Kolyma stories. Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov Kolyma stories Kolyma stories The last battle of Major Pugachev

First death

I saw a lot of human deaths in the North - perhaps even too many for one person, but the first death I saw is the most vivid of all. That winter we had to work on the night shift. We saw in the black sky a small light gray moon surrounded by a rainbow halo that would light up in extreme frosts. We did not see the sun at all - we came to the barracks (not home - no one called them home) and left them after dark. However, the sun appeared so briefly that it could not even have time to make out the ground through the dense white gauze of frosty fog. Where the sun is, we determined by guess - there was neither light nor heat from it. It was far away - two or three kilometers to walk into the face, and the path lay in the middle of two huge, three-seated snow banks; this winter there were big snow drifts, and after each blizzard the mine was raked out. Thousands of people with shovels came out to clean this road to give passage to vehicles. Everyone who worked to clear the path was surrounded by a shift escort with dogs and kept at work for days on end, not being allowed to warm up or eat in a warm place. Frozen rations of bread were brought on horses, sometimes, if the work was delayed, canned food - one can for two people. On the same horses, the sick and the weak were taken to the camp. People were only released when the job was done, so that they could sleep well and go back out into the cold for their "real" job. I noticed then an amazing thing - it is hard and excruciatingly difficult in such many hours of work only the first six to seven hours are. After that, you lose the idea of time, subconsciously watching only so as not to freeze: you stomp, wave a shovel, not thinking about anything at all, not hoping for anything. The end of this work is always a surprise, sudden happiness, for which you seem to did not dare to count in any way. Everyone is cheerful, noisy, and for a while there is no hunger or deadly fatigue. Hastily lined up in ranks, all cheerfully run "home". And on the sides rise the shafts of a huge snow trench, shafts that cut us off from the whole world. There had been no snowstorm for a long time, and the thick snow had settled, thickened and seemed even more powerful and harder. It was possible to walk along the crest of the rampart without falling through. Both ramparts in several places were cut by a cross road. At about two in the morning we would come to dinner, filling the barracks with the noise of frozen people, the clang of shovels, the loud talk of people coming in from the street, a talk that only gradually fades and fades away, returning to ordinary human speech. At night, lunch was always in the barracks, and not in the frozen dining room with broken glass, the dining room that everyone hated. After dinner, those who had makhorka lit a cigarette, and those who did not have makhorka were left by their comrades to smoke, and in general it turned out that everyone had time to “suffocate”. sentenced to ten years under the fashionable fifty-eighth article, always walked in front of the brigade and always quickly. Our brigade was without escort. There was not enough convoy in those days - this explains the trust of the authorities. However, the awareness of their own peculiarity, lack of convoy for many was not the last thing, no matter how naive it may be. Everyone really liked the endless going to work, it was a matter of pride and boast. The brigade really worked better than later, when the convoy was enough and the Andreev's brigade was equalized in rights with all the others. This night Andreyev led us on a new road - not down, but straight along the ridge of the snow bank. We saw the flickering of the golden lights of the mine, the dark bulk of the forest to the left and the distant peaks of the hills merging with the sky. For the first time at night we saw our dwelling from afar. When we reached the crossroads, Andreev suddenly turned sharply to the right and ran down straight through the snow. Behind him, meekly repeating his incomprehensible movements, people fell down in a crowd, thundering with crowbars, picks, shovels; the instrument was never left at work, it was stolen there, and the loss of the instrument was threatened with a fine. Two steps from the intersection of the road there was a man in military uniform. He was without a hat, his short dark hair was tousled, covered with snow, his greatcoat was unbuttoned. Farther away, led straight into the deep snow, stood a horse harnessed to a light sled, and a woman lay supine at the man's feet. Her fur coat was open, her colorful dress was crumpled. A crumpled black shawl lay around her head. The shawl was trampled into the snow, as was the woman's blonde hair, which seemed almost white in the moonlight. The slender throat was open, and oval dark spots appeared on the right and left of the neck. The face was white, without blood, and it was only by looking closely that I recognized Anna Pavlovna, the secretary of the head of our mine. We all knew her by sight - there were very few women in the mine. Six months ago, in the summer, she walked past our brigade in the evening, and the admiring glances of the prisoners followed her slender figure. She smiled at us and pointed to the sun, already heavy, descending towards sunset. “Soon, guys, soon! She shouted. We, like the camp horses, spent the whole working day thinking only about the minute it ended. And the fact that our simple thoughts were so well understood, and, moreover, such a beautiful woman, according to our then concepts, moved us. Our brigade loved Anna Pavlovna. Now she lay in front of us, dead, strangled by the fingers of a man in military uniform, who looked around in confusion and wildly. I knew him much better. It was our ministry investigator Shtemenko, who "gave the files" to many of the prisoners. He tirelessly interrogated, hired false witnesses-slanderers for a shag or a bowl of soup, recruiting them from hungry prisoners. He assured some of the state necessity of lying, threatened some, bribed some. He did not take the trouble to get to know him before the arrest of a new investigator, to summon him to him, although everyone lived in the same mine. Ready-made protocols and beatings awaited the arrested person in the investigation room. Shtemenko was the very boss who, when he visited our barracks, broke all the prisoners' pots made of cans three months ago - they boiled everything that could be cooked and eaten in them. They carried lunch from the dining room in them, to eat it while sitting and eat it hot, warming up on the stove in their barracks. A champion of purity and discipline, Shtemenko demanded a pick and punched the bottoms of the cans with his own hand. Now, noticing Andreyev two steps away from him, he grabbed the holster of a pistol, but when he saw a crowd of people armed with crowbars and picks, he did not pull out the weapon. But his hands were already being twisted. This was done with passion - the knot was tightened so that the rope had to be cut with a knife. Not everyone went there with Andreyev - many rushed to the barracks, to the soup. ”The chief did not open the door for a long time, seeing through the glass a crowd of prisoners gathered at the door of his house. Finally Andreev managed to explain what was the matter, and he, together with the tied Shtemenko and two prisoners, entered the house. We had dinner that night for a very long time. Andreev was taken somewhere to give evidence. But then he came, gave orders, and we went to work. Shtemenko was soon sentenced to ten years for murder out of jealousy. The punishment was minimal. They tried him at our own mine and after the verdict they took him away somewhere. In such cases, former camp chiefs are kept somewhere else - no one has ever met them in ordinary camps.

I saw many human deaths in the North - perhaps even too many for one person, but the first death I saw I remember most vividly.

We had to work the night shift that winter. We saw in the black sky a small light gray moon surrounded by a rainbow halo that would light up in extreme frosts. We did not see the sun at all - we came to the barracks (not home - no one called them home) and left them after dark. However, the sun appeared so briefly that it could not even have time to make out the ground through the dense white gauze of frosty fog. Where the sun is, we determined by guess - there was no light or heat from it.

It was a long way to go to the face - two or three kilometers, and the path lay in the middle of two huge, three-seated snow banks; this winter there were big snow drifts, and after each blizzard the mine was raked out. Thousands of people with shovels came out to clean this road in order to give passage to vehicles. Everyone who worked to clear the path was surrounded by a shift escort with dogs and kept at work for days on end, not being allowed to warm up or eat in a warm place. Frozen rations of bread were brought on horses, sometimes, if the work was delayed, canned food - one can for two people. On the same horses, the sick and the weak were taken to the camp. People were only released when the work was done, so that they could sleep well and go back out into the cold for their "real" work. I noticed then an amazing thing - it is hard and excruciatingly difficult in such many hours of work only the first six to seven hours are. After that, you lose the idea of time, subconsciously watching only so as not to freeze: you stomp, wave a shovel, not thinking about anything at all, not hoping for anything.

The end of this work is always a surprise, a sudden happiness, on which you seem to have never dared to count on. Everyone is cheerful, noisy, and for a while there is no hunger or deadly fatigue. Hastily lined up in ranks, all cheerfully run "home". And on the sides rise the shafts of a huge snow trench, shafts that cut us off from the whole world.

There had been no snowstorm for a long time, and the thick snow had settled, thickened and seemed even more powerful and harder. It was possible to walk along the crest of the rampart without falling through. Both ramparts were cut in several places by a cross road.

At about two o'clock in the morning we would come to dinner, filling the barracks with the noise of frozen people, the clang of shovels, the loud talk of people who entered from the street, a talk that only gradually fades and fades, returning to ordinary human speech. At night, lunch was always in the barracks, and not in the frozen dining room with broken glass, the dining room that everyone hated. After dinner, those who had makhorka lit a cigarette, and those who did not have makhorka were left by their comrades to smoke, and in general it turned out that everyone had time to “suffocate”.

Our foreman, Kolya Andreev, a former director of MTS, and a real prisoner sentenced to ten years under the fashionable fifty-eighth article, always walked in front of the brigade and always quickly. Our brigade was without escort. There was not enough convoy in those days - this explains the trust of the authorities. However, the awareness of their own peculiarity, lack of convoy for many was not the last thing, no matter how naive it may be. Everyone really liked the endless going to work, it was a matter of pride and boast. The brigade did indeed work better than later, when the convoy was sufficient and the Andreev's brigade was equalized in rights with all the others.

This night Andreev was leading us on a new road - not down, but right along the ridge of the snow shaft. We saw the flickering of the golden lights of the mine, the dark bulk of the forest to the left and the distant peaks of the hills merging with the sky. For the first time at night we saw our home from afar.

Having reached the crossroads, Andreev suddenly turned sharply to the right and ran down straight through the snow. Behind him, meekly repeating his incomprehensible movements, people fell down in a crowd, thundering with crowbars, picks, shovels; the instrument was never left at work, it was stolen there, and the loss of the instrument was threatened with a fine.

A man in a military uniform stood a stone's throw from the crossroads. He was without a hat, his short dark hair was tousled, covered with snow, his greatcoat was unbuttoned. Still further, led straight into deep snow, stood a horse harnessed to a light sled.

And at the feet of this man lay a woman supine. Her fur coat was open, her colorful dress was crumpled. A crumpled black shawl lay around her head. The shawl was trampled into the snow, as was the woman's blonde hair, which seemed almost white in the moonlight. The slender throat was open, and oval dark spots appeared on the right and left of the neck. The face was white, without blood, and it was only by looking closely that I recognized Anna Pavlovna, the secretary of the head of our mine.

We all knew her by sight - there were very few women in the mine. Six months ago, in the summer, she walked past our brigade in the evening, and the admiring glances of the prisoners followed her slender figure. She smiled at us and pointed to the sun, already heavy, descending towards sunset.

- Soon already, guys, soon! She shouted.

We, like the camp horses, spent the whole working day thinking only about the minute of its end. And the fact that our simple thoughts were so well understood, and, moreover, such a beautiful woman, according to our then concepts, moved us. Our team loved Anna Pavlovna.

Now she lay in front of us, dead, strangled by the fingers of a man in a military uniform, who looked around in confusion and wildly. I knew him much better. It was our mine investigator Shtemenko, who "gave the files" to many of the prisoners. He tirelessly interrogated, hired false witnesses-slanderers for a shag or a bowl of soup, recruiting them from hungry prisoners. He assured some of the state necessity of lying, threatened some, bribed some. Before the arrest of a new investigator, he did not bother to get to know him, to summon him to him, although everyone lived in the same mine. The ready-made protocols and beatings were waiting for the arrested person in the investigation room.

Shtemenko was the very boss who, when he visited our barracks, three months ago, broke all the prisoners' pots made of cans - in them they boiled everything that could be cooked and eaten. They carried lunch from the dining room in them, to eat it while sitting and eat it hot, warming up on the stove in their barracks. A champion of purity and discipline, Shtemenko demanded a pick and punched the bottoms of the cans with his own hand.

Now he, noticing Andreev two steps away from him, grabbed the holster of a pistol, but when he saw a crowd of people armed with crowbars and picks, he did not pull out the weapon. But his hands were already being twisted. This was done with passion - the knot was tightened so that the rope then had to be cut with a knife.

The corpse of Anna Pavlovna was put in a bag and moved to the village, to the house of the head of the mine. Not everyone went there with Andreev - many rushed to the barracks, to the soup.

The chief did not open it for a long time, seeing through the glass a crowd of prisoners gathered at the door of his house. Finally Andreev managed to explain what was the matter, and he, together with the bound Shtemenko and two prisoners, entered the house.

We had dinner that night for a very long time. Andreev was taken somewhere to give evidence. But then he came, gave orders, and we went to work.

Shtemenko was soon sentenced to ten years for murder out of jealousy. The punishment was minimal. They tried him at our own mine and after the verdict they took him away somewhere. In such cases, former camp chiefs are kept somewhere else - no one has ever met them in ordinary camps.

First death
I saw many human deaths in the North - perhaps even too many for one person, but the first death I saw I remember most vividly.

We had to work the night shift that winter. We saw a small light gray moon in the black sky, surrounded by a rainbow halo that lit up in severe frosts. We did not see the sun at all - we came to the barracks (not home - no one called them home) and left them after dark. However, the sun appeared so briefly that it could not even have time to make out the ground through the dense white gauze of frosty fog. Where the sun is, we determined by guess - there was no light or heat from it.

It was a long way to go to the face - two or three kilometers, and the path lay in the middle of two huge, three-seated snow banks; this winter there were big snow drifts, and after each blizzard the mine was raked out. Thousands of people with shovels came out to clean this road to give passage to vehicles. Everyone who worked to clear the path was surrounded by a shift escort with dogs and kept at work for days on end, not being allowed to warm up or eat in a warm place. Frozen rations of bread were brought on horses, sometimes, if the work was delayed, canned food - one can for two people. On the same horses, the sick and the weak were taken to the camp. People were only released when the job was done, so that they could sleep well and go back out into the cold for their "real" job. I noticed then an amazing thing - it is hard and excruciatingly difficult in such many hours of work, it is only the first six seven hours. After that, you lose the idea of time, subconsciously watching only so as not to freeze: you stomp, wave a shovel, not thinking about anything at all, not hoping for anything.

Our foreman, Kolya Andreev, a former director of MTS, and a real prisoner sentenced to ten years under the fashionable fifty-eighth article, always walked ahead of the brigade and always quickly. Our brigade was without escort. There was not enough convoy in those days - this explained the trust of the authorities. However, the awareness of their own peculiarity, lack of convoy for many was not the last thing, no matter how naive it may be. Everyone really liked the endless going to work, it was a matter of pride and boast. The brigade did indeed work better than later, when the convoy was sufficient and the Andreev's brigade was equalized in rights with everyone else.

This night Andreev was leading us on a new road - not down, but right along the ridge of the snow shaft. We saw the flickering of the gold lights of the mine, the dark bulk of the forest to the left and the distant peaks of the hills merging with the sky. For the first time at night we saw our home from afar.

A man in a military uniform stood a stone's throw from the crossroads. He was without a hat, his short dark hair was tousled, covered with snow, his greatcoat was unbuttoned. Farther away, led straight into the deep snow, stood a horse harnessed to a light sled.

– Soon, guys, soon! She shouted.

Now she lay in front of us, dead, strangled by the fingers of a man in military uniform, who looked around in confusion and wildly. I knew him much better. It was our mine investigator Shtemenko, who "gave the files" to many of the prisoners. He tirelessly interrogated, hired false witnesses of slanderers for a shag or a bowl of soup, recruiting them from hungry prisoners. He assured some of the state necessity of lying, threatened some, bribed some. Before the arrest of a new investigator, he did not give himself the trouble to get to know him, to call him to him, although everyone lived in the same mine. The ready-made protocols and beatings were waiting for the arrested person in the investigation room.

The corpse of Anna Pavlovna was put in a bag and moved to the village, to the house of the head of the mine. Not everyone went there with Andreev - many rushed to the barracks, to the soup.

We had dinner that night for a very long time. Andreev was taken somewhere to give evidence. But then he came, gave orders, and we went to work.

Shtemenko was soon sentenced to ten years for murder out of jealousy. The punishment was minimal. They tried him in our own mine and after the verdict they took him somewhere. In such cases, former camp chiefs are kept somewhere else - no one has ever met them in ordinary camps.
1956

Aunt Fields
Aunt Paul died in hospital from stomach cancer at the age of fifty-two. An autopsy confirmed the doctor's diagnosis. However, in our hospital, the pathological diagnosis was rarely at odds with the clinical one - it happens in the best and worst hospitals.

Aunt Paulie's last name was only known in the office. Even the wife of the boss, whose aunt Polya had been a "day", that is, a servant for seven years, did not remember the real surname.

Everyone knows who a day-carer or a day-carer is, but not everyone knows who they can be. Confidant of the inaccessible ruler of thousands of human destinies; a witness to his weaknesses, his dark sides. A person who knows the shadow sides of the house. A slave, but also an indispensable participant in the underwater, underground apartment war; a participant or at least an observer of home battles. An unspoken arbiter in quarrels between husband and wife. Leading the household of the boss's family, multiplying his wealth, and not only with economy and honesty. One such day-attendant sold tobacco cigarettes for the chief, selling them to the prisoners for ten rubles a cigarette. The camp chamber of weights and measures has established that a matchbox contains makhorka for eight cigarettes, and an eight of makhorka consists of eight such matchboxes. These measures of bulk solids operate in 1/8 of the territory. Soviet Union- throughout Eastern Siberia.

Our orderly rescued six hundred and forty rubles for each pack of makhorka. But this figure was not, as they say, the limit. It was possible to fill in incomplete boxes - the difference is almost imperceptible at a glance, and no one wants to quarrel with the orderly chief. Thinner cigarettes could be twisted. The whole twist is the work of the hands and conscience of the orderly. Our orderly bought up makhorka from the chief for five hundred rubles a pack. The one hundred forty-ruble difference went into the pocket of the day.

Aunt Poly's owner did not sell tobacco, and in general, Aunt Paul did not have to deal with any shady business. Aunt Paul was a great cook, and the orderlies, versed in cooking, were especially valuable. Aunt Polya could undertake - and indeed did - arrange for one of the fellow Ukrainians to do an easy job or include in some kind of release list. Aunt Paulie's help to her fellow countrymen was very serious. She did not help others, except with advice.

Aunt Polya worked for the boss for the seventh year and thought that all her ten "rokiv" would live comfortably.

Aunt Polya was a calculating, unmercenary person and rightly believed that her indifference to gifts, to money could not but please any boss. Her calculations were justified. She was her own man in the boss's family, and a plan for her release had already been outlined - she had to be listed as a loader of a car at the mine where the boss's brother worked, and the mine would have petitioned for her release.

But Aunt Polya fell ill, she was getting worse, and she was taken to the hospital. The head physician ordered Aunt Pole to be assigned a separate room. Ten half-corpses were dragged into the cold corridor to make way for the daytime chief.

The hospital perked up. Every afternoon in the afternoon, the Wilis came, the trucks came; ladies in sheepskin coats came out of the cabins, military men came out - everyone was striving for Aunt Pole. And Aunt Paul promised everyone: if he recovered, she would put in a word to the boss.

Every Sunday a ZIS 110 limousine drove into the hospital gates - Aunt Pole was being transported a parcel, a note from the boss's wife.

Aunt Polya gave everything to the nurses, she will try a spoon and give it back. She knew her illness.

But Aunt Paul could not recover. And then one day an extraordinary visitor came to the hospital with a note from the chief - Father Peter, as he called himself an orderly. It turns out that Aunt Paul wanted to confess.

Petka Abramov was an extraordinary visitor. Everyone knew him. He even lay in this hospital a few months ago. And now it was Father Peter.

The saint's visit stirred up the whole hospital. It turns out that there are priests in our area! And they confess those who wish! In the largest hospital ward - ward number two, where between lunch and dinner a gastronomic story was told every day by one of the patients, at least not to improve appetite, but because of the hungry person's need to excite food emotions - in this ward they only spoke about Aunt Paulie's confession.

Father Peter was wearing a cap and a pea jacket. His wadded trousers are tucked into old tarpaulin boots. The hair was cut short - much shorter for a person of the clergy than the hair of the dandies of the fifties. Father Peter unbuttoned his jacket and quilted jacket - a blue blouse and a large pectoral cross became visible. It was not a simple cross, but a crucifix - only homemade, carved with a skillful hand, but without the necessary tools.

Father Peter confessed to Aunt Paul and left. He stood on the highway for a long time, raising his arms as trucks approached. Two cars passed without stopping. Then Father Pyotr took out a rolled-up cigarette from his bosom, lifted it over his head, and the very first car slowed down, the driver hospitably opened the cabin door.

Aunt Paul died and was buried in the hospital cemetery. It was a large cemetery under the mountain (instead of "die" the patients said "get under the hill") with mass graves"A", "B", "C" and "D", several chord-shaped lines of graves of individuals. Neither the boss, nor his wife, nor Father Peter were present at Aunt Paulie's funeral. The funeral ceremony was the usual one: a clerk tied a wooden tag with a number on Aunt Paul's left shin. It was the file number. According to the instructions, the number should be written in a simple black pencil, and by no means a chemical one, like on forest topographic benchmarks.

The habitual gravediggers, the orderlies, threw stones at Aunt Paulie's dry body. The orderly fixed a stick in the stones - again with the same personal file number.

Several days passed, and Father Peter came to the hospital. He had already visited the cemetery and was now thundering in the office:

– The cross must be raised. Cross.

– What else, - said the foreman.

They swore for a long time. Finally, Father Peter announced:

– I give you a week of time. If this week the cross is not raised, I will complain about you to the head of the department. That will not help - I will write to the head of Dalstroy. He will refuse - I will complain about him to the Council of People's Commissars. The Council of People's Commissars will refuse - I will write to the Synod, - Father Peter shouted.

The outfit was an old prisoner and knew the "wonderland" well: he knew that the most unexpected things could happen there. And, on reflection, he decided to report the whole story to the chief physician.

The chief physician, who was once either a minister or a deputy minister, advised not to argue and put an end to the grave of Aunt Paulie.

– If the priest speaks so confidently, then there is something here. He knows something. Anything is possible, anything is possible, ”the former minister muttered.

They put up a cross, the first cross in this cemetery. He could be seen far away. And although he was the only one, the whole place took on a real cemetery look. All the walking patients went to look at this cross. And the plaque was nailed with an inscription in a mourning frame. An old artist was instructed to make the inscription, who had been in the hospital for the second year already. He, in fact, did not lie, but only was listed on the bed, and spent all his time on mass production of three types of copies: "Golden Autumn", "Three Heroes" and "Death of Ivan the Terrible." The artist swore that he could paint these copies with his eyes closed. His customers were all the village and hospital bosses.

But the artist agreed to make a plaque for Aunt Paulie's cross. He asked what to write. The outfit rummaged through his lists.

– I can't find anything but the initials, ”he said. - Timoshenko P.I. Write: Polina Ivanovna. She died on that date.

The artist, who never argued with customers, wrote just that. And exactly a week later, Petka Abramov, that is, Father Peter, appeared. He said that Aunt Polya's name was not Polina, but Praskovya, and not Ivanovna, but Ilyinichna. He gave the date of her birth and demanded that she be inserted into the grave inscription. The inscription was corrected in the presence of Father Peter.
1958

The plot of V. Shalamov's stories is a painful description of the prison and camp life of the prisoners of the Soviet GULAG, their tragic fate similar to one another, in which the case, merciless or merciful, an assistant or a murderer, arbitrariness of chiefs and thieves reigns supreme. Hunger and its convulsive satiety, exhaustion, painful dying, slow and almost equally painful recovery, moral humiliation and moral degradation - this is what is constantly in the focus of the writer.

Funeral oration

The author recalls by the names of his comrades in the camps. Recalling the mournful martyrology, he tells who and how he died, who suffered and how, who hoped for what, who and how behaved in this Auschwitz without stoves, as Shalamov called the Kolyma camps. Few managed to survive, few managed to survive and remain morally unbroken.

Life of engineer Kipreev

Having not betrayed or sold anyone, the author says that he has developed for himself a formula for active protection of his existence: a person only then can consider himself a person and withstand, if at any moment he is ready to commit suicide, ready for death. However, later he realizes that he only built a comfortable shelter for himself, because it is not known what you will be in the decisive moment, whether you simply have enough physical strength, not just mental ones. Arrested in 1938, engineer-physicist Kipreev not only withstood the beating during interrogation, but even rushed at the investigator, after which he was put in a punishment cell. However, they still get a signature from him under false testimony, frightened by the arrest of his wife. Nevertheless, Kipreev continued to prove to himself and to others that he was a man and not a slave, as all prisoners are. Thanks to his talent (he invented a way to restore burnt out light bulbs, repaired an X-ray machine), he manages to avoid the most difficult jobs, but not always. He miraculously remains alive, but the moral shock remains in him forever.

On presentation

Camp corruption, Shalamov testifies, to a greater or lesser extent, affected everyone and took place in a variety of forms. Two thieves are playing cards. One of them is played in fluff and asks to play for "presentation", that is, in debt. At some point, infuriated by the game, he unexpectedly orders an ordinary prisoner from among the intelligentsia, who happened to be among the spectators of their game, to hand over a woolen sweater. He refuses, and then one of the thieves "finishes" him, but the sweater still goes to the blatar.

At night

Two prisoners sneak to the grave, where the body of their deceased comrade was buried in the morning, and take off the underwear from the dead man to sell or exchange for bread or tobacco the next day. The initial disgust for the removed clothes is replaced by the pleasant thought that tomorrow they might be able to eat a little more and even smoke.

Single measurement

Camp labor, unambiguously defined by Shalamov as slave labor, for the writer is a form of the same corruption. The gross prisoner is not able to give a percentage rate, so labor becomes torture and slow mortification. Zek Dugaev is gradually weakening, unable to withstand a sixteen-hour working day. He carries, kailit, pours, again carries and again kailit, and in the evening the caretaker appears and measures what Dugaev has done with a tape measure. The named figure - 25 percent - seems to Dugaev very large, his calves ache, his arms, shoulders, head ache unbearably, he even lost the feeling of hunger. A little later, he is summoned to the investigator, who asks the usual questions: name, surname, article, term. And a day later, the soldiers take Dugaev to a remote place surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire from where the chirping of tractors can be heard at night. Dugaev guesses why he was brought here and that his life is over. And he only regrets that the last day was tormented in vain.

Rain

Sherry Brandy

A poet-prisoner dies, who was called the first Russian poet of the twentieth century. It lies in the dark depths of the lower row of solid two-story bunks. It takes a long time to die. Sometimes a thought comes up - for example, that bread was stolen from him, which he put under his head, and it is so scary that he is ready to swear, fight, look ... But he no longer has the strength for this, and the thought of bread also weakens. When a daily ration is put into his hand, he with all his might presses the bread to his mouth, sucks it, tries to tear and gnaw with scurvy loose teeth. When he dies, he is not written off for two more days, and inventive neighbors manage to receive bread for the dead as a living person when distributing them: they make him, like a puppet doll, raise his hand.

Shock therapy

Prisoner Merzlyakov, a man of large physique, finding himself in general work, feels that he is gradually giving up. One day he falls, cannot get up right away and refuses to drag the log. First they beat him, then the guards, they bring him to the camp - he has a broken rib and pains in his lower back. And although the pains quickly passed, and the rib healed, Merzlyakov continues to complain and pretends that he cannot straighten up, trying at any cost to delay the discharge to work. He is sent to the central hospital, to the surgical department, and from there to the nervous one for research. He has a chance to be activated, that is, written off due to illness. Remembering the mine, pinching the cold, a bowl of empty soup, which he drank without even using a spoon, he concentrates all his will so as not to be caught in deception and sent to the penalty mine. However, the doctor Pyotr Ivanovich, himself a prisoner in the past, did not fail. The professional displaces the human in him. Most of his time he spends precisely on exposing simulators. This flatters his pride: he is an excellent specialist and is proud that he retained his qualifications, despite a year of common work. He immediately realizes that Merzlyakov is a simulator, and anticipates the theatrical effect of a new exposure. First, the doctor gives him a raush-anesthesia, during which Merzlyakov's body can be straightened, and after another week, the procedure of the so-called shock therapy, the effect of which is similar to an attack of violent madness or an epileptic seizure. After it, the prisoner himself asks for discharge.

Typhoid quarantine

Prisoner Andreev, falling ill with typhus, goes into quarantine. Compared to general work in the mines, the position of the patient gives a chance to survive, which the hero almost did not hope for. And then he decides, by hook or by crook, to stay here as long as possible, in the transit, and there, perhaps, he will no longer be sent to the golden slaughter, where hunger, beatings and death. At the roll call before the next dispatch of those who are considered recovered to work, Andreev does not respond, and thus he manages to hide for quite a long time. The transit line is gradually emptying, and the turn finally reaches Andreev as well. But now it seems to him that he won his battle for life, that now the taiga is full and if there are dispatches, then only for close, local business trips. However, when a truck with a selected group of prisoners, who were unexpectedly given winter uniforms, passes the line separating short-range missions from distant ones, he realizes with an inner shudder that fate has cruelly laughed at him.

Aortic aneurysm

Illness (and the exhausted state of the "goner" prisoners is quite tantamount to a serious illness, although officially it was not considered such) and the hospital - in Shalamov's stories an indispensable attribute of the plot. Inmate Ekaterina Glovatskaya is admitted to the hospital. Beauty, she immediately liked the doctor on duty Zaitsev, and although he knows that she is in close relations with his acquaintance, prisoner Podshivalov, the head of an amateur art circle ("serf theater", as the head of the hospital jokes), nothing prevents him in turn try your luck. He begins, as usual, with a medical examination of Glovatskaya, with listening to the heart, but his male interest is quickly replaced by a purely medical concern. He finds Glovatska's aortic aneurysm, a disease in which any careless movement can cause death. The bosses who took over unwritten rule to separate lovers, has already once sent Glovatskaya to the penalty female mine. And now, after the doctor's report about the prisoner's dangerous illness, the head of the hospital is sure that this is nothing more than the intrigues of the same Podshivalov, who is trying to detain his mistress. Glovatskaya is discharged, but already when she is loaded into the car, what Dr. Zaitsev warned about happens - she dies.

Major Pugachev's last battle

Among the heroes of Shalamov's prose, there are those who not only strive to survive at any cost, but are also able to intervene in the course of circumstances, stand up for themselves, even risking their lives. According to the author, after the war of 1941-1945. in the northeastern camps began to arrive prisoners who fought and passed German captivity. These are people of a different temper, “with courage, the ability to take risks, who believed only in weapons. Commanders and soldiers, pilots and scouts ... ". But most importantly, they possessed the instinct of freedom, which was awakened in them by the war. They shed their blood, sacrificed their lives, saw death face to face. They were not corrupted by camp slavery and were not yet exhausted to the point of losing their strength and will. Their "fault" consisted in the fact that they were surrounded or in captivity. And it is clear to Major Pugachev, one of such people who have not yet been broken: “they were brought to their death - to replace these living dead,” whom they met in Soviet camps. Then the former major gathers prisoners who are just as decisive and strong, as they match, who are ready to either die or become free. In their group - pilots, scout, paramedic, tanker. They realized that they were innocently doomed to death and that they had nothing to lose. An escape is being prepared all winter. Pugachev realized that only those who pass can survive the winter and after that run. general work... And the participants in the conspiracy, one after the other, are promoted to the subservient: someone becomes a cook, someone a kultorg, who repairs weapons in the security detachment. But now spring comes, and with it the planned day.

At five o'clock in the morning they knocked on the watch. The attendant lets in the camp prisoner cook, who has come, as usual, for the keys to the pantry. A minute later, the attendant is strangled, and one of the prisoners changes into his uniform. The same thing happens with the other duty officer who returned a little later. Then everything goes according to Pugachev's plan. The conspirators burst into the premises of the security detachment and, having shot the officer on duty, seize the weapon. Keeping at gunpoint the suddenly awakened soldiers, they change into military uniforms and stock up on provisions. After leaving the camp, they stop a truck on the highway, disembark the driver and continue their journey by car until the gasoline runs out. After that, they leave for the taiga. At night - the first night at large after long months of bondage - Pugachev, waking up, recalls his escape from a German camp in 1944, crossing the front line, interrogation in a special department, charges of espionage and a sentence of twenty-five years in prison. He also recalls the visits to the German camp of emissaries of General Vlasov, who recruited Russian soldiers, convincing them that for the Soviet regime all of them who were captured are traitors to the Motherland. Pugachev did not believe them until he could be convinced himself. He lovingly looks at the sleeping comrades who believed in him and stretched out their hands to freedom, he knows that they are "better than everyone, more worthy than everyone." And a little later, a battle ensues, the last hopeless battle between the fugitives and the soldiers who surrounded them. Almost all of the fugitives die, except for one, seriously wounded, who is healed in order to then be shot. Only Major Pugachev manages to leave, but he knows, hiding in a bear den, that he will be found anyway. He does not regret what he did. His last shot was at himself.

Retold

I saw many human deaths in the North - perhaps even too many for one person, but the first death I saw I remember most vividly.