Khibinogorsk

1930

Karl and Lida recount, Dec 1, 1982.

KKarl and Lida talk about life in Kirovsk in the 1930s.

My first job was clearing roads. We were transported to Apatity on tractors, from ”km 13” to ”km 25”. Transport was done with both horses and tractors. There we were shoveling snow, that was our first occupation up in the north. Father took me along and went to engineer Desterlo, he was the chief engineer. There we built a barracks, a sauna, and after that I became a rod boy and ran with the leveling rod. The prisoners built roads and Desterlo (a Swede?) was the boss with three subordinate Russian engineers. I don't really know why Desterlo ended up there, according to some reports he was supposed to have built a power station somewhere in southern Russia and then was transferred. The one who built the White Sea Canal was the son-in-law of Nicholas I, a man with very good education, it was said that before the revolution he had studied in France. He was born on the Crimean peninsula, in Bakhchysarai. He was the chief engineer on the White Sea Canal and it was the same with Desterlo.

The prisoners were mainly former officers and educated people. All the factories were built by German engineers, one was named Marienblatt, he built the factory in Apatity. To help him he had Mucharovskij, he was either from Poland or from Germany, he was a city engineer. Mucharovskij was never allowed to travel back to Poland or Germany. There was frantic work to build the factory in Apatity and the mine 25 km away.

Lida:

- The first year I didn't work anywhere, I started working in 1934 and my first job was being a fireman at an electric power station where I drove wood and coal. In total there were 4 or 5 boilers. After a while the power station was closed and we were transported to ”km 23” for mining work. They mined lovcherit (mineral). There I worked in the factory and the transportation was tedious. From our house Ljungberg drove, his car had number 31, and when I saw his car on the bridge I had to run. When the factory whistle blew at 5 o'clock in the evening we had to run again, and on one occasion I had very modern, narrow skirts, I stumbled and fell into the ditch resulting in me spraining my foot. I couldn't go to my regular work, couldn't pull on my boots, and they said:

- You'll have to become a night watchman. I didn't want to become a night watchman so I went to the doctor, but was not exempted from night work, the second time I got papers stating that I should not work either in the power station or on the night shift.

I took a position at a scientific research station, Akademija Nauk, as a cleaner. I was there for about a year, perhaps even longer, and there I realized that I might not be a cleaner all my life. I should learn something. I left the research station and traveled to Monchegorsk to apprentice as a tailor.

At first it was quite difficult, the monthly salary was small and for food I had mainly bread, potatoes and fish. I learned a lot and earned a whole ruble a day, at the same time I started thinking how one could earn 2 rubles a day. The earnings steadily increased right up to the subsequent deportation in 1940. All the while I worked in Monchegorsk while Karl was at the mines in Kirovsk.

For several years the family lived in different places and met again in Medvedegorsk, the assembly point for loading onto boats for further transport – no one knew where. There we were loaded onto the ”Karl Marx”, a paddle-wheel boat that was to go to the western shores of Lake Onega while a larger boat, ”Leo Tolstoy”, with many other deportees, was to go to the eastern shore, to Pudozh. There was however a certain order as to where the different nationalities were to be deported: the Germans to Altai, likewise the Poles, while all Latvians, Swedes (from Canada and America), Estonians and Finns were deported to Karelia. We were received royally in Sheltozero, people stood on the shores with horses and wagons, ready to transport us to the various villages, we were all to become collective farm workers.

The first stop was the village of Zalesje, 4 km from Sheltozero, then we were in Matveeva Selga where father was to work. The work was very heavy and father was no longer a young man, so when Lida got a house in Verhovje, the parents moved there. There was hardly any road there, only a wretched path that could not be used in any other way than on foot, riding, or with a drag sled.

Albert was very sick, probably with some childhood disease. He stopped speaking. Karl worked in the forest, mother had gotten goats and sheep and supported herself and father by knitting and crocheting shawls, mittens and stockings.

Karl recounts:

- I didn't want to continue as a driller any longer, there was such work in Rybreka, a coastal village about 15 kilometers from Sheltozero in the direction of the Svir River's outlet from Onega, even if one got 400-500 rubles a month. There was a stone quarry for cobblestones with delivery mainly to Leningrad. The work might have given more money, but standing out in the cold by the lake in winter with the poor clothes we had, no, that was enough, I took forestry work. In Kirovsk I worked underground, there the clothes didn't matter so much, I could run to my work.

When I stopped being a "rod boy" for the engineers in Khibinogorsk and returned to my parents, my father was arrested, but released and assigned work on a factory construction site. We started the building, father and I. The work consisted of digging foundations, I dug for a whole week, but the work was heavy, throwing soil up to a height of two meters I couldn't manage for long, the food was so insufficient that one simply didn't have the strength. I went to the doctor and since I was only 18, I was exempted from such heavy work. We knew a certain Menskij Pridu, I was in school with his children, he said:

- Come to us! We need people skilled in carpentry. What kind of carpentry was that? It turned out we were to make coffins - as municipal workers. In 1930, when we started production, several new contingents had not yet arrived, some from the first batch died now and then, but not more than that we managed by making one coffin in two days.

He who worked with us wanted us to make the coffins in the Estonian manner, hexagonal, and then it took two days. When we came to another workplace we had an old music sergeant major from an imperial regiment - Jaan Niitt, he took me as an apprentice. Throughout my first apprenticeship year I only made coffins. At first we planed the boards, but later, when many new prisoners had arrived, it became more rapid production - 5-6 coffins a day and no talk of planing any boards. It was 1931-32. We lived then at ”km 16”, said Lida, in tents. I remember one morning when the fiddler came and played a tune on the accordion, we all jumped up in our underwear. He was from Chapelka, 9 km from our home area, on the other side of the railway. On Saturday, when we finished work, we were to clean up after ourselves and then sit on the bench before the trip home.

How did life continue after 1932-33?

Mother traveled with Albert to the home region, and she got a (probably forged) passport from her eldest sister Sofie. Sofie, Anne, Liisa and Alma were mother's sisters. There was no real permission to return, but Sofie had managed to obtain a passport and sent it to mother in Kirovsk, at that time letters and packages were checked. Mother and Albert lived in the home region until 1933 and father Jaan was fetched by Sass (Jürgenson) in December. He took father with him, all the clothes and fabrics we had also went along, and he drank them up. Mother Emely later complained that she didn't even have a coat to put on. The main thing, however, was that father also managed to get away from there, it was thought at the time.

Father arrived at his home region, but our house burned down and he was conscripted, but there were several who testified that it could not be him and he got off with a new deportation. In our house a cooperative had been set up with an alcoholic woman as manager. She had male visitors, there was drinking and smoking, so they say the house fire happened. If father Jaan had not had his good reputation, he might not have gotten off so easily.

Now came a trip to the Urals - the year was 1933. You came back in 1935 or 1936, I don't remember exactly, said Karl. We went to the NKVD, said Lida, to get permission for you to come back. At the NKVD they said:

- Let them come, we will register them here, but unfortunately we cannot give them any formal permission to come here, we are not entitled to do so.

I remember that we went on a barge up the river Chusovaya and that father carried me under his arm at a couple of places when the barge trip ended and we had to go on past the rapids. When I hung there with my arms free I remember that I felt the water and got my shirt sleeve wet. There too it was about forestry work, mother liked the area because everything grew so well, huge raspberries and other forest berries. The soil was fertile, it hardly needed any fertilizer. We went to the forest to pick berries and had pot lids with us to keep wild animals away. My task was to clatter these lids to scare the wild animals.

My parents worked and I had to stay home alone. I remember one occasion when there was a strong thunderstorm with powerful lightning. The wind was so strong that it knocked down trees. I sat alone in the cottage and watched the trees fall, at one point it looked like a tree would fall on the house we lived in, so I ran and hid behind the large stove, which is always found in Russian houses.

It was tough with the livelihood. They said that those who came there also stayed there, in the ground. We were probably the fourth or fifth contingent of forcibly displaced people. First came Ukrainians, most of them died.

Karl continues about his life in Khibinogorsk:

- I once worked with a young man named Klopof, his father worked in the same workshop and had brought his son with him. They had vodka at home. I knew a Petroff, he was an orchestra conductor and typographer, I played violin with him. In the newspaper it was advertised that they were taking apprentices in typography and I was urged to apply for the job. Who can recommend me? I asked myself, I had no acquaintances in that industry. The closest was Petrof and I went to him. He sat at the table with some other men drinking vodka. I told him this and that:

- Do you have a half-bottle of vodka? If so, you can come and start tomorrow.

I didn't have a half-bottle and went with my need to Klopof, somehow he got me that half-bottle and I changed jobs. The boy told me that his father was forcibly displaced, while his uncle, a staunch communist, always used to say: "Zhmi narod!" - "Squeeze the people dry". He stayed there to organize the work for the new communist empire.

About thirty years ago I was on the Kola Peninsula, and found out that those who had children in the army, father or son, they got their passports, while those who had only daughters remained slaves and were not allowed to move.

Karl tells that when he came home on September 16, 1935, the residential barracks smelled terribly bad. When I was about to open the door to the room, you, Albert, were standing in the door. At that time I lived all alone there at Stroitelnaja 13. I remember part of the barracks, the front was at ground level while the back stood on fairly high poles and from there a stairway led down on which I often sat with a boy named Efim.

I worked in the mine, said Karl, at Lovcheridnyj Rudnik at "km 23", they measured in kilometers from Apatity station. First we lived at "km 13", then at "km 16", later at "km 18", "km 21" and at Locheridnyj "km 23". I worked there next to the phosphorus factory, it was -30 degrees Celsius when we were building. We pulled wheelbarrows with cement and periodically had to go to the factory chimneys to warm ourselves. On one occasion I burned a hole in my sheepskin coat. To keep the cement fluid, they added salt, which meant the cement never dried, it leaked out years later. In such buildings, the moisture will always remain, there are a couple of such buildings also in Tapa, opposite the department store. It's terribly damp there, said Lida.

Lida tells that in 1939 she worked in Monchegorsk and remembers that after Poland was occupied, very large amounts of chrome leather began to arrive so they had to start sewing leather coats. One of their cutters named Hilda Jänes had no practice in cutting leather. At first, they took ordinary fabric and made patterns, only then cut out the pieces. Father had bought a pair of boots from a soldier and with those boots I walked 40 km from Nila for sugar. There was water up to the knees in one place, but the boots mostly kept the water out. I don't remember if mother sold them to someone or if they were in Lida's shed at the end.

Albert tells:

I spent the summer of 1939 with my aunt Anne, she lived in a kolkhoz at the Post family. My task during the summer was to guard the collective's sheep, cows, calves and lambs. It was not easy to get up in the mornings and when the kind aunt woke me at dawn, I was already dressed and had shoes on my feet. She had done that while I was still sleeping. Shoes and shoes. Footwear was scarce and I had the traditional Estonian 'moccasins' on during my stay with my aunt. The 'moccasins' consisted of a piece of raw hide held together with rawhide bands. Many Russians used bast shoes, but Estonians mostly stuck to these 'moccasins'. (Tsuuvad - in Estonian). After breakfast it was off to the grazing lands. The cows were milked three times a day, so I drove my livestock home at lunchtime, then it was time for me to eat and sleep while the cows were milked. The place where my aunt was living at that time was quite close to our former home and I went there with her a few times. There was only a barn foundation of large gray stones, everything else was more or less gone. The root cellar was also still there and a birch tree was growing on the cellar roof. Aunt Anna talked to me now and then about the relatives, I stood by the cellar and she said:

- Here one can talk, here no one is listening secretly.

Karl:

Now it is a large forest there, one cannot see to the Posts', everything has grown out but to Helstins and Leos it has to some extent been tended as grazing land. Before, there was only a small house on the right side of the road, now there are new houses and villages along a stretch of 2 km. All these collective farmers harvest hay for their cows on our land. Of the Posts I don't remember much, says Lida, Emely was perhaps still there while August was already deported. He had worked at the station as a bookkeeper and in 1937, when Lida worked in Monchegorsk, she met August there. They were not our relatives, just neighbors.

Albert:

- I remember the Kirovsk school, we went in two shifts.

Karl:

- It was the same in Tapa for a number of years, the roof was about to collapse and one thought all summer about how to solve it and only in the autumn, when schools were about to start, did they begin repair work.

If the Russian communists had not deported all the peasants, the Russian state would today have been very rich and strong. Because there was no economic foundation in the form of a well-organized agriculture, one could not build industry to the extent that it could provide the civilian population with the necessary goods and services.

I was in Arkhangelsk and there was famine, said Lida, we got 5-kopeck soup, when we were to go from Leningrad to Arkhangelsk, we lost a lot of weight and were only skin and bones upon arrival. Those who died were thrown off the train, not at the station but a bit out on the line. I was saved by working in a sewing workshop, we worked in two shifts: in the morning from 7:00 am and in the evening from 8:00 pm. The railway ran through the city, just like in Tapa, and I went to the forest to pick berries and got hold of a lot of lingonberries. I picked a whole basket, but didn't dare to go sell them, I only sold to the very nearest for 7 rubles per drinking glass. It saved me from vitamin deficiency, my feet were quite swollen, but after eating lingonberries for a few days, the swelling on my legs went down.

In 1940, when we were expelled to Karelia, we ended up in a village named Zalesje. They unloaded us in the middle of the village and said:

- Go and find a suitable dwelling, there are plenty of empty houses and you can take whichever you want. We found a two-story house and in the evening the house was filled with collective farmers, as Lida played guitar and sang.

I was very sick there, said Lida, I had become accustomed to living on bread and fish and here in the villages there was plenty of milk. I vomited and had stomach pain. Near Zalesje there was a small lake and the boys often went there to fish. There was no great fish, only inbred ruffe consisting of bones and fins.

I began working at the sewing workshop in Sheltozero next to the bridge, said Lida. Admittedly, the work was intended only for invalids, but about 20% completely healthy could nevertheless be taken in. I had learned the trade and we were part of a collective of seamstresses, shoemakers and blind basket makers.

The situation for father and mother became quite untenable, mother thought that father was still strong and moved to Matveeva Selga, but father was not strong and the family wanted to return to the shore of Lake Onega. I worked with Maria Lutchkina, she lived in a house with 5 rooms, 2 on the upper floor and 2 on the lower floor plus an additional room. I talked with her and she said that the landlady lived in Petrozavodsk, at some occasion I remember the landlady was in Sheltozero. After we had talked, we got the house and the family moved to the village of Verchovje. There were plenty of houses, most houses in Verchovje stood empty. There was a Finnish family, who lived farthest away on the village street toward the upper course of the river, a Ukrainian blacksmith, Poletajev had built himself a small cottage and an Estonian family - Berzin. No, said Karl, Berzin was from Tulare. The one I worked with was not Berzin, he had a daughter. Daughter yes, said Karl, she was quite pretty and acquainted with an NKVD man. The daughter worked in the canteen and put some things aside for herself, and upon discovery she got a one-year prison sentence. When war came, she was to gather all the domestic animals and follow the livestock to Russia. When the Russians had left Sheltozero, there were still quite a lot of domestic animals in the surrounding forests, both horses and young animals.

I worked 8 hours and had no desire to visit any neighbors, said Lida. In Russia, informing has become a national disease, no one really asks for it, but the militia and security men work in the sweat of their brow to justify their existence.

To the forest work in Nilo came I myself, Karl Korte and Karl Möiste, all Estonians. I was godfather to Karl Möiste's boy, some disappeared but Karl Möiste lived in Tapa, lived in a sauna and worked in the forest. He drank stoutly and on one occasion the sauna burned down. I visited Nilo once more, I remember it because at night it rained heavily when I was to go home together with Karl Korte. He was not particularly old but in poor condition and he shouted: Don't run away from me! It was very cold and I had pain in my shoulder for a whole week afterward. Karl Moiste worked together with me in labor companies, he did not want to stay in forest work.

During the war he crossed over to the Finns, the Finns handed him over to the Germans and he sat as a prisoner of war in Tapa. When the Russians came he certainly got his comeuppance, but got off quite easily. Once I went to visit Anne Toode in Valka, about 30 km from Tallin. Mother had scolded the children for letting Anne stay there, her daughter Manja had died and mother wanted us to fetch Ann.

We got her with us and walked back to Tallinn, but mother could not get along with her. Anne began to associate with the neighbor across the entrance, bring laundry there and so on. Eventually she had to move to Valge, to the old people's home. I was there a couple of times. I went there, it is on the turnoff to Tapa at Valgejöe bridge. It was quite clean and tidy there, the clothes were also clean and she seemed to be doing quite well. She had frostbitten toes at some point and could walk with some difficulty, her health was otherwise not the best. The last time I saw her, when I came from the Caucasus, she was in a bad state, she had nowhere to live and slept in the stable, she smelled bad.

When the war came in 1941 we had to walk first to Petrozavodsk, from there another 50 km to a barn where we were to rest. A Red Guard came and said we should be careful:

- A Finnish partisan might come and kill you with a knife, without you ever waking up. Mortars made noise all night.

After that we came to Matrosovo, now we would finally be there. We tried to make ourselves at home, some began to look for unharvested potatoes while others were to write letters. After a while a man came and said: Within 30 seconds you must be on your way. From there we walked another 30 km, what village was that now? We had put the potatoes on the stove, everything had to be left while the Finns had already begun to shoot. Everyone ran off but I and a few other young men had to stay behind to build defensive installations. We built for several days in a village, the Finns fired mortars the whole time. There was a lake and next to it a small village which we arrived at the same morning. In the village there were some wounded Soviet soldiers and a detachment of partisans. Both the partisans and the soldiers ran off with the chief running after, the soldiers had not even taken their rifles with them.

We had to start digging trenches, said Lida. I remember that the airplanes flew over us and. We were to dig deep trenches, but the ground was strewn with large stones so we got help from soldiers. In the evening we danced with the soldiers, but the next day we did not see some of them and we found out that they had been arrested for associating with us. When we left Matrosovo we saw the same soldiers again and I asked:

-Where is your natchalnik (commander)?

- He remained sitting in the trench, said the soldier smiling and I understood that his own men had shot him. He was a mean bastard, he associated with the Tatars and was harsh towards his own people, you didn't even get a smoke break.

There were Finns there. We had Friede's husband Ivan as work supervisor. He traded for vodka and said:

- We have girls so let's go there and have fun! There was little bread, we passed a bread truck and a soldier took a loaf of bread and handed it to us. It became a party.

When we returned to Petrozavodsk the Finns were retreating.

- Now that you have been here for a longer time, what is the most striking thing about Sweden?

- That there is so much of everything! With us you always have to struggle, for food you have to stand in line, here you go in and get the goods immediately without any queuing. Overall it is richer here, but what has been completely different.

Most things are different: The doors open by themselves and you get your salary by inserting a card into a hole, it is completely different.

Lida:

We always have to stand in line for one or two hours if you want to buy something. Here it is different, there don't seem to be so many difficulties, people interact with each other in a different way. The shop assistants don't look down on you and think: What does she have to do here, couldn't she have chosen another store? Here you come and know that you will get what you need, with us it is so that if you don't have someone at home, you have to go out and stand in line. It is not at all certain that you will get what you came out to get. I am quite content with my life right now, there is bread, earlier it was often that you had to be hungry and there was nothing to buy. It is strange with this big and rich Russia, it has been managed so extraordinarily badly.

- We ended our previous conversation with you being assigned to the labor brigades in Petrozavodsk and from there to Matrosovo, 20 - 25 km, the last stop. It is about 50 km from Petrozavodsk. We arrived there and spread out our belongings - now we would finally be there. After a while a man came running and said that within a few minutes we would be out of here. We ran out and when we reached the edge of the town we shook out our sacks: I had a couple of changes of laundry in the sack, but couldn't carry all this, says Karl.

The next day we were back, the women couldn't keep up with all the running, but we had to, we were sent there to dig trenches. One day we were there, a Siberian engineering regiment was stationed, it remained there after the Finns' encirclement. Some of the soldiers saved themselves to Petrozavodsk, sometimes three men came, sometimes five. They came to us when they heard that Russian was spoken. The Ukrainians, who are used to the open spaces, cannot manage in the forest, nor can the Germans. Now it was autumn and the sun disappeared early in the evening. Those who could not find their way out got lost and disappeared.

We were not there many days. Most were loaded onto the ships and these went to Voznesenje. From there we were shipped to Aljechovshino, it is about 150 km along the Ajatj River, in the direction of Lodeinoje Pole.

Albert: I remember that I was there with my father sometime in 1939, in the Alexandro-Svirskij Svjato-Troitskij monastery. We had been to the home regions in Novoselje and visited Aunt Anna.

We came in the direction of Leningrad and were there until November 10. We were occupied with digging defensive positions "zoty". It was a construction of alternately wood alternately earth. It was supposed to be a defense against the Finns, but they never came that far, so it was work in vain. Apparently it was just about concentrating people somewhere. From there we continued towards Beloozersk. How much we walked on foot and how much by vehicle one cannot say, it mostly felt as if we walked on foot and the truck transports were more exception than rule. On November 10 we left Aljechochino and on December 15 we arrived at Anjevskij-most, it is in the Marinskij water system that passes Lake Onega and goes through Lake Beloozersk, it is a canal from the time of Peter the Great.

Lida: I don't remember much. Once when we came to Belomorsk we got accommodation near a bakery and for the first time in a long time as much bread as we wanted. Yes, said Karl, that was because we knew the baker, otherwise the ration was only 200 grams. It took a long time before we got there. At Anevskij bridge we were until March 15, we came in December and stayed until March. There we were mainly occupied with digging trenches. From there we were loaded onto trucks and transported to Pudosj, where we had to wait a week or two, we didn't know where we would be transported next. Finally we ended up in the forest. We were altogether 15-17 people. There we stayed about a week, but since we did not have suitable clothes we were loaded into the trucks again and transported 280 km. There we were about 5 days, I was never in the house. It was empty in the area, only at the station there were a few people, there was hardly any indigenous population, most had been evacuated earlier. A Jewish man came from the station and asked if there were any craftsmen here: tailors, blacksmiths, locksmiths, bakers. Two or three people volunteered and I stood next to them, I had worked as both a locksmith and a carpenter.

Where do you want to go? To Belomorsk or Archangelsk? He asked. Lida said she wanted to go to Belomorsk and then I decided to also go there. Good, he said. You will get a travel document and travel provisions with you, we got a few kilos of rusks. Before that we were to help load some 50-kilo sacks of ski poles to Belomorsk. It was equipment for the fighting units. Besides our rusks we were to requisition provisions from the villages, said the Jew, but when we came to the collective farm chairman he was gone and for three days we did not have much to eat.

When we arrived at Belomorsk we got 200 grams of bread and 2 bowls of soup. We were 4 people, one was a baker from Petrozavodsk and on arrival he asked where the bakers were from. From Petrozavodsk, came the answer. He went there and sure enough, there were people he knew, so he returned with 4 loaves and a whole bucket of kvass (a Russian weak beer).

The next day we were to go to the commandant's office to get work orders. They took us there under the pretext that we would work in a combine, but when we came to the commandant's office they told us that only invalids work there and since you are not invalids, you will start on the railway. I started on the railway and was sent to Jämtsa (about 100 km from Archangelsk) to load locomotives with fuel. The working time was 12 hours a day, one bowl of soup and 700 grams of bread. It was heavy work, I got swellings in both face and arms, the team consisted of 5 men.

A man standing on a barrel takes the wood from the pile, from there the wood is passed to the next man who stands on a platform between the pile and the locomotive. Further to the man standing on the tender and into the locomotive's wood storage. We were supposed to load one locomotive per hour. There you really had to lie into it, especially since the wood was saturated with water, heavy, and slippery.

I worked on the railroad until July. Then in 1942 orders came that we were to go to the forest. We were 9 people. The weather was fine, we were to collect our rations and the girl, whom I had met earlier, said to me:

- Don't go there, Karl, it's a death camp, you can only die there, you won't come out alive. There is only forest there and you must have... If you fulfill the daily norm you can get 700 grams of bread, exceeding the norm maybe 900 grams. There you can only die. I went there, where else would one go, it's the same everywhere? If you ran away and got caught it would in any case earn at least 3 years. So I went there, sat down on a stump and looked at the American communists (who had arrived there around 1933-37), they massaged their feet, but what feet, they were only skin and bone - they weren't people, they were human shadows. One thought that 'here one will surely have to give up'. But somehow it turned out differently and if you are a specialist, things work out. They started building barracks, both from logs and military materials. From Belomorsk they drove out some office staff and other scrap. At first they were full of enthusiasm, the men came with musical instruments, the girls with red-painted lips, but not a week passed before their enthusiasm ran out. From work they went straight to the mess hall and from there to the sleeping quarters and there was no question of even taking off their outer clothes. They didn't last long, after a couple of weeks most had fled. It was the year 1942.

We were to go out and haul wood to the railroad. Earlier there had been a prison camp, the prisoners had built the railroad and their barracks were still there. It was boggy ground all around, the wood was practically lying in the water and sometimes we had water up to our knees when we had to transport this wood to meet the norm. The wood pieces were 75 cm long and all logs thicker than 25 cm also had to be split.

I was there a couple of weeks, then I was transferred to building railroads, it was a 5-man brigade and I was appointed leader. The construction went on for a few weeks and we had built a good stretch: we laid 3 logs underneath and rails on top. A few years earlier I had studied to become a mining mechanic and now in 1943 I got to use that. There was a motor locomotive and I became wagon master. I worked as wagon master for a year and then came the mechanic, party organizer Alexander Privjantsev, a good fellow, and he was part of the Amur military brigade for railroad construction. There was a drunken brawl and he was beaten to death. Now they had no mechanic. The director suggested several people and also me, I agreed to become mechanic, but it was around-the-clock work without either days off or night rest. The work mainly consisted of repairing equipment, adjusting bearings and overseeing locomotives. The food was not luxurious and since I had area chiefs and various former 'party types' over me, the mental strain was greater than the physical and I got inflammation of the central nervous system.

No railroad embankments were built. All the tools were left in the forest and one morning they told us we wouldn't go there anymore. We were to get new tools and start building houses, with the same brigade. When the house was finished, the railroad had also reached us and a repair workshop was opened, where I was again appointed leader. There I worked as a mechanic for about a year. I belonged to the mobile force and at first mostly worked on repairing wagons. Later I became assistant mechanic in the auto department and at that time our workshop became some kind of experimental point and we got new Finnish saws. Until then we had mainly Leningrad saws, driven by electricity, 4 saws had a common power plant, a 4-cylinder, 12 horsepower engine. In the forest these saws didn't work very well. The rather thin cables often broke, especially in winter and in rough terrain. The saws did not contribute to higher efficiency. I worked there as a mechanic until 1945.

In 1947 I made a visit to Estonia and discovered that life there was more normal, both regarding existence and also the food situation. In Far Karelia a sack of potatoes cost 200 rubles but you could get a sack in Estonia for 15 rubles, milk 60 rubles per half liter and in Estonia 10. When I returned from Estonia I talked with the mechanic Jaan Parment, an Estonian communist or something like that, but he didn't speak Estonian. I said to him:

- Find yourself a new mechanic, I no longer feel like being here.

In 1945 we also got passports, on November 7, though only provisional, but still a passport in our pocket. I'll vanish from here, I said to him. Eventually he found a replacement and when the war ended they wrote in a condition that we had to work for another 3 years in Far Karelia at the forest camps. Now that period was over and I went to Estonia, took a job as a fireman, and after three months my wife also came there.

Lida and I knew each other's whereabouts, we corresponded and once she visited me. Unfortunately she came during a difficult period, we hadn't had bread for three days. Mari somehow got hold of a loaf of bread for Lida.

Lida: We were also sent to forest work from the tailor shop. Then I got the idea to go to Karl since he was already in the forest work.

Lida received permission to go to 'the home region' in Scheltozero quite early, already in 1944. When Sheltozero was liberated, she was allowed to return to her parents, who still lived there in the village of Verkchovje. I sewed a pair of trousers for Karl, Lida tells, and when the leader of the forest work saw them he asked me to sew a pair for him too. By then I had received a letter from my parents that they were still living in Sheltozero and I longed for them so I refused. He promised me the same wages as the seamstresses.

I took off, but since I didn't have permission to leave the area I had to return, only when I got the permit could I leave. I wrote a 'trekant' to mother. They had received the letter but couldn't believe we had survived, and indeed we had suffered. I went to Sheltozero in 1944, sometime in the autumn. Father was still alive, but I had to go back to get the permit. I could have gotten work and housing in Petrozavodsk, but father asked me to stay and within a month he was dead. He died on September 9, 1944.

Karl tells:

- I came home three days before his death. Father had suffered some kind of paralysis, he heard and understood everything, but couldn't move. We took him to the bathhouse, the one that stood before the bridge on the road from Sheltozero, afterwards we drank vodka and anointed him, and after a couple of days he died. He had been sick about a month. When Lida came the first time he could talk and sat at the table, but it took her almost a month to go back and forth to get the permit and when she returned father was very ill.

Karl continues:

- I helped bury father and went back to Malenkaja in the Belomorsk district. It is a station on the Obozersk-Belomorsk new railway, it was built in 1941. It was a terrible road to travel, the forest on both sides of the railroad was completely burned, not a tree remained. Lida tells that she fell asleep on the way back and lost her wallet, but no one stole it, there wasn't much to steal, just the ticket. When she was about to travel she couldn't find the ticket, she didn't notice it had been stolen. Fortunately she still had money, said Karl. Everything was guarded so we walked past the militia and jumped onto the train. It cost us a fine of 920 rubles, but we got to Petrozavodsk where everything was shot to pieces and the hotel was a pile of stones. On the way back we had to wait for a boat connection, but the boat wouldn't dock at Sheltozero so we had to go to Rybreka, 15 km south of Sheltozero. We were three people from Sheltozero. It might have been around two or three in the morning when we got home from Rybreka. It was a rainy day. We came on foot. I also came on foot from Petrozavodsk in 1945, said Karl, it's about 85 km of road.

It was certainly far, after 10 km your legs start to ache so it's hard to walk and the shoes weren't always suited for such long walks. Sometimes I walked just in my stocking feet, said Lida, the Finns had prepared the road and laid a layer of gravel on it, but it wasn't possible to walk barefoot there.

The mechanic was sent away, said Karl, in Belomorsk only I remained and stayed there for three years until 1948. No one was allowed to leave from there, mother gave me a goat and I handed it over to the chief mechanic in Belomorsk. Transporting the goat went well, they made a box and put a tight metal bottom. It took some time before I got through with it. I took a train that went to Murmansk, but no one helped me with the goat crates on the train, I had to stay a couple of days and herd the goat. Eventually I got help from the union chairman, we lifted the crate in Malenkoje and that's how the goat Zorja got there. Mother had two goats; Rosa and Zorja.

Albert:

- I remember Zorja when she was about to have her first kids. I was herding her up along the river and suddenly she wanted to go home. Normally goats don't leave the person herding them, you don't really need to worry about them running off, but now she rushed home. We also had a pig and it couldn't run as fast as the goats. At intervals the pig would throw itself on the ground, it actually lay on its back and panted out its breathlessness.

Mother was not home. I ran as fast as I could but Zorja was ahead and ran into the shed. As I stood there Zorja lay down on the ground and acted strangely, I thought. All of a sudden she began to strain and a pair of tiny hooves stuck out from her behind. Then I hurried, ran to a neighbor woman and she helped with the birth of the kids.

Karl continues:

- Many from the Vlasov army were exiled to northern Russia, they had to stay there a long time, some never left. One could leave there only with the director's approval, otherwise not.

We had a vice-director, also a former prisoner, a real bandit. He drank well and lived together with a female judge. When he came home, the mother-in-law had to cook and he used to say:

- Mother-in-law! You cook the food, I'll go out on the steps and vomit. A real scoundrel, camp life had ruined him.

When the director went on vacation, his vice-director and assistant handed out departure permits for liquor, and when the director came back, he had no workers left. The problem was solved by forcibly enrolling local fishermen. These were allowed to fish in the summer and work in the forest in the winter. When spring came, they were to go out fishing; there was no question of any vacation. It was the same in Sheltozero – in the summer, work on the collective farm, and in the winter, forest work.

In 1948 I managed to leave Belomorsk and got to attend school in Leningrad for 6 months to obtain the formal mechanic's competence. I became some kind of leader and the assistants wanted me to join the party. My health was, however, rather poor and I was not particularly keen regarding the party. After the war this was possible even for children of the exiled and dispossessed to become party members. When everyone in a department is in the party, that department is paid better.

In 1948 I got a replacement from Belomorsk, an older man. Earlier in Viborg he had obtained a diploma; there were apparently plenty of forms. He had forged a builder's diploma. Together with the Vlasov people they had dismantled a locomotive and were supposed to assemble it in the spring at a cost of 25,000 rubles, which they were not capable of, but they had taken care of the money and spent it. The man had no mechanical talents; he tore apart all the details; it is possible that he might have been a locomotive driver, but he could not repair a locomotive. He should never have come near a locomotive as a repairman. I went to the director to sort out my affairs and possibly get permission to return to my parents. In the spring I had received a letter from my mother, saying she was ill, and I went to Sheltozero again. The director pounced on me before my departure. Luckily I had a file showing that I had been transferred to the construction department. What could one do? Spring was far advanced and the snow was already melting. We drove the locomotives onto a platform, took everything down and drove the locomotive to Kemi. I managed to get away from there, but the locomotive was not repaired in Kemi either; I went there at the director's request. One of the steam injectors worked while the other was completely broken, and I did not want to accept it. I returned to Belomorsk and the engineer asked me how things stood with the locomotive.

I answered as it was, that I could not accept the locomotive because it was not in repaired condition. A man named Parning from the city of Kalinin then went there and accepted the locomotive, and the repairs began anew. That way, in 1948 I got free from Belomorsk and went to Estonia. Lida and mother had already moved there in 1947. The move to Estonia was not complicated. I resigned from my job, told Lida, loaded the few belongings, and got help from the Jürgensons. We lived with them the first summer after our arrival, then lived in the countryside for a while, and after a few weeks I got work in the sewing workshop.

We were two people, an older man and I, and we had to do the stoking ourselves since we also slept there. He was divorced and had no children with his first wife and two with the second. I got a room through the work, but it wasn't easy, and the room was nothing to boast about. The staircase was so narrow that I had some difficulty going out with the slop bucket. The room was completely outdated; there was neither toilet nor water. The boy was growing up though, and it was mostly so cold that I had to stoke the roasting oven; behind it there was enough space for me to fit a bed. In the evenings, when I stoked, it at least smelled warm, but when the stoking stopped, the water in the roasting oven froze.

It was a difficult time; one had to carry both water and firewood. Now we always have both heat and hot water, and yet we are sick more often than we were before.

Times have naturally become different; many tourists think that we in Estonia have everything: both meat, vegetables, and bread. For the Russians, Estonia is roughly like when Karl and I came to Sweden; there was everything.

The ethnic tensions are, however, still great, perhaps even greater than was the case before. In Tallinn it is such that the companies run by Estonians do not hire any Russians, and vice versa. An Estonian pilot in Tallinn said during "Regatta 80" that here there are only "blackheads" and it's nice to talk to a "white" man. There are of course hardworking and decent Russians too, but they are truly in the minority. Everyone has become morally "deformed"; they have also been deprived of their homes and farms and are depressed and listless. The few pleasures one has consist of partying, getting drunk, and forgetting the present.

Now we shall stop; you are going to travel back to Estonia soon, and hopefully the weather is good so that you do not become too seasick on the boat.