Page 289 - The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. The Mirror of My Soul. Vol. 1. Born in the USSR

There was a tradition in our family—everything on your plate should be eaten.

Russian families always treated food with respect, but this habit had its other side.
Therefore, I soon begged for mercy and asked not to have anything else put on my plate.
Svetlana’s mother kept offering one dish or another for me to “at least” taste, until I
simply could not eat “another little piece”. In short, I hardly succeeded in “repelling”

Svetlana’s mother’s culinary “attack”. I managed to last at the table for an hour after
such a nutritious “breakfast”, which looked more like breakfast, dinner and supper taken
together, apologized and asked where I could take a nap—twelve hours on the road, the

greater part of which was night-driving, told on me and I left for the realm of Morpheus
as soon as my head touched the pillow.

I woke up in the evening and Svetlana took me sight-seeing. She showed me the
hills where the princely castle was situated. There was almost nothing left of the castle,
but the view from the hills was magnificent—the bend of the river Nyamunas and the
pine-woods on both banks were perfectly visible. One can only imagine what the view
would have been like from the walls of the fortress.

The next day we spent some time sight-seeing in this small town and conversed a
lot with Vasiliy Vasilievich, Svetlana’s father. It turned out that all his life he had been
interested in the kind of things I did. It was not just an idle interest, but because of his
daughter. She manifested unusual abilities from her childhood which were officially
considered impossible. Regrettably, we had to go to Moscow in the evening of the next
day.

But most regrettable was the fact that we not could take Svetlana’s son with us, not
because we did not want him, but simply that we lived in conditions which would be
highly unsuitable for a child. We lived in rented apartments, which we changed quite

often; neither I, nor Svetlana had Moscow registration and because of this Robert could
not go to school in Moscow. So, he again was in the charge of his grandfather and
grandmother who loved him very much. However, he needed the authority of a father
right then in this difficult for teenagers time (he was eleven years old then).

Thus, my first acquaintance with Svetlana’s family and her son took place. I
decided not to go back to Moscow at night, still remembering our way to Alitus at night,
when I had to drive almost “by touch”. Therefore, we left in the morning of the next day.
I again drove almost nonstop, with maximal speed; landscapes changed from one kind
to another incredibly quickly.

Regrettably, there were many more cars on the road in the day-time and I could not
drive at top speed all the way. Also it was necessary to slow down before the GAI posts
in order not to fill their pockets too often, but nevertheless, I had to pay a fine to
“starving” traffic cops a couple of times. The fine was 25 roubles then, which for most

Soviet people was a considerable part of their monthly budget, which varied from 80 to
200 roubles. “Lucky” persons with a 200 rouble budget were considered to be almost
the rich.

However, this concerned the Slavonic population of the country, which made up
the greater part of the population of the USSR. An anecdote of that time perfectly reflects

Back to contents
289