Блог учителя англійської мови Скорнякової М.Є.

LIFE USED TO BE DIFFERENT: Angelina Dikina, 10a

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The Story of My Great-grandmother

Nowadays, people constantly complain about their lives. They don’t even think that many years ago humanity was thinking how to survive, and not about comfortable conditions that it didn’t have.

My great-grandmother Vera went through ordinary everyday difficulties, but through two wars, which cast doubt on the existence of humanity. Soon after she had been born in 1923 in Ukraine in a German settlement, the famine began during which her father died. Therefore, the family was forced to move to Georgia, where they used to work hard on tea plantations. For this work, the recruits gave them shelter and paid very little money. Every day they would eat onions, dolphin fat, tea, water and potato peels. They had been working for two years and the Georgians were very pleased with them. Good people over time even allocated them their own house. Of course, their life became a little better, because in Georgia there was not such a terrible hunger which they had used to suffer from in Ukraine. Of course, the grandmother and her brothers got used to new people and their language and life began to improve. But grandmother didn’t get used to new climate and got malaria. The disease worsened, and the medicines she couldn’t get used to, didn’t help at all. And in the end, the doctor said that if Vera didn’t change her place of residence with a comfortable climate for her, she would die. That’s why all family was made to move to Ukraine, in Kirovograd where their relatives lived.

When they arrived in Ukraine, the famine had already finished and life began to improve again. But not everything was so colorful, because as soon as she turned 17, the Second World War broke out. The Germans began to occupy villages, take away food, arrest and kill people. It was very difficult for poor people to survive in such conditions. Women had to work tirelessly without any help. But still the Germans were relatively kind and brought different sweets to the children. Vera grew and began to go to the front as a nurse. Every day, she would save dozens of men who fought for freedom. She used to feel that every day could be her last one. But one of the wounded was her future husband, who made that life a little brighter. She had a man for whom it was worth living. She used to be always in a good mood, to think about her beloved, and this inspired her to draw. Of course, it was not possible then to buy expensive paints, so she would draw on a paper with a piece of coal.

I am very proud of my grandmother. I am used to remembering her if I have some kind of problem in my life. And if not for her, perhaps I would never have thought of a career as an artist.