`In search of the eighth building`

 I was born covered in black hair

I was often sick, didn’t sleep at night, didn’t take the breast, bit, there was a lot of milk, my mother expressed it, Lena drank it, etc

One day my mom came into the room and saw me eating my poop while standing in my crib

When I was 5 years old, my mother gave birth to another child

At 6 years old I fell in love with horses and was taken to a psychiatrist

I was standing alone in the toilet in the dorm in blue rubber boots. There was a wall-sized mirror hanging above the row of sinks. It was spring, and at that moment I felt something cool

I was sitting on the potty in the middle of the kitchen and suddenly someone came in     

My first kiss - I'm 7 years old, it's winter and dark outside, the three of us are sitting in a snow cave under the windows of the dorm

A dream that has haunted me all my life - something black, threatening, uneven, crunchy, strange, unrecognizable, without shape, size or name, telling me nothing and not trying to describe itself. I just feel it, I don’t understand what it is and I’m scared. I called it a ‘black rag’

I ran away home from summer school camp in the middle of the day, and they all came after me. I was hiding behind the curtain, and they were standing under the windows of the dorm

In the dorm where we lived there was a long dark corridor. At the end of the corridor there was a door to the next building that was always closed

In the room opposite, there lived a schizophrenic Rita. She often went to a mental hospital, then came back. I was about 6 years old when she caught me in an empty corridor. I pressed myself against the wall, and she stood very close to me and screamed. She had a short haircut, I don’t remember her face  

I went to the gypsies to look at horses after school, came home late and my mother unexpectedly beat me with a belt

In the evenings at my grandmother's I stood in the corner of the room, and everyone watched TV

In the second grade my eyesight quickly and severely deteriorated, I stopped being friends with boys and started getting A's in behavior  

My father would come and take his officer's belt out of the wall and beat me. It was `for my own good`

To depict the father's gaze, I printed out the eyes of Dr. Lecter from the film `The Silence of the Lambs`. I had to turn them upside down because they weren't fierce enough and lifeless

I was 7 years old when I saw a dead woman hit by a car on the road near the dorm

I saved up 10 rubles and bought my mom mascara and a cosmetic bag at a second-hand store

I treated a nervous tic on my neck with Kashpirovsky. I didn’t tell anyone about the tic and waited for the doctor’s sessions on weekends at my grandmother’s

My grandmother's neighbors had a Doberman named Chara. I stuck a dry orange peel up my nose when I was visiting them and couldn't get it out

My grandfather and I went to the delicatessen on the square and he bought me ice cream. It was served in iron bowls and I ate it standing at a round table by the window

In the summer evenings in the village, grandfather often wore an earflaps hat and felt boots

Evening, I'm at my grandmother's, my aunt is getting ready to go somewhere. She's standing in the hallway, she's not wearing panties, she's wearing nylon tights and I can see cotton wool between her legs

I was 9-10 years old, I went to visit my grandparents and spent the evenings reading detective stories in beautiful covers, `The Story of O` and `Emmanuelle`

`eat what you're given, don't pick and choose, don't chomp, don't slouch, until you've eaten - you won't leave the table, I'll kick you out of the table right now…`

I still don’t understand - how my father’s life would have changed if I had eaten onions?

One day my father locked me in the house and wouldn't let me go to school because I refused to eat cookies with butter for breakfast. Spreading butter was not allowed

I was walking along the road with my friend Natasha, and she suddenly grabbed my hand and made a "nettle." I was sitting on a bench with my friend Katya, and she suddenly grabbed my nose and said "Let me squeeze out your blackheads" I was standing next to my friend Rita, and she suddenly breathed in my face and asked "Do you feel like I've been smoking?" I walked up to my group standing in front of the auditorium, and everyone laughed. I was standing on the street with my friend Sveta, and she said "Your foundation is not on properly, it's so visible" I was sitting in the kitchen with my friend Masha, and she asked "What are you wearing?"

For many years I dreamed of stairwells and landings scattered along the walls of the entrance and unconnected with each other

Some people convinced me that their well-being was in my hands  

`However, if you don’t always feel violence, then the feeling of bewilderment and absurdity is constant` ©  

I took off my glasses before going to bed and in the darkness I stopped understanding the distances around me. It was as if I was in nowhere, afraid to open my eyes and see the face in front of me

We were visiting Siberia with our family, the adults were drinking vodka and the kids were sent to bed. There were earwigs under the blanket and I didn't know what to do  

My first period started at school during lessons. I came home in a dirty skirt and my mother was offended with me

I really wanted to be like Lilya from the village, where I lived every summer with my grandparents. She rode a motorcycle with Andrey Khlyzov, with whom all the girls were in love. I wore the same pants as hers, Jacksons, a white jacket, did my hair up, tied my ponytail with a white bow and painted smoky eyes. I hated her

Every week the Jacksons would tear at the sides and had to be sewn up

In 6th grade I wore a knitted openwork jumper to school. Without a bra, because I didn’t have any. One day, my classmate Lenka Elina told me that my jumper was see-through

Shoes like Larisa's

I woke up while visiting the Titovs on the master's bed, where all the little children were laid to sleep in a heap, and I lay there for a long time in horror because I had stained the bed with blood and didn't know what to do  

I was sitting on the sofa in a blue house dress and suddenly saw my hairy legs through the eyes of Dimka Belyatsky, who had come to visit us

Mom washed me until the ninth grade

At 13, I went to St. Petersburg with my class for the holidays. The shower in the dorm where we were housed was like a huge concrete enclosure without cabins with shower heads under the ceiling. I didn’t wash for a week and a half and had to put my panties on inside out. On the way back on the train, I couldn’t move my arms — my armpits were stuck together and it was very painful

At 13, I went to St. Petersburg with my class for the holidays. On December 31, we bought a bottle of green liqueur at a kiosk in the hall of the dorm where we were housed. I threw up all night on the floor of the toilet and screamed that I loved Dimka Kuznetsov. The next morning, everyone thought I was joking

One day, my class teacher Marina Vyacheslavovna confidentially told me that my classmates' parents call me a witch

My classmates, my homeroom teacher Marina Vyacheslavovna and I were celebrating the New Year following the St. Petersburg one and playing spin the bottle. I spun the bottle and it pointed at Dimka Kuznetsov. He stood up, pushed my bangs off my pimply forehead, kissed it and sat back down

After some time, Marina Vyacheslavovna was pregnant and was going on maternity leave, and rumors were circulating around the school that the child was from a student in her class   

Aunt Larisa came to visit us from Sverdlovsk and the whole family went for a walk to the paddling pool on the pond. No one noticed that my eyebrows were shaved

MTV

I wanted to be like Noel Gallagher and started smoking

I came home from college and was home alone. I was wearing white tights and my nose started bleeding  

When I got a cyst on my tailbone, the whole family got together and went to Olya's wedding. I spent two days alone at home, and on Monday I was taken away by ambulance for emergency surgery

Olya is getting married. Not me, another Olya

Father always looked through the crack in the door and watched what was going on in the room

After college, I spent a couple of years sitting in the kitchen in a chair in front of the TV. I knitted huge skirt-bedspreads, leafed through Avon catalogs, listened to music, watched movies and looked out the window

Father was going to start walking in the evenings when he recovered. In the ward he was smiling at something and talking nonsense, he was without glasses and seemed to no longer see anything

̶L̶o̶r̶d̶ t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ a̶w̶a̶y̶ t̶h̶e̶ b̶e̶s̶t̶   Lord takes away all sorts

Music helped me not to lose my senses and my mind