Ivan Denisovich returns to his barracks and waits for the morning roll call along with the rest of his work gang. Pavlo, the assistant gang boss, hands him his bread ration, which Ivan immediately realizes is half an ounce short of the regulation one-pound loaf of bread. He decides to take half of it with him to the worksite; the other half he hides in the sawdust of his mattress, then he sews up the hole.
While the prisoners wait to be frisked in the freezing cold yard, Ivan makes his way to one of the artist-prisoners to have the faded numbers on his prison uniform repainted. When he returns to his gang, Ivan notices that one of the fellows in his gang, Caesar Markovich, is smoking a cigarette, and Ivan is reminded of his own lack of tobacco. Fetyukov, the scrounger, begs Caesar for "one little drag," but Ivan does not beg; he stands by silently. Significantly, it is Ivan who is rewarded; he receives the rest of the cigarette.
Gang 104, Ivan's gang, is about to arrive at "the friskers," just as Lieutenant Volkovoy, the feared disciplinary officer, orders the guards to search the prisoners. Camp rules forbid wearing any extra clothing or carrying anything out of camp; this law exists in order to thwart prisoners from wearing civilian clothes under their camp uniforms and carrying food out with them, hoping to escape. Because of this rule, the inmates have to undo their coats — even in freezing weather.
Captain Buynovsky, a former Navy officer and a newcomer to the camp, is caught with a non-regulation jersey on and is forced to take it off. He protests that this procedure violates the Soviet criminal code, and he accuses the guards of not being true Soviet people, as well as being "bad" Communists. This brings him a sentence of ten days in solitary confinement, a punishment which very few prisoners survive.
