Happy Life. Memoirs of a Lucky Man.

By Vlad Zeit

Short life story of a lucky man who lived half of his happy life in the USSR and now is coming close, with a luck, to live as many years, or more, in the USA.
Recollections of the miraculous fortune to live in the two of the most beautiful regions of the whole world: St. Petersburg and San Francisco Bay Area.
Observations of and contemplation on the troubling sickening developments in Gilded Age America for almost forty years.
Chapter "American Melodrama" is attempt to express thoughts and feelings about disastrous political event of 2016.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vlad Zeit
• Release date: May 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370856640

Vlad Zeit

Classical literature reader.Hobbies: skiing, hiking, photography.Ca resident

Book preview

Happy Life.

Memoirs of a Lucky Man.

By Vlad Zeit

Copyright © 2017 by Vlad Zeit

To my wife, the first reader, and

my son, the most important reader.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Lucky Day.

2. Sunday.

3. Europe meets Asia.

4. Unforgettable cultural events at the Eastern edge of Europe.

5. Enter Dad and Rubinstein St.

6. Leningrad, School # 206.

7. Polytechnic Institute.

8. My Generation.

9. College Graduation.

10. Lebedyan.

11. Leningrad II.

12. New Old World, Vienna.

13. New World.

14. What makes me sick.

15. The American Melodrama.

16. What makes one sick to one’s stomach.

17. Conclusion.

Lucky Day.

When in June 1936 his mother found out she was pregnant with her second child, his sister was eight months old. And his parents were strongly inclined to consider abortion as an option.

On June 27, 1936 by decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR abortions were prohibited. Consequences of the breaking a law in this country at that time could be very grave. Stalin was pro-life and everyone took Iosif Vissarionovich’ opinion very seriously.

And so, endowed with such luck from outset, I was born in Leningrad, USSR, on February 16, 1937. Delivery was piece of cake and in a few days I was brought to a room in communal apartment on Rubinstein St., house # 22, apartment #7.

If to believe my mother and grandma, undisputable expert in such matters, I was the sweetest and handsomest newborn. Ever born, they meant, I suppose. As far as I know, I enjoyed my happy life from the very beginning, especially food and drink, and nap after a good meal. World without me was unfathomable proposition and this particular point in space, Rubinstein St. #22 was the central point not only of the city of Leningrad (a few minutes walk from the beautiful main thoroughfare of the city Nevsky Prospect) but, as far as I am concerned, the natural focal point of the Universe. The Rubinstein St. where I lived, with four years of interruption during the Second World War, until 1969 was and stays in my heart as the place of eternal love and the only place in the world to return to kneel.

Sunday.

One of my very first memories is Sunday, 22, 1941. Early in the morning our parents told us, my sister and me, that we are going to the Central Park of Culture and Rest (almost equivalent of we are going to Disneyland). The strangest thing is that, though I don’t clearly see the actual events of this morning, I remember images rushing through my animated imagination: sunny blue sky over greenish water and the white sails of flying yachts. We were sent with our baby sitter Kapa to the back yard of apartment building where my aunt lived and where we played in a little garden waiting for all to gather for trip to the Park. The next thing I remember is a small silent group of people standing in the hallway and listening to the man’s voice coming from the round black disk – radio. Trip to Paradise was cancelled.

I don’t remember whether I cried and tried to change my parents’ mind but I am sure I didn’t. I had an unmistakable, unequivocal, not even a feeling, but innate sensation that this is a case when crying, hysterics, screaming, convulsions, nothing…nothing in the world will help. Children know such things at once. I am sure we didn’t even ask to promise a visit to Heaven next weekend.

Europe meets Asia.

Heavy fog covers everything from this day to days a few months later and 1,500 kilometers East from Leningrad to the city of Molotov (presently Perm) close to Ural Mountains but still in the European part of the USSR.

Through some rare clearings I see a bright summer days, unmoving railroad carriages, crowds of people everywhere all the time. And then it’s snowy winter, terrible cold, freezing, like in Siberia though at that time I didn’t know what and where Siberia was. Tiny room in a little house with very small windows covered by ice outside and inside. My sister and I are alone in this room the whole day, day after day. Our parents, I don’t see them in this room. I remember nothing about food and drink I loved so much. I don’t remember hunger either. Later I was assured that we were hungry all the time for four, five years.

There was a bag made of white fabric, attached by the rope to the ceiling, hanging without touching walls. I knew it was our food which mice couldn’t reach at night. The landlords of the house generously shared their rich experience of survival.

I remember our move from the village to the city of Molotov where we got a room in a small apartment building. Again we, children, are alone in the room the whole day. But this time I remember my mother in the evenings, in the kitchen; baking chibriks. Chibrik is the name of local pastry, the simplest kind imaginable. My mother was an excellent cook who was trying to sell, illegally, these culinary luxuries to the merchants of the local marketplace to supplement our poor meals of rationed food supply. When my mom was frying the batch of chibriks for the next day sale, our neighbor from adjacent room, a single man, sometimes came out of his room with cash exchanged for a hot chibrik right off the frying pan. I had my first shock of observing the insatiable extravagant indulgence when our neighbor appeared in the kitchen the second time with cash – Maria! One more!

One day mom was arrested in the marketplace for illegal speculation. Militia kept her in local office the whole day to make sure she was sufficiently scared, and she returned home late with her basket full of chibriks cut into the small ready-to-eat morsels with kerosene generously spilled all over them. Mom’s attempt to keep them on the balcony exposed to the fresh air and wind with a hope that kerosene will naturally evaporate and chibrik’s morsels will become, if not a delicacy, my sister and I almost never tasted, but at least edible; this attempt was a complete failure.

Mom’s career as the celebrated Chibrik Chief was over to the despair of her marketplace customers who afterward sometimes gave her special small discounts as tokens of appreciation.

Unforgettable cultural events at the Eastern edge of Europe.

My first and transcendental cultural impression was Music, Opera. Leningrad’s Theatre of the Opera and Ballet (formerly and presently famous St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre) in the beginning of WW2 was transferred to the city of Molotov.

One day mom took us to performance of the Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. It was the greatest performance of this opera in the history of Mariinsky Theatre. On return home this evening, and for many evenings after that, mom and I sang passionately, with