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PERM-36. REFLEXION

A film by
Sergei Kachkin

Follow the guard's instruction

Ministry of the Interior USSR
FACILITY ВС389/36

NCO Memorial Centre for the History
of Political Repression "PERM-36"

MEMORIAL MUSEUM "PERM-36"

We are now on the territory
of a very special museum.

It is unique - the only Stalin-era Gulag

preserved in the entire
post-Soviet territory.

Not just a single,
freestanding building

but one with the whole
infrastructure intact.

The museum began to emerge slowly
and finally opened in 1994.

Until then, this was a working prison camp.

The camp was opened in 1946

and we can divide its
history into three parts.

After it was opened in '46,
people sentenced for

so-called ‘domestic' crimes
or petty theft were sent here.

But time passes and with the death
of the greatest leader of all time

Comrade Stalin, in 1953,
the situation in the country changed

as did the situation in the camp.

As fate would have it, none other than
Beria's henchmen would be transferred here

i.e. the very people
who had carried out the illegal repression.

Then, on July 13 1972 on
conditions of utmost secrecy

the first group of a
hundred political prisoners

from the Mordovian camps arrived
at the Chusovskaya station.

And two prison colonies were opened:
Perm-35 and Perm-36.

Four years later the Perm-37
compound was also opened.

In this way the notorious Perm Triangle
of political prison camps was formed.

That is the history of
this camp where we now are.

The last prisoner here was
released on December 27, 1987.

Fifteen years after,
the camp had been converted

into a high-security compound
for political prisoners.

The first time I came here
to the Museum of Political Repression

was entirely by chance ten years ago.

At that time I accompanied a Scot

who was studying the Russian
language and culture.

It so happened that I would later
come back here again and again

with friends from Russia and from abroad.

And each time I discovered something new…

for example, that in the 1970s

people were imprisoned here for disagreeing
with the official position of the State

while in the 1980s they were imprisoned
for collecting certain literature

which you can now find in any bookstore.

The camp was active
during the years I was a schoolchild

so I had no conscious
perception of its existence.

The camp, now a museum,
is located 80 km from Perm,

the city where I was born and grew up.

And so, over time,
I wanted to meet

with someone who was imprisoned here.

I'm sure I was not the only one
and probably because of this

the Museum Administration invited
some former political prisoners.

That time, a worker from an electrical
engineering plant from the city of Sverdlovsk

(now Yekaterinburg) turned up.

We are now situated in one of the four

sleeping-quarters of the prison barracks.

This is how the sleeping-quarters

of the Perm-36 camp looked like
in the early period of its existence,

that is in Autumn 1946
when the camp was opened.

There were bunk beds,
the four-bed wooden plank bunks.

Basically this is all the décor there was.

Now you can get a first-hand
account of how it was.

With us today is a former prisoner from
the final period of this camp's existence.

I'm sure that you all have questions

about how people lived here.

Let me introduce myself.
I am Victor Pestov,

born in 1946.

I served a five year sentence here
for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,

(Article 70),

subversion and organizing
activity Intended to overthrow

the Soviet System (Article 72).

A category of particularly
dangerous state prisoners.

I discovered this
when I was taken to the KGB headquarters

of Sverdlovsk Region and
given the Penal Code to read.

We were involved in organizing

an underground anti-Communist organization.

We named it "Free Russia",

it comprised of myself, my brother,

Kolya Shaburov,
Volodya Bersenyov and Vladik Uzlov.

Vladik Uzlov was a student

The rest of us worked
in plants and factories.

We started organizing in 1968.

And insofar as my mother worked for the KGB

I managed to quiz her
and find out certain things.

I told the lads that we should buy carbon
and paper for future,

use at different places and that
typewriters needed to be bought second-hand

because my mother told me that they were

all registered,
so that if you bought them in a shop

then the typeface specimens
were sent on to the KGB.

We went to craftsmen
and they sold us

a 1933 ‘ReinMetall'
typewriter for 40 roubles.

We also came to an agreement
that they would

resolder the fonts,
which they were happy to do.

We issued five different leaflets.

We distributed them on November 7th 1969

and then on April 25th i.e. Easter 1970,

the last leaflets issued were
on May 1st ‘70 in the city of Sverdlovsk.

Kolya Shaburov went to the Latvian
city of Liepāja (near Leningrad).

He travelled and contacted a friend

with whom he had studied
at a training college.

But his friend denounced him.

Then we were sent to Mordovia [camp].

We served some of our sentence in Mordovia

but since information was leaking out
to western radio stations

they decided to transfer the main
group of prisoners to the Perm region.

So my brother and I ended up here.

He took the bottom bunk here
and I the top one.

Then in 1975 I was released
and from ‘76 to ‘91

we again organized underground.
We paid dues,

and had typewriters
and photographic labs.

We continued to have
the same organization as before

but our circle mainly consisted
of former political prisoners.

You said that your mother was in the
KGB, |what happened to her career?

Yes, yes… She was relieved of
her duties at her own request.

So after that for about a year

she could find no work anywhere,

she got a job as a cleaner even though
she had been a Colonel in the KGB.

It was rather awkward
when I was released but I came out

and told her "I am guilty of
what happened in your life."

She told me to forget about it
and that I shouldn't worry about it.

Everything very ‘Russian-style'.

Things weren't so easy with my father.
They had divorced.

He filed for divorce
when we were imprisoned.

At that time of year there are
only a few visitors to the museum.

Whereas in the summer
there can be thousands in one weekend.

And this is large part due to
the fact that the administration

of the museum organizes an
International Civic Forum.

It is entitled Pilorama (sawmill)

where the prisoners used to work.

All that has remained of this place today

is the skeleton and the platform.

How quiet…

not a sound.

The smoldering of the final embers of coal
seems almost audible …

now just slag.

The stoker brought it here on a cart
and dumped it in a pile.

The literary scholar Mikhail Meylakh worked
in this very boiler room

when he was imprisoned here.

And from the words of Meylakh himself
this work had one advantage -

it allowed one at least some relief
from the routine of the camp.

We are now located in the room with

a small-scale model of the
Kolyma prison barracks.

The geographical aspect is not so important

as there was little variety
in the interiors of the camps.

Prisoners had no thermometers and could
only measure the temperature in this way:

if it was misty behind the
windows then it was -40 °C,

if it was difficult to
breathe then it was -50 °C

and if spittle freezes in the air,

(that's no metaphor) then it's -60 °C.

The prisoners didn't always stay
inside in these temperatures,

they were sent out to do common labour:

they mined gold,
tin, uranium ore and coal.

They literally extracted
it with their bare hands.

The only tools they had were crowbars,
wheelbarrows and spades.

Obviously in such conditions
and at such temperatures

people didn't survive for long.

On average a prisoner sent to
Kolyma would survive 5-6 months

The whole country was full of
these yellow circles on the map

industrialisation sites.

The first Five-Year Plan was
a plan for industrialisation.

From an agrarian country Russia
should become an industrial one.

That was all very fine in theory –
here is the "UralMash" plant,

here is the "Chelyabinsk Tractors", here...

is the "Dnepro HydroElectric
Power Station".

This is all good but near every circle,

in each of the squares on the map
there were up to 200 prison camps.

Look at Magadan -
it is 7,000 km from the centre by land

and 3,000 km by sea.

Who would ever go there voluntarily?
Nobody!

The whole of Kolyma rests
on the bones of prisoners.

As far as women were concerned
this is a separate story to be told.

In 1937 a secret order was made

to arrest women whose husbands
had already been arrested.

Simply for not having
denounced their husbands,

women and children were repressed.

And one of the most terrible
female camps was the "Alzhir" Camp.

The abbreviation stood for The ‘Akmolonsky
Camp for Wives of Motherland Traitors'.

As we said the camps were
called ‘reform-labour camps'

but, of course,
they reformed no one.

The people, with their bitter
sense of irony gave them

a more accurate description:
deform-labour camps.

Creep out, you bourgeois!
We will put you on trial.

You will pay for your treason.

Communist Party of the
Russian Federation (CPRF)

Birds sing and mosquitoes drone,

And a dead bourgeois exudes such a stench!

A-frame sign: We'll struggle
together until victory!

CPRF Sergei Andriyanov

Komarovo

A village of summer houses on
the coast of the Gulf of Finland.

Mikhail Meylakh

nowadays a Professor at the
University of Strasburg,

came here immediately after
being released from the camp.

Here in seclusion

he could recover from the experience
of several years of camp life.

Today too, Mikhail Borisovich,

while living between
Strasbourg and Saint Petersburg

often comes here during the
winter and summer holidays.

I feel a little uncomfortable
talking about myself but...

in some way I always
went against the trend.

Even at primary school my teacher said:

all kids are kids (deti)
but he's a ‘myslete'.

Rather witty as ‘myslete' is also the name
of the letter M in Old Church Slavonic

and both my name and
surname begin with the letter M.

Of course...

one of the circumstances
leading to my imprisonment

was that I went to visit Brodsky
when he was in exile

and that was well known.

That was sufficient.

But the direct cause of my imprisonment
was that for years I collected

books in Russian published abroad.

So-called ‘tamizdat'.

All these books were kept
in the house of an old lady.

It's extraordinary that after her death

it became known that in the years
of the Stalinist Terrors she was a snitch

and she had been planted on Akhmatova.

Well in any case,
they lay there and I decided

to use these books,
as did my closest friends.

Everything was fine.
Then she had cancer...

She lived on her own
and so we needed to move these books.

I gave them to one person
who was very careless

with them and eventually he was caught.

But when they arrested him

then I, being very naïve in this,

decided simply to leave for Moscow.

This was possible during Stalin's Terror,

to leave for another city,
that had a different security service team.

Generally a person could hide

at least until he attracted
further attention.

This is how Lidia Chukovskaya behaved back

when they arrested her
husband and it was clear

that she would be the next victim.

So she simply left for Moscow.

There were many such cases.

But now times had changed.

When they eventually arrested me

I understood from their
telephone conversations

that they needed to dismantle checkpoints,
and something else...

then I understood that they had been
chasing me around Moscow for two weeks.

And I was traveling in Moscow by car.

Just imagine how badly they worked?

There's a myth that people
in the KGB were clever,

that at least they 'knew their trade',

if one can express oneself in that way.

In reality they botched things up
just like everyone else at that time.

They simply had impunity.

They could use means unavailable to others.

Because they were lazy they mainly
listened in to telephone conversations.

I knew about that and I never
called anyone in Moscow by phone.

Well when I left the city

to visit a female friend

they located me by my car plates.

There were a number of cases in my life

when in a split second
you discover or see something

that completely changes your life

and you know it will
never be the same again.

So when they showed me their KGB ID card,

I understood that everything was over.

Here at least there is a special climate …

a short while ago,
the gusty wind shook the branches

and the cotton-like snow swirled around.

But already by midday
it disappeared somewhere

and then things became very quiet.

But for how long?

Mikhail Borisovich was freed
as a result of a humiliating pardon

which he could only accept
after acknowledging his guilt.

His need to return home was spurred on
by his father's illness,

who died half a year
after his son returned.

Joseph Brodsky first met
Anna Akhmatova here at Komarovo.

He claimed that he owed
all his best human qualities to her.

After Anna Andreevna's death,

Brodsky had to organise her burial.

But the authorities didn't want
to permit her burial in a place

where people could freely visit her grave.

This is Akhmatova's grave,
rather a strange one.

That wall is made from Izborsk stone,
from near Pskov.

The cross was made by
Old Believers from Pskov

even though of course
she was no Old Believer.

A profile of Modigliani
has been attached to this wall.

The funeral was in 1966.

There was a huge crowd of people here.

Her own grave is not here,
not under the cross.

It's somewhere here.

Later all this was moved because
of this architectural ensemble

which Lev Gumilev (her son) had thought up.

This is our family vault.

Here is my father,
mother and little son.

For some reason nearly all

the elements of the monument are oriental.

This monument is a copy
of an architectural detail

of a cathedral in Svetitskhoveli, Georgia.

This is a very early cathedral,

apparently the 6th or 7th century.

And this is an Armenian lion.

My son was called Leo

and I also found this

ancient Armenian image of a lion.

There is a kind of poetry in cemeteries,

they were especially loved
in the epoch of Sentimentalism.

Thomas Gray has a famous poem

"Elegy written in a country churchyard".

Well cemeteries are as old as man.

And archaeology makes use of this fact.

In ancient times people were
buried with many objects

they would need in the afterlife.

I always say that one's
heirs should be buried

if they have author's rights
along with the deceased

just as they buried leaders
with their wives or with their horse

because all the serious
trouble begins with the heirs.

On the first day it felt
rather amused being in jail.

And then I began to reflect upon this

and decided that I was
one of many millions,

maybe 40 million, maybe 60 million.
No one knows exactly

So there was no real reason
to make a 'big deal' over it.

I had one principle:
not to name anybody.

I was already there, they would do
what they want with me anyway.

But I should not name a single name
and I kept strictly to this principle.

I even taunted them to entertain myself.

My sense of humour didn't abandon me.

It's amazing that when
I got to know about my case,

then it was prescribed by law,
I had to read the whole case

and the case ran to six volumes.

Such a fuss about the possession and

circulation of Solzhenitsyn
and Mandelshtam.

It was in that first period when they were
hoping that I would collaborate with them.

I demanded that they give me
a manuscript of my book in the cell

which they had taken in the search.

When they did the search
hey didn't really understand things,

just taking what they could.
They had taken a manuscript of a book

already ready for publication,
which was later published in the ‘90s.

This was my translation of the life
histories of troubadours in literature.

It seemed such a reputable volume.

There was already the "Confirmed
for Publication" stamp

so they had to give me the manuscript.

With the aim of forging a relationship
with me they gave it to me in my cell.

And I was busy at it for a month.

And then when relations worsened

they told me that they
would take it away from me.

What to do with it?

In fact they asked me.
I told them to give it to my co-author,

the now deceased Nadezhda Rykova

with whom I'd worked
together on a part of the book.

She was a member of the Writers' Union
and also a respected person

even though she too had been to jail
in her time.

They agreed.

On the last day I decided that I couldn't
let the book get away 'naked' so to say.

So I did the following:

I wrote a letter in Latin.

and I outdid them,
writing them notes stating

that I didn't have a Latin dictionary
and so I couldn't translate that text.

Please translate it yourselves.

And they had to swallow that too.

So they themselves released a letter to
the outside world - simply nothing worse

could happen to them.
It is called a leak of information.

What information?
None of it was worth a damn thing.

And in the letter there was a sentence

which really offended them saying

that speaking with them was like
teaching a crocodile vegetarianism.

They asked "so we're the crocodiles?"

Hilarious.
Of course they are crocodiles.

I told them that
what wonderful power they had

if it could be subverted
by a few odd books.

So they found
that they had really messed things up,

that they had delivered a letter to
the outside world with their own hands.

I heard that the chief of
this investigation department

apparently had a heart
attack because of this.

At school I was straight sent into
the second year because I already knew

how to read and write and even knew English
which I was taught from the age of 3.

And so from that almost ivory
tower-like home environment

in a family of professors I found myself
suddenly thrown into a madhouse.

On my first day I went
to the school doctor,

I thought that just one
illness was not enough

and said "let me go home,
my stomach and throat hurts".

And then the torment began.

One day we were asked to bring
some scrap metal to class.

I looked around me on
my way home from school

and couldn't find any anywhere.

Then I went for a stroll along
the Field of Mars where we lived.

I live there now too.

And then on the mass grave
of the victims of revolution

although its victims
were quite the others -

I saw some rusty wreaths,
completely of no use to anyone,

powdered with snow,
as it was winter.

I decided that I had found
some scrap metal. Great!

I took those wreaths
and dragged them to school.

There was a terrible scandal.

From there it only got worse.

About a year after the death of Stalin

a fleet of British warships

docked at the Neva [River].

Everyone went to look at them.

We were strictly warned

that we mustn't talk
to the British sailors

who left the ships and
walked through Leningrad.

One dark evening I ran into some British
soldiers in Palace Square returning from school.

Since I already spoke fluent English
the temptation was just too great.

So we started talking.

They were astonished
that a little boy was speaking English and,

to make things worse,
they invited me on to the ship.

Well, how could a little boy resist that?

They waited for a boat near the Hermitage

and they took me on to the ship,

showed me around,
we spoke about Shakespeare

who I had already read in the
retelling by Charles and Mary Lamb.

They gave me some English tea to
drink and brought me back to shore.

As soon as they sailed off

some men were already waiting for me

and grabbed me by my arm,
taking me to the police

where they had summoned my father.

Well that was the second terrible scandal.

Things continued like that

Worse and worse.
I was fated to go to jail.

As far as the trial went I didn't
stay silent like Lev Timofeyev

but attempted to play games with them.

They managed to dig things
out from the witnesses.

My misfortune was to be arrested
with a notebook on me.

For them this was a tasty morsel they could
use to torment people for a whole year.

The majority of witnesses said that
they didn't know anything

but all the same they
named something or other.

The fact that I had given them something
to read was very useful for them.

They managed to collect a
certain amount of evidence.

At that time there were two articles in the law
about anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.

One article (170) was simply for
anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.

For this they gave 3 years in a usual camp
with a customary regime.

Then there was article 70:
anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda

with the aim of subverting Soviet power.

How to define this – it was hard to
define who had aim and who didn't.

Anyway they stitched me
up with this aim clause.

In short, this article had a punishment
of up to 7 years of prison camp

and then 5 years of internal
banishment after that:

this is the sentence
that I faced: 7 plus 5.

Then when I saw the
television in the court room

then I got really angry

and abandoned all my testimony,

although I hadn't given them
any particular evidence.

I declared that I didn't consider
myself guilty in any way

and that let them rant on with their

‘subverting', ‘possession'
and ‘distribution'.

After that...

the procurator and the judge...

did what they wanted,
simply to continue with the trial

and so they gave me
the maximum sentence.

Also because of my behaviour
during the investigation:

for the letter, for my jokes
and for everything.

There were some very difficult moments,

I had an illness from
which I almost died.

I asked the doctor
whether I would recover

and he said ‘fifty-fifty'.

And I understood that if I gave
into the course of the illness

and there had already
been intestinal paralysis

and a complete stop to
all my bodily functions…

I understood that if I
stopped fighting this illness

then one could say that
I could calmly slip into death.

And I must say I even
wanted this to happen.

Because then it was considered,

or, rather, seemed
(it was indeed the case at that time)

that I would never get out of that place.

By not admitting my guilt then according

to a Soviet perspective
I was guilty for life.

And the procurator told me

"you'll never see Leningrad
or your parents again".

In those cases one sentence ended and
you're sent down again for some triviality.

So one way or another...

like in Vvedensky's
‘Christmas at the Ivanov's'...

as the boy says
"How I want to die".

But...

I felt pity for my dear ones,

my parents, above all.

And I began to struggle for life
and somehow pulled through.

For my parents I'm sure it was
a worse ordeal than for me.

It wasn't such a pleasant life there.

But there were some
special moments as,

for example, when I worked
as a stoker at different shifts.

That was a great advantage in that you
could somehow ‘drop out' of the routine.

Although, it was very heavy work.

But when everything was already done:

first you have to break
the coal into pieces,

then it is taken to the cart,
throw into the stove

and the stove is cleaned
and the smell of the cart with

all its smoky slag hits you...

and when all this is done and
you go out into the Urals night

and look at the stars as big as my fist,

this is, indeed, real happiness.

As smoke over dampened flame

the news stalks forth, and the word

comes blended with the name

in the accusatory case.

At first inarticulate, as if

some acoustic vessel

was sailing out of the nether realm

of Babylonian distant chaos,

then, massing into a single sound scale,

fricatives, affricates,
sibilants burst forth

making a rustling grove,

a phonetic orchard

blossom in backstreets, along the porches,

along the corners of shabby flats,

coming with the stealthy radio waves

that plough the glacial clouds,

and this passive voice fills

the hoarse air of the two capitals

with a foul fiery dance

of prancing she-demons,

making their dominion

ripple in quavering darkness,

so that the commands from Pluto's realm

might resound in hell as they do in jail.

…The sound draws nearer.
In the vaults of the cell

the lost sound roams astray,

shuddering,
then freezing up as a white butterfly

not grazing the hand outstretched.

Kama...

is a deep, full-flowing river.

Here, on one of its flood banks,

a hundred kilometers from the city of Perm,

is located the leisure resort «Pershino».

I came here

in order to meet and
spend a few May days

with the bio-physicist
and human rights activist,

Sergei Adamovich Kovalev.

Our activity,
our protests arose,

if you like, out of shame.

It was shameful to live
in those circumstances,

shameful to write
these ‘socialist obligations' on demand.

You know what that is like.

It's a completely pointless
piece of paper that

no one would read and you'd forget
about 3 minutes after you've written it.

And you pronounce these
pathetic phrases that

we're going to work even harder,
and all that blah blah blah …

and, "We can look forward to..."

There's nothing we can look forward to!

We looked forward
to getting them off our back.

Take this bloody paper
and stick it up your arse...

well put it in the cupboard and back off.

So shame induced these protests

and this shame intensified when

you spoke up for,
or tried to speak up for

someone in jail, damn it,

it's not that he was
subject to verbal abuse,

he wasn't forced to write
socialist obligations like you.

He was sent to jail
and he is suffering in jail.

Well if someone starts to say,
well they were people,

there's a tendency to do this,

they were people
who thought about their country

and fought so that people
would have it easier,

so that life for people in this
country would start to get better...

this is all lies!

I'm telling you like it is,
I and not only I,

didn't even think about this,

I acted purely out of egoistic concerns,

I wanted to acquire a moral right

to self-respect, damn it!

And in general I want to pursue science
and to continue to do so.

I thought they'll hardly

just go and jail me
for some kind of protest.

But after a very short period of time

I clearly understood
that they'll jail me.

And so then the question arises -

so you want to have the
right to self-respect?

Then you'll have to pay for this!

As it turned out
there were a considerable number of people

ready to pay for this
right with a jail sentence.

That's pretty much how it was.

I want to underline once again that

this was the birth of political idealism.

One must live not according to the rules

but according to one's conscience.

And this is the...

the main global issue today.

That's a long conversation
that we'll have later.

Now I'll go and
get myself a beer.

They're going to hit each other,

they often collide.

Wow, oh boy!

Serious guys!

- That one on the right just came really close to us.
- Yes, yes-yes…

Then it went that way,
a young one, it seems.

Yes, those two there,
walking along the edge.

- It's clear that they're not very strong.
- They're afraid, yes.

- I don't see the females.
- They've gone off somewhere.

- No, here she is.
- Look, they've gone all quiet.

There one of them is standing amongst them,
a large one…

you're such a fine one!

Look it's writhing about…

Where is he?
Over there.

Oh, the sun's just risen.

Look, a beaut!

Oh what a beaut!

Bluish black.
Eyebrows!

A pity, so good looking.

Sergei Adamovich a passionate hunter
since his youth

has a reserve of yarns and tales.

So I asked him
to tell the first yarn

that came to mind.

I'm not going
to tell any preface.

That it was an Indian writer,

and that I don't know his name,

and that he's written a good novel...

and this novel has a parable.

The parable involves a story
in which an Indian prince

travelled with his retinue
who prepared for him

a marquee tent
for his princely repose,

and he had almost fallen asleep

when into the tent flew a dove
and in pursuit was a falcon.

And the dove tried to hide
in some kind of corner,

and the prince stretched out his regal arms

obstructing the falcon's path.

The falcon sat somewhere in the tent

and suddenly addressed
the prince in a human voice

saying "why do you
prevent me from hunting?"

"Because," said the prince

I don't want an innocent
creature to perish.

But the falcon said to him

"nature is built like
that, you understand,"

"I can't feed myself on herbs and grain"

"so how am I guiltier
than that damn dove?"

"Yes, but you will kill it
and I want to..."

"to prevent this cruel killing,"
the prince replied.

"And consequently you want my young to
die of starvation?" says the falcon.

"But can't you hunt somewhere else,"
said the prince.

"So, that's it you want
to save this unfortunate dove"

"at the expense of my poor young ones,"

"please feed them with your own flesh."

So, in short,

they place on one of the balance
scales the weight of this dove.

"Well", says the falcon,
"give of your flesh as much"

"as this bird weighs."

"Fine", said the prince,

and he cut off a large
piece of flesh from his leg,

threw it onto the scales but the arrow
indicating the weight did not even budge.

The dove was much heavier than this meat.

And the prince,
bleeding profusely,

cut piece after piece of flesh
without anything moving.

The prince's servants
were starting to panic,

they addressed the falcon telling him,

"what are you doing foolish bird?"

And the falcon replies
"Well then, do you want

to prevent your prince from
becoming an honest man?"

It continued in this dangerous way

until suddenly,
the weight balanced.

Then the falcon
turned into a god

and sang high praises for the prince

saying, "you are a man of merit!"

"You did a great deed"

"with your own force,
not on someone else's account."

I was arrested on the
27th of December, 1974,

uhhmm the 27th...

well I could have got this one day out.

Then I was brought to the train station
and sent to the camp with my things.

So they led me to the
doors of the "Stolypin car"

and a lieutenant
who had brought me there,

he accompanied me and said

"That one to the "troinik".

A "troinik" -
is a small room meant for three people.

I was transported alone
without cellmates.

At first we went through, mmm…

how could this happen?
I think they brought me

first through Nizhny Novgorod,
then through Yaroslavl'.

I don't remember
what the route was like.

Anyway it's not important.

Well when you travel
through various cities…

and we passed through Kirov…
So where are they taking you?

To Perm!
Where else?!

You see...

we, my generation,
we became active citizens,

in the sixties, in the eighties,

if you want, it's directly
linked to the Khrushchev thaw.

Then society had sort of woken up

because after Khrushchev's
denunciation of Stalin at the XX congress,

it turned out that it was possible to say

deeply critical things
about Soviet power.

This was apparent in this period

when it suddenly became
possible to criticize Stalin.

It was a remarkable lesson.

And then we, those like me,

seized any information
from outside the iron curtain.

We had an avid interest! How did
people live in the rest of the world?

What happened in the outside world?

And so we fell into the trap

of yet another innocent mistake.

We live god knows where,

everything about us
is rather inhuman,

look how the rest of the world lives.

Everything was about ‘realpolitik',

we didn't really recognize this,
we believed that

in the West life was built in accordance

with what was called ‘universal values'.

This was not ‘realpolitik'

but a politics of values
and not interests.

Then it later became clear that

everyone lives in
more-or-less the same way,

and that ideal world exists
only in people's ideals.

And doesn't exist
in any reality anywhere.

This has become clear nowadays

but then like fools we considered

"We stand for noble ideas,

which are there, just there in the West,
they are triumphant!"

Of course, one can't compare
the policy in existence there

which Western countries undertake

with the hideous things which
are happening over here.

But, nonetheless, I'd say
that these are things of the same nature,

so when we become indignant about

that which is happening all around us…

we mustn't forget

that this crisis…

a moral, historic and legal

crisis is a global one!

It shakes the whole world

and in fact we taking
our cue from Andrei Sakharov,

we must think about global politics

and not only about Russian politics.

It rained all day
on the eve of our farewell.

It was cold.

And it felt that this weather
would linger on for a long time.

But time passed by imperceptibly

leaving behind a mass
of unasked questions.

Therefore we decided to meet again

during the "Pilorama" Forum.

A scorching July day.

A ferocious heat but the sun barely
appears from the low, thundery clouds.

The organizers hastily conclude
their preparations to open the forum

which already opens tomorrow (on Saturday).

But the majority of the guests will
arrive today, on the Friday evening

and will be housed in the tented camp

set up in the field opposite the museum.

The morning.

The camp reluctantly
awakes after a rainy night.

The organizers chose the last
weekend of July precisely

because statistically, during this period,
the weather is usually warm and dry.

But for several years now

it has only been dry once

and that year there was a sweltering heat.

The remaining times it has
been rather cold and wet.

Fortunately, visitors to the Forum are not
frightened off by the capricious weather.

And, in spite of the foul weather,
another third of the guests

will come at midday
for the opening ceremony.

Dear friends, we are once again
gathered here at «Pilorama».

It is taking place this year
for the eighth time.

It was founded in 2005

as a folk song gathering
to mark the Museum's anniversary,

but since 2007 it has become a civil forum

drawing a large audience.

Our "Pilorama" is a rather accurate

replica of Russian society.

Beyond the Boyarka river,
coming here, you can see

the largest tent, the highest flags -

they are those of the Communists,

those of ‘Sut' Vremeni'
[the Essence of Time].

Here there are the liberals,
very different groups.

Amidst us now are former
political prisoners of this camp:

Victor Pestov,
our neighbour from Yekaterinburg,

Mikhail Meylakh…

Mikhail Borisovich...

well, it's hard even to pinpoint

how Mikhail Borisovich
found himself in this camp.

He wasn't an active dissident but

he managed to build an independent
life under Soviet power

and do what he most loved.

At the same time he collected
a huge samizdat library,

for which Soviet power sent him to prison.

Sergei Kovalev

visits us each year

so obviously there is little
need to introduce him.

Few people know that...

in the 1980s there were three people
from the Kovalev family in jail.

Sergei Adamovich spent time in this prison
camp and was sent to exile to Kolyma.

Ivan Kovalev was jailed
in camp Perm-36

and Ivan's wife Tanya
Osipova was imprisoned

in a camp in Mordovia
for female political prisoners.

There are also political prisoners

who served their sentences in other camps:

Vyacheslav Bakhmin and
Arseny Roginsky.

I won't name all the
international participants,

those people, those
guests who you will see,

listen to and talk with.

Friends, I declare "Pilorama" is open.
Thank you!

At «Pilorama», one instantly submerges
into a whole train of events:

exhibitions, concerts,
shows, film screenings.

One of the main goals
of the Forum organizers

is to enlighten the public.

I greet my mum!

It seems that both the politician
and the artist feels at home here.

Also at the Forum discussions
on serious subjects are held.

For example like this one:

entitled "20 Years After
The USSR, Gains and Losses".

I wish to give the floor to a person

who it would take a
long time to introduce

and anyway needs little
introduction to people here.

That is Sergei Adamovich Kovalev.

I claim that

the breakdown of the
Soviet Union was inevitable,

historically inevitable.

And now what happened in our country.

We couldn't even imagine
a conversation of this kind back then.

I don't know how many would
have been sent to camps,

how many would have
become informers

but I'm certain of one thing.

Little good would have
come to this audience.

And it would be terrible to imagine what

would have happened to Shmyrov
(the director of Perm-36).

But you should know
that our new authorities

are more sophisticated
in the art of imitation

than in the Soviet Union.

And so what! So how many people
have gathered here? About 100.

So 100 people have
gathered, let them speak

or debate amongst themselves.

Let them let off some steam,

let the young in their...

patriotic T-shirts speak

and row with their elders.

Is this frightening for anyone?

Is the state afraid of this? No!

As Mandelshtam wrote:

"…We live, not sensing
our own country beneath us,

ten steps away they
evaporate, our speeches…".

And time and again
you meet a young man

who has the words USSR
on his gaudy T-shirt

and something else written

and you find that he is
a passionate follower of Stalin.

He has never seen
and never heard this Stalin

and he never heard
or seen the USSR

having been born
after its breakup.

Thank you, Sergei Adamovich.

- You can ask any questions later.
- When exactly? How much time remains?

- You haven't understood me?
- I'm asking you.

I told you that I'll answer you

after Mikhail Meylakh has spoken.
Over to you.

The breakup of the Soviet Union.

Well of course it was inevitable.

The fact that the Soviet Union

had inherited the worst
aspects of the empire,

this is also completely evident.

The medieval consciousness

which had been inherited
from the time of the tsars

and then in the Soviet Empire
has also been preserved

to a large extent too in our society.

I'll give you an example
from my own prison experience.

When I was still in
the pretrial detention cell,

we were only given a copy
of the newspaper Pravda.

And so one day
the cell window opens

and we are given Pravda
with the following words:

"If you start to get excited you'll
be sent to the punishment cell".

What wasn't it possible
to get excited about?

It turned out to be
the death of the most

insignificant of all the rulers, Chernenko.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mikhail Borisovich.

Now … sit down, young man,
sit down, hold your horses,

those ladies and gentlemen in red,

those resting on
each other's shoulders

impatient to express themselves,

and people of other colours, clothes

and persuasions
also can have your say.

When I used to work on month-long shifts…

Wait, wait a moment.
You've already asked a question,

now one has begun to speak,
please sit down

and take it in turns.
Carry on, young man.

I have a question about something
relevant to the discussion.

The title is 20 Years After The USSR:
Gains and Losses.

As far as I know you were
dissidents during the Soviet Union.

From your words I have heard
about a single gain

since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

We are only speaking about the losses.

- Our gains are too obvious.
- For example?

A lot has been stated. There is
freedom, above all freedom…

- Freedom of what?
- There are many freedoms.

Freedom of travel. Before practically
no one could travel abroad.

Even though the
registration system remains,

but the severe Soviet registration system
(apart from Moscow) has ended.

Free enterprise.
Yes, a million freedoms

that people didn't dream of before.

Let's take it in turns.
You have asked your question.

This lady here.
Please, you've already asked a question?!

For 20 years I've dealt
with human mentality

working with very different people.

My impression is that just
as they used to believe that

things were better in
the USSR so do they now.

Just as they wanted the USSR,
so do they want it now.

Just as they used to work in the
USSR so they continue to work.

So there is a paradox that if one
were to behave democratically

then it means one needs
to create a new USSR,

if that's what the people want.

Yes, there is a fairly
large number of people,

I don't know
what the percentage is.

Maybe even half...

who would want to return
to that historic period.

It's possible that our
much suffering nation

will choose the
wrong path again.

I don't know whether you'll be
happy about such a thing…

I'd be sad about it.

Those who say that the
people want Soviet order.

But excuse me, democracy is not
above all the power of the majority.

Democracy is the rights
of the minority.

- You lie. It's called an oligarchy.
- If you continue to speak in that tone

and with those expression

then I'm afraid things
will turn out badly for you.

- A true liberal.
- For a start, they'll kick you out, got it?

- So, never mind.
- You attacked me 3 years ago when I spoke to you.

There's no need to be rude.
Can you get out of here?!

Yeah sure I attacked.

Let's stand near
each other and look at

who could have attacked whom.

You in a whole group attacked one person.

You have the right
to your position,

your point of view and
I won't impinge on that right.

But neither should
you impinge on my rights.

The death of many soldiers
is on your conscience.

Listen, shut it, otherwise
you're going to fly out of here!

- I don't want to sit here, let him leave.
- Leave, quickly!

- You leave!
- Calm down, sit down.

- Go on, you leave!!
- Calm down, sit down.

Listen let...

let me answer you Madam.

Some silence please.

Listen, those lads in the red T-shirts

have come here specially
to scuttle the proceedings.

Let's try to continue now.

This girl there has had her hand up for
such long time, it's almost dropping off!

After midday,
I set off to the tented camp

and there I run into
some lads with red T-shirts.

I asked them to introduce
themselves and tell me

why they came to Pilorama.

My name is Sergei Andriyanov,

I'm the First Secretary of
the Perm Lenin Committee

of the Communist Union of Youth.

The aim of the visit.
Well, Pilorama

has been designated by the
organizers as a territory of freedom,

as a space where people can come,
discuss, express their opinions.

We came here with our
position on our history,

about our view on the contemporary set up,
we take part in discussions…

Of course, now the situation
is rather different.

If in previous years
we came here as opponents

then this time there are
points of convergence.

I understand that to some extent
you have some competitors?

By competitors do you mean
the second camp with red flags?

Well, they already came here last year.

Now you see Putin wished to remain in power

and it was widely stated
that those against him

were western spies.

So to fight against these western spies they
created the organization "Sut' Vremeni",

which acts like a parasite
on Soviet symbols.

So you want to say that you haven't
yet found points of convergence.

What points? They are an openly
antagonistic organization.

They're in favour of Putin!

Yes, many of their activists
say that they're against Putin

but they are playing for his team.

They try to tell citizens that

all opponents are spies, in favour
of the Orange Revolutions and so on.

Therefore they defend
Putin even if not directly

and because they are our enemies.

We just need to explain to people

what kind of organization
it is and what its goals are.

There are many people who are
the against present-day authorities

but are positive about the Soviet past.

They persuaded many of these
people to support their side.

If we were together we would be stronger

but they convinced people
with their talk about foreign spies.

Tell me, why do you insist on those
two figureheads: Lenin and Stalin?

Let's take Stalin. Why do you use
his name and images of him?

Both Lenin and Stalin
created the Soviet Union.

Without this country, without those
reforms that they carried out

then Russia would never have
survived the Second World War.

Consider that the country was agrarian and

to undertake industrialisation,
to make that leap,

we could only do so with that

hard work which these
two leaders implemented.

Therefore, naturally,
we honour their memory and

we come out very strongly against
any attempts to brainwash people,

when people try to dirty the
reputations of these two great people.

It is unjust. As though any other
path for Russia were possible.

There was another path:
to remain an agrarian country

and become some other country's colony.
That was all,

the choice was very narrow in reality.

I understand, but the price of
human lives doesn't put you off?

And what would the price have been,

if Germany had occupied Russia?

The fact is that Stalinist repression
began well before the WWII.

Everyone talks about 1937,

but contemporaries of the time,
the simple inhabitants,

didn't notice that anything
was happening to the country.

They use numbers, which ones?!

That 800 thousand people
were repressed, shot, right?

That's more or less realistic,
of course there are those

who say 20 million,
some say that.

Look 800,000 in a country with
a population of almost 300 million,

you know more people die nowadays.
About a million die each year.

They believe that in capitalism
it's a matter of course,

that from drugs,
criminality and other things.

And yet there someone was guilty,
an evil man who killed everyone.

But all this is not quite true.
And there's another thing.

I'm acquainted with someone who
told me how they repressed his father.

In a spurious way.
It turned out he was accused

by a militia man who
had been a white guard

and who had stolen
someone else's papers.

So there were cases of sabotage.

And that's not the only case,
there were many.

And his father said
that he was in Kolyma

and there many enemies
really were imprisoned,

those who simply wished to get
their own back on the country

and dreamed of revenge
for some wrongs done to them.

Those whose personal ambitions
were greater than their country.

Tell me have you been in conflict
with Kovalev for a long time?

Well in 2008 when I first came here

when I met Kovalev

I asked him whether he dreamt

about the lads who had
perished in Chechnya.

So what had caused this question?

A soldier had heard
on the army transmitter

how he had called on them to surrender,

and in fact those who
surrendered never returned home.

Well I asked him the question

and he became very nervous
and the director of the Museum

Shmyrnov and his son jumped on me
as though I were some kind of hooligan

and grabbed my arms.
So a fight developed.

They called the police and
the plice saw that there was

no criminal action on our part,
we didn't throw our fists at them.

Well, that's the kind of conflict.

And did this conflict continue or not?

And in our discussion people
asked him the same questions

and met with the same reaction,
he gets nervous, the women around him

come running up
and start to get crazy.

One can see his intolerance, he talks
about freedom of conscience

and human thought. Yet he
is extremely intolerant himself.

Can I ask your colleagues
to introduce themselves

or would you like to introduce them?

Yevgeni Yermolaev – the press secretary
of the Leninist Communist Union of Youth.

And Vassily Malginov – assistant secretary for
propaganda and agitation of the Komsomol.

This 2012 year, the Culture
Ministry of Perm Region,

slashed the budget for Pilorama.

Voices were heard that this
would be the last Pilorama

and that next year
there would be no event.

Perhaps it was for this reason that the
organisers decided to conduct an auction

during the closing
ceremony of the Forum.

- What shall we start with?
- Well listen, we'll go about it like this:

we'll start with the minimal and…

- Don't be greedy!
- And we'll take it step by step,

yes, each step will be
an increase of 50 roubles.

We'll start with that.
50 roubles for all that.

Step one – 50 roubles,
one step – a raised hand. OK?

Let's start then.
I already see – 100, yes?

100!
Excellent.

100 roubles for one large lot
entitled Big Pilorama.

150.
Excellent.

200 roubles.

250.
I see 300. 350.

400. So, 500.
550. 600.

2 000!
4 000!

8 000.
9 000!

18 000!
20 000! W-e-l-l!

28 000. Great.
Well, just a little more. 29 000.

29 000?
30 000 roubles!

And what's your name?
Olga, Olga, I'm proud of you.

Well then dear friends!
A very large Pilorama,

a large and generous and not
the last Pilorama, is at stake here.

30 000 going once.

- 30 000 going twice.
- 30 000 three times.

Hurrah!

Viktor Smyrov, please come up
to the stage and receive

the honest money
collected by your followers.

A round of applause!

Dear friends,

Thank you all for this auction.

I think that we will
continue with this fund-raising.

Because as some bureaucrat once said:

if the forum is a civil forum
let the citizens collect money.

So, that is what the citizens
are doing, the process has begun.

And let it continue.
Thank you, thank you.

Rumours about the early death of
Pilorama are wildly exaggerated.

Moreover Pilorama will grow.

Thank you friends that you
have been here yesterday and today.

I promised you that the weather
will be Pilorama weather

and I fulfilled my promise.

So let's make an appointment
here for next years.

Pilorama has ended,
alas, this year

and now we have a gala concert.

Thank you and see you.

Day two of the Forum
was coming to a close.

The skies darkened as
though indignant at the guests

who didn't wish
to leave for home.

I, too, felt the tired after
these two days rich with events.

But before leaving

I noticed a group of people
in period costumes and

I decided to remain and
pose them a few questions:

why and with what goal
did they come here?

What are their jobs

and why are they wearing the uniform
of the NKVD (Stalin's secret police)?

They introduced themselves as

Irina,

Elena

and Mark.

Mark, can you give me an axe?

We are located now in Pilorama 2012.

We came here to rest.

In our normal life we
have a tourist business

Rafting down the rivers of the Urals.

We are wearing this
uniform for the second year

and there are a number of reasons for this.

On the one hand, there is this
drive to impose the opinion that...

everything was bad
in the Soviet Union and that

it is necessary to break radically with
this, and to build some new capitalist…

to live according
to new rules, in short,

I believe that this is completely wrong.

One should have taken everything
that was good in our great country.

So in essence because of this we are
wearing this uniform on the one hand.

One side is widely
represented here at Pilorama

you have probably
been to the museum and

seen where the prisoners
lived how they ate,

all this is well represented

But the uniform of the NKVD
is also an inseparable part

of this place, of this museum

and so from this side there
is very little information,

nothing about it.

So wearing this uniform
here is to show

that they were an inseparable part of
this place. And that this is not forgotten.

I looked at these
people and wondered:

did they ever get to read
Solzhenitsyn or Shalamov?

Hardly…

We agreed to meet again
at next year's Pilorama.

But a year later I only found Tatiana
Kursina, the Museum director

accompanied by journalists
and some public figures.

We are now in a prison camp.

This is all one exhibit, this building has
been preserved as it was in GULAG period,

in its natural greatness and
with all its particular features.

Let's walk further on.

So, I want to tell you,

lately, particularly in the past year,

Sut' Vremeni has been
zealously attacking us.

The organisation which
is led by Mr Kurginian.

Last year they began a whole
campaign against Perm-36,

accusing us of falsifying history

and telling us that money
from the public purse

intended for Perm-36
went to commemorating

not the victims of political repression,
not the victims of the GULAG

but to commemorating criminal
elements and those who aided fascism.

In reality more than 40% of those imprisoned
in this camp were political prisoners,

and Andropov specially created
3 political camps: 35, 36, 37.

So these 3 camps were created by
Andropov as political camps

but I repeat that they
were never purely political.

A portion of criminal prisoners
was always present.

Many offensive things
have been written by

Sut' Vremeni, recently,
And by other red-brown groups,

and this has influenced
contemporary politicians.

You can imagine how "easy"
it is for us to survive,

if you take into account that for
the entire first 6 months of this year

we were investigated by the
Control and Audit Commission.

After we organized the Pilorama,

OBEP (the Department for Economic
Crimes) came to investigate us.

After that, since August and

throughout the autumn and winter
the Procurator's Office visited.

The reason...

was that the Perm Communists,
the Sut' Vremeni

wrote a letter to the President and
the General Procurator about Perm-36.

They investigated us and only by
New Year did things calm down.

Now once again letters to the President,

to the General Procurators Office
have been written about Perm-36

and so it is impossible
to find any time to work.

Because we are continually
accompanying the investigators.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we are situated near the site

which is the camp's sawmill (pilorama).

This is already a legendary place,

it has given its name to
the international civic festival

which has taken place here since 2005.

A festival which gathers
not only locals, local citizens,

but citizens from throughout
Russia and the world.

Unfortunately, this year Pilorama

has been called off for the first
time for a number of reasons.

Two weeks before the Forum

we were informed that

the budget was cut in half.

Therefore the Public
Council took the decision

to cancel Pilorama
in view of funding cuts.

And what motives do
the regional authorities

have in taking away these two
and a half million roubles?

I believe that as a result of

the increasing civil activity
of citizens in Russia,

the regional leaders felt
that this was probably

a dangerous event for them.

There are ‘new faces' in power,
and with rare exceptions

they are from another region.

The previous governor knew
this Pilorama very well.

He was standing with his son and watched
Shevchuk's concert under a downpour.

He knew very well that
here there was no trouble

unless Sut Vremeni turned up,

that here people are
having important discussions,

that no one is intending
to set up barricades.

The new regional leadership
has probably got some

rather cowardly or
incompetent people in it.

If there weren't Pilorama Forums
the leadership of this area

would have had to invent them!

Here they come without
five-star generals

without high-ranking uniforms

and meet with
citizens from this region.

This is how I think about it

and if I feel any guilt
then it is because

I couldn't explain how this
has been a very useful experience.

Tatiana Gergievna you spoke
about Sut' Vremeni,

can you tell us whether they played
a role in the fact that Pilorama

this year didn't happen in
the form that we are used to?

They blame us for not
having dialogue with them.

But this is only because they
have no arguments of their own.

They have emotions and the desire
not to keep this museum.

These people that gather
here falsify everything.

How does this all influence

the regional authorities?!
I can't say.

I respect the regional
leadership too much

to suspect that
such shallow people

who don't know history
and don't wish to know it

that they are...

that they are being listened to.

That would be completely pathetic.

Well welcome to Pilorama 2014.

Thank you.

But Pilorama didn't
take place the next year.

A year later the Perm Ministry of Culture,

using its administrative resources,

transformed the public museum
into a state institution,

sacking Tatiana Kursina
from her post as director.

A media campaign to discredit
her activities had been organised

and there had even begun
a legal campaign against her.

In the meantime
the new museum directors

changed the exhibitions,

presenting facts about the GULAG and
about political repressions in a dry manner

in an attempt to whitewash or even justify
that tragic period in Russian history.

Dear Comrades!

It's a great pleasure
that fellow thinkers

have come here today
to remember Joseph Stalin.

People from both the younger
and the older generation have come.

Naturally stalwart
komsomol members have come

who are now our backbone.

And I want to say

that everything depends on us
and that our future is in our hands.

Look at how things progressed,
in the nick of time,

when Josef Stalin was
the head of our state,

how youth rose to
the challenges of labour

and the challenges of war.

How is it that now youth

only sees achievement in
how much beer it puts away,

in how to grab more money

buy a fancier foreign car

and marry some
oligarch's daughter.

What kind of dignity is in that?

And what about the future?
Is this progress?

Instead things will turn out
like in Gorky's poem:

"… And you will live on earth,
Like the blind worms live,

No legends will be told of you,
No songs about you sung!"

Is this really the case,
dear comrades, dear friends,

especially those who are young.

Must we really become worms?

We have brains, we have hands,

there is a great country
beneath our feet.

Which we, after
20 years of tyranny

need to reconstruct, to revive!

So that she is great once again.

So that the whole
world envies us.

So that our rockets
fly into the cosmos again,

so that our factories work again,

and homes are built and
are given to the people.

So that people live, gave birth,

look forward to the future and
discover new things and conquer,

conquer not the daughter
of an oligarch but new spaces!

So that science works for us and
flourishes, everything is in our hands!

This film was completed with the support of
the patron, whose name has been left unknown.

Scriptwriter and director Sergei Kachkin

Producer Sergei Kachkin Konstantin Nafikov

Cameraman
Sergei Kachkin

Composer
Mike Kirin

Editor
Kolia Votinov

Sound engineer
Nelli Ivanova

Sound mixer
Vladimir Ermakov

Sound mixer assistant
Elena Seregina