Accident in the dacha. My sister. The kindergarten. The earthquakes. The fear of dogs.

Shortly after my birth, my maternal grandparents, Grandma Lina and Grandpa Yura, as well as their son Sasha, my uncle, moved to Russia and built a house there in the small village of Kharkovskiy, Oblast Rostov. My parents and paternal grandparents stayed in Uzbekistan with me. My parents and I lived in our own house. Directly opposite lived my grandparents – Gogi and my favorite grandma Galya, who cooked us the most delicious Russian and Uzbek dishes – with Pelmeni, Mantí, Plov, and especially with the Samsá made according to her secret recipe. Even a simple fried egg tasted like a feast with Galya.

But Galya was not only a good cook but also a cheerful grandmother. She liked to joke around with me and laughed at every opportunity. She had a birthmark on one half of her face, short blonde curls, and a laugh so loud that everyone around her went deaf.

My grandfather Gogi was a grandpa with a big belly, mostly due to his passionate consumption of beer. When I was little, I could never pronounce his real name, Georgi, properly, so I simply called him Gogi. From then on, everyone called him Gogi – even the neighbors.

When I got into trouble with my parents, for example, if I ran around the house with dirty shoes, I quickly ran to the neighboring house to escape my mother's yelling or Dima's ear pulling. As soon as I stepped through my grandparents' front door, I was greeted by various food smells, mixed with the faint smell of cigarettes that Gogi smoked in the kitchen.

Dacha

In the summer, we sometimes went to Gogi's dacha – along huge blue mountains that stretched far into the distance over the entire landscape. At the dacha, I splashed around in a swimming pool, climbed the cherry trees, and nibbled on the grapes growing on the house.

On one of those hot days, bearable only in the shade, I relaxed in Gogi's car. In the shady driver's seat, I ate grapes from a large bowl that Gogi had handed to me. Meanwhile, Galya sang something to me from the back seat.

“Galya, let me drive!” I decided after a while and turned the ignition key.

Galya screamed as the car landed in a pit about half a meter away and came to a halt. I glanced around briefly and saw all the grapes scattered in the car. With Galya, I got out of the car. Gogi and Dima had heard the scream and hurried over to us. Together with my father, Gogi managed to maneuver the car out of the pit. For such behavior, my father would have literally pulled my ears. Fortunately, I was lucky that Gogi and Galya were present as he behaved differently in their presence. Thanks to Galya, we took the incident with humor.

1997

Shortly before my fifth birthday, my mom, exactly on Nowruz, gave birth to a second child. It was a girl, whom my parents named Maria, but we all called her Masha. While my mother was fully occupied with my little sister, Dima worked at customs, and I played Battletoads on my console, Dendy, which I got for my fifth birthday. When I wasn't busy with my console, I played with the only neighbor child Ruslan, who was a few years older than me, in our shared courtyard.

I could only speak Russian. He, on the other hand, mastered both Russian and Uzbek. That was good because that way, I could communicate with him. We liked to swing on a swing built by Gogi right in front of the kitchen window, through which I could watch my mom, with Masha on her hip and a wooden spoon in her hand, and show her tricks. When Dima turned up the volume of his stereo in the living room, we quickly ran into the house and danced around.

The dealer

Once I got a colorful ball from Ruslan to play with, but I sold it to a pedestrian who had a crying child with her. When Ruslan found out, he told my parents, who then bought him a new ball. I later saw my customer playing with the ball in kindergarten.

Kindergarten

I had a strong aversion to kindergarten. There was no choice of lunch and it was usually some kind of soup with Ebly, which made me sick to my stomach. We were forced to sleep at lunchtime, which I also loathed. How on earth were we supposed to sleep when we had spent the whole time running around the playground full of energy?

One day while playing, I suddenly felt the urgent need to pee. In a hurry, I ran to the toilet in the building. Surprisingly, a child with whom I had previously been rocking on the seesaw even followed me into the toilet cubicle.

I took out my little boy and started to pee. He immediately imitated me and laughed.

"Have a go," I said to the boy and pointed my bum in his direction.

"Okay," he replied, got down on his knees and gave my little boy a kiss.

"That tickles," I giggled and quickly pulled up my pants.

Then we ran out again to continue playing.

Earthquakes

We sometimes had earthquakes in the area that caused the whole house to shake. It was common in Uzbekistan and yet it always gave me an oppressive feeling when the floor shook under my feet and the cups and lampshade rattled loudly. Sometimes a glass would fall over in the cupboard, roll down to the floor and break. Then I would always run to my mom and cling to her.

Baskerville

When I was a guest with Galya and Gogi at a family's house that I didn't know, a young woman wanted to show me something when she realized I was bored.

“Come with me! I'll show you the Baskerville,” she said to me and led me through a huge gate. About a hundred meters away from us stood a rather large dog. At first glance, I thought he was in a closed cage because I thought I saw bars in front of him. But I was mistaken because Baskerville ran towards me unbridled, jumped on me, and knocked me to the ground. When I touched my head, blood stuck to my hands. As I stared at my dark red fingertips in fear, someone took me from behind, carried me to a tap, and rinsed the blood off my head there. Then I was driven to the doctor, who gave me a long injection into my stomach. Baskerville's claw left a small scar on the front of my head. Since then, I've been afraid of big dogs, which haunted me into adulthood.

1999

As my seventh birthday approached, my parents wanted to fulfill their dream and emigrate to New Zealand. But when the opportunity arose, they chose a different path.

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