“Thanks to the administration, they did change my level, but I was still unhappy. It was terrible. In the hard labor area, it was nice, a beautiful camp with nice concrete houses, only twenty miles from town. A great camp. When they transferred me to ‘intensified,’ they brought me to the other place, where we didn’t have uniforms. I was in these little shoes and pajama things, and everywhere I stepped, there was mud! But I went on and slopped through the mud into the camp. That’s the way it was.”
We laughed and he cuddled his little dog and kissed him.
“The second time was very bad. It was at Liteyka. The second time they gave me hard labor, eight years hard labor for two young men, teenagers. But these boys had been gay since they were ten years old. I’ve been gay from the age of twelve, and they since ten. At the trial we said that. Oh, excuse me, that was the third time. The second time, too, was for teenagers, though. So it was said at the trial that they were gay, but I was older. Eight years they gave me for that. And the boys—they took them to the crazy house. They gave them injections.
“You know, I was home between those sentences, and I worked in a factory, and even then I was very active, worked on events and did my own shows. I worked really hard and was recognized. I have a good personality. Even the judge was surprised—he thought I should be given an award, not sent to the camps.
“In Zone 14, Tabulga, in the Novosibirsk region, I worked at a furniture factory. There I was a drill press operator. I was a good worker. I immediately became an entertainer in the camp, basically so I could survive better in the group, at least relax a little. The first sentence already I was starting to go gray. By the time the second sentence happened my hair was white.
“I started entertaining and became the cultural secretary of the section. The reason it was very hard then is because of the people. Things were tough then—for a crust of bread, for some grains of sugar, people would knock one another down. They were very mean to each other there. These criminals came up to me, pestered me—‘Hey, you’re all right, we could fuck you!’ and I’d start fighting them.
“During my second sentence I had to fight a lot. They’d put me in solitary for that—five days, ten days, fifteen days. I had to defend myself. I didn’t want to go under the bunks because I wanted to be with a guy I liked, not be raped. That’s how I did it. And I think I did right. And I would do it to the end of my days.
“Then, thank God, I got lucky again. The administration, the chief warden of the camp, for some reason begins to respect me, maybe for my energy. I fight back when I am insulted. I perform, I have a sense of humor, I recite satirical poetry, I’m funny. So the chief warden defends me. Yes. But the second in command is always after me, checking up on me. He just hated me for some reason, all the fibers of my being he hated. Maybe because of my cheerfulness. All those horrible people who were after me, he’d join in with them and in front of the entire camp he insulted me and called me a pederast.
“But I went forward no matter what. And that’s why the chief warden respected me. When he transferred to another camp, Camp 15, he took me with him. He made me a steward at Liteyka. As soon as I got there I organized a big cleanup, we painted everything. He appointed me librarian and then culture secretary for the camp, after the other one left. He even wrote a plea for pardon for me. But even though the officials respected me, it was tiring, tough.
“It was 1975. There were new rules and new kinds of barracks and fences built with bars and other things. It just felt harder. There was no discipline. There were murders even. In that camp where I had to fight, often it would be nighttime when one of the administrators came for me: ‘Raspopov, why are you always the first one to start a fight?! Come along…’
“There was another administrator—Victor Nikolayevich Kuznetsov. I will remember him to the end of my life: ‘I understand you, not completely, but I do understand you. You are clever, good, smart people. But choose your battles,’ he’d say. Because of him I got a break once in a while. If I had to fight that day, one of them would come in, take me from the barracks, and in the morning escort me back to my workplace: ‘Go, Raspopov, work!’ That’s how it was.
“My third term was even harder. The beginning usually is always hard. But then, you know life goes on, and on and on. The third time you know I was set free in September 1977. In 1978 in September, the police are already following me. Dangerous criminal in the city of Novosibirsk! My nickname was ‘Duchess Elisabeth of Siberia,’ so they think I am the main organizer. They bring me into the KGB office and say I know everyone. They bring me in for questioning together with ‘Queen Larisa.’ We gave these nicknames to gays in Novosibirsk, but that didn’t mean we were the main organizers. Did they think I had a card file of everyone? Silly idea. Kungurtsev was the head of this investigation, that bunch of Mafia. ‘You’re the ones with the files,’ I said.
“They had a file on every gay man in Novosibirsk. I personally saw it there, boxes with all the nicknames and everything. I know a lot, but I’m not the type who asks people their last names, where they live, etc. That’s not in my style. I’m not interested in those things. Some people are. You know, I was very offended that they thought. They said, ‘Give us the name.’ I’d say, ‘Vilya, that’s just her nickname, we just called her Vilya, such a nice girl, but her name—I don’t know her name. I just don’t know it.’ They don’t believe me. ‘You have the files. I don’t,’ I said. We were just joking, you know, joking that Duchess Elisabeth even had a card file. We had fun like when we got together on a beach or went on a trip to Moscow, or the theater. We joked. It was so beautiful before! Very difficult, but beautiful.
“Back to the third sentence. It was a hard one. I thought I would get what was called special labor. Because I already had hard labor I thought they would be sending me to this special labor camp. That was when you wore stripes and sat in a cell. By the way, during my second sentence, I’d bring those folks their food. That was awful.
“I had a hard time. I knew the police were following me. I went to talk to my friend, like I said earlier. He said: ‘Don’t worry. Just go to the psychiatric hospital. Turn yourself in and tell them everything.’ Frankly, I have to say, I came to him to ask for some poison. I wanted to poison myself. I didn’t want to serve another sentence and be in a special cell. I just couldn’t anymore.
“He said, ‘You love life. You’d never do that, poison yourself, forget it. Go to the crazy house.’
“I went there. Myself. Psychiatric Hospital 3 on Vladimir Street near the central railroad station. They received me. They kept me for about a month and a half there; they could have kept me longer, but they didn’t. And as soon as I left that hospital, I was arrested again. At first I didn’t mention the psychiatric hospital, but when I heard another eight-year sentence. This was my third offense, and by law, if there is a third conviction, you are a repeat offender and you get the special labor sentence—eight years.
“I told the interrogator, ‘That’s it, I won’t say anything else. Send me to the crazy house.’ That was in March of 1979. They arrested me in November of 1978 and this was 1979. ‘Send me to the nuthouse,’ I said.
“They let murderers go, give them medical treatment, rehabilitate them. And look at me! What am I? Many of the young men I was with [had sex with] were in the Party. They were photographed with their Komsomol medals for the newspapers. They’re professionals, engineers. Not one of them is considered a criminal! What’s that?