30 August could have been a 50th anniversary of our observer Anna Politkovskaya. She lived one year less than her favorite poet Marina Tsvetaeva, who wrote once in a letter to Boris Pasternak “stricken with lightnings … yet you must live”.    

Anya also was stricken with lightnings. Although she wanted to live very much – you can feel it as you read the memoirs by her daughter Vera Politkovskaya – no one could make her betray “the law of the extended hand” formulated by Tsvetaeva. Living in accordance with that law, Anya was always where she was needed: sitting beside the bed of a wounded captain; talking to the parents of a kidnapped and raped girl; trying to save the hostages in the Teatralny Center… There’s no need listing everything as it is well known. There is a book about her. If you haven’t read it yet, just do it to understand that all what Anya has done and written fits perfectly the behavior and credo by Marina Tsvetaeva whom Anya was keen on since her school years and about whom she wrote the graduate work at the journalism department at MGU, the work that astonished the legendary dean Yasen Zasursky. Do you remember that: “I refuse floating down along the stream of backs”? In the years of Stalin’s repressions it was dangerous to write so. There were a countless number of “invitations to death” for Tsvetaeva then. Nowadays it is hard to survive too. Today we don’t want to speak about those who terminated physically the “golden pen” of Russia… There will be other days – the court days and the tragic memorial date of 7 October. And today we are talking not about the murder, but about Anya’s birthday. On this day only closest to her people speak about her again, as if they got together at one table to recall favorite stories and funny episodes. They speak about the live Anya who just has become invisible. But she is still here…                    

Raisa Alexandrovna Mazepa, Anna Politkovskaya’s mother:

Arriving at Anya’s parents’ home I am getting ready to see an aged person who must walk and speak with difficulty. However, I see a slender and swift woman with amazingly young bearing. I cannot even follow her movements with my eyes. Here she is going to show me another photo album and now she decides to pop the kettle on, and next moment she’s left for something else.   

”I think” she says to me “that Anya now would have rushed to Georgia. I listen to everything by Echo Moskvy radio. And when I go to the kitchen I carry my wireless with me. I listen all the time. Yet I don’t like it that they began to invite Prokhanov. He is not the one to listen to”.    

Q: Raisa Alexandrovna, would Anya make a big party to celebrate her 50th jubilee?   

A: It usually happened to her that she never invited people specially. She used to say those who wanted they would come to congratulate.  

Q: And did people come?

A: Of course. There were relatives and school friends with their families. That was a lot of people. And when she was a child we always celebrated birthdays and then people were invited specially. Anya was adored by her school fellows.   

Q: Was she contentious? 

A: With guys no, and with teachers yes. She could cast in a teacher’s face “You are doing an injustice!” She remarked sometimes to the English teacher about her wrong pronunciation. And her classmates saw a defender in her when they considered their grades to be too low. She always helped them to find the truth. She has been such a person since her childhood. This room has seen a lot of schoolchildren, even those from parallel classes used to come here! Many of them have moved now, but those who remained to live here in our district, all of them rush to me to greet and to ask how I am, when they see me.

Q: Raisa Alexandrovna, is this your husband on the photo? 

A: Yes, this is Stepan. And next to him, you see, it’s Anyutka in a frame. Everyday I say to them goodnight before going to bed and wish good morning next day. I and Stepan, we have given all we could to our girls. We took them to music school and to figure skating. Lena was older than Anyutka for one year and she was taller. This is why the coaches considered Anya to have better prospects and they suggested that she do sport seriously.     

Q: She might have become a famous figure skater?

A: Well, we sent them to sport not for that, we did it just for better development. In the music school they both also studied well and the teachers said they should take that way. They also read much. There is the library named after Krupskaya near here. It has decreased now as there is a bank, a restaurant and offices organized in the same building. When I saw that for the first time I was taken aback. And when I used to take Lenochka and Anyutka there, and later they were old enough to come there alone, all that building was given to the library.

Once the librarian spoke at their school. She said that Mazepa’s girls were the most devoted readers. Such a conclusion she made looking at their cards file.  

Q: Your family name is historical one, a hetman’s one.  

A: My maiden name is Novikova. And Mazepa is my husband’s name. When my husband was live, his nephew from Kharkov brought him his book published in the Ukrainian language. He had found out that Stepan came from that famous hetman’s branch and so he was the hetman’s descendant. My husband laughed then and said he would read the book and would remember the Ukrainian as he began to study at a Ukrainian school in the city of Chernigov. And he finished his graduation in a Russian school, after the war. We studied together.   

Q: So you got acquainted at school?

A: It was evening school and we were adults. He had had his service in the Navy in Kerch, and I was a Kerch dweller. The war prevented us from graduating school, and the Kerch inhabitants were being driven to Germany. Then bombing began and the soviet war prisoners, who had been building fortification for Germans, managed to hide a few persons, including me, in a cart under the rush. They brought us away to the nearest Ukrainian settlement. And three months later our troops broke through near the river of Dnieper right at the place we were staying at. So we were able to finish school only after the war was over. Stepan was allowed to leave the ship in the evenings to attend classes. He went to the army when he was 17 and his service lasted for 8 years, as his conscription could not be replaced by anyone. And only when he received a call from the admissions, he was brought to Moscow on a boat to take his entrance exams in MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Studies). On his arrival he had to pass three exams in one day. He was wearing his naval uniform as he had no other clothes. And so, when he was a third year student he decided it was time to get married. I did not want to go to Moscow. Then he said “do it or forget it”. This is how we became Moscow dwellers and remained here.

Q: In this flat?

A: No, we have been living in this flat since 1962. We bought it when we worked in America. This was first foreign ministry cooperative apartments. One could buy it only in case one gave up one’s currency in America. So we tried hard and we saved money. And before that we rented not even a flat or a room; that was just a corner in a room. Everyone was going through hardships then. However, the hardships of post-war times were not terrible for us who had survived in the war. What mattered was that we were alive. And this is Lena’s daughter. They did it the way that all of them appear here (speaking of a digital frame where new photos appear every minute – children, grandchildren, great grandchildren).  

Q: They don’t allow you getting bored?

A: No, they don’t. One can hold one’s ground till one has someone to hold on to. And our family is of that kind that holds. Even my nephew, the son of my sister says “please hold on, because everyone, even my children, get around you”. My daughter Lena lives in London, but she calls everyday. On my birthday of 2 August they arranged with one another on the phone and came here in a body with festive meals and drinks: Lena with Yura, all grandchildren, and my nephew with his children. His mother, my sister, lives in Kerch. We used to send our children there every year and she tried to get a vacation right in time for their arrival. And Lena and Yura, they supported Anuyta very much after her divorce. This is what is inherited by the grandchildren. Ilia cares very much after his sister Vera and her baby Anechka. He is a good man, and that matters much to him. He is respected very much at his work. In September he will be getting the second diploma. Anya and grandfather insisted on that, as his first diploma did not correspond to the profession he chose. He would call after examinations to report he had got an A, and we rejoiced together. Now he phones me alone, as the grandfather and Anya are gone, to report of his usual A. I say “Ilyusha, the mother and the grandfather would be happy now!” And his response is “Granny, if you go on reacting like this, I won’t be calling you after exams!” And I promise I wouldn’t.              

Q: Raisa Alexandrovna, could you imagine that Anya would become a heroine talked about by the entire world?

A: You know, my husband’s friends, foreign ministry veterans, used to tell to him “Stepan, you seem to care more of Anyuta. Do you love her better?” No. He loved both our girls equally. The difference between them was one year and we tried to dress them like twins. Both girls did well in their studies and managed to enter the university to same department. But Anya has always been more pitied by us. This is what Stepan explained to his friends.   

Q: Is it because she did not spare herself?

A: Yes. It’s been many times that we tried to talk her out of going to Chechnya. We feared for her. And she responded “And who must do it? Who, if not me?” We feared for her, but we were proud of her. Stepan made clips of all her publications and collected it, putting the dates on it.  

Q: It must have been a lot of clips!

A: Yes, and he continued to do it. I haven’t had time to sort out those files. When she was in Moscow, she was always busy, working. I used to ask “what time did you go to bed last night?” “At 3 in the morning”. Can a person live like that! And she always answered “I must do it”. She had to, and that’s it.    

Q: Today, what do you recall most of all, Raisa Alexandrovna? What moments of your life?  

A: We were always talked about like “what a nice family! Two girls-princesses, and father and mother are so young and dance so nice”. I and Stepan, we would dance waltz and tango in all competitions and parties. We would always get prizes. That was the happiest time, and I often think of it. Our girls, when they grew up a bit, they always joked “We thought that all the men are as ideal as our daddy is”. He did not smoke and did not take alcohol. When he was buried he had no grey hair. He had to cure his first teeth shortly before his death. And before my operation he died of severe heart attack, although he had never had heart problems.      

Q: You lived together almost 50 years?

A: 54 years. Yura, my son in law, said “He died on his way to his fair one”. It was me to feel not well first. I went to the clinic to have ultrasonic scanning done and saw Anya there. “How did you get here?” “This is why I am a journalist”. She had phoned home and the father told her I was in clinic. So she met the head doctor and it was told I had to be put in hospital urgently. We came back home to get packed, and Stepan asked the daughter “Anya, maybe there is not much necessity to put her to hospital?” Anya answered “no, there is. It’s serious and cannot be delayed.” Then he came to me in the hospital and brought some fruit water. On the appointed date of my operation he called me and said “you know, I’m going to come to you”. I began to talk him out of that. Later he phoned again to ask whether I had decided what I would like him to bring. What could I need before operation? He said “Well, I’m going out”. That was the last word he said to me. 
    
…I waited for him for long on that day. Finally, the doctor came in and said that relatives had phoned and said he had got in the traffic jam and failed to come to me. I thought to myself “what jam? He was going to take the metro.” I called home and Ilyusha answered. I asked “Ilyusha, what has happened to the granddad?” He said “I don’t know exactly. He got in the hospital, mother will tell you later”. And he had been the first to be there with Yura. Stepan had already gone out of metro and began to specify with a woman how to get to the stop so that to take a bus or trolleybus to the hospital. She began to give directions and he began to fall down slowly. Next morning, at an early hour I was given an injection first and right after that Lena and Anya entered the ward. When I saw Lena, who lives in London, I comprehended everything at once and asked “girls, has the granddad died?”      

Q: You were to be operated on that day?  

A: Yes, the doctor came at that moment to say everything was ready for the operation and that I could not think of taking part in funeral. And two weeks after I had an injection again early morning. The door opened again, but this time it was Yura with Lena, not Anya. My first words to them were “Is Anya killed?”  

Father would not have borne Anyutkina’s death… He did not even bear my operation…  

Vera Politkovskaya, the daughter:  

Two words spoken by me changed my mother completely. That was “I’m pregnant”. I phoned her as soon as I had a special blood test to make sure about my state. Mother seemed to be at work at that moment, anyway she was busy. She asked “Really? Are you sure? I’ll call you back…” That sounded careless, as if nothing important had happened. I could not even imagine that from that moment on I would be seeing an absolutely different mother. She came to me with a bag full of food. “Right food. You must eat this! Have you given up smoking?”     

Actually, I did not take much of Cola or Sprite, but once she saw something like that at my place. She shouted at me as if that was potassium cyanide. “How can you feed your baby with THIS!”     

Just within two months mother managed to grow onions, dill and carrots in the dacha. That was pure products containing no chemicals. Her granddaughter had to be fed only that way. Never before could I imagine my mother digging vegetable patches. 

On 6 October, a day before my mom’s death, there was a false alarm, a threat to the foetus. It was not confirmed later, but at that moment mother, while giving me curt instructions “Lie down! Don’t move!” was calling a special paid ambulance. She seemed to be more scared than I was. She calmed down a bit when we were driving to the hospital on the ambulance car. She even joked like “well, at least so I will be able to drive a bit on the wrong side”. She drove very carefully and never violated traffic regulations. It was about 6 in the evening, it was rush hour, and the ambulance signaled its way through the flow of cars with a siren.   

”Bowling along the jam” said mother.  

She also told me “You know, I’ve got many unused vacations. I’m going to use it when you deliver a child, and we will be bringing her up together”.    

Elena Kudimova, Anna Politkovskaya’s sister:

Anya goes out to the threshold to see me off. One second and I will enter the fatal lift not knowing this is our last time. 

”Lena, is it scaring to hold a baby in arms?” she asks me about her greatest concern of the recently, and we rejoice again that yesterday an experienced doctor dispelled our fears about Vera’s pregnancy. 

At this moment I always wake up in a cold sweat, like it was yesterday and two day ago and many times since her death. My subconcsiousness seems to have put a block at this point so that to spare my mind from further playing on the events. But soon I get overcome by sleepiness again and see again Anya cutting the wet prunes and dried apricots the way she was taught in the hospital a day before. She is cooking breakfast for the pregnant Vera who is sleeping at the moment.    

Within 40 minutes in the kitchen, where Anya treats me with tea, we manage, as usual, to discuss a list of topics: 

— yesterday’s searching for hospital for Vera (in details);

— lack of professionalism of the first doctor (briefly);

— “happy end” of the day topped with a consultation by a Moscow leading pregnancy expert (in details); 

— yesterday’s evening news on television, which I did not see, where Putin sported in Chechnya in a T-shirt bearing the portrait of the Kadyrov the Junior (briefly);  

— health condition and spirits of our mother after operation (in every detail); 

— Anya’s visit to the clinic.  

We speak quickly and quietly. We never have enough time to discuss everything that happens to us. Vera is still sleeping in the next room. Our father seems to be listening favorably to our woman’s chat, from his portrait standing on the chest of drawers. Two weeks ago we buried him on same sunny day, like today’s morning of 7 October 2006. Somewhere deep inside we believe that his soul is staying with us within first 40 days.  

As a matter of fact, I just dropped in for a minute to get from Anya some mother’s things so that to bring it to the hospital. Today it’s Anya’s turn to visit mother, but she needs to order the new door for the Vera’s flat repairs. So we decide it’s me again to visit today, and Anya would visit the mother tomorrow. After the father’s death we alternate everyday practicing our amateurish psychotherapy for hours in mother’s ward.

Anya has to finish the first chapter of her new book she vowed to have finished by the end of September at her dacha where no one would disturb her. But life goes her own way – father’s death, funeral, mother being operated, complicated pregnancy of Vera. She just has no time. And besides, there is working in the newspaper.  

Reading her articles it is hard to imagine she could be afraid of anything. Her materials prompt an image of a fearless Russian woman, described by our classic Nekrasov. In reality, Anya was afraid of the dark since her childhood, as by ten years old she had developed shortsightedness. And in Chechnya she would have to walk for hours in the dark, without glasses on, so that the patrol could not recognize her. When I saw her after Nord Ost the first thing she told me was “I’ve been scared to death”.       

It seemed to everyone that she never cried. And she used to sob to me on the phone resentfully after having an up-and-a-downer with Muratov because of another article.

Anya often would go to Chechnya without informing her parents about that, giving them one unconcerned day. Anyway, they learnt the truth the next day after calling to grandchildren. But that would be later. And then they would start listening to the radio news with more attention.  
Vera’s pregnant condition has had a sobering effect on her. Anya wants to have grandchildren. This summer she was so happy and looked with admiring envy at my granddaughter of the age of 1 week.

”Lena, is it scaring to hold a baby in arms?” It’s midday already. I’m in a hurry to the mother. I wave her from the lift. And she only has four hours remaining in her life…