As I become older, more and more I find myself thinking about my childhood. As soon as I set my foot into the forest of the little boy Dimka’s memory, on my trail I find those little clues, like mushrooms implanted into the earth. Each of those stands for one of my childhood passions some of which were on the verge of obsessions. Here they are- freshly peppered by soil with a random pine needle stuck to it, now caught in the webbed basket of my current recalls One memory mushroom, plump, firm and brown stands for my passion for digging. Another one, crooked with a rusted helmet slightly peeling off, symbolises that little Dimka’s obsession with playing the game of war. I had to take that game of war seriously, that was the only way I could protect my Soviet motherland from the foreign invasion! But as soon as I touch those gingery twins, two shrivelled mushrooms that had grown into each other on one side, I start to miss my swing and even can smell the Lilac blooming in our backyard.
Finally, when I get to the memory mushroom with a broad white stalk, I begin to sense the presence of my Babushka Tasia. There she is, opening the upper lid of the old piano that was left by fleeing German troops, then found the refuge in her household and was kept, I presume, as the reminder of who had won the war. Yet this Nazis’ piano was never used by my Babushka in any military exercise. Since she couldn’t play music, she was accessing only the upper section of it; that became a vault for storing our clothing. In the winter it was stuffed with my mother’s summer dresses and shoes. During summertime it was jam-packed with winter coats and shapkas( hats). At the end of each spring, from the piano’s cavern, my Babushka ceremoniously would retrieve hers and my mother’s summer dresses, to air them out from naphthalene, she’d carefully pull them out from the plastic bags. Then, one by one stretch and de-wrinkle each on the table before passing them to coat hangers and into the wardrobe. In owe, that six-year-old me stood nearby and I remember myself thinking; what a power those dresses possess that they make our Soviet women so beautiful. With my heart racing I was looking forwards to growing up and kissing all those women on their lips. I don’t know what would have happened, if back then, I had revealed all my thoughts to my Babushka. Now, I perceive those memories as an initiation into my love affair with fashion. And since my Babushka is no longer around, I finally dare to reveal, from what early age and how strongly I was attracted to women.