Hard and Getting Harder

This city is hard and getting harder. A forever throng of millions from every scattered nation, lined up chest-to-back, a herd of malodorous cattle on an island twenty-two miles long, forced to scrabble for whatever crumbs fall down from our masters’ table. Our masters sell the lie that we might one day join them. They advertise diamond wristwatches on  bus stops to the…

Letter from Kolmya Gulag, 1937

Dearest Sventla, The snows have come at last. We have a few weeks’ respite from digging the canal, turning instead to indoor labors. Currently I am employed sewing emblems onto the thick woolen jackets worn by our military comrades in Moscow. It is not like when we were children. Here, the snows will so alter the landscape…