My mother, Varvara Sinyavskaya (Mitina) was born in 1915, in the ancient Russian village of Ilinskoe-Khovanskoe, Rostov District, Yaroslavlskaya Province (now an urban-type settlement and district center in the Ivanovo Region) in a large working family. The family lived in a tiny house. I grew up in this house, but I still don not understand — how the whole family was housed in it? Despite the difficulties, all the children received a good education. The older sister, Anna, graduated from the Institute of Noble Maidens, my mother and her brother Anatoly became agronomists, Claudia was a wonderful dressmaker, and the younger, Nadezhda, became a nurse and worked in a military hospital during the war. My mother did well at school and was one of the first to join the pioneers. For her active work, she was awarded a trip to the All-Union meeting of young pioneers in Moscow. After school, my mother studied at an Agricultural College, received a diploma of agronomist, and was sent to the Smolensk Region. It was there that she met my future father, Stepan Sinyavsky. He worked as a history teacher in a rural school then. When my father joined the army, my mother went to live with my parents. I was born in 1939, and my brother Eugeniy was born in 1940. My grandmother, Elizaveta Mitina, helped me to raise my children. When the war started, I was only two years old, and my brother was one year old. My mother worked from dawn to dawn: all her strength she gave to the front. She, the chief agronomist of the district, went to all the villages on foot in any weather. In February 1944, our father unexpectedly came to us after treatment in the hospital. He was with his family for a few days, and in August of the same year, the funeral came. We lived very sparsely, always hungry. My mother and her sister used every opportunity to take care of us. My mother was strict, but she never told me what they talked about at school at a parent-teacher meeting. I was always worried, even though I studied well. I remember May 9, 1945 (I was already 6 years old). The day was sunny and warm. A band was playing from somewhere — and my mother was sobbing loudly. She became a widow at 29 years old. Then again, endless work from dawn to dawn. And in rare moments of rest — the garden, firewood, delicious cheesecakes, knitting, participation in the choir. My mother liked very much when linen was snow-white, and the house was full of flowers. Every September 1, children came to her from all over the street — and no one left without flowers. Almost until her death in 1988, my mother worked first at her home village of Ilyinskiy, and then in the neighboring village of Fedorovskoye in a kindergarten, and participated in Amateur performances.