My mother, Lidiya Horban, was born and spent her childhood in the small village of Oktyabrskiy, part of the notorious Russian region of Kolyma. As a kid, she never questioned why she lived so far east and so far north of Russia, but spoke Ukrainian at home. Her parents never discussed it with her.
But later, she learned the story.
Stepan, my grandfather, was a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known as UPA, which fought for national independence while the future nation served as a bloody battleground between Nazi and Soviet forces.
In 1944, a fellow villager told Soviet authorities about my grandfather’s activities.
Kyiv Post staff member Nataliya Horban’s maternal grandfather, Stepan Kudrik, with her mother, Lidiya Horban, in an undated family photograph taken in Oktyabrskiy, Russia.
He was caught, proclaimed “an enemy of the state” and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After being kept in various prisons, he was sent to Butugychag, one of the worst among the forced labor camps or gulags. It was best known for its dreadful uranium mines. Getting sent there meant almost certain death. It was no coincidence that Butugychag is translated as “Death Valley.”
Very few came out alive. It was known that “a prisoner’s expiration time was six months,” but my grandfather was one of those who survived. He worked at a mine for a few months, but that was enough to put him at death’s door. His life was spared by a lucky chance. One doctor happened to find out that grandpa Stepan had a skill: he was very good at sewing and therefore was useful to “people at the top.” Given a job inside a warm building and provided with food regularly, my grandfather survived. He used to always say that a needle saved his life.
Dariya, my grandmother, was a daughter of a Greek-Catholic priest – reason enough to be declared “an enemy of the state” and sent to work in Russia’s Far East.
“I don’t know the reasons other people ended up in Kolyma. Everyone seemed to be busy taking care of their new day-to-day lives; in a way, it was scary to find out what your neighbor could have gone through.
-Lidiya Horban, author’s mother
After Josef Stalin’s death in 1953, the amnesty under Nikita Krushchev set free the non-political prisoners and those sentenced for less than five years. My grandfather was released a year later, in 1954.
Having gone through the hell of forced labor, Stepan, aged 36, and 33-year-old Dariya had to start their lives anew. Both of them were from the same village in Ukraine. So, through relatives back home, my grandfather found out Dariya’s whereabouts and sent her a letter.
Stepan went to work in Oktyabrskiy village and Dariya moved in to his place. It is painful to say, but my grandparents didn’t get together because of love. They wanted to start a family and do so in a hurry.
The barracks at Oktyabrskiy, the former prison camp, served as houses for its new inhabitants. “Former political and non-political prisoners all lived together, but their stories weren’t discussed,” my mother Lidiya said. “I don’t know the reasons other people ended up in Kolyma. Everyone seemed to be busy taking care of their new day-to-day lives; in a way, it was scary to find out what your neighbor could have gone through.”
The aftermath of the gulag’s exploitation of people was felt in the days of my mother’s childhood: “I remember our fellow villagers dying at an early age and mostly of silicosis – a lung disease caused by inhaling deadly particles at the uranium mines.”
In the words of my uncle Vladimir, my mother’s younger brother, the negative influence of the gulag was evident everywhere. Boys carried knives starting at the age of 8 and “many kids had a ‘svinchatka’– a piece of lead to hold in their fist for fighting.” Alcohol abuse was enormous among men. People were psychologically damaged and tried to derive pleasure and forget their painful past in any way they could.
“I call it a heroic act to raise children in Kolyma. There was no water supply system. A water carrier came only at certain times and you had to go and fill your buckets with water, even when it was -40C outside”
-Lidiya Horban, recalling hardships of Kolyma
But life went on in Kolyma. Ironically, it became a place where people wanted to live and work on their own free will. The region was rich with gold and, even though living and working conditions were harsh, high salaries justified the struggle.
My mother recalls the hardships well.
“I call it a heroic act to raise children in Kolyma. There was no water supply system. A water carrier came only at certain times and you had to go and fill your buckets with water, even when it was -40C outside,” she said. “The heating for cooking and warming up the house was generated by burning wood. The milk came as bricks of ice and, in order to drink a cup, you needed to chop a piece of iced milk and melt it. Grapes and watermelons were only brought in at the height of the season.”
But, in other ways, residents of Kolyma had it better.
“Compared to the rest of the Soviet Union, the food supply was very good. We ate mandarins all year round – that was unheard of on the ‘mainland.’ The shops were always stocked with food,” my mother recalled.
My grandparents left the region only in 1973, having lived in Oktyabrskiy for 19 years, and settled in Ukraine, where they spent the rest of their lives. Grandfather Stepan died in 1994; grandma Dariya died in 1997.
The reason they stayed in Kolyma for so long was, for the most part, because of the early retirement age. It was 55 for men and 50 for women there. Ironically, not a lot of families fled Kolyma.
Nataliya Horban’s maternal uncle, Vladimir Kudrik, stands in 2002 at the site of the former Russian village of Oktyabrskiy, where he and Nataliya’s mother grew up after their parents were condemned as “enemies” of Josef Stalin.
My grandparents were able, for the most part, to put their awful days of forced labor behind them. They made the best out of those 19 years at Oktyabrskiy. They hated the Stalin regime that damaged their lives and deprived them of happy years. But, despite the tragic circumstances, they talked about years in Kolyma “after Stalin” with warmth. They were happy to be free, they loved their community and they adjusted to the rough living conditions of a place with nine-month winters.
In 2002, my mother and uncle went back to see what was left of Oktyabrskiy, the place of their childhoods. There was nothing left. The gold rush ended, so the settlement died off. Even the barrack that my mother used to call home was leveled to the ground, along with all the other homes, the village shop and the bath house.
Both my mother and uncle remain nostalgic about the place. “Kolyma brings mixed, contradictory emotions in me. Even though it is a place that represents inconceivable suffering for my parents, I always remember the sense of friendship and unity we had at Oktyabrskiy,” my mother said.
“It was sad to see nothing left of my native settlement. To be honest, I call it my motherland. No landscape can be more beautiful to me than Kolyma,” my mother added.
Nataliya Horban can be reached at horban@kyivpost.com.
