My Life on Moskowskaya Street, Azov, Russia

The 2000s. It was barely a year since we moved to Novomirskiy that we packed our things again and moved to the small town of Azov on Moskovskaya Street, about fifty kilometers away.

Living in a high-rise was a completely new experience for me – eight whole floors high, something I had never experienced in Uzbekistan or Novomirskiy! There was even an elevator, although it smelled terrible of urine. At first, I often imagined the elevator was some kind of spaceship that took me high enough to overlook the entire city. I wanted to go even higher, but the staircase leading to the roof was usually blocked by a locked gate. Only occasionally was I lucky enough to find it unlocked, allowing me to reach the roof of the high-rise. From there, I could even see the other side of the city, where my new school was located.

The roof always had a windy atmosphere. The first time I bravely stepped to the edge of the high-rise and looked down at the tiny people below, I was struck by the thought of how a strong gust of wind could push me down and I would fall to the ground. I imagined lying on the ground, dead, until my mother found me and burst into tears. This thought instilled in me an overwhelming fear of heights. Quickly, I returned to the center of the high-rise and never dared to approach the edge again.

By now, I was in second grade and had quickly settled into the new school. I quickly made friends, including Timur, Ivan, Wasja, and several others from my class. During school breaks, we spent a lot of time together, roaming around Azov and searching for exciting adventures.

Girls didn't interest me at that time. I found them boring and annoying. The only exception was my class teacher. I sat in the front row and could smell her sweet perfume. Her penetrating, blue-eyed gaze seemed to wander into infinity and constantly distracted me from the exercises we were supposed to do during silent work. To catch her attention, I secretly kept drawing on my school cabinet, then sadly told her that someone had scribbled on it. She comforted me with a hug. But after I was almost caught by the principal once, I stopped.

Other than that, I was a model student. In both second and third grade, I received all A's, the highest possible grades, on my report card, for which I received small awards from the school at the end of the school year.

After school, I always played with my new friends on the schoolyard before heading home. Instead of taking the normal route, I preferred a shortcut I discovered over a fence and a wall. From there, I could get to the back of our high-rise – to the courtyard where the neighbor kids sometimes played. There stood a large swing where, with enough momentum, you could even achieve three hundred and sixty-degree rotations.

A little further at the end of the high-rise, behind a road, was an abandoned construction site overgrown with weeds. Sometimes, I climbed around on the scaffolding with my school friends or tried to catch one of the small lizards. I only succeeded if I didn't try to grab them by the tail, as they would simply shed it and disappear quickly into a slit between the stones. If I did manage to catch one, I took it home and put it in a jar lined with grass.

Our one-room apartment was on the first floor. The room was amusingly not square but triangular on one side. At the tip of the triangle was a window with a fold-out table. I did my homework there. On the other side of the living room was my bed, and right in the middle of the living room was a double bed where my parents and Masha slept. Above, on the wall, hung a huge oriental carpet that we brought from Uzbekistan. Opposite the double bed was a massive wall unit with clothes, books, a television, and a VCR. Finally, we had running water in the apartment; and thus, also a toilet and a built-in heating system.

Without a car and with no connection of the city to Novomirskiy, my parents had to find new work. My mom was hired as a teacher, but Dima was initially without a job. However, that changed quickly when Mama found an interesting position advertised in the newspaper at a regional radio station. The station was looking for a presenter, and my father was immediately hired because he had a deep voice, was eloquent, and pronounced each word very clearly. He was generally a very extroverted person and could quickly make friends with various people with his manner and humor.

Radio

One evening, Dima took me to his work because we wanted to surprise Mama a little. Outside the entrance to the building, we were spotted by a surveillance camera. After a friendly wave to the camera, the sturdy, metal entrance door opened by itself. It was a security guard who let us into the building late at night.

When I entered the recording studio with Dima, I was thrilled. So many buttons to press. A blink here, a glow there! With my mouth open and without taking my eyes off the cockpit, I slowly sat down in the chair. Within a short time, my open mouth turned into a mischievous grin: I felt like the captain of a spaceship. With the so-called keyboard, I could have my name displayed on one of the screens (even though it took a thousand years to type).

Then Dima dictated a few words to me with birthday wishes for Mama. He then spoke these words into a microphone. On her birthday, Mama was surprised in the morning with our birthday greeting on the radio during breakfast. She was very happy about it.

Karaoke

At the end of autumn, Galya and Gogi came to visit from Uzbekistan for two weeks. I remember Masha, Galya, and I singing karaoke and dancing while our VCR played a song from the Bremen Town Musicians. Gogi mostly sat next to us, trying out different types of beer, with a broad grin on his face. In fact, he managed to try all the types of beer available in Azov in those two weeks.

Christmas

In December, a special event took place at my school. In a small play, the students had to rescue Djed Moros (Father Frost) to receive Christmas presents. Several weeks before the event, the roles were assigned, and we memorized our lines. At home, my mother sewed a matching plush tail for me, which belonged to my role as the villain, a wolf. In the play, I tried to eat a friend of Pinocchio who was wandering alone. But she was saved in time by Pinocchio and his friends, who pulled a sack over my head. I act a wolf at school.

A few days later, on December thirty-first, we were given presents at home. Djed Moros, who rang our doorbell and brought his Snegurochka, quickly turned out to be Dima. The Snegurochka, whom I saw for the first time, was a colleague of Dima's, whom Mama was sometimes jealous of. Because of her, there were occasional arguments between my parents. But on this holiday, Mama pretended that Snegurochka was a wonderful person.

After I recited a winter poem called "Snowflake Dance" by Tatyana Volgina, Djed Moros took out a magic cube, an illustrated book about UFOs, and a kind of metallic Lego from a red bag and handed it to me. Masha received a doll and a pink stroller to play with. Galya and Gogi with my sister on the swing behind the tower block.

Galya and Gogi came to visit from Uzbekistan again. Occasionally, I accompanied Gogi to church or to the Don River, where older boys jumped into the water from the bridge. I always boasted that I could do that too and claimed that I had just forgotten my swimming trunks. In reality, I would never have dared to do it because of my fear of deep water, even though I could swim by now.

One day, when I was with Gogi at the Azov Bazaar, he bought me an olive-green Walkman with cassette tapes. Proudly, I attached it to my belt for my adventures in Azov. Gogi promised to buy me even cooler stuff; I just had to wait until he moved to Azov with Galya. And indeed, they did that soon, saving me from the increasingly intense conflicts between my parents...

Continue Reading