Konstantin Voskresenskiy - The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy

In fact, I was surprised by my mother's sensitivity and the understanding with which she accepted this riot of mine, because everything happened spontaneously and in the moment. There was no apparent reason for this behaviour. No tests or exams were scheduled for that day, I hadn't fallen out with anyone in my class. It was an unexpected whim. Or really, I needed to be alone and think about something.

Quickly getting my bearings, my mother gave me a list of chores for the day and rushed off to work. After spending the whole day doing household chores and having worn myself out, I'd knocked some sense into myself. I never acted out like that again. No wonder they say that hard work ennobles a person…

Not going to school is one thing, but to let down your class leader [14] Your main teacher that stayed with you throughout school, much like a form tutor in the UK. on the first day of school is quite another. After all, in Russia, we all go back to school on 1 stSeptember and line up in the playground. It's all quite a spectacle for everyone involved. I couldn't miss it.

In those days I smoked quite often. It was trendy, cool and new. I still steal a cigarette every now and again, although much less often, maybe five or six a year. Smoking is no longer new or fashionable, but it still looks cool. Especially when it's not often.

So there we were, first day back, 1st September. People were rushing around, running here, there, reading this, reading that. Why not to go for a smoke? Why not, I thought, and started smoking in the back row. In a flash, my eyes met those of the class leader…

I still wonder at Mr Yuriy Yarkin's restraint that day, it was solid, soldier-like, like that of a Lieutenant Colonel. In fact, he had been in the military before becoming a schoolteacher. I'd like to have even a fraction of that kind of restraint. He didn't even say anything to me: his eyes did the talking. They said, «You, my boy, are making a mistake…».

I didn't argue with him – if said I was in the wrong, I was in the wrong. I wasn't a baby anymore, I understood everything indeed…

Frustrations and resentments are a subtler matter than just mischief and messing around. Disappointments bring down one's inner world, and resentments distort it, deforming your personality. At the age of five or six, I had been lied to. It was a big lie. And it was my family who did it.

One day, I told my mother all about my dream: «I want to fly!» The new school term was coming up and my mother «explained» to me that «if you want to fly, you first need to read 30… no… 50 pages per day…» So, I read 70 or even 100 pages.

Before I knew it, I was starting to be able fly. Very quickly there was a feeling of lightness and airiness, as if I was floating, but for some reason I just couldn't get off the ground. Apparently, I read a lot, but not carefully enough, I thought. I pushed a little harder. Time passed, and I never learned to fly. Well, what can I say? A young boy getting first place for reading speed in primary school is very rare. It was a point of pride for me, and all good things, as you know, have to be paid for…

These disappointments were just the beginning, and the next serious one was waiting for me at the end of my first year at school, when I was about eight. An ABC book for a first grader is what the Bible is to Christians. And one day my copybook had two pages glued together. Where the Russian letter «Щ» is, which sounds like «Shch». It had a picture of a puppy, in Russian «Shchenok». When they had been glued together and how – I had no idea. The mystery remains until this day.

Our first lesson was reading. My turn came, and I needed to read the text from the pages that had been stuck. I asked the boy sitting next to me, Edik, to help me. «No,» he said, «use your ABC book.» A technical difficulty.

Our teacher Ms. Tatiana Lazarevna was already quite old and the epitome of a strict Soviet teacher. I almost wrote «caregiver», but that doesn't quite fit the bill. She always set the bar high in terms of morals and education. The technical difficulties I was facing were absolutely unacceptable for her, and she quickly pounced on me.

Just 20 seconds later, I was standing in front of the whole class next to her desk, testifying to what had happened. To her, the story sounded unconvincing, it fell apart with lies. Her verdict was clear and sharp: to stand all day in front of the class until I could confess. I wouldn't admit to something I didn't do, even now. I remember how I was going mental inside, and I stood all day. The next day I had to come into school with my mother.

But it turned out to really make my day, because it so happened that the place I was forced to stand was straight ahead of Lena Khryashcheva – my super crush. So, even if I had glued these pages together myself, I would never have admitted it. I'd have stood there gladly all day long.

It turned out that this first incident with my teacher hadn't been enough and she wanted more the next year. I'll be honest, it was because I used to get mixed up with my grammar. I struggle to this day, but then it was a much bigger problem.

For example, to make the word «November» into an adjective would make it «Novemberish» (I promise, that's a real word in Russian). Except I used to write Novemborish. Or for December, I'd write Decemborish. You see? So I often failed our homework miserably, to the point where my work was read out in front of the whole class! The teacher's pet, the good boy, doesn't even know his grammar!

The stutter, which had almost disappeared, quickly came back. I don't know if it was visible from the outside, but from the inside I was all burning with blue flames. It was that day when a persistent dislike for this subject began to form, and in four years' time it would be fixed definitively. I'll tell you about that later…

There were no more special incidents, and gradually the end of the sixth grade came. And then a very hurtful and unfair story happened to me. One of the key moments that defined my future life path.

Like all normal children, I had a best friend: Vadim Zagvozdkin. I don't know why he fought with the other boys, Artyom and Alexander, but we were old enough to be fighting over girls yet. I happened to witness them scuffling after classes outside of our school. In my opinion, it wasn't a real fight, just a bit of a show.

The next day I was called to the headmistress's office and asked to explain the situation. When I wrote it, she looked at my writing with a grimace and gave me the verdict: I had egged them on. She didn't believe my story that I was only an onlooker. Vadim's mother really fanned the flames. She said things like «you two were best friends…» The investigation of this story was slow and tedious. The last word on the subject came from our class leader, Ms. Vassa Kondratyevna, who just stopped saying hello to me.

At the beginning of the school year, my mother had offered to send me instead to the lyceum in the nearby town of Lvovskaya. I'd remembered this, and later firmly told my mother that I was moving to the Lyceum – no explanations. In Russia we have this a proverb: «He said he would, so he did.» Four months later I moved schools and started a new year.

But that wasn't the final word on disappointments in friendships. A child with such an active life philosophy couldn't have just one friend. There were also the boys that played out in the yard. The ones with whom I started smoking in seventh grade.