The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

I understood Zoia’s nature: during my childhood before the revolution I saw, in Siberian cities, such female merchants and gold dealers. There would be an elderly widow who, after the death of her husband, had mines, flour mills, and steamships left to her. In a city such as Blagoveshchensk on the Amur River, such an entrepreneur would leave her home in the morning in her surrey and go to the bank and her enterprises: to the mill, the basin to check the repairs to the steamships, and so forth. She would usually drive the horse and buggy herself. Often she would be barely literate, even unable to sign her name. But what an organizer, what acumen in questions of trade and, in particular, of business obligations and banking laws.

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

“That’s not a woman, but a minister,” my late father, an old, experienced barrister, would say about such women. He had dealings with such women who, after the death of their husbands, expanded the enterprises and fed hundreds of people. From the second generation of such entrepreneurs came Zoia.

After the war, Zoia started down a path which, according to Soviet law, is criminal, but in capitalist countries would be called successful business operations. Zoia busied herself with dealing in “gold” coupons.

For each gram of gold turned in to the government through its “Gold Purchasing” department, gold miners received either fifty rubles in cash or a coupon worth the same amount at a special-goods store. These stores were very well supplied. In them were lots of foreign goods—for example, English woolen cloth, which was almost impossible to obtain anywhere. Naturally, there was a great demand for these coupons, in particular by people who had no connection to the mines.

Zoia found out that besides Iakutsk there was a “Gold Purchasing” office in Irkutsk and Novosibirsk where black market dealers purchased these coupons for 600 rubles—that is, twelve times their face value. So Zoia decided to start dealing in these coupons. She began to buy up gold from prospectors and take it to Irkutsk, where she turned it in to the “Gold Purchasing” office and received coupons in return. She then sold the coupons to a speculator. She took a long-term lease on a room in Irkutsk from a landlady who could be trusted. This was very important, since she, a woman, carried large amounts of gold with her and occurrences of robbery were frequent. One had to know with whom you could stay.

During one of these trips from the Iakutsk mines to Irkutsk, Zoia met her future collaborator, Ekaterina Stepanovna, who was in the same line of work. It was convenient for them to join forces: they were safer and less afraid of drawing attention to themselves. Their operations gradually expanded and it became necessary to be more careful in order not to be noticed. In general, they had an agreement: if one of them or both were arrested, under no circumstances were they to confess to the joint venture, but insist that each of them worked individually in order not to be charged with violation of the group law from 7/VIII, for which there were only two penalties, death or a ten-year term. Amnesty was never an option under this law.

When the operations grew, they began to transport gold to Novosibirsk as well. They also rented an apartment in Novosibirsk in order to have a secure place to stay. They often made the Iakutsk-Irkutsk and the Irkutsk-Novosibirsk run by airplane for the sake of speed and comfort. They dressed well. There were suitcases with clothing both at the Irkutsk landlady’s and at the Novosibirsk landlady’s, whom they generously paid and gave gracious gifts to.

Mariia Shapiro, A Soviet Capitalist

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On the last, fateful trip to Novosibirsk, Zoia and Ekaterina Stepanovna brought with them an amount of gold worth no more nor less than 600 thousand rubles. They had decided that on the day of arrival with the gold, Zoia would turn in 150 thousand worth, and then Ekaterina Stepanovna would turn in another 150 thousand rubles’ worth. On the next day they would repeat the procedure with the remaining 300 thousand. Zoia already suspected that they were under surveillance. They instructed their apartment landlady that if one of them or both did not return home that day, under no circumstances was she to call the police, but rather send word to Iakutsk to Zoia’s husband. He would come to pick up her things and the 300 thousand rubles of gold that was left.