Verzhensky Yuri Ivanovich

Verzhenskaya Yadviga Iosifovna.
Memories. B.m., b.g. Typescript. 104 p.
Memories (very emotional and sometimes chaotic) cover the entire life of the author. Born in 1902 in Kronstadt in a Polish family (maiden name Turchinovich). My father, a foreman at a weapons factory in Sestroretsk, was forced, after participating in revolutionary uprisings, to change his place of residence, hiding either in Petrozavodsk or in Finland. The family moved to Gelendzhik to live with his father, who worked at the Abrau-Dyurso winery. The funeral of the younger brother, who could not stand the eight-day trip with five transfers. Father's transfer to the Portland cement plant of the Franco-Russian company. Friendship of the author's family with the family of the chief engineer of the plant, a Frenchman.
At the age of 12, the priest consecrated the second name - Iren, given to the author by the engineer's family. Singing in the kliros at the request of the priest. Gymnasium life. Collection of donations by high school students for tuberculosis patients. Unusual cortege on the Novorossiysk highway. Meeting with the royal family, carrying a large amount of money.
The author's regret that the family did not take advantage of the Frenchman's offer to move to France, since his father loved Belarus very much. Moving to Vitebsk in 1915. Private gymnasium, "where only Jewish children studied": there were no free places for children of workers. Difficult life. Lack of food in a family with three children. City in 1917. Anarchists. Pogroms. Captured Austrians on the construction of the city (houses, lighting, sewers, a new platform, sidewalks, etc.). Departure of the Austrians from Vitebsk (secretly, at night). Arrival of the evacuation hospital. Closed schools, mobilization of older students to work in the hospital. Typhus epidemic. Participation of the author, in spite of everything, in theatrical productions.
In 1920, intensive studies at school in order to enter the university. Moving to Petrograd. Studying at the university - first at the Faculty of Social Sciences, later at the Medical Faculty, which will be very useful later in the camp. Hungry student life. Flood. The work of students to eliminate traces of destruction. Return to Vitebsk. Work as a legal adviser. Frequent business trips to Moscow, scenes of Moscow life. The impudent harassment of a stranger on the street, the intention to rush for help to Mayakovsky, who was not far away, who was the author's idol; the sudden appearance of a Vitebsk acquaintance who saved her from persecution. Mayakovsky greeting people standing on the sidewalk from the balcony.
Feeling like she's being watched. Rumors of missing people. Terrible stories about collectivization in Ukraine and Belarus. Fans. Memories of meeting her future husband, an officer of the military engineering troops, of a happy birthday celebration in 1926, of meeting the New Year in the theater.
Marriage. Trips with her husband around the country - to Chernihiv, where she learned to play the piano, to Tbilisi, where she entered the musical college at the conductor's department, which later helped to survive in the camp. A story about life in Tbilisi, about meeting Beria, who taught the author to play chess and called her "commissar", about how he made Verzhensky, a non-drinker, drunk. A new appointment of her husband to Kharkov, then to Moscow, to Chita, etc. An enthusiastic description of Lake Baikal. The promotion of her husband in rank - now he is a major general. Ussuri taiga. Admission to the Moscow Conservatory. A trip to her husband in Khabarovsk. A three-day boat trip along the Amur, a description of the Amur coast. The remark that the taiga is completely impassable, and therefore the convicts worked with the Komsomol members almost without guards on the construction of Komsomolsk. The next business trip of her husband is Lake Khanka, where the railway was being laid. The author's duty is to organize the leisure of women who have arrived with their husbands. Description of the difficulties faced by the husband's team. About venereal diseases of the local population, infected by Americans - buyers of goods. A trip to friends in Sovgavan. Landing in the village of Talama, where the Nanais lived, mistaking the author for a goddess and giving her an expensive gift - a cape made of sable skins. A story about life in the summer in the taiga near Khabarovsk, where the author visited her husband four times from Moscow, where she studied at the conservatory.
Sending a husband to an internship and at the same time being demoted is a danger signal that they did not understand. Disturbing rumors about secret pests. The sudden return from the sanatorium of the husband, who told about the disappearance of two or three people every night. Departure of the husband to Vladivostok. An alarming letter from him about some checks, about the disappearance of a brigadier general. Further, no letters, no money orders. Meeting in the metro with the wife of one of the headquarters officers, who defiantly announces the arrest of Verzhensky.
A story about the events in the life of her husband from 1914 until his arrest. Polish nobleman by origin. Mobilization in 1914 to the army from the Institute of Railway Engineers. In 1916, a business trip to Vladivostok. During the return in 1917, news of the revolution was shot by the Red officers, including Verzhensky, who, having come to his senses in a coal pit where the bodies of the executed were thrown, realizes that he is alive. Unsuccessful attempt to save the wounded. Return to the regiment, the decision of the officers to lead their regiment to the Reds, joining the regiment of Russian residents of Transcaucasia with the elderly and children. Hostile Armenians and Tatars throwing stones on the heads of people walking through the gorges from the rocks.
Budyonny's offer to Verzhensky to remain in his army. The decision to visit relatives in Drissa. Rejection of offers from the Germans and French to join them. A trip to Vitebsk, where the red railway brigades were formed. Direction to Moscow in VOSO (troops of military communications). Service in the railway troops.
The author's bewilderment, why could they arrest a husband devoted to his profession and country? Hope that the mistake will be corrected.
1938 Postcard calling the author to the Lubyanka. A chance meeting in the corridor with her husband's former colleague, who works in the authorities, who advises her to urgently leave Moscow with the child, because. "summer will be hot." Signature of the author in his office of a document stating that allegedly a search had been carried out in her house. Angina, who delayed the departure of the author. The sudden appearance of a relative of her husband (his brother's wife), worried about the arrest of her brother-in-law, because. her husband is the director of a car factory. Persistent request to go to the Lubyanka and find out the reason for the arrest.
As a result, the arrest of the author. The requirement to hand over valuables and give the address to whom to return them (the watch was indeed handed over to the brother). Description of a three-month stay in a cell. Anxious thoughts about my son. Looking ahead, the author reports the arrest of her husband's brother, accusing him of espionage, because. he was on a business trip in America and invited the Americans to his factory, about the death of his wife due to a heart attack after his arrest, that his execution was replaced by 20 years of hard labor, thanks to an acquaintance of an NKVD worker.
Sending to the stage. The destination is unknown, the term of imprisonment too. The verdict (without investigation and trial) will be announced later. Three days on the train. The note, written in lipstick and thrown from the train, was received by the author's sisters.
Camp in Akmolinsk - "ALZHIR" (Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the motherland). Description of the bar. Mention of women who went crazy with concern for the fate of an abandoned child. Meeting with an old friend, their decision to go to the hardest work in the hope of reducing the term, but twice the loss of consciousness by the author. Arrival at the camp of a large group of doctors, some of whom were familiar to the author. The total number of women is about one and a half thousand. Hard work "on the boil". Increasing the number of prisoners to five thousand. Many acquaintances, one of whom saw her arrested husband. The joy of this friend, who received the news that her children, who first ended up in different orphanages, united and received permission to write to their mother once a month. Brucellosis disease of a large number of prisoners. The transfer of the author for some time to work serving sick women, which made it possible to meet many interesting people, including opera singers. Work in the embroidery shop. An unexpected conversation with one of the head of the camp, who suggested that the author create a choir and write a letter home so that his relatives would send a tuning fork. Parcels and money from relatives who learned her address. The message that the author's son lives with them. Enthusiasm in the creation of the choir. Mention of an exhibition in Moscow of imprisoned embroiderers. The concert organized by the author was a great success. (In St. Petersburg, the Museum of the Revolution has a poem dedicated to her after the concert, a broken conductor's baton and a sample of her embroidery.)
Transfer in 1940 to the medical unit of the Solikamsk ITL. A visit to a barracks with criminals, which almost ended in the death of the author, because. she could be played at cards. The case of the female doctor, whom they lost and almost killed with an ax, but missed.
Offer to the medical staff in the summer of 1941. to accompany more than four hundred old people, mostly Jews and residents of Riga, goldsmiths and watchmakers, to the Krasnoyarsk Territory in order to commission them and let them go. (This was not done: they were taken to a remote camp.) A three-day hike from Solikamsk to Perm.
Camp at Reshetovka station. Work in the club, recording songs that women remembered, staging the opera Natalka-Poltavka. Tours of the camps. Many camp towers seen from the train window. The realization that camps are located all over Siberia, and therefore their imprisonment, is not someone's fault. Work as a physician at the women's camp. The morals of criminals. In 1943, 150 women with pellagra entered the camp. The hard work of caring for them, which helped these people to survive. End of term in 1946. Help from the head of the camp after liberation. A trip, despite the ban, to Leningrad, to the husband's sister, with whom the author's son lived. Unsuccessful attempts to get a job near Moscow. Departure with mother and son to the Krasnodar Territory. Work as a choir leader. Illness of the son, in connection with which a trip to Kuibyshev to visit relatives. Return to the village already without a son and meeting with him only in Vitebsk. Memories of Vitebsk in the 1920s, in particular, of a spy from the group of B.V. Savenkov.
Work in the personnel department. Repeated arrests of people who returned after five years in prison, the desire to help them avoid arrest, for which the author and some other personnel officers hid their personal files. Change of many jobs as a result of layoffs, despair, when they even kicked out of the workshop where the author was sweeping sawdust. Complete lack of livelihood. The decision to ask for a voluntary return to the camp is already with the mother and son. Convincing yourself that in the wild is now more difficult than there. The memory of how well the criminals treated her, especially after, while working in the first-aid post, she advised the boss to give a day off to those who worked well, so that they would not do “zamastyrki” (deliberate injuries). At the same time, a note from one of the criminals, sent from this camp to Kolyma, that her husband was not alive there. Description of the scene in the NKVD of Vitebsk, when, with tears, in hysterics, she demanded to send her and her family to the camp. Assistance of an employee of the NKVD in getting a job in the regional consumer union, where the author worked for several years and did a lot for the improvement of the city and the region. The desire and inability to thank this person, because he was soon imprisoned.
The news of the death of Stalin, the mother in front of the icon, thanking God for deliverance from the tyrant. A trip to Moscow with an amateur group organized by the author, for which she received an award in the form of a ticket to the Kislovodsk sanatorium. Obtaining a certificate of rehabilitation at the same time. Appointment of a pension for her husband, a colonel, although he was a colonel only two months after being demoted. Despite the rehabilitation, a feeling of inferiority, resentment, anxiety. Regret that he does not know where the grave of the shot husband is and whether it exists at all, a memory of what an extraordinary person he was and how the soldiers loved him.
Free work for five years, then work in the library in a children's tuberculosis sanatorium, where the author showed her characteristic enthusiasm, about which an article was written in a newspaper called "The Pilot in the Book World." Financial assistance from the regional consumer union. A relatively prosperous life, the joy that the son is a student, but a presentiment that happiness will end soon. Grief over the unsuccessful marriage of his son, tense relations with his daughter-in-law. A visit by the author and her friend to Khrushchev's grave, which was in disrepair. The indignation of the author, who was grateful to the one who freed the repressed. Restoration of order by friends around the grave, laying flowers. Establishing friendly relations with school friends and fellow soldiers of the husband. A trip to Poland, the homeland of the ancestors. Moving with the help of her husband's colleagues to Peterhof, and later to Leningrad. Life's troubles. Bitter thoughts about being alone at 90. The hope is that a book of her memoirs will be published during her lifetime.

The annotation was compiled by Zhidkova T.G.

Alyosha, Appoga Ernest Fritsevich, Bayeux Lilya, Barinova, Poor Demyan, Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich, Blazhevich Olga, Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich, Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich, Verzhenskaya Yadviga Iosifovna, Verzhenskaya Yanina Ivanovna, Verzhensky Adam Ivanovich, Verzhensky Yuri Adamovich, Verzhensky Yuri Ivanovich, Vladek (?) Iosifovich, Galkina Ekaterina, Japaridze Keto, Dzyza, Dmitriev Vladimir Ivanovich, Eugene, Evkova Evgenia, Zharkov, Turchinovich Joseph, Kalnin (?), Kahrs, Klein-Burzi Vladimir Alexandrovich, Kobzev, Kruglova Anna, Kruglova Vera Ivanovna, Kuznetsov Mikhail Alexandrovich, Latsis Jan Yanovich, Lebedev Anton Ivanovich, Lieven, Lieven Lucy, Matveeva, Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich, Mikeladze Evgeniy, Mukhtarova Fatma Sattarovna, Novitskaya Marusya, Oloveynikova Ekaterina Aleksandrovna, Pevzner Mosya, Cooks, Pugachev, Rudnev Boris Ivanovich, Rudneva Zoya, Samar Konstantin, Skorbogatchenko, Sobieski (Probably Sobiewski), Sosnovik Oska, Stanislav Iosifovich, Stanislavsky (Aleksev) Konstantin Sergeevich, Turchinovich Maria, Arvatova (Tukhachevskaya) Elizaveta Nikolaevna, Fedorov, Fedorova Maria Gerasimovna, Firsov, Azmaiparashvili Shalva Ilyich, Enkel Jan

Compiled by "Memorial" employees based on the memoirs of Verzhenskaya Ya.I. "Episodes of my life"