Olga Konstantinovna Gromova

Sugar baby. The story of a girl from the last century, told by Stella Nudolskaya

© Gromova O. K., 2014

© LLC "Publishing house "CompassGid", 2014

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Stella and Eric.

I kept my promise.

I didn’t want to think about lessons in general, or specifically about German- the early autumn near Moscow was so beautiful outside the window with a bright autumn sun, it was so beckoning to the forest. I half listened as the teacher announced the results of yesterday's test. “Nudolskaya - three ...” Did I misheard, or what? The class buzzed in bewilderment, but under the strict gaze of our new "German" quickly calmed down. From the first desks, classmates looked at me in amazement: the second three in German in a week. Everyone knew that I spoke German almost as fluently as I did Russian, and I couldn’t write a C in school dictation.

And suddenly I understood everything. And the recent three in Russian for an essay (the teacher said that I began to make stylistic mistakes and did not reveal the topic), and today's one did not seem so surprising. Offensive - yes, unfair - of course ... But at that moment it became clear to me that now, in the last grade, these triples would inevitably appear, no matter how hard I tried. And then at the end of the year I will have fours in Russian and German. And I won’t see a gold medal, or even a silver one, despite all my “five-star” report cards of past years.

I completely stopped listening to the lesson. I thought. It is clear that the four in Russian cannot be avoided - then they will definitely not give me a medal. You can get a medal, even having two fours in the last year, but not if one of them is in Russian. This is the law. And it looks like it will. It's a shame and it's not clear why my favorite German became the second subject. Not math, not physics... Maybe because our new class teacher teaches German and doesn't seem to know it very well... so she doesn't like those who know better than her? Or is she just in our village recently, not yet her own, and therefore it was she who was entrusted to carry out someone's "installation"?

My mother also teaches German. At the same school. But she is not given senior classes, only from the fifth to the seventh. We live at the school - in a small service apartment. Mom, of course, will also be offended by my German, but I know for sure that neither she nor I myself will argue. And we will not explain anything to anyone. And classmates ... well, they will be surprised and get used to it. In the tenth grade, everyone has enough of their worries.

Then, someday... when it becomes possible... I will tell my story to at least my closest friends. But it will not be soon. If at all. In the meantime, I can only remember silently.

Today, at dinner, we ended up in a magical land of elves and dwarves, where, as everyone knows, rivers of milk flow in the jelly banks. In deep plates with a cool bright berry jelly and milk poured around the edges, you need to “spring”, laying channels for milk rivers in the jelly banks. If you take your time and act carefully, the plate will turn out to be a map of the country with lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean around. We mess around for a long time, and then we compare who did better: me, mom or dad. Dad even managed to build some kind of mountain of jelly and assures that it is from it that this milky river flows. While we are looking at the paintings in the plates, the mountain is spreading and a muddy sea is obtained. Mom and I are laughing, and the nanny grumbles: “Well, the babies have gathered - one pampering.”

- Okay, Mosyavka, - says dad, - quickly eat up jelly and sleep.

- Will there be a fairy tale?

- You will have a fairy tale. Today is my turn.

“Can you start right now so you know what… and then I’ll go brush my teeth and wash my face?”

- A long time ago…

- When was the sun brighter and the water wetter?

“God, where did you get this from?”

“It’s Polyushka telling her stories like that,” says her mother, smiling.

Polyushka is my nanny. And by the way, she never calls me Mosyavka. Thinks it's a dog name and grumbles when I'm called that. But dad is not afraid of her grumbling.

- Don't distract me. So ... a long time ago there lived a family in Moscow: dad, mom, nanny and a very little girl. Papa's name was... papa. Mom ... Dad called her Yulenka, my mother's older sisters - Lyuska, brother - Punechka.

- And the brother is Uncle Lapa?

- Well, for example, he, although in life no one calls him that, only one little girl. But the girl was called for a very long time by all sorts of different words, but not by name ... Because she did not have a name.

This is a story about me, right? Will there be adventures?

- They will be. Go wash up and lie down.

Mom usually reads or tells me amazing stories from the life of different gods, heroes, wizards, and even on different languages. And dad rarely tells “correct” fairy tales, that is, folk or literary ones - more often he composes on the go. I run to wash, anticipating a fairy tale about myself, because I already know the true story of how I did not have a name and where it came from.

According to all the signs, a boy was to be born, whom they wanted to name Heinrich. And suddenly ahead of schedule something tiny was born, weighing less than an eighth five pounds (as the nanny used to think) and a little more than forty centimeters in length, and it turned out to be a girl. Parents for a long time could not decide what to call this unexpected phenomenon.

Until there was a crib, I slept in a suitcase, standing on a large chair, and its cover was tied to the back. Then they called me Mosyavka, Buba, or something else. And this creature should have received a name. Dad liked some names, mom liked others, and they argued endlessly. One family friend suggested:

- Name the girl Mussor - it is Turkish for "star".

But the mother decided not to call her daughter trash. They would have argued for a long time if, two months later, the parents had not been brought a strict summons for a fine and an official reminder that there are registry offices in the country, where they should come to register the child.

The three of us went: dad, mom and their friend Alexander. While the parents in the corridor at the window were arguing violently about what this miracle would be called, they handed the child over to a friend to hold until they decide something. He quietly entered the room (from which the parents were expelled half an hour ago to argue in the corridor) and registered the child, fortunately both the child and the documents were in the hands of Uncle Sasha. With a sense of accomplishment, he suggested that his parents argue some other time, since this girl's name is Stella, which means "Star" in Latin.

When Paul's nanny appeared in the house, she came up with an abbreviation for Stella - Elya. Since then, those close to me have been calling me that.

I don't remember my father's face. But I remember the pocket of his coat. If I put my hand in there (almost to the shoulder), there was always something delicious. I remember a big warm hand that I held on to when we went for a walk on weekends. And the voice is very low, velvety. So my dad tells me a story. About how a small but brave girl with no name saves her mother from evil robbers and earns a name for herself - Asterisk.

Olga Gromova Sugar Child The story of a girl from the last century, told by Stella Nudolskaya to Stella and Eric. I kept my promise. OG Prologue I didn't want to think about the lessons in general, or specifically about the German language - the early autumn near Moscow was so beautiful outside the window with a bright autumn sun, it beckoned me into the forest. I half listened as the teacher announced the results of yesterday's test. “Nudolskaya - three ...” Did I misheard, or what? The class buzzed in bewilderment, but under the strict gaze of our new "German" quickly calmed down. From the first desks, classmates looked at me in amazement: the second three in German in a week. Everyone knew that I spoke German almost as fluently as I did Russian, and I couldn’t write a C in school dictation. And suddenly I understood everything.

Summary sugar baby olga thundery chapter by chapter

Picture for the story Now they are reading

Summary sugar baby olga thundery

Important

And when Elya went to the tenth grade, mother and daughter were allowed to settle near Moscow. The girl went to school. She studied brilliantly, but given her past, her grades were always reduced by half. Elya graduated from school and entered an agricultural college.


While studying in the third year, she and her mother received a document that said that they were acquitted, and they were not guilty of anything. The father did not return home. The dry line of the telegram said that he had died in the 1940s.
The story teaches patience and endurance in the most difficult situations. Read summary Gromova - Sugar child.
Brief summary.

Olga Gromova, "sugar child": summary, main characters, theme

If I put my hand in there (almost to the shoulder), there was always something delicious. I remember the big warm hand that I held on to when we went for a walk on weekends. And the voice was very low, velvety.

And so dad tells me a fairy tale. About how a small but brave girl without a name saves her mother from evil robbers and earns a name for herself - Asterisk. Summary sugar baby olga thunder Perestroika began, and Gromova and Nudolskaya began to process these memories and publish them in the form of essays in newspapers and magazines.

Soon her son returned from the North. He was terminally ill and could not work the way he used to. The main goal of Nudolskaya's life was to take care of him, visit hospitals and clinics, it was necessary to obtain the necessary medicines.

She did not break even at that moment, she became a model of resilience and vitality. Both for Gromova herself and for her readers.

Summary of Gromov Sugar Child for the reader's diary

It is based on the memoirs of Stella Nudolskaya. She is the prototype main character Eli girls.

Info

And Stella's mom and dad had higher education, owned several foreign languages, in free time drawing and playing musical instruments. They had an enviable pedigree. Eli's grandfather is a pillar nobleman who worked at the Tula Arms Factory.


Thus, it turns out that this book is the only one that tells about Stalin's repressions and is addressed to children. Nudolskaya, who became the prototype for this novel, also wrote her own documentary biography. It was called "Don't let yourself be afraid."

sugar baby

The novel "Sugar Child", a summary of which is given in this article, is a work of the writer Gromova. In fact, this is a non-fiction book written from the words of a real character, a little girl, Stella.

Her childhood fell on hard times in the Soviet Union - 30-40s. The book, written in early 2010, immediately became a bestseller, winning the love of readers and the respect of literary critics.

The novel about the girl "Sugar Child", the summary of which allows you to understand what the essence of the work is, is a very sincere novel. Readers admit that he takes the soul and fascinates from the very first pages.
In the center of the story is little Elya. She grows up in a strong family where love and respect for each other reign. The happy idyll collapses at one point, when it turns out that her father was recognized as an "enemy of the people." What it is, she still does not fully understand.

Olga Gromova - sugar child

And the recent three in Russian for an essay (the teacher said that I began to make stylistic mistakes and did not reveal the topic), and today's one did not seem so surprising. Offensive - yes, unfair - of course ... But at that moment it became clear to me that now, in the last grade, these triples will inevitably appear, no matter how hard I try. And then at the end of the year I will have fours in Russian and German. And I won’t see a gold medal, or even a silver one, despite all my “five-star” report cards of past years.

I completely stopped listening to the lesson. I thought. It is clear that the four in Russian cannot be avoided - then they will definitely not give me a medal. You can get a medal, even having two fours in the last year, but not if one of them is in Russian.

This is the law. And it looks like it will. It's a shame and it's not clear why my favorite German became the second subject.

Read Sugar Baby Online

From the age of three, the parents taught the girl different languages, and now living in these places, the girl and her mother tried to learn the language of the local population. In the Kyrgyz village, the girl began to be called Elya. Mom often told her daughter different fairy tales and sang songs.

The baby quickly made friends with other children. They played in the street, learned to ride horses. The horse was very much appreciated in those parts. One day a rider galloped near their yurt.

He shouted out some words, and tenderly looked at the girl. As it turned out later, he shouted: "Ak bala, kant bala", which in translation meant "white child, sugar girl."

With his light hand, Elya was called that. It was in the thirties. Then there was the war of 1941, the echoes of which were heard in those parts.

The war brought with it famine. People tried to survive as best they could, collecting wheat grain by grain. War is over.

one more step

Game Today, at dinner, we ended up in a magical land of elves and dwarves, where, as everyone knows, milky rivers flow in the jelly banks. In deep plates with a cool bright berry jelly and milk poured around the edges, you need to “spring”, laying channels for milk rivers in the jelly banks. If you take your time and act carefully, the plate will turn out to be a map of the country with lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean around. We mess around for a long time, and then we compare who did better: me, mom or dad.
Dad even managed to build some kind of mountain of jelly and assures that it is from it that this milky river flows. While we are looking at the paintings in the plates, the mountain is spreading and a muddy sea is obtained. Mom and I are laughing, and the nanny grumbles: “Well, the babies have gathered - one pampering.” - Okay, Mosyavka, - says dad, - quickly eat up jelly and sleep. - Will there be a fairy tale? - There will be a fairy tale for you.
Until there was a crib, I slept in a suitcase, standing on a large chair, and its cover was tied to the back. Then they called me Mosyavka, Buba, or something else.

And this creature should have received a name. Dad liked some names, mom liked others, and they argued endlessly. One of the friends of the family suggested: - Name the girl Myccop - it's Turkish for "star".

But the mother decided not to call her daughter trash. They would have argued for a long time if, two months later, the parents had not been brought a strict summons for a fine and an official reminder that there are registry offices in the country, where they should come to register the child. The three of us went: dad, mom and their friend Alexander. While the parents in the corridor at the window were arguing violently about what this miracle would be called, they handed the child over to a friend to hold until they decide something.

And the brother is Uncle Lapa? - Well, for example, he, although in life no one calls him that, only one little girl. But the girl was called for a very long time by all sorts of different words, but not by name ... Because she did not have a name.

Olga Gromova - Sugar Baby Game Today at dinner we ended up in a magical land of elves and gnomes, where, as everyone knows, milky rivers flow in the jelly banks. In deep plates with a cool bright berry jelly and milk poured around the edges, you need to “spring”, laying channels for milk rivers in the jelly banks.

If you take your time and act carefully, the plate will turn out to be a map of the country with lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean around. We mess around for a long time, and then we compare who did better: me, mom or dad.

Dad even managed to build some kind of mountain of jelly and assures that it is from it that this milky river flows.


"Sugar Child" is a teenage novel by Olga Gromova, editor-in-chief of...

Read completely

Olga Gromova's book "Sugar Child" was written by her from the words of Stella Nudolskaya, whose childhood was in the late 30s - early 40s in the Soviet Union. This is a very personal and soul-stirring story about how five-year-old Elya, happily growing up in a loving family, suddenly turns out to be the daughter of an "enemy of the people" and finds herself in a terrible, incomprehensible world: after the arrest of her father, they are sent with their mother to a camp in Kyrgyzstan as CHSIR (family members of a traitor to the Motherland) and SOE (socially dangerous elements). But despite all the trials, hunger and illnesses that they have to endure, Elya and her mother do not lose heart: they read poetry, sing songs, joke, really care about each other. "Sugar Child" is in many ways a "novel of education", a story about love, and also about what dignity is and what freedom is. Eli's mother says most precisely about freedom: "Slavery is a state of mind. A free person cannot be made a slave."
"Sugar Child" is a teenage novel by Olga Gromova, editor-in-chief of the professional magazine "Library at School" (First of September publishing house).
The book was translated into Dutch, was included in the long list of the "Kniguru" award (2013), was awarded a diploma by him. V.P. Krapivina (2014), included in the list "People Like the Children of the Leningrad Region" (2014), shortlisted "The Best Russian Books of 2014: Children's Choice" (2015), shortlisted for the Prize. L. Tolstoy "Yasnaya Polyana" (2015) and the list of outstanding children's books of the world "White Ravens", compiled by the Munich International Children's Library (2015).
For middle and high school children.
7th edition, redesign.


A Novel of Education At the same time, Gromova's book continues the Russian and Soviet tradition of novels of education. They must be present in the home library of every teenager. After all, such books allow you to understand internal problems, learn the details of the history of your country, even if not the most pleasant ones, and realize the basic moral rules that you should adhere to all your life. Previously, such must-read works were Dostoevsky's Netochka Nezvanova, Leo Tolstoy's trilogy about growing up, novels by Kataev and Oseeva. Today they are being replaced by books by contemporary authors. "Sugar Baby" is one of the most good examples reading for the new modern generation. Prototypes of the main characters Another advantage of this novel is that everything that is said in the pages of "Sugar Baby" is not fiction. The book is biographical.

Summary of Gromov Sugar Child for the reader's diary

But her life is changing dramatically. Quiet family evenings are replaced by experiences, daily stress. Elya finds herself in a terrible, unpleasant world for her, where everyone is not happy with her. The father is arrested. They take him away from home, oh future fate nothing is known.
All attempts by the girl's mother to break through the bureaucratic wall end in almost nothing. "Enemy of the people" is in the dungeons of the NKVD. Elya and her mother are also mistreated. They are sent to a camp for family members of traitors to the motherland.

There is even a special unpleasant abbreviation for them - CHSIR. Socially dangerous elements (ESR) are also brought here. The camp is located far from their home - in Kyrgyzstan. An unfamiliar and difficult climate, the severity of the move, difficult conditions of detention.

All this negatively affects the condition of the girl.

Summary sugar baby olga thundery

Sizova Natalia Information about the book Title and author Main characters Plot My opinion Date of reading Number of pages Gromova Olga "Sugar Child" Stella Nudolskaya The story of a girl from the last century, told by Stella Nudolskaya. Olga Gromova's book "Sugar Child" was written down by her from the words of Stella Nudolskaya, whose childhood was in the late 30s - early 40s in the Soviet Union. This is a very personal and heartbreaking story about how five-year-old Elya, happily growing up in a loving family, suddenly turns out to be the daughter of an “enemy of the people” and finds herself in a terrible, incomprehensible world: after the arrest of her father, she and her mother are sent to a camp in Kyrgyzstan as CHSIR (family members of a traitor to the Motherland) and SOE (socially dangerous elements).
But despite all the trials, hunger and illnesses that they have to endure, Elya and her mother do not lose heart: they read poetry, sing songs, joke, really care about each other.

Olga Gromova, "sugar child": summary, main characters, theme

She quickly became friends with other children, and everyone around her began to call her - quickly, Elya. She played in the street, rode a horse, or rather studied. But these were not such special cases, because she also had to help her mother. And then there was the war in 1941. When she passed along with hunger, Elya still went to the tenth grade, but she received bad grades, because, despite the fact that she studied well, all the teachers remembered her past. After graduating from school, Elya nevertheless entered the agricultural college. And then they were acquitted. But the father never returned home, because soon a note arrived that he had died before the war. You can use this text for reader's diary Gromova - Sugar child. Picture for the story Now they are reading

  • Summary Kalina red Shukshina In the work, the author shows us the fate of the former convict Yegor Prokudin.

one more step

Olga Gromova Sugar Child The story of a girl from the last century, told by Stella Nudolskaya to Stella and Eric. I kept my promise. OG Prologue I didn't want to think about the lessons in general, or specifically about the German language - the early autumn near Moscow was so beautiful outside the window with a bright autumn sun, it beckoned me into the forest. I half listened as the teacher announced the results of yesterday's test.


“Nudolskaya - three ...” Did I misheard, or what? The class buzzed in bewilderment, but under the strict gaze of our new "German" quickly calmed down. From the first desks, classmates looked at me in amazement: the second three in German in a week. Everyone knew that I spoke German almost as fluently as I did Russian, and I couldn’t write a C in school dictation.
And suddenly I understood everything.

Summary sugar baby olga thundery chapter by chapter

Attention

Teenage romance Despite all the trials that fall to their lot, Elya and her mother do not despair, do not lose heart. Olga Gromova writes a classic teenage novel in which she shows how a parent, even in critical circumstances, must and can help a child endure the most terrible moments in life. Eli's mother constantly jokes, sings songs, reads poems to her daughter.


They try their best to take care of each other. They will face illness and hunger, but nothing will make them part. "Sugar Baby", the main characters of which literally have to survive in the current circumstances, is also a novel of education. A very interesting book about true love, as well as what inner freedom and human dignity are. Freedom, which can be in every person even during the years of repression, is most accurately defined by Eli's mother.

Reader's diary / Sizova Natalia

And when Elya went to the tenth grade, mother and daughter were allowed to settle near Moscow. The girl went to school. She studied brilliantly, but given her past, her grades were always reduced by half. Elya graduated from school and entered an agricultural college. While studying in the third year, she and her mother received a document that said that they were acquitted, and they were not guilty of anything.

The father did not return home. The dry line of the telegram said that he had died in the 1940s. The story teaches patience and endurance in the most difficult situations. Read the summary of Gromov - Sugar Child.

Brief summary.

Read Sugar Baby Online

But there's nothing to be done, I have left" homework". I twisted the manuscript for a long time, opened and closed. And from the moment I had in my head what needs to be done to form the structure of the story, when I realized what needs to be added, what needs to be redone or rebuilt, what pieces are there and which ones are suitable, another three years have passed until the moment putting the book into print, no less. For two years I fiddled with it before I showed the sketches to the director of the KompasGid publishing house Vitaly Zyusko, it just somehow happened to be by the way.

The powerful pressure of Vitaly Zyusko, director of the KompasGid publishing house, made me next year finish the book to the end, otherwise I don’t know how much more I would have fiddled around.

Important

Game Today, at dinner, we ended up in a magical land of elves and dwarves, where, as everyone knows, milky rivers flow in the jelly banks. In deep plates with a cool bright berry jelly and milk poured around the edges, you need to “spring”, laying channels for milk rivers in the jelly banks. If you take your time and act carefully, the plate will turn out to be a map of the country with lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean around.

We mess around for a long time, and then we compare who did better: me, mom or dad. Dad even managed to build some kind of mountain of jelly and assures that it is from it that this milky river flows. While we are looking at the paintings in the plates, the mountain is spreading and a muddy sea is obtained.

Mom and I are laughing, and the nanny grumbles: “Well, the babies have gathered - one pampering.” - Okay, Mosyavka, - says dad, - quickly eat up jelly and sleep. - Will there be a fairy tale? - There will be a fairy tale for you.

Sugar baby summary for the reader's diary

From the age of three, the parents taught the girl different languages, and now living in these places, the girl and her mother tried to learn the language of the local population. In the Kyrgyz village, the girl began to be called Elya. Mom often told her daughter different fairy tales and sang songs. The baby quickly made friends with other children. They played in the street, learned to ride horses.

The horse was very much appreciated in those parts. One day a rider galloped near their yurt. He shouted out some words, and tenderly looked at the girl. As it turned out later, he shouted: "Ak bala, kant bala", which in translation meant "white child, sugar girl."

With his light hand, Elya was called that. It was in the thirties. Then there was the war of 1941, the echoes of which were heard in those parts. The war brought with it famine. People tried to survive as best they could, collecting wheat grain by grain.

War is over.

It is based on the memoirs of Stella Nudolskaya. It is she who is the prototype of the main character - the girl Eli. As the author ironically notes on the pages of the novel, her parents were indeed socially dangerous elements.

At least, this is how the facts from the biography that Eli's parents had were often evaluated at that time. Both Stella's mom and dad had a higher education, spoke several foreign languages ​​​​at once, in their free time they painted, played musical instruments. They had an enviable pedigree. Eli's grandfather is a pillar nobleman who worked at the Tula Arms Factory. Thus, it turns out that this book is the only one that tells about Stalin's repressions and is addressed to children. Nudolskaya, who became the prototype for this novel, also wrote her own documentary biography. It was called "Don't let yourself be afraid."

Sugar child summary for the reader's diary Grade 5

Was it such that during the writing you radically changed / rewrote something, or did you already have a good idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe future “picture” when you began to make a story out of your memories? - From what was in the memoirs, I did not radically change anything. The story that is there is all true. Another issue is that there were chapters that had to be written in their entirety, because they were stories that were told in fragments. There was a story that was not finished, and I did not know how it ended, and there was no one to ask.

I had to think about how it could end. With this particular girl, with this character, in this particular situation - how could a girl react to this or that, how could she get out of this situation, and so on. Some things had to be simply swapped compositionally. For example, the insert story of the Yuzhakov family did not immediately find its place.

Olga Gromova

sugar baby

The story of a girl from the last century, told by Stella Nudolskaya

Stella and Eric. I kept my promise.



I didn’t want to think about lessons in general, or specifically about the German language - the early autumn near Moscow was so good outside the window with a bright autumn sun, it beckoned me into the forest. I half listened as the teacher announced the results of yesterday's test. “Nudolskaya - three ...” Did I misheard, or what? The class buzzed in bewilderment, but under the strict gaze of our new "German" quickly calmed down. From the first desks, classmates looked at me in amazement: the second three in German in a week. Everyone knew that I spoke German almost as fluently as I did Russian, and I couldn’t write a C in school dictation.

And suddenly I understood everything. And the recent three in Russian for an essay (the teacher said that I began to make stylistic mistakes and did not reveal the topic), and today's one did not seem so surprising. Offensive - yes, unfair - of course ... But at that moment it became clear to me that now, in the last grade, these triples will inevitably appear, no matter how hard I try. And then at the end of the year I will have fours in Russian and German. And I won’t see a gold medal, or even a silver one, despite all my “five-star” report cards of past years.

I completely stopped listening to the lesson. I thought. It is clear that the four in Russian cannot be avoided - then they will definitely not give me a medal. You can get a medal, even having two fours in the last year, but not if one of them is in Russian. This is the law. And it looks like it will. It's a shame and it's not clear why my favorite German became the second subject. Not math, not physics... Maybe because our new class teacher teaches German and doesn't seem to know it very well... so she doesn't like those who know better than her? Or is she just in our village recently, not yet her own, and therefore it was she who was entrusted to carry out someone's "installation"?

My mother also teaches German. At the same school. But she is not given senior classes, only from the fifth to the seventh. We live at the school - in a small service apartment. Mom, of course, will also be offended by my German, but I know for sure that neither she nor I myself will argue. And we will not explain anything to anyone. And classmates ... well, they will be surprised and get used to it. In the tenth grade, everyone has enough of their worries.

Then, someday... when it becomes possible... I will tell my story to at least my closest friends. But it will not be soon. If at all. In the meantime, I can only remember silently.


Today, at dinner, we ended up in a magical land of elves and dwarves, where, as everyone knows, rivers of milk flow in the jelly banks. In deep plates with a cool bright berry jelly and milk poured around the edges, you need to “spring”, laying channels for milk rivers in the jelly banks. If you take your time and act carefully, the plate will turn out to be a map of the country with lakes, rivers, streams and the ocean around. We mess around for a long time, and then we compare who did better: me, mom or dad. Dad even managed to build some kind of mountain of jelly and assures that it is from it that this milky river flows. While we are looking at the paintings in the plates, the mountain is spreading and a muddy sea is obtained. Mom and I are laughing, and the nanny grumbles: “Well, the babies have gathered - one pampering.”

Okay, Mosyavka, - says dad, - quickly eat up jelly and sleep.

Will there be a fairy tale?

You will have a fairy tale. Today is my turn.

And can you start right now to know what about ... and then I'll go brush my teeth and wash my face?

A long time ago…

When was the sun brighter and the water wetter?

Lord, where did you get this from?

This is Polyushka telling her fairy tales like that, ”my mother says, smiling.

Polyushka is my nanny. And by the way, she never calls me Mosyavka. Thinks it's a dog name and grumbles when I'm called that. But dad is not afraid of her grumbling.

Don't distract me. So ... a long time ago there lived a family in Moscow: dad, mom, nanny and a very little girl. Papa's name was... papa. Mom ... Dad called her Yulenka, my mother's older sisters - Lyuska, her brother - Punechka.

And the brother is Uncle Lapa?

Well, for example, he, although in life no one calls him that, only one little girl. But the girl was called for a very long time by all sorts of different words, but not by name ... Because she did not have a name.

This is a story about me, right? Will there be adventures?

Will be. Go wash up and lie down.

Mom usually reads or tells me amazing stories from the life of different gods, heroes, wizards, and even in different languages. And dad rarely tells the “correct” fairy tales, that is, folk or literary ones - more often he composes on the go. I run to wash, anticipating a fairy tale about myself, because I already know the true story of how I did not have a name and where it came from.

According to all the signs, a boy was to be born, whom they wanted to name Heinrich. And suddenly something tiny was born prematurely, weighing less than an eighth five pounds (as the nanny thought in the old fashioned way) and a little more than forty centimeters in length, and it turned out to be a girl. Parents for a long time could not decide what to call this unexpected phenomenon.

Until there was a crib, I slept in a suitcase, standing on a large chair, and its cover was tied to the back. Then they called me Mosyavka, Buba, or something else. And this creature should have received a name. Dad liked some names, mom liked others, and they argued endlessly. One family friend suggested:

Name the girl Myccop - it's Turkish for "star".

But the mother decided not to call her daughter trash. They would have argued for a long time if, two months later, the parents had not been brought a strict summons for a fine and an official reminder that there are registry offices in the country, where they should come to register the child.

The three of us went: dad, mom and their friend Alexander. While the parents in the corridor at the window were arguing violently about what this miracle would be called, they handed the child over to a friend to hold until they decide something. He quietly entered the room (from which the parents were expelled half an hour ago to argue in the corridor) and registered the child, fortunately both the child and the documents were in the hands of Uncle Sasha. With a sense of accomplishment, he suggested that his parents argue some other time, since this girl's name is Stella, which means "Star" in Latin.