10 May 2018 Victory found Mama in a paper sack. I have already written that throughout the hard war years she had to work around the clock, being a teenager. But by the end of the war she was already of age. In the four-storey building of the post office at Yaroslavsky Station in the city of Moscow during the war they worked 24 hours!!! hungry teenagers, women of all ages and rare men on whom, as they said then, a “reservation” had been placed. And at 4 in the morning on 9 May over all the loudspeakers and speakers this long-awaited word VICTORY was announced. ...

9 May, 9 in the morning. Putin is delivering a speech; I seem to be listening attentively… they did not capitulate, they held out, they won… and in my head only one thought: they flooded the country with blood. Mama recalls: at the Bolshevo school the boys of the tenth graduating class of 1941 went to the front… All perished. Grandfather used to tell: it was very important to be strong, well physically prepared, to be able to “protect yourself in field conditions, and that meant — dig in quickly,” that is create around yourself a “fortification” of small mounds of earth with a small sapper’s spade. Whoever could not do this became a direct target for the enemy. ...

To be honest, in Grandfather’s lifetime I never once asked about his decorations. And quite recently, a few years ago, I managed to obtain from the military archive a copy of the award sheet: two medals For Valour and the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class. I quote the extract: “25 January 1945, in the battle for the town of Els/Germany/, under strong enemy rifle and machine-gun fire, advanced his crew forward and with accurate fire from his mortar destroyed an enemy machine gun located in a trench in front of a separate house; transferring fire onto the trenches, silenced a second enemy machine gun that was hindering the advance of our infantry. ...

Now is not the time to continue yesterday’s theme, but I will return to it. I don’t know about you, but every time I feel irresistible emotion and tears in my eyes at the approaching holiday of 9 May. Today I will remember my grandfather on Mama’s side. My grandfather Dorofeev Sergei Sergeyevich was born on 31 March 1901 in the settlement of Bolshevo, 40 km from Moscow. He finished a parish school — that is only 4 classes. For that time, I understand, it was not a bad education. He wrote very correctly, drew beautifully, unfortunately only on scraps of paper, when I, quite little, asked him. I remember he could in a few minutes draw a skier coming down a hill. It seemed to me then that all adults drew well only because they were adults. ...

This DNA test makes one think. And my husband also suggested I create a family tree. Well, I tried to fill in the table. It doesn’t work… I know only Grandmother and Grandfather on Mama’s side. I talked with Mama on the telephone today and tried to find out at least something. She says she doesn’t remember. She remembered only the patronymic of her mother-in-law — my grandmother on Papa’s side. Well, thanks for that too! ...

5 May 2018. Today my astonishment is boundless! In the USA there is a laboratory that determines a person’s origin by DNA. In short, in the computer there is such a name, My Heritage. So the first to determine his origin was my husband Ivan. At first I treated this distrustfully. I will describe the mechanism of the “procedure”: first they send a special envelope with little test tubes, sterile cotton swabs, instructions. And you take from the cavity of the cheek (the saliva should be “hungry,” on an empty stomach). Then you seal everything according to the instructions and send it by post. Somewhere in a month the result. ...

Today is 4 May 2018. Wow! I have lived to see it! All the way to the 21st century! Since yesterday I sent out invitations to my blog, I shall have to “answer for my talk” and write every day. Today’s event is the 30th birthday of my daughter-in-law Tina. She is Danish. How my elder son found her “remains a puzzle” for me. Or did she find him? In short, the virtual became real. It happens… I sent a little gift in good time. The other day they reported that “thank you, we received it! But we won’t open it until the birthday.” That is willpower! I don’t remember myself like that. ...

My mama was so impressed that on her return she said a phrase I cannot write word for word, but I will write a “nice” translation: “We would have to run to catch up with them and … we wouldn’t catch up!” And she added a “term”: 200 years will pass… and… She started a general clean! I remember one of Mama’s gifts, chosen by her and paid for by the Danish son-in-law: sandals! How surprised she was when in a Danish magazine she saw the Queen in exactly the same sandals! What a coincidence of tastes!!! She was very touched by this gift. Our Danish son-in-law Jakob treats my mama with great respect, calling her affectionately BabUshka, putting the stress on the sound “u.” It comes out very funny. ...

In Soviet times there was a poster: “Fly by Aeroflot airplanes!” I am trying to remember what was depicted on it… I don’t remember! I’ll have to “draw” it. Most likely in the foreground there was a white-toothed blonde stewardess in a little cap, and in the background an airplane with the inscription Aeroflot. I wrote the word “poster,” because we had no advertising, and that word, “advertising,” appeared, I suppose, when there was nothing left in the country to advertise. But this one, which I will now quote in Ukrainian, really was advertising-like advertising! Enormous, hung on the end of an old building, opposite Kiev’s Dynamo stadium. ...

I am anxious….. I am thinking….. 2009… that was our last trip to Moscow. I did not want to go. Mama rings and says: “I’ve taken two tickets for the train, in platskart, side bunks, by the toilet…” She presented me with a fact, adding, at her expense.. “Well, and I — ‘how am I related to your Moscow?’” — “You’ll accompany me!” There was, of course, a reason to go. There was an invitation. A nephew, on Grandfather’s side, was gathering all the relatives for the anniversary of his mother’s death. ...