Free The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation by Oliver Bullough

was
    Vasily
    Petrovykh.
    Petrovykh
    graduated in 1947 and served as a
    priest in a remote village in the
    Kostroma region to the east of
    Moscow, which was not much of a
    reward for co-operating with the
    securityservices.Still,hehadawife
    andtwosons,soperhapshewasnot
    givenachoice.Besides,co-operation
    wassowidespreadthatnoteveryone
    who helped the security services
    couldbegivenahigh-profilejob.
    Back on the station platform,
    cheap posters announced special
    church services in aid of those in
    prison; for those suffering from
    depression, apathy, desolation and
    suicidal thoughts; and for the dead.
    The
    Church,
    despite
    its
    long
    repression
    and
    then
    its
    close
    associationwithabrutalregime,has
    returned to its role as the comforter
    ofthelowestinsociety.
    AfterFatherDmitry’sarrest,and
    while in detention, he dreamed of
    Stalin with an axe, teaching his
    friends how to kill people. He
    dreamed of being brought before
    Stalin in his underwear. ‘My
    conscience would not allow me to
    admitmyguilt,’hewrotelaterofhis
    dream encounter with the dictator.
    ‘To speak the truth would mean to
    undergo torture. I decided to speak
    the truth. How can I speak untruth
    when there is so much suffering,
    whenIamstandingbeforehimwith
    bound hands, and he continued to
    teach those around him how to
    punish? And I woke up with that
    feeling.’
    He was not able to express such
    nobility at his real trial, though he
    won the small triumph of stopping
    his tormentors from swearing in his
    presence. He tried to justify his
    poem’s criticism of Stalin by saying
    that atheists killed the spirit of
    people, but it was not an argument
    thatwonhimmuchground.
    Eventually the prosecutor told
    himtowritedownhisconfession,to
    writethewords‘Iconsidermyselfto
    beguilty.IslanderedSovietreality.’
    But Father Dmitry refused. He
    saidthathedidnotconsiderhimself
    guilty:‘Ispokethetruth.Comewith
    me, and I will show you what is
    being done. I will show you my
    sufferingfather,Iwillshowyouthe
    exhaustedpeople.’
    It did not sway his accusers. He
    got ten years in the gulag for
    distributinganti-Sovietpoems.There
    was no appeal. The village lad had
    been through starvation, brutality,
    the imprisonment of his father,
    destitution,
    war,
    occupation,
    conscription, injury, arrest and now
    imprisonment. He was only twenty-
    six years old, and his life was still
    aheadofhim.
    As my train waited at one of the
    little stations on the way back to
    Moscow, an express thundered past
    intheoppositedirection.Despitethe
    noise they make, Russian trains are
    rarely very quick, and I had plenty
    oftimetoreadthedestinationboards
    bolted to the side of each carriage:
    Vorkuta.
    Vorkutaisinthefarnorthand,if
    I wanted to retrace Father Dmitry’s
    route into the camps of the gulag, I
    would need to take that train too.
    Afterhissentencing,hewas sent up
    the rails to Inta in the Komi
    Republic, at the northern end of the
    Ural Mountains. By the late 1940s
    Komiwasonevastprison,wherethe
    tundra took the place of a fence:
    frozen solid in winter, impassable
    swampinsummer.
    Back in Moscow, the returning
    Muscovites from my train streamed
    on to the platform of the Kursk
    station. Progress was slow, held up
    by a crowd that had gathered to
    watch an old drunk arguing with
    three fashionable teenagers. He was
    furious at some slight, and two
    policemen had to hold him back as
    he tried to swing punches. The
    teenagers’ smug smiles and the
    officers’ chuckles simply enraged
    himallthemore.
    Eventually, the policemen tired
    ofthegameandreleasedhisarms,at
    which point he collapsed on to the
    grimy, soggy tarmac and wriggled
    like a turtle on a jar, shouting abuse
    asthethreeteenagerswalkedaway.I
    wentinsidetobuymyticketnorth.
    3
    FatherDmitrywasK-956
    From my upper bunk, the forest
    shuffled past very slowly. Every
    kilometre a sign – a square of metal
    or a neat little lozenge of concrete –
    told me how far we were