In the morning they found out that my bundle with a dress was missing, of course, it was stolen by a carter. The grandmother broke the price for housing, as well as the carter for the cart, high. We ate what we had with us, changed our clothes and went to the village council to mark our arrival.

The village council was located in a large five-wall building. The room was littered and spat to the limit. The chairman, a tall red-haired man, frowned at us, took the documents, wrote down the names in the book and said: "I will not allow you to live in Korsun, go to Yershi, and only three versts. On Monday and Thursday to come to me or to Mikhalev. Policeman Mikhalev will come. You are not allowed to go anywhere. Don't embarrass the people, don't stir up campaigning, I want everything to be quiet, otherwise I'll send a short conversation to the district center there. I have to answer for you.

I timidly asked where I could buy food. The chairman laughed and said angrily: the Soviet government must not feed its enemies, it is not obliged to. That was the end of our conversation.

We came to the grandmother and saw: only girls and women had gathered in the hut and laid out our things on the benches, looking at them, trying them on, laughing. Our bras and lace combinations seemed especially funny to them, all they could hear was: Shame!

We barely collected the scattered things and went to Ruff to the accompaniment of friendly laughter. They could not take everything, they left books and heavy baskets. We loaded ourselves to the limit. Three versts turned out to be five. It was drizzling, our feet were sinking in the mud, we drove apart, exhausted, and reached it.

We rented a hut from a lonely grandmother Lyaxandra. The grandmother was small, lean, agile. Large blue faded eyes looked at people benevolently and affably. The grandmother lived badly, the sons went to the city and did not appear in the village, busy with their own affairs, the daughters got married and forgot their mother, no one sent money, and she while away her life alone, eating what the garden provided.

She met us well and was even glad. We knew the village news the next morning, but it did not please us. There were no exiles in the village, and those who did died of hunger in winter, it was impossible to find work, the chairman of the village council was an evil man, nothing could be bought, the people themselves lived from hand to mouth.

It was warm in the hut, we slept on the stove, hungry cockroaches rustled overhead, fleas crawled out of the cracks and bit us, an old sheep slept on the floor, the only cattle of grandmother Lyaxandra. At first, we ate what we brought, but we ran out of food, and we had to do something. We wrote letters to Moscow, but transfers and parcels were not delivered to us, we had to get permission to go to the district for the post office, and the chairman did not give it. We went to ask to work on the collective farm, but they did not take us, they wanted to collect mushrooms, raspberries and blueberries for the Centrosoyuz procurers, they collected them, handed them over to the point, but they did not give us money and food, but laughed. We realized that we were doomed to starvation. Grandmother Lyaxandra said: I feel sorry for you, girls, and I can't help you in any way. The last year the family lived with the Ipatievs, they also fought, the exiles died of hunger.

Famine came for us, we could neither buy nor get anything, we sat hungry for days. They began to change their clothes, but the peasants, knowing our plight, gave a bucket of potatoes for a woolen dress, and two pounds of flour for shoes.

It was a damp summer, nothing was harvested in grandmother Lyaxandra's garden, and she was also starving, sharing with us what she could. There was no human hope, and we asked St. Nicholas, the Mother of God, to help us. There came a moment when I doubted the possibility of God's help. Only Yulia always and everywhere believed, hoped and told us: the Lord will not leave us, the Mother of our Lord will help. Father Arseny entrusted us to Her, the Mother of God. Dear Julia, how much strength she gave me with her consolations and prayers. Sonya closed up, kept silent, and if in Moscow she gave me and Yulia a lot internally, now I relied only on Yulia.

The summer was rainy, midges and caterpillars ate vegetables in the gardens, potatoes rotted in the ground, but there were a lot of mushrooms and raspberries in the forest. We decided to collect mushrooms, blueberries, raspberries and dry. We went in pairs, one of us stayed at home in case of a check, more often Sonya stayed.

There were a lot of mushrooms, raspberries too, but it was more difficult to collect them. My grandmother taught us how to dry mushrooms in a Russian oven, and during the summer we dried more than thirty kilograms of mushrooms. It was a great happiness that in the yard of the grandmother, I do not know why, several fathoms of firewood and brushwood were delivered. A cold autumn came with heavy rains, frosts, in the mornings puddles were covered with ice, the first snow fell. Only the most necessary things were left, and the rest was exchanged for potatoes. Imperceptibly, winter set in with frosts and severe blizzards. Somewhere in the attic, my grandmother found two pairs of old hemmed felt boots, thanks to which we could go outside without fear of frostbite on our feet.

Twice a week we came to the village council of Korsun for registration, these days were the most terrible for us during the entire period of our exile in Yershi and Korsun. The chairman, noting the documents, cursed with particular pleasure, shouted, made us wait for a long time on the street, went somewhere or just sat on a bench near the village council and exchanged news with passing friends and comrades, pretending not to notice us. Every minute we were waiting to be sent somewhere or forced to do who knows what.

If the chairman was absent, the registration was conducted by a young woman with unusually sad, tired eyes, her face on the right side was disfigured by something, and therefore she always turned to the left side of the visitors. She silently took our certificates, gave us a pen for a receipt in the journal and, without saying a single word, let us go. Only once, looking at Yulia, she said: How beautiful you are, and her healthy cheek flushed.