The Soviet Gulag System - Part Two - The Women

Today, we talk about some of the experiences of women related to the gulag experience. If you'd like to support the podcast with a small monthly donation, click this link - https://www.buzzsprout.com/385372/support

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Episode 274 – The Soviet Gulag System – Part Two – The Women

Last time, we began our journey into the saddest institution created by the Bolsheviks, the Gulag. Today, we will concentrate on the people sent there, focusing on the women. 

Two of the books I will be leaning on to share the stories of women and, at times, children are Dressed for a Dance in the Snow by Monika Zgustora and Women of the Gulag by Paul R. Gregory. Of course, I will also be using Anne Applebaum’s book, Gulag. 

To start off, I want to share a quote from Anne Applebaum’s book Gulag, “…the prisoner who was our barrack orderly greeted me with a cry, ‘Run and see what’s under your pillow!’ my heart leaped: perhaps I’d got my bread ration after all! I ran to my bed and three off the pillow. Under it lay three letter from home, three whole letters! It was six months since Id received anything at all. My first reaction on seeing them was acute disappointment. And then – horror. What had become of me if a piece of bread was worth more to me now than letters from my mother, father, my children… I forgot all about the bread and wept.” Olga Adamova-Sliozberg.

The three women we will meet today are Agnessa Argipopulo, Maria Senotrusova, and Evgenia Feigenberg. We will talk a bit about their lives, why they were sent to the gulags, and what their lives were once imprisoned. 

Agnessa Argipopulo was born in 1902 or 1903, depending on which source you use. She lived in a small village called Maikop, near the Black Sea. Her heritage was one of Greek, Russian, and Mongol blood. She and her sister Lena were considered the most beautiful women in the area. 

I have a problem with this person and the veracity of the information as I always try to verify the information, and I've found some discrepancies. The first is her name. Apparently, Agnessa is her actual first name, but I've seen two completely different versions of her last name. The one from the book by Paul Gregory is Argipopulo. The other one I found while researching is Ivanovna Mironova-Koroli, supposedly from a memoir I found online that she had told to Mira Yakovenko, which was then translated by Rose Glickman into English. The book "Agnessa: From Paradise to Purgatory: A Voice From Stalin's Russia" has many of the same stories as Gregory's book. So, while the names may differ, the story is the same, so I'll go with the idea that both are true. But, because of the variation in the last name, we'll stay with Agnessa moving forward.

After the Russian Revolution, Agnessa would meet and later marry a Chekist officer, Ivan Zarnitsky. They would move to Rostov-on-Don in 1922. What I found interesting about their marriage in 1923 was that it was done in a Russian Orthodox Church. There was still a belief in the church by many, even within the Bolshevik followers. It is unsurprising that Zarnitsky would marry there as his father was a priest. 

Unfortunately for Ivan, this information would come out and force him to leave the Cheka and become a shoe factory manager. This didn't seem to sit well with Agnessa, so she set her sights on a higher-up in the Cheka, Sergei Mironov. This would eventually prove to be an unwise decision for the young woman. 

When Stalin decided on his dekulakization campaign in 1931, Mironov, nicknamed Mirosha, was one of the Chekists to carry out the boss's order. Agnessa ran off with Mirosha, first to Moscow, then to Kazakhstan. For the next few years, Agnessa would see the suffering of the gulags, from the outside, of course. The daily sight of men, women, and children starving in the cities and towns of Kazakhstan would haunt her, then harden her. Mirosha would continue to move up the ladder until he was considered the most powerful man in Alma-Alta, at the time, the capital of Kazakhstan.

By 1937, Mirosha was thought to be the number three man in the NKVD. That position was in jeopardy as Stalin was about to start the Great Purge. In February, Mirosha was summoned to Moscow to attend the plenum. He would leave Agnessa behind, much to her chagrin. Instead of staying, she decided to take a train with the entourage to surprise her husband. She picked a bad day as it was the day after the suicide of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, a high-ranking Bolshevik former friend of Stalin. 

On March 1st, Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, gave a speech hinting at the possibility that something terrible was going on at the agency. Mirosha, for his part, gave a speech at the plenum, "Comrades, the rotten chasm which the NKVD finds itself has many reasons as highlighted by Comrade Yezhov. Despite the order to deliver a mortal blow against the Trotskyites and right deviationists, not one operational decree inspired our Chekists or mobilized us for battle against our enemies.”

When they returned to their home in Novosibirsk, they began to hear of mass arrests of friends and colleagues. Mirosha would sign hundreds of arrest warrants in the early summer; 411 were executed. He would know he was next, especially after he was named the head of the Western Siberian part of the NKVD. Then, in August 1937, he was named the ambassador to Mongolia. Nine months later, he would return to Moscow, having had 27,000 Mongolians arrested. 

In late August, two of the men above Mirosha and those who protected him, Yezhov and Frinovsky, were demoted and replaced by Lavrentiy Beria. Fear gripped the husband and wife until they got an invitation to attend a New Year’s Eve party at Stalin’s Dacha. They thought that this was the protection from arrest that they yearned for. They were sorely mistaken.

For a year, Agnessa did not know where her husband was. Finally, in early 1940, she received the news that Mirosha had been sentenced to 10 years in the gulag. Knowing there was no life for her, she would remarry Mikhail Korol. He would be sent to the gulag in short order.

She would escape arrest until 1942. The problem with her arrest was that she was not the actual target but another woman named Messalina-Mironova. When the NKVD realized their mistake, they released her. The stress of those past five years was almost unbearable. Everyone in the government suffered the same fear.

Our next woman who would go through the horrors of the Gulag system is Maria Senotrusova. She was born in 1904 in a small town in Eastern Siberia, Tolbaga. Today the village is an important archeological site, but back in the day, it was just a dot on the landscape south of Lake Baikal. 

Under the Tsar, it was a dumping ground for those who were exiled or revolutionaries. It was also on the Trans-Siberian Railway as it had a spur line due to the numerous coal deposits. 

Maria’s ancestors were Cossacks who came to Siberia to try to find some land to till. It was a very tough life, and her father made do with odd jobs and a small farm plot. Being near the Mongolian border made it hard to get to until the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the connection to the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Bator. 

The area around her birth has some of Earth's most extreme weather conditions. It can reach -50 Fahrenheit in the winter, and in the summer, it can top 104. It was a peasant-populated town, something the Bolsheviks were supposedly focused on elevating. The name Senotrusov even meant haymaker, lending credence to Maria coming from peasant stock. This changed, though, due to the railway.

Because of the rich coal supply, people started pouring into the region. One person who made it all the way to Tolbaga was Alexander Ignatkin, who would marry Maria in 1923 in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was also from humble origins, as his father worked in a slaughterhouse in Irkutsk. Being the brightest of six children, Alexander's father chose him to get an education. He would graduate with a degree in engineering from the Irkutsk Technical Institute.

It was a hard time in Siberia as the Russian Civil War was winding down and, with it, the near-starvation conditions that accompanied it. Ignatkin would work on the Trans-Siberian Railway, living in a small cottage near the tracks. He and Maria would have three children, Nadya, Olga, and Yuri. My favorite family pastime was reading. They were a loving family. The children would write about it in their memoirs. 

By 1930, Alexander and the family would be based out of Chita, with him making it all the way up to the chief of engineering operations. It made him responsible for over 2,000 miles of track. It was a period of somewhat calm, with a lack of fear of what was to come. Sure, they read about the engineers of the Shakhty coal mines and how they executed all of them in 1928. Maria thought they likely deserved the punishment, but it had nothing to do with them. 

The Cheka had set up shop in Chita and were constantly meddling in everyone’s affairs. Ignatkin would have none of it. He would argue with them and deny them the right to take housing from his men and their families. This insolent behavior would cost him and his family dearly. 

Alexander would have numerous prisoners assigned to expand the track lines. While this was mildly disturbing, it brought no concerns to the Senotrusov family. By New Year's Day 1937, they felt they were the epitome of the New Soviet People and part of the coming communist utopia.

The 1937 plenum attended by the local Cheka officers I mentioned earlier was to rain down on the good people of Chita after they returned in February and March. They were instructed to find saboteurs among the railway workers and anywhere else that the anti-Soviet conspirators were waiting. This was done to appease their masters in Moscow, especially the boss, Stalin. In order to make a big splash, it was beneficial to the Cheka secret police to nab a big fish, someone like Alexander Senotrusov.

Since he was an essential and well-respected person in Chita and the workplace, the Cheka needed something to hang their hat on. They got their “break” when a freight car arrived damaged outside the city. Senotrusov sent out some men to repair the car, but accidentally, a signalman had another train cleared to travel, crashing into the disabled freight car, causing a single fatality. 

While those Cheka officers who hated Senotrusov wanted him tried under Article 58 – Treason to the Motherland, an automatic death sentence, he was instead charged with dereliction of duty under Article 193. Of course, the charge was made up, but it was easier to prove over the more serious crime. Alexander was arrested on August 1, 1937, never to be a free man ever again. 

Maria thought that there was no way that her husband would be found guilty, as they were, in her mind, the ideal Soviet family. Also, Alexander served faithfully for twenty years with no issues with his work. Despite having no real evidence, the military tribunal sentenced Alexander Ignatkin to seven years in a corrective labor camp. The sentence stunned his fellow co-workers as they couldn't believe that he had done anything wrong. They also came to the conclusion that if he, then when they. 

At first, Ignatkin was to be sent to a camp far from home; instead, at the last minute, he would serve his time in Kadala, only 15 minutes away by train. It was under the thought that he would help supervise and construct a new rail line in the area. Supposedly Alexander would be paid a small salary, which could help support his family, who had now lost a significant source of income with his conviction.

A visit from the family to the Kadala camp at the end of August would be the last time they would see their father and husband. When Maria next went to the camp, the Cheka officers told her Alexander was no longer there. Instead, he was in the headquarters of the police on Kalinin Street. This was a bad sign for him and the family.

Stalin wanted to make people like the Ignatkin family a symbol of what can happen if you don't toe the line. On September 29, 1937, Alexander was tried again and convicted of another trumped-up charge. It was really serious for the family as they were deemed ChSIRs or threats to Soviet power. They could and would have their property confiscated and the children taken away and placed in an NKVD-run orphanage. This would happen on October 7th. 

After everything was taken away from the family, the children and Maria were taken to the Cheka headquarters on Kalinin Street. The mother was forced out of the car to supposedly sign some papers. As soon as she got out, the car sped away with the children screaming in panic. Maria would not see her children again until 1946, nineteen years later.

Alexander was executed in October 1937 along with 116 other specialists of the Trans-Baikal Railway. Wives of men convicted of Article 58 could also be executed, but the standard sentence was 5-8 years of hard labor. In Chita, they did not go for the short five-year term; they went for the maximum. 

While waiting for a transport train to the gulag in Western Kazakhstan, Maria saw another commuter train approaching the station. She decided to end it all when a hand reached out and grabbed her hair. She was told, “See here – that is the last time you try something like this. Don’t ruin your children’s lives. We will outlive our enemies. We will see our children again. Everything will be back in its own place. Believe me, the truth will win out.” 

Our last female victim is Evgenia Feigenberg, although many would know her better by her married name, Evgenia Yezhova, wife of Nikolai Yezhov. Born in 1904 in the town of Gomel, Belorussia. She would be married three times, with her final and fatal marriage taking her from the pinnacle of Soviet power to the pits of despair. While she never served a day in a gulag camp, she would be witness to the depraved work of her third husband, which is why her story is so compelling.

Gomel was within something known as the Pale of Settlement, an area set aside for the Jewish population of Russia. Evgenia's father was a rabbi who fathered a very large family, with most being sons. Because she was a girl, Evgenia could only attend a lower level of school. Still, she was very fond of reading and had a knack for art. What Evgenia also wanted was a way out of Gomel. Her father wanted, as was custom, to marry her off to a good Jewish boy and bear lots of children.

Her plan was to find someone up and coming, and Evgenia found him in Lazar Khayutin when she was just 18 in 1922. He was a writer and journalist who moved to the hotbed of writing in Odessa. Here Evgenia got to meet the famous Isaak Babel. While this was a significant step up for her, she grew tired of Lazar and had eyes set higher on Alexander Gladun, who ran the Moscow Publishing House. While not marrying her, the two would travel to Moscow, London, and Berlin before returning to Moscow. 

Because of his high standing in the new Soviet state, Evgenia would travel with the elite communists and enjoy privileges the ordinary citizen could never dream of. One of the benefits of being in the elite world of the Soviet Union was the ability to get a "cure." We would call this a vacation, but the Bolsheviks needed to change the terminology to avoid being thought of as the same as the elite of the Tsarist regime, which they were. Evgenia’s “cure” in the resort town of Sochi would lead her to meet a small man who would yield great power, Nikolai Yezhov. 

Even though Yezhov was really short, 4 foot 11 inches, and nowhere near handsome, Evgenia was intrigued when she found out he was a deputy to an undersecretary in the Central Committee of the communist party. For his part, Nikolai was enthralled with this attractive woman, so he invited her to dinner. Even though both were still married, Evgenia to Lazar Khayutin, it didn’t matter. They courted each other for the next two years.

Yezhov’s rise continued with him being named a Secretary of the Central Committee with an office overlooking the Kremlin. In 1931 she got her divorce, as did Yezhov. While she had already lived a life of relative luxury, it would get even better after marrying Nikolai. So much so that it resembled anything that a noblewoman would have under Tsar Nicholas II. It is said that she accumulated over 100 gowns and five fur coats. 

All of this glitz and glamor came at a very high price. Yezhov was a bad alcoholic who beat his wife with regularity. On top of it, Yezhov was a notorious womanizer and serial rapist. On top of that, it was pretty well-known that Nikolai had homosexual tendencies. This would come back to haunt him in a few years. 

Here is a description of who Yezhov was by the noted Marxist historian Boris Nicolaevsky, “In the whole of my—now, alas, already long—life, I had to meet few people who, by their nature, were as repellent as Yezhov. Watching him, I am frequently reminded of those evil boys from Rasteryayeva Street workshops, whose favorite form of entertainment was to light a piece of paper tied to the tail of a cat drenched with kerosene, and relish in watching the cat scamper down the street in maddening horror, unable to rid itself of the flames that are getting closer and closer. I have no doubt that Yezhov, in fact, utilized this type of entertainment in his childhood, and he continues to do that in a different form in a different field at present.”

There was one thing that allowed a glimmer of humanity to peak out of Yezhov’s depraved heart, and that was their adopted daughter Natasha. They both adored and loved the little girl who they took into their home when she was a mere 5 months old. When she grew up, she became aware of a secret of her father's; he kept an album of photographs of dead and dismembered children. 

On September 26, 1936, Stalin appointed Yezhov to head the feared NKVD. He would lead the agency during the beginning and the height of the Great Terror starting the following year. While this meant that Evgenia was near the apex of the power structure of the Soviet Union, she was also very aware that the family and wife of the man her husband had replaced, Yagoda, had all been either shot or died in a gulag.

Evgenia would now be given the position to run the propaganda pictorial magazine, the USSR Under Construction. She did so with her old friend and sometimes lover, Isaak Babel. Throughout 1936 and 1937, she would live an incredible life of luxury, oftentimes going long periods without her husband, who must have been a God-send. 

By 1938, Stalin knew that the Great Terror had gone way too far, and he needed to put a stop to the mass slaughter of Soviet citizens. What he needed was a scapegoat, and that person would be Nikolai Yezhov. Behind the scenes, Stalin appointed Lavrentiy Beria as the Deputy Head of the NKVD. Yezhov knew that this was the beginning of the end for him, so he began to drink even more than before. 

Evgenia began to realize things were going south in a bad way by the fall of 1938. Board members of her magazine were being arrested one by one. By December, only three of them were left. Within weeks, no editorial board names were listed in the publication, including Evgenia. Stalin was well aware of their fears. He called Nikolai into his office to question him about Evgenia’s extravagance. Stalin intimated that Yezhov should divorce his wife to show loyalty. He couldn’t do it despite knowing full well it would cost him and her their lives. 

This stubbornness would last until September 18, 1938, when Nikolai told Evgenia that the marriage was over. She headed off to Crimea in a deep depression. In October, she was ordered back to Moscow, where Nikolai would place her in a nerve clinic. She begged for the poison to end her life. Instead, he sent her chocolates filled with sleeping pills. Evgenia would die on November 19th. Nikolai Yezhov, a man who tortured, executed, and sent hundreds of thousands to the gulags, would be tortured and executed on February 4, 1940.

Well I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Join me next time as we continue our story about the Soviet Union’s notorious gulag. So, until next time, Dasvidania eh Spasiba za Vineyamineya.