Today I observed something curious. We’re told by diverse and sundry experts that we ourselves should take priority in our own life. Indeed, whose life is it, anyway?
Yet when it comes to practicing what we preach, the picture is altogether different. I’d even say it is nowhere near that expert propaganda. All of a sudden, relatives, children, pets, bosses and colleagues, not to mention Very Important Problems rise and shine in full glory.
And you end up reaching your projects late at night, when you’re barely awake but have just enough strength to pull things through.,,
This Monument to the Conquerors of Space is situated close to VDNKh metro station. I always enjoy its graceful silhouette on my way to and back from filming.
The Ostankino TV tower always lurks in the distance (in the photo it’s on the right). The actual walk takes some 15 or 20 minutes depending on one’s pace. Both structures, though, inspire and demonstrate the power of human will and goal-setting. It’s incredible that only a hundred years ago people only started to fly, and now mankind is thinking of a mission to Mars!
My new feature is dedicated to various notes made in the month of October. In Russia this is always the month when trees finally turn yellow and red, and the sun sheds its previous amber light in all directions.
Today we recorded three episodes for two Russian TV program about history. Also, in September I’ve contributed some 7 or 8 articles to different editions, including two academic publications. Once I’m done with these ones, I’m going to switch to books that I’ve planned to translate and to write.
It’s funny how the world listens to us and provides us with what we’ve asked for. I wanted to focus on writing – and this is now happening. I have focused so much that these opportunities come in packs, and I sometimes barely manage to handle things. But it’s happening, and I’m very glad. There’s still some way to go, but I’m on track.
Today marks the 100th birthday anniversary of my grandma Lidia Yefimovna Sokolik (nee Alekseeva). She was born near Dorogobuzh in Smolensk Region on October 1, 1924. Ten years later the family moved to Borovsk, Kaluga Region. In 1941, with the last bus they were evacuated from the town to the Kirov Region, thence – to Yaroslavl, exactly at the time of the Stalingrad Battle. Then they arrived in the Moscow Region, first to the village of Mamontovka, then to Klyazma. In Klyazma they stayed for some 25 years: my mother was born there, and my great-grandparents died. Finally, grandma and mum moved to the town of Zheleznodorozhnyi in 1969 and eventually to Moscow in 1974. In Moscow my grandma lived 40 years until her death in 2014.
I’ve only listed my grandma’s moving from one place of living to another. When she got married, her husband and she lived in his flat in Lviv, the Ukraine. In 1960s and 1970s she was the head of “Friendship Trains” delegations that took the Soviet people who worked for the Moscow Railways to the Warsaw Treaty member states: Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic. And she also made countless auditory trips to pioneer camps and cinemas to Bryansk, Oryol, Aleksandrov and other cities.
This graceful and fragile girl was only 10 when she had to do a lot of housework after her mother got her nerve pinched and had her legs paralysed. In evacuation, she helped building the Kirov-Kotlas railroad to transport the munition from the Ural to the front. Later, she cared for my mum, then for me. She had just enough time to apply some hand cream and to perm her hair. She loved the Red Moscow perfume. She taught me to use an encyclopaedia. She saw me enter the Moscow State University, get married, go to live abroad, then return to Moscow. I’m sure she continues watching me with great joy.
I took stability, confidence, consistency, and calmness from her. “Girl, where is logic here?” was a rhetorical question that taught me to read, think and speak with attention. “Very good, I believe you will be a writer”, she said, reading my then youthful poetry and prose.
In 2006, when I worked as a journalist for the BBC, I took part in People’s War project. There was a section on the website dedicated to Russian war-time memories (in English), and with my grandma’s permission I added her story to the website. Later I narrated it in Russian for some Russian resources.
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