Марія Панайтакі Maria Panaytaki

In the kolkhoz, they used to give corn to weed, sunflowers to weed. And there was, I witnessed cotton [start to get grown] if you remember. <...>. Cotton came to us later than to other countries. In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, it was earlier there. But cotton came to us later. Cotton came to us around 1956-1957, when I was finishing school. <...>. We sowed cotton. We also had [some seeds] for [our] plots, mom, they would weed it later when it bloomed. Then we would go to pick, help mom harvest it. I would come from school, I would have a meal or not, I would take my apron with me, and right in the field, we would help my mom harvest cotton. Whoever picked the most cotton would be paid as much. And at that time, there were labor days [unit of measurement for the calculation of remuneration]. There were no wages, no wages at all, but labor days. And for labor days they gave sunflowers, that is, oil, maybe some potatoes, a little bit of grain. There was no money. Then, when my sister grew up, then my brothers, my brothers all studied. Brothers all had their own schools, the brothers studied. My sister and I didn't study. Only my sister, well, my second sister, she studied for three months. Vendors were then, I remember, I think they were salesmen. For three months, no more. Our boys studied.

In the family, we spoke Gagauz, our own ethnic language. Sometimes Russian too, because our neighbors were Russians. Bulgarians lived there, and they gave us tips, and I learned it somehow, as I grew up. Then the collective farm was united with Ogorodne, there were Bulgarians too, we worked together, and I learned Bulgarian too. I understand the Bulgarian language well. And we used to study in the village, we spoke with our fathers only in the Gagauz language. My mother and father, to tell you the truth, when they started fighting, quarreling, they immediately switched to the Romanian language. Because we did not understand, but if it was in the Gagauz language, then we understood. And if it was something there, [if] we did not need to understand these words, they would speak Romanian. They studied, they graduated from a Romanian language school. They used to go, they had three years there, four years under the Romanians at that time they graduated. Then the time came, there was one year that teachers from other [regions] came, well, wherever they came from, I guess they were sent too. And taught our parents. We used to walk along the streets, so we'd start a notebook and write “A, B, C” so that she could write. Then she could write “one, two, three, four” too, <...>, well, a little bit in Russian. And what do you think we did? We would write instead of our mother. Or I'd write, or my sister would write, like this. And the teacher who checked, well, he, of course, understood, because mom wrote it this way, and I wrote it that way. Well, they taught them a little bit. Well, that was a year. No longer, it was like that, only for one year.

The man is supposed to be up at 11:00 a.m. Properly. He has to say goodbye to his parents. <...>. The bride does the same thing. At 11 o'clock they go, take the godfather again, go straight to the girl. The girls already place the veil there. They take it all off. If there is crowning, they will be crowned. If there is no crowning, then it stays. There was a signing. They performed it here, in the village. Sometimes the crowning didn't work out. Everyone leaves. <...>. It's about 3 or 4 o'clock. Time to go pick up the bride. That's where they take off the dowry. That's where the sister-in-law taking care of him. They're walking down the street. Someone handles the wine, serves them in the street. <...>. In the morning, they take off the veil, tie the bride's apron. They give her a broom in her hand and give her a dustpan in her hands, “That's it, go to work, sweep whatever you want, your bride[hood] is already over. Your job is to sweep, to work, to clean.” Then the next day, Monday, it's “vodka” already. The girl has “vodka,” and the boy has “vodka.” <...>. The boy pours vodka, the bride gives everyone a glass. And she kisses their hands right away. And when she kisses hands, immediately the person who takes the glass with vodka, he must necessarily put money there, rubles. Two, three — that's his problem. That's it. <...>. Before the wedding, when a guy decides to get married, he sends someone from the house. Two of them. If he has a sister, if he has a brother, they go to the girl. So. Permission: “Will you give us a girl, will you not give us...?” Well, sometimes some people don't give permission. They don't want — “we won't give you our daughter”, “we don't know”. They come back. The guy sends them back again. Let's do it again, one more time. Sometimes it was even up to three times. Sometimes one time, sometimes two. Sometimes three times. If they didn't give her away. Then that's it. The bride was stolen. The groom stole the bride. That's it. They can't do anything anymore. <...>. Because you have to forgive them. Some parents forgave right away. And for some it took up to a year. Up to three months. Up to six months.

By then, I was already helping a little, cooking. I was the village cook, I cooked meals. I cooked at wakes, weddings, other events. I was called, I was offered, I was hired, I was paid, I cooked. — That was when you were already retired, wasn't it? — No, before I retired, and then after I retired, yeah. Then it was the same at funerals, they called me there too, they even called me <...> the funeral toastmaster. Like at weddings, it is called a wedding toastmaster, I was called a funeral toastmaster. The girls came up with that too. <...> Cultural rituals like this... Well, I used to attend. When they invited me, I would go. Both when I retired and after retirement, like that. And now I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything, <...>. If they ask me, I give advice. I say, “Watch how it's done.” “Learn,” I say, “because we're already passing away, leaving it to the youth." But they, the youth, also already do it, they are also learning. They, therefore, know more about everything than we do. In our time, when it was like this, and the rituals, we used to cook like this. Now they cook differently. That's all, our generations are no good anymore. We are already drifting away. We are already leaving this culture.