Chapter 2 – Groznyy, Chechnya

Next morning we were unloaded at Groznyy railway station. The chief of the echelon and my parents shook their hands. The chief wished us luck in the new town. One heard the whistle of the locomotive and the echelon moved slowly from the platform.
- You, Barbara, wait for me here and I go to see the head of the town about accommodation,” said my father. Soon he returned in a car. The driver helped my father load our belongings on. He brought us to a small empty house at the very edge of the town.

Toward the end of the day we have settled here and were very hungry. Fortunately, we still has some stumps of food and satisfied our hunger up to some degree. In front of the oven there were some splinters. My father brought some fresh water from the well and soon the tea was on.

There were no beds in the house and we slept on the floor. Next day my father have got from the town hall iron beds with old mattresses, some wood, an axe and a box of matches. So we settled here for a while… Soon my father started to work in the cooperative shop and my mother in a dining room for oil specialists. The problem of food was solved for the time being.

The dining room was situated in a small settlement only one kilometer from the centre and separated by a chasm crossed by a hanging bridge. The bridge was used by my mother to go to the work and back. My mother always took me with her. Hanging tight onto her dress, I followed her, avoiding looking down as I felt giddy.


Once after the heavy rain, going to the settlement, I slipped on the bridge and only quick action of my mother hold me safe. Both of my parents were shocked with this incident. Next day, mother did not take me with her. My mother found an elderly woman, “Glusha” who took care of me. She had a grey tom cat, “Vaska” and I liked to play with him.

In the district where we lived, the elderly children liked to play in “Whites and Reds” and, not seldom, were very cruel. Once “Reds” pushed me into a big wooden box where our neighbour used to keep his hens, and closed it.

It started to be dark. The hens which used to spend nights in the box took seats on the top of the box. I knocked with my heels and the box and shouted on the top of my voice for help. Nobody heard me… I frightened the hens for several times and they, in horror flew around.

It might be after all I would be suffocated here but the neighbour’s dog “Koshtanka” got me out of the scrape. She unexpectedly appeared from somewhere and approached the box, in which I was trapped, and at last she started to bark and howl.

I have heard the dissatisfied neighbour’s voice, “ Stop to snivel, for Heaven’s sake!” but Koshtanka continued baking and howling. I have heard the neighbours steps and the voice, “Ok! Ok! I see you are a thrifty doggy, Chooks can’t enter the box and what the devil closed it!?" I started to shout on the top of my voice.

- “Where are you?” one heard the astonished voice.
- “In the chook box, Uncle. Reds pushed me into and closed the door!”

The box shuddered, one heard the hens bubbling and flapping wings. The door flung open and the neighbour with great difficulties pulled me out of the chook pen. I scarcely could hold myself on the feet. I felt terrible noise in my head. A woman neighbour appeared in the door of the house.

- “Ah, my god! What is going on here?” exclaimed she…They brought me straight home. The parents were shocked when the neighbours told them about what had happened to me.
- ‘We thought the boy is at grandma” my mother exclaimed and embraced me, “come in, come in for a cup of tea” she invited the neighbours.
- “Thank you! Thank you! We just started our supper when we heard the dog barking. The supper is waiting for us.” They left in a hurry.
My father was infuriated. “What rascals are these Reds!?! They educate the children to hate each other!” he gnashed his teeth…

***

The front had been approaching Groznyy, and we started once more packing.
- “Where do we go now?” pronounced my mother dimly.
- “I do not know…” my father’s face was worried, “Yesterday when I was in the town hall, they advised me to stop in Sernovodsk, the hotel and mineral waters supply are neglected there…The former superintendent quarrelled with his wife on political grounds…and she killed him with an axe…Kazaks undressed her and whipped her with gun-sticks to death in the market place…”

My mother changed countenance.