The “ALZhIR” Museum-memorial complex of political repression and totalitarianism, located on the site of the Akmolinsk Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland, Kazakhstan. 2023

Dad tells me:

"Mom would say, “We built the barracks for you,” meaning, they, the women, did it alone. Moreover, the children’s barracks wasn’t even on camp grounds, it was outside the camp. We had our own barbed wire. I remember the road beyond the barbed wire where the women would walk. Sima Moiseevna [an inmate who worked as a kindergarten teacher] would tell me, “There goes your mom.” But I didn’t really understand what a mom was. Sima Moiseevna was my mom. I remember a ditch I couldn’t get over, because barbed wire ran over it and the ditch was very deep.

In the winter it was covered with snow. One time, I jumped in because

a rabbit was running by, and I crushed it by accident. This is my worst childhood pain—the bunny’s death. I even remember a girl with whom I walked hand in hand, Verochka Komissarova, who was my first love, as my mom later said."

The painted vault of the church across from the house where my father lived while he was teaching at the Kaluga College of Music. 2020

19.9.59

Dear mom, hello!

At last, I received a letter from you.

I don’t know if I need to fend off all the accusations you make, but I can’t help responding to some of them. You’re right that you suffered a lot because of me, more than because of anyone else. Yes, I’m guilty before you of many things. Children are always guiltier before their mothers than anyone else. It’s likely that I’m more guilty than others. Sometimes I think it would be much calmer without my existence at all. I’ve often thought of helping this along. You were always the counterweight to all this, you and only you. Don’t think that I wouldn’t have the strength—if we won’t call it the will—to end your suffering. Oh, if only I were sure that it would end! And as for what the public would think, I really don’t give a damn anymore.

<...>

Garik

a letter from my dad (Georgy/Garik)

to my grandmother (Olga)

A spring under the cross in the street of Kutaisi (Georgia),

where dad spent his youth. 2023

Dad tells me: "We rented from this one woman who was a former KGB captain and a Catholic Georgian at that. Kamarishvili—but really, Komarova. She spoke Russian. But the notion of the KGB there, in Georgia... it was peculiar. Because we know that Stalin, with Beria, carried out the first mass purges precisely in Georgia. They purged the Georgian intelligentsia like no one had ever destroyed it before. That’s why the attitude towards us, Russians who came from the camps, was ideal. The intelligentsia, naturally, knew what was going on. Especially since it was after the XX Party Congress, when Khrushchev spoke and revealed this universal evil to all the republics. [Khrushchev delivered his Secret Speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality, launching a wave of de-Stalinization] Everyone suffered, but he began with Georgia."

Bus stop seen from the window in Alexandrov, 2019. This is where my father and grandmother found themselves right after the camp: Soviet laws restricted freedom of movement for criminals, including freed political prisoners, who were forbidden to live in major cities.

Dad tells me: "There was a steam train from Alexandrov to Zagorsk, and then an electric commuter train to Moscow. They checked your papers during the transfer, and those who were forbidden from travelling closer than 100 kilometers to Moscow were thrown out. She managed to evade them, and no one checked papers in Moscow. Well, you had to look normal, make sure your eyes didn’t wander. My mom was an actress: she could talk to anyone with confidence... Her friends in Moscow didn’t betray her."

In KarLag’s former administrative building, 2023. Today, it’s the Dolinka Museum for the Commemoration of Victims of Political Repression (KarLag Museum)

20 June 1940

Olya, you must understand: that which doesn’t move, doesn’t grow, and doesn’t develop dies. It’s a law of life. You know it better than anyone else! That’s why I understand your wounded pride

and the whirlwind of emotions you’re feeling. But I don’t ask for much from you, only a bit of attention and your response—to know how hard it is for you and our son in captivity. If you don’t want to answer for some reasons unknown to me, then write just 2 words—or even one!?! And I’ll fall silent. Don’t take this as a reproach, it’s a necessity! I treat you and the boy, a drop of my blood, as well and simply as a human being can. Gently kissing you both

Your Nikolai

a letter from my grandfather (Nikolai)

to my grandmother (Olga/Olya) in the camp

The bathtub in which Stalin bathed, Tskaltubo. 2023

Dad tells me: "Neuhaus went there, mom’s teacher in Kyiv. [Heinrich Neuhaus was a well-known Russian pianist and music teacher.] When mom was rehabilitated, she arranged a sanatorium voucher for him—his hands hurt—to the Tskaltubo spa resort, for the hot springs and baths. [In the USSR, staying at spa towns, sanatoriums, and other tourist destinations required a voucher, which were difficult to get.] She went there herself after the camps; her hands and joints ached. Many people from Moscow went there, even Stalin used to go there for treatment. There’s a special mineral spring or bath where Stalin used to bathe. I’ve always said that life takes twists and turns: first he bathed there—then the convicts."