Naci en Cuba.
How can this crazy Ukrainian say that? Oh yes, she can. This is my dear dad Eduardo.
A typical Russian boy, the 1941 war child who had nothing to eat. Who, after his dad, my grampa Boris when coming after the WW2 and putting his son on his lap, telling the war stories and bringing some piece of cake as a dainty-my dad would tell he had to stuff his stomach with whatever there was to eat -basically just dark bread- then add the slice of cake to ‘cheat’ the stomach making an impression all he had eaten was the cake saw an old Soviet movie Amphibia Man 1961 got obsessed with Hispanization and started fulfilling his dream. His life was not easy - did not luck out to enter our dream Kiev University himself, my mom and myself entered and graduated form with flying colors and where he met my mom and studied Spanish from the second time! He landed this cool contract to go to Havana after marrying mom in 1970 and then a year before I was born.
My mama was so beautiful! He immediately fell in love with her. She died from cancer in 2011…
These are colored slides I was raised on and great stories connected with his interpreters and translation career I then was obsessed with was raised. After the collapse of the USSR, we practically had nothing to eat, nothing to browse, practically wore identical Soviet clothes in typical Soviet apartments we lived in years later, so these were the ‘wind of liberty’ and something exotic stories that made my day he would share.
I was born in 1981 when dad’s contract was ending and all his colleagues were petitioning for him to stay a little bit linger for me to grow in warm and Mandarin filled air.
This is my sister Tanya living in Russia now. Hard to ever communicate after the putin’s war started.
We have many more of these but with moving due to our daughter’s bullying history and now Shasta CPS crucifying us moves hard to find more slides and photos, I promise I will share more.
I was my parents’ unexpected and late child, just like my now 8.5 yo son is. They were really happy when I was born just like with our son when we were in the midst of fighting for our daughter back in MA.
I remember my dad telling me that on the day I was born, he saw this perfect orchid in the Soviet general’s garden he was interpreting for and he …took this picture to mark and celebrate my birth. Tons of horror stories like mom bring stung by a scorio and they hardly saved her life…
There were tons of lighthouses and other beautiful stormy and ocean photos of Cuba, geodesic memories, reports, sketches, doodles, tons of diaries and photos of Fidel and Raul he also interpreted for. Dad had pictures wearing a Cuban military uniform he looked nice in, those were black and white.
Dad died from heart attack almost in my hands when our daughter’s dehydration brought us to ER in Kiev in 2012, he was really scared for her life and stress got him an ambulance that too a few hours to get through the city.. and he died at night March 16..… and my mom’s cancer ruined his health and desire to live… I cannot get over their deaths and cannot help admiring their ‘swan bird love’ passing one after the other… He gave me the best-books, slides, vinyl plates, Beatles, Abba… I love his rumbling Viva La Cuba! Viva La Revolucion! lingering in my ears through these decades. Now I am almost 45.. He has not lived up to this day - when real Libertad, HOPE will be granted to my homeland and we can see hope….! Not only in Cuba but maybe on this Liberty Land?…
