A Day in the Depths of the Gulag

By JAMES O. JACKSON

Of some 140 political prisoners pardoned last month by Soviet Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the best known was Mathematician Iosif Begun, a 54-year-old refusenik. He was freed after serving 3 1/2 years of a seven-year term for anti-Soviet activity that consisted mainly of teaching Hebrew and campaigning for Jewish cultural rights. After being reunited with his family and friends on a Moscow train platform last week, Begun relaxed in his apartment and spoke with TIME Moscow Bureau Chief James O. Jackson of how he passed his time in prison. A compact man with cheerful blue eyes and a velvet yarmulke covering the stubble of a recently shaved head, Begun described his regimen during a typical day at Chistopol prison, 500 miles east of Moscow. Jackson's report:

Feb. 2, 5 a.m. A guard bangs on iron doors, rousing Begun and some 25 others in the prison's political wing. They must rise or risk punishment.

"I was already being punished, but I didn't know why," remembered Begun. "Just before the beginning of February they put me on a 'strict regime.' I felt that liberation was near, so I did not know why they changed me from the ordinary regime." If he did not know what was happening, he knew what strict regime meant: half-rations of about 1,000 calories a day, most of them in the form of coarse black bread, boiled potatoes and cabbage. No sugar. No fat. No meat. No visitors. No mail.

Whether on ordinary regime or strict regime, Begun lived in a cell measuring about 10 ft. long and 5 ft. wide. It contained two narrow wooden cots and an open toilet. At one end was a small window that let in narrow strips of light. "It had metal jalousies to keep out the sun and block the view to the prison yard," Begun said. At the other end was an iron door fitted with multiple locks and a closed rectangular slot called a kormushka, or feeding door.

Sometimes a cellmate shared the tiny space, but that was not always a good * thing. "Once they put in a tough young man who said he was convicted of spying for China," Begun said. "He threatened me and then beat me up." Begun pulled up a leg of his trousers to display a scar left from the beating. The guards, he said, ruled it a fight and punished both men.

6 a.m. Breakfast is passed through the kormushka in a shallow bowl. Bread, a thin gruel called kasha, and hot water.

"Our only permanent property was a spoon and a cup," said Begun. "In four years I never saw a fork or a knife. Too dangerous." Light came mainly from two bulbs, one in the ceiling and a "night- light" near the door. Both were dim, but the one near the door was kept burning round the clock. "The light didn't bother our sleeping," Begun said. "Our struggle was always for a brighter bulb so we could see to read."

7 a.m. Exercise. Strict-regime prisoners are allowed half an hour in the prison yard.

"The yard is divided into small rectangles about the size of the cells, and prisoners are allowed to exercise only with cellmates. Each yard is seven steps long, three steps wide. There is a concrete floor and rough concrete walls four meters ((12 ft.)) high, covered with wire mesh. It is like being at the bottom of a well. Prisoners call it 'seeing the sky through a screen.' " The walls were so high that the sun was never visible: "We don't see the sun for years, but it can rain on you."

8 a.m. The working day begins. Guards push a pile of hempen fiber through the kormushka.

Work for Begun consisted of knotting the rope into cargo nets, a job chosen mainly for its monotony. "The norm was eight nets a day, and those who met the norm might get one or two rubles a month to spend on sugar or fat from the prison store." Begun says he never made more than one net a day. "To do no work at all is extremely provocative, and punishment is severe. To do a single net is another matter. I did only one a day as a matter of principle."

11 a.m. Lunch: bread, a couple of small boiled potatoes, hot water.

"In general, the guards were rather polite to political prisoners, but they punished us severely. With criminals it was the other way around. They spoke rudely to them, but they treated them gently." Because of his defiance, Begun was often sent to the punishment cells, where conditions were even worse. "There is nothing in the cell except a toilet or a bucket. There is a plank for a bed, but no pad and no blanket, and it must be folded up against the wall in the daytime. There is a half-ration of food every other day." The cells were bitterly cold in winter. Begun estimated that he spent 200 days in punishment cells. "They punished politicals very severely. Wearing a yarmulke or an unbuttoned collar could get 15 days in punishment cells. They forbid everything because they fear everything."

5 p.m. Supper: bread, more kasha, pickled cabbage.

"The daily norm for meat in prison is officially 40 grams ((1.4 oz.))," Begun said. "But if there is a shortage of meat in Moscow, you can imagine what it is like in Chistopol prison. I never saw any meat." He guffawed when asked if he ever got fruit or cheese. "I never saw an apple. I never saw an egg. I never saw cheese. They gave milk only to very sick prisoners, one glass a day." Begun occasionally got milk, following hunger strikes that he had started to support demands for better treatment. "I went on a hunger strike near the end of 1986 to get books in Hebrew. They finally gave them to me in December."

After supper Begun was able to read by the dim light, but he was allowed no more than five books at a time. "This was difficult for me because I read books in English and Hebrew, and I needed dictionaries. I also needed mathematics textbooks, but they refused. They said I was not a student."

9 p.m. Bedtime. The overhead bulb is turned off, but the night-light allows the guards to check through the judas-hole in the door. They monitor him frequently, sliding the cover aside and peering in at the sleeping prisoner.

Iosif Begun spent more than 1,300 days like that. Some were better. Many were worse.