BlogShebalino, 1952.
One evening at the end of summer, a heavy truck stopped across the street from an unpainted house, in the Altay village of Shebalino. A young woman jumped out of the truck and barely pulled out her suitcase. She smiled and thanked the driver, shut the door, and waited for the truck to leave. This was Iskra, Tanya’s mother, and the unpainted house was where her sister Raya lived. Tanya and Iskra’s mother, Maria, were staying there for the summer. Iskra had not seen them for several weeks – she had just finished her concert tour and had a few days left before the next one began.
Iskra was really tired and her suitcase was heavy. It was a long way to Shebalino – first by train to Biysk, where the railroad ended, then through Mayma on a truck that took her to Gorno-Altaysk – the city where she was born. There, Iskra had to wait for a while for yet another truck that was crossing the Altay Mountains by way of the Chusky Tract, the only road to Shebalino. Iskra was a lovely young woman and the truck driver was more than happy to make a small detour through the village of Shebalino, to the house where her sister lived.
Next to
the front of the house, two little girls and a boy played with pebbles and rocks, but nobody was around to help Iskra with her heavy suitcase. A barefoot girl in a faded blue dress, whose hair was cut way too short, stood up and watched Iskra intently. “Hey, girl” – Iskra said to her – “Run inside and call Raya. Tell her that Iskra is here”. The girl did not move and kept looking at Iskra. “Go. Go!” – said Iskra again – “Hurry!” The girl turned around and without a word ran into the house. Iskra did not look at her.
The green mountains behind Shebalino formed a skyline above the village’s roofs. In early summer the southern slope of the mountain was always covered with myriads of blue flowers. From the front porch it seemed like the sky poured onto the slope. Water from the mountain’s springs was fresh and tasty, and that’s why, people always said, the bread and pies in Shebalino were the tastiest in the district.
Iskra did not like Shebalino and never really liked to visit, at least not too often. That place was overshadowed by the memories of the past. Peter Popov, Maria’s first husband, was executed here, in Shebalino, by the Bolsheviks simply because he was rich and educated. Here, in Shebalino, stood Popov’s family house, where Peter and Maria had lived. The house was the biggest in the village – the house from which Maria was evicted with her small kids, after Peter was killed.
All of that happened long before Iskra was born. She knew these stories only from Maria’s tears. And here, in Shebalino, Maria found her late love – Iskra’s father Alexander Yermolaev – an enthusiast of socialist ideology, who came to Altay from St. Petersburg to organize schools for both kids and adults. Maria and her kids moved to Gorno-Altaysk with him; they worked together at the school when Alexander was arrested and disappeared into the Bolsheviks’ Gulag during the Red Terror in 1937. This did not add any love to Shebalino, nor to Gorno-Altaysk.
“Iskra!” – Her thoughts were interrupted by her mother, who came out to the porch together with Raya, “What happened? We did not expect you until the end of August.”
Iskra waved her hand – “We had just finished our tour in Barnaul and were about to take a train to Novosibirsk, but there was another train on the same platform ready to go to Biysk, so I decided to come here. Anyway, there is nothing to do there because rehearsals for the next tour are being delayed.” Iskra looked around, “And where’s Tanya?”
Maria stared at Iskra with concern – “What’s wrong with you? She’s right here. Hey, shvermanka, don’t you recognize your own daughter? Or is that one of your philharmonic jokes, that I can never understand?”
Bewildered, Iskra looked at the barefoot girl in the faded blue dress, whose hair was cut way too short and clasping her hands exclaimed with horror and tears in her voice – “Tanechka! What have they done to you?”
The very next morning Iskra left Shebalino, taking Tanya with her. In a week Tanya and both her parents, Iskra and Victor, were already on the picturesque town of Sochi, on the Black Sea. And, yes, most of the time Tanya wore a hat, but that was a minor inconvenience.
And you, dear reader, don’t worry – her hair grew back quickly. Here are those three kids, Tanya with her cousins Boris and Lyuba, the following year (or two). But that will be another story and yet another surprise for Iskra.
