PICTURES OF MEMORY
From Omsk to the west, to the Urals, there were two branches: one in the direction of Sverdlovsk, the northern branch, and the other to Chelyabinsk, the southern branch. I did not make a choice, I didn’t even know which one was better for me, and I ended up on the Chelyabinsk branch. Having got onto a platform with empty containers, out of sheer fright I blew through several sections, to the station Isilkul, where the train was put on a reserve track and I had to climb out of my hiding place. My final destination was not Chelyabinsk, but remote Petersburg, and I was travelling there in a new state uniform, sewn for Victory Day by prison seamstresses. In the pockets of my pants there was a stolen spoon, a small sharpening slate, a slingshot, which I had made myself at th
