Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

One former criminal intelligence investigator, who had served in the same district department of internal affairs, even managed to jump the queue and have a quick chat with the investigator. They hadn’t met before, but that man had gone through a notoriously ruthless show trial, which meant to intimidate the public. “The most humane court in the world” convicted him to ten years in prison for a single ten-ruble[195] bill – he took it, and then they took him. The ex-officer, an educated and talented man, was immensely hurt by his disproportionately severe punishment, given all his previous merits to the state and society earned by hard work. His appeals against the unwarranted conviction, however, were rejected in every Soviet instance.

As usual, the investigator was looking into several cases at once. He examined the recent criminal acts committed in the colony, including the prison and the surrounding territory – a suburb with many industrial premises, depots, offices, a river harbor, warehouses, and other facilities, including supporting infrastructure. There was even a monastery on the territory in the investigator’s jurisdiction.

One person could be a witness in several criminal cases that took place in the colony. In that event, the investigator had to draft separate interrogation reports for each of the cases involving the witness.

Several persons of interest were held in prison cells. The investigator visited them on a sunny day, but it was dark in the damp dungeon where they languished, refusing to work and thereby violating the detention regime. Water dripped from the ceiling, large drops splashing against the wet concrete floor like in a cold sauna. The investigator discerned two men in tank tops sitting in the narrow room. He greeted them, explained why he came, and was astounded at how much they knew. After talking to them for a while, he learned about the compulsory work – the purpose of Soviet penal colonies – that they refused to do: it was degrading, humiliating, and contrary to basic human rights. The investigator took care not to infringe on the rights of the prisoners or disturb the silence in their doubly isolated quarters, so he left the inner prison. He looked beyond those specific convicts, who refused to testify, and strove to understand the principle of guilt, and even more that of innocence.

The next witnesses on his list lived in a colony settlement, where they had been transferred as they expressed a wish to work in timber harvesting. The industrial zone where convicts sawed apart felled trees was inside the colony itself. A ZIL dump truck was departing from the colony to a faraway lot in the taiga, and the investigator was ready to jump at the opportunity. It is not comfortable inside a truck, but it is safer in deep woods, especially in the cockpit thrusted forth by the heavy dump bed body. After a long drive, the truck pulled into a forest clearing with a barrack. Four posts at a distance designated the boundary of the colony settlement. The dump truck loaded and left, while the frustrated investigator had to stay.

A logging crew came out of the woods by nightfall. Their sturdy barrack had a little stove, a table, several stools and metal beds with mesh bases, where the convicts reposed themselves. After dinner, the investigator conducted his interrogations and made reports. All the papers became part of the case file and went into the tote bag. One of the beds stood behind the stove, a bit apart from the main barrack space. It was the bed of the convict who drove the dump truck. The investigator hoped that the driver would wait for him and get him back to the city, but instead, he had to wait himself. He fell asleep to the workers’ collective snoring.

Early in the following morning, the boss – warrant officer of the MVD internal troops – arrived on a Dnepr motorcycle with no sidecar. He agreed to give the investigator a ride to the next village. The investigator happily agreed – he was a motorcyclist himself and had had his fair share of rides back in the day, forest paths included. The dump truck would be coming back only in a week. A heavy night rain eroded the road, but the happy-go-lucky motorcycle driver was sure they would be out of the woods in no time.

The investigator held fast to the motorcycle with his legs, shielding his face from branches in the absence of a helmet and holding his case tote in the other hand. Halfway through the driver stopped in front of a huge puddle and spat out through his teeth, “It wasn’t here.” Flood water was rolling from left to right in front of their eyes. It was obviously getting worse with every minute. The bog was murky even in daylight. However, the passenger wasn’t worried, as he used to participate in the international swimming marathon commemorating the anniversary of the Bulgarian town Primorsko in August 1982, a competition won by German and Bulgarian masters of sport. He was also guided by the Komsomol principle of overcoming obstacles at all times!

“The Besshumny destroyer kept diving in the depths between the waves and surfacing on their white-capped crests again. Each time a foamy wave hit the front of the craft, it seemed like the sea was going to swallow it whole; but the water rolled down from the deck, and the destroyer floated back to the surface, relentlessly going forward.”[196] The investigator, then a law school student, once swam in a similar fashion for several hours, covering the distance between the international youth center and the city of Primorsko. His Bulgarian brothers warmly welcomed him at the finish line, as he was the first in the Soviet university delegation to cross it. They brought him back to the international youth camp with his participant trophy