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So, there was a firm decision taken to go to Spain. I was responsible for buying bread for the family. I saved some change each time till I had enough to buy a train ticket to Rzhev. I plotted the route: the nearest was the Latvian border, from there I would get to the sea, take a boat to France and then cross the border to Spain. I drew the route on the map of Europe; this map is still kept in my files in the Ministry of Home Affairs archives. For the case I would be captured by the opposite side in Spain I had typed a pile of anti-Soviet flyers on our typewriter at home. So I took a train to Rzhev from where several international trains were going to Riga.
I got to Rzhev [about 200 km west of Moscow] and managed to get into an international railcar. It was empty and all doors to the compartments, but one, were locked. My heart was pounding. I got into this compartment: there were rolled mattresses on the third bench and I hid behind them. I woke up from the noise of slamming doors: a frontier man and the conductor were inspecting the railcar. They didn’t notice me and the border was crossed easily. So all I had to do was stay quiet till the train reached Riga [about 680 km west of Moscow]; it was like a sentence to ten years in prison to wait that long. At the first stop I got out of the railcar and into an empty barrel without a bottom to spend the night. A janitor discovered me and took me to the local police who put me back on the train to transfer me to the transportation and road department of the Rzhev NKVD office.
They searched me and discovered a compass, a map and the flyers with the false slogans of the Soviet power, about the absence of freedom and lines for bread. ‘Who gave you these, boy and where were you going to take this anti-Soviet stuff?’ ‘I wrote them myself’. I spent the first month in a cell of t 4х1.5 meters and about 2.5 meters high. There was a bed attached to the wall, a stool and a bulb over a small window with a wooden shield outside. Later I learned that this shield was called a ‘muzzle’ in prisoners’ jargon. It was tightly adjusted to the wall from the outside leaving only a palm-wide slit on top through which the prisoners saw a piece of sky. There was not even a table or a toilet in the cell. The latter became the cause of my first conflict. According to the procedures for bull pens there was a schedule for going to the toilet to be followed by the convoy, while I believed that I could go to the toilet whenever I wished. I knocked on the door, but they didn’t let me out. I complained to a supervisor who explained the procedure to me. I got along well with my guards. They were young guys who were probably serving their mandatory army term. They didn’t bother me with interrogations and came to my cell twice a week.
I got to Rzhev [about 200 km west of Moscow] and managed to get into an international railcar. It was empty and all doors to the compartments, but one, were locked. My heart was pounding. I got into this compartment: there were rolled mattresses on the third bench and I hid behind them. I woke up from the noise of slamming doors: a frontier man and the conductor were inspecting the railcar. They didn’t notice me and the border was crossed easily. So all I had to do was stay quiet till the train reached Riga [about 680 km west of Moscow]; it was like a sentence to ten years in prison to wait that long. At the first stop I got out of the railcar and into an empty barrel without a bottom to spend the night. A janitor discovered me and took me to the local police who put me back on the train to transfer me to the transportation and road department of the Rzhev NKVD office.
They searched me and discovered a compass, a map and the flyers with the false slogans of the Soviet power, about the absence of freedom and lines for bread. ‘Who gave you these, boy and where were you going to take this anti-Soviet stuff?’ ‘I wrote them myself’. I spent the first month in a cell of t 4х1.5 meters and about 2.5 meters high. There was a bed attached to the wall, a stool and a bulb over a small window with a wooden shield outside. Later I learned that this shield was called a ‘muzzle’ in prisoners’ jargon. It was tightly adjusted to the wall from the outside leaving only a palm-wide slit on top through which the prisoners saw a piece of sky. There was not even a table or a toilet in the cell. The latter became the cause of my first conflict. According to the procedures for bull pens there was a schedule for going to the toilet to be followed by the convoy, while I believed that I could go to the toilet whenever I wished. I knocked on the door, but they didn’t let me out. I complained to a supervisor who explained the procedure to me. I got along well with my guards. They were young guys who were probably serving their mandatory army term. They didn’t bother me with interrogations and came to my cell twice a week.
Period
Location
Russia
Interview
Vladimir Tarskiy