11.3 Sibir of Siberia

Fourteen men climbed the motorboat, VRD-516, a project 376 Yaroslavets survey boat, and assembled in the forward hold by the guards wearing leather coats and belts with stars on the collars and a star on the cap. Those were the Gulag Guards and in fact, prisoners were loaded from this point not far from the Krasnoyarsk Bridge that lingered far behind over the Yenisei with six long rainbow trusses. Often those days, convicts were carried in barges and locked in the hold for the entire trip. Each was given a lifejacket and that since the tragic event of a Soviet ship carrying prisoners during WWII.

Traversing the Yenisei during the winter months plagued with delays and obstacles. Water level too low or waterways would freeze increasing the possibility that ships would get stuck in the fifth longest river system in the world and the largest to flow into the Arctic Ocean.

Though officials at Norilsk demanded the cargo be delivered no matter the risk. In September 1942, barge No 46 departed with a cargo of around 1500 inmates and metal pipes for the Norilsk mining camps. No 46 was the type of barge called a ‘slat’. There was no slot to wash on board and an unpleasant odour emanated from the crew and prisoners who slept in triple-decker bunks. During a voyage, inmates were given rations, a loaf of bread and a piece of salted fish every day.

With the barge at full capacity, it eventually ran aground near Krasnoyarsk scraping its bottom against the stony riverbed. There came a steamer loudly playing ‘Valenki’ sung by Lydia Ruslanova and the captain of the prisoner flotilla decided to anchor in order to let it pass.

During the night, prisoners became alarmed as the water kept rising. Panic ensued with them scrambling to climb the ladder to the exit which was closed by metal bars. The NKVD personnel who were alerted to the pleas of the prisoners did not unlock the hold in fear that they might escape. The ones who could not swim drowned in the water while those who occupied the upper tiers of the bunks survived.

As the prisoners continued their struggle below, the ship’s captain was able to push the barge to the shore, few kilometres from Predivinsk. After a while, the NKVD officers opened the hold as the surviving prisoners threw themselves onto the deck. Later, the surviving prisoners were forced to retrieve the dead from the hold.

Tyler Friesen’s journey began on 9^th of May 1965, Sunday morning at 07:00. It was a beautiful day and the sky amazingly blue, a stunning city on the left and a hazy mountainous skyline on the right. In this narrow canal, there were tiny islands and sandbars, shipwrecks in the shallow water, including the decommissioned steamboat; St Nikolay, on which the heir Nicholas and the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin sailed for two different reasons on two different eras.

The prisoners were allowed to stay on the deck after leaving port as the boat sped downstream doing 10 to 12 knots. The first sight Tyler caught was a group of churches, that of St Nicholas and the Holy Great Martyr Theodore of Tyrone. There were big riverboats and forest on both sides, banks under the keel and barges floating adrift the river carrying tonnes of log. Treeline shallowed and a small village appeared, cables ran over the river on tall towers. On one side, a sandy berm dropped into the sea. Meanwhile, the river’s tail disappeared from his eyeshot.

Another village whizzed by sitting on a low-lying field of green grass. There were a couple of fishermen on a little rowing boat. Then the bow waves creeped on the shores of tiny islets. Another tugboat pushed an empty barge downstream.

Passing a narrow channel, hillsides full of birch trees falling into the stream. An oil tanker blew its horn heading upstream. Between the forests, another group of houses made an appearance and then some rough edges of rockfaces continued on the banks with an even line of forests in thick growth. There he saw an incredibly large barge pushed by a tug in the shallow green water.

Approaching the Kazachinsky threshold, the sea seethed with breaking crests, pass Porog Village. The bed of the river formed of rocky ledges and ridges across the entire width. There are two riffles and two drains in the Kazachinsky rapids where the river narrows from 650 to 350 metres. The drop here is 3.8 metres and the current speed can increase to reach 22 km per hour.

More pushers, more tugs, more barges and logs and a scary mountain terrain formed like pyramids in his eyes before sighting a larger community in Strelka Village on a clam flat island. All these outcrops were cut by ice.

In the confluence of Angara and Yenisei, water remained unruffled as the sun set down over a lumbering town. There stood a building that looked like a hostel, sawmills, woodwork plants, cranes and cables and a mile long timber raft. Another church loomed in the horizon. Then the boat passed the industrial town of Lesosibirsk. The motorboat stopped at Yeniseysk and there stood a brilliantly lit Cathedral of Epiphany and houses. People and automobiles on the bare shore where the water crept silently. Tyler realised he was silent all this time. He spent a moment on top of the engine room to feel the heat.

By morning, the boat passed another village with goats eating grass on the banks. The water rested balmy outside Vorogovo, another small village in the river basin. Here the river spread broader and shores lay low in the horizon. As the boat proceeded through the mouth of the tributary of Tunguska, he caught lines and lines of trees standing like tall walls on the banks.

As the light shed for the day, they reached a tiny village in the calm. Not a ripple in water, blacken walls of woodland against a deep red sky and shadows flickering in water engulfed in a blood red sea in the reflection from above.

The VDR-516 was devised to manoeuvre in very shallow water therefore it beached on the shore on a brief stop to deliver mail. The boat continued and by daybreak stopped outside Surgutikha for a boat to come. And still the treeline continued towards north for few miles before it grew scarce.

Pass the Baklaniha River, he saw more tugboats and barges, low land and boulders covered with smaller trees. And it was on the opposite bank, they approached the village of Turukhansk with a community less than six hundred people. The emptiness of the vast beaches, the calm of the ocean, the engine turned down and a flight of birds skimming over water. The vessel moved leisurely to beach on the black shores of Turukhansk. There stood a barn-like whitewashed stone building on top of the high bank which was the Trinity Church consecrated in 1801 replacing old wooden structures that appeared since the 17^th century. He could hear dogs barking and it echoed in the void of a chilly atmosphere. Stretches of land and this little village he climbed was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. He was the only person who climbed down to this isolated colony. Thirteen others left to Dunika.