The End of Evacuation, and the Victory (Autumn 1942 — May 9, 1945). My elder brother Leonid helped us to get a permission to return from evacuation in summer 1942. During a waiting period at one of th...
Evacuation, November 1941 — August 1942. When we arrived to the village called Murashi, many evacuee families went to the kolkhoz. We could not go because of our disabled mother, so we stayed in the v...
The Road to Evacuation. I had joined the medical brigade, and I was given the overalls, a hat and an anti-gas mask. On 11 October 1941 we heard that Medyn [a town to the north off Borovsk] was already...
Disclaimer: This memoire of a life during the Great Patriotic War in Russia was dictated by my grandmother, Lydia Sokolik, in 2006. I submitted this story to the BBC’s WW2 People’s War arc...
Although I don’t normally use this blog to write anything too personal, this is the day when I would like to do so. It is 9th May, and in Russia this is the state holiday – the Victory Day...
Three years ago, during my first visit to London, I was researching in the day and writing at night. This April I went there for the annual London Book Fair. I will not write about it more than you co...
Football Matters I’ve been told recently that to be an Italian and not to like football is almost a crime. You’re being watched with suspicion. The person who enlightened me on this is, ob...
As for where I’m writing this – I’m sitting in this souvenir shop in Southampton Row, just across the corner from Russell Square and the British Museum. I discovered it back in 2004,...
Since I’ve arrived in England, I almost never failed to visit London in spring. I visited the capital in early April in 2004, then in late March in 2005, I skipped 2006 for personal reasons, but...
It looks like this winter Britain and Russia have become inexplicably and inextricably connected by some changes in weather. As you know, I was born and grew up in Moscow. Normally, at this time of th...