My Russian Family

by Lilia Sariecheva

  A housewife in a small town near St. Petersburg saw blond Mareika and asked her to help take care of the house, including washing and ironing clothes, doing the dishes, cleaning the floors and windows, and doing the babysitting. Mareika and her mother were very happy to have this opportunity. Both parents worked but made very little money so the family was poor. The wife was continually pregnant and always came home tired. There were too many children. Some were very young and kept Mareika up at night, some were older and going to school and didn’t require so much attention. None of them were any help to Mareika.

  About a month after her husband was arrested, Lena discovered that she was pregnant. One day she fainted on the street. Two kindly women took her to their little room filled with barracks-style double bunk beds, which they shared with six other single working women. All the women there were sympathetic to Lena and let her and her youngest daughter Shurra move in. They stayed until Lena’s son Ivan was born. Lena occasionally worked in the factory, cleaning, when work was available, thanks to the recommendation of other women who shared living quarters with her.

  Mareika had no money, so on her day off she walked for over three hours one way just to visit her mom in the room she shared. Eventually, it grew late and Lena reluctantly told Mareika that so she wanted her to leave before the evening meal. Even though the kindly women would have shared their limited food with the hungry young girl, they were working and needed the calories for themselves. Lena knew there was not enough food to feed Marieka and she was also worried about her daughter walking such a long way alone after dark. She didn’t wish to explain all this to her little girl but she needed to get her on her way back quickly. The situation turned ugly between them and tears flowed.

  It was several years later that Mareika understood why her mother ordered her not to visit. At the time the girl was angry and became determined to stay away from her mom, even forfeiting visits to see her new brother, Ivan. It was very hard on Mareika, but she had a strong will and lived with her decision. It was almost four long years before they again met in a joyous reunion. However, they never again lived together.

  Mareika stayed with the family that she worked for through the winter and into the summer until a horrible event occurred that had a profound effect on her life. Mareika went outside with an empty bucket in her hands going to the well that was located in the center of the courtyard. A group of neighborhood boys saw her and started to taunt her saying, “Your father and you are enemies of Soviet Power!”

  Mareika answered, “No, I’m not and my father was not!”

  The boys yelled, “Yes, you are! Also, you are a liar because you are an enemy!” The leader of the group of boys said, “Her father was killed and she has to die too!” The verbal assault turned physical as the leader bumped into her with his right shoulder in a time-honored challenge to fight. The girl responded by kicking the leader in his shins. As he bent over in pain, she used both hands to hit him over the head with the wooden bucket. Then, she turned on her heels and ran. She did not get far. The boys grappled with the struggling Mareika, overpowered her, and pushed her into the well.

  An old man witnessed this cowardly deed. He chased the boys away, fished her out of the well, and got the unconscious girl to the hospital. Mareika finally opened her eyes in a white room with an old doctor holding her hand. She couldn’t move her neck and stayed in the hospital for over a year with her neck in a cast. The old man who saved her visited her several times. It was a very long year for the girl, but possibly the availability of free food and shelter saved her life. She had recurring problems with her neck for the rest of her life.

  It was her experience in the hospital that motivated Mareika to become either a nurse or a doctor. The white, crisp uniforms, the respect given to the hospital staff, the cleanliness and efficiency, the soft and kind voices, the smells of medicine and the disinfectants, the discipline, order, and trust-it was all so far from her world of poverty, hunger, dirt, and chaos. She dreamed of how cute she would look in white with a starched little nurse’s hat and a blond curl sticking out. When Mareika looked at the nurse’s beautiful clean, soft hands, she recalled her own red, chapped hands and promised herself to change everything. She would take excellent care of her patients and they would all become healthy very fast with her remarkable skills as an angel. She understood that a medical career would not come easy. She would have to struggle hard for her chosen future.

  As Mareika started to heal, she would help the nurses wherever she could, watering plants, carrying a pill tray on the nurse’s rounds, even singing to cheer up other patients.

  Lena had somehow found out about her daughter and visited her almost monthly. Lena knew the date that the hospital would discharge her daughter and she planned to pick her up but Mareika was still angry and skipped out before her mom arrived. Lena searched in vain for her independent daughter. Lena had several opportunities to move into better living quarters but she would not move away because she feared Mareika would not be able to find her. Years later, Mareika felt very bad about this.

  Mammals that suckle their young form a very strong bond between mother and baby. When a cow and a calf become lost from each other, they both return to the last place that the calf nursed its mother. Cows in small herds in open range like to graze in the mornings so they select a special place and leave several cows on “nurse duty” to protect the babies while they are away. Different cows rotate this duty each morning. Lena was hoping that someone would feed and protect her daughter and that she would return to her just as a calf instinctively finds its mother. Lena prayed every night, asking God to convince Mareika to return to the family.

  22. Changing Luck

  When Mareika got out of the hospital she was almost ten years old. Her mom could not give her any support, so the little girl looked for a family that would take her in as exchange for her labor.

  During the next year or two, the waif developed street skills to survive. She avoided other street children who typically stayed together in small groups. There was comfort and some security in a group but Mareika knew that many of them were involved in petty theft and other crimes. Mareika’s strong instincts, good upbringing, and hopes for her future kept her away from such a negative lifestyle. Fortunately, she never met a person who really hurt her. The fear was always there but it never happened. In later years, Mareika made a point of saying that in spite of her fears she never met truly bad people or truly good people. Mainly, it was just that times were hard and most people were concentrating on their own survival and did not have enough time, food, or money to be giving any of it away.

  Mareika was a fighter, never giving up and always ready to keep going. Nothing could seem to break her will. She also had a positive, even happy attitude toward life. She had a ready smile and enjoyed singing. Sometimes people would give her a little money after hearing her sing. People gave her old clothes. They did not always look so good but they were warm. One spring day someone gave her some old warm felt boots. It was too hot to wear them in the summer but Mareika held onto them as she knew that she would need them the following winter. All summer she carried them around and at night she would use them for a pillow.

  A unique lifelong trait that is possibly genetically related was her ability to awake in the morning in a good mood and looking beautiful. Even in her later years, Mareika always looked best when she first woke up. People have told me that I share this trait with my mom.

  The main problem that developed for my mother was that no family wanted to let her go to school because of the time and expense. Therefore, she had many jobs in many towns and, from necessity, she learned to travel on trains as a stowaway. Mareika typically worked for a family with several kids from two months to five years of age. She had Sundays off so she could attend Sunday school, which was very popular during those years in the USSR. The government organized Sunday school at this time to eliminate illiteracy, especially among women and national minorities. Volunteers staffed
the administration and teaching positions and it was not involved in religious instruction.

  Mareika kept her studies for school a deep secret. Every evening she would make an excuse for spending a long time in the bathroom so she could study. The outside bathroom (an outhouse) was always cold and smelly and Mareika had to use a candle for light. Invariably, she would be caught, lose her position, and again be homeless and hungry in the streets.

  Some forty years later, I could occasionally convince my mom to talk about these times. I would say, “I read in my history books that after the Revolution everyone was taken good care of and given a good education.”

  Mom would look at me with a strange expression and say with a conviction that comes from bitter experience, “Oh Lillichka, I got through that time all by myself. Maybe lots of kids in orphan homes had a better deal but there were many of us living in the streets. You are free to believe what you want to believe, but I know what I experienced! Don’t accept everything you read in your history books. You should know better than that!”

  The dirty, ragged street urchin had developed a small obsession for something different, her body telling her that it needed something not in her usual bland diet. She settled on butter as the focal point and saved her kopecks until she could purchase 50 grams (1.8 ounces), a small pat on a small piece of heavy paper. She slowly meandered down a side street as she licked the butter, her attention centered solely on the ecstasy of eating. It tasted like a delicacy from heaven, better than candy. She had a vague feeling that bread would have been a more economical choice to buy but the delight of the butter was indescribable to her! She made the experience last as long as she could, only taking a tiny amount with each lick of her eager tongue.

  A side note: Many years later, I remember mother still liked to eat butter. She would buy it by the kilogram, not by the gram. She always acted surprised that I did not particularly care for it. I ate it because she made me, not because I liked it. Mother never did understand how anyone could dislike butter, especially her daughter.

  Three boys down the street saw Mareika as a target of opportunity and swooped in to harass her as a means to improve their status in the pecking order. They kept their distance but unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse. Mareika heard not a word of it, the butter was delicious and she savored each lick. A middle-aged woman dressed in black observed the scene and approached the girl as she silently warned off the boys with a wave of her arm. The woman spoke not a word, but briefly stared at the girl and at the sty infestation on both eyes. The sties almost completely closed one eye and the other was red and swollen. The woman unexpectedly spit into both of Mareika’s eyes. Astonishment almost struck the young girl dumb. Her butter was finished and she was still hungry, she had become aware of the harassing boys, and now a stranger had spit in her face, insulting her for no reason! “Why did you do that?” she cried out as her tears started to flow.

  “Tomorrow you will thank me,” the woman replied as she turned around and walked away.

  It was a low point in Mareika’s life. She swore to herself that if she ever had a daughter, she would protect her with her life, and no one, no one, would ever treat her mean or be cruel to her. Her life would be happy and free of pain and hunger.

  The following day, Mareika’s sties had disappeared and they never returned. This was excellent news for the deserving girl, but her basic problem remained, where and how to obtain more food and shelter. What to do?

  She tried several towns with no success and she eventually found herself in St. Petersburg. She was nearly 12 years old. Mareika had been looking for a new job for many days and she was cold and hungry. She had found that the Cathedral of Blood, built to commemorate the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, was a friendly place where she could sing songs for money. She felt that this was a step up from begging which she hated. Unemployment, poverty, and petty crime were all high in the large cities. Some six million demobilized Red Army soldiers and many peasants trying to escape rural poverty went to the city, all looking for work. In addition, desperate groups of homeless orphans called besprizorniki roamed the streets. Most of them were originally from good homes but their parents were either dead or in the Gulag, so to survive many of the orphans became thieves and prostitutes.

  Actually, at that time the well-managed state orphanages provided excellent care for the children in their trust and these orphans were generally quite well off. Mareika had the option of going to an orphanage. They would feed and house her but they had many restrictions and many questions about her family so Mareika looked elsewhere. She mistakenly felt that an orphanage would be like a prison. Also, the young Mareika valued her independence and so she stayed out of that system.

  St Petersburg Cathedral with golden icon, 2005.

  Finally, Mareika got lucky. An elegant lady named Olga Olegovna, the wife of a professor, took her home. Mareika was so happy! She was afraid to talk much and at first Olga had the impression that the little girl was not too intelligent. Mareika was badly in need of a hot bath and Olga made that the first priority. Then Mareika was treated to a long sleep in a soft bed.

  The woman’s husband returned home late that night and she gave him all the details. “I found an adorable little blond girl on the street outside the Cathedral of Blood. She was singing for money and asking for a job between songs. She was filthy, in rags, no hat, gloves, or socks, very skinny and wary as a street cat.”

  “Naturally you brought her home, sweet Olga. Now what do you propose to do with her?” Her husband smiled knowingly.

  The lady smiled back, “I like her. Maybe I’ll keep her!”

  The next morning, as Olga and the hungry girl shared breakfast, Mareika asked, “Do you have a maid or a housekeeper or someone like that?”

  “No, there is just me, I do everything.” Mareika’s obvious next question about employment went unspoken.

  Olga said, “The icon pendant on that chain around your neck is important to you, yes?”

  The little girl touched the old metal icon with fingers of both hands and a peaceful expression came over her. She did not answer. Her mother had given it to her back in the wonderland days when her father was alive and they lived in the big mansion by the forest of birches. Olga let it drop.

  “Come on, we have some work to do,” Olga said. She began altering some of her old clothes to fit Mareika. The child rapidly learned some of the complicated dress-making skills and the lady began to wonder about her.

  That afternoon a guest came for a visit. As tea was being served, she asked for some cream in the German language and, surprisingly, Mareika answered her, “Just a minute, I will get it from the kitchen.” The old lady was flabbergasted. During Mareika’s early childhood, her family rotated days speaking English, French, German, or Russian. Those language skills stayed with the young girl.

  Olga had a guitar that she played for her own amusement. Mareika picked it up and pretended to play as Olga watched intently. Finally, she looked at Mareika and asked, “Would you like to stay here with my husband and me?”

  The overjoyed girl tried to contain her emotions, “Oh yes, I would. I will clean and wash and do everything for you!”

  “Well, there really will not be that much work since I am used to doing it. What I really want is a companion, a friend to talk with, a compatriot to share things. I get lonely because my husband spends most of his time at his teaching post. He is a professor at the University.” The old lady watched the pleased expression on Mareika’s face as she smiled a contented smile.

  The bond between Olga and the girl deepened but the girl still did not tell her about studying for Sunday school. Finally, the lady accidentally found out that Mareika spent time every evening studying for school in the bathroom. The kind woman cried out, “Oh, poor child! I thought you did not want to go to school, so I did not push you to do it, but I was planning to talk to you about your future and your education. Come here, get comfortable and let’s talk now!”

  Ma
reika told her mentor everything that happened to her and to her family. She included the time a school expelled her when they discovered that her father was an aristocrat. Since that experience, Mareika had been afraid to tell anyone about her past.

  Olga and Mareika developed a habit of going every Sunday to the world-famous Hermitage, the main St. Petersburg Museum. Mareika loved the arts and learned many things from observing and from the older woman’s vast knowledge. She fell in love with a painting, “Madonna Litta,” one of the great series of Madonnas by the Italian master, Raphael. Something about the simplicity and the lighting and the feeling of serenity was a magnet to the impressionable girl. Many years later, she passed on her passion for this painting to me, her daughter.

  “Madonna and Child” (Madonna Litta), St Petersburg State Hermitage Museum.

  Olga got Mareika enrolled in a good school and provided everything that she needed. She also put Mareika in a well-known ballroom dancing school, which she enjoyed immensely. Mareika had a natural talent and she soon learned the folk dances of various countries, such as the polka, some waltzes, the Spanish flamenco, and the tango. The entranced youngster kept working with the guitar and eventually taught herself how to play. She possessed a natural skill and she enjoyed using it. Olga also taught her young charge how to sew and do fancy embroidery, skills that Mareika utilized the rest of her life. Life again was good. However, Olga noticed that Mareika would not allow other children to get close to her. She held everyone except Olga at arms length.

  Even as Mareika found a home in which to rest and recover, the Soviet Union was in a whirl of activity. Stalin presented a speech during an economic conference in the early 1930s that the Soviet Union must not slacken the pace of industrialization or they would fall behind-and those who fell behind get beaten. He recited all the beatings that backward Russia had suffered. The list involved the Mongol khans, the Turkish beys, the Swedish feudal lords, the Polish and Lithuanian gentry, British and French capitalists, and Japanese barons. They all beat Russia because of her military, cultural, political, industrial, and agricultural backwardness.