Tag #153156 - Interview #94149 (Mikhail Leger)

Before the revolution of 1917 Ataki and Mogilyov-Podolskiy belonged to the Russian Empire. After the revolution Mogilyov-Podolskiy was in the USSR, and Bessarabia was annexed to Romania. Mogilyov-Podolskiy was located on the border. The border between the USSR and Romania was the Dnestr River. There was a restricted entry to the town requiring a special access permit. Frontier guards patrolled the town and the river bank. The bridge that connected the two banks before 1917 was eliminated. There were no contacts between relatives and my grandmother and her sister were separated from each other. However, residents of Mogilyov-Podolskiy and Ataki found out the ways of communication. I remember my grandmother taking me to the bank of the river to bathe. She walked into the river, and her sister was on the opposite bank. My grandmother turned her back to the Romanian bank, so that the frontier guards could not understand, whom she was talking to, began talking loudly about what was new with all members of our family. Her sister talked in the same manner, as if not talking to anybody specifically. Only in 1940, when Romania yielded to the threatening ultimatum of the USSR and gave up Bessarabia, my grandmother and her sister met after a long time.