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I spent a lot of time in the yard. It was a fenced yard with a gate. Our janitor closed the gate at midnight, I think. On hot summer days young people slept outside. There was a garden in the middle of the yard. There was a summer tent house, benches and a table in the corner. I used to play there with other girls. We played with dolls when we were small. When we grew up we knitted and made doll clothes and embroidered shirts. I still have some of our crafts. I embroidered a pillowcase in a ‘richellite’ pattern: it’s very fine work. First you embroider a pattern with special stitches and then you cut it out. I still have a peacock that my mother started; she embroidered a contour and I completed the feathers. My friends and I went to the Lunnyi Park in Primorskiy Boulevard: we read, embroidered and crocheted. We sat in a circle embroidering and one girl used to read aloud. We also played ‘Baba, baba, give us fire’ running from one tree to another standing by a vacant tree. There is a similar game now when there are chairs in a circle, the music plays and participants have to sit down on vacant chairs. Boys played their own games.
Period
Interview
Bertha Isayeva