Sheshurino, Boy & Mishka Sparrowlegs

The left side of Sheshurino, our little village, clings to Lake Nagovye, and the right side to a forest that is all downed trees and bogs. A glacier passed our way in the dim and distant past, leaving in its wake boulder-sized stones, sand, and lakes like platters of pristine sky.

The woods are flush with wild strawberries and bilberries, the bogs with cranberries and cloudberries, and mushrooms grow all over the place in fall, even right up to our porches. And the woods are gloomy, thick with conifers and clearings that aren’t clear at all. Which is why the wildlife – the moose (that handsome devil), the wild boar, the bear, the wolf, and no telling who-all else – has a soft spot for the place we call home.

From time immemorial, people have been making their homes along the waterways here. The rivers carried the trade in furs and the flax that is the gold of the North. We had a state farm in Soviet times, and a flourishing one it was too. Its name was Struggle. And struggle we did, if not with drought, then with bad harvests. Even so, though, we lived well enough. Think about it – we had a cow in every yard, a pig in every sty, and lambs. We planted potatoes and carrots, beets and cabbage, plenty for the family and some to sell. There were apple, plum, and cherry orchards everywhere. We weren’t poor, no indeed. The haymaking in the river floodplains and along the lakeshores was good too: all that succulent, tasty grass! And we planted flax that turned the fields sky-blue when it flowered.

And so we lived through good times and bad. Our village used to be part of a nobleman’s estate. General Kuropatkin, a hero of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and 1905 and a progressive thinker, spent his own money to build a post office, a school, and a hospital with a maternity ward. The state farm was huge, encompassing 12 – count ’em, 12 – well populated villages. And there were old folks who had lived here forever. One old gal, 102 if she was a day, remembered her granddad going off to war with Napoleon. Before the Soviets came, our lands had been in Pskov Province though later, for some reason, they made them part of Tver Province.

But when perestroika began, it all just fell apart. The state farm hung on like grim death, but the forces it was up against could not be overcome. Our little village ended up with six houses and four old gals – Vasilyevna, Mikhalna, Nikolavna, and stone-deaf Zinka. There’s only one grandpa in the whole place, and that’s Vasya, and he’s hard of hearing too, although he still plays the accordion. Next door lives my pal Nadyukha – she’ll never see 50 again – and her husband Mishka Sparrowlegs, who used to be a stableman and a welder, but is now unemployed, an inveterate drunkard, and a bitter man.

And there’s Sanechka Owlface who pastures the cows, all two of them, and Nikolayev the tractor driver, a strange fellow who lives with his mother-in-law and his wife Ninka, way out there at the very edge of the village. We’re thin on the ground, you could say, but in summer the cottagers arrive, from Moscow or Peter, and all of a sudden life is fun again, and noisy too. Come autumn, it all goes quiet. We dig potatoes, get firewood in for the winter, and caulk our huts one more time, so we won’t freeze to death.

It’s not far to the store as the crow flies, just a couple of kilometers at most, but Boy, a staid and thoughtful horse, is being hitched up for the trip. Mishka Sparrowlegs is fussing in the stable, taking the tack down from the wall, leading Boy out onto the hard-packed, hay-veined snow, and slapping the horse affectionately on the rump. Then he says something in Boy’s ear that makes him toss his head and bare his big, yellow teeth.

Mishka has taught him to “laugh” and, to amuse the kiddies, he says “Boy, gimme a smile.” For that the horse gets scraps of moistened cookie or little caramels, held out on tiny palms. He takes the treat tidily, although that lip could easily wrap around the child’s whole hand, mitten and all. Mishka solemnly drags out the hand-made wooden sleigh, checks the harness, plumps up the hay-stuffed cushion, and shakes out a fringed blanket of burgundy velvet that he took possession of when the local culture club was discarding it.

And now, sensing that he is the center of attention, Boy starts bowing, raising his front leg and flashing his white socks. He’s a sleek horse, well fed and well put together – no surprise for a horse whose owner is half-Roma, like Sparrowlegs. The manager comes out of the canteen, carrying under his arm a roll of canvas sacks and a black oilskin satchel like a conductor’s bag. The old gals, who have been stamping their felt-booted feet in the cold, take this as an “all aboard” and go to find their places in the sleigh.

Mishka sits up front, flourishes his whip in figure eights, tugs on the reins, and gives an encouraging “Giddyup, Boy, giddyup.” And the horse jerks the sleigh forward in a grudging sort of way. They labor up the post-office hill, the horse making heavy going of it. Mishka hops out to lighten the load, and the old gals are squealing and tilting backward with every jolt.

Boy picks it up on the downhill slope, cutting his eyes sideways, fairly barreling along, and scaring the neighborhood dogs. He sets a chipper pace, his hooves mashing down the snow.

“Oh, great,” sighs the crowd in the store, “the hospital’s back.” They know that these customers have lists as long as your arm and that’ll take time, so the men go off for a smoke and the women head for the stove, to yap about the latest news. Mishka is in the sleigh, lying on the hay and smoking a Prima cigarette, while the smoke funnels upward, toward the cold.