Victor Levenstein - The Mug Shot

 

In the spring of 1944 in the Soviet Union, when I was 21 years old, I was arrested by the KGB and brought to the main political prison in the Soviet Union, the infamous Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. A bunch of people in the uniform of KGB made me face the wall, strip searched me, cut my hair, took my fingerprints and then with hands behind my back, I was led to adjoining room. There was an old-fashioned wooden camera on a tripod. In front of this camera was a chair for the prisoner being photographed. The photographer took a picture. Then chair was turned, the second picture in profile was taken and I was let out of the room. Then the interrogation started. 

 

Together with 12 of my friends, I was charged with conspiracy to assassinate Stalin. It was absurd. [audience laughter] Nobody even thought about plotting to kill Stalin. Our real guilt was that we were well educated and smart youngsters. We read a lot and we read good books, including American Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck. We learned from this book that there was a free world behind the border of our country, that there are free people out there and that we live in the closed totalitarian state. Free thinking, free talking were crimes in the Southern Soviet Union. So, I found myself in the Lubyanka prison. 

 

I was taken to a tiny cell, four by five feet with no windows. The sleep was prohibited by the daytime and the questioning was going on the whole night. Under this sleep deprivation and under the hail of curses and threats and insults, seven of my friends confessed in plotting assassination of Stalin. It was not the best time of my life at all. [audience laughter] After sleepless days and nights, I was in semiconscious state. My will was always broken. And I confessed, but I confessed only in being anti-Soviet person. But gather somehow my rest of my strength and refused these charges of terrorist activity against Stalin. I was sent to a labor camp for five years. 

 

Being an engineering student at the time, I lied that I am an engineer. And this lie saved my life, because it made me valuable for them. So, I survived. And five years later, in the spring of 1949, my prison term was coming to an end. Couple of days before my release, I met Alexey Kravtsov. He was a senior work assigner. I had met him before in another prison. He was a nice guy, young couple of years, maybe older than me, smart, energetic, businesslike, the former military pilot, a captain, convicted for some misconduct. He was not political prisoner. And because of this, he was given this job, in fact, camp commander deputy. 

 

He lives in separate tiny room and stuff the barrack. He invited me to celebrate my release. We ate, talk. And at one point, he said if I would like to see my personal file. He had taken it out of the office, because my order for my release has been issued for the next day. In my file, there was my verdict and the mug shot made in Lubyanka prison face and profile. The picture got loose from my file and needed to be glued back in. I look at the picture. It accompanied me on all my journey through three prisons, three transit prisons, three labor camps. I just felt that I wanted to have it badly. And I asked Alexey, if he would give me the photograph. 

 

I was thinking asking the photographer in the camp. I knew him. Maybe he can make me a copy. And I said, that original I will return to him. Alexey said, “Are you crazy? Who can make your copy? It's official photograph. For this copy, this guy can have new prison term together with me.” [audience laughter] But that’s it. I said, “Let me try. Let me try and I promise you that I'll bring you the picture back in any event first thing in the morning.” So, he gave me the photo. I ran to photographer. But no matter how tried to persuade him to make a copy, he refused. It was too dangerous. 

 

In the morning, after the signal to wake up, I ran to Alexey to return the picture. Cluster of people were standing at the entrance to his room. I made my way through the crowd. Alexey was lying in bed, face down. The pillows and sheets were red with blood, and an ax was sticking out of Alexey's head. A lot of hardened criminals were serving time in the same camp. I was thinking, poor Alexey. Just few hours ago we talk about our future life on outside sitting on the very bed where he lay dead now. And then, I realized that I still have the picture. [audience laughter] I decided that my file will manage without it just fine. [audience laughter] But the problem was how to smuggle it out of the prison. I knew that they will search me very carefully before my release. So, I developed a plan. 

 

The water supply to camp was brought in water tank trucks. I knew one of truck driver. So, I gave him the picture and arranged to get it from him on outside after my release. And the plan worked and I got my picture. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

After five years in prison camp, I was sent to exile for life. So, I found myself in the God forsaken place named Ekibastuz in northeastern Kazakhstan. The place didn't exist on geographical maps at the time. [audience laughter] There was no city, no settlements, nothing. The only big construction site nearby. So, I was allowed to live there. I had good job at this construction project, but there was no hope to continue my education, to get engineering degree, to return to normal life. Four years in my exile, friendly cosmic forces intervened in my fate. Stalin kicked the bucket. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] He died. People was mourning. But for me, spring wasn't there. [audience laughter] And soon after his death, the general amnesty was announced and my exile was over. [audience applause] 

 

I came back to Moscow. And at this time, Stalin was still lying in mausoleum and I wanted to see him in the coffin. [audience laughter] For me, Stalin was personification of all evil. I knew that millions of people of innocent people were shot. Millions died in labor camps, murdered by backbreaking work and hunger and cold. I was thinking about my father who died in the labor camp behind the polar circle. Scores of my friends and relatives with the same destiny. Nine years of my life. I just wanted to see him in the coffin. 

 

When I saw him, Stalin's appearance disappointed me. [audience laughter] I was expecting to see the devil, Lucifer. But in front of me in glass coffin laid very ordinary mustached man with low forehead and popped market face. [audience laughter] But the point was not his appearance, but the fact that I saw him dead in the coffin. After Stalin's death, it was still Soviet power was there and KGB was there and living in Moscow. I had strange feeling from time to time that my free life was temporary or something, especially I felt it when I walk close to the KGB headquarters in Moscow. I had this feeling that I belong there, and the fact that I'm working as a free man because of somebody's oversight. And sooner or later, they will catch me. 

 

We immigrated to the United States in 1980. And this feeling disappeared only when I first time walked on Florida beach and saw the Atlantic. I told myself, “Look, the ocean is between me and KGB.” [audience applause] 

 

I am finally safe. When we immigrated, the country we were living was still the Soviet Union. I knew that all our belongings were checking very carefully. I didn't have even hope to take my precious Lubyanka mug shot with me. It was illegal. It was property of KGB. So, I left the picture with my cousin. Couple of years later, I received a letter with Belgium address. My KGB photograph was in the letter. [audience laughter] My cousin, an avid stamp collector, met Belgium stamp fan at the Philatelic show in Moscow and asked him to send it to me to America. Now, since that this picture hangs in my house and reminds me daily that I survived deadly Soviet prisons and labor camps, that Stalin has been dead for 69 years and I'm still alive. [audience cheers and applause] Thank you. This summer, in three months, God willing, I turn 100. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Could you imagine my shock and frustration at this passage of my life, seeing as a former KGB officer being President of Russia, unleashing unjust, deadly war on Ukraine? I was born in Ukraine. I was born in beautiful southern city of Mykolaiv. The best time of my life, my childhood, I spent in Ukraine. I see it. I see what's going on as a KGB man trying to bring free Ukraine back to the prison camp of the Soviet Union. My heart is with brave men and women of Ukraine, and that's why I decided to tell you this story. [audience cheers and applause]

 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.