Try living in Russia. Саша Кругосветов

light the stove, have some food and do my homework. But my mother was calmer in the knowledge that there was a pair of eyes not indifferent to what I was up to. Tolya was a well-built blond young man, not very tall and resembling Utesov. He worked as a driver. Before leaving for work he'd always shine his shoes, but only the tips. The rest was invisible, as people used to wear wide bell-bottomed trousers. Tolya was very kind but good for nothing; he'd constantly end up in some scrape or other. He was arrested by the police many times. And he had no luck with women; his girlfriends were all bitches of the worst sort. But Tolya had one talent: he could whistle most beautifully. I think he could have performed in public. When Tolya was at home, you would constantly hear tunes coming from his room – popular songs, romances, arias from the opera. Aunt Zhenya would often ask Lyubov Lvovna, that is my mother, for advice as to what to do with this useless Tolya. And my mother, enthroned at the kitchen table, would then discuss the issues and explain something in a quiet voice. I don't know whether her advice helped them, but their relief when they returned to their room was palpable.

      And then uncle Petya and aunt Zhenya were given a flat, and a single mother and her daughters, Ira and Nina, 16 and 18 years old, became our new neighbours. And communal hell began. These women were constantly fighting. For space in the kitchen, for a hob on the gas cooker, who could go to the toilet, whose turn it was in the bathroom. At some point ducks and hay turned up in the bathroom, unexpectedly. Yes, such a thing did happen. Our neighbours didn't understand that the bath was for washing oneself. How much did the electricity cost? In the end the flat had two different electric wires, two meters, two different lamps in the communal areas. These women fought for their place under the sun as if this was «their final and decisive battle». Screams and arguments. They would move our things without explanation and sometimes throw them out. Refrigerators didn't exist back then. Food items and cooked food was stored between the doors or behind the window. From time to time they would pour dirt into our lunch. A few years later the younger one, pretty and quarrelsome Irina, married a soldier. We rarely saw her husband, as he spent most of his time at his unit, but soon twins appeared, a boy and a girl. And with them a pile of nappies, hung out to dry literally everywhere. This fact provided the women with arguments in their constant fight for their legitimate rights. How could my mother endure all that? How did she preserve her calm? Wisdom, kindness and endurance worked miracles. Some time passed and the sisters were given their own place to live. Their mother kept the room for herself. She was rarely there now. She spent more time helping her daughters sort out their lives. Over time she moved out completely. But for many years she kept visiting Lyobov Lvovna, sometimes on her own and sometimes together with her daughters. To chat. To share news and worries. To seek advice. Naturally I didn't participate in the communal battles that were now over, but with half an ear I overheard my parents talk about the problems created by our tight-fisted neighbours. And then I witnessed the miracle not of human making worked by my mother's angelic patience. Not much good came out of the exoticism of the communal flat. Now it seems an exotic thing, then it was the truth of life. And the school of life. No matter how you look at it, this was also one of my universities.