Yuri Orlov: Apartments were used to buy off even camp guards. One of the guards I knew when I was in the camp was fairly advanced in age. We had a conversation one time... at the time I was in a punitive isolation cell, and he was a guard there... we were, we were alone together, just the two of us, he was outside the door, and I was inside, and he told me that he would soon reach his twentieth year of service and he had been promised an apartment to mark that milestone. He said he would be retiring soon. Prior to working as a guard, he had worked in a mine somewhere. So, he was going to retire, but he hoped that he would receive an apartment first. An apartment is a big deal. Try living in a communal apartment sometime, you'll see.