Escape from Kolyma: Aborigin Is a Bear Region

By Chester Litvin PhD

Professor Stepan Kryvoruchko PhD is a scholar who believes that Aborigin, an area soiled by ruination, is inflicted with psychological infections. Viruses were killing individuality. Aborigin’s Superior Leader, a dictator and tyrant who designed a crematory with a network of labor camps, has moved modern Aborigine back to Golden Horde time. As a collective imposes its doctrine on the population, no one knows what is next.

Aaron Kaufman has the misfortune of living in Aborigin. Although atrocities have taken the lives of millions including many of his relatives, Aaron has somehow managed to survive. Unfortunately, lies are everywhere. The collective has created double standards in an attempt to alter the nature of man. While the doctrine speaks of the birth of a new, refined man and declared rogues as socially friendly, the collective creates competitions for terrestrials while developing a system of pacifying rebels. Now only time will tell if Aaron find a way to escape the ruthless collective and carve out a new life for himself and whether Professor Kryvoruchko will somehow find the reason for the infection that is plaguing the people of Aborigin.

In this science fiction tale, a professor and a young man living in an area devastated by a ruthless dictator embark on separate journeys to learn the truth about themselves and their destinies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532065439

Chester Litvin PhD

He was born in Russia where he worked as a science schoolteacher. In USA, he completed master’s and PhD degree and works as a clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and child counselor and was credentialed as a school psychologist. He was interested in helping people with brain impairments.

Book preview

ESCAPE FROMKOLYMA

ABORIGIN

IS A BEAR REGION

CHESTER LITVIN, PHD

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ESCAPE FROMKOLYMA

ABORIGIN IS A BEAR REGION

Copyright © 2019 Chester Litvin, PhD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-6544-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-6543-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018915240

iUniverse rev. date: 01/21/2019

CONTENTS

Prologue

Introduction

Disease of Virus of Radicalization

The Differences in Reaction to Viruses

Family and Pseudocollective

Chapter 1

Way to Freedom

Nazis in Malantia

Stepan Luchko, Survivor

Rivka’s Life in Greben

Uncle Ben’s Thankfulness

Dachas

The Borderline of Byelogoria

Byelogoria’s Battle with Doctrine

Isaac’s Hatred of the State

The Ubiquity of Hypocrisy

The Infestation of the Killing Field

Bondarenko

The Enemy of the State

Commissar Bondarenko: Fertile Ground for Perdition

Bogdan’s Lack of Sophistication

Luchko’s Family

The Stupidity of the Killing Field in the Village of Pine Trees

Victims in Byelogoria

Sara Waited for the Commissar

Bondarenko in Power

The Red Terror

The Brainwashed Objects

Fate of Bogdan

A Tense Situation

The Structure of Polytheism

The Diamonds of the Kolyma River

Way to Freedom, Part 2: Lies in the Killing Field

The Bazaar in Baku

Real Dialogue

The Vicious Collective

Isaac Played Cards

Isaac Took Action

Galena

Celestials of the Gorgeous City

Aaron and Sashko’s Resources

Sofia Kaufman, Actress

Sofia’s Life

Sofia’s Second Marriage

Aaron’s Struggles

Gulag

Maniacal and Illiterate Leaders

The Criminal Code of Honor

Isaac’s Negotiations

Baku, a Cosmopolitan City

Way to Freedom, Part 3

The Search of the Solid Psyche

Chapter 2

Dora, Aaron’s Wife

The Habitants’ Affliction

Accusations of Rape in an Infected Country

Sashko’s Infidelity

The Luck of Sashko Belay

Eric Belay

Eric and His Mentally Ill Grandmother

Eric’s Appearance

Eric’s Bullies

Eric’s Love for the Gorgeous City

Eric’s Skills

Eric’s Kingdom

The Misfortune of Hypocrisy

Eric’s Wake-Up Call

The Privileged Position

Eric Belay’s Luck

Eric’s Beautiful City

One of the Gifts the Jews Did Not Need

Common Enemies

Rome: Way to Freedom, Part 4

Informers Can Be Anywhere

Golda

Vlad

Way to Freedom, Part 5: The Leader of the Collective

The Killing Field’s Fakes

Aaron’s Letter

Aaron’s Secret

Givi the Kingpin

Givi’s Gang

Dr. John Nash

Gaming under Givi

Givi’s Mother

Givi’s Father

The Card Game: A Duel

Immigrant Girls

Pimping the Young Mothers

Uncle Cat

The Cautious Uncle Cat

Givi’s Egomania

The Children of Talented Parents

Vlad’s Naïveté

Misled Immigrants

Aaron’s Freedom

The IQ Test of Cards

About Byelogorians

Ashkenazi Jews

An Efficient Way to Save the Brain

The Founder Father

Founding Father, the Lunatic

The Founder’s Burial

Way to Freedom, Part 6

Byelogorians Were Special

Trade Unions

Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Chastised Farmers

Slavery at the Kolyma River

Isaac and the Dangers of Kolyma

Prison Informers

Gorgeous City in Aborigin

The Past of the Gorgeous City

Abusive Children

The Life of Sashko Belay

Learning to Survive

Animal Instinct Took Over

Low Morale in the Killing Field

Pseudodogma Promised Fast Changes

Greben, Malantia

The Taboo of Wealth

Nowhere to Go from the Source of Primitivism and Aboriginian Existence

Denial of Collective Association

Paradise Island

Negotiation as a Part of a Sailor’s Psychology

Prince Kropotkin versus Superior Leader

The Bets and Games

The Triumph of the Superior

False Celestials and Terrestrials

The Pseudocollective as Pathology

Pseudocollective Chaos

Primitive Vulgarisms

Infection of Degeneration

The Communalist Army

A Sailor’s Psyche

Plebeian Background

The Collective Seized Paradise Island

Old Habits Remained

Hypocrisy

Conclusion

The Curse Caused a Split

Sailors’ Psychology

A Description of the Infection

The Collective Stole Identities

Persecuted Uniqueness

Falsified Bible

Bibliography

In

memory of my late mother, Polina Gimelfarb, and my father,

Max Litvinov

PROLOGUE

Kolyma had a network of labor prisons in Aborigin. Aborigin was not the original name of the area; the name was changed when a psychological virus affected the inhabitants. The plague-ridden land’s virus was named ultimate sociopathic and stingy recidivism, or USSR. Because the virus damaged thought processes, the names of the localities changed. People’s brain chemistry changed, and people lived in a pseudocollective. Contrary to the false collective, a true collective existed too. It was located in a place that had a real name. The Sailors’ goal was to find the location of the true collective.

INTRODUCTION

Professor Kryvoruchko, PhD, was a scholar who provided the translation of terms. He mentioned that Malantia and Byelogoria were part of Aborigin. Greben was a city in Malantia. Paradise Island was in the Black Sea. Aaron Kaufman liberated the Aboriginian emigrants from criminal authority. His father, Isaac Kaufman, escaped from Kolyma. Like the biblical Joseph, who was in slavery in Egypt and became a wealthy man who helped others, Isaac left slavery in Kolyma as a wealthy man, along with a beautiful woman who became his future wife. He liberated himself, his wife, and his stepdaughter.

Professor Kryvoruchko stated that Aborigin had various types of psychological infections. The professor listed the below types of brain damage, which were caused by psychological bacilli in carriers. Symptoms included entitlement and lawlessness. The list of infected included the following:

• Dumb heads: The unintelligent crowd in disease-ridden locales. They claimed that because they belonged to a special genetic structure, they could do complex tasks better than intelligent habitants. For example, a cleaning lady could manage a big factory.

• Empty heads: Diseased inhabitants of Aborigin who believed they were entitled to take everything by force.

• False celestial natives: Plague-ridden, antisocial individuals who believed that the knowledge of pseudodoctrine, the fraudulent Bible, gave them extraterrestrial cosmic power to capture the whole world.

• Terrestrials: Tainted inhabitants of a pseudocommunal setting. They accepted the power of celestials and served them. They dwelled in countries soiled by infection. They pretended to be intelligent but showed foolishness when they followed doctrine.

Professor Kryvoruchko wanted to find the source of the infection. He distinguished between Superior Leader and Founding Father as sources of the infection. The Founder, a stargazer, assumed that his dream land, Aborigin, did not need any sophistication and could flourish with primitivism and ignorance. He was the one who created the virus that radicalized the land. Founding Father, a dreamer, was the originator of the pseudocollective state. Superior Leader designed the slavery camps in Kolyma, and a crematory for many prisoners was located on the northern border, by the Arctic Ocean. The network of labor camps, in actuality, were extermination camps.

Superior Leader moved terrain infected by the ideological virus back to Golden Horde times. Superior Leader was a dictator and tyrant and changed Aborigin to his liking. In the swindling doctrine of the pseudocollective, thoughts were always abnormal and muddy. Even in a madhouse, the psyche wanted something resembling normal life, but in the pseudocollective, a normal life was not possible. The structure of the fraudulent collective looked like the psyche of a disoriented psychotic without any instances of enlightenment. The craziness of the setting was a paradox and antimony.

Professor Kryvoruchko explained that those not infected by the psychological virus were called Sailors. Those courageous individuals successfully crossed oceans of negativity and entitlement. The professor, Aaron, and Isaac were Sailors. They resisted the pseudocollective psychological structure of Aborigin, whose name was an abbreviation for A Bear Region. Professor Kryvoruchko declared that the fragments in a Sailor’s psyche were characterized by different periods of his life or images of significant people in his psyche. Dialogue was a way of thinking. The Sailor’s dialogue happened between fragments that had the same goal: to find truth. Sailors identified their fragments and dialogues as self-talks. By using dialogues, Sailors’ psyches were united in a true collective. The essence of the psychological structure of Sailors was distinguished and unique. The true collective was in the design of a Sailor’s soul. It was a place where the Sailors discovered their individuality. Sailors were separating the real from the fictitious. In their vicinity, distinctiveness was respected, and reality testing was the main basis of their thoughts. They represented the true collective. A Sailor moved away from the source of primitivism and Aboriginian existence. By encouraging internal dialogues between his fragments, a Sailor had a cohesive, solid, and interconnected psyche.

DISEASE OF VIRUS OF RADICALIZATION

P rofessor Kryvoruchko believed the external pseudocollective society was a product of psychological disease. The illness’s parasitic venom created an epidemic in different parts of the world. The infection damaged its surroundings. The disease changed minds and created a marketplace of suffering and terror. The diseased became obsessed with feelings of entitlement and did not feel ashamed of stealing from others and using violence. As a result, they became deadly. In its most severe form, the illness did not have an antidote. It infected a lot of territories and had four derivatives with the same name. The first name was the structure that the ideological parasite built. The second name marked the place where the virus was captured as a parasite. The third held contention of the indoctrination philosophy. The fourth was a toxin of radicalization, the outcome of the butchery doctrine. The ideologists persuaded crowds to follow imprudent ideology as if it were an undeniable truth.

Professor Kryvoruchko labeled the disease as ultimate sociopathic and stingy recidivism. It infested psyches with sociopathic and stingy fragments that created a marketplace of horror. The bug could appear in different colors, such as red for the pseudocollective and black for Nazis. There were a few historians who wanted to whitewash the repression of Nazis toward the world. They mentioned that Nazis who killed many people were good to the pregnant women. Nazis paid them for several years to be with their babies. It was like a soulless killer who buried the dead in his yard while grooming apple trees in the same yard, and he was a conscious gardener. Mass killers who were good to babies still were killers. The Nazis were mass killers, and nothing could change that.

According to Professor Kryvoruchko, the infection produced sociopaths without real emotions. Any guilt of having taken advantage of others was removed. The infected had moved millions of prisoners as slaves to national projects to immortalize their name. They did not make any sacrifices of their own. They wanted to build projects equal to the Egyptian pyramids. The difference was that the Egyptian pyramids were standing—for now—but the national projects in Aborigin not exist. The slaves died for nothing. Most of the ideologists were recidivists who often repeated their criminal behavior. Their conduct included robbery, torture, and rape. All of them banded together under a parasitic doctrine. They allowed crime without any penance for the major atrocities toward the habitants of various ethnicities and, especially, those who resisted primitivism and had a higher-than-average level of intelligence and nobility.

Wikipedia explained the terms in more detail. Ultimate sociopaths were characterized by diminished empathy and remorse. They displayed enduring antisocial behavior and were uninhibited by their audacious doctrine. Many forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists used the terms sociopath and psychopath interchangeably. Sociopaths tended to be nervous and easily agitated. They were volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage. They were likely to be uneducated, live on the fringes of society, and be unable to hold down a steady job or stay in one place for long. It was difficult, but not impossible, for sociopaths to form attachments. They were stingy, miserly, and closed to all reason. They promptly took from others but were reluctant to pay others back or part with their own money and goods. According to Wikipedia, stingy meant unwilling to share, give, or spend. Recidivism was the tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior, especially criminal behavior.

The unification of sociopaths was characterized by invading the space of others and creating a lot of misery around them. Affected by disease, the plague-ridden did not understand that taking from others was not right. The attitude captured many psyches by infecting them and then spreading to others. It created a structure of involuntary submission and punishment for resistance. It restricted and prevented any individuality from flourishing. It was a marketplace of surrealistic dreams with different tinkles. The psychological sickness kept habitants in a surrealistic horror. The area of Aborigin was establishing pseudocollective craziness and communal horror. The disease quickly expanded to widespread zones, infecting Aboriginians and many others.

Aborigin continued to disintegrate. The pseudocollective was built on a dysfunctional construct. The meaning of collective was captured by a bunch of primitives who never had any original ideas. They tortured the world with their demand to abandon any complicity and make everything primitive. If they did not understand something, it was not supposed to be. Only primitive ideas existed, and then everyone would be equal in a row of imbeciles.

In a communal setting, everything was pseudo and presumed.

The pseudocollective had a territory diseased by the black and red bugs. It became a place where the life of the individual cost nothing. There, all plurals could be answered by a singular noun. The infected could kill legitimate owners and take merchandise by force. Examples of cruelty were found in the millions of victims in Kolyma and other death camps.

On the terrain populated by Aboriginians, the illness completely destroyed Western-oriented civilization. The nation came back to its Eastern roots. It was back to the time of the Golden Horde. The sickness created the pseudocollective and pseudocommunal.

Prolet-Aryans and presumed Aryans were in regions dirtied by the deadly malady. Those infected by populist ideas believed they were genetically superior and did not need special skills to perform complex tasks. They believed they were great and could do everything better than others.

The terror was in countries tainted by the red or black bugs. The infected, brainwashed populists violently attacked the uninfected to achieve their political goals. They wanted the hegemony of Prolet-Aryans and presumed Aryans. Their violence toward the uninfected resulted in a death camp on the Kolyma River and gas chambers in the middle of Europe.

Aborigin was intermediate terrain between West and East. For two hundred years, it had been an inseparable part of the Golden Horde, though it denied influence from the Golden Horde and insisted on belonging to the West. Aboriginians were the main builders of the pseudocollective. They claimed they and Malantians had the same history, but Malantians denied it. Aboriginians wanted to be Western but presented the Eastern-type structure of totalitarian interactions and military superiority. Malantians too wanted to be Western, but first of all, they wanted to be free from the Aboriginians.

THE DIFFERENCES IN REACTION TO VIRUSES

O ne infected by the black bug declared himself as a ruler of the world, and others were subordinates. Those infected by the red virus created the diseased doctrine of communal living, which was based on asceticism. Many habitants lived in little rooms and shared one communal toilet and kitchen. Each room had its own water and electricity meter and also a doorbell outside.

In summary, there were two main similarities between the black and red bugs. The nation sickened by the black bug created the terror of Nazis. It violently staffed concentration camps in the middle of Europe, where perceived enemies of the regime were gassed. The gas chambers were more visible. The results of infection by the red virus were extermination camps built by the false collective in the Arctic, North Siberia, and other rural areas of Aborigin.

The red virus had brought time back to the Golden Horde and the Mongol-led army of Tatars. Aboriginians had been riding as equals with Mongols for two hundred years. Infected by the red virus, Aboriginians recreated the Golden Horde in the modern time. They continued living in an external pseudocollective similar to the structure of the Golden Horde. They always proclaimed they were the strongest military power in the world.

Interesting was a comparison between the Golden Horde and the Khazar Khanate. The complete opposite of Golden Horde militarism was the spirituality of the Khazar Khanate, whose territory was part of Aborigin. Those habitants lived with spiritual identities. The Khazars were powerful Turkic habitants of the Jewish religion, inhabitants of Malantia. There was controversy over the mystical relationship between the Khazars and the Ashkenazim, the European Jews.

FAMILY AND PSEUDOCOLLECTIVE

P rofessor Kryvoruchko was a part of the family that resisted infection by the psychological bug. He was a Sailor who explored the vastness of the human psyche. He understood that there were many psychological germs. He stated that dictators were happy with the disease. They proclaimed that infection by psychological illnesses was needed and desirable. Dictators endorsed untested primitivism, which was a product of the malady. They promoted it as an elixir for everything they dreamed about. Dictators called it an omnipotent and perfect doctrine. In the name of doctrine, they killed sophistication and individuality. They created an atmosphere that allowed dictatorships to exist. The infection created an epidemic that took away uniqueness and distinctiveness. It destroyed originality. Decency and nobility were replaced with cunning and guile. Germs that had existed long ago in the time of the Golden Horde were reactivated in an altered form. Bugs were differentiated by color. They were red, black, and more. The professor analyzed the red bug, USSR. The professor saw a terrible disease that was destroying distinctiveness. He described some frightening observations. The red bug was deadly. Habitants infected by the disease had awakened violence and low-lying instincts. Illness enforced the notion that a pseudocollective structure superseded any uniqueness. The epidemic glorified primitivism. It imposed an assumed-collective and assumed-communal state. The infected collectivists took others’ wealth without any guilt.

The virus of communalism killed distinctiveness and uniqueness. It declared an exclusivity of putative collective thinking. It facilitated the resurgence of goon mentality under the name of the assumed collective. The affliction created in its surroundings a putative feeling of entitlement and superiority. It created primitive thinking that suppressed any humanity. Behind every assumed collective was a dictator.

CHAPTER 1

The Sailor’s Spirit

Professor Stepan Kryvoruchko uncovered information that members of his family were in Kolyma. He was related to Aaron Kaufman and his father, Isaac, who’d escaped from Kolyma. Aborigin did not mention Kolyma anywhere, as if it did not exist and as if millions had not vanished. For many years, the whole country was a prison closed by an iron curtain, and escape was impossible. Attempted escapees were hunted and killed, and their families disappeared. It was not possible to escape, and habitants were suffocating.

After the death of Supreme Leader, passage opened. Professor Kryvoruchko and Aaron Kaufman left Aborigin. By escaping the country, they were escaping Kolyma. They moved to North America, the land of opportunity. Professor Kryvoruchko and Aaron Kaufman left the putative collective, the cursed land. They took a chance when the iron curtain around Aborigin was destroyed. They left at the right time, when the country was in stagnation. They traveled away from subjugation. They became Sailors who saved their own and other habitants’ lives.

For Sailors, it was important to save lives. Because Professor Kryvoruchko sailed from oppression to freedom, he represented a Sailor’s spirit. He had the courage to sail from the presumptive collective to a foreign land free from cruelty. He was not frightened of the unfamiliar surroundings. He had a lucky passage. Because he left his hometown, goons called him a traitor. He did not fight for change in his birthplace. He did not care. He realized he was not a Don Quixote. He could not fight with windmills. It was too hard to change anything. He did not feel any debt to the germ-infested terrain. Once in a safe place, he was able to learn his family’s past. He found out there were many Sailors in his family. They all were individualists who resisted collectivist thinking.

WAY TO FREEDOM

F or a long time, Professor Kryvoruchko did not know that in his family was a courageous man named Isaac Kaufman, a Sailor. Professor Kryvoruchko discovered that he was part of a decent clan. Isaac Kaufman was an escapee from a prison on the Kolyma River. He escaped with his girlfriend, Glasha. They took with them a little bag of high-quality diamonds. In place of horror, he found a beautiful wife and his wealth. He lived and died in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Professor Kryvoruchko and Aaron Kaufman were currently living in the USA. In their new homeland, they were happy. Some natives suspected they’d come to the new homeland with the goal to infiltrate and sabotage. They did not argue with them. Once out of the pseudocollective, Professor Kryvoruchko went to school and became a professor. Aaron Kaufman created several businesses and employed many immigrants from Aborigin. They demonstrated that their objective was only to be happy and share happiness with others.

NAZIS IN MALANTIA

D uring World War II, Jews suffered from antagonism in the vicinity of Malantia, part of Aborigin, and were victims of many hostilities. The prejudiced Malantians inferred that something was vicious and evil in the Jewish character. They put all Jews into a genetically undesirable category. It was an idiotic concept to create a big monster. Jews, through their history, experienced the entrance of many other genetic inflows. The Jewish appearance continued through their mothers. Their fathers could be from various genetic pools. Malantia’s xenophobia was relayed on an insane basis. The first idiotic postulate was that Jews were genetically greedy and were using their special genes to patronize the rest of society. During the Nazis’ time, people felt justified in reporting their Jewish neighbors to the local police, who, as a result, sent victims to extermination camps. Malantia’s Nazis showed an extraordinary hatred of Jews. Many Malantians were guards in concentration camps and got away with a lot of murders.

The pseudodoctrine created by the disease was not able to protect their citizens, including their women, children, and elderly. Those selected to die included Rivka; her baby daughter; and her father-in-law, Hershel Kryvoruchko. They were destroyed by Malantian Nazis. They were savagely murdered. There were places where thousands of Jews, selected by the infected, were slaughtered. Those Jews, picked by gruesome executors, met a heartbreaking fate. Both collectivists and Nazis finished off many of them. It seemed that a black cloud enclosed that particular part of the world. After the Nazis’ defeat, the dark cloud did not move away from Malantia.

STEPAN LUCHKO, SURVIVOR

S tepan Luchko was kept safe. In Aborigin, which was polluted by germs, longevity was a mystery. Among the population, sometimes inconsistencies happened. For some reason, the lives of some were spared many times. It was a possibility that Stepan Luchko would live a long life. His destiny was to save Professor Kryvoruchko’s life. The unexplained contingency happened frequently. As a teenager, Stepan Luchko was skiing and crossing a lake one day, when he fell through the ice into the freezing water. He’d fallen into a hole covered with snow. On his feet were heavy skis. He immediately sank. Stepan Luchko needed to find a way out. The ice was everywhere. He was wet and confused. It was dark. By luck, Stepan’s hand found the hole in the ice above. He was able to pull himself up to the surface. The temperature was low. He ran on the ice to the edge of the lake, carrying his skis. He was afraid of punishment for losing them, as they belonged to his school.

On land, the snow was high, and he trudged through it in his socks, carrying his skis. To his luck, he saw smoke from a chimney. He knocked on the door of the house, and an old man and woman opened it. They gave him dry clothes and hot tea. He then went home and changed his clothing. He did not tell anyone about being close to death. After that experience, he believed that he was enchanted and that nothing bad could befall him. Throughout his life, he did not argue with anyone, and he never had any enemies. Stepan Luchko faced death and survived many times. He became numb inside. He was unmoved by the ugliness of his surroundings.

Stepan Luchko ended up as a spy and a war hero. His daughter was the mother of the professor, but he did not know about it. The professor met Luchko in Canada. The professor already had served in the Israeli army and was married. At the time, Stepan Luchko was an undercover spy for Aborigin. When he found out that Professor Kryvoruchko was his grandson, he saved the professor from the corrupt agents of Aborigin. Otherwise, if Stepan Luchko had not interfered, the professor would have been dead for sure.

RIVKA’S LIFE IN GREBEN

W hen the orphaned Rivka arrived in Greben, her mother was dead, and her father was in prison. She was a niece of Uncle Ben, who was a big man in the flea market, the famous Greben Bazaar. He knew that Rivka’s beloved mama had perished. Her daddy was in a penitentiary, and she needed a caretaker. Uncle Ben was a widower. He was childless and was glad to welcome his niece Rivka into his household. Uncle Ben sold construction materials. In Greben, he was one of the wealthiest uninfected black-marketers. He was friendly with another widower, Hershel Kryvoruchko, who had a son named Alex. Alex was the same age as Rivka. The widowers trusted each other, and their friendship continued until Ben’s death.

Hershel Kryvoruchko was generally frank and was uninfected. It was always a good feeling to be around him. Hershel Kryvoruchko was homely and openhearted. He was far away from any trickery. To cover his private activities, he worked at a factory as a tailor. To make a decent living and make more money, he sewed suits at his home. Ben Kaufman used suits tailored by Hershel to bribe officials needed for his cover, or, in other words, his roofs. They needed protection from the dog tails, racketeers, and authorities. His roofs also protected him from ideologists and other officials in power. Hershel was a good tailor, and all the officials loved his products. Ben paid him handsomely. Both were happy with each other. Their friendship had started many years ago, when Hershel sold a suit at the flea market to an undercover policeman. The transaction was illegal, as the government did not allow any private enterprises. The law of presumptive collectives was merciless to all private producers. Hershel Kryvoruchko was one of them. The collective protected factory merchandise by severe punishment without any remorse for the private producers.

The police arrested Hershel for the illegal activity. During that time, his wife was alive, and she was a best friend of Ben’s wife. Ben got involved and resolved the problem. The art of bribery required some skill, and Ben had a gift. He paid off a policeman. Hershel was not sent to Siberia. If Ben Kaufman had not interfered, Hershel would have ended his life in prison. He would have been one of the dejected and deplorable. If not for Ben’s intervention, he probably would have been dead. Hershel understood that. Being honest and weak, he was not prison material. He would not have adapted to life in prison. He was thankful to Ben and wanted to be helpful. He was happy with the work he did for Ben. Because of Ben’s help, he was able to afford a dignified life for his family. He also was proud that Ben’s dacha and car were registered in his name. Ben became a Sailor because he saved Hershel’s life. He was able to bring Hershel to a safe place in a dangerous whirlpool. Hershel too was a Sailor because after his wife died, as single father, he led his son safely to a comfortable life.

UNCLE BEN’S THANKFULNESS

I t brought Uncle Ben pleasure to have his niece Rivka around. It was nice to have a kindred spirit close to him. He was thankful. His wife had died and not left any children. He’d loved his wife with all his heart. He’d taken care of her. He’d washed and fed her, but his effort had not been enough. She’d died during the delivery of their baby. The baby had died too.

Uncle Ben made a lot of money and had the status of the big man at the flea market. He’d mastered the art of laundering money. He was proud he was able to challenge and beat the diseased system. Those in power, through contagious illness, had forced the uninfected to become insignificant. To be somebody and survive, Uncle Ben bribed the police. In a slave society, he was living a life of the rich and notable. In Aborigin, the birthplace of morons tainted by thought-twisting disease, that was rare.

DACHAS

I n city apartments, habitants had one bathroom for ten families. They did not even have a bathtub. Nevertheless, some wanted to live well. In the city, they lived in a communal setting for cover. It was a necessity because in doing so, they showed that they were close to the working class. The dachas were heaven for many miserable habitants. The dachas were private places away from informers. In Greben, habitants dreamed of dachas. The few who were rich were afraid to be questioned about their income, which mainly was illegal. They needed their dachas for a sense of stability. They knew how to get money. Their positions allowed them to receive bribes or pick up some undetectable earnings. In the village, they could have everything they wanted. They would buy summer cottages under the names of their poor relatives or friends with simple jobs. The condition was that those habitants, whom they trusted, were not involved in any risky transactions.

The shadow economy bowled around. The habitants who lacked business skills found ways to make a living. For little money, they sold their names to be registered owners of the dachas. They kept the money of someone rich in their homes. Many properties and cars also were covered by their names. Business habitants felt safer when the police did not have evidence to arrest or blackmail them.

Ben Kaufman sold everything, most of the time stolen building materials. He was careful and knew with whom to deal. The secret that kept him alive was that he had the talent of being able to bribe everyone. He did not give money, but he was always ready to offer liquor. He bribed with alcohol stolen by the workers from a liquor factory. The workers stole pure alcohol and took it out through security in enema containers hidden under their clothes. Ben did not drink alcohol. He bought it because it was the best item to bribe the powerful. Bribing with alcohol was not as insulting as bribing with money and was an accepted means for everyone to show gratitude. It looked like a gesture of friendship. The scheme was working for him. In the city, having a private flat to live in was a big privilege. Instead of a communal setting, Ben had his own kitchen, his own toilet, three bedrooms, and no snitches on his back. He had a private flat in the city and a chalet in the village.

There was plenty of room in his apartment, where he lived with his dog. Miki was a five-year-old Labrador retriever. Miki was a friendly dog. He accepted Rivka as a friend and allowed her to walk him twice a day. Miki was glad for the opportunity to have Rivka with him. Besides walking with Miki, Rivka went to the same school as Alexander Kryvoruchko, the son of the hardworking tailor Hershel.

Ben and Hershel had shared business associations. Hershel was the fictitious owner of Ben’s hideaways. Ben trusted Hershel and helped him financially. Ben and Hershel were family-oriented. They both were widowers. Ben’s wife had died during the delivery of their child, and Hershel’s wife had died in an influenza outbreak. Hershel raised a son, Alexander, who was a student. He wanted to be an accountant. Rivka was the light of Ben’s life. Ben had a good piano of German origin, and Rivka took music lessons. She played the piano with inspiration. Rivka wanted to be a music teacher. Ben could not believe he had a family.

The rules of the presumptive collective were based on a criminal concept that made habitants poor and insignificant. They were supposed to be happy with empty promises. Ben Kaufman was able to organize a normal life. He had a nice house on the Dnyapro River, near Greben, which had rooms for everyone and small holdings attached. Ben was attached to his dog, Miki, and often walked in his company. Ben also planted strawberries, gooseberries, and black and red currants and offered them to his guests. On the site