Great peace enters these walls,
Zinaida Mirkina
Vanity has stopped its course.
Here every detail is sacred —
The ark stays afloat in the flood.
As far back as I can remember, my parents always wanted to live in their own house, on their own land. But they got the house only when I was already an adult and had started living on my own. This was due to several reasons.
Like many others, after the collapse of the USSR our family found itself in financial difficulty — monetary reforms were not in favor of the people, salaries were not paid on time — all this took a toll on us. My parents had to change jobs. They went into trade: my father would shuttle to Moscow to buy goods, and my mother would resell them at the market. We worked hard, seven days a week, rain or shine. So after a few years, the financial situation gradually began to get better. There were some savings that could be spent on buying a house. But my parents believed that first it was necessary to give me and my brother education and our own place to live. It took several more years. Still, the dream of a house, which had been put off for a long time, finally came true. We got our own family haven.
It is located in a quiet area of a small provincial town of Marx in Saratov region. It is not a huge, exquisite mansion, but a rather modest house where life is arranged in a simple way. It is surprising though, how much comfort and warmth I find in that place. I use every opportunity to visit, now with the family of my own. We host family events, spend our holidays and weekends there. And when school holidays come, my children stay a long time there visiting their grandparents.
My parents always prepare for our arrival thoroughly. They stock up on groceries, clean the house and the yard. My mom cooks a great variety of delicious food, trying to cater to everyone’s tastes. And my father, while waiting for his grandchildren, makes sure that my boys have something to play with. He sees if there is a bike that needs to be repaired, a horizontal bar to be hung, the ice slide to pour over.
We furnished it with quite a lot of things from the old apartment where I spent my childhood. Every object there has its own long history. This is probably why sometimes it seems that we have always had this house. Now it has also become a refuge in times of crisis and instability. There all the problems fade away, and my loved ones’ care and support restore my peace of mind. Quiet everyday life sucks me in with its slow-paced routine and endless household chores.
The atmosphere that my parents created in their home seems strange to me at times. With each visit, I notice some new changes. The house is a fluid, magical place. It’s exciting to watch and photograph. This way, through photography, I try to preserve the moments in time, and that feeling of home — the sense of inner security which has become a synonym for family hearth.
