Document 131

Letter from student at combine operator school to his uncle and aunt, forwarded to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta, 17 January 1939

RGAE, f. 396, op. 11, d. 41, ll. 284-284ob. Original manuscript.

Hello uncle Fedia and aunt Sonia. Uncle Fedia I recieved the letter in which you write [I should] describe how many of us there are in the courses and how I am dressed. There are only 150 of us in the courses, and there are supposed to be three hundred. There were three hundred but they all leaved to get away from the bad conditions since they just got bread to eat, the dormitory are cold and the lighting is bad. But we sent it to the oblos [oblast] newspaper the case was turned over to the Oblos Land Administration for investation [investigation].

I am dressed well and have shoes but it is not so good in the courses we always have to go hungry for three days right before payday since there is no cafeteria and in town there is only one restaurant where 1 b[owl] of soup is 125 kopeks. There is no lawndry so I have to go around dirty and with lice but I am trying to finish school because next time take a course for truck drivers or a mechanic.

The money I earned all together with my food that I ate for the summer was one thousand rubles four hundred rubles Millets [apparently four hundred rubles' worth of millet] and I got 250 rubles in the summer after my Grandfather died. I will get the rest in the end of January. I earned seventy two poods of bread I earned thirty poods of forage twelve poods of hay five poods of straw. All to gether they were earned for four hundred days. Uncle Fedia thank you very much for the paper and thank you again. Without paper it's like being without hands. Well so long goodby stay alive helthy. Give regards to Polina and aunt Varia and Zhenia and All the rest.