Age 64, from Moscow, Russia.

She was born on January 30^th, 1938.  Her difficult childhood during the war and post-war years only served to strengthen her hold on life.  Mom was the absolute essence of life, and everything for her was joyful and interesting, right up to her last day on earth.

After graduating from the Petrovsk village school in the Moscow district, she moved to Sterlitamak in Bashkiria.  She attended the technical school there and returned to Moscow, where she entered the Polytechnic while working at the Kauchuk factory.  She worked there until retirement.

Mom was an impossibly cheerful person who entertained others as well.  I can still recall when she was in the choir - a pleasant, strong alto.  She sang in the Russian folk ensemble at the Kauchuk factory’s cultural center, and we traveled with her to shows.  Her heavenly blue dress with its silver embroidery will forever remain in my memory, like something out of a fairy tale.

Mom loved all kinds of art, especially music and the theater.  She could never miss the beautiful musical ‘Nord-Ost’, which at that moment was an innovative genre for Russian audiences.

The news about the hostages being seized caught us unawares, as it did everyone.  When they called me about it, I simply hung up the phone. “Some kind of a crank call,” I thought.  I turned on the television later, and then I knew that this time evil had not passed us by.  I rushed to my sister, who lived next to Mom.  Almost all our relatives had gathered there when the hostages were given a chance to telephone.  Mom did not waste her only call...  We turned on the speakerphone…  At the time we did not believe, did not have the right to believe, that we were hearing her voice for the last time…

Our parents went to the show together.  For 42 years they had gone practically everywhere together, not counting their school years, which they spent in the same class.  Thanks to the doctors, Dad was saved and left the hospital…  But Mom never came out of her coma…

Even though it had been ten years since she retired from the Kauchuk factory, many of Mom’s colleagues from work came to see her off on her last journey.  One builds a reputation in 40 years…  Either you have it, or you do not.  Mom had it…

It has already been six years, but the bitterness of the loss has not lessened.  We remember Mom and grieve for her.  Even her granddaughter, who was born six months after Mom’s death, knows Grandma Valya as a very kind and beautiful person. 

Mamochka, we miss you very much, and we hope and believe, perhaps we even know that right now you care for us as much as you can.  We all remember you and we will never forget…  Your roses at the weekend house bloom even better than before, and we hope that it is you sending your beautiful, warm greeting from that place, which we hope for you is a better world. 

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