Tag #148625 - Interview #95166 (Semyon Vilenskiy)

My father was a brave man and had good organizational skills. At some time he was manager of the office dealing in external sales of wood:  ‘Les Eksport’ [meaning Wood Export] in Arkhangelsk [about 1000 km north of Moscow]. In 1937 all brokers were arrested. Brokers were responsible for quality assurance of wood and support of the trade process. They needed high skills and experience to do their job well and there were not so many of them available. My father went to Moscow. He changed trains fearing an arrest. He went to see Mikoyan [Mikoyan Anastas Ivanovich (1895-1978) – Soviet party and state activist. In 1926 – Minister of Home and Foreign trade of the USSR, in 1946 deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Minister of Foreign Trade]. Mikoyan told my father to wait for him in his office and managed to have few brokers released.  There were no replacements, and to avoid paying forfeits to western companies, the authorities decided to release the brokers. My father told me that he avoided arrest in Arkhangelsk thanks to me. I was 9 or 10 years old, and my father took me with him. We stayed at a hotel. All local NKVD [14] officers were arrested. An officer from another town came to work for NKVD. He had his son with him. Since this man had to work at night, he left his sons at the hotel and we played together.  His father took us to the port on his motorcycle. My father said that if this man had somebody to watch his son, my father would have been arrested. He worked with captains of foreign ships waiting for wood loading in the port, and all of his co-workers were arrested then.