Settlement

Our correspondent arrives in exile and finally turns into a Decembrist wife

My uncomplicated story about my journey to my husband's new colony last time ended exactly at the same place where the road leading from Perm to Gubakha also ended - that is, at the gates of the colony. The car was not allowed, and I walked through the frost ...

My uncomplicated story about my journey to my husband's new colony last time ended exactly at the same place where the road leading from Perm to Gubakha also ended - that is, at the gates of the colony. The car was not allowed in, and I walked through the frost directly to the door of the colony - along the road, paved with stylish black paving stones, the sight of which would make half Rublyovka choke with envy. The door to a certain special room, where one should write an application for a meeting and wait for permission, turned out to be frozen to the jamb along the entire perimeter. I could not open it, even taking a digging stick in my hands. However, two deplorable announcements could be read without opening the bins: that for a date you need to present a health book and that there will be no meetings at all, because of the quarantine.

It was worth driving two thousand kilometers to make sure: the native country believes that it is not the convict who is punished, but his entire clan. I wanted to go to the barricades, it’s a pity that there wasn’t a single living soul around, I would have turned her into Gavroche. But I had a mobile phone in my pocket, even two, which - to my surprise - worked (there was no network at all on the way). And I started calling, realizing that it is now 10 am in Perm, and in Moscow it’s 8 at all. there is absolutely nothing to lose in such a situation. A creature in a blue spotted uniform came out onto the porch of the entrance leading to the colony, listened; then another. They left, they came again. Then one says: "Turn off the phones, hand over, come through." I turn off immediately, I pass. The chief's office - by the way, for the first time in all the years of wandering through the offices of prison chiefs I see some kind of very human, habitable office. A middle-aged major of the internal service is sitting, the torment of St. Sebastian is written on his face - I understand that he understands what quiet happiness has come to him. “Write,” he says, “an application for a date, and I urge you to have an educational conversation with your husband about the inadmissibility of violating the regime.” I gasped - not like my inmate. "Does it violate?" In my opinion, Major Sibagatulin was embarrassed: "He does not violate, but prevention is the main thing in our business." Golden words, for the sake of such prevention, now I will often travel, responsibly understanding all its necessity.

They gave me a husband (in excellent condition, terribly pleased, pink and smelling of a Christmas tree), they gave me an orderly to indicate the hut for living and carrying things from a taxi, and the taxi was allowed to drive over the barrier. In general, everything turned out in the best possible way, the major turned out to be excellent. We reached the hut in the center of the village: nothing like a hut, 300 rubles a day, the same ones stand on the right and left, and the families of the workers of the zone live in them. On the way to the hut there was a serious black shepherd dog in the aviary, she was terribly preoccupied with our arrival and loudly expressed her displeasure. I decided to bring the educational process to the end and told the shepherd that I have two of these at home, though smaller, so there’s nothing to bark at me, go look in my eyes. So we also quickly agreed, and she didn’t bark at us anymore, smart dog.

I fell in love with the hut once and for all, I miss her very much now. Firstly, a huge Russian stove, which is heated with live wood, and there is such a special recess like a shelf in it (I don’t know what it’s called), and you can cook on it, very cool. Pipes radiate from the stove in different directions, and they are hot when the stove is heated, and cool down rather slowly, just enough for the night. Secondly, the water that flows from the tap. It is only cold, but amazingly clean and tasty. No mice, insects and other evil spirits - a sterile hut, and even with a warm toilet in the opposite half. The refrigerator is turned off, it seems, in connection with its natural death, but there is a cold passage, I even kept popsicles there. In the village, my husband and I can move around completely freely, which we immediately did. There are two stores there - two fiercely competing firms, located opposite each other on opposite sides of a huge century-old puddle, through which wooden bridges are thrown. Two mistresses closely monitor who went to whom first and who bought what. Then they speak. The assortment, accordingly, is different and, by the way, exhaustive - I will no longer buy in Perm, everything is in place. The people are friendly, rural, one thing is bad: they litter exactly where they live, this is some kind of local feature, I have not seen this in Tambov. This is where you live, this is where your children play, and this is where you throw papers, bottles, bags, it's amazing. The decoration of the village is a wild Pekingese, a dashing guy. He is without a collar, walks day and night on his own, reckless and cheerful, does not accept handouts - it seems that he has strayed from somewhere, but he does not regret it at all. Chases village cats, any of them is twice as large as a Pekingese, but who counts here.

Here, at an evening tea party with her husband's new colleagues, sitting mainly according to Art. 105 of the Criminal Code (“Murder”), it turned out that I have a competitor in the Perm Territory, his name is Slava Mafia, also a writer. I'll write about it next Wednesday.