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to me (60 r. total). We’re still living, brother.… Someone, it turns out, has been spreading rumors that I’m not going to remain in exile for the rest of my term. Nonsense! I’m telling you and swear on the life of my dog that I will serve out my term (until 1917). At one point I thought of leaving, but now I’ve abandoned that idea, abandoned it for good.” 53
    This letter raises questions. Was Stalin’s firm assertion that he did not plan to escape intended for the eyes of the police? Or was he expressing his dissatisfaction with party comrades who had failed to help him? Perhaps he recognized the fruitlessness of any hope of escape and had made a genuine decision to remain in exile. Given that the subject of escape did not arise again, it appears that he really did reconcile himself to his fate.
    Stalin’s life in Kureika was shaped by events that occurred during his first months there. First, he had a falling out with Sverdlov. Upon arriving in Kureika, the two set up house together, but this arrangement did not last long. In his letters, Sverdlov only hinted at conflict with his roommate: “I’m living with the Georgian Jughashvili.… He’s a fine fellow but too much of an individualist in practical matters. I am an adherent of some minimal order. This is a source of agitation for me at times.” 54 The picture is filled in by other sources. According to the reminiscences of Anna Allilueva, the sister of Stalin’s second wife, Stalin later admitted that he found various pretexts for shirking his household duties—cleaning, keeping the stove going, etc. Sverdlov wound up stuck with all the chores. 55 Khrushchev offered further information:
    Stalin told the following story: “We would make dinner for ourselves.… The main thing we did in the way of earning a livelihood was to fish for white salmon. That didn’t take any great skill. We also went hunting. I had a dog and called him Yashka. Of course for Sverdlov that wasn’t pleasant; he was Yashka and the dog was Yashka, and so then Sverdlov used to wash the dishes and spoons after dinner, but I never did. I would eat and put the dishes on the dirt floor and the dog would lick everything clean. But that fellow had a passion for cleanliness.”
    56
    These differences over hygiene were bound to provoke discord, but there may have been other sources of conflict. The animosity that developed between Sverdlov and Stalin was so strong that they not only moved into separate houses, but also broke off contact altogether. Sverdlov wrote to his wife some time later: “After all, you know, dear one, what abominable conditions I endured in Kureika. On a personal level, the comrade I lived with there turned out to be the sort that we did not talk to one another or get together.” 57
    Soon after his falling out with Sverdlov, Stalin moved into the home of the Pereprygin family—five brothers and two sisters, all orphans. Stalin, who was thirty-five, entered into an intimate relationship with the fourteen-year-old Lidiia Pereprygina. This apparently provoked an argument between Stalin and the man in charge of guarding him, which escalated into a fistfight. The local police took Stalin’s side. One circumstance that may have worked in Stalin’s favor was that the police chief in Turukhansky Krai was I. I. Kibirov, an ethnic Ossetian who, like Stalin, was from Georgia. It is possible that Stalin and Kibirov came to an agreement that he would be given a degree of liberty in exchange for a promise that he would not attempt to flee. Stalin not only was not charged for his transgression with a minor, but he was also given a new guard, M. A. Merzliakov, who treated him exceptionally well. 58 In 1930, when he was persecuted under the Soviet regime for having served in the tsarist police, Merzliakov turned to Stalin for help. “I am asking Com. Stalin,” he wrote, “to inform our village soviet that I truly did have a friendly relationship with you while serving in