Dordzhi talks about how the Kalmyks were deported to Siberia: I was born in Baga-Chonos. My father is Tseren Barkhaev. When I was 13 we were all sent to exile in Siberia. In Siberia, we ended up in the village of Zhizha in Barabinsky rayon, Novosibirsk oblast. There I looked after livestock. In the village we were five Kalmyk families altogether, consisting mainly of children and a couple of old people. In our family we had five children and our mother. Our father was fighting at the front. In Siberia, we worked on the collective farm, but always went hungry. In order to somehow feed ourselves, we picked grains on the ground. By the spring of 1944, the little that we had brought with us from Kalmykia we had sold or exchanged (for food). Life improved only gradually. We Kalmyks were sent to exile on 28 December 1943, which was a freezing cold day. Our family lived in a dugout. In the morning the Soviet soldiers knocked to the door early in the morning. One of them read a decree about eviction. In our dugout the youngest were twins who were six months old. We did not understand Russian. Our neighbor Ochirova Bavur translated the decree for us. The soldiers gave us only 30 mins to pack up, before putting us on the big lorries. We were so poor that we had almost nothing to take with us. But we took whatever we could, including frozen meat. Lorries were circling around collecting deportees. By the evening we were all collected in one place, and transported by lories. At night it rained. In the morning we arrived at the train station Divnoe where there were already many Kalmyks. In the evening the train arrived. We had never seen one before. All Kalmyks were put into 60 carriages. At that time we did not know that the whole Kalmyk population was being deported. At midnight the train set off. Everybody was silent, only children were crying. At dawn we stopped in a place which looked completely destroyed. Those who knew told the others that the place was Stalingrad. In the middle of our carriage there was a small stove installed, with some coal put nearly. There was nothing else: not even a toilet. A large number of people died on the way. The dead were piled up in the last carriage. Forgetting about shame, during stops people relieved themselves right outside their carriages. On the 5th or 6th day of the journey it became really cold. Small children cried endlessly. After two weeks or so we reached Siberia. I later learnt that on the way some people were disembarked and sent to exile to various places. In our carriage we ate together and shared what food we had with us. We were given food - corn porridge and bread - only on the 8th day of the journey. Upon arrival in Siberia, we were transported by a lorry to a large building which was the district’s House of Culture to have a bath and to rid ourselves of lice. We stayed in that house for up to four days and were further transported by oxen driven carts to local collective farms. The most educated and fit people were sent to good farms. In the end there were about 40 of us left, including my family. One day the chairman of one of the collective farms came to the building, took out grains from his pocket, and said that that was what they grew in his farm. He also added that his farm keeps livestock. We all followed him. On the way we stopped in a village for the night. In Siberia people lived very poorly, and all men were away serving in the army. We saw only old people and children. The next evening, we reached the destination. We stayed in a derelict house with four rooms each of which was occupied by a family.