Kharkov, 1950.

I remember standing in Rudnev Square in Kharkov – the city where I was born and lived, before moving to Novosibirsk with my parents. I’m staring at a dark round manhole cover, which looks like the skin of an alligator. I knew what an alligator’s skin looked like. At the center of the Square there was a fountain with an alligator’s head that we passed on the way to the playground almost everyday. I’m holding Galina’s hand very tightly. I’m scared, but exited. I have always wanted to step on the lid, but Galina never allowed me to. I am about two and half years old and Galina is my nanny. She was always telling me that the cover was a scary place, that I should never step on, otherwise that lid could turn over and I would fall into the hole. She warned me about the traps that this cover had devised for me so many times, that the lid had almost come to life and whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t friendly.

Today everything is different – my nanny is talking to a soldier next to this monstrous cover and not looking at me. The lid is quiet and Galina’s hand is right there. I prodded the lid with my brown shoe. Is it sleeping? I pushed harder. Nothing happened. I stepped on the cover with both feet and jumped, on and off, on and off. Suddenly, the lid became boring. I knew that the lid with the skin of an alligator, was not alive.

An old mansion once stood on that spot long before the alligator’s skin lid even existed. The mansion was demolished after the Bolshevik Revolution and gold coins were discovered in the old mansion’s foundation. With that money the Square was built, as well as the fountain and the benches surrounding it, with a sand box in the playground and the manhole cover that looked like the skin of an alligator. The Square was named after the favorite Bolshevik at the time.

Many years passed since then. There is no Rudnev Square in Kharkov anymore. Now new heroes are in favor. The Square was renamed and rebuilt – with a different fountain and different manhole covers, I’m sure.

Dangerous lids, steps and ladders were discussed in our family uncommonly often, compared to other possible disasters like slippery ice, or branches that fall from trees, or stepping on nails, or even fire. I learned the reason for this when I was already an adult, while helping my mother, Lisa, arrange old photos. She looked at one of them, smiled, and told me a story.

When I was about 6 months old, my parents Lisa and Lyonya rented a room in Komarovka, a small village on the lake not far from Kharkov. Before the War it was one of the popular destinations for a summer vacation and, three years after the War, became one of the very few that remained in a relatively livable state. Komarovka means Mosquito’s Place – you can imagine the luxury. Electricity was never a priority and worked sporadically.

One evening, at the end of that first family vacation, Lisa came out unto the deck to look at the full Moon and the shooting stars. She stepped on the unfortunate spot that happened to be the cover of an old cellar. That cover was more rotten than the other parts of the floor. Suddenly, with the loud crack of broken wood, Lisa plummeted through the cover, and whatever was left of the ladder below, finally landing at the bottom of the cellar.

When her senses returned, she felt as though she was lying in a puddle of blood, which happily turned out to be standing water. She was hurt, of course. A couple of her ribs were broken and she was left with bruises all over her body. It took a while to get her out from that hole in total darkness and without a ladder leading to that cellar anymore.

Lisa told me the story laughing – “It was good I did not take you with me that time”.

That is when Galina came to be my nanny.

But this will be another story.