An island hell: A Soviet prison in the far north

I. The Forerunners of the "Solovky" 43 II. From Monastery to Prison Camp 52 III. A Gallery of Tchekists 61 IV. Popoff Island Camp 74 V. The Tyranny of the Criminals 83 VI. "Coun...

I and my four companions left the Solovetsky Islands (called in this narrative the "Solovky," the name by which they are commonly known) on May 18th, 1925, and crossed the front...

Before proceeding to my main task — an account of the conditions in the Soviet prisons in the Solovetsky Islands — I should like to dwell briefly on the period of my life which...

In November, 1922, in honour of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917, the Council of People's Commissaries of the R.S.F.S.R.[3] (Russia then still lived under that...

Among the thousands of persons imprisoned in the gaols of the Trans-Caucasian Tcheka at the same time as myself were fifteen officers, among them General Tsulukudze, Prince Khim...

At last, on November 30th, 1923, i.e., seven months after I had been "amnestied" by the Batoum Tcheka, the examining judge of the Vladikavkaz Tcheka finally "amnestied" me in th...

Until late in 1922, Kholmogory[11] and Portaminsk performed the function now discharged by the Solovky. When I reached the Solovky at the beginning of 1924, I met a number of me...

The "Solovetsky" concentration camp received its name from the Solovetsky Monastery, founded in 1429 by Saints Sabbatius and Hermann, while Saint Zosima built the first church i...

Boky, Nogteff, Eichmans, Gladkoff — these were the men who had the power. They were sent to the Solovky from Moscow by Dshershinsky himself. The remainder of the _personnel_ of...

Nature herself is against the exiles. The Northern Camps for Special Purposes lie in the farthest north. The climate is severe and damp. Summer lasts only two months, or two mon...

Hardly have you set foot on the now accursed soil of the Solovky before you feel the power of the _shpana_. When our party, consisting of "counter-revolutionaries" from the Cauc...

On Solovetsky Island the "politicals and party men" live in separate cells — hermits' caves — and on Popoff Island in a special hut. Both at the monastery and in the Kem camp th...

The grounds for which people have been transported to the Solovky are so various, and very often so completely baseless, that one cannot help supposing them to be pure invention...

The "politicals and party men" on Solovetsky Island at the present time number about five hundred, including a hundred and fifty women and several dozen children. Children are p...

But the greatest blessing the politicals enjoy is that their wives and children are not compelled to associate with the women of the _shpana_. The company of these women is horr...

Most of the foreigners in the Solovky were sent there on the charge of "espionage for the benefit of the international _bourgeoisie_" (Clause 66). Sometimes a second clause is b...

In the spring of 1924 the _personnel_ of the concentration camp on Popoff Island was changed. The members of the Uslon (Direction of the Northern Camps for Special Purposes) and...

The huts in Popoff Island camp are about forty yards long and ten yards in breadth. The politicals' hut is twice as large as the others. From two hundred to three hundred person...

The "Medpomoshtsh"[34] (medical help) in the Solovetsky Islands is in fact medical helplessness. Owing partly to lack of resources, partly to the ill-will of the administration...

The leaders of the Communist Party declare that the Northern Camps for Special Purposes are something in the nature of a reformatory. The punishments administered in these estab...

The concentration camp on Solovetsky Island is guarded by the 3rd Escort Regiment of the Gpu troops (300 rifles strong), and that on Popoff Island by the 95th Division of the Gp...

The foreign workmen who come to Moscow in batches are given to understand by the Soviet Government that it, of course, is against the Solovky; it is willing to admit that the So...

The thought of escape was always in my mind, even in the Caucasus, in the prisons of the Extraordinary Commissions of Batoum, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and Grozny. On my arrival in th...

We cut wood till 8 a.m. At that hour a goods train came from Popoff Island to Kem; it would have been dangerous to try to escape before then. When the train had disappeared, Bez...

We recommenced our exhausting journey through the marshes, covered with thick scrub. We had no food. Despair took the place of hope in our hearts. Time after time we fell down f...

We had not a dry thread on us. Our cartridges were soaked. Our fingers shook with cold, we could not speak to one another. To crown all, our small supply of bread had run out. L...