58 Chapter 4rice were high, but for many other crops state prices were low. Therefore,
many grew opium because it earned higher revenues than any other crop.
Interviews with el derly Koreans uncovered valuable information regarding
opium and the significant role that it played in their lives, both eco nom ically
and medicinally.^33 Opium use was legal in the USSR until 1927.^34 I would
estimate that around twenty of the sixty Koreans interviewed for this study
confirmed that their family or relatives had either grown, sold, or used opium
medicinally. Soviet Koreans reported that their primary use of opium was
medicinal. Alexandra Kim (born 1921) stated: “Even the Rus sians near
where I was living were using opium too [medicinally]. It’s not like today.
There were no drugstores around at the time. Opium is also a very power ful
medicine, it can cure almost any illness.”^35 Koreans deci ded to grow opium
because it also made economic sense. In some of the villages, it was planted
as the main crop. Land was scarce for many of the Korean poor peasants, so
grains and vegetables were sown for personal consumption only. Koreans
were charged from rent on land sowed from 10 to 70 percent of the harvest
or a negotiated price in rubles. The logic was simple: opium earned more
money than growing anything else.^36
Most Koreans said that their primary clients (for opium) were the
Chinese laborers who worked on the docks of Vladivostok and in the mines
of Suchan and bought opium for their own consumption. Georgi Tai stated
that in the 1930s his father sold opium along with pork in Vladivostok.
They sold it to the Chinese.^37 En Nok Kim stated that he had heard of opium
(morphine) dens in Vladivostok in the 1930s.^38 Krasnoe znamia brought to
light the fact that not only Chinese and Korean laborers used morphine
(an opium derivative) but Rus sians as well— typically, in urban settings
such as Suchan, Vladivostok, and Ussuriisk.^39
Maria Pak (Figure 1) was born (1913) and raised in the village of
Padushi on the northern tip of Lake Khasan, Rus sia. She stated, “In my
village, as much land as we had, we planted opium on it.” Her village was lo-
cated right on the border between Rus sia and China/the Chinese section of
Lake Khasan. Maria described the relationship that Koreans had with the
Chinese as a brutal one: “We hated the Chinese. We did not know any Chi-
nese peasants. We only knew Chinese who were bandits (hunghuzi). Because
we were right at the border, they would not even let us fish near their side of
the lake.” The Chinese bandits would come to her village to steal the opium
growing there. They had many guns, while the Koreans in her village had
none. Maria stated: “My father had scars on his back from the beatings that
the Chinese gave him. He used to say, ‘I wish they would just kill me rather
than come here and beat us [the adults] all the time.’ ” Maria said they would
beat her fa ther with thick wooden sticks that were more like planks. These