Girl on the hooks

Embroidery helps 83-year-old Julia Aleshicheva to fight dementia. Thanks to the grandson, Jan Gorkunov, who is conducting Instagram account @girl_from_1938, is known about his grandmother in different countries of the world. But what is behind optimistic posts and storiz?

The wrong, warm, bright-the embroidery of Julia Aleshicheva struck me three years ago when I first stumbled upon the Instagram account “Girl from 1938”. And this fall, in St. Petersburg, in Sevkabel, a personal exhibition "Miss Julia" was held, as Yang calls her grandmother on Instagram. Her live work turned out to be even more attractive, animated.

Oval cats, lovers and independent girls, interpretations of famous paintings and biblical plots. Yang met visitors to the exhibition himself, told the story of his grandmother, asked, if possible and if desired, to write a few words in the book of reviews. I wrote. And then she wrote again - Jan on Instagram. And he invited me to visit, to the Leningrad Region, to the village of Zasitsa.

It all started with a fire

In the train, I recalled that I know about Julia Aleshicheva. Childhood without a father who disappeared at the front, but among his father's books. Studying at a forestry technical school in Estonia, working as a dispatcher at a forestry plant, a cleaner at the boarding school, the secretary of the party organization and a member of the commission on parole-this is already in Karelia. Three daughters, one of whom died in infancy, is all from the first husband. Yana he has a grandfather.

Beloved cat Julia photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

Jan meets me by car near the station. While we are going, he warns: the grandmother thinks that she still lives in Karelia, sometimes it seems to her that she still works in the commission on parole. He forgets who whom is whom. It doesn’t go out into the street every day-it’s hard, but it is still embroidering daily. Stubbornly finishes every embroidery, which goes from two weeks to a month. Mom Yana, Svetlana, and her husband live with Julia Mikhailovna constantly, and Yang arrives for a few days a week.

Behind the fence a dog barks. Jan explains: "This is Osia, he loves to jump." As soon as the gate opens, a cheerful, well -fed axis and really jumps towards us. Sati and the incarnation of tenderness - was taken from the shelter. In addition to them, there are six more cats - all, except for one old British, street, many had to be treated and nursed.

Love for animals in this family is clearly inherited. In a sense, the story of the artist Yulia Aleshicheva began with animals. She learned to embroider at the age of five, in 1943. But she returned to this lesson only after her country house in Karelia burned out in 2012, and with him her favorite cat with a dog. Then, heavily experiencing the loss, she again picked up multi -colored threads, a needle and scissors. After the fire, Julia Mikhailovna began to develop dementia, and relatives took it to the outskirts.

"Girls help"

Jan takes me to a wooden country house, where his mother, artist Svetlana Gordey, prepares pancakes, and Julia Mikhailovna watches TV - Mozart is heard from there. Its room is very comfortable: a round stove, old furniture and watches, from which, it seems, a cuckoo is about to look out. In the center on the easel is a picture with the image of a puppet girl and a new, not yet ended embroidery - a female portrait. The girl with embroidery has multi -colored hair - brown with interspersed turquoise - and turquoise eyes with still empty canvas pupils. And the girl herself from 1938, the eyes are very lively, inquisitive.

Julia's glasses photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

“I see you for the first time,” either Julia Mikhailovna asks or asks. - Let's get acquainted!

- Nina is a journalist, the editorial office gave her a task so that she wrote about your embroidery! - explains Yang.

- Nightmare! What is good in them? - the grandmother is surprised. She does not remember the fact that they write a lot about her and even shown several times on TV.

Embroidery-the same, from the exhibition-have already returned to their native walls and, it seems, is about to set in motion. Again, I am convinced that they are alive. I ask why the girls.

“I don't know,” Julia Mikhailovna says thoughtfully. - I like the girls. They all the time help me, anywhere. In the village to wear water, carry firewood, go to the cemetery ...

Julia Alyoshicheva photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

Times, places and events in her memory are instantly intertwined, but girls-female women go through them not red-no-multi-colored threads.

- Prisoners are in prisons and die. Our free women bury them as normal people: they will make food and get their relatives. And if there are no relatives, that is, a nursing home - there are lonely women, and we invite them to these people who die for nothing, which no one will bury normally ...

I brought as a gift to Julia Mikhailovna a large old book with reproductions, knowing that sometimes she finds plots and heroes for her embroideries, and my grandmother brings my name and surname - Freiman with a pencil on the foreman in large letters. He asks:

- How is this translated?

- A free person.

“Svo-bod-one-l-losa,” she writes.

In the courtyard of the house of Julia photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

And again he recalls working with non -free people.

"Tere-Tere, Vana Kere"

The daughter of Julia Mikhailovna, Svetlana looks into the room:

“You know what dementia is?”

I know. Svetlana calls us at the table, on which he puts pancakes with jam, sour cream and cottage cheese, asks to get herself and disappears in the sunny autumn garden.

Ian helps her grandmother sit down, checks whether her tea is sweet enough, asks:

- What do you think about?

“I think who I am to me.”

“I'm your grandson.”

- You are mine ...

- Sveta son.

- And Sveta is my daughter ...

Jan, grandson of Julia photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

Julia Mikhailovna thinks for a second, and then addresses me:

-Kushai-kushai, dear. You will finish everything!

It seems that it is not so important to her who I am and where - it is important to take care of a person.

She briefly and simply talks about her life, as from her native Kalinin (now Tver) region, from the Spirirovo station, went to Estonia, and then to Karelia.

- I am Spirovskaya, I studied at school, I graduated from eight classes, and then I entered the technical school in Estonia, in Pyarn. I was forced to go to Estonia, but I liked it there, of course. It was good for me everywhere. And I quickly learned Estonian. Tere Tere, Vana Kere, ”she says. Ian explains with a smile: translated from Estonian, “Hello-Hello, Old Karga”. - For four years I studied, studied the Estonian language. She graduated from forestry, forest industry ...

Jan shows her grandmother a chick who was found in the garden photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

Jan is distracted by a phone call - they ask him to bring his grandmother embroidery to the next exhibition. Meanwhile, the memories again transfer her to Karelia, to the commission on parole:

- I had such an obligation - to work with people so that they did not lie, do not drink. She taught them, worked with them, suggested how, what, why, why ... that there is no need to steal, fight. Even now, I should patronize them on the party line. But this is all nonsense. If the person himself is a person, then he will be a man.

Ian offers a walk, breathing in air - Julia Mikhailovna has not come out for a long time.

“Now I will wear boots, granny.”

But she suddenly asks:

- Yanis, do you have children? Are you married?

Ian also asks my grandmother:

- And how many times were you married?

In the courtyard of the house of Julia photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

The correct answer is three times, but Julia Mikhailovna recalls only her first husband, who drowned at the age of 33, - grandfather Jan.

- I am married once, I live with him. Vovka Kuznetsov. We studied together, together in a technical school, together we did everything ...

Relatives of the angel

Jan needs to help my grandmother change clothes, and I go out into a tiny kitchen. Svetlana offers to see the house so far. He does not look like any other-here is everywhere found and restored by Svetlana furniture, her copyright dolls and miniature sculptures: girls-birds, girls are the heroines of famous paintings, only seen in her own way. What, for example, holds the famous chocolate man in his hands, is it not poison?

Julia watches photo album photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

If Yulia Mikhailovna from reproductions turn into embroidery, then Svetlana takes them into the third dimension. According to the first education, Svetlana Gordey is a specialist in steam generators and turbine installations, the second is an economist, she learned to restore furniture herself, and she studied with a sculpture from Roman Shustrov, a famous Petersburg sculptor, the creator of the St. Petersburg Angel. The life of the novel took Kovid, the life of his wife Mary - separation from Roman. This is another story. But, having looked at some figures made by Svetlana, I see a friend - angelic, Shustrovsky - tilt of the head. Which, however, does not make them less original.

There are many old things in the house photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

A bed on the legs from an old piano, transformed cabinets, suitcases - all this is the work of Svetlana. Like paintings in heavy old frames: painting is also her.

She turned even a summer cottage into a gallery - a chandelier hangs on the ceiling here.

The Communists do not smile

Ian helped grandmother to warm up and get in the garden, brought the old album, and she flogs him, trying to remember the names, faces, events, but they instantly confuse like multi -colored threads, forming a bizarre ball.

Her memory is like a train, in the windows of which different cities, landscapes, and people fly. Some of them manage to shout to her through the thickness of time, but someone doesn’t, she seemed to have fun, and it’s scary from how everything changes, how life flies: she is still a girl in the photographs, but her grandson is already at the same age.

- Here is the House of Culture, where we went to dance. This is my sister Ida. And I am Julia. Mom is still alive. She is already under a hundred ...

Around the incredible beauty, we are like inside the picture, which depicts the perfect golden autumn.

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Julia embroiders new work Svetlana Bulatova for TD

- This is my friend Lena Kharchenko ... Oh, what is it - died on December 7th of the fourth year ...

And these are my little ones.

Here I was awarded. They give me a letter, and then I will leave for the sanatorium.

This is my husband Vovka. My Kuznetsov.

This is my friend or sister.

Janule is four years and ten months.

Here I am, but the husband of a girlfriend. To annoy her, he kisses me as a joke. And I am silent - let it kiss! We agreed with her.

Resort "Pyarnn", sanatorium "Tsiprus".

These are my workers.

House of Culture. Monument to Lenin.

This is me, and this is my okhlamon - a comrade who was friends with me. We are still guys.

Here is our management of culture in the Stone Bor.

This is Marina or I - I don’t remember. Here I am an old cow, I forget everything!

Here are my senile friends - they worked together.

Here are my work supervisors - one, second, third ...

“Why are there so many men, and you are one woman?” - asks Jan.

-And I am one woman-communist. And these are all men-communists.

“Did you command them?”

- Certainly! At all meetings all over Karelia!

“Why don't no one smile?”

- Why smile when we have everything so complicated?

- And why do people do not smile in the photo, but then they smile?

- Because there are only one here, but here are others! There are all party! And here the girls laugh. These are not the Communists.

- And what do the communists do not smile?

- The communists are serious! ..

Ian makes several frames while grandmother is turning over the album.

- I am getting married ...

- Yes, this is Marina married, your daughter! The groom did not beat off my daughter! - laughs Yang. And Julia Mikhailovna also laughs.

Zasitsy, view from the window of the car photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

When it is over with the album, the grandmother turns into the very communist who does not smile, he begins to command Jan, and at the same time, to remove the leaves, cleaned the table and bench in the garden.

I manage to get out, but everyone else is really busy with work. Julia Mikhailovna Yang also brings work - unfinished embroidery, and she enthusiastically takes up her. He embroiders as if draws with a brush - he finishes his hairstyle with wide quick movements. Speaks:

- Every day I embroider, and here, and at home, and everywhere. Mom taught me a needle with a thread. In the Kalinin region, she had four girls and one boy. The boy went into the army ...

What to call the picture

Dogs and cats are approaching her, like animals to Disney Snow White, gently poke in their knees, go to bed. Especially the spotty cat Elsa, who came with the mistress from Karelia.

- Beautiful and good - where are you, there and a cat! And the dog, ”says Julia Mikhailovna. -Here it would still be necessary to force someone to climb onto the roof, collect the leaves ...

Julia Alyoshicheva photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

Svetlana laughs from the next bench - she sat down to rest for a while:

- You will not be lusting with us!

“I’ll make my hair - I’ll take the sleeves, then the skirt, and then, already at the end, I will cure the face with white threads ...” Yulia Mikhailovna plans.

“Mom on the table had a postcard with a girl,” continues Svetlana. - I go - my mother embroiders, and based on the postcards, she gets such a cute girl, so beautiful, delicate. I ran to the street to do something, I return-and the girl has a huge chest on embroidery! And already a completely different image.

Jan comes up with the names for grandmother's embroideries, asking her joking questions based on random grinders.

- Granny, what to call this picture? He asks about a new embroidery.

- But we don’t care! - the grandmother hums, and immediately commands again. - Until you save the whole yard, I won’t go anywhere! .. I am still five years old, as I started to hold my scissors, taught me to embroider, they can. Subscribe here (this to me)! Janis, do not go back and forth to no avail! .. I rarely visit here, and if I visit, I don’t have to spend the night-I am leaving for me.

Where is it to yourself? Where is she now - next to sisters and mom in the Kalinin region? In Pyarn? In Karelia? In Vyritsa?

In the courtyard of the house of Julia photo: Svetlana Bulatova for TD

On the way to the station, Yan and I are talking about how little is known about dementia, although it is very, very common, how many subtleties and tricks must be comprehended in order to take care of the person in whom it develops. It would be great if they knew and talked about it more, they did not dismiss people with such a diagnosis, did not confuse him with other diseases. How many people with dementia are so many worlds in which time is confused. Each of these worlds is a labyrinth with his minotaur, and a girl from 1938 - who is she? Maybe Ariadne, who helps with his colored threads from this maze to get out?

Soon I will sit in an electric train, outside of which landscapes will flicker, and Jan will return to my grandmother, in the memory of which people, events and times rush just as quickly. This train cannot be stopped. But if you love the one who rushes through it through time, the road will not be so painful.

Dementia women Psychology