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.

Often on Monday and Thursday, for some reason, the village council was closed during the day, we waited until dark, the chairman or secretary appeared, registered us, and we walked to Yershi at night through the muddy mud in the rain. The worst thing was to go in a snowstorm in winter. It was becoming scary, terrible, danger was felt everywhere, but we walked and walked.

Two or three times the guys pestered us, but God's mercy saved us.

Several times the policeman Mikhalev came to Ruffi on horseback, usually stamped in the hallway of the house for a long time, wiping his feet, silently entered, sat down on a bench, took out a notebook, a chemical pencil, looked at us as if at inanimate objects, let us sign a book, got up and always said the same phrase: Business, business, in place, so girls! And, looking at us and the hut with an unkind look, he drove away. Mikhalev's face was square, shaggy eyebrows protruded above his eyes, deep wrinkles, like a trace of an axe blow, cut through his forehead, cheeks, and chin in the most unexpected directions. Mikhalev gave the impression of a pagan idol, carved from a piece of wood, his face seemed unkind, evil.

At his arrival, grandmother Lyaxandra began to fuss, worried and left the house. We did not like Mikhalev, we were afraid of his visits, his look, the notebook he carried, and even the horse on which he came.

The fierce northern winter twisted us, and we saved ourselves only by warming ourselves by the stove. Warmth supported us, but hunger overwhelmed us. Mushrooms, mushrooms and mushrooms in two types are soup and porridge from them. If we managed to get five or six potatoes, we crumbled them into a mushroom mash, and it seemed to us that we lived like royalty.

Yulia began to hurt, first her stomach, then her legs and arms weakened, and she finally fell asleep. The first time in early December I did not go to registration. Sonya and I went and said that Yulia was sick, but the chairman did not believe it, began to shout and swear, sophisticated, cynical, threatening. Going home to Ruffi, we cried all the way. The next day Mikhalev came to check if Yulia had run away, but saw that she was sick and allowed her not to appear.

Two weeks later, they came from the district with a search, rummaged through all our belongings, took away the Gospel, the Psalter, prayer books, and from that time on we could pray only from memory.