"We all forgive this country"

The house of Liivi Antsevna Pokrovskaya is in the center of Izborsk, three steps from the local museum. Inside, dry warmth from the Russian stove smells of pies, on the windows homemade woven curtains are a fabulous atmosphere, for which tourists go to such ancient Russian settlements. Already in retirement, having completed a scientific career in St. Petersburg, Liivi Pokrovskaya returned to the ground of her ancestors, whom fate scattered around the world.

Liivi Pokrovskaya

In the family history of Liivi Antsevna, one can study the history of Russia in the 20th century. Separated by ideology, war, Soviet censorship and an iron curtain, several generations still managed to remain a family.

Liberation Day from parents

Liivi was born in Izborsk in September 1941. Her birth certificate in Estonian, signed by her father, is preserved, the volost headman. ANC Tarma arrived in Izborsk on behalf of the Estonian government. Izborsk in those years was part of Estonia, private property, merchants and other bourgeois orders were preserved here. The Baltic states before the Great Patriotic War were not noticed here.

Birth certificate Liivi Tarm

The mother of Liivi that year was just eighteen. Beautiful Russian girl Lyolya Petunova married at the age of 17. Grandma, Ekaterina Ivanovna, a simple Russian peasant woman, worked all her life from dawn to dawn. Grandfather, Alexander Grigoryevich, went through the First World War and visited German captivity; When he did not drink, he worked as a mason, in Tartu and Tallinn are still intact, made by his hands.

- And when a young beautiful Estonian began to care for his mother, my grandmother, of course, saw another life for my daughter in this. And therefore, there was no doubt about to marry or not to give out: go daughter, even if you live humanly, ”says Liivi Antsevna.

Parents Liivi

What they were, mom and dad, Liva knew for a long time only from photographs. She lost her parents in August 1944 - the retreating Nazis took them with them.

Since then, the day of the liberation of Izborsk, which is celebrated annually, is for me a "holiday" of liberation from my parents. Not very joyful, yes

“Since then, the day of the liberation of Izborsk, which is celebrated annually, is for me a“ holiday ”of liberation from parents,” she says. - Not very joyful, yes. The Germans simply loaded his mother on the car and drove. She worked as a telephone operator, and the Germans believed that she knew some secrets that would be given to the Russians tomorrow. Father could not stay because he was a member of the Estonian administration. He gave me a nanny and said: bring her grandmother, we go to Pechora, then we will take Livochka.

Liivi with mom. When they were still together

Neither the father nor the mother for Livochka returned. Their apartment turned into the ownership of the Soviet regime along with everything that was in it. “Grandmother said: they didn’t even give your dresses,” says Liivi Antsevna.

“Why didn't your parents take you with them?”

“I don't even know why.” They can no longer be asked. There was an order: to urgently leave. The children were too burdened. Grandma loved her daughter so much ... I felt all my life that the main thing was she was. Therefore: "Why do you need a child who connects you, because there is a war?" Go wherever you want, the main thing is that you are preserved, so that you are alive.

Grandfather Liivi with her mother

Liva remained with her grandparents, who was not very happy about the excess mouth: “Grandmother suffered and raised in severity. All the time was refrain: we raised you, you owe us. As if I were to blame for this. And for a very long time I thought that I was to blame. I was already completely adult, after 40 years, I thought about it-when I was a child?”

Life in "Kuryatnik"

From the windows of the grandmother's house on Moscow street, the Izborskaya fortress is visible. On five acres of land there are three houses. Adult children were traditionally built near their parents: "Grandma said that we live like in a chicken coop."

The hectares of the land where the family sowed flax planted rye and potatoes, after the war they took away from them, and in return they were given a "casing" near the house, 36 acres under the garden. It is here that today is the house of Liivi Antsevna.

The post -war life was very difficult, she recalls:

- The story of the family of my grandmother is quite typical. Grandfather drank, drank binges. He drinks for two weeks and says: “Katnok, let's share” (Grandmother was called Katya). Grain, potatoes scattered, all this in half (and they did not count me), and they shared. In two weeks, he drank all this and said the following phrase: "Katnok, let's put up." And they put up, nowhere to go.

In 1947–48, collective farms began to be created for the first time on the territory of the Izborsk volost. Nobody wanted to go there voluntarily, Liivi Antsevna tells, because it was necessary to give his cow, horse, land, and buildings.

Grandma was a deeply believing person. And she said that she would not go to the collective farm, because there is an antichrist, and better hang it

- Grandma was a deeply believing person. And she said that she would not go to the collective farm, because there is an antichrist, and better hang it. And she will hang it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, because she has already prepared a coffin, ”says Liivi Antsevna. She recalls that according to the old peasant tradition, the coffin was really held in the house. She was 7 years old, and to be without a grandmother, with a drinking grandfather, was scary: "When I saw this, I said: grandmother, please do a little coffin, and I will die too. Then she came to her senses. She said: well, we will live."

The Petunovs eventually joined the Izborsk collective farm among the first 28 volunteers, while hundreds of peasants still continued to lead the sole economy. Liivi Antsevna will learn the reason many years later. The Soviet authorities had a good argument: they knew where the girl’s mother was located.

"I am well learning"

Until 15 years, Leva knew nothing about the fate of her parents. She was sure that her grandmother did not know either, although, most likely, this was not so. Many of these places after the war were abroad: the rich left themselves, the poor were taken away by force. Emigrants wrote letters that they read to the whole village. Grandma hid it from her granddaughter.

The conspiracy of the silence was interrupted in 1956. A letter came to Moskovskaya Street. "The letter was to the grandmother, Petunova Ekaterina Ivanovna, by the mail came. He brought him the godson who worked at the post office. She brought and said: the godmother, you are a letter from abroad! We read:" My dear, mother and Livochka! Finally I found you, I was looking for you for many years ... "

Liivi Antsevna still remembers her emotions - a real storm.

- What did you write to mom in your first letter, remember?

- "I study at school and study well." You know, it was very difficult for me. Well, how to communicate with a person you don't know? Everything overflows me, but I do not know what to say. I squeezed something out of myself, said something.

At the Liivi school was a round excellent student

Gradually, a personal story was restored. It turned out that mom and dad broke up somewhere in the late 40s and lost sight of each other. ANC Tarmu may have left for Canada, like many Estonians. Olga Tarm after the surrender of Germany was in the English occupation zone. She had a chance to sit in the Soviet camp and escape from there, so she did not think about returning to her homeland.

The young woman was in London, in the Russian Emigrant community. A few years later she married Oleg Ulyanitsky, whom she met in the hospital - she simply visited the Russian patient out of compassion. He came from the first generation of Russian emigration - in 1918 his parents took him out with his sister from Kyiv to Prague.

Olga Tarm and Oleg Ulyanitsky

- He graduated from Prague University and was brought up in love for Russia: Russian women are the most beautiful, Russia is the best country, and so on. And when the offensive of the Russian army in Western countries began, he signed up in the Russian army to save Russia, because it had to be saved. He was immediately put in a concentration camp. On this, love for Russia ended forever, ”Liivi Antsevna retells.

When Liva received the first letter from her mother, the Ulyanitsky was waiting for her son: "In 57, on January 6, Mishka, my younger brother, who is 15 years younger than me, was born. The next year, my mother sent an invitation to England, and grandmother and granddaughter filed an application for a visiting visa. It was a whole procedure: fill out profiles, go through a commission, collect characteristics from work or place of study ...

They were refused. Under the pretext that the girl must first graduate from school.

"Livochka, how big you became!"

In the Liivi Antsevna family there is a legend about how the Prime Minister of Great Britain Harold Macmillan petitioned about the Izborsk girl in front of the Soviet Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev:

“When I was refused for the first time, we informed my mother. Mom went to the Queen’s appointment and said: you are mother, you understand, I want to see her daughter. The queen said: I understand. She called the Prime Minister McMillan: the girl suffers in Russia there, it is necessary to go to her mother in the United Kingdom.“ That's just going to the USSR, I have planned to go to the visit! ” Says: you have a girl there, help! "Good, go!"

Harold Makmillan came to the USSR in 1959-this was the first official visit of the British Prime Minister. Historians write that the visit was generally unsuccessful, it was not possible to establish a trusting relationship with Khrushchev. Live was just unlucky. She was again refused without the right to submit an application for two years.

Leva graduated from a school with a silver medal and left for Leningrad. There she studied at the medical school and entered the Leningrad State University at the biological and soil faculty. At the same time, she began to work in the newly created Central Research Laboratory at the Second Leningrad Medical Institute. There, the excellent student went from the laboratory assistant to the head of the laboratory, defended the candidate dissertation.

And all the time Liivi Tarm thought about how to see her mother. Their first meeting took place in Soviet territory - in Moscow.

In 1961, the British trade and industrial exhibition was held in the capital, and Olga Ulyanitskaya was part of the delegation as a translator. Liivi and grandmother went to Moscow.

“And here we are with my grandmother at the airport. A group of men is coming from the plane and two women among them. I look at one of them and say: this is my mother. And my grandmother saw and said:“ Lyolenka, how ugly and old you became! ”, She was 40 years old, and she left at 20. And my mother:“ Liva, how big you became! ”

- Easily you found a common language?

- It was hard to communicate. All the time I felt that this, Soviet life should be forgotten and thrown away, and start another life. And I was not ready for this. Life in this country was too expensive for me. I did not experience any particular irritation. Well, misfortunes, poverty, grief - so everyone had it, it’s not specially oppressed me!

Mom and daughter stayed together for three days and broke up again. Again statements, profiles, commissions, characteristics and refusals. Nine times the Soviet government did not let the girl go to the mother. For the tenth - surrendered.

"It is still better there"

In 1966, Leva Tarm went to England for the first time. She was 25 years old, almost like a mother, when she was forced to become an emigrant.

Liivi Antsevna recalls how her mother was worried, how her hands trembled at a meeting. It was difficult for everyone: "I was allocated a separate room. They have a woman who comes to clean the house. I try to do something there-they waved a hand on me: do not touch, do not do it, we have someone to clean up."

The girl liked everything: both mother’s husband, Oleg Vladimirovich, and the younger brother of Michael, who was called Mishka in the family. The Russian community in London, knowing that "a daughter will come to Löla," came up with an extensive cultural program.

- And how did you like London? I didn't want to stay?

- Of course, everything struck me there. And most of all - this green grass in December. These lawns, this cleanliness! Everything is licked there, everything is clean and brilliant. What shops, which hotels, what restaurants, what service are there! But there, behind - there is Russia. It is still better there. I don’t know how to explain this: this is an innate, "this is mine."

Of course, my mother really wanted her daughter to stay in England. But in Izborsk there was a grandmother.

She did not love Soviet power, but loved her house and her land, Izborsk. You know, out of love for the Izborsk, we all forgive this country that she did with us

For Liva, this was a decisive argument: "Grandmother said right away: I would never go there. She did not like Soviet power, but loved her house and her land, Izborsk. You know, out of love for the Izbrosk, we all forgive this country that she did with us."

In the first year, the family convinced her only to extend the visa and spend the entire undergraduate vacation in London.

The second time Liivi Tarm went to her mother in August 1968. Her ship arrived in England just on the day when the USSR introduced tanks to Czechoslovakia. "They met me: well, all, thank God, Liva arrived - she will remain here, you can’t return there. I say: why not?" She recalls.

Czech events made mom and daughter understand how different they are.

The entry of Soviet troops in Prague in those days was the number one theme, all the media were talking about this everywhere, Liivi Antsevna said: “You can imagine what television is doing - all these boys are crushed, screams, this continuous horror ... And I sit, I look at it and I am silent, because I don’t know why they did it. Of course, I tried to come back? The embassy.

The mother and stepfather who passed through the Soviet camps did not understand this desire to return to their homeland: "Mom said that the girl was spoiled by Soviet education. The girl is not bad, good in quality, but she was spoiled. Yes, it was hard for her to see it."

In fact, Prague divided her mother and daughter even earlier - the whole thing at the University of Prague.

Communist from Prague

History sometimes prescribes simply inconceivable pirouettes. Liva Tarm owes her Soviet education, his hot and sincere love for the Soviet Motherland, Evgenia Akkerman-Melnikova, Evgenia Akkerman-Melnikova. Which, as it turned out, studied at the University of Prague on the same course with Oleg Ulyanitsky, my mother’s husband.

Liivi Antsevna recalls: “Then Evgenia Nikolaevna and I spoke about this.“ Is it really Oleg? ”Yes, I say, Oleg. And Oleg said:“ You don’t have to communicate with Zhenya, she is a communist! ”

Evgenia Akkerman-Melnikov is also the daughter of the first Russian emigrants. She was a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. I carried out the war in the anti -fascist underground. She admired the Soviet Union - the first country of the world to embody the great communist idea. When Czechoslovakia was liberated by Soviet troops, Evgenia Nikolaevna decided to leave for the USSR along with the Soviet officer.

Reality made its adjustments to the idea of the best country of the world already at the station in Moscow, where the Soviet officer abandoned it, pregnant. On the advice of distant relatives, she left for Pechora. The Pechora Communist Party sent her to the old Izborsk to teach English.

“And my smart grandmother, who knew everything, took Evgeny Nikolaevna to live to us so that she taught me the English language,” says Liivi Antsevna.

In addition to English, Evgenia Nikolaevna taught the girl also love for the communist homeland.

“Under the influence of Evgenia Nikolaevna, I entered the Komsomol. Grandma, having learned about this, stole the Komsomol ticket from me and threw it into the stove. I climbed into the stove after him, I pulled it out! Because if the ticket burns, I will be thrown out of the Komsomol, and then there is no life!”

It was the communist teacher who instilled in her deep conviction that "Russia and the Soviet Union are the best that is on earth." Leva Tarma cried on the school line when Stalin died, and could not understand why his grandmother whispers with her friends: "Finally, this tyrant was gone."

"And this is not what they forced me, it was inside, I believed in all this sincerely. And just so to say that we have better, because there are more carpets and shops? Yes, so what!" She explains why the beautiful London life did not convince her to stay with her mother.

- Did you persuade you strongly?

And this is the decision that the country has made for people, it still works. Why are we all so bad now? Because we don't know how to live

- There, in England, not the mentality that we have. They don’t say there: let's do something. No, "you must decide for yourself, you must think." Nobody said directly: Liva, stay! What will I do, how will I live, study, work? Nobody told me this. You just stay and adapt to this life, yourself. And behind me is a country that always adapted me! In England, I just did not know what to do. And then everything was decided for me. And this is the decision that the country has made for people, it still works. Why are we all so bad now? Because we do not know how to live.

"I want to my grandmother"

So Leva Tarm graduated from the university and remained working in a scientific laboratory at a medical institute. She married engineer Alexander Pokrovsky, and in 1970 they had a daughter Tanya.

Liivi Antsevna continued to travel to England regularly - now she was easily given a visa. She first took her daughter to her grandmother in 1981, when Tanya was 10 years old.

"Таня влюбилась в Англию сразу – как там красиво, как там хорошо, – вспоминает Лииви Анцевна. – Она была хорошенькой девочкой с длинными светлыми волосами. К ее ногам был брошен весь Лондон: все рестораны, все развлечения, поездки, лошади, цирки. Ребенку понравилось. Она сказала: "Давайте здесь жить". Я говорю: а там папа! Ее немножко это смутило, она папу очень любит, но мама говорит: а он приедет, потом. Нет, говорю, никаких "потом", мы уезжаем. А приехали домой – она сидит на диване и плачет: "Я хочу к бабушке".

Лииви запретила дочери даже думать об Англии и специально отдала ее во французскую школу, подальше от английского языка.

Татьяна выросла, закончила институт – и, как многие выпускники во времена перестройки, не нашла работу по специальности. Тогда она прошла бухгалтерские курсы и устроилась работать в турфирму. А через несколько лет стало ясно, что в туризме нечего делать без английского языка.

"И тут она говорит: я хочу поехать в Англию, попросить бабушку, чтобы она меня взяла учить язык в стране, а не по учебникам. У нее был уважительный предлог, против которого я не могла сильно возражать", – говорит Лииви Анцевна.

За полгода Таня вполне прилично выучила английский и… решила остаться в Англии. Встретила молодого человека – такого же петербуржца, который приехал по работе, и они поженились. Теперь у них свой дом в Лондоне и трое детей, которые пока еще говорят по-русски. У всей семьи двойное гражданство.

Дочь Татьяна с бабушкой в Англии

– Как вы думаете, почему ваша дочь не захотела вернуться в Россию?

– Это наша вина, наверное. Ведь то, чего у нас не было, мы хотели ей дать. И вот она увидела эту благополучную, сытую, красивую жизнь и сравнила ее с нашей. Она хотела, чтобы ее жизнь состоялась. Когда я стала говорить: Таня, но это же Родина, и тут надо бы подумать, она сказала: ты что, хочешь, чтобы я жила так, как вы?..

В Россию дочь и внуки теперь приезжают как туристы, и детям, выросшим в английском мегаполисе, очень нравится вольная деревенская жизнь. Все трое крестились в Никольском соборе Изборска – как мама Таня, бабушка Лииви, прабабушка Ольга и прапрабабушка Катя.

Return

Накануне 60-летнего юбилея Лииви Анцевны ее мать решилась впервые приехать в Изборск.

"Я – девочка, "испорченная советским воспитанием", но я хоронила ее родителей. И конечно, она чувствовала, что могилкам надо поклониться", – рассказывает Лииви Покровская.

Это был 2001 год. Покровские недавно купили дом. Торопились сделать ремонт, чтобы англичанам было комфортно.

"Мама приехала в Изборск – она вообще ничего не узнала, узнала только крепость. Здесь были живы две ее двоюродные сестры, с которыми она вместе выросла. Они встретились, обнялись, заплакали. Но это были старые, больные, измученные женщины – такого же возраста, как она. А она выглядела цветущей дамой".

Мама начисто вычеркнула Изборск из своей памяти, говорит Лииви Анцевна, никакой ностальгии: "В какой-то момент она вдруг говорит: я лежу и думаю – зачем я сюда приехала?.. И я тогда подумала, что тоже самое могло быть и со мной – там, в Англии".

Даже отпраздновать юбилей толком не получилось. День рождения Лииви Анцевны – 12 сентября. И тут случилось 11 сентября 2001 года: теракт в США. "Они услышали это по радио. Мы-то ничего не знаем, а они в панике. И сразу же – желание немедленно уехать, бежать отсюда. "Это война, домой!" Все, никаких праздников", – Покровским пришлось увозить гостей в Пулково.

Ну вот как жить без Изборска, как жить, если я не увижу этой долины?​

В тот год Лииви Анцевна и Александр Владимирович решили окончательно переселиться в Изборск – "лучшее место на свете". Правда, там по сей день нет газа, канализации и водопровода. Больница давно закрыта. Для Покровских это все ничего не значит. Изборск – все равно Изборск. "Ну вот как жить без Изборска, как жить, если я не увижу этой долины?" – говорит Лииви Покровская.

Любимый Изборск

А тут еще и сотрудники Государственного музея-заповедника "Изборск" предложили коренной изборянке возрождать ремесла.

"А куда вы их дели-то, спрашиваю. Я, когда уезжала, в каждом доме стоял ткацкий стан. И вы посмотрите, два поколения, мое и мамино – и все, пусто! Как будто ничего и не было!" – рассказывает Покровская.

Действительно, в начале XXI века традиционные ремесла в Изборске практически исчезли. Бабушки, что умели ткать, состарились и померли. Их дети всю жизнь трудились в колхозе, который не оставлял времени на "баловство". А внуки разъехались искать лучшей жизни.

Александр Владимирович и Лииви Анцевна Покровские

Научные работники на пенсии, Лииви и Александр Покровские решили, что сумеют освоить "любую методику". Ситуацию, правда, сильно осложняло отсутствие книг, станков и живых примеров.

"Станок Алик собрал сам – все-таки кандидат наук, – рассказывает Лииви Анцевна. В бабушкином доме они нашли кучу старых палок и веревок. Это и был станок. – Там, на этих старинных станках, зарубки. На одной палке одна зарубка, на другой – вторая. Я говорю: ну, наверное, эту палку надо положить сюда. Вот так и собирали".

За ткацким станком

Больше года ушло на то, чтобы понять, как в станок заправляются нитки, как потом ткется ткань. Старый столетний станок представлял собой музейную ценность, но разваливался под руками, и тогда дочка из Англии помогла купить новый, импортный.

В мастерской Лииви

Когда начало получаться, Покровские вдруг стали знаменитостями, их стали приглашать на выставки и вручать грамоты.

"Я потом уже говорила: мне грамоту только за стеклом и в рамочке! Такого признания, как за ткачество, у меня не было за профессиональную работу. Там мне дали "отличника здравоохранения" и "заслуженного изобретателя" – и все, и никаких рамочек!" – смеется Лииви Анцевна.

Лииви Покровская

Два года назад в сельской школе появился класс, где есть ремесленный кружок и стоят станки, собранные по всей округе. Кружок ведет матушка Наталья, жена местного священника, первая ученица Покровских. В свое время она сама пришла к ним домой и попросила научить ее ткать на станке.

Сегодня ткачеству в Изборске учатся пятнадцать девочек, рассказывает Лииви Анцевна: "Они ткут просто самозабвенно, им так нравится! Так вот, они в сентябре начали ткать, а уже в декабре губернатор вручал грамоту одной девочке за огромную работу, которую они проделали".

– То есть вы в Изборске возродили ткачество?

– Да, навык передан. Есть педагог, есть место, есть станки. Туда стали ходить не только дети, но и взрослые. То есть у Изборска есть надежда. Однажды этих девочек привели к нам в мастерскую, и та ученица, которой губернатор вручал грамоту, посмотрела и сказала: когда я вырасту, я хочу стать такой, как Лииви Анцевна.