Word: zosimova
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...ANNA ZOSIMOVA, 72, works as a school administrator in St. Petersburg. "It seems strange to say it, but those were good years," she says of the war, showing pictures of herself in her air-defense uniform-a dark-haired young woman with strong shoulders developed digging trenches during the 880-day siege of Leningrad. "I was young, and when you are young, you are happy. I loved to dance, and we used to have parties as often as we could. We worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, doing hard work, shovel work. But we had time...
...Zosimova recalls in particular the New Year's Eve of 1942 in the midst of the bitterly cold first winter of the siege -- the winter that starvation set in and an estimated 1.5 million Leningraders began to die. "We were allowed to go into the city," she says. "I took two friends from the place where we were digging and went to my uncle's apartment." There was no food, but they begged a handful of flour from a friend who worked in a bakery. Then they boiled water, added salt and mustard, and made the flour into small dumplings...
...returned to the trenchworks the next morning, New Year's Day. "We were crossing a bridge, and the Germans started shelling," she says. The smile fades. "One of my friends, her name was Galya, was hit. She died a little while later ." The smile is gone. Tears flow, moistening Zosimova's deeply wrinkled old cheeks...
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