Singing without teeth

An interview with villager Tatyana Dmitrievna

Tatyana Dmitrievna standing near her kitchen stove

On a chilly March afternoon, Edward Institute for Village Studies (EIVS) co-founder Ekaterina requested an audience with villager Tatyana Dmitrievna. The 73-year-old Veteran of Labor chose to stand for their entire 40-minute meeting.

The resulting conversation was meticulously translated by Ekaterina, who by popular demand has graced us with another Village Interview. (We are preparing a follow-up interview with our first village interviewee, Anna Yegorovna.)

Note: The name of Edward’s village has been changed, as well as the names of surrounding villages.

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Part I: “They would drink, work, they also cut wood for Artyom’s aunt”

Ekaterina: How are you, Tatyana Dmitrievna? It’s cold today.

Tatyana Dmitrievna: I need to have some repairs done on the stove.

E: There’s no money for it?

T: Of course not. It costs 180,000 rubles! Where am I supposed to get that?!

E: 180,000! We put a new one in in the kitchen for 90,000.

T: That was 100 years ago!

E: It was all brick, though. Not one of the metal ones.

Edward Junior and Susan posing in front of what later became the Edward Institute’s new stove

T: This one is brick too. But it’s connected to the wall. All the houses are like this. But my house is pretty old….

E: I guess you need to do things as they come up.

T: You need money for that!

E: Yeah I know… But I mean what has to be done for this kind of house if you do have the money?

T: We didn’t think about that when my husband was alive. We thought everything was just fine. He went on vacations… He worked on the tractor in the sovkhoz [a state-owned farm in the Soviet Union].

E: He drove them?

T: Of course. And repaired them, he also worked on the harvester. On all the machines.

E: How long have you lived in Kolobovo? When did you come here?

T: I came in 1978.

E: Together with your husband?

T: No, I met him here. I first came here with my sister, Marina. She lived in that three-apartment house down there.

E: Here in Kolobovo?

T: Yes. Down there past Irina’s [Headmistress of the Edward Institute Farm], the ruined three-apartment building.

The kitchen of the abandoned apartment that Marina once lived in

E: And which one did you live in? The middle one?

T: Not me, her. With her husband. In the closest one. Her son Vanka came and helped you chop wood, remember? Vanya Vasilyev.

E: Oh, Vanya’s your nephew.

T: Yes, he cut wood with you, remember? Remember he helped you? That was my nephew. And he lived with Artyom. In the house next door to Irina. Lida Smirnova died. Her son Artyom was living there along with Vanya. He cut some wood for Irina, then for someone else… They would drink, work, they also cut wood for Artyom’s aunt…. And so Marina and I came to Kolobovo together.

E: Was Marina older or younger than you?

T: Younger. She died. She was 49.

E: Of what?

T: Liver failure, maybe? She had fibromas and had a hysterectomy. At 49.

E: Vanya’s mother?

T: Yes.

E: How old was he when she died? A teenager?

T: I don’t remember. Lord. I don’t remember, really.

Part II: “It’s been so long since I sang”

E: Ok, tell me instead about when you first came to Kolobovo. You arrived, with your sister, and then what?

T: First we moved to Nozhkino. Marina moved there to live with her husband. Later they gave them an apartment here. He went to work in the sovkhoz, and she got a job in the kindergarten. But first we lived in Nozhkino. And that’s where I met Vasya. He was Marina’s husband’s cousin. He lived in Garusovo with his parents. And he would come to Nozhkino to work, drying up the marshes, on the tractor. Then later he worked for the sovkhoz.

E: Were a lot of the marshes dried up here? Was that done for a long time?

T: Of course a lot.

E: And what did they do with the land? Was it just to get rid of the mosquitoes? Or to use the land in some other way?

T: They dried them up to build on them. We live on a marsh.

E: Tell me about the celebrations in Kolobovo. Were there holidays where everyone got together? In the club, maybe?

T: Oh before… we went to watch movies.

E: In the club?

T: In the old club. Praskovya Ivanovna would show the films. The whole club was full. We went to see Indian movies there all the time.

E: Indian films? Where they sing and dance?

T: What?

E: Singing and dancing. I mean in the movie.

T: Yes, the Indian movies.

E: And what else?

T: Hm, what kind of holidays…. I myself used to sing.

E: What did you sing?

T: I sang one of Anna German’s songs “A sweet daze wafted on the wind…” (“When Gardens Bloomed”).

E: Would you like to sing now?

T: Nadezhda Karpovna was the director of the club then. And she was also director for a while when it moved to the new building. But she hasn’t been around for what, three years now? It’s going on the fourth year. Viktor Andreevich was here crying about it recently. Now Tanya’s taken it over. There aren’t really any such concerts there anymore. May 9^th [Victory Day]. I used to sing in the veteran’s choir. Now there aren’t any veterans left. They were all older than me. I was the soloist, and they were the choir. And there’s no Karpovna to ask me. I don’t have many teeth, I’d be ashamed to open my mouth.

E: Pshaw.

T: And maybe I’ll forget some of the words. It’s been so long since I sang... Andrey Afanasievich would announce me: “Please welcome artist from Kolobovo, Tatyana Petrova!” And I sang, yes. “My dear old people”, Anna German’s songs, Loza’s song “My Raft”.

E: Oh, I know that one too.

T: I sang alone, to a whole club full of people... And what holidays, well… New Year’s. We might show up at the club before 12. There were all kinds of games. They would ask me to sing… well only when Nadezhda Karpovna was alive… I remember Vasya and I would go there…. One time we were there before 12, then we came back after 12. There was dancing…

E: In the middle of the night?

T: Yeah. Well first you have to bid farewell to the old year, then welcome in the new one…

E: Oh, it was New Year’s, right.

T: So one time we headed there after 12, and we only got back at 7 in the morning… So there we celebrated before 12, and after 12… And some people would come up here to give concerts. To the new club even. There were three women, one on an accordion and two sang. Did you see them?

E: No I didn’t. They were before I came, I guess.

T: I can’t remember what they sang. They were great. Sang clearly. Really good. One on the accordion and two sang.

Part III: “Like Nadezhda Mikhailovna says to me, ‘Tanya, you kept the whole school running’”

E: You worked at the school?

T: So, I got a job there and at first there were three of us who cleaned the school.

E: You and who else?

T: I cleaned… alone for a time, but I was there for a long time, it was mostly the others who came and went. Zdravomyslova and I would do it alone for a while. Upstairs and downstairs. It’s a two-story building. Then I worked there with Aunt Dusya Smirnova. She’s been dead for a while. Sergey Smirnov, her relative, is also dead. I washed the school with her too. And oh yes, with Praskovya Ivanovna. Panya Smirnova, Vitka’s mom, across the bridge. She’s dead too. And then I cleaned the school by myself. Two floors.

E: And how long did that take, all day? The whole day? Could you wash it in a day?

T: Why the whole day? When classes were over, then you clean. You’re not going to clean during classes, of course. During the day they’re studying.

E: Of course.

The abandoned school

T: So I cleaned the school. Then they needed a cook. There were a bunch of people who worked as a cook before me, while I was cleaning, and then I got the job. I fed the internat children [students from neighboring villages who would board at the school] hot lunches.

E: The internat was for the kids who lived in the villages around Kolobovo, right? Because there was no school bus?’

T: Yes. They lived further that way, and even some from the other direction. Some from Malinovo down there.

E: Did these kids go home on the weekends or did they just live there all year?

T: Yes, they went home on the weekends, of course.

E: How many kids were in the internat?

T: I don’t remember. They came and they went… I don’t remember. It was so many years ago. I worked in the school for 30 years.

E: Beginning in the late 70s and until…

T: Until I began receiving my pension, and even afterwards.

E: Until the school closed?

T: No. I worked cleaning the school, and I cooked… and we had to look after the school garden. There was a big plot of land for the school. All the vegetables, the green house, the flowers… And I was only allowed to take a vacation at the end of August, because I had to weed the garden with the kids, take care of the garden, and that’s all of June and July.

The school kitchen where Tatyana Dmitrievna used to prepare meals

E: Oh, the kids who went to the school, they helped too? It was a plot of land for the school, where they grew the vegetables they would use to cook, right?

T: Yes. There was a cellar too. Where Seryoga Smirnov lived. It’s a big, tall house. Past Nadezhda Mikhailovna. If you go further down the road. There’s a high cellar there. We kept the vegetables there.

E: Is it still there? A two-story house past the school?

T: No, one floor. Just high, the foundation was high. And the cellar had high ceiling. So that’s that. I cooked, and cleaned, and tended the garden, and I washed the laundry, which they used to send to Borovichi. Some of it was sent to Borovichi, and I took some home too. When Tamara Vasilievna was still here.

E: They took it to Borovichi?

T: Yes. The laundry from the internat. But then I took it home. Like Nadezhda Mikhailovna says to me, “Tanya, you kept the whole school running”. I woke up at 5:00 AM. I’m used to it. Now, maybe at 4, today I woke up at 5. Yesterday at 5, the day before yesterday at 4. But I go to bed early of course—8, 8:30, 9. And I woke up at 5, and by 5:30 I was at the school. And then I was there until 7:30 at night.

E: So the whole day?

T: Yes the whole day, Sometimes I would run home for an hour, if I could. But that’s it, from 5:30 to 7:30 I was at the school.

E: And your children studied there, right?

T: Of course. I was with Sasha until he was 4, then he went to kindergarten. So I would come home. Valentin got home at 4. Valentin somehow grew up fast. He was almost 6 years older than Sasha. Yes. I gave birth to Sasha at 32.

E: What did they do after they got home from school? They came home and watched TV, went out to play?

T: They did different things. They did whatever they wanted to do. But they didn’t get up to any mischief. Neither my kids, my two sons, nor—um, Galina Petrovna has a son and a daughter, but they were older; Galina Aleksandrovna also had two sons, and then Lena—she died, Lena. I was talking once with Galina Aleksandrovna, and I said “None of us, neither you, nor I , nor Lena, all of whom had two sons, ever raised any troublemakers”. They never caused problems. Never. They’re decent people to this day. Valentin works on the tractor for a logging company. He used to work on the logging trucks. My oldest one, he called me today. Sasha lives in Borovichi, has an apartment and a mortgage that he is paying. He has two kids, Valentin has one.

E: What does he do there?

T: He works… he worked at a furniture factory. Then he left and now… he had some acquaintance who found him a job where he works three days and has three days off. He works fixing cars. And on his days off he delivers groceries. Around Borovichi, to Davydkovo… wherever he needs to. That’s my youngest.

A classroom in the abandoned school

E: You said you continued to work after receiving your pension?

T: I began to receive my pension, and then began to work as the daytime guard. They found a replacement cook, Masha Zverkova, who left Kolobovo. She was the cook after I left that position. But by that time the school already had hot and cold water in the kitchen. We had to carry it from the river.

E: Ah, so by then they had hooked the school up to the water system.

T: Yes, and we had that thing there that warmed it up and everything. That was when Masha came in as cook. But me, first we had to bring it up from the river, only later did they install a water pump outside the school… We had to bring the water for the system too.

E: For what?

T: The heating system, for the radiators. We had to bring the water from the river for it. You bring two buckets with water all the way up from the river, then you carry them upstairs…

E: Why do you have to go upstairs? The kitchen was downstairs, the system was downstairs…

T: Where is the river?!

E: Oh, you don’t mean the second floor of the school?

T: No. First we brought them from the river, with snow banks on either side, you bump the bucket and the water falls out. Then you haul more. I was doing this while I was pregnant too, not the final months, but still. Then once you get into the school you have to take them upstairs, where Bolshakov worked, and he would dump them into the system.

E: Oh, the system is upstairs, of course.

T: Yeah there’s this big thing up there that you dumped water into and that would warm the school, dump the water into the radiator. And then you had to bring the water for the kitchen, so you could cook. They made the water pump later and then we took it from there. And only later did they hook the school up to running water. That’s how much I had to carry, then cook so much! And there were so many people! All the teachers would eat there. It was only later that they started going home for lunch, and just Valentina Andreyevna would stay, who lived where Irina lives now. But when I was there all the teachers would eat lunch there. And how many students! And also the people from the commissions who would come.

E: You’d have to feed them too…

T: Of course. And when people would come from other schools. Or our people would go to theirs.

E: For what?

T: To share information, how we do things, how they do things. There were a lot of exchanges like that with other schools. 6 or 7 teachers. And you’d make the food for them all. When the school was being repaired/remodeled, the workers would come and live there and you’d have to feed them too. So there was a lot of work. Then I worked as the daytime guard. Vasya died when I was 55, and he was 55 too. From stomach cancer.

Part IV: “What a sovkhoz it was! How much effort it must have taken to dismantle it!”

E: When did people begin leaving Kolobovo and why?

T: Why? Because the sovkhoz fell apart.

E: And it fell apart in 20…?

T: You think I remember? For me it’s not that important.

E: Ok, when it fell apart isn’t important, but what happened? Why did it fall apart? What happened after that?

T: What happened? The men began to die. You know it yourself. Where are the men now? There are none left. Just a whole bunch of widows. Old ladies. One, two, three and they were all gone. The men. They started drinking. What else were they going to do? They had nothing to do. They were used to working on the tractors, many of them. Some of them worked with the cows, in the barns. And the calves were taken out every day, for sale. And milk, they sold milk. They did everything here…. I’m even getting goosebumps… What a sovkhoz it was! How much effort it must have taken to dismantle it! [visibly upset]

E: So, one day someone just said “That’s it, the sovkhoz is no longer operating”? Or what happened?

T: They just began closing it down, gradually. Selling everything.

E: Who? The government?

T: It was dismantled by the ones who became the directors. Tamara Fyodorovna left. She was the director for I don’t know how many years. Then she wasn’t able to work anymore, she sold her house here and moved to Borovichi. Then after her the Chechens started coming. One Chechen director, another Chechen, then another.

E: And these directors gradually started selling…

T: And then it began gradually falling apart. There was a great dryer. What a dryer! A brand new one. The old dryer for the sovkhoz was near the school. And right near it they put this new dryer. A big, huge thing. And guess what? Not once was it used. Next thing you know people came to chop it up for metal and parts. Everything was destroyed.

E: What was this dryer for?

T: What indeed…?

E: Cereals?... Maybe grasses? Grains?

T: I mean, these things used to be grown here. Rye, oats…

E: Ah yes, so different types of cereals…

T: Yes, different cereals, of course. That was what the dryer was for.

E: So that means they also grew grains here, rye, etc.

T: Yes, they were all grown here.

E: Fields.

T: Peas too. And now the birds, all the birds come to the village to eat, when before there would be plenty for them in the fields. And now they eat our berries.

E: I heard the same about the mosquitoes. Before there were fewer?

T: In some places yes. The birds… And now all the fields all around are overgrown. Like that, bit by bit. Everything. And now they say “let’s revive agriculture”. It’s easy to destroy it, but try to revive it! Take a look at the farmer. Valentin Ivanovich. Look at how he gets by. It’s difficult for him. He had cows at one time. Then no more. He can’t.

Valentin Ivanovich’s tractor parked in front of his barn

Part V: “We live in the forest, the lumber is being taken away somewhere, and then how many piles of logs do you see along the road just sitting there, rotting!”

E: Do you watch TV a lot?

T: Of course I do. I don’t have anyone here but Pusinka, my cat. I live alone. I wake up in the morning, at 4 or 5, and I turn the TV on. Then I do the things around the house I need to do while the TV is on. Then I sit down in my chair to rest. That one’s my chair, and the other is for when guests come over. I sit down and rest in that one, watch TV. Then get up and do the other things I need to, or go somewhere, maybe to visit Galina Petrovna, when she lived here. Nowhere else really, only to Galina Petrovna. And also when her Boris was alive, Boris Pavlovich, her husband. I would go visit them both. I get a little lonely, living alone. Just Pusya and I.

E: Where is Pusya?

T: He’s running around somewhere, the old... I was about to say “the old man”. [laughs] He’s an old cat.

E: How old is he?

T: I remember that Natalia from Volyshovo brought him to me after Vasya died. And he’s been dead 18 years.

E: Oh wow that’s a long time ago.

T: Well not right away, but he must be about 16 or 17 years old.

E: 16 or 17! How is that even possible here? Lucky boy!

T: He’s a big boy! He was so little when she brought him to me and now he’s huge.

E: I’ve seen him, I would have never thought he was so old.

T: He’s not orange, not white, something in the middle. Piebald. Grayish. Irina likes him a lot. She was here bringing me some milk or something, and she asked me “Tatyana Dmitrieva, if something happens to you, what happens to Pusya?” I was shocked that she would ask and I stood there with my mouth open. I guess she meant if I were to die. But I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.

E: Good.

T: He likes her too. He’s afraid of everyone. Of strangers. Anybody who comes over. Even Sasha, or Natasha the social worker, whom he sees often. But Irina can stand on the porch and he’ll come right up to her. I guess he knows that she loves dogs and cats.

E: Yes I guess he can sense that. I guess he’s telling her that if anything happens he’ll go live with her.

T: Yes. Once we were standing there on the porch, and Irina’s dog Danny came over, and Pusya went right after him! It was the first time in my life I saw a cat attacking a dog. I was so surprised. Natasha the social worker said that yes, she sees it on the internet all the time, how cats go after dogs. But I’ve never seen anything like that. And Danny’s pretty big too. I really like Danny. I always give him treats. I give them all treats. Cookies, or dried bread. And he takes it so delicately. The rest of them just grab it. And he is so gentle.

Danny inspecting Edward’s logs

E: Yes, he’s very well-mannered.

T: Yesterday I was going to get water, and he was sitting there, lying there, on the chain. He saw me, and started wagging his tail like crazy, wagging it back and forth. I didn’t go up to him though, because I was getting water. But later I brought him some bread.

E: Can we go back to the TV? What do you watch? News, movies, what do you watch?

T: I watch serials. I like them.

E: Western or Russian?

T: Ours, of course. Nash Spetznas (Our Special Forces). I like our serials. As for the news, well, they start showing that…. about the war. And I get tears in my eyes when I watch those young men. I watch war movies, too. I always cry when I watch them. I watch shows about love, betrayal.

E: Whatever’s on, right?

T: Yes, I turn it on in the morning and it makes noise all day. Maybe I’ll go see Galina Petrovna, or go to the avtolavka [a truck that sells groceries that comes to the village four times a week], then I turn it off, or when I’m stacking wood…. I turn it off when I’ll be gone for a while. But if I’m not gone for long I leave it, to get water, or wood. I went this morning to get water and left it on. It’s pretty cold today.

Edward Junior and Potato waiting in line at the avtolavka

E: About wood… how do you get it? Is it from the state? Do your sons bring it?

T: Do they give it to me? This wood that I have out here, the chopped wood… Natasha the social worker called and got it for me. They brought it from Davydkovo yesterday. It cost 9,500 rubles.

E: So it’s not from the government? That’s normal price, 9,500.

T: Who is going to give me free wood? They brought two free trucks once, of cut wood, and half of it was full of dirt. It took so long for Natasha and I to get rid of it. I don’t even have a wheelbarrow. We had to take it all over there with my old cart.

E: So they don’t give you any more wood, right? Now you have to pay?

T: Yeah that’s it. Just one time. Now Nadya Fyodorova is getting it, since she’s getting help from the government. She got the two trucks this year. One time.

E: So just one time. I thought it would be every year.

T: No. And consider my pension. With everything altogether, including the veteran of labor pension, it comes to 16 thousand-something. The subsistence level is 18,000, and I get 16-something. Try to get by on that somehow! I’m a veteran of labor! I have the labor veteran’s book!

E: And you worked all your life, right?

T: Of course. I’m a veteran of labor! I have the book.

E: And half of that, even more than half, went to wood. One truck, small truck—and how many months is that good for? Two winter months?

How much (chopped) wood you receive for 9,500 rubles

T: And how much more of it I’ll have to buy! I’ll need to buy another 15-20,000 worth! We live in the forest, the lumber is being taken away somewhere, and then how many piles of logs do you see along the road just sitting there, rotting! But just try to go take them! And we live in the forest! It would be great if they took that wood that was left over and gave it to seniors, poor people, those whose pensions are small. They could bring it to us — here you go! No. That’s our government. That’s how we live. Well, what are you going to do? We survive, in other words. And the prices! And you want to eat… When I go to the avtolavka I spend about 1,500 each time. Well I spend less on Thursdays and Mondays when Natasha goes for me. Sometimes it’s 2,000. Then you come home and it’s just the things that you need. I don’t buy anything extra. And if you don’t eat, what’s the point of living? If you can’t even eat? What’s here? Before people got together, went to the movies, to the club. What can I say? That’s how we live… Lord, my knee is starting to hurt…

E: Why have you been standing for this whole conversation?!

T: I’m more comfortable like this. It’s like being on stage again.

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Thank you, Tatyana Dmitrievna and Ekaterina!

Did you enjoy this interview? Maybe you have some follow-up questions for Tatyana Dmitrievna? Leave a comment!