The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy

At that time, I was on holiday, staying with my late father's grandmother in Klimovsk, about two hours outside of central Moscow. I was taking a walk outside. At some point, my rumbly belly told me to go home, and instead of walking all the way around the fence to get back, I decided to take a shortcut by running quickly under other people's windows. I was fast, so fast that I ran through the entrance to the door and almost went headfirst into one of the nice old ladies from our apartment block. A loud cry echoed through the entranceway…

As it turned out, the old lady was not so nice, and I was a pest worse than the Colorado potato beetle… That bit I just ran through was actually her garden! I don't really remember what happened after that, but I was terrified. Like, off the charts terrified.

Another new page in my life had begun. I switched, of my own accord (or maybe adults encouraged me?) from communicating through speech to the written word. Throughout primary school, I had little contact with anyone and always found it difficult to talk to our teacher, Ms. Tatiana Lazarevna, in class.

A long time has passed since then. At work, I often have to speak a lot and perform to audiences of 10 to 50 to 100 people. And in rare moments of intense nervousness, it can be very difficult for me to start talking. I have to take a little pause, a deep breath of up to three seconds and… slo-w-ly pronounce the first word on an exhale with a little riff. Once the first word is out, the second word follows quite nicely. And before I know it, my mini moment of embarrassment is over.

Chapter 3. 1990. First Adventures

1990. A one-way trip up the tree

If my first shocks came from the outside world, about which there was little that I could do, then my first adventures were the fruit of my more or less conscious decisions. My growing inner world was catching up with the outside world, bringing about various activities.

One day my curiosity led me to a tree branch from which I couldn't climb down by myself. And I didn't even try to, which was probably for the best. There were a few things to note here. Firstly, this tree was not far away, only in the yard by the next house over from us. Secondly, the boys there said I should do it. Thirdly, although I knew these boys, they were hardly close friends, but they were older. And fourthly, I had been warned that while it might be easy to climb up, it's hard to get down. Then again, I'd also been taught that «you can do anything if you put your mind to it».

It wasn't that high up, just two or three metres from the ground. But this height stirred up interesting sensations in me, as I think most men will understand. It opened up a wonderful view in front of me. That said, I already lived on the sixth floor. What views could I possibly see from a tree that I couldn't I see from 16 metres high…?

So, up we climbed, sat for a while, then it was time to get down. After taking a little time on trying to get down, I realised that I couldn't do it by myself, and my friends had already gone. Thanks lads, older boys from the yard over, who I barely knew.

So, there I sat, waiting for something, not sure what. It was lunchtime, so I was beginning to get hungry… Should I shout for help? Nope. First of all, that would be too embarrassing. Second of all, I was a man, not an old lady at a market stall. I can't say that I was sitting there very long, I got lucky. My friends ran by and asked me where my piece of cheese was. I didn't get it at first, but then I realised they were joking, as if I were the crow from the fable «The Crow and the Fox» that we'd learnt at school. What they were saying was: I should ask for some help. It was lunchtime, so I asked them to call my mother. She soon came running out, bringing a big strong man with her who plucked me out of the tree just as easily as I'd gotten up there in the first place. When we got in, she didn't tell me off, she wasn't cross. I'd already learnt my lesson, no need to shout about it.

1990. As if falling from the second floor

That feeling I got from being up high in the tree was bugging me, I wanted more. Or maybe I'd just forgotten the previous adventure too quickly, as is often the case with children. This time I tried a ladder. Not like a firefighter's ladder, and not just a staircase, an ordinary ladder. There was one still in my dad's yard out in L'vovskaya, outside of Moscow.

Even now, despite modern health amp; safety regulations, playgrounds are full of dangers. The playground I played in as a kid was made of solid metal: harsh, solid, unyielding. Like life itself. And so, after having mastered what we basically considered Everest, I decided to climb this ladder, without any training or equipment. I almost got to the top before, just like in the movies, I suddenly slipped on the penultimate step and came crashing down backwards. I fell with a thud, got up, brushed myself off, and went home to eat pancakes. And that was the end of that.

Now, that's quite scary, thinking back. Falling from a height equivalent to the second floor of a block of flat is no joke. But back then? Ah, piece of cake. No one saw, it didn't hurt, all was well.

1990. Fall off the carousel

After that I'd realised that vertical ascents were not my forte and decided to experiment with horizontal movements. And it didn't take me long to sustain an injury: I got five holes in my bum… Allow me to explain.

It turns out that the harsh reality is this: if you sit and spin on a kids' roundabout, not facing the way you're going, then when you come to a sharp halt with your feet, your body is probably going to slide right off the seat and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Obvious? Not to every five-year-old. And landing on a board of nails at the bottom, well, that's an annoying detail.

I sent a terrible shrill cry echoing around the playground. Thank god I was only five with the vocabulary to suit, nowadays I would have screeched every swear word under the sun. My mum heard me straight away and came running. She'd been standing just around the corner the whole time…

She took me home, treated my wounds, comforted me, and didn't even tell me off. Mums are just great, aren't they?

1993. Left arm

Having suffered such a public and even slightly shameful fiasco in my horizontal adventure, I decided to return to try vertical ones again. In any case, I hadn't gotten that hurt. There were only a few things available to climb, so again, I tried a tree. But this time I had everything under control. The first branch, the second branch, the third… Oops… And we're back down in the dirt again, as if the floor was giving this brave little lad a pat on the back for trying.

As it turned out, I didn't have a parachute, nor a rescue catapult on me. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail: I dislocated my left arm. Nothing too serious. I mean it was tolerable, and no one was going to find out anyway… The next day, like a good little Soviet boy, I would be heading to a pioneer summer camp. But not just any camp, the summer camp in Crimea named in honour of Oleg Koshevoy[6 - Russian: Олег Васильевич Кошевой. 8th June 1926 – 9th February 1943. Koshevoy was a Soviet partisan and one of the founders of the clandestine organisation «Young Guard», which fought the Nazi forces in Krasnodon, Ukraine, during World War II.]. What if they wouldn't let me go because of my arm?! I was hardly going to let that happen.

1993. Hospitals

I lay in hospital for the first time with pneumonia when was just one, but I certainly do not remember it. I only know about it from the stories grown-ups told me. But when doctors removed my adenoids at the age of seven – oh, yes, I won't be forgetting that one in a hurry.

In a large brightly lit room, there was a large table on which lay various white-enamel medical utensils and shiny tools. The soft summer sun shone through large clean windows, pleasantly and mysteriously illuminating the people dressed all in white, like angels. These angels circled around me, affectionately throwing a large white sheet over my chest and politely asking me to say «Ahhhhh». A stormy stream of warm scarlet blood spilled out of my mouth onto the white sheet and dripped down onto the floor.

And now I think: could they not have given me a heads up about that? I understand that doctors don't usually warn their patients to avoid panic, but my God, this scarred me for life…

1994. Bitten by a shepherd

Let's talk about my left arm again. Of course, it had already managed to heal after the last fall, but not for long. My power of deduction says it must have been 1994, but that's not that important.

It was summer, July. We went to visit my aunt Galya, who was widowed after my uncle, my mum's brother, Andrey Timanov, passed away. It was hot and we took the shortest path through the garden (a plot of 30 acres or so). Eventually, we saw our aunt entering the house. With joy, I rushed towards her. But as if to catch some kind of lawless maniac, a German shepherd grabbed my left arm by the teeth. He managed to bite right through the palm of my hand. Sticking out of the wound was some thick yellow thread – not from my t-shirt, oh no. It was a piece of muscle, or something.

Weirdly, the dog was usually well-behaved and had never harmed a child before. Perhaps he had just woken up or my movements were too loud and erratic. Well, either way, something wasn't quite right…

It was quite the family embarrassment. What do we do now? The next day we went to the hospital and got my hand treated. I was prescribed 40 injections to the stomach, which seemed over-the-top and downright troublesome to me and my mum, since the dog was our family's dog, it wasn't stray or rabid. So, we went to get an official document to certify that he was indeed rabies free, and as a result, I got off with only 2–3 injections to the stomach. It wasn't very pleasant, but I'd had worse…

1995. Sledging

I decided to give my arm a break and turn my attention to other body parts. This isn't going to end well. During the school holidays, I went out, without permission, to go sledding on the hill. Well, it wasn't really a hill, it was more like sneaking behind the local townhall and down towards the stream. The slope was fairly steep there. What we didn't know was that it was actually a pedestrian area, we barely even noticed the older ladies walking around with their shopping bags, blocking the runway…

At the time, I was ten years old and therefore far too old to be sledging the way I was used to (i.e., on my bum). I wasn't no toddler anymore. If I wanted to avoid being laughed at, I'd have to try balancing on the side of the sledge will going down the hill or going headfirst.

I decided to do it the way the others were – on my belly, headfirst. And I did so almost all day, until I had an unfortunate accident. Blockage on the runway, sledge jam, and a huge blow to the face as I smashed into the sledge in front of me. I walked home with my tail between my legs…

No one was home. I wetted and squeezed a little rag, which my mother for some reason washed regularly, dabbed it on my eye, went to bed and began to wait. No, not for it to get better – I was waiting for my fate. My time came when mum got home and I surrendered, awaiting the telling off I would surely get. But again, she didn't scold me; I guess she could see that I was already punishing myself for going AWOL and had already received my bad karma for running off like that.

1996. And again with the left arm

Obviously, the head is more important. So, let's turn our attentions back to the left arm. It had already been through the wars, one more accident wouldn't hurt. Although I couldn't help but think, why was this left arm of mine so unlucky?

It was 1995 or 1996, summertime. I was at a sanatorium. Nap time had just finished, I'd been sleeping sweetly. Then, we were allowed a snack and a play outside before dinner.

As was customary at playtime, we were hanging out with the girls in a little gazebo outside with a seating area. I decided that sooner or later I would have to impress them, so I jumped over the edge wall of the gazebo, hoping to land on the outside. But the jump was immediately unsuccessful; I tripped and slammed to the ground with all my weight on my left hand. Another miserable attempt to show off.

After that, the usual: losing consciousness, regaining consciousness, and waking up to my arm in plaster.

Chapter 4. 1990. Mischief amp; More

1990. Got a bus to a nearby village

A little boy with no pranks is like a pair of shoes that fasten with Velcro: flat, predictable and uninteresting. Little boys should always have at least a little bit of zest and mischief going on in their heads, or else where would we get our brave and daring heroes come from?

It's hard to tell whether this story is one of recklessness or not, but at the age of five I went out without my parent's permission and got the bus to the nearby village of Sertyakino, where there was a pea field. I had no adult supervision, I was just with a mate of mine, Roma, from the second floor. He was wise and experienced, two years older than me. At this age, you can feel the difference: it's like a high school student hanging out with a university graduate.

We were quickly ratted out, and on my return home, instead of being greeted with bread and salt[7 - A traditional greeting in some Slavic, Nordic, Baltic, Balkan and Middle Eastern countries], I got a good spanking from my mum before being made to sit in the corner. By the way, in my time, the corner was often used. We can't really do that these days, times are different.

Just imagine: a whole field of peas! I don't know if it was a fodder field or not, but either way, it was an unreal even by adult standards. I often have to drive along this road even now, and these memories of it are the best. The smack I got at the end of that day pales in comparison to the joy of that pea field. I'd felt such a rush of freedom, an impenetrable sense of excitement on the edge of a big adventure with a hint of mischief. Just like the Russian poet Sergey Vasilyev said in his song: «Everything around me is kolkhoz[8 - A form of collective farm in the Soviet Union.], and everything around is mine!» And it all paid off in the end: stuffing my face with young, springy, juicy peas…

1991. The lift: riding with open doors

Of course, it is very risky for children of such a tender age to travel to whole other villages, but that's not to say home can't be just as dangerous. We had a lift in our apartment block. Boy, what a lift it was! The coolest! Why? Because, from the inside, you had to open and close the large, wooden folding doors by hand. On the outside, on each floor, there was also a large metal door which you also had to operate manually.