Krasnodar Region. Barack. Stepka. 1941-42

  I already wrote that the 1st branch of the state farm was located 67 km. from Rostov. Only 1 km. walk to the 67th railway junction, got on the train, and went where we needed. True, not all trains stopped at the 67th-kilometer junction. Fast trains and freight trains did not stop. Even commuter trains only stopped for 1 minute. Passengers had time to get out of the car, others got into the car. Tickets were sold in the carriage. Despite 60 km to Rostov, we did not belong to the Rostov region. Our address was: Krasnodar Territory, Shteingartovsky District, Stepnyansky Grain State Farm, branch number 1, although it was very far from Krasnodar, and we never went there, and it was believed that we lived in the Kuban, and the Kuban River flows in Krasnodar. And who invented this? Our regional center was located in Kushchevka, and the area was called Shteingart (similar to the German name). The address did not change all 5 years while we lived there.
   The first year, 1941-42, was very difficult for us. We didn't have proper clothes or shoes. The mattresses were stuffed with straw, and so were the pillows. They even stoked the stove with straw. Our rooms, hastily put together, were very drifty, no matter how much we burnt the straw.
  Before the New Year, we were alone in the barracks, but evacuees were arriving. It was necessary to get them to work and give them housing. The first neighbors were a woman, Makhota Fedora, and her daughter Nadia with her son Stepa. The second neighbor: Aunt Rodina Galya with her son Kolya and daughter Manya. There is no point in writing about others. It was with the Makhota's and Rodin's that friendship brought us together. Rodina’s were, like us, naked and barefoot and the Mahotas lived well. Where did Machota get everything? They had even a wardrobe, a real bed with linens, stools, benches, two tables, and, which no one at the state farm had - a gramophone with a wide pipe (gramophone) and many records. In my opinion, to call it a "gramophone" is more precisely a trumpet for increasing the sound and volume. If the root of the word is "thunder", then it is a thunderphone. Additional rooms were built slowly. But as soon as they built it for Makhota and the Rodinas, it became warmer for us. At the beginning of the construction, the building was called the calf barn, and later, after 2-3 years, when all 6 apartments were rebuilt, they began to call them barracks. But when we were about to leave in 1946, one apartment was still not livable, although the Postriganov family lived there: they ate on the floor, and slept on the floor, worse than we did. We had a table, two slippers, and three stools.
   The whole construction was occurring in front of our eyes. A few steps from the hut, a hole was dug and from there, clay was mined, which was mixed with a very fine straw. Walls made of twigs and thick branches were smeared with this mixture. On both sides of the walls, sticks were sticking out from under the clay. We helped to level the walls because we had to live here.
   My boots were completely open-mouthed. The snow easily got inside. My sister Lena yelled at me to take out the slops. It is unpleasant when frozen snow creeps into warm feet. I asked Lena to take out the slops, and she shouted that I was lazy, and was not doing anything. Then I thought that it was better to run to the hole and back barefoot without shoes full of holes. I grabbed a bucket and ran out barefoot through the snow. While I ran to the pit without thinking, it was tolerable, but from one way back I already felt colic in my legs. Lena noticed that I was barefoot, and my shoes were left in the corner. She was afraid that my mother would get her and, scolding and grumbling, first slapped me on the head, and then began to wipe my feet, not paying attention to my groans. "Ooh, oldie! Ooh, lazy bum," my sister called me. I was small, but only two years younger than Lena, so she called me "old".
   Of course, we survived thanks to milk. Each milkmaid had a large pocket under her quilted jacket for a two-liter heating pad. This heating pad must be secretly filled with milk at the end of the milking and unnoticeably taken home. I think that both the foreman and the zoology technician knew about this. Still, if they’d prohibit this, catch a milkmaid, and convict her of stealing state milk, then the children would not survive, and the milkmaids themselves would not be able to work for the pennies they were paid during the war. There was nothing to eat. We drank milk and walked around bloated like spiders.
   The spring of 1942 came to us. Someone gave us seeds, then small potatoes, then pumpkin seeds, then beans, and some seedlings. We planted seven acres of crops. They dug a dig, and water for irrigation appeared. We asked Lena’s friends for a shovel, then a hoe. Something appeared soon: radishes, cucumbers, cabbage, young potatoes. There was hope. It is good that my mother was born in the village. Before the age of twenty, she learned everything in the village and this helped us a lot to survive on this state farm. She knew how to plant a garden, look after and clean, and keep chickens, a pig, and even a cow.
   From the other, old barracks we were loved and helped by the families of Andryushchenko, Kovalenko, and Martynenko. My mother sewed a sundress for me from a dyed mattress, and I showed off wearing it in front of Stepka Makhota and spun around his window so that he would like me and he would bring the gramophone with records into the yard and play for me. But he did not bring the gramophone that day, because he was punished by his mother Fedora for a fight with the boys. I felt sorry for him, but he did not know about it.
   Our rooms with the Makhota were located in such a way that our front door (porch) was next to the window of the Mahota’s hall. And their porch next to the window is ours...