Production Inspector Yakov (2)
“This is… the 3rd Galosh Factory?”
“I’m afraid so… Yes. There’s nowhere else.”
Together with Katerina, I arrived at the 3rd Galosh Factory, buried deep in the industrial district.
The scene here was far more wretched than any of the other galosh factories I had seen.
No trace of smoke rose from the chimneys. The bricks had weathered to a dark, crumbling gray, cracked so thoroughly in places that an unbroken pane of glass was nearly impossible to find. A bleak, desolate shell of a plant.
Collapsed and shattered sections had been patched haphazardly with rotting boards or thick paper. The sight was so grim that Russian words simply refused to leave my mouth.
I stood frozen for a moment, staring up at the spectacle before me.
It was hard to believe this place belonged to the same Red Triangle complex. The scene was utterly pitiful.
Compared to the factories I had passed only minutes earlier, this was little more than an abandoned ruin.
No smoke from the chimneys… That means the production lines have stopped, doesn’t it…?
And if the lines that ought to have been running full tilt were standing still, it meant they were not meeting their quotas at all.
That fact drove into my chest like a dagger.
A cold premonition crawled up my spine.
I…
Am I headed for Siberia at this rate?
I swallowed hard and carefully pushed open the factory door.
— Creeeak…
The rusted steel door let out a long, drawn-out scream.
The moment we stepped inside, a far more appalling sight greeted Katerina and me than anything outside.
A high-ceilinged workshop.
What filled it were rows of battered workbenches.
Rubber components and wooden shoe lasts lay scattered across their surfaces, and pots of adhesive gave off a relentless, acrid stench.
I could not help wrinkling my nose and covering it with my hand.
I was still surveying the shop floor with my nose pinched shut when—
— Clomp. Clomp.
“Pardon me… who might you be?”
From deeper inside, a thin middle-aged man approached. He wore a frayed work jacket whose original red had been soaked so thoroughly in grease that it had turned almost black.
He looked from me to Katerina and back again, an anxious expression settling over his face as he spoke.
His cheeks were deeply hollowed; an unkempt beard shadowed his jaw; and the dark circles under his eyes made a strong claim of their own.
“This is no place for outsiders to come and go as they please, comrades.”
His tone made it plain that unexpected visitors were unwelcome.
I greeted him and at the same time held out the papers.
“I am Yakov Svanidze. I have been appointed Production Inspector of the 3rd Galosh Factory.”
“Production Inspector…?”
He looked up at me from his stooped posture, his expression indifferent as he repeated the words.
“Is this official document genuine?”
How was I supposed to answer that when he asked me?
Still, I nodded.
“Hmm… First, come with me. There’s a devil living here that eats a man from the inside without a sound.”
“……?”
The man turned.
I had no idea what he meant, but I followed him as he led the way with his bent back.
— Clomp. Clomp. Clomp…
As we moved deeper into the workshop, I slowly took in the factory around us.
Women in worn work clothes were making galoshes there.
“…….”
Every time we passed the female workers, the stinging smell of adhesive grew thicker.
They seemed long accustomed to it; their faces never changed as they calmly shaped the product.
Not one of them spared a glance for the strange visitors. They simply stared at the rubber pieces hanging from their fingertips.
Whether they lacked the strength even to look sideways, or simply had no room left to care, I could not tell.
Without meaning to, my gaze caught on one worker’s hands.
— Clack.
She first picked up a wooden last.
Brushing the foot-shaped frame clean with a few light strokes, she stretched a thin rubber lining over it and pressed it smooth with her palm.
Next she turned the last so the sole faced up.
She dipped a pre-cut rubber piece lightly into the pot to coat it with glue, then pressed it exactly into place on the bottom of the last.
— Hiss…
Strangely, a little puff of vapor rose each time the rubber touched the pot.
She inhaled that vapor right under her nose and, as if to fix the joint still more firmly, snatched up a hammer and struck without mercy.
Then she smoothed the seam with a flat iron tool.
Moments later the joint vanished as if by magic, and the crude lump of rubber had taken the shape of a galosh.
The finished galosh, still on its last, was stacked neatly onto an iron cart waiting beside her.
“…The carts, once they’re full, go into the vulcanizing kiln at the very back of the factory. There heat and sulfur harden the rubber. After that you pull out the last, and only then is a pair of galoshes finished.”
When I stopped walking and stared blankly at the workers, the stooped man offered the explanation kindly from beside me.
Having watched the entire process, I could only shake my head.
…A mess. There’s no way this works.
A factory lived and died by conveyor belts and the division of labor.
This was not a factory at all—just a workshop running a handcraft process.
I thought of the main plants we had passed earlier.
Chimneys pumping smoke with the vigor of living hearts—the pride of the Soviet Union, the finest galosh factories in the world.
They were all galosh factories, yet one side beat like a heart while the other was nearly dead.
I did not need long to understand where the gulf came from.
“I’m Ivan Petrovich. I serve as foreman of this factory.”
He introduced himself without strength.
“Foreman in name only… I’m just an old man barely propping up a collapsing plant, with nothing much to do.”
He laughed at himself.
— Clomp. Clomp……
When we reached a corner of the workshop, a narrow room appeared, roughly partitioned off with boards.
— Creeeak…
A weak sound from corroded hinges.
Inside were a few battered chairs, a single desk, and on the wall behind it portraits of Lenin and Zinoviev—a space too shabby to call an office.
“Please, have a seat, Production Inspector.”
Ivan offered a chair and walked around to the far side.
I sat and glanced over the desk.
Bundles of documents were piled in disorder.
I flicked my eyes across them.
Most were stamped chaotically in red ink.
Quota shortfall warnings, overdue delivery notices, unpaid invoices…
“Ah…”
Ivan scratched his head in embarrassment and shoved every paper down under his feet.
“Forgive me, Inspector. I had no idea you would arrive so suddenly—I didn’t manage to tidy up.”
My official start as Production Inspector was still a week away.
But I could hardly sit idle and waste the time.
I had come early simply to learn the state of the factory for myself.
Ivan pulled a handkerchief from his coat, wiped his sweat, and went on.
“…I’ll be frank from the start. As you can see, we haven’t met even half our quota for half a year, and we have no skilled workers left to repair the equipment. Apart from me, every hand is a woman, and the factory director himself has vanished. There’s no money for parts, and on top of the labor shortage the women collapse and quit at an average of two a day. We can’t even keep a line running.”
— Haa…
Ivan the foreman let out a sigh heavy with resignation, as if every misfortune of the Red Triangle district had gathered in this one place.
“I’ll speak honestly, Inspector. Our factory has nothing we can offer you.”
“Nothing you can offer me?”
I tilted my head, not understanding.
Then Ivan bit his lip hard and drew a small wooden box from inside the desk.
— Thunk.
“…This is everything. Truly.”
He turned the open end of the box toward me and lifted the lid.
Inside, rubles and chervonets lay mixed without order.
“What is this?”
“…I am truly sorry to you, Inspector, but the blat our factory can prepare—this is all of it…”
Blat…?
What fresh headache was this?
“Y-you saw it yourself, Inspector! Our factory is truly on its last legs. Even this money was scraped together by coaxing and pleading with those women… khh…”
Suddenly Ivan’s voice broke.
Only then did it strike me that he had completely misunderstood the situation.
“Listen… Foreman Ivan. I’m sorry, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I did not come here for this kind of vzyatka. And I must not accept it in the first place.”
He had taken me for a hyena come to strip the factory bare.
Bribe. Side money. Blat.
Whatever name you gave it, the essence was the same.
And no one knew better than I what fate awaited this “remnant of bourgeois corruption” in this country.
I am Stalin’s son, for heaven’s sake. I can’t very well be purged for bureaucratic graft…
I had no interest in an express ticket to Siberia.
“I don’t know how the previous Production Inspectors handled things, but I am not like them.”
Ivan slowly raised his head at my words.
“Foreman Ivan—do you intend to simply let this factory collapse?”
“…What? N-no, not at all!”
“Then if this money you offered me is spare capital for running the plant, use it for the factory rather than for me.”
“……!!!”
Ivan’s hollow eyes went wide at that.
No need to look so startled, Ivan.
From this moment on, this factory and I share the same fate…
My first duty as Production Inspector was the normalization of the production process.