My memory lives by virtue of a very specific place – the forest, 120 kilometers to north from Moscow. This forest is the most constant thing in my life, and truly real, while everything else, including me is less stable, and elusive. In comparison to this place I’m sensing the time, my existence, my roots and connections with family. This place is our family myth, full of meanings in our shared memory. It seems I can remember something which happened before my birth, and I’m not sure which memories are my own and which are imaginary or inherited.
When I was supposed to be born, a whole chain of unexpected events led my mother to the small village hospital, far away from her home. That is where I was born. If you look around from that place, it seems that you are on an island in the ocean. On all sides, up to the horizon you can see only blue – forests.
I was two years old when my parents started taking me to the woods, they carried me in a backpack, then put me onto the blanket while were picking mushrooms or berries nearby. And I was getting used to the new sounds and smells.
I remember, there were burial mounds in the fields around the village. To get to the best mushroom places, one had to pass near the burial mounds. They were all destroyed in 1980s. But they remain in my memory; it is still scary to walk through some of the fields. And I keep childhood belief: city is the place where people live, burial mounds among the fields are place of death, while the forest is even further, on the other side (not yet I know the other side of what).
When I was 9, we were spending summer with my grandmother in the village. My parents were coming only for the weekends. On Sunday night they were taking bus to get back home. On the way to the bus stop we were looking for mushrooms in the forest edges; some mushrooms were so huge that we had to carry them with two hands. At nights I dreamed that I have to count all the leaves in the forest, those were my first nightmares.
When I was 14 together with my friends we were spending nights in the village night club. After the party girls were escorted by the boys to get back home. It was dark, cold and scary. There was a roaring forest around us. It seemed there is no light in universe; the only remaining light was from boys’ cigarettes.
At 20, after complicated love story, I suddenly discovered the easiest way to forget the disappointment – to be in the forest. You can find mushrooms in the woods, and this does not depend on personality, knowledge, talent. It is just a gift you receive for no reason.
By age of 25 I knew all the family landmarks in the forest, all the names - Dry Meadow, Snake Swamp, Grandmother birch. For us they definitely indicate the place, up to the exact tree or puddle, and it is impossible to get lost.
At 28, I have got sick, doctors were not able to diagnose a disease for a long time. I remember I was in a bad counting how many times I would take a breath. I wanted to stop breathing because it was too hard, and I wanted to get to a forest swamp, to feel the smell of wild rosemary, as if breathing it in would bring my stamina back.