I travelled from Barnaul to Novosibirsk in a Stolypin car* together with a dozen of the minors, communal-farm girlies, timid and frightened. All of them were convicted for petty thefts. The youngest of them, Manya Petrova of eleven years old, stole a handful of green onion at a communal farm kitchen garden. Among that «raw material» there was one persistent criminal of fourteen years old, you cannot call her raw material, she was already a semi-product or, probably, completely corrupt girl.
«Oh, I would like to get to Poland. There I would steal jewellery on trains, gold and diamonds... That's the life!
The minors listened to the perorations of their world-wiser friend in fear and envy.
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* Stolypin cars were introduced in 1908, under the famous tsarist minister, Pyotr Stolypin. Those were freight cars adjusted for transportation of relocatees from European Russia to Siberia. As the mass relocation was Stolypin's idea the cars were dubbed with his name. In the both ends of car there were service sections for agricultural equipment and livestock.