Border Guard Laundress

"In 1952, I came to Kolka from Vīdales Cirsti, at that time there were about 40 houses there. At first, I lived in a small house next to the old school, there were four of us families there and we were very cramped. After some time, I went to Uši, 6 km down from Kolka, and lived in "Tirguslauki". I lived there for 3.5 years and then came here, to "Priesteri". I have been here since 1956 and in this apartment (on the 2nd floor) since 1962.
My sister worked at the Kolka post office, I didn't have a job and my husband didn't either, because we divorced, because he was almost like - there and there. And then it's better not to have than to have. I didn't even think that it would be difficult for me alone, having to send two children to school. But I made up my mind, that's what I had to do and that's it. At first I went to help the fishermen with the fish, here Berthold Viktor.
Then I started washing clothes for the Russian border guards, they brought me the clothes. The postmaster Krasnovaya and my sister persuaded me to take on this job, because the border guards had asked if they knew anyone who did laundry. I could already converse a little in Russian, but I couldn't write and fill out documents. I met the postmaster at the post office and made an agreement. Before me, a woman from Pitrags washed clothes. So I started working from March 1. The soldiers who brought me the clothes said, why don't you ask for an apartment in Kolka, because there is an apartment in the house there. At first I was so embarrassed, but one time, when they brought my salary, I started asking.
So on October 20, 1956, I came here. The apartment on the first floor of the house was pretty terrible, the windows had been collected from German bunkers, one window was bigger, the other smaller, there was no view at all. But this was considered an ownerless house, now the house belongs to the Kolka Orthodox congregation. Russian officers lived here. The room was cold, my children were small, the youngest was not yet in school, but the eldest was in school for the first year. There was only a stove and a chimney upstairs, but no shutter or oven to keep the heat in longer. Before me, Dr. Marchenko lived here, her husband was a lieutenant in the border guards. The room was boarded up, but how the doctor had lived there was amazing. After that, they went to live in the Kolka "Kristiem". At that time, there was already a small hospital in Kolka, and the doctor also worked there.
I washed laundry for 40 border guards: shirts, pants, underwear, bed linen, footcloths. The border guards didn't have to wash their uniforms. It was difficult to wash their diapers because they were already getting terribly dirty in their leather boots.
Well, to tidy up the apartment a bit, I cheated and got some paper boxes from the factory, then I used them to knock down the middle wall so that there were no bare boards. The main thing was to have somewhere to dry the laundry, so I had two lines tied up in the room, one along my bed, the other along the other side. They built a boiler in the corridor downstairs where I could heat the water. So I washed outside all the time, the big boiler hung on a peg and I boiled the laundry there.
They gave me powder, but it wasn't enough, I bought more later myself. The dose was 8-10 grams per kilogram. It was said that a sheet weighed 250 grams, but a clean one. They didn't weigh the laundry every time. At first, I received a salary of 15 rubles a month. That's how the three of us managed with this little money. Live as you wish. I couldn't go to the factory either, because I had nowhere to put the children. The school was next to our house, so I could look after them. Then, when the officers moved to the new house, I ended up in an apartment on the second floor.
The officers kept pigs in a shed near the house, after a while they built a laundry room in its place, built a stove, but that's all, the steamers are already heating and nothing more is needed. Rubber boots on my feet all day and go.
At first there was no electricity, so I ironed with coal irons – pletizers. My friends told me what a terrible job you were doing with ironing. I folded and pressed those sheets, but I did iron shirts, pants and pillowcases. I had these little brown rags, which I folded and pressed. Each time it came to 80 sheets, two sheets for each bed.
So for about 3-4 months I washed for those 15 rubles a month. But the starshin was so normal, he wrote down something extra for me, for example about the cook's clothes, he counted that I washed them every day. The main impression was that they gave me and my children both lunch and dinner, because with 15 rubles three people couldn't eat.
It was already hard to spread all the laundry on the board, I already rubbed about four boards. The worst thing was drying, especially in winter. They don't dry anymore, they freeze and that's it. I also dried outside, as well as in the outpost, at the end of the school, where there were horses and pigs. There was a gym when you go through the horse stable, and I dried the laundry there most often in winter. But every day I had to carry it away and back, so I carried the laundry half-frozen, threw 10 sheets on my shoulder and walked across the field. After that, I dried it opposite the Kolka Lutheran Church "Vagaros" near Dzidra Bēržina, but there I had to carry it up the stairs to the attic. Back then there was a wagon behind the church, now it's gone, I've dried there too. There's almost no house in Kolka where the laundry wasn't dried. Then I could carry the laundry out and dry it, but now I can't, not because I lack the strength, but because there are no longer people in Kolka to trust, because the laundry can be stolen.
There were four lines of water right up to the church, so if you hang it up on Monday in the winter, it will dry by Thursday. In the summer, it's easy.
The officers didn't have to wash their laundry, they did it themselves.
I was also a fool, at one point I also washed the laundry for the sailors, there were about 16 of them. The sailors' striped shirts are easy to wash, but those canvas suits, they were like trees. I didn't wash them by hand. They brought their washing machine "Tula", I also washed one suit at a time. Sometimes those suits were already very worn, but I wanted to get them clean. After that I also washed for the builders, there were about 30 of them. I also washed for a while for the lighthouse people. I carried water from the well by hand, I had to bring it all in and pour it out. The hardest part was wringing the laundry by hand.
To get the laundry white, I used silicate glue, it was sold in 0.5 l bottles, a friend from Siberia taught me how to do it. I had a big pot that held 16 buckets of water, and I added one bottle of silicate glue to the pot, and the laundry turned out very white. I washed one pot every day, trying to do it more freely on Sundays. At first, I also bought washing soda, it was cheap.
After some time, a neat washing machine was brought, but it was not intended for the countryside, because it had to be connected to the water supply and sewage system, but such equipment is still not available in this house today. Then they brought me a washing machine "Riga-8", but it can only wash handkerchiefs, not laundry for the military.
I worked like that for 28 years, until 1984. I started washing when I was 30 and stopped washing when I was 58. I retired at the age of 77, having worked two jobs the whole time, in addition to being a security guard at a bakery.
The workday started at 4 in the morning, then I went to heat up the big pot, then I prepared breakfast for the kids, took them to school, did the laundry, then at 12 I went to the bakery and worked until 5. In the evening, ironing again.
I had one friend from the Soviet Union. His mother came to visit him from Leningrad and stayed there for about two weeks, brought me all kinds of gifts and invited me to visit for the New Year. I had never set foot in Riga, but now I went to Leningrad, I was a little over 40 years old. How stupid a person can be! They took me to all the beautiful places, the Hermitage, Petropavlovsk. I couldn't have gone anywhere myself, I didn't have the money or the opportunity. They paid my way and covered all my living expenses. So we each stayed in our own country, because I wasn't willing to live together in another country, I didn't want to live in the city at all, to meet up - that's it.
The soldiers treated me humanely, even when the foreman slaughtered a pig, he always gave me a piece of meat.
No more private workers were employed. The border guards took care of the livestock themselves. At first they had three horses, the caretaker was called a horseman, but later the horses were liquidated. In the last ten years, the border guards no longer had any pigs.
The officers were mostly Ukrainians, they were already economical and hardworking. Siderenko, Ushnarenko – he was a real workhorse, in the fall he had procured cabbage and other things, his cellar was always full. These were things that were given to the soldiers as an extra. He pickled apples. In large barrels, he layered rye straw and apples, then poured sweet and sour brine on top. The apples were very tasty, they didn't rot in the barrels, but they tasted good."