ABSTRACT
Solzhenitsyn appears to have been as outstandingly successful in his teaching in Ryazan as he had been in Kazakhstan, and for much the same reasons. More prominent still was another kind of reminder, a massive monument to the MVD featuring a statue of a camp guard holding an Alsatian straining at the leash on the south-west side of Ryazan, where the main road came in from Mikhailov. The following summer, fixing up his heavy bicycle with pannier bags and loading up with provisions, Solzhenitsyn made a longer tour alone through the lower Oka region, and the year after that he toured the upper Oka where the Moscow and Ryazan provinces meet. For Solzhenitsyn there was the burden of living with four women, of whom three were elderly and had lived alone for most of their lives. Solzhenitsyn was now settled for the first time in his life and was able to organize his literary affairs more systematically.
