The headman of the Kem camp, Tchistakoff, not only has his dinner cooked and his boots cleaned by women, but they even have to wash him!
The youngest and prettiest women are usually chosen, and the Tchekists are free to treat them as they please.
All the women in the Solovky are officially divided into three categories: (1) a rouble woman (rublevaya), (2) a half-rouble woman (poltinitchnaya), and (3) a fifteen kopek woman (piatialtynnaya).
If one of the camp authorities requires a "first-class" woman, i.e., a young "K.R." who has not been long in the camp, he says to the sentry: "Bring me a rouble woman."
Honest women who refuse the "improved ration" which the Tchekists give their concubines very soon die of under-nourishment or tuberculosis. Such cases are particularly frequent on Solovetsky Island, where the bread usually does not last through the winter — i.e., till navigation begins and fresh supplies can be brought — and the already miserable rations are cut down by a half.
The Tchekists and the shpana infect the women with syphilis and other venereal diseases. How widespread these diseases are in the Solovky may be judged from this fact. Until recently the syphilitics, both male and female, were quartered on Popoff Island, in a special hut (No. 8). But their number increased to such an extent in the few months before I escaped that hut No. 8 would not hold them all, and the administration could think of no better solution of the problem than to put the patients in other huts, occupied by uninfected persons. Of course, this only led to a still more rapid increase in the number of cases.
If their solicitations meet with resistance, the Tchekists do not shrink from heaping insult on their victims. I will mention two out of a number of such cases known to me.
At the end of 1924 a very pretty Polish girl of seventeen was brought to the Solovky. She had been sentenced to be shot, along with her father and mother, for "espionage in the interests of Poland." The parents were shot, but as the girl was under age, the supreme penalty was in her case commuted to transportation to the Solovky for ten years.
The girl had the misfortune to attract Toropoff, but had the pluck to refuse his disgusting proposals. Thereupon Toropoff ordered her to be brought to the commandant's office, accused her of concealing "counter-revolutionary" documents on her person, stripped her naked and searched her under the eyes of the whole camp guard — examining with care those parts of her body where it seemed to him that the "documents" might best be concealed.
One day in February, 1925, a Tchekist named Popoff appeared in the women's hut very drunk, accompanied by a number of other Tchekists, also drunk. He went up to Madame X's bed. This lady belonged to the highest social circles and had been sent to the Solovky for ten years after her husband had been shot. Popoff dragged her out of bed and said: