August 05, 2017

Stage 2: Siberia or Bust


Stage 2: Siberia or Bust
Alexandra Pilyasova, Khimki  {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

As our tightly-packed Boeing 777 descended toward Moscow’s Sheremetevo Airport, it was engulfed in massive, downy white clouds that floated above a rich, green landscape peppered with red-roofed dachas. Everything clean and fresh, as if a cleansing rain had just passed through. The sun shimmered between breaks in the clouds, casting sharp shadows over the dacha settlements, darkening large sections of the wide, meandering Moscow River.

As we banked toward the airport, the needle of Ostankino Radio Tower emerged from a glistening, yellow haze off to our south. The skyscrapers of Moscow City were just coming into view when our 777 suddenly accelerated and lifted, aborting the landing. No explanation was shared over the intercom, and we circled around again for a second attempt, this time successful, leading to the obligatory round of passenger applause.

Moscow. Stage Two of the Children of 1917 project has begun.

During June and July, the team of Mordasov, Grebennikova and Mashchenko traveled around towns and villages near St. Petersburg, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Tver, and Nizhny Novgorod, testing our methodology and gathering the stories of a half-dozen Russian centenarians, while I watched jealously from afar, catching up via Facetime chats, transcripts and film captures, working to clear the decks in the “home office” for our longer, more intensive work in August.

August has arrived. Mikhail has been working assiduously to set up a month of interviews across Russia (and the former Russian empire) with remarkable centenarians. After a few days in Moscow, the next two weeks will take us south to Tarusa and Kolomna, then east aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, with stops in Samara, Ufa, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. It is a full and ambitious schedule, and the only certainty is that there will be changes and course alterations along the way (and that, being August, it will likely be fairly warm wherever we go).

Already our first planned meeting in Moscow did not come off, as our centenarian came down with a temperature and had no interest in spending time with accredited journalists.

Capturing Alexandra Pilyasova's story.  {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

So we circled around for a second landing attempt and the following morning headed north of the capital to Khimki, where we met Alexandra Vasilyevna Pilyasova, who turned 100 in May. Born in the town of Tirlyan, in Bashkiria, her life was marked early on by Stalin’s “dekulakization.” Someone denounced her family as kulaks, she tells us, not because they had a horse and a cow, but because they believed in educating boys and girls equally. Her father – who had served seven years in the tsarist army with distinction, fought against the Japanese and Germans, and been wounded, but who then later refused to fight for the Red (“I’m done with fighting”)  – was exiled to eastern Chelyabinsk oblast. Alexandra’s mother followed, but the children stayed behind with relatives in Tirlyan.

Alexandra's stories continue. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

Alexandra endured the social outcasting of a “daughter of kulaks,” was denied the access to higher education she so desired, and began laboring in a metal-working factory at 17, self-educating and proving herself such a reliable worker that she later received an esteemed award for her labor that bore the profile of Stalin – the tyrant whose dekulakization policy eviscerated her family and denied her the education and future she desired and deserved.

As Alexandra talks, it is evident that Tatyana (in the kitchen) is anxious to ply us with her cakes and preserves. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

I hold the medal in my hand and feel a weight far greater than its mass, then later stare at family photos from 1935, transfixed by the innocent, hopeful faces of Alexandra and her family, who had no way of knowing the trials and war that lay before them.

It is not your usual interview to sit down for several hours with someone who has lived 100 Russian years. First of all, it takes careful planning and diplomatic cajoling. Mikhail spends hours on the phone, surmounting considerable suspicion and doubt, convincing people he has never met to allow us to come into their homes, to upset their lives and furniture for photos and an interview (“Can we please move that beautiful family heirloom clock from the mantle? Its resonant ticking will be picked up by our microphones… Oh, and while you are in the kitchen, can you close all the windows on this hot day? And don’t forget to switch off your telephone too…”).

The ever-pleasant Alexandra endures her long photo shoot. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

And yet Alexandra’s daughter Tatyana effervesces with hospitality, using the opportunity of a break in the action to fill us up on tea and cakes, homemade strawberry jam, and delicious pirozhki. Even the apartment’s cat, due to give birth any day, puts up with our intrusion, though it wants nothing more than to sit and be comforted by Alexander Vasilyevna, who brought her two felines with her to Moscow when she moved here from Tirlyan.

“What kind of senior discounts?” Tatyana replies when we ask if her centenarian mother received a special airfare for her stressful flight from Ufa to Moscow this spring.

“Discounts are not real life, they are just something that get announced. And imagine,” Tatyana says with a smile, “they charged us 4000 rubles for each cat.”

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.  
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955