"What?" "I almost fell, I ran into a chair out of annoyance that I had accumulated a lot of torn paper...

Everyone in the class, except me, were pioneers. More than once I was "dragged" into the pioneers, but I stubbornly refused, the teachers considered it childish stubbornness, but the guys knew that I was a believer. They noticed a chain around my neck, once they even picked up my baptismal cross on the floor. It fell out of my pocket, where I hid it when we were taken to a medical examination. The boy brought me a cross with the words: "We have known for a long time that you wear a cross. But no one should know about this, this is the secret of our class."

Yes, children in those years knew how to keep their mouths shut. No one stuttered about God, or about the temple, or about arrests. In all the seven years that we studied together, I also never mentioned that I saw our students in the church when they stood in line to venerate the Holy Shroud on Holy Saturday.

Relationships in the family between children and parents

We, children, had different characters. Kolya did not study well in elementary school, his grade was constantly lowered for dirt, for handwriting, for slovenliness. He became an excellent student only from the fourth grade, when teachers appreciated his ingenuity and outstanding mental abilities. Energetic, noisy, direct and honest, he led all the games, was a favorite of his comrades, but with Seryozha he often argued, quarreled and reconciled. Seryozha was the complete opposite of Kolya: careful in everything, quiet, punctual, diligent in learning, Seryozha was his mother's joy. She could not get enough of him, she showed everyone his report cards, certificates of commendation, drawings and notebooks. This contributed to the growth of Seryozha's pride. He was conceited and painfully worried that he was not a pioneer, and therefore could not be a member of circles, take part in the social work of the class and be an example for everyone. Dad remembered the fasts and did not allow him to go to the cinema or theater during those weeks. He forbade Seryozha to read fashionable literature, such as Gaidar, where there was a lot of anti-religious. In order to keep up with the life of the class, Seryozha had to hide from his father what he read, or stay after school in the school library. His father's reading of long vigils on the eve of holidays took away from Seryozha the time he needed for lessons and reading. Seryozha did not dare to oppose his father, but the boy was no longer happy with church holidays. Seryozha sighed: "It's fasting again! Up to the age of ten, Seryozha read a chapter from the Gospel in the evenings, lying in bed, for which his parents praised him very much. But Kolya and I said to my brother: "You read in vain, because you only seek praise, and you yourself remain greedy, you cannot ask for an eraser or a blotter..." Seryozha silently turned away from us. He fell asleep in time, kissing everyone's hands as a sign of reconciliation. His behavior seemed hypocritical to me, although I didn't know it yet.

Kolya and I often went out of subordination to our parents and went to bed very late. Having waited for the adults to fall asleep, Kolya and I turned on the light again and for a long time read fascinating translated literature for teenagers, which was abundantly supplied to us by my father's sister, Aunt Zina, who worked in Leninka. In the morning, dad had to come to us several times and wake us up for school. Kolya and I could not wake up. Dad always woke us up (and then his grandchildren) himself with infinite patience and meekness.

I vividly remember the following picture: Seryozha had already left, I hurriedly put on my coat and thought about how I would have to crawl through the crack in the fence and run through the courtyards so as not to be late for school. I look into the dining room. There, Kolya is still lying, buried in pillows, with a thermometer under his arm, and his mother pulls on his stockings. Dad crawls on his knees near the sofa, trying to get Kolya's shoes out from under it with the handle of an umbrella.

Kolya and I constantly lost something, our books and notebooks were found under the beds. Kolya was not drawn to school, he was bored in elementary school. He willingly missed classes, was not conceited and did not worry about the dissatisfaction of teachers and the children's questions: "Why aren't you a pioneer?" I experienced my "non-pioneering", but not resentment towards my parents, but as the voluntary martyrdom of the first Christians, about whom I read at that time.

I asked my dad for permission to explain to everyone that I was a believer, I even often forgot to take off the cross, and my schoolchildren saw it. But dad forbade us to mention faith at school, saying that he could be fired from his job for our religious upbringing.

"You don't want to suffer, but you force the children," my mother said.

"Let them be silent," answered the father.

But to remain silent when you have an answer is a difficult matter. Silence showed that we either did not know what to say in our defense, or did not find the words to express our thoughts, or we were simply stubborn and stupid. To present oneself as such is a feat of foolishness, but is it easy to take it upon oneself for those who are accustomed to praise and like everyone to admire them? I, like Seryozha, had a childish pride, which was very difficult to overcome. At such moments, when we were "pressed", our parents simply did not let us go to school, which made Seryozha cry. "I'll complain about you to the principal," he once said to his parents.

But the winter was over, the red summer was coming, which always brought my father and me closer. He spent all his holidays with us, played tennis, croquet, volleyball, taught us to swim, took us on a boat. Dad composed children's games for us, I designed them with interest, and several games were even published by Detgiz. Dad received a lot of money for these games, so mom jokingly called them "the second salary". In winter, dad went to the skating rink with us and skated himself.