The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And for the fourth year the water kept right on flowing through the pipes. And Moscovites kept on drinking it and didn’t notice anything wrong. Then Comrade Sedelnikov wrote an article for the newspaper Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn: “In view of the rumors disturbing the public in regard to the catastrophic state of the water mains . . .” and he reported many new and alarming rumors—even that the water system was pumping water underground and was intentionally washing away the foundations of all Moscow.” (Set there by Ivan Kalita in the fourteenth century.) They summoned a Commission of the Moscow Soviet. The Commission found that the “state of the water system was satisfactory and that its technical direction was efficient.” Oldenborger denied all the accusations.