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Тёмная пустота

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schtsch

Статистика

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Тёмная пустота: Part 1 (Ch. 8)


Chapter 8. Exodus

This continued until the arrival of Soviet Power, collectivization and dispossession.

In those years, Baba Arina's parents, her husband Nikolai and younger daughter Tamara lived in the estate. Nikolai was an outsider in the family. He once came to the estate with a letter of recommendation from a good friend of Baba Arina's father as a candidate for the position of manager. At that difficult time, there were not plenty of able-bodied men, not to mention those with education and recommendations. The newcomer did not shine with exterior, but he managed the household well, and he was of a cooperative character. Baba Arina had to help her parents manage the estate, so Nikolai first helped Arina and got acquainted with the farm, and then he took it on his shoulders and neck. So they met and began to learn about each other.

The fiery passion that Chevalier Champigny and great-great-grandmother Mariana once experienced was not the case between Arina and Nikolai, but they understood each other well and deeply respected each other, and this was enough for their union. In the autumn of the following year, after the harvest, Nikolai and Arina got married. God sent them four children – three sons and a daughter in the end. Yes, that's just to rejoice in the help of filial hands and babysit grandchildren Arina and Nikolai did not happen. One by one, all the young men were taken away by the war. The elder did not return home from the front of the First World War. The second son served under the command of General Kornilov during the war. After the October revolution, he followed Kornilov to the Don and joined the White Guard Volunteer Army. His further fate is unknown. The youngest son, while studying at the district centre, was imbued with the ideas of the Bolsheviks, dropped out of school and became a red activist.

In February 1930, a secret instruction was issued by the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the USSR "On the eviction and resettlement of kulak[i] farms", signed by the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of the USSR M.I. Kalinin and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR A.I. Rykov, in which "in order to decisively undermine the influence of the kulaks" and "suppress all attempts at counter-revolutionary counteraction" The United State Political Administration (OGPU) was instructed to evict the kulak asset, the richest kulaks and half-peasants to remote areas; to settle the rest of the kulaks within the area in which they live, on new plots assigned to them outside the collective farms. In the areas of collectivization, according to the instructions, the kulaks confiscated "means of production, livestock, household and residential buildings, industrial and commercial enterprises, food, fodder and seed stocks, surplus household property, as well as cash." A limit of "up to 500 rubles per family" was fixed out of cash for settling in a new place. Savings registration books were withdrawn for transfer to the bodies of the People's Commissariat of Finance, the issuance of deposits and the issuance of loans against collateral was stopped. Shares and deposits were withdrawn, owners were excluded from all types of cooperation.

At the beginning of March of the same year, when the snow had just begun to melt, an armed detachment of Red Army soldiers came to the estate to execute the decree. Under the threat of death, the family had to immediately leave the estate and transfer all available property to a representative of the Soviet Government. They were allowed to take a bundle of clothes per person and personal documents with them. Baba Arina's husband Nikolai was accused of connexion and complicity with the White Guards on the grounds that one of his sons served in the Volunteer Army. The only thing that saved him from being shot was that his younger son served the Soviets and by that time already held some post in the district leadership.  The leader of the OGPU detachment was engaged in the confiscation of property. First of all, he seized a casket with women's jewellery and heirlooms, and then – documents on the ownership of the estate. Champigny's medallion was always kept in that casket. So he disappeared for the family.

The dispossessed were ordered to arrive at the district centre for further instructions. The victims of the legalized robbery were taken to the centre on their former cart pulled by one of their former horses. An armed Red Army soldier was driving the cart. In the district centre, the Red Army soldier dropped them off in front of the building of the city council, and he left back. The square in front of the council was crowded with families of dispossessed from other farms, and confusion reigned. On the opposite side of the square from the council was the building of the railway station and the tracks. Nikolai had a reputation in the town as a good business executive and a decent man. He had acquaintances among the wayfarers. Nikolai offered to escape before they were locked up in some basement or warehouse. He found someone he knew at the station who helped the fugitives get into the train's east-bound train. Nikolai was originally from Stavropol and hoped that relatives and friends there would help the family settle down. Miraculously, they managed to get to Nikolai's native village, but Baba Arina's father caught a bad cold and fell ill on the way. Shortly after arriving in Stavropol, he died. Baba Arina's mother could not recover from the grief, she cried all the time and in the same year she passed away after her husband. At the new place, the family was accepted into the collective farm, where Nikolai was assigned to manage the cattle yard.

When the Great Patriotic War began in 1941, Nikolai's great-grandfather was not drafted into the army by age, but his mother's father, grandfather Fyodor, to whom Tamara was married by that time, was taken away. Baba Tamara was pregnant by that time. When my mother was born, her father had already arrived at the front. Baba Tamara sent him a photo of her daughter in a letter, and grandfather Fyodor may even have received it and seen it. But there was no letter from him. The military enlistment office reported that the unit in which grandfather Fyodor fought was surrounded. He was not listed in the lists of the dead, but he did not return from the war.  Grandfather Fyodor is considered missing. The DDT group has a wonderful song "The Missed". The road was not named after my grandfather, but the parents called me. I am a living monument to my grandfather, one of the defenders of our Motherland.

Great-grandfather Nikolai lived in his native village until the end of his life. Before retiring, he held the position of head of the household. He was not appointed to the post of chairman of the agricultural committee because of his non-partisanship and "kulak" origin. He didn't live long enough to see me born. The death of my great-grandfather from a heart attack on the second day after my parents' wedding overshadowed the celebration. Such was the topsy-turvy background to the arrival of Baba Arina.


[i] Kulak (/ˈkuːlæk/; Russian: кула́к; plural: кулаки́, kulakí, 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), …, was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over 8 acres (3.2 hectares) of land towards the end of the Russian Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak
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