Tag #126482 - Interview #96005 (Sarina Chelibakova)

From 1952 to 1965 we lived very poorly in the Kyuchuk Parizh quarter [the Small Paris in Turkish]. We came to live in this apartment when my father died. It was a small house with an external staircase, which was covered in ice in the winter and we had to sprinkle ash on it. We had no water at home, we had to bring it in in pitchers. The toilet was down in the yard and the water there also froze. We lived very poorly but we were happy. Upstairs in the kitchen we had a closet where we kept the wash-tub and the sink. We had a tin container, which we filled with water and used as a sink. I, who always had maids as a child, who had Persian rugs, accepted the new living conditions without complaint. I swear. We lived so happily.