The Day Will Pass Away: The Diary of a Gulag Prison Guard 1935–1936

In his straightforward and ever-interesting diary, Chistyakov records his existence as a guard at the Baikal-Amur Mainline railroad construction project in eastern Siberia during Stalin’s second five-year plan. Chistyakov writes a little about his fellow workers and the ultra-Spartan conditions they endured: “There are bare bunks, gaps everywhere in the walls, snow on the sleeping prisoners, no firewood.” But there is comparatively little about their lives and labor compared to his descriptions of his dreary, despairing life as a guard, which involves enduring extreme cold, endless hunts for escapees, and long treks to supervise far-flung phalanxes. A somewhat cultivated man who at times writes lyrically about nature, Chistyakov despises his soul-smothering work and most of his fellow guards, whom he calls “idiots” and “blockheads” with “no interest in anything.” He pines for Moscow and dreams of an escape by any means, including getting convicted of a crime or committing suicide. Chistyakov got his wish: perhaps informed on by one of the political officers, he was arrested in 1937 and released the next year. But Chistyakov never again saw his beloved Moscow; he was killed on the front a few weeks after Germany’s June 1941 invasion of the U.S.S.R. Photos. [em](Aug.) [/em]