We have to return to beautiful Natasha and follow her steps in life, which eventually brought her to the intersecting course with Gary. We left her with her granny Ducia in small single room in shared Moscow apartment in early 50-s, while her younger sister Olga lived in New York with her parents Inna and Pavel, who worked at UN. They lived rather comfortable life in New York. Natasha could saw her parents only a few weeks a year during their visits home for annual holidays. She was uneasy with her mom and dad, used to live with her beloved granny, especially in the presence of little Olga, who enjoyed the position of most loved child in the family. Nata remembered how she was constantly ordered to follow the rules, adopted by her parents, including most unusual one – never speak English in public, not even when neighbors are near (Soviet system encouraged neighbor's reports on unusual, suspicious and potentially dangerous behavior of its citizens). But of course, Nata enjoyed the time with her parents, and her dad didn’t hide his love for her.
In 1955 Nata went to school, made her friends, but most of the time she spent with her grandma Ducia at home. When she was thirteen, Inna became to worry about the Nata's secluded life, it was time to prepare her daughter to the social life among famous and influential families. As a first move was to encourage Nata to go outside often. To drug her from the books, Inna bought a dog, a Doberman Pincher, and told Nata that she must train the dog to behave at the dog training campground in the park near their apartment, well known park Sokolniki.
Nata’s parents Inna and Pavel, 1950
It must be noted that Ducia did outstanding job about improving their living conditions and traded in two consecutive steps her single room in shared apartment for individual separate two-room apartment in the nice building near the park. That move of Inna with dog effected Nata’s life much more than her mother intended. People, gathered at the dog ground were real dog lovers and there were professional dog trainers. All that community welcomed a little shy girl and tried to introduce her in all social events of their club, including dog show and sporting competitions. In one year Nata transformed into a local “star” at the club: her Doberman Nega was an extremely good student and found genuine joy to make his master happy. Nata always felt safe when Nega was near. One day three boy teenagers tried to bully her on the way home, Nata just said a word and vicious dog faced the hooligans with such a rage that all three found themselves on the roof of the nearest house and stayed there for an hour. Nata won many dog show medals and sporting prizes with Nega, distributed dog puppies, which considered a top breed material, she met many good people at the dog club. One of them suggested to her to take equestrian lessons in nearby sport facility. At first Nata didn’t even imagined herself on the horse, but someday she stepped on the horse rink, trainer helped her to mount and let the horse move around. It was something very extraordinary, Nata never felt before: it was feeling of victory, victory over her own fears and low self-esteem. She was sixteen and could do in this world anything she wanted.
In 1965 Nata began taking supplementary lessons on Russian literature to prepare herself for selection exams in Moscow State University. She love to read, spending a lot of time with books, her tutor guided her in writing the good essays. That year Inna decided to introduce her older daughter to the high diplomatic society in New York. So Nata came back to her birthplace and opened a new world for herself. Her usual day was busy with classes at the UN school for it’s employees children in the morning, household errands afternoon. She was housekeeper, cook, her younger sister sitter at the same time. But all those duties could not spoil her admiration of bright and free life in the largest city of America. Nata spent all her free from the duties time on walking on the streets of Manhattan, going through the merchandise of its wonderful shops and department stores. Even more exciting were parties, where she was taken by her parents and where she was presented to many famous people, such as outstanding ballerina of Bolshoi Theater Majya Pliseckaya, Nata also was taken to the concerts and public events like opening of Madison Square Garden, where she saw great Luis Armstrong performance.
Almost two years in New York passed fast, they left a lot of good memories for Nata. But she was eighteen now and it meant that she have to go back to Moscow and begin her study at the University. In 1967 she was admitted to the Philology Department of MGU. Since that time she grew to the completely independent young woman with her own interests, which everyone, including her parents, must recognize.
Destiny did its work, the lives of Nata and Gary were about to connect.
Nata and Gary, wedding, August 20, 1971
A story about love
A young girl and a young man accidentally met at the wedding of their friends. Both felt an unexplored attraction to each other, love at first sight. They have lived together for 48 years since then. Life drove them through many trials, but no matter how difficult their relationship sometimes became, they always took care of their love and never imagined life without their spouse.
But the years went by and took away youth and health. A serious illness hit the happy wife and mother of two children. For 25 years she struggled with the disease, her husband was always there for her, but the disease took away her health by bit, slowly, but constantly. And the day came when she could no longer take a breath, her heart stopped. Her husband spent all her last days in the hospital with her and the first saw death on his wife’s face.
He was left alone, children are already adults, raise their children, for him there is no place in their lives, their rhythm is too fast for him. He decides to live alone in the house where the two of them have lived for the last years. But it cannot calm him down, in every room he sees her, hears her voice. Finally he asks her ghost, whose presence he feels, “my soul is eager for you, I am ready to follow you. Let me know if you want it.”
And he gets a sign that says unequivocally, "Your time hasn't come yet, don't sit at home, otherwise you'll grow old early. You’ll meet a good woman who will love you. I want you to be young in your soul. You’ll be with me when your time comes. Live for me, be happy, and I will rejoice in your happiness”.
Try to imagine a situation where someone gradually moves to his goal that transforms from absolutely inconceivable fantastic and unachievable dream into quite realizable plan and later into actually fulfilled, accomplished task. More than this, his new life appeared to be even better than that sweet dream, he thought he would never taste in his life.
Nata with Alex and Liza, Moscow 1977
Could you imagine the blow of fate, hitting that happy person in the time of his triumph with the most unbearable news: your beloved wife, who was always near and supported you through all those years, who inspired you to continue the battle for the brighter future of your family, who shared the joy of your victory, she was diagnosed with incurable decease, that made her crippled. Doctors said that for the rest of her life she should take a very strong medication, which had a lot of its own dangerous life threatening side effects. It was devastating to watch her asking: “Why me, why now, when we can really enjoy our lives”. For 25 years she tried to fight the disease, refused to show our friends herself sitting in a wheelchair, smiled and laughed through the constant pain. She died three years ago.