Deportee and student in Tomsk

“In Siberia, no one knew that I was an ‘expellee’, no one at the Institute knew, I didn’t tell anyone, I told them all that I was an ‘evacuee’... My best friend Lavrov, for example, hated kulaks [peasants deported in the 1930s], for him they were the most dangerous enemies. That’s why I never said anything. No one knew, even in the factory. I was even invited to join the Party!”