Tag #134179 - Interview #78178 (jemma grinberg)

Our relatives from Perm and Kazan sent us some money for the trip, and we left for Kazan. We had to change trains several times. My mother was told that we couldn't buy tickets in Namanghan, unless she could bribe the director of the station. We wrapped money around a pile of paper, putting a bigger banknote on top, and gave this as our bribe. In exchange we received three tickets. Perhaps discovering our ruse, the director of the station notified the conductors of this, because someone wearing the railroad uniform approached us several times demanding money until Mama began shouting so that everyone would hear, “Stop demanding money from us! We already have our tickets.” Then he left us alone. We had only 34 rubles left. Someone told us that we could make a profit by buying salt and then selling it, so in Kuibyshev, leaving our mother to watch the luggage – her legs were so swollen that she couldn't walk - we went to the bazaar to sell the salt. We made a little money from our sale and moved on. In Kazan my mother's sister Nelia met us and immediately sent my mother to the hospital. The doctor there said that there was nothing he could do to help mother, but Nelia started selling all the clothes she had to buy food, and managed to cure Mama.