ABSTRACT
Kolpashevo, a rather small old town, on the banks of the River Ob, in the northern part of Tomsk Province, was founded by deportees. Its notoriety as a place of Siberian exile was already firmly established in the past century. "Politicals" were brought there by steamship. Given the sweep of the Siberian taiga and the complete absence of roads, the only escape was via the river, where a boat is always visible and there's nowhere to hide. Many extremely important decisions involving the fate of the country were made without the real participation of the Party, although in people's minds they were connected with the Party, because Mikhail Gorbachev was its general secretary. The Party-government system of management undoubtedly must be changed, government functions given to the soviets. But surely this process itself did not have to be a revolutionary crash effort.
