#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR.
“After the camp uprising in 1953 and Hrushchev’s amnesty in 1954, some relief came to Norillag. Numbers were removed from clothes, we were allowed to receive parcels, and most importantly, mass releases of prisoners began. Sometimes 10–12 people were released from our camp per day. True, it was mainly domestic violators and criminals who were released, but we, “politicians”, were not affected by those relaxations.
Three days before the New Year, 1955, a high commission came to us to check what we had achieved. The commission was headed by the head of the first department of the camp, colonel Tsitsin. He slowly walked around the area and suddenly stopped in front of the wall, where one of the prisoners had drawn a picture with charcoal – an elegant Christmas tree, and around it, children holding hands were having fun. Tsitsin looked at the picture, and then it was as if someone pushed me in the back – I went up to him and said: “I’m prisoner Sh-140 Semyon Golovko, allow us to put up a Christmas tree in the camp this New Year for good work. We’ve been working at the plant for 15 years, and we haven’t celebrated a single New Year under a Christmas tree. Tsitsin frowned and said: “Okay, there are no violations in your camp, so you can have a Christmas tree”.
That evening I was the most popular person in the camp. Everyone wanted to listen again to what I said, what Tsitsin said, and that the next day the guards will go to choose for us – for the prisoners, for the convicts! – a New Year tree. Everyone believed and did not believe at the same time. When the next morning a truck drove into the zone and threw a Christmas tree off it, no one dared to approach it for several minutes – they looked at it as if it was a miracle. The tree turned out to be a little small, but it was our, “legitimate”, as they said at that time, tree! They placed it in the yard, made a parapet of snow, and poured a skating rink about ten meters around it. We found light bulbs from the electrician, made illumination, some made toys, some cut out birds from aluminum mugs, some did something else… Everyone found something to do, everyone feverishly hurried to make some unusual, best decoration for the New Year tree. I suspect that none of us cared for women as much as we cared for our Christmas tree.
Needless to say, we prepared for our first holiday like children. Although they were all big, mature men who had ten years of camp life behind them and had seen a lot, it was as if some kind of brake had been released. We prepared some costumes, learned songs, skits… We even formed our own string orchestra! And one Pole, a priest, wrote a prayer specially for the holiday – probably it was the most unusual prayer that sounded within the Norillag walls – he asked God to accept the souls of the dead prisoners and give the living a quick release…
Five minutes before the New Year everything was ready. The prisoners, dressed up and solemn, gathered in the courtyard, around the Christmas tree. The navy Smirnov, a former trumpeter, honored musician of the RSFSR, went onto the improvised stage, brought the trumpet to his lips – and such magical sounds pour out that gave us goosebumps. While he was playing, everyone seemed to stop breathing. And when he finished, there was such a roar of applause that the tree shook. After Smirnov, that same Polish priest came out wearing a real robe, which they had sewn for him from old overalls. The priest raised his hand – and everyone who stood around, Orthodox and Catholics, Muslims and atheists – all knelt down. The priest read in Polish, someone translated into Russian, and each repeated, adding something of his own. Next to me, a young Ukrainian whispered: “Let me be free, Lord, let me return to my homeland, let me see my mother and father, don’t let me go crazy”. Another kept calling his children’s names. Everyone cried freely, and I cried – maybe for the first time in the last 15 years. And the Christmas tree was blinking its lights cheerfully, and I couldn’t even believe that we, kneeling and crying, were convicts, cursed and outcast people, that we were in the camp…
Suddenly the drums beat and a procession came out from behind the barracks – in white turbans, with a waving green banner. At the head of the procession was Murtaz Hamchokov, the famous pre-war Kabardian rider, who, together with his brother Batraz, raised the horse Kazbek, after whom the most popular cigarettes were named. For Kazbek, the Motherland thanked Murtaz with the Order of Lenin and… ten years of Norillag… When the guards saw the green banner, they twitched and wanted to take the banner away. The matter went bad – Murtaz would not have given them the banner alive. Well, someone managed to run to the watch – the duty officer came running, took the guards away, and the celebration continued: the orchestra began to play, the Kabardians jumped out into the circle and began to dance the Lezginka. Pavel Medvedev, a Kuban Cossack, former tenor of the Krasnodar Opera, could not stand it, and, throwing off his felt boots, walked barefoot into the circle of dancers.
Then Estonians, Latvians, Poles danced – and everyone else cheered and clapped.
At two o’clock soldiers with shepherd dogs entered the zone. We were driven into barracks and locked up – such was the order that in convict camps prisoners were locked up at night. But until the morning, songs in different languages thundered in the barracks. We felt like human beings for the first time – on New Year’s Eve 1955, our first New Year in the 15 years…”
In the History Spot’s previous publication, we talked about how Norilsk architects chose colors for the houses’ facades.
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Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
