When I was born my father worked at Motoviliha works. At eight I began my studies in a school that was attached to the ecclesiastical seminary. I went to school for three years. When my father died I was twelve. My mother sent me to the public school, but having passed the third grade, I left the school; we had no money to live on and at the same time I was not ambitious enough to study. I wanted to get some occupation and mother sent me to the Motoviliha works, where I was accepted as a bell boy in the drafting room. When I was sixteen I was transferred to the machine shop and began to learn to work on milling machines. In 1906 I married the daughter of a workman of the Motoviliha factory. In 1916 I volunteered in the army and was recruited in the 494th Vereisky Regiment of the 124th Division. Our regiment fought on the Roumanian front. I participated in several battles but I was never wounded. In July, 1917, after the revolution, I was elected to the regiment’s committee. You ask me the reason why I was chosen? I was chosen for the regiment’s committee, as I understand, because I was better mentally developed than the rest of the soldiers. I never joined any of the political parties, but my sympathies were with the social democrats. At the beginning of November, 1917, I got a position in Zlokasoff’s factory in Yekaterinburg. The factory was still in the hands of its owners, the Zlokasoffs, but a committee of workmen existed and a commissar was commissioned to the factory also. The position of commissar was taken by Alexander Dmitrieff Avdeieff, a locksmith by trade. He was about thirty-four or thirty-five, was taller than the average, thin, his face was thin and pale.