§ ≡ A section of The Pilot's Saga { Chapter 1.3 « Chapter 1.4 » Chapter 1.5 }
I was born east of the Ural Mountains. My parents, your grandparents Avrum and Tanya, were being held in a rural encampment, seven kilometers from the banks of the Tavda River, between the upriver hamlet of Tabory and the downriver village of Tavda, in the Sverdlovsk Oblast of Siberia. On a map of this region, if you draw a straight line eastward from the city of Yekaterinburg, called Sverdlovsk at that time, through the town of Irbit, then extend the line up to the Tavda River, you might find this encampment, if it still exists. It would be labeled Chësh. The date was February 29, 1940.
My parents told me I was named after two of my four great grandfathers, my father's maternal grandfather and my mother's paternal grandfather, both of whom were named Lev, just like our greatest author Tolstoy. I never knew the names of my six other great grandparents. But my greatest loss was that I never experienced the love of any of my grandparents, all of whom were killed during the Great Patriotic War.
From my parents’ bedtime stories I learned that our home was a log cabin, which we shared with another couple of internees. I have no personal memories from Chësh, because I was only about a year old when we were allowed to leave the camp. In 1941 the authorities decided that my mother's youthful transgressions no longer posed a threat to the security of Mother Russia, and, more to the point, my father's technical skills were required at the large milk-processing plant in Irbit.
And now it's time for all good children to sleep. Sweet dreams, my precious.
I was born east of the Ural Mountains. My parents, your grandparents Avrum and Tanya, were being held in a rural encampment, seven kilometers from the banks of the Tavda River, between the upriver hamlet of Tabory and the downriver village of Tavda, in the Sverdlovsk Oblast of Siberia. On a map of this region, if you draw a straight line eastward from the city of Yekaterinburg, called Sverdlovsk at that time, through the town of Irbit, then extend the line up to the Tavda River, you might find this encampment, if it still exists. It would be labeled Chësh. The date was February 29, 1940.
My parents told me I was named after two of my four great grandfathers, my father's maternal grandfather and my mother's paternal grandfather, both of whom were named Lev, just like our greatest author Tolstoy. I never knew the names of my six other great grandparents. But my greatest loss was that I never experienced the love of any of my grandparents, all of whom were killed during the Great Patriotic War.
From my parents’ bedtime stories I learned that our home was a log cabin, which we shared with another couple of internees. I have no personal memories from Chësh, because I was only about a year old when we were allowed to leave the camp. In 1941 the authorities decided that my mother's youthful transgressions no longer posed a threat to the security of Mother Russia, and, more to the point, my father's technical skills were required at the large milk-processing plant in Irbit.
And now it's time for all good children to sleep. Sweet dreams, my precious.
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