Study, work, and class reunions

From the handwritten notebook. Tatyana Timofeevna’s voice. Photographs stand next to the episodes they belong to on the leaves.

…in the course, and Sasha was already working at Stalproekt. So our life went on. In June I passed the state exams and was kept in Moscow, because Sasha worked in Moscow. I was assigned to work in the Censorship (foreign department). At that time Baba Lena, Mitya and Baba Lina left for Simferopol. Sasha and I stayed alone together — it was so rare for us to be alone together. At that time Paul Robeson (the famous American bass) came to Moscow; we went to hear him.

Then Sasha had leave, and we flew to Simferopol, and then we had vouchers to a rest house in Rabochy Ugolok, Alushta. And the Krivosheins were preparing to go to Blagoveshchensk, where Dm. Al. was appointed chairman of the regional executive committee. And they set off for Moscow. I was to start work; Baba Lina stayed with us.

And then came the 2nd of September, when our life changed completely. On the night of 2/IX Sasha was arrested. What, how, why? We could not understand then. No one could help: neither my parents nor Sasha’s. I no longer remember working, because I was a persona non grata.

I telephoned Dm. Al. in Blagoveshchensk and told him what had happened. After some time they left for Moscow. Every Wednesday I went to the Lubyanka information office, asking about Sasha. They answered that the investigation was under way. Later I was allowed to send him some warm things and a hundred rubles.

Dm. Al. began to have trouble: he was removed as chairman of the Amur region executive committee and put in the CC reserve. He was also given a severe reprimand over his son.

In November or early December I was informed that Sasha had been sentenced under Article 58 to 10 years. At first I could understand nothing, and Dm. Al. and Nina Vas. went to the information office to find out again! It turned out to be so. Sasha was transferred to Butyrki, where N.V. and I took a parcel, and then they were sent to Vorkuta. I received the first letter from Vorkuta. Nothing came of work for me, because they could not take me into the Censorship. I sat a year without work.

Dm. Al. was offered the directorship of the state farm “Lyuberetskie polya orosheniya”; they went to Kosino, and I with Mitya! went to Mama, on B. Kaluzhskaya (Leninsky Prospekt [address redacted]). We kept up relations with the Krivosheins all the time; Mitya was often there and spent all summer in Moscow. For a year I did not work, because they would not take me into the censorship because of Sasha. Then Mama got me a job in the television school No. 50 in Lyublino (she was then working in the Ministry of Railways), where I worked for 5 years, until Sasha’s return.

Class reunions

At school the children loved me, and the whole staff treated me very well. The class where I was form teacher still keeps in touch with me. They put out a literary magazine where many poems were written to me. Every New Year they telephone and congratulate me. Sometimes they drop in. When Mama was still alive she would ask: “Who has come?” I answered: “The girls.” “Tatyana Timofeevna, what girls are we? We already have grandchildren.” We met for the 30th anniversary of finishing school, at Rita Istlina’s.

And on 13 April 2003 they gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of finishing. They had already telephoned.

May 1983. Thirty years since finishing school. I with my “girls”

I am 12 years old.

My photograph. 1938. Pasha and I in our dining room in [flat redacted] entrance 12.

Summer 1945. Pestovo. rest house of the Ichthyological Institute

Standing: 1. — I. 2. — Kira Fedorova 3. — Sora Bergskaya 4. — Lyusya Palukhina.

Sitting: 1 — Rimma Ionova Kipar. 2 — Ira Gofman 3 — Harry Mikhail- Weiser. 4 — Lena Egorova 5 — Nina Saulkova

How was life without Sasha? Dreary; there was always something missing. Especially I disliked weekends and holidays. When you see a family walking, and I am alone with Mitya. It was bad.

And then came March 1953. Stalin died. Then followed the 20th Congress and Khrushchev’s famous letter on the cult of personality. That was terrible news. Papa was very nervous and kept asking Mama: “Do you understand what the ‘cult of personality’ is?” Mama answered: “Of course I understand!” And Papa said to her: “You don’t understand a damn thing; it will poison us for a long time.”

Then M. and M. applied to the Procurator General’s office asking for Sasha’s case to be reviewed, and also asked their old comrades to speed the consideration.

And in June 1954 Sasha returned. At first he had been in Vorkuta, then he was transferred to the Semipalatinsk area (they were building something there. He was already chief engineer of a concrete plant.) He was given an offer to bring his

← Crimea, Sevastopol and the beginning of the family · Notebook contents · Family and children →