Camel from Kyzylkum

After I graduated from school, I went to study at the Geological College in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

It was the summer I passed the entrance exam to the Geological College. I had no place to go before classes were to start in September, so I got a job as a cook on the small service ship that was navigating up and down the river Dnepr, delivering various services to big river vessels.

The Dnepr (Dnieper-Ukrainian) is one of the European rivers flowing in the territory of three countries at once—Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. It starts in the Valdai Hills in the district of the Smolensk region and ends its long journey flowing into the Black Sea. Dnepr is the fourth-longest river in Europe, after the Volga, Danube, and Ural.

My responsibilities were to prepare food three times a day for the team of ten men who worked on our small ship. Approximately 40% of the crew was overwhelmingly young, while the rest were between 30 and 50 years of age. At that time, my cooking skills were less than subpar, but the man who was cooking for them before me did not mind teaching me. I loved the two months I spent on the little ship. In my free time, I lay on the deck and smiled, watching the passing green banks. Blue Dnepr, blue sky, burning sun, immense space of blooming, boundless, green steppe... The evenings at the end of the long and hot summer days were especially refreshing with a cool breeze from the river. Most of the crew were gathering on the deck. Some smoked, some told anecdotes, and some silently enjoyed the majestic peace of the passing day. At night, I slept in my little cabin. Everyone treated me very well, with courtesy. My cooking skills improved rather quickly. When the time came for me to start classes, the crew of ten men did not want me to go. They invited me to work for them the following summer. However, when one year passed and summer came again, a brand-new adventure was waiting for me.

After my first year in college, I went to my summer internship in the mountains of Tajikistan. There I met Nikolai Gelya; he had just graduated from the same college as I was attending, and he got his first job in the geological expedition in Tajikistan. We fell in love. I was eighteen and Nikolai was twenty-two when we got married and went to work in the geological expedition in the Kyzylkum Desert.

Nikolai was born on December 8, 1946, in a small village, Grigorovka, in Ukraine. We never knew Nikolai’s biological father. Valentin Gelya adopted him when he married Nina, Nikolai’s mother. Nikolai resembled his mother, especially with his big, green-gray eyes, which he passed on to our daughter. Valentin and Nina had a daughter of their own, Lilya, who was around six or seven when Nikolai was about twenty-three.

Valentin Gelya lost both legs during a fire in the school where he taught. His recovery and fight for his life took more than a year. But he survived. Both of his legs were amputated just above the knee. Although severely handicapped, he kept a strong spirit and supported his family by fixing electronic appliances for his neighbors. He moved on a wooden platform with wheels, pushing himself off of the floor with custom-made, flat, wooden devices for his hands. He drove a specially-made for handicapped people compact car and was a good husband and father. I had a lot of respect for him, for his strong and kind character, and for how he was able to deal with his limitations with great dignity.

From corresponding with people in Ukraine, I know that in the late 1980s, first Nina, and then Valentin, passed away. Lilya was married twice and had children with both husbands: a daughter and then a son. She divorced both men and lived in Grigorovka, Ukraine. In the harsh years of the 1990s, I even sent money to her and her children, but then communication was lost, and I do not know anything about them at present.