When it came to food, trade was limited to between the fifteen Soviet States but I suppose it did still give us a taste of the ‘exotic’. Ukraine candies were amazing, we loved them so, so much and because Vladivostok was a seaport, we were able to provide the whole of Russia with fish. Tinned caviar, for example, which everyone eats in Russia, was so common a food we ate it all the time. I remember red caviar in particular – we would have lots on special occasions like Christmas or New Year. It seems to be such a delicacy over here, and so expensive too! And I remember the finest chocolate came from Moscow – that was the best kind. There was one brand called Mishka Kosolapy, which had hazelnuts in it and I loved it. It was the biggest treat ever to have some of that.
The elderly were particularly taken care of by the Soviet Union. There were shops called ‘Veteran’, which were purely for veterans of war and their families. Certain coupons would be given to them to get special foods, or foods at a cheaper price. The pensioners and veterans were looked after so well and that is why, if you ever spoke to an older person who had lived through Soviet Union times and asked them why they didn’t hate the system, they would never say that they did – why would they, when they had such stability and were so well looked after? Of course, in just a few years’ time, it was all to change.
CHAPTER 3
Dancing with boys
I remember being in kindergarten when I was five years old and there would be a woman who would come in and teach us folk dancing. Other days she would teach us disco dancing and I absolutely loved it. I couldn’t wait for her to come to visit us. Shortly after that, I started school, even though I was only six years old and normally, in the Soviet Union then, everyone started when they were seven. But because I was born in September and my mum persuaded them that I was very capable and would study hard, I began school early. And it was in First Grade that I found out that the woman who had visited our kindergarten was a scout and she was looking for local children to join her dance school. Best of all, she wanted me! She wrote to my parents to say that she was opening a ballroom dance school and that she had seen me dance at kindergarten and would like me to come along.
My parents and I went to see it, I had a few lessons and the woman told them that I had considerable potential; she could see a lot of talent and she would like to offer me a place. She also told them that she already had a dance partner in mind for me, as you always have to have a partner in competitive ballroom dancing, which made me think she must really want me to join. And that is where my journey into dance really began. It was so exciting and I was so pleased to be doing an after-school activity that I absolutely loved; I couldn’t wait to finish school each day and go to dance classes.
After-school activities were heavily encouraged in the Soviet Union – Heaven forbid that a child should be on the streets doing nothing! Whether it was ballet, gymnastics, music or art school, you had to be doing something, and you were always encouraged to strive for excellence and not be idle. So we were all groomed to do something as an after-school activity, and mine was dancing.
I would go three days a week and sometimes the whole family would come with me and watch me perform. I loved it. I just wanted to dance. My first dance partner was a sweet boy called Roman, a very talented, very handsome boy. He was seven years old and my parents became quite friendly with his parents too, as we spent a lot of time rehearsing together. But his father was quite a senior officer in the army and when Roman was ten, he made him stop dancing as he wanted him to go into the army, too. It was a shame, because we had such fun together, and we took part in our very first dance competition together. I remember it so well. My mum made my dress, spending all night sewing it from whatever material she could find. She stitched feathers on the hem and I couldn’t wait to put it on and have my hair curled. It wasn’t even an important competition, for it was just among the other children at the dance school, so pretty low-key in reality, but for me it was so exciting. And we won it. I was over the moon! I had no fear of competing, no nerves whatsoever, and I think that is when my parents knew that dance would be good for me as a child: they didn’t have to force me to go, and they didn’t need to worry about what I would be doing after school.
So what was it like performing at six years old and dancing with – oh, my goodness – a boy? I don’t know, when people ask me about children dancing together so young, what is so odd – it was just natural. Boys and girls just danced; there was no shyness, no embarrassment. The truth is that ballroom dancing is brilliant for children; you learn how to communicate with each other freely and you don’t feel silly at all. I loved dancing with Roman and we had good fun together.
I couldn’t get enough of ballroom dancing. Having performed in front of an audience once, that was it – I was out performing whenever I could. I had no fear. It was such an adrenaline rush going out on stage in front of everyone and the school were very proud of having children who could perform, and perform well. It was such a strong ideology that was constantly being drummed into us: if you were going to do something you had to be the best. And in the beginning, when I was six, seven and eight years old, nothing was a struggle. It was very easy for me to pick up the moves. I had a natural rhythm and could dance easily to the music. As I grew older, however, I found that dancing became a lot more about technique, and that you really had to work hard if you wanted to progress.
Ballroom dancing at that time was like an awakening giant; suddenly it was everywhere, its popularity growing in every city and town. It was good because it meant that the competitions were springing up all over the place and you could take part in so many. I remember going to one competition, which was a two-hour drive away; it was being held at a dance school considered to be one of the best in the area. But Roman and I didn’t even make it to the final. I was heartbroken. At nine years old I thought my life was over, that is how devastated I was. It’s funny thinking about that now – it must have been the first time that I realised that you can’t win everything. But it did make me even more determined.
At home, my parents’ relationship was getting worse. It became normal for my dad to go away for a couple of weeks at a time and we wouldn’t hear anything from him. We got used to it. I remember being rude to my mum and telling her I hated her because it was all her fault Dad had left again. I completely blamed her for him going, and even though I didn’t know what the arguments were about (and usually they were about him wanting to play music and not to be in a house with six other people and have to behave responsibly), I used to blame my mum.
Everyone was under pressure to be good role models in every way. It was what was expected of us in society, and was drummed into people – to work hard, to be the best – so I think for my dad, even though he would go away and perform and have a break where he could concentrate on his music, eventually he’d still have to come back and work. He had to be a grown-up. Whereas my mum, a very opinionated, very intelligent person, always she tried to be the best and to set a good example. She never spoke about how bad her childhood had been, growing up with a drunken father who would beat her mother, she just tried to work as hard as she could and strived to be the best. So I think when her own marriage was falling apart that added to the sadness and disappointment she already felt about family life. She knew how bad her marriage was. The only thing really gluing our family together at the time was my grandparents, and especially my grandmother. She was always trying to bring us all together as a family, constantly trying to get us to spend days together.
There were times when they were good together, my mum and dad, and they would keep up appearances and both come to my school for certain special days. But I knew how bad it was; there was no escape from all the arguing and fighting.
Actually, there was an escape: dance school. Although to get to dance classes in the afternoons, there was the small matter of going to school first. My mum would wake me up every morning before she went to work to braid my hair because you always had to have your hai
r tied back so it was neat and tidy. You weren’t allowed to wear it down so Mum would wake me really early, at 6am, to braid my hair then I would go back to sleep for a bit and she would go to work. The boys had to have their hair cut short and cropped so from a young age we were disciplined to look good and be well groomed. When you are a child, it suits you and you just accept that is the way it is.
I think when you get older you want to express yourself more and be different and that is where it can be more difficult, I suppose, when you develop your own style. But at school, everyone was striving to work hard and be the best, no one was judging you by what you wore, everyone was the same. For our school uniform we had little dark brown or black dresses and we had to wear white lace collars and white wrist cuffs, too. The cuffs and collars were removable so you could take them off each week, wash them and then sew them back in. Boys wore short jackets and white shirts and trousers, and we all had a feeling of being the same. There was no judging how we looked because we all looked identical – the same uniform, the same shoes, the same bag for everyone.
But the teachers could dress how they wished. I remember having an obsession with my history teacher, who was a young woman who always looked so glamorous. She was always dressed beautifully and looked amazing with her make-up, which was something that was completely forbidden for us young girls. We weren’t allowed to go near it or wear it at all. In my dancing world I had a little taste of make-up with a bit of glitter around my eyes or some lip gloss, but in school it was totally forbidden. You would be put up in front of the class and shamed about why young girls shouldn’t wear make-up if you dared put any on.
School would begin every year on 1 September. The education system in Soviet Russia was something the government took a lot of pride in. There was a very strong, solid system, everything had an order and there was no room for disobedience or misbehaviour. The schools were kept very clean and very neat; everything was in order. In every hallway there were pictures of Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev next to a red Soviet Union flag and every Monday morning each class had to line up in the corridor and the best student that week would be called out and their achievements celebrated with the whole school. It was such an honour to be congratulated like that – you really wanted to be that person.
For the first three grades we were taught by one teacher and then from fourth grade upwards there were different teachers for different subjects. My teacher in the first three grades was extremely strict. She was known as the best at the school for the newcomers, for those in Grades 1–3, and every parent wanted their child to be in her class. I think the only reason I was put in her class was because my aunt, Valeria, who was already in the fifth grade, had an English teacher who was a good friend of my grandmother. The English teacher put in a good word for me so I could get into that class, which was brilliant.
I knew the teacher I had was the best. An older lady, she was very strict and had won all sorts of teaching prizes. She had been at the school for ever, or so it seemed. We were all petrified of her!
CHAPTER 4
School, Stalin and sick notes
Our classroom had three desks to a row and about five rows in total, and we sat in pairs at each desk. At the front was a portrait of Lenin on the wall and a big map of the Soviet Union and its neighbouring republics. There were never any other maps of any other countries: it was just the Soviet Union that mattered. After the third grade, when you would have a specific geography classroom, I think there might have been other maps showing other countries, but in the first three grades it was just the Soviet Union.
I was seated at the front and I hated it. The less able pupils would be made to sit at the back but I didn’t appreciate that there was a difference, really. It was what it was: you didn’t question it when you were told where to sit. I was told I had to sit next to this little boy on the front row because he had told his mum he liked me. Boys and girls had to sit together to begin with, but I didn’t like that at all. I just wanted to sit with other girls but I had to sit with this boy called Maxim, whose mum was working on the local TV station at the time. She was the local star and we all loved her. Apparently Maxim really liked me and he told his mum he didn’t want to sit with anyone but me. She told the teacher and then she asked my parents if I would mind sitting with Maxim – and because she was a local celebrity of course my parents and the teacher didn’t argue.
I didn’t want to sit at the front at all because I hated to be right by the teacher’s desk but Maxim’s mum wanted him to be at the front and therefore I would have to sit there, too. So I cried a lot! I absolutely did not want to sit at the front near the teacher – I just felt so self-conscious. Not that I could really complain either; you were told what to do and you were raised to respect anyone in authority. You never spoke back to your teacher and if you ever dared to answer back then you were put in front of the whole school, told what a bad person you were and made an example of in front of everyone. You couldn’t be different either. There was a boy in our class who was left-handed and our teacher really pushed him and made him do extra lessons to make him right-handed. They put a lot of effort into that, I remember.
I was dyslexic, although I wasn’t diagnosed until years later, and I found some subjects easier than others. My mum was always making me do extra reading and learning at home so I had excellent grades because she was spending so much time with me and helping me to go through my homework. She wanted to push me as well as encourage me. In a sense, we were all under pressure to be good pupils and get good grades. If you weren’t getting good marks then your parents would be told and they would be questioned to see if there was a problem at home or if they weren’t encouraging you to spend enough time on homework. So it all had a knock-on effect and it was embarrassing if you didn’t get good grades; we were scared to fail.
There was a system of competition amongst everyone to be the best so the classes competed against each other, too. Whichever class was getting the best results reflected on your teacher, which in turn reflected on the school. So in the system you had to be good for your school, for your neighbourhood, for your city and for your country. It was the ideology in Russia at that time to be the best of the best; it was drummed into us. And I had a lot of pressure from my mum, who was a gold medallist from her school and would always be going on at me to study. But at the same time we all had to conform and be the same, so it was a bit confusing really.
Whenever there was a big public holiday or we had a day for our army, for example, we all had to wear red square ties with our school uniform and we were called the ‘pioneers’ of Lenin’s party. I was so proud! I was so excited as it was a big deal and we were presented with our red ties by the school and the teachers would put them around our necks. We would then have to salute and say something in praise of Lenin and Stalin and the Communist Party. We had an oath we had to recite, too:
I, Pshenichnykh, Kristina, having now joined the ranks of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organisation, in the presence of my comrades solemnly promise: to passionately love my fatherland and to cherish it as I can, to live, study and fight as the Great Lenin has instructed, as the Communist Party teaches me, and as such to always carry out the laws of the Pioneers of the Soviet Union.
I was so proud to come home with the red tie around my neck, I felt so grown-up. When you were older, say, from fifteen or sixteen years old, you would progress to being a ‘Komsomol’ of Lenin’s party, which was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A lot of adults would be in the Party and you would wear a badge. It was a very prestigious thing, something to be proud of, and you became part of it at school – it was just a natural part of growing up (my mum and dad were both in Komsomols at school). It also meant that we would parade in the big square courtyard at the front of the school. There would be a speech from one of the teachers and one of the pupils who had been recognised for a particular achievement would also give a speech. This would be about the Socialist Part
y and how proud we were to be a part of it. We would then salute a picture of Lenin at the end of the parade. You don’t question anything as a child – you are brought up in it, and you want to belong to that big Party and make others around you proud, which is why there was such an emphasis on doing well and being the best. You wanted to fit in and not let anyone down.
Back then in the Soviet Union it was ingrained in you from the word go to have respect for your elders: you would never speak back to your teacher or an older person. We were all quite well-behaved kids. Heaven forbid you ever did misbehave at school as you would be put in front of the whole school and shamed about what you had done. And then you would be sent home to tell your parents what had happened, which was the worst thing in the world. It happened to me once: I was in third grade and must have been about eight or nine years old. It was then that my mum decided she wanted to make contact with her real dad. My grandmother never wanted to have anything more to do with him but I think my mother was ready to meet him again to see if she could have a relationship with him. She wrote to some relatives and somehow they found his address in the little village that he lived in. They exchanged letters for a while before he asked my mum to his village to visit him. We went with her, my dad and me, and as it was a long way away – we had to catch an overnight train, a bus and then another bus – she decided to go for a long weekend to make the most of it.
So my mum wrote a note to my teacher to ask if it was OK for me to skip school on Friday and Saturday (it was only a short day on Saturday) but my teacher said no. I told you she was strict! But I really wanted to go with my parents and so I told them she had said yes. So I lied to my parents and we all went and I remember going back to school on the Monday and my teacher asked me where I had been. I thought it would be fine if I just said I was sick or something but of course she then wanted a note from my mother to say I had been ill. So I lied again and said I had forgotten it and this went on for a couple of days until she rang my mother at work. Then things got bad, really, really bad. They both found out that I had lied and I had my mum and dad yelling and screaming at me and then my teacher shaming me in front of the whole school, telling them that I had lied and done a terrible thing.
Dancing Out of Darkness Page 3