Yekaterina N. was born in 1921 to a peasant family in the Gorky Region, where she lived with her father, her four siblings, and her stepmother. The stepmother abused the children. In 1946, Yekaterina killed her stepmother – in self-defence, according to her own testimony – to protect herself and her younger siblings. The following year she was sentenced to ten years in camp for murder and had to perform forced labour near Irkutsk and Karaganda. Her son was born in 1953. Two years later she was released early for good conduct. She would have liked to settle in her native Gorky, but as a former convict was unable to find work there. In 1957 she moved back to the Karaganda Region and worked in agriculture. She lived a secluded life with her son and died in Samarka in 2004.