Translated from: ru/1914/1914-03-20_pismo_gi_petrovskomu_i_rv_malinovskomu.txt

Comrade Petrovsky! Please pass this on to Roman. I troubled you because I do not know Roman's address. Vasily.

From Vasily. 20 March 1914. Yenisei Province.

About five months ago, I received from a comrade in Petersburg a proposal to come -- to move to Petersburg. He is a Georgian by birth, and you know him. He wrote that the proposal came from him personally and that, if I agreed to move, money for the journey would be provided. I wrote him a reply about four months ago, yet there has been no answer from him to this day. Can you explain this misunderstanding to me briefly?

About three months ago, I received a postcard from Kostya, in which he wrote: "Brother, while I sell the horse, I have asked for 100 rubles." I could make nothing of this postcard, and I have seen no 100 rubles. True, Comrade Andrei received them at a different address, but I think they belong to him and to him alone. Since then, I have received not a single letter from Kostya.

Nor have I received anything from Sister Nadya for four months now.

In short, a whole pile of misunderstandings. I explained all this to myself as follows: there were apparently conversations about my transfer to a position in Petersburg. But the conversations remained conversations, and Kostya's choice fell on someone else -- on Andrei -- and so the hundred was sent...

Am I right, brother?

I beg you, friend, to give me a straight and clear answer.

I very much ask you not to reply with silence, as you have done until now.

You know my address. A clear answer is needed not only because much depends on it, but also because I love clarity, as you, too, I hope, love clarity in all things. Send it registered. Regards to your friends. Regards to Stefania. Kiss the children.

Ostrovsky, A.V. Who Stood Behind Stalin. pp. 402-403.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 52. L. 1.