In cabbage soup with sauerkraut, potatoes are laid first, otherwise it will be like a stone-pebble, it will not boil.
When the potatoes and cabbage are cooked, the inexperienced hostess will check the readiness “by the tooth” or with a spoon, and the experienced one will understand everything without “buying”, by smell, by smell. Now you need to lay the ready-made thick dressing from the brazier and then, without delay, finely chopped fresh herbs, crushed garlic clove and a small fraction of hot pepper dressing. The latter is only for an amateur. Not everyone likes spiciness. More often for this, a dried pod of hot pepper - gardala lies on the dining table. They will take the pepper by the tail and rinse it in a plate with cabbage soup. Looking at adults, children are sometimes zealous, and often beyond measure. Peppered, even tears from the eyes. “You were warned,” the mother will say. “Now eat to the bottom, finish your dope.”
Crushed garlic is also not always put. Fresh bread with a slight garlic flavor is good. But if cabbage soup is cooked for more than one day, then it is better not to put garlic, it will go rancid.
Bay leaf is also an amateur, but it is placed at the very end of cooking. And also - also for an amateur - two or three tablespoons of mustard oil
Already ready cabbage soup should be removed from the fire, but let it brew for at least ten to fifteen minutes on a light heat.
And then - off the lid! - hot Don cabbage soup are the world and the family.
Smelly, fiery, even at a glance. After all, they have not only the current oven heat, but sunny, saved over a long summer, while they grew from a small seed, poured earthly juices, and then sang and ripened tomatoes, tight, scarlet, to collapse and taste - sugar, dove-gray from the effort of onions the size of into a fist, red with ripeness, pound peppers, crunchy carrots. They sang and ripened for a long time in order to give all their sweetness, astringency, smell and color and of course satiety and strength at once in today's single hour. This is how don shchi is obtained. Our main food and treat.
The happiest
Here comes August. Fly is the end. The days are sunny, hot, as if the month of July has returned. But in the evenings it is chilly, and in the morning there is steam from the mouth and white, icy dew, so as not to forget: the summer has come to an end. At night it is so starry, as if even there, in the fields and high gardens, everything sings and ripens. And now the golden apples of paradise with a quiet rustle, having drawn the sky, fly to the earth.
Just yesterday, the yellow moon, like a big ripe melon, rose in the evening and shone for a long time in the warm night. Today, only the bright white horn of the month walks across the starry sky. Every day it gets thinner. Here it is. Then the flight is over. I can't believe that another week or two - and I have to leave. Over the old house, over the whole neighborhood, a long autumn and then winter silence will close.
Although in modern times here and in the summer they don’t make a lot of noise. Outskirts, thank God. Cars don't bother. And the people - both young and old - are not crowded on the street now, clinging to the TVs.
My old house remembers something else - when you can’t drive the kids under the roof with a stake. Especially in summer: after all, there are no school lessons, only “lessons” at home. Drive a cow into the herd and meet it, help in gardening: dig, water all summer (my peer Yuri Tegeleshkin even now recalls on a bath day: “Three hundred and sixty buckets were in the well ... I scooped it out three times a day ...”); whether to pick grass for rabbits, goats - enough worries. But eventually they run out. "I'm on the street!" - home a short explanation, and the heels sparkle.
Now look-fistula. Only hunger - not an aunt, will drive into the yard. Yes, the evening, when you need to water the garden and meet the cattle from the priest. And then again: “I’m on the street!” Until late at night.
"Street" for the children of our district and the whole village is not just a meeting of peers and leaving parental care. The street at the time of my childhood is a world that now does not exist and will never be. The games alone are innumerable. Lapta ... And each boy got on with his wooden bat: comfortable, with a blade at the end, moderately heavy (so that both the strength and the ball flew far from the blow). Gorodki, siskin ... There are so many games in just one rubber ball ... “Shtandar!” And the ball flies high, high, you run away, and someone catches the dropped ball and aims at you. And the "knockouts"? Of course, the "third wheel", "blind man's blind man" in a circle, "caught up" and "hide-and-seekers". "Split" and "Run". It's good that the space is wide: the whole street, all the yards. And the “Cossacks-robbers” and “come on review” ... It was already in the Log that they went to the wooded place. And on the spot, nearby, you can play "goat", "measured" ... What were the jumps! The spirit will take over! The girls have “classics” and “jump ropes”. The latter are also for the guys, because dexterity is needed: without hitting the “rope”, which is whistled and twisted, “with entry” into it, “with care”, “with replacement”. If you can't dodge it, it will whip you with a rubber band over your naked body. And football. At first there were "balls" stuffed with rags and sawdust. Heavy, I must say. Fingers twisted. Then there were inflatable balls, with a tire and a camera. Football was fought everywhere: near the yards, on the pasture, in the spacious Log. Street to street: Proletarskaya to Oktyabrskaya. Class for class. They played barefoot so as not to break the shoes, because they cost money. And without judges, but honestly: “do not forge”, that is, do not beat on the legs. And sticks, hockey - it's already winter, on the frozen Kondol and in Zaton, on Gusikha. In winter, skis, sleds, and snowy fortress towns, their “assault” and “protection”. But it's winter! And all the long summer there is also living water nearby: first Log, shallow and warm, then Don and Zaton. "Catching up" in the water, "diving" and "tagging". And of course fishing. Heavy rowing boats, calluses on your hands... But what joy when you sail away farther and farther! Today to Berezovaya Balka, and tomorrow - to Lake Nizhny.
And back to the games. Now there is no memory of them. “Aidanchiks”, or “Kazankas”, when you aim from a distance with a heavy, lead-filled bat, you hit. Chik, beech, tala, artza are forgotten words, let alone junga li, jinga, aidan, and even more so. They don’t remember about the “hard” either now ... A round piece of leather with long hair, to which a lead or copper weight is attached from below. He straightened the wool, threw up the “hard” with his hand, and when it falls, do not let it fall, throwing it up with your foot, the inside of the foot. “And one, and two, and three ...” “Hard” takes off and takes off up. “And ten, and twenty ...” If you are a master, then “tough” flies above your head, and you will have time to turn around and throw it up again. This is a class: “with a turn”, “heel”, “left and right”. “Fifty-six, fifty-seven…” “One hundred twenty-one, one hundred twenty-two… one hundred and fifty…” These are the great masters. And also craftsmen. "Hard" must be able to do it yourself, with your own hands. As well as bast shoes, towns, a kite. Help someone. All fatherlessness. War. Widows and orphans around. The Miroshkins, the Podoltsevs, the Bykovs, the Chebotarevs, the Ionovs... I don't even remember now who had a living father. Tolya Ponomarev - without a father, Afonin - without a father, the Luzikovs, Arkov Nikolai, Viktor Varennikov ... All without fathers. Rely on no one.
And one more question, the answer to which must be sought in the past.
- Were you an artist? I was asked from the audience at the end of the meeting.
It was in Moscow, in the Central House of Writers, in the Great Hall, when young readers, students and high school students, awarded me a literary prize. And before that, a short, but conversation of applicants with a full house. To each his turn. I spoke too, answering questions, the last of which made me laugh:
- Weren't you an artist?
I laughed: what kind of artist am I? .. And then I remembered: our old house, Kalach-on-Don, a small village in which there were many artists.
Old photos. They have a wonderful power - to resurrect the past. Here, probably, the year 1945, still military. Kindergarten, it was called "vodnikov" and was located in the basement. But it's not about the walls. Here is a photo: guys, some kind of holiday, it seems, May Day. The children are wearing simple, but the costumes are made of gauze and colored paper. "Ukrainian", "Uzbek" in a skullcap, also made of paper, glued and painted. But the dances were real, the peoples of the USSR: hopak, lyavonikha, lezginka. Marianna Grigoryevna Blokhina, our musical director, inspirer and organizer, loved and knew her job.
Noise orchestra. Have you heard of this? He toured only in Kalach-on-Don. In the club, which was called "vodnitsky". The hall was full. As they say now - a full house, and permanent. Full hall of adults.
The orchestra members are kindergarten kids. Tools? .. God, what was there! Wooden spoons, bells, rattles, some kind of rattles, xylophones from bottles. I don't remember everything. Accompanied by the piano, followed by Maryana Grigorievna. Why noisy? From poverty. This is war, which means poverty. But children want to be happy. And Mariana Grigorievna invents and creates a noise orchestra. He also had a conductor. Just like a real one, with a conductor's baton. Wand - top. And the conductor - no more. But how he bowed, receiving the enthusiastic applause of the hall! The left hand is pressed to the chest. A graceful bow to the right, and a bow to the left, so as not to offend anyone, God forbid. And then - a raised hand and a turn to the orchestra: they, they say, also tried, and not just me.
A flurry of applause and laughter.
I was that conductor. And we had a serious repertoire: Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and, probably, Schumann. Well, what about without Schumann in a noise orchestra. Famous throughout Kalach.
Here is another photo. Girls in gauze "tutu" dresses are dancing. Probably "dance of the little swans". It's already a school.
And now they are almost adults, the seventh grade, probably. Participants in a theatrical performance. There was a school theater in Kalach. They staged Ostrovsky, Gogol, Rozov, Korneichuk. A new club has already appeared, with a big stage. They played there for the whole village. “In Search of Joy” by Rozov… Whom did I play? Son of a professor who rebelled against family furniture! And another: “The sun is low, the evening is near. Come out before me, my dear ... ”- he sang, and now I remember, Levko ... This is also me.
What were the merchants of Ostrovsky! Larisa played them. And what was Kalenik, Vitya Ivanidi! And how he played Lyubim Tortsov! This is not to be found in the Moscow Art Theater.
- Exceptionally talented children! - said Maryana Grigorievna.
And how we sang! Everyone sang: vocalists, choirs, of which there were several at school. The younger ones have their own, the older ones have their own. There is also a choir in kindergarten. And there was also a “consolidated” choir - all together, during big holidays.
Voice check. "You have the first, you have the second." And now everyone at home knows that Masha or Grisha has a good voice and there will be a concert soon. Of course, everyone will come: relatives, neighbors.
“The Kalachevsky children are very, very gifted,” said Maryana Grigoryevna.
All this was a joy: they sang and danced, recited, played in performances, rehearsed, performed with concerts.
And is it just us: children, schoolchildren. The adults had their own "dramatic group" in the House of Culture. There was also a choir, vocalists. The hospital has its own initiative. Of course, not patients, but doctors and nurses. Loaders sang in the river port. There was such a female profession - they dragged sacks and boxes on the hump, unloading and loading wagons and barges, throwing grain in pood "fillings". And also they sang. I remember several names: Dusya Rastorguyeva, Matryona Neklyudova… Uryvskaya… There were a lot of them, about thirty people. And at the head is the famous harmonist Mitya Fetisov. They performed in clubs, in hospitals, traveled to Rostov and even to Moscow. But this, as they say, is vacant, good luck, in life - once. Everything else is for fellow countrymen, and most importantly, for yourself.
Much later, at a concert by the Dmitry Pokrovsky Ensemble, which left so early, I heard from him, from the stage, the words: “We are the happiest in this hall, because we sing. And you just listen."
So we, Kalachevsky, were happy people in our time: we sang, danced, played in performances. But that is in the past. Today: TV and a rare, during the next election, a concert of some shabby "celebrity" in the stadium.
It's a pity, a pity ... After all, Maryana Grigoryevna said: “In Kalach, amazingly talented people. They have a delicate ear, good voices, amazing plasticity.
This is about all of us. Not without reason, after so many years, Moscow students, seeing and listening to me, immediately guessed the artist in me.
Yes, and I myself read my stories on the All-Union Radio, on Kachalova Street. Recorded Tabakov, Pokrovsky, someone else. Then they realized: the author must read. It turns out better. It turned out.
Holiday
Yesterday was cloudy and cold. It was raining; the Zadonsk hills could hardly be seen in the misty damp haze.
And now it's already noon, and the rain either subsides, or again knocks on the tin roof. Dark, boring. Apricot trees in white bloom are wet like orphans. But tomorrow is a holiday.
In the evening the rain stopped, but the sun never came out. Rainy day, late cold spring. But it's still spring. The sky is cloudy, low, gloomy in the evening; and on the ground - fresh greenery, wet from the rain. Away - like a whitish haze spreads over the grass. It's a shepherd's purse in bloom. And nearby - flowering apricot trees: white, pink. They bloom, as always, powerfully: only a black trunk is visible near the ground, and above - a white cloud. Cloudy evening; dampness and chilliness. But how good the white smoke of flowering looks on the green earth ... Usually apricots bloom even before greenery. Somehow even disturbing: white on black. And now it's green. So it is seen in a rainy evening: white on green. So it is better: the eye is warmer, the soul is calmer.
Went up to the trees. Even from afar, through dampness and cold, a gentle spirit wafted. At first I didn't believe it. Sniffed - exactly: aroma. He came closer, stood between the trees. Yes, it's chilly, gloomy, but they smell, they bloom.
Long stood. Went to the house. I already looked back from the yard: greenery, white color washed out by twilight, which means spring. Tomorrow is Easter.
He went out at night: there is no wind, and there are no gaps in the clouds; in the evening he tapped the barometer with his finger - nothing good: the arrow was on the "bad weather".
And in the morning I woke up, went out into the yard and could not believe my eyes. In the slanting morning sun, the wet grass shines, iridescent shimmering, all in bubbly moisture. The sky is clear.
The sun rose higher, and at once bright, golden dandelions opened; apricot trees are like white clouds on the ground; cherry plum blooms, it smells so sweet; currant yellow is cloyingly sweet, black hairy bumblebees love it; they hum satedly, bending flower after flower with their weight. All day the bees chime and chime. And in the evening the swallows came. Here it is a holiday.
Mariana
“I often remember our sincere meetings, warm conversations in your small and cozy house. You write that I reassured you, could cheer you up, but I myself came, resorted to you with every new event, with every news. After all, I didn’t have more dear and close people in Kalach than you ”- these are lines from a letter from Marianna Grigoryevna Blokhina. The last few years she lived in Rostov-on-Don, near her son and sister. There she died.
Mariana Grigorievna was known in every Kalachevsky house. She taught two generations. Although she was not a teacher at all, but a musical director "part-time", that is, on half the salary. Kindergarten and school. The noise orchestra I was talking about, dance groups, several choirs, a drama group, vocalists, reciters.
- Kalachevsky children are very gifted. Very! Plastic is amazing. Vote…
It is difficult for me, now a native Kalachevsky, to disagree with this. It's about me, too. But before Maryana Grigorievna there was no person who would have seen it, felt it, said it out loud.
Kindergarten, school ... We must be in time everywhere. Mariana Grigorievna is like a squirrel in a frantic school and kindergarten wheel.
“At eleven I had a junior class choir, then they asked me to play at a pioneer gathering, then a dance one. After dinner I collect soloists. In the evening - dramatic. Who won't come? Lena? Why? Crash the rehearsal? What happened to her? Now I'll run and find her!"
High school students, those who knew her better, among themselves called her simply Maryana. She was by education not a teacher at all, but, it seems, an electrical engineer. But she played the piano well, loved music. She got into kindergarten and school by accident: war, evacuation, a foreign village, she needed a job. It seems that it happened by accident, but for the rest of my life.
Now, from the outside, from a distance, one sees: what a crazy job she had! After all, what is the main thing at school: mathematics, Russian and so on. And here is Mariana with her rehearsals. And to her: either - there is no place, then - the right people are taken somewhere. Or suddenly these nice people have disappeared somewhere. Seek, Mariana! The soloist has an unhappy love, and she has no time for songs. Persuade, Maryana ... And Maryana has her own children at home. And the salary is cheap. More than once she threatened to drop everything and leave. Fortunately, she couldn't leave.
Late evening. Empty school. The rehearsal is over. Tired. "Do you want me to play you something?" - "Play, Maryana Grigorievna ..."
Open piano. Music. Let's sit down and listen. The cleaning lady, leaning on a mop, is also listening.
Then, after a long time, in the years of adulthood, this cleaning lady, meeting me, asked me: “How is Maryana Grigorievna? Haven't heard? - She shook her head. “What kind of person…”
In her last Kalachevsky years, Mariana Grigorievna lived in a school annex, in a tiny room, without getting a normal apartment.
She was from Odessa, from the Sokolovsky family. Apparently, they fled from the Germans. And they ended up in Kalach after the war. Fima Naumovna is the head of the family, old, gray-haired. Two daughters: Marianna and Lyubov Grigorievna, the latter died immediately. I don't remember her. She left behind a son, Felix. Maryana has a son, Sergei. So they lived, four of them: Maryana worked, the guys studied, Fima Naumovna led the house.
One case. I was told about him more than once, aunt Nyura and mother. It was in forty-seven or forty-eight, after the war.
Times are hard: famine, devastation. And Fima Naumovna and Maryana, in their family, had money. I remember - five thousand rubles. (The amount for that time was great. Monthly salaries - thirty rubles, fifty rubles, seventy.) They said that this was a gain on a “state loan”. Winning means winning. Fima Naumovna and Maryana kept this money, without spending it, for the round orphan Felix. When he grows up, this money will help him start his life. In the meantime, they save money, I don’t know if it’s on the passbook, at home.
But many people know about "five thousand". And the times were hard: they did not eat enough bread. And therefore, when it was tight, people went to Fima Naumovna and asked for a loan, for a short period of time, in order to "get by." Many took and gave all. Only one person did not return the money. I remember his last name, but I won't name it. He borrowed money to buy a heifer. And then he said: "I will not return the money." And that's all. Who should go complain? And How? No document, not even a receipt. And in those very days, someone from my acquaintances urgently needed money. It seems to Shklennikov. Also - refugees, whether Poles, Latvians. I remember the children's names: Eduard, Vitaus and Yulia. The students hoped. And here is a story that everyone has become aware of. But Shklennik still came to Fima Naumovna, because there was nowhere to go. He came and said: “I know that the money was not returned to you. But I have nowhere else to go. And the need dictates. I wrote a receipt, and the witnesses will sign it…” Fima Naumovna stopped him. “No receipts needed,” she said. “If one bad person deceived us, how can all people not be trusted.” That's all.
Maryana Grigoryevna was known to everyone in the then Kalach and remembered for a long time. Fima Naumovna - too. “What good people…” said my family. “This is not Rosenzweigi…”
Rosenzweigs are also Odessa refugees, from Ili. They were evacuated there with a carload of shoe goods. They organized an artel in which exiled Poles worked. Throughout the war, the Rosenzweigs lived in clover. And then they returned to Odessa, as they said, with a carload of money. But this is already different, almost current.
Mariana Grigorievna is from a different time, it was not for nothing that she loved our old house and its inhabitants. Lines from the letters: “I remember Kalach and your dear house ... You and Anna Alekseevna are always so kind, sympathetic, affectionate to all people ... It was easy and free with you ...” “... here, even with the closest ... I somehow by oneself. In their opinion, I don’t know how to live, I don’t know how to get settled, to achieve ... it has been said more than once that I am an idealist, a naive woman, I unreasonably believe in everything good in life, in people. Who knows, maybe this is true ... But people always seemed good to me in most cases.
No, I think I was right. And you, my good friends, keep your kindness to people. Don't lose faith..."
Our old house, his family albums, yellowed photographs. Kindergarten, school. Cheerful children: they dance, sing ... Somewhere there, nearby, our Maryana. And this is already older: a drama club. Venya Boldyrev, Valera Skrylev, Valya Zhukova, Masha, Raya, Galya and me... In May Night we were the "leading actors". And this is even older, and people are different, but also a drama club: Yegor, Mitya, Yura Mogutin, Valya Popova and I, have already grown up, this is probably the tenth grade. Bright, sweet faces. And Mariana is with us. And now my younger brother, Nikolai, - he is ten years younger - is also with Maryana Grigorievna. A whole bunch of kids. The starlings sing.
I look at the photographs. None of our brethren became musicians, artists, artists. It wasn't even in my mind. Studied, worked, lived, live. But what about “Teacher, educate a student”?.. What did Maryana give us? Moments of joy in childhood and youth. And one more thing: "Kalachev's children are very gifted."
Thank you, Marianna Grigorievna.
The pain of the old house
“There is no such thing as someone else's grief” - these are all fairy tales. Something else is truer: “A well-fed one will not understand a hungry one.”
“... such grief and loss in us was killed by the villains of my garoy Volodya ... I lived only for children ... so that there were good spitsalists so that everyone would love and respect them ... and why did my sick heart remain to live and I can’t die, I don’t work for two days, I keep walking like muffled…” This is from a letter from Aunt Shura Salomatina. War, year 1943. Terrible letter. A little earlier, they killed their eldest son, Pavlik. One is twenty years old, the other eighteen. And Aunt Shura then lived for almost half a century. And cried for half a century. Who will understand her? What will comfort? One simple excuse: there was a war.
There was a different kind of pain in our house. Without war.
Now all this is just a long history: half a page in some school textbook. 1937 Stalinist repressions. Experts argue whether ten million victims or twenty. The current student read at home, rattled the teacher in class, got an "A". Repression: ten million died, ten more survived in the camps. Then they were all rehabilitated, that is, found not guilty. Both the dead and the living. But each of them has fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, sisters. Multiply twenty million by how much? It turns out - the whole country.
I said that the head of our house - Uncle Petya - was quite cool in character; sometimes picky about trifles, quick-tempered to rage. Who got it under a hot hand? Me and the protector - Aunt Nyura. Now, after a while, I begin to understand. The man had a terrible fate. And for what sins?
Pyotr Grigoryevich Kharitonenko started working at the age of ten. His father died in 1912, leaving five children and a wife. By that time, only the eldest of the sons began to work. Others also had to go to work. Uncle Petya graduated from one or two classes of the school. He worked as a boy "on parcels", mowing hay, harvesting bread from people, digging potatoes, selling newspapers.
At the age of fourteen he was accepted as a "delivery sailor" at the Sretenskaya pier. A year later - an assistant locksmith, a year later - a junior oiler, first on the ship "Korsakov", then - "Count Amur". (The oiler is an assistant to the steamship mechanics.) This is already “making it into the people”: he earns his own bread and even helps his mother.
And then - study: the working faculty in Chita, in Vladivostok. Military service. Again - work as an oiler. And again - study: Vladivostok, Moscow, Institute of Water Transport Engineers.
A half-starved orphan boy, a messenger who gets a piece of bread on errands, becomes an engineer, a leading specialist in a large factory. Not bad, in those days, he lives: an apartment, a salary, and even a personal “cab with a coachman” that takes him to and from work. My son is about to go to school. They are waiting for more additions to the family. There is talk of a promotion, even a transfer to Moscow, to the ministry. Thirty three years. Healthy and strong. Very handsome. Photos don't lie. Here it is - fate: all with your own hands and head; an orphan, the son of a washerwoman, a scrubber, overcame everything, overcame, "became a man." And his wife, Aunt Nyura, is also from an orphan family, from childhood, without a mother, as a mistress. Laundry, washing, food - everything is on it, and also - to earn money: reap bread, dig potatoes, wash floors, wash someone else's linen. Then - work on steamboats: a cleaner, a laundress, a cook. Now - the wife of a specialist, works in a savings bank. All are well fed and dressed. Son Slavochka, with long combed golden curls. And the second child is about to arrive. I want a girl. Aunt Nyura was also pretty in her youth. In a word, live and rejoice.
And suddenly - everything is shattered: arrest, prison, then - exile, again - prison, capital punishment, expectation of execution, replacement, stages, Ivdellag ... Unexpectedly, incomprehensibly, for many years.
“I was involved in the counter-revolutionary organization engineer Kharitonenko ...” (according to the investigator, from the testimony of the head of the Amur Shipping Company Rogozhkin).
“I know that a group of watermen who are spies, including engineer Kharitonenko, is being transferred from the DVK (Far Eastern Territory)” (according to the investigator, from the testimony of Burykhin, head of the mechanical and ship service of the Upper Irtysh Shipping Company).
The writer B.P. Ekimov focuses on the problem of attitude towards the elderly. This moral problem has always been and will remain important, because the life of the younger generation should be built on a kind, respectful, understanding, caring attitude towards the elderly.
The narrator and his father did not forget about the old nanny and visited her at the nursing home.
Listening to her story about life in this place, the narrator worried about her, because he felt that she wanted to go home with them. The narrator admits that for some reason his "eyes did not want to look at Maryana." Then the narrator admits that he does not know where the nanny is buried and that none of them "had visited her grave."
The last sentence in the text: "... am I trying to calm my conscience?" - convinces the reader that the narrator, after the death of the nanny, thought about the fact that he was not in good conscience, not humanly treated the old nanny, although he felt her condition and her desire.
In the story "By the warm sea" B. Ekimov described an incident that occurred in the Crimea. Among the rest, he saw an elderly woman who was selling herbs. He felt her condition, her loneliness. He became anxious, "as if a splinter had pierced his heart." He bought a bunch of wormwood from her, "as if he paid off a debt." But it didn't get any quieter. He remembered his mother, who was very tired. The author was glad that soon people of the same age met this woman and that the woman no longer felt lonely. Now he remembers her already "without bitterness and sadness." B. Ekimov writes about this incident as if he had experienced it himself. He understands old people, their soul, their desires, their feelings. The author wants the elderly to be well, to be understood by the rest.
The narrator in B.P. Yekimov's work "Old People" speaks of Baba Fen, who was used to saving money during the war. She still lived like this. She told her grandson to eat with bread, so that his tea would not be so sweet. The grandson asked her not to pester him, often snapped. The daughter-in-law did not like it when the old woman said that borscht was already so fat, why else do we need sour cream. The son, only laughing, slandered her that she had become greedy. While talking about food, Baba Fenya recalled her insatiable life. The old man needs someone to complain to. She came to the storyteller's mother, and she listened to her and sighed. Another elderly woman made sure that there was always water in the garden. She even went to neighboring houses and asked for water to water the garden. Then they didn't let her in. She often turned the pump wheel by hand. It was hot, it was hard for her, but she said that if you don’t water it, you will be left without vegetables, how can you live. She went to different organizations and talked about her children, about her difficult life. She is tired of everyone. The narrator writes that she is now visiting him, and he is listening to her.
You need to know the worldly truth: "old people are like little children" - and feel it. We must learn to listen to them, learn to understand them, be patient in talking with them, not refuse help and offer it ourselves.
Composition:
Should a person be responsible for loved ones? The Russian prose writer and publicist Boris Petrovich Ekimov makes you think about this question in his text.
The author talks about how the family decided to visit the old nanny, who now lives in a nursing home. Maria Ivanovna tried to show with all her appearance that she was doing well, but, according to the hero-narrator, the family understood that if they offered her to leave with them, she would agree. Further, the author tells about the news of the death of the nanny. The fact that the family missed the funeral, moreover, they do not know where Maria Ivanovna is buried. From this, the heroes are ashamed.
I share the opinion of B.P. Ekimov. A person should be grateful to the one who devoted at least a small period of his life to him and be responsible for him.
Very often this problem finds its place in the works of Russian writers. KG Paustovsky in the story "Telegram" considers a similar problem. The daughter of Katerina Petrovna has not visited her mother for many years now. The daughter lived in the city, and the mother in the country. Katerina Petrovna was ill and her main desire was to see her daughter, maybe for the last time. But Nastya was never able to find time for her own mother, for the closest person in her life. The mother died without ever seeing her daughter.
In the work of A. De. Saint-Exupery "Planet of People" the author tells about the accident that happened to the pilot. About how he, lost in the snow, forces himself to crawl forward, ignoring the pain. The pilot was saved by a sense of responsibility for people close to him.
B.P. Ekimov considers an urgent problem. The most precious thing in a person's life is time, and if someone has devoted at least a part of his time to us, then we should be grateful to him for this and not forget it.
Text by Boris Petrovich Ekimov
(1) We did not have to wait for letters from Maryana, our old nanny. (2) My father and I decided to visit her.
(Z) A well-maintained nursing home for former party workers stood in a rare suburban forest. (4) Maryana came out of the house to us with her usual joyful smile from ear to ear. (5) But only this broad smile, and even the bearish clumsiness of movements, remained from the completely gray-haired nanny. (6) Moreover, as before, she ground her tongue without interruption.
(7) It turned out that here she quickly got bored of sitting back, and she asked to be an assistant in the kitchen. (8) The servants had long guessed that Maryana did not belong to either the Soviet or the party workers, but belonged to the category of finished dupes, and they accepted a free worker into the kitchen without any delay. (9) Nanny was very satisfied with her career.
- (10) And then it came in handy! she boasted, holding out her trembling hands in front of us. - (11) In the morning I’ll clean a bag of potatoes with these hands ... (12) Our chamber is big, like a church, she continued. - (13) For four. (14) But one grandmother died, and now the bed is walking. (15) And it’s better for us, freer! ..
(16) In general, she cheered up with all her might and clearly tried to convince us how well, nicely she lives. (17) But I listened to her, and my heart sank, and for some reason my eyes did not want to look at Maryana. (18) It was felt that if we now offered her to leave this wonderful shelter with a well-established life and go home with us, she would go to the car without hesitation.
(19) Already when we said goodbye, promising to definitely visit her again, Maryana remembered one more thing.
(20) My pension is gone! she said to her father with an everlasting smile. - (21) The nurses will hide the glasses at the attendants and clean them up with money. (22) What will you do? she thought, realizing that she was casting a shadow on the reputation of her magnificent establishment. - (23) They are young, fast. (24) You tell me to put my pension in the bank. (25) And when they bury me in the ground, - here she, like of old, tried to famously stomp her foot, - give this money to the smaller one. - (20) She meant my younger brother.
(27) The father, also, apparently, slightly moved by the meeting with Maryana, began to say that she would live for another hundred years. (28) But something new and serious slid across the nanny's face. (29) And she cut off her father:
- Not really...
(30) At the end of the summer, they called from the nursing home and announced the death of Maria Ivanovna Mikolutskaya.
(31) Where she was buried is unknown. (32) None of us visited her grave. (33) And now you can’t find this grave anymore. (34) Lonely old women dying in nursing homes are not supposed to have metal crosses or stone tombstones. (35) Most often they get a wooden peg with a plywood board on which the last name and dates of birth and death are casually written.
(Z6) But after a year or two, rain and snow take away the ink inscription from the plywood, the peg falls, the grave mound settles, and there are no traces of someone's bones lying here. (37) It remains just the land, from which night blindness, horse sorrel, burdock and dandelions climb together every spring.
(38) Now it seems to me that this is how it should be. (39) What else could our nanny turn into, if not a simple earth overgrown with grass?
(40) So I tell myself and listen with suspicion to my own words: am I trying to calm my conscience?
(According to B. Ekimov*)
* Boris Petrovich Ekimov (born in 1938) is a Russian prose writer and publicist.
Every person has a need to be needed, to feel supported. But in old age, many find themselves away from loved ones. Do older people admit that they would like to return to the old relationship? How can a person who lived for the sake of others exist in solitude? B.P. Ekimov reflects on this very problem.
The issue of the loneliness of the elderly is especially relevant in our time, because family values and respect for the elders have faded into the background for many. This problem belongs to the category of social problems. This conclusion can be drawn due to the fact that we are talking about a whole layer of society - the elderly. The problem raised is considered on the example of the fate of the narrator's nanny, who lives out her years in a nursing home. B. Ekimov draws attention to the fact that Maryana, without grumbling, without showing true feelings, accepted her loneliness.
On the one hand, the nanny was even pleased with her position in the house and the fact that she could do at least some business. But on the other hand, the woman hid her longing from prying eyes.
Indeed, one cannot but agree with B.P. Ekimov. The elderly, who paid so much attention to the education of the younger generation, need care and deserve gratitude for what they have done for those around them and loved ones.
My position is confirmed by the experience of fiction. This problem has been repeatedly considered in the works of Russian classics. It is impossible not to recall the story of K. Paustovsky "Telegram". Katerina Petrovna doted on her daughter, but the latter left her mother alone. The heroine did not understand how dear her attention was to an elderly woman and how indifference hurt. And the life of Katerina Petrovna ended away from the closest person, who never thanked her mother for her disinterested love.
Unfortunately, lonely elderly people exist not only in literature, but also in life. In the village of Ivanovka, where my grandmother lives, there is a rickety, half-rotten hut. An elderly woman used to live in this house, to whom, in my memory, relatives from the city have never come. By old age, she began to forget much of what she knew, but none of her relatives came to support her grandmother, to help with the housework.
So the elderly need our attention. After all, if a person has devoted his life to others, relatives, he must definitely receive a reward for this: care, understanding, attention. The highest degree of ingratitude is to allow such a person to be alone. Old people need support, no matter how they hide it.
