the departments of the railway administration, which repaired buildings and structures belonging to the railway).

Arriving at the NGCh on June 9 (a small building, which besides the NGCh office had several rooms for a dormitory), I settled in the dormitory. The windows in the room overlooked the station tracks. There were two of us in the room, although there was a third bed. But in fact, I had the room to myself because my roommate, Vasyl Holovnia, lived near Martynivka and, as a rule, would leave for home on a suburban train after work. This suited me; only I couldn't get used to the roar of the trains outside the window for a long time.

Everything would have been more or less normal if it weren't for the meager wages, which soon were not even enough for normal food.

As it got colder, the volume of work decreased, and accordingly, the already small wages also decreased. It was a good thing I had clothes and shoes, so I could get by somehow. But something had to be done to improve my financial situation. So I started looking for another job and in January 1960, I got a job at a furniture factory as a carpenter repairing the factory workshops. But leaving the NGCh, I had to leave the dormitory too. After staying for about two weeks in the apartment of one of the factory workers, I finally found an apartment to live in with registration. It was a private house on the corner of Skhidna and Kotovsky streets, opposite the school where I had been studying in the 8th grade of night school since September. (I went to school because I realized that to get a better place under the sun, you have to use your elbows, and you can't get such a place without some kind of diploma). And yet, changing my place of work did not solve the problems that were plaguing me. To some extent, those problems could have been solved the way some guys did, by marrying one of the Zhytomyr girls. But that didn't suit me. Besides, it was by no means in my plans to start my own family. My family for me was my parents, brothers, and sisters.

In the room I moved into, my roommate became Volodymyr Tarasyuk. We occupied a separate room in the old hosts' house. It was thanks to Volodymyr that I settled in this place. Working with me in the same brigade and learning that I had problems with housing, Volodymyr offered me to move into the room he was already renting. He was also from a village—Saly in the Cherniakhiv Raion. He had also been to an FZO. As it turned out, the same one as my friends who had gone without me in the fall of '57. Like me, he also had to think about how to make ends meet. We were poor, because even at the furniture factory, the wages were meager, and not only for us. Such wages were common for most of those who had secondary or auxiliary jobs. I remember a conversation between two foremen, which they had in the office in my presence: "We have to do something," one says to the other. "The girls didn't go to the canteen for lunch; they're standing by the fire, eating only bread and drinking water." These girls were also from the village. They worked in the cold, in a blizzard, as laborers on the construction of a large new workshop. They lived somewhere in rented rooms, were in poverty, but were glad that they had managed to escape the collective farm. And it was like that everywhere in the city. I was already thinking: maybe I should leave Zhytomyr and go in search of better wages? But I didn't want to leave school either, and where would I find a better wage in winter? And returning to the village was out of the question—who returns to the village from the city?!

There was only one thing left to do—rob a store. And I started walking around the city, looking for a store that would be easier to rob. I didn't share my thoughts with Volodymyr, because I saw that it was unlikely he would go for such a thing. My head was not only filled with plans of robbery. I began to think more and more about life itself, about its worthlessness. Well, what kind of life is it when you are forced to show up at a factory or in some office at a certain hour day after day, if you have the appropriate education. And so on until retirement, until old age. You are like a dog on a leash. Is that life?! It's not life, it's just work. That didn't suit me. After all, time spent working is time of a lost life. If only it were like in the old days! If there were a Zaporozhian Sich—I would have gone there, I thought, sitting at my desk. Although what kind of Zaporozhian Sich would it have been for me with my myopia—in the first battle, I would have been hacked down or shot.

It was somewhere in early April. I had no firearm, but in the village, there was the bayonet I had brought from the Odesa region. I didn't go to get it myself but asked my brother Mykola, who had recently arrived in Zhytomyr on assignment from the collective farm to study to be a tractor driver, to bring it. He fulfilled my request. Of course, I was only going to use that bayonet for intimidation, as I had no intention of stabbing anyone with it. And so I marked two stores, each with only one saleswoman. One was not far from the railway station, and the other at the Zhytniy Market. The one at the Zhytniy Market seemed more suitable for an attack. After observing the store for one evening, I came the next evening with the bayonet. Standing by the empty market stalls, I watch the store and the surroundings. It's already completely dark. The store is lit. There are no people anywhere. But for some reason, I hesitate. And then a man approaches me. He said he was a guard at the market and asks me:

—“What are you doing standing here?”

—“I arranged to meet someone here, but he’s not here for some reason,” I answer him.

—“Everything is closing, and outsiders are not allowed here.”

—“He probably won’t come now,” I say to him and leave the market territory.

I think that even if I had not been involved in political affairs, sooner or later, I would not have been able to avoid “criminal” cases, and thus prison. Why criminal—in quotes? Because I do not consider that during the rule of an occupier in your country, an attack on an official, a store, a factory or collective farm cash office, etc.—is a criminal matter. Regardless of whether this expropriation is for the needs of political activity or for personal needs.

But something happened that, it would seem, could not have happened in Zhytomyr, especially at the school where I studied. On the evening of March 4, 1960, leaflets were distributed near the school. During the break, students brought them into the classroom. I took one for myself. It was a leaflet from a Russian émigré organization, the NTS (People's Labor ). Soon, a KGB representative appeared in the classroom and addressed those present with a demand to hand over the leaflets to him. They began to approach him and hand them over. I did not. That same evening, my roommate Volodymyr Tarasyuk read this leaflet. And the next day, the owner of the house also read it. I also gave that leaflet to Borys Zhovtetsky to read, who was in the same class as me. (Zhovtetsky was a Pole; his grandfather was dekulakized, and in the late 30s, he was shot). And a few days later, while at the NGCh, I also gave it to Petrenko to read, with whom I had worked together.

After reading the leaflet, the owner of the house began to come into our room and tell us about the events in Zhytomyr in those turbulent years of '17-'20. He told us about the typhus in Petliura's army, and what life was like in Zhytomyr in those years. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the existing order. Sometimes I would come from school, and he would be telling Volodymyr about the past. And once he got so carried away that he was telling us stories until morning.

About a week had passed since I brought the leaflet. One evening, I come from school, and Volodymyr is sitting at the table, writing something. I ask him:

—“What are you writing there so late?”

—“A leaflet,” Volodymyr answers.

—“Well, and what have you written there?”

Volodymyr reads what he has written. It turns out, the Jews were to blame for everything. About the communists—not a word.

—“What do the Jews have to do with it?! If anyone is to be blamed, it's the communists,” I tell him. “And if you really want to release a leaflet, then let me help you. We can partially use the leaflet I brought.”

Volodymyr agrees, and we immediately set about writing the leaflet. We didn't spend much time deliberating over it, and that same evening, or perhaps already at night, the text of the leaflet was ready.

—“Well, then, let’s give the KGB a run for their money,” I say to Volodymyr, because I too had become captivated by the idea of distributing our own leaflets around Zhytomyr.

So Volodymyr buys paper, and in the evenings, altering his handwriting, he writes leaflets in gloves. After some time, several dozen leaflets are ready. We decide that's enough for now. And so on the evening of March 19, I take about a dozen leaflets, take a tram to the railway station, post a leaflet somewhere there, and walking along Kyivska Street towards Skhidna, I paste leaflets on poles. I pasted the last one on a pole after turning onto Skhidna. I return to the apartment, where Volodymyr was already waiting for my return. We take all the leaflets, glue, and tacks, and trying not to draw attention to ourselves, we walk the streets in the city center until one in the morning, putting them up. Everything went smoothly. Although at the end of the leaflet was the slogan "Down with the communist system of oppression and terror," we carried out this work as a sort of routine affair—like a game, as we were not aiming for anything big, for achieving any changes in the country, let alone a revolution. It was all simple: Volodymyr was dissatisfied with the foreman who hadn't calculated his salary as promised, and I was just doing it for the thrill. Of course, I didn't think then that they might track us down, and then they would be the ones running, and I would have to sit for a long time. Although for us this action was a routine affair, after distributing the leaflets, we decided that in a week or two, we would distribute a new batch. Let them run.

Everything went on as usual. No changes. Only Volodymyr moved to work as a loader in a store, so we no longer worked together. And so we communicated little. I don't know if we would have distributed the second batch, because I felt that Volodymyr's enthusiasm, which he had especially on that evening when he was composing the leaflet against the Jews, had already faded. And no wonder, because not only I, but he too had personal troubles related to our destitute life. We had to think about how to improve our financial situation.

April was passing. Spring was in the air. On one of these warm, sunny days, when there were already large thawed patches, I was chopping wood in the yard. Then the owner of the house approaches me and says:

—“I’ll have to have you deregistered.” (I don’t remember anymore: was it because they were going to sell, or remodel something in the house).

There was a certain awkwardness in his voice, as if it was difficult for him to tell me this. And at the same time, a certain hostility. I feel that he is not in his element. It was somewhat strange to hear this from him, because until now, there had never been any unfriendliness in his voice. Well, now I have the hassle of looking for a new place to live again.

—“Alright, then I’ll look for a place for myself,” I say to the owner.

Around the same days, visiting the NGCh after work, I met with the head of the NGCh, Dubinin.

—“What happened with you?” asks Dubinin. “The police are interested in you.”

—“Nothing happened,” I answer.

Well, the police aren't the KGB. Who knows what they might be interested in me for, I thought. Besides, I was sure that the KGB wouldn't find us, because we hadn't told anyone about it and hadn't left any traces. I also met Nadiyka Kotenko (the sixteen-year-old daughter of the NGCh foreman) in the yard of the NGCh. When she saw me, she ran up to me. Her whole appearance spoke of how glad she was to see me. (About two weeks before this, I had accidentally met her in the evening near the "Ukraina" cinema, and her friend said to me in her presence: "Nadia has fallen in love with you." I had then promised that we would go to the cinema sometime).

—“When should we go to the cinema?” I ask Nadiyka.

—“Whenever you want,” she replies.

—“Well, then on Friday.”

—“Okay,” she says and, with a face radiant with joy, runs away from me.

That was on a Monday. And on Wednesday, April 13, on a gloomy morning, as usual, around half-past seven, I left the house and, instead of walking down Kotovsky Street for a shortcut through a hole in the fence to enter the territory of the furniture factory, I walked along Skhidna Street to go to a store on Kyivska Street and buy some groceries. Just as I stepped onto Kyivska, two men approached me. They asked for my surname. I answered. They immediately told me to get into the car, which was already standing nearby.

—“We're from the KGB, we need to talk to you,” they say to me.

I get into the Pobeda—and soon I'm in one of the KGB offices. The interrogation begins. For now, without paper. They politely ask about this and that and then move on to the leaflets at school. They ask if I gave the leaflet to anyone to read. And then about the leaflets distributed by me and Volodymyr. They say they know everything, that Tarasyuk has confessed to everything. I understand that I can't deny the leaflet from school because it's in the room, so I explain how I got it. But about giving it to the owner of the house and others to read—not a word. True, they don't ask anything about the owner of the house. I stick to my story: I don't know anything else, and I didn't produce or distribute any leaflets with Tarasyuk, although I understand that Tarasyuk has told everything. They say their part, and I say mine. It's already lunchtime. They bring a loaf of bread, about half a kilogram of sausage, and a bottle of lemonade into the office. I eat my lunch in their presence. Again: confess, we just need to know how it all was. We'll figure it out—and you'll be released. There are only two like you in the entire Soviet . And so it went until dusk. In the evening, they take me to the KPZ (pretrial detention cell). I'm sitting alone in the cell. In the cell, there are bunks, and in the corner, a new galvanized bucket—a slop pail.

The next day, again in the KGB office. Again, the same questions and the same answers. Another night in the KPZ. On Friday, already around noon, I decided to confirm Tarasyuk's testimony. Perhaps this decision was the right one, because although they had no evidence other than Tarasyuk's testimony (we had put them up in gloves), I understood that they had no reason not to believe him. Especially since they had seized the leaflet during the search, which I hadn't handed over to the KGB representative back then. I decided: I must confess. If they release me (they promised), they release me. If not, then maybe I'll get less, taking into account the confession and repentance. After I confessed, they immediately drew up an interrogation protocol and immediately took me to prison in the Pobeda. They placed me on the ground floor in a small cell with a small table attached to the wall. I already thought that I would be sitting in such a cell. But the next day, they take me up the metal stairs to the third floor of the special block (now those sentenced to life imprisonment are held there), and I enter one of the cells on the left side of the corridor. It is a three-person cell. My metal bed is by the window. It's warm in the cell. The mattress and bedding are fine. There are two men in the cell. Their faces are not like those of people on the outside: somewhat pale with a yellowish tint. It's hard to tell their age. To me, a 20-year-old, they are almost elderly men. One of them is named Isaev, and the other—Mykhalchenko. From Isaev's story, they had arrived from the camps in the North because new cases had been opened against them. They, like me, are under investigation. They have been in the camps for about 15 years. In the past—policemen.

There are books, chess in the cell, and in addition to the food they give three times a day, you can also buy products from the prison commissary. And also receive a food package. Soon, a librarian comes, and I also order a few books. So, one can live: I read books, occasionally play chess with Isaev, and from time to time I am taken to the KGB for interrogations. Although what kind of "case" was it: the investigation ended quickly, and I am waiting for trial. The policemen behave differently. If Isaev is a joker, plays chess, reads books, talks not only about the camps but also about how he burned houses in villages as a policeman, and all this cheerfully, without any sadness, then Mykhalchenko doesn't play chess, doesn't read, doesn't talk about anything, and doesn't ask about anything. He is in some depressed state. There are no emotions on his face. If Isaev asks him something, he will answer with one or a few words, and that's it. Over time, Isaev became insolent.

—“Who do you think you are?!” he says to me. “Our villages were burned, we're facing the firing squad. Why are you here with us?! You've been planted, we'll strangle you at night.”

I had to agree that indeed—who was I compared to them. But I explain that I was not planted. And why I was put with them, I do not know. Mykhalchenko, however, remains silent—not a word from him. It never crossed my mind that Isaev was an informant, that he was reporting to the KGB about Mykhalchenko and me. And how could I think, based on my own case, that anyone would be interested in me, since everything was already known. Mykhalchenko undoubtedly knew who Isaev was, but for some reason, he didn't say a word about it to me. He sat apart from us. Or maybe he was still hoping for something? Once, during another interrogation at the KGB, the investigator, KGB Lieutenant Fomichov, asks me:

—“How are your cellmates, how is it sitting with them? Maybe I should move you to another cell?”

—“It's fine,” I answer him.

Although I didn't want to be in the same cell with them, I didn't want to leave either, painting my cellmates in a negative light. For some reason, I believed that even in such cases, a prisoner should not ask to be moved to another cell. Besides, how do you know what kind of cell you will be moved to?

Sometimes, choosing the right moment, I would stand on my bed and look out the window. (At that time, there were no "muzzles"—as they called the shields covering the windows—or blinds). So the city was visible. I remember one time I looked out, and there was a light blizzard swirling, in the distance, a building under scaffolding, and on it, the figures of people. I did not envy them for being free. There was hard work in the cold, and probably hunger, because I know what their salary is. I'm better off here, I thought. And it's warm. And I'm not working, but reading an interesting book (about the Vikings in Rus'). The only sad thing was that my brother Mykola was also struggling somewhere out there, because my parents couldn't help him. This was evident from the package I received from them. Sometime in May, the food hatch opens and Mykhalchenko is handed the indictment. They start to read something there, but perhaps because of poor eyesight, it's hard for them to read, so Isaev suggests that I read while they listen. I took this indictment—a list of acts for which Mykhalchenko would be tried—and began to read aloud. And Isaev and Mykhalchenko stared at my face, watching my reaction to what was being read. While I was reading about how Mykhalchenko, as a policeman, stood on the roadside and watched a column of prisoners of war marching along the road, about how Mykhalchenko's eyes met the eyes of a commissar disguised in a soldier's uniform, and even how Mykhalchenko ran for eight kilometers across a snow-covered field after the commissar, and being unable to catch him (the commissar turned out to be quite fast), took off his boots and, now barefoot, caught up with the commissar and put a bullet from his rifle into him (he hadn't fired a single shot before that), my voice was steady. But when I began to read how he threw grenades into a crowd, mostly of women, and fired a machine gun, my voice trembled, and I stopped reading. Two men were sitting in front of me, one of whom had committed such an unbelievably cruel act. They looked away. Mykhalchenko bowed his head. It was clear: he no longer doubted what his sentence would be.

Soon, they brought me my indictment too. We are waiting to be called to court. And so, they take Mykhalchenko to court. The trial has been going on for two days. Upon his return, he tells Isaev a little. He also says that his son and wife were at the trial, that he managed to talk to them a little.

On the third day—it was May 26—they take me to court too. We leave the cell together. We were brought to a large cell with bars. This is a cell for those being transported. There are two of us. We pace back and forth, waiting for the convoy that will take us to court. We don't talk—what is there to talk about?! Each is thinking his own thoughts. But then Mykhalchenko comes up to me and, holding out a pair of warm two-fingered mittens, says:

—“Take them, you’ll need them in the camp. I would like to give them to my son, but they won't allow it.”

—“No, I won't take them, it's already summer and I don't need mittens. And maybe they'll release me,” I say to Mykhalchenko.

I understood that he would no longer need the mittens, and he wanted someone to have something to remember him by. But how could I pull a mitten onto my hand that had been on a hand that threw grenades into a crowd? I don’t know if he understood what was behind my polite refusal. But to this day, I regret not asking him what that commissar had done that made him even take off his shoes to catch him and see the fear of death in the commissar's eyes. (I was taken away first and never saw him again. Mykhalchenko was shot, which I learned from Senior Lieutenant Fomichov in 1963).

Tarasyuk and I were brought by a "voronok" to the courthouse, which was then located at the beginning of Shchorsa Street. We sat on the same bench. The courtroom was small. There were not many people present. These were the ones who had seen the leaflets on the poles, and the girl from whose hands I had snatched a leaflet in class. The court session was quick. We briefly told about what we had done, said that we regretted it, that it would not happen again, and asked not to be deprived of our freedom. The verdict was read: 3 years for me, and 2 years of general-regime "ITL" (correctional labor camps) for Tarasyuk. After the verdict was read, someone approached us and told us not to file an appeal, because the sentence would not be reduced. We did as we were told.

We were taken to prison. I ended up in a cell for already convicted prisoners. This cell was in the same corridor, not far from the one where I had been held. The cell was the same as the previous one. There were two people in the cell: Petro Hrechko—the leader of the Kopyshchany (Olevsk Raion) sect of Shakers—Pentecostals. Accused of involvement in a sacrifice (a child had died there somewhere)—he got 15 years. The other was Mashke, a Volksdeutscher who had served in the police. His father had managed to evade arrest and was in West Germany, but he was not lucky enough to escape and received 20 or 25 years and was sent to Vorkuta. He had been in prison for 15 years, and he looked about 35. He had served in the police in the Zhytomyr region, and when a case was opened against one of the policemen, he was brought from Vorkuta to Zhytomyr for some kind of testimony. He was an interesting person, not like those with whom I had been imprisoned before the trial. Moreover, it turned out that in Vorkuta, while on unsupervised detail, he had married the daughter of a resident of Kamianyi Brid (7 km from Rohachiv), with whom I had worked for a time in the spring of 1959 on the Rohachiv - Dovbysh highway section, planting seedlings on the roadside. In the late 50s, she had gone on a recruitment program to Vorkuta, where they had married. But he was taken under guard again (placed in the camp), and the family seemed to fall apart. It was from him that I first heard about Vinnytsia, about the excavations there where he had been—about the thousands shot by the NKVD in 1937-38, about the park created by the NKVD with swings over the pits of not-yet-decomposed corpses. He also told about what was happening in the camps, especially in the late 40s. About how in the morning they would carry out the corpses of prisoners who had died of hunger and cold from the barracks and "stack" them behind the barracks on days when a blizzard was raging. And about a black bull that was used to drag the corpses out into the tundra, after first, according to instructions, smashing their skulls at the guardhouse. He also told about how they were shot at from the towers with machine guns, about the deaths of prisoners, about the goners who could hardly even shoo a fly from their face, about cases of cannibalism (incisions were sometimes found on the corpses). Despite what he had endured, despite the long years spent in prison, he was always in a cheerful state, energetic, his behavior more like that of a person who had recently been imprisoned and had hope of getting out soon. As for Hrechko, he almost never entered into conversation with anyone, keeping to himself. Perhaps this was because he was a sectarian, and also an elderly man.

I did not have to sit in that cell for long, because sometime in the first days of June, Mashke and I were taken for transport. Mashke knew that he would not be returned to Vorkuta, because the political camps there were being closed, and the remaining prisoners were already being taken from there. He just didn't know where they were taking them: to Mordovia or Taishet.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Lunchtime. The "voronok" stopped near the first track of the railway station, next to the canteen where I used to eat when I worked at the NGCh. Getting out of the "voronok," I walk to the prison car. On either side, at a short distance, is a convoy. A familiar picture to me, as I had often seen people walking at the station surrounded by a convoy. Among them were very young boys and girls, entering the metal box of the "voronok." The sight made me sad, I felt some compassion and pity for them. I walk and look at the people passing by or standing, watching this spectacle. I don't see anyone I know. And that's a good thing, because I don't want anyone to see my humiliation; I haven't yet gotten used to the status of a prisoner, I haven't become indifferent to the onlookers. Quickly climbing into the wagon, I enter the barred compartment. Prisoners are already sitting there. Among them is Volodymyr Tarasyuk. Mashke also enters the compartment. Volodymyr and I are together again, but now not in a room, but in the compartment of a prison car—we are going to serve our sentences.

While still under investigation, I had been thinking about what happened that the KGB found us so quickly. And now, when we were put in the prison car, I ask Volodymyr: “Did you tell anyone about the leaflets?”—“Yes,” says Volodymyr. “When you were at school, the owner called me over to have dinner with him. We had a drink, started talking, and I bragged to him, said that the leaflets were our work.”—“Why did you do that?” I say to him.

And yet, if the owner reported what Volodymyr had told him to the KGB, he can be understood. After all, having learned that after those evenings of his stories these guys were distributing leaflets, he had no guarantee that in the event of their arrest they would not tell about those evenings, about the leaflet he had read with them.

It became clear to me why the owner had spoken to me in such a way then, why there was unfriendliness in his voice. And again, it is strange that none of the KGB men asked about him and he was not summoned to the KGB. But if he did that, he can be understood. But Tarasyuk?! He could have taken the blame himself. Said that he had produced and distributed them on his own. Especially since he was, in fact, the initiator of making the leaflet. But he must have forgotten about it immediately after his arrest, because even when we were being transported in the "voronok" for interrogations, I once heard from him from the next cubicle (a solitary cell in the voronok): “This is because of you. I listened to you.” And maybe it's true. Maybe he wouldn't have been tried for those anti-Jewish leaflets.

I did not begin to reproach Volodymyr for not doing what he should have. After all, I am older than him and bear a greater responsibility for what we did. We are lying on bunks made of side shelves and a hinged door connecting them, looking with sadness at the barred window, past which the NGH office and the outskirts of Zhytomyr are floating by. Each of us is thinking that it will be a long time before we see Zhytomyr again—a city that, because we are behind bars, has become dearer and more desirable, a place we no longer wanted to leave. Everything turned out so foolishly for us. But there’s no turning back. We lie there, telling each other about our KGB interrogations, about our time in the prison cells. We also recall the acquaintances we worked with at the furniture factory. Volodymyr also tells me that he had a girlfriend, that he was supposed to marry her this year. He bemoans that his imprisonment will now make that impossible. This was news to me, as I had never heard him speak of such intentions. And it was very strange that, at 19, he was regretting his inability to start a family. His laments seemed unnatural to me, unworthy of sympathy, and as I listened, I looked at him as if he were some odd fellow.

Meanwhile, Mashke stood by the barred door, watching the landscapes flow by the window—landscapes from which he had been torn away for long years and which were so different from those in Vorkuta. One of the common criminals, covered in tattoos, who was sitting below, tried to push him away from the door, telling him to move so that they could also watch. But Mashke gave him such a superior and disdainful look that the man fell silent and no longer laid claim to the spot by the door. This even surprised me, because Mashke was short and no athlete, but that glance made it clear to that seasoned “bytovik” (“bytovik” - a prisoner convicted on a criminal charge) where he stood. Yet there was nothing strange about it. After all, Mashke was one of those who, among other things, had gone through the war with the “vory” for power in the camp.

Our first transit prison was Lukianivska in Kyiv. After about a day there, we left for Kharkiv, where we spent several days at Kholodna Hora. And from there—to Ruzaevka. This was already Mordovia. There was no prison in Ruzaevka. It was just a transit point, quite different from a prison. Here, the cells were spacious with wooden floors, and the exercise yards were made of planks. It was something like a large temporary detention facility, which didn't weigh on you as heavily as a prison. It felt more spacious, freer, and you no longer felt so constrained, so hemmed in by prison walls. At this transit point, we also met other political prisoners who were awaiting transport. After spending a few days in Ruzaevka, we left for Potma. But Mashke remained in Ruzaevka. He was apparently headed for Taishet. (Later, he was in one of the Mordovian camps and sent me his greetings. His subsequent fate is unknown to me). Potma is not far from Ruzaevka, and soon we were at this final transit prison. This facility was then a small, two-story wooden building. Next to the building were spacious exercise yards fenced with barbed wire. As at other transit points, there were political prisoners in the cells here as well. But the ones who left a much greater impression on my memory were the prisoners incarcerated for their faith—members of the religious sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses. They often sang religious hymns and, in conversations, would steer the topic to their faith, trying to recruit others. In Potma, we also met a small group of political prisoners of Spanish nationality. They hadn’t had their heads shaved, and their hair was quite long and black. The Spaniards were sitting by a wooden stockade not far from our yard, and the prisoners would talk with them. They were serving their sentences right here, in Mordovia, in Camp No. 5 for foreigners and stateless persons. These were the Spaniards who, as children, had been brought to the USSR during the Spanish Civil War in the latter half of the 1930s. If my memory serves me correctly, they were imprisoned for demanding to be returned to Spain.

Our transport concluded at the Potma transit prison. Our journey to Mordovia was not like those in the 40s and the first half of the 50s. For us, it was not difficult. Of course, a prison on wheels presents additional complications for both the prisoners and the guards. Especially when the prison wagon is overcrowded: one person needs the toilet, another needs water because he’s eaten a dry ration with salted herring. And especially when the wagon is stopped at a station and they aren’t taking anyone to the toilet. Then you hear shouts: water! to the toilet! This leads to squabbles with the convoy and mutual insults. But even that was now behind us. We were already in one of the Gulag’s administrations—Dubravlag. Previously, these camps, which appeared here in the 1920s and were among the first concentration camps in the USSR, were called the Temnikov camps, after the Mordovian settlement of Temnikov in northern Mordovia.

They didn’t keep us in Potma for long. After a doctor's examination, which recorded the prisoner’s health status, and the assignment of prisoners to various camps, we were put into a prison wagon designated for transporting prisoners along the Potma–Barashevo railway line. This railway, not shown on any map, services the Dubravlag camps located on both sides of the tracks, which stretch through the forests from south to north for about 50 kilometers. The administration of Dubravlag, then headed by Gromov, was located in the settlement of Yavas, about midway along the Potma–Barashevo line.

We are leaving Potma. Tarasiuk and I are in the same compartment (cell). Whether we will end up in the same camp or not, we do not know. Soon, I am told to prepare to exit. And then the train stops. I get out on the right side of the car. Before me is a camp. Or rather, its rectangular corner. Inside the corner of the stockade fence, some sort of wooden structure looms. It was a water tower. To the right, about 60 meters away, amidst the stockade, there is a building with a door, and near it, some soldiers looking toward the prison wagon. The guard who let me out shouted to the soldiers from the car to come get me. And they shouted back for me to walk over to them. The guard hands me my personal file. I take it and walk toward the soldiers, while the train with the prisoners and Tarasiuk chugs on. I walk and marvel that there is no guard next to me, that I am walking like a free man. I approach these soldiers, hand over my file, and enter with them into the small building, which, as it turns out, is called the "vakhta" (guardhouse). They quickly ask me something, write something down, and then, through an inner door, let me into the zone. A few lone prisoners are walking around the zone. Everyone else is outside the zone, at work. People approach me, asking questions. One, an older man, asks what I was imprisoned for. "Agitation and propaganda," I reply. "Ah, a blabbermouth," says this prisoner. ("Blabbermouth" was a somewhat condescending term for those imprisoned for leaflets, some letter, or even a joke. Furthermore, those who had fought the occupiers with arms in hand called the struggle waged exclusively with words a "paper war").

It was now around mid-June. I had ended up in Camp No. 14, and its address was: Mordovian ASSR, station Potma, p/o box 385/14-7. The number "7" here designated the zone (or more precisely, the "otryad," or detachment) of the camp I was put into. This zone was small: two small buildings, one of which adjoined a narrow "zapretka" (forbidden zone), beyond which lay a large industrial area. These single-story buildings (barracks) housed about two hundred prisoners. The barracks also contained various utility rooms and a dining hall, where food was brought to the prisoners from the main camp. There was also a building housing some engines and large generators. They weren't running. Apparently, they had become unnecessary after electricity was supplied to the area from some large power station. The industrial zone, separated from our zone by a stockade fence, belonged to the women's camp (No. 14), which was located several hundred meters away, across a railroad crossing. The industrial zone consisted exclusively of sewing workshops where women sewed things in two shifts. About 1,000 of them worked the day shift. The 14th camp was for women imprisoned for some criminal offenses. In camp jargon, they were "bytovychky" (common criminals).

So that was my first destination, where I was brought for re-education. That first day wasn't entirely sunny, as the sun periodically grew pale behind wispy clouds. I walked around, familiarizing myself with the zone. I took pleasure in the fact that I could now be under the open sky for as long as I wanted and go wherever I pleased within this, albeit limited, space. A zone is not an exercise yard. After the cells, it made a positive impression on me. The only sad thing was that you couldn't leave its confines. Before lunch, I received clothes, shoes, and bedding and took a vacant bed in one of the barrack sections. The beds were single-tiered with stretched metal mesh. Soon, the prisoners came into the zone for lunch. They approached me. We got acquainted. But a more thorough introduction happened after the workday ended. It turned out that everyone in the zone was a first-time offender. The sentences were mostly short, and almost everyone was young. Thirty-year-olds were already considered "older." There were plenty of recent students and teachers from various educational institutions. All were in for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. A significant portion, mainly from the Baltics and Ukraine, were there for advocating independence for their peoples, for the restoration of the statehood these peoples had lost as a result of Russian expansion.

The prisoners in this zone had been here for about six months. Before this, they had been in various Dubravlag camps, mostly populated by those who had waged armed struggle against the occupiers, and by policemen. But in the late 50s, a group of prisoners convicted of agitation and propaganda—mostly Jews and Russians, who were Marxist-revisionists—began writing appeals to the supreme authorities demanding to be separated from the policemen. And some, perhaps, demanded to be separated from all anti-Soviet elements.

One could certainly understand the Jewish prisoners; how could one be imprisoned with policemen who had been involved in the extermination of your people? As for the Marxist-revisionists, until recently, these prisoners had mostly been Soviet patriots and perhaps, to some extent, remained so. After all, they did not advocate for the collapse of the Soviet (Russian) empire, but for a revision of communist ideas, for economic reforms, and for the democratization of Soviet society. And the authorities met their demands. So almost all of those imprisoned for agitation and propaganda were removed from those camps, with one part placed in a zone of Camp No. 3 (Barashevo settlement), and the other part in the zone where I had arrived.

There were no prisoners from the Zhytomyr region in the zone. But there were many Ukrainians. Among them was a significant portion from Western Ukraine. I communicated most with Andrushko Volodymyr, Reznikov Oleksiy, Barsukivskyi Volodymyr, Donchenko Ivan, Hryhorenko Oleksandr, Protsiuk Vasyl, and Andrushkiv Yosyp. But I became closest friends with Volodymyr Andrushko. Andrushko was from the Stanislavshchyna region, imprisoned since the fall of 1959, with a sentence of 5 years. Forbidden books and some nationalist writings were found in his possession. He was already 30. Before his imprisonment, he taught Ukrainian language and literature in a secondary school. While studying at Chernivtsi University in May 1952, he had raised a Ukrainian flag over the university. Andrushko was an intelligent man not only by education but also by his nature. He, like others from Western Ukraine, knew the history of Ukraine well and told me much not only about the activities of the OUN and the struggle of the UPA in the 40s and 50s against the German and Russian occupiers, but also about the Ukrainian people's struggle for liberation in the period of 1917-1920s. He also spoke of other events related to Moscow's domination of our land, including events in the Zhytomyr region. And one day he asks me:

“You have a town there called Bazar, what do you know about it?”

“I've heard there is such a town called Bazar. There used to be a district called Bazarskyi,” I answer Volodymyr. And I couldn’t say anything more because I knew nothing else about Bazar besides what I had said. And then he began to tell me the story. It was from him that I learned about the events in Bazar, about the shooting of 359 Ukrainian insurgents by the Bolsheviks in 1921. Listening to him, I felt somewhat embarrassed that I knew nothing about what had happened in the Zhytomyr region, that a man from the distant Stanislavshchyna was telling me about events in my own land. It was mostly thanks to Andrushko that I became interested in the history of Ukraine, in its subservient position within the Russian Empire. And very quickly, everything was revealed to me in a new light. I saw that all of Ukraine's troubles came from Moscow. That first and foremost, we must fight not against the social system imposed by the occupier, but against the occupier himself.

But let me return to life in the camp. As a builder by trade, I was assigned to the construction brigade, and on the second or third day, I went out with the brigade to work. The brigade was quite large, about 100 people. Leaving through the gates, we walked along the "zapretka" of barbed wire and a stockade fence and, through another gate, entered the territory of a newly built workshop, which stood in the corner of the industrial zone opposite the corner with the water tower. The workshop was already built. All that remained was to finish laying the floor, complete a few other things, and paint everything that needed painting. And also to tidy up the surrounding area, which was separated from the industrial zone by a single row of posts with several strands of barbed wire strung between them. That was how we were separated from the female common criminals who worked in the workshops. I ended up in a team of 10 men. In it, besides Andrushko, there was a German named Otto, already getting on in years (over 40), and guys my age from the Baltics (mostly Lithuania and Latvia). Some of them had been arrested while in the 10th grade. All for the restoration of the statehood their countries had lost. One of them, Vorkala, who was a bit older, had already served 5 years. The names Naglis, Algis, and Jonas also remain in my memory. No one rushed us, and we mostly idled around. Most likely, such a large number of prisoners were brought to this site only to keep them occupied at a worksite, because there probably wasn't any real work to do at the time. We weren't guarded very diligently either. Of course, as everywhere, soldiers with automatic rifles stood on the watchtowers. And on our corner tower, which overlooked the gates to our site, there was a soldier. But they probably didn't take us seriously. Perhaps because our sentences were short, they thought it unlikely any of us would risk getting an additional 3 years for an escape attempt. It sometimes happened that a gate needed to be opened, and there was no guard nearby to do it, so I would go and open it myself, letting in a horse-cart or some civilian workers, or even a representative of the camp administration. And there was no reaction from the tower. We spent most of our time talking about various topics. Besides political issues, we discussed everyday matters. I remember the Lithuanians' assessment of Russian and Lithuanian women. The pretext for this was that, upon leaving the zone gates, we saw about a dozen women moving a rail and carrying railroad ties. And some man was supervising them. Just supervising. The Lithuanians said to me: "Only Russian women can do such work. A Lithuanian woman would never voluntarily go to such a job, no way." Ukrainian women also haul things, I recalled having seen before. But a Gypsy or a Jewish woman wouldn't haul rails either. And a Gypsy or a Jewish man wouldn't take such a job. They wouldn't go down into a mine either. A little later, thinking about this phenomenon, I came to the conclusion that cities exist because there are sanitation workers. Without a doubt, if everyone were proud and refused to do demeaning work, especially cleaning up someone else's pile of shit, the city could not exist. There would be no mines and many other things that degrade human dignity. There would be no modern civilization.

The Lithuanians spoke Lithuanian among themselves. And when you were left alone with them, you felt like a foreigner among them. (Initially, the Lithuanians didn't perceive me as a foreigner. One of them once said to me, "We thought you were Lithuanian"). Of course, I had no intention of learning Lithuanian, but one day, out of boredom, I said to the Lithuanians, "Maybe someday I'll have to be in the forest in your region, so how would I ask for some bread and salo?" They repeated how to say it in Lithuanian several times, and I remember that request to this day. I also learned their words for an axe and a shovel—our tools.

There was also a funny story there. Once, shortly after my arrival, we were sitting not far from the wire that separated the industrial zone. We were on a "smoke break." Those who smoked, smoked, and the others, like me, just sat. I was sitting facing that, one might say, symbolic fence, and I saw a girl approaching the wire. She came up (about 20 meters from us) and looked at us. I glanced once, twice—she was still standing! She must need something, I thought. And, addressing everyone, I said, "There's a girl standing there looking at us." Silence. No one even glanced in her direction. A minute later, I said again, "Someone should go over and ask." No reaction. And I felt awkward that she could see that we saw her. So I stood up and said I would go and ask. And I walked toward the girl. As soon as I reached the wire, she threw me a folded piece of paper, although she could have just handed it to me. The girl was about 20 years old. Dark-haired, with a pretty face and a nice, slender figure. Without asking anything, I picked up the piece of paper, unfolded it, and read it. The note said that if anyone was interested, it was possible to get married. And the signature "Olya." After reading it, I looked at her and said, "Alright. I'll go and find out." I returned and read the note aloud. Everyone was silent. I felt that I had gotten myself into trouble. I glanced at the girl. She was looking at us.

“So what should I do?” I ask.

“Why did you go over there?” says one of them.

“Ona russkaya” (She's Russian), adds Vorkala.

“So what should I do?” I ask. They shrug. And I feel bad because I have to give an answer. Besides, I don't want to humiliate the girl. What to do? And then a saving thought flashed through my mind. I immediately take a piece of paper and write: "Olya, I'm sorry, but everyone here is married." I fold the note and, walking up to the wire, instead of handing it to her, I throw it at her feet. She bends down for the note, and I, without saying a word, quickly walk back. I returned, sat down, and watched the girl. I saw her turn around, for some reason raise her hand and wave it down, and with her head bowed, she walked toward the workshop that stood a few dozen meters away. I felt unpleasant about this scene and my involvement in it. Much later, when I was in Ukraine with criminal prisoners, I told them about this episode and more than once saw one of them grab his head and repeat, "Idiots!" In the way they said it, you could feel a lack of understanding of our behavior and outrage that we hadn't taken such an opportunity to have intimate relations with the girl. But I don't think that if this had happened one-on-one, without witnesses, any of those present would have been able to resist the temptation. After all, what was at play here was simply a culturally instilled taboo on the openness of certain physiological acts. (All vile things are done in secret). So everyone wanted to show that they were above physiology, that they were guided by their heads and not by what's between their legs. No one wanted to be lesser in the eyes of another.

In general, the women of the industrial zone behaved decently on the whole. That is, they adhered to the instilled norms of behavior. Only a few disregarded this "instilled" code, slipping into our site during the lunch break and hiding somewhere, usually under the floor, which was about a meter off the ground. Sometimes, after bringing us back from lunch, the guards would conduct a search and, finding these women, send them to the SHIZO (punishment isolator). As far as I know, the number of prisoners who entered into intimate relations with them was not even a dozen. Some of them also went to the industrial zone, but I never witnessed anyone being caught there. Each had his own girl. They kept to pairs, in camp language, they "got married." So the other women were left with nothing, and they probably had no choice but to be decent. Among these guys was one Ukrainian from the Donetsk region with whom I communicated. You wouldn't call him handsome, but the girl who would sit by the wire talking to him was a real beauty. Sometime in the spring of 1961, she sent him a photo of a baby. He showed it to me, and I asked:

“So what are you going to do?”

“How am I supposed to know if it's my child and not one of the soldiers'?”

Photos of infants also came to a few others.

We, of course, joked with them about it. Well, humans are not among those animals that cannot reproduce in captivity. As for some of those who worked at other sites, they were doomed to platonic love. They would talk or even toss notes over the stockade fence into the industrial zone and receive notes from their sweethearts in the same way. And two of them even sang to them. I must say, they did it quite well, accompanied by an accordion. So two of them would sit on a bench not far from the entrance to the dining hall and sing. One of them was from Belarus. He was the one who played the accordion. I remember some fragments of the song they performed most often, although it was better suited for a female voice. It went like this:

“Ах дальний хутор, мой хутор дальний…

Куда тебя забросила судьба.

Быть может, милый мой, убит в побеге,

И невернётся больше никогда…”

From the voices that came from behind the stockade, it was clear that the girls were delighted by their quite accomplished performance of the songs. And why not sing, why not court, when you are not tormented by hunger, not pressed by production quotas? As for food, in addition to the camp ration, you could receive a parcel (if there was someone to send it), and buy food at the canteen. And they weren't picky about your clothes—in the zone, you could even wear what you arrived in from the outside. Many prisoners were in no hurry to get a haircut on time and walked around with quite long hair—by camp standards, of course.

No one oppressed us, though a camp is a camp, and everyone wanted to be free. Many also held some hope that maybe they would manage to get out before their court-determined term was up. There was a reason for this: every week, the special section would post lists of those being released or whose sentences were being reduced. Pavlo Falchenko was also being released. His case was reviewed, and either his sentence was limited to the three years he had already served, or he was found to have been unjustly convicted. Pavlo was from Mykolaiv or Kherson and worked at a shipyard. Those who were being released, upon walking out of the gates, would break their spoon and throw it over the gates into the zone—that was the tradition.

The summer of 1960 in Mordovia was warm and sunny. And probably on such beautiful days, and also because most of the prisoners were still in the process of forming their personalities, they had no time for sorrow. Everyone was busy with something. Some read, others played games. They played volleyball too. Two main teams were formed in the zone, competing against each other. They even had jerseys with their team names. One of these teams was made up of Balts, and the other consisted mainly of Russians, hence the name "Volga." As for the Ukrainians, they mostly read literature. And wrote things. I remember that Oleksandr Hryhorenko and Oleksa Reznikov wrote poetry. Reznikov later, upon becoming a member of the Writers' of Ukraine, started signing his name as "Riznykiv, Riznychenko." Hryhorenko corresponded with the poet Mykola Som. Among those who wrote, Hryhorenko was considered the most talented, and great achievements in poetry were prophesied for him. Oleksa and Sashko were friends. And not long ago, Oleksa sent me a poem by Hryhorenko, written, according to Oleksa, in the 11th camp. In memory of Sashko, I want to include this poem here, titled "To a Desired Fiancée":

Ти мене полюбиш не за пісню,

Ти мене полюбиш не за вроду —

Ти мене полюбиш за залізну

Відданість вкраїнському народу.

Бо й для тебе іншої любові,

Відданості іншої нема,

Бо пісенній придніпровській мові

Поклялась ти в вірності сама.

І коли я душу буревісну

Переллю в живе життя своє,

Ти тоді полюбиш і за пісню,

І за вроду, вже яка не є!

Sashko was born in 1938. He was arrested in 1958 for patriotic poems while serving in the army. Before his military service, he had studied for several months at the Vasylkiv Aviation Technical School. Unable to endure the drill, he left the school. In 1960, his sentence was reduced. He was released in the fall of 1961 from the 17th camp. He returned to his parents in the village of Borodaivka, Verkhniodniprovskyi district, Dnipropetrovsk oblast. He drowned in the Dnipro River in the summer of 1962.

I don't think this image of his fiancée corresponded to the lyrical image inherent in his poetic nature. There was something more in him—deeply lyrical, not just soured on patriotism. I remember the autumn of 1960 in Barashevo. One day, out of boredom, Sashko, Vasyl Protsiuk, Andrushko, and I were sitting on the grass in the industrial zone. A kind of melancholy came over me, and wrapped in my pea coat, I was half-lying and humming a sad melody. Suddenly, Sashko asks me:

“Do you know the words to this song?”

“No,” I answer him.

Soon I see Sashko and Vasyl sitting on Sashko's bed, softly singing a song to the melody I had been humming. Sashko is even glancing at some book. That autumn, they often sang it, so I even remembered some of it. It began with the words:

"Знову осінь над гаями,

Жовтий лист сади встеля,

За далекими полями

Ти живеш, любов моя."

And there was also this:

"Чом же ми тоді не дорожили,

Тим, що квітне тільки раз в серцях,

А тепер тумани вкрили,

Шлях дніпровський, дальній шлях".

This "Dnipro path" was dear to Sashko, for he, Sashko, was from the Dnipro region. There, on the banks of the Dnipro, his youthful years had passed. And this song so captivated him that even some time later, in 1961, in the 17th camp, he ran out of the barracks and shouted to me:

“Serhiy, they're playing that song!”

I didn't go to listen, but I realized that he must have had some love that was now shrouded in fog.

After his release, he wrote me a letter after some time. I replied. Then I received another one, but I didn't reply to that letter. I wrote to him when I was released from Vladimir Prison. The reply came from his father. He informed me that in 1962, he, some of his relatives, and Sashko went for a swim in the Dnipro. They were lying on the sand while Sashko was swimming. When they looked at the river, they saw only its clear surface. This happened on the eve of his wedding. I don't know who his fiancée was, but I think that the image Sashko painted did not arise from nothing. It probably arose in him because he could now only choose from what was left.

He was an energetic and, I think, a dreamy person. Dark-haired, of medium build, with a military bearing. In his posture, one could feel a freedom-loving Cossack essence, genetically passed down to him by his freedom-loving ancestors.

As for me, I perceived writing poetry as a frivolous activity—a kind of amusement—and therefore did not delve into what was being written or how it was being written. In my free time from work, I would either read something, or spend time in conversation with someone, or simply get lost in my own thoughts. Well, and in the evenings, we Ukrainians would gather in a large group at the end of the barracks and sing Ukrainian songs. These included songs from the liberation struggles: "Duma about Mazepa" - "From the Battle of Poltava, the defeated hetman, the lonely Mazepa flees...". To the words of Shevchenko: "We shall hear the glory, we shall hear and perish"; "A Cossack weeps: the well-trodden paths are overgrown with thorns"; "Quietly by the river, in the dark night, the enchanted forest sleeps." And also: "I sit behind the wire and look into the distance. And I am so sad, I feel such pity: my young years are passing in prison, in captivity, in hardship, in a foreign land" and others. Among this group were some remarkable voices, and therefore the performance of the songs was at a very high level. I would join the group, but at first, I couldn't get used to being among singers who took their singing seriously. Initially, this activity seemed somewhat unnatural to me, and even more so the inspiration with which a song was performed that related to a period long past, with which we had no connection. And sometimes, I tried with all my might to suppress the laughter that was bursting out from within. But over time, I got into it and, yielding to the emotions embedded in the song, sang like everyone else.

In August, they no longer took us out to the industrial zone—everything there was finished. And now, about thirty of us prisoners are led across the railroad crossing, where, on a small square fenced with a single row of barbed wire, we are building a banya for the residents of the settlement. Here, too, no one rushes us, and those who work are mainly those who find some solace in this activity. For the most part, these were boys from the Baltics who wanted to acquire the skills of a builder. As for me, as before, I mostly idled, passing the time with others like me in conversations on various topics. The convoy of conscript soldiers, stationed beyond the fence, was friendly toward us—they were our peers and, of course, saw nothing criminal in us. There were also Ukrainians among the convoy. Once, I asked a soldier from the Rivne region:

“And would you shoot if one of us were to escape?”

“I would shoot, but not at the escapee,” the soldier replied confidently.

So when the potatoes in the field beyond the fence ripened, I would slip through the wires, dig up potatoes, and he would watch to make sure none of the commanders caught me at it. It was a game: a bonfire, baked potatoes—just like in childhood.

Autumn came. The anticipation for the list posted weekly by the special section was gone. Although occasionally someone's sentence was still reduced. But no one was being "released" anymore. Everything seemed the same as before, but a certain chill was in the air, and not just the autumn air—Khrushchev was beginning to tighten the screws in both foreign and domestic policy. The "Cold War" was gaining momentum. And articles appeared in the central newspapers (one of them titled "Man Behind Bars"), which stated that because life was too good for prisoners in the camps, they were not afraid to commit repeat offenses. That the conditions of detention needed to be changed, so they would feel what captivity is. And there were already rumors that we would soon be taken somewhere. These rumors did not please us, because we had grown accustomed to the zone, had become friends. And things weren't bad for us. How it would be in another camp—we didn't know.

And indeed: in October, they put us in prison wagons and brought us to the 3rd camp—the settlement of Barashevo. After disembarking and having our belongings searched, we were let into the camp. The camp in Barashevo was the Dubravlag hospital, which occupied more than half of the territory, located in the middle of the camp, with two zones on either side. The zone on the Potma side was for mothers with children. (When a child reached a few years of age, if relatives didn't take them, the child was sent to an orphanage, and the woman was sent to a women's camp to serve out her sentence). And on the other side, near the settlement, was the zone for political prisoners. Each of these three zones had its own guardhouse. But for some reason, they led us through the hospital's guardhouse. We walked past the morgue to a gate at the end of the stockade fence that separated the hospital from the zone, and entered the zone. And in the zone, they were already waiting for us, having learned that a transport had arrived. For me, these were new prisoners. But those who had been there before the separation greeted their acquaintances and friends with joy, with whom they had previously been imprisoned or shared a case. They approached our small group as well. Among them was a guy of athletic build, from the Carpathians, Yosyp Buinyi (a friend of Hryhorenko). Choosing a moment, I ask Yosyp if Tarasiuk is in the zone. "Yes, but he doesn't associate with us. He works in the kitchen, among the service staff," Yosyp replies.

The sections in the barracks had already been prepared for us. I, Andrushko, Protsiuk, and Hryhorenko ended up in a section of a barrack that seemed to have been built not long ago, standing parallel to the "zapretka" that ran along the railway track. The beds in the section were two-tiered ("vagonky"—a set of 4 bunks). My bed was next to Andrushko's, just like in the previous zone, only now on the top bunk. Having settled in my new place, I got acquainted with the prisoners of this zone. First of all, with the Ukrainians. Among them were those with whom I later communicated the most: Vasyl Makarenko (from Crimea), Pavlo Ruzhytskyi and Pavlo Matveiko (from the Lviv region), Fedir Vozniuk (from Volyn), Vasyl Stetsiuk (an "easterner"), and a bit later, Pavlo Androsiuk, who had arrived from Vladimir Prison, originally from the village of Raimisto, Rozhyshche district, Volyn region. Sometime before "lights out" (10 p.m.), I met with Tarasiuk, who came to my section. This meeting was a formal encounter between two countrymen who were no longer united by anything—antipodes, not like-minded people. We were different, and there was nothing to be done about it. He had his own understanding of life, his own interests, his own values. And so, I didn't feel that he was very happy to see me. I think he also understood that our paths had crossed by chance, and the result was this captivity, which we treated differently. While for him "captivity" remained a negative, having met people in the camp whom I would hardly have met on the outside, and in such numbers—I no longer greatly regretted ending up in the camp. Besides, where else would I have had such an opportunity to break away from the bustle of everyday worries that one has on the outside—to ponder things I might never have thought about on the outside.

Tarasiuk was not interested in politics at all. His goal: to get out of here and never come back. And there could be no complaints against him—to each his own. There was nothing to talk about with him. But I did occasionally communicate with him, and later, learning that he would like to correspond with a girl, I gave him the address of Nadiyka Kotenko, on the condition that she would not know who gave him the address. And he corresponded with her for some time. And why not give it? After all, I wished Volodymyr only the best. (And she was a good girl, and besides, their demands on life probably coincided: love, family, a full pantry). Let them write to each other, maybe something will come of it. As for me, I was still thinking about which of my female acquaintances I could involve in distributing leaflets in the future. In this zone, at the 3rd camp, there were about four hundred of us. This was probably the first time in the entire history of the Gulag that those who had a single conviction, having ended up in a camp for the first time for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda, were gathered in one zone. Well, those with more convictions—even for an escape attempt—were imprisoned in other camps. Among us was also a former prisoner from Mauthausen. He told us about that camp, about the death of the prisoners. He too was supposed to have died, was already dying of exhaustion. The Americans saved him from death.

There were five main buildings in the zone. Three barracks for prisoners, one of which was small and for the service staff, a new dining hall-club, completed after our arrival, and a building for the administration—the headquarters. The barrack that stood by the guardhouse was already quite old, probably built back in the 20s.

The section I ended up in was part of the detachment ("otryad" - detachment, "otryadnyi" - detachment chief) of Junior Lieutenant Dyorkin—a Mordvin. He was about three years older than me. Since I was a constant violator of the regime, he often summoned me to his office and, perceiving me as a lost sheep, tried to influence my attitude toward everything, to make me an obedient prisoner. I don't know how things went for him in this service later, but at that time, he gave the impression of a kind-hearted person who believed that we, the prisoners, should be careful. Not necessarily pro-Soviet, but to take into account the realities of life—to get released and not end up in prison again. And my violations: a poster that hung on the wall by my bed, which I publicly tore up and also yelled at the "dnyuvalnyi"—the section cleaner, who was hanging them on the walls; or not going out to work with the brigade, and other things like that.

Upon arriving in the zone, I first went out with a group of about ten prisoners to the zone for mothers, doing some repairs there. Then I went to the industrial zone, which was across the tracks, but I did nothing there, so I don't remember why I was taken there. But when, sometime before winter, a brigade of up to 20 people was formed, I went out with the brigade to a construction site, or rather, to build an extension to a warehouse that stood across the "zapretka" opposite our barrack, another wooden building for a warehouse. As always, I had no desire to work, so I was among those who sat by the fire, filling the time with conversations and discussions on various topics. I remember one of those discussions that took place by the fire. Two prisoners were debating. One, in the past, if I'm not mistaken, a university lecturer, was arguing to the other the necessity of fuller use of organic material. In particular, he began to argue that human bodies should not be burned or buried, because they could be recycled to produce useful products. He even began to prove what exactly could be obtained as a result of such processing. And there was a sense of logic in his arguments. Objecting, his opponent called such use of bodies immoral, evidence of a lack of spirituality in those who would resort to such actions. But still, lacking more compelling arguments that would undoubtedly prove his point, he added to what he said: "There must be something wrong with your head, otherwise why would they have sent you for a psychiatric evaluation during the investigation." And with that, the discussion ended. I did not intervene in the discussion, but I thought: and why allow the population to grow to such numbers that we are forced to resort to such filth? After all, one could return to cannibalism that way. Discussions in the zone, both in the previous one and in this one, arose often and, as I already mentioned, on various topics. Moreover, everyone freely expressed their thoughts, without fear that they might face new criminal charges for a state crime for their anti-Soviet statements. In this regard, it was much freer in the camp than outside its borders—in freedom. While you would be tried for such things in freedom, in the camp, we felt as if we were in a democracy that does not prosecute for an expressed opinion. In the camp, a prisoner could express his "seditious" opinion not only to another prisoner but also to a representative of the administration, and there were no cases of anyone being tried for it in the camp. It is unknown whether this was because the administration representative did not report it to the KGB, or if the KGB paid no attention to it because such things were permitted to us "from above."

By winter, we were taken to work either loading logs onto wagons or, at times, unloading bulk cement from a wagon. If it was my turn to unload cement, if I knew where they were taking us, I wouldn't go to work at all, and if I didn't know, I wouldn't go back after lunch.

In the brigade, as I remember, there were several Ukrainians, including Volodymyr Andrushko, and others were from the Baltics and Russia. Among them was Shcherbakov, with whom I often talked. There was also one member of the then most famous Moscow group of Marxist-revisionists among the prisoners, "Krasnopevtsev-Rendel"—lecturers from Moscow University. His last name was Menshikov. He was a nasty person. He was a member of the "squad council," which assisted the squad leader. I was summoned to this "council," and this Menshikov condemned my behavior and, in particular, my anti-Soviet stance at this "council."

I did not always avoid work. For example, when they brought one wagon and the guard said that after we loaded it, we would return to the camp, I worked with enthusiasm. We would quickly load the wagon with logs and be back in the camp by lunchtime, and that would be the end of our workday. We loaded these wagons at the opposite end of the settlement, walking under guard through the entire settlement. There, beyond the settlement, was this so-called "birzha"—a territory fenced with barbed wire, with watchtowers in the corners. Logs were brought to this yard from the forest and stacked. There was also a hut there (probably for a watchman) with a large stove. When it was quite cold, some would climb onto that stove and bask in bliss. I also liked to lie there. And one time, it was already the end of winter, I climbed onto that stove and didn't want to get down. Everyone was loading the wagon, and I was on the stove. If it had been just one wagon, I would have joined in, but as it was, we had to be there until the end of the workday anyway. But then the head of the convoy came in and ordered me to get down and go load the wagon. "Alright, alright," I tell him, but I don't get off the stove. Seeing that I wasn't coming out, he comes in again and, now with a threat, demands that I get off the stove. This angered me. "Get out!" I barked, and glanced at a piece of wood lying on the stove. He understood what my glance meant and, without saying another word, went out the door. He couldn't enter the work zone with an automatic rifle, and here we were on equal footing.

Upon returning to the camp, the head of the convoy wrote a report stating that I had not worked and had threatened him. I was put in the SHIZO. And I was already familiar with the SHIZO; I had been there several times before. Once, the first time I was put in, I even held a three-day hunger strike. That was in late autumn. At that time, there were two of us in the SHIZO: me and, in the next cell, some vaguely familiar prisoner, a bit older than me, a former student, I believe. I don't remember why he was put in, but when they brought me to the SHIZO, he was already on a hunger strike. I decided to show solidarity and also declared a hunger strike, writing a corresponding statement in which I did not point to specific facts of my unjustified "confinement" in the SHIZO, because I had none, but instead used general phrases about repressions and protested against the actions of the camp administration. After a day, they released that prisoner, and there was no point in continuing the hunger strike, but I didn't end it and kept it up for two more days. When three days had passed, I asked the guard for paper and wrote that I was ending the hunger strike because you cannot prove your righteousness to those who have lost honor and conscience. That hunger strike, of course, looked like a child's game. I did not take it seriously. I just didn't end it right away because of how it would look: he declares it, and a day later, he calls it off. Must be chicken, they would think. So I had to hold out for a bit. I never again in my life declared a hunger strike, because I believed it was senseless to hold a hunger strike in a criminal state.

And what was the SHIZO back then compared to, for example, unloading bulk cement, especially in the frost and wind?! In the SHIZO back then, there were three meals a day, just like in the camp, the temperature in the cell was normal, and you even had your winter clothes on. You could lie on the bunk, with your pea coat under you, and pass the time in conversation if someone else was sitting with you, or just think your own thoughts. And they didn't give you much time—5-7 days. You serve your time and go back to the zone (the SHIZO was located in the hospital territory, behind the barracks for the mentally ill). And in the zone, they greet you like a hero; they know when you are supposed to get out, and they've already prepared something tasty for you.

After being released from the SHIZO, I was taken off the brigade, and for a month and a half, I was not taken out of the camp for work. I would go out into the hospital zone, where Vasyl Makarenko and I would clear snow from the paths and draw water from a well, which we poured into a trough that led it to some reservoir. The work was not strenuous, and we spent most of our time sitting in the barracks and strolling through the hospital grounds. Vasyl lived in the hospital zone among the service staff, so he had many acquaintances in this zone, including among those who arrived for treatment from other camps. So one day he says to me: "So-and-so has arrived at the hospital..." I no longer remember the last name, but it was Ukrainian. "They told me he's a stukach (informer). Let's get rid of him," he says to me.

I refused at once, telling Vasyl that we couldn't do that, because how would we know if he really was an informer, or if it was just an unfounded suspicion. Vasyl was resolute, and I don't know how it would have ended if I had agreed. Vasyl also received information that the body of a murdered Ukrainian political prisoner had been brought to the morgue. We went to the morgue, looked through the small window into the dugout where, opposite the window, a completely naked prisoner lay on a table, shot during an escape attempt from a special camp. That camp was simply called "spets." Prisoners there were kept in cells. These were prisoners who were transferred to the "spets" for violating the camp regime. That happened in April. The snow was already gone.

In April, I was taken to the industrial zone to work on the construction of a workshop, where I could now lose myself among the prisoners and be inconspicuous to the authorities.

In 1961, two events took place: Moscow approved a new Criminal Code, and on May 5, it issued an Edict on strengthening the fight against crime. This Code replaced the previous one with its "famous" Article 58 (in Ukrainian—54). And the Edict eliminated (to a large extent) the gains of the 1953–1954 uprisings, in which many prisoners died, including women crushed by tanks. Article 77-prim (RSFSR) was introduced into the Criminal Code: execution for sabotage, riots, and attacks on administration officials in places of confinement. Four regimes of detention were also introduced: general, intensified, strict, and special. State criminals (political prisoners) were subject only to the strict and special regimes. A new term, "especially dangerous recidivist," was also introduced. As for state criminals, it was enough to receive a second conviction for anything, for example, "for an escape attempt," for such a person to be recognized as an especially dangerous recidivist and sent to a special regime camp. Thus, prisoners automatically fell under the retroactive force of the law, which was in fact a serious violation of legality, since, in handing down a sentence, the court had taken into account the conditions under which the prisoner would serve his appointed term.

Most of us paid no particular attention to Article 77-prim and the Edict. This can be explained by the fact that most of us had short sentences, and everyone thought that, no matter what, they would somehow serve their time. Besides, we did not yet know what these "regimes" were, what restrictions on our rights they would entail. And so, after sharing our thoughts on the Edict, we forgot about it quite quickly.

The Ukrainians, as in the previous camp, stuck together. Both at Christmas and at Easter, they would gather in the evening in one of the sections, prepare the beds for this purpose, and, laying out food on these beds, begin the festive dinner. And after dinner, they sang religious songs. Everyone was in a festive mood. They sang in the evenings on other days as well, but not in such a large group and not as often as they did in the summer at the 14th camp. They also subscribed to literature through the "Book-by-Mail" service. This was mainly fiction. Sometimes, we Ukrainians would gather in a small group and discuss political and religious topics. Besides whether God exists or not, we also discussed historical events, mainly those concerning the liberation struggle. But the question of the meaning of life, for some reason, did not arise for anyone in my circle. I talked about the same things as others, but thought my own thoughts. But one day I asked Vasyl Protsiuk:

“Mr. Vasyl, what is the meaning of life?”

“One shouldn't think about that,” Protsiuk replied.

It was strange to me that they were interested in and discussed secondary matters, while ignoring the fundamental question. As for political issues—we had no significant disagreements, but the religious topic often grew from a discussion into even hostile attitudes toward one another. Unlike the "easterners," those from Western Ukraine had a more negative attitude toward an atheistic worldview. Volodymyr Andrushko often caught flak from them, as he was skeptical of their beliefs and perceived religious holidays only as an element that had entered Ukrainian culture, as a tradition. He never remained silent and always defended his opinion. We even argued about this, because I believed he shouldn't debate with them, as it only provoked hostility toward him from some of his fellow countrymen who were believers, especially Pylyp Shyshun. There were also some disagreements regarding private property, although we rarely touched upon this topic. But I never heard anyone dream of a Ukraine dominated by large private capital, where there would be masters and serfs. In the imagination of most, it was the Ukraine that writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries had dreamed of in their works. I also had a negative perception of a system in which one person would profit from the labor of others. But the main issue among Ukrainians at that time was not social, but the question of restoring the Ukrainian state. And if we restore the state, then we will establish a system that will satisfy everyone.

Once again, rumors started circulating that we were to be moved. And after some time, there were already noticeable signs of our transfer to another location.

And so it happened. In early June 1961, we were once again put on wagons and taken to the settlement of Yavas. And in Yavas, after being taken off the wagons, we were put into trucks. Not far from us was a crowd of some other prisoners. Some of them were shouting something to us. It turned out they were common criminals, who had also just been moved from a camp. In the trucks, packed like sardines in a barrel, we sat pressed against each other, while our belongings—bundles and suitcases—were in a separate truck. The guards, standing near the driver's cabin, were separated from us by a wooden shield that came up to their chests. We are driving through a forest. The road is unpaved, winding. The sun is shining brightly, the sky is blue, everything around is green. Because our legs had gone numb and it was impossible to stand up, and also because we hadn't been able to relieve ourselves since Barashevo, the journey felt long. Finally, the convoy emerged from the forest and stopped not far from some buildings. The command came—dismount, and everyone hurriedly jumped out of the trucks. We were near a camp. Each of us was called up and, after a glance at our belongings which we had already sorted, let into the empty camp. We dispersed among the barracks.

The camp we were brought to, like all camps, has its number. This one is No. 17. Next to the residential zone is an industrial zone, separated from it by a stockade fence and a narrow forbidden zone. And next to our camp is a women's camp, the corner of which is about 80 meters from the corner of the industrial zone. (It was near this industrial zone that, according to a Lithuanian's story from the 50s, five Lithuanian student escapees were shot. They were caught somewhere, brought back to the camp, and executed). This is a camp for female political prisoners. There are only about 200 of them. This is all that remained of the masses of female political prisoners who were in the camps before Khrushchev's "thaw." Their barracks have not yet been built. Tents are visible behind the new stockade fence.

At first, I took a spot in a section of the old barrack where O. Hryhorenko, F. Vozniuk, and V. Andrushko already were. But they started forming detachments, and I was moved to another section, where I also found a good spot—by the window on the top bunk, which was right against the wall of the adjacent section. And across from me on the bottom bunk was P. Androsiuk. So, having secured such a place, I felt quite comfortable. In the same section, besides other Ukrainians, there were also those whom I remembered: Kavatsiv and, if I'm not mistaken, Oleksa Tykhyi (that person was a former teacher, quiet and inconspicuous in the zone); Oleksa Mamenko—he studied Hegel (oh, this one could be heard throughout the section when he spoke enthusiastically about Hegel); Volodymyr Shmul, who had recently arrived from the village of Kryve, Radekhiv district, Lviv region. After his demobilization, having returned to the village, Volodymyr had put up flags. They had also harassed his fiancée, suspecting her of being involved in sewing the flags.

In this camp, things were, I would say, somehow simpler and cozier for us than in the zone in Barashevo. There was a bit more freedom. Of course, we didn't just sit in the camp. As before, we were taken out to work, mostly outside the camp. Some to chop firewood, others to construction sites and field work. Soon they began to form a mowing brigade. Having learned that the brigade would also have a job that didn't require swinging a scythe, I told Mykhailo Havrylchenko (a singer in our choir, with a wonderful bass voice) to sign me up for the brigade and help me get that spot. And so it was done. I received an axe, a shovel, and a scythe. My duty was to follow the mowers and uproot the bushes that occasionally appeared in those meadows. As soon as it was light, we would leave the camp and, after passing the settlement of Ozerne (over a kilometer from the camp), we would start work. The brigade diligently swung their scythes, and I waited for a bush to appear. I didn't uproot them—I didn't even pick up the shovel, as that would be too much work—but rather chopped them off at ground level, and that was that. And when there were very young shoots, I cut them with the scythe. Breakfast for both us and the guards was brought to us. The food was hearty, with meat and salo, much better than in the camp. After a short rest, the mowers would take up their scythes again, while I continued to rest on the mown hay. The summer was beautiful, the days sunny and calm. The sky was bluer than in the Zhytomyr region. The grass was thick, almost waist-high, and all around was forest. The guard convoy, armed with automatic rifles, was small. The soldiers were stationed far from each other. Although the meadow was flat and the soldiers could see us, it would have been possible to escape, even by making a camouflage suit out of grass to crawl through the swath into the tall grass, and from there crawl to the forest. But I had already served two years, and I was not yet ready to completely part with the life I had lived before my arrest. There were older men nearby, with much longer sentences, but there was no sign that any of them were eager to head for the forest. The mowing lasted about two weeks. The cut grass quickly turned into hay, and behind us, at a considerable distance, a brigade of women from the women's camp raked the hay. Sometimes the brigades would pass each other on the road, and when they met, the prisoners would toss notes to each other, and sometimes they would even approach one another when the guards were not too strict. In general, the guards treated us well. They even allowed us to swim a couple of times near the bridge over a small river that flowed past the settlement and into the Vad River, which, as we knew, flowed not far from the settlement. There was a deep pool near the bridge (over our heads), and on our way back from mowing, we would joyfully dive and swim, glad that such a thing, which we couldn't even have imagined, had happened to us in confinement.

The haymaking ended. The brigade was disbanded, and I was again in a construction brigade, erecting an extension to a building that ran along the street not far from the camp. Vasyl Makarenko was also in the brigade. This small brigade was mostly made up of Balts. Here again were the same people who were with me last summer on the workshop extension project. A women's brigade often passed by us, including a girl with whom one of the Lithuanians was in love. I think his name was Algis. He had been in the same class with her (they were both arrested in the 10th grade). Everyone knew they were in love with each other, so they probably felt shy (even blushing) when they greeted each other. Notes flew from both sides just the same. This postal service also worked for those in the industrial zone or in the brigade that rarely encountered the women. Makarenko also began corresponding with one of the OUN members, finding out how things were with them, how they were living. They didn't push us here either, but almost everyone worked—erecting a wooden extension. As for me and another white-haired fellow named Jonas, who had recently arrived from freedom (the Lithuanians didn't quite consider him one of their own—they said he was half-Polish), we slacked off. To avoid loitering around those mastering the construction trade, I would climb onto the sloping roof of a utility shed and mostly fill my time by getting lost in my thoughts, or by talking with someone who had climbed up to sunbathe or just to lie down. From the street, the detachment leader couldn't see us if he visited. And what did the guards care?! The guards were indifferent whether we worked or not. They had to stand their eight hours either way.

It wasn't just those working in the fields who were led past us. The women's camp did not yet have its own banya, so on their bath day, the women were taken to a bathhouse somewhere. Among them were some who were already unfit for work. There were also some who found it difficult to walk, and so some were supported by others. With these women walked the wife and daughter of the famous writer Pasternak, who had once been persecuted for his novel "Doctor Zhivago." Some of the Jews and Russians exchanged notes with his daughter. They were celebrities of a sort—relatives of Pasternak himself. As far as I know, representatives of other nationalities did not correspond with them. Correspondence was usually conducted within one nationality. I also remember the interaction of Pavlo Matveiko, a weather-beaten fellow with thick, dark-red mustaches, with one of the women. He worked in a construction brigade that was building a barrack in the women's camp. There he met a woman who, like him, was already in her thirties. He even showed me her photo. She was either from the OUN or the UPA. She had lost a hand in battle. Pavlo, like her, was not married. Their prison terms were probably ending around the same time, because Pavlo told us that they would get married after their release. His intention surprised me, so I said to Pavlo:

“Pavlo, you didn't even know her before this. Why would you ruin your life by marrying a disabled woman? And she should understand that you are not her equal. Such is fate. Why should you do this out of pity?”

“And why should she be alone?” Pavlo says to me.

His intention was strange to me. How could one get involved with a disabled person, even if she was good-looking—but still a disabled person, with whom, moreover, you are united only by an idea.

I recalled the year 1959. Summer. I am working in Novohrad-Volynskyi. Besides us men, there was also a small group of girls. One of them caught my eye. I started paying more attention to her. And then, talking about herself, she said that she had had her appendix removed. What I heard immediately turned something over in my soul. The image of the girl I had painted in my mind immediately disappeared, and I lost all interest in her, as if she were an apple someone had taken a bite out of.

Around that time, a prisoner died in the camp. It was either at the end of summer or the beginning of autumn. During working hours, because there were few prisoners in the camp (and for some reason, I was not outside the zone at that time). Someone said that a prisoner had died in the medical unit. I went to the medical unit. A small group of us gathered. Soon a truck drove up. A prisoner of about 40 was carried out of the medical unit feet first. The deceased was lifted onto the truck bed. The group stood saddened. After all, this was the death of a man who was not yet old, and in captivity. The truck started to move. We knew: he would be taken to Barashevo and buried there behind the camp in the prisoners' cemetery, with a tag with his number nailed to a post. And his family, if he had one, would be notified of his death. The group dispersed. I did not know him personally, so I did not ask where he was from. I only know that he was not Ukrainian, because in that case his death would have been an event for the Ukrainians, which would have been discussed and about which everything would have been known.

Autumn came. I was now in the brigade for firewood preparation. This was beyond the settlement, in the direction of Yavas. The firewood site adjoined the forest on one side and the road to Yavas on the other. So, if someone was released, they would wave to us from the truck as they drove past the site, and the whole brigade would wave back in response. Most of that site was already stacked with firewood prepared before our arrival. Upon arriving at the site, the prisoners would place logs on sawhorses, saw them by hand, split them, and stack them. Here too, no one hurried us. Those who worked were those who had nothing else to occupy themselves with. Others would read or discuss something. If I did pick up a saw or an axe, it was only to stretch my muscles. I spent most of my time in the company of Yuri Mashkov (a student from Moscow University), his friend Shcherbakov, and another person whose name I don't remember, who were also former students. They were Russians. I had been talking with Yuri for a long time. He was also at the haymaking. We exchanged our views. Yuri was a rabid anti-Semite. The Jews knew this and, as I later realized, they also counted me and his friends as anti-Semites, although we were not, and we did not take Mashkov's statements about Jews seriously, and generally paid no attention to it. I didn't even consider that the Jews viewed this completely differently. I don't know about later, but at that time, there was no sense of chauvinism in him (Yurka). on the contrary, he said that it was better to spend funds on improving the life of the people than on space and armaments. As a Ukrainian, proceeding from the fact that nations constantly fight among themselves for primacy, I told him: "For a Russian, a flight into space, glory, should be more important than rejecting it for the sake of a full stomach, and the people should not be considered." Yuri cared for the people. I remember at the haymaking, in a conversation with me, he even lamented that the birth rate had fallen. To which I then told him:

“We are already packed in like a sack. Soon there will be so many people that there will be nowhere to take a shit.”

Besides conversations and Jack London's stories, which Mashkov's friend would read to us, translating from English, I also filled my time by isolating myself, delving deep into my thoughts, plunging into a world far from camp life.

The autumn was warm and dry. Toward the end of autumn, a thought occurred to me: "Why not set this firewood on fire?!" So, towards the end of the workday, I twisted some cotton wool, gathered some kindling and dry grass, and placed it under the woodpile. When the call came to prepare to stop work, I lit the rolled-up cotton wool and placed it so that, after smoldering, it would ignite the dry grass and kindling. Upon returning to the zone, I told Androsiuk about it, and we, moving closer to the guardhouse, kept looking in that direction, hoping that a glow would appear there any moment. But it was already dark, and there was still no glow. "How can that be, it should have caught fire," I think with dissatisfaction. The next day, after going out to work, after some time I climbed into the woodpile and examined what I had constructed for the arson. Everything was as it was, only the cotton wool, after smoldering a little more, had gone out. I scattered everything and did not try to set the fire again. It was too dangerous, as they might have noticed me being in the woodpile. Of course, if this entire huge woodpile had burned down, we would have had hard work for the whole winter.

Of the Ukrainians, I communicated most with Pavlo Androsiuk and Vasyl Makarenko, and also with Pavlo Kulyk from the Poltava region, who went out with me to chop firewood but mostly slacked off, telling me about his service in the navy and about the famine of 1933 in his village. Also here, at the firewood site, I talk with Borys Bulbinskyi, who recently arrived from Sasovo (Ryazan Oblast), where he was on "beskonvoyka" (unguarded work detail), but was returned to the camp because the Edict of May 5, 1961, eliminated unguarded work for political prisoners. Bulbinskyi knows history well, and besides, he is a teacher by profession, loves to tell stories, and I, to pass the time, listen to his tales of the distant and recent past. His 5-year sentence is ending soon. From his statements, I understand that he does not intend to sit quietly after his release. He believes it would be a good idea to an underground organization. This pleases me, because I too have long been thinking about what the program of the organization should be, what kind of underground publication, what actions, and I even had a name for this publication: "The Voice of Freedom-Loving Ukrainians." And I had already written and encrypted some things in certain places. My closest like-minded people are Androsiuk and Makarenko. Kulyk and Ruzhytskyi with Matveiko would also actively join. Therefore, knowing about Bulbinskyi's intentions, I become closer to him and we agree to meet after his release, exchanging addresses. And I was determined. Agitational and propaganda activity was of secondary importance to me. The primary focus was on combat actions, terror. I even shared my thoughts with some of my comrades. Back in the autumn of 1960, in Barashevo, I told Ruzhytskyi:

“If I had a hundred guys ready to die, we could storm the Kremlin, well-armed, on the day of a Central Committee plenum or a CPSU congress and destroy everything we could.”

Of course, everyone would die, but it would be a spectacle—an event that would shake the entire empire. And I also considered (which would be easier to implement) capturing a "Katyusha" somewhere near Moscow, disguising it as an ordinary truck, driving it to a suitable distance, and firing a volley at the Kremlin. I was also interested in tactical nuclear weapons, which, according to reports, had appeared in military units. I even asked those who had recently completed their military service about these weapons. I was fascinated by large-scale actions, while at the same time understanding the difficulty of carrying them out with the kind of organization we could under Soviet totalitarianism. This could only be done by a military unit or those military personnel who directly possessed these weapons.

I was drawn to action. But here I was, waiting for that sentence to end? I thought: why wait, when there would be no return to the life I had lived before my arrest. And already in the autumn of 1961, I said to Androsiuk and Makarenko: "If we are going to go underground after our release, then why should we wait for release? Why don't we escape from the camp?" They agreed. Having identified two more prisoners who would go with us, we began to consider options for a group escape. We decided to dig a tunnel from the barrack that stood near the guardhouse along the forbidden zone. We scouted it from the inside, looked everywhere, but we couldn't figure out the tunnel; it would have been very difficult to crawl under the floor.

Pavlo tells us:

“You shouldn't risk it; if you get caught, they'll add another three years each. I'll escape, and we'll meet after your release.”

I suggest to Pavlo that he wait for the haymaking season.

And so the year 1961 passed. After the New Year came Christmas. After the camp prisoners had their supper, we pushed the tables together in one row and sat down for dinner. One of those who worked in the kitchen had even prepared kutia. Several dozen Ukrainians were at the table. Representatives of other nationalities also came. Among us was a former priest who, after giving a sermon, blessed the meal. Everyone was in a festive, uplifted mood. We dispersed sometime after lights-out at 10 p.m.

The winter passed unnoticed, without troubles, because I didn't go out to work most days: during the winter, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., I served as a watchman in the section, making sure no fire broke out. Of course, such work, and in the warmth at that, was not a burden for me.

I am back on the firewood detail. The days are already becoming more spring-like. When we are relieved from work at 5 p.m., there is more and more melting snow under our feet. I, like everyone else, am in worn-out valenki, which are issued to us for the winter period. But I must have broken them in incorrectly, because my heels are already in the middle of the boots. I pull them up, but they slide down again, with almost half the boot sticking out on the sides. Walking in the column, I just keep an eye out to make sure no one steps on them, because then my foot would come completely out of the valenok. Later, because of them, I ended up in the SHIZO. This was when we were turning in the valenki to the civilian quartermaster who managed the warehouse where all the property issued to prisoners was stored. I had dried them and straightened them out, but it was already impossible to give the valenki their proper shape. The quartermaster refused to accept them. My insistence had no effect on him.

“So you won't take them?” I ask him.

“No,” the quartermaster replies.

I take the valenki and, stepping over the threshold, throw them into the middle of a large puddle that reaches almost to the doorway. The quartermaster filed a report, and the next day the squad leader calls me in, demanding a written explanation. I refuse to write, but I tell him: “What was I supposed to do? The quartermaster said they were no longer usable, so I threw them away.” The squad leader started reproaching me for my careless attitude toward property, saying something about how I should be careful, that I would have my own family one day. Then I told him:

“As long as there is Soviet power, I will not have a family.”

After this conversation, a day or two later, I was already in the SHIZO. And the valenki lay in that shallow puddle for a long time, and prisoners passing by—it was not far from the guardhouse—would look at the boots and, smiling, joke about my prank.

Hryhorenko, Tarasiuk, and Bulbinskyi are no longer in the camp—they are free. And I am already into my last year. A year has passed since the Edict of May 5 was issued. We already know that in other camps there has been a reshuffling of prisoners. That those who had two convictions and fell into the category of "especially dangerous recidivists," and those who had been pardoned from the death penalty, have been separated and are in the special regime Camp No. 10. We know that these are now prison conditions, not camp conditions. No longer in barracks, but in cells, and besides, there are no packages, no parcels, no food in the canteen—only balanda. One day, Mashkov tells me: "Some common criminals are getting anti-Soviet tattoos on their faces, and they are being shot for it." I was surprised not that they were being shot, but that they had fallen so low as to turn themselves into monsters with those tattoos.

“There's no reason to pity them, because there's no reason to resort to such a pathetic form of protest,” I say to Mashkov. Mashkov disagrees with me.

But they hadn't gotten to us yet. Overall, everything with us was still as it had been. We even celebrated Easter, though not with the same fanfare. And in the evening, behind my barrack, a group still gathered as before and sang the same songs they had sung in the summer of '60. I would sometimes join them. The singing was quite powerful, what with Mykhailo Havrylchenko's bass and Kavatsiv's tenor. And the participation of singers like Pylyp Shyshun and Petro Zakharchenko. The song carried far beyond the camp. It reached the women's camp. They would come out to listen. And sometimes the Ukrainian women would start their own song, and we would listen to them perform. The Lithuanians also had a small choir; they too sometimes sang for their countrywomen. True, sometimes the guards would start coming over and demanding we stop singing. This was already May. Around that time, a thought occurred to me: why not draw the fascist swastika in prominent places and thus show that we perceive Soviet camps as fascist? Besides, it would be an event in our quiet camp life. Having made this decision, I suggested that Makarenko take part in it. He was not against it. So I make a dauber, and sometime right before lights-out, Vasyl and I go to the headquarters, and with the dauber, well-soaked in black boot polish, on the headquarters door, which was upholstered in a material similar to burlap, I draw a large swastika. Vasyl stands nearby and keeps watch so we are not noticed. After drawing it, we go to the stationary propaganda posters, and I draw a swastika on several of them. The next day I go to see how my drawings are doing. The swastika is still on the posters, but on the headquarters door, there is a large, somewhat dirty stain through which the swastika is still visible. They couldn't wash it off completely. And the prisoners have already seen all this and are discussing the event. I hear that some of the Jews, probably the Marxists, don't like it. Or maybe they only saw the swastika on the posters and perceived it as a prank by anti-Semites.

Throughout the autumn and winter, in addition to work, I continued to study German, and in the evenings, I went to school for the 10th grade with those who, like me, did not have a secondary education. The lessons were taught by prisoner teachers, who had mostly taught at universities or institutes. I had mastered German to the point where I could read adapted literature without a dictionary and was trying to master the spoken language to some extent, practicing with the German Otto. I did not finish my studies, although I could have gone with the others to the 7th camp and received a diploma. But why would I need it! My plans did not include enrolling in any educational institution to get some diploma after my release. Why would I need it when I don't intend to work anywhere, in any state! And the knowledge I could get even at some university is not necessary for me. After all, that knowledge is only needed for the functioning of the state (the anthill) and for securing some privileged place for oneself within the state (the state is created and maintained by those who strive for power and privileges, and by fools. A great patriot is either a great fool or a liar). And for what interests me, no university and no person can give an answer—cannot remove the absurdity of being. (Would today's university have given Ecclesiastes anything?!) I also realized that if your country is occupied and you work, you are working for the enemy. And even more so if you hold some position. Then you are also an overseer—a janissary! Again, you work because you need money. But why should you work when you can take that money from the state!

It was already late May or early June. I was back in the fields, but now in a brigade weeding a beet plantation. Pavlo Kulyk and Oleksa Mamenko were also in the brigade.

By the way, the Jews now treated me somewhat differently. This was after an incident that occurred in the camp and my conversation with Volodymyr Telnikov, who approached me after that incident and suggested we take a walk. While walking, we learned more about each other. In that conversation, I assured him that those who constantly associated with Mashkov were not anti-Semites. And what had happened was this. Leaving the section and turning behind the barrack, Pavlo Androsiuk and I saw a huge crowd. It seemed as though almost all the prisoners had gathered here, behind the barrack. We had never had anything like this before. And it was clear that some sort of разбирательство (showdown) was happening there. We asked those closest to us: "What's going on?" "It's that Azerbaijani who arrived in the camp, probably from the common criminals, he threatened Kushnir with a knife. They are demanding he apologize to Kushnir, but he refuses and is behaving insolently," one of the prisoners replies. I knew Kushnir well. His bunk was below, in the second bunk bed set after Pavlo's. In the past, he was either a student or a teacher. He was a polite, cultured man, probably Ukrainian, although he associated more with Jews and Russians.

“Let's go,” I say to Pavlo.

We push our way into the center of the crowd, approach Kushnir and the Azerbaijani, who is standing opposite Kushnir and reacting dismissively to the demands of the onlookers. His countrymen support him, saying that they shouldn't demand an apology from him, shouldn't humiliate him. I see that no one is going to beat him. He sees this too. Without wasting time, because the conversation with him was already exhausted, I approach him closely and ask: "Are you going to apologize or not?" He looked me in the face and his gaze faded, he lowered his eyes.

“Well?!” I ask him.

“Alright. I will apologize, but I will step aside with him.”

“No! You will apologize here,” I tell him.

At this point, his countrymen intervene, saying that he should apologize by stepping aside. Kushnir also agrees to let him apologize to him in private.

“Well then, go,” I tell them.

They walk away, and the crowd, satisfied with its victory, disperses. (When you are dealing with an insolent person, words not backed by a fist are worthless. He apologized, and thereafter, whenever we met, he would greet me politely.)

Waiting for the haymaking, Pavlo joined the mowing brigade. Upon returning from work, Pavlo would tell stories about the haying, about how he almost escaped. When we go to the roll call in the morning, in our minds we say our goodbyes. And then one day, after lunch, we hear shots, one after another. The shots are coming from near the forest, where the mowing brigade is working. I was seized with anxiety: what happened? Why the shots? For some reason, Mamenko is looking at me. He must have noticed my anxiety and is guessing. Soon, a soldier runs up to our convoy, and we hear: a prisoner from the mowing brigade has escaped. He made it! I think with joy. They take us off work and bring us back to the camp. But in the camp, I meet… Pavlo! It turns out a Georgian had escaped. (He was caught a day later. They added three years and sent him to Vladimir Prison). The prisoners are no longer taken out for haymaking. And Pavlo is back in the industrial zone and decides to escape from there. The escape plan is this: the corner tower, opposite the women's camp, is in a low area near a small swamp, and a significant part of the forbidden zone is under water in the spring and after rain. Moreover, there is no guard on this corner tower because this section of the forbidden zone is visible from the corner tower on the guardhouse side and from the tower opposite the forbidden zone separating the residential zone from the industrial zone. Pavlo plans to get through this flooded forbidden zone. But he needs help. He needs the lights that hang occasionally above the stockade fence of the forbidden zone to be dimmed for a while, because it's impossible to turn them off: that line is not connected to the switchboard in the industrial zone. It is also necessary to change a fuse on the switchboard and thus turn off the general lighting. (The camp had recently been connected to a power station. Before that, a diesel engine in the industrial zone powered a generator. And the switchboard had not yet been moved outside the industrial zone).

“I'll help,” I tell Pavlo.

Shortly before the prisoners are led out of the industrial zone, Volodya Shmul opens the gate—and I'm in the industrial zone. I hide in the place Pavlo indicated.

Pavlo also hides, and his registration card has already been placed with the cards of those in the residential zone. There is no one left in the industrial zone. It grew dark. Pavlo approaches me, and we go to the switchboard room, where he shows me which fuse to remove and to replace it with a burnt-out one. After that, we go to the workshop. Pavlo takes a flat piece of iron and wedges it between the teeth of a large circular saw—jamming it—and shows me the buttons. After showing me, he takes a bag with clothes and food. After saying goodbye, he goes to the forbidden zone, and I go to the switchboard. Once inside, I change the fuse. It's dark everywhere. It's dark in the residential zone too. Only the occasional lights above the stockade fence of the forbidden zone are burning. I run to the workshop and press the button. A powerful motor howled. I look at the forbidden zone. The lights are barely glowing—it's almost dark. I turn it off for a moment and then on again. The motor is whining and about to catch fire. I turn it off and hear the guard from the tower swearing, demanding that I don't turn on the motor. I turn it on. The motor howls again. And then Pavlo runs in. I turn it off, and Pavlo pulls the iron bar out of the saw and throws it aside. We run to the forbidden zone that separates the residential zone. Pavlo throws the bag into some barrel of water and, propping something up, we climb onto the stockade fence, over the barbed wire on top, and jump down into the residential zone. The guard doesn't see us because this fence is unlit, dark, and besides, he's not paying attention to this forbidden zone. Vasyl Makarenko meets us, and we hurry to the barracks because Pavlo is soaked to his knees. The escape failed. And what happened was this: as soon as the lights went out, Pavlo went into the forbidden zone, reached the stockade fence, and was about to start prying off the stakes with a crowbar, but then, behind the fence, soldiers' footsteps thundered on the gangway. He had to turn back. We left no traces. And the operations unit never found out what had happened there.

I am on the beet plantation. The entire plantation is overgrown with weeds, and you have to look closely to see the little beet amidst all that greenery. Upon entering the plantation, we spread out our quilted jackets and pea coats. Some were reading, some were talking, and some were toiling in those rows of beets. When we were taken off work, a trampled patch was left behind us. We probably would have gradually trampled the entire plantation, but they finally cracked down on us and forced us to work. To control who was working, the detachment leader (a captain) ordered each of us to take a separate row. There was nowhere to go. Everyone started taking their row. Although I understood that I was getting into a difficult situation, I didn't take a row, because what's the point of taking one when I don't intend to weed it. As before, I spread my pea coat, lay on my side on one half of it, and covering myself with the other, I drifted into my own thoughts, into that world where I no longer wanted to react to anything, because the soul in that world became superfluous, some useless thing of irritants and reactions to them. It was what is achieved in deep old age. That which happens when the soul withers like branches on an old tree. It was already a different vision of the world, it was enlightenment. And so I lay there until lunch and after lunch. And shortly before we were taken off work, the detachment leader appeared and, starting from the edge, asked each person where his row was. Thus he went through everyone and approached me. Although I noticed his appearance, I continued to half-lie, leaning on my elbow, observing his rounds.

“Where is your row?” the detachment leader asks me.

“Over there!” I gesture with my hand toward the rows he had already passed.

“Where?” he asks me again, glancing at the rows—thinking, perhaps, that he had missed one, and then he looks at me again and now more sternly demands:

“Where? Go and show me!”

I was getting tired of this. I take off my glasses and, holding them out to him, I say:

“If you can't see, then take these and look.”

After my words, his face twisted in indignation.

“You'll go to the SHIZO!” says the detachment leader and walks away from me. Indeed, the next day I was in the SHIZO. So what?! I can lie on the bunk for a week. After serving my time, I was back in the zone. And in the zone, there were already noticeable signs that we would soon be moved. Well! If we have to move, we have to move, but it would be good to stir up some trouble before leaving, I think to myself. Why not burn down this camp before we leave—the thought arose. And so that everything would catch fire at the same time.

I shared my thoughts with Makarenko. Vasyl immediately agreed to take part in this action. Although all the buildings were made of wood and the roofs were covered with shingles, it was still not easy to quickly set all the buildings on fire. After all, the walls were plastered, and the roof was too high—you couldn't reach it with your hand, and you couldn't build any kind of scaffold. We came to the conclusion that the most convenient way would be to set them on fire after dousing the roofs with gasoline. And gasoline could be gotten in the industrial zone. We have our man in the industrial zone. That is Volodymyr Shmul. He also opens the gates to the industrial zone. Moreover, during the day, these gates are not controlled by the administration. We turn to Volodymyr. Without asking why, he agrees to get us five bottles of gasoline (one bottle for each building), which were the three barracks, the dining hall-club with the kitchen, and the administration headquarters. Soon, Volodymyr passes these bottles of gasoline to Vasyl through the gate. Digging holes in our garden patch (like some other prisoners, we grew cucumbers and onions), we bury these bottles in the ground, having finally decided to commit the arson on the last night before the transport. And that night came. Sometime at the end of June, they are moving us from the 17th. Half the prisoners are already gone, and the next day they will move us too.

When it was completely dark, we walk around the zone and, assessing the situation, wait for the opportune moment. It seems that this moment has arrived. We take only four bottles and go to the barrack closer to the guardhouse; we intend to start from there. But here come prisoners again. And the guards are walking through the zone again. It is after midnight, but most of the prisoners are still not going to bed. The night is warm and quiet. They stand here and there, or walk, talking about their own things. Moreover, although the night is dark, the reflections from the lit forbidden zone and the occasional lights on the poles make it possible to make out those walking in the zone. Undoubtedly, they could have spotted us. It is already risky to even walk around the zone with bottles. For us, it becomes dangerous not just to set everything on fire, but even to set fire to a single building. But I wanted to see everything in flames. And what is one building?! It's not the same spectacle. With regret, we agreed that we would not succeed with the arson. We went to our garden patch, buried two bottles in the ground, and I took two with me: maybe I could still manage to set fire to at least our own barrack. Vasyl went to his barrack, near the guardhouse, and I, entering the section, look around to see if it's possible to set fire from the inside. Not everyone is asleep in the section. I look into our storeroom, the door to which is in the corridor, but there on the shelves are suitcases and bundles with prisoners' belongings. I could have set it on fire, but the prisoners' belongings would burn. It is already starting to get light. I take the bottles, push them deep into the stove, and go to sleep.

I didn't get to sleep for long. They lined us up in a column, just like the previous group, and led us out of the camp. Trucks were already waiting for us there. After loading us onto the vehicles, they drove us back in the opposite direction. The camp we left behind was empty. But it wouldn't be empty for long. Someone else would be brought there—most likely common criminals again. The civilian employees, especially the women (and there were several of them), were certainly calmer and safer with us around. Working until dark on winter days, they weren't afraid to walk alone through the zone to the guardhouse. The civilians were content with us, and they even parted with us with some sadness. And so, they scattered us, the “chatterboxes,” once again.

I think the return of these several hundred energetic young prisoners to those who had already served many years and gone through the harsh conditions of the camps in the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s was not because new detention regimes were being introduced (this regime—the strict one—could just as well have been implemented at Camp 17), but more likely because the experiment with segregation had failed. The KGB undoubtedly had its informants, and they were reporting that a significant portion of the youth in the camp was banding together and planning to continue their resistance to the communist regime after their release, and this time, more seriously. And it was true. Being in each other's sight, communicating, the young people sought to assert themselves, to show that they were capable of something more than what they had done before. And so it turned out that, being isolated from the more experienced, “seasoned”—in the KGB’s parlance—enemies of the Soviet government, those who had mostly ended up in the camps for some insignificant offenses were now uniting and planning to underground organizations to continue the struggle. These young people were not being “re-educated” in the way the authorities had likely planned. The youth did not break ties with their fellow inmates. Upon release, they would take down home addresses and correspond. This became especially apparent when they began taking us out in separate groups, which was a clear sign that we were being separated and sent to different camps. When the first group lined up in a column, those who remained walked with them as friends all the way to the gate.

Camp 7 (in the settlement of Sosnovka), where they brought us in June 1962, was near the railway. Like Camp 11, it was a large camp—I don’t remember exactly, but it held about one and a half thousand people. They immediately placed us in the barracks. Androsyuk and I ended up in the same section. Our beds were next to each other. The place was full of new people, most of them already older. They had already seen and heard everything. Although they kept their spirits up, you could feel that they were tired and had resigned themselves to their fate. They were simply serving out their time. Many had 25-year sentences. Those who had already served half or even more of their 25 years held out hope that their sentences might be reduced to 15 years, since the new Criminal Code did not provide for prison terms longer than that.

We who had arrived from Camp 17 dissolved into this mass of prisoners. At work, we were not only in different brigades and workshops (the industrial zone had a furniture factory) but also on different shifts, so we rarely saw our fellow inmates from Camp 17. The strict regime had already been introduced at Camp 7, with all the restrictions it entailed. So, the more lenient regime, won by the prisoners through uprisings, had lasted for seven years. And now there was no resistance to the decree of May 5. In fact, there was no one left to resist, because the mass of political prisoners that existed in the 1950s was gone. After all, in the entire Gulag, there were only a little over 6,000 political prisoners left. They could no longer mount any serious resistance. There were, however, rumors that there was resistance in the criminal camps. This resistance was suppressed, and Article 77-prime was applied to the more active resisters, who were either shot or given a new sentence of 15 years. I think this regime forced many to wonder: “Is it worth doing something after release that could land you back in the camp?” True, due to my short stay in the camp, I didn't get to experience all the points of those restrictions. Still, I managed to meet Yuriy Shukhevych, to whom V. Telnikov introduced me (they had been in the same camp before the separation), and Andriy, a fellow countryman from the Yemilchyne district. Andriy had a wooden leg. I no longer remember his last name (we spoke only briefly), nor the exact circumstances under which he fell into the hands of the NKVD. I only remember that he was hiding in a bunker in the Yemilchyne district, that in the latter half of the 1940s he was wounded in the leg and taken to Zhytomyr, to the basement of the building that housed the KGB. They tormented him horribly. He was not given timely medical assistance, gangrene set in, and his leg was amputated. He walked quite briskly on that wooden leg, gathering linden blossoms and talking with me at the same time. I also met a captain of the UPA, Volodymyr Brych (a Volhynian), and a few other prisoners. And that was the extent of my contact with those who had waged an armed struggle against the occupiers.

Soon, for failing to meet the quota (I was working on the final operation for making cases for “cuckoo” clocks—sanding them by hand with emery cloth), they put me in the punishment cell (SHIZO). The SHIZO now had bare bunks (without even a pea coat) and restricted food rations. A few days after my release from the SHIZO, I was summoned to a session of the district court. About a dozen of us who were summoned had gathered. All from Camp 17. Telnikov was there, and Andriy Leonov. The madman from the 17th was there too. Of the Ukrainians, I was the only one. The court was in full session. They read out the materials submitted by the administration of Camp 17 for each of us individually, petitioning to transfer us to prison confinement for violating the camp regime. As is customary, the judge asked each of us what we had to say about the submitted materials. And what was there to say?! Each of us said something, neither making excuses nor begging for mercy. I also said a few things that were actually irrelevant to the case—something about not needing glory, but realizing I was saying something off-topic, because this wasn’t a speech at some political trial (I had aimed too high) and in this situation it looked somewhat comical, I cut short my misplaced remarks and finished my speech by saying something about how I had behaved in the camp as one ought to behave. As for the madman, he began telling them about cosmic gravitation. They told him that was enough, that they understood, and the court withdrew to another room to decide on a resolution for each of us. They didn’t deliberate for long. They came back in and read it out: for me and Leonov, confinement until the end of our terms; for Telnikov, half a year; for someone else, also until the end of his term; and for the others, three years of confinement (their terms were longer than 3 years) in prison (Russian: *tyuremnoye zaklyucheniye*). I don't remember how much the madman got—three years or until the end of his term. We were immediately ordered to pack our things and report to the guardhouse. When everyone had gathered, we were taken to the SHIZO and placed in cells.

Although food was already scarce in the camp—the commissary allowance was 5 rubles a month—our friends tossed us some food, so we had something to supplement the rations we were given. We were waiting for a transport to take us to the prison in the city of Vladimir. And so once again, it was Potma, Ruzayevka—familiar transit prisons. And from Ruzayevka, the prison in Gorky, and finally, our destination—Vladimir Prison, where we arrived on September 2, 1962.

In Gorky, we met a prisoner who told us about the prison regime. So we knew that in Vladimir, after being processed for prison confinement, you couldn’t take anything into your cell except your bread ration. Upon arrival, we all spent one more night together in the transit cell, but we had our lunch in the cells of the 1st building, as prisoners of a “covered” prison. (A “covered” prison is one designated for serving a term of incarceration).

Telnikov and Leonov ended up in the same cell with me on the 3rd floor. It was a 5-person cell. Besides us, there were two other prisoners, one of whom clearly belonged to the common criminals (he must have come from a criminal camp). The block warden came and announced that, in accordance with prison rules, we would be kept on the strict regime for two months. The first month—a reduced food ration. We already knew about this, so back in the transit cell, we had agreed to say that we had already served our reduced ration while we were in the SHIZO at Camp 7 for a month after our trial, waiting for the transport. We even wrote up official requests. It was Telnikov’s initiative. I didn't think it would work, but I submitted a request as well. And miraculously, they counted our month in the SHIZO. (To this day, I don't understand why the administration accommodated us, since the rules clearly stated: upon arrival for prison confinement). So, we were not put on the reduced food ration. All we had left was to serve a month on the strict regime, which meant almost the same food ration as the general regime, except you couldn't buy 2 rubles and 50 kopecks worth of food from the commissary per month. You also couldn’t receive a package—5 kg every 6 months.

A month later, Telnikov and Leonov were moved to a general regime cell, but I stayed behind. I had a violation: I didn't get out of bed in time after the “rise” command. So, I had to remain on the strict regime for at least another month.

I never saw Telnikov and Leonov again, although I did write down their addresses. I took Leonov’s address, who was due to be released the following year, just in case—this reliable guy from Ivanovo might come in handy. As for Telnikov, back in the transit prison, we had discussed plans to carry out an assassination attempt on Khrushchev. We agreed that after his release, I would come to him in Moscow, and we would discuss the topic in more detail. (Telnikov was a former student at Leningrad University. His sentence was 5 years. For a regime violation in 1960, I think, he spent up to a year in a penal camp—a “special” one. Telnikov was released sometime in late summer of 1963. He later emigrated to Israel, and from there to England. Volodymyr Telnikov’s father was an army general).

Two unfamiliar prisoners arrived in the cell to replace those who had left. One was Ukrainian, the other Bashkir. The Bashkir’s behavior was strange; it seemed very likely that this young man was genuinely insane. On the second or third day, he went to the locker, snatched a piece of bread from the ration belonging to that criminal type, and began to devour it greedily. The owner of the piece rushed at him, swearing and hitting the Bashkir, taking back what was left. I jumped between them and stopped this outrage. They took the Bashkir from the cell. But I quickly befriended the Ukrainian; he was Mykola Tanashchuk from the Khmelnytskyi region. He was a bit older than me. He had already served his month of reduced rations. He had arrived from Camp 19 for an escape he had made with Ivan Kochubey. In addition to an extra sentence for the escape, they each got three years of prison confinement. I knew about Ivan. He was Pavlo Androsyuk's associate. When I was at Camp 7, Pavlo had told me about Ivan’s failed escape from the 19th. The fact that Mykola turned out to be Kochubey's partner brought us even closer.

Mykola was imprisoned in the mid-1950s. In 1957, he made a successful escape from Camp 7. After making his way to the Caucasus, he tried to cross the border but was caught. He was returned to Mordovia, his sentence was extended, and he was held at Camp 19 until his next escape. I would say that Mykola was overly Christianized. His entire demeanor indicated that he was a deeply religious man who strictly adhered to the commandments of Jesus Christ.

I will cite one incident from his life that characterizes him. It happened in Georgia after his escape. He was walking down a city street when two young Georgians, who were in a hurry, overtook him. Just then, a small package fell from one of them. Walking up, Mykola picked up the package and, discovering a large sum of money inside, called out to the Georgians. They stopped. Mykola approached them and handed them the package. Stunned by Mykola's behavior, the Georgians gave him some of the money as a token of their gratitude. That was Mykola for you. An eccentric, of course. To give back what he found to strangers in such a desperate situation as he was in after his escape. He was calm and almost unnaturally composed. And every day, he would stand in a corner and spend up to ten minutes in silent prayer. Of the philosophers, he most valued Skovoroda and would quote him. It was from him that I first heard: “Thank you, God, for making the necessary easy, and the difficult unnecessary.” I immediately grasped the depth of Skovoroda's thought and that, for this thought alone, he deserved to be valued. Because it’s true: how many fools trip over each other, bending over backward to prove to others that they can master something more difficult. Our entire civilization is the result of the strain of these fools.

Mykola also told me about his last escape and about the light-colored stripe on his shaved head above his forehead. This is what happened. At the 19th, he met Ivan Kochubey. They decided to escape from the camp (they were not taken outside the camp perimeter). And to do it in broad daylight. After preparing everything necessary for the escape, they took ladders and went to the restricted zone. They climbed over the first wire fence, ran across the strip of land, set the ladders against the stockade, and climbed up. And there were machine gunners in the towers. One of the towers was quite close to them. The other was a considerable distance away. They got lucky. The soldier in the distant tower didn't shoot because he might have hit the soldier in the tower near the escapees. And the soldier in the closer tower, out of fear or for some other reason, dropped the magazine from his rifle, and it fell into the restricted zone. After climbing the stockade, they jumped down. But in the process, Ivan dislocated his leg. Quickly scaling the outer fences, they ran toward the forest, which was nearby. The soldier from the distant tower began shooting at them but missed. Ivan managed to get into the forest, but he could no longer run and sat down on the ground. Mykola ran on through the woods. Soldiers must have been nearby, because a pursuit began immediately. A soldier with a dog quickly started to gain on Mykola. But for some reason, he didn't shoot and didn't release the dog from its leash. When he got close, he shouted, “Stop!” Mykola stopped and turned to face him. And right then, a burst from the machine gun. A bullet grazed his head above the forehead. Mykola fell, pretending to be dead. His head was covered in blood. The soldier approached him. When other soldiers ran up, Mykola stirred and looked at them. The one who had shot him immediately pointed his rifle at Mykola and was about to pull the trigger, but a soldier standing nearby noticed, rushed over, pushed the rifle aside, and said, “If you wanted to finish him off, you should have done it before we got here. You have no right, you will be held accountable.” I never asked Mykola or Ivan (later), because you don't ask about such things, but it has remained a mystery to me why they went into the restricted zone in broad daylight, since they weren't confined to cells. And why so close to a tower from which a soldier couldn't shoot only because he had lost his magazine. And so the question arises, was there an arrangement with the soldier?

A few weeks later, I was transferred to another cell. I never saw Mykola again. While still in Mordovia, I heard that he had gone insane, but I didn't believe it. Then, sometime in the second half of the 1990s, I read the memoirs of a prisoner I didn’t know about Vladimir Prison (Anatoly Radygin, *Life in the Mordovian Concentration Camps Up Close*, 1974, Munich). Unfortunately, it really had happened—Mykola had lost his mind. His subsequent fate is unknown.

After keeping me on the first floor, where there were two other prisoners in the cell with me, whose names I don't remember, although I met one of them in 1964 at the special Camp 10, the prison administration transferred me to the general prison regime in November.

I found myself in corner cell No. 85—a three-person cell—on the third floor. There were already two prisoners in the cell. They were some kind of strange characters to me. One was about my age—a half-Latvian of sorts (from what he said). Although he didn't talk about it, he had most likely come from a criminal camp. The other was a bit older but silent, and it was hard to figure out what he was all about. On the general regime, I was now allowed to buy 2 rubles and 50 kopecks worth of food from the commissary per month and to receive a five-kilogram package. I still had some money in my account, and so, like everyone else, I bought some food and wrote a letter to my parents asking them to send a package—the last one I was entitled to receive. Soon after, this half-Latvian received a package. He gave a third of it to me, and only offered a taste to the silent one. The next day, as usual, the half-Latvian and I went out for our walk, while the silent one stayed in the cell (he rarely went for walks). After spending the allotted hour in the exercise yard, we returned to the cell. And there, the half-Latvian, swearing, lunged at the silent one and hit him on the head with a metal bowl. I jumped between them. Blood was streaming from the silent man's head. And the half-Latvian was shouting that he (the silent one) had been rummaging through his bag of food. The guards came into the cell. Explaining that he hadn't taken any food, the silent man left the cell. An unpleasant scene. But what can you do? The two of us were left alone. But not for long. A prisoner of medium height, sturdily built, with a resolute face, who looked to be in his late thirties, entered the cell. We introduced ourselves. “Ivan Kochubey,” he said his name was. “Ivan?” I asked in amazement, stepping closer to him and touching him with my hands. I couldn't believe I was meeting Ivan—the associate of my friend Pavlo Androsyuk. Ivan, too, looked somewhat surprised at this unfamiliar prisoner who was so glad to see him.

I knew about Ivan from Pavlo's stories. After his army service, Pavlo had stayed in Irkutsk. He got married there. And in time, he met Ivan, who had already spent time in the camps. He had also built the railway in Mongolia. I don't remember how they came to the idea of producing and distributing leaflets, nor what exactly they did, because this anti-Soviet (paper) activity was overshadowed by a more serious action for which they were also held responsible. Well, the action they undertook was connected with the fact that money was needed to expand their anti-Soviet activities. At first, at least some small amount. So it was decided to rob a store.

The event unfolded like this: in the evening, they approached the store; the guard was inside. When the door opened, Ivan ran inside, but the guard managed to jump into a storeroom next to the door. Ivan ran back to the door, to the exit. Ivan was unarmed, but the guard had a rifle in the storeroom. Running out of the store, Ivan and Pavlo ran through the snow. The guard also rushed out of the store. The guard ran after them, shooting at them as he ran. Ivan took a small-caliber rifle from Pavlo, crouched, took aim, and fired. The guard was wounded, and the pursuit ended. Some time later, they were arrested. In 1959—the trial. Ivan and Pavlo were given 15 years each, with the first three years to be served in prison confinement—in Vladimir Prison. In transit, they agreed that upon arriving at the camp, they would escape.

Ivan told me a bit about the escape, and then with displeasure in his voice:

“So why isn't Pavlo escaping?” he asked me. “We had an agreement.”

Of course, Pavlo was less proactive and decisive than Ivan, but he did try to escape. During our walk, I told Ivan about Pavlo, about his attempt to escape from the camp.

A few days later, Ivan showed me half a hacksaw blade that he had managed to get and, by some miracle, smuggle all the way to Vladimir Prison. He said he would try to saw through the bars and, after lowering himself into the prison yard, climb over the prison wall into the territory of the military academy. He was planning to do this in another cell, because cell 85 was unsuitable for this—it had double bars on the window. After thinking it all over, I told Ivan that he had very little chance of a successful escape. If they discovered the escape attempt, it would mean another sentence and, most importantly, additional prison confinement.

“It's not worth the risk,” I told him. And I added: “I'll be released in April, and I will prepare an escape from the camp. You'll find good guys for activities on the outside—men who are ready for anything.”

Ivan hesitated for a long time but accepted my proposal. We agreed: I would smuggle a weapon (a small-caliber rifle would suit him) into the camp, or I would dig a tunnel from the outside. I had spotted a convenient place for a tunnel when I was still in Camp 3. There, next to the restricted zone, stood a large warehouse, to which we had added an extension in Camp 3. The floor of this warehouse was about a meter high. Get under the floor and dig your way to the infirmary. And you could get into the infirmary from any camp. You didn't even have to be sick. You could fake an illness.

After our agreement, Ivan went to the latrine and threw away the hacksaw blade he had brought to the prison with such difficulty. Later, he probably regretted it, because he could have tried to hide it somewhere in one of the exercise yards, or even inside the cover of a book. And for some reason, I didn't think of that and didn't suggest it to him.

In this cell, I still managed to receive my package and divide it into three parts, giving a share to the half-Latvian as well. By the way, he turned out to be a vile person. Quickly realizing that Ivan and I were on friendly terms, he started whispering to me for some reason (so he was a fool, too) that Ivan was not Ivan, but a plant posing as Ivan. It goes without saying that I told Ivan about this, while also telling him not to touch the guy, because they would separate us into different cells. But from the looks Ivan gave him after that, the half-Latvian realized that I had told Ivan about his whispering, and so one day when we were going out for our walk, he didn't go with us and immediately started demanding that the guard call the block warden. When we returned from our walk, he was no longer in the cell. Soon, I was also transferred to another cell. I was with Ivan for about two weeks and never saw him again. He had no complaints against me, because I had told him: I will only fail to keep my promise if I am arrested. Unfortunately, Ivan never managed to be free again. I learned much later that he died in confinement.

Ivan was originally from the Kuban region. After my release in ‘63, I corresponded with his older brother, whose address was: Poltavska stanitsa, Bryukhovetsky khutir.

Already in the 1990s, when I was free, I had a chance conversation in Kyiv with a prisoner who had been in the same camp with Ivan and had spoken with him. I, of course, asked if Ivan had had any conversation with him about my promise to help him.

“He did,” this prisoner answered me. And he said:

“Ivan said that Serhiy would have done what he promised.”

For the New Year of 1963, I was already in cell No. 73. It wasn't like cell 85, where besides hunger, the cold was also a problem, and we had to warm ourselves (until it cooled down) by a kettle of boiling water. In 73, the cold was no longer an issue. This cell was also on the 3rd floor, with a window facing the military academy. There were five of us in the cell. I stayed in this cell until my release. Of the prisoners from this cell, I only remember two last names, and the fact that for a time there were also two older Ukrainians from Western Ukraine, one of whom had a sentence of over 10 years with the first five years in prison confinement. He must have been a member of one of the Lviv region organizations whose leaders were sentenced to death in 1962, because I remember him mentioning one of the executed men in a conversation with his fellow countryman. Well, since he expressed a somewhat negative attitude towards the executed man, I lost interest in him. The last names that remain in my memory are Kulchar and Afonin. Kulchar—a Hungarian by nationality, a former prisoner of war. He had been incarcerated for a long time; besides his captivity, he had tried to cross the border several times because he couldn't get legal permission to travel to Hungary, where his relatives lived. He regretted marrying a Russian woman and accepting Soviet citizenship. He was a harried, nervous man of short stature. He had been in prison for over a year. He told me what it was like to be in a cell with Beria’s men—there was such a cell there. And about two prisoners who cut their own veins, collected the blood in a bowl, drank it, and fried it on newspapers. Kulchar did not use the commissary. Nor did he receive packages, because there was no one to send them: neither money nor packages. And Afonin, from Leningrad, a former soldier, was doing his compulsory military service in Germany and was arrested while trying to cross into West Germany. With a long prison sentence, he had recently been brought to the prison.

Perhaps thanks to not having yet exhausted our fat reserves, the first months in prison are not so acutely felt. But after some time passes, you really feel what constant malnutrition and the prison regime in general are like. None of us newcomers had been in such conditions before. Besides malnutrition, from 6 in the morning until 10 at night (“rise” and “lights out”), you had to remain upright. It was forbidden even to lay your head on the table. And when lights out time approached, everyone would glance at the night lamp, because by evening your head would become heavy, and a feeling would appear as if your brain was detaching from your skull and sloshing around like some kind of liquid. Finally, the red night lamp above the door would light up, and everyone would instantly collapse, because in 8 hours they would have to be upright again. We were not taken out to work. There was no room to walk in the cell, because a table with benches on either side was built into the middle of it. You could only walk from the door to this table, a distance of about a meter. That’s two medium steps, or three very small ones—not walking, but just turning: shuffling in place. The prison atmosphere was very oppressive. But most of all, it was the hunger. The hunger was a constant torment. You’d have breakfast and already be waiting for lunch; you’d have lunch and be waiting for dinner. And well, what was dinner… If it wasn't some kind of gruel boiled in water, it was about seven spoonfuls of “purée”—potatoes mashed in water, a thin liquid with no fat or anything else. They gave out bread in the morning; I would divide my clammy ration into three parts, while some would eat it all at once and have lunch and dinner without bread. For lunch, a ladle of thin borscht or soup, with occasional drops of some kind of fat floating in it, and a piece of meat the size of a thimble. And for the second course, about seven spoonfuls of mostly barley (they called it “tarpaulin”) gruel, bluish in color and cooked in water. For breakfast, they gave us a ladle of thin soup and rarely, a small piece of often half-rotten herring, though more often they gave about a dozen sprats. To fill their stomachs more, the prisoners started pouring boiling water over the sprats to get half a bowl of additional watery soup. We would shop at the commissary twice a month: five long loaves of bread and a pack of margarine each time. And what was that shopping? Well, a prisoner would get it, quell his hunger a bit—and then be hungry again. And there was no hope for any extra. But one time there was a surprise. One evening, not long before lights out, the door opened, and a sergeant entered the cell and placed a large pot on the table, filled to the brim with red beets. “Take them,” the sergeant said to us. Everyone jumped up, grabbed their bowls from the locker on the wall, and each served himself, glancing to make sure no more was being put in their bowl than in others'. The sergeant took the empty pot and left the cell. There was excitement in the cell. After all, everyone had been waiting for lights out, not for a heaping bowl of delicacies. Everyone cheered up and fell upon the beets. I must say that although I had eaten red beets before, they had never been as sweet and tasty as what the sergeant brought. It still remains a mystery: there were so many cells in the prison, and much closer to the kitchen than our third floor. So why did he choose our cell?

The administration demanded compliance with the detention regime. Those who did not comply were transferred to the strict regime, sent to the punishment cell, or deprived of packages or commissary privileges. Most tried not to violate the regime, understanding that they would achieve nothing and only harm themselves. But there were also those who didn't just commit some minor violations. They behaved as if no changes had occurred and therefore did not give due importance to Article 77-prime.

By January or February, we learned that Denisov, who had been held in the same block, had been executed. He was shot because in the summer, while going out for a walk, he had for some reason pushed a guard and knocked off his cap. He was sentenced under Article 77-prime for attacking a representative of the administration. There were plenty of similar cases at that time. Of course, in places of confinement for criminals. They also shot some common criminal at Camp 10—he had brandished a stool.

Sometimes, prisoners from two cells were led into the exercise yard together. Thanks to this, I was in the same yard several times with a Georgian who had escaped from the hay-making detail at Camp 17. He was constantly in a depressed state. He told me a little about the escape, though reluctantly. It turned out that he had gotten very cold during the night and went into some house. A weak one, I thought, annoyed that he had ruined Pavlo's escape. Orlov also went for walks—the former chief of police in Rovenky, who was imprisoned in connection with the “Young Guard” case. He was something of a celebrity; people would approach him and ask about events of twenty years past. He was an older man, short and stocky. He talked about those events and was indignant that in the movie, he was shown not in boots but in *burkas*, which he had never worn. He, like the burgomaster of Krasnodon, Stetsenko, who was also in the first block, had a 25-year prison sentence. Orlov would tell us:

“If it weren't for that Fadeyev and his novel, Stetsenko and I would have been free long ago.”

In the cell, I didn't read anything and didn't play dominoes with the others, nor did I join in all the idle chatter. My bed was under the window, so I would cover myself almost completely with my pea coat, lean my back against the wall (my primary posture in prison at the time), and, detached from everyone, immerse myself in my own world, in other dimensions of the world, of life. Among other things, I thought: if I had been born and lived in a prison without windows, and therefore did not know that there was a sun, trees, rivers, that there was something tastier than what they gave me, would I have a desire for anything? Freedom! But what was “freedom” to that hermit monk who walled himself up? The desire for freedom is a desire for something. With the disappearance of that “something” (delusion), it becomes indifferent whether you are in prison or outside of it. You can be a serf (a kolkhoznik without a passport) and not feel like a serf. So it turns out that a slave is not one who is in bondage. A slave is one who feels like a slave.

And so my last period of imprisonment passed. As my release date approached, I wrote down and memorized Afonin’s parents’ address. And then the day came—April 13, 1963. My cellmates were both happy that I was finally escaping this abuse, that I would soon be a free man and that spring, with all its charms, would blossom for me, and sad that their fate was different, that for them it would be years and years before they saw freedom and had to endure this abuse. I understood their state. Especially Afonin’s—a young man whose youth would be spent behind bars. The door opened. I said goodbye to everyone and walked out of the cell. They led me downstairs. And there, after checking everything, they gave me back my small wooden suitcase, painted dark blue, with two books inside where the home addresses of prisoners were hidden. People don’t leave the camps with suitcases like this anymore, but I didn’t care. I used to have a new, factory-made one, but at Camp 17 I gave it to Omelchenko from the Rivne region and took his wooden one, because where could he, my peer, without any family, go with a suitcase like that to stay with strangers. They handed me a train ticket to Novohrad-Volynskyi and a certificate of release, with which I had to go to the passport office to get a passport. At the guardhouse, they wanted me to sign a non-disclosure agreement about some “prison secrets,” but I refused.

After reaching the railway station, which was not far from the prison, I turned right towards the passport office. It didn't take long to get there. They quickly issued me a passport. Returning to the station, I waited for some time for the electric train. When it was time to board (around 2 p.m.), I crossed to the other side of the station, where an almost empty electric train was standing at the last track by a high platform. Soon the train departed, and after a while I was at Petushki station, where I had a transfer. I ate something at the canteen and sent a letter to Afonin's parents in Leningrad, writing that their son was imprisoned with Kulchar, that in prison every crumb counts, and that he was eligible to receive a package for him. I think I also suggested they send a small sum of money for Kulchar. I stood on the platform. A light snow was falling. I looked at the wheels of a passing train and thought: “Is it even worth going home, since everything is pointless?” It was already getting dark when I boarded the train bound for Moscow. My journey from Petushki to Novohrad has somehow faded from memory. The only thing that remains is arriving in Kyiv in the afternoon, the sun shining brightly, and the train to Novohrad not due until sometime that night. I remembered the train schedule that passed through Novohrad-Volynskyi every day, so from prison I had written to my parents that I would be in Novohrad around 10 in the morning. And there it was, Novohrad. Not many people were getting off the train. So, when I stepped out of the carriage not far from the station, we saw each other right away and started walking toward one another. My father and my brother Mykola had come to meet me. They immediately pulled clothes out of a bag and offered me a change. But I refused. I was fine with what I was wearing: a new pea coat issued upon release, and a dark blue cap with an unfinished trident stitched on the front, made in the camp and given to me by Vasyl Makarenko. I didn't care how people perceived me. After all, a person should behave as if there is no one else in the universe but them. Of course, I distinguished between people: they were females and males. Each wanted something, so each paid attention to the state of their “plumage.”

“Let's go to the canteen and eat,” my father said to me, probably seeing my appearance.

“No, let's go home,” I told him.

Arriving in Rohachiv, we got out at the Dovbysh turnoff and hurried home. The day was somewhat cheerless, overcast. And mud on the path we took after the bridge to get home by a shortcut. We met a few people who greeted us, but we didn't stop because we had no time; my mother was at home, and she needed to be cheered by my return. We entered the yard, and my mother had already seen us; she opened the door and rushed toward me with tears in her eyes. But I was unmoved. (I did not forget: a mother is yesterday’s girl who wanted to become a woman, the same as a heifer that wanted to become a cow). I understood my mother, but I was no longer the person I once was; instead of showing joy, I wanted more and more to say what Jesus had said:

“What have I to do with you, woman!”

My mother quickly calmed down and, not hiding her joy, started bringing plates to the table.

We sat down at the table, poured some shots, and had lunch. My youngest brother Andriy and my nephew Pavlyk, my sister Nadia’s son, came home from school. Andriy was already quite big, not the little boy who had seen me off to Zhytomyr in 1959. And he, like everyone else, was glad I was home, telling me about the wonderful large dog he had had, one that would even jump over the gate on command. But the dog was gone now; a few days ago, they had found him dead in his doghouse.

Not long after lunch, relatives and neighbors began to arrive, and my half-brothers, Vasyl and Pavlo, came by cart. Everyone commented on how I used to be and how thin I had become after prison. And Andriy Slyusarchuk, my father's cousin, who had also spent a short time in a camp for something, saw me, sat down at the table, drank a shot, and wiped away tears. I sat with the guests for a while, but feeling tired, I climbed onto the warm stove and drifted into oblivion.

Two weeks have passed since I've been home. I registered my residence in the village. I also received a letter from Kulchar, thanking me for my help in getting him a package. I was even surprised that it had all happened so quickly. I wrote letters to Ivan Kochubey and Pavlo Androsyuk, to let them know I was home and thinking of them. I had no one on the outside besides my family. During my entire imprisonment, I only corresponded with my parents and sisters, except for once writing back to Oleksandr Hryhorenko. And what was there to write to others? And for what purpose?! Going through photographs, I pulled out the ones girls had given me as keepsakes and, in front of my mother, threw them into the burning stove.

“Why? You could have kept them!” said my mother.

“That's over,” I answered her and continued, “I will not have a family. If I were a believer, I would go to a monastery.” (A year before my release, I had the idea of creating an Order that would call for an end to reproduction. But at the same time, I understood: humanity would ignore my arguments about the meaninglessness of producing children. It would be like telling an apple tree not to produce apples. It would be just another sect of those who do not reproduce).

“But what about without a family? And old age?” my mother was back at it again.

“I won't live to old age,” I told her. “I will continue on my own path. I don't want to repeat your life,” I added.

My mother was upset and, not knowing what to say to me, would sometimes sob quietly. And I didn't want to give my family false hope. Why, when I could perish in the near future. I was sure they wouldn't take me alive again.

I was resting, recovering after prison. And if I provided any help, it was only with the chores in the vegetable garden. It pained me that I couldn't help my family in any substantial way; like most in the village, they were barely making ends meet. And on top of that, my mother was a milkmaid on a farm, and my sister Olha was milking cows on a sovkhoz somewhere in the Zaporizhzhia region and living in a dormitory, and Nadia, having separated from her husband, was also in a sovkhoz on the vineyards near Dzhankoi, in a dormitory. I knew my sisters were struggling too, because their wages were paltry. My brother Mykola worked as a tractor driver on the kolkhoz, doing various jobs, but he earned a pittance. A grim situation, but I comforted myself with the thought that I would soon connect with the right people and be able to pull something off—get money not only for myself, but for them as well.

And so in May, a month after my release, Borys Bulbinsky came to visit me. When he arrived, my father and I happened to be in the yard. I immediately told my father:

“He's an acquaintance of mine from Virlya.” Why did my father need to know who he was, where he was from, and why he had come to see me?

We walked to the end of the vegetable garden, sat on the slope of a hillock, and Borys told me about his life on the outside and his work in creating an organization. He lived in Zdolbuniv, worked as a laborer at the Zdolbuniv cement plant because he wasn't allowed to teach. He told me that an underground organization called the VDF RSDP (All- Democratic Front—Revolutionary Social-Democratic Party) had already been created, that leaflets had been printed, and they were about to start distributing them. He also told me about the content of the leaflet. It was about Khrushchev's revival of Stalinism, calls for democratization, a multi-party system, and the right of every nation to self-determination.

“And in what language are the leaflets that will be distributed in Ukraine printed?” I asked Borys.

Borys hesitated, but then said, “In Russian.”

“Well, that’s not right, for Ukrainians to be distributing leaflets in Ukraine in the Russian language,” I told him.

“In time, there will be Ukrainian ones too,” Borys promised.

I inquired about how the organization was faring with producing false documents in case they needed to go underground, and about its finances. It turned out they hadn’t even considered going underground. And their finances consisted of the earnings of the organization’s members. I looked at his worn, grayish jacket, at his wrinkled pants tucked into tarpaulin boots. And this was mid-May! I thought: no, he’s not dressed like this for conspiratorial purposes, to look like some local collective farmer.

“This is no way to operate,” I told Borys, and continued:

“Before you engage in any activity, you need to have false documents and go underground. And then, first and foremost, you need weapons and money, because the organization can't function on those earned pennies, especially not one that claims to be All-.” Borys agreed that money was indeed necessary. But as for going underground, he showed no desire for it. So I told him about the conditions prisoners were now living in, that the conditions he had experienced were gone, and that if you don't go underground, it’s very easy to end up behind bars again. Borys said confidently:

“If you're afraid of prison, there’s no point in doing anything.”

I said nothing in response to this remark, but I thought: it's good that he's not afraid of prison.

I trusted Borys. So I told him that my plans included creating a nationalist organization and organizing the escape of a group of prisoners from the camp. Therefore, I could not join his organization. But we could cooperate—help each other. Borys asked me to help distribute the leaflets. I disagreed, because such a trivial matter was not worth my time. But when Borys said that he wouldn't mind getting his hands on some money, and that the watchman at the cement plant had a revolver that could easily be taken from him, I agreed to help him with the distribution, but on the condition that after distributing the leaflets, I would come to him, we would take the revolver from the watchman, and go get money—we would carry out an expropriation, attacking some cash office or store, or a cash courier. I was glad he agreed, because now I didn't have to look for someone or wait for any of the reliable guys who were soon to be released. Besides, if need be, he promised that his people could also get involved in my affairs. I also made an agreement with him that no one from his organization would know about me. I told him:

“I don't want to know who the people in your organization are, and I don't want any of them to know about me.”

While we were talking, my father was working in the garden. Seeing that we were coming back from the hillock, he came over and said:

“Let's go have lunch.”

The three of us sat down at the table. My father even put a bottle on it. A conversation started over lunch. My father asked Borys who he was and what he did for a living. And for some reason, Borys didn't try to hide who he was and where he was from, saying that he wasn't from the neighboring village of Virlya, but from Viliya, in the Rivne region. I didn't like that, but I thought—let it be. And after Borys had gone out the gate, my father said to me:

“So, someone like you has come to visit. You're planning to get into foolishness again. You want to go to prison?! You two care so much about the people! What's it to you? Don't you see what these people are like?!”

I tried to calm my father, telling him that the man was just passing through and had stopped by to see me. That we weren't planning on doing anything. I said nothing to my father about the people, because I saw for myself what they were worth. And anyway, what did the people have to do with it?! Did one need the people to cause some trouble for Moscow (the occupier)? What were they to me, or I to them? After all, it was simply an instinct of opposition at play—a desire to punch those who imposed their will by force. In this case, opposition to insolent Moscow. Besides, despite everything, something of Herostratus still smoldered within me. My parents, especially my mother, perceived me as some kind of primitive. My sister Olha once told me that my mother, speaking of me, had said: “Serhiy, like Christ, suffers for the people.” (My parents probably thought I was that idiot from Gorky’s story who tore out his heart to light the way for pigs to the trough. If so, they were mistaken, because for me, to sacrifice my life would be to become manure for someone else, to acknowledge myself as inferior. And what could be more valuable than oneself!).

I understood that Bulbinsky was not what I would have wanted in this case. But I needed to do something, as I had been living off my parents for a month already, and getting a job was not part of my plans. I had no desire to be a voluntary slave. Besides, the authorities would soon notice that I wasn't working and demand that I find a job at some enterprise or go to work on the collective farm. So, there was nothing left to do but go underground. And for that, I needed at least a weapon and money. I saw no other way to get a weapon and money than with Bulbinsky. My attempts to convince Borys to first do what I proposed—get a weapon and money—kept hitting the same wall:

“No! First, the leaflets, because if we get arrested, we’ll be facing criminal charges.”

And so, a few days later, I left for Zdolbuniv. After meeting at the agreed-upon location, we went to the house where he lived. While examining the printing block Borys used for the leaflets, I asked him how he had printed them—barehanded or with gloves.

“Barehanded,” Borys replied.

“What?! Then your fingerprints are all over the leaflets. They'll track you down immediately,” I told him.

Instead of just spitting and walking away from him, I still said:

“Fine, I'll destroy the prints on the leaflets. And you do the same with the ones you have.”

Taking 1,800 leaflets (the verdict and Bulbinsky’s testimony mention “1,000.” Why, is unknown. Though I remember clearly—1,800. So I'll state that figure. Though—I don't care), I headed back.

Upon arriving home, I immediately dug a shallow pit in the cowshed, placed the leaflets inside, covered them with dirt, and tamped it down. Since I arrived home in the morning, my parents guessed I had gone somewhere to get something. And again my father confronted me with his demands not to do anything that would lead to prison. But I paid no attention, merely repeating what I had said before: that I was not going to live like them and those like them. You have your life, and I have mine. Prison is prison! And if I get sent back, I won't ask for help.

A few days later, I dug up the leaflets, brought them into the house, and began destroying Bulbinsky's fingerprints. I would take a stack of leaflets and, tilting it first toward me and then away, tap it against the table. Each sheet would rub against the next, thus erasing the fingerprints. After diligently performing this operation, I packed the leaflets in a bundle, and the next day (May 20), around noon, I hitched a ride to Dovbysh. At the intersection with the turnoff to Dovbysh, I got out of the car and walked along the road toward the Novohrad-Volynskyi—Zhytomyr highway. Soon, I saw what I had intended to find on the way to Zhytomyr: not far off to the right, a boy was grazing a cow. I wrapped my right wrist with a pre-prepared strip of white cloth, pulled my cap down over my eyes, and approaching the boy, I told him I was a correspondent and needed to mail some letters, but I had carelessly injured my hand and couldn't sign the envelopes. So, could he help me? The boy agreed. I gave him a pen, and he addressed one envelope after another. The addressees: Yevtushenko, Tvardovsky, and a few other well-known writers. The boy was still very young, shy, and spoke to me only with his head bowed. I liked that. It was unlikely he would remember me. I thanked him and, returning to the road, walked toward the highway.

I was in no hurry, as it was still a long way until evening. Once on the highway, I hitched a ride, and by sunset I was on the outskirts of Zhytomyr—in Bohunia. Waiting for twilight at the last tram stop, I took out a few leaflets and, scattering them at the stop, I crossed to the other side of the road and, walking along the fence of a military base, periodically slipped a few leaflets between the pickets. Distributing leaflets on both sides of the street, I reached the bus station, which was then located on what is now Victory Square, around midnight. I also dropped the envelopes into mailboxes. Hiding a small portion of the leaflets in a pile of bricks at some large new construction site (the “Zhytomyr” hotel), I headed toward the railway station, scattering leaflets in the courtyards of houses, which were mostly single-story. I placed leaflets on windowsills and sometimes tossed them through open casement windows. The night was quiet and warm, and the streets were deserted. After distributing leaflets in the railway station area, I turned toward the city center, continuing in the same manner. It was already beginning to dawn in the east when I retrieved the remaining leaflets from the pile of bricks and resumed their distribution. I scattered the last leaflets just as the sun was about to rise, and a few solitary pedestrians had already appeared on the street.

So, I barely managed to accomplish what I had planned. In the evening, when I began the distribution, I hadn't thought it would take so much time. Although I didn't value these leaflets and was distributing them just to get it over with. Of course, if these had been my organization’s leaflets, the distribution would have been much more rational—it would have been done with the certainty that the leaflets would only reach their intended recipients. But in this case, I was essentially just fulfilling an order. Without a doubt, such a number of leaflets should have been distributed over more than one night, perhaps not even two. Feeling considerable fatigue (in addition to being on my feet all night, I had also walked over ten kilometers from Dovbysh to the highway), I went to the bus station. I stayed there for less than an hour, waiting for the first bus to Novohrad. In Novohrad, I mailed a letter to Bulbinsky, letting him know that the leaflets had been distributed in Zhytomyr, and immediately hitched a ride to Rohachiv. Upon arrival, I went into the school. Just in time for a break. Meeting my brother Andriy, I asked how things were at home, if anyone had come by. Hearing that no one had, I told Andriy that if anyone asked, he should say that I had spent the night at home. And I calmly went home.

About two days later, while I was shaving, a fellow villager came to see me—an ordinary collective farmer, but he was a member of the Communist Party. He came in and asked if I had been to Zhytomyr, if I had seen what kind of bicycles they were selling there. I immediately understood that, as a communist, he had been given an assignment and was forced to carry it out. His voice betrayed him; he had no acting talent and probably understood that it was no small matter they were interested in—whether Serhiy had been in Zhytomyr. Tilting my head back and running the razor over my chin, I told him:

“I haven't been to Zhytomyr. I don't know about the bicycles there.”

He left the house immediately. I understood that it must have been unpleasant for him to carry out this errand.

Sometime toward the end of May, I traveled to Zhytomyr, visited the furniture factory, the NSHCH, and met with Valentina Ternova, with whom I had studied in evening school before my imprisonment. I had even paid her a little attention when we returned from school late in the evening: me to the dormitory, and she across the bridge near the station. But when I moved out of the dormitory, my contact with her ceased. I never spoke to her of love, but she became somewhat sad and after a while, for some reason, stopped coming to school, even though she was a good student. So I decided to meet with her. Finding out she was at some women's regiment in Bohunia, I called for her that evening, and we went for a short walk. Valentina was in a military uniform, training to be a radio operator. She told me that leaflets had been distributed in Zhytomyr and that in the morning, around 6 o’clock, they were awakened by an alarm and sent out into the city streets to collect them. People at the furniture factory and the NSHCH also told me about the leaflets.

After returning from Zhytomyr, I left a few days later for Zaporizhzhia, to the “Azov” sovkhoz where my sister Olha worked. After visiting her, I traveled to Dzhankoi, where my sister Nadia worked at a vineyard sovkhoz. I hadn't told my sisters I was planning to visit, so my arrival was a surprise for them. Neither Olha's nor Nadia's situation was comforting: a dormitory, exhausting work, and a meager salary. And I couldn't help them in any way. Still, seeing Nadia's life, and on top of that, the fact that her son was growing up essentially as an orphan, I suggested that Nadia quit her job and return to the Zhytomyr region. Nadia agreed and quickly gave her notice. We returned to our parents together.

In the first decade of June, trying to remain unnoticed, I traveled to Zdolbuniv to meet with Bulbinsky. As agreed, we met in the buffet at the railway station. After drinking a glass of juice, we went to a meadow near the station to discuss our next steps, or more precisely, as I had planned: to take the revolver from the watchman that very night or the next, because I had no intention of postponing this matter for another visit. On the way to the meadow, I didn't ask him anything about it, because I had done my part, and now we had to do what we had agreed upon. I just told him about the boy near the village of Dovbysh and how I had distributed the leaflets. But when we sat down and I asked when we would go to get the revolver, Bulbinsky, after a pause, said:

“I'm afraid!”

I tried to appeal to him, but to no avail. The answer was always the same: “I'm afraid!”

Convinced that my appeals to his conscience had been exhausted and there was nothing more to talk about, I stood up. Borys stood up too. We walked back to the station in silence. At the station, we parted ways, with no intention of meeting in the future. I was annoyed that I had gotten involved with this worthless “revolutionary,” that I had let myself be made a fool of. I could have set different terms: first, we get the revolver, and only then the leaflets. And if he hadn't agreed, I should have just parted ways with him. The only thing that reassured me was that the KGB wouldn't find me, and my certainty that Bulbinsky, if arrested, wouldn't give me up. I was so sure of this that I didn't even threaten to kill him in case of betrayal. I didn't even punch him for refusing to keep his promise. Though a punch wouldn't have been enough; I should have “taken him out”—and that would have been the end of it.

As it turned out, it wasn't easy for Nadia to get settled in Zhytomyr. She couldn't find a job for some reason, and they refused her residency registration. We had been running around Zhytomyr for two days, and we were getting nowhere. And I thought: why not go to the KGB and ask for their help. Besides, by turning to them, I would show them that I had nothing to fear from them, because I was not involved in anything. I saw no other solution but to turn to the KGB. And so, Nadia and I were at the KGB entrance. After asking the officer on duty to arrange a meeting with someone from the leadership, I sat in a room and waited. I had to wait a long time. Finally, a major arrived and took me from the reception area. We walked across a courtyard and approached a gap between two low brick walls. Two workers with shovels stood by this gap. And the entire gap, several meters long, was neatly covered with yellow sand. It looked as if they were about to pave this section with asphalt. The major walked slightly to the side, placing his feet carefully on the sand. I followed his example, stepping so as not to scatter the sand. Neat footprints were left behind us. We entered an office. I explained my request. I explained that my sister had listened to me, quit her job, and now couldn't get her residency registered. I hadn't even finished explaining our situation when three more men in civilian clothes came in and sat down at the table from all sides. The major heard me out and, without giving a firm “yes” or “no,” but saying something vague, shifted the conversation to politics and economics, weaving in things that stemmed from the content of the leaflet. The major talked, and the others watched my face intently. At first, out of politeness, I listened attentively to the major, but his speech became uninteresting and tedious to me, which was undoubtedly reflected on my face. One by one, the three men got up and left the office. The major stopped his speech, and I again asked:

“So? Will you help or not?”

“We'll help. Have your sister go to the passport office, and I'll call them,” the major said.

I thanked him and left the KGB building. My sister was waiting for me on the street, worried because I had been gone for so long. We went to the passport office. This time, there were no problems. They registered her immediately. Now that she had her registration, she would be able to find a job.

Although it was unpleasant for me, after considering everything, I decided to get a job after all. After the incident with Bulbinsky, I didn't look for anyone who could help me get false documents, a weapon, and money. I was in no hurry; there were still two years until Kochubey was due back at the camp. So, there was still time. I was in no hurry. And Makarenko and Telnikov were due to be released soon. True, upon their release, they wouldn't have time for me at first. After all, if they agreed, they, like me, would need to find someone with the right information about where and what could be obtained. So, that would take a lot of time. I couldn't just sit around freeloading off my parents all that time. And representatives of the authorities had already started demanding that I find a job somewhere. So, like it or not, I went to apply for a job as a carpenter at “Mizhkolhospbud”—to become a voluntary slave after all. And I, like the other workers and employees, began to travel to “Mizhkolhospbud,” located on the outskirts of Baranivka. And so I became a slave again, this time voluntarily. This oppressed me greatly. I'm not on a chain, am I?! After all, a wolf, freed from its tether, doesn't wait by its kennel to be tied up again. But I was like that dog. And everywhere—only dogs. They don't even feel the collars around their necks. They are completely satisfied with their canine fate. And if they had their fill of meat in their bowls, they wouldn't want anything more. They laugh, sing, fall in love. And they rejoice when a new offspring appears in their kennel, one who will continue the “canine lineage.” And I, like them, was in a collar. But we were different. We had nothing to talk about. I worked, just like them. But in silence. I knew: “I am a temporary dog. The ‘forest’ awaits me.” This attitude toward performing any functions in society applied not only to communist society. I could no longer be a worker or an employee in any society. I could not be an ant in an anthill. Regardless of the position it holds in that anthill.

In my free time, I would take walks, go to the river. I didn't socialize with girls. I might have a conversation with one now and then. And to the suggestions about starting a family, I would sometimes say: “I'm not against having a wife. But if she wants to have a child, I'll have to take her to the neighbor's.” You know, like they take a cow to a bull. (Fooling around is one thing, but being involved in the making of people… I am a thinking being! I would sooner face a firing squad than do something like that). As in my imprisonment, I lived a double life: an inner one—my own, and an outer one—the one lived by those around me. Sometimes, the inner life would surface.

In Zhytomyr and Rohachiv, I behaved quite freely. And since I had received information from many people that leaflets had been distributed in Zhytomyr, I shared this information with many. Sometimes I would even wear the cap I brought from prison. I also made some statements that were later characterized as anti-Soviet and nationalist. I did this consciously, convinced that such behavior would indicate that I was not involved in anything clandestine.

It must have been past the middle of summer when a student from the Zhytomyr Cultural and Educational College, who was supposed to be doing his practicum in Rohachiv, moved in with the Lavrenchuks across the street from our house. We got acquainted very quickly. He was about my age. In the evenings, we started meeting and discussing various topics. I also asked him if he had come across any of the leaflets that had been distributed in Zhytomyr. And I said: “If leaflets are being distributed, it means there's some kind of underground organization.” His behavior was somewhat strange, not typical for a student. My father also noticed this when he dropped by our place during dinner one evening. The neighbors he was staying with noticed it too. Well, so what, why shouldn't I talk to him. I complained to him that my earnings were small, that our house was in a wretched state. But he could see our miserable life for himself. The next evening, we met, and he, treating me and my brother Mykola to expensive candies, said he had been to Zhytomyr. It was a beautiful evening, and we decided to go to the club in Ostrozhets. There were either dances or something else going on. We barely spent any time in the club, just loitered outside, where I occasionally ran into acquaintances who, after exchanging a few phrases, would go into the club. The club didn't interest me—I had simply gone for a walk. The student also wasn't interested in what was happening in the club. We continued to talk about all sorts of things, and suddenly, after repeating that he had been in Zhytomyr, the “student” changed his tone—it was now a tone of superiority. And this was no longer some dim-witted student. And although he didn't say directly who he was, he openly stated that he had been to the KGB, had a conversation there, and had a good offer for me. Namely: if I agreed to cooperate, I would have money, a good job, and an apartment in Zhytomyr. “But you'll get the apartment later, for now, you'll occupy one of the vacant rooms in this apartment. This room will already be yours,” he told me.

“No, I won't go for that,” I told the “student.”

He was surprised. He must have been confident that I would gladly accept the offer. And so, despite my “no,” he continued on about the “good offer,” with the same tone in his voice, probably taking my “no” as some kind of misunderstanding.

“No!” I told him again, but this time with firmness in my voice.

The “student” returned to a normal tone and now tried to convince me that I was acting foolishly by refusing such benefits that I would have if I cooperated. But after hearing a firm “No!” again, he fell silent. We had nothing more to talk about. My brother Mykola approached us. The “student” took a few candies from his pocket and offered one each to me and Mykola. I took the candy and, putting it in my mouth, pretended to be savoring it. It struck me as strange that he had recently given us handfuls, and now just one each. So, after standing with him for about a minute, I told Mykola I needed to ask him something and, taking him aside, told him to spit out the candy. Most likely there was nothing in the candy, but just in case, it was better not to eat it. Without returning to the offer, the “student” walked back to Rohachiv with us. As I went to my house, as if nothing had happened, I told him, “Good night.” I never saw him again. He left the next day. His “practicum” was short-lived.

I didn't maintain contact with Bulbinsky and didn't know how his leaflet distribution was going. But the appearance of the “student” gave reason to believe that the leaflets were being distributed and that the KGB needed someone who could get a lead on the organization. The fact that the KGB decided they could get such information from me probably indicated that they had the code I received from Pavlo Androsyuk. Using this code, I had informed Pavlo that I had contacted an organization, but it was not the kind I needed, and therefore I could have nothing to do with it. And if this was indeed the case, then the KGB had confirmed for themselves that I was not involved in distributing the leaflets, but that I had a connection to some organization. Perhaps the one that had distributed the leaflets in Zhytomyr.

Summer passed. Telnikov was supposed to be released from the camp around this time. There should have been some word from him. But on September 23, I was handed a notice from the Baranivka military commissariat to go to the Zhytomyr hospital. I was to undergo a medical examination there to determine my fitness for military service. On the 24th, I arrived at the hospital. At the hospital, they informed me that for some reason, they could not admit me on the day of my arrival. And that I should come back the next day—September 25. Well, so be it. I went to my friend Vasyl Herasymchuk, who lived in his unfinished house in Marianivka. The house was a duplex. In the other half, which was also unfinished, lived Vasyl's wife's aunt, Olena, with her husband Vasyl, whose last name was Kozel. After talking with everyone, I decided to visit Nadiyka Kotenko, who lived with her parents on Borodiya Street. It was already dark when Nadiyka was called out to the street (I first asked some boy, and then one of the men who approached me). That section of the street was not lit, and we couldn't make each other out. It was a meeting of two dark figures, in whose voices something familiar still remained. But even that was enough to feel that she was no longer the 16-year-old girl. The joy from our meeting, which was once there, was also gone. It was now just a meeting of old acquaintances. I already knew about Nadia from her sister Halia (Olena), whom I had met in May when I visited the NSHCH office. And Halia had told her a little about me. Of course, she could no longer feel what she had before my arrest, because I had not been in touch with her and had not even hurried to see her after my release. And she had grown up—she had started to look at things more soberly. That was probably why she asked me if I would continue to engage in activities that could lead to prison. After talking for about 10 minutes, we parted ways, as there was nothing to talk about; we were very different. And I had to get back to Herasymchuk's place.

The next day, upon arriving at the hospital, I was placed in the neurology department, with the explanation that there were no free beds in the other departments. I was not familiar with the regulations for medical examinations, or whether my referral to the hospital was legitimate, but I felt a constant unease. And when my father arrived at the hospital on September 26, in the late afternoon, I even told him: “I want to escape from here.” And indeed: something was tormenting me, some unknown anxiety and a feeling that I needed to slip away unnoticed. I even walked around the hospital grounds, considering how I might do it. But the urge to escape was there, without a clear reason for such a step.

On September 27, in the afternoon, they returned my clothes and discharged me from the hospital. On my way to the bus station, I went to the Zhytnii market, planning to buy something. I went into a store on the left side, at the corner of Moskovska and Hohol streets. (The entrance was from Hohol Street). As soon as I left the store and went down the steps, a GAZ jeep (they called it a “bobik”) pulled up in front of me. Three men in civilian clothes immediately surrounded me and, saying quietly that they were from the KGB (among them was the major I had seen before), ordered me to get into the car. It was all done quietly and gave the impression that some collective farmers were picking up an acquaintance of theirs.

I was at the KGB again. Again in the same office where I had asked for help with my sister’s registration. There were four of them. As soon as they came in, they began the interrogation. They said to me: “Name the prisoners you were with in Mordovia.” I named them. When I got to the name Bulbinsky, the command came: “Stop! Now tell us about your relationship with him and what you know.” And what could I say? I said that I had been in Camp 17 with him for a while. And that was all. I knew nothing more. I didn’t know where he was, I hadn’t seen him. The KGB men didn't waste any time and immediately laid it out: on September 19 in Rivne, Bulbinsky was arrested with a suitcase full of leaflets; on the 20th, Bulbinsky testified against you. And they told me about my meetings with Bulbinsky and everything related to the leaflets distributed in Zhytomyr. I don’t remember if it was the same day or the next, but they even read his testimony to me. There was no doubt; only Bulbinsky could have recounted it in such sequence, in such detail (he even mentioned the shepherd boy near the village of Dovbysh). Having received such valuable information from the KGB and knowing that they had nothing on me besides Bulbinsky's testimony, I constructed my defense, admitting that yes, in the second half of May (not the first), Bulbinsky had come to see me and during our conversation had asked about my plans for the future, whether I intended to engage in anti-Soviet activities. To which I had replied that I was not going to do anything that could land me in prison, telling him about the harsh regime now in place in the prisons. I also told the KGB that before leaving, Bulbinsky had asked if I would lend him my shoes, as he had to go to some city and it would be awkward to show up in tarpaulin boots. And that on his way back, he would stop by and return them. I gave him my shoes, and he later stopped by and returned them. That's all I know. As for why I didn't say this right after I was detained, I explained that I didn't want the KGB to know that I had been visited by someone who had been imprisoned for anti-Soviet activities. As for Bulbinsky's testimony, if he really said such things, it was a lie.

After a few days in the temporary detention cell, I was transferred to the prison. I was alone both in the temporary detention and in the prison. It seemed there were no others in Zhytomyr that the KGB was interested in. After my testimony, I wasn't called in again. Only once was I taken for some formality and shown to the head of the KGB directorate. It must have been just to be shown, because when I entered the large office, the director stopped about three steps away from me, said something, I answered, and I was led out.

“You’ll go to Kyiv. Let them figure it out there,” some KGB officer told me.

About a week after my arrest, I was transported by a prison van to Kyiv and placed in a cell at the KGB's investigative isolator. It was a long cell, probably about six meters long and about two meters wide. The cell was clean. The parquet floor gleamed with a yellowish tint. It was, if I'm not mistaken, the third floor. I spent the longest time in this cell. Mostly alone. Only for a short time, when Kennedy was assassinated, a man about 40 years old was with me. I remember him only because he polished the floor every day (probably instead of doing exercises), and also when he returned to the cell, he asked me if I could guess which major world leader had been killed. I didn't get into a long conversation with that guy, because I had some sort of antipathy toward him. And during an investigation, it’s better to either keep quiet or read a book. (Books could be periodically borrowed from the isolator’s library).

Who that man was and what he was imprisoned for remained unknown. Soon he was taken from the cell, and I was alone for quite a long time. This suited me, because especially during an investigation, I preferred solitude. But while I was sitting alone, sometime shortly after lunch, something happened to me that I cannot explain to this day. It didn't last long. But nothing like it had ever happened to me in my life—neither before nor since. So, such a state could not have arisen on its own. Something must have been put in my food.

The investigation was being conducted by the republican KGB. And the four-man investigative team on the Bulbinsky case was headed by Captain Starostin. I was assigned to Captain Kossovych, an investigator from the Zhytomyr KGB. The team also included investigators from the Rivne and Luhansk KGBs. Kossovych was probably already over 40. It turned out he had also been in the group that surrounded me in the office when I came with my sister for help. I didn't remember him, but he once told me: “You handled yourself well back then.” And he also said that back in Zhytomyr, they hadn't conducted the investigation as they should have. No doubt they had been too hasty in telling me everything (probably hoping that after laying it all out, they would stun me and I would confess everything at once) and thus helped me to construct a complete defensive narrative from the very beginning of the investigation. It was from them that I learned that they had found a shoeprint of mine in Bohunia (I don't know how clear it was or if it was usable for identification with my shoe), and during the interrogation, I stated that Bulbinsky had borrowed my shoes. In fact, after what I had said, they had nothing left to go on to demand any confessions. Besides, the schoolboy—a 6th-grade student named Stanislav Zapolsky, whom they had found in one of the schools in Dovbysh—testified that the man for whom he had addressed the envelopes was wearing a gray jacket, no cap, and boots, meaning it was, with 100% certainty, none other than Bulbinsky. I was even surprised when I read his testimony. (Later, the thought even occurred to me, was the investigator helping this boy? After all, it would probably have been more advantageous for the Zhytomyr KGB, which had been made to look foolish by clearing me of suspicion, for those leaflets to be pinned on Bulbinsky). They also conducted a lineup, which took place in the investigative isolator. The boy looked over the group presented to him, in which I was also standing, and said that the man was not among us, which was recorded in the protocol.

They also brought my father to Kyiv for a confrontation with Bulbinsky and me. My father testified that he was seeing Bulbinsky for the first time, although Bulbinsky had claimed he had even sat at the same table with him. For my part, I stated that my father had been in the yard, that Bulbinsky had indeed seen him, but that my father had not spoken with him and therefore probably didn't remember him. Besides, time had passed, and students and other acquaintances had visited me, so there was nothing surprising in my father not remembering. And that's how we left it.

They also had me confront Bulbinsky. I didn’t lash out at him. I didn’t even call him names. He said his piece, and I said mine. My brothers and sisters were interrogated. My sister Olha was even summoned to Kyiv. As for my brother Andriyko, Kossovych told me: “He’s just like you.” He didn’t like something about him back then. He probably knew that he sometimes wore the cap I brought back from the camp. (Later, Andriy told me: “He (Kossovych) took that cap, crumpled it up, and threw it on the ground.”) Many people were interrogated. To some extent, the only weak point was that everyone who had told me about the leaflets in Zhytomyr (about five people) refused to confirm my testimony. I think that when they were called into the KGB, they probably decided it was better to say they knew nothing about the leaflets and therefore couldn't have spoken about them to anyone. In other words—stay out of trouble. As for Ternova, who had collected those leaflets, and the KGB knew about it, her refusal to confirm my testimony indicated that she was following the KGB’s instructions. Perhaps she wouldn't have done it if I hadn't stopped paying attention to her back in school. And during our meeting, we had only talked about politics and acquaintances. Even Kossovych, after hearing her out, grumbled: “Not about love, but about politics.”

Of those with whom I socialized, Vasyl Herasymchuk (in his youth, Vasyl ran away from a vocational school, for which he was imprisoned for six months), his wife Svitlana, and their neighbors—Vasyl and Olena, whom I always visited and sometimes stayed with when I came to Zhytomyr—suffered the most. Immediately after my arrest, they were summoned to the KGB and subjected to such pressure, demanding some kind of confessions and accusing Herasymchuk of being involved in my affairs, that Vasyl was no longer sure he would get out of there. The KGB men probably thought that since I was on such friendly terms with them, even if none of them had helped me distribute the leaflets, they must know something about me, although they knew nothing and believed I had been arrested by mistake. Some guy even came to Vasyl Kozel’s place at night, knocking on the door and speaking through it about some affairs they knew nothing about. Herasymchuk also denied telling me about the leaflets in Zhytomyr. But while all the other witnesses were summoned to the Zhytomyr KGB, to which I was brought from Kyiv for that purpose, Herasymchuk was summoned to Kyiv. One day, they take me from my cell and lead me into an office where, besides the investigator, Vasyl is sitting.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him in surprise, forgetting even to greet him.

“I was summoned,” Vasyl replied.

“How are you all doing?”

“My wife is pregnant, and they keep calling us in and demanding some confessions,” Vasyl complained.

The investigator didn't interfere, giving us a chance to talk. I could see that Vasyl was scared, so when the investigator started drawing up the confrontation protocol, I told Vasyl:

“Vasyl, I’ve already testified that you told me leaflets were distributed in Zhytomyr, so I can't change my testimony now. So, you stick to your story, and I'll stick to mine.”

Hearing this, Vasyl cheered up, indicating that he was fine with my proposal. After signing the protocol, I said a friendly goodbye to him and apologized for the trouble my arrest had caused him.

Despite all the efforts of the investigators and Bulbinsky (he told them everything except our agreement regarding the weapon, the money, going underground, and my plans to a nationalist organization and organize an escape from the camp), the KGB did not have sufficient incriminating evidence to send my case to trial. But they had no reason not to believe Bulbinsky either. After all, he hadn't only turned me in. He had also turned in his cousin, Maria Trofimovych, who was a fourth-year student at the Rivne Pedagogical Institute, as well as Taras Tarasiuk from Lysychansk, and Yakovlev and Arbuzov from Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, who had already formed a group of 8 people. He also told them about those he had asked for help in distributing the leaflets and tried to recruit for the organization. And since the KGB had no doubt that the leaflets in Zhytomyr were my doing, they resorted to fabricating evidence to meet the formal requirements of the case. As a result, a nurse from the neurology department of the Zhytomyr hospital gave a statement: “In a conversation with me, Babych said: there is an underground organization and we distributed the leaflets in Zhytomyr.” They also brought that boy, accompanied by some people, to the investigator’s office, where he (without an additional lineup) confirmed the testimony of those who accompanied him, namely: when he returned from Kyiv after the lineup, he remembered that the man to whom he had addressed the envelopes was in that group. And the conclusion of the fingerprint analysis: on one of the leaflets, lines were found that matched the lines of Babych. And although the expert could not, due to the small size of the print, confirm that they belonged to Babych, the lines did match. And that was it—enough evidence for a Soviet court. The KGB had no doubt that I had distributed those leaflets, just as I had no doubt from the very beginning of the investigation that I wouldn't be able to get out of it after Bulbinsky’s testimony, that I would have to serve time. But I didn't want to confess. I wanted to play a game with them and try to outplay them. And I succeeded. They had to resort to fabricating evidence.

They also transported me by prison van to Rivne. It was a long journey, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they were taking me so far. We arrived in the evening. I was placed in a cell in the Rivne prison. The next day, they took me to the KGB directorate. They led me into a small office. And in the office, besides Starostin, an investigator from the Rivne KGB, and some other KGB officer, sat an acquaintance of mine from the camp, with whom I had once traded suitcases—Leonid Omelchenko. I could see the suitcase on a shelf above him, looking exactly like the one I had once given him. I greeted everyone. Omelchenko also replied, but there were no friendly notes in his voice. I was somewhat surprised to see him here, in the office, but I waited to see what would happen. The investigators didn't waste any time and got straight to the point. First, they established whether we knew each other and what our relationship had been like. I told them how it was; that we were on normal terms, that I had spoken with him in the camp, as I had with many others. They also asked Omelchenko. And Omelchenko testified: before I was due to be released in January 1962, Babych had obliged me to distribute anti-Soviet leaflets, taught me methods for making them, and dictated the text of an anti-Soviet nationalist leaflet, and instructed me to draw other people into organized anti-Soviet activities, threatening reprisal if I, while on the outside, did not engage in anti-Soviet activities.

“Well, I’ll be!” I was shocked, because nothing of the sort had ever happened.

I think that even the investigators, having gotten to know me by then, didn't believe him. But testimony is testimony, and it had to be recorded in the protocol. Omelchenko was a primitive man. I don't think the KGB had somehow forced him to give such testimony against me, as it couldn't have served as any kind of evidence in the case of the leaflet distribution in Zhytomyr. Most likely, they had summoned him to the KGB (perhaps he knew something), told him about me, and he, remembering that in the camp he had read me some low-quality anti-Soviet poem he had written and had made anti-Soviet remarks, decided to make a preemptive strike—to slander Babych just in case. Of course, I didn't tell the KGB about his poem or his anti-Soviet sentiments. It would have been ridiculous on my part to try to prove that he was an anti-Soviet himself. I only said that it was a lie. And to him, that I hadn't expected such treachery.

The investigation was coming to a close. It was probably considered that the investigative team had done a good job uncovering an enemy element, because Starostin, as the head of the team, received a promotion in rank. Seeing the major's epaulets on his shoulders, I congratulated him on the promotion. He thanked me, but there was a certain uncertainty in his voice. Perhaps he took my congratulations as irony. After all, he hadn't managed to pin me to the mat. The other investigators remained at their previous ranks. I even sympathized with Kossovych, telling him that it was strange he had more seniority but was still stuck as a captain.

The new year began—January 1964. The investigation finally ended, and I was acquainting myself with the materials of Bulbinsky’s criminal case file. Over several days, volume by volume, I reviewed the entire case in an office under the supervision of a KGB officer. From that material, I learned how thoroughly the searches at home had been conducted, especially the first one. I imagined how my parents must have felt during that long search. I also learned that the KGB had been notified about the leaflets in Zhytomyr sometime after five in the morning. A dog was immediately put on the trail of the shoeprint near the military base fence. The dog followed the scent and led them to the bus station—about an hour after my departure. It turns out that if I had lingered, the dog might have caught me by the leg. I was just lucky that the KGB wasn't informed earlier in the evening that leaflets were being distributed in Zhytomyr, because then they could have easily caught me on a deserted street around midnight. And what was strange about the investigation of this case was that no one (neither then nor later in court) asked Bulbinsky why Babych, after distributing the leaflets in May and reporting it to him in June, never met with him again and had no contact with him until his arrest on September 19. No one asked the question: what had happened between them?

I also learned that some time later, Bulbinsky got married. And this after he himself had distributed leaflets and could have been arrested at any time. He probably gave everyone up because he had grown to like sleeping with a woman, and when he was deprived of it, he wanted to get back what he had lost.

I was awaiting my court hearing. I was in a corner cell, where I had been transferred before the New Year. This cell was the same length as the previous one and just as wide as it was long. The window overlooked a square, and on New Year’s Eve, the glint of fireworks was visible. It was a large cell, and besides me, there were two other guys. When I entered the cell, I didn’t ask them who they were or what they were in for, but from their conversation, I could guess they had been arrested for some currency transactions and a case involving gold. One of them, short and clearly older than me, was Jewish. It was impossible to know whether they were telling the truth or some concocted story. But their behavior and some of their questions, especially from the taller one, indicated they were working for the KGB. They themselves understood that I had no doubt about who my cellmates were.

One day, the taller one said to me:

“Мы всё знаем, всё понимаем.”

“Yes,” I answered him. We understood each other.

On February 6th or 7th, I was taken from my cell. Although I knew who my cellmates were, we hadn’t had any conflicts, so upon leaving, I shook each one’s hand and wished them well. They were taking me to Rivne again. I already knew: I would be tried in Rivne. In the cell at the Rivne city prison, I was with a “tsekhovik” who, while holding some position at a state enterprise, had set up an underground workshop with other officials and was pocketing the money. He had already been sentenced to 15 years, but the sentence had not yet come into force because he had filed an appeal. He told me about their trial, including how when the group’s leader (who had made 100,000 rubles) was sentenced to be shot, his two sons shouted in the courtroom: “Berievtsy! Berievtsy!” In the Rivne prison, lying down was also forbidden from reveille to lights-out, but it was a bit more relaxed than in the KGB jail. Here, you could sometimes even lean against a pillow.

On February 17, they took us to the regional court. Maria Trofymovych and I were placed in a square enclosure on the right side of the hall, and Bulbinsky and Tarasyuk on the left from the entrance. My co-defendants were in civilian clothes, while I was in a pea coat. I hadn’t asked my parents for warm clothing. So when the cold snap began, the KGB agents in Kyiv issued me the pea coat. So I already looked like a zek. But I didn’t care that I looked like I had already been convicted.

An attorney was appointed for each of us. But I declared that the fate of each defendant had already been decided, that this was not a trial but a comedy, and therefore I was refusing an attorney. My appointed attorney took his briefcase and left the courtroom. The closed trial began. When it was my turn to speak, I stated that what Bulbinsky had said was untrue, that I did not and could not have distributed the leaflets because they were in Russian. And the evidence in the case was nothing but a KGB fabrication.

They started calling witnesses. I barely reacted to the testimony of the high school students. It had nothing to do with the leaflets. The same with Omelchenko, who must have realized what he’d done but repeated what was already in the record. I only said: “What Omelchenko said is a lie.” But when the nurse from the hospital testified, I asked her:

“Won’t your conscience bother you for giving false testimony?”

And addressing the judges, I said:

“It’s one of two things: either the nurse is lying, or I’m insane if, without even knowing this nurse’s name, I told her that there was an underground organization and that we had distributed leaflets in Zhytomyr.”

The court did not react to my statement. They also brought in that boy—Zapolsky. He briefly repeated what he had said in Kyiv. Having no doubt that he had been put up to it, I asked the boy:

“Stanislav, tell me, who taught you to lie?”

The boy immediately burst into tears. A woman who had brought him and was standing a little to the side ran up to him, took his hand, and quickly led him out of the courtroom.

Yakovlev and Arbuzov, who had arrived from Murmansk, also gave testimony. They were former political prisoners. In the winter of either 1960 or 1961, I was in the same punishment cell with them at the 3rd camp in Barashevo. They were released shortly after that. It was somewhat strange that they hadn’t been arrested. After all, they didn’t hide the fact that back in 1959, they had agreed with Bulbinsky to an anti-Soviet organization, and after their release, they formed a group of 8 people. And in 1962, Yakovlev specifically came to Zdolbuniv to see Bulbinsky, where they discussed the “minimum” and “maximum” program of the underground organization and agreed on its name—VDFRSDP. The only thing that exonerated them was Yakovlev’s request in a March 1963 letter to Bulbinsky to refrain from producing and distributing leaflets. While giving testimony, both Yakovlev and Arbuzov held themselves well. The judge even threatened Yakovlev that they could be arrested if they continued to behave that way.

Neither Maria Trofymovych nor Taras Tarasyuk had managed to do anything Bulbinsky had instructed them to do. After Bulbinsky gave his testimony on September 20 (ratting everyone out), KGB representatives came to the dormitory of the Rivne Pedagogical Institute and found 500 leaflets in Trofymovych’s nightstand, which Bulbinsky had given her shortly before his arrest. And during a search of Tarasyuk’s place, they seized only one leaflet, which Bulbinsky had left him as a sample for Tarasyuk to produce them independently. Tarasyuk couldn't hide from the KGB agents his preparations for making leaflets and involving other people in underground activities.

This judicial comedy dragged on until February 19. After the prosecutor and the attorneys had spoken, each of the prisoners was given a final statement. Bulbinsky was the first to give his final statement, repenting for everything and tearfully begging for mercy. Tarasyuk and Trofymovych also confessed to everything and repented. But I must say that Trofymovych, despite being a 22-year-old girl who was losing a lot, including her unfinished institute degree, behaved quite courageously and did not beg too much for her freedom. As for me, what could I say in my final statement, other than something they probably didn’t much like to hear? So I said: “First, I am sorry that I am being tried for Russian-language leaflets, moreover, printed in such an antiquated way. And second, I ask that you write in the verdict that Babych is a man who is ultimately convinced of the righteousness of the ideas of Ukrainian nationalism.”

As I mentioned, the trial was closed; even our parents weren’t allowed in, and witnesses were led out immediately after giving testimony. People were let in only for the reading of the verdict. And the verdict was this: I was declared an especially dangerous recidivist and given 10 years of special regime. Bulbinsky was given 10 years, and Tarasyuk and Trofymovych each got 5 years of strict regime.

We returned to the prison. I was in the same paddy wagon as Maria, so I could hear the encouraging shouts of her friends, who continued to call out something even as the wagon started moving, and over the noise of the engine, only separate words could be caught. Soon they handed us the written verdict. I read: “…intends to continue committing especially dangerous state crimes, as he stated in court” (!). They wrote what I had not stated. And about what I had actually said in my “final statement”—not a word.

I didn't file an appeal to have the case reviewed. After all, if my goal had been to get a shorter sentence, I would have confessed to everything during the investigation and repented. Even if I had simply said that I was waiving my final statement, at most, I would have been on a strict regime like everyone else—in a barrack, not a special regime—in a cell. And since I was not pursuing that goal, why should I appeal to them, and thus beg for a discount?

Shortly after the trial, a food parcel arrived for me. I refused it, saying I didn’t need a parcel; I would live on rations. I would have refused right after my arrest. But in that case, I would have had to explain it somehow. I couldn’t just say that I was going to be in for a long time, so I didn’t need parcels. And it would have caused my parents extra anxiety. The parcel was from my father. My father brought the parcel and also got a visit with me. As soon as I came into the visiting room, my father immediately asked why I had refused the parcel. I tried to explain that they have their life, and I have mine. That I don't want to be a burden to the family, to cause trouble.

I wanted to be alone, untethered. Just me and the world that had been revealed to me—a world of senselessness. (Logically, I should have put an end to the absurdity after the trial. And yet, despite that enlightenment in which nothing existed anymore except emptiness—I still couldn’t shake the desire to be in the eyes of others (it turns out they did exist for me after all) who I was and wanted to be for them—a man who ends the absurdity not because he got into some trouble, but because he realized the senselessness of existence.)

Among other things, my father also told me that either the day before or on the day of my arrest, Mykola had been hauling potatoes from the field to the storage mounds with the horses. He came home for lunch with a full cart. And as soon as he arrived, the village authorities showed up, drew up a report in which Mykola was accused of stealing potatoes. Although Mykola insisted he had just stopped for lunch, they didn’t believe him. A criminal case was opened against Mykola, and after review, it was limited to a large fine. They had to sell a cow to pay the fine. And this happened because of me. After all, from September 20, it wasn’t just me they were watching; they were watching Mykola too. And the house, of course, was under surveillance. Nothing but trouble for my parents. As we were saying goodbye, my father again asked me to take the parcel, but I had only one answer: “No! I won’t take it. Take it home.”

Before leaving for Mordovia, three common criminals passed through the cell where I was held. Each explained in his own way why he had ended up in my cell. One of them finally admitted that he had been planted there. Another was memorable because he had a beautiful voice and was always singing, “Почему ты мне не встретилась, юная, стройная.”

I had no more money and didn’t use the commissary either. My cellmates received parcels and bought food from the commissary, while I had nothing but my rations. They pleaded with me to take at least something from them, but I steadfastly refused, explaining that I could just as well have received parcels and used the commissary myself (the verdict had not yet taken legal effect). Around this time, I had a dream: I was very old—an old man. Something was wrong with my leg, and leaning on a stick, I was walking somewhere.

It was already sometime in April. In the morning, I think even before reveille, they took me from my cell without my things, put me in a paddy wagon, and drove me to the Rivne KGB headquarters. There, they led me into a large office and left me alone with some colonel. He must have been the head of the department. We stood about three meters apart. I couldn't figure out why they had brought me here so early, what this colonel wanted, who, pacing around his office, only asked me if I wanted to say anything, maybe my views had changed a little and I was no longer so hostile to the Soviet authorities.

“No changes have occurred. I am the same as I was,” I told him.

“Well then, that’s all.”

I left the office, where I had spent only a few minutes. Outside, it wasn't quite light yet. Getting into the paddy wagon's cubicle, I heard a woman's voice. I thought it was Maria. I called out, but no one answered. A short time later, through the food slot, they read me the resolution of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR. It turned out that on the day they had taken me to that colonel, the Supreme Court had been reviewing our case on appeal. According to this decision, Maria’s and Taras’s sentences were reduced. They would now serve not five, but three years. For me and Bulbinsky—no change.

In mid-May, they took me, Bulbinsky, and Tarasyuk by paddy wagon to Zdolbuniv. There they put us in a prison car and brought us to the prison in the city of Lviv. We were now convicts being transported. But I was held separately from them. When they took me to the bathhouse, however, after undressing and entering the shower room, I saw Bulbinsky standing under a shower. I approached him, and when he saw me, he said:

“I didn’t tell them everything!”

At that same moment, some guy dressed in zek clothes appeared next to us and, of course, heard what Bulbinsky had said.

“What a fool,” I thought and, mumbling something in response, went to wash. Bulbinsky immediately went out to get dressed. There was no one else in the bathhouse.

From Lviv, we left for Kyiv. And then came familiar places: Kholodna Hora in Kharkiv, Ruzaevka. But before we got to Ruzaevka, for some reason they took us through Voronezh, where I was held in some basement, completely isolated. There was no one else in that basement. It seemed like the basement hadn't been used for a very long time. The cell was very neglected. The window of this cell was level with the ground. I was also in Penza. But in Ruzaevka, they didn't get me off the train for some reason (I was sitting separately from Tarasyuk and Bulbinsky) and, realizing their mistake (if it wasn’t planned), they dropped me off in some town called Kuznetsovsk. From there, in handcuffs, accompanied by a policeman, I walked at dawn through the streets of this small town to a small local jail. I was held alone. But when the jailers and medical staff found out that a political prisoner had visited them, they began to visit me in groups of several people, asking me about everything related to politics. I got tired of this interaction. There were some among them who were perhaps genuinely interested in something. But there were also those who reacted very negatively to my assessment of Soviet reality. A few days later, they put me in a paddy wagon and brought me to Ruzaevka. Soon they sent me on to Potma and put me in a large cell (this was a new transit prison), where Bulbinsky and Tarasyuk were also being held. I had already sat with Tarasyuk in the same prison car compartment at some point. He was a newcomer and behaved like people on the outside—if there was any anti-Soviet talk, he would speak in a whisper so no one would hear. My remarks had no effect on him, and I gave up—when he gets to the camp, he'll learn. In a conversation with me, Bulbinsky said that upon arriving at the camp, he would write to the prosecutor's office, stating that he had slandered me. I didn't beat him, I didn't even curse him, because what would that change now. Besides, it wasn’t him who should have been beaten, but me, for agreeing to distribute his leaflets.

At Potma, as usual, just like in '60, the prisoners were assigned to camps. This didn't apply to me, as there was only one camp for me—the 10th. And on June 17, they took us to the camps. And so, the 10th. I get out of the car, while the others continue on. The camp is nearby. They take me to the guardhouse, and after the necessary formalities, I’m led to a solitary cell in the new barrack, whose windows face the exercise yards. That same day, I was changed into clothes with alternating light gray and black stripes, seven centimeters wide. Dressed in the striped suit (trousers and an unlined jacket) and with a matching striped skullcap on my head, I looked like a zebra. In this outfit, I was truly a zek. It was the first time I had worn such a suit, and perhaps because of that, I disliked it at first for some reason. But what could you do, that was the “fashion” here. This was a special-regime camp, after all. After changing me, they transferred me to the old barrack, to cell No. 5, where, I was told, Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj had been held. In 1963, he was released to Rome, where he became a cardinal. The cell, like all the cells in the old barrack, was small. There was a bunk and, of course, a slop bucket. This cell, like all the cells, was overcrowded. You could only sleep on your side and had to turn carefully so as not to wake your neighbor. One prisoner slept on the table, and another on the bench. In this cell, as far as I remember, there were no Ukrainians. And generally no one who caught my attention. There was only one prisoner about my age who had served in Germany, did something there, and ended up in the 10th. If he had no prior convictions, it must have been a death sentence commuted to a special regime. There was some kind of collaborator, some other prisoners, and those who had arrived from common criminal camps. But I wasn't interested in these prisoners; I barely spoke to them, and in general, I was not concerned with them or with camp life at all. I thought of only one thing: how to escape from the camp.

The camp made a depressing impression. It occupied a small area, consisting of a residential zone and an industrial zone. In the residential zone stood two brick barracks and a building that housed the bathhouse, bread-cutting room, laundry, and a club where they showed movies a couple of times a month. There was no kitchen in the camp, so food was brought in from a neighboring camp. The barracks, which stood parallel to each other (the old, shorter one, and the new one opposite the guardhouse), stretched from the guardhouse side to the exercise yards, which were located near the prohibited zone on the opposite side. A narrow corridor ran through the barracks from door to door, with cells on either side. And in the industrial zone, separated from the residential zone by a prohibited area, stood an old workshop where prisoners sewed mittens, a smithy, and a large brick workshop was under construction.

There wasn't a single tree on the camp grounds, either in the residential or industrial zones, only the whitewashed high fence of the prohibited zone all around. This was the camp where I was brought to serve my 10-year sentence.

The next day, probably because not all the paperwork was finished, I wasn’t sent to work. When they began to take out the prisoners from the second shift for their walk, they took me and my cellmate out too. The exercise yards were fenced with barbed wire, with stinking latrines inside them. There weren’t many prisoners in the yards. And then they let the passive homosexuals into the yard (?). They usually sat in separate cells and had their walks separately. It was the first time I had seen this filth. Before this, in my mind, this pathology was as rare as conjoined twins. But here they were, running around, grabbing each other’s rears and fronts, guffawing, while their eyes showed a void, a kind of savagery, a general underdevelopment. And their names: Lyuba, Masha… They were of various ages, some already over 40. These were common criminals who had been slapped with a political article in criminal camps for something and brought to the 10th. I already had camps behind me. But how could I have imagined I would ever see something like this? I remember, at the 17th, there was a man, already old, who did nothing but masturbate, and when people found out, they looked at him as if he were either a pervert or mentally ill.

The scorching sun. The stench. I looked at the whitewashed fence of the prohibited zone, the whitewashed barracks, the barbed wire surrounding everything, at the devils in striped uniforms running around in the stench of the latrine, and I felt as if I had landed in hell. It was disgusting and unpleasant that this scum was with us, the political prisoners. (Though, of course, I understood: everyone scratches where it itches. Between a man and a woman, there is also nothing aesthetic—nothing pure. What’s more, in addition to this filth, they also have oral and anal sex! There are also so-called ‘polishers,’ who are like a bull licking a cow under its tail.)

When I went out to the industrial zone, I met other political prisoners, mainly Ukrainians. Among them were Dmytro Syniak (Marko Boieslav’s bodyguard), Ihor Kichak, Oleksa Vodyniuk, Mykhailo Hliuza, and Vasyl Puhach—the ones I communicated with most. I was 24 years old then. There were very few people my age (I mean those who came from the outside on political charges); most were older. In total, there were about 500 prisoners in the camp. The majority were Ukrainians. These were prisoners who had been deemed especially dangerous recidivists after the Decree, or whose death sentences had been commuted to imprisonment. The contingent: participants in the armed resistance of the 1940s-50s (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and other nationalities), a number of police collaborators, and religious believers (among whom Jehovah's Witnesses were the largest group. Ziatyk was there too, a completely frail man, who was still nominally considered the leader of all Jehovah’s Witness communities in the USSR. I remember him in the exercise yard, striking the ground with his stick, saying: “People think this is their land! This is God’s land!” In the 1930s, he had come from Brooklyn to Western Ukraine and founded a Jehovah's Witness community there. And when the Soviets entered Western Ukraine and began sending Jehovah's Witnesses to camps and into exile, communities of Jehovah's Witnesses sprang up in various parts of the USSR. The Soviets continued to mercilessly persecute these believers, sending them to camps for their preaching activities). There were a few dozen like me—for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda—and a significant portion were common criminals, sentenced in criminal camps for anti-Soviet actions, which were a peculiar form of protest, mainly against the harsh regime introduced in the camps after the Decree of May 5, 1961. Among them were also those who had not been executed for tattoos, which were mostly of this content: “Death to Khrushchev,” “Death to the Central Committee,” “Slave of the USSR.” If such a prisoner was not executed, then to prevent him from being a walking slogan (the tattoos were mostly on the face), they were partially or completely forcibly cut out. If the tattoo was on the body, they might leave it. I remember one such tattoo: the fingers of a tattooed hand on the chest tightly squeezing a throat. Below the hand was the inscription: “The CPSU is strangling me.” That prisoner (Bragin) worked in the machine shop. For such a tattoo, they were tried under Article 77-prime. Although the article said nothing about tattoos, let alone execution for such an act. Thus, they were tried according to some secret directive.

Among the common criminals, there were those who held certain political beliefs, for which they received a political article, but they were few and far between. The others continued to live their lives as they always had. The political prisoners, if they interacted with them at all, did so from a distance, superficially. The political prisoners had no serious conflicts with them, because the common criminals knew their place. The prisoners worked on the construction of the large workshop, sewed mittens, and a small number went to the Udarne settlement to work on some construction projects.

It was hungry in the camp. There was no food in the commissary. For three rubles, you could only buy tobacco, soap, tooth powder, and a brush. And no parcels or packages. There was no supplementary food either, even though the prisoners did heavy labor on the construction site. Therefore, everyone was hungry and noticeably emaciated. Probably due to these conditions, even before my arrival, one of the common criminals (he had ended up with the politicals back in the ‘50s, serving with them in a penal camp) from Belarus, named Parakhnevich, cut off his own ears right at the head and put them in an envelope addressed to: “Moscow, Kremlin, to Khrushchev.” For this, he earned the nickname “General Bezukhov” [General Earless]. And in 1963, one of the political prisoners committed suicide. Upon arriving at the camp, he was planning to escape. They noticed him as he was about to climb into the prohibited zone. He got 6 months in solitary. In solitary, he hanged himself. It happened on December 10, 1963, on “Human Rights Day.” Neither I nor others were concerned with him, and so a few years later, we couldn’t even remember his name. I only remember from the stories that he was a young guy, a former student, it seems, and of Lithuanian nationality.

Even while under investigation, I was thinking about escaping. So upon arriving at the camp, I got acquainted with Vasyl Puhach, who had escaped before, even taking part in disarming a convoy somewhere in Siberia, and Faizuddin Timur—a Tatar. They were already preparing to escape. As a result, we formed a group of three.

To escape… digging a tunnel was impossible—everything was in plain sight. So we decided: when they take us to the movies—it’s in the evening, sometimes twilight would fall while we were still in the hall... We thought, in the twilight, we’d jump into the prohibited zone, rip some boards off the fence, and try to make it to the forest. Even if they spot us, they'll shoot at us—what will be, will be, maybe we’ll break through. We had even prepared tools to rip off the boards. We also needed a small supply of food. It was hungry, but we tore off bits from our rations and secretly dried them. We probably dried two loaves' worth of rusks. We were fully prepared for the escape, but when the moment came and I said, “Let’s go,” Puhach hesitated. Perhaps because from 1961 until my arrival at the camp, three or four prisoners had died on the fence. Usynin, a Ukrainian Banderite, died (to this day I remember with what admiration one of the prisoners recalled him: “Energetic. And so strong in his hands. Few could withstand his handshake”); Shklyar died, someone else died, some were wounded. They went for broke, what will be, will be (they were probably tired of camp life). But they went in broad daylight, just took a ladder, a plank, and went for the prohibited zone; they were shot at from the watchtowers with automatic rifles—and that's how they died. This probably held Puhach back. Realizing that there was little chance of escaping this way, I decided to try to get a work assignment outside the zone. They were just building a new prohibited zone—expanding the industrial zone. I made a request to the detachment leader, and even though I had a long sentence ahead of me, my request was granted. It probably helped that they had no suspicion of my inclination to escape. Having gone out with the brigade beyond the zone to build the prohibited area, I began to wait for a favorable moment to escape. Such a moment could arise when, for some reason, the soldier would not see a prisoner crawling under the barbed-wire fence. And it was still a few meters to this fence and about 50 meters to the forest.

Such a moment never came. Then, while digging the control strip on the inner side of the already built fence, with the help of Sashko Chuhai (from Western Ukraine) and Alexander Kudryavtsev (from Leningrad), I built a small hideout (one could only lie down in it). Sashko and Alexander (they were older than me) were also not against escaping, but for some reason, they lacked the determination. (Perhaps because they didn't have much time left on their sentences). The plan was this: I get into the hideout, they cover the opening, sprinkle it with earth, and level it. At night, I would climb out. This plan could have succeeded if they didn't start searching for a hideout but thought I had fled. So, it was quite risky. But I didn't get to use the hideout. A favorable moment appeared. This happened about three weeks after I started going out to build the prohibited zone. It was August 14. As usual, at 12 o'clock, we were taken back to the camp for lunch. I was alone in the cell. Suddenly, a strong feeling arose that this was the last time I was in this cell, that today I would escape from the camp. One can imagine the strength of this feeling if I allowed myself to stick a spoon into a can of melted butter belonging to one of my cellmates, who had somehow managed to acquire it (I told him about it later), and take a spoonful of butter. Gotta refuel! And a tracksuit was hanging on the hanger. It was always hanging there, which surprised me, as one was not allowed to keep civilian clothes. But before this, I never had the desire to put it on under my striped uniform. And now I was drawn to take it. But a feeling is a feeling, and the situation was the same as on previous days—no signs of an escape today. And I don’t dare to take it, because I understand: if they find this suit on me, I’ll never see the outside of the camp again.

We were at work again. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, Sashko and I were not far from the corner tower on the railway side. I saw the soldier climb down from the tower to his dog, which had gotten tangled under the tower. And near us, about 30 meters from the tower, a narrow depression, about 10 centimeters deep, stretched beyond the fence. The grass beyond the fence hadn't been mowed a second time. I had noticed this depression before and planned to make a cover out of grass and crawl through it, although it would have been very risky because the soldier from the tower could see everything as if on the palm of his hand. And here was such an opportunity. I quickly handed Sashko the hammer and told him: “Tap on the spade, and when the soldier looks my way, stop tapping.” Sashko sat down right opposite the depression, and I, passing two common criminals who were sitting on the ground doing something, lay down and began to crawl army-style toward the fence. Having crawled under the barbed wire, I looked back. Sashko was sitting and tapping on the spade, the common criminals were sitting just as they were, and the prisoner who was in the latrine nearby was quickly moving away from it, fastening his pants as he went. I crawled towards the forest. And Sashko kept tapping on the spade. I heard those frequent taps and knew—the soldier wasn't looking in my direction. So he couldn't see the grass swaying. After crawling into the forest, I stood up, looked at the fence of the prohibited zone that was visible through the trees, took off my boots and striped clothing. I shoved the boots into a bush and wrapped the pants and jacket in my undershirt. I was left in my underpants. I didn't throw away the striped clothes, because although it was warm during the day, I knew it would be cold at night. I was completely calm: not worried at all, as everything had happened so simply, so routinely. A moment ago I was in the camp, and now I was free. It was somehow even uninteresting.

Now I needed to go to the railway, which was about seventy meters away, cross it, and head West, toward the Vad River, beyond which, about 20 kilometers further, Ryazan Oblast began. So that the dog wouldn’t pick up my trail and they wouldn’t know which direction I had gone, I lit a piece of rubber I always carried with me and, after making several figure-eights, quickly headed for the railway. The sun was behind the clouds at that time, but I had no doubt I was running in the right direction because while making the circles, I was oriented by the railway. But I ran and ran, and it was nowhere to be seen. Where could it have gone?! And the sun wasn't peeking out from behind the clouds. Of all the luck... before my escape, the sun was visible. I realized I had lost my direction. But what to do?! Can’t just stand here. I had to run as far as possible from the camp. I was completely out of breath. I stopped, caught my breath, and ran on. Finally, through the dense forest, I saw a fence made of new boards. The new boards didn't arouse any suspicion in me. I must have run to the neighboring camp, which was 4-5 kilometers from the 10th—I thought. So I was running parallel to the railway; I needed to turn left and I would reach it. So as not to get lost again, orienting myself by the fence, I quickly went through the woods. But this fence turned to the right. I followed the fence to find out where I was. But then the fence of new boards ended, and an extension made of old boards began. I've really run far, now I have to go around it—I thought, dissatisfied with what had happened. After walking about ten meters, I looked at the fence and saw a building behind it. On the flat roof of the building, I saw several people. Coming closer, I saw that they were wearing striped clothes, that it was the unfinished workshop in the industrial zone of the 10th camp, where a month ago I had worked on that very roof—spreading slag over the ceiling, tarring the roof. I looked at the brick turret built on the roof and remembered: having arrived at the camp and working on the roof, thinking not only about escaping but also about whether there might still be a God who could give life some meaning, I once climbed onto this brick turret about a meter high to get a better view of the surrounding area—the settlement along the railway and the endless forest all around. I looked then at the young pine forest just beyond the prohibited zone (there was a rumor that nuns who had been shot were buried in that forest in the 1930s), and thought to myself: “If I ever stand in that forest, I will believe in the existence of God.” And here I was in that very patch of forest I had looked at from the turret, and now I was looking at the turret from the forest. The memory flashed by—and that was it. No, I didn’t thank God. I didn’t even think: “So, God exists!” Everything that had happened was only one thing for me—I was near the 10th! I had ended up in the same spot I had crawled into. I had wasted time and energy.

I didn't turn back, even though it wasn't far to the railway from there, but ran alongside the camp and the settlement to cross the railway beyond the settlement. While running, I crossed the structures where soldiers were trained. Luckily for me, no one was there. I was tormented by thirst. My mouth was dry. A puddle. I drank handfuls of water and ran on. Having run around the settlement, I turned right, came out to the railway and, after running a little along the tracks (just in case, to throw the dogs off the scent), I ran through the forest westward, toward the Vad River. It worried me that there was no sun, and I could get lost again. But after running a little, I saw the clouds parting and the sun peeking out. So, I had a landmark. I hurried. But I couldn't run for long—I was gasping for air. So I would stop to catch my breath. Soon, when I stopped by a bush, I asked myself: “So, is there a God or not? I was in that patch of forest!” — “Just a coincidence,” I answered my own question and ran on. My legs carried me, but my breath was failing and I couldn't run. Still, I forced myself and continued to run. And suddenly, when it seemed that this was it, that I couldn't run anymore, a miracle happened: I began to breathe normally. There were no more problems with my breathing and I could run, as long as my legs held out. I realized—my second wind had kicked in (something that had never happened to me before). And the clouds disappeared, the sun shone brightly, it was warm. I moved quickly westward. The forest there was not swampy, and there had been no rain. It was easy to run. But soon I tripped on a stick with my foot and tore open the top of my instep. Blood covered my foot. I tore my shirt, bandaged it, and ran on. I came out onto a swampy area, something like a shallow river. This is the Vad, I decided, and after walking a bit in the river (to evade the dogs), I got out and ran on. I kept running. The red sun was already setting. My breathing was normal, but my legs were giving out, trembling. The dense forest was ending, and in front of me were bushes. And among the bushes—a haystack. Well, I was completely exhausted, and if they spotted me, I wouldn't be able to get away. I needed to rest. Besides, at night there would be no landmark, and I could get lost. And I should already be in Ryazan Oblast.

I made a niche in the haystack, got dressed, and crawled inside. From the stray sounds that reached me, I understood—there was a village nearby. When I woke up and peeked out of the haystack, I saw it was dawning. I stuffed hay back into the niche, walked a dozen meters through the bushes and… found myself on the bank of a river—like my own Sluch River. This must be the Vad!—I realized. And that other thing must have been an oblong body of water, or the Yavas River. So, Ryazan is still far away. And why did I stumble upon this haystack?! If I had discovered this river last evening, if I hadn't found some boat, I would have built something (even from this haystack) and could have floated to the Moksha River during the night. So, I’m still in Mordovia. I have to hurry. Undressing, I took my clothes in hand and swam across the river. While swimming, I saw a footbridge across the river not far downstream. Having crossed, I got dressed and ran on. It was getting light. The bushes ended, and a field opened up before me, beyond which, at a distance of about a kilometer, there were more bushes. There was no forest visible on either side—just the field. So, I have to cross. It was risky, but I decided to cross the field to move westward. Having reached the bushes (the sun was already rising), I saw that it was something like a forest belt, and beyond it another field, with a forest on the left side at a distance of about one and a half kilometers. The sun rose. The bushes were sparse. There could be an ambush here. So, I should wait until it gets warm and, in my underpants, without arousing suspicion, try to cross the field.

Soon the sun paled, and the sky began to be covered with clouds. a cold breeze began to blow and a drizzle started, which turned into a cold autumn mist. I sat wet under a bush, shivering from the cold. I endured, hoping the sky would clear again. I glanced at the sky, but there were no signs of a change in the weather. I was thoroughly frozen, and somewhere towards evening, my patience ran out—I walked through the bushes, hoping to find something to hide from the cold drizzle. After walking a bit, I saw haystacks about 100 meters away. Although it was risky, I decided to run to the haystacks. When I got there, I made a niche in one of them. I moved the pulled-out hay to one of the other haystacks, carefully cleaned up the remaining hay, and crawling into the niche, I blocked the opening with hay. I warmed up quickly. Soon I heard something two-legged stomping, and it seemed to stop by the haystack. Quiet. Man or beast, I couldn't tell. Having warmed up, I fell asleep. Waking up, I climbed out of the haystack—darkness, no change, cold drizzle. I see a faint glow from the west. There must be a village there. Having a landmark, I decided to keep going. I grabbed a handful of oats growing near the haystacks, chewed them, and walked toward the glow. The wound on my leg was throbbing. I cross some swamps, fall into pits, but it doesn't matter, I'm already soaking wet. Not far from the edge of the village, I pass by a blacksmith's shop. I look under the shed. But there are no clothes, and the smithy is locked. I walk down the road towards the houses. I walk as if in a dream. Control over my behavior is almost lost. I am walking towards the houses, even though I know that under no circumstances should this be done (it was something like a rabbit crawling into the jaws of a boa constrictor). I come out onto a street that runs across the road I was on. The street is partially lit by light bulbs. It seems the village is small. After walking a little to the right along the street, I stopped opposite two huts in which lights were still on. I decided: I’ll go into the one on the right. I went to the door, knocked. The door opened and I entered the entryway. Before me stood a man of about 50. Everything in the entryway was visible because the door to the lit room was open. We looked at each other. The man flinched back slightly. There was confusion on his face. Probably from seeing the striped clothes on me. We went into the room. In the room, besides him, was his wife. To hide who I was would be pointless—my clothes said everything.

“They’re looking for you, it was announced on the radio, there were soldiers in the village during the day,” he tells me.

“I’ll eat, get warm, and I’ll leave,” I say to the owners of the house.

The woman put a bowl of sour milk and bread on the table. I started to eat, and the owner began to talk about something with his wife in Mordvinian.

“Why are you not speaking Russian?” I ask him.

“She doesn't know Russian,” he answered me. And says:

“My wife wants to go outside to relieve herself.”

“Well, let her go,” I tell him, thinking to myself, I'll be leaving now anyway.

The woman went out. No more than two minutes passed when he opens the small window and says something to her in Mordvinian and Russian, telling her not to linger. I hear her voice too. And suddenly, some footsteps outside the gable window. Someone stopped there. The door immediately opens and a soldier bursts into the room with his assault rifle aimed at me. He orders: “Hands up, get down!”

I lie down on the floor. Two more soldiers enter the room—a private and a captain. This happened at about one o'clock in the morning.

How?! How could this have happened to me?! How could I have let them catch me so foolishly? I felt like I had just woken up. But it was too late. My hands were tied. I noticed that the soldiers looked at the homeowners with hostility. As it turned out, the search party was staying in the house on the left: the captain and two soldiers. They had tricked me. The woman wasn't going to relieve herself. After leaving, she ran to the window of the neighboring house, knocked, and saying I was at their place, returned to her own window. After a while, they moved me to the house where the search party was quartered. I lay tied up on the floor.

“Do you know Suslovets?” one of the soldiers asked me.

“I know him,” I answered the soldier.

“We’re from the 5th, from his platoon. He told us: if you catch him, show him to me.” (Suslovets O.K. was from my village, lived near the technical school like me, in the settlement. He was my age, so sometimes we’d go out with a group to see girls. I wasn’t friends with him, but we weren’t enemies either. After my release, in the summer of 1963, I accidentally met him at the dance floor at the technical school. He was with his wife. He had lieutenant’s epaulets, a Sam Browne belt. He was on leave then. He told me that he was guarding the 5th camp in Mordovia, where foreigners were held). So Suslovets must have told the soldiers about me, and they already knew who they were looking for—that it wasn't some bandit or an inveterate enemy of the people, as they were specially conditioned to believe about those who were in political camps. And so they treated me very well, shared their rations. Others, it happened, were killed on the spot, or beaten so badly that the escapee would spit blood for a long time. I was lucky… But not lucky with the escape. Although… well, if I had escaped, I’d be free. And that's all! There's nowhere else to run—you can't run from yourself.

At about 9 o'clock, an all-terrain vehicle (“bobby”) arrived. A group of peasants came to look at the fugitive. I walked barefoot through the mud to the vehicle. My feet were covered in mud. One wrapped in a dirty rag. A pathetic sight. But what can you do?! I walked. Outside, the same cold, the same autumn drizzle. The soldiers were in greatcoats. And where did this cold come from to plague me?! All this time the weather had been warm and sunny. Of all the luck! We drove along the washed-out road. We passed through a village. We stopped. A soldier spoke to a woman, took a liter jar of milk from her, and gave it to me. I drank, and the thought wouldn't leave my head: how could I have acted so stupidly? It was frustrating… Not so much from losing my freedom, but from losing it so stupidly. We approached the 5th. We stopped near a small group of military men. Suslovets came up.

“Ну, что, попался, собака!” he says to me.

His wife also ran up with an interested, but not sympathetic, look. I didn't answer Suslovets. I remained silent. We arrived at the Dubravlag Administration in Yavas. They took me to a large hall. Officers were sitting on chairs along the perimeter of the entire hall, and a colonel was sitting at a large table. In front of the table was a small dog. I approached the table. I was barefoot. My feet and the bandage made from a shirt were covered in mud—not an imposing sight in this hall. The colonel asked something. I answered. Then he says:

“Сусловец мне все рассказал о тебе. Ты был хулиган. В детстве снаряд взорвал.”

I didn't start making excuses, just a thought flashed through my mind: why didn't I ever beat that miserable, scrawny pup. He said something else and gave an order:

“To the solitary cell, number…”

“Comrade Colonel, that cell has a window facing the prohibited zone,” one of the officers told him.

“It’s nothing, he won’t escape again,” the colonel replies.

I am taken to the investigative isolator, which must have also been a punishment isolator, because sometimes female common criminals served their punishments there. In the isolator, the guard on duty gave me water to wash my feet and some semblance of shoes.

A few days later, they took me back to the 10th. An investigation was underway. I was in the corner cell of the old block, its window facing the exercise yards. Prisoners from the yards waved at me, encouraging me. Especially Hryhoriy Bukhta. At every opportunity, he would tell me: “Khrushchev will be gone by autumn! You’ll see, he’ll be gone. And when Khrushchev is gone, there will be some changes.” And his face radiated such confidence that I began to think: “Has something happened to his psyche?” They also took me to the bathhouse, where I washed thoroughly, and especially steamed out the wound on my leg, which was no longer bleeding but was wide open. Prisoners from the service staff approached me. One of the common criminals gave me a packet of makhorka tobacco. I don't smoke, but I took it—it might come in handy. Mykola Konchakivsky also came up and gave me a ration of bread, which he had managed to get somewhere.

It was only back at the 10th that I learned that my escape had been discovered at 5 p.m., when they were taking everyone off work: they counted the prisoners and found that one was missing. But they could have discovered my escape earlier. Some military man with the rank of starshina told me: “A boy saw you when you were running through the object where the soldiers train. He ran to the guardhouse and said he saw a man in his underpants, but we thought it was a soldier training.”

They took me for interrogation a few times and then left me alone. There wasn’t much to interrogate me about. I briefly described my escape, and that was it. Some of the prisoners were interrogated (including Chuhai and Kudryavtsev), but no one “saw” anything. During the investigation, I found out that I had been caught in the village of Koperzan, Zubovo-Polyansky district. If I'm not mistaken, that's somewhere near the 17th camp.

I was relieved that they had transported me to the 10th. I had a plan to escape from the isolator, but there was no way to get the necessary tools. I already had a spike that I found during my walk, and I had hidden it in the exercise yard. I still needed a small saw blade. I asked Puhach for help, but he couldn't help. Then I turned to Mykhailo Hliuza, a former runner. And Hliuza, from a steel strip used for cutting out mitten blanks, made a small saw about 10 centimeters long and passed it to me in the cell. Now I just had to get back to the isolator as soon as possible. Returning to the isolator, I immediately got to work. And the work was this: between the metal strips that secured the bunk boards from the floor to the wall, I needed to cut out two boards, crawl under the bunk at night, and try to make an exit to the outside through the wall or foundation with the spike. I could see from my window that the prohibited zone was poorly guarded; they didn't even change a light bulb, and part of the zone was unlit. I had to saw for a long time. The boards were birch, up to 5 cm thick. Moreover, the boards were being sawn along the beam. The blade quickly became dull, and I was not sawing but rather wearing through those boards. Finally, it was cut. Using everything I had, I covered it with a blanket. The dummy was ready. I crawled under the bunk and started to chip away at the wall with the spike. This was after lights-out (you could sleep there whenever you wanted), but the food slot opens, and the guard asks what book I have from the library. I stick my head under the blanket and answer: “Till Eulenspiegel.” (I never read that book, but for some reason, I remember the title to this day. And I needed the book so that the guard, looking through the peephole into the cell, would see me sitting and reading a book. I, holding the book in my left hand, watched the peephole, and with my right, I sawed the board). The food slot closes. And then I hear footsteps approaching down the corridor. The door opens, they come into the cell and shout: “Get out!” I crawl out from under the bunk; they move me to another cell. And the next day I'm in the cooler—for 5 days. This isn't the kind of SHIZO I used to have. The floor is concrete—you can't lie down. At night they give you a wooden plank. For two days they only give you a bread ration, salt, and boiled water. On the third day, they gave me some kind of dish for lunch. But it’s nothing—it's only 5 days. And they can’t give me more—I'm under investigation.

That's it... I won't be able to escape from the investigative isolator.

In October, right there in Yavas, the district court reviewed my case and added another 3 years to my unserved sentence, with 3 years of it being prison confinement. I didn't file for an appeal, but I did protest an inaccuracy in the verdict. The verdict stated that I had declared I would continue to escape from places of confinement because I was not being held in Ukraine. In reality, I stated that I would escape because I was convicted unlawfully. But the Supreme Court of Mordovia reviewed the verdict based on this statement and found a deviation from the norms of the law (the sanction of the main article—62, part 2—was up to 10 years, and therefore, no matter how many times you are tried under articles with sanctions up to 10 years, the total term of imprisonment cannot exceed 10 years—the principle of term absorption comes into effect). Thus, I once again had 10 years, with 3 years of it in prison confinement.

In the same month, another inexplicable event occurred: from a newspaper they gave me in my cell, I learned that Khrushchev had been removed—Bukhta's prediction had come true. Where did he get such confidence that this would happen, and in such a short time?!

At the end of November, or perhaps already in December, a common criminal returned to the next cell. He had been tried for the murder of a prisoner in the hospital of the Barashevo settlement (while in the hospital, he attacked a nurse, demanding some narcotic drug. An orderly rushed to defend her and received a knife wound). They locked his cell, and the guard looked into mine.

“What’s his verdict?” I asked the guard.

“VMR (highest measure—execution),” I heard in response.

We are on death row: he in a small cell, and I—in a large one. He still has hope for a pardon, but I have none!

It was all over, and I was waiting to be sent to Vladimir.

Still, not all was lost. I had one more attempt left—to make a break (a ‘ryvok’—an escape from under convoy) during the transport stage. And so in December, they took me for transport. But when boarding the prison car, and from the prison car to the paddy wagon, they put me in handcuffs or took me by the arms. So until Gorky itself (transit prisons in Potma, Ruzaevka), there was no opportunity to make a break.

I'm already in Gorky, at the last transit point. I'm alone in the cell. Sometime after lunch, the librarian opens the food slot and offers books. I took one, “At Pontus Euxinus,” I think it was called. I had supper and, to fill the time, started reading. It began with a ship sailing somewhere with warriors on board. I was even intrigued: where were they sailing? But then the door opens and I'm taken from my cell. Going down to the first floor, I enter a small transport cell. The one who brought me says:

“You’ll spend the night here, and tomorrow morning, on to transport.”

There is no bed, no bunks in the cell, so they give me a wooden plank. I lay it across the cell on the benches built into the walls and lie down to sleep. I am alone in the cell. As I lie down, I think: what awaits me tomorrow; will I manage to make a break or not?

In the morning of December 24, they wake me, interrupting the dream I was having. I get up and think about this dream. I dreamt that I was with my late godfather on the construction of some enormous (the ends were not visible) structure. The foundation was already there, and in places, the walls had been started. There was no one on this construction site, only the two of us were laying bricks. But my godfather leaves me—he walks away, and I continue to build the wall. (The second time my godfather appeared in a dream was 38 years later. It was in some city. I am sitting on a bench, and on both sides, pressed against me, are my deceased parents: my father on the left, and my godfather on the right. My father wants me to go with him to the market. I was about to go, but when I looked at my father, I saw him in such rags that it would have been impossible to walk beside him. Seeing this, I began to refuse. But my father continues to plead. ‘No, I’m not going to the market,’ I tell my father. Then my godfather says to my father: ‘Well, if he doesn’t want to go, then let him be.’ The dream ended there. About a week later, weakness, pain in my stomach. An ambulance took me to the hospital, where it was determined I had an inflamed appendix. But I refused to have it removed, hoping it would pass. About a day later, I returned to the hospital with a diagnosis: acute gangrenous localized peritonitis).

I am led out of the cell and put into one of the paddy wagons. I'm in a cubicle. The other prisoners are in the common area. We are going to the train station. Opposite me on the bench are two convoy guards. The door of my cubicle is faulty and opens from time to time. The guard slams it shut. What an opportunity! I must attack them, take their weapons. I study the guards. One of them is quite puny. But how can I deal with both of them without noise? When the door opens, I have the urge to throw myself at them. How can I knock them out?! I’m no expert. A pity. Otherwise, there would be no problem: knock out one, then the other, grab the weapons, open the door, and jump out onto the dimly lit street where this paddy wagon is moving slowly. The urge to attack is so strong, but I understand—there's no chance. And I still have two opportunities ahead, which I might ruin with this.

We arrive at the station. Other paddy wagons have arrived too. We are let out. The train station is somewhere ahead. It’s still dark, but with the light from the station lamps and the snow, visibility is more or less sufficient to see around. We walk in a single file along a path trodden in the snow toward the railway tracks. I am among several prisoners walking at the front of the line. Behind me, a major in a gray greatcoat is walking with a folder in his hand. The entire convoy is at a considerable distance behind the line. No one is paying any attention to me. I look around in surprise. I am surprised that they haven't put me in handcuffs, that they are not taking me by the arms, that there are no guards on the sides or in front. What a chance, I think. But I am worried that there is no one around. Something is not right here, not as it should be. They are giving me a chance to escape. But I have no cover, no obstacles for those who will shoot at me. A strange escort. Things like this don’t happen. And I didn't dare. I don't want to be a target for them—to play into their plan.

We approach the tracks, stop. The convoy surrounds us. It was getting light. A train arrives. They lead us up and put us in the prison car. The destination ahead is Vladimir. The prison car is overcrowded. Since all the compartments are full, they put me in a compartment with common criminals. I was the only one in striped clothing. I knew that in Vladimir they would put me in a paddy wagon, take me to prison, and I wouldn't be able to break out from there. I had one chance left, but to use it, I had to trick the convoy, because if they took me by the arms, there would be no such chance. So, I needed to swap my striped pea coat for a black one. Only the pea coat, because my pants, jacket, and hat—my personal belongings I arrived in Mordovia with—were given back to me when I was sent for transport, and I was wearing them. Only the prisoners who were in the compartment with me could help with this, so I asked for their help. I didn't say much. From a few phrases, they understood me, and one of them says: "There's ‘Zmei’ [The Snake], get him undressed.” I didn't know what that ‘Zmei’ had done wrong, so I didn't dare to tell him: “Take off the coat!” hoping he would do it without my intervention, as he had heard what we were talking about. So I just stared at him, letting him know I was waiting for the coat. Seeing that he wasn't going to undress (which was a clear sign of disrespect to a 'striped one'), the same prisoner, getting up, ordered: "Well, what are you waiting for—take off the coat!" Another prisoner supported him, saying: "Take it off, take it off!” 'Zmei' took off his pea coat. I took the coat and gave him mine. He put on my striped one, and I put on his black one. And I fully prepared for the break: I put on two pairs of socks and unlaced my boots. It would be easier to get away from the convoy in socks. And as we were approaching Vladimir, realizing that there was a greater chance of dying than escaping, I also wrote a note. I wrote briefly: “I am tired of living.” I still didn't want my act to be perceived as desperation from being in prison. I put the piece of paper in my jacket pocket.

So, Vladimir. The prisoners are being taken off the car. Our compartment is opened too. “Zmei” gets out with the other prisoners. And I am with them. As soon as “Zmei” got off the train, two soldiers immediately took him by the arms and led him aside. He stood silently between them. Of course, if he had told the soldiers what happened in the car, an alarm would have been raised and they would have immediately started looking for me. But even though he was a “Zmei”—he didn't betray me. When the disembarkation was over, a guard, standing in the vestibule and looking toward the paddy wagons, shouted: “45!” “That's all!” I mixed in with the prisoners. 45 prisoners had been taken off the train, including about a dozen and a half women. They started lining us up in rows of five. Unbuttoning my pea coat, I moved to the front rows. The train departed. They led us to the platform. To the right was a high fence, and ahead a narrow platform. Between the fence and the station building stood paddy wagons. In an “L” shape from the platform, soldiers with assault rifles were lined up, in two dense rows across the width of the platform. Behind the line, along the tracks, stood the major in the gray greatcoat with the folder in his hands. The prisoners were being put into the paddy wagons in groups of five. For my break, I chose the spot in the line closest to the platform, where there was about a two-meter gap between the soldiers. The women were already inside, now it was our turn. And the station was empty. No trains. The day was cloudy, but visibility was normal. There was no point in waiting any longer. I slipped my feet out of my boots and darted between the soldiers, who were standing 3-4 meters away from us. Because there were so many of them and they were positioned so densely in front of the platform, the soldiers did not at all expect that one of the prisoners might dash between them, and so they failed to react. Only one, whom I was running towards (he was on the right, and I ran almost right next to him), looked at me and, not yet able to comprehend what was happening, only managed to ask: “Куда ты?” I slipped between the soldiers, then after a couple of meters, I slipped between the soldiers of the second line. And then a policeman threw himself at me, grabbed my pea coat, which I was shedding on the run, and helped me get it off. I broke free and started running down the platform. Behind me, I heard single shots one after another, and immediately after them, bursts from many automatic rifles. Ahead on the platform, not far from the station wall, stood a woman. As I ran past, I saw that she was as pale as a sheet. I ran on. Behind me, the rattle of automatic rifles, shouts of “Stop!” The soldiers had reacted late, and there was nothing left for them to do but to open up a frantic fusillade into the air. The prisoners, as is done in such cases, were probably forced to the ground. The platform was almost empty. Ahead, two men were walking towards me. I saw that they were about to lunge at me. They even stopped as I was running up. But I had nowhere to turn: the station doors were locked, I didn't remember the internal layout of the station, its "entrance" and "exit," to run out to the opposite side without delay, and the tracks were empty. So I ran straight at them. As I ran up, I threw my arm back, growled at them, and whipped my hand out from behind my back. They recoiled, and I ran between them. (The feint of pulling out a knife worked). Then I saw some old man dancing up ahead. The station building had ended. Again, a high fence along the platform. Seeing this "old man" (about 55), I realized he was going to grab my legs. I jumped off the platform, ran around the "old man," and jumped back onto the platform. And from behind, they continued to fire their machine guns and shout “Stop!” I ran on. I saw that in 40-50 meters the platform and the high fence ended. I needed to get there, and I could turn right behind the fence and run out onto a wide street that ran on the other side of the station toward the city center. No one was in sight ahead. And then suddenly a feeling of unease, a sense of danger ahead: “They might kill me there,” flashed through my mind. After running a little more, I jumped off the platform anyway and, probably to the surprise of everyone who was intercepting and pursuing me, ran diagonally across the tracks to the opposite side of the station, where some passenger train was standing. By all indications—empty. Running up to the train, I glanced back. About 70-80 meters away, two soldiers were running. They were firing short bursts as they ran. No one was shouting “Stop!” anymore. Only these two soldiers were shooting. I realized: nothing was preventing them from shooting to kill. Reaching the train, I dove under a car. As I crawled on my knees over the first rail, something stung me in the thigh of my left leg. I instinctively looked and saw how the torn trouser leg flapped, a small puff of steam bursting out from it. I realized I was wounded but thought I might still escape. Climbing onto the high platform, I ran along the train toward the city, in the direction of the depot, as someone told me later. I was already reaching the end of the train when my leg began to give out. When I passed the train, my leg completely stopped functioning and I sat down on the snow, tucking my right leg under me and stretching out my left. Leaning on my left elbow and turning my head slightly to the left, I looked at the platform and the train. It was all over, but I was curious how far I had gotten away and whether there had been a chance to disappear from the pursuers' sight if I hadn't been wounded. The pursuers were not in sight. I look at this empty train and think: this must be the same suburban electric train that I took to Petushki on April 13 of last year, in the afternoon. I wait for the pursuers. And then I see, at a distance of about 100 meters, probably in the same place where I climbed out, a soldier clambering up from under the car onto the platform. He saw me half-lying, jogged closer, and stopped at a distance of about 5 meters. A long time! In that time, if I hadn't disappeared from the pursuers' sight, I would still have been at such a distance that it would have been dangerous to shoot at me towards the city. Perhaps I shouldn't have changed direction, although running down the street where I had walked on April 13 to get my passport would have been dangerous. The soldiers could have jumped into one of the empty paddy wagons, and if they didn't meet me as I ran out onto the street past the fence, they would have caught up. It’s unknown how it would have turned out there, but here it’s already known—I lost. Other soldiers began to approach. I take the note from my jacket and hand it to a soldier.

“Read it,” I tell him. I thought: why not use this note, which puts this escape into question: was it an escape or a desire to end my life in this way? Some officer appeared, who began to command the soldiers, sending one of them to the first-aid post for a stretcher. A group of civilians had gathered at a distance, watching us. They weren't allowed to get close. And here is the soldier with the stretcher. They unfold it next to me, and I crawl onto it. On the spot where I was half-lying, there is a bloodstain. Not large, because the blood seeped under the snow. The soldiers carry me to the station's first-aid post. A tourniquet is applied to me. I'm lying on the floor on the stretcher near the door. The door opens directly onto the platform, it’s opened often, and so the cold starts to get to me more and more. And my leg is swollen, blue, and from this, it hurts very much. For some reason, they don’t send me to the hospital for a long time. The paramedic at first calmly, then began to shout at the officers, explaining that you can't keep a tourniquet on a leg for so long, that I need to be taken to the hospital. The delay was because they couldn't decide for a long time where to take me—to the city hospital or the prison hospital. Finally, they carry me to a vehicle—a UAZ-469 with its canvas top removed.

“Should we take our assault rifles?” a soldier asks.

“No need, he won't escape again,” the officer answers.

I am taken to the prison. With the help of the soldiers, I go to the first floor of the second building, where the hospital is located, and sit on a chair. Some major approaches, says something unpleasant about my escape, something like: “Ну что, убежал?” I react to this in a sharp tone and he falls silent. Two prisoners from the service staff approach with a stretcher and carry me upstairs to the operating room. Everything is ready there. Olena Butova (the surgeon and head of the hospital) begins the operation. Two women in white coats assist her. Butova asks:

“Where are you from, what were you arrested for?”

I answer. I see tears welling up in the eyes of one of the women assisting Butova. Butova cleans the wound, threads something through the hole in my thigh and tells me:

“The bullet passed right by the bone (it tore the outer muscle in the middle of the thigh). You were lucky.”

I really was lucky. I was in such a position that the bullet could have entered my anus and exited through the top of my head. That would have been a puzzle for them: where did the bullet enter?

“You’re a hero! We’ve never had a shootout like this at our station before,” Butova continues.

After the operation, prisoners carried me to the second floor of the hospital, to a two-person cell. Another prisoner, a common criminal, was already there. He was of no interest, so there’s nothing to recall about him. The cell was clean, the floor painted, the bed soft, the bedding clean and pleasant. The food was, though insufficient, of more or less good quality.

I refused to participate in the investigation. But when some major entered the cell to find out which of his soldiers had wounded me, I told him that I had been wounded under the train car. I was in the hospital until January 22, 1965. The wound wasn't healing, it began to fester. The hole in my thigh was filled with pus and, where the bullet exited, it was so large that a thumb could fit in. Although the festering hadn’t passed, I was moved to the first floor of the 1st building, where they mainly kept prisoners who had arrived from the camps; they had to go through a strict regime with the first month on reduced rations. The conditions of detention were the same as before. Only before I was with those sentenced to a strict regime, and now with those on a special one. I was not put on reduced rations, because I had already been in prison for almost a month. Being in the cell, I, just like in the hospital, lay down in such a way that the pus would drain from the wound. But, as you know, lying down was not allowed from reveille to lights-out. I was warned once, twice, then my bedding was thrown out of the cell and a report was written. True, during the cell rounds, a nurse asked me through the food slot if she should write me permission to lie down during forbidden hours. But I remained silent. After all, I went for dressing changes and they could see the state of my leg. On the third day, they read out the decision to put me on reduced rations for a month for lying on the bed. Reduced rations meant a ration of bread with a piece of herring or about ten sprats in the morning, soup or borscht without fat or meat for lunch, and mashed potatoes for dinner (about a cup of watery potatoes or porridge, also without fat). The cell where I am sitting is for 5 people; besides me, there are four others. All from criminal camps. Among them is Zorychev, whose death sentence for an anti-communist (according to the verdict—anti-Soviet) tattoo on his face was commuted to 15 years of imprisonment, and Kobzev—a Kazakh who gave the impression of being mentally ill. He was like a mummy—small, thin, his face an earthy-yellow color. Kobzev sat motionlessly, saying nothing and asking nothing. Who he was and what he was here for was unknown. When we were taken for a walk, this walking corpse would sometimes run somewhere off to the side, away from the yards. For this, he was put in the cooler. (In 1966 or '67, he died in the camp at the 10th. When the prisoners in the industrial zone were being taken off work at 5 p.m., Kobzev climbed into the prohibited zone near the guardhouse. The soldier in the tower didn’t shoot at him because the prisoners shouted that he was sick. But an officer came out of the guardhouse, approached the prohibited zone from the outside and, waiting for him to climb onto the fence, fired his pistol, and Kobzev fell dead from the fence.)

I hardly talked to my cellmates. What was there to talk to them about? And in general—what was there to talk about! We sit silently in the semi-dark cell (a “muzzle”—a shield—is attached to the windows, the sun doesn’t peek into the cell). Everyone is “running” something in their head—mulling over their own thoughts. Then one day, the food slot opens and I'm handed the indictment. I take it, don’t look at it, and so that my cellmates can see, I tear it to pieces and throw it into the slop bucket. Some time later, on February 19 (exactly one year after the trial in Rivne), I am taken from my cell, and the guard leads me for some reason to the administrative building. When we got inside, I ask the guard:

“Why was I brought here?”

“You have a trial today,” the guard replies.

We go up to the second floor. I enter a large room. At the table—only women. In the room, besides me, there is not a single man. I stand by the table. In general, I look pathetic: I am completely haggard. I'm wearing a shabby pea coat with patches, one trouser leg is shorter, my boots are falling apart. I look at the women. One of them, nearby, is eating doughnuts. My mouth watered. I swallow discreetly and force my will not to react. I succeed and stand calmly before them. I'm a little surprised that there isn't a single man on the judicial panel. I am surprised because last night I had a dream: I am in some room—alone among a group of women who are rebuking me for some transgression. Finally, the court session began. After some procedural formalities, I made a statement in court, in particular, I said: “The Communists have erased the term professional revolutionary. They have replaced this well-known term with the term ‘especially dangerous recidivist,’ but the essence does not change, no matter what they call them, what they dress them in, or in what conditions they hold the fighters for the well-being of the people.” (And what else was left? I couldn't say I was an alien. I was in the role of a revolutionary, and I had no choice but to continue playing this role.)

I stated that I refused to participate in the trial because I was sufficiently familiar with the activities of communist courts. I asked to be removed from the room. They did not remove me. They started calling witnesses. Among them was the soldier who wounded me under the car. The soldier's last name was Lithuanian. With a trembling voice, the soldier answers the questions. His whole body is shaking. What's wrong with him and why he's in such a nervous state is unknown. He says he was aiming for the legs. (Maybe when I was running, because when I was crawling, what legs were there to see). The second soldier, with an Asian last name, said he was aiming for the head. And the woman who was standing on the platform told how the major ran after me and fired a pistol, that the bullets ricocheted off the platform nearby, and that those bullets could have hit her. Well, and the "Old Man" testified that seeing how I broke through two men, he decided to grab my legs, that as a front-line soldier, he knows what to do in such cases. The major also testified. He said he was shooting at the legs. He told the truth. He just didn't add that he couldn't shoot straight ahead because there was a woman in the same line of fire, and further on, three more people.

After deliberation, the court read out a decision to send me for a psychiatric evaluation, because I had never had one. Some time later, they took me into the city to a psychiatrist. Returning to my cell, I thought that was it, that the evaluation was done. But one day in March, after breakfast, the food slot opens and I hear:

“Babych, hand over your bowl, cup, and spoon.”

I hand them over.

“This is for transport, for a psych evaluation, probably to Moscow,” my cellmate from Ukraine, if I'm not mistaken, with the last name Pasichnyk, tells me. And adds: “We helped you with this.” I am transferred to the neighboring cell. I am alone in the cell. The food slot opens again and my things are thrown into the cell: jacket, shirt, long johns, pants—what I was wearing when I ran. The long johns and pants are bloodstained. I examine the torn piece of the pant leg, about 5 centimeters wide and 7 long, in the shape of the letter “П.” The piece is cut on three sides as if with scissors. It holds on one side. I also find a small hole where the bullet entered. I think: why did they throw this at me? Don't they understand that I don't need these bloodstained pants and long johns. I take the jacket and shirt that my father gave me in the autumn of '63, and I throw the bloody stuff into the corner of the cell. Soon they bring a dry ration, and at lunchtime I am already in the prison car of the train I took from Gorky in December. When transferring from the paddy wagon to the prison car, they, as before, put me in handcuffs. When I looked in the mirror in the prison car, I saw a thin and pale face, teeth covered in places with some black plaque. I already knew where they were taking me, because when I asked a guard, he said: “They’re taking you to Moscow for a psychiatric evaluation at the Serbsky Institute.”

Upon arrival in Moscow, I'm taken to Butyrka prison. I am alone in the cell. The cell walls are peeling, covered with various markings. This is probably where I'll undergo the evaluation—the thought flashed through my mind. The food is better here, too. Moreover, I'm alone in the cell, and I can lie down whenever I want. But for some reason, no one calls for me and no one comes, and I don’t ask why I’m not being taken to a psychiatrist. Why should I hurry?! But after about five days, I’m taken from the cell, put not in a paddy wagon, but in some fancy minibus with civilian staff in white coats. No handcuffs. After driving through the streets, they bring me to some building that doesn't look like a prison, as there are no visible bars on the windows. I enter the reception area. The reception area is bright, clean, with polite medical staff. It turns out, this is the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry.

“You will be undergoing a psychiatric evaluation here,” they inform me. A nurse comes right away and takes me to the bath. After washing, I put on new pajamas, socks, and slippers. I go up to the second floor and enter the ward for political prisoners.

“Here is your bed,” the nurse says, pointing with her hand. The bed is soft, with white sheets, a new blanket. The ward has a large unbarred window, a parquet floor polished to a shine. My bed is on the right from the entrance. Opposite, in the corner, sits an orderly. There are four of us in the ward. Two are from Mordovia, from strict-regime camps, and some scientist from the outside, accused of espionage. Most likely an Armenian by nationality (in 1974, I met him at the 19th). They bring lunch. I am surprised: do they really feed you like this here? I could hardly believe it! You name it, they served it: omelets, cutlets, sausages and wieners, cold cuts... And if it was soup—it was real soup! And the kasha—not some bluish slop, but with meat, and crumbly. Most people on the outside don't eat this well, the orderlies agreed. The ward had two rooms. There was also a third room, with an entrance from a small corridor. Our toilet was in that small corridor. We could go there freely. But we were forbidden to go in the opposite direction and look through the peephole into the locked room. If someone from that small room was let out to the toilet, we were not allowed into the corridor. We tried to find out who was sitting there. All we could find out was that it was a historian from Ukraine. We were completely isolated from the criminals. We could see them only when we crossed their large corridor on our way to a walk or for some other reason. They had the same living conditions as we did. There were constantly two orderlies in our ward with us—women aged 40 and older, and some already of retirement age. One of them, Maria, was from Ukraine, from somewhere around Poltava, a blonde, beautiful woman who did not look her age. She once asked me:

“And how old would you say I am?”

“Sometimes you look 20,” I told her.

“I'm already 45,” Maria said sadly.

She, like almost all the orderlies, was quite fond of me, she sympathized. Secretly, so no one would see, she would treat me to homemade pies. And once she whispered to me:

“Why do you say such things? Everything gets reported.”

“I don't care,” I answered her.

Of course, I knew that the orderlies reported on the behavior of each subject, but I paid no attention to it and said what I thought about the Soviet government and the communists. I remember once we were discussing an unsuccessful airplane hijacking. I don’t remember the details of our conversation, only what I said about what I would have done in that terrorist’s place. And I said then for the whole ward to hear:

“I would have blown it up, only fragments would have been left of that plane.”

“What about the passengers?” the orderly asked me.

“If they don't feel sorry for the crew, why should I feel sorry?” I answered the orderly.

Among the prisoners who were with me in the ward, there were some who behaved normally, some who were sick, and some who were malingerers. I remember one such malingerer. He was a sailor from Odesa, probably a bit older than me. He was a hefty man, weighing over 100 kg. He got five years for something and was sent to Mordovia. At first, he behaved normally, but then he started to act slightly "crazy." So he’s lying on his bed with his feet towards the orderly sitting on a stool in the corner, and he farts at her. The stench reaches all the way to me. The orderly turns her head, jumps up, sits on my bed, looking at him with displeasure. I look at this former sailor, and he, red as a lobster for some reason, looks in our direction… and farts again. Or he would start crying, complaining about his fate. (I also had the intention of feigning madness before my arrival, to get into the hospital, from where I would try to escape. But upon arrival, I decided not to humiliate myself.)

I think once a week, a group of psychiatrists led by the Chief made rounds of the wards. The one assigned to me also came. She was a beautiful brunette, about 30 years old in appearance. As for her name? I forgot! She called me for a talk two or three times. She told me she had received the case file from Ukraine (the pre-trial investigation by the KGB) and was reviewing it.

At the institute, I, like the other prisoners who arrived from the camp, quickly recovered (after all, you could eat as much as you wanted), gaining considerable weight. I was there from March 26 to May 13, 1965. Before being discharged, at the commission, they asked me:

“Do you love Ukraine?”

“Yes, I love my people, I love Ukraine—it's my motherland,” I replied. (And what else was left?! If I had told them that you can only love a girl and varenyky, and everything else is a mirage, it would have been taken as my attempt to lighten my fate.)

“Will you get married if you are released?”

“No!”

“You knew that they persecute people for this. Why weren't you afraid of the KGB?”

“If I'm not supposed to be afraid of death, then why should I be afraid of the KGB?”

“What will you do if you are released?”

“I don't know,” I answer the last question.

And that was it. No one called for me again, and after a while, they changed me back into the rags I arrived in, and I was taken by paddy wagon back to Butyrka. The orderly who took me to change was named Nastya. Seeing me in my striped, patched-up clothes, one trouser leg shorter, the orderly looked at me with a kind of confusion. She said nothing, but the expression on her face and in her eyes, which instantly became sad, showed how shocked she was by what she saw. Upon arrival at Butyrka, I was taken to the second floor and put into a large cell filled with common criminals. No one else was in striped clothes. The beds were double-decker—like in a railway car. An upper bunk near the door was free. I threw my bedding onto it, made it up. I had just climbed to the top when the door opens and a guard, having read out four names, including mine, orders us to leave the cell with our things. We are moved to another cell. We go down to the first floor, enter some wide corridor with cells on either side. We are put into one of these cells. The cell was unusual not because of the double doors or the dense metal mesh behind the window bars, but because besides four low beds, welded entirely from wide metal strips with a raised part for the head and concreted into the floor, and a toilet bowl, there was nothing else in the cell. These special beds along the walls of the cell indicated that it was a special cell. My new cellmates are dissatisfied with the transfer. Moreover, one of them says that we are in the death row section. And the prisoners begin to bang on the door and demand that some of the administration come. Soon a major enters the cell. All three demand to be taken out of the death row cell. And I, having stepped a little to the side, remain silent. The major glances at me, probably expecting that I will start begging too. But I continue to behave as if it doesn't concern me. Having asked each of these prisoners for their names and written them in his notebook, the major says:

“Well, if you don’t want to be here, then let's go.” —And he leads them out of the cell. I remain in the cell. This suits me: there is room to walk, and I want to be alone. There is nothing to do in the cell. So, I pace back and forth in the cell, examining the walls on which previous prisoners had marked their time in the cell with scratched lines. Or I would just lie there and remember or think about something. The food was no longer what it was at the institute, but I immediately returned to the prison diet without any problems. I don't know about others, but they always gave me a full bowl of kasha. The days passed measuredly, peacefully. The only entertainment was when they checked the cell and took me to the shower. The cell was checked every day. The check was conducted as follows: the door opens and the prison staff enter the cell. One of them with a wooden mallet. Immediately, the command: face the wall, hands on the wall, legs apart. You press yourself tightly against the wall and do as ordered. One of the prison staff presses you against the wall with his hand, while the one with the mallet walks around the cell and taps the bars and beds—checking if anything has been sawed through. I calmly follow the command, because I know that certain rules apply here, and as a death row inmate, you must obey them, as they are concerned about their own safety. The one who pressed me against the wall is the last to leave the cell. I don’t know if they knew who I was. But even if they did, then in that case I was playing along in this comedy. It was even amusing. Just like when they took me to the shower. I was in that shower room twice. And the procedure there is as follows: you come out of the cell, and they immediately whisper to you: shh.., shh.., that is, they order you to be quiet. There are more than a dozen prison staff in the corridor. Complete silence. So as not to break the silence, you have to step softly. And at the slightest thing, they immediately whisper to you: shh, shh. You walk almost to the end of the corridor accompanied by a staff member to the barber. You sit down. The barber cuts your hair, beard, mustache with an electric razor. Prison staff stand nearby. Apart from the sound of the electric razor—not a sound. As soon as you are shaved, they immediately lead you to the shower door. The door doesn’t have a peephole, but a porthole with a diameter of about 15 centimeters. You enter a small changing room. You undress and enter a similarly small room, stand under the shower, wash, and from the corridor, through a similar porthole in the wall, one of the prison staff watches you. You wash, get dressed and again: shh, shh, and you are led back to your cell. Amusing. Because for me, it was a comedy. But not for those who were on death row in the cells of this section. At night, I heard the quiet cry of a woman, which reached me through the door from the neighboring cell. I could also hear the quiet voice of a guard who was calming her. One late evening, or maybe it was already night, I was walking around my cell. A guard came up, opened the peephole and quietly asks:

“За что?”

“Та, двух комуняк замочил,” I answer him.

The peephole closes and simultaneously from behind the door comes a quiet:

“Ай! Ай!...”

This “Ay!” from the guard as he walked away sounded like sympathy and an understanding that it was all over—that there was nothing more to hope for in terms of a pardon.

I stayed in Butyrka for 10 days. If it were up to me, I would have stayed longer, because the cell among the death row inmates suited me. But in the morning the door opens and some major takes me for transport.

That same day I was already in Vladimir Prison, where you can't even lie down and they don't give you a full bowl of thick kasha. And you can’t be alone anymore. I was back in a cell with common criminals on a strict regime. Very quickly, I lost the weight I had gained at the institute. But although I lost the weight, that nutrition really helped to improve my physical condition after the exhaustion caused by the wound and the reduced rations. Upon arrival, I went to the special department with a request to see my psychiatric evaluation report. Soon the head of the special department came into the cell and read the report aloud. According to the report, no mental deviations were found.

And on June 6, another court hearing. The same judicial panel. The same witnesses were called again. I, as at the previous hearing, refused to participate in the case review. The verdict was read out: three years for the escape and three years of prison confinement. Due to being absorbed by the sanction of Art. 62, the total term was 10 years. The term began on January 27, 1965. I didn't bother asking them why January 27, and not December 24, 1964 (from the time of detention), and did not file for an appeal. What for, when I don't intend to quietly serve this sentence.

I was held with the common criminals until the strict detention regime was lifted. And when it was lifted, transferring me to the general prison regime—which was not until November—I was moved to the third floor, where for the first time since my arrival, I was in a cell with political prisoners. At that time, there were 9 political prisoners—especially dangerous recidivists who wore striped clothes—in Vladimir Prison. And there were about a dozen and a half of those who came from criminal camps after receiving a political article in those camps.

A little about those political prisoners: Vitas Klanauskas, a Lithuanian of about 35, was a participant in the liberation struggle. He ended up in the camp sometime in the late forties or early fifties with a 25-year sentence. In the first half of the fifties, he was tried again. For some camp-related offenses, Vitas’s sentence was renewed—25 years from the day of his arrest in the camp, with the entire term to be spent in prison confinement. At that time, such men were called “deaf ones.”

There was another Lithuanian, who was sent to Mordovia, to the 10th camp, a few days later; a Latvian named Vladimir (probably Voldemārs), about 40; and a Russian also named Vladimir, who was serving time for some misdeeds he committed while in the police. The Latvian’s conviction, moreover, was related to the war period. I don’t remember why he ended up in the special regime either. There was also Petro Tupitsyn, about 30, and my peers Anatoliy Bondarenko (from Ukraine), Viktor Balashov, and Zaitsev, who were imprisoned for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. Tupitsyn was a teacher from Karelia who crossed the border into Finland, hoping that Finland would not extradite him as a Karelian. But the Soviet sent Finland fictitious materials—accusing Tupitsyn of theft—and Finland extradited him. He often recalled his time in prison in Finland and berated himself for not listening to the guard who wanted to help him get out. He also regretted not taking the opportunity when the investigator took him outside and left him alone for a while. He had been sure he wouldn’t be extradited, so he felt there was no need to flee to Sweden, with which the Soviet had no extradition agreement. In Vladimir Prison, he contracted tuberculosis. He ended up in Vladimir Prison for an escape attempt. While in the 7th camp, he was teaching in a secondary school and, taking advantage of his free access to the school premises, he and Bondarenko, Balashov, and Zaitsev dug a tunnel from the school in the winter of ’63. In early March, they got out of the camp at night. But by morning, they had all been caught. Bondarenko had two fingers amputated from his hand—he got frostbite while crawling for a long time through the snow after emerging from the tunnel. The court declared them especially dangerous recidivists. Three years were added to each of their unserved sentences, and they were sent to Vladimir Prison for three years.

In Vladimir, I had to share a cell with the Lithuanians, Tupitsyn, Bondarenko, and the Latvian, Vladimir. Bondarenko would sometimes write something there. He had written some prose back in the camp before the escape. The prison had a rather rich library. It even had books from pre-revolutionary editions. I was not a big reader. For me, there was (and not just there) a small selection. These were books that contained something of my worldview, my vision of existence. I read Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” Jack London’s “Martin Eden,” and some of Stefan Zweig’s essays with pleasure.

In late February or early March 1966, Tupitsyn and his fellow escapees, having served their prison sentences, left for Mordovia, to the 10th camp. Perhaps I too would have left the prison, maybe even for freedom, because in January 1966, a KGB agent summoned me and suggested I write a plea for a pardon. At that time, in connection with Khrushchev’s removal, some were being released, but I refused, making it clear to him that it was out of the question. (I would not have been against being kicked out of the prison gates. But I could not ask to be let out, as that would have been like that monk who walled himself up in his cell asking for the wall he built to be torn down).

Soon, Klanauskas was also transferred to the 2nd building. (It was he who, when we were being led across the prison yard, pointed to three women being led a short distance behind us and told me: “That’s Kateryna Zarytska, and that’s Halyna Didyk. And there’s also Darka Husyak. They’ve been here a long time. They each have 25 years of prison confinement.” There was a third woman there as well. Evidently younger than them, with two braids on each side of her head. But Vitas did not know her. Only later did I learn that she was Mariya Palchak, who on April 14, 1960, near Berezhany in the Ternopil region, as part of an underground OUN group (with Petro Pasichnyi and Oleh Tsetnarskyi), fought her last battle with the occupiers. Gravely wounded (she shot herself in the head), she was captured by KGB agents and sentenced to 15 years of prison confinement. With that battle on April 14, 1960, the heroic period of Ukraine came to an end. Half a century has passed, and Ukraine has still not managed to bring forth new heroes. It is not a nation that is heroic, but its individual generations). In the cell, the Latvian was the only political prisoner left. But in the fall, he too departed for the camp. I was again alone among the common criminals. Those criminals were in their late 20s and over 30. Most were short, with their health, both physical and mental, shattered. They had lived hard lives, and it was etched on their weary, gray faces. And yet, each of them was a distinct individual. They did not band together in a pack, acknowledging no one’s superiority over them.

Those common criminals were an original bunch. Just consider the methods of struggle against the prison administration they resorted to. The administration was powerless against such methods. Those methods kept it in a state of fear. True, I wasn’t an eyewitness, but I knew what was happening in other cells. Everyone knew about it, telling one another about the extravagant episodes. Let me recount a few episodes from this confrontation.

There was a prisoner there named Buryakov. He was about a meter and a half tall. He had two murders on his record. He himself was surprised that he had been pardoned for the second murder. I no longer remember why, but he got into a conflict with a guard. Buryakov decided to punish him. So, when that guard came on duty again, Buryakov knocked on the food hatch. The guard came over, and Buryakov, in contrast to their previous squabble, started chirping something in a pleasant little voice, showing that he was ready to make peace. The guard opened the hatch and, leaning over it, was probably about to say something pleasant to Buryakov as well. But as soon as he opened his mouth, Buryakov’s hand, with a piece of feces in its palm, shot toward his mouth.

“Eh…” echoed down the corridor.

And another episode, which happened before my arrival at the prison. The prisoner’s name was Mykola; he was Armenian by nationality, with the Armenian surname Martatyan, but why he was called Mykola is unknown. I only remember from his story that before his arrest, he had married into a family in some village in the Chudniv district of the Zhytomyr region and worked on a farm. So, being dissatisfied with the medical care provided by the female doctor who served the 1st building, he decided to punish her, while adhering to “legal norms.” Therefore, before punishing her, he wrote a verdict in which he listed all the doctor’s evil deeds and pronounced sentence. (I was in a cell with him and read a copy of that verdict, and because of its originality, the end of it has been etched in my memory forever. Here is that ending: “…for the listed evil deeds, is sentenced to the supreme measure of punishment—death by firing squad. But taking into account her moral and physical ugliness, this is to be replaced by anointment with human excrement.”). When everything was prepared, he signed up for a doctor’s appointment. And so the guard unlocked the cell, and Mykola, grabbing the verdict and hiding a mug filled with a mixture of feces, urine, and casein under his arm, went to the doctor, whose office was on the same corridor. The guard remained in the corridor, and Mykola entered the office. Once inside, he placed the verdict on the table in front of the doctor, snatched the mug from under his arm, poured the filth on her head, and, lunging at her, rubbed the poured substance into her hair… An unearthly scream erupted. The prison staff came running. A beaten Mykola was taken back to his cell. A criminal case was opened. A trial. For hooliganism, he got 5 years.

The fight with the administration using an effective weapon—excrement—was safe. They wouldn't put you up for execution for that. No one knocked off caps anymore (like with Denysov’s execution), and no one brandished a stool. So, the prisoners began to douse the prison staff with excrement. I heard they even doused the warden of Vladimir Prison, Zavyalkin. Of course, such methods of struggle could only be used by those who believed that the end justifies the means, even if they are extremely unaesthetic. Still, regarding Mykola’s act, I think he should not have resorted to such a measure. Not because it was a woman, but because there were limits set for both the prisoners’ food and their medical treatment. The need for treatment under those conditions was probably high for many prisoners, and the doctor couldn't properly treat the sick. And this Mykola also distinguished himself, in an equally original way, by helping the former policeman I mentioned—Vladimir. That policeman no longer wanted to endure the torment and decided to end his life, which he announced to his cellmates. He decided to hang himself. Mykola said to him:

“Well, alright, let me help you.”

The two of them started weaving a rope from some material. When the rope was ready, Mykola sat on his bunk, while Vladimir, having fastened the rope to a hanger, put his head in the noose and began to jerk his legs convulsively. Mykola sat and watched the convulsions. The other prisoners either turned away or sat on their bunks with blankets over their heads. When the convulsions stopped, Mykola went over, checked the pulse, and sat back on his bunk. Just then, a guard was distributing newspapers and, opening the food hatch, looked at the bunks and didn’t see the fifth prisoner. He then pressed himself against the hatch, peered into the corners of the cell, and seeing the fifth one hanging from the hanger, raised the alarm. The prison staff immediately rushed in, opened the cell, and took Vladimir out of the noose. The doctor ran in too. Vladimir was taken to the infirmary. He was saved. I was told about how it all happened not only by those who witnessed the event but also by Mykola himself. After telling the story, Mykola said to me: “A little more and he would have been done for. And what a thing to happen! The guard shows up with newspapers.” As for his help, Mykola said this: “If a person has decided to end their life, why not help them?” Maybe so. Why not help? By the way, Mykola was no simpleton. He even studied languages. He mastered German, and to some extent French and Spanish. He refused to learn English on principle. For some reason, he disliked the English. He was also interested in Nietzschean philosophy. And he had penetrated its essence quite deeply. (“If he is falling—push him.” One could agree with this if it were proven that there is any meaning in the existence of the healthy). He said he even had to humor Vandakurov, an expert in philosophy, to get him to give lectures on philosophy. (Vandakurov was a Russian student, arrested somewhere in the mid-50s. In the latter half of the 50s, he made a successful escape from the 7th camp with another prisoner—they drove out of the industrial zone in a railcar. He was captured about a year later).

Mykola Martatyan was an extravagant personality. And he passed into the great beyond extravagantly: upon his release, he settled in the village of Vilshanka in the Chudniv district. He had a dog. He died in 2008. According to a report by local journalist and poet Alla Rol, in accordance with his will, he was buried in the old cemetery next to his dog.

Almost all of those common criminals had something wrong with their psyche, which is why they disfigured their faces with tattoos and swallowed metal objects—handles from spoons. Aficionados of spoon handles: Shapiro, Oleksiy Tarasov, Pavlo Musatov—each swallowed pieces of spoons several times. There was even a record-holder whose name I don't remember, but I do remember that Butova cut open his stomach nine times and took out what he had swallowed. And they swallowed, as a rule, for no reason at all. Sometimes, you’d get out of bed in the morning, and your cellmate would already be on his feet. Patting his stomach, he says to you: “It’ll stay in!” And adds: “I’ll go to the infirmary, lie down for a bit, bring back some rusks.” These were Tarasov’s exact words. If only they kept them there for a long time, but the stitches weren’t even out, and he was already back in the cell with you. Some time would pass—and he'd swallow something again.

There was another specimen there—Mykola Kukushkin. He was one of the post-war street children. You could see that life had been hard on him. Two old scars stretched from the corners of his mouth. Someone had probably torn his mouth open once. His hands were scarred too. He never said anything about the scars from the corners of his mouth, but regarding his hand, he said that he himself had cut the skin all the way around near his elbow and pulled it off down to his wrist like a stocking. Why he would torture himself like that is beyond understanding. And this Mykola used to engage in literary creation; he showed me a small collection, most likely of autobiographical stories, and a review of them by some writer who pointed out a number of imperfections in his works. I only remember a fragment from one of the stories, in which a teenager secretly leaves home, climbs into a train car full of all sorts of people with bundles. He is hungry, but he manages to pull a ring of sausage out of some old woman’s bag. After eating his fill, in high spirits, he mutters to himself: “*Стучат по рельсам колесы, а я полопал колбасы*.”

As I’ve already said, among these prisoners were those who ended up in Vladimir Prison for tattoos. There were also pardoned ones. Of those who were pardoned, only Vasyl Chernikov stood out in Vladimir Prison; he had reapplied an anti-Soviet tattoo on himself. Chernikov was born sometime in the mid-30s. In the early 60s, he participated in a store robbery. He got 10 years. In the camp, he tattooed “Slave of the CPSU” on himself. The court handed down a death sentence. He was pardoned, with the sentence replaced by 15 years in the special regime. In 1964, he arrived in Vladimir. In the fall of ’66, he was in the same cell as me and the Latvian. For some reason, he got into a conflict with his cellmates and moved to another cell. Soon we found out that Chernikov had tattooed himself with another anti-Soviet phrase. And in early 1967—a trial. The firing squad. For some reason, I was summoned to this “court session,” which took place in the same building where I was tried. Moreover, I was summoned at Chernikov’s own request. But what could I say when I was not a witness? And how could I help, knowing that for a second tattoo, he could not escape the death penalty. Only one thing remained. And I said:

“I believe this man is mentally unstable. If you him, you will be held responsible for it.”

The judge didn’t like some con in a striped uniform threatening him with responsibility, so he immediately cut off my speech, commanding gruffly:

“Take him away!”

I was standing by the door, and next to me was the cage where Chernikov was sitting. I only had time to say “Farewell!” to Chernikov—and found myself outside the door. My statement, like Chernikov’s repentance for his act, did not help him. Sometime in mid-spring, an announcement came over the prison speakers: “Chernikov is no more!” The voice of the zampolit held a tone of satisfaction with what had happened.

Such were the prisoners in striped uniforms who arrived then in Vladimir Prison from the criminal camps on political charges. And when you are left alone among them, you feel like you’re in a menagerie. Especially if it’s your first time encountering them. I remember the content of a copy of a statement to the Prosecutor General from the famous dissident Valentyn Moroz, who was imprisoned with them later on; he passed a copy of this statement to the 10th camp. He wrote that he had not slept for four days and asked to be transferred to a solitary cell.

Once, when I was alone among them, Butova came into the cell. She looked at them, then at me, and said:

“How do you endure this?”

“It’s fine! Everything is normal,” I told her.

Yes, it’s hard to be in a cell with them. Even if one of them has mastered some school of philosophy or writes something. True, they didn’t allow themselves any liberties in my presence, but still—you are among beasts. There were some among them with whom one could share a cell and feel normal, communicating with them. That same Pavlo Musatov (I don’t even know if he was a common criminal, because he had been in a camp for political prisoners (a penal one) back in the 50s), Tarasov, Sergey Tsvetkov. But I didn’t get to share a cell with them for long. There were conflicts in the cells sometimes. And it sometimes came to minor fights. As for me, I tried to behave in such a way as to avoid extremes. Besides, there was no one among them who was my physical equal. But still, these people (the criminals) were on the whole closer to me than those on the outside, on whom the communist system rested. The one who went out to steal and rob at night was closer to me than the one who went to the workbench for the second shift.

I did not have to be alone in the midst of the common criminals for long. Just before the New Year—1967—after serving his allotted term on the strict prison regime, Ivan Lashchuk was transferred to my cell. He was from the 11th camp. He had shown some defiance to the administration there. They tried him (accused him of hooliganism), added three years, the first three of which were to be spent in prison confinement. They also changed his regime. Now he was a special-regime prisoner—an especially dangerous recidivist. Ivan looks utterly exhausted. No wonder. He spent a month on reduced rations and months on a strict regime of detention. He is from the Lviv region. After the war, he studied to be a feldher at a medical college in Lviv. From college, he went into the underground. Shortly before his arrest, he was hiding somewhere. It was more than that—he was betrayed. He tried to break out of the encirclement, firing back with an automatic rifle. They took him gravely wounded. Large scars from through-and-through bullet wounds remained on his body. They gave him 25 years. For a long time, we managed to stay in a three-man cell. The third in the cell was one of the common criminals. Tarasov was with us the longest. Ivan was not a talkative man. One could feel that he was already very tired of everything. We spent a lot of time playing chess. We were much better off in the three-man cell, because there was no table in the middle of it. So there was room to walk around. And there were three in the cell, not five. But after some time, they kicked us out. Toilets were being installed in the cells instead of slop buckets, so we were moved to another cell. This was already sometime in September. I was in the same cell with Ivan almost until the end of my prison term. My prison sentence was coming to an end. During that term, I was only in the punishment cell twice, for 10 days each time. I tried to avoid it, but I failed. I served one term for not going out for a walk in winter, and the second for demanding to be returned to the three-man cell. I did not succeed in that, but I did have to spend time in the punishment cell. I did not use the camp store. I survived on my ration alone. And I had no money, but I did not want to receive any help from anyone. I didn't correspond with anyone either. My parents tracked me down and periodically sent packages, but I refused to accept them, and the packages were sent back. And I didn't take anything from anyone. Not even after coming out of the punishment cell, although they begged me to take at least a piece of bread. So I created a regime for myself. So what?! That monk who walled himself up in his cell could a regime for himself. So why can't I one for myself?! The difference was that he was with God, and I was with the Void.

I was finishing my prison term in a cell with Shustov—a political prisoner who had arrived from the 10th camp in the summer. He was my age, from Perm. But I’ve forgotten what he was “in for.” Besides Shustov, there were three other prisoners in the cell (common criminals) who had also arrived from the 10th. They told me that either in the summer or fall (1967), one of the prisoners at the 10th camp had taken his own life. He climbed onto the roof of the workshop, approached the high-voltage wires that ran from the power line to the workshop eaves, bent down, grabbed the wires, and flew down like a torch. (I recently tried to find out something about that prisoner. I reached out to Ihor Kichak, but he could only tentatively report that it was a student from Leningrad who had arrived at the camp shortly before. And his surname was Russian). From this cell, I was taken for transport at the end of January 1968.

I was returning to Mordovia, to the 10th camp. Once again, the familiar transit prisons. The Gorky one was memorable because, after Vladimir Prison, they fed me my fill for the first time. In addition to a large ration of bread, the server gave me a large bowl of fish soup that was almost all fish. I don't think the others were given such a large bowl then. They probably gave it to me because I was alone in the cell, and moreover, in a striped uniform, which, along with my haggard appearance, indicated that I had come from prison confinement. At the transit prisons, I collected leftover pieces of bread in a large bag—I thought that in the camp, things were the same as before. I wanted to bring at least something, to treat someone with at least a piece of bread, because I knew its value there. But when I arrived, I saw that the situation had improved. The camp store still didn’t sell food products, but they had started giving extra nutrition for hard and hazardous work. People shared bread, and there was enough for everyone. So the bread I had collected was not needed, and I gave it to the horse that was used for camp service.

Upon arriving at the camp, I was placed in a new building (a barrack) in a cell where, among others, were my acquaintances Hryhoriy Bukhta and Mykola Konchakivskyi. Bukhta, if I'm not mistaken, lived in Belarus; he was a war veteran who had fought all the way to Berlin. After returning home, he began to help UPA fighters. He was arrested and given 10 years. But in the camp, he was tried again. He got 25 years that time. Konchakivskyi also had a 25-year sentence. He was from the Lviv region. His life story is quite interesting. Before the Second World War, he served in the Polish army. During the war, he was captured by the Germans. When the war between the Germans and the Soviets began, he went into the underground, later joining the UPA. For his participation in the UPA, he received 25 years, and in the first half of the 1960s (in Mordovia), he was tried again. They fabricated some domestic case against him and added 5 years to his unserved sentence. And since this was now his second conviction, he was declared an especially dangerous recidivist and transferred to a special-regime camp—the 10th. (Konchakivskyi was released in October 1978. He returned to his village of Rudnyky in the Mykolaiv district, which he had not seen since 1939. A month later, he died).

Among others in the cell were Maksym Shevtsov and Ivan Sak. Shevtsov had recently arrived at the camp from death row. He was from the east. He had served in the German police as a low-level commander. According to the verdict, he shot one of the villagers, whom he accused of murdering a fellow villager. The death sentence was commuted to 15 years in the special regime.

Well, and Sak was from the Sumy region. He had come from a criminal camp, although he had none of the traits typical of a criminal. He was interested in politics and philosophy. True, he was completely captivated by the ideas of Marx, hostile to private property, and was therefore perceived as a Marxist and treated as a representative of an enemy ideology.

It was already freer in the cell, as in other cells, because in the meantime, some of the prisoners had been transferred by the court to strict-regime camps. And some had been released after completing their sentences. Sashko Chuhai was no longer in the camp either—he had been transferred to the 11th on the strict regime. (Sometime in ’68 or ’69, as Anatoliy Shevchuk, who was in the same camp with Sashko at the time, told me, Chuhai was released. He had nowhere to go. Probably, as a Banderite, he was not allowed to return to Western Ukraine, so Volodymyr Hryn sent Sashko to the Verhnyo- or Nyzhnyo-Stebliyivska stanitsa in Kuban, to his mother, with whom he lived for some time until he found a place for himself. He didn't get to stay in Kuban for long, because after some time, Oleksandr was arrested and, accused of murdering some woman, was shot. Thus ended the tragic life of Oleksandr Chuhai).

I ask my cellmates about the rumors regarding Khrushchev's intention to eliminate the special-regime prisoners.

“Yes, the civilian workers talked about it. They said a trench had already been dug in the forest with a bulldozer,” they tell me. But whether it's true or not is unknown. Although it’s quite possible that Khrushchev did not intend to enter communism (which he had proclaimed) with those who were deemed incorrigible—especially dangerous recidivists. It’s possible he was planning another purge of Soviet society.

I was sent to the newly built workshop. This workshop is a branch of the Moscow Automobile Plant: it produces the front axle beam and spare parts for the "Moskvich" car. The main mass of prisoners is employed in the newly built workshop. They work in two shifts. The other prisoners, as before, sew mittens—also in two shifts. No one is taken outside the zone. The prisoners already look fuller. Not as exhausted as in ’64. They are a bit more cheerful now. After all, the extra ration has yielded positive results.

When I went out to the industrial zone, I met Vasyl Puhach, who, as he told me, had been eagerly awaiting my return from prison. Vasyl works in the workshop, wheeling away waste from the metalworking machines and small presses with a wheelbarrow. Vasyl's job is not hard. And, as it turns out, I'm in luck—Vasyl's partner has moved to another job, and I can take his place and get an supplement to my ration. And that means an extra 300 grams of bread, a double portion of sugar, and probably 30 grams of fat. How could I not agree! I accept Vasyl's offer, because this is one of the best jobs in the workshop, and besides, there is a lot of free time. It's not the press, where you're tied down and can lose the wrist of your hand.

On the very first day we meet, Vasyl asks me:

“So what are your plans?”

“To escape,” I tell Vasyl.

“That’s what I thought,” Vasyl said, his face shining with joy.

Vasyl introduces me to Viktor Andreyev, who, like us, hauls away waste, but from the large presses. He, like Vasyl, has a 25-year sentence. Andreyev is a former policeman from Belarus. In 1961, he escaped from the 11th camp (he was repairing some officer’s house outside the zone with a group of prisoners. It was drizzling. Andreyev took the officer's raincoat and cap from the hanger, put them on, and walked towards the exit of the perimeter. His appearance matched that of the officer, so the guard took him for the officer who lived in the house. In this way, Andreyev found himself in the forest). Soldiers found Andreyev in a haystack and beat him so badly that even in Vladimir he was still spitting up blood. Vasyl and Andreyev had intended to escape, but as Vasyl explained, they couldn’t come up with anything. When the three of us gathered in Vasyl's corner, which was equipped for resting, and each stated his decision to escape, Vasyl, taking a knife in his hand, said:

“A knife awaits whoever betrays us.”

I was surprised by this theatricality. What for?! There couldn't be a traitor among us. Vasyl must be going senile. But if he wants it this way, so be it—I thought, and said:

“I agree.”

Andreyev, somewhat reluctantly, also agreed to this decision. He probably didn't like it either. We began to think about how to carry out the escape. We also started preparing for it. So each of us made a good knife. And I made a compass for each of us, so we could move at night or in bad weather. We decided to dig a tunnel from the waste bins. The preparation took a long time. And on top of that, I was constantly being put in the punishment cell for 15 days at a time. And it was either for some trifle or when I had something on me that could reveal the preparation for the escape. I had to run from the guard. And the guard would file a report—and you’re in the punishment cell. We finally came to the conclusion that we couldn't dig a tunnel from the bins. And time was passing. It was already the fall of 1969, and we still couldn't get out of the camp. I suggest digging a tunnel from the smithy, from under two metal boxes, each with a capacity of 3 cubic meters, which have been lying upside down for a month. And it’s not far to dig here. They agree. We get to work: Andreyev and Puhach are on lookout, while I dig a passage under the box. The next day, I had already dug a pit under the box and started digging towards the forbidden zone. But then a few knocks on the box, which meant: “Get out of the box and run!” I didn’t jump out. I thought: maybe they mixed up the number of knocks on the box. I sit. I wait to see how this will end. After all, even if I do jump out, they will recognize me. I won’t get far. And then again: “knock-knock!” The signal means: “Nobody's here, climb out!” I climbed out and asked why the alarm signal was given.

“I got it mixed up,” says Andreyev.

Well, that can happen, I thought.

The next day I went to work and saw that the boxes were gone, and in their place was just a small pile of earth. After analyzing everything, I came to a conclusion: someone is “snitching.” Suspicion falls on Puhach. From the very beginning, he has been behaving differently than he did back in ’64. Sometimes he even has tea. For some reason, he is in a cell with the common criminals. And Andreyev is no longer sure about Puhach either. Timur also has his doubts, because when Vasyl stepped back from escape preparations in the mid-60s and Timur started preparing to escape with other prisoners, Vasyl, upon learning of this, gave Timur a punch, believing that Timur had no right to act that way, because they might suspect that he, Vasyl, was also planning an escape. After thinking it over, I suggested to Andreyev that we say nothing to Puhach, continue to interact with him as before, but prepare for the escape behind his back. Soon, I noticed that several times, just before the locomotive was supposed to enter the industrial zone to pick up a railcar loaded with metal waste (this happened every two to three months), a guard would climb onto the car, and the prisoners, after being counted, were let go. So an opportunity arose to approach the railcar, which was surrounded by large empty boxes, and climb into it, where a hiding place would be constructed above the hatch of the Pullman car. There were two ways to get into the hiding place: the first was to make an opening to it. And the second—two prisoners would have to come up and close the hatch behind us. Andreyev agreed with the first option. Finally, the railcar is brought in for loading. I climb into the car, saw through three boards opposite the metal posts of the car, fasten them together, screwing hinges on one side. The opening is ready. And in the box with metal waste are two sturdy, prepared trestles with a crosspiece. Andreyev and I are by the railcar, waiting for the crane. And then (which had never happened before) the camp warden approaches the car, accompanied by someone from the administration (the camp warden in ’64 was the head of the operational department—the oper, or “godfather” in camp slang). He walks up, peers into the railcar through a crack, smiling. Andreyev gets nervous. When the warden leaves, Andreyev tells me:

“That’s it! You do what you want, but I’m not doing anything else.”

The crane arrives, and we load the railcar (Puhach wasn't there then). But the railcar is taken away not during the day, but at night. About two weeks pass. When I come to work, I find out that the industrial zone had been searched before the prisoners came out, and in a huge pile of paronite waste (they stamped out paronite gaskets on the presses), they found a canister containing a pair of overalls. Only Andreyev knew about this canister with a dark-blue pair of overalls, matches, a piece of rubber, and dressing material, which had been lying in the waste for several months. (I had another option: in suitable weather, try to sneak up to the fence of the forbidden zone—from a certain distance, a soldier from the tower might not see through the inner wire overhang above the fence—tear off a couple of boards at the bottom, and climb out). It's all clear now. And Puhach is nervous. He flinches when I suddenly approach him in a dead end. But why?! If you’re not guilty, who’s going to knife you?! (He already knows that I suspect him of betrayal). We were barely speaking anymore. And when I asked him again about Andreyev, Puhach told me: Andreyev signed a pledge to cooperate back in Vladimir. I did not react to this information. I just thought: “You fool! Who did you introduce me to, then?!” It would seem that Vasyl should have done something to clear his name. But instead of the three of us gathering again and discussing everything, Vasyl, as if nothing had happened, meets with Andreyev, and they chat about something. And the year was already 1970.

After returning to the 10th camp, I socialized not only with those with whom I planned to escape. I socialized with many prisoners, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, whom I decided to use for cover. Let the camp administration think, I thought, that Babych is no longer thinking about escaping, but only about God. I even started taking booklets from them. They were made of one and a half to two dozen small pages, about half the size of a palm, covered in very tiny handwriting. They contained materials from the Bible and from the "Watchtower" magazine. The Jehovah's Witnesses were from various republics, but the majority among them were Ukrainians. There were also those who had participated in the armed struggle and had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in the camps, for which they had even received additional prison terms. These were Kostyantyn Skrypchuk from Bukovyna and Illya Stoiko from Buchach. They each had 25-year sentences. Skrypchuk had been a machine gunner in the UPA, and Stoiko was a participant in an assassination attempt on some torturer from the NKVD. It happened like this: having learned that one of the NKVD leaders from the district center, famous for his cruelty not only towards members of the underground but also towards those not involved in the active struggle, was due to arrive, two young men, one of whom was Stoiko, put on soldier's uniforms and went to the club where a meeting of the villagers was to take place. They were let into the club. The young men sat on the front bench. And in front of them, at a table covered with red cloth, sat the presidium, headed by that torturer. The young men pulled out pistols and shot the NKVD man. They were put on trial. His partner, if I am not mistaken, was sentenced to be shot. How Stoiko managed to save himself, I no longer remember.

Of all the Jehovah's Witnesses, I socialized most with Stoiko. Even when he realized that the booklets I was taking from him were a cover for me, we continued to socialize, exchanging thoughts on religion, on the spiritual sphere, on existence in general. Stoiko was one of those believers who deeply penetrated the essence of things, and so it was not difficult for us to understand each other. On some issues, we even shared the same opinion. I also had discussions with my cellmates who were Jehovah's Witnesses, also Ukrainians. In the cell, my main opponent was Anton. But he didn't philosophize much. When he ran out of a weighty argument, he would declare: “The devil is inside you.” And that's where the discussion with the Jehovah's Witnesses ended.

Well, since I’ve touched on the topic of sects, I will continue this story. There were believers of other sects in the camp. Yeroshov and Kalinin stood out among them; they had created the Brotherhood "Truly Orthodox Church," or TPC. There were two other Russians who so rejected the satanic Russian empire—the USSR—that in their prayers, asking for the USSR's demise, one of them would repeat the phrase several times: “China is gaining strength,” “China is gaining strength,” while the other, already very old (he had been a con building the White Sea Canal), would say: “A hundred-pood hammer to the head…” A hammer, probably, because he was a blacksmith. The sectarians conducted missionary work, but only the Jehovah's Witnesses sometimes managed to attract some of the cons to their faith, and even then, only from among the common criminals. There was one convert there. His name was Sanya. This Sanya had his hand cut off by a press while working, and he hoped that after Armageddon, which the Jehovah's Witnesses expected in 1975, he, as a Jehovah's Witness, would be saved, and his hand would grow back. He still had hope, but he told me: “If there's no Armageddon in '75, I'm joining your gang.” Armageddon did not happen in 1975, so Sanya probably left the Jehovah's Witnesses sect.

Besides those who worshiped Jesus, there was one (a common criminal) who revered the elder son of the Judaic God—Lucifer. His nickname was even “Lucifer.” And so everyone knew him not by his surname or name, but by his nickname. Once, seeing a small wooden plaque on a string around his neck, on which a man with horns and a tail was drawn, I became interested in his attitude towards Lucifer and his vision of this biblical character. It turned out—nothing original. Then I offered him an idea: to wear Lucifer not on a plaque, but crucified on a cross, explaining that it was not Jesus who was crucified—doomed to death. It was Lucifer who was crucified, who, having reached almost the same level as his father—God—wanted to separate from his father, to have his own domain, to be independent of his father. The father did not like this and condemned him to death. And the younger son, Jesus—no one killed him. Yes, Jesus was crucified. But he would have been killed if he were merely a man, and not the Son of God. Then one could have sympathized with him. If he was the Son of God and transformed into a man to communicate with people, did he really intend to remain with people forever—to be in the shell of a Man?! After all, if a person could transform into another creature, wishing to communicate with, say, ants, they would not remain in the anthill forever. Undoubtedly, that person would want to return to other people. But for that, you need to shed the shell you are in—that ant needs to die. The Son of God was going through this necessary procedure—shedding the human shell. (It is only unclear why he took it with him to heaven). Yes, it was painful, like any surgery without anesthesia. But this was not death, but a return through this procedure to his own kind—to the gods. So, one should not mourn the Son of God—Jesus—but rejoice that he was crucified—that they helped him return to his Father. One should sympathize not with Jesus, but with God's elder son doomed to death—Lucifer. My explanation and idea appealed to “Lucifer”: some time later, upon meeting me, he bared his chest and showed me a masterfully crafted cross with a crucified Lucifer on it.

In 1969, I had a visit with my father. It was when the American astronauts were flying to the Moon. I was in the industrial zone. Just then, a guard approached and told me that my father had arrived. Well, alright—I have to go. (And about a month before this, one of the prisoners came up to me and said:

“There are two military men by the workshop who want to see you.”

I left the workshop. Two military men were standing near the entrance. One of them, a captain, asked me:

“Do you recognize me?”

Most likely, under other circumstances, I would not have recognized Suslovets in this stocky captain. I first recognized him by his voice. I looked at him, said, “I recognize you,” turned around, and went back into the workshop. I had nothing to say to him). I went to the guardhouse. My father was already sitting in the room for short-term visits. We greeted each other—as if we had only been apart for a week. We sat on benches slightly angled opposite each other, about a meter and a half apart, and talked.

“Why don't you write?” my father asked. “We were looking for you. We asked Suslovets when he came to find out if you were in the camp.”

Although I don't ask much, my father tells me about my brothers and sisters, where each of them lives, which of them already have their own families. About an hour passed in quiet conversation. It was time for my father to go. We could have talked a little longer, but he couldn't be late for the train to get to Potma. And besides, there was really nothing left to talk about, as the life my relatives, acquaintances, and the village lived was not interesting to me. And in general, what could interest me?! Getting up from the bench, my father asked the guard sitting nearby once again to allow him to pass me the food he had brought for me.

“No, it’s not allowed,” the guard repeated.

I put something of what was allowed in my pocket, and my father picked up his bag and left the room.

The volume of production on the presses was gradually decreasing. I no longer worked with Puhach. Ivan Lashchuk arrived from Vladimir, and for some time I brought cast iron blanks to the milling machine with him, and then I went to be an assistant to Roman (a Jehovah's Witness), who repaired dies. Oh, those dies!... They had maimed more than one person. No fewer than half a dozen prisoners were maimed on the presses. Ivan Sak also lost three fingers and part of his palm. The small presses, which operated in a fast automatic mode, were very dangerous. If you hesitated for even a fraction of a second, your fingers, or even your wrist, would be on the die in the form of a thin flap, in which only the nails revealed what it had once been.

And the number of prisoners at the 10th camp kept decreasing. There was no one left in the old barrack. Zhohlo was also released after his sentence ended. But he never arrived home. His parents searched for him, wrote about it to some of his friends in the camp, but it remained unknown where he had gone. Some of those who knew his past suspected that he had been killed on his way home. They suspected the father of one of the prisoners who had been killed sometime in the early 50s. And that prisoner was killed for being an informant. What part Zhohlo played in that murder (unlike the others, he was not shot), I no longer remember. But I do remember that the father of that prisoner held a rather high position, it seems, in the NKVD. After the trial, he told Zhohlo:

“I will not forgive you for this.”

Some of those with 25-year sentences had them reduced to 15. The camp administration sent a petition to the court to reduce the sentences of V. Puhach and V. Andreyev as well. This became known when the court arrived at the camp and, having reviewed their cases, granted the petition for Puhach but denied it for Andreyev. Puhach had only months left until his release. So, prisoners were being released, but very few were arriving.

Among those who arrived at the camp is our celebrity—Kostya Didenko. He is from Kamianets-Podilskyi. He did his military service in the Black Sea Fleet. When the squadron was in the Mediterranean Sea in 1967, he formed a group to seize the ship on which he served. The ship (a minesweeper) was anchored at night near the island of Malta. Having prepared for the seizure, Didenko took one of the group with him and went to the captain’s cabin. At that moment, his partner (frightened by the possible consequences) hit him on the head with the butt of an automatic rifle. Didenko jumped into the sea, hoping to swim to the island. But an alarm was immediately raised on the ships of the squadron, and he was fished out of the sea. A trial. Didenko was given the death penalty, which was commuted to 15 years in the special regime upon pardon. (Didenko served his sentence. He died in November 1989—he crashed on a motorcycle).

Zhernoklieiev also arrived at the c he had been in some kind of punitive squad during the war. He was tried with a group of these punitive soldiers. All were sentenced to be shot. But Zhernoklieiev was lucky. After keeping him on death row for a year, his death sentence was commuted to 15 years in the special regime. When he arrived, his face was earthy-yellow, like a dead man's. After the war, in the 40s, Zhernoklieiev taught in my village, and then somehow ended up in the Zhytomyr Regional Department of Public Education as an inspector. He would also visit Rohachiv, where he had mistresses.

I don't remember where he was from originally, but I was surprised by his knowledge of the history of the village of Rohachiv, the landowner's estate, and the Baranovka district in general. I don't know how true it is, but here is a story from Zhernoklieiev about the owner of that estate, Volovnyk.

At the beginning of the 20th century, sometime during the revolutionary events of 1905, Volovnyk receives news that in St. Petersburg his son, a Socialist-Revolutionary, has been sentenced to death, and the sentence is to be carried out on a certain date. Volovnyk knew on which days the train went through Polonne to St. Petersburg. To make it to St. Petersburg before the execution, he needed to catch the first train. He grabs all his savings, jumps into a carriage, and races to Polonne. He drove his horses into the ground, but he managed to jump onto the train. Arriving in St. Petersburg, he bribes someone who could help him out, and someone else is hanged instead of his son. And Volovnyk sends his son abroad.

(Already in 2010, while visiting my brother’s wife Tetiana's sister—Nina—in Baranovka, I was telling something from the history of Baranovka that I had heard from Zhernoklieiev.

“So you were imprisoned with him? But he’s from Baranovka,” says Nina, and she tells me about Zhernoklieiev.

It turns out that after serving his 15 years, he arrived in Baranovka. He wanted to return to his family (his family didn’t know about his past during the war). But his wife and children refused to take him in. He hung around there for some time, and, needed by no one, ended his life—he hanged himself).

My work was not burdensome. Besides, I had a lot of free time. The dies were in good condition, and sometimes I wouldn't work for several days in a row. Ihor Kichak, Dmytro Syniak, and Mykola Yevhrafov, nicknamed “Anarchist,” also had plenty of free time. We even had our own little booth—an extension to the former sewing workshop, about 5 square meters in size. So, especially in winter and bad weather, we would gather there and have endless discussions on various topics. Sometimes we would get so carried away, proving something contradictory to one another, that we would arrive at the canteen when everyone else had already finished lunch. Ihor was distinguished by his rapid speech; words flew from him like from a machine gun. Yevhrafov would also get worked up. But Dmytro mostly listened to our bickering, smiling and usually siding with whoever was being ganged up on by the other two. Ihor had a decent knowledge of Ukrainian history. (Experts in history are those who fuss over the distant past—like a fool with his mortar and pestle). Mykola, however, preferred the philosophy of existentialism. He had mastered this philosophy thoroughly and could lecture for hours on the work of one existentialist philosopher or another. He was an existentialist. Thus, his understanding of and attitude toward life in many cases coincided with mine. He was also fascinated by the hippies—the youth movement that swept through several countries in those years, becoming a mass phenomenon. For some reason, he hoped that the movement, its mass character, would last forever. To which I, having grasped the essence of this movement, told him more than once: these young people will last until the first rain; they'll get wet and run back under the roof of their parents' house (which is what happened, because renouncing life’s comforts, asceticism, is for the few). Mykola was an exceptional specimen. Born in the early 30s. He lived in the city of Sloviansk. (This is the Sloviansk in the Donetsk region where, according to his story, some old woman was tried in 1947 for eating her own granddaughter). His official education was primary school. He had been in criminal camps. It was in those same camps, while professing anarchism, that he acquired the nickname “Anarchist.” Upon arriving at the 10th camp, he joined the nationalists, but in fact, his philosophy did not entirely align with the philosophy of nationalism, so I believe his nationalism was not deep-seated. He probably became a nationalist due to the circumstances, given the absence of an anarchist movement. At heart, he remained an anarchist. Sharing a cell, we debated very often. Sometimes, he would clutch his heart and say:

“You’re deliberately winding me up.”

He was an interesting conversationalist. And, in fact, he was spiritually the closest to me among my fellow camp inmates. “Anarchist” stood out from his surroundings with his way of thinking. As for all the others, their thinking was stereotypical. It might have had a bright wrapper, but it was not close to me.

Around that time, one of the Ukrainians passed Yevhrafov a copy of Dziuba's book “Internationalism or Russification?” in his cell. I also flipped through this work a bit but found nothing worthy of attention in it. I don’t even know why this book was delivered to the camp. After all, the Ukrainians at the 10th camp knew about the Russification being carried out in Ukraine even before Dziuba, and he could tell us nothing new. And as for the number of schools switched to the Russian language, what could be interesting about such a report?! It would be another matter if he were reporting on how many Russian-language schools had been blown sky-high.

I socialized quite often with Oles Vodyniuk. He was from the Lviv region, a student at an institute. In the late 40s, he had already been imprisoned in the North. He was one of the organizers of an underground organization in the camp, for which he received a new sentence and the title of "especially dangerous recidivist" after his release. Also with Kyrylo Banatskyi, from the Rivne region, whose fate was similar to Vodyniuk's. And also with Konchakivskyi and a little with Andriy Turyk. Turyk had been in a penal camp before being transferred to the 10th. I don’t know about the 10th, but in the penal camp, he had planned to seize the guardhouse with a group of prisoners. But a prisoner who was in this group got scared (he told me) that they would be shot. And he made it so that Turyk abandoned that idea. Turyk, upon learning of this, often reproached him for it. Well, and I socialized with others too.

As for the common criminals, although they were somewhat mixed with us in the cells, they kept to themselves. They socialized with each other, and with us, the political prisoners, only when necessary, mostly concerning work or if we were in the same cell. There was also a cell in the 10th camp “for the untouchables”—passive homosexuals. These were the ones everyone knew about and who did not hide their affiliation with the “untouchables.” There were extravagant stories involving them. For example, these I know of.

Having retired, Tranina was the head of the medical unit of the 10th c she had previously been the head of the camp hospital in Barashevo. And so, as a political prisoner who worked as an assistant in the medical unit told me, “Lyuba” comes in for an appointment with Tranina. This was back before they started giving the extra ration. This “Lyuba,” who was already around 50, came in, fell to her knees, and, addressing Tranina, said:

“You’re a woman and I’m a woman! You have to understand me: give Valerka a special diet.”

And what do you think, says this assistant of Tranina’s—Tranina gave Valera the special diet (a dietetic meal plan for one month). Tranina was an eccentric woman. As they said, she even gave a pair of earrings to one of those “Lyubas.” There was also a comical incident with one “Lyuba.” Summer. At 5 p.m., the prisoners are brought back from the industrial zone. One of these “Lyubas” didn't go into her cell but, having undressed completely, walked around between the barracks. When all the prisoners were locked in their cells, the guards began to herd “Masha” (or whatever her name was). But she didn’t want to go in and ran away from them. Officers came to help the guards. Everyone was chasing this naked “Masha,” while the prisoners watched the spectacle from their windows. Finally, they herded this “Masha” behind the exercise yards, surrounded her; she had nowhere to go, they were about to grab her. Then she jumped into a cesspit filled with feces, climbed out, and rushed at her pursuers. Everyone scattered! They ran towards the guardhouse, with “Masha” after them. From the cells—homeric laughter.

Or another such incident. The detachment officer enters the cell of these “Lyubas,” and two of them are busy “making love” (one of them is sitting on top of the other). And it's as if nothing is happening, no reaction to the detachment officer. The officer got indignant that they weren't reacting to him and said:

“How insolent! At least get off. The detachment officer came in.”

They were original scenes. In my 13 years in the criminal camps and prisons of the Ukrainian SSR, I had neither heard nor seen anything like it. Of course, they (gays) existed, but their behavior was not conspicuous.

By the way, that detachment officer (Lieutenant Pyatkin) probably had some mental issues. He had graduated from a pedagogical institute, but it seems he was unsuited for teaching and so transferred to the MVD. But he was not malicious. He tried to explain, to persuade. He liked to give lectures during political education classes. So one time, I too, to avoid sitting in the cell, went to that political education class, which was held in the club… The officer began to talk about Lenin. He was saying something or other about him… And then Zorichev, with whom I shared a cell after being wounded, stood up from the bench and said: “I f…ed your Lenin!” The officer fell silent. Then, with offense in his voice, to Zorichev: “F…ed Lenin, f…ed Lenin! But did you even see him?!” The hall erupted in laughter. And nothing happened. Zorichev was not punished.

Parakhnevich, the one who cut off his ears, also surprised with his actions. In the industrial zone, seeing a cat playing with a half-choked mouse, Parakhnevich grabbed the cat, took the mouse, threw it into his mouth, and after a couple of chomps—swallowed it (I was one of those who watched this madness). And Bryukhovetskyi (also a common criminal, he had also been in Vladimir) either really wanted to set himself on fire or maybe just intended to get something from the camp administration; he doused himself with a small amount of gasoline and set himself alight. He was sent to the hospital in Barashevo. He returned to the camp missing an arm up to the elbow.

The summer of 1970 was passing. September 1st was approaching, the day I had long planned to conduct a training lesson—to teach a lesson to those who had betrayed me. And so, September 1st. I decided to start with Vasyl. Going out into the industrial zone, I looked for him. We met near the washing area. I walked up, slapped him, grabbed him, threw him to the floor face up, and, feigning an enraged look (I was largely beyond emotions, for emotion is something animalistic, so emotion had to be feigned), I made a motion with my hand as if I was about to pull something from my belt, and at the same time I asked:

“Who did you introduce me to?!”

“Serhiy! Serhiy!” Vasyl screamed.

I let him go and went to look for Andreyev. Andreyev wasn’t in the workshop. I was by the washing area again. And then Andreyev appeared in the open doorway. He entered the workshop. I walked towards him. Coming up to him, I slapped him. And instantly, a fist flew from his side towards me. I was even surprised by such a reaction. After all, until the very last moment, unlike with Vasyl, I had pretended not to suspect him of anything. Dodging his fist, which was aimed at my head, I grabbed his right shoulder with my left hand, turned him around, and he, losing his balance, crashed onto his back on the concrete floor with his full height. After falling, he rolled over onto his face and lay there, pressed against the floor. I bent down, slapped him on the ear, and started to roll him over. But Andreyev wrapped his arms around his head and wouldn’t let me turn him over. Not a sound. Just pressing himself against the floor. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to turn him over, I slapped his head one more time and walked away. Andreyev, like Vasyl, was nearly 50. But he was taller than me and broader in the shoulders. He was still quite strong. And perhaps I did the right thing by involving two other prisoners in this affair, whose presence probably dissuaded Andreyev from putting up a fight.

I didn't see Puhach in the workshop anymore. But I did approach Andreyev again when he was sitting on a bench behind the workshop. There was no one else around. I went up and, after saying that this wasn't all, went back into the workshop. One of the prisoners approached me and said that two snitches had run to the gates of the residential zone, and that one of them had even climbed over the gate. Soon, a guard approached and took me to the residential zone. He led me into an office. In the office were the oper and the regime officer (the “regime officer” being the head of the regime department). Interrogation began immediately. They accused me of beating Puhach and Andreyev.

“What are you talking about?! These are my friends!” I said, feigning surprise. They led me to another office. In the office were Puhach and Andreyev. They asked Andreyev:

“Did he beat you?”

“He beat me,” Andreyev replied. “He even cut my ear, see,” he showed them his ear.

They asked Puhach:

“Did he beat you?”

Puhach was silent.

“So, did he beat you or not?” they pressed Puhach.

“Well, he hit me, I hit him… Nothing serious,” Puhach said, smiling.

They took me back to my cell, and about an hour later, I was already in the punishment cell. They gave me 15 days. I'm sitting alone in the cell. The punishment cells at the 10th camp were designed for one prisoner, like solitary confinement. I'm in the end cell, with a window facing the guardhouse. I know that in a week, Puhach's sentence ends, and he will pass by my cell. On the day of his release, I glance out the window. And there’s Puhach. He walked to the guardhouse, but he never even once looked back. I think that if he had no guilt, he should have at least looked back and called me a fool, adding that he was in no way guilty before me. I watched him go and thought: maybe I was wrong about Vasyl after all. Back in '64, he didn't give away my escape preparation. If I hadn't been so stupidly caught then, I wouldn't have had this second meeting with him, and what happened between us wouldn't have happened. Maybe I shouldn't have humiliated him before his release after so many years served. After all, no real harm was done to me, although they could have caught me when I was digging the tunnel under the box. And that would have been three additional years and another three years in Vladimir. Yes, those frequent stints in the punishment cell, which delayed the escape preparations, were nothing compared to what could have been. (The camp warden once told me: “Yes, you’ve worked a lot.” I think he sympathized with me ever since ’64, when he was an oper). The fact that nothing worse happened to me is probably the result of Puhach and Andreyev having an agreement with the camp administration that they would help them, but on the condition that this help would not result in serious consequences for me. After serving 15 days, I returned to my cell. The next day, they didn't take me to work. I was already expecting the worst—to be sent to Vladimir. But they summoned me to an office and read a decree transferring me to a solitary cell for three months. For three months! They could have given me a year. I took my things, bedding, and moved to the solitary cell. My solitary cell was in the opposite end of the barrack—with a window facing the industrial zone. It was the cell where that unknown prisoner had hanged himself in 1963. A small workshop was still operating in the industrial zone, where they sewed work gloves, so they took me to a work cell where I turned those gloves inside out. No one demanded that I meet the norms. Besides, there were few gloves to turn, and sometimes I was completely without work. My time in solitary passed without any incidents. After serving it, I returned to the cell where I had been before.

Most of the Ukrainians were displeased that I had acted as I did with Puhach and Andreyev without telling anyone. Especially with Puhach. People approached me, asked questions. Mykola Kurchyk came up, not hiding his indignation. But when I answered some of his questions regarding the escape preparations and how Puhach behaved during the interrogation, Mykola said: “Puhach, with his vast experience, couldn’t have acted that way. And his behavior at the interrogation… Something is not right here.” They agreed with me but said: they had authority. You should have told us and slapped him in a small circle. Maybe they were right. Then I wouldn't have had to sit in the punishment cell and solitary. Yes, I should not have ignored the community to which I still belonged.

The camp administration once again presented Andreyev to the court for a sentence reduction. But the court refused again. And about a day or two after the court session, Vitas Klanauskas approaches me and says: when the court was in session, a prisoner from the service staff was eavesdropping at the door. Denying the administration's petition, the judge said: "Yes, he helped you, but he was doing the same thing in the police." So, after the court’s second refusal to reduce Andreyev’s sentence to 15 years, the administration submits a petition to transfer him to a lighter detention regime. The court granted this petition, and Andreyev was transferred to a strict-regime camp.

In 1971, the detention regime for special-regime prisoners was relaxed—products were brought to the camp store, and for the first time in 10 years, prisoners were able to buy them. And although it was only for 4 rubles a month, it was a major event for the prisoners. In addition to the thin soup and sticky prison-baked bread, there were now white bread rolls, fruit preserve, margarine, and “podushechka” candies. I already had some money I had earned, and I also started buying things.

In the spring and summer of 1971, the hope of escape had not yet left me. Trying not to attract attention, I met with Kostya Didenko, who also had a desire to get out of the camp. We considered various options, but none of them offered a chance for a successful escape. Besides, I had so little time left on my sentence that it would have been foolish to take a big risk. In 1971, all I did was prepare for a tunnel. Specifically: that year, they were laying a heating pipeline that ran from the boiler house along the forbidden zone and turned towards the barracks. Climbing into the heating duct, I knocked out the supports, laying the pipes on the ground. All that remained was to make an entrance into the duct.

During '71, I had to be in the punishment cell two more times. The first time for punching my cellmate (a former policeman from the Odesa region) in the face for an insult when I reproached him for, as a food server, not passing food to a prisoner who was in the punishment cell. And a second one, also from the service staff, had to get punched in the face for rudeness. (And how could you not punch him?! If you don't, they won't respect you). In the winter of 1971-1972, although there was no need for it, I managed to get a trip to the hospital in Barashevo. There, in one of the buildings (the therapeutic one), were two small cells for the special regime. We, the men in stripes, were let out into the corridor, where there were wards for political prisoners of the strict regime, only during meal times and for doctor's visits. The canteen was in the same building, and during our visits to the canteen, we had the opportunity to communicate with the strict-regime prisoners. Although there were many prisoners in the wards, there was no one among them with whom I had served time during my first sentence. Of those prisoners, I only remember Yuriy Galanskov, who was ill and probably in a depressive state all the time because of it (soon he was gone—he died), and a Lithuanian named Jonas. Jonas was about 40. The expression on his face, with its large, light-gray eyes, immediately caught my attention. This face was different from the others. It was pale and motionless. He was at least 180 cm tall; this prisoner’s head was always held high, and his motionless, wide-open eyes expressed a kind of unearthly sorrow. This gaze drew me in with its mystery. Going out into the corridor, I would look at this face, trying to understand what was hidden behind that sorrow. I noticed that he, too, had started looking at me. My persistent stares probably attracted his attention. So all the prisoners walked around, communicating with each other, while he stood almost motionless, towering over everyone like some angel of sorrow. I did approach him and ask what was wrong with him.

“I have stomach cancer. The end should come soon,” Jonas replied.

We began to talk. Jonas did not want to die in the camp. And especially not to be in that morgue, which stood on the opposite side of the zone and into whose little window he had probably already peered more than once. He did not want to be disemboweled there. He also knew the prisoner who worked in the morgue and, as a pathologist's assistant, would have to dissect his body. “I’ll kill him,” Jonas repeated more than once. Jonas also thought about how to escape and, having made it to Lithuania, to die there—in his native land. He had nothing left to lose. I suggested to him the only option for escape he had: covered with a sheet, try to crawl through the forbidden zone at night.

In the spring of 1972, I asked Klanauskas if he knew anything about Jonas.

“He died,” Klanauskas replied.

And the number of prisoners in the camp kept dwindling. Ihor Kichak and Oles Vodyniuk were no longer in the c after serving their second sentences, they had returned to Ukraine. But only a few arrived. Among them were Eduard Kuznetsov, Yuri Fyodorov, and Alexei Murzhenko—participants in an attempt by a group of Jews to hijack a plane and fly to Sweden. The sentences were long: Kuznetsov and Fyodorov had 15 years each, and Murzhenko had 14. (Murzhenko was a Roma from Lozova, but no one in the camp knew about it. Everyone thought he was Ukrainian. I was in the same cell with Murzhenko for some time). All three had already been in the Mordovian camps in the 60s, accused of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. I developed friendly relations with them. Still, I socialized most with Fyodorov. He was not talkative. One could feel that he was absorbed in his own spiritual world, detached from the hustle and bustle. If I am not mistaken, he was a romantic, a Christian who stoically endured the blows of fate. His soul was not turbulent—there was peace in it. Psychologically, we were more suited to each other, which brought us closer. All three of them loved strong tea. Sometimes, one of them would brew a mug of tea, we would sit down and pass the mug in a circle—two sips each. So you take your sip and pass it on. I remember an incident with Konchakivskyi. Once, some common criminals were sitting in a circle, drinking tea. Mykola was passing by. Seeing him, they called Mykola over to join the group and handed him a mug, knowing that Mykola was not such a big fan of chifir. They probably just decided to joke around. But Mykola took the mug, tilted it back, and drank all the tea. The criminals were in despair.

“Well,” Mykola smiled back at them, “I thought it was all for me.”

Of course, Mykola knew about the two sips, but he also decided to joke around. So it goes—the tea ceremony was for many the most pleasant moment of camp life.

I barely spoke of escape with the "airplane guys" (as those involved in the plane hijacking were called). And they avoided the topic, probably understanding that with my remaining sentence, I was no longer a fellow traveler for them. Nevertheless, understanding that they had no other choice but to try to get out of the camp somehow, I intended to help them, so I thought about how to make an opening into the heating duct. And when I came up with something, I would then inform them of the possibility of getting to freedom. There were plenty of people willing to dig a tunnel. I would no longer climb into the heating duct myself, but when the tunnel was ready, I would not have remained in the camp.

Sometime at the end of '71 or maybe the beginning of '72, an event took place in the camp: three common criminals were tried for anti-Soviet tattoos. They were Sergey Tsvetkov, Oleksiy Tarasov, and Buryakov. They were, as if specially selected, short men, two of whom were clearly in poor health. All three had recently arrived at the camp from Vladimir Prison. Tsvetkov not only stood out among the criminals for his decency, but he was also a remarkable artist-caricaturist. Besides caricatures of Soviet reality, he drew caricatures of members of the administration. For this, he was constantly persecuted both in Vladimir and in Mordovia. He was often sick. He was not properly treated, and for systematically failing to meet the production quotas at the 10th camp, he was put in the punishment cell, in solitary. Tarasov, like Tsvetkov, also looked sickly, was often ill, and also served time in the punishment cell for not meeting quotas. Well, and the third one—Buryakov—was an unstable individual. So, in the fall, while in a transit cell, as a protest against being sent to Vladimir Prison for three years for violating camp rules, all three of them tattooed themselves with anti-Soviet phrases. It was Tarasov’s second time. They were tried in the camp's club. Tarasov did not repent. He probably understood that after a second tattoo, no amount of repentance would help. He behaved courageously. And in his final words, he told the judges: "Blow up my ass so I can fly to the moon." Tarasov was given the death penalty, while the others got 15 years and were sent to Vladimir. (In 1976, Tsvetkov returned from Vladimir Prison to the 10th camp, which by then was for common criminals, and died that same year. I don’t know if his elderly mother, who had once been in great poverty, was still alive. I remember (in the 60s), she had managed to put only some rusks and vermicelli in a package. Even the administration of Vladimir Prison was moved by the contents of the package, and so one of the guards took that vermicelli to the kitchen, where it was cooked for him). After the trial, Tarasov spent some more time in a solitary cell opposite the side exit of the barrack. There was a narrow corridor there and two cells. The corridor was separated from the main corridor by a grated door. The door to Tarasov’s cell was also grated, and in the morning, when we went to the toilet, we could see him through the double grates and say something to him. He sat on the bunk, looking at us with an expression of indifference on his face. One could feel that he no longer needed anything, that he had resigned himself to the inevitable.

The summer of 1972 was ending. I don’t remember if it was at the end of August or the beginning of September when they suddenly announced to me: transport tomorrow. They announced it to others too, including Mykola Yevhrafov. There were eight of us in total: myself, Mykola, a former policeman, and some common criminals. The next day, we were not taken to work, and after some time, they took us from cell No. 7, where I had spent over three years. We already knew that we were being taken to the capital of Mordovia—Saransk. Prisoners from the 10th camp had been taken there before us. So, in about a month, we should be returning to the camp.

The trip to Saransk was memorable for our stay at the railway station. After disembarking from the prison car, the convoy led us between the tracks along the platform to a police van. More than half of us were short men in shabby striped clothes. The gaunt appearance of these prisoners in no way betrayed them as some kind of dangerous criminals. And the platform was full of people. From the bewildered expressions on their faces, it was clear that they were seeing such a spectacle for the first time. They looked at us with sympathy, trying to comprehend what had suddenly appeared before their eyes, what, undoubtedly, they associated with scenes from films about fascist camps. Our group truly looked pathetic, surrounded by the well-fed convoy with a dog. Some people approached and asked the soldiers if they could pass us some food.

“It’s not allowed,” the guard answered awkwardly, understanding that in the eyes of the hundred or so people looking at us, he did not look like a hero at all.

In Saransk, we were placed in KGB cells, and they began to take us to an office for conversations. They took me too. As soon as I sat on the chair, the KGB agent took a paper and began to read the character reference the camp administration had given me. The KGB agent read, and I listened, thinking to myself: “They’re probably going to open a new case.” After all, the reference said: “anti-Soviet, nationalist, spoke out against the socialist system, forms groups, exerts pressure on prisoners.” But, having finished reading, the KGB agent made no statement and, after talking with me for a few minutes, ordered me to be taken back to my cell. There were three of us in the cell: myself, that former policeman, and a common criminal. After some time, they called me in again, talked about something insignificant (which is why I don’t remember it), and then led me with a few other prisoners into some large room with a television, where we watched a TV program for about 20 minutes. So it was in Saransk, at the KGB, that I saw a television for the first time. They didn’t summon me again. We were quite comfortable in the cells. They fed us much better than in the camp—the food was delivered from some canteen. On top of that, we were allowed to purchase food and tea for up to 10 rubles. We bought almost no food, only tea—the most valuable product in the camp. They allowed us to receive packages. Some did. Of course, the packages were mostly filled with tea and coffee. Everyone was in high spirits—so much tea! After all, they don't sell tea in the camp. You can only buy it, if you somehow got your hands on cash, from a prisoner who gets it secretly from someone in the camp administration. And for much more expensive. We stayed in Saransk for a month. What need there was to take us there is unknown. But I think the main reason for the Saransk KGB agents was the need to show that they, too, were working. After all, the spy mania was over, all the counter-revolutionaries had been wiped out, so all that was left was to periodically bring political prisoners in for preventative measures.

Even before our departure, we knew we would not be returning to the 10th camp, because the remaining prisoners from the 10th had been moved to the settlement of Sosnovka. Upon our arrival in Sosnovka, we were led towards camp No. 1 (where believers used to be held) and brought to a small facility surrounded by a high fence—a forbidden zone. At the guardhouse, they hardly searched us. The camp administrations knew: tea and products purchased at the KGB were not subject to confiscation. Inside this facility was a small building. It was probably the same punishment block where we had waited for transport to Vladimir Prison in 1962. I didn’t recognize it because, among other things, several cells, offices, and a workshop had been added to it. It was clear: this was prepared for us, the “striped ones,” of whom there were few left, and it was more rational to keep us in a small zone rather than a full camp. The cells were overcrowded. Again, like in 1964, the prisoners couldn't fit on the two-tiered bunks, and in some cells, they slept on the concrete floor. Many of those we had left at the 10th were no longer in this zone. Mykola Konchakivskyi, Andriy Turyk, Kyrylo Banatskyi, Mykhailo Hlyuza, and Illya Stoiko were also gone. All the prisoners from the 10th wouldn't have fit in these cells (over 10 of them), so the administration had no choice but to transfer some of those who, by law, could have been moved to the strict regime years ago, to better conditions of confinement—to the strict regime.

I ended up in cell No. 8, which, among others, housed Danylo Shumuk, Sviatoslav Karavanskyi, and Mykola Yevhrafov, who had arrived from Saransk a little earlier. Shumuk had just arrived from Kyiv. He had been given 10 years of special regime and 5 years of exile for writing the book “A Memoir of the Past.” At the same time, Ivan Hel and Mykhailo Osadchyi arrived from Ukraine with new sentences. And Karavanskyi had arrived from Vladimir. By the way, when we were being transported from Saransk, I saw his wife, Nina Strokata, in Potma. Learning that there was a Ukrainian among those let out for a walk, Ms. Nina shouted from a barred window with a “muzzle” on it: “Glory to Ukraine!” In the camp, we didn’t use this greeting, so it was so unexpected for me (in a transit prison, from a woman!) that I even hesitated to reply. Ms. Nina was lively and brave. When they let us into our cell, and Ms. Nina was let out for her walk, seeing that our cell was unlocked, this short woman jumped into the cell, asked me about Sviatoslav, and upon hearing from me that I didn’t know where he was, she said: “He should be in the camp by now. Please give him my regards.” A guard immediately ran into the cell and escorted Ms. Nina out.

The new place had no industrial zone. The space was limited: cells, exercise yards, and a small workshop, which was accessed from the corridor of this small prison. The workshop had a hazardous production—polishing glass for chandeliers. The prisoners worked in two shifts. The air, clothes, hands, and faces of the prisoners were covered in glass dust. I didn't polish glass. I only carried out broken and defective glass, of which there was little, and in the winter, I heated the workshop with a stove. The work in the summer took very little time, so I mostly walked around the yard, talking with those who had come out to rest or had already completed their work norm. And in the winter, I sat by the stove and added coal. There was nothing to fill the time with. There was nothing to think about either, because there was no point in thinking about escape anymore, and everything else had long been thought over. The monotony of life was broken only when someone, usually one of the “airplane hijackers,” would brew tea, and we would pass the mug around. Compared to this zone, the 10th camp was already remembered as a privileged place of confinement. We were also interested in what was happening there, at that 10th camp. And we did find out some things. We learned that upon their arrival at the 10th camp, the common criminals threw the dies from the small presses into a water basin. (The ones from the large presses, of course, you couldn’t throw—they were too heavy). Well, commendable! Yes, in the 60s and 70s, effective defiance of the prison administrations was no longer being shown by political prisoners, but by common criminals. It was in their camps that riots flared up, and barracks burned. By the way, in the late 70s, the industrial zone of the 4th camp, near the prison in Zhytomyr, also burned. After the riot was suppressed, some were shot, and others were given new prison terms.

In addition to the political prisoners who arrived from freedom—from the big zone—common criminals continued to arrive occasionally in our zone. Still, changes occurred in the fall of 1972. Whereas before, common criminals were held among political prisoners even after their sentences for political articles had ended, at the end of 1972, those whose sentences were ending began to be removed from the places of confinement for political prisoners. From our camp, among others, Ivan Sak and Mykola Yevhrafov, whose place should have been among us, not among common criminals, were taken away before the New Year. (Later, after his release, Mykola was convicted on a political charge again and ended up in Perm. He had to serve another 10 years. In the 90s, I met him in Kyiv. He told me that Chornovil had offered him the leadership of the Rukh movement in Donetsk, but he had refused). Karavanskyi was also gone from the cell; upon arriving from Vladimir, he was constantly protesting and declaring hunger strikes, and he was transferred to a solitary cell. Soon, sometime after the New Year, we were also moved to cell No. 7, which was almost opposite the previous one. In it were five common criminals, myself, Shumuk, and that sectarian who had built the White Sea Canal. (I rarely socialized with him, for what was there to talk about with an old man fixated on some sectarian notions? All I remember is his prayer with the “hundred-pood hammer to the head”). The atmosphere in the cell was normal. In his free time from work, Shumuk took up writing—he was writing some kind of fiction, which had something about love in it, and sent it out in letters, page by page. He would give me those pages to read and ask for my opinion on what he had written. “Well, it might be alright, but this is not my spiritual world. It’s not worth writing about such things,” I would tell Danylo. But Danylo, despite being nearly 60, disagreed with me. He somehow believed that love was something sacred, something one wanted to plunge into without a second thought, to dissolve in it, and not to resist this feeling, which is based on an unrealistic perception of the object.

We disagreed on a number of other issues as well. But was it only with Danylo! Perhaps I even offended him, though he never said anything about it to me. But, without a doubt, it was unpleasant for him. Once a discussion arose in the cell, in which Danylo expressed the opinion that those who fought without weapons were more valuable than those who fought with weapons in hand. He even boasted that in the UPA he was only an instructor. There was a sense of superiority over men with weapons in his voice. I couldn't restrain myself and blurted out: "If someone calls for arms but doesn't take up arms himself, he is either a provocateur or someone who wants to rake the coals with someone else's hands!" (But who knows: maybe Danylo was saying this for some informant who, undoubtedly, was in the cell). I told Danylo and others more than once that I value Karmelyuk and Dovbush more than the poet Shevchenko, who called for the axe but never took one up himself. (As is known, Shevchenko’s calls came to nothing; no one took up the axe. It was taken up almost 60 years later, when Russia was defeated by Germany (Ukrainians disliked the Russians even without Shevchenko). And what prevented Shevchenko (the tsar gave him a weapon, not shackles) from getting on a mare and riding to Ukraine—to set an example?! Maybe then Ukraine would have managed to produce its own Narodniks and SRs, not just Khlopomans). To call for and not take up arms is a privilege only for a woman, a child, the infirm. Blind kobzars used to do this. And, of course, it was not the kobzars, but people like Karmelyuk who, under favorable circumstances, raised the people to revolt and became leaders. If the majority of Ukrainians had the psychological type of Karmelyuk, not Shevchenko, then Ukraine would not have been in bondage for so long. So it would be better if, instead of Shevchenkomania, Ukraine had Karmelyukomania, if they sang not "When I die, then bury me..." but "On me, Karmelyuk, place all your hope."

In 1974, with one year of my sentence remaining, I was transferred to the strict regime. It happened on January 4th. The sectarian who had built the White Sea Canal was also transferred. Before my departure, I passed my workstation to Shumuk, and he was thus spared that dirty work—polishing glass. Shumuk remained in the cell with the common criminals. I later learned that the criminals immediately started getting insolent, and he had to move to another cell.

Before our departure, a comical event took place in the zone. In the cell where we had previously stayed (No. 8), which had become a transit cell, were two prisoners whom I have already mentioned—Kukushkin and the Armenian Martatyan. For some violations of the regime, they had been sentenced to three years in Vladimir Prison and were waiting for transport. So Kukushkin decided to put on a concert before leaving. The act was as follows: before going out for a walk, Kukushkin undresses completely, smears his entire body with prepared feces, takes a small bag of feces in his hand, and waits for the door to open. As soon as the door opened, Kukushkin, bag in hand, jumped out into the corridor. The guard, although he recoiled, still got his uniform smeared with feces. Kukushkin then rushed to the exit, near which was the room for the duty officer and guards. Bursting into the room where a lieutenant was sitting at a table, Kukushkin swung the bag to hit him on the head. The lieutenant managed to react and dive under the table. The bag hit his back instead of his head. But the lieutenant, though saving his head from the bag, still bloodied it by diving under the table. (They bandaged it later). Having driven the lieutenant under the table, Kukushkin went out into the now-empty corridor and, strolling with his bag, peered through the peepholes into the cells. He peered into our cell too. Smiling, he said that the corridor was in his hands. The prisoners who were at work saw from the exercise yard how guards in some floor-length robes came to take Kukushkin. From the cells, some scuffling could be heard in the corridor. Soon the noise died down. They had managed to subdue Kukushkin and shove him into the bathhouse, which was on the same corridor.

Some time later, passing a guard on my way to the workshop and seeing a wet spot on his breeches, I asked with sympathy in my voice:

“Did you get some?”

“Oh, it was nothing for me. But some others really got it,” the guard replied.

I was transported out. I don't know how this "concert" ended for Kukushkin. But it seems they didn't bother with him—didn't open a criminal case (you can't be executed for that, after all), but quickly sent him off for transport.

In January 1974, I arrived at the 19th camp (in the settlement of Lesnoy, Zubovo-Polyansky district). It was much freer here. It wasn’t a cell-based system. Here, you could talk to whomever you wanted, leave the barrack for fresh air at any time, walk around the zone territory, go to the latrine instead of a slop bucket. And soon I managed to take a trip to the hospital in Barashevo. During my entire camp period, I had only been to the hospital once. I almost never went to the medical unit, as there was no need, so when I arrived at the camp and mentioned some aches and pains, they immediately arranged for me to be examined at the hospital. And why not take a trip when such an opportunity arises?! I no longer remember exactly where, but two more prisoners were put in the police van. We introduce ourselves. It was Chornovil and some man from the Baltics who, as was clear from their conversation, had known each other for a long time. They were happy to have met and, taking the opportunity, exchanged information. They had no time for me—an unknown prisoner from the special regime. And I, of course, did not interrupt their conversation about their own affairs. Nor did they interest me, as I had never met them. We exchanged a few words, and that was that. In Yavas, we transferred to a prison car, and soon we were in Barashevo. I was placed in a ward tightly packed with two-tiered beds. Chornovil was also placed in this ward. And opposite ours, in a ward designed for one prisoner, lay Maksym Shevtsov, who had previously been at the 10th camp.

Maksym was dying—he had lung cancer. He was no longer getting out of bed. When I told Vyacheslav about the dying man, we would visit him, alone or sometimes together. He was all by himself, and we wanted to fill, at least in some small way, the stretch of time he still had left to suffer through, especially when the effect of the painkillers wore off. Vyacheslav always had some story to tell Maksym. I remember him once telling Maksym a long story about the famine of 1932–1933, which surprised me. After all, Maksym had probably joined the police precisely because he had lived through that Holodomor. Yet Maksym did not stop Vyacheslav. Sallow and emaciated, he lay on his back. He probably no longer cared what stories he was being told.

The medical examination wasn't completed. On the second evening, I unscrewed the light bulb on the veranda of our therapeutic wing—a hundred-watt one—and replaced it with the bulb from our ward, which, like some kind of oil lamp, barely lit the room. It was hard on the eyes not only to read but simply to be in the ward with such poor lighting. After screwing it in, I climbed onto my top bunk. There was a stir in the ward—the prisoners were delighted at how bright it was now. But their joy was short-lived. Soon, the “shnyr” (orderly) came into the ward, cursing whoever had switched the bulbs. He set down a stool, unscrewed the new bulb, and put the old one back in its place. The ward was plunged back into semi-darkness. Someone grumbled in dissatisfaction, and that was the end of it. I jumped down from my bunk and approached him.

“Screw that hundred-watt bulb back in, now!” I ordered him. His response was a stream of curses. I immediately gave him a few jabs in the ribs. The orderly scrambled out into the corridor. Less than ten minutes passed before a Latvian man entered the ward. If I’m not mistaken, his name was Valdis. He was about my age. He had previously been in the 10th camp. Although I had spoken with him a little, I couldn’t say for certain that he hadn't come to the 10th from a common-criminal camp. Recently, in the 10th, he had been in charge of a brigade of mechanics. He used to be a foreman of mechanics, and now he was some kind of hack doctor. He had no medical training, so when I saw him during the day in a snow-white coat, I said to him with astonishment:

“So you used to fix presses, and now you fix people!”

So this Valdis called me out into the corridor. As soon as I stepped out, he immediately, in a rather harsh tone, expressed his outrage at my behavior toward his countryman. I tried to explain why it had happened, that a less powerful bulb would be fine for the veranda. But he wouldn’t even listen. So I told him sharply:

“Fuck off..!” (Such people only understand that kind of language.)

Valdis immediately fell silent and walked away. The next day, without a word, I was sent back to the camp.

In the 19th, I met up with friends from the special regime. Besides others, Dmytro Syniak, Mykola Konchakivskyi, and Ilko Stoiko were already there. I also got to know prisoners from the strict regime. Among the Ukrainians from this regime with whom I often spoke were Roman Semenyuk, Ihor Kravtsiv, Kuzma Matviiuk, Zorian Popadiuk, and Liubomyr Starosolskyi. I communicated most with Roman Semenyuk, a native of the town of Sokal, who in 1965, along with Anton Oliinyk, made a successful escape from the 11th camp. (After reaching Ukraine, they hid in Rivne Oblast in a forester’s lodge that stood abandoned in the middle of a large clearing. But one morning, they saw soldiers emerging from the woods, approaching them in a circle. Anton dashed into a shed, hoping to find a hiding place, but there was nowhere to hide. Either someone had betrayed them, or the authorities, having learned somehow that they might be hiding in that area, figured they might be in the lodge. Roman received an additional three years for the escape. As for Anton, who had been in the UPA as a minor in the postwar years, they fabricated a new case against him, accusing him of involvement in the murders of peaceful citizens. By a sentence of the Rivne regional court, he was executed. This sham trial was reported in the summer of 1967 in the newspaper *Izvestia*.

Anton Oliinyk was an extraordinary individual. His escape from Mordovia was not his first. There were other escapes, one of them from Taishet. Anton was highly gifted. He had a deep knowledge of philosophy and literature and was greatly respected by the prisoners. Vandakurov, whom I’ve already mentioned, used to say there was no one among the Ukrainians equal to Anton. He was an excellent organizer. “He would have made a fine commander,” Roman would often say when speaking of Anton. The KGB undoubtedly knew that Anton was not escaping the camp simply to be free but to continue the struggle he had waged in the ranks of the UPA. The last time I saw Roman was in Kyiv in 1990. He passed away shortly after. In 1992, in the town of Sokal, he was hit by a truck.)

A bit later, I met my countryman, Vasyl Ovsiienko, who had arrived from Ukraine in the spring. Vasyl is ten years younger than me. It was his first time in the camps. He was getting used to camp life, but I could feel that his soul was still somewhere else—out in the free world. I would sometimes visit him in his barrack and ask him about things. Vasyl would answer, but his thoughts were focused on something else. I don’t know if it was because he was my countryman, a political prisoner from Zhytomyr Oblast whom I was meeting in prison for the first time in many years, or if it was something else that made me feel a certain kinship with his soul, but there was something in his behavior that reminded me of the distant year of 1960—my first days in the 14th camp. In talking with him, I sensed he would not stop at what he had already achieved. And I was not mistaken: he was indeed granted the honor of wearing the striped uniform.

There, in the 19th, I also met and befriended Kronid Lyubarsky and Boris Azernikov. Shortly after we met, Lyubarsky approached me with a proposal to get involved in sending correspondence out of the camp, correspondence that exposed the conditions in which the prisoners were held and the struggle of a certain segment of inmates (mostly dissidents) for the recognition of Political Prisoner Status. Why not help? I accepted his offer. I found myself handling letters, statements, and appeals addressed to the leaders of Western countries, the leadership of the USSR, and the public. I would press this correspondence into a sheet of plywood, glue a photo on top (I remember a photograph of Zorian Popadiuk's mother), and cover it with varnish. The board was polished—and the portrait was ready to be sent outside the camp. The civilian employee had no idea what he was carrying out of the camp. Before pressing the material, I would glance through some of it. I remember looking at something written by Kuzma Matviiuk and realizing that if such material fell into the hands of the KGB, Kuzma could get a new sentence. I pressed his writings, but when I met with Kuzma, I carefully steered the conversation toward the topic of prisoners sending out various appeals and told him he needed to be cautious, not to write things in his own hand that could be classified as anti-Soviet activity, because they could easily slap him with a new sentence.

“Can they really try you for that in the camp?” Kuzma asked.

“What’s the difference—in the camp or in the free world,” I replied.

Also, while working in the garage (I repaired trucks), I made a hidden compartment in a bus near one of the seats from which a passenger could discreetly retrieve correspondence. In addition, I stole a car radio from the garage. A Lithuanian man, a long-term prisoner named Ludwig Simutis, who worked in the electrical workshop, tinkered with it, listened to broadcasts, and told me and Lyubarsky the news from abroad.

I personally never wrote anything or took part in the campaigns demanding Political Prisoner Status. Only once did I agree to add my name to one of the appeals. I didn’t participate in the actions, not because I was afraid of ending up in the SHIZO, but because I viewed the dissidents’ commotion and their demands as child’s play. Of course, they wanted something to do, to make a name for themselves. But was it worth going to the SHIZO, the PKT (cell-type lockdown), or Vladimir Prison, or declaring a hunger strike for the sake of a game? As for hunger strikes, I saw them as the tantrums of children who, in trying to get something from their parents, will even harm themselves, something they certainly wouldn't do if they were dealing with strangers instead of their parents. And who were these dissidents before their imprisonment? They were, as a rule, Komsomol members, and some were even Communists. Not long before, many of them had celebrated Soviet holidays and sent greetings to their relatives and friends on those occasions. They did not yet perceive the communist regime as something entirely alien and hostile. (Arson of a collective farm's haystack or a village council? That wasn’t for them.) They didn’t even realize that subconsciously, much of that Soviet world was still familiar to them (take, for instance, the great affinity of Ukrainian dissidents for the “Executed Renaissance”—psychologically close to the dissidents themselves). The dissidents lived in a despotic country where society itself was fundamentally despotic (criminal), yet they behaved as if they were living in a democracy where someone had violated human rights. That is why they reacted so painfully to human rights violations in the country they lived in. To put it metaphorically, in my eyes, a dissident was a man dragged by a bear into its den, yet the man keeps screaming, “Human rights! Human rights!...” For some reason, the man failed to consider that he has his rights, and the bear has its own. That it is pointless to declare a hunger strike in its den (in the German camps, no one declared hunger strikes) or to tattoo one's face, as the common criminals did. It's a different matter if the hunger strike doesn't undermine your health—if you don't harm yourself. If you feign it—not actually starving, but just putting on a show for the public (so they can ooh and aah) and playing at a “hunger strike.” I will say one more thing about the dissidents: being psychologically unprepared to fight for freedom for themselves personally (they didn't even escape from exile, from which it was easy to escape), the dissidents took it upon themselves to fight for it for others. Comical.

I had a negative attitude toward the dissident movement. After all, their approach was: “Here I am! I am your opponent!” which essentially meant, “Here I am! Arrest me!” And so they arrested them. What else could they do when they were being asked?! Such a luxury (dissidence) could be afforded by people like Sakharov, not by mere mortals who were arrested shortly after they emerged. In my opinion, the KGB did not perceive the dissidents as dangerous adversaries and therefore played with them like a cat plays with a mouse. The dissidents, like mosquitoes, annoyed them with their buzzing, and so they had to be isolated. Isolated, not swatted, as they did with those who embarked on the true path of struggle—the execution of the leaders of the Ukrainian National Committee, Bohdan Hrytsyna and Ivan Koval, and Fedir Protsiv (the Khodorkivska group).

(As is known, before perestroika, official dissidence was inconspicuous and, due to its small numbers, played no role in the life of the empire. It had no influence on mass consciousness. In this regard, the most significant role was played by the unacknowledged dissident Leonid Brezhnev. Although no one counted him among the dissidents, he was the most outstanding of them all. He accomplished what all the agitation and propaganda, for which thousands of anti-Soviets went through the camps, could not. It was he who, with his liberalism, mainly toward the bureaucracy (whetting their appetites: they wanted to become independent of the state feeding trough), and his “iconostasis” (there was even a joke about him needing his chest expanded), finally undermined support for the communist leadership, casting himself and the party leadership in the role of clowns. Under his rule, the Kremlin was transformed from a predator’s den into a nursing home. As a result, the fear on which the empire was built began to disappear. And when fear vanishes, the empire vanishes. By leading Soviet society into moral and spiritual decline, Brezhnev thus laid the foundation for perestroika—for the collapse of the empire. After all, it is known that the empire was not brought down by the opposition (there was none), but by those communists who wanted to become capitalists.)

It was probably my signature on that statement and my association with active dissidents that caused me to be sent to Barashevo—the 3rd camp—in the autumn. Boris Penson (one of the hijackers) was also sent to the 3rd. Lyubarsky and Azernikov were dispatched as well. Lyubarsky, who had about three years left on his sentence, was sent to Vladimir Prison for the remainder of his term, and Azernikov was sent to the PKT. And so, after thirteen years, I was back in the same zone from which I had been transferred in 1961. But I no longer recognized it. Everything had been rebuilt and partitioned into isolated sections—zones. In addition to a zone for male political prisoners, there was also one for female political prisoners. The female prisoners were the remnants from the 17th camp and new arrivals. In the men’s zone, there were about seventy people. The building where we were housed was divided into two parts—the larger one for living quarters, and the smaller one, with an entrance from the end of the building, was a sewing workshop where the prisoners sewed work gloves. Apart from Penson and Mikhail Maslov, who had previously been in the 10th, I knew no one there. Among those I got to know better were Israel Zalmanson, Yuri Melnikov (hijackers), and Pozdeev—one of the two hijackers who, having seized a light aircraft mid-flight, made a successful flight to Turkey.

These young men—Gilyov and Pozdeev—had indeed committed a heroic act, but through their own thoughtlessness, they turned it into a comedy. After spending about six months in a refugee camp, they voluntarily returned to the Soviet . And each received a sentence of over ten years. Pozdeev told me in detail about the flight across the Black Sea, their landing at an airfield on the Turkish coast, and their time in Turkey.

When they reached the coast, their jubilation knew no bounds. But disillusionment set in very quickly, as from the very beginning, nothing went as they had imagined. And how could they not be disappointed? The plane, after taxiing down the runway, stopped far from the airfield buildings. They sat in the plane, and no one came running to them. It was quiet all around, as if nothing had happened. More than fifteen minutes passed before they saw a jeep approaching. It drove up. They were put in the vehicle and taken to one of the airfield buildings. After figuring out who they were, they were placed in a refugee camp. They were to stay there until some country would take them in, providing housing and work. How could they not be disappointed?! They expected to be hailed as heroes, to live a carefree life filled with entertainment, but here it was—just mundane routine… And so they turned to the Soviet embassy with a request to return to the USSR.

I also met two men named Vasyl here—Stus and Lisovyi. Lisovyi was an accomplice of my countryman, Vasyl Ovsiienko. In 1973, Lisovyi, Ovsiienko, and Yevhen Proniuk were convicted for publishing the journal *Ukrainian Herald*. Stus, Lisovyi, and I often met. We would brew strong tea, bring up some topic, and others would join our conversation… and a discussion would begin. Stus wrote poetry. I once told him that it’s only worth writing if you are sure you will say something new or write better than Shevchenko or Shakespeare. He disagreed, assuring me that he would be content with a place somewhere in the middle of the poets’ hierarchical ladder. Vasyl never offered to let me hear what he had written. And I never asked, as I am indifferent to poetry. Except for Omar Khayyam's *Rubaiyat*—and even then, only about a dozen of them, to which it is impossible to be indifferent. Here is one:

Не одерживал смертный над небом побед,

Всех подряд пожирает земля-людоед.

Ты ещё жив и бахвалишься этим,

Погоди, попадёшь муравьям на обед.

This was written for those who behave as if they are immortal. Beautiful lines! This is not about the chirping of a nightingale, nor about love, nor the roar of battle.

True, among Ukrainian poets, there is one who is close to me. That is Volodymyr Samiylenko. But only for one poem—“Uncertainty.”

Якби знаття, що треба жить

І сподіватись, і бажати,

То жив би так, щоб кожну мить

Для цілі одної віддати.

Якби ж знаття, що все дарма,

Що в русі вічному творіння

Мети ніякої нема -;

Навіщо радощі й боління.

Навіщо нам і жизнь сама

Якби знаття, що все дарма.

I read it in the spring of 1961. What was written resonated so strongly with my own experiences that I remembered this poem for the rest of my life. At that time, I was still on the path toward that summit where concepts like “desire,” “purpose,” and “God” no longer exist, where a total revaluation of values devalues everything previously desired—and “desire” disappears. And with the disappearance of desire, purpose and the need for a deity also disappear. You are now above God because you can put an end to the absurdity. You are on the verge of madness.

From my conversations with Stus, I gathered that Vasyl did not write anything of the sort. And poetry that glorifies nature, struggle, love, or hatred for one’s neighbor, or some community, or about how “Vanka fell for Manka, and Manka for Vanka” (as it is known: “Love is a wretched feeling that works to perpetuate the human race”)—where the emotional prevails over the spiritual—did not attract me. After all, all this, if not a delusion, is insignificant. (Life is a process of dying, stretched out over time, a walk to the grave. While walking to the grave, one does not admire flowers and blue skies.)

Then, in 1961, but in the summer, I came across a small, pocket-sized book whose author was a high-ranking military officer, an American, I believe, who recalled a meeting with Zhukov. Besides the meeting with Zhukov, during which he disliked that Zhukov had come with his hulking bodyguard, what stuck in my memory was his admonition: “One should not indulge in aimless philosophizing, for beneath the thin veneer of habitual thought lies a gaping abyss, the great mysteries of the world lie in wait, which can never be solved and should not be touched at all.” Of course, I did not agree with him. I was relentlessly approaching that summit from which the “gaping abyss” opened up, feeling utterly alone among people. It was only later, while serving my second sentence, that I became acquainted with the thoughts of like-minded figures such as Ecclesiastes, Khayyam, Schopenhauer, Camus, and others, and I no longer felt so isolated.

And yet, toward the end of my time in the 3rd camp, my relationship with Stus soured somewhat. We stopped drinking tea together, and thus our other interactions became more formal. The reason was this. One day, Vasyl told me that he had passed a note to the women's zone through a civilian employee, but a lot of time had passed, and there was still no reply. The employee probably hadn't delivered it. And he had taken ten rubles for it. So he needed to send another note, but he had no money. He would have to sell his commissary allowance.

“One commissary allowance won't be enough. Maybe you could help?” Vasyl asked.

“No, I’m not selling my commissary allowance for something like that. If it were something more important, that would be a different story,” I told him.

And really, it wasn't for preparing an escape! Was it so important to know or not know about something going on in that zone?! But Vasyl, as I understood it, did sell his commissary allowance to someone. When I brewed tea, I would invite him, but Vasyl would decline. Well, I would have done the same in his place.

The movement for Political Prisoner Status was gone from our zone. The women were still fighting for something—perhaps for the Status. They refused to work and were taken to some camp’s SHIZO.

My prison term was drawing to a close. About two months before the actual end of my sentence, I pointed out to the head of the special section the illegality of the release date set in my verdict. I was detained (as a result of being wounded) on December 24, and according to the law, the start of my sentence should have been December 24, not January 27. (Why it was January 27 in the verdict remains unknown.) Although the head of the special section noted that I should have addressed this earlier, he still told me to contact the court that issued the verdict immediately. I did so. But December 24 came, and no response from the court had arrived. I could have calmly served out the rest of the term as written, since I hadn't demanded a change in the verdict for almost ten years, but I decided I wanted to defy the camp regime. Especially since my presence in the camp after December 24 was technically illegal. So, from December 24, I stopped going out for roll call and to work (though my job was so insignificant I don't even remember what it was. I think Maslov, who worked as a repairman, had listed me as his assistant. All I remember is strolling around). So everyone would leave the section for the yard and line up in a column, while I sat in the section. After counting the prisoners, the guards would come into the section, count me as well, but at the same time file a report on my violation of the camp regime. Sometime before the New Year, or perhaps in the first few days of the new one, I ended up in the SHIZO at the 19th camp. They gave me fifteen days. While being transported to the 19th, I spoke a little with Stefa Shabatura, who was sitting in the adjacent cell of the prisoner transport wagon. She was also being taken to some camp’s SHIZO for refusing to work. Our conversation was listless; what was there to talk about?! In the SHIZO, I found Lisovyi. We sat in the same two-person cell for about a week, until he finished his term in the SHIZO. Vasyl told me a little about his difficult life as a student, his teaching career, and some details about the investigation and trial. But mostly, since we were in a work cell, we silently did our tasks, each lost in our own thoughts. Although Vasyl was a philosophy professor, we barely touched on philosophy. We were different—we existed in different dimensions. No doubt, while my knowledge of philosophy came mainly from Russell's *A History of Western Philosophy*, which briefly outlines the thoughts of various philosophers (why wade through all that waste paper myself?), Vasyl certainly knew (and remembered) the different philosophical schools better. But I could feel that he knew it as a subject he had mastered, that he was one of those who did not look “beneath the thin veneer of habitual thought”—did not peer into the abyss. He had a family and was likely suffering from the separation from them, the loss of everything he cherished. The anguish of Gilgamesh was not familiar to him, and his depressive state, which was noticeable, was of a completely different nature. Besides, he was in that period when everything connected with the investigation, trial, and initial time in the camp was behind him, and the monotonous, gray days of camp life had set in. And ahead of him lay not days, but years of imprisonment and exile. When Vasyl was taken from the cell, I still had about five days left, and I was already thinking about returning to the camp and the days remaining until my release.

But I was not destined to return to the camp and spend my last days of imprisonment with my friends. Two days before my SHIZO term ended, I was unexpectedly taken for transfer and brought to Potma. In Potma, they gave me a new peacoat, new pants, and a jacket, and returned some of my belongings that had been sent from Barashevo. They paid no attention to my protests that most of my things had not been delivered. The next day, a special convoy took charge of me, transported me in a prisoner rail car to Moscow, and from there to the Krasnaya Presnya transit prison. That same evening, after I had showered, the special convoy collected me from the prison and took me to the airport. We were the first to board the plane and took seats at the tail end. I sat by the window in handcuffs, with one of the guards next to me. Soon, the TU-134 took off. After some time, a flight attendant approached us, holding a tray of candies. Seeing me dressed in a peacoat and in handcuffs, she froze, likely unsure of what to do: offer me a candy or not. I came to her rescue, turned to the window, and watched the rhythmic flickering of the engine's flame in the dark of night. About an hour later, we were already in Boryspil. And from there, into a paddy wagon and to Lukianivska Prison. It was sometime after midnight. The special convoy handed me over to the officer on duty, saying they would pick me up from the prison in a few hours. I sat in a corridor where there was nothing to even lie down on. In the morning, the special convoy appeared, put me in a paddy wagon, and soon I was in a cell in the Zhytomyr prison. The fact that the KGB went to the extra expense of transporting me to Zhytomyr by special convoy suggested they probably suspected I intended to visit dissidents in Moscow and decided to deny me that opportunity. There were still about ten days left until the end of my sentence, and there was nothing for me to do but wait for that day.

Finally, January 27, 1975, arrived. They gave me over 300 rubles, which were in my account, and a certificate of release stating that I was being sent to Baranivka Raion, to the village of Rohachiv. (They ignored my protests—I had indicated a different place.) The certificate also mentioned that administrative surveillance was to be imposed on me. Sometime in the afternoon, a representative from the prison administration put me on a bus at the bus station heading to Novohrad-Volynskyi. The weather, though overcast, was spring-like and warm. There was no snow. I was lightly dressed, having left my zek clothes in the prison, but because it was warm, my appearance didn't attract much attention from the other passengers. It was already dusk when we arrived in Novohrad. A light drizzle was falling. Upon arrival, I went into a store, bought a jacket and a hat, and, waiting for the bus (what else was there to do?), I left for Rohachiv. Getting off the bus in Rohachiv, I walked straight to my parents’ house. The house was dark. Entering the yard, I went to the door and knocked. A light flashed on in the first room.

“Oh, they have electricity now!” the thought flashed through my mind.

“Who’s there?” I heard my mother’s voice behind the door.

“It’s me, Serhiy!”

The door opened, and I stepped into the lit entryway. We looked at each other. They weren't expecting me... I had returned. And this return felt like the return of the prodigal son (I hadn't written a single letter during my entire sentence—to anyone. No sentimentality!). Saying, “Good evening,” I headed into the room. And there was my father, having likely heard who had arrived, already sitting on the bed, waiting for me to appear. I greeted my father as well. I did not rush to embrace them. And they did not rush to embrace me; they just looked at me. Eleven years and four months had passed since I was last in this house. They had changed. And I was no longer the same person I was at twenty-three. I felt ashamed. I had relied only on myself, and here I was, back with my parents because, it turned out, there was nowhere else to go. And once again, like almost twelve years ago, I came empty-handed. After supper, we went to bed. Before lying down, I told them I would be leaving Rohachiv before dawn because otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to visit my friend: they would place me under administrative surveillance. In the morning, I got out of bed. It was still dark when I boarded the bus heading to Novohrad-Volynskyi. From Novohrad, I went to Rivne, and from there to Lutsk. Before sunset in Lutsk, I boarded a bus going to Rozhyshche. Just then, two men got on—a policeman and a man in civilian clothes. They approached me.

“You’re not going any further. Get off the bus,” the policeman told me.

I protested, but realizing I couldn’t hold up the bus—the other passengers had started to complain—I got off. They put me on a bus headed back to Rivne. I was returning not only without having met Pavlo Androsiuk but without even finding out if he lived in the village of Raimisto. At night, I caught a ride on a truck going to Zhytomyr. Thinking I had shaken off those who were following me (my nearsightedness likely failed me), I didn't get off in Novohrad but planned to visit some people in Kyiv after arriving in Zhytomyr. But in Zhytomyr, they detained me again, and I had no choice but to return to my parents in Rohachiv with nothing to show for my efforts.

Besides my parents, there was no one left in the house. Everyone had scattered. Nadia was in Kharkiv Oblast, Mykola in Rokytne in Kyiv Oblast, Olha in Zhytomyr, and the youngest, Andriy, was in Crimea. All of them had their own families now. My parents were retired. My mother received that collective farm pension—12 rubles. My father, as a disabled war veteran, received something for his disability—77 rubles. They still worked their garden plot. They wanted me to stay with them. But if I just gave up, what was the point of having spent so many years in prison? Well, for a while, I had to reconcile myself with the situation, because where else could I go? I had nothing anywhere. And even if I were to dig a hideout in the woods, what would I do there alone?! And who would go there with me?! And why should they? Dissidents did not interest me. I was not suited for that paper-pushing, semi-legal fuss of those who wanted to sacrifice themselves and become martyrs. I could have tried to go abroad, but I had no desire to. And what would I do there?! Only perhaps arrive with my own capital. Whether in the USSR or abroad, I had no intention of earning my own bread. Why should I work?! Let those work who see meaning in continuing the human race, who have turned the planet into an anthill, and the animals they haven’t exterminated into milking cows in that anthill.

Of all the things I could still do, it would be something involving weapons. I had a thought of realizing some of the intentions I had in the first years of my imprisonment—1960–61. Though again: for whom and for what?! And yet, since you are alive, you have to occupy yourself with something, find some amusement for yourself.

I was placed under administrative surveillance for a period of one year. They promised to lift it after six months if there were no violations. I was no longer allowed to leave Baranivka Raion without permission. And from 10 PM to 6 AM, I had to be at home, otherwise—a new sentence for violating the terms of surveillance. I couldn't sit quietly and wait for the surveillance to end, so I eventually went on the offensive. My demands were as follows: lift the surveillance so I could find a better place for myself, or else provide me with an apartment in Zhytomyr, as the house where my parents live is unfit for modern living, or give me permission to go abroad.

In a statement (to the KGB or the MVD), I also indicated that if any of my demands were not met, I would leave Zhytomyr Oblast without permission. My offensive ended in a way I had not expected at all. While I was in Zhytomyr (I don't remember which month it was, but it was in the spring), an ambulance pulled up beside me. Two men in white coats got out, took me by the arms, and putting me in the vehicle, drove me to Huyva, to the 15th department. They changed my clothes and placed me in a ward under special observation. I was dressed in used zek’s underwear and a robe (there were also patients from prison in the department)—all in a tattered state. And on the bed was only a grimy mattress. Not just dirty, but covered in large, multicolored stains. This small ward was for the seriously ill. One of the men in the ward pointed to my bed and told me, “A guy with delirium tremens was lying here. He died yesterday.” I did not resist, knowing it would not be in my favor. Besides, how were the ones changing my clothes to know who I was?! I understood: I had gone too far with my game, and now I had to find a way out. The very next day, they gave me paper and a pen. In an address to the Zhytomyr Oblast KGB administration, I wrote that there had been some misunderstanding, that I hoped for the KGB's intervention and help, and that if I were not released immediately, my life would be utterly ruined. Soon I was moved to a regular ward. I was already walking freely around the department. Although the head of the department said they wouldn't keep me for long, I still broke three spoons and made a triangular key for the entrance door from the handles, and I scouted a tracksuit in one of the lockers. I decided: if they don’t release me soon, I will escape. I didn’t have to escape: about a week later, they let me go. And I no longer made such demands or threats to the KGB or the MVD.

There was nowhere else to go, so in May, I had to take a job as a carpenter in the furniture workshop of the consumer goods factory, making office desks. In the summer, I secretly went to Kyiv. Sometime around midnight, I rang the doorbell of Leonida Svitlychna’s apartment. When asked “Who is it?” I replied that I was from Mordovia and that I needed Pavlo Kulyk's address. Liolia’s (as everyone called her) husband Ivan was in prison, and I thought we would speak through the door. But to my surprise, Liolia immediately opened the door and came out to me. I took the address and hurried to the exit. That same summer, also secretly, I visited the village of Raimisto and the town of Kovel. I didn't find Pavlo Androsiuk: a few months before my arrival, Pavlo had been given a one-year sentence for hooliganism. But I found Pavlo Kulyk and his wife Hrunia (Horpyna) in the evening on the outskirts of Kovel. I spent the night at his place, so we had plenty of time to reminisce and figure out who was who. The rumors were confirmed: Pavlo and Hrunia, who had been quite active among the Sixtiers, had withdrawn from politics and dedicated themselves fully to serving God in some sect. Their move to Volyn was probably connected to this sect. Pavlo, and Hrunia too, though I hadn't known her, were very happy to see me. We also touched upon religion. Pavlo did not try to prove to me that God undoubtedly exists. It even seemed to me that he wanted to somehow justify his withdrawal from political activity before me. After all, back in 1961–1962, religion had been secondary for him. But we quickly found common ground, agreeing that if there is no God, then no matter what activity you engage in—political or religious—you lose. But, unlike with politics, you win if God does exist, and you dedicate yourself entirely to serving Him—then your efforts will not be in vain. The next day, Pavlo and Hrunia walked me to the bus stop and saw me off on a bus coming from Brest. While I was at it, I went all the way to near Sarny. I got a ride from Rivne to some village from which a road led to the village of Krychylsk, where Kyrylo Banatskyi was supposed to be living after his release. As evening approached, I boarded a bus heading to that village. The bus started moving, and I began asking passengers if anyone was from Krychylsk. Several people responded. I asked them if Kyrylo lived in the village.

“He used to, but he moved somewhere to the Donbas. His parents are still in the village,” they told me.

I stopped the bus, jumped out, and hurried back to the highway, as the sun was already setting, and I needed to at least get to Rivne. No luck. There weren't any of those reliable people who, in my opinion, would agree to do something I proposed.

I quit the factory in August, hoping I would think of something and go underground. But nothing was working out. They didn't even lift the surveillance after half the term had been served. Though the surveillance wasn't particularly burdensome for me. All I had to do was call Baranivka and say I needed to go to Zhytomyr for a few days, and I would immediately receive permission.

Of course, I hadn't really counted on the surveillance being lifted, but they had promised, so I visited the regional MVD administration and presented my complaints to General Prylutskyi, who promised to shorten the term. I also dropped by the KGB about this matter. (It was at the KGB, I think from the officer on duty, that I learned that investigator Frolov (from 1960) was no more—he had died of a heart attack. (Frolov also left behind a good memory. One evening, two or three days after my arrest (in 1963), I was in the KGB courtyard. A group of KGB agents who had conducted a search of my home was standing around me. One of them told me:

“If you don’t confess, we’ll lock up your father too.”

Frolov was outraged by these words and sharply reprimanded that agent. All I remember of what he said is: “Shut up! What are you saying?!” I never saw Frolov again).

The surveillance was not lifted. In the autumn, I sent my sister Olha to Moscow to see Lyubarsky's wife, instructing her that after shaking off any possible surveillance in Moscow, she should fly to Krasnodar, meet with Mikhail Maslov, and ask him a few questions for me. My sister carried out this task, but from the response she brought back, I understood: Mikhail had “tied it off.” I had no choice but to wait in Rohachiv for the end of my surveillance term and for Androsiuk’s release. I felt I had overstayed my welcome, but what could I do?! So I stayed with my parents and waited.

From my correspondence with Lyubarsky’s wife, Galina Salova, I learned that she, unaware that I had no intention of going abroad (even though I had visited the OVIR office), had begun looking for “relatives” to send me an invitation to emigrate to Israel.

(And my emigration abroad was entirely realistic. The KGB, as I learned from the SBU archives almost 35 years later, wanted to get rid of me. In December 1975, the head of the Ukrainian SSR KGB, Fedorchuk, sent a report to V. Shcherbytsky, in which he stated: “We consider it expedient not to hinder him, should he petition, in his departure for permanent residence abroad.” Shcherbytsky’s resolution: “Agreed.” I think this was an attempt by the KGB to perform a humane act toward me. They probably thought it would be better for both them and me.)

But they were pressing me again: they demanded I get a job, otherwise there would be problems with lifting the surveillance. So, in January 1976, I had to start as a carpenter at the Baranivka Inter-Collective Farm Construction Enterprise. Finally, in the spring, they lifted the surveillance. I could now go anywhere I wanted. I often visited Zhytomyr and Berdychiv, where Oles Vodiuniuk lived with his family. After his release from the 10th camp, he was not allowed to live in Lviv Oblast. He had to settle in Berdychiv and build a house for himself. Oles worked at a factory. And at that factory, a comical incident happened to me, in which I could have caused the death of one of the foremen. It happened like this: arriving at Oles's factory, I called him to the entrance. We couldn't talk for long. At that time, Oles was taking over the position of the factory's chief mechanic, so being busy, he escorted me onto the premises and told me to wait for him. And so I wouldn't be bored waiting, I could walk through the workshops and get acquainted with the production process. That's what I did. I couldn't just stand in one place. In the press workshop, I found Vernyhora—one of the common criminals who had been in the 10th. After a brief exchange of information, Vernyhora told me:

“There’s a workshop on the second floor where only women work. You can go take a look, but be warned: the foreman there doesn’t like it when strangers enter his workshop.”

After wandering around, I decided to take a look at that workshop too. I went up to the second floor, opened the door, and entered. I saw that the workshop was indeed not an ordinary one. Before me was a large, bright room with a wooden floor. The middle of the room was empty, and along the walls were two rows of tables where women in house clothes sat, as if at a table at home. I took a few steps, and a scrawny little man, who was sitting in a booth by the door on the left, practically ran up to me.

“What is your business here?” this man asked.

I realized I was in a difficult situation: if I told him why I had come, he would immediately, in front of all these women who were already looking at us, throw me out of the workshop. I had to think of something. I paused for a moment, turned my head slightly toward him, looked down at him, and said:

“I’m an engineer, here to inspect the production process.”

And, paying no more attention to him, I walked between the tables and, moving slowly and pausing, I glanced at the piles of some small parts lying on white tablecloths and at the young female workers who, hearing that an engineer had arrived, were now looking at me with curiosity. I also glanced at the booth, where the little man was now standing and watching me. After walking between the rows of workers, I left through the door without even looking at the retirement-age man. In the courtyard, Oles met me and said:

“Go to my house; I still have a bunch of things to do here.”

I went to his home. In the evening, Oles returned. And right away, he said to me with a smile:

“What did you do over there?”

“Where, what did I do?” I asked in surprise.

It turns out that as soon as I left the workshop, the foreman, assuming my appearance meant he, a pensioner, was being fired, and without any prior warning, became so agitated that he lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor. An ambulance took him to the hospital.

It was a funny story with that foreman. I imagine those women talked about the visit from the unknown “engineer” for a long time.

Having waited for the time when Androsiuk was supposed to have returned from prison and recovered a bit from camp life at home, I arrived to see him in the village of Raimisto in the first half of May. Pavlo was glad to see me. But he was no longer the vibrant thirty-year-old Pavlo. And I was no longer the person I had been in the 17th. Thirty-six is not the same as twenty-two. I don't know how it was for Pavlo, but I saw no meaning in my future actions. I came to him because I had to occupy myself with something. The logical sequence of actions—the logical conclusion—had been broken. I did not, like Jack London's character, go to the bottom. Remaining on the surface, I lazily paddled with my hands, feeling the senselessness of my actions.

Pavlo was in his forty-fifth year. I could sense that life had already worn him down somewhat. And there was likely a great deal of disillusionment. After briefly exchanging stories about the years that had passed, we got down to what to do next. I proposed creating something like a combat unit and going underground. We agreed that I would come back in a few weeks, and after thinking everything over, we would decide where to begin. But we already knew: first and foremost, we needed weapons. As he saw me off, Pavlo gave me the address of two brothers who lived in Zhytomyr on either Vokzalna or Borodiia street. They had been in the camp in the town of Korosten with him. I was to pick something up from them and, at the same time, bring Pavlo a shaft for a planing machine. I didn't ask Pavlo why he needed the shaft if we were planning to go underground. But I promised to bring it along.

As I mentioned, Pavlo lacked the zeal he once had. There was a sense of indifference to everything, so I decided to acquire some weapons even before our second meeting. So, after returning from Pavlo's, I soon met with Mykola Radchuk, with whom I had worked at the consumer goods factory in the summer of 1975, and proposed that he take part in stealing weapons. Mykola didn't hesitate, and we quickly reached an agreement. There was nothing surprising in this, as I had often brought up the fact that the life we and those around us were living was not worthy of a human being. Mykola was not against the idea of heading abroad. Judging by how he reacted to my remarks, there was no doubt about his sincerity. I could, of course, have found someone to carry out this theft with Mykola, but I am one of those who wants to realize their ideas with their own hands. In this case, one of those who wouldn't dream of having someone else pull my chestnuts out of the fire. Having made an agreement, about a week later we were in Hulsk. We arrived in the evening on bicycles. The village was celebrating its church festival—the whole village was out. Not far from the club, in an unlit area, was a group of high school students. Mykola joined the group as one of the festival-goers, struck up a conversation with someone about school matters, and that student mentioned that they were supposed to get weapons at school soon and he would be having shooting practice.

On the evening of May 25, we were in Hulsk again. We approached the school. The front door was unlocked. As soon as we entered, a watchman appeared. I ordered him in Russian to show us the room where the weapons were kept. Flickering his flashlight, we went to a metal-plated door. After cutting a hole in the door, I stayed with the watchman, while Mykola took my flashlight, climbed through the hole into the room, and soon handed me an automatic rifle and two rifles, which turned out not to be small-caliber but air rifles. When Mykola climbed out, I ordered the watchman to get into the room and stay quiet. Although the watchman couldn't see our faces in the dark, I still threatened him that if he ever pointed us out, he and his family would face death. Reaching the Novohrad–Baranivka road, we hid the automatic rifle and the air rifles in a ditch, and after reaching the village of Prapor, we parted ways: I rode my bicycle toward Rohachiv, and Mykola went to Smoldyriv.

A few days later, I went to Moscow to talk with some Muscovites. I took my sister Olha with me. We stayed in Moscow for two days. We visited Olena Syrotenko, a friend of Paruyr Hayrikyan, whom I had met in the autumn of 1974 in Barashevo—the zone of the 3rd camp, Galina Salova (we stayed the night at her place), Alik Ginzburg, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, and Alexander Petrov—San Sanych. The Muscovites gave us a warm welcome, especially Salova, who was better informed about me. Taking a small number of issues of the *Chronicle of Current Events* and two books, one of which was about the famine in Ukraine in 1932–1933, from Salova and Alexeyeva, I returned with my sister to Zhytomyr. Upon arriving in Zhytomyr, I visited Mykola Radchuk the next day at a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city to find out if he had moved the automatic rifle and if everything was "quiet." That same day, in the evening, I visited Androsiuk's friends. I must say, the brothers made a good impression on me. After talking, I took the shaft from them and headed to the bus station. The older brother, Borys, went with me. And not just to see me off, but to help: the shaft weighed over 20 kg. Arriving at the bus station, we sat down on a bench. Immediately, some character sat down on the adjacent bench, about 5 meters away, with his back to us. There was something about him that was uncharacteristic of someone who had just arrived at a station. He was, in fact, an operative.

Having arrived in Rohachiv, I went for the automatic rifle by bicycle a day or two later. Returning to the village, I turned toward Kamianyi Brid. Reaching the forest, I went into some dense bushes on the left side of the road and, after carefully inspecting the automatic rifle (an AKM), I hid it in a small ditch I dug. Although “Training” was engraved on the rifle, all its mechanisms worked properly. I found no damage. Be that as it may, if you were to approach even a few armed soldiers with their rifles slung over their shoulders with this gun and command, “On the ground!” those soldiers would undoubtedly hit the dirt, and their weapons would become yours.

I stopped going to work at the Inter-Collective Farm Construction, stating that I was quitting. Before my trip to Androsiuk, I started helping my father repair the sheds. My mood was somehow spoiled. Again, like back then in the hospital before my arrest in September 1963, I felt a certain inner discomfort, a nervousness uncharacteristic of me. And then my father, with whom I was on the roof of that small shed, said to me:

“There are two men standing across from our gate, looking at us.”

But I paid no mind to it.

“Well, let them look,” I said to my father.

Who they were and whether they had any connection to me remains unknown. The next day, although the work was not finished, I took the bag with the shaft and went to the Dovbysh turnoff. I did not hide from my father that I was taking this shaft to Volyn. And although my father asked me not to go, as we needed to finish the repairs, I did not listen, saying I would be back and we would finish then. And what did this shed, this house mean to me—unfit, like almost all in the village, for modern life? After all, I knew: if everything went as planned, I would give my parents money, and they would build themselves a new house and new sheds.

Arriving in Novohrad, I got to the railway crossing and started hitching a ride. Soon, such a vehicle appeared. I got into the cab of a truck, and it started moving toward Rivne. Shortly after, the truck stopped. The door opened, and I was ordered: “We’re checking the vehicle. Please step out of the cab!” I hadn’t even stepped from the running board to the ground when they grabbed me by the arms and led me to a passenger car. They also took the bag with the shaft from the truck bed. I could feel they were disappointed with the result of the cursory search. Especially that the bag contained just an ordinary shaft. The ones who had given the order for my detention probably thought there was something more important in the bag. The truck drove away. Two men in civilian clothes stepped aside and, pacing back and forth along the road, discussed something. Then everyone got into the cars, and the two sedans turned around and headed toward Novohrad-Volynskyi. When we arrived at the Novohrad-Volynskyi police department, the car I was in stopped about a hundred meters away. Besides me, the driver and some character in uniform remained in the car—a senior lieutenant, if I’m not mistaken. There was no one around. And this character started shoving me with his fists, pulling my hair. He paid no attention to my demands to stop the abuse. Although I wasn't in handcuffs, I couldn't respond in kind. I understood: he was doing this so I would attack him, thereby giving them a reason to file a detention report, or even open a criminal case.

Soon, others joined us in the car, and shortly after, I was at the Zhytomyr Internal Affairs Administration, located on the boulevard. They took me to either the second or third floor, where two operatives in civilian clothes started working on me in one of the offices. The blows started. They beat me on the torso, mostly in the solar plexus, which even caused me to fall to the floor, all while demanding a confession to a crime. When I asked, “Which one?” they answered, “You know!” Periodically, someone would enter the office and also demand a confession. After a few hours, having achieved nothing, they informed me of Radchuk's arrest and now demanded a confession for the theft of the automatic rifle. I denied it. The abuse continued. There was nothing for me to do but endure the blows and take note of the information they could only have gotten from Radchuk. I didn’t get into a fight with them. I patiently withstood the blows, feeling like someone who had to undergo an ordeal of torture, something akin to an American Special Forces soldier whose training program includes tests of their ability to withstand torment. Having gotten nowhere, they took me downstairs for some reason and brought me to the head of the administration, General Prylutskyi, with whom I had met twice the previous year. (The first meeting took place in January 1975 after I returned from Lutsk and ended up in Zhytomyr). Prylutskyi did not react to my statement that I was being abused, only saying somewhat uncertainly that I had to confess to the crime. Most likely, he perceived the accusation against me as a KGB trick. They took me back to the same office and continued to demand that I give them the rifle. They periodically abused me, but no longer as forcefully, probably because they were convinced that nothing would come of it. I already knew that after Radchuk was detained, they had taken him to that ditch and he had given them the two air rifles and recounted in detail how everything had happened. I understood: I was in deep! And so stupidly, too! Although I realized I couldn’t get out of this, I continued to stand my ground: I had nothing to do with it.

Having failed to get the desired result from me, they took me to the temporary detention facility in the evening. There was no one else in the cell, so no one disturbed my thoughts about the situation I was in. And the situation was not simple. It was complicated by the fact that I hadn't had time to show Radchuk the place where I had re-hidden the rifle. If he had known, he would have given them the rifle too, and I would not have confessed to anything. I had left no traces on the rifle, as I had wiped it with a cloth. It would have been best if he had confessed to nothing (which I had told him repeatedly, in case of arrest), and then, most likely, they would have had to the accusation of weapons theft. In any case, without Radchuk's testimony, the police could not have charged me with stealing the weapon. But be that as it may, he had not tried to deny everything, nor even to take the blame himself! (And he could have done that, because apart from one witness who recognized him, there was no other evidence against him. Besides, that witness had seen him in the evening during the church festival (before the theft), so he was most likely tipsy and could have been mistaken. And by taking the blame, he could have testified that he had stolen it alone and that there was no watchman. As for the rifle, which he had hidden with the air rifles (separately from them), someone had probably found and taken it. Radchuk could have acted differently, but he didn't, and that was his fault. But a great deal of the fault was mine, too. First, that evening, I didn't adequately supervise his behavior, and besides, I didn't give him full instructions—then there would have been no witness. And second, returning from Moscow, I absolutely should not have met with Radchuk in Zhytomyr. I had been reckless, forgetting about the network of informants that was undoubtedly watching me. For some reason, I thought that I could in no way be suspected of stealing a training weapon from a school.

The criminal investigation operatives had no reason not to believe Radchuk. I understood: no matter what, they wouldn't let me out of prison now. And providing additional material for the court was no problem for them—they would just supplement Radchuk's testimony with some "witness." They wouldn't even release me after I served my sentence. If I didn't give them the rifle, they would fabricate a new case against me before the end of my term. Moreover, they had undoubtedly searched my home already and seized the literature brought from Moscow, which, for some reason, I hadn't even hidden, forgetting the consequences of possessing it. For some reason, I was no longer behaving as I had in 1963. A certain carelessness and disregard for the danger hanging over me had appeared. My instinct for danger had been lulled. Perhaps because I had been free for almost a year and a half. And my interactions with dissidents, who operated, one might say, semi-legally, somehow led me to treat their samizdat as something semi-legal—something the KGB didn't pay much attention to. The KGB agents could have confiscated that literature, which was in my sister’s bag, on the way back from Moscow, but they were probably sure I wouldn't be so reckless as to expose myself to danger. In the mid-70s, I was no longer the person I had been in '63, when I had an incentive to act—the promise of help with an escape and some glimmers of a youthful desire to do something. Now, my age was different, and there was virtually no incentive. There was only the understanding that I had to do something to avoid being a willing slave. But there was no clear goal for action. There was indifference. There was only the desire to fill the emptiness not with what I was being forced to do—in this case, work at a factory—but with something else, though I didn't see what among all that "something else" could bring even a little satisfaction. This emotional state caused such an attitude toward everything I did. So they could try me not only for the rifle but also for possession of anti-Soviet publications. Although I wasn't playing with fervor, I had lost again—I was the fool. And I could have taken my time. I could have met with Pavlo, and we surely would have come up with a way to get weapons. What was oppressive was not so much being back in a cell, but the fact that it all turned out so foolishly. How could I get out of this stupid situation? How could I outplay them—I thought, sitting on the bunk or pacing the cell. I knew that besides the publications I brought back, they would also have seized the long letter to Halia, in which I described the reflections and torments of Gilgamesh (based on fragments from the epic), Ecclesiastes, Jack London with his character Martin Eden, and others who understood that all is vanity, that life has no meaning. I presented my own vision as well. And although everything I wrote corresponded more to my state of mind in the early 60s, the letter implied that this was my current state of mind and that I was ready to go to the bottom, like Martin Eden. So, that letter and... the theft of a weapon! It would seem that I needed the weapon to end my life. I could play on that. But what guarantee was there that if I made such a statement, the letter would be attached to the case file and not destroyed? There was no such guarantee. So I decided to play this defense option more subtly. I wouldn't mention the letter, pretending I had no interest in it being part of the case. There was another option: to offer them my cooperation in exchange for the charges of weapon theft being dropped, and along with them, of course, the charges related to the publications from Moscow. Why not try to get out by offering cooperation to the KGB? The main thing was to get out. And then… So, after thinking everything over, by morning I had made a final decision: to confess to the theft and give them the rifle. In the morning, an MVD officer responded to my summons, and I told him I would give them the rifle, but first, I needed to meet with a KGB representative. After that, two KGB agents appeared very quickly. They led me out of the cell into a wide corridor, and one of them asked what statement I wished to make. I got straight to the point. I told them:

“In 1963, the Zhytomyr KGB offered me cooperation. I regret that I did not accept that offer. If a criminal case is not initiated, I am ready to cooperate with the KGB. I am trusted, and I could provide valuable information.”

“Good, but what information do you have that you could tell us about?”

“Well, I don’t have any information yet, because I haven’t communicated with anyone recently. But I could establish contact and get what would be of interest to you.”

“From whom did you get the literature you brought from Moscow?”

“Yes, I brought it from Moscow, but I didn’t take it from any of the people I met there. It’s true that during my meetings, I mentioned that I would like to have some samizdat. I received the literature when I was leaving Moscow. At the train station, a woman approached me and, saying, ‘You wanted some samizdat,’ handed me a small package and immediately walked away. I think it was done for conspiratorial reasons.”

As soon as I finished my explanation, the conversation was immediately concluded, and they led me back to the cell. Well, they didn't believe me. I couldn’t have told them from whom I got that illegal literature!

Soon, a group of MVD officers, led by a criminal investigation colonel, with a dog and two cars, arrived via Rohachiv at the forest where the rifle was hidden. I pointed to the bushes. They immediately set up a perimeter, and accompanied by the colonel, I approached the bushes and began looking around, searching for the hiding place. There it was. One of the MVD officers wanted to take a picture, but I forbade it, saying that in that case, I wouldn't hand over the rifle. I pulled out the rifle and stepped a little to the side.

The investigation began. Both I and Radchuk testified that we had no intention of stealing an automatic rifle, that we had intended to steal only a small-caliber rifle, and that the automatic rifle had come into our hands by chance. Investigator Pavlovskyi also asked me about Halia, wanting to know who she was. From this, I understood that he was familiar with the letter. As for why I needed a small-caliber rifle, the investigator did not inquire, only saying at one point, “If you had visited there the night before, you could have taken something much more valuable.” No doubt: we were one night too late.

I was shuttled between Zhytomyr prison and the Novohrad-Volynskyi temporary detention facility. During those trips, in the cell of a prisoner transport wagon, I heard a young man address me for the first time as: “Pakhan!” And indeed, for that young man, I was literally a "pakhan," as I was already in my thirty-seventh year. Not a kid anymore! Although, to my shame, I was in for a crime that would have been more fitting for a kid. I was, of course, locked up with criminals, among whom there were very few my age or slightly older. None of the prisoners asked me why I was arrested—it wasn't done—but they knew it was for a rifle and that I had previously been in a special-regime camp—a "striped one," which set me apart and gave me due weight in their circle. The investigation of the case quickly reached its conclusion. There wasn't much to investigate. We gave our testimonies, and the investigator merely had to fill out the reports. But when the investigation ended, it turned out there wasn't enough evidence of my involvement in the rifle theft.

Apart from Radchuk’s testimony and my confirmation of it, there was nothing else in the case file. Although initially, I had no intention of recanting my testimony, I generally tried not to say anything extra. I also refused to go to Hulsk to reenact the theft. But when I read the expert conclusion, which declared the rifle a combat weapon (which meant Article 223—up to fifteen years in prison), I began to consider options for denying my participation in the theft. My denial was also aided by the fact that, according to the case materials, Radchuk, who had pointed to me, was arrested seven hours after my arrest. On what grounds I had been detained remained unknown. There was no material in the case file about it. Also, the watchman’s testimony, who stated that he did not see the faces of the thieves, and although he described their appearance, none of them matched mine. There was only one problem: how to pass a note to Radchuk? After the investigation had already concluded, when we were being transported from Novohrad to Zhytomyr, I saw that such an opportunity might arise. And then we were sent back to Novohrad—for the trial. I already had a note in my mouth, in which I described what testimony Radchuk should give in court. Namely: that he had stolen the rifle with an "Andriy," whom he had met shortly before the theft. And that "Andriy," after meeting with him after the theft, had told him that the rifle was with their acquaintance—Babych. I laid out (briefly) everything in detail: his acquaintance with him and a description of his appearance. And to make it easier to remember—for both him and me—I pointed to a mutual acquaintance from whom we were to draw a portrait of this "Andriy." There weren't many details, and they were easy to remember. From all this, it basically turned out that someone (it turns out, the KGB) had set up "Andriy," who had instigated Radchuk to commit the theft, in order to then offer to sell me this rifle, describing the circumstances of the theft. Radchuk, knowing that Babych had the rifle, decided to say that he had stolen it with Babych.

A small group of prisoners (about 10 people) is taken for transfer. We are in this group. No one pays any attention to us. I pull Radchuk slightly aside, pass him the note, telling him to keep it in his mouth during searches, and if they look in his mouth, to swallow it. Handing him the note, I was certain that after reading it, Radchuk would destroy it. This certainty was based on the fact that Radchuk had told them about the theft but had not said a word about our conversations and our intentions. We are in the Novohrad temporary detention facility. Radchuk is in the next cell. Sometime in the evening, I hear a tapping on the wall. It’s a message: “I agree. Note destroyed.”

A few days later, they take us to court. The hall is small, not many people present. I immediately stated that I was not involved in the theft, that my acquaintance “Andriy” had offered to sell me the rifle, but since I had ordered a pistol, I refused the rifle, especially a training one. I had not made a final decision, so “Andriy,” in my presence, hid the rifle, because we were supposed to meet again, at which point I would give him my final answer. Even before arriving at the court, I saw that Radchuk was somewhat flustered; there was a sense of indecision in his behavior. Something was troubling him. A struggle was going on inside him. After my brief statement, the judge turned to Radchuk and asked him to describe how everything happened. Radchuk stood up from the bench and, with his head down, remained silent. The judge addressed him again, but more insistently. Finally, some incomprehensible muttering of individual words, stuttering. As I understood it, a struggle was still going on inside him; there was still some uncertainty. He was unable to form a sentence. Then the judge asked:

“Well, was Babych with you after all?”

“Yes,” replied Radchuk. That was the entirety of his testimony. But with that “yes,” he confirmed the testimony that was in the protocols. Although it was unpleasant for me to hear this, as the beautifully constructed tower was crumbling, I understood: reason had overcome emotion: if you save another, you drown yourself. The trial was halted at that point. They made an inquiry to the district police department about that “Andriy” who (according to him) lived in Kamianyi Brid, and received a reply that no such person lived there. Upon receiving this response, the court resumed its session. During the continued proceedings, Radchuk had fully composed himself and gave additional testimony against me. He stated that he had received a note from me and that he had destroyed it. They also called his cellmate, who confirmed that he had seen Radchuk tearing some paper into small pieces. (But there are no pieces. They’re in the sewer). Such testimony only worked in my favor: on the first day, he couldn't utter a word, and now suddenly he was loquacious, even mentioning a note. It strongly suggests that someone is directing him, that this is some kind of KGB provocation. The lawyer's motion for an additional investigation was denied.

And that was the end of it. I was given fifteen years in a special-regime camp, with the first five years to be spent in prison confinement. Radchuk got three years. As for the seized literature, it was separated into a different case, but no criminal charges were filed. The KGB was satisfied with what I had received. By the way, although I said in court that I wanted to acquire a pistol, surprisingly, no one was interested in why I needed a weapon. Perhaps I made a mistake then by not telling my lawyer about the letter. It’s not out of the question that if that letter had been found, the lawyer could have attached it to the case file and approached the matter from a different angle. It’s possible I could have been sent for an in-patient examination at some psychiatric facility and tried to escape from there. Or at least avoided prison confinement, from which you can't escape. I outplayed myself. And events developed quickly.

In September, I was already in a cell in Vinnytsia prison. And in prison, in my appeals to the prosecutor's office, I began to draw their attention to the fact that the question of why I needed a weapon was never clarified and that the answer to this question was in the letter, which for some reason was not attached to the case. Although I did not succeed in getting the verdict overturned, I think my appeals helped to elicit some sympathy from the prison administration, and I did not have to serve the full five years in prison.

In Vinnytsia, after a few days in a non-working cell, I was assigned to a brigade of prisoners who were threading heads for motorcycle spokes and moved up to the third floor to a cell with the prisoners of this brigade. This was the so-called small block, where only special-regime prisoners were held. The cells, about 8 square meters in area, held four people each. Bunk beds lined the sides of the cell. By the door was a toilet. My cellmates made a positive impression. The brigade leader was also in this cell. His name was Volodymyr, from Vilniansk in the Zaporizhzhia region. The next day, I was taken to work. Prisoners from two other cells were also taken out. Of the prisoners who were working in the workshop then, I only remember two names: Vyacheslav Kuzmin and Anatoliy Kozin—a former boxing champion of Ukraine in the lightweight or featherweight category.

Our workshop—a large cell—was on the first floor of the work building. Workstations were set up along the walls for most of the perimeter of the shop. A workstation consisted of a stool and an electric motor in which a tap was fixed. The work was dirty—our hands were constantly in oil—but in this cell, amid the hum of the motors, one could find solitude, to feel, for a time, the absence of others.

For lunch, we were taken to the dining hall, where prisoners from other workshops ate in shifts. As for the food, although it was, as everywhere in places of confinement, low in calories and tasteless, we didn't starve, though we did feel a lack of sufficient sustenance. Everyone had money, so everyone regularly (twice a month) bought groceries for 4 rubles from the basic allowance and 2 rubles for exceeding the quota. Overall, the conditions were easier compared to those in Vladimir Prison. In Vinnytsia, no one demanded that you be on your feet at 6 AM sharp and not dare to lie down until 10 PM.

During my first stay in Vinnytsia prison, both in the cells and in the workshop, relations between the prisoners were normal. No one harassed anyone; there were no fights. This was probably because most of the brigade consisted of men over thirty, who had already served a lot of time and were no longer drawn to any foolish antics. In addition, the prison administration selected non-conflicting prisoners for the work cells. And if someone did start to a conflict, they were very quickly transferred to a non-working cell. My relations with the prisoners were normal. True, there was an attempt to a negative attitude toward me—a rumor was spread that I was a snitch. I found out about this by chance when one of the prisoners, to whom I had made some remark, called me a snitch. I immediately realized that if this ordinary prisoner allowed himself such an outburst, it wasn't just his own opinion. Turning off my motor, I approached Vienka, who held the most authority in the workshop, and expressed my indignation. Vienka supported me. Returning to the prisoner, I stared menacingly into his face and, with a demand, spat out:

“Facts!”

He, of course, had seen whom I had approached and understood the situation he was in, so, apologizing, he told me that such a rumor was circulating among the prisoners. The one who had started the rumor was no longer in the workshop—he had been transferred out of the prison.

The prison had a library, but I didn't use it: there was nothing worth reading. And what was there for me to read, when I had long ago come to the conclusion that humanity would have lost nothing if it had burned all literature, leaving only Ecclesiastes's “Vanity of vanities”?

Between the work in the shop and the fuss with the prosecutor's office that I had started, demanding a review of my case, three years of imprisonment flew by quickly.

The prison administration's attitude toward me was normal and, I would say, sympathetic. This was especially felt from Major Kryzhanivskyi. I was already prepared to serve my entire prison term in Vinnytsia, but unexpectedly, the administration petitioned the court to transfer me to a camp, as I had already served half of my prison term. The review of the petition went like this: I am brought into a room where the court is in session; the judge demands that I admit my guilt. This means admitting my involvement in the theft of the rifle. I refused. The judge then announced that in that case, the court could not grant the administration's petition. I was led out the door. Just then, the political officer, Kryzhanivskyi, appeared and told me he would try to sort everything out. I could see from the expression on his face that Kryzhanivskyi was outraged by the judge’s position. He went into the courtroom. Soon, I was called back in, and the judge announced that I was being transferred to a camp.

In August 1979, I was taken from the prison. They also granted my request—I was sent to Berdychiv. Berdychiv suited me best: Oles Vodiuniuk lived there, Zhytomyr was nearby, and it was not far from other places—where my parents and brothers lived, making it easier for them to visit. They had come for short visits—through glass—to Vinnytsia on every possible occasion. Oles had also come with my sister Olha.

Arriving in Berdychiv, I ended up in a large cell on the second floor of the old prison building. The beds were single-level. The cellmates, like those in the industrial zone where I was taken to work, were normal people. It was easier here. At the very least, on workdays, eight hours were spent outside the cell. Soon I met Meletiy Semeniuk, who had been given five years on a fabricated case. Meletiy was a long-term political prisoner, a wonderful, reliable man. Before this, Meletiy had been in Mordovia and in Norilsk in a katorga (hard labor) camp, where he had participated in the prisoners' uprising. I also met one of the common criminals here—Anatoliy Matiash, who had previously been in Mordovia.

About a month later, I received a long-term visit for three days. It was my first such visit in all my years of imprisonment. My mother came with my sister Olha.

In my free time (of which there was plenty), I would walk around the industrial zone, looking for a place from which to escape. And such a place was found. In a corner of the industrial zone, beyond the forbidden zone, stood a brick smokestack from some boiler room. From the roof of a tall, two-story workshop, which was almost adjacent to the narrow forbidden zone, it would be possible to throw a rope and, at dusk, climb down into the boiler room yard. The only problem was that there was nothing for the hook of the thrown rope to catch on. It would require someone in that yard to discreetly string a wire for the hook to catch. The corner guard tower, from which this section of the forbidden zone was visible, would be below, and the rope would not be visible from the tower. I had already prepared a rope. But suddenly, in December, I was taken for transfer and ended up in Iziaslav, in a camp located in a former monastery. This camp was adjacent to the high western bank of the Horyn River. The monastery building, in whose cells the prisoners' quarters were located, abutted the narrow forbidden zone, immediately beyond which was a steep slope down to the river. About a year or two before my arrival, one of the prisoners had tried to slide down that slope. He sawed through the bars, got out of his cell at night, and somehow, having climbed onto the roof of the tall building, jumped toward the slope. As the prisoners told me, he was caught and taken to a SHIZO cell. He died there shortly after. Some said he was beaten in the SHIZO, while others believed he had injured something internally during the fall and died from that. The camp in Iziaslav was one of five special-regime camps in Ukraine (Iziaslav, Sokal, Horodyshche, Berdychiv, and the 60th in Luhansk Oblast) known for its exceptionally harsh regime. It was mostly the unruly prisoners who were sent there.

In the gloomy cell I was taken to, instead of beds, there were two-tiered plank bunks, which held over three dozen prisoners. The cell was filled with smoke. In addition to the cigarette smoke, there was smoke from paper, which was used to brew tea in mugs. This was no longer the cell that was in Berdychiv—bright and where smoke was not felt. It was good that at least here there was a toilet in the cell. One can imagine what it was like in this cell when there was still a stinking latrine bucket. I took a free spot on the top bunk. The next day, I was taken to the industrial zone, where they made buckets for tractors and other metal products. I was among those who made metal fencing, specifically: I uncoiled wire of various gauges from a spool, cut it from the spool, and, securing the ends, turned on a winch and stretched this segment, about 40 meters long, taut like a string. Then I manually chopped it into pieces of a given length. Winter. Nowhere to warm up. None of the workshops were heated. Lighting any kind of fire was also not allowed. Even in the machine shop, lathe operators turned parts while dressed in peacoats. Because of this, one operator's arm was torn off at the elbow by a machine. For a while, I didn't start work, and then (what can you do?) I would produce some minimum of the quota, just so they wouldn't write "refusal to work" in the reports. I thought about escaping, but I couldn't find a way. I couldn't understand why I had been transferred from Berdychiv. But sometime in the summer, I was called from my cell. I entered an office where a man in civilian clothes was sitting. It turned out to be a KGB agent named Stetsenko, who supervised political prisoners. Stetsenko told me about some of my acquaintances from Mordovia. And I no longer remember whether he let me read or read himself the denunciation from Anatoliy Matiash (Berdychiv) stating that I was inciting him to participate in commemorating the Day of the Political Prisoner in the USSR and to carry out some other activities—something about distributing leaflets. Why this KGB agent visited me and why he showed me Matiash’s “denunciation” remains a mystery to me. Perhaps this “denunciation” was the reason I was transferred to Iziaslav, although I doubt the KGB would have believed Matiash that I would get involved in such foolishness—leaflets in a camp. They knew well that common criminals would say anything to get even a pack of tea. (It is more likely that it was inexpedient for the KGB to keep me and Meletiy Semeniuk in the same camp.) Stetsenko treated me quite kindly. He even treated me to a new drink—Pepsi-Cola—and gave me a pack of tea and a pack of cookies.

Sometime in the autumn, I accidentally received information from a prisoner that on the riverbank, there was a barred opening to either some kind of sewer or another underground passage through which one could possibly get out of the camp. I decided to check this. Since I was deprived of my next long-term visit (I only had a short one, through glass, by phone with my father), I chose one of the prisoners named Bryl, who was going on a visit and was not against the idea of escaping. We agreed that his relative would deliver a note to my sister. And she could then take the note to Androsiuk, who would check if there was indeed an underground exit from the camp on the riverbank. Even before this, I had gotten close to one of the civilian employees who worked as a foreman in the industrial zone. Secretly, he would bring me tea and some food, agreeing to help me escape. But not for “thank you,” but for a rather substantial sum. Being sure that this foreman had been sent either by the KGB or by the operations officer, I decided to use him to divert attention from the real escape plan. First, I sent him to Vodiuniuk in Berdychiv. After some time, we met, and the foreman said: “I went to see him, but he can’t get that kind of money.” Then I sent him to Kuzma Matviiuk in Khmelnytskyi. In the note, I wrote that the person I was sending was just like San Sanych. We met again, and the foreman told me:

“What did you write in there?! Matviiuk read it and said, ‘The note says you are a provocateur!’”

I did not expect that instead of leading the foreman on, Matviiuk would tell him what was in the note. Well, you can understand Kuzma. How was he to know why I had sent this man to him when the note clearly stated: “San Sanych.”

“No, everything in the note is correct. He decided to test how you would react to such a statement. After all, how would he know that the note was really from me? We will wait for a message from him. He will do something,” I reassured the foreman.

Shortly after this conversation, Bryl went on his visit. He left, and in the evening, I was taken with my belongings to the SHIZO, to cell No. 18, and it was announced that for systematic violation of the regime (mainly, constant failure to meet the production quota), I was being transferred to a solitary confinement cell for a period of six months. This happened on December 17, 1980. It later became known that before going on his visit, Bryl had given my note to the operations department. My note was not mentioned in the order for "solitary."

From solitary, I was taken out, like others, to a solitary work cell, where I bent some part out of sheet metal. I didn't meet the quota, so I was constantly on reduced food rations. It was then that I met Volodymyr Piddubnyi, a Kyivan, who was finishing his term in solitary. The cell where he worked was not far from mine, and we had the opportunity to talk periodically. Although we hadn't known each other before, upon learning that I had been in political camps, Volodymyr tried to help me, passing me a piece of bread or a portion of kasha. He was a cultured, thinking man. He came from a cultured family but had tied his life to the romance of the thieves' world—he became a professional thief. On the eve of his release from solitary, Volodymyr passed his workstation on to me: drilling holes in that shaped piece of metal from which I and other prisoners bent some part.

Having received this workstation, I not only easily met the quota but also had plenty of free time in the work cell. True, as in the living cell, there was nothing to fill it with. I was already preparing to serve out my solitary term, but on January 13, 1981, I was taken for transfer, and soon I was at the 60th (UL-314/60) in the Slovianoserbsk Raion of Luhansk Oblast. Why I was transferred from the camp so hastily (not even serving one month) is unknown. It's possible that the camp administration's request for transfer to another camp had been sent to the Camps Administration even before I was placed in solitary. In any case, it was quite strange, because escaping from that camp was very difficult. To escape, some prisoners even committed crimes. For example, there was one such case. After my arrival, either at the end of winter or early spring (it was not yet fully light), the prisoners were led out to the industrial zone. Although there were toilets in the cells, they were not used without urgent need. So, upon entering the industrial zone, they went to the latrine and took their places. Just then, one of the prisoners entered the latrine, stabbed a prisoner sitting near the door, and ran to the checkpoint to the residential zone. He explained his actions by saying he couldn't stay in that camp any longer (it was said he had lost at cards), had appealed to the administration, but they wouldn't transfer him to another camp. So he decided to stab whichever prisoner was sitting at the end. He was tried and given fifteen years for this murder, and sent to Vinnytsia prison. The regime in the camp was brutal. There were also brutal prisoners, which was reflected in their relations with each other. Take, for instance, a case that happened in the summer before my eyes… I and a few other prisoners were at a winch, doing our work. We heard shouts. We saw some prisoner running toward us, shouting for us to protect him. And behind him, another prisoner was running with a knife in his hand. We stood and watched them. No one moved from their spot. The prisoner, seeing that no one was going to help him, turned around before reaching us, blocked the attacker's raised arm, and then silently ran toward the workshop. I don't know how it ended for them. But if it had been a murder, it would have been known. I didn't intervene, because why should I get involved in the "squabbles" of common criminals when the other common criminals nearby weren't intervening? They would know better whether to interfere or not. Then again, how would I know, maybe he needed to be stabbed.

The conditions for the prisoners were harsh. And not everyone could withstand them. Some, due to the administration's negligence, did not survive. During my time in the camp, about six or seven prisoners died. I remember the last names of only two of the deceased: one of them was Kozin (I don't remember his first name), who was at the winch when one prisoner was chasing another. Well, in the autumn, he fell ill during the night: he would periodically lose consciousness. The prisoners tried to call a doctor, banging on the door with whatever they had, but it was in vain; the doctor never appeared. Kozin died in the cell. He was about fifty years old. The second, Ivan Kharchenko, was my cellmate, about thirty-five years old. He was a calm, good person. I don't know what he was in for. He was sick, constantly complaining of abdominal pain. He looked unwell. He didn't meet his quota, so they put him in the SHIZO. They put him in one last time. From the SHIZO, they took him to the medical unit. The doctor's diagnosis: malingering. Ivan was taken back to the SHIZO. His groans could be heard in the other cells. A few days later, the camp administration announced over the camp's broadcast system a request for prisoners to donate blood for Kharchenko, who was to undergo surgery at the Iziaslav hospital. The prisoners respected Ivan and sympathized with him, so many volunteered to donate blood. But it was too late. He had been taken to the hospital with clear signs of peritonitis—a perforated stomach ulcer. They couldn't save Kharchenko. This happened in late autumn.

Camp No. 60 was located in some ravine, which immediately gave me the impression that I would not be able to escape from it. Therefore, upon arriving at the camp and before even seeing the industrial zone, in a conversation with the warden, I made it clear that I could cause them a lot of trouble and was not happy about being transferred to this camp. But when I was moved from the transit cell to a regular one and then taken to work in the industrial zone, I saw that this camp had a number of advantages over the previous ones. There was more freedom, and besides, there was a greater chance of escape. Soon, I met the people I needed. One of these prisoners had recently been in contact with Petro Ruban, who had been with me in Camp No. 10 and, after his release, had received a new sentence for a common crime. So this inmate introduced me to two of his friends who were preparing an escape. Thus, a group of four was formed. (And strange as it is, I cannot recall not only their last names but even any of their first names. I forgot! Probably because I tried to interact with them as little as possible). The escape plan was simple: at night (I was also assigned to the second shift), we would attach a pipe to the forks of an electric cart and climb over the pipe to the other side of the narrow forbidden zone. We decided to wait until the vegetation in the steppe grew tall enough to hide in during a pursuit. But in May, I was put on a transport. The reason I was taken out of the camp remains unknown to me. I regretted having rushed to present myself in a negative light upon arrival. It is possible that after that conversation, the administration submitted the necessary paperwork to have me transferred to another camp.

Shortly before the transport, I learned of an event that had occurred in Artemivsk, Donetsk Oblast. Namely, Trokhym Shynkaruk, who was in the camp in the city of Artemivsk, had killed two prisoners and stabbed two others, inflicting serious knife wounds. I had known Trokhym in Camp No. 10 and in Sosnovka in the first half of the 1970s. Trokhym arrived at No. 10 from Sokal, where he had been in a special-regime camp for some criminal case. This was his story… In the latter half of the 1940s, he was arrested either for belonging to the UPA or for providing some assistance to its members. At first, as a minor, he was held in Kharkiv on Kholodna Hora, and when he turned 18, he was sent to Tayshet, and from there to Mordovia. After his release, he lived in Kryvyi Rih and, some time later, ended up in Sokal for a criminal offense. Soon, his manuscript was confiscated; he was tried and, already on a political charge, sent to Mordovia in the early 1970s. When he finished serving his political sentence, he was sent to a camp for common criminals to serve out the remainder of his term for the criminal case. Thus, Trokhym ended up in a strict-regime camp in Artemivsk. Residing in one of the barracks, Trokhym occupied the top bunk of a two-tiered plank bed. When the bottom bunk became available, according to the unwritten rules of camp life, Trokhym had the right to take the bed beneath him. But for some reason, Trokhym did not take it and instead gave it to some young man who, as I was told, was the son of an inmate with whom Trokhym had once been imprisoned. Some of the prisoners did not like this and told Trokhym:

“Look, it’s your bunk, and you can take it. But if you don’t, someone else will.”

Trokhym disagreed. He believed it was his decision who would get that bunk. The argument ended with Trokhym being beaten up on the spot. When night came, Trokhym, taking the young man with him, visited two barracks, where he stabbed sleeping inmates with a knife. Two of the four prisoners survived. The trial took place in April. Trokhym was sentenced to death by firing squad, and the young man to 15 years. In total, Trokhym had served about 30 years. He did not have much time left on his sentence—one year. I do not know how Trokhym behaved in his youth, but from what is known about his time in Camp No. 7 in the 60s and from my observations in No. 10 and Sosnovka, I think it must be said that although Trokhym had been imprisoned since his youth for political activities, he had the distinctly ingrained habits of a common criminal.

In late May or early June of 1981, I was in Camp No. 96 in the village of Horodyshche, Rivne Raion. I was placed in cell No. 22 on the second floor of the three-story camp prison. The cell held six people. From my bunk, which was on the top tier across from the window, I could see a high hill with a church on it. I worked in the industrial zone on a pipe bender. The work was not strenuous. In a few hours, I bent the pipes that were brought to my machine, and then I could look around and think about how to get out. Half a year passed imperceptibly in this way. A long-term visit was already approaching. I had even received a letter saying they were planning to come in a few days. But one day, I came back to my cell after work and saw that my bedding was disheveled. One of the inmates told me there had been a shakedown in the cell. While straightening my bedding, I glanced at the pillow and saw that it had been cut open. Still hoping for the best, I discreetly felt for it, but the hidden packet, about half the size of my little finger, was gone. It was a note that I was planning to pass along during the visit. I no longer remember what was written in it. Most likely about the conditions of detention in Iziaslav. A day or two later, I was in the punishment cell. I received 15 days. The cell was on the ground floor, a corner one. It was getting colder every day. Snow was already on the ground, but the cell was unheated—they were replacing the heating pipes. The window was also broken. And I was in a thin undershirt and a jacket. They wouldn't give me my padded jacket. The cold was piercing. I had to pace constantly from the door to the wall and back. There were still three days left, but I could no longer lie down on the floor (it was wooden, so they didn't issue a bedboard for the night). The floor was cold. When I lay down, my body would start to tremble after a few minutes. So for all three days, I paced the cell without closing my eyes. I cannot imagine how I managed to go three days without sleep or how my legs endured the constant walking. The 15 days were over, but the door remained shut. I knocked on the door and asked. The guard replied, “I’ll find out!” Finally, a few hours later, the food slot opened, and an order was read to me for my transfer to a solitary cell for one year. I went up to the top floor and immediately lay down on my bed. It must have been a week before I felt the fatigue had passed. And strangely enough, I didn’t even catch a cold. My mother and my sister Olga had come for the visit. They were told: “There will be no visit. He is serving a punishment for a disciplinary violation.”

I didn't have to serve the full term in solitary this time either. I hadn’t yet gotten used to my new situation when I was taken to some room where the Rivne Raion Court, at the request of the camp administration—and in reality, at the behest of the KGB—issued an order to transfer me to a prison for three years of incarceration. Besides me, a Belarusian named Mykhailo was also transferred to prison for disciplinary violations. By January 1982, we were in a cell in the Vinnytsia prison. I only talked with Mykhailo in the prison transport car and the transit cell. I must say that Mykhailo made a very good impression on me. There was nothing about him that would classify him as a criminal type. He was interested in politics and had a decent understanding of it. Of course, he hated the political system he lived under. He openly expressed his negative attitude towards the communists and the leadership of the USSR. He was one of those with whom it would have been easy to share a cell. I hoped we would be imprisoned together, but a couple of days later I was taken from the cell and never saw him again, because Mykhailo was assigned to a different work brigade. I ended up back in the same workshop (now on the second floor) that I had left in August 1979. There were eight of us in the workshop, prisoners from two cells. Of those I had worked with before, only two remained, serving out their prison terms. I didn't know the others. But the inmates were the kind who were not difficult to be with. The atmosphere in both the workshop and the cells was normal. I also learned about the events that had occurred during my absence. It turned out that two of the inmates I had worked with during my previous time in the prison were no longer alive. Vasyl was gone—a Kyiv native who had worked as a set designer at the Kyiv Drama Theater before his imprisonment. He developed cancer and died in prison. They said he suffered terribly—he would scream in pain in his cell, but they didn’t give him any painkillers. Vyacheslav Kuzmin was also gone. He had been killed. Vyacheslav had been writing complaints against the prison administration, and for that, he was transferred to a non-working cell where a man named Derba (I don't know if it was his last name or nickname) was held. According to accounts, Derba was very physically developed. Vyacheslav couldn’t have provoked him or insulted him. It’s not known what happened there. All that is known is that Derba grabbed Vyacheslav by the head and slammed it with all his might against the concrete base of the toilet. His skull cracked. The fracture was so large that brain matter seeped out. Vyacheslav lay dead. A nurse came up and pushed the dead man’s arm away with her foot (she must have been disgusted to touch him with her hand). Derba was not tried but was sent to Dnipropetrovsk to a special psychiatric hospital. There he was declared mentally ill. Vyacheslav was from Leningrad; his parents had died during the siege, and his childhood was spent in orphanages. And then—prison. While we were in the same workshop, I never heard a coarse word from him. We talked. He was someone you could have a conversation with.

There was nothing to do during the free time from work. So eventually, to occupy myself, I started writing down my memoirs about my time in Mordovia and in the camps and prisons of Ukraine, lying on my top bunk in a fine script. I wrote about the conditions in which the prisoners were kept and about the deaths of some inmates. I also wrote down some of my thoughts of a philosophical nature. What also prompted me to write was the fact that the international community was campaigning for my release. So I needed to say something myself. At first, I was just going to write a little and pass it on to someone on the outside through one of the inmates whose sentence was ending in prison. But I soon got drawn into it, and what I had written grew into a rather large memoir. The rolls of text, which I had hidden in several dried bread rusks in a bag of rusks, were small in volume because the paper was no thicker than cigarette paper.

I managed to fill a significant amount of time, but given the consequences of this activity, there is no doubt that engaging in such foolishness in prison conditions was not worth it. Not long after, a shakedown was conducted in the cell, and among the rusks that they were breaking into pieces, they found the rolls of paper. This happened sometime in late November 1982. No one summoned me. I remained in the same cell, but I was no longer taken to work. A few days later, without pressing any charges, I was transferred to a non-working cell on the first floor. There were three others besides me in the cell. I knew none of them. Upon entering the cell, I immediately told them who I was and why, in my opinion, I had been moved to a non-working cell. Those in the cell gave their names. I don’t remember the name of the Armenian or one of the other inmates, but I do remember the one from Zhytomyr, who later worked with me for a long time in the same workshop. His name was Anatoliy (in the workshop, Tolik). These prisoners must have been recently assembled in this cell. This was evident from their restrained behavior. Everyone acted in a way so as not to offend anyone else. As a result, there were no conversations, let alone discussions, in the cell. They addressed each other only when necessary. Otherwise, they all lay or sat silently on their bunks, lost in their own thoughts. So I sat in this cell, waiting to be summoned and charged for what I had written. Days passed, but I was not called.

Finally, about two weeks later, on December 13, the food slot opened and a guard ordered me to get my things ready to move to another cell.

“Don't go! They're probably planning to throw you in the 'press-cell'!” the Armenian told me. (A “press-cell” is a cell where specially selected prisoners, on the orders of the prison administration, abuse other inmates). I did not start to pack my bedding, and when the door opened, I said that I did not want to move to another cell. They paid no attention to what I said.

“Get out of the cell,” ordered Sergeant Major Tsvetkov. And to an inmate (probably an orderly) standing in the corridor:

“Take his bedding!”

The inmate took my bedding and carried it out of the cell. I went out too. There was no point in waiting for the guards to come into the cell and push you out the door. I walked down the corridor with the guards. What else could I do? It wasn't worth resisting or lying down so they would have to drag me into that cell by my arms and legs. In that case, you give those in that cell grounds to accuse you of having some sins on your record, and that’s why you're afraid to come in. I was taken to the semi-basement section of the building to cell No. 4. As soon as the door opened and I crossed the threshold, Sergeant Major Tsvetkov shouted, “Take the thief!” An inmate followed me in, placed my bedding on a bunk near the door, and went out. The cell door slammed shut.

There were five inmates in the cell; I knew none of them.

“I am not a thief!” I told the inmates.

“Who are you, what's your affiliation?”

“I am so-and-so; I've served many years for my convictions, for such-and-such actions,” I told them. I even took out a 1980 issue of the newspaper *Izvestia* with an article that mentioned me. It was called “Who Are You Defending, Gentlemen?” It was about the activities of Amnesty International. One of the three men standing near me took the newspaper, glanced at it, let another one look, and then tore it in half and threw it into the corner. I realized they needed it for brewing tea. And I didn't react to his action in any way. It was clear what kind of cell I was in. As soon as I turned my back to them—a kick to my side from behind. The abuse was beginning. Three of them rushed me, and while the other two were at a distance, they were clearly ready to join in. I immediately assessed the situation. They had been promised something for beating me up. They were going to do their job. Any punches I threw back would only provoke their personal animosity, and then you could expect anything from them. And that “anything” was worse than murder. It was truly terrible, because it was enough for them to run a phallus over your body for you to end up among the “degraded”—not allowed to use communal dishes, etc. It would be foolish to facilitate that. So I did not return the blow but sat on the bunk next to my bedding and began to cover my vulnerable areas. It was a two-tiered bunk, which made it difficult for all three of them to hit me at once, and my back was protected by the wall. I asked:

“What for?”

Of course, it was clear “what for,” but I played the fool, who didn’t know yet, who still considered them decent people, and so he asked “what for.” No one answered, but two of them stepped back when they saw that I wasn't resisting. But the third one, who was their ringleader (Masalsky, from Belarus; he kicked the bucket a year later), kept kicking me with his boots. I covered my vulnerable areas with my hands. The blows landed on my hands, chest, and ribs. After a while, he either got tired or decided it was enough, turned halfway toward the peephole, and nodded. That nod meant one thing: it’s over, take him away. Less than a minute later, the door opened and the same Sergeant Major Tsvetkov stepped over the threshold, looked at me, and said, “Get your things!” I took my bedding, which I hadn't had time to unroll, and left the cell. They put me in a punishment cell. Some time later, an operative, Captain Mastytsky, came by and, standing at the threshold of the open door, said:

“Well? I told you: ‘Don't write.’”

I don't know if that captain was involved in the beating, but there is no doubt that the beating was organized by the KGB. It was all so blatant. Being in the punishment cell, I was expecting to have to serve out a term there, but after a while I was moved to a non-working cell, not far from the one where I had been before the beating. There were two inmates in the cell whom I knew. They had worked with me in the same workshop for a time. One of them, named Mykola, suffered from persecutory delusions. He never took off his shoes. He slept in tightly laced boots. He believed that assailants could burst into the cell even at night, so he had to be ready to fight back. He would break off the crust from his bread ration and throw it away. He suspected it might be coated with something to poison him. I tried to convince Mykola that such a thing was impossible, but seeing that my attempt to bring him to his senses might lead him to see me as an enemy, I stopped. We didn't go out for walks. It was winter. Why freeze out there? They didn't even insist. They would ask if we were going, and that was that.

When, about two days after the beating, I visited the medical unit and asked the doctor to document the injuries, she said:

“I cannot do that without permission from the operations department.”

I had no intention of filing a lawsuit; it would have been a futile effort. And who would I sue? I just wanted to have such a document for myself. With that, everything related to the beating was over.

At first, I didn't feel much pain. But later, when large black hematomas appeared on my sides, chest, and arms, a strong pain emerged. Everything ached. Especially my ribs when I changed positions. I sometimes felt pain in my ribs even six months later. And yet, I never went to the medical unit again.

About a month had passed since I was in the cell with the madman. It was somewhat strange that so much time had gone by since the confiscation of the material, yet no one was summoning me, making any claims about what I had written, much less accusing me of anti-Soviet activities. But finally, the door opened, and a guard took me to an office where two men in civilian clothes were sitting. They were representatives of the Vinnytsia KGB. They did not press any charges. A brief conversation ensued. We talked about things so unremarkable that I don't remember them. I remember we barely discussed the confiscated material. The KGB agents just mentioned it and told me they would not be opening a criminal case. The decision made by the KGB suited me, because I certainly did not want to go to Perm, where a few dozen special-regime political prisoners were being held. What was there to do in that tiny prison? It's not like a large camp with an industrial zone where you can still hope to come up with some way to escape. And again, what was there to talk to them about, when everything had long since been talked over, everything had been thought through? All there was to it was looking at the same old faces and endlessly chewing the cud.

Soon after the conversation with the KGB agents, I was returned to the working cell. I was back in the same workshop again. Everything was almost as it had been before. But as time went on, some prisoners left, and others arrived. And the ones arriving in the workshop were not better, but worse (as long as they weren't bothered). Among them were two degenerates who understood only one language—the language of the fist. The man from Zhytomyr, Tolik, was no longer in the workshop, nor was the conscious Ukrainian, Petro Holova, from the village of Yahilnytsia in the Chortkiv Raion. Now the degenerates were in charge, not those who had maintained normal relations in the workshop, and by extension, in the cells. Well, as a former political prisoner, I couldn't step into the role of an enforcer to maintain order, because that could have very quickly ended with me caught between two fires—between the KGB with the prison guards and the prisoners, for whom I could never be a criminal authority. I didn't want to appeal to the prison administration to be transferred to another brigade. I had to endure it. There were times I wanted to go up and smash some moron’s skull in. What held me back was this: it's foolish, because if they don't you for this degenerate, they'll you for another one; you can't kill them all, you can't rid yourself of their presence. And also: you don’t lunge at the guard who locks you in your cell, you don’t lunge at the dog that barks at you. So why should you lunge at a two-legged mutt? Let him bark. It would be foolish to start a fight over verbal provocations and end up in a non-working cell where the situation would be worse than the one you're currently in. So I remained in that environment until December 1984—until the end of my prison sentence. While serving my prison term, I periodically had visits (by phone, through glass). My sister Olga and my brothers Mykola and Andriy would come. And one time, Nadia Kotenko visited me as well (she came with Olga). My sister Nadia also came once. My parents visited too.

Sometime in mid-December, I was back in Horodyshche, in the same cell No. 22 from which I had been transferred to the punishment cell in 1981. And again in the same workshop where I had previously worked on the pipe bender. There was no work, but I and about half a dozen other prisoners were still taken out to the workshop with the inmates who were making agricultural machinery. The frost was getting stronger with each passing day. The workshop was enclosed by barred gates and was unheated, as it wasn't designed for heating. The cold was the same as outside, but inside the workshop, it was also full of fumes from the electric welding machines. There was nowhere to get warm. We loitered around the smoky workshop. Soon, I too was given a job—cleaning the welds on the machines. The frost was already reaching -30°C. There hadn't been such a cold winter in a long time. I developed bronchitis. Perhaps it was because for three winters I had hardly gone out for walks (what was there to do in that cold, barred-from-above yard?), and my body had probably completely lost its ability to adapt to winter conditions, especially those of '84-'85. The bronchitis kept getting worse. I couldn't work because the bronchial mucus wouldn't let me breathe. Gasping for air, I would go to the checkpoint, where they would let me into the residential zone. In the medical unit, they would give me an injection, some theofedrine, and two days off from work. After two days, you go back to that cold workshop. And after a while, stopping to catch your breath, you go to the checkpoint, where they let you into the medical unit. It all repeats. This was a first for me in all my years of imprisonment. For a month now, I had been suffocating from bronchial mucus. To avoid climbing down from the top bunk every time, I spat the mucus into a small jar. Sometimes at night, feeling that I was suffocating from a lack of oxygen, I would get down from my bunk, open the transom window, and gulp down air. There was no end in sight. On the contrary, the illness (obstructive bronchitis) was getting worse. There could only be one way out—to stay constantly in a warm room. And there was no such room except the cell. Spring was still far away. It was only mid-February. That month, I received a telegram that my father had died on February 14. I received it on Monday the 18th. It said the funeral would be on the 17th. (My last visit with my father was on July 12, 1983). During those days, I felt very ill, gasping for breath. I slept in short bursts, half-sitting up. On Saturday, I went to work but was no longer able to. At 3 PM, the foreman took me to the medical unit. The doctor gave me an exemption for Sunday as well—the 17th (Sunday was a workday). I didn't have a high fever; it didn't even reach 38°C. So the doctor would grant no more than two days' leave. Something had to be done. A solution was found. In the camp, isolated from the others, about 200 prisoners with latent tuberculosis were held in a separate barrack. It was a branch of a hospital for tubercular inmates with the active form, located somewhere in Kherson Oblast. These inmates worked in isolation. They wove string bags and sacks in a warm basement room. I decided to move to that basement. There was no other way out. My request was granted, and I found myself among these sick men who were supposed to have the latent form, because anyone whose disease became active was sent to Kherson. I didn't delve into the details, although I sometimes saw blood coming from some inmates' mouths. I was not alone among these sick men. Besides me, about a dozen other prisoners had taken refuge in the basement, unwilling to endure the cold in the gas-filled workshop. Among them was Volodymyr Piddubnyi, whom I had met in Iziaslav while in solitary. There was also a Latvian, Ilmārs Lokucijevskis (called Ivan in the camp), whom I met in the basement. Ilmārs specialized in stealing cars. He was a master at his craft. He became famous for stealing a foreign Buick from the son of Petro Shelest, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Ilmārs was a cultured man and was interested in politics. I was on friendly terms with both Volodymyr and Ilmārs. The basement room, although windowless, was large and well-ventilated. Most importantly, it was warm and clean. The illness immediately began to recede, though it would still flare up for years to come. I had to be wary of the trigger—the cold. It took me a long time to meet the production quota. But Volodymyr helped out. He was a good card player and would give me some of the string bags he won. There was no point in even thinking about escaping under these conditions. The basement was locked. And my world was: from the cell to the basement, from the basement to the cell. Besides, I saw no opportunity for escape. I also didn't want to get an additional sentence for an attempt, as I had already served half my time. To a large extent, I had reconciled myself to the fact that I would have to serve until the end of my term. I thought: I’ll be over 50. What can I do at that age? What could I pull off that would be within my power, as a lone man, and not complicated. And I found something that would be both simple and spectacular: I would make chemical fire starters, and when the wheat ripened in the steppes of the Black Sea region and Kazakhstan, I would ride a motorcycle alongside the wheat fields and toss the fire starters into them, which would ignite an hour or two later, and a great wall of fire would roll across the steppe behind me. Well, something else spectacular like that. What else, other than something similar, would be left for me after release?

Sometime in late 1986, I learned from a prisoner who arrived from Iziaslav that Aleksey Murzhenko was there. He was in a solitary cell for some regime violation. Murzhenko had served a 14-year sentence. He ended up in Iziaslav after being sentenced to two years for violating the rules of administrative supervision.

And so, without incident, I stayed in that basement until April 1987. It's unknown for what reason, but in April all the camp's prisoners (one and a half thousand) underwent fluorography. As a result, several dozen inmates were found to have tuberculosis. The majority of those who fell ill were prisoners who had worked in the gas-filled and unheated workshops during the winter. And four of us who had been in the basement with tubercular patients for a long time. Upon discovering the disease, we were hastily separated from the sick, moved from the basement to the former transit cell. There were about 25-28 of us gathered in this cell. And the area of the cell was 25 m2. We didn't use the toilet—working inmates were weaving string bags all around the commode. Anyone who couldn't wait until the end of the shift had to beg the guard to let them out to another room. As before, there was no walk. It was from cell to cell, because there were no exercise yards in the camp. To spend some time outside the cell, I went to evening school. At least it was some variety in camp life.

In the mid-80s, Article 183-3, “Malicious failure to comply with the requirements of the administration,” appeared in the criminal code. By June 1987, 11 prisoners had been convicted under this article—mainly for failing to meet production quotas. The sentences were 3-4 years, with a few years of that to be served in Vinnytsia under a prison regime. In March 1987, one prisoner hanged himself, and several died.

Finally, the camp administration met the prisoners' demand, and about a dozen and a half people, including myself, were transferred to a cell on the first floor of a residential building, while the others were sent to various jobs in the workshops. The premises of the former residential cell were spacious, and we were now in normal conditions. In that same year, 1987, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued, reducing the unserved portion of prison sentences by one-third. This was the first time since the creation of the special regime in 1961 that a decree positively affected even especially dangerous recidivists, although, if I'm not mistaken, only those who had served two-thirds of their term. On the basis of this decree, my remaining sentence was reduced by 1 year, 3 months, and 28 days. I had had no regime violations for a year, and they had no choice—they had to grant the reduction. But before that, an incident occurred. I was working with the inmates who had been transferred from the transit cell. Most of them didn't get involved in anything. They were guided by one principle: as long as they were left alone. There was no one in the cell who held authority among the prisoners. But there were about 5-6 individuals who clustered around their leader, a man named Shlychyk, who was a good storyteller and, while working, would entertain the inmates with something from the fiction he had read and with stories of his adventures robbing apartments. I had normal relations with him, as well as with the other inmates. But one day, talking about a prisoner in his 60s who worked not far from me and was serving time for attempting to rape some old woman, his neighbor, Shlychyk turned to me and asked:

“Do you think people like that have a right to live?”

I couldn't agree with him, so I answered:

“Everyone has a right to life.”

The workstations were located along the perimeter of the cell, facing the wall. After my reply, Shlychyk, without saying a word, came up from behind and slapped me. As I said, my relationship with him was normal. I would even say good, as we had known each other for a long time—since the basement where we worked with the sick. So his action was completely unexpected and incomprehensible to me. To this day I don't know: was it planned, or maybe he was high on drugs? Anyway, despite the slap, I didn't even flinch. I kept sitting on the bench and weaving, just as I had been. There was silence in the cell... And then I was summoned and informed that my sentence had been reduced. The next day, as we were being led out to work, Kostia Prokopov and Yaroslav Sharan (from Volyn, from the village of Ulianyky, near the village of Raimisto) approached the open cell with me. They stood in the doorway, and I, having entered the cell, went up to Shlychyk and slapped him. Then I grabbed him, threw him to the floor, and gave him a few more light, humiliating slaps. I could have pissed on him, but my past prevented me from doing so. I cannot take on the role of a common criminal. And besides, the camp inmates would probably have reacted negatively to my action. Shlychyk no longer put up any resistance, but when I grabbed him, he managed to jab me in the right temple near my eye with a shiv, slightly cutting the skin. His gang didn't defend him because they saw my people at the door. Moreover, many inmates, including those who held authority, were outraged by Shlychyk's action and were waiting for me to beat his face in. I, of course, had no intention of beating him up, only of humiliating him. I achieved my goal. Kostia and Yaroslav went to the workshop, and I remained in the cell. It was quiet in the cell. Shlychyk was not heard from. He didn't even eat lunch. He could be understood: he had been posturing so much, bragging about knowing fighting techniques, and here he put up no resistance at all. And I just kept weaving, paying him no attention. I wasn't expecting any action from him. But I was mistaken. Shortly before the end of the shift, Shlychyk, coming up from behind, punched me under the eye. I jumped up and went after him. He grabbed a ladle from the table (lunch was brought to our cell, and the dishes were collected after the shift) and ran around the table, swinging the ladle. To avoid being hit in the head, I put up my arm, and the ladle cut my arm above the wrist. I finally caught Shlychyk, but as soon as I started to throw him to the floor, his gang rushed to his aid and, grabbing my clothes, pulled me away from him. Although they sympathized with me, no one came to my aid. As a result, Shlychyk broke free from my grasp, and I had to chase him again. It was quite a comical situation. There were thick metal bowls on the table; I could have grabbed one and split his head open. I could have, but I knew how that would end for me. So I just wanted to take him down, to humiliate him. So I would catch him, and they would pull me off. This happened several times, and I gave up trying to humiliate him again. Besides, my cut arm was bleeding, and blood was also seeping from the shiv wound from the morning. My eye was swelling up too. I stopped the chase, went to the sink, and started washing off the blood. Just then, the door opened—it was the end of the shift. I had to leave the cell. At the exit, the guard noticed the blood on my temple. The unit chief came over. He asked:

“What happened?”

And he took me to the medical unit. I explained that in the morning, on my way to work, I had carelessly missed a step and fallen down the stairs. They stitched me up. A day later, I was in the punishment cell. They gave me 5 days for starting a fight. While I was still in the punishment cell, there was a confrontation with Shlychyk. Shlychyk claimed I attacked him, and I claimed I had never fought with him. After getting out of the punishment cell, I was back in the same working cell. Shlychyk was not coming to work. A few days later, I was presented with an order initiating a criminal case against me—hooliganism. I didn't appeal anywhere. I waited to see what would happen next. After some time, a guard took me to the checkpoint, which served not only as a passage between the residential and industrial zones but also had a number of offices for the camp administration departments. I no longer remember if it was the head of the operational or the security department who presented me with a resolution in which the prosecutor's office had annulled the order to open a criminal case due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

I think if Shlychyk had had even a few bruises, it's unknown how this case would have ended. And as for his gang, most likely no one dared to give the written testimony needed to fabricate the case. Still, I probably should have either left the cell then or thrown him out. I could have just not worked that day and kept an eye on him.

Soon, a workshop for the weavers was opened on the second floor of one of the buildings, and we were transferred there from the working cell. It was more spacious here, and there were enough inmates with whom one could have a normal conversation and talk about the events that were taking place on the outside as a result of *perestroika*. And sometime in early 1989, a job opening appeared in the workshop for making polyethylene products. Thanks to the help of my friends, I managed to get that spot. The workshop wasn't locked, and you could go out into the open, go to the neighboring workshop, and take a shower.

And in the camp, there was a growing excitement among the prisoners. *Perestroika* was underway, and the inmates listened to what came from the loudspeaker, read the periodicals, and discussed the news. The prisoners began to take an interest in political issues, in what was happening in the country. I had to participate in their conversations and express my conviction that democratization would lead to the collapse of the USSR. No one agreed with my conclusions. For my interlocutors, the collapse of the USSR was incredible. Moreover, they didn't even want it to collapse, because they were used to living in a state where there were many peoples, across whose territories they could move freely. (And perhaps they were right. After all, ideally, a person should be like a bird: wherever it wants to go, it flies).

I already felt freer. Now you could not only talk about everything but also write, without fearing that what you wrote would be discovered and you'd be sent to Vinnytsia for three years. Even the search when you go on a long-term visit wasn't the same. My mother no longer visited—she was ill. My brother Andriy started coming more often. He had moved to Zhytomyr (before the reactor explosion, he lived in the city of Pripyat), and it was more convenient for him to visit me.

People were writing to me. After being released from prison, the dissidents were stirring again. I began to receive letters from Meletiy Semeniuk and Vasyl Ovsiienko. I also received a letter from Mykhailo Horyn. He wrote that there was hope I would soon be free. Letters also came from Germany from Anni Weyland in Karlsruhe and Ludwig Wächter in Remscheid. They and the German public were working for my release. They hoped I would be released soon. I wasn't very interested in it, because there was less than a year left on my sentence anyway. My last spring in confinement was ending placidly. And so May 24th arrived. As usual, after 5 PM, after passing through the checkpoint (we called it the *vakhta*), I headed toward my residential block. As I was approaching the building, an acquaintance of mine came up, opened his palm to show a small package, and asked me to hold it.

“I need to go to the *vakhta*, and they might search me there. I’ll be quick, just a few minutes!” he told me.

I took the package, unwrapped it, and there it was—a coffin! A black coffin with a human skeleton inside, which the camp craftsmen secretly made from polyethylene and traded with civilian employees or members of the administration for tea. I had seen such trinkets before. And I knew that if you pressed a button, the lid of the coffin would open, and a full-sized skeleton with an erect phallus would pop out. The package was already in my hand, so it felt awkward to refuse the inmate, though it was unpleasant to carry such an object. A sense of anxiety settled in my soul. I felt something bad was coming, unable to understand why this feeling had appeared so suddenly. Soon the inmate returned, took the package from me, and I went up to the third floor to my cell, No. 48. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I glanced at my bed and saw a piece of paper. A letter must have come, I thought. But the anxiety did not leave me. I hadn't even reached my bunk when I heard from a cellmate:

“You got some bad news.” His voice was filled with sympathy.

“What, did my mother die?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

I picked up the paper and read the telegram: “Mother has died. Funeral on the 25th. Andriy.” That was it, my mother was gone too. The last visit, a short-term one, through glass, had been with my mother on October 24, 1985. Andriy had brought her. My parents were gone now. Now it was the turn of those they had created.

Some of the inmates started telling me that I should ask the camp warden to let me go to the funeral. After thinking it over, I decided to do just that. Why not go and see many people at the funeral at the same time? I wrote a request to the camp warden, Lieutenant Colonel Davydov:

“I have received a telegram about my mother's death. The funeral will take place tomorrow—May 25th in the village of Rohachiv, Baranivka Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, which is 120 kilometers from this facility.

In total, I have been imprisoned for 28 years. All these years, my parents awaited my return. This time, they did not wait long enough: my father died in February 1985, and now my mother has passed.

Based on the provisions of the corrective labor legislation and the fact that I have 8.5 months left until the end of my term, I ask: let me say goodbye to my mother.

I have money. I will pay for all travel expenses. If the facility administration does not have its own transportation, I request that you hire a taxi from the taxi service in Rivne.”

The next day I read the resolution on my application: “Request denied.” The camp warden explained his refusal by stating that the law does not provide for the granting of such requests for those on the special regime.

On June 6, around 4 PM, I was summoned to the checkpoint to be photographed. This was somewhat strange, so I asked:

“What for? There is a photograph of me in my file.”

There were two of them: a photographer and some other man in civilian clothes. The photographer said:

“We don't know, it's for the special department.”

They needed a photograph in civilian clothes, so I took off my striped jacket, put on a shirt collar with a tie, and a blazer over it. Well, if they needed such a photo, so be it. What did it matter to me? Returning to the workshop, I took my soap and towel and went to the neighboring workshop where there was a shower. I was standing under the shower. Suddenly, an inmate—a runner from the checkpoint—bursts in and says:

“You're wanted at the checkpoint.”

I got dressed and went to the checkpoint. Two men in civilian clothes were already waiting for me there. As soon as I appeared, one of them, from the special department, told me:

“We are releasing you tomorrow.”

I asked:

“In connection with what, what happened?”

They didn't answer, just asked where I would go. I replied that I had nowhere to go. My parents were dead, I had no family. Maybe to the American Embassy.

“Well,” they said, “we can't give you a referral to the American Embassy. Where do you have relatives?”

“Let's say Zhytomyr, I have a brother and sister there,” I told them.

The next day I was given a certificate of release with a destination of Zhytomyr.

As it turned out, the presidium of the Zhytomyr Oblast court had reduced my sentence to 13 years, and I was subject to release. I found myself outside the camp gates. There was no reason to be joyful. After all, I hadn't escaped—I had been released. And outside, *perestroika* was gaining momentum. Still, I will say frankly, I felt no joy from *perestroika* either. I am not a builder. I am a destroyer. With a representative of the camp administration, with the rank of major, I arrived at the Rivne bus station in the afternoon on a regular bus. There, this representative handed me a ticket and put me on a bus headed for Zhytomyr.

I am free. I am in my 50th year, and behind me, with five convictions, are more than 27 years of imprisonment. These convictions are lost games. I am the fool. What oppressed me was not so much what I had lost, but the loss of another game itself. Among other things, I wanted a rematch—especially regarding an escape.

What I have told is a story about the external, about the manifestation of my inner world, my worldview, and my reaction to that worldview—my spirituality. What kind of spirituality was it that drove my actions, my behavior? I will try to briefly address that as well. As I have said, I was five years old when I realized: my parents will die, and I will die too. The discovery was not a pleasant one. And when I passed twenty, I pondered: is there any goal worth pursuing? And also: what—in short—is the cause of the will to live? What moves me, people in general? What is man? And I saw: everything I achieve will disappear. Not only the tree I plant, the house I build, my child, and my entire lineage to which I will belong. The nation I belong to will also disappear, just like the dinosaurs and mammoths, and—humanity. And with it will disappear my fame, even worldwide fame, if I were to achieve it through my efforts. The abyss will swallow everything. Moreover, everything will disappear sooner—it will disappear with my disappearance. People, again, are like trees in a forest. What is it to me whether they know of my existence or not? Therefore, all my efforts are in vain. And my desire to immortalize something, my striving, is nothing more than a manifestation of my own foolishness. (If those who seek glory could see the futility of their efforts, there would be no Herostratuses, no Alexanders, no...).

Discoveries in other matters were no more cheerful. I thought: people are divided into beings with different sexual organs—men and women. What if they were separated: men on one continent, and women on another? And any possibility of crossing the ocean were eliminated. Would these unisexual beings any state formations, build cities, lay roads, sew fashionable clothes, fashionable hairstyles, or write poetry and climb Mount Everest, and so on? And even: would they go to monasteries? Would they seek God? And I saw: if such a thing were done, and even more so—if the very sense of the opposite sex's existence were killed, none of this would happen. It turns out that all this diversity of human life is caused by the existence of a being with a sexual organ different from your own. Remove that other organ—and everything will come to a standstill. Even the will to live will disappear. (In such a vision, Goethe's Faust would no longer have said: “Stay a while, you are so fair!”).

There was no reason to rejoice that it is only through the existence of the opposite reproductive organ that the illusion of the meaning of life is created; to rejoice that you are programmed (by nature or by God), that you are moved only by instincts, at the core of which is the sexual instinct, that your very perception of being is programmed. After all, in that case, how are you different from any animal or even a plant?

So what is man—I thought, digging within myself. Of course—there is a difference. And this difference is that for a being like man, instincts alone are not enough. Compared to an animal, he is more complex, and therefore his needs are greater, which in turn give rise to far-reaching goals—even those that will be achieved after his death. Humans differ from animals in that they are constantly held captive by illusions. There is always some mirage before them—some religion. This mirage gives hope, beckons with its charms, which are the very goal they row towards. The mirage is a component of man. It, like instincts, is necessary, for otherwise, man would not be man. And there is also that fundamental thing in man, in which not only this mirage is born, but which also evaluates this mirage. That which not only sees the surrounding world but also looks into itself, evaluates everything, and, contrasting itself with the absurdity discovered within, rebels against what is in him, which, as if programmed, acted in him beyond his control.

This is the fundamental thing that is absent in an animal, which, although it has feelings and some sort of reason that, as in the absolute majority of people, merely serves the instincts, is unable to see itself from the outside, to evaluate its instincts—itself. If an animal has only the carnal—the soul (the soul—the living body of any creature—a manifestation of this body. It, like the body, is not immutable. The body changes—the soul changes. In childhood it is one thing, in youth another, and with the infirmity of the body—the soul becomes infirm too. The body dies—the soul dies. The root of the tree dies along with its crown), then in man, there are seemingly two beings—two "I's": the carnal (soul), and some indefinable, spiritual "I" that manifests itself in a certain period of life in certain individuals, revealing to them a different vision of the world and thereby threatening life itself (man can exist only as an animal). Man is distinguished from an animal by the fact that, having understood his animal essence, he, not wishing to be an animal, protests against the animal fate, thereby denying life itself. Such a person is no longer a human. This is an overman—a person who has risen above the human-animal, which, like an animal, fights for the opposite sex, and in some cases even kills its rival. It fights for the position of pack leader, goes to war against another people, exterminates those who do not row towards the same mirage it rows towards. The difference between them is obvious: what a contrast! One person ends his life because of the refusal of a female (or male) to reciprocate, while another does so due to the realization of the meaninglessness of existence. (One person—a person of the soul—kills the body, while another—a person of the spirit—before killing the body, kills the soul. To kill the soul is the same as plucking the leaves from a tree in spring.)

That—the all-encompassing mind or spirit—the spiritual "I" (it does not matter what we call it) does not wish to serve the carnal "I"—the soul, but stands above it, contemplating what is radiated from this carnal being through desires. And it suppresses certain desires because it sees in their fulfillment nothing other than absurdity. The spirit is that which controls the soul—fights with the soul. This is the spiritual "I" that tears one away from earthly life, making him a hermit monk, and deprives another even of mirages, revealing to him, as to Ecclesiastes, the vanity of vanities. This is the "I" that, if present, would have kept the salmon from its senseless journey to the spawning grounds, the pig—from breeding piglets (they will go for fattening and slaughter. And is a slave who gives birth to a slave not this pig?), and the mortal—from giving birth to one condemned to death.

Thus, if something essential distinguishes man from an animal, it is the presence in man of a spiritual "I," which, although potentially present in every person, manifests itself only in isolated cases. (But what of it, that man has this spiritual "I"? What good is it to man?). The mirage is also what sets man apart from animals, but this is nothing more than the fact that a more stuffed bait has been placed in the trap for man—the difference is in the bait. Some people manage to avoid it. But what of it, when the fate of all people and animals is the same: to come from dust and to return to dust.

(I used the word "spirit." This is not by chance. I have already spoken about my dreams, but I have not yet spoken about one truly strange dream in which I was split in two: I was looking at myself from the side at a distance of about two meters. This invisible something, which was thinking and which was me, was looking down somewhat from above at my—moving—carnal "I." This psychic phenomenon (even if in a dream) I am unable to explain. But if I believed in the existence of something supernatural, in the fact that man consists of two independent components—the carnal (material) and the spiritual—then I would say: my spiritual "I" detached from its shell—my carnal "I"—and observed it from the side. That—the spiritual—is some incomprehensible substance that, unlike my body, which from birth to death is in constant motion—from dust to dust—is the unchanging thing within me.)

People are the same salmon, going to spawn. In going towards their goal, preening themselves along the way, people, like salmon, are heading towards their end—towards death. If this procession were transferred to canvas, it would be a conveyor belt filled with people—each playing their role—that, moving inexorably, dumps them into the abyss, taking on new players at the opposite end. Some fall, while others jump on, to play the same comedy that those who have fallen already played. (In a week, about one and a half million fall (die) on the planet, and two and a half million jump on (are born). And so, in this senseless repetition, tens of thousands of generations have passed. The senselessness continues.)

A wise man once said: “People are 99% fools and one percent who risk getting infected.” Another put it more radically: “All people are either sick or foolish.”

I see no sense in the existence of future generations. Are they—going to be heading toward some goal? I don’t need them. So—for whom? Who needs those who do not exist? So, when my father was dying, I wrote to him from Vinnytsia prison: “If all people acted as I have, then God, if He exists, seeing that in 100 years there would be no people on earth, would descend from heaven and explain what this comedy is for.” (This is what Adam and Eve should have done: “In pain you shall bring forth children.” Foolish woman (Eve). Why didn’t she say: I will not give birth! (How can one give birth outside of paradise? One can mindlessly make a toy for a child, but not a child). So is it worth sympathizing with women who writhe in pain during childbirth?!)

The spiritual peak: Gilgamesh, Ecclesiastes, Khayyam, Camus… The first three did not even know that the Earth had an ovoid shape, yet they reached a summit (a vision) accessible only to a few of our contemporaries. There are very few of them, because although we hear from some about the vanity of vanities, their lives testify that these are just words, not what they feel. As for the absolute majority—both in ancient times and now—they are content with earthly peaks: no higher than a church dome, or what a telescope is capable of—the shell of the egg in which they find themselves. (They do not ponder the meaning of their existence. For some, dogmas are enough, for others—the very process of cognition.)

Religions are mirages. And a mirage is a mirage. It appears and disappears. We know: the mirages towards which the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Rusychi, and other peoples rowed have given way to subsequent mirages. A poet once (Béranger), whose opinion I do not share (who wants to be a fool?), wrote: “*Если к правде святой люд дорогу найти не сумеет, честь и слава безумцу, который навеет человечеству сон золотой.*” We know: Buddha (he is close to me), Jesus, Muhammad, Marx… are those madmen who have cast this spell, in which humanity still remains to this day. (Humanity sits in a boat and rows toward a mirage. What else is there for it to row towards, when no shore exists.)

I do not recognize any religion. Nor do I recognize secular “religions” with their cults and idols: the community as God, prominent individuals as lesser gods, where the most striking madmen are Marx (communism) and Hitler (the Thousand-Year Reich). And where literature (writers are the priests of secular religion) and art glorify the carnal, that which connects man to animal, groundlessly attributing this glorification to spiritual values. (There are balletomanes, melomanes, football-manes... There are also natiomanes (the nation—a metaphysical idol of secular religion) and other “-manes”). In secular religions, especially those completely devoid of a transcendental element, the continuation of the community’s life is perceived as a continuation of one’s own life. Hence the desire of adherents of secular religions to leave their mark on the life of the community at all costs. (“They will live as long as they are remembered”—what foolishness!) And from this comes the aspiration to prolong the life of the community indefinitely, which is just as absurd as waiting for the second coming of Jesus.

Jesus—a man who was proclaimed a deity. One who is still an object of worship… It is impossible to imagine a fool who could destroy the man who can raise the dead. Were the Jews and Pilate really such fools as are hard to imagine? And what would the Emperor of Rome have done to his subordinate—Pilate—upon learning that Pilate had destroyed such a miracle worker? Or perhaps someone will say that neither the Jews, nor Pilate, nor the emperor needed a man who could resurrect the dead?

I do not deny the possible existence of some invisible force, which people call God and which has some relation to people. But why must it be as people paint it in their imagination? For if that force exists, its need for people is unknown. Perhaps people are to it what a cow or a bacterium in the intestines is to people? And indeed: why would God need that complex technology so desired by people—the eternal preservation of the human body or some spirit or soul? Does a person need an eternal cow? A person is quite content to replace it with a calf. If such an unknown force exists, there is no doubt it cannot be known. Just as it is impossible to know what space and what time are. When you ponder this, a mad thought creeps in: can there be space in Spacelessness? Can there be time in That in which there is no Time?

Science has given man nothing. Except perhaps that once, in ancient times, man lived in the living, and now—in the dead. What changed in human life with the discovery that the Earth is not on whales? What changed with the flight into space? (Flight into space is a flight into Nowhere. The relocation of man to Mars or even to another constellation. What of it?! After all, moving man to another planet is the same as moving bacteria from the duodenum to the rectum). And what will change if man lives not 100 but 1000 years? Only that he will squeeze 10 times more shit from his intestines.

Both in confinement and on the outside during the periods between imprisonments, I had no deep spiritual connection with those around me. (Spirituality! Every religion has its idols. Are Shakespeare, Shevchenko, whom I mentioned, needed by Christianity? Or any religion for that matter? Except for the “secular” one to which they belong). I was a stranger to those who worshiped God and, to a large extent, a stranger also to those for whom the community had become God, who valued secular values. In all my life, I have not met a person whose thoughts and feelings completely coincided with mine. Those around me rowed toward their own mirages. I, too, sometimes took up an oar. But only to stretch my muscles. What else is there to do? After all—either sit in the boat or jump overboard. Both are senseless. (“Jumping out” is to express one's protest. But what kind of protest can there be when besides you there is No one and Nothing—only you and the Void).

In 1960, I embraced Ukrainian nationalism as a motivation to participate on a battlefield where I could prove myself, become famous. But I soon saw that this too was vanity. I also realized that a weaker nation weeps. But when it becomes stronger, another nation starts to weep. I perceived political activity as one of the games for adults—a squabble in a death-row cell. Personally, I no longer needed anything. Well, almost nothing. But still, there were people close to me who saw the world as I once did. (People run after colorful butterflies in childhood, and they continue to chase them for the rest of their lives. Their consciousness does not change. It remains at the level of a child's perception). They cherished what I once cherished. They strove for what I once strove for. So why not help them, since I have nothing to lose—I thought, as I was leaving Vladimir Prison on April 13, 1963.

I served 27 years and 4 months. Of these, 24 years were in cells. In fact, by conventional standards, the best years of my life were taken from me. But I never saw it as a tragedy. For the tragedy is not in the troubles that happen in life. The tragedy of man is in the senselessness of existence. When you realize this, these “troubles” recede into the background, become unworthy of special attention or anguish. For the first year, I still felt pain that I had been torn from freedom, that I had caused grief to my loved ones, that I couldn't be a support for my younger brothers and sisters. But after that, I looked at everything with indifference, as if it were a comedy. This is connected to my worldview. While pondering the meaning of life during my first imprisonment, I came to pessimistic conclusions; I saw the world as a total tragedy, which, upon further reflection, turned into a comedy. The tragedy ceased to be a tragedy. I saw that the prohibitions established—both by society and genetically—had no foundation, that you could do whatever you wanted. But this brought no joy. When you penetrate to where neither good nor evil exists, everything loses its meaning. Dostoevsky's Smerdyakov is content with the fact that God does not exist, that everything is permitted (since there is no one to punish), but for Ivan Karamazov, it is a tragedy. His soul is in sorrow. For if God does not exist, what is the point of that “everything is permitted”? Camus came to the conclusion that there is no difference between treating lepers and stoking the crematorium furnaces; but there are people who choose to treat people. My choice was somewhat similar: I still continued to stand for justice and thus remained on the side of those who heal. Perhaps it's a whim of mine, my nature; I could not be otherwise. If I saw people committing some evil, causing pain to others, it outraged me, and I could not stand aside. I could understand a person who, while inflicting pain on others, was indifferent to his own pain. For example, if he threw a person into a crematorium furnace and then threw himself in after them. Human existence is an absurdity, and therefore the total destruction of all that exists by someone who has grasped this absurdity would not have provoked in me either outrage or even surprise.

In 1962, I already knew that I was not on the same path as humanity, that I would not have a family, that I would not be complicit in the continuation of the human race. Firstly, as I have already said, I could not give birth to slaves. I was a slave. And a slave should not give birth to a slave—it is immoral. (The idol of Ukrainians, Shevchenko, in his unfortunate fate and the fate of his sisters and brothers, for some reason blames only the tsar and the masters. Although first and foremost, his parents bear the responsibility). This is a political motive. And from a philosophical standpoint—which is the main one—I could not overcome nihilism. Nietzsche could with his overman. But in fact, it is impossible. If a person comes to the realization that there is nothing worth living for, then he can no longer find anything. What is lost through contemplation cannot be replaced. Jack London proved this with his Martin Eden. I do not know how everything would have turned out for me if I had not been arrested in 1963. I could not find an answer to the question of what this whole comedy was for. Maybe if I... I once searched for God (I wanted to find some sense in the senseless), but it came to nothing. In the abyss that opened before me, there was no God. If a person has understood that he is Sisyphus, he cannot be happy, because what Sisyphus does is senseless. For some reason, Camus makes Sisyphus happy, but that is impossible. If Sisyphus is happy, he has forgotten that he is Sisyphus. (Man is happy because he does not see that he is unhappy).

So, in a sense, one could say that prison saved me. In confinement, I constantly felt the need to defend myself. To put it figuratively, I was like Diogenes, who laughed from his barrel. But the difference is that no one bothered Diogenes, whereas they constantly beat on my barrel with sticks. I think if they had started beating on Diogenes' barrel with sticks, he would have eventually stopped laughing and, enraged, jumped out of it. Something similar happened to me. The prison atmosphere distracted me from pessimistic thoughts, and in this way, perhaps, it saved me.

While in confinement, I understood that with each year I was losing one thing, then another, everything was slipping away, but I did not grieve over it because I did not value it much. (From the cycle of life, like a hermit monk, I did not single out a period that was more worth cherishing). I talked a lot with believers, especially in Camp No. 10, where there were many preachers. I asked them how they would live if God disappeared for them. They answered: they would live as before. This was incomprehensible to me, because in that case, they should have rejected life. Only Illya Stoiko, agreeing with my opinion, said: “Yes, if there is no God, then there is no sense in the continuation of the human race.” Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that even Jesus Christ was not an optimist and perceived life as a tragedy— “*Будь воля моя, никогда, ни за что не родился бы я*” O. Khayyam.

If God does not exist, the planet turns into a large death row chamber from which there is no escape. (“Human life is absurd if only because its destiny is inevitable death” A. Camus). I was more concerned not with social but with spiritual problems—the question of the meaning of life. For social problems are the problems of creating better conditions for those who are in this large death row chamber. Is it so important in what conditions the condemned find themselves?

Such was my spirituality. Thus, from 1961 onward, the driving force in my behavior was the constant feeling of the senselessness of existence. (“Life is an irrational-chaotic stream, devoid of meaning and regularity. The whole world is a complete absurdity. There are only two ways to escape from this—suicide, or rebellion” A. Camus).

... The weather was sunny. A couple of hours before sunset, I was already in Bohunia, in my brother Andriy's apartment. That same evening, I visited my sister Olga. The very next day, Andriy and I went to Rohachiv to visit our parents' graves. Our former neighbors and our cousin Sianko with his wife Nina came to the cemetery. The weather was fine. After spending some time by the graves, we sat down in a small group on the grass behind the cemetery and remembered our parents. Then, after visiting our brother Vasyl, who lived near the old Jewish cemetery, which is almost at the opposite end of the village, we left for Zhytomyr.

Having received my passport, I registered temporarily at Andriy's place. In August, they placed me under administrative supervision for one year. I protested against the establishment of administrative supervision, arguing that I had no home of my own and was on a temporary registration. Nevertheless, I must say that the supervision was not burdensome, and I traveled wherever I pleased. During the summer, I visited my brother Mykola in Rokytne, in the Kyiv region, and my sister Nadiia in the Kharkiv region, where she lived with her husband Vasyl Yashchuk at the “Burlutskyi” railway stop (Chuhuiv Raion). I protested just for the sake of protesting. And it's no wonder, as times had changed, so it was time to abolish such an additional punishment as administrative supervision. Finally, while protesting, I switched to a semi-legal status. For about two weeks, I lived with Nadia Kotenko (on Vokzalnyi Lane), and after that (it was already in September), I went to Moscow. Nadia was also going to Moscow with her daughter Ira (Ira has a serious illness—multiple sclerosis) to see some doctor. In Moscow, I visited Anatoliy Dotsenko. And from his place, I went to an apartment rented by Greek Catholics who were campaigning for the legalization of their church. There I met Stepan Khmara, went out with the believers to the Arbat. Around those days, I also visited Lena Sannikova. I gave her an interview, which was published in the fall in the publication *Stranichka Uznika*. The interview was quite difficult for me. I am not one of those who build something on the site of what has been destroyed. I am not a builder. And as for the fact that I am only a destroyer, that I am not a proponent of any idea related to the further existence of humanity, it was absolutely not something that could be printed in *Stranichka Uznika*. After all, the process of the empire's collapse is underway. And in such a situation, how could one print that you, having served more than 27 years, are not a revolutionary, but only a destroyer, that even the destruction itself brings you no joy? Moreover, that you are not just against some state or social order, but against all that exists—against the further existence of humanity. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to sit on two stools—to present myself in two hypostases. In one as a professional revolutionary, and in the other—as a nihilist who has realized that there is nothing for which it is worth living. I think that among those who read that interview, not many saw the lack of logic in it—the incompatibility of the positions. After all, it is impossible to be both a professional revolutionary and a nihilist at the same time. These things are incompatible. During those same days, I traveled to Lviv to see Vyacheslav Chornovil. I stayed overnight at his place, and the next day (September 17) I was with Chornovil and Ivan Hel near St. George's Cathedral, where over 200,000 faithful of the UGCC had gathered. I also visited Vasyl Ovsiienko in the village of Stavky, Radomyshl Raion.

Thanks to the *perestroika* initiated by the communists, the movement for the restoration of the Ukrainian church and the renewal of the Ukrainian state was rapidly growing in Ukraine, and patriotic organizations were being created. And in all this, former dissidents set the tone. Thus, although for two decades dissident activity was largely unacceptable, thanks to their sacrifice, these decades did not remain a blank spot in the history of resistance to the communist regime. And thanks to their solidarity, at the time of the empire's collapse, they became the core that rallied and led those who strove for democracy, the collapse of the empire, and the restoration of their own state. So their sacrifice was not in vain.

It goes without saying that in that situation, I had nothing left to do but join the struggle and, if possible, help Ukrainians fight for their state. It turned out that although I had come to the conclusion during my first imprisonment that one cannot be the executor of someone else's plan, because then you are nobody—an empty space (it is better to be the executor of your own, even flawed, idea than to be the executor of someone else's), I still began to implement the idea of those who once wished to a community from separate tribes under the name of the Ukrainian people. (Based on the principle that a slave should not give birth to a slave, this people should have disappeared long ago).

So in the autumn, I was already in the Zhytomyr branch of the Ukrainian Helsinki (UHS), and with the transformation of the UHS into the Ukrainian Republican Party (URP), I became a member of the URP. I often visited Kyiv, stopping by the URP Secretariat, where I met a member of the Secretariat, Roman Koval. Strangely enough, my political position coincided more with Roman's than with that of the majority of the Secretariat members, who, although they had gone through the camps, held positions that were different from both mine and Roman's. And on this basis, quite sharp discussions arose, which sometimes turned into squabbles in somewhat raised tones. This concerned the referendum in March 1991, in which the URP agreed to participate. I opposed it and, on this occasion, addressed an open letter to the party members, calling on them to oppose the party's participation in the referendum, arguing that an occupier has no legal right to hold a referendum in the territory it occupies. My communication with the regional organizations was limited, so I was unable to influence their decision. As for the Zhytomyr organization, at its meeting, it supported my position, voting against participation in the referendum. As I recall, it was the only regional organization that did not agree with the decision made by the party leadership. But soon I agreed to be one of the initiators of the convocation of the Ukrainian Inter-Party Assembly (UMA), and my activities in the URP completely ceased. I did not stay long in the UMA either. A squabble began in the UMA over the position of the Chairman of the National Council of the UMA, which was held by Hryhoriy Prykhodko, who, in my opinion, was the most suitable for this position. Prykhodko was removed from the post of Chairman, and the UMA was renamed the UNA (Ukrainian National Assembly), in which the now well-known Korchynsky very quickly became the most influential figure. The squabbling and new trends led to the cessation of my activities in this organization as well.

While in Kyiv, I often met with the inmates with whom I had been in Horodyshche. As a rule, these meetings took place at the railway station, where these inmates were "playing" the shell game. I also often visited Volodia Piddubnyi's apartment on Kryvonosa Street, where he lived with Olga and her son Maksym. During this period, I visited Germany twice, received a room in a 9-story dormitory on Lev Tolstoy Street from the city executive committee in the summer of 1991, and thanks to the help of Yuriy Mykolskyi (who gave me a book with a photo of the grave of Stsiborskyi and Senyk), I found the burial place of these prominent figures near the Cathedral and, with the head of the Zhytomyr regional organization of the URP Valeriy Kolosivskyi, the head of the Zhytomyr SNUM Maksym Bannikov, and others, marked the burial site with a cross and a plaque with information about the deceased.

I also had to work (for the last time on the outside) as a repair carpenter in the hospital in Bohunia. I worked for a short time—from December 1989 to May 1990, and from May onwards, I was mostly in Kyiv, preparing for the constituent assembly of the UMA on July 1. In connection with this activity, I spent about a month in Kyiv, living not far from the railway station with my third cousin Maria Korniichuk. In general, 1990 and 1991 were filled with trips to Kyiv and Lviv, where in Kyiv I most often visited Museinyi Lane, 8, communicating with representatives of various organizations whose offices were located on that lane. And in Lviv, I often visited Yuriy Shukhevych and Levko Franchuk, at whose hospitable home I stayed for weeks. Vasyl Barladianu also frequently visited Lviv. We often talked, mostly at the table in a rather large company.

The two years I spent on the outside passed, one might say, without any worries. I lived with my brother Andriy in a three-room apartment, fully provided for, where his wife Hanna and daughter Liuda treated me like a member of the family. Well, when I moved into the dormitory, of course, domestic chores appeared.

The first trip to Germany took place in September 1990. The administrative supervision had ended, and I could now travel wherever I wanted. The initiator of the trip was Ivan Borovskyi, a URP member from Korostyshiv. I called Kronid Lyubarsky, who was living in Munich at the time. Kronid sent us an invitation, and we set off for Germany in Borovskyi's car. We traveled through Czechoslovakia. So thanks to this trip, I visited the mountains and saw mountain landscapes in their golden season. The weather was good. Ivan was behind the wheel, and I, looking at the map, showed him the direction. Of course, the hardest part was when we entered Munich. Upon arriving, we immediately felt how difficult it is to communicate when a mute person wants to find out something from another mute person. (Undoubtedly, multilingualism is an obstacle to communication—an unnecessary burden in today's mobile world. Humanity should have done something long ago—as soon as it switched from carts to cars—to make one language prevail on the planet. And maybe even one state—one Center that would control the entire planet. But on the whole, humanity is conservative. It drives cars but thinks like those who rode in carts, believing that the more languages and states, the better. And perhaps they too are right, because in that case, there are more misunderstandings and jostling (wars), which distracts people from the question of what the meaning of their life is). But following the city map, which a German man who had been in the USSR during the war and spoke a little Russian gave us in the suburbs, we quickly reached the office where Lyubarsky worked without any trouble. It was already sometime after noon. That same evening, an event dedicated to Vasyl Stus was scheduled to take place. One of the Ukrainian journalists, I think it was Andriy Haidamaka, took us under his wing, so that evening we entered a crowded hall of some building in his company.

The event had already begun. Yuriy Pokalchuk was speaking. He was talking about his meetings with Vasyl and many other things related to Stus. Yuriy painted a beautiful portrait of the poet—a man who was no longer among us. He spoke for about an hour. His speech was magnificent. His language was so fluent and beautiful that if he were speaking to Bazarov (*Fathers and Sons*), Bazarov would undoubtedly have said: “Yura, don't speak so beautifully.” After he finished his speech, our guardian stepped forward and said to the audience:

“There is a man in the hall who was imprisoned with Stus. Perhaps we should listen to him as well?”

I was invited to speak. I went, because what else was I to do? Although there was nothing to talk about, because during my time with Vasyl in the camp, nothing noteworthy had happened. Sheer monotony. One day was like another: we got up, had breakfast, went to work, had lunch, went back to work, had dinner, and then until lights out: some read, some wrote, some played chess or just spent time in conversation. “Lights out.” In the morning, again: we got up… But I had to go to the front of the hall and say something. So I started talking about what was. And what was? Strong tea, discussions that weren't even worth retelling. After all, with political prisoners, like with sectarians—it's an endless chewing of the cud. Well, I said, Vasyl wrote something there. I knew he wrote poetry, but I didn't feel that Vasyl's poems could interest me in any way. I also mentioned what I had said to Vasyl: it is worth writing only if you are confident that you will say something new or write better than Shevchenko or Shakespeare. And then I started talking about Vasyl's response to what I had said. I had not yet finished the sentence about the place that would suit Vasyl on that hierarchical ladder (to this day, I don't know why Vasyl needed any place at all. Although, what is there besides the desire to leave a mark!) when a man from the front row stood up, waved his hands, signaling that I should stop my speech. Well, so be it. And I told him:

“I am finishing now.”

Having said something more to give my speech a finished form, I thanked them for their attention. The evening ended there. The trouble with these idolaters who cannot be without their cults and idols. They an idol for themselves and then it's: talk about our idol only in the way we talk! They didn't want to understand that for them Vasyl was an idol, but for me, he was an ordinary man, a regular inmate no different from the majority of the other prisoners. He wrote poetry! So what? After all, so many poems have been written that you could probably wrap the globe in them more than once. And what is that poetry, literature in general—the same as the croaking of frogs in a swamp. (I was once at a meeting of writers and artists. I remember a speech by an artist who said: “If people wrote on stone, fewer stupid things would have been written.”) And I was talking not about a poet, but about a prisoner. Besides, all poets are ordinary people to me—just like everyone else. And if someone rhymes something, let them rhyme if they don't want to talk about something in normal language. After all, the ability to rhyme does not mean that you are smarter or more worthy of respect than someone who does not rhyme. Probably, if I had been telling a similar story about Anton Oliinyk or Mykola Tanashchuk, everything would have been perceived normally and I would not have been stopped. I think if Vasyl had been in the hall, he would have said: “Don't bother him!” In short, for some part of the audience in the hall, that evening was somewhat spoiled by my speech. And still, maybe I shouldn't have spoken. After all, it is said: “Do not bring your own charter into another's monastery.”

After that evening ended, Mrs. Irena Kozak took me and Borovskyi to her home, where we met Mrs. Irena's husband, Volodymyr, and their daughter. We stayed with them for a few days. Pokalchuk also came over, and we chatted a bit. From the Kozaks', we moved to the Ukrainian Free University (UVU), where we were given a large room. The famous singer Mykola Hnatiuk and his wife were also in one of the rooms. He once came to visit us. We had no problems. So, I rummaged through the university library, gave a speech on Radio Liberty, and spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Munich. And I reached Zeppelinstrasse, where the OUN(b) office was, by walking along the banks of the Isar River. I often visited the office. There I met leading figures of the OUN, Ivan Kashuba, Stepan Mudryk-Mechnyk, Ivan Marchuk, and others. I also visited the Lyubarskys—Kronid and Halyna. Then, at the invitation of Anni Weyland, we visited the city of Karlsruhe. I had already met Anni and her husband Fritz in Kyiv shortly before the trip to Germany. It was in the summer during their tourist trip to the USSR. We had then gone to the apartment of my third cousin Halia Lempke (Korniichuk) and had a wonderful evening. Unfortunately, Fritz, although he had been at the front, knew no Russian at all, so communication with him was quite limited. But Anni, born in 1912, had lived in Ukraine as a child, and although she moved to Germany in 1919 or 1920, she had not forgotten the Russian language, so it was easy to communicate with her. Anni also introduced us to her relative Waldemar Krause and a family named Klassen. Waldemar had served in Ukraine in rear units. He spoke Russian better than Anni. For our meeting, he brought a letter from a schoolteacher, from the Sumy Oblast I believe, dated 1943. In it, she wrote about her life and kept thanking Waldemar for saving her brother who had been arrested. What a beautiful letter from a Ukrainian teacher to a German officer! I didn't ask, but from that letter, I guessed that the feelings that had arisen between them then were something more than sympathy. It's a shame I didn't think to make a copy of that letter. The Klassens had lived in Kazakhstan. Alisa Klassen had recently arrived to join her mother, who had left the USSR earlier. Alisa's mother often recalled her own father, who had been arrested before the war. He died in a camp near the Pechora River, and she still hoped that the camp could be found, and thus the burial place of the prisoners could be found. Several days passed in this conversation. Before sunset, after saying our goodbyes, we left for Munich to return to Ukraine by the same road. I corresponded with them for a long time after that. I also received invitations from them for my friends who wanted to visit Germany.

The second trip took place in August 1991. I went by train. Besides me, Hryhoriy Prykhodko (Chairman of the National Council of the UMA) and Levko Franchuk from Lviv were also traveling. We arrived in Munich around midnight. At the station, we were met by Slava Stetsko, who was seeing off Ivan Sokulskyi that evening. Mrs. Stetsko drove us in her car to the OUN office and lodged us in its rooms. At that time, Mykhailo Zelenchuk and Orest Dychkivskyi, the initiators of the creation of the Brotherhood of UPA Warriors in Ukraine, were also at the office. I think that neither I nor those who traveled with me had any particular need to go to Germany. As for me, why not take a trip. Besides, Levko was going, so maybe I'd buy a car and he would drive it to Ukraine. (I didn't end up buying a car, because Levko unexpectedly bought a car for himself and went home. And there was no particular need to buy a car anyway, as there was still uncertainty about my future life. Moreover, due to my nearsightedness, I would not have been able to drive it).

At that time, Mykhailo Osadchyi, with whom I had been in Mordovia (Sosnovka settlement), was in Munich, I believe at the invitation of the UVU. I met him by chance when I arrived at the Ukrainian boarding school of the “Ridna Shkola” society. There were many people from Ukraine there, but I did not know them. I also met Halyna, Lyubarsky's wife, by chance. That incident was somewhat unbelievable: to meet someone you know on a street in Munich. But it happened. One day, Hryhoriy, Levko, and I were walking down the street, and a small group passed us. They had already passed when I heard something familiar in their Russian pronunciation. I looked back, ran up to them. It was Halia Salova with her sister (either full or half) and their acquaintance. How could one not be surprised? Halia took me with her, and we went to the Lyubarskys' apartment.

We were still in Munich when the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) was announced. Hryhoriy immediately said:

“We must return to Ukraine immediately!”

It was all the same to me. And maybe we would have gone, but Stepan Mudryk said:

“You have to wait, because you might be arrested at the border.”

When the GKChP affair was over, we began to prepare for the road. Around the same time, the Act of Independence of Ukraine was proclaimed. That event passed rather unnoticed by me. I can't even recall that moment. And no wonder. So, they proclaimed it, so what? Will people stop giving birth to cripples, getting sick, dying? Or will there be rivers of milk and honeyed shores? Well, we have another independent anthill, which will have its own problems and troubles just the same. The proclamation of independence is not the announcement of the second coming of Jesus Christ, of paradise, of the kingdom of God. And, therefore, there was no reason to shout "Hosanna!" in delight. After all, the independence of an anthill does not negate the absurdity of existence.

It was time for us to set off, as our visas were expiring. But there was a delay: Hryhoriy had bought himself a two-door Opel, but there was no one to get behind the wheel. We might as well have left without the car. Pankevych (son of Roman Pankevych) agreed to drive the car to the Polish border. But who would drive it further? Then I offered my services to Hryhoriy, saying that I would drive it to Wrocław, and there I would find a driver to take it further, as I needed to stay in Wrocław for a few days. Hryhoriy immediately agreed, and we set off. We headed for Dresden. We left Dresden sometime before dawn and suddenly found ourselves at the customs office. We even passed the guard in the watchtower. Pankevych stopped the car, jumped out, and waved to the guard, gesturing that he was turning back. Pankevych gathered his things, and I asked him:

“How do you shift gears here?” And I asked something else.

He hastily showed me, grabbed his bag, and went back. He had to go to Berlin. Before leaving Munich, I had planned to sit behind the wheel of the Opel for at least a few minutes, but somehow it just didn't work out. And then this customs office so unexpectedly! I started the car and drove straight up to those conducting the inspection. After passing through German and Polish customs control, I pulled up to the gas station just past the border. The Opel was parked almost perpendicular to the pump. I heard a Pole's voice: “Why did he park the car like that?” (He probably wanted to pass, but the Opel was blocking the road). And I thought: if only you knew why I parked it like that! Anyway, they quickly filled the tank, and I drove out onto the road toward Wrocław. Even though I was wearing glasses, my vision wasn't sharp enough to be behind the wheel. So I said to Hryhoriy, who was sitting next to me:

"When you see a road sign, tell me right away what's on it."

And Hryhoriy does just that. We're flying. I'm rushing to get to Wrocław sooner, which is about a hundred and fifty kilometers away. The road is straight and not very wide. Small villages flash by from time to time. Hryhoriy tells me:

"The speedometer reads 115. Don't drive so fast!"

And then the main road turns left, while we descend into a hollow, towards a bridge. Having reduced my speed, I drive toward the bridge, and from the opposite side, a truck enters it.

"Brake!" Hryhoriy screams at me. But for some reason, I don’t want to fuss with the pedals, so I race toward the bridge, confident that I can pass the truck on it before it turns into my lane, as its lane is blocked at the bridge exit. I'm already at the bridge when the truck, maneuvering around the obstacle, pulls out right in front of me. I jerk the wheel to the right, driving my right wheel onto the pedestrian path, and at the same time remembering the pedal, I slam on the brakes. The car stalled and stopped. And the truck drives past, just centimeters, maybe even millimeters, away. After passing, it didn't stop. The area was deserted. The driver probably thought: some fools, why bother with them. I was lucky that the pedestrian path was level with the road and I could drive onto it, pressing the car right up against the railings. I start the car and, driving off the path, continue on. It was already time for lunch. I pull over to the shoulder, we get out our food, and eat lunch sitting in the front seats. Just then, a car pulls up to us. Two men in uniform. Probably the Polish traffic police. I hand them my driver's license. After looking at it, the officer returns it to me and demands I pay a fine because I hadn't set up a warning triangle. I take 20 marks from Hryhoriy, get into their car, and after exchanging them for zlotys at a nearby diner, I pay the fine. We drive on. Hryhoriy is displeased:

"You should have been the one to pay," he says to me.

"If I had killed someone, you would have gone home, and I would be sitting in a Polish prison," I retort to Hryhoriy.

And really, it's risky to drive someone else's car like that. Anything can happen on the road. Of course, if I had only damaged or wrecked it, it wouldn't have been a huge problem. I would have just given him the marks then and there, and that would've been the end of it. We finally reached the outskirts of Wrocław. I feel so tired that I wouldn't be able to drive any further. Especially not across all of Poland with its large cities. After all, what kind of driver am I?! Before the trip to Germany, I had spent maybe half an hour behind the wheel of a "Zhiguli" on a deserted road. That was it—I could still manage to drive in a straight line. But maneuvering—that was already a problem. If Hryhoriy had known what kind of driver I was, he probably would never have agreed to let me drive. Much later, when we met in Zhytomyr, Hryhoriy said:

"You're quite a daredevil!" (Franchuk must have told him what kind of driver I am).

Seeing a small lot with a few cars parked, I pull in. Leaving Hryhoriy in the car, I head to the market. The market is full of people selling all sorts of things. I go to the row where Ukrainians are trading. I ask if there's a driver among them. I find one. He agrees to drive the car. He probably wants to improve his driving skills, as he recently finished his courses. He accepts the offer with pleasure.

"I've sold everything already. Just this one pair of slippers left. I'll sell them and we can go," he tells me.

Soon the slippers are sold, and just before sunset, we are back at the "Opel." I take my things from the car and walk to the city bus stop, which is nearby. And the car sets off into the night, towards Ukraine. Not even half an hour passed before a car pulls up. I get in, and Petro Kryk drives me to his apartment.

Returning to Zhytomyr, I see the joyful faces of friends, who tell me about the events in Zhytomyr during the August Coup (GKChP) and about how the regional party committee building was sealed. There is euphoria among all the patriots. The impression is that for them, "independence" is a panacea for all ills. I did not share their optimism. And not because "independence" isn't a panacea for all ills, but because this "Independence" is conditional, since everything that was in the hands of the colonial administration remains in its hands.

Independence has been declared, but the Ukrainian people are not masters of their own land. And so, when the Anthem of Ukraine was played on television for the first time, I was indifferent. It happened at Valeriy Kolosivskyi's apartment. I, Valeriy, and Vasyl Ovsienko—the secretary of the URP—were sitting at a small table near the television. We were drinking coffee. And suddenly, the first chords of the Ukrainian Anthem, and on the full screen—the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Kravchuk. Valeriy and Vasyl jumped to their feet, standing at attention. I remained seated. Only after several remarks did I reluctantly rise. I understood: our anthem was being performed by our enemy. They were simply mocking us, because the status of Ukraine is not determined by a declaration, a constitution, or an anthem. The status is determined by who holds the power. And the power remains in the hands of those who had it—the colonial administration, which, relying on the denationalized part of the ethnic population and millions of outsiders hostile to everything Ukrainian, soon showed its true colors, rapidly destroying Ukraine's economy and appropriating everything that belonged to the state, that is, to the people.

In the autumn of that same year, I visited Horodyshche. It happened thanks to Lokutsievskyi. Not long ago, he was still in the camp in Berdychiv, where he had been transferred from Horodyshche, and now he was free, with his own car and a thousand dollars in his pocket. True, he was no longer Lokutsievskyi. He had a different last name now. But in '90, he was still in the c I had come to Berdychiv with his wife, where at a warehouse of pipes intended for the camp, we hid tea for him in one of the pipes. (During that short time in Berdychiv, he had managed to get married. His wife, Hanna, was from the Bohunia district of Zhytomyr). Sometime in '90, Lokutsievskyi was transferred to a strict-regime facility and ended up in the Arkhangelsk region, where, with the help of one of the soldiers, a group of prisoners, including him, managed to escape. He arrived in Ukraine and hid for a long time in Zhytomyr. And so, coming to me, he proposed a trip to Horodyshche, where he needed to pass on some "support"—tea—to his friends. I decided to take the opportunity to visit the camp and, at the same time, try to get a visit with Poddubnyi's friend Vertelytskyi, with whom I corresponded. Vertelytskyi was one of those you could count on. Besides, he had mastered the techniques of karate. We stopped some distance from the guard post. Approaching the post, I saw a large trident on the gate. Soon, having learned that I was at the gate, my old acquaintance comes out from the guardhouse—the head of the regime section, the very one who used to put me in solitary confinement. But he was no longer a major, but a lieutenant colonel. And on his cap, not a star, but a trident! He walks towards me, smiling warmly, extending his hand with the words:

"You were right!"

I shake his hand. And how could I not?! The people love him, after all. He's not to blame that in the Ukrainian state he's a lieutenant colonel, and I'm a nobody! They immediately granted a visit through the glass, and several packs of tea were passed to Vertelytskyi. I wanted to go into the camp, walk around, talk with many acquaintances. But no—"it's not allowed." I am a "nobody." I don't have the proper authority to review the cases of the prisoners I served time with and to lead more than half of them out the gates so they could feel that "independence" had brought them freedom. We went to an unguarded warehouse, hid the tea in boxes of parts, and returned to Zhytomyr. (And I still visit the camps. In my dreams, that is. I still fly occasionally. I rise above the camp, sometimes even above the clouds, but for some reason, just like in the camp, I can never turn to the side, to fly beyond the restricted zone. And no matter how high I rise, I always land back in the camp.)

In the first half of the '90s, I also visited other camps. I was in Iziaslav for a short-term visit (about half an hour) with Kostiantyn Prokopov, to whom I brought a food parcel, and in Berdychiv, where I had a visit with Yaroslav Sharan. I only managed to give Sharan a few packs of tea and a pack of cookies. I wanted to thank them somehow for their support in Horodyshche.

But Lokutsievskyi perished. In May of 1992, my friend Valentyna told me that Ivan had called, asking me to be by the phone at 8 o'clock in the morning. The next day, I was at Valentyna's. I waited for two hours, but there was no call. Soon after, in Kyiv, I met one of the former prisoners from Horodyshche, who told me that on that night, Ivan had been shooting back and was mortally wounded. The television broadcast about this incident in Kyiv reported that an operational group from Zhytomyr had arrived to arrest him at the apartment where he was staying the night. Ivan had no intention of surrendering to them. He was supposed to have died even earlier, before his imprisonment, but during his arrest, he couldn't get to the grenade. Ivan had been partying too much in Kyiv in those "safe houses" and wasn't being very careful.

I told him more than once: go back to Latvia. No one will pursue you there anymore.

But for some reason, he wasn't drawn there. And yet, he and Hanna did drive to Latvia and visit his mother and sister. He was 50 years old. He was a reliable man.

In the summer of that same year, I was building a cast-iron fence around the graves of the rebels executed in Bazar. I also visited Volyn during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the UPA. And on September 18, Petro Duzhyi and Meletiy Semeniuk came to me with the goal of creating a Representative Office of the Secretariat of the Conference of Ukrainian Nationalists. The next day, we gathered in a hall rented by "Orea." Among others, representatives of the Zhytomyr organization of the Ukrainian Conservative Republican Party, led by the Head of the UKRP, Stepan Khmara, attended the meeting. We decided to the Representative Office of the Secretariat. After its creation, I was elected head of the Representative Office of the Secretariat of Ukrainian Nationalists of the Zhytomyr region.

So, although it had been proclaimed that an independent Ukrainian state had emerged, this state was not filled with Ukrainian content, and therefore, a truly Ukrainian state still had to be fought for. Simultaneously with the development of the district organizations of the Representative Office of the Secretariat, the development of the veteran organization, the UPA Brotherhood, was also underway. At the request of Meletiy Semeniuk, who at that time headed the Volyn UPA Brotherhood, and since the Zhytomyr region was territorially part of it, I undertook the creation of local branches, and by the end of 1992, the Zhytomyr, Novohrad-Volynskyi, Korosten, Berdychiv, and Korostyshiv branches of the UPA Brotherhood of the Volyn Region had been established.

In the autumn of that year, Mrs. Slava Stetsko, who by then was already the Head of the OUN(b), held a meeting in Kyiv of the organizations of the Representative Office of the Secretariat of Ukrainian Nationalists, at which a new organization was created—the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN). Returning from Kyiv, I immediately began to a regional KUN organization on the basis of the Secretariat of Ukrainian Nationalists. In October, a constituent assembly was held in Zhytomyr. (For the Ministry of Justice, we later had to hold the assembly again). As the head of the Zhytomyr regional organization of the KUN, I focused my main attention on the activities of this organization. By the way, I must say that I found it unpleasant that the Head of the OUN and KUN was a female. What—are there no Cossacks left in Ukraine?! It was also unpleasant that my superior was a woman. I remember, back in Munich, Mrs. Slava offered me membership in the OUN, but I refused, explaining that I wanted to be somewhat freer, because the OUN has high demands and strict discipline. Of course, I didn't want to be very dependent on anyone or anything, but I also didn't want a woman to accept me into the organization. But knowing what the OUN was, I still wanted to help this organization, and therefore—to accept that my superior would be a female. I explained it to myself and to others this way: the population of Ukraine is disoriented thanks to the lies of the Communist Party. They perceive the OUN as cutthroats, and that's why Mrs. Slava was deliberately chosen as the Head of the OUN, to show that the OUN and its newly created nationalist organization (KUN) are led not by some nationalist with the tendencies of a "cutthroat," but by an old woman. Such were my thoughts. But, as it turned out, I was mistaken. Those who elected Mrs. Slava were guided by something else, although in that difficult and decisive time, the leader of the organization should have been a relatively young, energetic person like Bandera or Shukhevych. As a result, the activities of the KUN were no different from the activities of the URP and Rukh. Thus, the entire struggle for Ukrainian power in Ukraine was reduced to calls for this struggle. Everyone was calling for it. There was no one to fight.

Year after year passed, but nothing changed in the struggle for Ukrainian power. Ukrainian patriots were periodically beaten and killed, and in response—only outrage and demands to find the killers and punish them accordingly. So many were beaten and killed! And what was done in response to these Ukrainophobes?! Nothing! Take, for example, the composer Bilozir, killed not just anywhere, but in Lviv! And what happened? The killers received some sentences and ended up in a labor camp. And they have probably already served their time. I haven't heard of anyone punishing them as they should have been. I think that if at least one of the nationalist organizations were led by a nationalist like Roman Shukhevych, he would have gotten to them even in the camp and punished them—for the death they caused, they would have answered with their own deaths. Then every Ukrainophobe would know: they could not escape retribution. But as it is? Ukrainophobes commit all sorts of outrages and laugh in the faces of Ukrainians. The Heroes have died out! The patriots of Ukraine want to have a Ukrainian state, but they have no desire to risk their lives for this state. The rising generations take their example not from those who took up arms, but from those who became heroes with less risk to themselves (the cult of the hero has been replaced by the cult of the actor). Of course, it is safer to dance, sing, write, compete in eloquence, and receive awards for it. Those who sing and dance are hailed as heroes.

Before the emergence of the regional organization of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, several other patriotic party and public organizations were already active in the Zhytomyr region, having arisen during the perestroika era. The most numerous were the regional organizations of the URP and Rukh. The regional URP organization, which emerged from the regional branch of the UGS, was at that time the most authoritative among the region's organizations, because the URP as a whole had gathered the best representatives of the region's patriotic forces. The activity of this organization was aimed exclusively at the restoration of the Ukrainian state, and after the declaration of independence—at its development. It was an organization that continued to cooperate normally with other organizations, including the KUN. As for the Rukh organization, as far as I know, the leadership of the district branches was such that one could find common ground with them. But finding common ground with the regional leadership was difficult. And not just for the KUN. It was a group of individuals whose leader, attributing to himself participation in the dissident movement (he mentioned this in his campaign leaflet), dreamed only of a seat in the Verkhovna Rada. And so, all the activities of this group were primarily aimed at securing a seat for their leader. Back in the '90s, this leader, having once again failed to win a seat, said: "Seven years—down the drain." This group would expel members of Rukh who had their own opinions. I'll also take this opportunity to say how this little group ended up, after taking an active part in the breakup of Rukh in the late '90s. They ended up, being mere privates of the Soviet army, sewing themselves uniforms similar to those of the militia with general's stripes, attaching general's epaulets to their shoulders, and a bunch of some pins and insignia to their chests (once, a comedian offered to sell one of them a "Mother-Heroine" medal), and they strut around before the people of Zhytomyr showing off their generalship. In short, they ended in clownery.

The 90s flew by in a political fuss. During this time, I visited Munich once more (December 1994); received a one-room apartment in accordance with the law on housing for the rehabilitated, and ran for the Verkhovna Rada twice—in a by-election in 1996 in the Korolovskyi district, where I took 3rd place out of 6, and in 1998 in the Novohrad-Volynskyi district, where I took 8th place out of 13. Of course, there was no doubt that I would not win, but it was necessary for people in the Zhytomyr region to know about the KUN. And, as you know, it wasn't just me who lost. On the whole, Ukrainians were losing—Ukraine was losing. The elections were won by the mentality of the vast majority of Ukraine's population, which did not accept the patriotic forces rallying under the yellow-and-blue flag with national slogans. This part of the population, although it voted for Ukraine's independence in the referendum on December 1, 1991, was still against Ukraine becoming Ukrainian. It was so hostile to everything Ukrainian that it was ready to vote even for the devil, just not for a patriot who sought to build a Ukrainian Ukraine. Moreover, this population associated everything that opposed the communists under the yellow-and-blue flag with bourgeois nationalism, namely capitalism—a social system that, for this population, was a greater evil than communism. (It was thanks to this mentality that the Zhytomyr organization "Civil Front" (HF), running under a red flag, was able to win one seat in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and three seats in the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR). Thus, the majority of Ukraine's population followed the communists, even though it was already clear that the communist bureaucracy had long said goodbye to the idea of communism and was replacing the state capitalism they had nurtured with private capitalism, in which the communists were no longer just some officials, but owners of small and large enterprises (depending on their cunning), while those who voted for them became their hired laborers. (It is this majority that bears the responsibility for the living conditions it has created for itself and for future generations). As a result, the idea of limited private property, which the patriotic forces would undoubtedly have implemented in social life, was not realized. And this would have been a system more socialist than capitalist, because in Ukraine there was no foundation (everyone lived on a meager salary) for capitalism—for buying some enterprise. As we know, the communists created this foundation. Having their own presidents and an overwhelming majority of deputies in the Verkhovna Rada, they passed the necessary laws, on the basis of which they robbed the people, and Ukraine became capitalist—with millionaires and billionaires. Namely: with masters and lackeys. (When you see a lackey jump out of the front door of a car to open the door for some master, you can laugh at it. Or you can put a bullet in them—in both of them. First—in the lackey, because servitude breeds lordship. Could mansions exist if there were no servants in them?!). A community in which there is a place for a billionaire is an unhealthy community. In fact, it's not a community. What can a master and a lackey have in common? The same thing a rider has with a horse. (It is still better to receive a smaller salary at a state or municipal enterprise than to receive a larger one, but with the brand of a hired hand for some owner).

The Ukraine that Ukrainians had dreamed of for centuries never came to be. (And it never will. Modern civilization has made everyone slaves). Everything continues to go on, as in a short joke: a man and a woman are sitting in a pit with high concrete walls. After futile attempts to get out, the man says to the woman: "We're not getting out of here, so let's make some children—maybe they'll succeed."

Once, the Bolsheviks, by destroying the bourgeoisie, set out to change human nature. The experiment failed. Not even the Procrustean bed helped. (Probably because they didn't put the experimenters themselves on that bed). Everything came full circle. You cannot change human nature. All that remains for them, the idealists, is to either reconcile with man as he is, or to destroy him.

In the mid-90s, I bought a car for my own needs and for the needs of the organization, especially during elections. I also managed to solve the problem with a garage. Yevhen Kontsevych, whom Vasyl Ovsienko introduced me to sometime in the fall of '89, helped me out.

I will dwell a little on this exceptional figure, because although much has already been said about Mr. Yevhen, I also have something to say about him. Back then, in 1989, I only met Mr. Yevhen, because I had nothing to talk to him about. Although Ovsienko did tell me something about him at the time, I didn't pay much attention, because a man confined to a bed-wheelchair could not arouse any particular interest in me. Well, I remember, there was pity and something like: "A walker is no company for a rider." But in '95, when the problem with the garage arose, I remembered Mr. Yevhen's homestead. After a visit, I immediately received permission for the installation. Having placed a metal garage in the corner of the garden, I began to visit Mr. Yevhen often, trying to help him in some way with the upkeep of the property. It was thanks to Mr. Yevhen, who, among others, was visited by writers (his homestead was very convenient for get-togethers), that I met many literary figures, including Yuriy Gudz and Hryhoriy Tsymbaliuk, who, as it turned out, came from villages neighboring Rohachiv: Yurko from Nemylnia, and Hryhoriy from Virlia. Sometimes, when many of those who write gathered at his place, Mr. Yevhen, "scaring" this literary fraternity, would say: "Babych will shoot you all, but not me, because he has his garage on my property." Mr. Yevhen did not share my views on life. In this matter, we were antipodes. Although on a spiritual level, much united us.

Sometimes I would touch on the theme of the absurdity of existence, but we never got to arguments, let alone the battles that Tsymbaliuk writes about in his book "Hypostases." But on political grounds, about which Mr. Hryhoriy also writes, it's true that Mr. Yevhen would hang up the phone, and things would even escalate to shouting. But that was a short period in our long association, during which for about a year we "rallied" around the person who held the title of "President." And yet, under the pressure of facts provided by the "President" himself, Mr. Yevhen had to retreat and even give that person an apt nickname—"Matnia." (Even before the elections, I saw that Ukrainians were being offered the wrong candidate. But they wouldn't have elected another one. Most of those who elected him were electing their own likeness. Would those who elected V.Y. have elected Khmara?! Would they have elected Bandera?! So, as they say, birds of a feather flock together).

I told Mr. Yevhen some things from my past, and he kept insisting that I write my memoirs. And I did write them (after all, they were painting a portrait that didn't fit me) while he was still alive and, shortly before his passing into the next world, being already deaf, he still managed to read the shortened version based on an interview, which was later published in the magazine "Svitlo Spilkuvannia" (No. 13, 2011). After reading it, he said: "Everyone got their due here."

Yevhen Kontsevych was a man of secular spirituality and a bright soul. He was distinguished by his soulfulness, which attracted to his homestead all those who recognized it and who valued a person's spiritual qualities most of all.

In 1998, on my recommendation, Oleksandr Muravytskyi was elected head of the regional KUN organization. He had proven himself to be a capable organizer since the late '80s, and the Korosten organization he headed held a leading place among the district organizations. As for myself, to help Muravytskyi, I agreed to serve as the head of the organization's secretariat for some time. And then, the following year, the presidential election campaign began, and in May, the KUN's political council gathered in Kyiv to decide on the party's participation in the presidential elections. Among others, former KGB general Yevhen Marchuk visited us with a proposal to support him as a presidential candidate. I was against the KUN joining a bloc of organizations that nominated Marchuk. So I asked Marchuk a question that would be quite difficult to answer unequivocally. So, after briefly outlining the situation in which Ukraine found itself, I asked:

"Mr. Marchuk, we no longer have nuclear weapons, but we do have a mine—our nuclear reactors. If you, as president, see that Ukraine is definitively perishing, will you have the courage to decide your own fate and the fate of the people—to blow up all the nuclear reactors in Ukraine?"

There was a deathly silence in the hall. Marchuk was in a kind of stupor. His silence dragged on. It was past time to answer, but he remained silent. Finally, he shrugged his broad shoulders and, somewhat uncertainly but quite loudly, began: "Well, one could blackmail…" But, perhaps realizing that this could be used against him in the elections, he started to backpedal and finished by saying that Chornobyl was enough for us. (That was him, Marchuk, when the KUN was supporting him as a candidate, while in Korosten, he said to Muravytskyi: "Ah, that's the one who wanted to put me on a reactor").

We then chose KUN member Ivan Bilas, hetman of Ukraine, as our presidential candidate. I supported this candidacy, although I understood that we wouldn't even be able to collect one million signatures. And so it happened. About two weeks before the candidates for the presidency were to be finalized, I called a number of regional organizations and, having finally convinced myself that we would not be able to collect the signatures, I went to Kyiv to discuss the situation. I don't remember if it was a meeting of the KUN leadership or if Mrs. Slava had simply gathered the leading figures of the KUN in the hall to discuss some issues. Entering the hall and immediately receiving permission to speak, I said: "The Zhytomyr organization, as well as a number of other regional organizations, have not collected the signatures. And in the two weeks that remain, we won't be able to collect them. If we don't want to make a fool of ourselves, Bilas must immediately withdraw his candidacy." What a scene that caused!

"Panic-monger!" shouts Mrs. Slava's first deputy, Orest Vaskul. I hear outrage from others as well. And Mrs. Slava, supporting them, also expresses her indignation. I leave the hall. About a week later, I hear on the radio that Ivan Bilas has withdrawn his candidacy. And what would have happened if he hadn't?! They would have announced: the KUN failed to collect a million signatures. Much later, having arrived at the KUN office on Yaroslaviv Val, where I was warmly greeted by Mrs. Slava's deputy, Bohdan Pavliv, who said that I had done the right thing regarding Bilas, I asked Pavliv:

"But why did Mrs. Slava behave that way?"

"It had to be that way," Pavliv told me.

So, there was a split in the leadership, and it was more advantageous for Mrs. Slava to show that she was with those who were outraged by my proposal. But what Vaskul and the others were hoping for, I still don't know. I only know that after that incident, Mr. Vaskul's attitude towards me was no longer friendly.

By the way, since we're on the topic of the Congress and Mrs. Slava, I think I should also tell about this... At the end of November 2000, the 5th Assembly of the KUN took place. And before the Assembly, conferences of the regional organizations were held, at which delegates to the Assembly were elected. The conference of the Zhytomyr organization also took place. On my proposal, the conference passed a resolution: the position of Head of the KUN should be held by a young, energetic person, and Mrs. Slava should be the honorary Head. And so there I was in Kyiv at the KUN office. I walk into Mrs. Slava's large office. The Head of the KUN Secretariat, Volodymyr Boreichuk, is also in the office. Sitting across from Mrs. Slava, I inform her about the activities of the regional organization and about the decision made at the conference. This is the first she's hearing of this decision, so I ask:

"Didn't Mr. Boreichuk acquaint you with the minutes of the conference?"

It turns out he had not. I don't know for what reasons he didn't acquaint Mrs. Slava with the minutes, but Boreichuk immediately said that only one organization—Zhytomyr's—had made such a decision. And I continue:

"Mrs. Slava, I respect you, you are a dear person to me, but the KUN organization is dearer to me. I think it's the same for you... We must take into account the psychology of men. Let's take this example: a detachment of Cossacks is riding through a village, and at the front is a female otaman…"

"And an old one at that," Mrs. Slava specified.

"Well," I shrugged and continued, "would many men from that village join that detachment?"

Silence fell. Mrs. Slava gets up and leaves the office. After sitting for a minute, I also get up and head for the exit. I'm at the door—and Mrs. Slava is at the door. Passing by me, she says:

"I can still do better than a young one!"

"That's good, Mrs. Slava," I say, looking back at her.

To be the Head of an organization is to pull a heavy cart. Why Mrs. Slava needed to be in that harness for the rest of her life—I never found out.

In 2000, I was completely preoccupied with the construction of the Memorial in Bazar, and so I increasingly withdrew from activities in the regional organization. And after the construction of the Memorial, I completely withdrew from activities in the KUN.

Having left political activity, which for me was like loving without being in love, I still didn't give up completely. In the autumn of 2002, I was back in Bazar. In accordance with the decision of the Association of Former Ukrainian Soldiers (ObVU) in Great Britain, I took up the reburial of those who fell in the battle of November 17, 1921, participants of the Second Winter Campaign. And in the autumn of 2006, on behalf of the Society of Political Prisoners of the Zhytomyr Region, on the outskirts of the village of Yaropovychi, where a group of OUN(b) underground fighters perished in 1951, I, together with the villagers, erected a massive 4-meter cross. I also removed the idol from my village: on the evening of December 26, 2008, with residents of Novohrad-Volynskyi, Vasyl Ostapchuk (a former member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine) and Oleksandr Zakharchuk, having arrived in the village of Rohachiv, we placed a folding ladder against the monument to Lenin that stood next to the house of culture. Ostapchuk and I held the ladder, while Zakharchuk, having climbed to the top, struck the concrete neck of the executor of Marx's ideas and occupier of Ukraine with a sledgehammer until the idol's head fell down. We threw the head into the trunk and, upon arriving in Novohrad, threw it from the bridge over the Smolka River. We could hear the head shatter into pieces as it hit the rocks. I could have done it long ago, but I kept waiting for people in the village to appear who would remove the idol from their village without prompting. The headless idol with its arm thrown high stood almost until the presidential elections.

With that, my political and public activities came to a complete end. I've done my "rowing"—and that's enough. Why should I, who believes that the existence of humanity, like all living things, is absurd, care to the end about some anthill—building some state, some nation? (And for what! After all, everything is in a process of transformation. The process of globalization, linked to technological progress and the ever-increasing population of the planet, cannot be stopped. Except, perhaps, by a planetary catastrophe. Nations will disappear, just as tribes disappeared. And what difference does it make: sooner or later). Let those who believe that there is some meaning in the existence of future generations deal with this. As for me, why couldn't we offer other states to take us, Ukrainians, on for full support in exchange for refusing to have children? In 100 years, we would be gone, and our territory would pass to those states that agreed to maintain us at a decent standard of living. We would be like in paradise. And the children would be happy. There would be no need to go to that barracks—school. After all, the knowledge acquired in this life will not be needed in the afterlife. I think there would be enough such states (fools). But can a people be so spiritually great as to agree to such a thing?! Of course not. Only some people are capable of grasping this—of grasping that for the dinosaurs, one generation of dinosaurs would have been enough. (Humans and animals are biological robots, who are probably performing some unknown function for someone. What distinguishes man from animal is not creativity, but his ability to comprehend the absurdity of his own existence).

Humanity is blinkered. It is irrational. Proceeding from the irrational, we see that even if we approach life from its position—from the recognition that "one must live, and hope, and desire"—the spiritual state that is characteristic of modern societies still cannot be acceptable. Humanity seems to have degraded, sunk to a very low level. Take, for instance, the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, the unbridling of instincts with unmotivated cruelty and a phenomenon of unprecedented absurdity, or rather—madness in the history of humanity—cannibalism by agreement over the Internet, which shows that by shedding taboos inspired by madmen, by functioning, like animals, only on a soulless level, the soulless person returns to the world from which they came—the world of animals.

Before, people believed more in God. And having ceased to believe—they still searched for something, they had some idea, a search for an ideal. Today, people have become disillusioned with ideals and are forgetting them. And this is understandable: the mirages, inspired by madmen, have almost melted away in a haze, and people do not know where to row. People already need new madmen who would inspire new mirages in them—religions.

Still, it is doubtful that such madmen could appear. It is difficult to imagine how, in the modern world—the age of information—one could inspire new mirages in people, unless it's something from what Hitler inspired. Besides, everything has already gone too far. It has come to the point where they started digging mole tunnels—subways. The planet is overpopulated. In the last twelve years, the number of people has increased by one billion. There are already seven billion of them. And seven billion is a genie let out of a bottle. Against the backdrop of this monster, problems of spirituality recede into the background, becoming unworthy of attention. The monster becomes the problem. After all, people, like a rash, cover the entire planet. Everything that lives on the planet is suffocating from the number and activity of this species. Such effective natural regulators of population as the plague, typhus, and cholera have been neutralized. Mortality from various diseases is also constantly decreasing. Today, man is like a mutant bacterium on which antibiotics no longer work. Man searches for means that would work on the mutant bacterium, while nature, or the force that people call God, is probably looking for new means against the mutant man. (Man lived on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years without violating the mechanism that was implemented for population regulation and selection. By interfering with this mechanism (order), humanity will most likely bring itself to catastrophe).

I have already buried all my brothers and sisters. All, except Mykola, are in Rohachiv. I have prepared a place for myself as well. In September 2009, I brought a half-ton stone from the Novohrad-Volynskyi quarry and placed it next to my father's grave. On it are only my initials and surname. There is no date of birth, because there are many calendars, and I couldn't choose one of them. As for Ukrainian calendars, according to the old chronology, I was born in the year 7447, and according to the modern (Christian) one—in 1939. I know one thing: a calendar is not a shirt, you can't just change it. Why this foolishness was allowed is unknown. (So we ended up with: "New Era," "Before the New Era"). Let that stone be without a date. And without any symbols, since I did not belong to any religion. No, I was not a god-fighter. God-fighters are those who build a world alternative to God's world—those who, like animals, can do without God. (Is not modern civilization this alternative—a modern tower of Babel?).

In conclusion of this story, I want to say one more thing: I am still on the road! This road is a road of absurdity, onto which I stepped with my appearance in the world. There was no choice, because the road of absurdity is the road of life. I did not want to impose my will on anyone—to push anyone onto this road. I didn't want to be manure for someone either. I wanted to be the seed that falls on a stone, not into the soil. And so, from what I have traveled on this road, one thing pleases me: I have not imposed my will on anyone and have not become manure for anyone, as some Neanderthal became manure for me. Although I must confess: a person comes into a world of absurdity, and whatever they do, is absurdity.

2013 (7521), Zhytomyr

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List of photographs (only in the print edition)

Sava Babych

Anastasiia Babych (Yahelska)

Oleksa Babych

(mid-1940s)

Lukash Pavliuk

Maksym Pavliuk

(compulsory military service)

Oleksa Pavliuk

The yard and barn of the Babych homestead from 1939 to 1951.

v. Rohachiv. Photo 2009

4th grade of Rohachiv school

(Serhiy Babych, second from the left, top row)

1951

Bottom row: Mykola, mother with Vira (neighbor Hanna's child), Olha,

father with Andriy;

top row: Nadia, Serhiy, neighbor Hanna.

v. Severynivka. Autumn, 1952

Nadia Babych, Misha Savytskyi, Valia Yukhymenko

v. Severynivka, 1953

Pavlo Zavalniuk (Babych)

Compulsory military service

Vasyl Zavalniuk (Babych), in the middle

v. Rohachiv, mid-1950s

Serhiy Babych

1954

Serhiy Babych

November 8, 1955

Boys from the settlement (except for V. Kukhtiuk) of Rohachiv village

Bottom row: Anatoliy Vovk, Mykola Antoniuk, Sashko Sliusarchuk,

Sashko Suslovets (Talymonovych), Mykola Rubliuk.

Top row: Serhiy Babych, Ivan Tymoshchuk, Anatoliy Matviychuk, Mykola Tymoshchuk, Vasyl Kukhtiuk and Hrysha Tymoshchuk

1958

Serhiy Babych, Vasyl Kovalchuk,

Anatoliy Kovalchuk

(seeing Anatoliy off to the army)

v. Rohachiv. Autumn, 1958

Nina Sakhniuk – a beauty from the settlement

of Rohachiv village where the youth gathered in the second half of the 1950s

Photo 1960

Mykola Antoniuk, Vasyl Kukhtiuk, student Liuba, Serhiy Babych,

Halia Lukisha (a student from Litky village, Luhyny district; from a family of the repressed),

Volodia (from Ostrozhok village), Pavlo Antoniuk

v. Rohachiv, May 4, 1959

Serhiy Babych, Ivan Tymoshchuk (squatting), Mykola Antoniuk,

Pavlo Antoniuk, Serhiy Dilodub

v. Rohachiv. 1959

Halia

Serhiy Babych

v. Rohachiv May 4, 1959

Serhiy Babych

Mordovia. September, 1960

Serhiy Babych

Mordovia. May, 1961

Serhiy Babych, Volodymyr Barsukivskyi,

Oleksa Reznikiv. Mordovia, camp No. 14

September, 1960

Oleksandr Hryhorenko

Cadet of the Vasylkiv Aviation-Technical School

Ivan Kochubey

(Vladimir Prison)

1960

Pavlo Androsiuk, Volodymyr Brych (UPA company commander), Vasyl Makarenko

Mordovia, camp No. 7 (Sosnovka settlement)

October, 1962

Wedding of Andriy Babych and Hanna Slyvka

Top row: Vasyl and Tetyana Zavalniuk and their daughter Olenka, father – Oleksa Babych, Mykola and Halia Babych, the newlyweds: Andriy and Hania, mother – Mariia Babych, Mariia and Kindrat Pavliuk,

Ivan Derkach and Hanna Derkach (Pavliuk)

Below: Hania's parents – Mariia and Vasyl, Mykola (Hania's brother) and neighbor Pavlo Vovk

v. Rohachiv, 1970

Oleksa and Mariia Babych with their granddaughter Nina Orlova

Zhytomyr, summer, 1971

Olha Orlova (Babych)

February 22, 1963

Serhiy Babych

(After returning from prison)

v. Rohachiv, February, 1975

Top row: Vasyl Yashchuk (Nadia's husband) and Nadia Babych

Bottom row: Olha Orlova (Babych), mother – Mariia Babych and Nina Orlova

Zhytomyr. November, 1981

Serhiy, Mykola, and Andriy Babych

Zhytomyr, June, 1989

Pavlo Androsiuk (after his release)

March, 1969

Volodymyr Andrushko

(late 1980s)

Vasyl Ovsienko

(late 1980s)

Serhiy Babych

(on the eve of his release, June 6, 1989)

Volodia, Serhiy Babych, and Nadiia Kotenko

Moscow, Arbat (demanding the legalization of the Greek Catholic Church)

September, 1989

Ivan Borovskyi, Fritz and Anni Weiland, Serhiy Babych

Germany, Karlsruhe. Autumn, 1990

Ivan Borovskyi, Voldemar Krause, Serhiy Babych

Germany, Karlsruhe, autumn 1990

Kronid Lyubarsky with his wife Halyna Salova

Ilmar Lokutsievskyi

1991

Serhiy Babych

April, 1990

Unveiling of the monument to those fallen in the Second Winter Campaign

v. Bazar, August 26, 2000

At the grave of those who fell in the battle near Zvizdal village.

Top row: ObVU member V. Diuk, V. Savynets, S. Babych, ObVU Head S. Fostun,

ObVU member P. Kishchuk, V. Dekhtiievskyi, R. Pankevych.

Bottom row: architect of the Memorial in v. Bazar O. Borys, I. Feshchenko, I. Kolodiuk

v. Bazar, October 11, 2002

Anatoliy Panteleev, Nadiia Babych – sister, Serhiy Babych,

Kateryna – Anatoliy's wife

Zhytomyr, September 28, 2002

Meeting with Mariia Trofymovych after 40 years

In the photo: Mykola Simon (Olha Orlova's son), Olha Orlova,

Serhiy Babych, Mariia Trofymovych

At sister Olha's, Zhytomyr, December 29, 2003

Mariia Trofymovych at 19 years old

Photo 1960

July 22, 2004 at Yevhen Kontsevych's place

Hryhoriy Tsymbaliuk, Serhiy Babych, Nestor Dumanskyi and

Yevhen Kontsevych

Zhytomyr, Autumn, 2005

Volodymyr Andrushko, S. Babych, I. Kolodiuk, T. Havrylovych, V. Dekhtiievskyi, V. Bartashchuk, I. Lavrynenko, Yu. Ushchapovskyi (squatting)

Zhytomyr, Constitution Day, 2005

Serhiy Babych's 70th birthday

Meeting after 43 years

Serhiy Babych, Taras Tarasiuk

Sievierodonetsk, September 2007

Serhiy Babych, Leonid Stadnyk, Alla Rol

v. Podoliantsi, Chudniv district

August 11, 2009

House of Culture

v. Rohachiv. Photo May 26, 2009

Honoring the fallen participants of the Second Winter Campaign

In the photo: S. Babych, I. Lavrynenko, O. Yeshchenko, O. Vietoshkin,

V. Dekhtiievskyi, O. Pryshchepa

Bazar, November 16, 2013

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Вижу смутную землю -; обитель скорбей,

Вижу смертных, спешащих к могиле своей

Вижу славных царей, луноликих красавиц

Отблиставших и ставших добычей червей.

В прах судьбою растертые видятся мне

Под землёй распростёртые видятся мне

Сколько я ни вперяюсь во мрак запредельный:

Только мёртвые, мёртвые видятся мне.

Omar Khayyam