Even that isn’t the end of it. For Korolyov had planned to put not a man but a monkey first in space; and for this purpose he later secured Zhelikov’s release. Zhelikov’s work on the conditioning of monkeys was of course well known, and he sped off right away to start conditioning this monkey.
Of that particular development nothing came. For one reason or another not a monkey but a dog was ultimately chosen (the celebrated Laika), and Zhelikov’s public protests at the decision won him another sentence. This time to Panarovka … and the course of lectures.
From Panarovka, not long after the lectures, Zhelikov was suddenly plucked one night, for reasons I did not know, but which I learned years later at Tcherny Vodi.
There were three reasons — the first a freakish idea of Stalin’s.
In his late-night reading, the restless insomniac had come upon a little book of Zhelikov’s on the subject of hibernation. He had become interested in hibernation. This was partly for the purpose of preserving the lives of cosmonauts in future space voyages, but mainly with a view to preserving his own. The body of his predecessor Lenin he had had embalmed as a lasting icon for the people. His own he thought of having hibernated so that at some future time it would be of greater benefit to them.
With his security chief Beria he had discussed this idea.
A corps of the most faithful guardians would be required to maintain his body, as he himself had maintained Lenin’s. But even more urgently work had to begin, by the leading experts, and in the greatest secrecy, on how he should be hibernated.
The leading expert on hibernation was Zhelikov, and the most secret place in the Soviet Union was Tcherny Vodi.
This was the craziest of the reasons.
The other reasons were not crazy, and the second concerned Tcherny Vodi itself.
In 1952 the research station was engaged solely with work on chemical and bacteriological warfare; its activities covered by a weather station that had stood on the site for many years. The work required large numbers of test animals, and the severe climate combined with a shortage of air transport had seriously reduced the stock, hampering the military programme. A project for breeding hardier test animals had begun, but the methods were primitive and not successful.
On examination (by Minister Beria and his assistants) it was found that the prisoner at Panarovka could be the man for this, too. As well as being a world expert on hibernation he was also one on the conditioning of animals: as early as the 1920s he had worked in this field with his great mentor Pavlov.
But the third reason — Zhelikov’s own — was one he had already raised in his lectures. It concerned Siberia.
Some little while before, a large-scale geological survey had shown the land to be, without question, the richest on earth. It had more oil than Arabia, more gold and diamonds than Africa, more mineral value than anywhere else on the planet; the vast bulk of this treasure being locked in permafrost, dormant. The attempts to exploit it, always with forced labour, had been inefficient; and in any case had barely scraped the surface. It seemed unlikely that people would ever come in useful numbers to work in this hostile territory. Zhelikov’s idea was to enhance the intelligence of animals to do it.
His own last work had been with the most intelligent animals. At his station in the Caucasus he had got chimpanzees solving problems on an abacus, having first conditioned them to that place from their habitat in the tropics.
This idea he suddenly found himself discussing in the most bizarre circumstances, and at the highest level. The night he was plucked from the camp he was taken by helicopter to an airfield. In an aeroplane he was given a decent suit — for he had left camp in his prison footcloths and tunic — and presently found himself, dazed, being driven through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin, and the dictator’s lair.
Stalin watched him eat a meal, and then had talked with him throughout the night. The dictator was in his field jacket with pockets and he walked slowly round the room smoking his pipe. ‘Well — enough,’ he said at last, waving his pipe. ‘Now give your opinion on the proposal for hibernation.’
The proposal for hibernation is horseshit, Zhelikov said, but he did not say this aloud.
‘Yosef Vissarionovich,’ he said aloud, ‘I must tell you frankly that this is a very good proposal. It needs much work. I would first have to hibernate many other subjects, and be assured of their complete resuscitation before beginning to think — this goes without saying — of hibernating you.’
He had worked himself up to such an extent over the other proposals that it only then dawned on him (so he told me) that this was the one to buy all the rest.
‘First-class laboratories, proper conditioning chambers, the highest degree of security, and the whole work under my own direction! Enemies are always about, prying for information — which on any subject concerning you should on no account be given. On that my stand would have to be inflexible. Whichever place is chosen, I need to have charge of it.’
Stalin had emitted puffs of smoke and a series of grunts at these remarks, and he now took a long squint at Zhelikov.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ he said. ‘But what of this place they talk about, Tcherny Vodi? Is it a suitable place?’
‘I don’t know this place,’ Zhelikov said. ‘When the plans and a map become available I could give an opinion.’
Stalin picked up the phone and called Beria, in bed.
At a quarter to six in the morning Minister Beria arrived with the plans and a map, having roused his ministry for them.
Zhelikov scanned the map and whistled.
‘So near Panarovka — and I knew nothing of it!’ he said, ‘Well, the place is good. But the station … ’ He was turning over sheets and decided he could now expand himself. ‘The station is horseshit.’
‘How horseshit?’ Beria said.
‘All on top. Where would I put my conditioning chambers?’
‘Where do you have to put conditioning chambers?’
‘Below. It would mean excavating the mountain.’
‘Excavate the mountain,’ Stalin said.
‘And shifting the present station to do it. Shift a whole station? And have engineers sink laboratories in a mountain?’
‘Shift the station, sink engineers in a mountain,’ Stalin said, and laid down his pipe. ‘I will take a nap now.’ He patted Zhelikov on the shoulder. ‘You will stay some days, Lev Viktorovich. We will talk more of this,’ he said.
Zhelikov stayed a week in the Kremlin, and during the following one he took over at Tcherny Vodi.
In the summer and autumn of 1952 engineers levelled and removed the top of the mountain, and began mining inside it. Zhelikov supervised these operations.
At this time the research station had been a sharashka — a special camp for scientists. Some scores of these establishments were scattered about the Soviet Union, together with fifty reserved cites for less secret work. All of them came under the administration of the Ministry for State Security. The cities were normal cities, containing shops, apartment blocks, schools, and they were for free employees: the only restrictions being that permits were needed to get in or out.
The sharashkas, on the other hand, were for prisoners serving sentences. Some of the sentences were quite short — eight, ten years; although in the special case of Tcherny Vodi it was understood that nobody would ever get out. A man coming to the end of a ten would merely get another ten for accumulated infringements; or in exceptional circumstances he might get off and become a free worker with privileges. But he would never get out. This was because certain advances in bacteriology could also not be allowed to get out.