Exile in Bikov Mis - 1942 [ stories from Siberia continued] Exile in Bikov Mis- 1942 [Stories from Siberia] Translated from Lithuanian from the memoir of Irena K After about two months of travel, our group of 20 Lithuanians was taken off the barge at Bikov Mis. It was a remote settlement in Northern Yakutia on the shores of the Lena River, near the Laptev Sea. Our group of exiles included 2 old male pensioners and the rest were the wives of Lithuanian army officers and children. There some Lithuanian Jews as well. Also a few teenage boys aged about 14 and 2 girls who between 10 and 15. First we had to haul our belongings from the barge. It was raining and we got soaked through. We were then instructed that all exiles had to build their own “jurtas “ [ primitive huts, like a dug out] in our spare time by scavenging whatever driftwood, turf and moss that we could find, before the winter came. There were also about 100 Lithuanian Jewish exiles living there as well. As women, we had no idea how to construct a dugout. Luckily the 2 old Lithuanian men knew how to build things, so they were able to advise us how to go about fitting the wood together to make a basic dwelling and pat the dirt , turf and moss in between gaps and finish it off by laying turf onto the roof. It had a small window and a heavy wood door. Basically you built it with whatever you could find. If you could find a piece of pipe anywhere then you could make a chimney. It was very primitive, just bearable in summer, but in winter we would be snowed in. [Translator's note: The photo below shows what a typical “jurta” or dug out looked like in winter.You can also see a reconstruction of the type of a “jurta” that Lithuanian exiles had to construct in Siberia. It is found in Lithuania’s Rumsiskes open air museum near Kaunas] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rumsiskes_jurta.jpg