Gulnara Kandelaki

1937, 1938 was terrible period with massive arrests. They were arresting everybody, we heard that convicts were sent to Siberia, later we heard about execution “shot” “shot” “shot”. There were many people like this, my father was also detained. It was in 1938, I was ill with chicken-pox , that morning father was asking what I wished, I was dreaming about earrings like Eva had in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (The book was newly translated in Georgian and I was reading it). I asked him to buy earrings, they arrested father that evening and sent to Siberia -Vyatka for 4 years. There were only few cars in that period, if we saw a car stopped somewhere, it meant somebody was arrested because people had no cars, only “НКВД” (the People’s Commissariat for Interior Affairs) used them. I still have terrible reflex on cars, I feel terrible when I hear a car stopped at night, it reminds me those days, I was 11 years old then. How did you know that your father was sent to Siberia? My mother knew, wives of all detained knew all the cases. You know what happened? My father was a veterinarian working in Leningori, sought Ossetia, one day friends visited him from Tbilisi, while the dinner they did not toast to Stalin’s health and Ossetians denunciated against them. My father was sentenced 4 years, I don’t know about the others, probably they also were arrested.