of the consequences. She could not bear to see them go and to never know their fate and condition in the camp. Practically, there was little opposition to this from the regime: one less mouth to consider, one less body to accommodate in the kolkhozes; and the relatives were also relieved not to be labelled as housing the daughter of sentenced persons.
It was already late autumn, 1931. He had anxiously observed the prematurely denuded trees in his own Sumskaya Oblast as he strove to meet the kolkhozes’ deadlines in his increased rounds of veterinary work. He had heard that winter had also come early to the Siberian camps. This last letter, trembling in his fingers, only confirmed those other sporadic ones, and again was too censored to make any sense of his parents’ condition. He sighed, his heart heavy. It had taken so long for this last letter to reach him that he feared his parents might already have met their doomed fate. If he was to try and see them, it had to be before winter was fully upon them, before travel in Russia and in Siberia was made impossible by the harshness of the climate, the massive snows, the freezing temperatures.
For Peter, though he didn’t know it at the time, it was the defining moment of his life.
Chapter 9
Timing was everything. If he had seen a complete map of the Soviet Union, if he had really known the distance he was planning to cover, it must have been only cursorily considered. Just as his parents must have experienced weeks of transportation to their Siberian wasteland prison, so Peter also expected a long journey. ‘Revolutionary’ changes had altered his beautiful Ukrainian culture and life to a point where it was now unrecognisable. But some things always stayed the same. Travel within the regions, and throughout the whole of the Soviet Union was always counted in days, weeks, months. This secret journey would be similar to any that a State official would make for his Party.
Luck would also have to play a part, in order for him to succeed in his plan. His years as veterinary practitioner in his district, and now in the kolkhozes he was forced to supervise, made him relatively valuable to the Communist regime. The regime had brutalised the farmers and peasants, taking all their possessions, and burnt farms to force the villagers into kolkhozes. The hapless farmers took revenge and killed their own livestock rather than lose it to the Stalinist regime.
Peter’s work, in saving what livestock he could, temporarily gave him a higher status in the political upheaval. “It must count for something,” he thought as he considered the possible routes he would need to take, “that already I am trusted on longer journeys without checks, at times.” He had to use this to full advantage in the limited time available. The irony, that he was placed in this situation in his work, whilst his parents suffered at the hands of these same officials, played on his mind. It deepened his resolve to help his parents, to save them if it was possible.
Luck of a different kind, in the form of his despairing close friend, gave Peter the chance to finalise his plan. “Count me in with you, Petro! We will need each other for this journey, my friend!” Mikhaelo pleaded with him, in the secrecy of their meeting. His parents also had been sentenced, but recently, to the same area of Siberia. Each knew the risks involved if their plan was discovered. Trust in each other was paramount, on pain of death.
Their plan was simple, audacious. A senior veterinary practitioner, with an assistant, travelling on official business across the Oblasts, seemed plausible. Only the Oblasts were covered in the documents. Their real destinations were omitted: Omsk and Novosibirsk, the new cities created by the regime and from which the Siberian wastelands and labour camps stretched northwards towards the Arctic Circle. Communist Party propaganda, zealously printed in the Party run newspaper Pravda, espoused the virtues of the gold mines, oil research and industrial expansion of the Siberian region. But others knew the truth. Peter’s, and Mikhailo’s, parents were evidence of this.
In final preparation, they meticulously wrapped salted pork in thick durable cloth, which they then sewed into the front lining of their long, heavy winter coats, still serviceable from their army days. The weight was staggering, yet light compared with the inner burdens they carried. This hidden food was for their parents. It was too dangerous to visibly carry food anywhere now. Not only was food scarce. The regime was following a campaign of starvation in the Ukraine and elsewhere. People were killed in acts of desperation for carrying even small parcels of food, and they knew this. What little money they had was for emergencies, should their forged food vouchers fail.
In the murky dawn light, Evdokia saw her husband to the door of the kolkhoz farmhouse, which they shared with four other families. Peter seemed his usual, sprightly confident self. He resisted holding her that moment longer as he departed, her soft blonde hair merging with hoary mist as she turned to close the door. She had no inkling of what lay ahead for them both—he had spared her this, as the secrecy protected not only her and little Vanya, but also the other families in the farmhouse. The regime was superb at reprisals. It was best that she knew only that he had extended travel for official business. “Dear God, be near to them,” he pleaded as he turned to grasp his horse’s reins.
If there was a moment of truth to be faced at their parting that chilly morning, he pushed it even further from his mind. His new wife and little son needed him. Yet he needed to make this mad, possibly last, gesture to his parents, who may already have perished in Stalin’s labour camp.
Chapter 10
Pretence and opportunity were the daily dice Peter tossed and rolled as he played Russian roulette with their lives, picking their way north-eastward through the Oblasts. It was a haphazard and indirect route, yet believable. It reflected the idiosyncrasies of the regime’s own bureaucrats following inexplicable instructions in the blaze of the first Five Year Plan. And his years of national service and subsequent travels beyond his own Sumskaya Oblast prepared him to act ‘nationally’ on this journey. He was the confident senior veterinary practitioner, with an assistant, on an important mission around the countryside. His veterinary’s satchel, with its distinctive insignia on the front, became the immediate foil to anticipated questions from police and officials. The battered bag metamorphosed into a symbol of honour in the urgent need to save livestock at this crucial stage of collectivisation. Using clichés and correct terminology, he was a convincing, loyal bureaucrat. “God help us, if they see the discrepancies,” he warned himself. He flicked again through the forged documents and checked the locked clasp.
He knew he had to be courageous, for both of them. Watchful of Mikhaelo’s trembling state as they approached each searchpoint, he showed his daring and wore the mantle of senior bureaucrat ever more confidently, having encouraged Mikhaelo to act obsequiously as his junior. As each part of their jigsaw journey took them closer to their crossroads destination, Peter’s shoulders tensed taut like steel. He felt with each passing day, and each checkpoint, as if he were in some kind of circus, walking the tightrope, jumping the hoops to the crack of an invisible master’s whip. Reality became almost blurred in the daily charade: the caged creature and its master pitted against each other, in a ruthless contest of wills. It was a wicked reality, and one that could end their lives.
At last, in wan light, Ekaterinburg came into sight. “Ah! We may yet have a chance!” he whispered in relief and gently nudged Mikhaelo. The first part of their journey in their pilgrimage to the labour camp was complete. From this Ural Mountains crossroad, the great Trans-Siberian Railway turned its back on European Russia and looked eastwards to the Siberian and Asian Oblasts. Soft snow was falling; winter was not far from this distant doorstep of the Arctic Circle. Peter and Mikhaelo instinctively drew closer to each other for solace and support. Food was already scarce, and they hadn’t yet begun the Siberian part of their journey. They counted their kopeks carefully for their meagre meal. They huddled in the carriage, and soaked crusts of stale black rye bread in a soup caricatured
