| abstract
| - Vasili Yasevich (b. ca. 1920) was a Russian resident of Harbin, Manchuria at the outbreak of World War III. His parents, who'd supported the Whites during the Russian Civil War, fled to Harbin after the war ended. Yasevich was a toddler at the time. He and his family survived the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. His father was a druggist, and he taught Vasili his trade. However, Vasili was more talented in carpentry. When the Red Army invaded Manchuria in August 1945, the NKVD entered Harbin. Vasili's parents committed suicide. The now adult Vasili was left alone. He stayed in Harbin even after Chinese Communists took control of the town, and found plenty of work as a journeyman carpenter. On 23 January 1951, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on several Manchurian locations, including Harbin. Yasevich was in Pingfan helping to repair the train station there. He was asleep when the attack began, and was awakened just prior to the atomic explosion in Harbin. In short order, he had to remind a Chinese builder, who'd almost certainly lost his entire family in Harbin, that he, Yasevich was Russian, not American. Yasevich was immediately put to work by the Chinese government cleaning up in Harbin. He was exposed to the horrors of the atom bomb: the charred corpses of the dead, the burns injuries suffered by those who survived the blast, but ultimately succumbed, the radiation poisoning in people who were a distance from the explosion, and the like. He scavenged valuables, and had to work to keep the secret police from taking everything he'd found when he left Harbin at night. Word soon got around that Yasevich had some skill as a pharmacist. After providing ma huang to the wife of a Peking commissar charged with rebuilding Harbin, other spouses of officials bought various drugs from him. This meant that he didn't have to help rebuild the railroad and expose himself to radiation. Selling drugs had its own risks. In April, a man named Wu approached Yasevich for ma huang. Feeling uncertain about the stranger, Yasevich told Wu he'd meet him the next day after work. Wu insisted twice that he could go home with Yasevich for the ma huang. When Yasevich told Wu no and insulted him, he further reached for the razor in his pocket. He didn't have to use the razor; Wu stomped off. That was nothing compared to a commissar who approached Yasevich in the closing days of April in search of opium. Yasevich turned him away: possession of opium was grounds for execution under Mao, and Yasevich didn't want to take the risk. Ironically, he did have opium stashed in his rooms. Some weeks later, he was approaching his shanty when he saw a jeep in front of his home. Realizing that he'd been denounced, Yasevich fled Harbin. He made his way towards Soviet territory, seeing the atomic destruction of Khabarovsk in the distance as he traveled. Once he reached the Amur, he found a fisherman who carried him across. Yasevich wound up in Smidovich in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Throughout June, he worked hard to convince the local MGB officer, Gleb Sukhanov that he'd hailed from Khabarovsk, claiming that he'd been outside Khabarovsk proper, visiting a married woman when the Americans attacked. He also claimed that he'd lost his identification card as a result. While Sukhanov seemed to have his doubts, he was prepared to let Yasevich alone so long as he stayed out of trouble. For the first time in his life, Yasevich was surrounded by fellow Europeans, but more like an outsider than he had back in Harbin. While he looked like everyone around him, he was also aware that everyone in Smidovich still perceived themselves as being in the Soviet Union, even though Smidovich was thousands of kilometers from any major city, and consequently, everyone there was scared all the time. Yasevich found himself employed in various odd jobs, including carpentry. His work ethic quickly distinguished him from some of the others in the village, too late realizing that the work ethic in the Soviet Union than it was in China. Indeed, one of his customers, Nikolai Feldman, warned Yasevich that he might be making the rest of the handymen in town look bad.. Sure, a few days later, a handyman named Grigory Papanin gathered some friends and threatened Yasevich with violence. For the time being, Yasevich promised he would not work so hard. A few days later, however, Yasevich caught Papanin alone. After sneaking up on Papanin, Yasevich severely beat him, breaking his nose, and kicking him in the crotch and belly. He then took an automatic pistol Papanin had been carrying, and made it clear it would he kill Papanin if he ever messed with him again. Papinin left Yasevich alone from then on. On-lookers were impressed with the beating Yasevich handed out to the town's toughest man. Later, Sukhanov upbraided Yasevich for not keeping a low profile, but generally let Yasevich talk his way out of trouble. Yasevich realized that Papanin sicced the MGB on him and threatened Papanin more seriously. Knowing that Papanin was out of his hair for good, he bought some opium from an elderly Jewish man, David Berman, and gave it as a gift to Sukkarov, who had a troublesome toothache. Sukhanov appreciated the gesture, and, in return, Sukhanov told Yasevich that he would be willing to strike him off a conscription list if he had to, but also warned Yasevich that the Soviet Union's depleted manpower was so depleted that even MGB agents were not safe from the draft, either. Not long after, Yasevich encountered an escapee from a nearby gulag. After agreeing not to turn her in Yasevich enlisted the help of David Berman, who agreed to claim the escapee as his niece and give her a place to live. This article is a stub because the work is part of a larger, as-of-yet incomplete series.
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