Fingering the paper, I found two old letters, which I received in the beginning of 90—x years from my friend Katyusha Doroschenko. I jokingly called her sister — we have the same middle name: Vasilievna.
Our acquaintance took place in the mid-seventies, when we both came to the city of Grozny on distribution. I — after graduating from the accounting Department of Armavir mechanics and technology College, Katya graduated from Tomsk Institute, I do not remember only what, specialty "lawyer".
Katya came to Grozny when I was already an "old-timer" – worked for two years at the Grozny cannery, and then I was taken away by transfer to the APTO "Cannery". Katya also started to work immediately in the APTO.
Maybe we wouldn't have befriended her, but she was moved into the factory Dorm in the same room with me. For young professionals, whom we were with her, was such a privilege — they were given a room for two. For us it was even more convenient to live in the same room and the fact that we got to work together.
A year later, her fiancé, Volodya, came to her after being discharged from the army.
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After a modest wedding, among the guests of which were only me and one of our common friend — Tanya Lopatina (and Katya and Volodya were orphans and were raised in an orphanage in Tomsk), the young moved to an apartment in the Factory district of the city, very far from the hostel.
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I quite often came to visit them and stayed overnight.
In the summer of 1978, I had to go home to my mother. She was seriously ill, had a serious operation, and on her hands was still my little sister.
But I still came to Grozny. I had to finish my studies at chigu. I stayed every time with my friends, who were soon given a two-room apartment in the suburbs. By this time, they have born the first daughter, Sonya, my beloved little friend))
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Now she must have been married a long time and had her children. Like her two sisters — Helen and Julia.
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This is, so to speak, a short introduction to my story...
As you probably remember, in the early nineties, a conflict began to ripen in Chechnya, which turned into a military confrontation.
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My friends, anticipating that it would be unsafe for them to stay in the city, began to look for opportunities to move to a more peaceful region of the country.
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I offered them to move to live in my city, but we have in the region was very strained with registration. And then it turned out that Volodya had some distant relatives in Ukraine, and they decided to move there for permanent residence.
But before that they went there "to explore". At that time, our Armavir still served as a "gateway to the North Caucasus", being a major railway junction. Alas, now it is not so, the city has lost its importance in this regard. And then, having received the letter from Katyusha that they will be passing in my city that the Parking of the train lasts the whole hour, I rushed to the station. Then I first saw the youngest Yulechka. I've seen Lenochka before, not to mention Sona, when I was in Grozny.
It was July, it was hot, but we, excited by the meeting, did not notice it. We had so much to say to each other, we didn't know if we would ever meet again, or if this was our last meeting. This really was the last.
Soon Katya and her family moved to Ukraine. The state farm which provided them housing and work, allocated also transport to transport at least part of the acquired.
For some time we still corresponded, although the mail worked intermittently, not all letters reached us. Promised photo Mikey, sent Katya, I never received((.
From Katya's letters I learned that soon they moved to another place — the village of Kotelva, Poltava region.
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Soon Tanya Lopatina and her husband Anatoly moved there.
Over time, Katya's life in a new place was improving. They, as a large family, after a year of ordeal, when they five, including three children, huddled in a one-room, unheated hut, gave an apartment out of turn. With work, too, all became normal. As she wrote in one of her last letters received by me, "we have no problems with food, thank God, there is enough money for this."
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And she invited me to come to visit them: "we have beautiful places here, you will rest..."
Unfortunately, my son's health problems did not give me such an opportunity, and there were enough other problems...
And then... In 1999 I moved to another house. Letters along with other papers was going to pick up a little later, leaving them at the old apartment. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, I was not able to pick them up in time. When assembled, it turned out that the sister that I left the apartment, took out a box of letters in the barn and there... In short, they have nothing left.
The biggest sadness is that I have not preserved the address of Katyusha. My attempts to find it through the Internet were also unsuccessful.
I post this post and cherish the great hope that it will see either Katya herself or someone from her family or just friends and acquaintances, and we will be able to contact her again!
Katyusha, I remember and love you as before! Please respond!!! My email address is here.
Armavir, Krasnodar kr., Russia
1991 — 1994