Tag #138456 - Interview #78008 (agi sofferova)

Up to the transport, I lived in Mukachevo. It was a large, beautiful modern city. Pavement, electricity, we had all that stuff. Mukachevo was built by the Czechs. [Editor's note: during the years 1918 - 1938, Mukachevo was part of the territory of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Most of the city's older buildings were built during this time period.] When they arrived, it was this no man's land. It had changed hands a lot, there were Romanians there, Hungarians and Ruthenians, and then in 1945 it was ceded to the Russians, so it became part of the Soviet Union, and we [the interviewee means Czechoslovakia] lost it. It used to be beautiful, fertile land, similar to here in Znojmo, grapes, apples, apricots. Then the Russians began mining salt there, and dug it up and ruined it all.