Lara Shapiro - Rebecca. End of USSR, Yekaterinburg in early 90s, or Lessons on survival in difficult times

© Lara Shapiro, 2020

ISBN 978-5-0050-8437-8

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

End of USSR,

Yekaterinburg in early 90s,

or lessons on survival in difficult times

(a man is interesting by his future, and a woman by her past.)

Dear reader, if you are one of those who are not able to watch to the end “Silence of the Lambs”, you better not read this book. Life can be a lot bitter than the movie.

In the very centre of Russia, in the Southern Urals, there is a small but very picturesque place called Kasli, famous for its iron castings, elaborately cast gates and elegant figurines. It is very remote place. Perhaps that is why the Soviet government, together with the atheism imposed by it, was not wholly rooted there; and the deceased were buried in the church, according to the old Russian tradition.

Life covered in a grey, dull sky. Large raindrops beat deafly through the window, nervously flowing down, leaving a wet mark, reminiscent of a human life full of fuss and nonsense. A large window, over the wall, from floor to ceiling, a spacious, cold room, smelling of printing ink and glue, here and there numerous stacks of books neatly folded on the floor. The window overlooked the church square, endless, like Russia. Rebecca sat at the window, buried in cold glass and silently watched the world through wet grey drops. She loved to sit by the window and watch. There was a church in the square. Every day, coffins were carried across the square, bells rang. Rebecca sat at the window and looked at these endless strings of coffins.

These were the earliest memories of her childhood, she was not even three years old, but she remembered these coffins, the bell ringing, and the old white church for her whole life. Life began with a death. She still loves large windows. Reminiscent of childhood and mom, who is no longer alive.

When Rebecca became an adult, she specifically went there. Everything seemed so small: the house, the square, the church, Kasli themselves. But there, in childhood, everything was big, dimensionless, boundless, vast. The whole world is getting smaller and smaller over the years.

Soon they moved to Kazakhstan, where mom was assigned on the instructions of the party and government, as the secretary of the communist party organization of the North Kazakhstan region. They settled in a beautiful white-brick cottage with three bedrooms and a spacious hall, where Rebecca loved to dance to the songs of Anna German and “Rush me, rush me, the forest deer”.

The cottage looked like a modern castle, with a vast plot around. Rebecca got the opportunity to walk and think a lot. She walked around the large courtyard covered with white wool of snowdrifts and thought – people are born, go to kindergarten, school, college, work, get married, have children, retire and die. And this is the whole purpose of life? This one? From generation to generation, year after year, century after century. Is that all people live for? What is the sense of life?

At the edge of the plot was a wooden, grey barn where the Rebecca’s family bred rabbits. Despite the numerous prohibitions from adults, Rebecca loved, having put the ladder to the roof, climb to the very top, and lying on the roof, look into the bottomless, boundless sky, at the majestically floating clouds. She could lie like that for hours, the most favourite occupation. It seemed that there, behind the clouds, was someone alive and mysterious, the one who, with the help of these clouds, explains her the meaning of life.

Between hours of contemplation and reflection, there was a place for adventure. Rebecca always had a lot of strange ideas. Her new idea was “to steal the raft from the teens and cross the lake, to see how deep it is on the other side.” At that time, Rebecca reasoned as follows: since the farther from the shore, the deeper, so on the opposite shore there should be the most profound depth. Need to check.

It was proposed to hijack a raft from the teens early in the morning, in their absence. Almost no one supported Rebecca. Everyone was too scared. They stood by the shore and crumpled. – Well, to hell with you all, I’ll sail alone – Rebecca thought. At that moment she saw the eyes of Alyosha and Yurka. Horror and the struggle of two fears froze in their eyes: fear of striding on the raft, into the unknown, and fear of leaving her alone on this raft, alone with the frightening unknown. They were frightened. But it was even worse for them to leave her alone. And they took a step.

The three of them sailed, rowing with sticks along the shore. If they tried to go too far, the sticks did not reach the bottom, and they could not push, so they kept the coast.

Thanks to this trip, they learned that in some places their lake is covered with mud and not everywhere you can swim. That on the other side, beautiful weeping willows grow. That their Kazakh peers are already working on an equal footing with adults, grazing cattle on horseback, without fear of either cows or bulls, they just brought cattle to the watering place when Rebecca, Alyosha and Yurka sailed by.

They sailed almost all day and to sunset returned. The teens beaten them, but the children met them as heroes.

At seven years old, Rebecca had gone to school and all three years of elementary school only heard that China was about to take Kazakhstan since there are too many Chinese, and they need more land and space. It was scary. Rebecca studied the map of China and was numb by how big it was. She learned to write with her left hand and forced her classmates to do the same, having heard on TV that in one of the countries the terrorists had seized a school, and their children had their right hands cut off so that they could not study.

Mom worked in the military enlistment office with Russian officers. Beautiful, slender, blue-eyed officers irradiated from Baikonur.

So, at the age of 8, Rebecca first heard the story about Damask Island, where hundreds of crazy Chinese slaughtered a handful of our guys.

It is not surprising that at the end of the second grade, Rebecca decided to organize a diplomatic mission to China: go to the Chinese and explain that the Soviet people are peaceful and kind, so that the Chinese do not attack Kazakhstan. Lack of knowledge of the Chinese language was not an obstacle – we will draw smiling suns and sing songs, – Rebecca reasoned.

For the diplomatic mission, two bully brothers were chosen: Yurka and Pavlik. Yurka was two years older and more experienced in terms of hiking. Pavlik was a classmate of Rebecca and did everything as Yurka said. There was also Igor, a “nerd”, a classmate of Yurka, and his sister Luda, a classmate of Pavlik and Rebecca. Here is such a team. In general, Rebecca vilely took advantage of the sympathy of all three boys and forced them out to join her own adventures.

Provisions and blankets were stocked up in advance and imperceptibly. They decided to leave at night when parents will sleep, to have an advantage of several hours. Igor was the smartest; he calculated and thought over everything.

Police and military searched for them for two days, registration and enlistment offices, with “military cars”, because Yurka and Pavlik had a stepfather, head of the police, and Rebecca’s mother worked in the military registration and enlistment office. All military services were raised. But the children deftly disguised themselves in the forest. Firstly, they were small and inconspicuous. Secondly, upon hearing the howl of sirens, they immediately extinguished the fire and covered everything with old leaves, leaving no traces.