We Are Going to Riga Too!CHAPTER 12 At last I started appealing to the authorities to allow the orphanage to go back to Riga. At that time Comr. Brengulis served as the representative of the Latvian government in Gorky. I worked very hard on convincing him to authorize our transfer to Latvia. I finally succeeded and that started off a series of preparations never witnessed before! Lots of time and efforts were needed for all the paperwork and the liquidation of our property, etc., for the preparations for the trip itself and then for collecting our personal and "communal" belongings. Our goose called Ansis, who found his way to our orphanage together with some other living creatures, was given as a present to Comr. Rassadin, the Chairman of the village 'soviet' (council). Rassadin also 'inherited' our little dog. Our pigs, sheep and our horse were also transferred to other owners. The most interesting part of our trip was our stay in Moscow. I decided not spare any effort and to make sure the children will see the Kremlin, the Red Square and the 'metro' (the underground). The Mausoleum was closed to the public. The weather was bad, it was cold and rainy and it was not easy to move around with such a group of children. Our older girls and I took turns carrying our Shurochka Lazarenok on our backs. Someone gave me some good advice: instead of trying to board a regular bus I should ask the bus company for a special bus for our group only. It worked and we got a bus that took us on a special route around the city. This is how we managed to see some of Moscow. From there we boarded a train that went straight to Riga! Representatives of various organizations met us at the Riga railway station. The correspondent of the newspaper "Soviet Latvia" Nora Kovarsky was also there. She wrote an article about our arrival and it was printed on 14th of March 1945. We were all taken to the Orphanage No. 5 in Yumaras Street in Riga where the children spend a short time. They were later moved to another orphanage and some went to live with their relatives. Iren and I spend the night at the orphanage and then stayed with Nata Busse or with Dida. We eventually settled in our pre-war apartment together with Vera Berkovich.
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After all this was done we started preparing supplies for the trip itself: baking bisquits, making 'soukhari' (dried crackers) and other stuff to be eaten on the way. I was also busy transferring our premises, inventory and all the documents and reports to the appropriate authorities. At last, the day of our departure arrived. For some reason the truck did not arrive till the evening and when we started out for Gorky it was already quite dark. There we placed the children at the evacuation centre and I started making my rounds at the different offices in order to obtain the travelling documents and deal with all the other paperwork. Comr. Brengulis had to attend to all sorts of arrangements for our group: we had to be supplied with food and our train reservations had to be made. The war has not ended yet and if I had not convinced the authorities to let us go back and had not assured them that I shall bring all the children back to Riga safe and sound, we would not have been permitted to go. Finally we received the travelling papers for 36 people: 30 children and 6 adults. All that was left was to get money for the train tickets and to leave the evacuation centre to go to the railway station!
Thirteen years later a festive evening was arranged for all those who had lived in our orphanage. We had an advertisement printed in the papers and tried to contact them by mail and by the telephone. Not everyone could attend and some sent us telegrams congratulating the gathering. Lots of people did come. Former "little kids" grew up into tall youngsters and former youngsters matured into adults. Lots of pictures were made and I wrote an article about our meeting that was published in one of Riga's papers. When I think back about the time spent at the Shava orphanage I often say to myself that this must have been the happiest period in my life despite all the sad and difficult circumstance of my personal life and in the lives of those around me. 