Tag #149942 - Interview #90532 (Grigoriy Fihtman)

When I was in the 2nd grade, my father managed to arrange for me to go to a pioneer camp in Odessa. This was my first trip by train when I went by myself. My father asked an acquaintance of him to keep an eye on me and in Odessa my brother Abram who was a student of a technical school in Odessa met me. Abram and I took a tram to Lustdorf (a village near Odessa, present Chernomorka). The pioneer camp was at the seashore. This was the first time I saw the sea and boats. I can still remember this. I started putting down my impressions in my diary to tell my mother and father what I saw. We went to the beach and had meals three or four times a day. I saw Dutch cheese for the first time in my life. We got it for breakfast. It was new food for me and I refused to eat it. Abram visited me few times. He explained to me that it was delicious and very good food. He whispered: ‘We don’t have it at home. Just eat it’. We were given fruit, grapes, and butter. I was supposed to spend three weeks in the camp, but I got homesick on the tenth day. I asked my brother: ‘Take me home’. He said: ‘You are all right here. Nobody does any harm here’. So we counted days together: ten, nine, eight days before going home… I enjoyed it there, but I never learned to swim. I was afraid of the sea  (I still am). I stayed at the shore for hours looking at the water and breathing in the sea air.