Categories: Residence and weekdays, Alla Mikhajlova

Please tell me what could you buy at the shop in Berezovka?

When we came here I stared to work at the general merchandise shop, I had to accept everything, there were clothes, shoes, everything – I was responsible for the half of the shop, the other half was for a second shop assistant. That shop was located in this one at the corner where there is an appliance shop there now. You see people are sitting over there, there was a big one. Well, there were durable goods there quite often, but food products… When we came here it was more of them, but later they were going out. To buy bread you had to stand in a long line. When I born a second child Vovka, I was on the maternity leave and wasn’t going to come back to shop any more. But they opened a grocery there and brought young people after the technical school, they were young, students. And at that time the organization was called a «lentochka» (a ribbon); they worked without handing over one's shift, well. They worked at the grocery first when I was on the maternity leave. When I came back I stated to work at the grocery, but I didn’t want to work there, they talked me into. Vovka was two months only but grandfather, my husband’s father agreed to care about him because it was very close to our place. Any time I could come and feed him, it took me two minutes to come. That was him who agreed to care of the child, and I started to work at the grocery. So they sent these students – eight or ten persons and they fully changed the old shop staff. So the young started to work and they worked «lentochka-like» without handing over one's shift. And after that all of them were fired as huge cash shortages had been found out. So they fired them and started to bring the old shop assistants back. They asked the people to come back and work for the shop but nobody agreed. They had to open a shop but there were not enough staff, they didn’t want the young to work as there were huge cash shortages. Finally old shop assistants began to return. One woman called at me, from the Semyonovy family who lived below. «Let’s work together, she proposed, only half a day». So I worked half a day, she shifted me from the midday. So we worked together at the bakery department, we had only bread there. Other shop assistants shifted each 15 days. So we worked together. We trusted each other without formal shift change. At that time there was a difficult food crisis. Very difficult. It was 1965.

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Researcher: Kseniya Adasik, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno