by Eric Raynaud
The weather here is typically Siberian. One gets the feeling that it will never be possible to take off the padded jacket. The weather is unpredictable: one day, it’s sunny with temperatures between 16 and 20°C, then for two or three days, rainy and cold.
Imagine what it is to have to stand for 25 to 40 minutes under the rain during the roll call. Water runs down your neck, everything is damp, and where could we dry our clothes? Nowhere, my darling. What kind of life is this? They say it is a camp “for babies” here; other places are even worse.
Say hi to Borka for me [in all likelihood, Boris S., a friend of the Vetrovs, and Svetlana’s lover]. What’s the latest with him? I count on him, on his noble soul, his intelligence, etc. I’m not going to praise him too much, so he doesn’t become big-headed.
Please write. Hello to Lyova and Mila, to all our friends worrying about me.
Love
Dad (signature)
I forgot to tell you that the blank envelopes you put in the envelope with the letter to me were received with the right side cut with scissors. I glued the pieces back together. I do not know in what condition they are when you receive them in return. Sending kisses.
June 15, 1983
Svetik! Vladia!
Today, I received your letters. I have a hard time imagining your distress and grief, having to pay over 1,200 rubles. To whom and why? Because I am in prison?
Sveta! Stay calm, control yourself. Take your courage in both hands and go to a law consultancy. Nina eventually found a good lawyer. It is necessary to find out whether the State is acting legally.
I gathered some information on the situation. They explained to me that there is a decree adopted by the plenary session of the Supreme Court in 1962, which specifies that if the victim was the breadwinner, the murderer must pay damages. So, this is me, and not my family. I work here, all they have to do is deduct from my salary as much as possible. For instance, I earn 45 rubles per month; if the allowance is 83 rubles, minus my salary, we have 83-45 = 38 rubles. Those 38 rubles constitute what they call arrears, a debt which will accumulate. The daughter will turn eighteen, but I will continue to pay until I manage to reimburse the total amount which was due until her eighteenth birthday, on the basis of 83 rubles a month.
They say we have common assets, my things, etc. which should be inventoried and taxed. That may be true; at least that’s what they say. But you must say that you sold all my things, that you don’t have anything left that belonged to me. The court must immediately send an order for debt recovery to camp 272/3 in Irkutsk. The living allowance has priority. If I earn 85 rubles, they’ll take the 83. That’s all.
Don’t worry, I beg you. It’s hard for me to write today. I am very upset, and this anger will end poorly for somebody.
I love you all very much, my dearest. Congratulations to Vladik for his excellent grades. Keep going that way, young man! Kisses!
If this doesn’t lead anywhere, there is another solution, a lousy one, a formality, but it would save you from bankruptcy. You will have understood me, Svetlanka [Vetrov is thinking about divorce].
Love
(Signature)
June 1983
I committed a crime, and this disgrace will be with me for the rest of my life. What do I have left, then? Struggling for survival, that’s all. And how? You know I’ll get through, it is a sure thing.
July 2, 1983
We were idealistic, we were dedicated to the cause, we were trying hard, we were absolutely honest, and ready to go to a lot of trouble for our homeland. And in spite of everything, believe me, that’s the way we’ll remain.
July 10, 1983
Svetik! Vladia! Babushka!
With Vlad. Mikh. [Vladimir Mikhailovich, another inmate] we’re having a party. Valentina Utkina has arrived, and we received a parcel: fresh, salt and smoked pork; four packs of candy and a shirt. Thank you so much for everything, especially for the pork and the two packs of Indian tea. In Irkutsk, tea is pressed into bars, it is dust, not tea. In the colony, chifir8 connoisseurs prefer tea “Made in India” with three elephants on the label.
Svetik, sweetheart, my darling, you must be so tired. I caused you a lot of worries and unpleasant trouble. I understand why you feel sad, and sick and tired of everything. Your beloved son has left. The apartment is empty without him. Don’t be saddened, live a full life, life is beautiful. It is now, precisely only now, that you can start to understand the joy and appeal of freedom.
It’s all just talk, or rather the rambling of a suffering soul, ashes of the heart that either consumed itself or is burning of a raging fire I am afraid may spread, devouring everything in its path. Reality shapes our view of the world, not the current reality here, but the analysis of past impressions. All around, it is horror, hypocrisy and duplicity. How is all this going to end? Is it a suitable topic in letters to one’s beloved wife? Svetik, bear with me, that’s the stuff of my current life. Thoughts are racing in my head. What for? I don’t know. I am probably turning mean, maybe mad at reality. Grant you, I am here of my own doing, and that’s not what makes me mad; I am mad at the reality of our life, at people’s misery. And, on top of it, this is a widely spread phenomenon, an epidemic. I may be mean, but I am smart, fair and, to this day, kind.
Today, we spent the evening listening to music, like in a club. We listened to memories about Ruslanova.9 Why her? Turns out, she spent six long years in the Irkutsk region, transporting barrels of water on a telega. Can you imagine this beautiful woman, at the peak of her glory and success, living in the forest? Why do I write about her? I just listened to a song about a cattle car or a shack, with those words: “I am far away from you, getting back with you would be difficult, but death is only four steps away.”10 All this is so true. We live like in wartime, and death is right here, nearby! No sniveling. I am alive, I’ll live with you again, I’ll return and will stay at your side. I’ll endure it all, I promise! Even at death’s door, I won’t surrender. I want to take you in my arms, get down on my knees in front of you, kiss your lips, then expire deeply, and come what may. By then, maybe your life will have changed, or circumstances won’t make it possible to see you again. Anything can happen in life. I am not philosophizing, it’s just a fact.
Wait for me, do something. I understand right now there is not much you can do, but still, keep trying, keep the initiative. Svetik, what a horrible mess I am in.
They probably should have shot me, your life would have been easier. Volodka Yashechkin is no more, nor is Andryushka Kuznetsov, and then it will be my turn to disappear, too. What would that change in life? Absolutely nothing. Living like slaves! It’s so sickening, especially when one can have only contempt for the guards surrounding us.
What’s new at home? You never say a thing about your mother. How is she doing? What does she do during the day, does she visit with the other babushki chatting in the yard, what do they say about me and the family?
How are Borka, Alexei and G. Vas. [the Rogatins] doing? Can’t they help me, maybe not this minute, but in general? Oh my friends-comrades! In any case, say hi to them from me. Sell the garage. I asked you before, please do it, have your portrait made, I beg you. It’s my last request from you and Vladik. Please…
What’s the latest with Iv. Grig., did he buy Katia’s house? Write more often, and longer letters.
This letter is probably the last one; I’ll be allowed to send only three censored letters per month; or I’ll have to find other ways, illegal ones, to send you letters.11
Please ask Lev to prepare a few records for me, if possible, that you’ll bring when you come visit me. Tell Lev that there is very little chance to organize a concert here, in the colony that is, because there is no money to pay for it. It would be good to organize the concert through the MVD in Moscow, they could sponsor it. That would be great. Seeing you, I’d live again. Everything would get back to normal, maybe; right now everything makes me puke. Don’t forget what we talked about in Lefortovo.12
<
br /> If Vladik writes to you (talk about a lazy bunch, this one), send him my best, always.
Svetik, I’m ashamed of asking this, but are you really waiting for me? Silly me, right? I want so bad to see you, to live with you, to kiss you all, and fight together. Precisely together, always together.
Love
(Signature) Dad
#17 (I am not sure, but this must be the right one)
July 16, 1983
Believe me, everything will be OK. Evil won’t stick to me, never. I’ll remain the same: an honest man, straight, kind, with a good sense of humor, not an alarmist, ideologically constant.
Lastly, here is the letter Vetrov wrote to his son on the eve of Vladik’s wedding, which took place on August 25, 1984. The name of Vladik’s wife is also Svetlana.
Vladik!
Congratulations on this solemn day of your life and, from the bottom of my heart, my best wishes for a happy family life to your young bride and yourself. Remember that starting a family places new responsibilities on your shoulders that are not that strong yet. It’s not good enough to find happiness, one has to preserve it. This is mostly up to you.
Total trust and mutual respect must be the foundation of family life. Those two things are essential to happiness and love.
The great Russian writer A. M. Gorky said about family that a young man must choose a life companion who resembles him, that husband and wife somehow complete one another, and that a wife is another self.
True love happens only once in a lifetime, so family is created for centuries to come. Never forget this!
Vladia, let me say a few words to Svetlana junior (allow me to call you this way, Svetlana).
Svetlana junior, as Vladik’s father, I can tell you that he is a wonderful young man; intelligent, good-hearted, loving, frank, a bit touchy, that’s true, especially when criticized, but overall, a solid personality.
The sky above your heads is free of clouds that might cast a shadow on your happiness.
Helping one another, gain life experience, start fending for yourselves, be open to the world, don’t be a couple turned only onto itself, acquire knowledge, fill your little heads, it is essential in life. Knowledge is wisdom, kindness, bliss. If you have the opportunity to finish graduate school, do it.
And let me now cry out to you “It’s bitter!”13 and wish you “advice and love.”14
Father (Signature)
CHAPTER 30
Portrait of the Hero as a Criminal
Vetrov’s letters are very informative. Considering the complexity of Vetrov’s “dual” personality, however, one has to refrain from choosing easy shortcuts and simplifications to describe him. He was neither a precursor of perestroika, nor an immoral bastard. Rather than simplifying him, it seemed more important to mine the ambiguities of his character from the correspondence. Such an approach should help understand Vetrov’s true nature, maybe even pierce his mystery.
The first interpretation of the letters is positive and, to some extent, closely akin to Vetrov’s description given by his handler Patrick Ferrant.
Family first. We discover a man deeply in love with his wife, for whom he has no shortage of tender words. Anxious to preserve her material survival, he thinks about all the possible solutions to avoid her ruin, going as far as suggesting in veiled terms a sacrificial divorce, a “lousy solution, a formality.”
A loving father, he still wants to help his son Vladik further his education; he cannot help praising him again, as in the good old times in the conversations with Ferrant, his only confidant. When you think of it, writing the letter to his future daughter-in-law must have been especially heartbreaking for Vetrov. He wrote it in August 1984, from Lefortovo, at a time when he must have known what was in store for him.
Love of the homeland. Vetrov comes across as the visceral patriot described by Ferrant. He sees himself as Ferrant perceived him: “We were idealistic, we were dedicated to the cause, we were trying hard, we were absolutely honest, and ready to go to a lot of trouble for our homeland.”
More surprising, his fidelity to his country takes an ideological dimension that did not show through when he was with Ferrant. We discover a sincere Marxist, who refers to Karl Marx as a “unique and remarkable” man, and he advises his son to read books about the origins of the workers’ movement. So now the feeling is one of an idealist who loves his country, is “ideologically constant,” but disgusted at a corrupt regime plagued by nepotism, where all ideals have been betrayed, including Marxist ideals.
As for his fundamental hatred for the KGB, understandably he could not vent it in a correspondence he knew was intercepted. We know, however, through the investigation file, that Vetrov could not refrain from writing letters critical of Soviet power. In part of the correspondence we had access to, one can sense his obsessive frame of mind in the regrets he expresses about Soviet leaders having retained nothing of the “remarkable” Marxist spirit.
Then come the remorseful moments, when he regrets the harm he caused to his family: “I caused you a lot of worries and unpleasant trouble.” Lastly, he mentions the crime, which he seems to consider as a misfortune that happened to him. Without naming Ludmila, toward whom he is still feeling a ferocious hatred, he mentions he is the one responsible for his actions and must pay the price: “I committed a crime, and this disgrace will be with me for the rest of my life.” In another letter he says, “I am here, nowhere to go to evade punishment and regrets.” Those thoughts assailing him resemble an ordinary feeling of regret. With Vetrov, though, nothing is ever ordinary, and the only regrets he expresses refer to the fact that he is behind bars, and not to the murder.
Of course, he is able to swiftly dismiss those gloomy thoughts, and in no time we are back with a naturally cheerful Vetrov who likes the good things in life. He thinks about his release from prison, his return to his wife and his son. The reality of the situation soon resurfaces, however, and a maelstrom of allusions lets the reader imagine Vetrov’s train of thoughts about his insane undertaking: “Reality shapes our view of the world, not the current reality here, but the analysis of past impressions. All around, it is horror, hypocrisy and duplicity. How is all this going to end?” Haunted by his fate, almost in a moving way, Vetrov whistles in the dark, and unexpectedly plunges into a form of mysticism: “Well, my dearest ones, chin up! Everything will pass. The darkness surrounding me will open and, like Christ, I will walk toward you crossing a sea of blood. I’ll survive.”
Another deep contradiction can be noted in this last sentence: his “I’ll survive” concludes an unmistakably mystical phrase. It is well known that mysticism is not only a quest for spiritual elevation, it is also an indirect way of accepting death.
And now, the prosecution has the floor. Taking the opposite viewpoint, and seeing Vetrov from the victims’ perspective, those letters may shock in many ways and reveal the dark side of his character.
It appears right away that Vetrov is no Raskolnikov. Nowhere in his letters or conversations with his family is there any indication that he regretted having taken someone’s life while trying to kill the woman he had loved. Guilt and regret are two concepts that seem totally absent from his thoughts. He has always viewed himself as a perfect man: “an honest man, straight, kind.” And an ultimate irony considering his situation is this excerpt from his service evaluation file: “ideologically constant.”
In fact, the murderer Vetrov thinks he is the victim. Like most criminals, he must have ended up sincerely believing the version he had polished for the investigation. As confirmed by criminal psychology specialists,1 it is ludicrous to ask a murderer why he is behind bars. The answer is always the same: “For nothing!” or “Because of a chick!” which comes to the same thing in his mind. Yes, he wanted to kill this woman, but deep down she is the one responsible for it. Vetrov, as confirmed by Svetlana, had the same line of reasoning. Yes, he killed, but it is because he lost control. Provoked by a woman such as Ochikina, any man would have flown off
the handle as he did! But as he explicitly says himself, “Evil won’t stick to me, never.”
Undoubtedly, the KGB destruction mission he had given himself with a passion had eventually blinded him. The goal he had set for himself, together with his own destiny, became much more important to him than the few collateral victims who crossed his path. Like a hero of the Revolution, he ignored them. The end justifies the means.
It is because he viewed himself as a martyr that he quotes so many wartime songs. Vetrov likens himself to fighters who flirt with death in trenches, or to Stalinist repression victims when he refers to the singer Ruslanova. From this perspective, the quote “We were idealistic, we were dedicated to the cause, […] we were absolutely honest, and ready to go to a lot of trouble for our homeland” acquires another nuance. He is more reminiscent of an old Bolshevik from the early beginnings who, starving and freezing in a Stalinist camp, would stick to his communist ideals no matter what.
When reading his “mystical” sentence, “The darkness surrounding me will open and, like Christ, I will walk toward you crossing a sea of blood,” one wonders whether Vetrov still had his wits about him. Apparently, this phrase betrays his conviction that, like Jesus, he had to follow the Way of the Cross, a path of passion and suffering. The difference between their respective situations—one gave his blood for others, the other shed others’ blood for himself—does not bother him. Also, this sentence does not mean at all that he was, or had become, a believer. Criminologists know that, more often than not, inmates delight in displaying religiosity. It is their self-justification. If I believe in God, I cannot be guilty. This is part of their self-defense reactions; they have an impressively clever arsenal of defense tricks.