Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag

by Figes, Orlando

  Sveta replied:

  Of course, Lev, it’s 14 months, not 14 years, to go. And in my brighter moments I remember this, but when I’m feeling bad – then it’s bad. One shouldn’t tear oneself to pieces, but one should be able to do things quickly, easily, successfully, without so much effort. And that I haven’t managed to do.

  For the moment her main task was to plan for Lev’s release, to think about where they might build a life together. Lev would learn his options only when he received his release papers from the MVD – they would state the towns in which he could not live – but it was unlikely that he would be permitted to return to Moscow (newly released prisoners were nearly always barred from living closer than 100 kilometres to any of the major cities). The further away from the capital he settled, the easier it would be to find work that made use of his scientific skills, but the harder it would be for Sveta to see him, unless she left her parents in Moscow.

  Lev and Sveta had discussed these issues as early as 1949. At that time she had suggested he might think about Poltava, in Ukraine, or some other town in the provinces, where he might find work as a teacher and where she could join him:

  Levi, why do you dismiss the idea of teaching? I don’t know how it is around Poltava, but in my opinion the more remote places offer more opportunities. Obviously, Levi, I’m not planning to talk seriously about such topics now, since we know absolutely nothing about how things will be in half a dozen years.52 Maybe everything will be the same but maybe it won’t, and maybe we won’t, either. If it’s the same, then you know I’m ready for any possibility – only ideally with snow.

  By the end of 1953, Sveta had come to favour Yaroslavl, which she had visited on a work trip to inspect a factory. It was only a night’s journey from Moscow – so she could see her parents easily – and it had industries in which both of them could be employed. She wrote to Lev from the northern Volga city on 15 December:

  Yaroslavl is a nice town – not as rural as Omsk is. It’s a city with long, straight streets, a decent number of boulevards and gardens, and 2-to 3-storey buildings. There are 4-storey ones in the centre and near the factory. The people aren’t so provincial, at least I didn’t see any preposterous dresses at the theatre or any garishly made-up girls. They don’t go to the theatre wearing boots and don’t chew sunflower seeds. Provisions are also better here. There are lots of dairy products – both at the market and in the shops (cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream and cream). The situation with meat is not so good, but there are all the vegetables you could possibly want, and there’s always kasha, flour, sugar and confectionery, etc. There are even different kinds of wine (not just one vermouth, as in Omsk). The bread is really good and tasty and people eat well in the cafeterias.

  Voronezh was another alternative. Four hundred kilometers south of Moscow, it was twice as far away as Yaroslavl, but it had some advantages, and Tsydzik recommended it. Sveta wrote to Lev on 10 December:

  M. A. says that Voronezh is better than Yar-l, that the climate is milder (which I’m not sure about – summers there are very hot), that there’s always a light breeze, and no smell of rubber in the air (the factories are located outside the centre) as there is in Yaroslavl. I’ll have a look at Voronezh in the spring or the summer. It takes about 10 hours to get there (also a night journey). Papa used to like Voronezh – he and Mama quite seriously discussed resettling there (before the war).

  ‘I’ve been told good things about Voronezh,’ Lev replied, ‘but I think that while your parents haven’t yet resolved to settle there themselves, we should make sure that getting to them, that is, to Moscow, won’t take any longer than from morning to evening or from evening to morning.’ Lev was pessimistic about the possibility of actually living with Sveta and did not want to settle so far away that it became a burden for her to travel between him and her parents.

  Sveta discussed the idea of Voronezh with relatives and friends. ‘So, Levi,’ she wrote on 19 January,

  no matter whom I ask about which is better, Voronezh or Yaroslavl, everybody without a moment’s hesitation answers Voronezh. First, it has a lot of educational institutions, which inevitably leave their mark on a town, and it has more culture as well. Apparently the people are more friendly than in Yaroslavl. The streets are more beautiful. It’s warmer. I don’t know whether the latter is a plus or not. It seems that winters there are still winters. I’d be sorry if that wasn’t the case. I really love winter. But it would undoubtedly be quite hot there in the summer.

  And the minuses: it’s twice as far and, although it’s been restored [it was badly damaged in the war], there is still so much damage that it will probably be more difficult to find a place to live, although everyone from here [the institute] who got a job at the factory was given a room and some even got an apartment. They have more need of engineers, so they’ll probably take greater care of them. I’m making wild guesses, though.

  Lev favoured Yaroslavl – it was closer to Moscow – though his main concern was not to be a burden on anybody and to track down his university diploma so he could get his career back on track. ‘As regards the possibility of settling in Yaroslavl,’ he wrote to Sveta,

  I still have no definite information. Many have been forced to settle in the outskirts of similar towns. But others live in places like Lvov. It’s unclear what accounts for the difference – whether it’s the whim of those in charge or personal resources, including the ability to make use of vitamins [pay bribes]. In any case, I think it will be possible to settle some 10 to 15 km from Yar[oslavl]. I can base myself at friends of Nikolai [a prisoner at the wood-combine], where I’ll be able to leave my suitcase and spend a few nights until I find myself a corner and somewhere to work. Regarding the latter: I don’t want and I’m not going to visit family or friends before I’ve found work and a place to live. I can’t count on anybody finding my diploma. I think the best thing would be for me to get it myself, once I’ve got myself organized wherever God is going to send me. In the meantime I’ll look for work as a fitter or something else in any electrical facility, with no requirements except ≥ 500–600 roubles a month. With the diploma in hand, I’ll be able to get different work – in the same enterprise or department – or leave to go somewhere else … This ‘transition period’, I imagine, could last 6 months to a year.

  Lev had already warned Sveta that during this ‘transition period’ he would be able to visit her only occasionally for a few hours at a time. It was unlikely that the terms of his release would allow him to spend more than twenty-four consecutive hours in Moscow, and if he found a job in a provincial town, he would have to work six days a week, like everybody else in the Soviet Union. But he was hopeful that ‘further down the line’, once he had obtained his diploma and got a better job, he might ‘finally be allowed to return home’. Until then, Lev was adamant that Sveta remain with her parents. Having waited all these years to be reunited with her, he had learned to be patient.

  My darling Sveta, the things I’m going to write now are only tentative thoughts so don’t get upset if you think that something is not as it should be. Sooner or later, in one way or another, we’ll find something that’s not too bad. But if it’s not completely wonderful – well, it can’t be helped. It will still be better than what we had before or have now. Sveta, of course you need to be near your mama and not just in case she or your papa becomes worse – how they are at the moment is bad enough; and your departure might cause their conditions to worsen … Which means there’s really only one solution – for me to try to find work as close to you as possible so that if we can’t be together all the time we can at least be together for one day out of seven. And that’s already infinitely better than it’s been for the past 13 years.

  Lev’s hopes were raised by the early thaw of 1954. ‘Spring has been here for three days now,’ he wrote on 25 March. ‘After the freshly fallen snow of the day before yesterday, everything is already grey and muddy and our feet keep sinking in.’ This year Lev found promis
e in the spring. The release of prisoners was gaining momentum, and he was expecting to be free at some point in the next months. The prospect of release got him citing poetry, Pushkin in particular:

  In the hope of glory and good

  I look ahead without fear.

  Sveta, too, was buoyed by the anticipation of Lev’s return. ‘My darling, ’ she wrote, ‘I’ve been planning to tell you how good I’ve been feeling lately; I’m being kind to everyone. My spirits are so high. I feel as if you’d greeted me this morning, as you used to do, on my way to catch the tram, and that we still had the whole evening ahead of us.’

  Where and how would they meet at last? Sveta wanted Lev all to herself for the first few days. To make that happen she was prepared to travel anywhere, even to Pechora to collect him and bring him home. ‘I can imagine,’ she wrote to him, ‘that eventually I’ll be able to leave you for a month or two, but right now I don’t want to let you out of my sight, even for an hour.’

  You must tell me if I should come for you. If I do, then later on I’ll be able to hand you over to all the aunts for whole minutes at a time … There’s no reason for you to be on your own, ever. I could see to that – I could walk behind you everywhere, I’d be like a tail, but at least I wouldn’t be worried about losing you again. I don’t want our first meeting to take place in front of other people and I’m not making an exception for anybody – not for your aunts, or my parents, or any friends. I have a horrible nature.

  Lev too wanted to see Sveta straight away. He hoped to come to Moscow directly from Pechora, ‘if only for a day or two’, he wrote to her on 10 May, ‘and only to see you’.

  Lev was pessimistic about his chances of returning to Moscow on a more permanent basis. To live in Moscow he would need a ‘clean’ passport, which could be obtained only if he was officially rehabilitated or received a pardon on his release, but there was little hope of either. ‘I don’t think – as far as I understand the essence of the matter – that any efforts at the present time will produce anything positive,’ he had written to Sveta on 11 April. ‘Complete rehabilitation is impossible and a pardon won’t provide any benefits for the future, if previous convictions aren’t removed.’ Lev had no illusions that his crime against the state could be negated by appeal. Even if the full facts of his conduct in the war had been taken into account at his trial in 1945, he now thought, he would still have been convicted, albeit with a shorter sentence, since he had allowed himself to be used as a translator in the German camps. The fact that he had been sentenced would remain on his passport.

  Lev’s acceptance of his partial guilt was something new in his thinking. In their earlier discussions of an appeal (in 1946–7) he had not acknowledged it or used it in his arguments against Sveta’s suggestion that they try to get his sentence overturned. Perhaps the long years in the camp had worn him down to the point of accepting the injustice done to him. They had certainly taught him that there was nothing special about his own situation. There were many others just like him. ‘I could apply for a change in circumstances if I thought I could make a case as a war hero, let’s say, or at least of having merited a medal,’ he explained to Sveta on 10 May.

  But even I don’t believe that. On the contrary, I think I’m guilty – just not to the extent recorded [in the sentence]. If everything had been written down and taken into consideration correctly, then maybe I would have been given 5 or 3 [years], or even less. But there would still have been something, ‘with all its consequences’. And since that’s the case, it’s impossible to demand that something should be done as if nothing had happened. What should be done? And on what grounds? You see, it’s been difficult for many people, but that’s not grounds for making it easier for everyone. And if it’s made easier for one person, why should that be me? There’s nothing special about me to warrant it. Because I can do more interesting and beneficial work? Actually, I think I can be more useful in my latest profession (electrician) than through scientific work, much less research-based scientific work. I’m never going to turn into any kind of scientific researcher now, but a passable technician – possibly.

  By this time, Sveta had resigned herself to the probability that she and Lev would live apart on his release. It was hard for her to accept after all these years of separation, but her parents needed her to look after them. The best they could hope for, she believed, was for Lev to be allowed to settle somewhere not so far from Moscow so that she could visit him. She wrote to him on 2 May:

  For a long time now I’ve really needed to write you a serious letter and I keep putting it off because it immediately makes me feel depressed, since deep down I just don’t believe that in 6 months everything will somehow get settled and our life together will work out. Either Mama will start to feel even worse, or Papa too will come down with something, or the housekeeper will leave, or there’ll be something else on a global or local scale and I won’t be able to move anywhere, just visit you from time to time. Yes, I need to be prepared for that. So it may not even be necessary to think about my work, just about proximity. What’s closest? Kalinin, I guess. But the closer it is, the more difficult it’ll be for you to find work. In Aleksandrov, for example (even suburban commuter trains travel there), it’s apparently almost impossible to get work because of the abundance of all kinds of specialists. And yet, I suppose if we really are going to live together one day, we should keep my work in mind … There’s no need to think about it straight away as there are other things of more immediate interest – your arrival and our being together, as close as possible, absolutely free and not so tied to work that you can’t come here at any time. You’ll need to arrange some meetings here to clear out all the rubbish of the old umbrellas hanging over you [to remove restrictions from the Gulag]. If that means not working for a while, then so be it. You wouldn’t be the first person in the world to live without a job for a few months …

  Lev was intrigued by the idea of Kalinin, or Tver, as it had formerly been called, a provincial town not far north of Moscow on the railway line to Leningrad. He, too, had been thinking about it as a possible place to settle after Pechora, if the authorities would allow it. ‘I should have also written about Kalinin,’ he replied on 10 May.

  I don’t know what I could find there and whether conditions are the same as in Aleksandrov. But given how tentative our plans are, do we really have to focus on a particular town? So long as there’s a railway station, by which I mean a convenient transport system, then the rest doesn’t really matter that much. What made you think of Kalinin in particular? At any rate, I’ll try to find some natives of Tver here and make inquiries. It’s probably a good place, and there’s always the Volga. But that might also mean it’s overcrowded.

  Sveta had mentioned Kalinin ‘almost accidentally, but not completely’. She had heard that a new tyre factory was going to be built there and thought that she and Lev might both find work in it. ‘The town is growing overall and the suburban electric train will go there soon (although it’s on a good line with at least 6 long-distance trains a day). It’s 167 kilometres [from Moscow] and only a 4-hour journey. Shurka [Aleksandra Chernomordik] went there last summer and says she liked the town.’

  Meanwhile, Sveta found out more about the factories in Voronezh and Yaroslavl. She did not like the Yaroslavl tyre factory: it was ‘so vast and individuals get lost there’. But that might turn out to be an advantage, if Lev got work there, as he would not be noticed as a former prisoner, whereas in Voronezh he would ‘stand out more’. On the other hand, the factory in Voronezh had fewer specialists, which would make it easier for Lev to get a job. ‘At home, I casually asked my parents whether they would like to move to V[oronezh],’ she wrote to Lev on 1 June.

  Papa said ‘Why?’ and Mama, ‘No.’ I didn’t continue the conversation because I have no idea how to discuss such personal matters with them. And why upset them? The decision doesn’t have to be made right away, and we all need to stay alive until that ‘later on’.


  Sveta looked into the railway timetables and drew up a list of towns with their distances from Moscow to consider for the shorter term. ‘So there you go,’ she wrote at the bottom of the list. ‘And what do I know about them? Nothing. But there are factories and electric power stations everywhere. After this, all that’s left is to read the coffee grounds.’ She then laid out the alternatives:

  Possible options:

  1. If the radius is < 100, I can either live and work here and travel to see you or live with you and travel to work and home again. The shorter the radius, the more convenient either option would be.

  2. If the radius is < 200, but >100, the only possibility is for me to live and work here and just come to visit you.

  3. With a radius > 200 there’s still that possibility but visits will obviously be less frequent, and for me to carry on working and live with you, then Yar[oslavl] would still be the best. And with this there are also possible sub-options: either my parents live here or (something that Shurka thinks is completely feasible but that I don’t think Mama would agree to) I move them with me. Then the radius could be even greater, but if Papa doesn’t want to give up working, it’s once again got to be either Yar[oslavl] or Vor[onezh]. We’ve got so used to M[oscow] that I don’t know whether it’s worth moving my parents … The provincial calm and purer air would be much better for them than all the commotion and running around here. But M[oscow] is still better for supplies and medicines (although Shurka says that they have morphine everywhere) … The best option for me – for my peace of mind and so I don’t burst – would obviously be for everybody to live together, otherwise my hives are just never going to go away and I’ll never stop lashing out at people. And it would be easier financially as well. It’s always more expensive living in two homes … In truth, I don’t know what I want.