Normandy & mining district in Ukraine

The summer this year is really unstable – one day it is raining and cold, then it is sort of warm but windy, next day it is over 30°… and the blue sky gets covered by those fluffy, spectacular clouds; they seem so full of water and so tired to carry it that they virtually lay down to rest on the buildings. And then the thunder storm comes to relieve the clouds, it rains again and the whole circle repeats…. It is like life, life sometimes really resembles a circle…

This is Deauville, a seaside resort in Normandy, a chic sort of place on the Atlantic Coast

a gallery in Honfleur

A XVI century church in Blagny le Chateau

Between these pictures of Normandy and my childhood in Ukraine 50 years have passed…. It’s not easy to remember everything but fortunately the human memory is a fantastic tool, it keeps the past stocked, maybe part of it, but still it is there… Unfortunately this magnificent tool has no filter to suppress the bad memories and keep only the good ones; though as the French say “c’est la vie”, and that’s what makes this very “vie” interesting…

I will skip in my tale my first year of school, I don’t remember much, not even my first teacher. Everyone is supposed to remember that, aren’t they? Well I don’t. I was left alone with some far relatives in a small town in Donbass, the mining area, where my mother planned to move. I guess I was too scared and disoriented to remember “the big day”, the traditional 1st of September when all children start the school year in the Soviet Union wearing their festive uniforms and carrying big bouquets of flowers for their teachers; the tradition was for the girls to wear big white bows decorating their heads and looking like flowers themselves. Like everyone else I was certainly wearing a brown uniform with a white apron and I guess I had white ribbon bows decorating my neatly plaited hair but unlike everyone else I had no parents and grand parents holding my hand and smiling proudly and encouragingly to me.

Anyway I stayed at that school only a few months; my mother got a new job, brought my sister along and took me to live with her in a neighbouring town. It was a typical soviet provincial working town with some pale yellow two-storied apartment buildings built after the war, with some private houses, paved streets in a bad shape, the majority of streets unpaved and dusty. And there was one main, and only, square with the school (my new school), and the Palace of Culture with the cinema hall and all kind of cultural associations for children and adults.

I wish I had some photos as I don’t remember many details of the town, I just remember that it looked boring. It was surrounded by the coal gob piles that broke the monotony of the flat horizon of this area that was flat like a big omelette. The air was full of dust and sometimes very smelly as the town had a few chemical factories. The majority of the population was working at those factories and mines. It was easy to identify those who worked at the mines and went deep down into the mining drifts to work in the long galleries getting coal; the coal dust penetrated the skin around their eyes and the men had no choice but to wear this permanent make up. I thought it looked funny, the men who were walking in the streets as if they had put on a lot of kohl to make themselves attractive.

still in Normandy

the cows that I see every morning

Last time I was talking about snow and Ukraine…
Living in Paris I start forgetting what snow looks like, it hardly snows in Paris, only sometimes…, and it creates a big panic; the traffic is disturbed and the percentage of car accidents increases dramatically (as if it was not high enough because French believe that half a bottle - or slightly more, of red or white wine doesn’t effect their ability to drive). Fortunately the new president between his divorces and marriages is doing his best to solve the problem; so now radars are installed everywhere on the roads reminding French drivers to slow down. Driving my car to Deauville the other day I heard the statistics, they say that there are less accidents in France now, but statistics stays just statistics, in real life who knows….

Well, don’t get confused, I started talking about Normandy and now I say that I live in Paris…. The information is perfectly reliable, I just move too much. I believe if I make some calculations, my moving average might be quite surprising, close to about every two years. Having in mind that I am not a diplomat or a military, it makes a lot. One of my acquaintances assured me that my karma was responsible for that. Quite possible, karma is a serious stuff; I just hope that in my next reincarnation I will have a more peaceful life…

Back to my grandma’s village… And to those long and carefree sunny days when the future seemed to be something ephemeral and far away, when small things could make one happy and when body and soul wounds healed very quickly.

Living with our grandmother was pleasant and my sister and I were happy about the arrangement, we hardly thought or talked about our farther; he was out and that was it, our mother was rarely home and it was our grandmother, helped by her younger daughter, who took care of us. We had nothing to complain about. Grandma was so much cooler than our mother who was easily getting nervous and impatient with us when she was around. I don’t remember missing my mother; I think I was happy when she was at work or at her theatre courses in the evenings.
My mother belongs to the category of people that I would call unrealised stars. She played guitar and sang and often was given main roles in plays put up by the local amateur theatre. That’s why she was quite well known in the village. She was very beautiful according to the common opinion of the village people. She worked as a sales girl in the local shop and I heard that some admirers were going to the shop not to buy food and other stuff but just to look at her. She could have become, I guess, a successful professional actress if she had more self confidence, more self respect, more drive and a bigger heart. Her life was not much of a success, she was always unhappy and I suspect never loved anybody, even herself. Nor her children. At least it felt like this.

Grandmother was different, she cared about me. I can not say that she was much more affectionate than my mother was but she was present. Even if I try very hard I can not remember a single time when my mother took me in her arms or gave me a kiss, even when I was little. I was never afraid of grandma but I was afraid of my mother when I saw in her blue eyes that terrifying look of fury, almost madness when she was angry with me. Grandma was funny, hardworking and caring. I remember her going to the market early in the mornings and brining us, my sister and I, all kind of local gourmandise – fresh bread, cottage cheese, pastries, candies. She tried to spoil us in her simple way; for us it became a ritual waiting for her coming back from the market and checking impatiently her basket. Even cherries, that she was buying sometimes, seemed tastier than those growing on the trees in her garden.
The garden my grandmother had was big, very big. That’s what I thought when I looked at all those cherry trees, plump trees, apple trees. The trees were old and very high.
The orchard was wonderful in summer. I loved climbing up the huge brunches and hide almost at the top of the tree to a big despair of my sister who was calling for me in vain. And when she would loose her hope to find me and go complain to my grandmother, I would enjoy a little feast eating cherries and “tree’s tears” - the amber yellow, thick juice of the tree, glued on the surface of the wrinkled bark.
I imagined that I was a big bird and I could fly. I was sure that if I really wanted and made a little effort, I could just spread my arms and fly. Luckily I never tried though. One thing is to dream and another thing is trying to realise your dreams.

I have always been as the French would say “une rêveuse incorrigible”. Dreaming was a big part of my daily activities. I was always imagining things. Grandmother’s winter coat, hanging peacefully in the corridor, would become a dangerous bear, so entering the house I was running with a speed of a light to avoid that horrible big animal grab me and take me to the forest like poor little Masha from grandma’s fairytale.
Sometimes an imprudent chicken would happen to be on my way and I would step on it. The frightened bird would fly up screaming as if it was its last day and I would fall and, as always, hurt my knees. All this noise would attract my grandmother’s attention which was either working in the garden or cooking something in the summer kitchen, a tiny wooden construction in the yard equipped with a low metal stove, where she exercised her talents of a chef. My tears and a story about the bear grabbing me would not change her determination to throw out of the house both of us – me and the chicken. And I would find myself in the yard facing another trial. A big rooster, the chief of the chicken gang hearing the screams of one of its hens would run to inspect what was going on. And seeing me it would attack me immediately. We had a bad relationship, the rooster and I; for some reason it considered me as its worst enemy. The monster would fly up my shoulders and start hitting me with its beak.
Hearing my screams, my grandmother would run to save me and this time it was not me who would be punished, it was my enemy that would end up imprisoned in the small, dark shed in the garden. And I would be compensated by a fresh “pyrozhok” filled with cherries or sweet cottage cheese. The award usually tasted so good, my grandma was such an excellent cook, that I would forget all my sorrows and go to the garden to climb on the tree and eat up the trophy.
I observed the battle field and dreamed about the “vendetta” thinking how one day my grandma would catch my enemy, cut its head with a big knife and put its body into a big recipient full of boiling water to make its feathers go off easier. Usually I didn’t like to watch my grandmother killing chickens to prepare lunch. I felt sorry for them when I saw her cutting the screaming chicken’s head, putting the lifeless body in the hot water, pulling out the feather and then keeping the poor little carcass over the flame to burn even the smallest down. When I knew that my grandmother was planning a chicken execution I always tried to go out to play with my friends.

The most difficult thing is to start...

26.07.2008

The most difficult thing is to start.... and get back in my memory to the events that happened a long time ago when I still lived in a country called the USSR, a country that actually doesn’t exist anymore… Thinking that I am born in a country that doesn’t exist makes me feel bizarre as if I was some kind of alien that came from a strange planet. And it was a strange planet I should say. I lived there till I was thirty, and then I fled in the west but I certainly did have more than enough time to experience what is a soviet country with all its positive and negative aspects. I just have to concentrate on those old souvenirs and try to slip mentally into my former life….

All that I need is just to take my eyes off the windows and stop looking at cows walking slowly in the fields lit by the evening sun. Why cows? Because I am in Normandy, in France and Normandy means cows everywhere.
I am sitting at a table near the window in a farm house belonging to my ex, looking at the fields, cows, apple trees, the brick building of the sauna and the forest behind. Why cows, it seems to be clear… Why sauna? Because my ex is a Finn and Finns according to the common knowledge are crazy about sauna (if not just simply crazy) , so my ex who lives in France has built a sauna in front of his summer house; I guess it makes him feel less nostalgic.

Why am I in France and why am I sitting in my ex’s summer house looking at cows? This a very long story. I’d better start at the very beginning…

I was born in a small Ukrainian village, lost in the middle of nowhere (and never suspected what surprises this life has prepared to me).
My parents moved when I was still a baby and I never went back to my birth place, that’s why I can not describe it to you.
When I was about five, we moved again but this time without my father, only my mother, my little sister and I. We went to my grandmother’s place, in the south of Ukraine. We stayed there till I turned seven. Then my mother found a job in a town situated in the mining area, called Donbass, and we moved again and there I started my schooling.

Fortunately every summer I went back for my holidays to grandmother’s. I loved that little village with houses painted in white surrounded by gardens and orchards with flower beds in front of the houses. These are a large part of my first memories as a child. After my mother left my father, as I mentioned above, we moved in with my grandmother. She lived alone, my grandfather died during the war. Later when her two daughters, my mother and her younger sister, started their adult lives, grandma got married to a widow from the same village and moved over to his place and, to my big sorrow, sold her house that I loved so much.

The house was not very big. One half of it was used for living and another, separated by a corridor, was used as a storage and sort of hencoop to keep chicken and rabbits in it when the weather turned extremely cold. That was a typical peasant house, or izba, built with clay bricks, the walls painted traditionally in white with whitewash, and having clay floors covered by colourful mats produced by the local women.
The mats were woven with long strips of cloth; it was a good way to avoid wasting old clothing and house linen. The final product was those long, narrow, multicoloured mats with discrete nods in the places where the strips were tied together.
The mats were neatly put on the earth floor covering it completely, thus keeping the house warm and protecting it from dust. It gave to the living space that happy fistful look.

Every Saturday it was a cleaning day. My grandma would take the mats out in the yard and give them a good shake. In the winter time she would put them on the snow and would beat them with a broom so hard as if she was angry with them for something. And after she took them away, the snow that was so clean and white before her vigorous beating would loose its fluffy texture and become all grey. My grandma or my aunt would carefully sweep the floors that were green in colour being covered with a layer of a mixture of clay and horse-dung. My sister and I were supposed to help bringing the mats in and putting them exactly in the same order as they were placed before; the long colourful mats that looked quite similar to me had some particular meaning for my grandmother; she would never accept to change her floor arrangements. The rooms with freshly swept floors smelled of snow and were filled with fresh winter air, clean and cool. Letting our grandma doing her business around the house, my sister and I would stay outside and play in the snow. We delayed coming in till grandma would put the fire in the stove and the house would fill with the smells, that indescribable aroma of burned wood, freshly backed bread and rich flavoured, healthy peasant food.

The living area of the house consisted of a big room, a smaller one - my aunt’s room, and a big space between them with its enormous brick stove meant to hit the house and to be used as a winter kitchen.
The main room with a double metal bed by the wall, a dining table and a dressing table was multifunctional; it was used as a sitting room and a dining room. The bed, a magnificent featherbed, occupied almost one third of the room, it was high and looked very pompous with its big eider-down that was covered by a white embroidered bedcover. On the top of this fluffy chantilly-looking mound rested snow white pillows. The whole thing looked like a wedding cake. It was so tempting to climb up and sink in that soft mass and hide behind those big pillows. But we were not allowed even to approach the bed. It was the main piece of decoration, something like the king’s bed in a gala sleeping room in Versailles palace where kings never slept actually but used it only to show to their guests and slept in another one, a bit more simple bed in their private suite.

Unlike French kings, we had no other bedroom, so grandma and us were sleeping in the kitchen on a huge “lezhanka”, so big that there was enough space for three, four people to sleep on it. My aunt, a schoolgirl at that time, would never accept to sleep with us; according to her this warm, boxlike sleeping space was good enough “for little ones and old ones”.
The “lezhanka” was a spacious brick bed that prolonged the big stove. That was the warmest place in the house; the stove was burning during the day and bricks kept the warms the whole night. It was the darkest place in the room as well; the open space, sort of entrance to the “lezhanka”, was screened by a colourful curtain that one could part in the middle and slide into the dark warmth of this cosy box.

In winter time it was our favourite game space. We were sitting in the darkness telling the fairy tales and horror stories. It was frightful and fun. We were screaming and laughing till grandma would open the curtains to let some light in and check what the noise was about. Interrupted by this undesired intrusion and grandma’s famous “shosh-shosh…”, our game would quiet down; filled with light our fearful, prehistoric cavern would loose all its excitement. The game would continue later in the afternoon, the “lezhanka” being hardly lit by the opal light of a dying winter day was so inviting again. We would wait for grandma to lit the oil lamp, take out from the depth of the oven big, black jars and call us to come down for dinner that took place in the sitting room.

In those days there was no electricity in the house. The sitting room lit only by the yellowish light of an oil lamp was half dark and looked mysterious. In the “red corner” hang an icon decorated with an embroidered white cloth; a little icon-lamp spotlighted the dark face of a lady with a little baby in her arms. The flame was dancing with the air movement and lady’s face with its big eyes seemed alive. I didn’t know much about St. Mary at that time, I was a typical soviet child. My granny who used to go to the church every Sunday never took me with her and never talked to me about God, Jesus Christ or his mother. I liked the face of the lady, even though she looked sad.

Usually in winter time the temperatures would go fifteen or twenty degrees below zero. In those days no one even heard about the planet global warming and winters were still real winters, in the full meaning of this word, cold and with plenty of snow. The unpaved road in front of the house, the yard and the garden were covered by snow. There was so much snow that it was coming up as high as the frames of the windows. The window glasses were completely frozen and had beautiful elaborate drawings on them - trees, faces, castles, animals. I liked to go out in the yard and keep my warm finger against the cold glass observing how the little round spot on the icy picture melted slowly and became transparent. Sometimes I would put my hand and keep it as long as I could tolerate it; my skin was burning as if I’ve put my hand on fire. I was happy with the new design on the window where one could clearly see my hand. But couple days after the unknown painter would sweep off my creation and the windows were covered with a Lalique-style milky drawings again. The frost was much more imaginative and prolific artist than I was.