(1) The "Sekirka."
(2) "To the Mosquitoes!"
(3) Prolongation of the term of imprisonment.
(4) "Stone sacks."
(5) Shooting.
Such corrective measures as blows in the face, the confiscation of parcels from relations for an indefinite time (for the benefit of the confiscator!), flogging with the whip or only "Smolensky sticks" without "stone sacks," etc., are so common in the Solovky that there is no need to dwell on them.
The "Sekirka" is a prison on the notorious Sekirova hill, on Solovetsky Island, two miles from the Kremlin. In bygone days it was the cave of one of the most honoured of the legendary heroes of the Solovetsky Islands. The "guilty" prisoner is sent to the Sekirka for a term of from two to six months. The regime there is as follows. The prisoner receives daily half a pound of bread, a jug of cold water, and nothing else. All the doors and windows of the cave are fastened. He has no communication at all with the outside world. The dungeon is absolutely unheated. As a rule, when the term of his punishment comes to an end, there is nothing left of the prisoner but a frozen corpse. In rare cases a half-dead skeleton emerges from the Sekirka.
"To the Mosquitoes!" is a form of punishment very popular with the Solovetsky Tchekists. The manner of its infliction is as follows. The prisoner is stripped naked and made to stand on a particular stone opposite the commandant's office. He is ordered, with threats of "stone sacks" and shooting, to stand absolutely still, not to move a finger and not to drive away the mosquitoes, which cover the poor wretch's body as with a thick black crust. The torture is continued for several hours. When the punishment is over, the victim's body is one huge sore from the bites of the poisonous insects. The weaker prisoners die, and the stronger cannot sit or lie down for many weeks after the punishment.
Prolongation of the term of imprisonment is a punishment now comparatively seldom applied, for the simple reason that the orders recently circulated by the Gpu have made every prisoner a convict for an indefinite term. When he has served his two, three, five or ten years, he is sent on from the Solovky to the Petchersk region, then to the Narym, then to the Zyriansk, and so on, unendingly. For more serious "offences," therefore, the Tchekists send the prisoners to the "sacks."
In the old times, every monk in the Kremlin, and every holy man in the caves, had a small cellar cut in the rock near his cell, in which he kept his food supplies. These cellars, three or four feet in depth, have no doors, and the food was placed in them from above through small openings.
These are the famous "stone sacks." The Tchekists take the prisoner to the "sack," and ask him:
"How'll you get in — head first or feet first?"
If the prisoner gets into the "sack" head first, he is beaten with "Smolensky sticks" on the back and legs; if he gets in feet first, he is beaten about the head and face. The beating goes on till his whole body is inside the "sack." The "sack" is too narrow for him to sit, and too low for him to stand up straight, so that he is obliged to stand with his knees bent and his head poked forward. He is imprisoned in the "sack" for a period varying between three days and a week. The rations are the same as at the Sekirka. Few people can endure this mediæval punishment.
There are no mass shootings at the Solovky like those carried out at the "White House," but individual shootings are very frequent, and are regarded as an ordinary occurrence. A larger or smaller number of prisoners are shot whenever the Soviet Government retaliates for measures of suppression against Communists in foreign States by a terrorist outburst on its own part. Thus, over a hundred persons, both Russians and foreigners, were shot after the suppression of the Communist revolt of December 1st, 1924, by the Estonian Government, and a rather smaller number after the suppression of the rebellion in Bulgaria.