The author

After two days and nights’ long journey, the train finally crawled into a small station, at the end of the railway in the Northeast of China and less than fifty miles from the Russian Siberia border. I, with hundreds of teenagers, felt exhausted and sleepy as there had been no place I could sleep in this over-crowded train. I was so excited for the day that a different life would begin. It was very dark and raining. I could not see any light in any direction. Although it was late summer, the air was chill, with a strong smell of wet grass. Everybody was shivering. I knew I had to spend my sixteenth birthday here. People talked loudly. There was shouting and whistling. I was pushed and squeezed into one of the green, military style trucks and off we went to our mystery destination.

The sun rose and warm sun light started shining on one’s sweaty face; but life was not tranquil for long. Hundreds and thousands of mosquitoes started to attack us from all directions with a scary drone. They were four or five times larger than those you could see in the city. Black mosquitoes flew towards me with the speed of a black cloud and landed on my white shirt, making large, black, shadowy marks. They could penetrate any clothes you wore and their bite was like an electric shock sting. With every clap you could kill tens or even hundreds of them. Soon, my white shirt changed from black to red. Luggage was dropped. I covered my face, neck and any exposed skin with a cloth. People started to run with panic. The faster I ran, the more mosquitoes I would attract to follow me. Girls started to cry, boys started to swear. I saw some of them struggling, with distorted red faces and swollen eyes, reactions from the stings.

Before sunset, we crossed the river. On arrival at our new settlers’ place, we built a few tents against the bank of river, a safer position from where to defend ourselves from attacks from bears, wolves and other animals. The tents were set on muddy ground. Each of them would hold forty to sixty people. There were only two very long beds inside each tent. Each long bed was made of silver birch wood, the surface comprising warped slats with straw to make it softer. At night, there were more than 20 people lying on each bed. When one of them tossed and turned in his sleep, everyone else would be woken up, so for years I could never sleep properly.

On a sunny day, the sky was so clear and blue. Under the blue sky it was green field, bush, lake and marsh. Most of this area, a hundred kilometres west from where I stood, no human being had ever touched. One could see roe deer, squirrels, wolves, foxes, bears and leopards. However, after a hard day’s work, mosquitoes continued to attack me long through the whole night.

I wished the summer would end quickly. Winter came suddenly, as day follows night. One morning, I woke up to find deep snow around our tent, more than half of which was actually buried in snow. The river was deeply frozen. Trucks could drive on it. Wolf footprints were everywhere, often inches from our tents’ entrance. That winter, the room temperature was always below zero (minus 40 outside). I often woke up and found frozen ice on my hair and eye brows. I always had a problem with fleas, even in winter.

English Version