Pessya Sorkina

This photograph shows me in 1940s.

When the war burst out, I worked at the Electrosila factory. Authorities immediately sent us to dig entrenchments. We worked in the field near Ropsha [a settlement near Leningrad] when Germans arranged air attack. It was so frightful, that we ran for dear life. Authorities did not want to give us a bus to get home, they wanted us to get back to the field and go on digging. But we all refused and got back home. We were so frightened! The next day I returned to my working place at the Electrosila factory.

I remember that Mom worked her connections and placed me to the Carburetor factory which was going to be evacuated. The factory was situated in Volkova Village [a historical district of St. Petersburg in its south-east part]. We collected my clothes and left for the railway station. But that day I did not leave the city again, because that echelon did not start. We came back home. I thought the situation over once again and understood that I was going to leave without Mom and Daddy. I went to the factory and asked to take Mom with us. They agreed. We put Mom's clothes into my suitcase and left our home. But again we did not leave the city. Then I asked myself why we were going to leave Daddy alone? I went to the factory and asked to take my father with us. I promised that we should take food and water for him with us, etc. At last they agreed. But the next day the echelon did not leave (again!). You see, we did not leave at all, because all the roads were cut by Germans. It was very difficult to bring our things back home from the factory: it took us about a month to carry them part by part, because it became extremely difficult to move around the city. We took a tram, and fifteen minutes later it stopped because of air-raid warnings... In short, we remained in the besieged Leningrad. Years of blockade (1941, 1942) passed away.

And my brother graduated from the Moscow Air Force Academy. He was sent to Kazan [the capital of Tatarstan]. We left the city in 1943 by train. The train moved across the Ladoga Lake. We went in heated goods vans. [A heated goods van was a freight car adapted for transportation of people.] Of course, there were no toilets and it was impossible to jump down, because the train could go on moving at any moment. Therefore we all answered the call of nature under the van, all together. Unfortunately I do not remember the name of the town on our way to the east, where we found good food for the first time.

We reached Kazan, and Daddy got ill right after our arrival. He suffered from diarrhea. I went around Kazan on foot to find my brother. I managed. By that time he had already processed necessary papers for our evacuation by airplane (you see, my brother was a military representative at a large factory!). So we remained in Kazan.

When my brother arrived in Kazan, he had an apartment at his disposal, but after the beginning of the war it became necessary to share apartments with needy people, therefore he gave one of his rooms to some people. Soon after our arrival in Kazan my brother was sent to Kuybyshev [now Samara]. So we remained in Kazan living all together in one room.

I returned to Leningrad in 1946. I found work at the factory of aircraft instruments. I worked there as an engineer. At that time the factory was called Techpribor [one of the oldest enterprises of aircraft instruments founded in 1942]. During some period of time the factory had got no name, but different numbers: 936, later 448, etc. Unfortunately I have already forgotten the other numbers of it.

In Leningrad our room appeared to be occupied. So we had to rent a room and had legal proceedings for the room. We managed to evict our property from its unlawful possessor. And we lived here all together: Mom, Daddy and I.