The fact is that my parents are from different parts
of Russia: my dad is from South, while mom is from North of Russia. Their love
story deserves to be written in a novel about external hardships and obstacles
in love. Though I’m proud of my parents because in spite of all distances they
managed to stay together and to make the strongest family I’ve ever seen.
Finally, after a lot of discussions where they should live they end up living
in the North. So my grandparents from my dad’s side were living far from us. I
don’t remember my grandfather as he died when I was 2. Although every summer “a
visit to our grandmother in the village” was a big event for us. When I grew up
and my granny got older I tried to see her at least twice a year: in summer and
in winter during my university vacations. Though the “summer at grandma’s” remains
a special concept in my mind. So here I am now – in this familiar at every
detail house, in the warm Southern village near city Rostov-on-Don. Nobody gets
younger with the lapse of time so my grandma is pretty old now (she is almost
88) and I’m realizing that if she passes away this my tradition of coming here
and spending a part of the summer here will also go away with her. And the
essential part of my life will now will end, because the house, the village,
the flowers, this place in general will never be the same without her. So this
time being here I started remembering all my summers here and moments and
details that I liked or didn’t like about living at grandma’s.
— 1) The most agonizing duty in the kitchen here is
washing dishes. The absence of running water is the worst part of the absence
of services and utilities. The water here goes from a special pipe and is pretty
expensive so you can’t wash dishes with it. So you have to get water from the well
(the water is extracted from the well by a pump), and heat it in the basin where
you wash dishes after. In short words, it’s really complicated process. For the
same reason you can’t use any detergents because without running water it’s
hard to clean this agent after. So if the dishes are greasy (what it is in most
cases) you have to use household soda. Also there isn’t any special sponges for
washing, you should wash with some tissue which gets dirty pretty soon.
Seriously, I have no idea how my granny could do that every day often even
several times a day! We were ready to wash the whole house to avoid washing
dishes.
+ 2) A cozy white and blue house which we recognized
from afar and which makes us happy. Long time ago it was an elementary school,
and when the main building for the village school was built, they gave this
house to my grandparents. When it was a school, rooms for sure were big enough,
that’s why now some “walls” are actually made from cardboard and have carlets
on them to hide it. For example, such “wall” separates a kitchen and a “cat’s
house” (actually, this room is something like storeroom, but it’s called “cat’s
house” because the cat is always closed there if he is stealing food from the
table or when it’s cold outside in winter). A part of the house is just closed
and isn’t used at all, windows are locked there. It was always a secrete and frightening
part of the house for children. First of all, it was always dark there and it
you want to turn on the light you have to pass through a dark room because
there was no light from outside. Secondly, we always believed in our childhood
that there lived families of huge rats so if you enter these rooms barefooted
(we never wore shoes in the house or in courtyard) they would bite you.
— 3) If you wanted to have a bath you should heat the
water in a heavy huge pot, then standing wet in a bath you have to mix it with
cold water which runs pretty slowly so you are getting cold by yourself till
you’ll have the water with an appropriate temperature. Now you can understand
my happiness when 2 years ago my grandma bought a shower cubicle and now we can
have a NORMAL shower any time.
+ 4) An incredible amounts of various fruits every
day. They are bought on the everyday market very early in the morning (at about
6-7 am). I managed to wake up for it only about 3 times for all my time spent
here though my grandma does it every Tuesday!
+ 5) Fresh milk from the cow which is brought by my
grandma’s friend every 3 days
+ 6) Big apricot trees near the window: almost every
year the courtyard was completely covered with its fruits. Even if we gathered
all of them in the evening, in the morning it was impossible again to come out
of the house without stepping on fruits. There is a funny story that when I was
5 years old my elder sister was obliged to watch me to prevent from eating
fruits from the ground without cleaning. And so once she didn’t notice how I
picked a fruit from the ground and put in mouth. She cried at me: “Spit it out right
away!” I looked at her, chew for a while and spitted out a stone. Sounds like me.
+ 7) A vegetable garden with potatoes: when I was a
kid I was allowed only to kill Colorado potato beetle with rocks, then when I
grew up I was picking up potatoes from the holes made by my dad. Now I can dig
potatoes out myself.
8) A permanent murmuring of wild pigeons and hoarse
cries of roosters in the morning
9) My first fear of darkness: it is completely dark at
night in the village, so when I was a child I always asked to leave the light
on in the hall. While lying in the darkness I was imagining robbers getting
into our house to kill us. And my grandmother wouldn’t wake up even if I would
cry because she has problems with hearing. So I was really scared. Now I even
enjoy this darkness, and it’s not actually complete as there is always a moon
lighting.
10) Tons of relatives with a “favorite question”. When
I was studying the question was “How is school?” Now the question is “When are
you going to get married?” (it doesn’t matter if I have a boyfriend or not at
the moment)
11) My grandma’s friends to whose house we went to practice
piano (me and my sister studied at music school so it was important to practice
almost every day). We played one by one and went to look at their muskrats.
12) Big photos of my grandfather (I don’t remember him
alive) – it seemed to me that his eyes were always following me everywhere with
attention.
13) My
grandmother’s stories about grandfather and their past. She met him when
she was almost 30 and he was 10 years older. They were very happy together and
even now 21 years after his death she is still missing him and talking about
him every day. Yesterday she told me the story how he proposed her. He just
said that he already filled the application for the registry office so everything
is already decided. She was a little bit shocked by that statement but he just never
doubted that she loved him. My grandmother never had any jewelry because she just
didn’t get used to them. Her wedding ring was the only ring she ever had, but
when my father got married they needed money and my granny gave sold her
wedding ring.
14) A huge bookcase with tons of interesting books I
was reading a lot every summer. At school I was obliged to read books from
certain “summer list”, after it I was just reading for a pleasure.
15) My grandma’s best friend who almost lives with her
in winter and who is the biggest tale-bearer ever. She is a specialist at all “affairs
of the heart”.Though she is super nice and loves the whole our family like her
own.
16) Saying “hello” to every person you meet in the
village even you don’t know most of the people you meet. And in the supermarket
you should say: “It’s for my granny Maria…” and the assistance would understand
right away what exactly to give you.
17) Everyday question from my grandma: “What to cook
for you today?” (even if the fridge is already full of delicious meals)
18) A village church is just opposite our house so we hear
an iron ringing of church bells every Sunday morning
19) A lot of flowers in the courtyard, tons of mosquitoes,
no Internet and phone service almost not available in the house, best
delicacies: amazing honey, fresh grilled fish (it’s the best dish of my
grandma) and boiled crayfishes
20) huge bags full of jars with squash and eggplant
pastes, with honey and jam, and full of Circassian walnuts
21) my first fishing and the only one little mouse in
my life who was caught into trap
22) riding crazy motorbike and swimming without
clothes
23) permanent laziness
24) it’s hard to understand what is a dill, what is a
parsley and what is just random grass in the vegetable garden, when grandma
sent you to cut some parsley for a borsch (a traditional Russian soup)
25) The same poems that my grandma is citing every
year and which everyone already know by heart
26) Always opened entrance door (it’s closed only at
night) so that everyone just enters the house and goes to find the hostess
27) Our coach where me and my sister one summer were
drinking Argentinean cocktails she brought from Spain and watching stupid
Hollywood comedies
28) A noise of trains behind the river every night
29) My grandma’s attempts to protect me from any local
guy’s attention. Something like that: our neighbour young guy who were
interested in me, comes to talk and my grandma is around all the time asking
what we are talking about or trying to make up some tasks for me to shorten out
conversation. Now it sounds funny for me, though at that time I was really
annoyed by such control.
30) Imagined that I was a princess secretly living in
my country palace (you can’t imagine it in the city apartments, right?)
I’m so thankful to my Granny for this part of my life
and for everything she is doing for us, for her patience and understanding and
especially for her immutable wisdom. And I’m so sorry for her forced solitude
most of the year here, because all of us are far away and her husband is dead. Now
I understand so deeply that you should appreciate the person you love and who
loves you now, today, because tomorrow it could be late…
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