All’s left behind - the trial and the cell, Attorneys, judges - all in their raiment, And now I wait, now await to be somewhere sent, Be sent to work for free, without payment. Mother of mine begins to cry, Begins to think, begins to sigh, To where, to where I shall be sent; Mother of mine begins to cry, But I care not - to me it’s nigh All one what camp I shall be sent. To Vorkuta all parcels go slow, To Magadan it’s a bit faster, yet There are such bitches, scoundrels, louses - no, There you will nothing get at any rate. Mother of mine begins to cry, To think and guess to where I, To where, to where I shall be sent; Mother of mine begins to cry, But I care not - to me it’s nigh All one to where I shall be sent. I hear steps - it seems they come for me, They open the door, wake up from sleeping, Right now to some place escorted I will be, Still on the place the rats are silence keeping. Mother of mine begins to cry, To think and guess to where I, To where, to where I shall be sent; Mother of mine begins to cry, But I care not - to me it’s nigh All one to where I shall be sent. We have arrived, - oppression and abuse, Thank God for the tobacco is not over, And they have told that they deliver us to use Back and beyond a distant place of Kola. Mother of mine begins to cry, Begins to think, begins to sigh To where, to where I shall be sent; Mother of mine, don’t cry nor sigh, Let’s better think about the time, The time when all of it is come to end.
© Vyacheslav Chistyakov. Translation, 2016