Lubyanka

Lubyanka is the place where Nina Kulikova traced her arrested husband, Leo, but was prevented from seeing him. In her account to Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, it marks the point at which a search for news meets the state’s refusal of access, and helps explain why Nina must leave Sofia in another person’s care.

Nina’s Search for Leo

Two weeks after Nina and Leo were recalled from Ivanovo for a conference on the future of agricultural planning, Leo was arrested on the first day of the meetings. Nina made an effort to discover where he had been taken and tracked him to Lubyanka. The location gave her a lead, but not contact: its officials would not let her see him.

Nina feared the worst until she received word the day before her visit to Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov that Leo had been sentenced to five years of corrective labor and would be sent by train to Sevvostlag that night. She planned to follow him, but could not take Sofia with her while she sought work and a place to live. She asked the Count to watch over their daughter until she could return, estimating that it might take a month or two.

Narrative Significance

Lubyanka appears within Nina’s matter-of-fact report of arrest, confinement, and separation. Her effort to locate Leo succeeds only in identifying where he is; the refusal to admit her leaves their separation intact. The Count registers the speed and accumulation of the news as shocking: a husband, a daughter, an arrest, Lubyanka, and corrective labor. The place thus anchors the larger crisis that turns Nina’s search for Leo into a request for care for Sofia.