Stone — A Historical Novel about Soviet Ukraine and the USSR (1920s–1940s)

The Arrest   Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back  — Chapter 6   by Volodymyr Shablia August 1941. The village of Tomakivka.   Late on an August evening, an anxious, restless mood hung over the Shablia household: his parents were preparing Peter for his journey. “Your work assignment?” his father asked for what seemed like the hundredth time, briskly checking everything. “Your passport? Money? Your military registration certificate? It’s wartime now—they could mobilize you at any moment. You need to have all your documents with you.” Peter's work assignment. Peter checked his papers once again. Everything was in order. Meanwhile, his mother brought a bundle from the pantry. “Take some more pork fat, just in case. It may come in handy.” The woman looked at her son with a mixture of love, pity, and a strange sense of resignation. She held out the food wrapped in parchment paper, but could not hold back her tears. Then, realizing that he...

  The NKVD Problem Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back  — Chapter 5   by Volodymyr Shablia August 1941. The village of Tomakivka. The black NKVD van known as a “Black Raven,” belonging to the Zaporizhzhia Regional Directorate, had been searching for Soviet Street in the village of Tomakivka for nearly an hour, and still could not find it.   The village was not under the Directorate’s jurisdiction, and it was already close to eleven o’clock at night. After a sweltering day of hard work, most of the villagers were sleeping peacefully. Hardly anyone in the vast settlement even knew of the inconspicuous street, recently renamed “Soviet,” which looked more like a shabby lane than a proper street. NKVD officers beside the dreaded “Black Raven,” the vehicle that came to symbolize arrest, disappearance, and fear in Stalin’s Soviet Union. At least, of the dozen or so local residents the state security officers had managed to encounter in Tomakivka, not one...

  Stalin: The Merciless Whip Stone — Book One: First Steps Toward the Light and Back  — Chapter 4 by Volodymyr Shablia June 1941. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Moscow. On June 23, 1941, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, woke shortly before noon feeling utterly shattered. The lingering effects of an exceptionally severe psychological crisis, brought on by the realization that his strategic plans had collapsed, seemed to press his body deep into the mattress. When he tried to lift his head from the pillow, a dull pain throbbed somewhere deep inside the back of his skull, as though his brain itself were resisting any movement of the cranium. Despite this, Stalin forced himself out of bed at once and walked over to the washbasin. The cold water had a refreshing effect. Wanting to intensify it, he undressed and stood beneath an icy shower for several minutes. A large purple terry towel with an abstract pattern brushed pl...

The Offensive Is Called Off Stone — Book  two. Difficult roads to hell   — Chapter 2 by Volodymyr Shablia September 22, 1941, morning. The battlefield near Melitopol. As they waited for the briefing to begin, the regiment's officers took their seats around the large table in the middle of the room. The soldiers spoke quietly to those sitting beside them, occasionally tossing a word or two to someone farther down the table. "Well, are we ready to give the Germans and Romanians a taste of their own medicine?" asked the dark-eyed major sitting to the right of the head of the table, barely smiling as he glanced around at those present. His faint accent and characteristic swarthy features marked him as a native of the Caucasus. "Yes, Comrade Chief of Staff," replied the captain sitting opposite him with a sly grin. "We've got plenty of fire to spare!" A ripple of laughter ran along the table and ended in a hearty roar from the far end. At exactly 6:15, ...