Yashka by Maria Bochkareva

May had come. The Lena had opened and become navigable. The heavy iron doors of the prison were unlocked and hundreds of inmates, including myself and Yasha, were mustered out in the yard to prepare for exile.

Every winter the huge prison at Alexandrovsk would gather within its walls thousands of unfortunate human beings, murderers, forgers, thieves, students, officers, peasants and members of the professional classes, who had transgressed against the tyrannical regime. Every spring the gloomy jail would open its doors and pour out a stream of half-benumbed men and women into the wild Siberian forest and the uninhabited regions bordering on the Arctic.