Recorded by Nadiia Pastukh and Olha Kharchyshyn (transcription by N. Pastukh) on July 11, 2019, in Nadvirna, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. The recording features Hanna Dmytrivna Moskalova (née Kubrysh), born in 1938 in the village of Zelena, Nadvirna district, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, who was deported to Siberia with her family and returned in 1977.
Olha Kharchyshyn (hereinafter O.Kh..): How did it happen that you ended up… [in Siberia]?
My father never imagined we’d be taken away.
Hanna Moskalova (hereinafter H.M.): How did it happen? In ’47, we were taken… to Siberia. My father was a forester—there was a forestry called Dovboshanskyi Forestry. It was also in those parts, up in the mountains. <…> My father never imagined we’d be taken away: my brother wasn’t with the Banderites, my older sister was, but my brother and I were just born in ’31… Just children—like no one was involved in anything. But my mother had a brother, Mykhailo Andriyovych Borysiuk. He was in the UPA. My mother’s brother. Her name was Borysiuk. His own sister. So we thought it was because of him. My mother stayed in contact with her brother.
<…>
And then we had to go to Siberia.
My father was very strict. He was like a ruler there: he had a forestry estate back in the Polish times. Poles would come there to vacation. He was treated well—there were nice Polish ladies. My mother, though, was a laborer. There was a lot of land, rich people, and it was all about work, work… And then we had to go to Siberia. In the village, they used to call him “Mr. Forest.” That’s what they called him—“Mr. Forest.” And in Siberia, he had nothing to eat, nothing to drink, no mistresses, no one. He ended up in Siberia with nothing. And he would say to our mother, “It’s because of you, because of you.” And I realized—it was all because of my mother. She bore that cross. She was unhappy. And I felt sorry for her brother.
<…>
And you could stand there until morning and still tell that you weren’t Russian.
At the orphanage, they beat us and said, “Say you’re Russian.” And I said, “No. That’s not what my mama taught me.”And we, the khokhols, we’re stubborn—we really are. We’re disobedient. Terribly so. We just know that things shouldn’t be like that. There are sycophants, sure. And some were raised that way, who soaked it up with their mother’s milk—to beat, to kill. They threw me into the basement. There were rats. Water up to here (shows), and it was fifty degrees below zero. We stood there in our boots—the only pair we had, the same ones we used to run to the outdoor toilet. What kind of toilet was there, anyway!… So we had just those boots, and we stood by the door. Both boys and girls ran to the toilet and stood there waiting. You put on those boots and you stand. Then she’d come and start beating us up. She was from the “goers” (paidioshnitsa). The political people, they knew what nationalism was, what the trident meant. But those understood nothing. We used to call people like that paidioshnyky. They didn’t say anything else—just: “Paidiosh, paidiosh” (“Go where they tell you to go”). Then she’d hit me and scream: “You’re Russian!” And I’d say: “No. My mother taught me different—” (and they didn’t even understand Ukrainian):
– “Who are you?”
– “A little Ukrainian girl…”
<…>
Well, they changed everyone’s name like that.
“What’s your name?” — “Anna.” — “Then you’re not Anna, you’re Nura!” (with a sneer). And I said: “Nura? That’s like this little nook—” (shows a circle with fingers, like a rat hole). And they’d say: “Nura!” And if you were Parania, then you became Pasha. Well, they changed everyone’s name like that. And there was always a rule with surnames too: if you were Fedoriv, then you were Fedorova…
<…>
Because stupid people are easier to manage.
It was impossible to get an education [in the special settlements]—higher education was out of the question. The enemies of the people didn’t need it. The dumber, the better—because stupid people are easier to manage.
I worked everywhere!
I worked everywhere! I did everything. I chopped this, chopped that. “To clear a bed for the Brotherly Sea.” This was the taiga—just endless forest. They gave me an axe, a pair of heavy boots, a kufaika, and other gear—all of it oversized, made for a man. And there were the girls—we cut trees, we burned, we cleared the bottom, the “bed of the Brotherly Sea.” Then we built a dam, flooded it, and it became the Brotherly Sea. And that’s how it was. That’s how life went.
<…>
No one would take her in
But my sister was released. She had been in Orsk. <…> She came back here, but no one would take her in—and she had four children. So she spent a night on the street. At a bus stop. And these were her brothers and sisters! “Oh no, we can’t. If we take them in, they’ll come for us next.” Then they bought a house. They quickly built a winter shelter and moved in.
But when people were deported, they took everything.
They didn’t give much to my sister either—even though there was a lot of land. But by then, people had already built on it. They’d been living there for thirty years, and you couldn’t touch it anymore. There were barns, houses—everything already built. As they say: “Who was nothing, becomes everything.” [ironically] It’s a Soviet slogan. But it’s true. It’s true. There was one woman… Imagine, she used to manage to plant something on a rock! To make a garden bed there… A rock field, that’s what they called it in the village…. She had a goat there. But when people were deported, they took everything. She started keeping a cow, which didn’t count as anything back then.
<…>
O.Kh.: How did it happen? You were separated from your parents, right? From your mother and father?
Oh, child, there were people here before us! We’re not the only ones here
H.M.: No, we were with our parents when they first brought us here. We had nowhere to stay. There was a barrack—a Polish one. We ended up there… because my mother knew Polish and could read it. There were crosses there, like the ones in the village—Polish crosses, crucifixes—just like the ones in Zeleni [the village H.M. is from], in the cemetery. I remember them. My mom and I used to go berry picking. She’d be pulling the little one behind her and saying, “Oh, child, there were people here before us! We’re not the only ones here.” But where did they go, those Poles? What happened to them? I don’t know what years those were… because this was ’47. But there were also earlier times—like the ’40s—when others were deported. I saw it on TV later. There were different waves. We were probably part of the second one. My husband told me exactly how they were transported in the wagons. And my daughter—she sat there crying [when she saw it on TV]: “Mom, look, it’s just like you said… How they cut a hole in the floor of the wagon—like in the cattle cars.” But we had bunks. They didn’t.
Just like they do for horses
We were packed so tightly the wagons couldn’t hold us all. So they made bunks—just boards, like this. One family here, another one there. A child here, another child over there. And down on the floor—it was wet. Where do you go to the toilet? How do they close those doors? Just like they do for horses. It even smelled like cattle—nothing had been washed. Where were we supposed to go to the toilet? And somehow it was okay—someone managed to grab an axe, there were all kinds of people. Some had sons in the Banderites. They already knew what was coming. They were part of the first wave—they were taken earlier. We were the second. People had started preparing by then.
<…>
N.P.: You were nine years old when they took you. Do you remember anything at all?
“Get-rea-dy!”
Yes, I remember one night. I remember that terrible night. What do I remember? How they knocked… “Get-rea-dy!” That voice—it was so cold. And the house—there were no neighbors nearby. It was a big farmstead. There was a mountain behind us. And then the echo. They didn’t knock with their fists—they smashed the windows with the butts of their rifles. It was terrifying. The house was wooden, and it would shake. “Get-rea-dy!” And my mother—she was wise. She understood immediately. Because the Banderites had come to us before. They used to come. Ours was the first house after the forest, the first one they’d reach. They would run down from the mountain and arrive in the night.
<…>
Because this is a child’s memory—it’s vivid.
So we started getting ready right away. My mom got up and said: “Dmytro, get ready.” And he said: “No way! No way! I didn’t do anything. I was with those people yesterday… (somewhere over there, in the gmina). No, no—nothing. I even asked around…” There were already some Russians there—they’d come to rest, to hunt deer. My father was a good deer hunter—they would’ve known him for that. And he said, “Calm down.” My father asked, “What’s going on? Are they taking us away?” “No.” And there was this neighbor who’d told them about us. He was involved. There were people like that. But my mom—she was determined. A strong woman. “Dmytro, get ready.” Dmytro got up, and they started arguing. My mom kept rushing around… We had this life in the mountains… We had no bread, no flour. Just some kind of potato—something like that. Mostly we had cattle. Lots of sheep. Two pigs. And the Muscovites were already there—loading the stable! They hadn’t even taken us yet, but they were already emptying the stable! The horses were braying. And one horse—he loved my father—was pounding the ground with his hooves, trying to reach him. My dad ran to the horse. That was it. Screaming. Chaos. My sister was crying. Only my brother stayed calm—he had planned to escape right away. He was born in ’31. He ran off. And that was it. So we got ready. And back then, were there closets? No. There was a pole. They used to call it a “pole.” But everything was hanging there—untouched. No moths. Nothing. And there it was—like treasure: silk skirts, aprons, embroidered blouses. And that was it. My mother, a working woman, had laid out the spindle—and she just threw it away. My father had some money. Yes, he had money—because he’d jump off the train at stops to buy us something—pyrizhky, whatever food he could find. And if we hadn’t had that money—I don’t know what would have happened. That was it. Two hours. We had two hours to get ready. We left everything behind. The house, the property—it stayed there. And I remember it all so clearly. Because this is a child’s memory—it’s vivid. And I was just a child…
<…>
But here, the dead were with us.
I remember it clearly. We were already in the wagons. Just like that—cattle cars. Oh, my God, the screaming… it was horrible. People were crying. There was one pregnant woman. She gave birth on the way. She gave birth—and they didn’t throw the baby out. Because you can’t just throw a baby like that away in the cities. No—what they did, if someone died, was wait until the train reached the deaf steppe, far away from everything. That’s where they would throw out the dead. But here, the dead were with us. Where were they supposed to go? You couldn’t do that in a city station—where would you even throw them? Who would collect the bodies? First of all, there was no one to deal with that. Second, they let other trains pass first—construction trains, soldiers, building materials. The country was being rebuilt after the war. That all had priority. And our train—ours was pushed onto a dead-end track. And it just sat there. For a week, maybe. Piles of belongings, people, bodies…
It was terrible.
And then the lice came. Swarming—instantly. There was nowhere to run. The men—at first—they just went in the corner to relieve themselves. But where could the women go? There were all kinds of people, but women aren’t like men—they’re ashamed. But who could, really? How? Eventually, we had to chop through the walls with axes. And then everyone just walked there, openly. No one was ashamed anymore. They had to reliave themselves. It was terrible.
We suffered and endured.
One man was screaming so hard. A woman had given birth to a child, but the baby died. He cried out, “Hey, moskals, give me some water! Give me some water!” The woman had just given birth, she had a high fever, and she was trying to nurse the baby—but there was no milk, no liquid at all. And so the child… that was it. Meanwhile, they were banging on the door—and even shooting at it. They’d just push the door open, and that was the end of it. If it was so much noise—banging and banging—one of them shouted, “I’m going to shoot!” Then the older people around would say, “Be quiet, or he’ll shoot us.” That’s how it was. We suffered and endured like that.
“That’s it. We’re going to die of hunger now.”
At some train stops, my father managed to pull out a few pyrizhkys. Back then, there were stalls everywhere selling potatoes and pyrizhkys—at all the stations. But it was only for a couple of minutes, and the train started moving again, and my father was gone! My mother said, “Well, that’s it. We’re going to die of hunger now.” It was terrible. It was a terrible thing to go through.
Well, we finally arrived at the place.
Well, we finally arrived at the place. They brought us there after a long journey—I don’t know exactly how long it took. When we got there, there were already “buyers,” as they say in the army, and then the collective farmers came to sort us out, at least temporarily, to find us somewhere to sleep. Because where else could we go? The taiga surrounded us—there was nothing. So they assigned us to different plots—they called them plots, like the sixth quarter. At first, we were sent to the sixth quarter. There was only one barrack there, a Polish one. They’d saw boards like this—pilorama style… It was so dark—no one lived there. They put up big metal barrels. It was warm there—it heated up well because there was a lot of firewood. They’d put various things in those barrels, making red stoves. People sat wherever they could. Families took corners for themselves—one family in one corner, another in a different one. What did we have? We had these barrels called “berbenitsa”—a narrow barrel and a tall, thin one. <…> My mother would ask me what to grab, what to put inside. They grabbed some lard—so old and yellow because the pigs hadn’t been slaughtered yet. They put the lard in the berbenitsa, and on top, some dried fruits—whatever we had: apples, plums… What else did we have on the stove? Beans. Big beans. But we couldn’t grow kidney beans there—they just wouldn’t ripen. That was such a treasure of food. We had nothing else to put in the cupboard.
<…>
But no one was able to keep records.
When the logging began, my father started recording large cubic meters of timber. He was the head of the site there—because there was no one else. They were cutting wood and transporting timber, but no one was able to keep records. No literate person. But my father knew how to do everything. He somehow made a gauge to measure the diameter of the wood. He handled all the orders, wrote everything down, calculated salaries—he did it all.
<…>
In the second year, I went to school.
At that time, I was still with my parents. I stayed with them for about three more years. Only after we were transferred to the second plot did they take the children away. The first year, I didn’t go to school because it was very far—about fourteen kilometers away. So I stayed home. But in the second year, I went. What did my mom do for me? She knitted me kapchury (socks) out of a kozhukh. Our kozhukhs were short, but the people there—Ukrainians, Podolians or whatever they were called—had long, light kozhukhs. We had red ones with stripes. My mom had one of those. And my father had a kozhukh, but it was white. White. <…> Our sheep had long wool—it wasn’t sheared. That wool came in handy. My mother cut the kozhukh, and since they knew how to spin wool, they spun it and knitted me socks. I went to school wearing that. They were coarse socks. If you walked, the snow stuck to them, and if you stepped in water, that was it—ice! (laughs) When you got to class, your feet felt like balloons, so heavy! And I went barefoot. I’d come home and dry my feet somewhere. There was ink for writing—but where? The ink would freeze, and we had to blow on it just to write.
<…>
But people were running away! Running away to nowhere!
My father had a chemical pencil—a blue one. He used it to mark the wood so that the markings wouldn’t wash away. It was a blue pencil, a chemical pencil—they used to send parcels marked with it, cover things with cloth, or write with that pencil. Nowadays, you don’t see anything like it—never heard of it, never seen one. They respected my father there. He was called in because we had to check in every month… Not us kids, but the adults—those eighteen and older—had to prove they hadn’t run away. We weren’t prisoners, not jailed, just “special settlers.” They had to go and sign this journal… For example, Dmytro Vasyliovych Kubrysh signed it, showing he hadn’t run away. But people were running away! Running away to nowhere! God, how could you run away? The taiga is like that—impossible. Some made it home. I can’t imagine how they managed without a penny, not knowing where they were going, thousands of kilometers away. And many died on the way.
<…>
“I even put a flag over the Reichstag,” he says.
Well, my father was working there. There was a commandant—Captain Vankov—his best friend. He kept everything under control. They were close—real friends. My father would lie to that muscovite [anyway], saying: “I reached Berlin.” He responded: “How did you end up here? You’re such a peaceful man. You’re not with the Banderites…” And my father replied: “But I fought!” They’d be sitting and drinking—he loved to drink. And my father would go on: “I made it to Berlin.” My mother would just throw up her hands: “Oh my God, oh my God…” “I even put a flag over the Reichstag,” he says. And he admired him, saying: “What a patriot!” (laughs)
<…>
People drowned there—it was awful!
That’s when the forest rafting began. The ice broke up on the river Irtysh. The great Irtysh. In spring, it’s full, but not as fast as our rivers. It moves quietly, but the water is thick, muddy—like clay. People drowned there—it was awful! At the pier, they’d bring huge stacks of timber to the shore. And from there, they floated the logs downstream. You had to roll them into the river. Sometimes, as they were tossed in, one log would get caught crosswise (gestures)—and everything piled up behind it. The current couldn’t push through. That’s called a jam. They gave us bahors… A bahor is like a long-handled tool—kind of like the tool firefighters have, with a hook at the end and nails like claws. They used to be common, though I don’t know if they exist anymore. We’d stand on the riverbank, jab the bahor into the jam, and shake it. The current helped too. You’d twist and shake the log, try to turn it sideways (gestures along), and once you broke the jam—the whole forest would rush downstream. But the riverbank was high, and the river itself—deep. Terribly deep. I don’t know how many meters. And the tree bark was already wet and slick. We’d jam the hook into a log—If it caught the wood, you were fine, because the tree is strong. But if it caught only bark—just slime—it would slip. You thought you had it, but you didn’t. You slipped right in. And then the whole forest would start moving—and it closed over you. Forever. It was mostly the young ones who died. The older ones already knew how dangerous it was. But those kids…
<…>
“We’re taking all the children… You don’t know how to raise them!”
They came back in the spring and said: “We’re taking all the children. All of them. You don’t know how to raise them!” Because we went out singing koliadky, all kinds of Banderite songs… But there were always people who snitched. <…> And so they took the children away. That was it. To raise us “in the spirit of communism.” The moral code of the communist builder… and all that poison. Well, I was in the Komsomol. Not in the Party—no. And I wasn’t a Pioneer either. That time had already passed, so I didn’t go through that. But I did join the Komsomol. I was a Komsomol member—an activist, even, pretty advanced. They’d let me go home in the summers—sometimes for a month or so. I’d come home, and my mother would start talking to me about the Bible: about how people came into being. And I’d say: “Mom, that’s just fairy tales. Are you making this up? A human being created us.” And I’d start telling her what they taught us—about Michurin, Darwin, Karl Marx, manifestos, congresses…
<…>
“Eh! You don’t need to teach a girl—she’s no good anyway. She’ll marry someone up, and that’s it.”
The guy at the polling station—he’s one of ours. He’s already part of our crowd. I study with his kid. And he’s so dump! I’m an A girl, an he’s like… So I said to my dad: “Go to the parent-teacher meeting. They’ll say good things about me there.” And my father goes: “Well, why then I should go… Maybe, if I didn’t have work, I’d go.” Hey! And that Vankov shows up and says: “Oh my God! My pride’s wounded! Boris has a one-two, one-two (meaning marks). But yours”—he says—“yours is just everywhere, top of the list. How do you do it? How do you teach her?” And he said: “The devil teaches her! You think I know what she learns?!” But my father—he was always like that: “Eh! You don’t need to teach a girl—she’s no good anyway. She’ll marry someone up, and that’s it.” And I kept insisting: “No. I will study. I’ll be a prosecutor or a lawyer. I’ll acquit all the Ukrainians!” Those were my big dreams. (laughs)
<…>
“Builder of the Brotherly Hydroelectric Power Station!”
And that was it. After that, I finished school—and suddenly the harmonica starts playing—“Builder of the Brotherly Hydroelectric Power Station!” They handed me a horn. My classmates were already being called out: “We invite you! We’re all going on the Komsomol invitation!” No invitations, no clear route—nothing like “here’s where you’re going.” Just the harmonica playing: “We are going, friends, to distant lands…” Some of us went to the virgin lands, others were sent elsewhere. We ended up in the virgin lands too—Kazakhstan. And we sang:
“We are going, friends, to distant lands,
You and I will become new people someplace…”
Well… and so on. (laughs)
<…>
We were ice breakers.
So what about me? That guy came. And I was living with this woman, a moskal, childless. Her husband was Moldovan, from Moldova. How did he end up in Siberia? And he married a Siberian woman. Well, I had already milked cows at her. Washed her in the bathhouse—because who else would do it? Then we moved into her apartment—three girls: one of her relatives, me, and one from Bodaybo (may she rest in peace!)—Vera Vysotina. She lived with her mother—rolled around like cheese in butter. They were in Bodaybo, the land of golden springs. But no—she wanted to come to the construction site! (laughs) Back then, everything was advertised: “Oh! The young men are coming! Komsomol youth!” But there were no Komsomol members—it was all a lie. Everything is made on bones. Just like Komsomolsk-on-Amur—built on bones. Moskal lies about everything. I know that now. Back then, I was naïve too. So she came, thinking there would be great guys here… Because in Bodaybo, there weren’t any. It’s such a northern place—pure permafrost. Well, she had money. And her mother was so proper—she brought both her mom and dad with her. And here—there’s no one. She’s tiny, fragile. She couldn’t go anywhere alone. There was no water on our land plot. When they started building that neighborhood, there was no water at all. The Brotherly Sea hadn’t been built yet. The Angara River was freezing. How do you bring in water? In a tank—it freezes. So we broke the ice. We were ice breakers. The river froze—thick ice everywhere—and then the water level dropped. The ice was a meter and a half thick, with a hollow space underneath. They gave us crowbars—we broke through the ice. Then we’d load the chunks into a dump truck, they’d take it to the construction site, melt it down—and that was our water. Stoves were installed, we cut down pine trees, built the barracks ourselves. People lived in them, even though they were completely worn out. But we managed. And we were the ones who did that—the ice breakers. That’s what they called us. And she couldn’t do anything. She was tiny but so well-fed, so round, so well-kept, with a big chest… She’d lift an ice block—but couldn’t get it into the dump truck. I’d say: “Verochka, step away, please…” I had long arms, so I’d just—and it’s not about strength, really—more about skill. You grip the ice floe, struggle with it, then give it a swing—frrr!—and it flies in.
<…>
Those scarves saved us in Siberia.
My mother—she was a free spirit. But once she got married, she couldn’t walk around bareheaded anymore. The moment they tied that scarf on her, she had to behave like a “young woman,” as they used to say. It had to be a proper shawl—big, with long fringes. Those scarves saved us in Siberia. My mother went and traded one of those shawls—for a calf. That calf grew into a cow. You sell a skirt—and get a piglet in return. And just like that, we became kulaks over there. Not right away, of course. My mother—she was the boss. She never went into the forest, and never would. Still, we lived better than the people who did go. We had a chicken. We hatched eggs. Went to the moskals. And my mother always showed up in an embroidered shirt, with coral beads—you know, in the traditional way. She loved embroidery.
<…>
They didn’t accept me.
They didn’t accept me. And my sister accepted me as a sister when I left for good. When I came back… I took my children with me. I had money—back in ’77, I had 120,000. That was a lot back then. And I needed someone—a landlady, someone to help me, to maybe offer a small piece of land. My sister was building a house. She kept saying: “Give me some money to build the house, give me some money for this, give me some money for that…” And I gave. Then she said: “You’ll live in the old house.” But when it came time to move in, she told me: “Go to my side. You’ve got two girls, I’ve got four. Where are we going to send them all? We need a piece of land for each one.” That’s the old way of thinking. And people still live like that out in the countryside. I said: “But maybe they won’t need land? Maybe they’ll study and live differently?” She answered: “If they don’t have a field, no one will marry them.” And that’s how it was. You know.
<…>
I always dreamed of having a house of my own.
But my hands—they’re so gentle. I was the favorite in my family. My father loved me deeply. I take after him—quiet, a homebody. I don’t even like going out. I love being at home. That’s just who I am. I always dreamed of having a house of my own. To plant everything myself—beds for vegetables here, flowers over there. Even if I quarrel with everyone, my lilacs must bloom, my flowers must be here. And they are. Whoever comes to visit will know—this is my place, my flowers grow here. That’s how I imagined it would be. But it didn’t turn out that way. I had to leave the village. I had to leave with a bitter taste in my mouth—because of my sister. Still, I don’t hold a grudge. I said goodbye before she died. I visited her about a week before it happened. I heard she was sick, so I came. She didn’t want me there—because of the land.
<…>
The riches of the taiga.
…The swamps there—unlike anything you’ve ever seen. And the bumps—those raised patches of moss and earth—they look solid, like ground, but if you step wrong, the bog will suck you in. The more you move, the deeper it pulls. Gas starts bubbling up—bloop, bloop, bloop—methane. That foul-smelling gas. But the cranberries! I was light on my feet, so I hopped from bump to bump and picked them. We handed in berries—raspberries too. Gogodzy, that’s what we called them. But properly, they’re lingonberries. Back home, they have thick skins, no juice. But over there? Like grapes! Especially in the fall—a cold frost at night, and by day you’d go picking, and the berries would just burst in your hands. I ate so many. Maybe that’s what saved me—all those vitamins. And my father—he fished. He’d shoot a wild goat, bring home a hare, sometimes a whole bunch of hazel grouse. Hazel grouse—that’s a delicacy. A royal game bird. “Eat pineapples, chew grouse—your day is coming, bourgeois!” Tsarist Russia… (laughs)
<…>
We were all friends.
I also love to dance—oh, if only you knew! Back in Siberia… We truly lived in our youth. Honestly, I had a good youth—I’m sure of it. It wouldn’t have been like that here. There were older people, yes… Vasyl Kupchak, for example, from Solotvyno—he was a teacher. And there were others—from Maniava, from Bytkiv… Villages I know well. That teacher, he had a brother too, also persecuted. And oh, the performances we had! All kinds—plays, sketches, concerts. And the dancing! They taught us Moldovan dances too. There was so much amateur art and culture—even after people came in from the forest, half-frozen, exhausted… they still came to the village club. There was a guy, Kostia Kazakov, a Russian. But no one ever said: “You’re a moskal,” or “You’re a khokhol,” or “You’re a Banderite.” No one. We were all friends. There were many Lithuanians too—the Balts, yes. Very close-knit, very protective of their own. They wouldn’t allow their own to marry outside their people. They guarded their identity fiercely. Kupchak married a Baltic woman—his mother cursed him for that. And when the Balts were finally freed, they stayed. They didn’t leave. That’s how we lived—visiting one another, living as friends. But for us kids, we knew our boundaries. There was a time to play, and a time to go.
<…>
“I don’t want to be thrown into a Siberian swamp.”
N.P.: Where is your mother?
She died here. She’s buried here. She came back and passed away in the second year. My mother used to beg: “I don’t want to be thrown into a Siberian swamp.” Because over there, there’s permafrost. The ground only thaws a little at the surface, and beneath—just frozen forever. So they would bury people right into the swamp. No priest, no farewell. It would have been a tragedy for her. My father didn’t care. He said: “Eh, let it be whatever it will be.” That’s how he was, even when it came to death. But my mother… She always dreamed of a priest. And in the end, it turned out the way she wanted—she came back, and she died here. She was already ill when she arrived. She died in ‘62. I came in 1962—and I was still with her.
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The taiga is beautiful!
I love the forest. I really do. I miss the taiga. I love it deeply—it’s endless.
O.Kh.: Are the Carpathians different?
The Carpathians… they’re more beautiful, yes. But the taiga—the taiga is untouched, as if no human foot has ever walked there. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and you have to be so careful… Because if you lose your way there—you’re gone. But in the Carpathians, you can’t really get lost. Go up a mountain—you’ll come down to a village. Go along the stream—you’ll find people eventually. The taiga is beautiful! Truly beautiful when it blooms. Wild peonies, wild poppies, all kinds of dahlias… It’s so rich, so full of life. Though now, they’re destroying all that too. Back then, there were so many fish—so many! They used to feed pigs with fish because there was nowhere else to put it. But every land is beautiful in its own way. Still, I’ve always loved the forest. Now I can’t go there anymore—not since the surgery. But when I see a mountain…it feels like the Carpathians to me.
