My Russian Family

by Lilia Sariecheva

  Neighbors live close to each other and are always ready to help and solve any problem. During the evenings, people gather in small groups and share food and drink, maybe play cards or talk about “shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings.” This aspect of Russia I miss tremendously! It had been a long and satisfying wedding and the whole event always gives me a pleasant feeling, a warm glow deep inside me!

  We noticed a misspelled word in Nicoli’s birth address on the wedding license. This is not good! We spent many frustrating hours standing in lines and talking to bureaucrats before we could rectify the error. Welcome back to reality!

  51. Traveling Abroad? No!

  In the early morning have you seen the sun rise while the moon is still lingering in the sky? Usually the fresh sky is very clear and faintly blue but for some unexplainable reason the moon sometimes appears as if one is peering at it through thin gauzy fabric. But it is only an illusion…

  Maybe the first arrows of the morning sun have some magic to make everything look very different from reality or maybe it is only my imagination. Maybe it’s because the gladness of my heart has a power to transform ordinary objects into something extraordinary. Who knows? I only know that when I see the sun and moon together in the sky, I feel like I am saying goodbye to yesterday and hello to today. I don’t want to cast away my past, but at the same time I want to meet my future day. I never can say which is better, my past or my future. I think many people feel that way. However, we can’t choose either past or future because time passes and everything changes. Thus, the sun appears as a dazzling circle and the moon quietly disappears. I am never really sorry for that and only a slight and fleeting sadness breaks my smile.

  It is early summer in 1973 and I have just earned my university diploma. My husband Nicoli had earlier accepted a position as surgeon in a hospital in Tula. I was going to join him. My blissful life as a university student in Ryazan was no more. My university years seemed to have run away as fast as my earlier school years. However, I was happy to be moving forward to my joyful future with my beloved husband. As I looked out of the huge back window of the bus at Ryazan disappearing in the distance, it looked as though it were being held in the hand of giant. The bus was taking me farther and farther away and the ancient city was slowly fading from view. Upon my graduation, the government provided me with a good position, an apartment and privileges, as I was a young specialist. I also received a two-month bonus in cash from the government, which was the normal bonus for university graduates and was based on the salary of their future position.

  I felt strong, beautiful, and even powerful. The 17 months of my marriage had inspired me to think that I was able to do anything and could make my life as happy and as beautiful as I desired. In addition, I was pregnant! It was the most extraordinary event in my life. I already knew that my baby was a blue-eyed, blond boy. I often saw my unborn baby in my dreams at maybe six months of age-a handsome, smiling baby. I loved him unconditionally and absolutely. Soon he would arrive and we would meet. Is that awesome or what?

  Russian government policies have strongly supported population growth since World War II. Undeterred by this, Russian women favor only one child per family and the Russian population is in a long-term decrease. A pregnant working woman may be absent from her job two months before the birth and two months after, all the while living on paid maternity leave. The paychecks just keep coming in and the work position remains available and waiting for her return. When I was young, a woman could take an additional ten months of leave, although those ten months were without pay. Today the benefits are even more liberal.

  My son, at six months old, looked exactly the way I saw him in my vision a year before when I was pregnant with him. He had big blue eyes with black eyelashes, a nose like a little button, and absolutely white hair. It was wonderful to carry him in my arms, to nurse him, and to call him by funny names like “my little rabbit, my little kitten, and my beloved chick.” I wanted to repeat a million times, “I love you, my darling, I love you, I love you.” It was so sweet to hug him and to press him to my chest and touch his cheek to my cheek. It was lovely to kiss his little nose and to feel his fingers hold one of my fingers. It was hard to take my eyes off him as I left my little precious in his bed when I had something to do in the kitchen. I planned to stay at home and take care of him for one whole year, and my job would have been open for me when I returned. But then I had a call from my school asking me to come to work because they did not have anyone to substitute for me. So I returned to work after only six months at home.

  My new assignment was an evening school for adults to finish high school. My class included about 30 pupils, all young men except for two girls. A large percentage of these young men had a criminal background as we were located near a large prison. The Gulag Archipelago is located throughout Russia, not just in Siberia.

  Russian prisons have no death penalty and a maximum sentence is 20 years. A longtime policy of the prison system was to select well-behaved prisoners to reenter society and place them on probation. Prisoners were fearful of losing this privilege so the people of the town were not afraid of them. The prisoners had to wear easily identifiable black clothing, from shoes to hat. They mostly worked in local industries such as small factories and repair shops. They were frequently seen enjoying the cafes and parks on their days off.

  However, as students, they were hooligans. Many of them were older than I was and not much interested in learning. My new principal told me to prepare for the worst. She said that they frequently skipped classes even though they were obligated to attend. She informed me that it was my responsibility to make sure they attended my classes. If necessary, I should go to their homes and to their workplaces to find them. She tried to scare me by saying that I would not get paid if no one showed up for my classes, which was not true, but this became one of the ruses that I used on the students. Evidently, at the first class meeting, they decided that I was not tough and the next day about half of them did not show up. So I had to think up something to do. I made of list of each person with the phone numbers of their bosses. Few of the students had phones but it was considered better to talk face-to-face with them than by phone anyway. I would call the student’s boss and ask if the student was sick. When the answer was no, I would go to where the student lived and if he was absent, he would not receive his bonus. This gave me a large stick to hold over the students.

  As the month ended, many students found that they received no bonus money. I was making 20 to 30 phone calls every week and seeing at least one or two students every day. It was exhausting but it turned out that I had the best attendance record of all the teachers. When my principal realized the reason for my success, he made the other teachers follow my lead. The young men in my class all passed the final exams. That was my first and last year at that job. The following year I moved to teaching young students in public schools.

  It was interesting that I ended up as a teacher. It is a truth that kids of KGB agents sometimes become KGB employees themselves. I considered joining the KGB but father only said, “Don’t even try, you are too good looking for that.” It was only years later that I realized that sex was used as a major tool in the spy games. Father talked to me about being an economist or an actress, very widely different paths. I couldn’t see myself as a paper-rat. Some knowledgeable people have seen me perform in school plays and told me I could be successful as an actress, but I never aspired to it. Besides, Mother would not even discuss the possibility of my joining the acting profession for the same reason that she would not let my brother become a movie-maker. The Hollywood lifestyle was alive and well in Moscow. Father was happy to let his two siblings choose their own paths.

  Mother wanted my brother to become an engineer, which he did. She wanted me to become a doctor and I did not. Writing was always one of my loves. However, mother forbade me to go to Moscow’s Gorky University which was the place to become a writer. I would not upset my mother so I
attended Ryazan University with her blessing. I studied writing and literature and this led to teaching.

  Once, as I was returning home from school, tired from a long day, I walked alone down the main street. There was still daylight but not too many people were about. I met two young men about 20 years old and they said, “We have never seen you here before and we have been here for several years.”

  I answered, “I am new here.”

  They responded, “Did you move here?”

  “Yes,” I said, “Just recently.”

  One of them remarked, “You look so pretty, like a little doll.” They fell in with me and as we walked they kept the conversation going. I was not afraid as it was a lovely April day and we were on the main street. Melting ice and snow had created numerous puddles of dirty water which we had to constantly dodge. They were very polite. They helped me navigate around some of the larger puddles. Then an especially large puddle created an obvious problem. The taller and stronger one said, “I will help you,” as he took me in his arms and carried me through the dirty water, explaining that he was wearing old shoes that were already wet.

  As we emerged from the small lake he started to laugh and continued to hold me tightly in his arms. I told him, “Put me down!” I appreciated their help as my shoes and stockings were still dry but I was becoming angry. After some long seconds he stopped laughing, apologized and let me down. I walked on alone to the bus station and considered the incident closed.

  Many months later, my principal told me that all the teachers had an obligation to give lectures in various work places concerning how to behave in public. Some prisoners had been in prison since they were young teenagers and now, released as grown men, their social skills were sorely lacking. So I prepared, and several weeks later, after checking my lecture plan, my principal gave me the name of a plant where I was to present it. The plant had many young men and they appeared very interested. As I finished, I asked for questions. One man stated that they were simple men and that it was good to know how to act in public, and at the dinner table, and so forth, but it was hard to remember all these points. He asked for an example of not crossing that invisible line that would make women angry. So I told the story of the two men helping me through the mud puddles which was fun because I had earlier noticed those same two men were in this audience. I explained that they were very close to crossing the line, but they stopped before they did. Further, they did not have on their black uniforms as required when out on probation.

  An administrator in the audience asked, “Who are they? Point them out. If they were on probation they will be back in prison again.”

  I said, “No! They did not do anything wrong.” Then I laughed and concluded the lecture with, “Look, you are all good boys, please stay out of trouble.”

  Several months later, my husband took me to a restaurant. It was the only really respectable restaurant in that small town, so we visited it fairly often. The second floor had a dance floor with a live orchestra which we were enjoying when a young man came to my husband and asked, “Pardon me, may I invite your wife for a dance?”

  My husband replied “It is fine with me but ask her.”

  I responded with, “Excuse me. I want a break. I do not want to dance right now.”

  We returned to our table as he returned to his. I noticed that the four men at that table included the two who had helped me navigate the mud puddles. They looked clean and presentable and they were not dressed in black prison clothes. Possibly they had completed their probation period. They knew Nikoli and I were married because, in those days, a husband and wife always wore a simple gold wedding band on their ring finger and we were together in a public place. A man would not take his mistress to the best restaurants in a small town.

  My husband was looking curious and I said, “I have a story to tell you.” So we sat down and I told him the whole story and he laughed. About 15 minutes later, a waiter brought a bottle of champagne with a note that started, “Thank you for your kindness” and went on and on thanking me. Nikoli agreed that it was a large kindness as they could have been back in prison with no privileges or probation in their future.

  A sequel to the stories about the prisoners came a year later. My husband was called late at night to a hospital emergency. Several hours later as he was walking home, he crossed paths with a band of young men. They started to terrorize Nikoli, but one said, “Leave him alone. Don’t bother him. He is a doctor.”

  Another said, “How do you know?”

  The answer came back, “I know his wife.”

  Nikoli told this to me when he got home. I never did figure out who it was that knew me. However, I was sure that it was one of the ex-convicts in the school for adult education. Lipki was a small town but it celebrated the May 9th World War II Victory Day just like all other towns and cities across Russia. There would be a parade through downtown that ended at the town square for speeches and singing, followed by eating and more speeches. In 1976, the parade was led by a gray-haired female ex-army doctor and three handicapped veterans. The mayor and his cohorts were behind them in the march and I was on the outside of the fifth row, next to my boss and friend, the blond-haired Nadia.

  Victory Day in Lipki, 1976.

  Looking back now with the hindsight of over 20 years teaching within the Soviet Union educational system, I have strong opinions on its virtues. Education under the tsars was not a priority and many people were not literate. In contrast, the USSR prior to the collapse of 1991, provided a literacy rate of a phenomenal 98 to 99 percent for all of the 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. Mentally challenged children comprised the remaining one to two percent. This is about as good as it can possibly get!

  New teachers graduate with a financial bonus, not a debt. They did not have a heavy teaching load, too many students per class, behavior problems, or insufficient preparation time. They did not lack influence in school or access to new teaching techniques and accumulated teaching wisdom. Such is not the case for so many American teachers who are citing these reasons for leaving their chosen profession.

  The higher education of all professionals in Russia, including teaching, was selective and highly competitive, and first-degree course work usually took five years. Student teachers spent as much as 30 hours per week in elementary or high schools under the tutelage of first-class teachers. A college or university graduate was unquestionably qualified for the positions for which they trained, thus job interviews were redundant and not utilized. The first person to apply got the position.

  Teachers had preparatory time included in their daily schedule. For instance, to receive a full-time teaching salary a teacher must spend at least 18 hours per week in front of students; their remaining time was spent in preparation. Highly experienced teachers could handle 25 hours weekly or more in front of students. They received a higher salary scale. This system even included physical education teachers. Additional duties like correcting papers was rewarded with additional pay, based upon a small percentage of the base salary. American teachers appear grossly overworked and underpaid when compared to these old Soviet standards, even considering that the Soviet teachers worked six days per week.

  Within a school there was a constant flow of information. Periodically, a few selected teachers would attend conference workshops and return to pass on the new information to the other teachers. Teachers could receive large bonuses for preparing improved class teaching outlines. The outstanding teachers in a school would welcome other teachers to her classroom as a means of upgrading both teachers and students.

  Discipline at school was not a problem; the parents invariably sided with the teachers. Professional teachers and principals instructed parents on raising their children. This duty was, in fact, a strong Russian tradition. The American freedom without responsibility, which allows ill-informed parents to openly challenge and publicly berate their children’s teachers is possibly the weakest link in the entire American educational system.

  Educ
ation in the USSR was highly centralized and available to all. A high proportion of preschool children start attending kindergarten at three years of age. Free compulsory schooling began at age seven and continued for ten years. Advanced education was available if desired. Students actually developed a sense of equality in that they weren’t considered superior or inferior to one another. Students could come early and stay late and they were always supervised by highly trained professionals. Children could safely play outside by themselves and even take train and bus trips without a protector.

  No one in Russia lost sleep worrying about the health-care system. Public welfare funds enhanced the average monthly wages of workers. Money from the state budget, trade unions, and other sources provided free training, pensions, scholarships, and medical services. All workers and professionals in Russia received paid vacations for up to 30 days, and two months was not uncommon. Advances in health care brought declines in the mortality rate and greater control over the more dangerous infectious diseases.

  Retirement was also not a source of concern to Russians. They were confident they could live a comfortable life with dignity once their working days were completed. Retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women, which allowed plenty of energy and money for trips to resorts on the Black Sea. It was common to began early retirement at 50 years of age or even younger.

  My handsome doctor husband and I had a free apartment in the Tula area, given to us by the government. We felt very lucky because in the USSR in the 1970s it was nearly impossible for young people to have their own private home. Everything appeared so easy for me. I even gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, my son Andre, without anesthesia or severe pain.