For a small state, Vermont has a surprising number of quirky stories. Of course, this is catnip for any radio producer, as Anne and I have discovered during the last few months working remotely here.
It turns out the rural town of Cavendish, Vermont - population 1,367 according to the last census - was where the world’s most famous political dissident chose to live in exile. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning writer who’d survived prison and labor camps, moved his family here in 1976 and stayed for 18 years.
"I chose this place," he said upon moving to Cavendish, according to a New York Times story. "I dislike very much large cities with their empty and fussy lives. I like very much the simple way of life and the population here. I like the countryside, and I like the climate with the long winter and the snow, which reminds me of Russia.”
The feeling was mutual. The people of Cavendish adopted their famous writer - or rather, gave him the solitude he craved. “It is an absolutely perfect location,” says Margo Caulfield, director of the Cavendish Historical Society who became friends with Solzhenitsyn’s family. “I often think, what a gift the people of Cavendish gave him because he was able to write. Everybody left him alone and everybody protected his privacy.”
This also meant protecting Solzhenitsyn from nosy visitors, including the KGB, who came to Cavendish sniffing around for the reclusive writer. No one in town would reveal his location; in fact, they took pleasure in sending people the wrong way. Solzhenitsyn eventually returned to Russia, where he died 2008. But the house in Cavendish still belongs to his family, and to this day, no one in town will tell you where it is.
“Every town needs to have a secret that unites them in that secret,” Margo told us. “And for our town, it was Solzhenitsyn and not giving directions to his home.”
You can hear our story about Solzhenitsyn and Cavendish’s other claim to history, Phineas Gage, in this week’s show.
–Steve