We sat in one cell in Butyrki, the cell was large, about forty people, almost all the churchmen and, mostly, young people. They held him for three weeks, summoned him twice to the investigator, summoned him for the third time, and read out the sentence of exile from Moscow for four years. The sentence was strange, everyone was sentenced to three years of exile, the next step was a camp. They released her and offered to go to Arkhangelsk, and there, they said, they would assign a place of residence. I was a fourth-year student at a medical institute, Yulia worked at a factory as a seamstress, and Sonya worked as a draftswoman in some design bureau.

At home, crying, mom and dad rushed to fuss, begging, but everything turned out to be fruitless, the same was with Yulia and Sonya. Ten days later we left for Arkhangelsk and arrived without incident. They came to the NKVD, gave us a referral to the district center, the name of which we had not heard before.

We climbed up the Northern Dvina for two hundred kilometers, got from the pier on horseback and ended up in our district center. While we were traveling on the steamer, we saw that there was hunger all around, the shops were empty, bread was not sold, only clamps, arches and tracks were hanging. On the way, they ate what they took with them from Moscow.

After much persuasion, they allowed us to spend the night in the corridor of the peasant's house, in the morning we went to the district department. Whispered conversations, rumors are some more terrible than others. We came to the commissioner, it was the turn of the exiles. Shouting, swearing, swearing, just don't beat me. Some for logging, some for rafting or building roads, everyone indiscriminately: men, women, young people, old people. It's scary, we pray to ourselves.

We approached, submitted documents, we wanted to say something. He looked sideways and started shouting at a contra, a prostitute, and through the word obscenity.

Yulia is tall, beautiful, a real Russian beauty, I looked at her and almost began to beat her. He shouts: Bastard! I've eaten up on workers' food!

I took the documents and went somewhere. In the queue they say: Girls, they will send you to the forest, to death, and you, tall, to the boss in bed (this is about Yulia).

Lord, Lord! What have we not suffered! The commissioner came, the papers were signed, threw them to us and again shouted: "Today get out of the city, and there is swearing."

They took the papers, all three of them were sent to the village of Korsun. They began to look for a cart. We asked where Korsun was, they said, twenty versts from the district center. We ran around, searched, and only by the middle of the day we found a carter with two boxes on the cart. He charged us an unthinkable price, something like thirty rubles. There is no way out, we agreed. The driver was drunk, cursed all the way, tried to pester Yulia, then Sonya, called me sick and waved his hand disdainfully. Two or three times the cart overturned into the mud, the cart and boxes were lifted, the fallen things and the completely limp driver were collected. With incredible difficulty, we drove about ten versts and spent the night in some village. In the morning we set off, but Yulia's bundle with clothes was missing, we searched for a long time, did not find it and drove on. We drove out, the driver was gloomy and sober, but on the way he got drunk again, apparently imperceptibly drank. At one of the turns, the cart overturned, and Yulin's bundle of clothes turned out to be diligently buried on the cart under the hay.

By the evening of the second day we reached our Korsun. We poked at one house, the owners did not let us in the second, the third. The driver threw off our belongings and drove away. It was drizzling, the dogs were barking heavily and thickly, and darkness was all around. We were tired, wet, hungry and crying from complete uncertainty. I could not pray at that moment. Yulia did not lose her presence of mind and, I remember, said to us: Girls, you stand here and pray to St. Nicholas, and I will go around the village, maybe someone will let me in.

Thirty minutes later, Yulia came and said that she had found a place to spend the night with an old woman.

A large hut. A huge Russian stove, benches on the walls, a table nailed to the floor, a dark board of icons in the corner. It is cold in the hut, but the stove is hot. They undressed, climbed onto the stove, lay down and lay awake all night. During the night, things dried up, we warmed up and perked up.

The grandmother was tall, bony and unusually angry towards us, exiles.

They caught up with you here, you bastards, she told us, and that's all gone. Tell me, girl, where did the kerosene go?" There is no sugar, no salt. It brought you.