Russia

To this day I still do not know whether this is really a quotation of V.I. Lenin or whether it was already invented in Soviet times by the trader-party people, but that I saw this slogan in the assembly hall of the Ministry of Trade, in the city of Kiev, in the 1980s of the last century — that is a fact. Personally I had “no relation” to trade in those times, but my friend was very proud that she had managed to get a job in this Ministry of Trade, in a new 24-storey building on Lvivska Square. And one day I visited her. She met me at the entrance and took me to the library, where she worked. We walked through the assembly hall and she pointed me to the poster, adding: “You see, Ilyich did not forget to set the trade workers on the right path either.” Then she smiled and quietly said: “I tried to find this quotation in his original sources (I remind you, Lenin wrote 55 volumes), but in vain.” ...

The little dog, literally before the eyes of the whole crowd of onlookers, began to grow sharply, turning into a strong unmanageable dog, which, breaking off the lead, began to run and jump around the crowd. And the owner, not standing such a shock, fainted! The crowd began to shout: “A doctor, a doctor! We need to call an ambulance!” (Everyone had already forgotten about Vova, and Vova himself had already shrunk to such a size that he could fit in the sleeve of his jacket!) ...

Vova stands on the snowy path and cannot move from the spot; the sleeves of his jacket have become so long that they already drag on the ground, and having taken a step, Vova understood that with such sleeves he would not get far. He sat down on the path and wept bitterly. And two steps from him stood two women with prams, in which their infants slept peacefully. They were talking animatedly, turned toward each other, and of course, carried away by their conversations, paid no attention at all either to their sleeping children or to weeping Vova. Two sailors were passing by. They saw little Vova. They thought he had fallen out of a pram. They took him in their arms; Vova did not even have time to say a word before he found himself in a pram next to a sleeping infant! ...

“Ivanov?” asked Doctor Nebolit. “Ivanov,” answered Vova. “And how did you guess?” asked Vova. “I didn’t guess, I simply asked,” answered Nebolit. “Well then, come into the office, Vova Ivanov, take off your jacket and sit down, tell me why you are so sad today?” “I don’t want to go to school. Today MariVanna promised a maths test and a Russian dictation. And I’m lazy!” “A hard case!” said Nebolit sympathetically. “And maybe there is something that you are not lazy about?” Nebolit continued to ask. “There is one occupation I am not lazy about…. sitting on the fence and eating sweets! And in general, I want to be little!” “Ah! Well that is a fixable matter!” answers the doctor. “British scientists very recently invented two medicines: one medicine for rejuvenation, and another for growing up. They are called accordingly the Green and Red pills. I’ll write a prescription now and you’ll be able to buy them at the nearest pharmacy.” ...

There is it, there is this inspiration in me today! Once upon a time long ago, as far back as 1972, a children’s book by an unknown children’s author appeared in our house, titled “The Green Pill.” This book was read “to holes” by my papa and my younger sister. I want to present my free retelling of this fairy tale. “There lived a boy Vova, his surname was Ivanov, he went to school, to third grade. Vova had a little brother who lay in a pram and did nothing. But for some reason this little one was given the most attention by mama, and papa, and grandmother and grandfather. And Vova could only watch and listen as everyone admired this baby. ‘Ah what a pretty one he is, ah what a clever one he is!’ At the same time Vova’s mama would manage to ask Vova: ‘Have you done your homework? Don’t forget to buy bread when you come back from school.’ (This was Vova’s sacred duty — to buy bread, returning from school.) And Vova so did not want to do anything. He just wanted to sit on the fence with a caramel in his cheek. ...

Today at dinner I asked Ivan whether he remembers his childhood. He said no. And I am interested! If only I could learn something. He says he remembers nothing. And why then do I remember everything? Probably because I live in another world, a very different one, which I am unlikely to come to know. I was about five when, being in Bolshevo at grandmother and grandfather’s, I once asked my grandfather a question. I would ask all sorts of questions when he smoked on the little terrace. He smoked strong cheap papirosy called “Dymok” (the name is inexact). Horribly poisonous. But this smoke did not bother me at all. Simply grandfather had a free minute and one could talk with him “about life.” ...

I have already written earlier about my grandmother Polina Vasilyevna (papa’s mother), who lived her whole life in a village in the Smolensk region. Apparently my grandmother lived so poorly after the war that nothing lodged in my memory, only the last trip to her, when I was already 10 years old, in 1964, in summer. Papa was then a serviceman and used the privilege of a free ticket once a year for leave in a compartment carriage. Before the trip we bought presents: bagel rings strung on a string (that is how they sold them then), biscuits, lump sugar, tea, and many caramel sweets. Papa decided to take the ticket at the station, not long before the train’s departure. We ended up in a general carriage “packed to the brim” with people. I can suppose that papa decided to get there more quickly; the journey took several hours in the evening. I had to sit on a suitcase, laying my head on papa’s knees, and I fell asleep. ...

Marya Grigoryevna did not instil in me a great love of reading; rather she taught me a responsible attitude to a book. But I loved to listen when my papa read to me before sleep. In the times of my childhood they issued a series of little books in a soft cover. It was called “My first books.” There were Krylov’s fables “The Elephant and Moska,” and Grigorovich’s “The Gut-ta-percha Boy,” and Kornei Chukovsky’s “Tom Thumb,” and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. ...

I cannot even explain to myself where today’s memory came from, of my acquaintance with the school librarian Maria Grigoryevna, whom some children called Marya Grygorovna. I think today’s suddenly-in-the-morning-arisen thought is connected with my attitude to reading then, in second grade, and now, when I have to restructure myself completely to reading on a computer. But it pulls me now into my distant childhood, and as if under hypnosis all the sensations of that time… ...

Did I ever think, in my past life, that I would remember someone who had been of no interest to me at all. And it turns out the time has come to remember Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. That he promised to build communism by 1980 and to provide all Soviet people with separate apartments — that I remembered clearly. I remembered the empty shelves in the “yellow” grocery shop on Yanvarskogo Vosstaniya Street in the city of Kiev, after they removed him from office. Very meanly the party people treated him then. After Khrushchev’s removal they arranged a famine for the Soviet people. Queues for bread…. and the famous Soviet white batons suddenly became grey, poorly baked. And at school they started handing out tiny white buns, the taste of which did not please me at all. How poorly we lived then! But what is most interesting is that we did not know it! ...