Public school was just the beginning of many “firsts” for me. They lived in a large two-story building. It was divided up for four families so our home was only two rooms. One room served as the kitchen and dining room, and now, my bedroom. The other room was the living room. With its foldout sofa bed it doubled as my parents’ room. They hung a piece of fabric over a rope to give them privacy but that did not keep me from being subjected to my first exposure to the intimacy of husband and wife. I wanted to run out of there, but there was no place to go, so I’d hold my fingers in my ears so as not to hear them.
The house had no running water. We carried water from a well and used an outhouse, as well as the banya, or public bathhouse. The fireplace was the only heat we had and for that we had to chop our own wood. We had electricity, but we had to buy tanks of gas that were used to cook our food. In many respects, the conditions were no better than the orphanage, and on top of that I now had chores to do, like helping cut the firewood and hauling the water from the well.
Another first was going to church. My parents were Russian Orthodox and they took me to church with them each week. I loved it. There was no religion of any kind—and certainly no church services—at the orphanage. Irina was a strong atheist, and so were most of the staff. Melana, though a strong Orthodox, never talked about it to us kids.
The Proturnovs had me baptized in the church and I felt very honored. That ritual, even though I did not understand it, meant a lot to me. While the overall experience of church was positive, there was no sense of a relationship with God in any of this. I didn’t even understand who God was.
My new family also offered me my first experience at grocery shopping. In the Soviet Union you didn’t just go to a grocery store for all your supplies. You went to the dairy for the milk, the bakery for the bread, and the market for the fruits and vegetables. In 1988 there was a real shortage of food in our country and everyone had food stamps. People had to wait in line, sometimes as long as seven or eight hours, to buy two loaves of bread (all a family was allowed per week). I vividly remember standing in line for seven hours, only to have them run out of bread and turn away those of us still in line. People were really struggling in the Soviet Union at that time, but as orphans, we had been spared much of this, so this was eye-opening for me.
We shared this home with three other families. Our two rooms were in the lower right corner
The adjustment to public school was made all the more difficult by two things. First, I was starting school in the middle of the school year. Second, my parents made the mistake of telling everyone that I was adopted. Adoption was so uncommon—so odd, in the eyes of the other children—that I became the victim of merciless teasing by my forty or so classmates. My teacher was an angry, mean woman in her late seventies who could neither see nor hear well. While I was able somehow to make a few friends, I was moved to the back of the class for talking.
We had some textbooks, but we mostly listened to the teacher. We kept dnevnicks (journals) in which we wrote notes each day on all our subjects; at the end of the week, our journals would be turned in. Our grade would be based on the notes in our dnevnick, combined with our behavior in class.
From my very first journal, the teacher always failed me.
It seemed that no matter how hard I worked or how quiet I would try to be in class, I would receive a failing mark every time. While I was by no means a perfect student, I have to think that being labeled the orphan who talked in class helped the teacher write me off from the very start. She did not seem to have any intention of helping me learn, and she certainly did not intend to give me passing grades.
The first week I brought home my failing grade on my journal I presented it to my mother, ready to plead my case. She showed no concern or sympathy, and simply stated, “You’ll have to talk with your dad when he gets home.”
My father worked long hours at the phone company and usually didn’t get home for dinner until after 7:00. I also had begun to notice that he smelled like alcohol most nights when he got home. Unfortunately, that night was no different. I took my journal to him and explained the situation as I saw it. He did not believe me. He made me strip off all of my clothes and proceeded to beat me with the big metal buckle of his leather belt. In his drunken rage he shouted out his expectations of his child. He wanted me to be a perfect son, an excellent student. “And,” he added, “anything less than A’s and B’s and you’ll get this beating again!”
My parents never visited the teacher and never tried to help me with my school work. True to his word, Dad continued to beat me every Friday when I brought my dnevnick home.
The failing grades and the beatings continued for about two months. At that time I decided that I had had enough of both and ran away—another first. The only place I knew to go was back to the sanatorium. As much as I wanted to run to the protection of Melana, I knew I couldn’t. When Mom and Dad came there looking for me—which I was certain they would—Melana would have to tell the truth. Instead, I ran to my fellow orphans. They hid me in the closet, where I slept all night, hidden under clothes. During the day they would sneak me food.
This happened three or four times; each time my parents would call the police and the police would find me and take me back home. Melana wouldn’t intervene because she thought I was just exaggerating and missed being with my friends. She thought I just needed time to adjust.
In true childlike fashion, it never occurred to me to run someplace else. I didn’t know anyplace else. So imagine my shock the final time I ran to the sanatorium and found out my class had left and had gone back to Orphanage Number 51 in St. Petersburg. Now what was I going to do?
St. Petersburg was about twenty-five miles away. Surely my parents would not expect a ten-year-old boy to run away to the city. They would assume I was hiding somewhere near the sanatorium. So off to the city I went.
Over the next year I ran away over thirty times and headed for St. Petersburg each time, walking for hours and hours. Sometimes I would get picked up by the police before reaching the city. Many times I was picked up in the city, often being caught sleeping on a park bench (it took me a while to figure out that the park was right next to the police station!).
I got food scraps from garbage cans. Over time I learned to hide in the bushes when I saw a police officer. Often, I tried to find Orphanage Number 51. When I’d finally get there I would beg them to take me in. The director would always turn me away, shouting, “You are not an orphan! Go home!” slamming the door in my face.
Every single time I ran to the city the police would eventually find me and take me home. They never mistreated me or locked me in a cell. In fact, they were always very nice to me and I got on a first-name basis with most of them. The police would catch me, take me back to the station, give me food and tea, and just sit and talk with me while we waited for Valentina, the Inspector for Youth Rights.
Over time I got to know Valentina as well. We had good conversations and she usually gave me some money. At some point I started sneaking onto the train instead of walking into the city. I always thought I successfully fooled the conductor, but every time I got off the train in the city the police were right there waiting for me. By now I was eleven. I thought I was so clever, but in reality I was very naive. I was just a young boy, living alone on the streets, sometimes for weeks at a time, trying to evade my parents and the police, and never really succeeding.
This was my life for almost two years. I would go home and, in between the weekly beatings, life was pretty good. We would go to the movies. My parents would buy me new clothes. We would go to church. Then I would bring home my journal, get another beating, and run away again.
During this time my mother became pregnant and gave birth to a girl they named Maria. Not long after Maria was born my parents stopped sending the police to look for me. They didn’t seem to care anymore. But by now, all the policemen knew me so the routine would continue, with a slight twist. They stopped taking me home;
instead Valentina would just give me some money and tell me to go on home. Surprisingly, I did. I still don’t understand why I kept going back home. Maybe I was just hoping that things would change.
The last time Valentina sent me on my way, she said, “Alex, the next time we won’t put you back in your home. We’ll figure something out.”
One time when I ran away I got up the nerve to hitchhike, rather than walk or take the train. The man who gave me a lift to the city was taken by my story and gave me sixteen rubles. Back in 1988 many people only made about fifteen rubles a month, so this was a lot of money. When I went back home (which, of course, I eventually did), I hid the money, along with some that Valentina had given me, under my mattress.
But my mother found the money. She demanded to know where I got it. When I told her, she didn’t believe me and said I had stolen it. Dad went through the same drill when he came home that night. This time the beating was extra severe, the worst I ever received. Sixteen times he beat me with the belt buckle, one for each ruble the man had given me. For the first time, my mother joined in the abuse. Pulling me by the hair, with a knife to my throat, she tied me to a kitchen chair and forced me for several hours to rewrite all of my notebooks. Every time I would make a mistake, she would hit me in the back with a wooden stick. The next morning she sent me to the well to get water. I got the water and put the two buckets on the back porch and then took off.
I had not been able to dress appropriately for the cold weather because to do so would have tipped them off that I was going to bolt again. I was just in shirtsleeves, and I had shoes but no socks. I swore to myself that I would never come back. Desperate, I stole a bicycle and snuck into someone’s house and stole a jar of food.
When I finally got to the city, I fell off the bike, exhausted, breaking the jar of jam. I lay down on the park bench, sobbing, hoping that if I lay there long enough, I would freeze to death.
Chapter 6
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.
—Psalm 23:2
I lay on the park bench in St. Petersburg, freezing and famished, for hours. On and off, I gave into the exhaustion and slept. The next morning a couple came along and asked me what I was doing. After I shared my story with them, Misha and Marina kindly took me back to their apartment, which was only minutes from Orphanage Number 51.
When Marina helped me take a warm bath, she saw all of the bruises and welts on my body. She was outraged by my story and insisted on going to talk with my parents. As afraid as I was to go back, I went with her to show her where they lived. On the way we made one stop, to return the bicycle I had “borrowed.”
I refused to go to my parents’ door with her; instead I hid in the bushes. When my father answered her knock on the door Marina explained who she was and why she was there, and then entered the home. Not wanting to take any chances of being discovered, I snuck out of the bushes and went on down the road to wait for her.
On our train ride back to the city she told me that my parents denied everything, explaining that I had problems, not the least of which was my lying. But Marina believed me; she had seen the evidence. She said that I would stay with them until they figured out what to do.
Marina and Misha were in their mid-fifties. She was a former ballerina and taught ballet. He was an engineer at the Hermitage, the largest museum in Russia and one of the largest and finest in the world. They had lost a child in childbirth and Marina could never bring herself to go through that experience again.
Her first option regarding me was to see if Orphanage 51 would take me back. They would not. Because I had been legally adopted there was nothing they could do. Determined, she went to the city government office that oversaw orphanages and met with the inspector, pleading, “What can we do? He is not safe on the street, not safe at home. The orphanage won’t take him. There must be something we can do!” To which they promptly replied, “Nyet. There is nothing we can do.”
I lived with Marina and Misha for about six months. Their home was a haven for this twelve-year-old misfit who didn’t belong anywhere. I did not attend school while I lived with them, as they could not enroll me; so I often stayed home alone while they were at work. Sometimes I went with Marina to the school where she taught ballet. I still remember the stuffed animal—a lion—they gave me, a real treasure to someone who had rarely had anything to call his own. Misha and Marina were both beautiful musicians and I loved to listen to them play the piano. I still keep in touch with them, and call them tetya (aunt) and dyadya (uncle).
Tetya Marina continued in her determination. She went back to the city inspector and threatened to go to the authorities in Moscow if they didn’t do something for me. That seemed to do the trick: Orphanage 51 took me back.
Dyadya Misha and Tetya Marina’s apartment: a refuge in the storm
The orphanage director greeted me with much reluctance and resentment: I was back in the orphanage system, but I wasn’t an orphan. While the director did not greet me with enthusiasm, Melana was glad to see me, as were my buddies, Misha and Ed. Irina was still our teacher, and she and Melana had once again secured a sanatorium for our class of twelve-year-olds.
Sunnyville Sanatorium, about twenty minutes north of the other sanatorium, was much bigger. There were twenty-four buildings on the grounds and my class had one section of one of those buildings to ourselves. Each of the buildings had a doctor and a nurse assigned to it, an infirmary, a classroom, and its own dining room.
In our building we had a big playroom and our own bathroom. The bathroom was an improvement—it had both hot and cold water—but still no showers. There was one big bedroom for all sixteen of us boys. Our girl classmates had a similar setup.
There was a big closet in our bedroom and each boy had a shelf with his name on it for his clothes. For the first time we were able to wear clothes that belonged to us, rather than clothes that had been mixed up on laundry day. At Sunnyville we did not have to wash our own clothes, we simply took them to the laundry facility once a week. Wednesday was “banya day.” We would take our clothes and sheets to the laundry and then go to the banya or bathhouse, where we would have to wait our turn until after the girls were done. It was an all-day event each week. This being a sanatorium, we also had a regular time referred to as “medical procedures,” where we would do our stretching exercises and receive massages. It was a favorite of mine.
While we didn’t have to do our laundry, we did have to help out with meals. We took turns running to the kitchen facility with two big buckets that would be filled with our food allotment. There was plenty of play area outside at Sunnyville. There was a big hilly area that was great for sledding. And though a much farther walk than it was from our previous sanatorium, we were still within walking distance from the Bay of Finland where we could play on the beach. Lest you get any wrong ideas of a tropical beach setting, keep in mind that St. Petersburg is as far north as parts of Alaska.
Sunnyville gave me my first opportunity for leadership. Melana assigned me to the komandir role for my group, an assistant of sorts to her and Irina. One of my jobs was to make sure all of us had washed and were in bed at bedtime. I took my job very seriously, inspecting my classmates’ feet and behind their ears before letting them get in bed. I was also the exercise leader and would lead our group in an exercise regime out on the lawn each morning.
Like lots of kids that age, it was during this time that I experienced my first “love.” Sveta was a cute girl a year younger than me. Nothing came of it, but it is a fond memory for me and we remain friends.
One other thing that was special about Sunnyville is that there, for the first time in our young lives, we celebrated birthdays. While there were no elaborate gifts or extravagant parties like kids in America have, Melana felt it was important for each of us to be recognized and have a little celebration on our special day. For us, it was a priceless experience.
For the first time, with my leadership role and my birth
day celebration, I began to be recognized as an individual. By all external measures, my life at Sunnyville was the best it had ever been. It could have marked a turning point toward a purposeful life for me. Yet internally I was struggling. Looking back, I know that the Lord was not finished with His process of calling me. The fires of purification were about to get much hotter. If the first sanatorium experience was the calm before the storm, Sunnyville was just a pleasant lull before the avalanche. I was about to enter the worst year of my entire life.
Chapter 7
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all.
—2 Corinthians 4:17
The doctor who was assigned to us at Sunnyville was Dr. Nina. I became close to her and would often spend my free time helping her out in the infirmary. One day she even sent me to the on-site pharmacy in Building 3 to pick up some medicine for one of the kids. To this day I have no idea why I did what I did, but on the walk back I opened the pill bottle and decided to taste one of the pills. It tasted pretty good. I had another. And another. Before I got back to my building, Building 6, I had taken eight of the pills.
Infinitely More Page 3