Tag #111715 - Interview #97132 (Bertha Isayeva)

In summer my parents sent me to a pioneer camp. My father made all necessary arrangements at his work for us to go to a camp.  I went to a different camp every year, but all of them were at the seashore.  Every summer I looked forward to going to a camp. There were children from Moscow and Leningrad. One year about thirty children came. We made friends and cried when time to say ‘good byes’ came. It was a full and interesting life. We had sports holidays. I was a lissome girl and they even called me a ‘girl without bones’. I actually folded in two reaching my heel with my head. I also went in for basketball in our palace of pioneers.  We trained in rented gyms in town schools. Our couch Lyonia Pilin was an experienced basketball player. He was a member of the town basketball team that won the first places in Ukraine.  We, girls, shouted for our town team because our couch played in it.  I knew all players. I remember Footerman, a tall Jewish player. He seemed older to us, young girls.  
When we grew older we used to go to the seashore, girls and boys, to bathe in the sea and play volleyball. We walked along Pushkinskaya Street and Primorskiy Boulevard. We sat on benches watching the sea. Or we got together at somebody’s home to dance. We always enjoyed ourselves and had lots of fun. I remember one of our classmates’ birthday when we got together and there were about thirty of us. We had one bottle of wine for all of us and we just had few drops of wine each of us, but we had so much fun.