Margarita

Santosh Kumar Pokharel, Nepal

Her name was Margarita. Just a very sweet Russian name that occasionally stirs my emotions. She was a student in a vocational school, a few metro-stops far from her flat near Belyaevo in Moscow.

While I was passing through a school on the way back to my hostel, a girl asked me for BT cigarettes. I saw she was smoking. BT cigarettes wrapped in white packets were made in Yugoslavia. “Smoking cigarettes is injurious to your health”, I said. She smiled. Looked simple and poor.

They were all five sisters in the family with their mother. They all lived separately. Larisa was the eldest, Margarita, the second and Claudia was the third one. The fourth I cannot remember. Masha, whom Margarita would call Mayukha was the youngest. Their mother, probably Galya by name was a worker in a doll factory. Poverty makes one hungry which makes people indulge in bad habits. I now understand she used to smoke to overcome her hunger during break hours. This was a poor family I ever saw in the perestroika soviet times. This was a time when the Soviet Russia was undergoing economic liberalization and cooperatives market policy where private properties were allowed.

You can imagine how lovely these five sisters named each other. The elder was Larisa and others would not call her by other names but Larisa. Margarita was Rita or Ritukha, Claudia was too beautiful and was called Clava, the youngest Masha was Mayukha for all. These lovely people were living peacefully out of sight of the regime. He regime did mean nothing for them and they meant nobody for the regime.

Why all the governments in the world do exploit their own citizens? All the regimes squeeze their own people in the name of enriching their countries with an utter unaccountability towards their livelihood. The poor ones and deprived are a burden to them. And these poor and deprived people by all their dint form their state. An irony!

We were just friends and no more but she was a kind lady by heart. She was with a truck driver when we saw each other after few years gap. The soviet era had lapsed and the huge country had collapsed. Poverty reigned Russia and other states for several years. She looked feeble and I asked her about the reason behind it and she guessed it was due to starvation. She calmly turned down my question saying they had nothing to eat. Her husband was Edic, a truck driver, who used to go early and return late night. Edic was struggling hard to make some money for their livelihood.  They had no surplus food in the kitchen. The groceries saw rare the well-paying people as rubles got devaluated many times and the new Russian government under Eltsin was freezing Soviet rubles. Dollar rose very high and life of the general people went much down.

It was 2019 February when I was invited to attend my university’s 60th anniversary ceremony being held at the heart of Kremlin palace. All my acquaintances were in my memory and Margarita was the first among all. She was with me when we saw each other after a gap of five years when she told me she had a son from Edic. She scolded me for not coming into connection those long years. She let her in my arms when she cried. I was coming to Nepal and she accompanied me up to the Sheremetyevo International Airport of Moscow. I had to come back to Moscow for continuing my PhD and that did never happen. I got settled in my country. These all memories flashed in my mind when I landed in Domodedovo international airport.

I was thinking of this kind-hearted lady for years and when I came to her house, not she but her memory seized me and I was getting emotional. 

I took about two hundred steps toward the shrine where Margarita lived modestly and reached the same five-storeyed block of Khruschov time.  Wanted to give her a big surprise with my unexpected visit but alas! there was no Margarita and neither her kids nor her people-the old building was found locked with a huge padlock tied to gigantic steel bars like almost all buildings in that area. No poor people of the Soviet era lived there. No people of Eltsin time and not even from Putin time were seen around. All the buildings as if were breathing grieves in silence. They gave me the impression that they had been haunted for several years. Upon asking the passersby I knew all these buildings were the property of big companies. Capitalism with a multinational economy was showing its signs.

After thirty years I was there. The solitude consoled me of Margarita’s existence somewhere around Moscow, I took a sigh and with a heavy heart, I moved from there to Miklukho Maklaya street, where I was staying.

When I was passing over Belyaevo metro station, I saw a high-size man of around forty years with different colored paper reclama duly stuck to his back. He looked like a joker. He was shouting, “You can enjoy a full stomach food for this much rubles”.  At least this I never saw in the Soviet times and what I saw now was a starvation the Russian ordinary people were undergoing in the metropolitans. I thought my Margarita was no exception to this situation and her leaving this city is justified.

Her face shines with the bright smile that she used to have those days and she seems consoling me about my regrets that I never saw her again. This simple Russian girl remains in my heart with her meek smile always young. She is the epitome of purity! My several hundred steps towards her abode wherever she may be.

August 15, 2022, Nepal.

About the Author

[Santos Kumar Pokharel is a multilingual world poet and a versatile writer of different genres. His creations have been voluntarily translated and published an aired through media in thirty-four languages so far. By profession a senior civil Engineer Mr. Pokharel has been honored with the title of World Poet from Russia, Golden World Writer from ten countries o the world, and the best International Poet from China. He has been awarded Anton Chekhov International Award class First from Russia, Nikolai Gogol International Award from Ukraine, and Peoples’ Diplomacy Award from Kazakhstan, and more than a dozen international recognitions for his contributions to world literature. ]