Categories: Arvid Ratnieks

I remember my childhood in the countryside, when there was no electricity yet. We had to buy kerosene. Kerosene was not very expensive in the soviet times, but we still did not use it too often. And there is such a saying that in Latgale cucumbers and children come easy. One of such entertainments, of course, was – at that time such a word as sex did not exist, but in the evening, when the light was put out, then grown-ups had very nice entertainment, since there was no Internet, no Skype, and no computers. You can’t imagine how many things did not exist. And radio sets, I remember, they were battery-operated. As to other things, which were not related to reproduction, then the evening entertainments were mainly of practical nature.

            A husband had come from working in the forest, a wife was darning socks every day, every evening. She repaired mittens every evening as well. My dad, having come from the forest, he had a two-man druzhba [a friendship], that is that two-man saw. I remember that loveable sound very well, he was filing the saw. Such were the entertainments. I don’t talk about the entertainments that people occupied themselves with on Saturdays and Sundays, I have already told you about them when speaking about Christmas celebration. But the entertainment on working days was connected with practical needs. Women, of course, did other jobs, too. If one had learned, she could busy herself with weaving, knitting, because it was necessary to knit socks for the next year. Spinning the yarn. We, kids, had our own entertainment – I, for example, was allowed to spin. You see, such were the entertainments.

            It was different in summer; people mainly worked outside in summer. The entertainment was, when you came from the kolkhoz having worked until eleven at night, when it had become dark, then the entertainment was sleeping. 

Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte