Night Train.

Novosibirsk. May 1945.

Iskra was sitting by the window in an overcrowded common car of a slow night train. Although it was dark outside and there was nothing to see, she kept staring at the window anyway. Those last weary days had made her exhausted, yet she was unable to sleep.

The other passengers were talking loudly, exchanging news, plans, and sharing stories. By nature, Iskra was an open and social person, but she did not participate in those “train talks”. She looked silently out of the window, reflecting again and again on the events that had transpired over the last few days.

She could not believe that it was only a week ago when the editor of the newspaper, where she worked as a junior correspondent, requested her to write an article about the beginning of sowing season in one of the villages of Altay. The village was quite a distance away and Iskra asked the editor for a horse, but he just yelled at her – “And what else, princess? Maybe a car with a chauffeur? If I had a horse, I would go there myself! When I was your age, I never even thought of demanding anything. Go.”

Iskra was only 16 and decided not to argue. When she started working for that newspaper, she was scared of interviewing people. Soon she decided that her articles were not very bad if the editor still kept her, and became more confident.

Iskra knew it was a miracle that she got that job in the first place.

At that time, she lived in a small house on the outskirts of Oyrot-Tura (later called Gorno-Altaysk), a town on the high bank of the Katun River that flows down the Altay Mountains. Her mother, Maria, and Iskra were the only ones from the family who still lived in that house. Iskra was much younger than her step-siblings from Maria’s first marriage (Escape). The sisters already had their own families, the brothers were at the war-front, if alive – there were no letters for a while, and her father, Alexander Yermolaev, disappeared in GULAG when Iskra was eight.

Sashenka – that is how Maria called her father – was an Army commander, the son and the grandson of the Russian Army officers. He fought in the Great War of 1914, accepted Russian February (Bourgeois) Revolution of 1917 with an open heart – he belonged to the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, and was elected by his soldiers and fellow officers to the high level Soviet. He was later sent by the Bolshevik government to Altay with the special task of creating the network of military schools, fell in love and married Maria with her six children.

Iskra remembered how he sat with her almost every night, before she went to bed, telling stories about Russia and the World, about famous people and their lives. Many of those stories were about Altay and Siberia. His favorite story was about the Decembrists – Russian noble heroes who stood against the Tsar in 1825 and were hanged or sent to Siberia in exile.

She listened to his stories and in the dark cold winter nights always imagined that her Dad was one of those noble Decembrists.

One night her father did not come home. Nobody told Iskra anything, but she remembered that every morning her mother was going somewhere with a small bag of food and returning, often in tears, without the bag. One day Maria came home and sat on the stool in the middle of the kitchen with that bag on her lap. Sashenka never returned.

The kids at school did not tease or bully Iskra – she was not the only one whose parents disappeared during Stalin’s purges, but her teacher did not miss the opportunity to comment on Iskra’s mistakes or behavior – “What would you expect? Like father, like daughter!” It did not happen too often – Iskra was a good student – but was hurt nonetheless. Later, when Iskra was not allowed to join the society of Young Pioneers, another teacher just said – “We cannot accept the children of the enemies of the People.”

The passengers on the train fell asleep, but Iskra was still looking out into the darkness behind the window, occasionally glancing at her old cardboard suitcase on the top shelf across the aisle. The train tapped through a bridge over a river, and Iskra remembered another time when she heard ‘the enemy of the People’.

The Soviets decided to build a ferry connection over the Katun River. The place selected for the new pier was just below Iskra’s house. One morning a group of construction workers came to their backyard with the equipment to dig a trench. “Hey, what are you doing?” Iskra’s mother, Maria, ran out of the house: “That is my potato field there! Dig your hole a few yards to the right, behind the fence.”

The local boss, who supervised the work, scoffed, “The family of the enemy of the People doesn’t deserve the privilege of enjoying potatoes grown on Soviet land.” Then he waived for workers to continue.

That was not an easy time for Iskra and Maria. Iskra left school and was looking for a decent job, but with that tag – daughter of the enemy of the People – it was impossible to get one.

Maria’s tenant, the soldier who returned wounded from the front, liked to sit in the kitchen with Maria and Iskra, talking about his life and listening to Maria’s stories. He worked at the newspaper printing factory and one day he told Iskra about an opening of a position for a junior reporter in the city’s newspaper.

Iskra did not believe it could happen. “Well,” said the tenant, “they need a couple of reporters right away, if not yesterday. They will not do much checking now. Your writings are good. They need someone. That is your chance.”

Miracle that it was, she got the job.

Iskra’s thoughts came back to her assignment in Altay. The interviews went as usual. On the one hand, Iskra was just a young girl asking adults about the details of their work – and their names, too. On the other hand, she was a reporter for the city newspaper, and newspapers in Soviet Russia were the official voice of the Bolshevik power.

Close to the end of their conversation, somebody stormed into the room, crying “Victory! Victory! The War is over! Stalin is speaking!”

“…The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, forced to her knees by the Red Army and the troops of our Allies, has acknowledged defeat and declared unconditional surrender.“

Some people were crying, some were hugging each other, while the others stayed mute in disbelieve.

“…The great sacrifices we made in the name of the freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable privations and sufferings experienced by our people in the course of the war, the intense work in the rear and at the front …”

Iskra had strange feelings – relief, hope, urge for a change, a vision of a new life. She quietly picked up her bag and left. She wished she were at home, siting and talking to Maria, her sisters, and friends, but when she came home late that night, there were many people in front of her house, drinking vodka, playing bayan, and singing. Somebody brought a gramophone, another one – more vodka.

Iskra slipped into her room unnoticed, dropped on her bed and put a pillow over her head. She didn’t want to hear either the music or the noise of the celebrations.

She lay in bed in the dark room and thought if her brothers were alive, if her father, Sashenka, would return home soon. She remembered her aunt Lyudmila, father’s sister, who came from St. Petersburg with her grand piano to teach Iskra “proper music”, and who did not survive the hardships of life in Siberia. She thought about her mother, Maria, whose life was full of tragedies, and loves, and hopes.

And she thought about her own life that she wanted to change – now and forever.

The next morning Iskra woke up very early, quit her job in the newspaper, collected her documents and whatever money she saved, packed her old cardboard suitcase with her best clothes, and, despite Maria’s tears, left for Novosibirsk, the largest city in Eastern part of Russia to start the life only she would be in charge of.

But there, on the train, Iskra was looking through the dusty train window into the dark night, being afraid to talk to the other passengers. She didn’t know what to say when they asked her where she was going, or where she would stay, or what she would do in Novosibirsk – she didn’t know yet.

She woke up when the train was already slowing down before Novosibirsk station and everybody around was busy collecting their luggage. She looked out of the window. There was a promise of a sunny day outside. She took a deep breath, holding her old cardboard suitcase with both hands – it was not heavy – and stepped out onto the platform.

It was May 1945, and here she was – sixteen year old girl, standing alone on the railroad station of a big city, pressing her old cardboard suitcase to her chest, and listening to the callings of her new life.

And that will be another story.