Vladimir V. Tchernavin

Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Tchernavin (alternative transliteration: Chernavin) (Russian: Чернавин Владимир Вячеславович) (1887–1949) was a Russian-born ichthyologist who became famous as one of the first and few prisoners of the Soviet Gulag system who managed to escape abroad.

Early life

Tchernavin was born in 1887 into a noble family of modest means. After his father died in 1902 he took part as a collector-zoologist in expeditions to the Altai region with the Russian explorer V. V. Sapozhnikov. Later he became the leader in a series of scientific expeditions to the Altai Mountain and Sayanskii Mountain, Mongolia, the Tian Shan Mountains, the Amur River region, and the Ussuriysk region on the Siberian-Manchurian border and to Lapland.

Studies and work

In the period from 1912-1917 Tchernavin studied at St. Petersburg University but his studies were interrupted by the war and the October Revolution. He married Tatiana, an arts major. Their son Andrei was born in 1918.

Tchernavin took a post as visiting lecturer at the Agricultural Institute. He completed a thesis and obtained an advanced degree.

In 1925 he moved to Murmansk as Director of Production and Research Work of the North State Fishing Trust, the State-owned industry which had been set up to deal with the fishing sector in the region along the Arctic Ocean. Here he conducted economic, industrial and scientific-research work. His family remained in Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg). In 1930 some of his colleagues were arrested by the secret police, the so-called Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (State Political Directorate) or 'GPU'. He was also questioned by GPU officers. While on a visit to Moscow, 48 leading figures and intellectuals in charge of Russia's state food industry were convicted in show trials and executed for 'wrecking' activities. A number of the executed persons were personal friends and colleagues of Tchernavin.

Arrest and conviction

He then decided not to return to Murmansk but to join his family in Leningrad. Here he was arrested at his home and his apartment was searched. He was imprisoned in the Shpalernaya prison in Leningrad. He was interrogated and threatened with execution should he refuse to confess. To put more pressure on him, the GPU also arrested his wife in January 1931. He refused to confess in the knowledge that a confession would mean certain death. He was later moved to the Kresti prison.

On 25 April 1931, Tchernavin was convicted for 'wrecking' under Article 58, Paragraph 7 of the Soviet Penal Code and was sentenced to deportation to a concentration camp for a term of 5 years. He was able to have a brief rendezvous with his son before his deportation.

Gulag life

He was put on a prison transport to the Solovetsky labor camp on 2 May 1931. Initially sharing with other inmates hard labour such as loading logs he was subsequently translated to the camp of Kem where he worked as an ichthyologist in the Fishery Department of the camp. Here he started making preparations for his escape. He learned that his wife had been released from prison.

He was able to arrange that as part of his prison work he could travel extensively throughout Kem district without an escort with the purpose of setting up new fishing points and study the possibility of using fish for animal feed. He used these travels to make further preparations for his family's escape. He had a first meeting with his wife and son in November 1931.

For a while he was 'rented out' by the prison authorities as a lecturer and trained the managers of collective fish farms. The better treatment that he received during this period allowed him to remain fit for his planned escape.

Escape

In August 1932 his wife and son visited him again and they then set out on their epic escape. After a few weeks of trekking through rugged terrain and suffering hardships due to a lack of provisions and poor weather, they were finally able to reach Finland.

In 1934 Tchernavin and his family moved to England where he continued his scientific work as an ichthyologist. His book I Speak for the Silent Prisoners of the Soviets and his wife's book Escape From The Soviets published in 1934 were among the first to give testimony of life under the Soviets, the GPU 's operations and the Gulag and include a description of their escape.

References

• Vladimir V. Tchernavin, I Speak for the Silent Prisoners of the Soviets, originally published in 1934 by Half Cushman & Flint, available online at The Internet Archive
• Tatiana Tchernavin, Escape From The Soviets, originally published in 1934 by E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc, available online at The Internet Archive,

External links

• Biographical information page (in Russian).
• Obituary Nature 163, 755-756 (14 May 1949).
• Gulag - Many Days, Many Lives Vladimir V. Tchernavin