I think many Soviet people could allow themselves a holiday by the sea. I remember how some reasoned: for example “go south to eat fruit” or “for apricots,” “for cherries” or “for peaches.” Mama had a colleague at the children’s atelier Nona Markovna. So she would say in a tearful little voice: “Oh, will I manage this season to eat a little melon with bread, from poverty….” She went to the sea “from poverty” every year. ...

Well, not so much about the “khrushchoba.” We are still at the sea in Yevpatoria. There I got a local girlfriend Rita, Aunt Tonya’s daughter, and an adult girlfriend Lyuda, Aunt Tonya’s niece. My parents “entrusted” me to Lyuda and usually we went with her to the wild beach. Lyuda was an advanced student of the then fashionable philology faculty, well-read and pretty. And of course she attracted the glances of young men on the beach. But rarely did anyone decide to get acquainted with Lyuda. ...

The story with the poles takes its beginning already somewhere in 2004. My mama was staying with my sister in Denmark and our Danish son-in-law, the wonderful Jakob, made Mama a gift — he bought special poles for so-called Nordic walking. When Mama was returning to Kiev, she checked the poles as luggage at Copenhagen airport. My mama speaks no foreign language. She can only say “Hello.” Her flight was with a transfer in Prague. And I was meeting her at Boryspil. She was supposed to arrive in the daytime at 14:00. ...

31 May. From this heat thoughts jump like fleas. You don’t know where to begin. Here one can tell about one’s not very house-cat. If someone comes to us as a guest, the cat tries to leave the house. She also accompanies me when I go out for a walk to the sea. But when I walk along the boat pier, she remains sitting on the shore (I think she is worried). As soon as I step onto the shore, she a couple of times “says” meow and we go back to the house together. ...

The latest news in Norway: I think 30 May is the last day of exchange at a Norwegian bank of 100- and 200-krone notes. In general they started the exchange long ago. “Well done, the guys!” they want to know how much cash there is in the country. There was a “threat” that in Norway there would be no cash. But many Norwegians speak up for “kontant.” I read many comments on FB.

Mama was “light on her feet.” If she decided to go, we went at once. That is how the first trip to the sea in Yevpatoria came about. We arrived with the whole family on my birthday, 11 August. Acquaintances advised and gave an address at Moinaki (there is such a district with healing muds and a liman). Here is how interestingly the locals lived in the holiday season: their best housing, and that was one room in a communal apartment, they rented to wild holidaymakers, like our family, and themselves lived in sheds nearby, and by these sheds they cemented small platforms for benches and a table. It turned out like gazebos twined with grapes. Of course we did not sit in our holiday rooms, but went out into the air and talked with the locals. Some even had televisions in the sheds. ...

Since Mama sewed well, she also knew how to dress well. But with shoes and accessories there was always a problem in the Soviet Union, yet Mama “managed” to solve this too herself without Papa’s interference. Once she expressed to Papa her discontent that he earned rather little money; he answered her thus: “what should I do, go steal?” He did not hide money, brought his pay home and, of course, did not go into our “girlish concerns.” And Mama could “in one go” splash money on Italian shoes or an imported bag. Then she tried not to show him the new thing, so that he would know less and sleep soundly. ...

Soon it will be a year since I got a driving licence and drive a car. The textbook on driving theory in Norwegian is almost my bedside book. So at leisure I like to look through road signs and situations. Here is what surprised me in this textbook for those who love speed, information for thought: Husk! Hvis du øker farten fra 70 km/t til 80 km/t, så vil du bare vinne ett minutt per mil. In Russian it sounds like this: remember! If you increase speed from 70 to 80 km/h, you will gain only one minute per mile. Distance in Norway is measured in miles. And one Norwegian mile equals 10 km.

And they still want me to agree to their mailing! “Who, who? — MAU!!! International Airlines of Ukraine! I have a question: “when will you feed?” Last time I flew, having a ticket on KLM, and ended up on MAU. And we even flew into Stockholm instead of Amsterdam! I had to “from hunger” eat a month’s supply of gingerbread on the plane! “What kind!”

In the morning I amuse myself at an anonymous question on FB. “Oh, what to do, men look at me at work?” Well, what to do, what to do? — “Keep working!” And if seriously, I have some reflections on this. I understand that our young women in Norway are not very interested, and perhaps have no time, to watch Norwegian news every evening. And there it is sometimes interesting-informative for us “who have arrived.” Quite recently they (the news) chewed over a theme for about two weeks (they have such a habit, if they talk about something, then for a long time), that is they analyse thoroughly. And they have someone to “analyse.” Of course the Americans. There after all there are many star-struck ladies of all ages whom still in the last century debauched rich uncles had. And now these ladies sleep poorly, call for help most likely “all the curious public,” and also lawyers (but that is expensive!), in order to get more money. ...