Ssylka: Exiled to Siberia

'What readers have said about Ssylka:

" . . .one woman's experience of life-changing historical events in Russia. The reader follows an aristocratic woman into exile when she dutifully accompanies her husband into the Siberian wilderness. It portrays her development, the impact of depression, the consequences of a person’s ability or inability to adapt and a transformational experience. All of this

while providing a Russian history lesson and a delightful read."

Ssylka is wonderful! I read the whole thing in one gulp, as I couldn't put it down! I cared about the characters, and I loved the attention to the everyday details of life.

'my aunt picked up the book when she was visiting me and couldn’t put it down. She stayed up until two to finish it before she had to leave. My niece had the same reaction.'

I finally finished Ssylka and I want you to know I enjoyed it immensely. It reminded me of classic Russian writers, but Ssylka is different, because you write like an American, and use English to portray turn-of-the-century Russian culture.

Ssylka

Exiled to Siberia

by Anne Campbell

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2010 Anne Campbell

Also available in print

Chapter

1

Officers of he Okhrana, the Imperial secret police, had come for him in the middle of the morning. Somehow Olga had always imagined it would be at night if it happened, possibly cold and snowy, the gas-lamps glinting off shiny belt buckles but everything else in darkness. Instead, it had been summer, and it was the sun that lit up their expressionless faces as they stood on the wide top step, casting shadows on the marble floor of the entry.

Madame Olga Alexeyevna Sergin?

Yes.

I have to inform you that Dmitri Sergeivitch Sergin is required to accompany us to police headquarters.

What is it officer? What has he done?

That will be disclosed when he is formally charged. The guard looked at Olga's despairing face and whispered, . . .to do with publication in 'Narodny . . .'

Thank Heavens, just one of his long rambling essays full of high-flown thoughts on the need for moral reform in Russian society.

She got no more from the guard, or from the officials at police headquarters, and when she visited Dmitri in the chill stone cell in the Peter and Paul fortress he seemed to know no more than he did.

All they were ever to learn was that he had been charged with 'activities prejudicial to civic order and the czar's authority'. He was sentenced under the Extraordinary Powers decree to exile in Siberia for a minimum of three years.

She had feared that the sentence might be katorga, labor in the mines under the harshest conditions; Ssylka, exile without hard labor, was a relief--until she remembered stories of bitter cold, near-starvation and isolation. Then sentences might be extended for trivial, even accidental, violations. Dmitri might be gone for years and years. He might not survive, dead of disease and deprivation, or victim of bureaucratic pettiness or caprice. At best he would have a lonely hand-to-mouth existence, a cramped room in someone's house in a benighted small town, with little food and none of t he books, talk or intellectual stimulation of his St.Petersburg milieu.

Now, after months of waiting, here they all were, the whole family, in Siberia.

* * *

Siberia, Krasnoiarsk Gubernya, 1898.

Olga stared at the mean little house in dismay. The weathered log walls were hardly as high as a medium-sized man. Several of the shutters on the tiny windows were askew and the verandah in front of the house was made of splintered boards. The steps down to the path had several holes and the path itself was merely a strip of bare earth dividing the dried weeds. Like the house, the fence was unpainted and worn. Through the missing boards she could glimpse an untidy yard.

Mama looked strained, an expression of tightly controlled horror on her face. Even Dmitri, who always left domestic matters to Olga, looked glum. Nine-year-old Sergei was staring at a dead mouse at his feet, unconcerned; this was just another scruffy peasant izba in a scruffy peasant village— nothing to do with him. Alix was deep in a four-year-old’s sleep, her head heavy on Olga’s shoulder.

Olga’s face, always too plump for beauty and too pale for health, now sagged with fatigue and discontent. The dusty feather in her hat drooped over a brim that was bent in two places. They were all exhausted, and itchy from wearing the same clothes day after day. Even with the new TransSiberian Railroad the journey from St. Petersburg to Krasnoiarsk had taken three weeks, three weeks of being frozen then stifled then frozen again, in a carriage crowded with other exile families, all wondering if they’d ever get there.

Krasnoiarsk, with a few wide streets and stone buildings, had been a relief; a real city, even if most of its houses were made of wood and most of the streets unpaved. The grim prison where the husbands and fathers of the passengers were held for further disposition, had been frightening, however; after Dmitri’s release the family had hastened to hire a horse-drawn traveling wagon and leave for the village they had been assigned to. This was where they would live out his sentence of three years ssylka— exile without hard labor.

The old carriage had jolted them mercilessly for another four days until, finally, the rutted track metamorphosed into a village street, a band of dried mud laid across the flat plains and lined with the usual wooden houses linked by high ramshackle fences. Through the gaps between the boards they had seen unkempt yards littered with broken farm implements and piles of dung; Olga and Mama had sighed with relief when the driver drove on past the last of the houses. When he stopped, just beyond the village, in front of a low building like a dilapidated hunter’s shelter, their faces had dropped.

Olga was anxiously wondering if they could hire someone to make repairs when she noticed a man in a faded frock coat hurrying toward them, bowing and smiling.

Ah, Mama's agent. Somewhat shabby, but what more can one expect here?

The agent bowed, hat in hand.

Tibor Afanasich, at your service, your Excellencies.

Madame Sergin, my wife, will take care of things, Dmitri said to him. See to it, will you Olga, I need to supervise the disposition of my books and writing materials. He walked back to the carriage.

The agent turned to Olga, bowing again, repeatedly.

Let me show you your new residence, Barinia.

She alighted, holding her skirts up out of the dirt. How does one keep them clean, with dust and mud everywhere, and no lady’s maid?

"It is not what your Excellencies are used to, of course, but serviceable, quite serviceable— one of the best houses in the village, Barinia— built above ground like a proper Russian izba, and with four rooms and a stove with a chimney. And water nearby."

Olga mentally juggled people and spaces.

Four bedrooms should be enough, I think. The children will just have to share, and we shall have to use the parlor as a schoolroom— not an ideal situation but I expect we shall manage . . . Well, I am handling this quite calmly so far.

No, no, Barinia. Forgive me, I meant four rooms including the kitchen and the parlor. He looked abashed.

You mean, Tibor Afanasich, that there are only two bedchambers for the five of us!

Yes, Barinia. I’m sorry, but it was the only house available and I had to bargain with the landlord. He was afraid the authorities would object to his renting a whole house to you. Most of the houses in the village are built on the ground and many have only one sleeping room— some only a single room apart from the cold room for storage. Those without chimneys are as bad as the black izbas in Russia. No, no, this is a very good house.

Olga couldn’t suppress a sigh. This was even worse than she had thought, but then it was only through Mama’s influence that they were able to rent a house at all—Mama’s influence and a large ‘gift’—for them to be officially registered as ‘inhabiting the residence of’ their landlord, who actually lived several versts away.

Well, it will have to do, I suppose . . .but, forgive me Tibor Afanasich— we are truly grateful for your efforts on our behalf.

It is my pleasure to be of service, Madame. When his Excellency, Councilor Ostropov, asked me to find a suitable dwelling for the widow of his old friend, I was glad to be of assistance. Then, when I learned who your Papa had been . . ! I was honored to aid your Excellency and your esteemed Mama. Your father was a great general, Madame, his campaign in the Caucasus— well, everyone knows of it. . .

Thank-you for your kind thoughts, Tibor Afanasich. Now, please show me how these houses are heated. This will be one of our major concerns if reports of the climate have not been exaggerated.

He bowed again, and ushered her inside. She entered one of the two rooms at the front of the house. From the window looking out over the verandah she watched Mama and the children dismount from the carriage and walk around the house, to survey our domain, I suppose. Meanwhile, the agent was proudly pointing out a stove of painted porcelain in the corner of the room.

"As you see, Barinia, an elegant stove to provide extra heat for the parlor! There is, of course, in addition, the usual brick stove in the kitchen for cooking as well as heat. See what a beauty this one is Barinia! Brought all the way from Irkutsk by your landlord originally, and acquired by the man who built the house. What a luxury for a common criminal! They say he bought it for his wife, if she was his wife . . ."

He looked embarrassed and stopped.

As if I’m unaware of the low state of morality among the former convicts and their hangers-on!

And one obtains charcoal somewhere for these stoves, Tibor Afanasich?

Oh, no, wood, Barinia. I had one of the village men cut wood for you and pile it in the podklet.

Ah, the cold storage room at ground level, you mean? Olga was quite pleased with herself for remembering this much about the arrangement of the typical izba in Russia. Apparently Siberian peasants had the same kind of dwelling.

That’s it exactly, Barinia. That’s where you’ll keep the cow when you get one, you’ll want to use the klet above it for stores, I dare say.

A cow? How on earth shall we take care of a cow with no estate workers or farm laborers!

That reminded her.

Ah, Tibor Afanasich— were you able to engage a village girl for us? I have the official letter, somewhere here, saying that we may hire a servant . . .

She paused, hoping he would not want to see the humiliating document. Papa would have been outraged that his wife and daughter needed permission to acquire the bare necessities for themselves.

No need for that, Barinia, no need at all. Councillor Ostropov mentioned a servant, when he told me you would be permitted . . . excuse me . . . that you would be renting a house of your own rather than boarding with a Siberian family.

So, the servant? Tibor Afanasich.

Yes, yes, Barinia, I got a good girl for you, young but strong, and not as stupid as some of these people—Darya Kirrilovna her name is. They call her ‘Dashenka’ in the village.

He showed her quickly through the rest of the house, dusty and bare, then took his leave, bowing again and full of apologies for not entertaining your Excellencies to dinner on your first day here.

He stared at the ground as he said that he feared his house was too far away; he looked into the distance as he added that, in any case, his wife and domestics were unfortunately ill with the grippe, which is almost certainly contagious.

He’s afraid to associate with us! His superior must be one of those petty officials who enjoy harassing the better class of exiles, those who are ‘dvorianye’ like ourselves—not one of those who are kindly disposed to ‘politicals’, who even befriend them.

After the agent left, she gave instructions for unloading then fled to the bench outside a door at the back of the house to be alone, afraid she might burst into tears in front of everyone. The children would be all right with Mama for a few minutes. She closed her eyes to block out the sight of the bare yard with its brown weeds and uneven fence, and tried to compose herself, afraid to think of St. Petersburg in case she began to cry again, sniffling and making her eyes puffy and red, and leaving her more hopeless than ever.

Dmitri hardly tried to hide his irritation, and she didn’t want to hear again that it had been her choice to follow him into exile, that it was only Dmitri who had been sentenced as a ‘revolutionary’, exiled for writing ‘articles tending to foster discontent’. He had even claimed that he would manage well enough by himself. Besides, she didn’t want the children or Mama to see how disheartened she was.

The air was cool, chilly her old governess would have said. The armrests of the bench were smooth from long wear but cold and the log wall dug into her back even through the thick shawl. She was too tired not to lean against the wall, just a little, however unladylike. It would have been warmer to wrap the shawl around her head like a peasant woman but she simply could not bring herself to do so, or to give up the hat that she had tried to protect from elbows and luggage racks on the train.

She smiled, a little grimly. How foolish to have wanted to make a good impression on the inhabitants of our new place of residence. There will be no one here but peasants to see me. In any case, it hardly seems important now. She looked around. She had not expected their assigned location to be quite so mean and bleak, so very far from civilization.

She pulled the cashmere shawl around her shoulders, wondering how long it would last out here. It is unlikely that I shall be able to get another, with nowhere to buy clothes, no dressmakers and no money to speak of. She shuddered— how frightening the future looked. How on earth are we to live in this wilderness! – But of course, it is my fatigue speaking. I am simply tired from the long journey. And it is only for three years, as long as Dmitri doesn’t do anything foolish. I shall put off facing the future until I am fully recovered— tomorrow or the next day perhaps. Now I shall just sit and rest in the fresh air.

After a few minutes, though, she was too cold to sit and stood up, stiffly. Turning away from the misty reddish sun, she looked over a low place in the fence toward the village, no more than a low outline on the horizon several hundred yards away. Everything she could see between here and the nearest house was flat and brown, not quite steppe; the steppe, several versts away, was even flatter, except for the few swampy areas where sparse trees and bushes grew.

It was dispiritingly featureless, even with every hollow and grass stalk thrown into relief by the slanting orange sunlight. A slight rise, far off in the distance, only added to the feeling of being hemmed in by emptiness, the sense that there was only more and more of the same over the next rise. And over every rise after that, to the very end of the world. She had seen trees somewhere to her left, but it hardly seemed worthwhile to look for them.

How are we to manage? No study for Dmitri, no nursery or schoolroom for the children, and, of course, no place for the servant! She will have to leave at night, and we shall be helpless. . . . and how shall we ever have any privacy or solitude in so cramped a space? How will any of us have time for privacy or solitude? Small though the house was she found it hard to imagine that they could manage to live decently with only one maid.

She gave a deep sigh: I suppose I shall have to do most of the cooking, Mama and I will have to keep the children clean and properly dressed, Dmitri and I shall give the children their lessons and the maid will have to do everything else. Will one untrained village girl be able to do all the cleaning and laundry, fetch water for the household and care for whatever animals we end up with? . . . well she is a peasant girl . . . she must be able to milk a cow. Perhaps she knows how to make butter and cheese. . .

To think that having a single servant is a privilege! Olga winced remembering the wording of the official letter: it was as a privilege it said, granted to the family of the prisoner only in consideration of General Shoumatoff’s service to the czar during his lifetime, that His Imperial Majesty has graciously consented to allow the General’s widow, Madame Ekaterina Petrovna Shoumatoff, to engage for domestic service no more than. . . etc. etc. etc.. It had even warned that, said privileges may be withdrawn at any time for any infringement of the conditions of exile, as determined by any of His Imperial Majesty’s duly appointed representatives.

Dmitri had not seemed very upset by the letter. Perhaps he finds satisfaction in being the victim of ‘reactionary oppression’—he has written about it often enough—but how humiliating for us to be at the mercy of any barely literate minor functionary! If only Papa were alive . . .

It was Papa who had provided the large, comfortable, apartment for Olga and Dmitri. The memory of the candle-lit dining table, and friends in lively conversation— politics, the arts, some gossip— while servants quietly refilled plates and glasses, was too much for her. The expanse of flatness and endless sky beyond the fence blurred. It is doubtful that there will be many here who can even read, let alone discuss the arts or politics.

Politics! She snorted inelegantly. We should have been better off with less of politics. Particularly given Dmitri's carelessness. He should have known that his remarks to ‘friends’ would be reported and his letters opened. How could he have ignored my pleas for caution! And then to court arrest by publishing his views! And now he is planning to continue sending these articles, from here where censorship is even more certain.

The government had been terrified of dissent ever since Czar Alexander’s assassination in ‘81; arrests had increased and Okhrana spies in revolutionary circles had become ever more vigilant since the recent outbreak of strikes and demonstrations. Dmitri must have been aware of this. Now the family must face the dreadful Siberian winter and who knows what deprivations. She frowned and sat up straighter: the damage had been done and, as Dmitri had reminded her, she had made the decision to go with him into exile of her own free will.

Looking back on those frantic weeks after Dmitri's trial, she wondered about that: Mama had been so insistent that it was Olga’s duty as a wife to support her husband and help him in any way possible, even if it meant the whole family must accompany him into exile.

In her quiet voice, Mama had said, you must go with Dmitri Sergeivitch to provide him with what comfort you can, and you must trust in God to protect the family. It will be hard, my dear, but I shall plead with the authorities, and see that you are sent to one of the larger towns. Irkutsk or Krasnoiarsk might be best. One hears that it is possible to find everything one needs to sustain life quite comfortably in the larger communities.

Olga was used to following Mama’s advice, and a little intrigued by the challenge? If only I had known!

Then Mama had said she would go to Siberia with them. Neither Olga nor Dmitri believed that she would be able to obtain permission join them. But she had.

I used your papa’s former service and every connection of my own. You and the children are all I have, Olga dear, now that your Papa is gone, except for the holy church of course. I should die of loneliness and worry in St. Petersburg without you all, and I can be of help to you.

Olga had wondered how; Mama rarely visited the kitchen in St. Petersburg, and left the running of her country estate to the bailiff and the servants. She had been right, though. Her widow’s pension would allow them to buy more food; the money they had been allowed to bring with them would soon run out and they would never have managed on the government allowance for exiles. Twenty, even thirty, kopeks per person per day! That wouldn’t pay for one decent meal.

Olga shivered. Their warmest coats were still packed. Thank heavens they had been allowed to bring warm clothes. And furs! It would have been impossible to manage with only layers of cloth garments. Here, where there were few fur-bearing animals left to hunt, the peasants had to rely on quilted padding. The sun had dropped behind the nearest house in the village and it was getting colder. She needed, in any case, to go in and start the dinner.

It was obviously up to her to cook the squirrels they had bought from a peasant on the way here. The man had pushed his fur cap back off his rough hair and said, just cut the meat up and put it in a pot with water and salt, and some vegetables, whatever you have, lady, and boil it up, and she had taken it gratefully, and unthinkingly. Now, faced with the task of cooking for the family for the first time in her life, she was at a loss. Where shall I find a pot for the meat? And what kind do you use? And for how long does one ‘boil it up’?

Hesitantly, she entered the kitchen and hung her shawl on the wooden peg by the door. . . I shall discipline myself to do without the shawl while it is autumn, in order to harden myself for the winter. Seeing a large wooden bowl on the dresser, she set it on the shelf under the window, in the fading light. The skinned squirrels looked horrible. The man had been glad to keep the bloody skins, surprised she hadn’t wanted them. She had been only too glad to discard the matted pelts.

Raw, greyish-pink and blue-veined, the carcasses looked very different from the browned and glazed meats she was used to. She had never had to handle meat and game uncooked before and could hardly bring herself to pick them up. She forced herself to grasp a leg, grimacing at the feel of the cold and slightly slimy membrane covering the slippery flesh and looked around for something to dismember it with: A large knife such as huntsmen use, perhaps?

There was a roughly made implement with a big rectangular blade and wooden handle hanging on the wall, but was this what she wanted? Then she spotted the wooden-handled knife with a big pointed blade hanging on the back of the dresser and was almost disappointed; if she hadn’t been able to find a knife, she would have had to cook the squirrels whole, however long it took. She would rather have gone hungry than continue, but the children and Mama had to be fed soon. Hoping that the knife would be sharp enough to make quick work, she picked it up. At first she cut through the flesh gingerly, but in the end she had to wrench the sinewy limbs apart with her bare hands and gasped in disgust. A pile of disgusting innards oozed out on to the table.

At that moment, Alexandra wandered into the kitchen. Olga told her to sit on the stool, off the dirty floorboards— and away from the bloody carcasses. Alix‘s pinafore, starched once upon a time, was now limp and creased, and hardly clean. Her stockings of fine cotton would last another day, but she would need thicker ones, and sturdier boots for the rutted roads here. She put down the only doll she had been able to bring and looked up at Olga.

When can we go home, Mama? My Clarissa is lonely without the other dolls, and I haven’t played with my dolls’ house for a long time. If we can't go home, can we go to Aunt Anna in Moscow?

I’m sorry, dear, but we have to stay here for a little while. I'm sure we shall find things to do. It will be like staying in the country, at Grandmama’s, once we get used to it. You always liked it at Grandmama’s. . .

When will Marya be here? She always goes with us to Grandmama’s. She will come here soon, won’t she?

We’ll see. We shall have to be very patient and do things for ourselves for a while.

Olga couldn’t bring herself to tell her that her beloved Marya would not be joining them. At four Alix would find it hard to understand that Marya, her nursemaid since her birth, no longer worked for them. Olga missed the girl as much as Alix did. Marya had taken care of the children and their clothing, meals and walks, for most of the day. She had always been able to coax Alix out of a bad mood, and had always known which coat Sergei needed to wear for that day’s weather. Marya had done all of the exhausting dressing and feeding and washing of faces and hands that Olga had had to do on the journey here. Olga had supervised, and she often amused the children on long trips, but now she had to do everything all day long, whether she felt like it or not.

Sergei had been amusing himself since they arrived. Olga had seen him earlier through the open door running along the dirt road in front of the house, red-cheeked and laughing, playing with another boy (another nine-year-old?) who had miraculously appeared from nowhere. Lucky Seryosha, happy simply to be outside, free to run and shout after the crowded railway coaches and carts and dirty, cramped, lodgings! He had lost his cap (already!) and looked hot in his laced-up leather boots and tight woolen suit. He had been having a hard time keeping up with the boy, who was dressed in only a shirt and loose breeches and was barefoot. It's a little cold for even a peasant child to be barefoot, but then they go barefoot