«Almost everybody from the village soviet, and with witnesses, was hunting down my Pestrushka!» [old woman Loginova told me about the dispossession of kulaks in her village in Narym bullpen.]

 The bulk of Russia's population, peasantry, was declared a «class enemy».  Eufrosinia's drawings demonstrate how it was exterminated. Oldwife Loginova's story is the quintessence of repression against of peasants:

Optimistic Oldwife Loginova
Leaping ahead I'll tell another story of a self-employed farmer who was quite finished off yet. I heard it while being already in captivity.

For some reason I didn't notice exactly when they brought Loginova to the cell. I must say that the first impression was rather negative, because how can you jest and joke when the prison door banged after you and you lost your freedom?!

But soon I noticed that her recklessness was neither more nor less than false front, something in her eyes betrayed deep-seated black grief. A heart-to-heart conversation is only possible face to face which is quite difficult with 12 persons crowded in a small room. However she told me her story. Usual. And terrible for one who is still too European and wasn’t accustomed to what became common and was counted as normal and almost legitimate.

Here is her story.

«We've never been to school, never read books or newspapers and everything seemed to be simple and clear, there is the land, our Mother and Feeder; there is a farmer, the land's master and servant. The sun will never rise in the west, a peasant will never live without the land to which he devoted his entire life, which provided him with everything necessary for himself, his family and his cattle. In short, the household. And suddenly a collective farm... Whose venture is it?

Who was the first to enter the collective farm? Paupers, aliens who have never been owners. And those who had nothing to lose. Then many followed. It was when they started evicting and deporting heaven knows where those who were regarded by authorities to be suspect.

'It's better to the collective farm than to the Narym mires,' people thought.

To keep the Satan away is possible! But not to find mercy for us, proper farmers.

My man hasn't returned from the German War. I lived with my son. It was he, poor fellow, whom they drove away at night. Together with the family - wife and three children, but me, for some reason, was left - get on as best you can only pay tax and make all deliveries. But taxes are like a snowball. How can they allow so that a self-employed farmer would be able to pay the tax! The farmers were needed to serve as a warning: look, people, what punishment is awaiting those who didn't obey in time!  Here they tried hard! Where the hell did they take these ideas from?!

I wanted to die. However God didn't give me death... It seemed it cannot get any worse. How naive! Near the end of Advent an old beggar with a bundle knocked on my door. I looked at her and collapsed in a heap... My daughter-in-law dragged herself home from the exile. With a little kid, daughter Nadya. Not from her words - she actually couldn't talk, just clunked her teeth - but I understood that my son and both grandsons are there, in the mires. O Lord, why do You punish me? The daughter-in-law did make it at the end. And how could she get better?! No heating in the hut. We didn't even have potatoes, yet alone bread!

Well, actually I did have potatoes. I had dug out the yard, for the whole winter gathered potato eyes - cut tops and bases from potatoes, powdered with ash - for seeds. So we had potatoes. In the autumn, when I lifted it I had to give their share to the collective farm administration - three heaps for them and the fourth for myself.

I divided.

'Come and choose! I'll bring you your share and then put away mine.'

Otherwise I cannot touch it, God forbid! No, they don't choose! I cry every day.

'At least let me take it to the room.'

'No! Dare not to touch!'

Then the frost stroke and potatoes froze. They say, 'Buy three heaps of good potatoes and deliver. We don't need the frozen'

What do you think? I bought and delivered... I sold everything I had in the chest, sold even my shirt kept for my funeral to pay for the potatoes. Then it got warmer. The potatoes defroze, flew, turned sour and went bad. Those I ate. And not only me, I had a sheep and three hens.

Yes, the daughter-in-law didn't live to see the spring, died after St.Epiphany. I was left with granddaughter Nadyusha. How my heart went out to to the orphan! Doted upon her. She is so tender and pleasant as if God Himself comforted me. How did the daughter-in-law managed to keep her alive? How did she survive without bread, without milk? With only rotten potatoes and very seldom an egg.

However we survived the winter. The ewe lambed, the hens came into lay. New season nettle appeared. I used to boil the nettle, mash it with potatoes (in winter while it was still frozen I boiled it, peeled and dried; I had no firewood and gathered weeds by the wayside to heat!), add an egg for Nadyusha.

The orphan blossomed like vernal bloom! Very spit of her father, rose and blu-eyed! Hair like golden ringlets. The feast for the eyes! But our days in the sun were numbered. After Easter fiends came. Took the sheep and two hens. The third survived by some wonder, they overlooked it. Oh, poor me!

I dug up the kitchen garden but had nothing to plant, frost damaged potatoes give no shoots. I thought I would change the sheep for seed potatoes. Only it would be better shear it beforehand, to knit socks or something for Nadyusha.

Thus we were left with nothing, Nadyusha, me and Pestrushka the hen. And what do you think? They got the word that one hen remained and came for it. Believe it or not but we laughed so much! They came - almost whole village Soviet council and with witnesses.

Give your hen here now!'  - they said.

'Take it,' I said, what else could I say?

What a game started! Seven burley men chase one hen around wild grass! Naddya got scared, caught at my skirt.

Mammy!' shouts.

After her mother's death she started calling me «mammy», the child evidently felt better if she could say this word to someone in the world.

'Mammy, rescue Pestrushka!'

'Don't cry, sweetee, don't cry. We have nothing to feed Pestrushka, she'll be better on in the village council.'

The girl calmed down, looked and suddenly started laughing! I looked and couldn't help laughing too, the wild grasses were thick and tall. One cannot see potholes or grooves. Pestrushka is lean and swift, eludes their grasp! The men stumble and fall, the hen swirls among them like a snake!

At last, caught. Now we had no egg to add into mashed nettle. Soon I received a warrant to deliver eggs and wool. I always paid everything. Bought and delivered. Starved, did my utmost. But there was nothing more to take from home for sale and I couldn't pay that delivery, wool and eggs. Tears didn't work, they didn't have pity on the kid too... So they charged me with sabotage, article 58-14, and here I am. That's better! Nothing to grieve at, they sent Nadyusha to an orphanage and me to prison. Here they give a piece of bread every day, 350 gram. And hot water. At home I've not seen bread for a long time! And Nadyusha will get some bread. Let it be bitter but daily. It's better... For her and for me. The only pain is to think she'll never know tenderness. And at first she will forget and then grow to hate  her father, mother and me, the old gran. They'll teach her, my own blood, to lionize Stalin and hate her family. It's eating like worms at me...»

When Loginova started her story all in the cell slept, sometimes even sitting as the room was extremely crowded. But the sleep on the prison floor is neither sweet nor deep. Everyone woke up and gradually moved toward the door edge where the story-teller sat on the toilet pedestal and me beside her.

The light of a blinker was dim, everyone sighed. Each thought of her own grief but the air was impregnated with mutual grief. It was everywhere. And in everything.

«Hey, girls,» Loginova shuddered, «stop grieving. You can only die once. Let's recall how we got married, our wedding nights with our husbands. But the whole truth! Frankly!»

And without waiting for an invitation she was the first with her «memoirs», interspersing her rollicking story with barnyard jokes and sallies. But the deep craving was still hiding in her eyes, «Nadyusha, my dear kiddie, my last blood...»