will build in a swamp”, I laughed – nonsense. Only now I realized what kind of swamps it was.
So, the wheels are knocking, and in total they knocked for 5 days, I stand or sit and look at the door at the endless woods and endlessly stretching water on both sides of the road. Then a third companion of the northern landscape – a stone – was added to the forest and water. There are a lot of stones. Stones of various sizes, from pebbles to rocks. But the rock is just big, it somehow doesn’t affect you by its huge size, but there are stones here, looking at which you open your eyes. Imagine – there is a house with a mezzanine, and next to it is a stone that is one and a half times larger. When we arrived at the Medvezhya Gora11 station, we were told that further the companion of the North – snow – would be added to the forest, water, stones and the already solid cold. As I heard this, my inner veins began to shake. The fact is that at night I cannot sleep for more than two hours in a row – I wake up from a terrible cold, run, go to bed again. More than once I recalled how you, very hesitantly, offered to put on a winter coat.
And then the snow appeared, and with it the blowing wind. We probably would have left our bones, but our superiors figured out to give us overcoats. As I put my overcoat on my coat, I felt like a von baron.12 From the moment of getting the overcoat, I began to look at the world more cheerfully.
Before reaching 240 km to Murmansk, the steam locomotive was replaced by an electric one, and our huge train rushed forward to Murmansk at a speed of 50—60 km/h. Seeing such technology here, we immediately cheered up and decided that we would not be lost.
On the 2nd of June, at 3 pm, we, in full combat form – with suitcases, unwashed mugs, burst at full steam, or rather, at all electric currents, into the northernmost point of the Soviet Union – the ice-free port of Murmansk. This Murmansk is located among the mountains, on the shore of Kola Bay. There is snow on the mountains, although they are not high.
We unloaded, went to the shore, and began to wait in vain.
Again, the eternal question appeared: “Where to be?”
They gave us concentrated food, my favorite peas. We lit fires and made soup from it. I tried to take the soup as thick as possible and ate it with great appetite.
Well, here a story happened. An echelon from Gorky had still arrived before us, so its chiefs, the idiots, gave them the opportunity to get drunk. They all got drunk, stopped listening to any command and scattered into the city. In the city, they committed 20 robberies and struck their commander with a suitcase to his head. They sent us, as an organized public (in Tula, we were drilled) and as the ones dressed in overcoats, to stop this gang. Oh, and they flew from us from the embankment – it was a pleasure to watch. In the city, NKVD13 posted posts, several people were arrested. They will be shot for looting. The commander of that battalion was also imprisoned. He will get 10 years – at least.
At 11 pm we were sent to the NKVD camp. We walked 6 km and stopped. We began to burn fires, warm themselves, and so on. Of course, we did not sleep at night. And we stopped because we were led to the camp where they live, who do you think? – Polish officers. They were taken in Poland, they are here in their uniforms, with epaulets, they built a camp for themselves, lived in it, now they were moved somewhere, and we were in their place. So, we were waiting for their convoy of 6 thousand people to pass along the road. I happened to see three – they were probably sick – they were in a vehicle. Then we set off. We came to the camp and fell on the bunks. We slept until 4 pm today.
I got up, my arms ached, my back too. After all, we moved for 6 days, we slept a little, we also did not eat properly – mostly without water, we did not wash our faces.
With a great effort of will, I forced myself to wash with ice water. Then I shaved with the same water. Now I feel better. All that remained was an abnormal state due to sleep disorder. Today we do anything we want; tomorrow we will go to the bathhouse, get our uniform, and go to our place of residence.
I spoke with the deputy commander of our battalion for political affairs (a very cultured and decent person). He told me that, based on the information he received at the headquarters of the Army, we will travel by steamer for kilometers… two less than four kilometers from us to Manya Loseva’s place of residence.14 We will live on the mainland, on the shore, not on an island. A town has been built there: barracks, a club, etc. A bed system – everyone has a bed and a bedside table. We will work for 8 hours, have drill and political training for 2 hours. We will live on self-financing – we will receive a salary minus 5 rubles 25 copecks for meals daily. Those who are highly qualified, for example, [illegible] locksmith, are said to be able to earn up to 600 rubles a month. We will comply with a special governmental assignment. We need to build something like an underground structure behind Obukhovo by November. After completing this assignment, we will go home, and we will be credited as two years of service.
All this is inaccurate.
I feel OK. I look at the difficulties philosophically – it is very useful for entering into life.
Then bye. My writing desire has dwindled. I wrote all that goes to the head. I didn’t reread it. Many awkward sentences – it’s OK. I didn’t embellish anything – my heart doesn’t want. I write everything that I feel at the moment. I know that you will not let tears fall (sorry).
Well, there are a lot of prisoners here.
Then bye. Hello to everybody. Next letter will be from the place.
I kiss you hard. Yasha
There is no night here – it’s day all the time. It doesn’t get dark at all. Very strange.
4.
8 July 1941
Hello Mom!
I don’t know if you received my letter written on the second day of the war; however, I don’t know if you received the previous ones either, but the fact is that this letter might not have arrived due to martial law.
I can imagine your concern for me because you knew that I was near the border.15 I must say that after the 22nd of June, nothing has changed in our life: we have not seen newspapers from Murmansk, there is no population there. We were informed about the war at a meeting, we hatched our eyes, began to work 12 hours instead of 8, and otherwise everything was the same as before. But now we very often interrupt work and run into the bushes, do not think anything bad, from planes, and they often fly here. Sometimes they flew so low that the fascist signs were clearly visible. I must say that we behaved not like we should have in war: we ran into the bushes without haste, laid down on our sides, on a dry place, leaned out. The Germans decided to teach us a lesson.
You know from the newspapers that on the 29th of June the Germans launched an offensive “on all fronts from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland”. We had a chance to experience it on our shoulders. I will not describe the details, I will only say that we did not eat anything for 5 days, but only walked 50 km a day, over water and mountains – up, down. In addition, we were often bombed. It will seem strange to you, but it turns out that the bombing is not the worst thing. When you are lying and bombs are falling not far from you, this is okay. But when the Germans see people, they start shooting with machine guns when the plane dropped the bomb and goes out of its dive. That’s when bullets fall on you from above, when fragments fly from the stone behind which covered your head, then the heart pours out with cold sweat, and the body is pressed deeper into the ground. I have survived four such bombings – shootings. One shelling lasted for half an hour. After the shelling, because of the nervous tension, I really want to sleep, I feel deep fatigue. Yes, we have gone through