Summary: A police photo of Shchedrin, half-length portrait, facing slightly right, dressed in convict clothing.
Shchedrin, a school teacher, was one of the political prisoners at the Kara gold mines who, in April, 1882, escaped from prison by digging a tunnel under the prison wall. All were subsequently recaptured and eight prisoners, Shchedrin among them, were permanently chained to wheelbarrows. In July, 1882, all eight were sent to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in the isolation cells at the castle of Schlusselburg.
George Kennan Papers at the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress image.
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From Spartacus Educational, Prison Camps in Siberia:
Praskovia Ivanovskia explained that the cold was a major problem: “The Kara prison most resembles a tumbledown stable. The dampness and cold are ferocious; there’s no heat at all in the cells, only two stoves in the corridor. The cell doors are kept open day and night – otherwise we would freeze to death. In winter, a thick layer of ice forms on the walls of the corner cells and at night, the undersides of the straw mattresses get covered with hoarfrost. Everyone congregates in the corridor in winter, because it’s closer to the stoves and you get a warm draft. Since the cells farthest from the stove are completely uninhabitable, the people who live in them carry their beds into the corridor.”
(faces out of time 14)
