Moskalik from the 61st detachment (москалик из 61го отряда)

Few of you have wondered why is this guy, who grew up in Moscow supports Ukranian case so much from the very first day of Russian invasion. Is it really because he hates authoritarian regimes and likes democratic institutions that much, or is there more to it? Yes, guilty as charged, I like ukranians on a personal level and here is my story how it happened.

First of all, my ex wife is half Ukrainian which makes my kids quarter Ukranians. Strong enough reason, but I have more.

My father was born in Ukraine, though he spent most of his life in Moscow. But that was just his heritage, no family ties with the country, neither when I was raised, nor now.

On opposite, when I grew up in Moscow, the memories of Ukraine in my family was not the pleasant ones. My father’s  family was forced to relocate to Russia when he was a small child in order to survive Stalin’s Great Famine (Holodomor).

I would tell my dad while he was alive, that I wanted to visit the place of his birth with him, but surprisingly he was not keen on doing that. Pogroms, Holodomor, killing of all Jews in Ukraine and all within about 25 year period, no wonder my father did not feel much of the attachment. For some unknown reason I  still do and I still want to go there one day, god knows why...

 Anyway, Ukraine was associated in my family memory with darkness and gloom and not talked much about.

Apart from the painful past, almost 40 years after the war, for me Ukraine was just another USSR province, like Siberia or Estonia. Moscovites were pretty aware that all people of USSR had something in common- and that was that they all hated our guts for various reasons.

 The major reason was of coarse a food supply chain. Everyone knew that authorities treated moscovites better then the rest of the country for obvious political reasons. Many kids raised in Moscow would have bananas 2 times a year, oranges 3-4 times a year and some of the kids even tried Pepsi Cola which was unheard of for the rest of the country.

 But the major difference was of coarse meat. Moscovites had it more often. With line ups, low quality grades, with a lot of bones and no so much flesh, but in Moscow you could buy it for your family in the store may be once every week, where the rest of the country was not so lucky.

 And whose fault was that? Since communist party and soviet government could not do anything wrong by default, so naturally it must have been those bloody hungry moscovites who ate it all.

Moscovites knew the mood of the compatriots and thought of people from elsewhere like some kind of simple, unsophisticated peasants, who hate us for nothing, but yet, would try to do anything to come to our city every year in thousands and thousands, trying to stay and making this populated town even more crowded.

My middle class family of 2 civilian engineers and 2 kids was not snobbish towards the rest of the country, but we understood the dynamics around us, however since we did not leave Moscow region for years and years, it did not bother us too much, we did not experience much hate toward us which we might have faced if we dared to travel.

But thanks to soviet system, that part of our lives was taken care of. Outside borders had iron curtains, inside roads were opened for travelling, but with no cars for the majority of soviet families,  the only sane way to go somewhere for not so young parents and young kids was if you had a special voucher (putevka) for soviet version of all inclusive resort (pansionat). And those putevkas were sold mostly at places of work, often with large discounts, otherwise it would be too expensive for most families to buy.

My father’s place of work had those putevkas pretty much every year, but almost exclusively in pansionats in Moscow region.

So until I was 13 I never been outside of Moscow region and that was bothering me, as I wanted to go somewhere else. No matter where, somewhere, where things look and feel different then here.

I never was on an airplane or on that cool looking train with sleeping compartments.

I must have been praying real hard in my head, because before the summer when I was almost 14 we got not 1, but 2 travel arrangements to Crimea peninsula secured.

 First, my father won a lottery for a right to buy 2 putevkas to a resort near Yalta for me and my mom, then by a fluke he got another putevka , this time only for me to a pioneer (sort of young communist boy scout) camp, when someone decided to cancel. And the camp was in Crimea! To make coincidence even more incredible the overlap between two putevkas was only  1 day, which made it kind of doible to reach both destinations on time.

The only thing was that the resort would be the first stop and the camp would follow. That could be a bit of a problem since the camp Seagull (Chaika) was belonging  not to some boring state company (they all belonged to some state companies), but this one rather was part of Ministry of Defence of USSR, so military order was expected in how things were run, and dad’s friend who worked in the ministry and helped with putevka advised us not to be late, rather cut that other resort thing 1 day earlier, just don’t be late for army.

My father passed that information to my mom and she was going to leave 1 day earlier, so we can make it on time, but I had so much fun at the resort, I never saw a sea before, I was practically living in the sea for all our time there, coming out only to have a bite to eat. Mom’s heart was divided, how could she cut me even one day from that fun? So she decided to let me have that last day anyway and therefore arriving to camp 1 day later in a hope they still would accept me. What a decision it was in retrospective.

But then, once mama’s vacation was over and we traveled few hours from one part of Crimea to another in a hot, humid, unconditioned trolleybus she started to grow anxious. And the closer we got, the more she was regretting listening to me. Why would anybody listen to a 13 year old? What does he know about soviet life? Does he think it’s a picnic in the park? This is a Ministry of Defense for god’s sake, and we were running the whole day late. Where is our discipline, no discipline, no access to army benefits, we are doomed….

 By the end of the travel by brain was melted from the heat, I thought I was sweating through the ears. My mom on the other side was pale. Those military people will turn us away for sure and I can say good bye to another 4 weeks at sea shore . We will have to return to Moscow, and the money dad paid will be burnt for nothing.

“I will do the talking, you just listen and say nothing, ok?” mom instructed me when we arrived. I of coarse accepted, not like I had a choice, and obviously my mom thought of all the right words she would say to open their hearts. About how difficult it is to travel with a child, about how I never been anywhere and I now I was. At least she would try, she would explain and may be they will understand and listen and make some kind of exception from their military rule.

One of her hopes was that since a camp was belonging to ministry from Moscow and run by moscovites, with personnel and kids are also from Moscow, she thought that may be, just may be they will understand that we all are too far away from home and have to help one another.

In a camp office there were just 2 middle age women. The office was also non air conditioned, so it was also very hot and humid. Older woman spoke on the phone with a bit of Ukranian accent, the other one was already standing and preparing to leave for lunch, so all her posture was indicating she better not be bothered. We were about to face a typical soviet bureaucrat, never happy, never smiling, always grumpy that you are bothering them with your little things.

And to make things worse the one we would face was local, so probably she hates us anyway and now she will take her cheap revenge, sending us back to Moscow, just because she can.

Where is our luck when you need one? In a huge camp, there were 60 detachments, with more then 30 kids in each, bunch of cauncelors, camp management, security, even cooks, all moscovites. 2,000 people from Moscow and we are stuck with the only local to be found around here.

The other younger woman looked like a muscovite however, something in her posture, in how she looked told us she might be the one, so my mom decided to take a chance with her despite here clear signals “I am leaving”.

“Excuse me” said my mom “can I ask you something?”

“Don’t you see I am leaving?” – was the reply and she left just like that. Yep, definitely a muscovite, there was no ukranian accent, she was irritated, grumpy, we all met those women and men before, we knew them well. The other one was still on the phone and she must be worse.

 “If this one shuts us down we will try to find a head of the camp and plea our case to him” mom whispered to my ear. That was our last straw, after this woman will torture us with questions before finally saying famous “Ne polojeno”- meaning Not Allowed.

I was sure we are about to make her day, later at the dinner table she will probably say to her family-“those 2 idiots from Moscow came to our camp 1 day later and wanted the kid to be accepted.” Then they will all start laughing.

In the meantime the lady on the phone finished talking and turned to us.…

“Who are you?” –she asked. The torture has started. The bureaucrat from Moscow would at least be remotely polite, asking “what’s you name?”, this one is totally rude. “Who are you?”- what kind of question is this, who talks like that. “Alex Katznelson”- mom answered. In mom’s eyes I could read the usual suffering feeling of USSR jew, when he was forced to say his name outload and the person in front of him now understands it’s a jew, no doubt, where before it was just a suspicion, now it’s all perfectly clear.

It was known that antisemitism in Ukraine was historically strong and stronger then even in Moscow. That made our chances to be accepted even slimmer. Cornell Ivanov, head of the camp, where are you now, we are coming to look for you. Then we are going to look for a train back to Moscow.

The woman however was not impressed by the non slavic name. She did not ask “What?” or “How?”, like some other people did in the past, as if I said something in foreign language.

“Where are you from?” she asked and that was expected, of coarse. Like in chess, first 3 decisive moves and our party is lost. Those 3 moves would be: “who are you?”, “where are you from?” and the last one “why are you late?”- check and mate.

“We came from Yalta” said mom. It was very hot, but she remembered her speech about difficulty travelling in that weather from Yalta to here and was ready to continue talking if allowed.

That was not however what woman asked, and I got what she asked, she meant “where you live”, so we should have said Moscow.

I decided to correct mistake and said “But mom” , bit was stopped immediately by a slight kick elbow to elbow as if she said “remember what we talked about?”. So I shut up and expected that documents would be checked, stamp with Moscow registration found, and therefore she would turn us back not even because we are late, but because we lied to her, so my mom basically screwed whatever chances we had by herself. No stop at Cornell Ivanov would even be needed no more.

The woman in the meantime was checking some kind of registry book, then started to write something quietly on the paper.

“Why is she torturing us?- I thought. Just ask us why we are late, let’s already be finished with that, the vacations on the sea are overrated anyways. Just say it, say it, say it, I dare you…”

The woman finished writing and gave us a paper. “You son will be in detachment #61” she said.

We were shocked. That’s it? No further interrogations, no emotional  tortures, no document check, then cross check, then calling someone to consult and crosscheck the previous crosscheck, then saying “unfortunately nothing I can do in this situation- NE POLOJENO(not allowed)”. None of that waltzing-dancing? Just go to your detachment and have fun? What’s happening here? Are we not in USSR anymore, is it because of the heat or is this area has been habitated by different species?

What’s the difference, we went through, 61st detachment here I come!

Funny that they told us in Moscow, that camp consist of 60 detachments, not 61, but in USSR you should have always be expecting unexpected. In late 80s there was a hilarious piece by a stand up comedian about 2 wagons with the same number attached to the train, so one wagon was always empty, while the other was double occupied. That piece was a huge hit, as people could correlate with their soviet lives.

But who cares if they now have 61 detachments, as long as I will be in one of them?  We thought that probably it was created  for people like me, who arrived late for some reason.

 We were happy, I was not expelled and was about to spend another 4 weeks by the sea, oh what a beautiful day!

When we arrived to the detachment #61, we were met by a detachment councilor, another middle age woman from Moscow. I should mention that every man and woman who was older then 30 looked like a middle aged to me back then. Interestingly enough how that prospective changed now. I have a totally different outlook of people over 30 years old, especially is they are female and good looking…

“Who are you?”, “Where are you from?”, “why are you late?”, “who told you to come here?”- the fine moscow educator was so natural at interrogations, you would assume she was not hired by KGB only due to misogyny. So naturally she was sent here to help with the kids. She had all the right questions, but it was too late for her to do anything, I already was admitted and had a paper with the rubber stamp and you can’t do anything against the paper with the rubber stamp, not matter how upset you are to get another bugger to be responsible for.

“Say good buy and leave” she commanded my mother and so we did, then I was sent to my room to unpack.

Room had 7 boys, I was the last one, number 8. Once I started to unpack, the whole detachment knew the new kid has arrived, so they all arrived to look at me. At that moment I immediately learnt what detachment #61 was and the news was not good. It was not for the kids who arrived late, It was a detachment made for kids from Ukraine. All of them were ukranians from different regions of the republic, except me.

60 detachments of kids from Moscow and with my luck I was sent to detachment #61. Crimea was part of Ukraine, so to be friendly or whatever with local authorities, ministry of defence allowed them to have 1 extra detachment, so they can also enjoy some sea in their native land. 1 detachment out of 61 for the second largest republic on whose territory we were. When my mother told the office lady we were from Yalta, the secretary naturally assumed we were locals and sent me to the only Ukranian detachment. Would have my mom said we were from Moscow and I would be with my compatriots. What a mistake and I was sure I was about to pay for that dearly.

30 pairs of eyes were looking at me, some standing in the room, some as far as from the corridor, not talking much, just looking, like I was some kind of exotic animal in their zoo.

As I was unpacking, it gave me some time to think and analyze the situation. They don’t like me, it was obvious, but do they hate me because I am from Russia or because I am from Moscow or because I am jew? Probably a combination of thereof. Plus all that history, may be some of their grand parent were Bandera loyalists who equally hated Russians, poles and of course jews. Will I pay for that too?

I would be lucky if they just call me Moscal. Word Moscal’ comes from word Moscow, but ukranians call that way all Russians despite where they come from, when they want to insult. And I was Moscal’ from Moscow,so  basically I was double Moscal’. And a jew. And I spoke with Moscow accent and did not know Ukranian.

In my mind it was not a question of bullying, it was a question of surviving the beatings.

How many times a day will they beat me? I was ready to cry, but decided to finish unpacking first.

 “what’s you name?”, “where are you from?”, those questions again. I answered, there was no point to lie.

They were stunned with the answers. A jew and Moscal was sent to them alive. They had 2,000 moskals, sea of moskals around and yet they to have send one here to the only detachment without Moscals. And who this Moscal thinks he is? Is he a fucking kamikaze? Does a camp leadership decided to kill him quickly by their hands? All of that I read in their eyes. And a jew..

I was pretty slim even by Moscow standards,  kids in my school would fight sometimes, when I was attacked I had to fight too, but my record was far from spectacular, not a fighting expert in any way or shape, not a popular kid in the school, not cool, nothing that could save me in this group. Ukranian kids, on the other hand being south of Moscow often grew up and reached the puberty faster then people from northern USSR, so most of the boys were bigger then me and a lot of girls looked like fine young women. Plus some of them were 1-2 years older which is a huge difference at that age. Camps usually were limited the age of campers to 13-14, but for some of those ukranian gangsters they obviously made an exemption. One kid looked especially scary, he was easy 10-15 cm taller then me, generally bigger build, athletic type and overall looked liked both Klitchko brothers shortly before the won their first belts. May be it was one of a Klitchko brothers, I am still not sure, as I was too scared to ask for his last name. In any case that kid, if you can call him that, was a tough cookie, easy a leader of the gang, and he looked straight at me. I was blinking, he was not…

What are my options here? Ok, that group will of coarse beat me daily, probably 3 times a day, before breakfast, lunch and dinner, just for fun and also to improve appetite. Since there is some free time after dinner, they will beat me then, too. That makes it 4 times a day. And may be sometimes during sleep, as that was a long standing tradition in prisons, army barracks and pioneer camps and you have to respect traditions.

To add fun, it turned out that my bed was of coarse next to that Klitchko gangster, so obviously my beating forecasts would have to be increased a bit, since he does not need any help in anyway and can beat me any time when he feels like punching.

So how I can exit from this hell? If beating is severe enough to have bruises, but not severe enough to go to hospital, I can probably ask for a transfer to another detachment. Then I can relax a bit, just would have to watch my back and be ready to run, in case I meet this group again in cinema or cafeteria. That should be manageable. Another option was less desirable, first they send me to hospital, but then after hospital, I would definitely be sent home to my parents. So, it’s basically a win-win situation, any way you look at it. With that positive approach we all went to a dinner. They followed me. Before execution they decided to ask everything about me, which miraculously took time before and after dinner.  They asked me about all aspects of my life in Moscow and generally life in Moscow. And life in general. And any other kind of knowledge I possessed. And any thoughts I had on various issues of every day life and world issues. They asked, I answered, they asked, I answered. It was beneficial for me, the more I talk, the less time for beating left. So we talked until everyone felt asleep. Then the next day it continued, no beating, just talking. And wherever I would go, they would go, like I some kind of Sherpa they needed to follow. I would go to the beach, they would go to the beach, I would go to the cafeteria, they would go to cafeteria.  We were all together all the time. On the 2nd or 3rd day I realized that no beatings are planned, on a contrary, I am freaking popular here. It took me that long, but to my excuse I never was popular kid in Moscow-not once, so I did not know how it felt! But here I was different, I was interesting and worthy attention. Who knew? I had 30 new friends, just like that, out of nowhere, I was comfortable, I was funny, I felt charismatic, I felt home. I wish that my class at my school was made out of those people instead of my snobbish classmates who were always into politics and bullying.

I felt loved and loved them right back. And for the first time in my adolescent life, girls were interested in me, too. I always was interested in girls, but this time the feeling was mutual. I almost lost a virginity there, but I did not. I just hit my puberty couple months before that summer, and with sex education the way it was in USSR, they were basically telling us “there was no sex in USSR”. As a result, when I was one on one with the girl, I simply did not know what to do, I was just 13 and I was… scared. Beautiful Crimean girl, who was 2 years older, but looked 4 years older, I am sure she saw that fear in my eyes and she just let me go (girls treat us in sex so much better then we treat them!)

For the whole time noone ever made me uncomfortable, they would always talk Russian with me around, even if some of them spoke Ukranian to each other. And of coarse no one called me Moscal. There was one jewish anekdot told by a ukranian kid from Odessa, which left me puzzled as it had a positive connotation on jews, not the usual crap about jews being sneaky and greedy.

Here it is:

“The tourist arrives to Odessa and stops a local.

Tourist: Do you know how many people live in your town?

Local: One million people.

Tourist: And how many of those people are jews?

Local: Are you deaf?”

That’s it, but I was surprised. For the first time I saw a non jewish kid, who was willing to associate himself with jews, as it was cool. I was kind of ashamed of my Jewishness and wanted to be as much Russian as possible, but apparently in Odessa it’s just fine to be a jew. That was a news for me!

Those 4 weeks flew fast, I had the best time of my life, and they are still one of the best times of my life… I was going to Moscow with my self esteem going from 0 all the way to the roof. Moscow however quickly returned me to reality and again I became Mr. Another Nobody.

People always say that travel will broaden your horizons, and I can’t agree more.

That summer in that camp I learnt how to be tolerant, not to judge people based on prejudice and I also learnt a very important lesson that time heals. It might take 2 generations or more, but old wounds can heal, if people stop poking them…

I also learnt that among adequate human beings it’s easy to fit, just treat others how you want to be treated yourself.

And boy, did I have a summer to remember, in retrospective, thinking about it, I wish every kid went through what I went through in detachment #61 to boost their self esteem and confidence.

Were there any negative moments of that vacation? There were two: the food in the camp was crappy, so even when hungry I sometimes  could not eat or finish what I started.

The second problem was created by that tough gangster- my neighbor in the room, who become my deputy and shadow. He felt that since now we were like brothers, everything that’s his is mine and vice versa. I was able to spare my toothbrush from that brotherly arrangement, but my comb was not so fortunate.  Later, upon arrival to Moscow, it was discovered that I had lice.

My arrival had quite an impression on my parents. I tanned like never before, so it looked like I changed the ethnic group.

And because of that crappy camp food, I did not gain much weight, but still grew up quite a bit, so I became even thinner then before.

 So, I was very thin, very dark and had lice. “O Mine God, what has happened to you?”  mama was withholding tears, “it must have been a horrible experience. I knew we should not have been sending you there alone! We are so, so sorry” My father tried to keep his cool, and said that he never saw lice since the end of the second world war, so I have to take better hygiene next time. He tried to look cool, but also looked worried for my well being.

I was still smiling, may be for another 2 weeks, while thinking, if I tell parents I want to move to Ukraine it would give them a heart attack, so I better not….