Categories: School, Lev Shlyakhter

Where did you get dressed, where did you take clothes?

Clothes? Somebody bought at the market, wherever. For example, I had clothes; I went to school when my mother was alive.

You are probably speaking about the uniform?

I went to school. There was such a joke then. I will tell you now. So Vanya is going to school, there lived the teacher. And there was linen put out to dry. Oh! And he came back home. She asks, «Why haven’t you been to school?» «I was going and saw that you are washing the linen and I thought that you are busy and can’t come to school as you were washing the linen». It was like this – sometimes I missed school thinking out that I tore the trousers somewhere and that they were patched somewhere. And my mother was very smart, well, in these issues. She dyed everything in black color. If there were some rags she would dye them. And I had everything non-torn.

And how did she dye?

They sold powder with dye, different. And they dyed themselves at home.

And did they tailor clothes at home or buy them?

For the first time I was altered something from my father’s coat.

Did they turn inside out?

Yes, they turned inside out. We had tailors there. One of them was Khorobykh. He used to alter everything for us. And once she bought us… the so called wind coat. You know what I mean, sailors had such a blouse.

Sailor suit?

No, a «vid-waze» or how is it called? I had a very fashionable suit. But unfortunately I had no time to walk around.

And what about shoes?

Well, if to speak about shoes... I was taught to trim valenki. We were wearing valenki in winter. I looked for old valenki, glued them, and roughened a shoe-thread. During the war they gave us something. For example, I know that girls were given wooden-soled boots. And when we moved to Kharkov, they cut from crawler wheels, such crawler wheels, land battleships have crawler wheels and it runs on the cat, they have such a rubber of such width and such thickness. And if it flew off they changed these crawler wheels, they vulcanized them afresh, and we were given rubber for sole-making. Such a rubber sole.

How old were you when you bought the first suit, do you remember, such a good one?

I don’t remember that. Even when I came here I didn’t buy it, no, I probably bought it here. I have never worn suits. I remember I wore Bulgarian jackets, I had... I became like this only now. I wore jackets size 52, and trousers size 48–46. That was my favorite clothes. We wore such checkered, you know, sport jackets. Oh! I can’t recollect in my memory, probably it is 64 already. I bought two Japan suits by that time. They brought them from Japan. I have a grey one and a brown one.

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Researcher: Natalja Ivashchanka, Sviatlana Silava, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno