In the winter of 1952, my sentence ended. I walked out of the camp gates at dawn. The transfer was located on the edge of Krasnoyarsk, near the railway track; at early this hour the suburb looked deserted and uncrowded, it was only still awakening. Against the background of a glowing sky, the crests of the roofs were flat and clearly black. Cotton haze flowed over the pipes, whitish, icy dawn illumination walked along them, and shadows still nested below and around - in the gateways and front gardens. Dense purple blocks lay roadside snow. A greenish glass half-neck enveloped the streets.