Анна Сандермоен - The Cult in my Grandmother's House

Soviet Union Geological Research Institute named after A. P. Karpinsky

My parents often took me to work with them. I remember the institute’s museum well. At the entrance stood a huge salt crystal you could lick, and there was a dinosaur skeleton of monstrous proportions in the centre of the permanent exhibition.

I remember that the institute seemed huge, with many corridors, halls and stairways linking the various parts of the bulding. While mum and dad led me along the long corridors I would count the office doors, and between them the smaller doors of the specimen cupboards. On seeing me, my parents’ colleagues would invariably throw up their hands with cries of “Is this really little Ania!? Lord how big she’s getting! Really takes after her mum! Or is it her dad?” That really pleased me. So much so that if someone suddenly forgot to say it, I wondered what was wrong with them.

THE TIME I WORKED AS A GEOLOGIST

The institute had an inner yard which housed the lorries used for geological fieldwork (as well as some homeless cats).

My parents took me on my first field expedition when I was just seven. This was to the Southern Urals, the mountainous region two timezones east of St. Petersburg, considered the border of the Europe and Asian landmasses. We stayed in tents, cooked on a campfire, walked miles into the hills, and I genuinely helped my parents discover ammonites and the fossil trails of single-celled organisms. Since I was smaller I could more easily see them under my feet. I was also tasked with bagging up the samples and labelling them. In the field was the first time I had to cope with masses of insects, jumping in my face as I walked. They only came up to the adults’ waists, but they got me right in the face. I remember my dad very patiently explaining that there was no need to be afraid of the bugs, they were harmless. Obviously I had a multitude of new impressions after my first real field trip. I was very proud that I had done some real geological work.

I remember myself as a happy child. I felt good and safe beside my mum and dad. I was proud of them.

I finished my first year of school in Leningrad, and then it was the summer holidays. My parents sent me to stay with my grandmother in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. This was still Soviet times, and Tajikistan was part of the Soviet Union.

2. Brainwashing

THE FIRST COMMUNE ON LAKHUTI

On arrival in Dushanbe I was taken aback. It was the town where I was born, and the house where I spent my early years, where every millimetre was my territory, strewn with my beloved toys, but – it was different. In this tiny two-room apartment with its combined bathroom and toilet there were about 20 people of various ages, all complete strangers to me. They all slept side by side on the floor, tightly pressed against each other, sharing blankets and pillows. They ate on the floor too, on a spread-out oilcloth. The apartment had ceased to be a cosy and safe place to play.

All these people were always in a good mood and with unbelievably exaggerated emotions.

In addition, they all had lice, which I soon got too.

My grandmother hardly seemed to notice me; or rather, she gave me only as much attention as she gave any of the others.

At first people were constantly rebuking me, things like

“Don’t cross your legs! It means you think you’re better than everyone else. Don’t fold your hands on your chest – do you think you’re Napoleon? Looks like you’ve got delusions of grandeur.”

A seven-year old child could hardly be expected to understand these remarks (who Napoleon was, what grandeur is, let alone delusions thereof), but I stopped folding my hands and crossing my legs.

Apparently crossing the limbs was considered a psychological defence mechanism, protection from external influence.

Members of a cult, however, are supposed to be constantly open, that is, vulnerable – so they can be controlled.

I had to learn how to plait my long hair myself, because going about with loose hair like Carmen was just not done. If I didn’t plait my hair, the adults would ask if I wanted to look like a slut. One time I asked what a slut was, and they told me it was a prostitute. I didn’t dare to ask what a prostitute was. By their intonation I had already understood it was something very bad and applied only to beautiful women and girls. After that I came to the conclusion that being beautiful was very bad. It wasn’t safe. Although, I wondered, if the beautiful Carmen was bad, then why did we still listen to that opera? Ah, but she dies at the end… does that mean she deserved it?

“TAPPING” AND “LAYERING”

One day one of the grown-up women, Natalya Yevgenyevna, called me into her room and said she was going to give me a treatment. Everything was so absurd that I didn’t even question what I needed to be treated for. Indeed, would any child question authority, when they are totally abandoned and there is no one trustworthy to ask? She sat me in front of her, looked in my eyes and began in a confidential tone:

“Ania, I know you are angry and that you have resistance. Where would you say your anger is, on a scale of 1 to 10? And your resistance?”

Later I and all the other members of the cult were asked this question all the time. I always answered that my anger and resistance were somewhere between 7 and 10 on the 10-point scale. If the adults were so convinced that I was angry and full of resistance, why should I disappoint them?

Then Natalya Yevgenyevna asked me to close my eyes and put both my hands face down on the table. Over the course of several minutes she tapped out a set rhythm on the table with a special wooden knocker in the shape of a mushroom, and I had a minute to copy the rhythm with my palms, keeping my eyes closed. For one tap I had to answer with the right hand, for two the left. The right hand corresponded to the left half of the brain, and the left to the right. It was considered good if you made mistakes with both hands, the more the better. Skewed results, where you made many more mistakes with one hand than the other, were evidence of brain dysfunction. If you made hardly any mistakes at all then it meant you were practically stupified from anger, aggression and resistance, and you needed active treatment right away. At this the educational psychologists would confer among themselves, concede to the authoritative opinion of the Chief, and then what ususally followed was a huge dose of therapy: speeches, mechanotherapy , and layering (explained below).

To sum up, it was with the help of this tapping that they measured a person’s level of aggression.

Besides this test there were others. They were all intended to measure the current condition and potential of the brain. There were auditory tests (where you had to remember and repeat combinations of words at speed), visual (remember combinations of cards, and then reproduce them, also under time pressure), and tactile (they would bend each of your fingers, and you had to remember and repeat the order, with eyes closed). These tests were all known as evidence , that’s what people would call it, “making evidence”.

Chloroethane

After that first test, the tapping one, Natalya Yevgenyevna asked me to take my pants off and lie down on my side. She started to pour liquid chloroethane over my buttocks, first on one side then the other, and on special points on my toes. It was sore and I felt an unpleasant burning sensation on my skin. After the procedure you weren’t allowed to raise your head so the best thing was to make yourself fall asleep or at least lie with eyes closed.