The water of the Solovetsky Islands has in it some quality which ruins the teeth, and the consequent toothache is intensified by cold and the draughts in the huts. A dentist is urgently needed in the camps. It is true that there is a dentist in the Kremlin of the Solovetsky Monastery — Malivanoff, known to the reader as an A.R.A. worker, punished by the Bolsheviks in return for his services — but he has no drugs or instruments.
On Popoff Island this question is decided in a radical manner. There is a man named Brusilovsky in the camp. Before the Revolution he was a feldsher, or local surgeon; after the Revolution — a Tchekist belonging to the Gpu of Elisavetgrad, in what is now the Government of Odessa, formerly the Government of Kherson. He was sent to the Solovky under Clause 76 of the Criminal Code — "armed banditism." Despite his profession of Tchekist, Brusilovsky is a very nice, sympathetic fellow. He decided to do what he could for the victims of toothache, and somehow got hold of an ordinary blacksmith's pincers, with which he pulls out teeth.
Of course, nothing can be done to cure the teeth while they are decaying, for there is nothing to do it with, neither drugs nor instruments; all that can be done is to pull them out, to which the sufferers always readily consent. Brusilovsky never takes any money for his services. He has a huge practice, especially among the shpana, whose teeth he pulls out rows at a time. The first time he pulled out quite sound teeth too, for practice.
This compassionate Tchekist treats syphilis too. His method of dealing with this complaint is also the last word in Solovetsky science. A compound of infusions of herbs, spirit and something else is injected with an ordinary syringe. He evidently still needs practice in this branch, for syphilis is on the increase in the camps, and the mortality from it is growing steadily.
[34] Meditsinskaya pomoshtsh.
CHAPTER XIV
HOW "USEFUL CITIZENS" ARE MADE
Chief Punishments — A Freezing Dungeon — "To the Mosquitoes!" — A Mediæval Torture — Mass Shootings No Longer Necessary.
The leaders of the Communist Party declare that the Northern Camps for Special Purposes are something in the nature of a reformatory. The punishments administered in these establishments, they would have the world believe, are intended to make the prisoners mend their ways and become useful citizens of the Soviet Republic.
In reality, the camp punishments, like the camp medical arrangements, are based upon no other calculation than that of sending the largest possible number of prisoners, more or less swiftly, to "the other side."
Refusal to work, insubordination towards the authorities, "counter-revolutionary propaganda," insulting words or behaviour to the personnel, the discovery of a "criminal past" (this is Vasko's occupation), attempted escape — for these offences there are a number of punishments, in accordance with the heinousness of the offence. I will mention the chief punishments: