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Mariya Vysockaya, who is Russian, was born in 1933 in the village of Sveltlobovo, in Krasnoyarsk oblast [province], Russia. During World War II, her father and one of her brothers were killed and she and her mother suffered through a famine. When the war ended, her mother moved what was left of the family to Kyrgyzstan, in search of a better life. Nariman Jumayev interviewed her in Bishkek on March 17, 2009.

Our village had about 300 residents. Our family had eight children: five boys and three girls. I was the sixth child. Life was very difficult. My mother told me that in the year I was born, there was a terrible famine. It was artificially created by the state, she said. [Food] products were selected and taken away in trucks and then simply tossed into a pit. I do not know the exact reasons for this. I assume that it made people hungry and weak, so it was easier to manage them.

Also that year, I was baptized. In our village there was no church so we had to go to another village. There was no persecution because of religion in our village – probably only in the cities. When the war started, I had just started school. There were tears in all the villages when the men were taken to the front. The list came from the district center. My older brothers and my father were taken away on trucks with their belongings.

At the beginning of the war, our kolkhoz [collective farm] was good: it had sheep, pigs, horses. A little later, the livestock was slaughtered and taken to the station at Uzhur, which was 90 kilometers away from our village. From there, they were loaded onto trains and sent to the front.

There were people who profited from this by taking more than necessary. And we were hungry. Our students went to the potato fields to harvest and plant. For ourselves, we went to collect the remains of the wheat. It was banned and if they caught you, there was a fine. For adults, they put them in jail. Let the grain be lost, but don’t touch it – that was their attitude.

In the spring, when the snow melted, my mom and I went to dig potatoes that had not been collected in the winter and sent to the front. They were already dried. My mom turned them into pancakes.

Also, close to our village was a forest, where we collected slizun, which was somewhere between garlic and onions and could be eaten. We also got beets. My mom worked at the time as a security guard. The guards were on duty in pairs and, while one was standing, she would say she had to leave to take care of her business and we would collect beets.

The second problem, after the famine, was disease. I have a sister who caught scrofula – I don’t know how – she had big wounds on her head and neck. I got it, too. There was a kind of crust and below it, lice. I would comb until I was bloody, because of the inflammation and pus. I did not know how to deal with the pain. There were no medicines or doctors. To cure me, they stripped all the skin off my neck and then covered it in kerosene.

There was no soap during the war, so my mom, in the old-fashioned way, raked the ash out of the furnace, sifted it, put it in a pot, added boiling water and, with this solution, we washed our heads and our clothes.

During the war, it was very hard. Many died of hunger, but we survived thanks to my mother. When the war was over, one brother was dead and another one returned home. My father returned, too, but with an inflammation of the lungs. He soon died.

Then my brother started to work and my life started to improve. He had friends in Kyrgyzstan, in Tokmak. He resigned from his job and learned to be a driver. Later, my mom said that we would not survive in our village and sent him to Tokmak. After six months, we received a letter from him, so we sold the house, the cow, and the potato harvest, and went to Tokmak. I had just finished the seventh grade.

First we went by train to Novosibirsk. Then we looked and looked and found tickets to Frunze [Bishkek]. From Frunze, we caught the bus to Tokmak. We settled there. With the money from selling our property, we bought land and built a house. I communicated only in Russian, all my life, except for when I lived in Tokmak – then I had to learn a few words of Kyrgyz. I do not remember how long we lived there. Our neighbor left for Frunze and then called for me to come, too.

First, I found work as a kochegar [a stoker], then as an assistant painter. Then, I got a job as a dishwasher for the military. After a while, my boss saw that I worked hard and made me a bread cutter. Then I became a waitress, serving generals and officers. I got certificates and awards. At that time, I lived with friends in an apartment. The salary was small, but I tried to save some to buy my mother food. She especially loved red fish.

When I was 23 years, I met my future husband. He was an officer and I met him where I worked. We married and moved in together. After the birth of our first child, the government gave us an apartment. I left my job and studied to become an accountant. Later, I got a job in that profession and remained there until retirement.

Since my husband was in the military, we got free trips to resorts all over the Soviet Union. Still, we lived on a salary below the national average. I remember, to buy a refrigerator, we had to borrow money. We ate sausages, candy, and other delicacies only on holidays.