“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” That’s what I always told myself. And if you go on repeating something to yourself, you will end up believing it, no matter how wrong it is.
The winter of 1950 happened to be one of the harshest, with snow drifts as deep as a single-storey house, and bitter winds which lacerated your skin, if exposed. Temperatures in Minsk plummeted to -38° C that winter, the coldest since 1940. Even Minsk tram system came to a grinding halt, stopped by a build-up of ice on the overhead electricity cables, snapping the wires, cutting the power. Trains services, too, were severely disrupted at Railway Station Square, with tracks connecting Minsk to Moscow, Warsaw and Kiev, frozen to the point in which they expanded and broke. Domestic electricity supply was often diverted to our great industrial power houses, which often meant that our homes were unheated. In our apartment, it wasn’t unusual to find a layer of frost on the inside windows. It was too hard even to scrape off, and so we just left it. My wife and children spent a lot of time indoors with several layers of clothing on, particularly during the morning hours when the heating had been cut. They were hard times, but we knew we had to make sacrifices for the Motherland if our country was to become great again. “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few,” was the maxim we were told, repeatedly.
During these times another ‘winter’ had was in progress. It was a ‘winter’ of words and actions, just as when a scorned lover transforms her passion into one of hate. The ‘cold war’ was getting colder, and I, for my part, was willing to offer myself for my country.
Mixcraft 6 professional software studio and Samsung USB microphone
Qualified in Art History.
Experience of delivering careers guidance.
Musician - uploads to Youtube
Radio play for a song in the 1980's