ЦВЕЌЕ (FLOWER) - Part 03

“Today you can take a loaf of the white bread from the bar.” A day or so later she said: “Verochka, we got a delivery of lemons at the bar, how many do you want?” I said: “A kilo or two please?” She began to laugh and said: “I will give you one or two lemons. Oh Verochka, Verochka, you still have no idea where you are!” The female cooks who worked in the kitchen sometimes asked me to stay after work and count the meal coupons. For my help they gave me leftover food, including horse meat. At first I could not eat the horse meat because it tasted sour, but with time I became used to it and it was delicious. The Cossacks used to say: “Pigs are filthy, horses are clean and beautiful and their meat tastes better.” The cooks often said: “We will let you know when our husbands will come here to eat. We will tell you at which table they will sit and you can serve them their lunch, your friends are welcome to join them, it will be our treat.” I gained full trust among the employees in the canteen. One day three Russian officers came to the canteen. Aunt Maria wanted me to serve them. I kindly approached their table and politely asked how I could help them. Initially they were amazed by my courtesy and my attitude towards them. They asked me where I was from because I did not look like a Russian woman. They figured me for a Greek or an Armenian. I told them that I was a Macedonian from Greece. “Ah, from Alexander the Macedonian’s country?” one of them yelled out with enthusiasm. I said: “YES!” from the bottom my heart. They asked me if they could take my picture to keep as a memento of a Macedonian. The next day they brought pictures of me and asked me to sign them for them. The Cossacks call Alexander of Macedonia “Iskender Makedonski”. Many of them called themselves “Iskender Makedonski.” I became friends with many of the regular students who came to the canteen. Some gave me gifts and their business cards. I still have one. It was given to my by Tsakena who I am sure is now a doctor. One day Aunt Maria suggested that I go and work as a waitress at the reputable “Alatau” restaurant because they were expecting distinguished guests and needed extra help. I went with my friend Valia, with whom I worked at the canteen. The guests were pleased with my service and I made 15 rubles in tips, a whole month’s wages. When I told Mincho he was dumbfounded. We needed that money to buy something for us to wear because we were still wearing the same clothes that they had given us at Camp Potma. Only Pavle and Urania were living with us now. I wrote something about them earlier but not all the details. One day Mincho and I went to the market and we bought tomatoes for a salad. We had not eaten tomatoes for more than five years. Urania at the time was at home

doing nothing so we asked her to make the salad. But instead of putting oil in the salad she put “gaska” (kerosene?) because the bottles were identical and sitting side by side. When we sat down to eat Mincho, with a special appetite, was waiting to eat the salad. But instead of getting satisfaction he was disappointed. Seeing what Urania had done Mincho tossed the entire salad at her. Urania did not take that well and left. She went to stay with Lambro Cholakov.

We persevered to return to Macedonia

I established regular contact with my mother and with Mincho and Paskal’s families. The letters took a long time to get there, about two months, but we were able to get news from our families. My mother also sent letters to Lambro Cholakov and Pavle Rakovski’s relatives in Poland. After a while they too began to receive letters from their families. We got news that Lambro Cholakov’s family had moved from Poland to Skopje; his wife, brother and his brother’s children. Pavle Rakovski’s wife and daughter however, after our return, moved to Alma Ata. My mother in Skopje also wrote letters to my father in Canada, my uncle in Detroit and my other uncle in Chicago, letting them know that I was alive and well. My father personally wrote to Zahariadis many times asking him where I was. One such letter exists in the Archives in Macedonia. Risto Kiriazovski promised me that he would give it to me but to this day he hasn’t. My father, when he got my address in Alma Ata, sent me a letter with ten dollars inside. Mincho unfortunately had to destroy the ten dollars because it was dangerous to have Canadian money there. We had had enough bad experiences in our lives. I wrote my mother and asked her to let our relatives in America know not to send us money or letters to Alma Ata until relations between the USSR and the west had changed for the better. We had to report to the police station every month and we were not allowed to leave the city. On orders from the police we had our pictures taken for temporary residence ID cards. I sent one of those pictures to my mother who had moved to Skopje and who at the time was living with my cousin Petre Angelkovski. After the two grandmothers (my grandmother Iagna and his grandmother Lina) died, my mother asked Petre to move to Skopje so that she would not be alone. So Petre, his daughter Valiska (born in Romania where her mother died), his second wife Olga Peiovska and her daughter Dochka moved to Skopje. My mother lived with them. When my mother received the little picture I had sent her she began to cry and insisted that the woman in the picture was not me. She continued to cry because she did not believe that I was alive. She was sure that the woman in the photograph was not me. After my cousin Petre informed me of that I borrowed some clothes from my friends, Maria the Georgian woman, Aunt Evgenia and Savas Kostandinidi’s sister, had my hair done at the hairdresser and had my photograph taken again. I immediately sent it to my mother to let her know that I was indeed alive and to calm her down. I still have the two photographs.

Times were changing. We were working. We made friends with many Russians and Greeks. We were invited to be their guests, especially the two Marias, Aunt Evgenia and Savas Kostandinidis and his family, but we would not tell them who we really were except that we had come here from Greece. Only Ana Mitrofanova Chernish, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, knew about us. We wrote letters to the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow. The ambassador then was Vidich. He was then replaced by Michunovich. Relations with Yugoslavia were slowly improving, Tito and Iovanka visited the USSR and then Khrushchev went to Belgrade to apologize to Tito. We continued to write letters, we even wrote letters to the Kremlin leadership, to Malenkov and to others. But it seemed that our letters never reached their destination. Then we were called to the police station and warned not to send such letters. If we needed to inform outside agencies, they told us it would have to be done through them. We wrote to our relatives in Skopje to do whatever they could, to go to the Macedonian government, even to Kolishevski if necessary, to expedite our return. In November 1955 Paskal Mitrevki and Risto Kolentsev received visas from the Yugoslav Embassy allowing them to return to Yugoslavia. Paskal’s family, wife, children and parents were living in Skopje. They fled their hometown Rupishta to avoid being arrested by the Monarcho-Fascists. They left everything behind, their house and their store full of merchandise, about which I wrote earlier. Risto Kolentsev did not know where his family was. He was born in Lerin, to a large and wealthy family. He was a lawyer by profession. He knew that his parents, brothers and sisters had been arrested and convicted by the Monarcho-Fascists but he did not know the whereabouts of his wife or daughter. He then found out that both his wife and daughter were in Hungary, where many immigrants died from extreme torture. Upon his arrival in Skopje Risto married Elizabeta Mijovich, a Montenegrin woman from a respectable revolutionary family, and had two children. After Paskal and Risto left, we began to persistently write letters to the Yugoslav Embassy and to the Soviet leadership, but our letters only got as far as the police station in Alma Ata.

Bid to stay in Alma Ata

One afternoon in February 1956 we were visited by two gentlemen at Valendin’s house. They said that they were representatives of the National Red Cross. In the room where we were staying the roof leaked and we had a couple of cups set up to collect the rain drops. When these gentlemen saw the conditions under which we were living, they scolded us and asked: “Why do you want to go to Yugoslavia -Macedonia?” If we agreed to stay in Alma Ata, they said we would qualify for a house, a better job and the opportunity to study at a faculty if we wanted to further our education. But Mincho and I were determined to leave and did not want to stay. We wanted to go back to our families and asked the Red Cross workers to help us if they could. The Red Cross workers asked us to think about it and if we changed our minds to contact them at the National Committee of the Red Cross through Ana Mitrofanovna Chernish. Upon parting they once again told us to think about their offer. From their approach, Mincho and I concluded that these people were from the Ministry of the Interior and not employees of the Red Cross. In accordance with the advice the two “Red Cross workers” had given us, two or three days later we contacted Ana Mitrofanovna Chernish. She received us kindly and promised that we would be granted the “kvartira” promptly and told us the same thing the other two gentlemen had told us if we decided to stay here. She also complained that she had not received a letter from Paskal and Kolentsev. Then she gave us 700 rubles for assistance. We figured it was probably a hook with which to catch us. Mincho and I continued to correspond with our families in Skopje. My mother went in person to see Lazar Kolishevski. She also wrote to the President of Yugoslavia, to Tito’s Cabinet in Belgrade. Finally my mother received a response in which, among other things, they said, “Your daughter is allowed to come to Yugoslavia.” My mother sent me that letter. Since the letters took a long time to get there I received it in May 1956. Mincho and I continued with our monthly visits to the Police station in Alma Ata. We again begged them to allow us to personally go to the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow. Their answer was the same as always: “You can’t! Yugoslavia does not want you!” We explained that Mitrevski was allowed to return and I showed them the letter from the Office of the President of Yugoslavia, from Tito himself, which my mother had sent me, which said I was allowed to return. They didn’t know what to say except to ask: “How did you get this letter?” I told them: “By mail as usual.” Then they started yelling at each other and arguing about how the letter could have been missed by their censors.

The first of May is a holiday in the USSR, which is solemnly celebrated. We did not work that day so we all agreed to visit the museum of the 26 “Pamfilovci” who died heroically fighting against the Germans in order to prevent them from occupying Moscow. It was a beautiful gallery dedicated in their honour. I don’t know if it still exists. From there we went to the big green market where a fair called “tolkushka” was held displaying new and old clothes. At the green market near a basketball court we saw the famous Vaska Chechenetsot, well-known in Alma Ata for his height of 2.25 meters. Lambro Cholakov stood near him, he was tall also but next to Vaska he looked like a dwarf. We made a lot of jokes at his expense. Vaska Chechenetsot had sold his body to the state for 25,000 rubles to be taken after his death. At the market Lazo Poplazarov cast his eyes on a white jacket. He bought it. He told us that when he was a Greek teacher in the village Zhupanishta he had envied the rich men from Kostur wearing white jackets like this. He could not afford one. After twenty years he finally got his wish but not for long. During our trip back it began to rain. To protect his new white jacket from the rain, Lazo folded it and put it under his arm under the black copula he was issued at the camp. Unfortunately black die from the copula leaked onto his white jacket, giving it black spots and stripes. Klavdija, the woman with whom Lazo lived, washed the coat and left it on a rope in the yard to dry. Someone stole it during the night. We consoled Lazo by telling him that he would buy a better one in Skopje. So many things happened to us in Alma Ata, some enjoyable and some regrettable, but we always laughed. Even in difficult times, despite our misery and humiliation, we remained cheerful and in good spirits.

Nikita Khrushchev comes to Alma Ata

At the end of May 1956 Ana Mitrofanovna invited us to the Red Cross to inform us that they were going to give us a newly built house in the neighbourhood north of Alma Ata. She promised us that they would later gradually give us everything that was needed to furnish it. Accommodated in the new house were going to be myself with Mincho and Urania with Lambro. Lazar, Tashko and Pavle were to stay with their girlfriends. Before moving out, except for Tashko and Pavle, we all got together at Valendin Diukov’s house to write a letter. We received news that the Peasant Economic Counsel in Alma Ata was going to be visited by the President of the USSR, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. We decided to write a letter and possibly give it to him in person because we knew that by any other means it would only end up in the hands of the police in Alma Ata and stay there. We wrote the letter requesting assistance to help us to get to Macedonia, Yugoslavia, via the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow, because our families had immigrated to Macedonia. We were all unanimous about the content of the letter but we were not sure who was going to deliver it? Lazar Poplazarov proposed that if anyone had a chance of personally delivering the letter to Khrushchev it would be me. He said: “Vera is pregnant. Under current Russian law pregnant women are protected. If the security people grab her they will have to release her because she is pregnant. Anybody else they will prosecute and throw in jail.” Mincho and I agreed. We decided that we would all go to the meeting and I would deliver the letter. It was reported that Khrushchev was going to visit Kazakhstan and attend the session with the rural economy heads of counsel in June 1956. Chairman of the Central Committee of Kazakhstan at that time was Leonid Brezhnev, a close friend of Khrushchev from the Second World War front in the Ukraine. Khrushchev’s visit to Alma Ata was at the end of June. We were ready for the “decisive battle” and the message from my friends was loud and clear even during the drafting of the letter: “Listen, Vera, imagine you’re on Vicho or Gramos in a major offensive and there is a bunker in front of you. Your comrades and your unit depend on you to destroy the enemy inside the bunker so they can succeed. It is now up to you to get the job done!” The Conference was to take place at the Alma Ata Theater. That summer day none of us went to work, I took a sick day, while Pavle Rakovski did not join us at all. Mincho, Poplazarov, Cholakov and Tashko went to the park beside the theater. I secured the letter inside a newspaper and held on to it tight. Urania joined me and we headed

towards the main entrance of the theater where a large crowd was gathering. We anxiously waited for Khrushchev to arrive. When we reached the entrance of the theater, Mincho reminded me of our agreement to not pay attention to anyone. Think that you are on Vicho or Gramos, cheer and shout and when you see an opening take it and run for the goal! As we waited about twenty cars arrived and waited for the black cars. But the black cars did not come through the main gate; they came through the rear entrance of the theater. The people applauded: “Khrushchev, Khrushchev” and ran to the back entrance. I also ran and was followed by Urania. There was a whole wall of people but I elbowed my way through the crowd like Mincho had advised me because this was a crucial moment in our destiny. With all my might I broke through the wall of people and moved forward. I could see Khrushchev in front of me only a few steps away. I ran for him but two police officers in civilian clothing caught me by my shoulders. They tripped me and tore my dress but I persisted pushing my way towards Khrushchev yelling loudly: “Tavarish Khrushchev!” Khrushchev turned towards me and said to the security people “Pushite zhenshtinu!” They released me with my dress torn. I quickly grabbed and hugged him, he hugged me back. I then said: “We are Macedonians who want to go to Yugoslavia to our families, here is a letter that explains out situation, please help us!” Khrushchev took the letter and kissed me. He then put it in the inner pocket of his jacket and said: “Harasho.” I said: “Prashu Vas, otvetite nami.” “Harasho!” he confirmed. Many people were thrusting themselves at Khrushchev, everyone wanted to greet him but there was a big crowd. Urania unfortunately never made it. Satisfied by my deed I ran through the crowds to the park where Mincho and my friends were waiting for me. My whole body was shaking with excitement. I said to Mincho: “I gave him the letter!” He then asked: “Are you sure he didn’t drop it?” “There is no place for it to fall in the inner pocket of his jacket,” I said as my friends kept asking me all sorts of questions. Urania then came and told everyone exactly what had happened. She said: “Vera personally gave Khrushchev the letter.” We left the masses of people behind us as we all headed for Valendin’s house. Our satisfaction in handing Khrushchev our letter was great and we each took a long time to analyze that moment and give our personal impressions. At this point I would like to explain a bit more about the letter. All seven of us should have signed it but I could not find Tashko Hadzhiianov so I signed it on his behalf. Pavle Rakovski on the other hand refused to sign it claiming that: “I will not sign it because I am not

going there. I am going where my people are!” This meant that he was not going to Macedonia, Yugoslavia and indeed he went to Tashkent where his wife and daughter from Poland had joined him. But soon afterwards he returned to Alma Ata and after two years there he went to Skopje. He quickly realized that “his own people” were not in Tashkent or in Alma Ata and when he went to his people in Skopje he spoke differently, making himself a great patriot and the patriots who actually signed and gave Khrushchev the letter he badmouthed. But he was not alone, after the war they all presented themselves as “generals.” I openly told Pavle to his face not to lie in his memoirs because nowhere did he say anything that he had lived with Maria, the Ukrainian woman who was close to Brezhnev, before his wife and daughter arrived. Was she the reason he had refused to sign the letter? The letter I handed to Khrushchev certainly exists somewhere in the Russian archives. One can see who signed it and who didn’t. I regret not making a copy, but then who would have thought that we would need it as evidence to come to the fore? All the signatories believed that only Khrushchev could be trusted to end our suffering. And we were right. Two days after delivering the letter, Valendin’s house, which was well known to the police and to the Red Cross, was visited by a limousine. Two Soviet officers came out, entered the yard and asked Aunt Shura: “Do foreigners live here?” One of them mentioned me by name “Nikolovskaja Vera” because my name was first in the letter. Aunt Shura called out to me and said: “Verochka they are looking for you.” I went outside and introduced myself. One of them said: “You are coming with us!” I thought that they were going to take me to jail so I went inside and got dressed, took my overcoat in my hand in case I needed it in prison, even though it was hot in July in Alma Ata, and got into the limousine. They took me straight to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. I knew the building well because we had gone here many times looking for an audience with Brezhnev. They opened the door and helped me get out of the limousine and then we went into the yard. We walked up the stairs and then went into a large room with many tables and chairs, which reminded me of those in the prisons. One of the officers said: “Sadis!: A moment later a gentleman came in and introduced himself as Panomjarov. I recognized that name because I had read it in newspapers. A few minutes later Leonid Brezhnev, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan arrived. I stood up to greet him but he motioned with his hand for me to sit down and said: “Sadis.” I sat down and waited to see what he was going to tell me. He said: “I have orders from the Kremlin to help you return to Yugoslavia.” Instinctively I jumped up with joy.

He said: “Sadites! Why didn’t you come to us earlier, why did you wait until now?” I said: “We have been here many times knocking at your door but we were not allowed to see you.” “Now you go back and tell your friends to be here tomorrow at 10 o’clock!” he said. One of the women served me lemonade but I was so happy that I could not drink it. I said goodbye to Brezhnev and flew with joy as I returned to give the others the good news. First I went to where Mincho worked but I was so excited I could not speak. “I came from Brezhnev,” I said. I then took a few deep breaths and told Mincho about our appointment with Brezhnev. After Mincho, I visited the others and gave them the good news. The next day we did not go to work. I took a sick day. At 10 o’clock the next day we reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. A colonel from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan was waiting at the door. He spoke Greek and we went with him to the Ministry. Brezhnev did not receive us. We were told: “Come back tomorrow and we will come to an agreement as to when Brezhnev will see you.” A well-known stalling tactic. The next day I received a letter with a visa from the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow, but only for me, not for Mincho. What did this mean? Six of us signed the letter; myself, Mincho Fotev, Lazar Poplazarov, Lambro Cholakov, Urania Pirovska and Tashko Hadzhiianov. At exactly 10 o’clock the next day we were back at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan. The same colonel received us and took us into his office with another officer. He said: “We can’t send you all to Yugoslavia because you have no visas from the Yugoslav Embassy. Only Vera can go.” I protested and said that I was not leaving without my husband. I said: “You had us separated for all these years. I am not leaving without my husband!” I said I was not leaving and I was adamant about it. He then said: “But he doesn’t have a visa!” So I said: “Then send us to Moscow to the Yugoslav Embassy and we will get a visa.” But no matter how much I insisted they were not prepared to do anything for us. The only thing they said was to keep in touch with them. A few days later Mincho and I went to the Red Cross to see Ana Mitrofanovna Chernish. She knew about my visa and said that she would help me get a ticket for my trip to Macedonia. I said the same thing to her that I had said to the colonel, that I was not leaving without Mincho. I also said to her that I would again complain to Brezhnev because he had told us that he would help us “all” return home and that he had received that order directly from the Kremlin. “Why do you insist so much on going?” she asked. “We built a house for you here, we offered you better jobs and scholarships to study in any faculty you want!...” But no matter what she offered us we still insisted we wanted to go. Then Ana said to Mincho: “You Misha, why are you so stubborn

like your Tito?” Then Mincho said: “Ana Mitrofanovna you must understand that our parents, our brothers and sisters and our friends are all there and for many years did not know about us and now that they know that we are alive, they are anxiously waiting to have us back!” “Okay then. I will give you two tickets for a third class train ride. And instead of one first class ticket for Verochka I will give you the money and you can divide it up,” she said. I agreed. “We will pay any extra surcharges for first class,” I said. “Oh Verochka,” she said, “I wanted very much to be your godmother, but you turned me down! How disappointing!” “Thank you Ana,” I said, “and thank you for everything you have done for us. We will always remember you for your kindness. Our separation from you is also difficult, but like we said, we are also needed at home by our loved ones!” Both Mincho and I would like to express our sincere gratitude to this woman for all the help she gave us. “Come back in a few days so that I can give you the keys to your new house and to arrange a date when you can occupy it!” Ana said. It was great to finally get our own new home and spend our last days in Alma Ata and the USSR in it. We were also relieved when Ana told us that all the authorities in all the republics now knew about us leaving the USSR.

Our departure from Alma Ata

It was August 10, 1956 when Mincho and I said goodbye to our friends who had helped us find employment and survive. We said goodbye to the staff at work who wished us farewell and a nice and safe trip back. The separation from our new friends was not as easy as we had thought it would be, especially with my friends at student’s canteen XIII where I worked and with the students and staff. I especially found it difficult saying goodbye to dear Aunt Maria and to the director Firsova in charge of the canteen who wept with joy at the prospect of me returning to my mother. It would be a sin if I didn’t mention that everyone was happy for me, in getting my wish to return home to my mother. Mincho had a similar experience. Savas Kostandinis cried when we said goodbye to him. He knew our situation very well; it was similar to his. To the employees of his company who were leaving, Savas gave each person 700 rubles severance plus their wages for the month. He told us: “Take the money. I know you will need it. But please if you ever get a chance look for my sister in Greece and let me know where she is. Please make sure that you look for her.” We took possession of the keys for our new house in Alma Ata. Before moving into it we arranged to have dinner with our friends. Pavle Rakovski was the only one who did not attend. He did not even come to say goodbye when we were leaving. Was it because of the letter to Khrushchev? Was it because we criticized Brezhnev? We don’t know. We reported to the police station in Alma Ata. The police officers were very civil to us and wished us a happy return and begged us not to hold anything against them, they were simply doing their jobs, carrying out orders given to them by their superiors. Most unhappy about our leaving was Ana Mitrofanovna-Chernish from the Kazakhstan Red Cross, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. She sincerely regretted that we were leaving. She gave us the train tickets and some other things for the road. She hugged and kissed us like a true friend and wished us a happy return. She also asked us to stay in contact with her. We left Alma Ata on August 15, 1956. All of our friends came to the railway station to send us off and begged us not to forget them. Lambro Cholakov clung to the side of the train to the end of the station, crying and shouting not to forget him.

At the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow

We traveled on the train for five days from Alma Ata to Moscow. We arrived in Moscow on August 20, 1956. We then took a taxi from the railway station to the Yugoslav Embassy. We were received by Secretary Dizdarevich. At the time Michunovich was ambassador. (Ambassador Michunovich wrote a book entitled “My years in Moscow” in which he wrote nothing about the Macedonians, even though he knew that every day Macedonians, even Greeks, from Tashkent sent hundreds of requests to the Yugoslav Embassy asking him to help them relocate to Macedonia. I don’t know why he did not write anything about the Macedonians?) When Dizdarevich saw us at the Embassy he said: “Ah, you have arrived?” I told him that only I had a visa and that we had problems getting one for Mincho at Alma Ata. He then opened the drawer, pulled out Mincho’s visa and gave it to him. He said; “Let the others know to come here and get their visas.” Dizdarevich told us that the Kremlin had contacted the Embassy and wanted to know why the Embassy was not looking for the people who wanted to return to Yugoslavia. In other words Khrushchev had kept his word. Dizdarevich also told us that several times the Embassy had sent notes to the Soviet government asking about us, but the reply was always the same: “There are no such people in USSR territory.” After that he directed us to a hotel for foreign students, where the rates were cheaper. At that point however, accommodation was the last thing on our minds. Our primary concern was to find a means to let our friends in Alma Ata know to come and get their visas! We immediately went to the post office and asked them to contact Lambro Cholakov or Lazar Poplazarov at Alma Ata. It was a long wait. They finally managed to find Lazar Poplazarov who then called us back. We told him that their visas were ready at the Yugoslav Embassy in Moscow and to go there and get them. Three months after our arrival in late November 1956, Lambro Cholakov, Lazar Poplazarov, Urania and Tashko arrived in Skopje. At the embassy they told us that they had had many requests from Macedonians (and from some Greeks) from Tashkent who wanted to move to Macedonia. Dizdarevich showed us a long list of claimants wanting to return to Macedonia. He showed us the list so that we could help him identify people who were in danger so that the Embassy could get visas to them sooner. On the list we found my uncle, Timio Ralev and his family. Timio was one of those people who did not agree with Zahariadis’s politics. Timio was a fighter in the anti-fascist war and a DAG officer in the Greek Civil War. We found a few more names; some of prominent Macedonian fighters who, we expected, would be

given their visas as soon as possible. Two of them, Ralev and Karaliev had come from Tashkent to Alma Ata to visit us. During their visit we advised them to immediately apply for their return home and obviously they did. But as it turned out, those Macedonians returning to Macedonia from Eastern European countries had many inconveniences. The moment they arrived at a railway station or at an airport in Yugoslavia they were immediately picked up by the Ministry of the Interior and taken to Idrizovo Prison. After spending a few days there, being interrogated about this and that, they were released. Unfortunately this had a very negative impact on our people. They were full of joy and high expectations when they arrived in Macedonia only to have them dashed when they were put in jail. They never expected it! I will tell you a story about a couple of such cases. They had Timio Ralev and Nikola Karaliev locked up in the Idrizovo prison for 15 days. Among other things, they interrogated them about why they wanted to relocate to Alma Ata. Ralev told them: “I went there to visit my niece and my friends with whom I had fought in the war for many years.” Similarly, Timio’s wife Ianula was also a fighter and a NOF and AFZH activist. Her father had come to Macedonia a long time ago. We learned of this from Ralev and Karaliev’s wives. Mincho decided to pay the Minister of the Interior a visit. He made a big fuss about it and angrily told the minister: “How dare your agents harass people of patriotism, proven freedom fighters, fighters for democracy and accuse them of being agents of foreign countries! Is this our fate as Aegean Macedonians? Out there they accused us of being agents of Tito and Yugoslavia; in here you accuse us of being agents of this and that! This must end now!” But it took time and, like the others who came back from the Eastern European countries, Ralev and Karaliev were released and given apartments in which to live. Ralev also received a scholarship and completed a course in administrative law. He got a job as a secretary with the ambulance service, from which he retired, and was replaced by his son Naso Ralev, who still works there. Suli Markovska-Duvalevska also had a bad experience. She and her two infant children were kept in Idrizovo Prison for more than 20 days. She was interrogated for the simple reason that in Tashkent she was secretary of a women’s organization and through her job had contacts with Zahariadis’s CPG. She was one of the first people to apply to return to Skopje because her parents and sister were already living there. But despite her parents making constant requests in person to have her returned, she just barely won her approval. She was very active in AFZH and was a DAG fighter, a sergeant in the free archers

unit. Her younger brother Iani was a Partisan and was killed in combat; a fate shared by many young Macedonian men and women.

Problems getting airline tickets to Belgrade

We took Dizdarevich’s advice and stayed in the hotel that he recommended and nearly every day we went back to the embassy asking for our airline tickets. We had some money so during our free time we did some sightseeing in Moscow. We were interested in finding out where the damned prisons were that we had spent time in: Ljubljanka, Butirka, Lefortovo... We were told that they were far outside of Moscow. One day the embassy advised us to contact the President of the International Red Cross and get our airline tickets through him. We took a taxi and went. The place was packed with people waiting to see the president. An older man approached us and told us that he was Spanish, a participant of the Spanish Civil War. “Are you Greeks?” he asked. “No,” I said “we are fighters from the Greek Civil War, so we share a similar fate.” “Were you in Tashkent?” he was interested to know. “No, we were in Kazakhstan, in Alma Ata!” I said. “We, the fighters from the Spanish Civil War, were located in a camp in the Ukraine but now we are returning to Spain or to France. These 18-20 year old young men that you see over there were born here but want to go to Spain even though they don’t know anything about Spain; only what they heard from their relatives. They don’t want to stay here. You can see how impatient they are waiting for the President to see them!” he said while pointing at the large number of people waiting. “We want to return to Yugoslavia, to Macedonia. We are Macedonians!” I said. “You know,” the Spaniard said, “when we came here we were divided into Spanish communists and Spanish fascists. Now we are all returning home as Spaniards.” When they saw the situation I was in, pregnant and all, they let me skip to the front of the line to see the President. I walked in and introduced myself to the President. I told the man that I needed airline tickets to Belgrade, Yugoslavia for me and for my husband because there was no other way to get there. He said: “I can’t get you tickets!” I got upset and started yelling. Mincho heard me and ran inside. I told the President that Mincho was my husband and I kept yelling at him. I said: “You take us back the way you brought us here, we need help to return. We did not come here willingly and at our own expense! You put us in this situation! I am not getting up from this chair until I get two tickets to Belgrade!” I was persistent and kept shouting. Mincho also stepped in and explained to the man that he needed to help us, pointing out that I was pregnant and late in my pregnancy. The International Red Cross President in Moscow got on the telephone and spoke to someone. He then called in one of his clerks

and told him to provide us with two airline tickets to Belgrade. The clerk was back in minutes with two tickets. He told the President that he had bumped two Syrians off their flight and took their tickets. The Syrians were headed for Damascus via Belgrade before their tickets were taken from them. “We will give them new tickets soon,” they assured us. We thanked the president and apologized for my outbursts and for our perseverance but it was necessary to get things moving; especially for me in my condition. We said farewell and he wished us a good trip. Back in the hallway we thanked the young Spaniards for letting us go to the front of the line. We said goodbye to them and the old Spaniard. They all wished us a safe trip home since we were all in the same predicament.

New problem: I almost gave birth in Moscow

We returned to the hotel happy. I was very tired. I lay down to rest a bit and suddenly my water broke. Mincho immediately called an ambulance, which arrived promptly. The paramedics examined me and said they needed to take me to a hospital because the child was about to be born and I was in a critical condition with the birth. Mincho contacted the embassy and they told him that we needed to leave immediately because if the child was born in Moscow it would be considered a Russian citizen and that would create serious problems for us. There were many such cases where the parents couldn’t take their child with them. On the way to the airport we passed by the embassy and said our goodbyes. I asked a Russian woman, a friend who worked there, to pick up my photographs that we had just dropped off to be developed and send them to us in Macedonia. She did. After that we left for the airport. Earlier I had told the paramedics that we had a plane to catch and that we were on our way to Vnukovo airport to fly to Belgrade. That was on August 24, 1956. We got to the airport by taxi and waited for our plane to Belgrade. I sat on a chair while Mincho paced back and forth nervously, anxiously waiting for the plane to arrive. At one point Mincho said: “Vera, stand up Lazo is here.” I thought he was talking about Lazar Poplazarov from Alma Ata and others, so I stayed put sitting on the chair. Mincho then said that it was Lazar Kolishevski. I was barely able to stand up. Mincho went to greet Kolishevski and Kolishevski asked him: “Where is Vera?” I managed to take a few steps and I too went to greet him. In the meantime Liupco Arsov had just arrived with a delegation from Belgrade. Lazo told us that he was going back home and introduced us to a Russian who was part of his entourage. Lazo told the Russian: “These people here are also Macedonians going back to Yugoslavia.” While greeting the Russian I recognized him and said: “We know each other from Albania don’t we? You are Petrov.” He was stunned. I said: “Thank you for keeping us alive. You saved us from being executed in Bureli in 1949.” After that we boarded the same plane from which Liupco Arsov had arrived with the trade delegation and on which Kolishevski was returning to Yugoslavia on his way back from vacation in Sochi.

From the airplane to the maternity hospital in Savki Venats

In those days the flights from Moscow-Budapest-Belgrade took nine hours. I somehow got on the plane, barely being able to stand on my feet. The flight attendant helped me get to my seat. I found the take off and the vibrations on the plane difficult. The pilot warned us that there was going to be turbulence because it was very windy. Mincho kept encouraging me to hold on. But I must admit I was lucky, because of the bad weather the plane could not land in Budapest. I was unconscious when we arrived in Belgrade on August 25, 1956. Had we landed in Budapest I don’t know what kind of trouble I would have been in but one good thing about Budapest at that time was that I could have attended the famous October events. As soon as we landed an ambulance took me from the aircraft straight to the Savski Venats hospital in Belgrade. I was received by Ludich, the head of maternity and he personally helped me give birth because there was no time to look for other doctors. He lifted my child in his hands and said: “Russian or Greek, whatever you are, your child is healthy.” I told him that I was neither Russian nor Greek; I was Macedonian and wanted to give birth to my baby in Skopje. I am sure Lukich had been informed of my arrival to the hospital by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is why he admitted me in person and performed the procedure himself. Lukich asked me what the name of the baby was so that he could register him. I said: “Baby.” He then told me that my boy weighed only 3.5 kilograms and was 52 centimeters long, but his birth may have affected my health. I began to cry and the doctor said: “Hey Russian, don’t worry he will grow up to be a big man and both of you will be under my care.” Mincho was waiting out in the lobby. They told him that he had a son, the baby was in good condition, but his birth may have affected the health of the mother. They moved me to the fourth floor. I was alone in the room. After a while they brought my child for me to see. I was having a difficult time all alone. I felt anxiety and flashbacks to my days in the prison cells. From time to time the cleaning lady came in and consoled me telling me: “Don’t fret, everything will be fine. This Macedonian will become a great man.” But I was so out of it that I was still not aware of exactly what was happening to me. Mincho sent a telegram to Skopje telling our relatives that I was in the hospital and had given birth to a baby boy. Two days later my mother, along with Olga Peiova Angelkova my cousin Petre’s second wife and Mincho’s younger brother Alki, arrived in Belgrade. I saw my mother from my window above. She could not believe that I was there and that we had arrived. To her this all seemed like a dream. Olga was a midwife. She