Photo by Yuri Haritonovich

She calls her poems "lyric". Their naivety, childish style, some clumsiness and extreme sincerity are amazing. Most likely, young ladies of the XIX century wrote in albums something similar. Any event that has touched her soul, sensitive even at the old age, is reflected in her poems. Probably, it was a childhood habit preserved for the whole life. The poems written at a mature age do not differ much from those, which she wrote when a girl. They have not changed, but they have changed her life. If it were not for her lyrics the story of her life might have been different, but now it sounds like a legend.

- At the age of 4 I composed my first poem "The Famine of 1933". I could not write then, and my bonne, Alexandra Nilovna, wrote it down. Nobody but me had a bonne in 1933. She was a very old woman at that time. Bolsheviks rushed into her house and shot her son and husband for nothing, just for white collars and shirtfronts. She could hardly escape through the window with nothing but the dress she was wearing. She roamed till she was brought to Granny. She lived her last years with us, taught me reading and writing and good manners. It was Nanny who took me to church. Granny, though she taught in a Soviet school, concealed, wrapped herself up in Nanny's colored shawls and went to church like this.

My parents were geologists, and I seldom saw them. Grandma brought me up. Being a foster child of a finishing school she was waiting for arrest every day. I always feared for her...

We lived in Medvedkovo, we were a company of friends: Panya, future chanteress in the Kiev Pokrovsky covenant; Bishop Serapion, Metropolitan of Tula, now deceased; Nina, Fr.Dmitry Dudko's wife. We were friends, went to church together, and often attended services led by Bishop Nikolai (Yarushevich), gave him flowers. Sometimes we went to the country, read Hours, which it was forbidden in Moscow. I wrote verses, copied some paintings...

Before Krylov's anniversary a poetic contest among the children of railway men was declared. I was already 12. I gave in a poem and it was found the best, but they did not believe, that it was me who had written it. I was awarded the first prize by convention. The jury told me to come the next day. I was put into a separate room and told "Here are the topics: about Lenin's Mausoleum or about physical training. Start writing". I chose physical training and wrote about a parade. I wrote very hard, long. I endeavored. The topic was alien to me, but the result was not bad and it convinced them. It turned out some seven verses all in all. I was offered a watch or a coat made of artificial fur as a prize. I chose the coat, though it was not for a child, size 46. They tried to persuade me to take the watch. "No," said I, "I will grow up." Many people wore such coat then.

The jury got interested in me and asked what other poems I had. I brought them the poem about Richard III.

They listened to these verses, then to some others about the church service, then I read them a poem about Doomsday "How strange," said they, "one poem is about going to church, the other is about reconquering Holy Sepulcher. It's all about religion," and let me go.

I was caught at an anti-Soviet verse, the teacher of physics gave me away. The boys did not. They all were so saucy, they used to slide down the banisters and sang:

Some of them however did not sing long.

I was arrested. Investigator Rublev kept trying to prove that my grandma, an old noblewoman, taught me to write in anti-Soviet way. I certainly denied everything. I asserted that grandma was always at work, I spent all the time with nanny, who could not write a couple of words. I did not show it, but I was really scared for granny.

There was a boy boxed in the same cell with me. He cried loudly when they led him away, shouted. I could not remain calm, rushed at the escort and said "Wait!", put the foot in the doorway and asked the boy "How old are you? 15? And I am 12, I am a girl and I do not cry. I am a woman, and you are a man!" He sobbed: "They took away my parents and will send me to the settlement…" And I said: "Be courageous, with God's help you'll survive! Do not cry, do not give them this joy - hear and see your tears…" The escort pushed me into the cell.

After a while the escort called me up and said in a whisper: "Our narkom (People's commissar - translator's remark) loves literature. He has even written a drama and is very proud of it, he wants to show it to somebody. He read your verses, ask him for a reception". But it was not easy to get to him. I went on a hunger-strike - and through this I was received by Merkulov.

It was on the 12th day of my being there. He asked me whom I hated more - the Bolsheviks or the Germans. I hesitated for a moment and said, that probably I hated the Germans more, for the Bolsheviks also had butchers and jails and camps, but did not have furnaces where people were burnt alive. The words he uttered next stuck forever in my memory. Hardly heard, just with his lips, aware of a sound detector somewhere in the room he said "Are you sure?" Astonished I opened my small mouth to say something , silly creature, and shut it at once.

He told me he had a drama and promised to give it to me to read. He presented me with full collected works of Mayakovsky, Gorky and Korolenko. I made a wry face at Mayakovsky and Gorky, but was happy to get Korolenko, especially his publicism.

To cut the story short, he decided to make a soviet literary person. He let me go, but with the condition to choose a guardian and a teacher. I was called to Lubianka (street where Central Political Administration was located - translator's remark). A couple of Gebists (officers of State Security Service - translator's remark) came. One was a Lett, exceptionally handsome. The other was a common watcher type. And there I nearly plumped into another trouble. I liked that handsome chap, he seemed to come from a movie. I beckoned him aside and asked "If you still have Communist honor, tell me in light of this honor, did you personally ever had to torture people?" He turned first white, than his neck became spotted red. He jumped back from me and even squealed "This girl talks nonsense! I don't want to have anything to do with her! Let me leave" - and he left, and old Evgeny Maximovich who looked like a watcher became my guardian. You do not know how happy I was about it later! I was given 2 cuts for a dress: a blue and a black one plus 100 rubles. A certain Evdokia Nikolaevna Panfilova was assigned to be my teacher, an elderly lady of 65, she was a Soviet writer. Her duties were to give me themes for verses and match my writing.

The guardian took me to grandma, she passed out. I went to school again and those events dimmed in my memory. From time to time I was given themes that I could somehow cope with.

Merkulov did not forget about me. From time to time he sent my mother and me tickets to the theatre and parades. He introduced me to his son Rem. And it was Rem who warned me that soon I would be given a very difficult topic to cope with. Indeed, one day Panfilova came and announced: "Three Josephs. Garibaldi, Stalin and Broz Tito". Versed biography. My guardian, who never told me anything couldn't help saying, "You got into a mess because of yourself, and you have to get out of it." Very well! With God's help I will do it.

That is how we slipped out successfully. Granny took me to Father Sergius (Larin), then the bishop of Odessa, told him my story and asked "Would you take the girl to Odessa, Father, save her". He engrossed in thoughts. "What can I do? She is too young to be a secretary or a cleaner (I was only 15 at that time). She can live at my place, my daughter (he was a widower) is of the same age, and she will work in the convent and then at the age of 16-17 will marry a clergyman." I said that I could not marry. "I have never loved anybody, and though I am not quite at ease - You are of the opposite sex - I should say that in my thoughts or dreams or movements or gestures or poems or dreams I have never desired to become a married woman, to have a husband and children. I am like Schiller's Maid of Orleans:

He smiled "You have three days to think it over and then we are going to the convent. Tamara is 14, two Marias are 15, there are a few girls, all without veil yet, later I will give birettas to all of you" This is how I got to the convent in Odessa.

At the age of 16 I got my first passport with a remark "minister of religion". I spent 4 years in the convent, and then Father Sergius was transferred to Taganrog, and I went to Moscow to see Mother to my own misfortune, as my guardian would have said.

On the day of funeral dinner future Metropolitan Serapion, a quite boy then, and I went to the Danilovskoye cemetery - somebody of his relatives was buried there. The whole day we walked after the Father from one grave to another and sang: "Blessed are You, O Lord..", and when we were coming back a smart wide car was waiting for us. They seized us. Serapion broke free and ran away -he was a boy after all. They locked me in the car and drove off, and Serapion was running after the car, cried and shouted "Valeria", but I could not answer, for I was locked.

I was kept in prison for three years with a half. I was released only after Stalin's death. At first I lived with Mother and then a distant relative of ours took me to Zhitomir convent where I lived until it was closed down.

"Who is interested in it now?" the Mother says. "It is a sort of archive now, an nice archive and nothing more…" "Mother, you were so courageous, I said having read about her feats, - so risky… Where did you take strength?" - "Oh, no, - the Mother was evidently surprised, - you would hardly find anyone more infantile than me. Courage appeared when Khrushchev hunted us...

At that time cloisters were closed down everywhere. But the authorities could not do it simply by resolution, they invented a pretext. When they drove people out of Pochaevsky convent and the hermitage, a false rumor was spread that Pallady himself, Bishop of Lvov, closed down cloisters. The church people were so much aflutter with it that in Kremenets they were about to kill Pallady.

We wrote many leaflets in defense of the Bishop, unmasking the slander.

I can say that my press activity began with those leaflets. At first we made icons: photographed them, painted, edged with foil and wreaths, covered with glass and took to the villages. Then we invited printers and started publishing prayer books. Our first technology was very primitive. We used dot printing, and then learnt serigraphy.

All in all we were doing it for 18 years and published about five hundred thousand prayer-books. It was a real guerilla warfare - a long-term huge industry, an underground one, with caches. From time to time we were caught, we had to change location. We lived under constant strain. At that time there existed Article 162, according to which the leader of the organization even if it numbered 100 people was the only person in charge. It was decided that the leader would imitate to be mentally sick. To start with one had to study a 15 volume textbook of psychiatry and learn to play an insane. Others also tried to pretend, but they couldn't do it well, I could. That's why I became the leader of our underground publishing house. We had to endure much, but I recall some episodes more often then others.

When they caught hold of me for the first time, I mixed up everything: telling them about my visual and auditory "hallucinations" I placed them in a reverse order. I was at a loss though before I had often imagined what I would do if they took me away. They asked me what I wanted from Merkulov, why I wrote anti-Soviet staff. I responded I wanted to be Herostratos. They wrote down the diagnose. But soon I had to pass a new examination that I was very afraid of. Much depended on how I'd stand it. I new from textbooks, that my comments should be absurd and illogical, pupils mydriatic and almost nonsensitive to light. I swallowed tablets of salol with belladonna, smoothly combed the hair, made a fringe over the forehead and hanged my deceased grandmother's finishing school certificate on my neck. I was asked if the certificate was my talisman. I explained enigmatically that thanks to that paper with my grandmother's and the Empress Maria Feodorovna's names wisdom and strength of my ancestors were given to me from the other world and it was increasing continuously. My throat was so parched with belladonna that I could hardly breathe, but my pupil was as large as an eye and they let me go.

In the metro I fainted. I was brought to Sklifosovsky medical institute, they cleansed my stomach and in the evening more dead than alive I went home. The following four years they did not touch me and our production process went on undisturbed.

In 1976 somehow it was discovered that I was never mentally ill and I got into jail. It was the year of Woman, and due to it an amnesty was announced. I was looking forward to geting free like a bird, but the public prosecutor came and said: "I won't amnesty you, for mentally ill do not fall into the amnesty. If you give me an account from what year you started pretending, what diagnoses were given, and write that it was your method to be the leader of the organization I will put un my word for you." You cannot imagine how silly I was - I fell for the bate. I took paper and was about to write, when I met the eyes of our warden who was standing behind the public prosecutor. He made a desperate, distorted face, shaking his head. I got in a cold sweat. The prosecutor became nervous "Are you well?" "You know" I said, "I feel so bad, I cannot write a single sign on the paper". The prosecutor got into a rage, he started to shout, to demand, to threaten with a protest and refusal of my amnesty. "Write anything at all, I don't care". If I wrote that paper, can you imagine, how many doctors would have been disqualified, how many people would have suffered! Newspapers would have surely raised a stink. There would have been a scandal for which nobody would thank me.

A few minutes later the Prosecutor left, and after a short time I was amnestied. I dedicated a part of my lyrics to my jailers - not butchers, but really generous people.

Now the Mother is seventy three. She is very lively, affable, cordial and beautiful with a bright spirit, a light look, a pure face and a kind, knowing smile. There is no space in her ordinary one-roomed flat, because each square meter is used as a sleeping berth for the miserable, who are given shelter and consolation in her house. But there is not even a shade of weariness, caused by this hard life, in her. We found her sleeping in the dark corner after she had spent the whole frosty day on the porch of a church, gathering money for food and medicine for her ill. She woke up at once, got dressed hastily behind the curtain. And in two minutes smiling and fresh she treated us with tea.

- Oh, yes. There was much interesting in my life, - she says.- I was happy, because I have always served to what I like.

Once it happened so that Father Sergius of Solnechnogorsk got my lyric. He asked about me. I came to him; we got acquainted and had a talk. He asked me what our living space was (I lived then with my aunt Nonna, also a nun, now deceased). "This is what it is." - "Is it possible to place many people and much baggage there?" - "Surely, it is." - "We need a place to lodge people, who come to Moscow to buy icons, religious books and church plate" (It was the end of the 80th ).

And we began to lodge people. We helped them with tickets and freight. Large baggage is not permitted on trains. We begged, forced our way, bribed… Later, when people started painting icons also in province, there was no more need to go for them to Moscow. Old nuns began to come to us, their sick relatives, and then simply people, who heard about us, some without arms, some without legs… And when those damned medical policies appeared and without them people were not medically treated, then started real nightmare. People got frost-bitten being thrown out of the hospital. Do you remember a story of an old man who froze to death on the square of three stations? He was not allowed to warm himself neither in Kazansky, nor in Leningradsky, nor in Yaroslavsky station, and in the morning cleaners found him ice-cold with knees sticking out of the snow...

The homeless had no place to spend the night. Shelters began to appear. The Superior of Chernigov lavra hermitage lodged everybody. But it did not last long as it was prohibited by somebody's ill will. Father Vladimir from the temple on Sophia embankment built a special lodgment for the homeless, St. Theodore Studite church welcomed people released after confinement who had no place to live, and they in their turn helped build the belfry. One more shelter was opened in Friazino - an elderly man, former teacher, let homeless live in his home. And we joined into this stream.

Now fifteen, eighteen and sometimes even twenty five people live with us. We do not accept healthy ones, only disabled - our walls cannot stretch, we have only one-room apartment. We do not take more people, when it is still warm, for if frosts come, disabled will be coming one after another, and we won't have room for them. Usually more than a half of those who stay with us are on crutches.

Now we have Igor, he has no fingers, Sergey, who survived three strokes;, Valery, who wounded his spine in Afghanistan. Another sick - a geologist-engineer… If we do not have room for newcomers we still try to help them. Small subsidiaries appeared: there are believers who take one or two cripples and look after them. We look for those who can take them in. People who heard about us call us and give addresses of vacant houses in Moscow region. Some move there. In Kirov region there are villages where one can settle down and in other regions too - in the country there are many houses abandoned by the owners. But only healthy people can go there, and the sick should be looked after - without help they won't survive.

Sometimes it's hard. We have to feed them every day - one day with semolina, another day with millet porridge… One can't eat grass or snow. We cook by big buckets. I cannot send anyone for anything - they are all cripples. Worst of all is when it's slippery or when it rains… And if one of them catches a cold the others become infected too. Sometimes quarrels occur - they are strangers to each other. There was a time when we had problems with the local militia: one of the officers, Zaur Aliev, was at war with us, but then, praise the Lord, left us alone.

We are like Robinsons on an island. The truth is that we starve. The Mother Superior from the Zachatievsky convent gives us bread. We put it in water with sugar and weep. We've got already gastral disorders. If I only had my former strength… Health is declining, I am an old woman now...

In the shelter we need somebody who could replace me, better a woman - a believer, with sound mind and strong character, honest and not rude. Do you know somebody like that?