Men and women are separated in the camps. However, there are hospitals, transit prisons, outpatient clinics, and clubs where men and women can hear and see each other.
One cannot but be amazed at the inventiveness of the prisoners, their energy in reaching goals that they have set for themselves. The amount of energy expended in prison to obtain a piece of crumpled tin which can be transformed into a knife to commit murder or suicide is incredible.
The energy expended by a criminal intent on arranging a meeting with a prostitute is enormous. The most critical factor is finding a place to which to summon the prostitute; the criminal need have no doubt as to whether or not she will come. The hand of justice will always find the guilty woman. She will dress in men’s clothing and have sexual relations an extra time with her supervisor – just to slip away at the appointed hour to her unknown lover. The love drama is played out quickly – the way grass drops its seed in the Far North. If seen by the overseer when she returns to the women’s zone, she will be put in a punishment cell, sentenced to a month of solitary confinement, or sent to a penal mine. She will endure all this with complete submission and even be proud of her actions; she has fulfilled her duty as a prostitute.
There was an instance in a large northern hospital for convicts when a prostitute was sent to spend an entire night with an important thug who was a patient in the surgical ward. The attendant on duty was threatened with a knife, and a stolen suit was given to the civilian orderly. Finally, the woman had relations with all eight of the criminals who were sharing the room. The suit’s real owner recognized it and presented a written complaint. Considerable effort was expended to conceal the affair.
The woman was not at all upset or embarrassed when she was found in a room in the men’s hospital.
‘The fellows asked me to help them out, so I came,’ she explained calmly.
It is not difficult to understand that almost all the criminals and their female companions become ill with syphilis, and chronic gonorrhea is endemic – even in this age of penicillin.
There is a well-known classic expression: ‘Syphilis is not a disease but a misfortune.’ Here syphilis is not viewed as a cause for shame but is considered to be the prisoner’s luck rather than his misfortune. This is yet a further example of the notorious shift of values.
First, all cases of venereal disease must be treated, and every thug is aware of that. He knows he can ‘brake’ in the hospital and that he won’t be sent to some God-forsaken place but will live and be treated in relatively comfortable settlements where there are venereologists and specialists. This is so well known that even those criminals whom God has spared the third and fourth cross of the Wassermann reaction claim that they have venereal disease. They are also well aware that a negative laboratory result is not always reliable. Self-induced ulcers and false complaints are encountered along with real ulcers and genuine symptoms.
Venereal patients are kept in special treatment areas. At one time no work was done in these areas, but this system converted them into virtual resorts, a sort of mon repos. Later these ‘zones’ were set up in special mines and wood-felling areas, and the prisoners had to produce the normal work quotas, but received medication (Salvarsan) and a special diet.
In point of fact, however, relatively little work was demanded of the prisoners in these zones, and life there was considerably easier than in the mines.
Male venereal zones were always the source from which the hospital admitted the criminals’ young ‘wives’ who had been infected with syphilis through the anus. Almost all the professional criminals were homosexuals. When no women were at hand, they seduced and infected other men – most often by threatening them with a knife, less frequently in exchange for ‘rags’ (clothing) or bread.
No discussion of women in the criminal world is complete without a mention of the vast army of ‘Zoikas’, ‘Mankas’, ‘Dashkas’, and other creatures of the male sex who were christened with women’s names. Strangely enough the bearers of these feminine names responded to them as if they saw nothing unusual, shameful, or offensive in them.
It is not considered shameful to be kept by a prostitute, since it is assumed that the prostitute will value highly any contact with a professional criminal. Furthermore, young criminals who are just trying their wings are very much attracted by the prospect of becoming pimps:
They’ll be sentencing us soon,
March us off into the mines;
Working girls will sing a tune
And get a package through the lines.
This is a prison song; the ‘working girls’ are prostitutes.
There are occasions when vanity and self-pity, emotions that take the place of love, cause a woman in the world of crime to commit ‘unlawful acts’.
Of course, more is expected of a thief than of a prostitute. A female thief living with an overseer is, in the opinion of the zealots of thug jurisprudence, committing treason. The ‘bitch’s’ error might be pointed out to her by means of a beating, or they might simply cut her throat. Similar conduct on the part of a prostitute would be regarded as normal.
When a woman has such a run-in with the law, the question is not always resolved even-handedly, and much depends on the personal qualities of the person involved.
Tamara Tsulukidze, a twenty-year-old thief and former companion of an import mobster in Tiflis, took up with Grachov, the head of cultural activities. Grachov was thirty, a lieutenant, and a handsome bachelor with a gallant bearing.
Grachov had a second mistress in camp, a Polish woman by the name of Leszczewska, who was one of the famous ‘actresses’ of the camp theater. When the lieutenant took up with Tamara, she did not demand that he give up Leszczewska. The rakish Grachov thus lived simultaneously with two ‘wives’, showing a preference for the Muslim way of life. Being a man of experience, he tried to divide his attention equally between the two women and was successful in his efforts. Not only love but also its material manifestations were shared; each edible present was prepared in duplicate. It was the same with lipstick, ribbons, and perfume; both Leszczewska and Tsulukidze always received the same ribbons, the same bottles of perfume, the same scarves on the same day.
The impression this made was very touching. Moreover, Grachov was a handsome, clean-cut young man, and both Leszczewska and Tsulukidze (who lived in the same barracks) were ecstatic at their lover’s tactful behavior. Nevertheless, they did not become friends, and Leszczewska was secretly delighted when Tamara was called to task by the hospital mobsters.
One day Tamara fell ill and was hospitalized. That night the doors of the women’s ward opened, and an ambassador of the criminal world appeared on the threshold. He reminded Tamara of the property laws regarding women in the criminal world and instructed her to go to the surgical ward and carry out ‘the will of the sender’. The messenger claimed there were people here who knew the Tiflis mobster whose companion Tamara had been. Here in camp he was being replaced by Senka, ‘the Nose’. Tamara was to submit to his embraces.
Tamara grabbed a kitchen knife and rushed at the crippled thug. The attendants barely managed to save him. The man departed, threatening and cursing Tamara. Tamara checked out of the hospital the next morning.
There were several attempts – all of them unsuccessful – to return the prodigal daughter to the proud standards of the criminal world. Tamara was stabbed with a knife, but the wound was not serious. Her sentence ended, and she married an overseer – a man with a revolver – and the criminal world saw no more of her.
The blue-eyed Nastya Arxarova, a typist from the Kurgansk Oblast, was neither a prostitute nor a thief, but she voluntarily linked her fate to the criminal world.