Monday, November 29, 2004. Page 9.
A Wireless Turns One Woman's Life Around
By Vladislav Schnitzer
Over the summer, my wife and I decided to renovate our entrance hall. We hired an old friend, a painter named Valya, to do the job.
Valya peeled off the brown wallpaper -- a rather somber color that was very fashionable when we hung it 40 years ago. Our entrance hall had long ago become a library fitted out with numerous bookshelves. We wanted to brighten it up by painting the walls a matte beige color.
During her breaks, Valya would regale us with stories about her grandmother, a peasant woman from the Samara region. Until the late 1930s, her village had no electricity. Even newspapers were not delivered. The only time the peasants learned what was going on in the world was when travelers would come through.
One traveler told Valya's grandmother about a new invention, the battery-operated wireless. She was so amazed that she sent off a letter to the Kremlin asking if such a thing really existed. A few months later a large package arrived for her at the regional post office. It contained one of the first Soviet battery-operated wireless sets, called the Rodina.
The entire village would gather round to listen to the latest news. Valya's grandmother was soon the most respected worker on her collective farm. In 1935 she was chosen as a delegate to the Second Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers, which was held in the Kremlin.
Just before the congress began, Valya's grandmother needed to answer the call of nature. She found a ladies' room and pulled on the door, but it wouldn't open.
"Sir, help me open this door," she said to a shortish, stocky and mustached man in high boots who happened to be walking by. He pulled on the door, and when it wouldn't budge he kicked it with his boot.
"Check all the doors in this building," he said to the man who was following him.
The bell sounded for the congress to begin. Valya's grandmother was a member of the presidium, and she took her seat at a long table covered with red cloth. To her surprise, the same shortish man sat next to her. She gasped out loud when he was introduced: The man was Stalin!
In 1944, Valya's grandmother -- the mother of 10 children -- was awarded the Order of Maternal Glory, Second Degree. In time, her children spread across the entire Soviet Union, and she often traveled to visit them. On occasion, she would arrive to find a son or daughter living in a rented room. She would march over and speak with the authorities, and in no time her child would be given an apartment.
"Where is she buried?" I asked. "By the Kremlin wall?"
"No, in her village cemetery in the Samara region," Valya said.
This is Vladislav Schnitzer's final column for The Moscow Times. We wish him all the best.