3. Famine
In 1933 my Papa finished his three-year sentence at the White Sea Canal, but he received an "addition" - five years of "voluntary exile" - that is, he did not have the right to return to his native place. He had to go to the Tambov province, not to the Ukraine. He told us how he arrived there during the famine without a kopeck in his pocket: "I went up to the conductor of the train and said that I was returning from exile and had no money. The conductor said, 'Climb up on the top shelf and keep your mouth shut, Grandpa.'" And "grandpa" was forty-five years old at that time. My father was very hungry and thought, If only I had even a cucumber! Then, stretching out his arm to lie more comfortably, he bumped into two pickles! "With what pleasure I ate them!" said Papa. Then he had to change trains. Papa, waiting for the next train, went to a small public garden and sat down. Because of his hunger he couldn't even walk. Suddenly he saw a dog walking along with a piece of dry bread in its mouth, and here's what he said to it: "Give me the bread — I can't go on any more. My children are waiting for me and I won't make it there. You'll find something else for yourself." "Suddenly, without resisting, the dog gave me the bread," Papa recalled. Wondrous are Thy works, 0 Lord!
When Papa arrived at the place of his "voluntary exile," he went to the diocesan dean, who sent him to a parish in the village of Ilovai-Rozhdestvenskoye, near the city of Kozlov (now Michurinsk), in the Tambov province, where there was no priest. Papa immediately informed Mama of his whereabouts, and Mama, not having to think long about it, got ready in three days, and we went to Papa. The next day they came to arrest Mama, but they were too late — we were already on the road.
I saw a train for the first time. I remember that we couldn't get into the carriage. It was so packed that the children were handed in through the window. Mama cried out that her child was left on the platform, and the reply came: "How many have you got, anyway?" They handed the fourth one in, and my aunt took the fifth. Glory be to God, we made it.
Papa rented a house with a tin roof. We were quite content until it started raining. The roof leaked like a sieve everywhere, so we had to move the bed from place to place, and all the cooking pots were put into service. Papa found a house across from the church and near the school, so that it was convenient for everyone. Beyond the garden there flowed a river, in which we swam, fished, and washed the clothes.
We were terribly hungry. Mama bought a bucket of starchy, syrupy refuse, which was teeming with maggots. The whole family, sitting around the table, pulled them out. Mama washed this miserable stuff thoroughly, added a little flour and some linden leaves, and cooked some kind of flatcakes. A great many people died of starvation. Papa buried ten to fifteen dead every day. They were buried in some sort of boxes in common graves, since no one had the strength to dig one for each person separately. But all the same, we lived, and even studied — and no worse than anyone else.
We caught little fish in the river with a basket, and Mama would fry them without cleaning them. We looked for water snails in the river, sort of like "clams," and ate them, since Mama said that the French ate them as a delicacy, and these were like their "relatives," so we should try them. And they were tasty. However, now I don't even want to look at the local clams — I obviously had enough of their "relatives" in my childhood.
One time the watchman killed a crow and brought it to Mama, saying, "Matushka, I've brought you a 'chicken.'" We boiled that 'chicken' for three days, but it still wasn't done. That crow too was emaciated — there was nothing but tendons. We remembered the story of how a soldier boiled an axe [1], but in his case people added things: one brought a little grain, and another some fat. But no one brought us anything for the crow.
We also had no money, since Papa, whenever he walked out of the church, distributed everything to the poor. Mama would say, "What am I going to feed the children with?" — to which Papa would reply, "God will give us the day; God will give us food, too." And that's how we lived.
People often came to Papa and asked him to baptize a child or perform a marriage at night, so no one would know. He would have to marry, baptize and serve Holy Communion at night, but he had no transportation — they wouldn't even give him the old nag from the collective farm. I was once present when one elderly woman asked Papa, "Batiushka, baptize this baby. His father's a party member, so do it so that he doesn't know, or he'll kill me. But I'm the grandmother, and it's wrong for him to be without a cross."
Papa usually went to sleep late, since at night he would write, read, and pray. Once, when he was praying, he looked at the church and saw that it was lit up by some kind of peculiar light. He went out to the yard and saw that our house was burning. Glory be to God, we all managed to escape.
When the church was being painted we helped wash the windows and sweep. Papa was an artist. I remember how he stood high up on a scaffold in the church and painted an icon of Christ "Not Made with Hands." And how wonderfully it turned out! I was proud that my Papa knew how to draw like that. He spared a lot of time for us: in the evenings we would all sit around him and he would sing with us and tell us about his youth, about his various escapades, about the war. He taught us prayers, taught us to read Church Slavonic, recounted stories from the Scriptures, and drew in our notebooks. Evenings were unforgettably interesting for us.
[1] A Russian folk tale, much like the Western "Stone Soup."