Memoir of a Gulag Actress

Chapter 9

~Chapter9~ It was 1947. People who had built the camps in the impassable taiga—not just for themselves but also for those who would come to replace them—were preparing to be released. Those who survived imagined freedom as a chance to return to their interrupted former lives. They were busy writing letters to friends and relatives, mending their old clothes and sneaking peeks at themselves in the mirrors. The half-sane joy in their eyes was mixed with a deep-seated fear: somewhere, in the dens of secrecy and bureaucracy, the same anonymous power, driven by incongruous principles that only its own agents could know, randomly marked people’s fates, capriciously determining whether or not to release them. Regardless of their term and sentence, and without an additional trial, some prisoners were kept behind, their release dates passing like so many grains in the wind. The entire cohort of prisoners from ’37 was living as if under high voltage, yearning only to step over the threshold of the camp’s checkpoint. They had sustained themselves for ten years in various ways: some derived strength from the love for their families, others—from obstinacy. Those denied release wasted away within weeks, turning into decrepit wrecks. When the first batch of prisoners got out, unexpected news spread around the camps: it was forbidden to settle in Leningrad, Moscow or any of the capitals of the many Soviet republics. At local police stations, all 58-ers were issued temporary IDs instead of a regular passport. These IDs were stamped with a “39,” which in the language of passport regulations meant that they were restricted from living in a total of 39 cities throughout the country. The list also included ports and towns close to state borders. Former political prisoners were allowed to live only in areas at least 101 kilometers away from the specified centers. Thus, if a released prisoner and his family wished M E M O I R O F A G U L A G A C T R E S S 320 to reunite, the family members had to move to a provincial town or endure living in two homes, the family remaining in the capital and the released prisoner—101 kilometers away. Painful questions that had grown like thorns into the prisoners’ hearts over the years of their imprisonment would manifest themselves time and again. Not everyone knew that their family had fallen apart. Many came to understand this only now. They had long dreamed with bated breath of meeting with their children but disregarded just one thing: over the course of ten years, they had become old and vaguely familiar people for their daughters and sons, who could have been only two or three years old when their parents were sent away but were now in fifth or sixth grade at school. It wasn’t rare that children, now living with new families, had no desire to recognize their real parents, who had served time in prisons and camps for some obscure crimes. The return of prisoners to those who had, whether deliberately or by accident , betrayed them back in ’37 was devastating. Each case and trial involved two or three “witnesses,” and often more. The number of people who tainted themselves by bearing false witness was countless. In the meantime, many of them had become honored activists with high social and professional ranks. The returning prisoners presented a potential threat to their standing in the society: although they would rarely do so, the slandered could speak out against the monstrous testimonies of their former friends who were now eminent citizens. What were these eminent citizens supposed to do? Repent and confess their cowardice, say they were forced to renounce their friends or, on the contrary, assert their own political rectitude? Few wished to have it out with one another. After visiting their families, many of my friends returned to the North, which at the time was shocking and impossible to understand. Of course, the general picture of the ’47 release consisted of a multitude of individual cases and fates, yet happy outcomes were rare exceptions. Tamara Tsulukidze was released before anyone else I knew. Through a petition from the Political Department, for the selfless achievements of her puppet theater, she was exempted from seven months of her term. Once released, Tamara went to Tbilisi. All that time her son was being raised by her husband’s relatives, the Mukhadze family. It was that unique case...