23.02.2017 /

Kharkiv in the Early 1920s: The Catacombs Beneath the Train Station and the Songs of the Street Children

In the 1920s, our city, unfortunately, was not all that beautiful or thriving. To some, it was simply a foreign place—even a foreign country. To others, it was a place of suffering and deprivation.

In a country ravaged by civil war and the “rejection of the old world,” famine, devastation, and banditry reigned. Juvenile delinquency was also a significant problem that the new state had to combat.

Works on street children published in the 1920s are also an invaluable source for studying our city’s past. After all, they contain a great deal of information about Kharkiv. In 1925, Maro (M. I. Levitin) published a book titled *Street Children: Sociology. Daily Life. Practical Work*.

Thanks to this study, we’ve learned that the catacombs beneath the train station—a network of underground passages at the South Station—served as a refuge for juvenile criminals and orphans in Kharkiv. Local law enforcement, of course, knew about this and periodically conducted raids there.

“They manage to huddle in ‘spaces’ that adults would find utterly incomprehensible. Every city has its own hubs: for example, in Simferopol, it’s the train station and the bridge over the river—they’ve set up caves underneath it; in Mineralnye Vody (Caucasus), near the train station, there are pits; in Kharkiv, “catacombs” under the train station; and in Moscow during the winter of 1923, these were vats for boiling asphalt and wooden crates in the marketplaces, in addition to the previous pits and slums.”

I imagine that back then, the train station and its surroundings didn’t look as beautiful as they do on the postcards from the 1930s created by Ivan Nikolaevich Shulga.

It turns out that, according to data from the Kharkiv Commission on Juvenile Affairs,

All the girls in Kharkiv aged 22–23—there were 16 of them, except for two—were engaged in prostitution. They were all between the ages of 13 and 17. All are children of artisans, workers, and peasants. For some, the decisive factor was the influence of older people or peers. In all cases, the underlying causes were financial insecurity, deprivation, poverty, and being completely orphaned.

The author recounts several extremely detailed accounts of the deaths of young residents of our city, which are truly horrifying.

Chapter IX was titled “The Song of a Street Child: A Reflection of His Life.”

It was noted that the Kharkiv songs were collected in our city by Comrade Veletskaya, who served as chair of the panel of investigators for the Kharkiv Commission on Juvenile Affairs. However, the authors of the book also clarified that, undoubtedly, some of the songs were clearly written by adults.

The songs of our city’s street children cited in this book differed significantly from similar songs from other cities due to their regional slang. Because of their uniqueness, they are of considerable value for studying Kharkiv’s past.

Here are some of them.

About prison.


“Prison—prison, what a word,
A source of shame and terror for all.
But for me, it’s nothing new;
I’ve long since grown accustomed to it.
I’ve grown accustomed to the dreary cell.
I’ve grown accustomed to the padlock.
I’ve grown accustomed to the loathsome bars,
I’ve grown accustomed to the universal lock.
In the corner stands a bucket of water
And a red cot against the wall,
And everything I see before me Is
just what you’d expect in prison.
They won’t let us look out the window;
We’re not allowed to speak loudly.
And if you shout—they’ll send you to solitary.
Ask, “Why?”—and they’ll start beating me.
I’ve been under investigation for two years.
I sit here, gazing out the window.
I curse my cruel fate.
Ask, “Why am I sitting here?”

The following song is filled with despair, longing, and despondency:

And in the garden by the valley,
a nightingale sings,
while I, poor soul in a foreign land,
am forgotten by people.

Forgotten and abandoned
since my earliest years.
I was left an orphan;
happiness has no place in my life.

Other people’s children are cherished
and loved by Nora,
but everyone picks
on me, and to everyone, I’m a stranger.

Cold and hunger
had worn me down,
But I was still young—
I endured it all with patience.

I found a little corner
—though it’s not my home.
I’m tired of this
kind of life, so I decided to seek some peace.

Or perhaps they’ll tie me up,
Shoot me,
And no one will ever know Where my grave is.

But only in early spring
will the nightingale
sing, and perhaps they’ll find out where I was buried.

The researchers wrote:

A girl and the love for her play an important role in a young man’s life. Street children begin their sexual lives early, in line with their generally earlier physical development and their earlier social activity. Songs depict attitudes toward girls in various ways.

At the same time, when citing songs with lyrical themes, the authors provided a very interesting clarification for readers:

“In Kharkiv, a place like this is called a ‘malina.’ It’s usually a deli or a small grocery store. Only by a secret signal can one enter the back rooms, where ‘blatnye’ arrange meetings and all sorts of deals are made. There is also a small living quarters there, where those in need find shelter and rest.”

And to submit
to this cursed fate, and to forget the past forever.

And now fate has punished me;
I’m sitting behind iron bars.
But when I think of you, my dear,
I wander around like a madman, chasing after “kiche.”

Here is a song from Kharkiv from the 1910s and 1920s that tells the story of a man accused of raiding. Apparently, the word “ment” was still unfamiliar and incomprehensible to Soviet readers at the time. That’s why the authors provided an explanation, clarifying that it meant “convoy guard.”

I was arrested in a surprise raid.
But two “cops”
beat me up.

They brought me in and put me in a cell.
I kept thinking they were joking.
But the next morning they announced that they were going to “beat you up.”

“Why do you, you monsters, want
to kill Me, an innocent man?
Question Me first
—you’ll have plenty of time to destroy Me later.”

There were songs that described the lives and feelings of young women. For example, this one was set to the tune of the well-known Ukrainian song “Oy, I Know, I Know.”

Here comes my sweetheart,
drunk from the city.
Knock-knock on the window—
I’m your beloved.

And I stood up,
“all fancy,
” opened the door,
and kissed him.

Behind the little walls,
behind the little courtyards,
there stands a little bed
with pillows.

Dusya was lying in that little bed,
holding her sweetheart’s right hand.

Don’t go out, baby,
late at night.
Don’t hitchhike where it’s not allowed.

They’ll tie you up—
but they won’t tell me.
You won’t be here—
what will happen to me?

“Don’t be afraid, baby,
don’t be afraid, Dusya.
I’ve got a shield;
I’ll fight them off.”

But they tied
him up and shot him…
He was gone,
and I started crying.

The paths are overgrown,
the very paths where
my beloved’s feet once walked.

Overgrown with moss and grass,
the places where we used to walk,
my love, with you

Or here’s another one:

Kharkiv’s past has been a mixed bag. There are things to be proud of, and there are things too terrible to talk about. In any case, we must remember it all—after all, it’s a part of us and a part of the history of our favorite city on earth…

Anton Bondarev
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