Grey is the Color of Hope 3

"When everyone who is in any way connected with your imprisonment--from the supervising procurator through to the censor and the doctor--persists in lying day in, day out, you begin to feel as though you are in some huge lunatic asylum. The only difference is that it is the overseers who are psychopaths, who try to incorporate you into a hideous, contrived reality. Shalin's insistence that we do not exist is a case in point: 'There are no political prisoners in this camp,' he would aver. Yet at the same time, he and all his colleagues invariably referred to us as the 'politicals.' The pots in which our skilly was delivered from the kitchen had the words "Polit. Zone" marked on them with brown paint. And Shalin himself, in an attempt to make us see reason, would say: 'Everyone in the men's political zone wears identity tags, so why can't you!'"

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

Grey is the Color of Hope

"Natasha is from Leningrad. She is serving a sentence for producing a samizdat journal, Maria, which was devoted to feminist issues. The problems raised in this journal, such as the double workload of Soviet women--eight hours at work followed by five to six hours queuing for food, the horrors of communal kitchens, doing the entire family wash in a hand basin--were to appear in the official Soviet press also, but much later, in 1986. In 1982, when Natasha was arrested, talking about such matters was classed as 'anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.'"

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

Grey is the Color of Hope 4

"Raya has very definite ideas about poets: she's married to one, after all, and it was her devotion to him that landed her in the camps. To her, poets are like small children who are incapable of looking after themselves. She is convinced that if food is not placed before them, they will forget to eat, or that if they are not forced to go to bed at a reasonable hour, they will sit up all night communing with their Muse. . . She was like a nursemaid to me in the years we spent together in the camp. Also, she liked my poetry, and we would spend hours reciting to each other; she would read her husband's poems, and I would read mine. . ."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

Grey is the Color of Hope 5

"We made no attempts to reform them, we merely tried to understand them and their world. Vitebsky wrote that he was a thief 'by calling,' and would have been a thief in any country and any social class, 'even in America' (he thought of America as the epitome of well-being and legality)."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

Grey is the Color of Hope 2

"What a mixed bunch we are: a Catholic, a Pentecostal, several Orthodox, an unbeliever. . . later we were to be joined by a Baptist. Yet we were always deeply respectful of one another's convictions. And God did not turn His face away from our small patch of Mordovian soil."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya

The Silence of Writers

"The Americans, meanwhile, were innocently asking members of the Soviet Writers' Union: 'Why are you silent when your colleagues are imprisoned?'

"They were silent because they knew that they only had to open their mouths to follow in Elena's footsteps. They did not share her courage; officially acknowledged writers lead an easy life, they have a great deal to lose. In any case, we're not their colleagues--we have never participated in any of the Soviet propaganda activities which are mandatory for Writers' Union members, so we were not members ourselves. For it is impossible to serve both God and Mammon. One must choose. And the choice was made: we chose one, they chose the other. We have never regretted our choice, and I don't think they regret theirs. Different people have different destinies. . ."

~~ from Grey is the Color of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya