Children’s GULAG
Автор: admin, 11 Ноя 2012
Destroyed narrow railway winding led deep into the woods. Fir-trees lined up along the embankment and stretched its snowy branches, looked like the guards.
Train, strained, gave a prolonged whistle, pulled wagons and drove them on, puffing on a pipe and blowing white steam. There was silence. The wind was blowing in the face of Vladimir, covering his face with snowy dust. High off-size felt boots rubbed his feet and prevented from going. Earflaps tied under his chin muffled hearing. Tears choked the boy and ... cold streams froze on his cheeks.
He again saw very clearly his mother's eyes ... Her big suffering hands swollen with veins, soft, warm and still alive ... then they cramped ... fell and died away for ever.
A man in civilian clothes from the KGB smoked his cigarette incessantly, God knows how many, and firmly holding the hand of Volodya, stepped by broad military pace. Strong winds and snow hit in the face. Finally, in a white haze appeared houses ...they were scattered across the meadow, like a spilled mushrooms ...
Dogs barked, smell edible. Ovens were heated: it was the smoke from the chimneys.
- Here we are - the man said ... and threw his cigarette into the snow.
Special internate for children of enemies of the people, it was called “special kindergarten”, located in a remote dense Meschersky forest. Before there used to be a camp for criminals. The barbed wire and the watch towers were removed, because the children had nowhere to flee. The nearest settlement – beyond thirty kilometers. And whom to run to? Their parents, most shot or imprisoned in the concentration camps convicted on political charges (Article #58) ... So, likely tortured and died from tortures, hunger, disease ... And obscure unknown common grave is waiting for them in hastily dug pit.
The children here were different: the descendants of the destroyed class of the Russian nobility and the intelligentsia, and the children of Communist party officials, and military of high rank, who were shot or sitting in prison. Age of children: from seven to sixteen years. Both boys and girls lived here, total one hundred and fifty children.
This "institution" was headed by a former Major Martynov. He was named “The Head” and wore a pistol in a holster. He was known for his stupidity and sadism. Another ten teachers were not far from him. Basically, they were former junior officers and petty officers, discharged from the army for drunkenness, immoral conduct and other “valor”. Some of them came here with their wives and immediately rebuilt their houses.
There were few buildings in the orphanage zone: two sleeping barracks, carpentry, dining room, a stable with four horses and the so-called “school” for the first through seventh grade. Teachers and their wives taught in the school and taking in account the fact that teachers themselves had the education of four to seven classes, one can imagine how "lucky" were children with school education.
However, they often had to think about something else: how to survive in this hell. One hundred and fifty children had no medical staff, even a nurse, not to mention a doctor. Only after several children’s deaths an old woman was sent from the district center, she was a nurse, as it turned out to be a midwife. Children, however, were not going to give birth, but as Russian proverb says “without a fish - crab is a fish.”
Martynov was called “the killer of Lermontov." Why this nickname was stuck to him, it is difficult to explain: whether for his ferocity, meanness and sadistic habits. He liked, for example, keep kids outside half-naked on the line for hours to stand at attention and telling them what the scoundrels their parents are they themselves, the children of enemies of the people. It was especially hard to resist its execution in the winter and autumn. The children fell ill with pneumonia and died. Perhaps the nickname caught on after a case of a fourteen-year-old Vova Zubrilin. Vova was well-read intelligent boy. On the morning line, Vova shouted: “Martynov, you are a scoundrel! You are the same as a murderer of Lermontov!” There was dead silence. Martynov flushed, turned pale and then flushed again. There were giggles. Then he exploded and began to threaten all imaginable and unimaginable penalties. Vova Zubrilin was put in solitary confinement, in a cooler, where the stored vegetables. In any case, the nickname stuck.
In the orphanage were a lot of various punishment: the cooler, which was called even easier: put in the cold, then food deprivation for several days, however, there were the rescue guys who tore away food from themselves and brought to the punished. Then grueling hard work - to crush ice or hew firewood until you're blue. To stay in line for hours outside in any weather. Beating children by educators. And finally, the most terrible crime happened suddenly: rape of the girl by scum-educator. The victim Kate Beloselsky did not stand the horror of what happened, and hanged herself. Before killing herself she with grief and despair ran to a good and hearty old woman, a nurse midwife Aunt Dunya (Evdokia Ivanovna), and, weeping, told her everything. She examined the girl and tried as best she could to comfort ... but evidently it did not help ...
It happened a few years after the arrival of Vladimir. For now, stepping into the territory of the orphanage, Vladimir Obolensky did not know in what a monstrous torture-chamber for children, invented by Stalin and his team of cannibals, he finds himself.
Volodya had dreams there. Some were long and almost real, with successive plots, while others - short and fantastic, extremely unnatural. They instantly disappeared, scattering like colored pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope of childhood. Then dreams appeared again, changing the details and paints.
There he saw himself in the age of seven, going on a long endless street. The pavement was empty for some reason and no cars. It turns out it was night and the moon shone in full. The moon lit up a street and some other burning light was far ahead. He was scared and ran. He fled with all his might, and the light was approaching slowly. He caught the air by his mouth and choked, and was ready to fall ... But suddenly a white semi-circular building in three floors with columns and a dome with a round roof grown before him.
Blackening windows sockets stared at him coldly and ungraciously. Cast iron fence blocked his way, but he saw pass and rushed there. Flower beds were under his feet. Sweet and tart, so giddy, smelled the flowers. Lights went on, and one window wide open ... and he saw his mother, long black hair and pale face. "It was good that I'm here! - He thought - and will soon be over her night shift at the hospital, and we will go home together ... " But then his mother's face was floating off, changing ... White building with columns, flower beds and iron fence disappeared.
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