State Archive of Odesa Region (DAOO), Fond P-4980, Inventory 1, File 52. Reporting notes, special reports from the NKVD [the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs], NKGB [the People’s Commissariat for State Security] and prosecutor’s office to the regional committee of the CP(b)U [Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine] regarding violations of Soviet laws and decrees by individuals, public sentiment in the region, compromising materials on Soviet officials, and other matters. Fols. 28–29.
NKGB DEPARTMENT IN IZMAIL REGION:
TOP SECRET.
TO THE SECRETARY OF THE REGIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE CP(b)U
Comrade Gorba.
City of Izmail.
SPECIAL REPORT.
complaints regarding the material and living conditions of
the population of the city and region.
based on data from Military Censorship.
During the processing of correspondence by the Military Censorship units in the Izmail region, covering letters sent by residents of the city and region between November 20 and December 5–6, 1944, a number of letters were identified in which the authors expressed complaints about poor material and living conditions.
The most representative excerpts from the letters are as follows:
RECIPIENT: Voronezh region Peskovskii district Prosecutor’s Office to SISOLYATIN Nikolai Markovich.
….”I work at the school in charge of Pioneer and Komsomol activities. There’s more than enough work — only if there were enough time to manage it all. I rarely leave the Obkom of the Komsomol [Regional Komsomol Committee], I often have to visit the Obkom of the Party [Regional Party Committee]. All regional and district meetings and conferences are held with my participation; meanwhile, I walk around looking like a ragged pauper, I’m ashamed even to go out on the street, and how many mockeries I encounter addressed to me — my hair simply stands on end. These worries… I simply can’t bear them any longer.
Everyone here is so dressed up that you simply can’t imagine it, and all that remains are remnants of the past — the prostitutes, they always walk around in rags.
I don’t know what kind of heart one must have to endure all this. I put up with everything, but every beginning has an end. I have absolutely no one to ask for help, no one here to stand up for me.
How can I, so ragged, appear before the world, and I pour out all my depersonalization [loss of self, transl. note] in tears and poems. I do not know whether it is grief that helps me compose them, or whether I used to know how but never took them up — but this too will soon come to an end. I am already beginning to think: to be or not to be. Oh no — better to die, better to lay hands on myself than to suffer like this. And I will do it — everything is ready for it. All that remains is to wait for a convenient moment.
I can’t take this obliteration and humiliation anymore, I want to live on an equal footing with everyone else.
I beg you — don’t let me perish; help me. I’m fighting with all my strength right now. I’ve gone hungry for days, I don’t spend a single ruble, but what are 300 rubles — what can I buy with that? And if you don’t help me, this will be my last letter. So farewell. Don’t think ill of me — this must be my fate. It’s only a pity that, in the final moments of my life, I won’t get to see you…”
SENDER: USSR Izmail, 78 Sverdlova Str. SISOYATINA T.N.
RECIPIENT: city of Kyiv, Baikova Hora, Building (Block) of Bahunskyi, No. 36, Apt. 2, LEVCHENKO N.A.
….“I got a job at the city polyclinic according to my specialty, but the most important thing is missing — there is no apartment, nowhere to lay my head. It’s already November 28, and no one is concerned about us. We sleep on the bare floor in a cold hospital. Since November 8, we’ve been sleeping without undressing, already dirty, nowhere, and nothing to wipe or wash the laundry. We eat only dry food, sometimes in the dining hall.
We still haven’t received the payment — that is, the travel allowance. It’s a complete disgrace. In general, everything sounded nice in words, but in reality, there’s nothing. My father has to write a formal request from his military unit to the Personnel Department of the People’s Commissariat of Health in the city of Kyiv, so that I may return to my children, because I was treated unfairly, and here they do not create any conditions for living or working…”
SENDER: city of Izmail, 10 Shkolna Street, Regional Health Department to doctor LEVCHENKO
RECIPIENT: city of Berdychev, 7 Paris Commune to MARTSENKOVSKYI T.S.
….“My life is so difficult and unbearably hard. Dear mum, if you can, please take me away from here — I’m begging you. And if you can’t, then I’ll find the only way out: I’ll join the Army. I stayed to work in the village of Novo-Nekrasovka — I’m teaching first grade. I still don’t have a place to live, there’s nothing to eat, and I don’t know what to do.
The people here are very mean-spirited; I will remember Bessarabia for as long as I live. My monthly salary is 350 rubles, but here the landlord wants 500 rubles just for a spot at the table. They deduct everything, and in the end, I only receive 250 rubles. Mama, please write to me about everything — because here, I feel I might die of despair. I wake up crying and go to bed crying too.
Somehow, please try to get me out of here…”
SENDER: city of Izamil, Suvorovskyi district, village of Novo-Nekrasovka, to teacher MASHTALER N.N.
RECIPIENT: Orlov Region, Izmalkovsky district, Pyatnitsky village council, Kolhoz “12th of October,” to KLYANKINA Yekaterina Illarionovna.
….“Our situation has also changed now.
If life were like it was in Chernogorka, it would be a paradise — but here is the kind of life we have: no one wants to take us in as tenants, and there’s nothing to get at the market. They barter bread for salt, sugar, kerosene, matches — but I don’t have any of that, so I have to stay quiet.
For now, I’m renting from one landlord, but soon I’ll be kicked out. They look at us like we’re animals and always say, “Oh, those are the Soviets.” I would like to go home, back to Ukraine — but I can’t…”
SENDER: USSR, Izmail region, city of Kiliya, School No. 2–5, Golya
RECIPIENT: Tomsk Railway, Altai Krai, city of Barnaul, 21 Altaiskaya Str., to PASHRAKOVA E.V.
….“I’ll describe how I’m living here: the situation with food is very bad. They give us very poor-quality products, they don’t give us any clothing at all, and we don’t have bread ration cards either. For now, I’m living off my own money — I receive 400 rubles. That’s it: live however you can…”
SENDER: Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Column of the Special Reserve of the NKPS [People’s Commissariat of Communication Routes of the Soviet Union] No. 31, Locomotive No. 744-28, PASHRAKOV A.S.
HEAD OF THE NKGB [People’s Commissariat for State Security] DIRECTORATE OF IZMAIL REGION
COLONEL OF STATE SECURITY
KRYLOV.
CHIEF OF SECTION “V” OF IZMAIL REGION UNKGB [Department of the People’s Commissariat for State Security]
CAPTAIN OF STATE SECURITY
RUZIN
“8” December 1944
No. 7/227
City of Izmail:
zs–2
This documentary source provides valuable information about complaints from Soviet citizens who arrived in the Izmail oblast concerning extremely difficult material and living conditions, low levels of property provision, and the negative attitude of the local population towards newcomers.
The return of Soviet power to Budzhak (the historical name of the southern part of the Odesa oblast; in 1940–1941 and 1944–1954, the Izmail oblast of the Ukrainian SSR) in August 1944 was presented by official propaganda as a “liberation from the fascist yoke.” However, a significant portion of the local population, having experienced the Soviet occupation of 1940–1941, fled en masse to Romanian territory. According to the secretary of the oblast committee, very few people remained in the cities and district centers. Almost no representatives of the intelligentsia—doctors and teachers—remained. By October 1944, the oblast required more than 1,100 medical workers and 2,600 teachers, yet by the end of the year only about 200 medical workers and 1,100 teachers had arrived. At the same time, even those who did come were not provided with adequate material support by the state.
This is evidenced by reports from the People’s Commissariat of State Security (NKVD) in the Izmail oblast, which documented numerous complaints from newcomers. The letters sent by these citizens to their relatives were subject to military censorship, which removed any content that could discredit the Soviet government or contained anti-Soviet statements. The NKVD then sent summaries of these letters to the oblast party committee. The very fact that these letters were summarized in a “special report” underscores that the main goal was not to address the population’s problems, but to monitor public sentiment.
The content of the letters reveals the lack of basic living conditions for the newly arrived intelligentsia (teachers and doctors): a shortage of housing, clothing, and food, low salaries, and the authorities’ indifference to the population’s essential needs. Particularly striking is a letter from one female worker who, despite her active Komsomol and party involvement, feels humiliated by her poor appearance, becomes desperate, and even expresses suicidal intentions. This clearly illustrates the gap between the official rhetoric of a “new life” promoted by the Soviet authorities and the everyday realities faced by ordinary people.
The document also sheds light on the attitude of the local population towards newcomers. The letters reveal feelings of alienation and hostility from the indigenous inhabitants of Budzhak, who perceived migrants from other regions of the USSR as “strangers.” The expression “these are Soviets” indicates that, for the locals, Soviet identity was associated with something foreign and undesirable. Equally revealing are the statements of newcomers from other Ukrainian territories who did not perceive the newly annexed land as part of Ukraine (“I would like to go home to Ukraine, but I can’t…”).
Thus, the NKVD special report from Izmail is a unique source that allows us to reconstruct the social reality of the first post-war years in the oblast. It contrasts sharply with propaganda slogans about a “bright future,” highlighting the miserable living conditions even among social groups crucial to the functioning of the regime. The materials testify not only to profound socio-economic difficulties, but also to the challenges of integrating the region into the Soviet system and the fragility of Soviet identity in the multi-ethnic borderlands.