Grandmother’s memories

Vlasov S. A.

Grandmother’s memories

Preface

Beginning in early 2024, I recorded my grandmother, A. S. Boytsova,

on a voice recorder in her room. Sometimes she would begin telling a

story herself; sometimes I would ask a question and she would answer—

jumping from the vegetable garden to the war, from bonds to sparrows,

She was over ninety when these recordings began. She had been born

before the war, grown up without a mother, gone to work at fourteen,

lived through the postwar devastation, a government loan, a barracks room

shared by four people, carbon-monoxide poisoning, the birth of her

Grandmother’s memories

children, and her husband’s death. She had grown a garden. She had fed

and cared for her family. And until her final days, she remembered where

each apple tree had grown in her father’s garden and how the first

steamboat passed along the canal in 1937.

I transcribed the recordings and tidied them up a little: I removed

repetitions, added punctuation, and divided the text into paragraphs. I

the canal; the hungry postwar years; her first wage and the first white

bread she was afraid to squeeze; taking over a piece of land for a

vegetable garden behind the Society for the Blind; a rat killed with a

ski pole; and a relative who sowed rye at midnight so that the jackdaws

would not see him. From these fragments, a life takes shape—not an

official life, not a ceremonial one, but a real one.

I am making this book for those who never knew her. For children

who may never learn what goutweed smells like beneath a scythe, or what

a samovar sounds like when potatoes are boiling in it and sausage is

being warmed. And for myself—so that I will not forget.

Grandmother’s memories

Table of contents

July 24, 2023 – January 31, 2024 Health................7

Taxi and Stifling Heat.................................8

Weather and Skis.......................................9

Blood pressure.........................................9

Forgetfulness.........................................10

Doctor................................................10

Telephone.............................................10

Cat...................................................10

March 7–8, 2024 Family................................11

Daughter..............................................12

Father................................................12

Bread.................................................18

Devastation...........................................18

Housing...............................................20

10 March 2024 Moving and the Garden...................23

Moving................................................24

Unauthorized Garden Plots.............................24

Collective............................................24

Stepmother............................................25

Grandmother’s memories

School Principal......................................26

Head Nurse............................................26

A Dove................................................29

The Neighbor..........................................31

The Toilet............................................32

15 August 2024 The Harvest............................33

Planting..............................................34

Cherry and Currants...................................34

Fertilizer and Ash....................................35

Pitchforks and a Pump.................................36

On Legs...............................................36

I Took Everything Outside and Glued It................36

I Nailed Them Up and Rested...........................37

Where Are the Three Cherry Trees?.....................37

The Apple Trees Fell..................................39

The State.............................................39

Pruning the Raspberries...............................40

Grandmother’s memories

The Sprayer...........................................40

Larvae................................................40

7 October 2024 – 11 September 2025. The Last One......42

The Driver............................................44

Quince................................................44

She Lives Alone.......................................45

Government Bonds......................................45

Sparrows..............................................46

Arranging the Plot....................................46

The Society for the Blind.............................47

Grandmother’s memories

July 24, 2023 – January 31, 2024

Health

Grandmother’s memories

Saplings

Oh, Lord! While you’re gathering the fruit from these bushes, try

to grow some new ones as well. As I told you: cut off all the curly

shoots, every curly branch, and look at the cut. If the little hole is

black, it’s diseased—burn it. As for the new shoots meant for planting,

bury them until spring. Check them too: if there’s a hole, don’t keep

them. A good cut is clean, without holes—that one can be kept.

bottom too: roots will grow here, and shoots with little buds will grow

there. Later, you’ll dig them up and plant them not straight, but at an

angle: the roots facing south and the tip facing north. Not lying flat,

but half-lying.

Leave space between them. Whether you grow ten bushes, or more or

fewer, is up to you. Water them all summer so that the soil stays wet.

Then, in autumn, take a look: if the little bushes are healthy, transplant

them to their permanent place.

Dig them up and fertilize the soil—I used manure. Dig the hole so

that the soil is loose. Don’t place the roots straight down; spread them

Taxi and Stifling Heat

It didn’t come. So I went to the doctor, I suppose, and said that

I couldn’t travel right now. My legs are bad too. I can’t walk on the

ground, let alone through the snow. Anyway, not until spring.

But how am I supposed to get around? By taxi: you get in here, ride

there, and get out. I don’t even know how to call a taxi. And what does

it mean to lock the phone? Where do you press? How do I lock this phone

Grandmother’s memories

—akvali…? I don’t even know what it’s called. Well, all right. And then

how do you unlock it? You have to press something somewhere, right? You

have to know everything.

Yesterday I went to bed and fell asleep at about half past eight.

Then I sat up in bed and looked under the door—the light was on. Either

in that room or in yours. It must have been half past eleven already. I

open the door. You don’t close the door at night—how can you breathe in

here?

31 January 2024, 17:33

Weather and Skis

There were frosts, and you went skiing. But now the temperature is

above freezing, the children aren’t going outside, and you’re ill too.

I’m more or less myself; my blood pressure is closer to normal: 140 to

150. It never goes below 136, and in the evening it rises again.

On Saturday at one o’clock in the afternoon, I listened to a program.

The host, the journalist O. K., has held that position for fifteen years.

She asks professors, neurologists, and general practitioners questions.

This time, they were discussing the intestines.

I can’t listen on Saturday—I have to eat lunch at one because of my

diabetes. But on Sunday evening at eight, I watch the repeat. There was

a program… Good Lord, was it about a stroke? What was it called? I

listened to it, but I just can’t remember the name.

Grandmother’s memories

Then little black prickly plants began appearing in the fields—

those things you know, the ones that grow in the fields when you travel

to the dacha. We ate those too.

We studied during the winter. Until the fourth grade, the school

was nearby, in the village. But to finish seven grades, you had to walk

to another village—five whole kilometers. We had nothing to wear on our

snow near Leningrad, they drove the Germans back. There was nothing to

eat. If they came across a frozen dead horse, they would cut strips from

it and eat the horsemeat.

In 1943, the house burned down, and we had nowhere to go. Our

stepmother took my sister and brother—the children who had been born

after us—to the village, while we remained among the ruins. The women in

the village persuaded my mother’s sister, our aunt, to take us in. We

lived with her and went to school, and in the summer we worked on the

collective farm: watering the crops and weeding with the old women. In

autumn, we gathered fallen ears of grain and earned money for

then go back to the field.

Grandmother’s memories

were collective-farm fields: potatoes, rye, wheat, and buckwheat. We

worked, and they recorded labor-days for us. There was no money at all.

For each labor-day, they weighed out grain to every worker: however much

you had earned, that much was yours.

From 1947 onward, I already had a work record. But I needed to

study, so I had to enrol somewhere. I took my metrika—the document used

My grandmother said, Dear, go back. They’re taking milk to the“

dairy plant. Walk quietly behind the cart. Mother will give you and your

sister a piece of bread each for lunch. Wrap them in a little bundle,

and you’ll have something for the journey.”

I walked behind the cart for half the way. Then the driver stopped,

jumped down, and asked, Where are you from? Why, you’re the chairman’s“

daughter!” I told him everything. He said, Climb onto the cart.” He took“

me to the city and explained how to find the knitting factory.

I walked along, reading the sign: Knitting Factory.” I peeped“

through a little window and said, I’m looking for the person in charge“

At first, we lived in a rented room with a collective-farm woman on

Grandmother’s memories

There were four or five barracks standing there. They gave us a little

room for three or four people—just enough space to put in the beds. There

was no firewood, nothing.

Once, we were overcome by fumes. I was very badly poisoned by carbon

monoxide. He lived nearby. They gave him sick leave so that he could look

after us.

shift came in. The director then gave us…

16:23

were preparing land for vegetable gardens and digging drainage ditches.

All the adults worked, and we helped them. We planted the birch grove

immediately deducted the loan payment. We received very little.

But gradually, we began to live like proper people again. When I

saw white bread for the first time, it was impossible to put into words.

It was frightening even to look at. You would pick it up and squeeze it,

This is the house where I first began living. My childhood—with my

little daughter. The house looked fairly broad, with three windows, but

it stood directly on the ground, without a foundation.

My uncle’s father was a Group One invalid; he limped along on one

leg. They lived behind a screen. He was always repairing galoshes, and

Grandmother’s memories

My daughter was born in 1951. My eyes began to hurt, and I was

barely functioning at all. There was hardly any maternity leave pay in

those days—just pennies, and even those were deducted. The state had no

money; everything had been destroyed after the war, and everything around

us had burned. They gave us bonds—the government borrowed money from us.

There would be a whole page in the newspaper where you could check whether

to stay in a rented room with our aunt. Her daughter had died, leaving

two children. One of them would come home from school and say, "I’m

hungry." If I had a piece of bread, I would give it to him; sometimes he

would even arrive carrying a little piece himself.

We lived in a room as wide as a bed. A table stood there, nailed

into the corner on three legs. The stove was heated in the other room,

and in ours the wall was only slightly warm—it was bitterly cold. There

was nothing to eat and no electric light, only a kerosene lamp.

In autumn, we bought a sack of potatoes and some onions and put

them in the cellar. That meant we were considered rich.

There was a tiny kitchen, but no running water, no bathroom, and no

Grandmother’s memories

In the rented room, we had paid for our meals, but here we only

cooked lunch. The men would come home from work and ask, "Who cooked

today?" That meant everyone was to eat together. My daughter first went

to a nursery, and then to kindergarten. The kindergarten was far away.

First, we would feed the children fresh meat, and then we would all

eat whatever was left. There were three tables in the kitchen. There was

A neighbor from the twenty-square-meter room looked after my son.

He had a heart condition. Sometimes, late at night—around midnight—he

would knock and say, "I need to warm up an ampoule." I used to give him

injections at night.

17:22

the floor.

When the doctors saw it, they gave me a referral to improve our

housing conditions. We lived on T. Street, probably from 1952 to 1964,

in a nine-square-meter room. There were four of us.

actually lived there—and took a two-room apartment for herself. I was

given a one-room apartment.

Grandmother’s memories

The narcologist was indignant: "How can this be? You need a two-

room apartment, and it was given to her." But what could I do? She was a

doctor, and who was I?

We moved to I. Street anyway, but they didn’t remove me from the

housing waiting list. We lived there until 1976, when we moved here.

People envied us then. Other families were given apartments and

lingonberries. We would come back with baskets full of berries.

Once, I went with two old women, and at two o’clock we couldn’t

catch the bus. I shouted, "Hurry up!" but I couldn’t just leave them

behind. The bus drove away. We waited for the four o’clock bus, but it

broke down. We had to sit by the road until evening, until the next one

finally came at around seven or eight.

I went home, barely managing to carry the heavy basket on my

shoulders. I climbed the stairs, and your mother and uncle were standing

by the open door, pressed close together. They said, "Mum, did you think

about us at all?" I remembered those words for the rest of my life.

Later, I stopped pickling cucumbers in barrels and switched to those

Grandmother’s memories

That’s how we lived. And when we began moving here, it was the World

Festival of Youth and Students, and Chinese people were visiting. I even

have a photograph in Moscow.

I’ve forgotten what I was talking about.

17:33

Grandmother’s memories

10 March 2024

Moving and the Garden

Grandmother’s memories

My daughter and son were sitting there, saying, "Mum, what if we

don’t move there? The festival will end, the government will run out of

money, and they’ll stop building houses in the city. We’ll be stuck in a

one-room apartment."

I cried and cried. And in fact, if we hadn’t agreed to move, we

would have received an apartment in the city. But we went there. We moved

Grandmother’s memories

Why did they leave that particular piece for me? Later, people from

the factory came and said, "We’ll take you into our collective. Write an

application and pay five hundred rubles." That was a lot of money at the

time, but I went, paid it, and they accepted me.

Whenever the issue came up at a meeting, arguments would begin. The

plots were divided into two-sotka lots. The owner of the plot in the very

dividing up the land. After that, they left me alone. And you should have

seen how jealous people were!

17:46

Stepmother

My sister used to take my son everywhere with her. She kept asking

me to give him to her: "Life is so difficult for you. Let me take him;

But my sister would take him anyway. Blizzard or no blizzard, she

would wrap him in a large shawl and carry him off to the village. That

was how he grew up. She took him with her every weekend, and in summer

she would take him away for a week at a time.

We were the children of the mother who had died, while their father

had the other children with his second wife. After that, my son stopped

going there. Well, he still visited, but he no longer stayed overnight.

17:50