Tag #155601 - Interview #77997 (dora slobodianskaya)

My parents and their families came from the Moldavian town of Faleshty. It was a small town in Bessarabia 2. Before 1918 it belonged to Russia. After World War I Faleshty became part of Romania. The majority of its population was Moldavian and Jewish, but there were also Russians and Ukrainians. A church and a choir synagogue were in the main square. The choir synagogue was the biggest and most beautiful of all the synagogues in town and was attended by wealthy Jews and local Jewish intellectuals. There were several smaller synagogues around town. There was a cheder as well as Romanian secondary schools. Jews lived in the center of town. Moldavians, for the most part, lived on the outskirts of town where land was less expensive. They had big orchards and vineyards. There were never any pogroms] or even minor conflicts between the different nationalities in Faleshty. There was a spring on the outskirts of town. Water was delivered by a horse-driven cart with a huge barrel filled with water from that spring. There was a barrel in the corner of my father's shop, which the water carrier filled with water. We paid him for this service.

Power supply was provided in 1938. Before then there were kerosene lamps to light the houses. We had nice bronze kerosene lamps in the house. Before holidays these lamps were polished with chalk. There were cobblestone pavements and ground sidewalks in Faleshty. Owners of houses swept and cleaned the area near their houses. There was a lot of mud when it rained and people wore knee-high rubber boots.