How criminals seized the city of Ulan-Ude after the 1953 amnesty and what happened there

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Domestic history as a science has always been more a tool of propaganda than a story about the development of the state. It is not surprising that many circumstances remain not fully understood, and the materials on them are classified. The consequences of the 1953 amnesty, in particular the siege of Ulan-Ude by criminals, are poorly understood. However, there are eyewitness accounts that become important for historians and interesting for contemporaries.

Summer 1953. Why Ulan-Ude?

In the 30-40s, the territory of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was covered with many camp islets of the “GULAG archipelago”. In 1937, the local administration of the GULAG was organized here. If during the war the number of prisoners here did not exceed five thousand people, then later the number of prisoners increased. By the beginning of the 50s, there were 8 colonies and 5 prisons in Buryatia. However, these are official data, the real ones may differ upwards.

On the territory of the republic, there was a Dzhidinsky labor camp, whose prisoners worked in the plant of the same name for the extraction of ore and concentrates. The camp managed to gain a sad reputation, going down in history as one of the most cruel, despite the fact that the number of those held here did not exceed 10 thousand.

Already in June 1953, former criminals began to come to the city. At first, these were prisoners of forced labor camps who came from the settlements of the Glass Factory and the Melkombinat. But those were their own, “local” ones and the problems were subsequently created not only by their forces. Very soon, amnesties from other camps arrived to "reinforce" them.

The main influx of criminal elements came from railway stations. Former criminals traveling from Kolyma, the Far East, Mongolia stayed in Ulan-Ude, as a major transport hub. Most of them simply had nowhere to go further, but here there were already enough "friends". As a result, the number of criminal elements grew exponentially. Bandit groups were created that had to eat something, entertain themselves and generally survive.

The streets were filled with people without housing, without work, but having a desire to live beautifully, according to the ideas of their prison ideology. All these people, especially those who were not burdened with moral foundations, had to live on something, to eat something. In addition, the soul, for the "nth" number of years of confinement, yearned for revelry, alcohol, women … All this they got by force.

From the personal memories of Nadezhda Kursheva

Nadezhda Kursheva is an honored lawyer of the Russian Federation with extensive experience in the judicial structure. At the very beginning of her career, her graduate of the Kazan Law Faculty was sent to work in Buryatia. Hope at that time was slightly over 20. It was 1951 …

The girl was initially prepared for difficulties. The climatic conditions were by no means comfortable: in summer the heat was not lower than 30 degrees, in winter - severe frosts. The courts she went to with checks were hundreds of kilometers from the capital. It was necessary to get to them, and even in any weather. She rode both on horseback and in a dog cart. It is not surprising that by the time the "cold summer" began, Nadezhda had managed to get both physical and moral-strong-willed hardening. When the city was flooded with criminal elements, she needed these skills.

In 1952, all camps and prisons were transferred to the Ministry of Justice. The court examiners (who Kursheva worked for) have their own areas of responsibility, divided geographically. In Buryatia, there were enough of them, moreover, the most dangerous criminals were kept in the camps. Those who have been convicted of aggravated murder. Those who have been extended their term due to murders already committed in places of detention.

The number of those who had been “on the other side of the law” for a long time was also increased by the fact that in 1947 the death penalty was abolished. Three years later, they began to use it again, but only against enemies of the people, traitors and spies. Real criminals received prison sentences, and not always long ones. Regardless of the number of murders and aggravating circumstances, the perpetrator could receive a maximum of 25 years.

Kursheva, whose experience makes it possible to compare many historical layers, including the "dashing 90s", claims that she has never seen anything like that in Ulan-Ude in the 50s. Arbitrariness also reigned in prisons, where power had long been seized by prisoners at maximum terms. They were the most terrible category of prisoners. They had nothing to lose, and they did not feel any pity for someone else's life. The camp lived by its own laws, which even the armed guards did not dare to break. Not to mention the newcomers who were forced to adjust to existing norms.

Any misconduct could lead to disassembly and a stranglehold, draped over the back of the neck. Any tool at hand, from clothes to a piece of sheet, could become a weapon in this case. The task of the guards was to prevent a breakthrough through the fence. That is, in fact, barbed wire is the only thing that protected the criminal community from the Soviet one. No wonder that any attempt to escape was punishable by execution on the spot. Probably, only thanks to this it was possible to contain the attempts of mass exodus. Although they also happened.

Kursheva supervised the Dzhida colony. Before allowing the girl to enter the territory, she was thoroughly instructed on how to behave on the territory of the colony. The main rule was not to make contact, not to answer questions addressed to her, not even to turn your head, not to give any signs of greeting. You were not allowed to take IDs, combs, heels - anything that could attract attention or be used as a weapon. If there was an urgent need, then any questions had to be answered shortly: "I am a lawyer."

The camp employees themselves also walked through the territory where the prisoners ruled, without weapons. For the simple reason that he, too, could be taken away, and armed criminals would pose a much greater danger. The guards did not particularly interfere in internal conflicts, unless it was something out of the ordinary.

Kurseva, in her memoirs, gives a colorful example that demonstrates how arbitrary the behavior of the prisoners was. So, during the court session, about a hundred prisoners were gathered in the assembly hall. The room was quite large, and there were no seating places, they were gathered as spectators of the demonstration court session. During the trial, a newcomer was brought into the hall. The prisoners immediately began to mock him, undressed and began to share his clothes. They fought, trying to take her away from each other. The guards could do nothing with the troublemakers, silently observing what was happening.

The only task of the guard was to prevent escapes. However, the taiga coped with this task much better than the paramilitary guards. About a thousand prisoners were able to escape by dismantling the brickwork. At that time, it was one seventh of all prisoners. In order to organize the capture of prisoners, usually subdivisions of military units were involved, it was impossible to cope with such a task independently. However, even in such cases, they were in no hurry to detain the escaped. In winter, they died in the taiga from the cold, during the rest of the year they became the prey of wild animals. Five hundred kilometers of taiga forest were more terrible than any weapon.

Camp orders for the whole city

From the earliest days of the amnesty, it was not only those convicted of minor violations that took to the streets. Indeed, according to the decree, only those whose term of imprisonment was less than five years should have been granted freedom. Meanwhile, among them, due to the imperfection of the judicial and prosecutorial system, there were serious criminals, whose place was definitely behind bars. As a result, already at the beginning of summer, Ula-Ude began to fill up with criminals of a very different nature.

Most of the liberated had neither housing nor relatives who would be waiting for them. They had nowhere to go, and their souls demanded a cheerful life. In addition, for many of them, the amnesty was something of a fun adventure, a way to have fun in the wild and return back to their usual bunks. The mass character also played a role. If usually a convict got into Soviet society and was forced to live according to generally accepted rules, now they went out in groups and retained their moral and ethical attitudes.

The criminals are from Kolyma and Magadan, but the worst - from Inner Mongolia. This is a separate region of China, where several camps were located. Usually they contained those who were caught under a serious article, especially dangerous repeat offenders. Some of them were also able to be released.

However, it doesn't even matter who exactly was able to be released thanks to this amnesty. Judging by the way Kursheva describes the life of the camps, he could “fix” any citizen. Those who wanted to survive were forced to learn to live according to prison laws, pushing everything human deeper in themselves. Therefore, even if it was about those who committed minor crimes, being massively on the streets, they continued to behave in the same way as in the camp. True, their victims were not cellmates, but ordinary townspeople.

The railway junction in Ulan-Ude was the first large city for the majority of yesterday's prisoners. Many stayed here for a couple of days, others decided to stay. Be that as it may, the increase in crime in the city simply broke all records. The victims were innocent townspeople. The local authorities reacted to the changed situation by transferring all institutions to barracks.

Employees did not go home, but slept on cots right at the workplace. The windows of the first floors were reinforced according to the military type - they built barricades, machine gunners were on duty. However, the position of government officials was not yet the most difficult. Ordinary townspeople were left alone with the convicts and were often forced to solve their problems on their own.

Massacres of ordinary people, deserted streets, boarded up windows, morning collection of corpses - this has become the reality of a once prosperous city. The police officers not only could not cope, but preferred not to wear uniforms and move in groups and armed.

The situation became practically military. The local authorities actually admitted defeat in front of the rushing stream of crime. The only thing they could do was street loudspeakers with a warning that it is better not to go out into the streets, to close windows and doors.

But these measures were ineffective, by this time most of the shops, cafes and other facilities had already been looted. The convicts sieged the hostels and organized mass rapes of industrial workers. Murders, pogroms have become the norm. All this got away with the former criminals, since the police could not cope with such an influx.

Buryat writer and historian Alexander Pakeev in his story "Sins" writes that the inhabitants let the dogs off their chains, that at nightfall they hurriedly collected the dry linen and set up barricades and traps near the doors. Criminals wandered around the city in droves in search of victims and profit, residents tried once again just not to leave the house.

Army against criminals

The city lived in such a state of siege for several weeks. Internal troops were unable to cope with the wave of crime. The situation was leveled out only after the troops of neighboring regions came to the rescue. In fact, the troops had no right to shoot to kill, but they were given just such an order. The criminals were simply shot right in the street, like stray dogs. There was a curfew in the city and everyone who violated it was shot. No one even tried to find out where and why a person was going at night.

It is still unknown how many criminals (and maybe not only them) were killed in Ulan-Ude during this massive sweep. The documents, if any, were immediately hidden under the heading "top secret".

After such a clean-up, the city still did not return to its former life. But there were no more mass pogroms and high-profile murders. The limitation of the amnesty was adopted in July. It was no longer applied to recidivists and robbers. Therefore, this somewhat suspended the course of the amnesty.

In almost all colonies of the country, the situation with the prisoners was extremely difficult. Unrest and uprisings broke out every now and then. In the Dzhida colony, as in many others, demonstrative executions were carried out of those who tried to escape or committed crimes already in the camp. The shooting in front of the line of the rest of the prisoners had an educational effect and the convicts calmed down.

However, life in the city was divided into "before and after". The consequences of that terrible month were not just dreamed of by the townspeople for a long time, but also had very tangible consequences. Compared to 1952, in 1953 the crime rate in the region increased by almost 7.5%. These figures cannot be called objective, since most of the crimes were not even recorded. The number of robberies has increased 2, 5 times.

Some of the criminals settled in the city, because the increase in crime became the norm until 1958. The work of the Buryat policemen was now measured in hundreds of detainees. In 1955 alone, more than 80 criminal groups were discovered.

There is another side to the 1953 amnesty. Prison culture has become an integral part of everyday life. Young people began to imitate the convicts, romanticize camp life, communicate on the "hair dryer". Sweatshirts with closed hemlines, slippers on bare feet and cormorant caps have become part of youth subcultures. However, this was observed throughout the country, the lyrics of prison life, jargon and tattoos became symbols of freedom and rebellion.