SYNOPSIS
Mykola Pud lived his whole life, except for the eight years when he served in the army in 1938-1946, in the village of Vilshane in Sosnytsia raion (now Koriukivka raion) in Chernihiv oblast. He worked as a cow shepherd during the Holodomor. His observations concern the unfairness of the process whereby individuals or groups were labeled as “kulaks,” illustrated by the fact that the last “kulak” family dekulakized in his village was his own - a rather poor family. His father died, and his mother, a widow with six children, used to serve as hired help to a local “pan” (large landowner) before the collectivization. Of special interest in Pud’s memoirs are his recollections about everyday life and traditions in his village before the Holodomor, and, during the Holodomor, а story about him saving his mother and siblings with hedgehog’s fat and ground squirrel meat. Their neighbour and local activist Ivan probably noticed that Mykola received payment in kind (potatoes and grain) for his work as a shepherd. As soon as Mykola brought the grain and potatoes that the villagers gave him home, the search brigade appeared and took it all away. Even after the Holodomor, Pud remembers living in extreme poverty. He was nicknamed “Didok” (Old Man) for his looks even though he was only 16. He believes that poverty and his looks are to blame for him staying single. In 1935-1938 he worked as a tractor driver and then was drafted. As a serviceman in the Red (later Soviet) army, he survived the evacuation of the Baltic fleet from Tallinn to Kronstadt in 1941 and then 900 days of the Siege of Leningrad. He got discharged only in 1946 as a person with disability (of the third group) and limited mobility, however, he worked as a mechanic until retirement.