Security Concerns Trumping Korenizatsiia 121garding Koreans’ life in the RFE, their unique culture, their contributions
to Soviet life, and their deportation.
This section focuses mainly on the lives of rural and agricultural Kore-
ans. It also gives the reader an idea of rural Korean life and the life of the
Korean nonelites in the RFE. The benefits and outcomes of korenizatsiia
cemented the loyalties of RFE Koreans to the Soviet state, at the same time
providing them with a route by which to turn aspirations and “agency” into
realities.
Konstantin Ten was born in 1929. In his village, Sinhendon in raion
Chernigovskogo, he often accompanied his father, a teacher, to school. His
father and the other teachers would share tea in the mornings, and invari-
ably someone would offer Konstantin a candy. In Sinhendon they played
volleyball and football against other villages. The football team even had
uniforms with numbers sewn on them. His father and uncle played on the
village’s team, but had learned to play football in Rus sia after emigrating
from Korea as small children. Around September 1937, an NKVD officer
picked up his father at school after he had finished teaching a lesson. Kon-
stantin never saw his father again.^37
Alexandra Kim was seventeen in 1937. Her father was a former par-
tisan who did not know much Rus sian. They were relocated from the
Ussuri to Khabarovsk in 1933, when she was twelve. She remembered that
Khabarovsk had Chinese stores everywhere and that the Chinese district
was located two kilo meters outside of the city. The Chinese made good
candy, pelmeni, noodles, and tofu. She recalled that there were few Japa nese
in the city, but that every one was scared of them and afraid to talk to them
because they might be spies.^38
Sergei Kim grew up in the Korean village of Sin Du Hinets in Han-
kaiskii raion (Ussuri). His village grew two types of barley (black and yellow)
and peas. His family had cows and other livestock. He recalls that they cele-
brated all the Korean holidays: Ta n o (spring), Chusok (fall), and the Korean
New Year (February). During these holidays, they played the traditional
Korean games of kunett wigi (Korean swing), noltt wigi (Korean board
jumping), and wrestling.^39
Il Khe’s father attended the Vladivostok Pedagogical Rabfak. He later
became a Korean language and biology teacher. In his father’s school in the
RFE, they used sand instead of a blackboard for each individual student. His
village, Kolkhoz Dubovskoe, was in Spassk raion near a Rus sian aerodrome.
The village had its own Korean acu punc ture doctor, who used needles that
were much bigger than today’s.^40
Iliaron Em was an exemplary case of the aftereffects of the Stalinist
repressions and deportation. This case is especially poignant because of