I, Elizaveta Ivanovna Zalesskaya (nee Ponamareva), was born in 1937 in the stanitsa Manych, Bagaevsky district, Rostov Oblast. [Comment. Azov-Black Sea Krai - at the time of birth]
My father is Ivan Ivanovich Ponamarev, my mother is Antonina Ivanovna Ponamareva.
I have a brother Alexander Ivanovich Ponamarev (born in 1930) and a sister Eugenia (Evgenia Ivanovna) (Zhenya) (born in 1932) (she deceased).
My father [born in 1904] died during the [Great Patriotic] War.
[Comment.
He died of wounds in the 315th medical sanitary battalion of the 287th Infantry Division on May 10, 1942 (presumably during the amputation of the left foot)].
I remember very well how my mother received the pokhoronka [Comment: an official document from the front, from the place of hostilities about the death of a serviceman (military personnel)] and she loudly cried. I wasn't able yet to understand, then, why she was crying so (hard).
[2. Childhood during the war]
During the war we lived in territory occupied by the Germans. The Germans are in our hut (khata) [Comment: khata - a small, very simple house, made according to local customs], and we, the children and mother, are in the cellar. [Comment. In many cases, the cellar and the entrance to the cellar were located separately - outside the house, in the yard].
The Germans were allowing my mother to cook a basin of corn in the woodstove [in the house]. She was bringing this to us, and we were eating this. [Comment of the initiator of the publication (abbreviated as comment). A basin - like a huge metal plate - there were apparently no other utensils for cooking at that moment].
Opposite, in the yard, there was a German military unit.
Therefore, there were bombing [dropping bombs from airplanes], and an aerial bomb fell in our vegetable garden next to our house. The wall of our hut collapsed, and we lived with our neighbors for some time. Then a wall was put up and the ceiling was propped up [was strengthened] with a log, and we lived in such conditions for a long time.
[3. The secondary school. The brother's and sister's study after school. The sister's marriage.]
As sister Eugenia, so and I, we completed the entire secondary school course, graduated from 10th grade. We were visiting school, which was at the distance of 3 km away. The road was muddy and cold. There was nothing to wear. My mother made me a coat from a German military raincoat, my feet were always wet.
My brother left for Rostov early - he studied at a vocational school, then worked at Rostselmash. Aunt Shura Ivanova, a relative, my mother's cousin, she helped him.
After 10th grade, Eugenia went to enroll in RIIZhT [Comment: Rostov-on-Don Institute of Railway Transport], but did not score points and entered a construction college in Novocherkassk, graduated, worked for 2 years in the Far East, then returned. She met her future husband, he is from the stanitsa Manych. She gave birth to two girls [...].
[Comment. Sister Eugenia and her husband lived in Novocherkassk].
[4. The beginning of the construction of a house in Rostov-on-Don with the efforts and funds of the whole family. The moving to Rostov-on-Don.]
When I graduated from 10th grade, Sashka [brother] at that time received a [Comment: free; without payment] plot of land on the 2nd Ordzhonikidze [Comment: the district of Rostov-on-Don, located relatively close to Rostselmash].
Sashka decided to relocate my mother and me to Rostov.
My mother sold the little khata that she had built to replace the dilapidated one [damaged by an aerial bomb], put the money in a suitcase called "baletka", put [me] on a boat [Comment: a type of public water transport plying along the Don River] and sent me to Rostov.
Sashka [brother] needed money, he began to build a house.
My mother and I moved to Rostov and lived with aunt Shura Ivanova for a year, on the Shcherbakova Street, in the 2nd district [Ordzhonikidze].
Meanwhile, Sashka began construction. Friends were coming and helping. They kneaded the clay and straw, dried - made air-dried bricks, and laid the walls. We did everything ourselves; there was no money to hire builders.
When we lived with aunt Shura... I worked at the [Rostselmash] plant in a woodworking shop, I earned kopecks [the salary was not big] (Sashka organized (found) me the workplace). I worked 2 shifts [a day]. I was returning home at night [on foot; public transport was generally poor, and especially so at night]. Once a man was chasing [me]... [I managed to escape].
I was giving everything I earned to build a house.
[5. Study after the secondary school, the work in the library.]
Then I quit and entered the library technical school. After 2 years of study... they sent me to work in a rural library (then there was the Kamenskaya Oblast, Chernyshkovsky District, Basakin, khutor) as the head of the library. After two years of work, I returned to Rostov and got a job as a librarian...
[6. Brother's marriage.]
By that time, Sashka had married. His future wife lived on our street [Comment: the street in Rostov where the family house was being built]. Before his marriage, he drank heavily, my mother suffered. Then he settled down [returned to normal], children were born [daughter and son] ...
[7. Moving into an unfinished family home. Subsequent construction financing.]
At first, my mother looked after the children; family didn't send them to kindergarten. Then, due to a difficult financial situation, my mother went to work in store of workers of water transport (was situated on the 1st line) as a cleaner.
[8. The job in the another library, the meeting my future husband, the marriage.]
Thanks to my friend Natasha, I went to work at NIITM [Comment: Heavy Machinery Research Institute], in the library, where I met Vladimir Vasilievich [Zalessky]. He was the head of the department to research the problems of the use of ultrasound. I fell in love, he reciprocated. He was 30 years old, I was 23.
We got married in 1960. In 1961, son Volodya was born. We lived [in a two-room apartment] on the Budennovsky [Prospect] with parents of husband.
[9. Details of life before moving to Rostov. The pressure of taxes. An attempt not to join the collective farm. Mother with the empty bucket without vegetables. The sisters did housework at home. The hardest job.]
In the Manych, stanitsa, we, during my childhood, lived in poverty. Mom was taxed on meat, on milk... There was no farming, there was no property out of which to pay taxes. When the tax authorities were coming, my mother hid with the neighbors. They inspect - a poverty, 3 children, and they leave.
At first my mother didn't want to go to the collective farm, but that was impossible, since she would have been an edinolichnitsa [Comment: edinolichnik, edinolichnitsa - a human outside the collective farm, in rural areas], and this was punishable by law.
She had to work on the collective farm from dawn to dawn. ... she was hanging a 10-kilogram tsybarka [bucket] [Comment: with vegetables from the field] on her hand [Comment: as if this bucket was empty], supposedly it was empty, and such a way she had to bring food to the children home.
[Comment: she hung the bucket on her hand, rather than carrying it by the handle, to create the impression that the bucket was light, that it weighed almost nothing, that the bucket was empty; an attempt of "conspiracy" ...]
Eugenia [sister] and I performed household duties, planted and harvested potatoes, and cleaned the 'hut-house.'
If there was some grain, we went to the people. They had what was called a mill. A huge, heavy stone had to be rotated in order to grind this grain and get at least a little flour for crumpets [doughnuts]. I have never done the more heavy work, in my life.
[10. Details of the mother's life after the death of her husband, before the moving to Rostov. A construction of a little hut to replace a ruined one (destroyed by an aerial bomb)]
As I now understand, my mother had a friend. One of his legs was made of wood. Apparently, with his help, my mother built a small hut to replace the destroyed one (which at any moment could collapse down and crush us).
Subsequently, she sold this new one. The figure of 500 rubles is spinning in my head, or maybe not 500. But I handed this money to Sashka to start construction [of a family house in Rostov].
[11. "Menka". Remnants of welfare. Harsh winters. A hunting rifle which left after the death of my father. Heaps of cucumbers for seeds in the foreman's yard.]
And immediately after the war, in the winter, I remember, my mother headed to 'menka' [Comment: something like an illegal clothing market].
I don't remember now what things she was exchanging. Apparently, there were remains of some things.
She and dad weren't living badly, apparently there was something left.
I remember there was a beautiful Persian shawl, a black lace scarf, gold earrings, but I don't remember anything else.
She brought [after the exchange] several glasses of grain and beans.
And we sat in the hut, heating [the stove] by kuga [Comment: dried amphibious herbaceous plants - broad-leaved cattail]. The windows were frozen. The white light was not visible.
[Comment: It was dangerous to walk long distances in winter; It was dangerous for a defenseless woman to walk with any valuables].
The house was covered with snow up to the roof; the winters were harsh and snowy.
Sashka used a hunting rifle (dad was a hunter), Sashka shot sparrows, and we cooked soup.
It was easier in the summer. We ate vegetables from the garden. And the woman, neighbor, was a foreman [taskmaster]. She always had heaps of cucumbers for seeds in her yard, and we ate them.
[12. Construction of a family house in Rostov is almost complete. A conflict. The mother and sisters (they supported the mother) were almost 'squeezed off away.']
It was this friend of mother was the cause of the quarrel between mother and Sashka.
We were already living in the 2nd settlement [2nd district Ordzhonikidze] [in a newly built house], he apparently arrived...
Sashka came home from work at the wrong time...
The mother arrived [to the apartment] on Budennovsky [Prospect].
... Vasily Aleksandrovich [Zalessky] [husband's father] advised my mother to go to the forensic medical examination office, where the beatings were reflected.
We (me, Eugenia [my sister], Yuzefa Adamovna [husband's mother]) supported my mother...
The court awarded my mother one little room...
Mom [became very ill] lived either with me or with Eugenia [alternately]. Mom died in 1980...
[13. A new position. A garden plot from the NPO Atomkotlomash.]
In 1980, we were given land for gardening [the Enthusiast gardening partnership was created]... and I got a [garden] plot...
By that time I was working at Atomkotlomash [Comment: NPO Atomkotlomash - the Research and Production Association for the development of technology, manufacture of technological equipment and equipment in nuclear engineering], in the library. Later - head of the library.
At the same time, my son Volodya and I purchased a plot of land in the area of the Regional Hospital [Zapadny, Rostov-on-Don], which was demolished, and we lost it [this plot]...
Working on the land is my hobby and great pleasure.
For two years I worked as the chairman of our gardening partnership 'Enthusiast'.
[14. Details of later life.]
All my property, movable and immovable, belongs to my son by will...
[15. Mother's relatives.]
My mother Antonina Ivanovna Ponamareva had two brothers - Fedya and Dmitry.
Dmitry died early, and Uncle Fedya died in 92 or 93.
Uncle Fedya was captured by the Germans during the war. He worked in German factories, and when the war ended, he was sent to a camp for 10 years. He worked in a mine in the Molotov [Comment: Perm] Oblast, the city of Verkhnyaya Gubakha, injured his leg there, limped when he was freed, was not allowed to settle in his homeland in Manych or Rostov, settled in Khasavyurt. A few years later he moved to the homeland of his wife, aunt Ulya, in Volgograd Oblast...
They had no children, they took [adopted] their adopted daughter, she lived with them, then got married, gave birth to 3 children, after the death of her uncle she own his house and land plot.
He did not talk about his captivity or hard labor.
We thought that he was a war participant with a good pension... but it turned out there were no benefits, and a meager pension.
And Sashka, when he decided to marry, sent him (Uncle Fedya) a letter asking him to send money for the wedding, his Uncle sent a box of apples, he couldn't help anything more, at that time he lived in Khasavyurt.
[16. Father's relatives and the attempt to enter the pedagogical institute.]
My dad Ivan Ivanovich Ponamarev had 3 brothers and 3 sisters [Comment: seven children in the family; four sons].
He's seventh.
Grandma Dunya [Antonina], my father's mother, had 13 children, but 7 survived.
My dad died in the war.
Uncle Kolya, unmarried, died in the war.
Uncle Misha died in the war, and the family died in a bombing. The bomb hit the house where they situated [at that moment].
Dad's sisters:
Aunt Vera..., her children: Galya, Kostya, Volodya...
Aunt Nina... two sons Volodya and Kolya. Kolya drowned in the Don River - he dived and that's all. And Volodya served in the Far East [Comment: as a soldier]. And it may be a such a coincidence - [sister] Eugenia worked in the Far East after technical school, and they [suddenly] saw each other there [Comment: were able to talk]...
... Aunt Nina always had money. When uncle Senya [aunt Nina's husband] died, she changed her apartment to a smaller one and took extra payment [Comment: compensation for the reducing of living space]...
When Sashka began to build, he borrowed money from aunt Nina, I don't know how much, but she soon died.
Volodya, her son, may not have known. Kolya drowned... [Comment: money...-?]
When, after 10th grade, I tryed to enter the Pedagogical Institute, and it was hopeless with my rural education, Aunt Nina sheltered me and my friend Valya Mishchenko during the exams. She fed us. [Comment. In 1958 Elizaveta entered the Moscow State Library Institute; she completed the full course in 1963; she received a diploma of higher education; she studied by correspondence, 'zaochno'].
Mom was bringing the small potatoes from Manych, and we ate them.
The third sister, aunt Ksenya, with whom grandmother Dunya, father's mother lived... Aunt Ksenya gave birth to a daughter, Galya...
Ksenya's daughter Galya, she has died...
...her daughter Vika...
[17. About taking away the house from grandmother Dunya (father's mother)]
It's not for nothing that they say it's a small world.
When we lived in the Manych, stanitsa, a family named Mishchenko appeared there. I don't know where they came from.
But their father was, perhaps, the chairman of the village council.
... Our grandmother Dunya had a nice house with a garden. Mishchenko moved grandmother Dunya into some kind of dilapidated building, and his family settled in grandmother's house.
A time went. Their son Pyotr Mishchenko married the sister of the man, the man, who became Evgenia's husband [Comment: Evgenia - Elizaveta's sister].
We had to cross paths with him [Pyotr Mishchenko] and to remind them of their deeds... ... Now everyone is almost dead - Peter, his wife Valya, their son, and Peter's parents...
[18. Incentives for writing Memoirs.]
All this that I remember, I decided to write for you, my son...
Why did I decide to start keeping notes? Firstly, I had a bad dream, and secondly, I had a nagging pain in my stomach, which bothered me very much..
[19. The cat.]
The cat is wild, does not recognize strangers, only E. [neighbor]. If something happens to me, I can't even imagine what will happen to cat. [Comment: That cat died about five years ago.]
[20. About the funeral.]
... maybe you can bury me in the same grave with my mother... I would like that. [Comment: The notes were discovered in the one of notebooks upon careful examination about a week ago, already after the funeral.]
[21. Some details of the family life.]
When we got married, Yuzefa Adamovna [husband's mother] and Vasily Alexandrovich [husband's father] received me well, although it was a surprise for them, since he [the husband] did not consult with them.