Vladimir Afanasivich Sychov, Letter from livestock and dairy sovkhoz worker to Odintsov. September 13, 1935

Here, as elsewhere, punctuation has been added to facilitate comprehension.

Original Source: GARF, f. 7689, op. 11, d. 50, ll. 34-36. Original manuscript.

Livestock Breeder Sovkhoz No. 32. Section 1. Herd 1. Sychov.

13 September 1935.

Deer Comrade Odinchov [Odintsov].

I give great thanks to the Ts.K.K. for the prizes awarded to me and in the future I pledge to wirk even better as I did to strugle for [reproduction] of the herd and fulfillment of all state plans and to bring all the lagging herds up to the forefront;

I have worked on the sovkhoz since 5 May 1930. My family I have with me four members a Mother a brother and my wife. My wife worked as a milkmaid until 1 September and on 1 September she went to dismissal. My brother gos to school in the 7th grade in the town of Armavir. Our wages were an averige of 220 rubles [a month].

My herd left the section I went with it to the full steppe where I built with a brigade a House of 4 rooms ofwhich I occupy one. The setup in the room is a table and 2 chairs. A wooden bed etc. Because we seldom go to town, the setup in the room is unenviable. In regards to footwear our situation is bad. The brigade is all barefoot because we have noware to buy, we buy at artisans who have socks 3-5 days, and we pay alot of money at the Cooperative. We have nothing not even matches.

Us people with the herds don't get any food in the summer period excep tomatos and cabbige but we have that ourselves in our gardens, I had a garden but we had a drout so we harvested very little from it.

I have the following livestock: 2 pigs 1 sleepy hog and a wild boar. There is 1 wild boar with the herd which we will slauter in a months. I have chickens and nothing else. As for fodder for the hogs they dont give us anything we buy at the bazar to feed them.

I myself was born Voronezh guberni. Born 1907 cant read or write much finished third class in the village [school]. Right now we dont have tech. training and probaly wont But in future I want to learn and raise my seniority since I dont know anything besides practical work because nobody trains us.

I dont feel sick at all excep I have some weakness that I dont have anything to fix it either from not enough fats or from my herd being restless Now I report on my production work. I have in my herd 100 head of cattle of which 84 head calved, all the calves at the presint time are alive and none is sick. There will be late calving. I will have november december calving 12 head. The calves now are not allowed to suckle, they are fed milk by hand and the ones that were suckling we already weaned them from the mothers and the cows are giving milk without the calves. So far I havint had a seasonal job during the winter and summer period. The plan for milk deliveries is not getting fullfilled. In the first six months I fulfilled and overfulfilled the plan but in the second six months it was fulfilled to 55-60% only because we had a severe drout and theres no water for my herd which [means] we have to drive them 7 kilometers to the Kuban' thru big mountins where only mountain animals can go and I said so much about water but no measures were takin in my brigade. There are 3 milkmaids and 1 junior herdsman who got promoted who are now distinguished people of our sovkhoz. The other brigades dont want to share experince with me and are jelous at me because in their herds some livestock run away and young ones to. My livestock even tho it oftin dosnt drink enuff has averige fatness. Our livestock is a mix of the Ukrainian breed and mongril. There is a mix of the German breed but not a lot of young ones now. The mixed breed gained from 700 g and 1 kg a day.

Regards
Senior herdsman
Armovir dairy meat sovkhozes No. 32
Vladimir Afanasivich Sychov

Source: Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, eds., Stalinism as a Way of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 244-245.