2. Vladivostok Prison
Early in the morning of August 18, 1980, I was walking to work. KGB agents surrounded me in a semicircle—left, right, behind. I could turn neither back nor aside. I was like a hunted deer driven by hounds only forward, only toward the hunter, only toward the shot. And I walked forward. From somewhere to the side a car suddenly shot out and screeched to a halt next to me. Three men jumped out. One of them shoved a paper in my face and said: “Your activity is over. You are under arrest.”
They took me to Vladivostok by special convoy, one hundred and fifty kilometers in a prison vehicle. They transported me like an animal in a steel cage. A cage for one person. A reinforced convoy, three officers. Everyone’s pistols at the ready. A convoy as if for a particularly dangerous criminal. This time escape was impossible.
With anguish I watched from the cage through a tiny slit. Painfully familiar landscapes flew past me. We passed a bay filled with merchant ships. How many times had I driven along this road, how many times walked it, how many times looked at this bay… The bay ended, the vehicle sped out of the city, the city where my family remained—and at once I felt time snap and freeze. Now only memories would link me to the past. A new life began for me, a new time started counting. By God’s will I was set on an unknown path that I did not yet know. How I longed to know how long that path would be.
We arrived at the prison gates in the evening. The convoy commander spoke with the guards about something. The huge, blank iron gates parted. In front of us were second, identical gates. As soon as the vehicle drove through, the gates clanged shut.
Before me stood Vladivostok Prison, two huge six-story blocks connected by walkways. Buildings of red brick. Instead of windows there were some absurd structures made of iron strips, like shutters. Above these shutters they were covered with what looked like boxes of steel grating.
The prison made a terrifying impression on me. It was like a sarcophagus, holding not only human bodies but also souls. Nothing was supposed to slip in or out.
In this prison, forty-seven years ago, my grandfather had sat, a Baptist pastor sentenced for organizing meetings. Somewhere here he laid down his life.
Earlier I had heard from my grandmother that at that time the prison windows had ordinary bars, and that she could see my grandfather from the street, could shout something to him.
I looked at the prison and thought: “How many people have stood here like I am now, how many have been received by this prison, and for how many it turned out to be the last place.”
It was clear that the insatiable belly of the prison had been expanded recently. The two top floors were newly built. Far across the prison yard, off to the side of the right block, in the glare of floodlights, some more construction was still underway. Behind it all stood a brick wall, about six meters high, with stone towers at the corners manned by machine gunners.
The prison is an idol of power, their god, to whom constant sacrifices are made. It was ready to devour the next victim—me.
I came to from a blow to the back with a rifle butt: “What are you gaping at? You’ll have plenty of time to admire the prison, you didn’t end up at a resort.”
They took me to the duty room—the room where prisoners are processed for admission. Behind a partition sat three people in military uniform. In the middle sat a lieutenant colonel, clearly of Caucasian origin. Later I would learn that this Chechen took pleasure in tormenting people. Today he was the duty assistant to the prison chief and was receiving prison transports.
The convoy commander handed him my file. But the Chechen was already waiting for me. Calmly, without raising his voice, he said: “What are you thinking, my dear? If you’d stolen something, or at worst killed someone, you’d be a respected man here, but with an article like that you’ll have it rough.” And just as calmly he said to the sergeant: “Put him in the bug den.”
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