Selected text
We were accommodated in a small house located in the yard of the owner's house. We were the only tenants. There was a big room and kitchen with a Russian stove [14] in it. The stove heated the kitchen and the room. We cleaned the house. I washed the floors using a brush and some alkali solution. We made frilled gauze curtains for the windows. There was no other house with curtains in the village. The locals, when visiting us, admired how clean and cozy our house was.
There were actually many things we didn't know about living in the village. We didn't know how to cut wood, and my mother didn't know how to stoke the Russian stove. It took us some time to get used to doing things of this kind. My mother was trading whatever belongings we had with us for potatoes and flour. We baked potatoes in the Russian stove, and my mother baked our own bread. My sister and I picked brushwood, bringing it home in bundles. Someone delivered a few logs to us, and we cut them for wood for the stove. My mother or my sister never learned to cut wood. My father and I did this job. We had to learn it all. Misfortunes can teach anything.
There were actually many things we didn't know about living in the village. We didn't know how to cut wood, and my mother didn't know how to stoke the Russian stove. It took us some time to get used to doing things of this kind. My mother was trading whatever belongings we had with us for potatoes and flour. We baked potatoes in the Russian stove, and my mother baked our own bread. My sister and I picked brushwood, bringing it home in bundles. Someone delivered a few logs to us, and we cut them for wood for the stove. My mother or my sister never learned to cut wood. My father and I did this job. We had to learn it all. Misfortunes can teach anything.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Kanash
Russia
Interview
Bluma Lepiku