Witness statement

A. I took up the post on 19 July 1927, following transfer from the Saamskiy branch. My letter of appointment was stamped with the same date.

A. It was a timber-frame structure, four aisles numbered A to D, each with 16 shelving bays, and an overhead pulley track. The main corridor ran west to east. The southern wall had windows overlooking Bolotnaya Lane.

A. Yes, it took place over two mornings, 11th and 12th April. I was present with Inspector Baranov. We followed Form 22-K as usual, checking extinguishers and exits. He carried a leather logbook and a set of blue pencils.

A. Some shelving units were shifted for new stock received from Arkhangelsk. Drawings were amended by an assistant draftsman—she initialed changes on sheets dated 7 May. I do not recall her name.

A. Not entirely. The paper plans omit the narrow aisle between Bays D-15 and the eastern wall. There should be a passage, about 90 centimeters wide, mainly for surplus crates and empties, but none is shown. I only noticed this after a re-inspection in 1929.

A. It would have been autumn 1929, during the safety audit in September. I wrote it in red ink on my duplicate inventory sheet, which I filed with Head Clerk S. P. Matveyev. I do not know what became of it.

A. I checked the weekly shift logbooks for September–October 1929. There is a note with ‘E. V.’ in violet pencil—underlined—next to a margin comment, but the handwriting is not mine or Matveyev's. The main entry simply lists 'Routine cleaning, D-15 bay.'

A. I did not meet anyone by those initials until the summer of 1930, when an Elena Viktorovna started as typist. Yet the margin notes marked ‘E. V.’ are dated a full year before her name appears on the payroll.

A. We had to unlock a side gate off Tsentralnaya ulitsa, usually during the afternoon delivery window, around 13:00-15:00. Porters complained it was cramped. Shift change to the night watch was at 18:30, and that aisle was always left unlit by custom.

A. There was no fixed lighting or station sign. Only a wooden palette and a single steel extinguisher. Deliveries rarely came through; most goods left untouched for weeks. Once I saw a receipt for crates of lamp wicks signed 'E. V.' dated March 1929.

A. A requisition for repairs was stamped 14 June 1928, with no detail on the item aside from 'door catch adjustment.' The maintenance interval table has a blank for that section, unlike the others.

A. I stood with the other clerks at the north entrance, as usual. That end aisle was declared 'clear' by a man I did not recognise, in overalls—he signed the form, but I did not see the name until later, when it appeared as 'E. V.'

A. Not formally, though porters sometimes used it as a shortcut on damp days. Once, I found a consignment from Vologda left unentered in the ledger, stacked precisely in that aisle. The invoice number was later crossed out in violet pencil.

A. Yes—briefly, at a monthly depot lunch. An official suggested the omission was just a draftsman's error. However, I recall a stamped addendum, again with 'E. V.' in violet, filed under correspondence 11/29.

A. Not officially provided, except for one incident where a crate blocked the main exit. Inspector Baranov made a note, but only in his personal ledger. No follow-up action was listed.

A. I retained carbon copies of the 1928 and 1929 inventory sheets, along with one memo about the shelf reorganization, and a receipt with the initials 'E. V.' which I found lodged in a supply catalogue.