A summary of Varlam Shalamov’s "Kolyma Tales" Automatic translate

This book is a harsh document of the camp experiences of prisoners at Sevvostlag in Kolyma. The series was written between 1954 and 1962. The stories are based on the author’s real experiences in the northern camps, where hunger, cold, and backbreaking physical labor systematically destroyed the human psyche. In 2007, director Nikolai Dostal made a television series based on the author’s works, "Lenin’s Testament," which won the Golden Eagle Award.

This collection opens the author’s six-book series of the same name, united by a common theme. The monumental series also includes the collections "The Left Bank" (Book Two), "The Artist of the Shovel" (Book Three), "Essays on the Criminal World" (Book Four), "The Resurrection of the Larch" (Book Five), and "The Glove, or KR-2" (Book Six).

Survival and camp labor

The story opens with a scene of clearing a road through virgin snow. The one walking first is physically struggling the most, while the others step alongside, widening the narrow path. People live in constant hunger and cold. Moral barriers are erased. In the horse drivers’ barracks, the sharper Sevochka plays cards with the foreman Naumov. Naumov gambles away his belongings and demands engineer Garkunov’s wool sweater. When Garkunov refuses, the orderly, Sashka, kills him with a knife. The bloody sweater goes undisturbed to the winner.

Glebov and Bagretsov dig up the grave of a young prisoner at night. They strip the corpse of its new underwear to trade for tobacco or bread. Their sole objective is physical survival. Thirty-year-old Potashnikov and graduate student Grigoriev volunteer as carpenters. They have absolutely no knowledge of sharpening tools. In the carpentry shop, an old toolmaker, Arnshtrem, allows them to warm themselves by the stove for two days, saving them from the 50-degree frost.

The slightest physical weakness is punishable. Dugayev was twenty-three years old when the warden assigned him to solitary confinement. The emaciated youth fulfilled only twenty-five percent of the quota. He was immediately summoned to the investigator and executed that night behind barbed wire.

Four weakened prisoners are sent to cut a clearing at the Duskanya spring. Hunger forces them to cook food twice a day. The foreman deems their work worthless. In despair, Ivan Ivanovich hangs himself from a tree without a rope. Student Savelyev chops off four of his fingers with an axe.

Site supervisor Kudinov writes a report about a broken boiler injector, which has left an entire team idle. Mine supervisor Korolev imposes a harsh resolution. He orders the imprisoned Injector arrested for three days, completely unaware that he is dealing with an inanimate mechanism.

Everyday life and the arbitrary rule of the authorities

Receiving a parcel turns into a rare stroke of luck. It’s impossible to keep what was sent. The mountain warden, Boyko, forces the narrator to sell him his felt boots. In the barracks, the inmates immediately steal the bread and butter bought with the money. Camp Commandant Kovalenko smashes the prisoners’ cooking pots with a pickaxe, simmering their meager scraps of food.

On rainy days, teams work in shafts waist-deep in icy water. Agronomist Rozovsky loses his mind and screams about the futility of existence. Later, he throws himself under a mine cart but survives. Harvesting evergreen dwarf pine is considered easy work. The narrator and his partner collect the needles, pushing a heavy stone into a sack for weight.

Garbage heaps become a source of food. Torn socks and pieces of frozen bread are found there. The narrator finds a child’s drawing notebook. The child has carefully drawn yellow fences, barbed wire, guard towers, and soldiers with German shepherds.

Geologist Shestakov proposes an escape. The narrator realizes the cunning plan: Shestakov wants to turn them over to the guards for a job in the office. He agrees only because of the promise of condensed milk. After drinking two cans of sweetened milk, he refuses to flee. Five other escapees are killed or receive new sentences.

Hunger drives Vaska Denisov to steal. He chops wood for a piece of bread, then sneaks into a pantry and steals a frozen piglet. Fleeing pursuit, he hides in the red corner. Vaska manages to gnaw half of the raw piglet before he’s caught.

Working at a bakery is considered a great success. The narrator is sent to haul broken bricks in the bakery. There, a stoker, wanting to spite his foreman, throws an entire loaf of fresh bread directly into the burning furnace. He then shares another hot loaf with the prisoners.

Pastor Adam Frisorger works as a carpenter. He accidentally learns from the narrator that the Apostle Paul was not one of the Twelve, and bitterly laments his mistake. Later, he receives a formal complaint from his own daughter, who disowns him. Guard Seroshapka shoots Rybakov for venturing beyond the restricted area while attempting to pick rose hips and blueberries.

Blacksmith Moisey Moiseyevich feeds a Yakutian dog named Tamara, who is breeding puppies. The dog hates people in uniform and attacks detective Nazarov. He shoots it with a machine gun. Nazarov, fleeing the workers’ wrath, skis across the pass and dies when he impales himself on a sharp stump.

Doctors and the criminal world

Film director Platonov works at the Dzhankhara mine. To survive, he agrees to recount novel plots to gangsters. A thief, Fedya, beats Platonov, forcing him to serve. Platonov entertains the killers, receiving an extra helping of soup in return. Soon, he collapses in the mine and dies of exhaustion.

A Tatar mullah believes the fresh air of the camp will prolong his life. The narrator disproves this misconception. Clean air means grueling labor in minus-60 degree weather, which leads to scurvy, pellagra, and malnutrition. The pretrial detention center seems like paradise to the prisoners compared to the camp.

Secretary Anna Pavlovna is beloved by the prisoners for her kind words. She is soon found strangled in the snow. The murderer turns out to be investigator Shtemenko, who strangled the woman out of jealousy. Aunt Polya, a hospital maid, is dying of cancer. Village handyman Petka Abramov disguises himself as the priest Father Pyotr, hears her confession, and then, amid scandal, forces the hospital administration to erect a cross on her grave.

Blatars created a legend about the mythical respect for doctors. In reality, they intimidate doctors, demanding false diagnoses. Those who refuse are killed. This is how the young doctor Surovy and the female doctor Shitsel perish. A sympathetic doctor becomes the emaciated prisoner’s salvation. Arriving in the hospital weighing forty-eight kilograms, the narrator meets Dr. Andrei Mikhailovich, who saves his life. He allows the patient to stay for two months. They drink tea and play dominoes.

Doctor Pyotr Ivanovich exposes the malingerers. Prisoner Merzlyakov has been walking around bent over for almost a year, feigning a spinal injury. Pyotr Ivanovich administers shock therapy, injecting Merzlyakov with a massive dose of camphor. Merzlyakov, in a state of muscle spasms, is restrained by eight orderlies. Exposed, Merzlyakov asks to be discharged back to the mine. The head of the sanitary department, Cherpakov, drunk at his silver wedding, rips off the head of a live rooster in a show of physical strength.

Marusya Kryukova, a young woman from Japan, embroiders a tie as a gift to the doctor who saved her leg. Deputy Hospital Director Dolmatov confiscates the tie during a search and calmly wears it to an amateur concert. A Harbin singer, awaiting transport in a transit barracks, is summoned to see the thief Valyusha. The singer is forced to sing arias and songs, after which his good clothes are taken away, replaced by a torn padded jacket.

Priest Zamyatin serves Sunday liturgy in the snowy forest, using a dirty waffle towel as a stole. Meanwhile, two criminals brutally kill a trusting German Shepherd puppy with an axe to make soup. They force Zamyatin to clean the pot after their meal.

Political repression and quarantine

In Magadan, investigator Captain Rebrov fabricates a case against lawyers. The investigators harass people, demanding false testimony against the court’s chairman, Vinogradov. Prosecutor Parfentyev and the narrator are placed in the same cell. They are soon released when Rebrov himself is suddenly arrested.

Laboratory technician Seraphim receives a letter from his wife demanding a divorce. In despair, he drinks an acid solution and throws himself under the ice of a mountain stream. He is pulled from the hole, but his stomach and esophagus are permanently burned by the acid.

A starving poet lies on the bottom bunk of a transit barrack. He recalls poems and contemplates immortality. When they bring him his daily bread ration, he greedily devours it with bleeding gums. The poet dies that evening, but his neighbors cunningly obtain his bread ration for two more days.

The narrator hides in a typhus quarantine, avoiding being sent to the gold mines at all costs. He works washing floors, collecting food scraps in the guards’ mess hall, and carrying trash. He realizes that survival depends on cunning and the ability to avoid large shipments. On the day of the mass shipment, he gives the foreman a false name. As a result, he is assigned to an easy local assignment along with a stove-setter, an Esperantist, a stoker named Filippovsky, and a carpenter named Frizorger. The car takes them along a mountain road to the Yablonovy Ridge pass toward Atka.