Smashed in the USSR: Fear, Loathing and Vodka on the Steppes

by Walton, Caroline

  The birds will not let me sleep through the forest dawn, but that is a blessing. I rise to the nightingale’s song, edging out of my tent and sitting absolutely still, not even smoking. The bird takes no notice of me and sings on, beautifully and forcefully. It is not just singing for love, for the female is already sitting on her eggs. I wonder where that power comes from.

  When the nightingale falls silent I set off to look for mushrooms. In my childhood Grandfather Dobrinin taught me how to search for them; he even knew by the smell of the wood what type of mushrooms grew there. The best time to look for them is after rain. I gather two basketsful of saffron milk-caps, orange-cap boletus, russula and agarics. By some oaks I strike it lucky and find the prized honey agaric. I give most of my mushrooms away to the beekeepers when they arrive with my provisions.

  The next day I go to the steppe to pick bunches of St John’s wort, greater celandine and milfoil for my sister who uses them for folk remedies.

  Rainy days get me down. It’s boring and uncomfortable to sit in the tent for hours on end. I ask Yura and the others not to bring vodka but all the same I feel restless. To distract myself from my thoughts I carve pieces of wood into statuettes and decorate bottles with plastic telephone wires. I learned the technique in prison. With a hook made from a bicycle spoke I twist the plastic into pictures and designs. When I’ve finished I give the bottles to the beekeepers who are happy to take them home to their wives.

  The mosquitoes annoy me, but I know from my experience in the taiga that the only way to defeat them is to take no notice. I have no net; I don’t want to shut myself off from the world around me. Just before rain, when the midges and mosquitoes become a real torment, I drive them away with the help of a beekeeper’s smoker. It is a simple can with holes punched in it and attached to a string. Inside I put some rotten wood and a piece of amadou fungus pulled from an old tree stump. When struck with a flint the amadou smoulders and lights the wood. Smoke billows from the can as I swing it like a church censer.

  Just as I used never to tire of looking at the sea, so I sit for hours gazing across the blue undulations of the steppe. Sometimes a rare bustard hovers overhead, or a distant herd of boars runs through one of the gullies that scar the landscape. Seven centuries ago Mongol horsemen, not knowing how to live in the forest, camped on these grasslands. A lorry raises dust on a far-off road. I half close my eyes and imagine I see horsemen of the Golden Horde galloping along the crest of a ridge.

  Summer ends. I pack up my tent with sadness. Yura drives me back into town. Each beekeeper gives me a kilo of honey and a small sum of money. I have nowhere to go except the hostel. My former plant will not take me back because of my poor work record. I curse them all to hell and exchange my honey for samogon.

  23 The Great Patriotic War is the Russian name for the Second World War.

  7

  Labour camp

  There is nothing but Benedictine on the shelf of shop No. 28.

  “Let’s buy a bottle,” I suggest.

  My mate Tarzan explodes: “Are you crazy? That’s a women’s drink. Let’s get some cucumber face lotion from Auntie Dusya.”

  “But Benedictine’s stronger than vodka. I used to drink it in Riga.”

  “Okay, you win.”

  Tarzan and I wander off to the park with our Benedictine. We are on our third bottle when Pashka Plaksin joins us. Pashka is famous in Chapaevsk as an alcoholic and a master-sewer of felt boots. As there is no chance of buying good boots in the shops, many people make them on the quiet. Pashka’s boots are the best in town. To own a pair is like having a Pierre Cardin suit in your wardrobe. Those who want to jump the queue will slip him a bottle of something. This is how Pashka became a drunkard. In the mornings he shakes so much he can’t even pull up a glass with his scarf. Someone has to slip a stick between his lips and pour the wine straight down his throat.

  Pashka produces two bottles of pure surgical spirit donated by a grateful customer. The next thing I know is an agonising pain in my head and back. I open my eyes to see someone giving me an injection.

  “What did you drink?” a voice asks.

  “Surgical spirit,” I rasp.

  “You can’t get that in the chemists. Where did it come from?”

  “A friend gave it to me.”

  “That was no friend. If the police hadn’t found you and brought you here you would have died. That was industrial spirit and it has burned up your kidneys.”

  It seems that after leaving Tarzan and Pashka I fell into a snowdrift. Some passing police pulled me out and hauled me in to the sobering-up station. A nurse declared me to be on the point of death so they called an ambulance. It would have spoiled their records if yet another drunk died in their charge.

  The hospital washes out my kidneys and discharges me. Sober again, I am taken on by a plastics factory. Now I remember how much I hate the working life. When I was drinking the only problem I faced was how to get over my hangovers; now I’m working like a donkey for nothing in return. I hardly earn enough to buy bread. Most of my pay goes to the sobering-up station which I have visited 14 times since returning from the forest. Soon I stop going to work; it seems futile.

  The local police are sick of the sight of me. The next time they pick me up they give me a beating and put me on a charge of drunken hooliganism. They wait five days for my black eyes to fade, but even then the judge at my trial asks: “What happened to your face?”

  “A bag of fists fell on my head.”

  The judge decides I am capable of responding to treatment and sentences me to two years in an LTP.24 It lies about thirty miles away, beside the village of Spiridonovka. Life in the LTP is easier than in other camps for we are classed as sick men rather than criminals. Our guards are unarmed and letters are not censored.

  The village of Spiridonovka is a miserable collection of hovels surrounded by a strict-regime camp and the LTP. While the village children play ‘prisoners and warders,’ driving each other in convoys through the mud, their parents work in the camps. The villagers dedicate themselves to taking care of the prisoners, smuggling in vodka, cigarettes and an astronomical amount of tea.

  Treatment is compulsory but I categorically refuse to take Antabuse, despite a promise of time off my sentence if I do so. In the past I’ve swallowed it voluntarily; I won’t have it forced down my throat. They send me to the isolator a few times then give up on me.

  The doctor in charge of our treatment is a sadist called Bityutskaya. “You will not receive parcels here. You’ve already caused enough suffering to your families,” she announces. This doesn’t make much difference to me as I have no one to visit me or send in food. Later many of us paint ‘In Vino Veritas’ on the back of our jackets. When the doctor walks past we turn our backs so she can fully appreciate the effects of her treatment.

  As I walk into the barracks with the other newcomers an older man comes up and introduces himself: “I’m Vassya-the-thief-alias-Honeycake. I’ve been through Rome and the Crimea, fire and water, brass trumpets and devil’s teeth. I’m the orderly around here, so any of you who fancies a cushy job has to clear it with me first, okay?”

  Vassya gives us the once over. Spotting a defeated-looking country lad, he asks: “You there, what’s your name?”

  “Trofim Ivanich.”

  “You look like an intelligent chap, Trofim. Give me a goose and you can guard the stationery store.”

  Trofim persuades his wife to smuggle in a goose. She probably feels guilty for having committed him to the LTP. Trofim is delighted to be given such an easy job and goes off to perform it conscientiously.

  At evening roll-call there’s one person missing. Ten recounts establish that the absent man is Trofim.

  “Where the hell is he?” asks the guard.

  “Working,” someone remembers.

  “Where?”

  “Guarding the shop,” replies an innocent newcomer.

  “Who told him to do that?”

  “One of the
orderlies,” replies another innocent.

  No one can prove anything against Vassya; the goose has already been eaten. Trofim has received his first lesson in camp life.

  Unlike many inmates, Vassya is fond of talking about his past: “I grew up on a farm in the Kuban. When the Nazis arrived in ’42 I went to work for them as a groom.” He pauses. “Don’t turn up your noses, brothers. I had to eat. They needed me to look after their horses so they took me with them when they retreated. We ended up in Hungary. By then it was obvious to any idiot that the Germans were losing the war. I slipped away and joined up with our boys in Poland.

  “After the war I went home to the Kuban and everything would’ve been fine if my mother hadn’t had to show off to the women at the well. Her neighbours were boasting of their sons’ exploits so she produced a picture of me with my chest covered in medals. Someone noticed these were fascist decorations. I had borrowed a regimental dress for the photograph; I could hardly pose with a broom and bucket of horse shit. So I was denounced and given ten years for collaboration.

  “Since then I’ve been in more camps than I can count. The truth is I don’t care much for life on the outside, what with residence permits, housing queues and trade union meetings. After a month I’m ready to see the inside of barbed wire again.”

  Early one morning a huge turd appears in the snow near the accounts office where officers’ wives work. It is about twelve centimetres in diameter. Beside it lies crumpled newspaper and a pile of dog-ends. A group gathers around the monstrosity. It could only have been produced by a giant – yet normal-sized footsteps lead to the spot.

  Vassya appears to be more affronted than anyone else. “Citizen lieutenant,” he says to the officer who has come to inspect the offending object. “This is disgraceful hooliganism, especially in the presence of women. I propose that everyone’s orifice be measured in order to find out who is capable of such an outrage.”

  I have my own suspicions, for that week I noticed Vassya collecting something in a plastic bag which he kept carefully hidden away. After the fuss dies down he confesses his deed to a group of confidants. He says he learned the trick in a camp at Komi.

  In the work zone we make shell-timers for a Kuibyshev arms plant. Many zeks throw themselves into the job as a distraction from deadly boredom, but none of them gets remission. The only guarantee of early release is membership of the SVP. Some zeks think: ‘Okay I’ll put on the armband but I won’t inform on anyone.’ But it doesn’t work like that: a zek betrays his fellow inmates as soon as he dons that armband. In a day or two he is racing the other SVPs to the guardhouse to sing for a two-rouble bonus. Weakness of character turns people into informers, and once they have crossed that line there’s no turning back.

  We are a friendly brigade. When someone nears his release date we give him a hand so that he can save some extra money. Although the work isn’t too heavy we depend on chefir25 to meet our targets. Tea is smuggled in by civilian workers and by the prisoner who goes to the village post office for our mail. Zlodian Kitten is the only prisoner allowed out without a guard. He is an artist who paints pictures of kittens on glass to sell in the village. His kittens are all different, with bows and balls and so on. As the local shop only sells portraits of Lenin, there’s a huge demand for his work. Zlodian never returns without loose tea slipped in between the pages of newspapers.

  After I’ve been in Spiridonovka for a year the authorities finally realise that the fight against chefirists is not only useless but counterproductive. A prisoner high on chefir works like a robot. No tea means no target, so the rule is relaxed and production plans are filled.

  My co-chefirist is a drug addict known as VV. More of a dabbler than a hardened addict, VV takes any tablet he can lay his hands on. He is particularly fond of teophedrin, a mixture of codeine and ephedrine.

  “I was a good Komsomolist before I did my military service, but the army changed that. It wasn’t so much the bullying that got me down, though that was bad enough. No, it was being surrounded by so many idiots who felt important for the first time in their lives. Now I spit on everything.

  “It was my mother who sent me here. She didn’t like the company I fell into after I left the army. It wasn’t what she had in mind for her only son.”

  VV and I share our tobacco and vodka, most of which comes into the camp in hot-water bottles thrown over the fence. Almost everyone who is freed from the LTP remembers his mates this way.

  I grow tired of dormitory conversations about who drank how much and who slept with whom. To relieve the boredom I devise a joke. I write a letter purporting to be from ‘Sima,’ the wife of ‘Fedya.’ When letters are given out all the Fyodors in the barrack come forward but none recognises the handwriting. There is no return address on the envelope. Then by collective decision the letter is opened and read aloud. It could have been written to any one of us: Divisional Inspector Paramon often drops by… this was interrupted by a roar of knowing laughter… At last I have dried out the mattress… the reader continues as 300 voices jeer at the unknown Fedya for wetting his bed… I salted the cucumbers and yesterday in the herring queue Paramon’s wife Agafya slapped my face…

  In the morning all the Fedyas in the camp come forward to prove their wives are not called Sima. One of them, who happens to be married to a Serafima, brings a collection of letters to show that her handwriting is not that of ‘Sima.’ A week later another letter arrives from Sima. The contents reveal that she has had a reply from her Fedya. The whole zone sets out to uncover the mysterious man. Only after a third or fourth letter do people start to guess that I am the author. They clamour for more: “We want something to cheer us up after work.”

  A wave of prison riots breaks out all over the country. Discontent also grows in our camp. A new Godfather arrives and begins a campaign of intimidation. Our letters are torn open before they reach us and visitors are roughly searched, especially women. When a prisoner from the neighbouring criminal zone goes on the run they start to torment us with endless counts and recounts. A guard marches through our barrack with a slavering Alsatian on a slackened chain. It lunges at us; a couple of men who protest are taken out to the punishment cells.

  They say you can divide people into cat lovers and dog lovers, but I’d add a third category: Alsatian lovers.

  That night we gather to discuss what to do. Someone suggests writing a letter to Brezhnev, another says we should kill a dog. Suddenly, unexpectedly even to myself, I leap onto a bunk and shout at them: “Tossers! Cowards! All this talk is useless!”

  The protestors turn to me, some try to knock me off the bunk. Others ask: “Well, what do you suggest then?”

  “A strike! We stay in bed tomorrow and refuse to go to work until our demands are read by higher authorities. We’ll write a list of complaints and smuggle a copy out to the newspapers. If the authorities refuse to give way we’ll go on hunger strike.”

  “Idealist!” mutters an older prisoner, but most of the men agree to my proposal. We choose a committee of four volunteers and I write out a list of complaints.

  The next morning no one leaves their bunks except the cook and the man who stokes the boiler. Not everyone is happy to strike, especially those nearing the end of their sentences, but they don’t want to oppose the collective will. The Godfather arrives, stomping through the barrack, at first abusing us and then trying persuasion. Four men hand him our list of demands and he goes off to phone his superiors.

  A week passes and then an MVD commission arrives. To our amazement, half our demands are met. Weapons are removed from the zone, we are allowed to wear sweaters and warm underwear, the food improves, visitors’ rooms are enlarged, they promise to put a TV in the rec. room. and to supply any books we request. I immediately compile a list and they bring in all the books I have ordered, even ones that are forbidden on the outside such as Schiller-Mikhailov’s History of the Anabaptists. I expect they can afford to be generous because their libraries are overflowing with conf
iscated books.

  Despite these concessions the Godfather continues to censor our letters. My friends and I start to write to ourselves, posting letters via different channels. We cover the pages with meaningless words, sprinkled with numbers and symbols. Let him waste his time trying to decipher these, we laugh.

  Thanks to the barrack stoolies, the Godfather knows the strike was my idea. He has his revenge when VV and I get completely pissed at work. One of our freed companions has thrown a bottle over the fence. Medvedev, the officer in charge of our work brigade, drives us back to the barracks saying we’ll face the music in the morning. When he tries to follow us into the barracks we rush at him, flapping our arms and puffing vodka breath in his face. “Phoo, phoo, phoo, get out, get out.”

  Medvedev has not brought an escort, so he leaves, muttering threats. A few minutes later guards come and haul us off to the isolator.

  In the morning Medvedev rages at us: “You’ll be punished under article 77 for interfering with an officer in the line of his duty and causing mass disorder.”

  This charge is considered worse than murder and punishable by anything from eight years to execution by firing squad. We refuse to answer questions or admit to anything. “Bring the Godfather. We won’t say anything until he’s present.”

  Medvedev laughs in our faces. “I can assure you that he will not come.”

  “But he must. He is head of the camp.”

  “He won’t.”

  On hearing this we begin a hunger strike. A few days later a Black Maria takes us to Kuibyshev jail. We learn that our strike was in vain, because the Godfather was away on holiday that week.

  Kuibyshev jail is full of men who have taken part in a riot that makes ours look like a children’s tea party. I hear about it from a prisoner in my cell: “It began when a packet of tea was thrown in. It landed on the strip of ploughed earth between the inner and outer wires. As a prisoner stretched his hand through to recover the tea a guard shot him in the leg. News spread around the zone. When the SVPs got wind of a revolt they ran off to the guard house. A couple of them who didn’t make it were beaten to death.