Document 130

Letter from thirteen-year old I. Nemchinov to Kalinin, 13 January 1933

RGASPI, f. 78, op. 1, d. 456, ll. 10-11. Original manuscript.

Dear grandfather Kalinin. I will now describe my whole life to you. Grandfather Kalinin we have a big family, four children. I have no father--he died fighting for the workers' cause, and my mother too almost died, she is sick. Grandfather Kalinin, I really want to go to school, but I have nothing to put on to walk there. I had old boots, but even those got completely tattered, and there is nobody to fix them. My mother is sick, we have no money, no bread, but I really want to go to school. Dear grandfather, we are told to study, study and study. So said Vladimir Il'ich Lenin. But I will have to stop going to school. We have no relatives and nobody to help us, I will have to go to work in a factory so that the whole family doesn't starve to death. Dear grandfather, I am thirteen years old, I am a good student, with no failing grades. I am in the fifth grade. Well so long, I have nothing else to write. Our address: Spirova village, 4 Kooperativnaia Square, Ivan Vasil'evich Nemchinov."

Dear grandfather, they give us very little bread--300 grams a day. We have to eat only twice a day, and it is hard to study without bread."