Isac Tinichigiu in front of his childhood house

This photo was taken in Iasi in 2001 when I took my son Paul, to my home town for the first time. He hadn't had the chance to see Iasi before, so I took him around on a tour, starting with the house I was born in. The house was almost the same as I remembered it from 65 years ago. I was born in this house in 1927, and I lived here with my family until I left for Bucharest in 1948. It had two rooms and a wooden summer kitchen, and a courtyard of 100 square meters. We had no running water or electricity. We had seven trees there, three sour-cherry trees that, we, the children, were not supposed to eat from. The fruits were saved for cherry brandy the family would need for the holidays and for the winter. We also had four apple trees and from their apples my mother would make stewed fruit for the winter. We also planted parsley, horseradish and early radish. But the financial situation of the family was precarious: in the summer we had food, in the fall mother would make canned fruit or vegetables, but during the winter we rarely saw meat because there was no money for it, just for bread. I'll never forget one woman, Marita, who gave us milk even if we had no money to pay; she would wait for that money until spring.