This vignette from Chapter 2 of the third volume in The Gulag Archipelago always haunts me. Group of Christians arrested for being Christian ( (Article 58-10, Soviet agitation) and living off of and away from the Soviet government tit. These people just wanted to be left the fuck alone, and went into the butthole of the forests of the arctic circle (.
If you are not dependent on the government, you do not belong in it:
>"In 1950 a plane was flying over the vast basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska. The training of airmen had improved greatly since the war, and the zealous aviator spotted something that no one before him had seen in twenty years: an unknown dwelling place in the taiga. He worked out its position. He reported it. It was far out in the wilds, but to the MVD all things are possible, and half a year later they had struggled through to it. What they had found were the Yaruyevo Old Believers. When the great and longed-for Plague began—I mean collectivization—they had fled from this blessing into the depths of the taiga, a whole village of them. And they lived there without ever poking their noses out, allowing only their headman to go to Yaruyevo for salt, metal fishing and hunting gear, and bits of iron for tools. Everything else they made themselves, and in lieu of money the headman no doubt came provided with pelts. When he had completed his business he would slink away from the marketplace like a hunted criminal. In this way the Yaruyevo Old Believers had won themselves twenty years of life! Twenty years of life as free human beings among the wild beasts, instead of twenty years of kolkhoz misery. They were all wearing homespun garments and homemade knee boots, and they were all exceptionally sturdy.
>Well, these despicable deserters from the kolkhoz front were now all arrested, and the charge pinned on them was… guess what? Links with the international bourgeoisie? Sabotage? No, Articles 58-10, on Anti-Soviet Agitation (!?!?), and 58-11, on hostile organizations."
This vignette from Chapter 2 of the third volume in The Gulag Archipelago always haunts me. Group of Christians arrested for being Christian ([Yaruyevo Old Believers) ](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Old-Believers) (Article 58-10, Soviet agitation) and living off of and away from the Soviet government tit. These people just wanted to be left the fuck alone, and went into the butthole of the forests of the arctic circle ([the taiga)](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9E3W-PmB1kY/ULUkbNbj-nI/AAAAAAAAAC4/xfWmwloEwz8/s1600/map1.jpg).
If you are not dependent on the government, you do not belong in it:
>>"In 1950 a plane was flying over the vast basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska. The training of airmen had improved greatly since the war, and the zealous aviator spotted something that no one before him had seen in twenty years: an unknown dwelling place in the taiga. He worked out its position. He reported it. It was far out in the wilds, but to the MVD all things are possible, and half a year later they had struggled through to it. What they had found were the Yaruyevo Old Believers. When the great and longed-for Plague began—I mean collectivization—they had fled from this blessing into the depths of the taiga, a whole village of them. And they lived there without ever poking their noses out, allowing only their headman to go to Yaruyevo for salt, metal fishing and hunting gear, and bits of iron for tools. Everything else they made themselves, and in lieu of money the headman no doubt came provided with pelts. When he had completed his business he would slink away from the marketplace like a hunted criminal. In this way the Yaruyevo Old Believers had won themselves twenty years of life! Twenty years of life as free human beings among the wild beasts, instead of twenty years of kolkhoz misery. They were all wearing homespun garments and homemade knee boots, and they were all exceptionally sturdy.
>>Well, these despicable deserters from the kolkhoz front were now all arrested, and the charge pinned on them was… guess what? Links with the international bourgeoisie? Sabotage? No, Articles 58-10, on Anti-Soviet Agitation (!?!?), and 58-11, on hostile organizations."
(post is archived)