Victims and Case Files > Semyon Zolotaryov
Baby Sasha
Teddy:
I didn't say you did. I meant it the other way around, that by not publishing information for what a good dad Zolotrayyov is you think people are portraing him as a bad person.
At least this is the vibe I get from
--- Quote from: CalzagheChick on May 26, 2018, 10:05:50 AM ---If this isn't new, and it's not important, then why does almost every source I've ever read continue to paint Semyon Zolotaryov as a mysteriously childless bachelor? There's this ongoing, one, common theme, and it always suggests that he was an odd ball for these times being unmarried and without a family to even show up to his funeral (another unverifiable detail; see below).
I would think that all of these people who have claimed royalties from book deals? They would at least get their research as accurate as possible before ANYTHING ever hit a publisher. If something is unverifiable, it's not dead in the water. It's just unverifiable, but that's not necessarily an automatic trash pit verdict. Something like this deserved to be known! We've been told of these criminal gold teeth and tattoos of a hardened mafioso it would seem (they guy had a tattoo of beets for crying out loud...like saying a tattoo of a grilled cheese sandwich as a mark of The Beast.)
--- End quote ---
Maybe I don't read it right, no need to continue this direction really. Again, I meant it the other way around of what I think I said.
Don't mind me, it's all good.
Vietnamka:
* Semyon's wife name is Tamara, not Lyudmila. Her identity is known, but it is not published because her children still live in a small town and do not want attention from neighbors and gossip about their mother.
* Tamara is not on any of the photographs shown here. There are pictures of her, but they are not published yet. She is really very beautiful! The type of of woman that men fall head over heels.
* Tamara has 4 daughters. The eldest was born before Sasha, and three after. Sasha would be the fifth child. All the daughters were born out of wedlock and had the mother's surname. With that, she had a second civil husband after Semyon and they lived happily with him all his life and all her children are very fond of him.
* Tamara was very worried about Sasha her whole life. She always began to cry from mentioning his name. It was Her tragedy. Daughters always knew that there was a brother, this was not hidden form them, but the topic was not discussed in the family because there was a very painful reaction from her.
* You can't start to imagine how intelligent, educated, tactful, and successful her daughters are. They speak of their mother with a lot of love and compassion, admitting the fact that Sasha was given away and not understanding how this could happen. This is not an antisocial family and this is not the woman who is just so ready to give up her child. She did everything she could to raise beautiful daughters.
* Tamara and her second husband were looking for Sasha.
* The eldest daughter remembers the moment when all in tears, Tamara carried Sasha. He was about a year old. She put him on the porch of a house, and hid the girl in bushes so that she would be on the look out Sasha not to fall from the porch or crawl away. The door opened, Sasha was taken. It was a private house. The daughter is sure that it was Semyon's house and that the door was opened by Semyon's mother.
* Before this happened, Tamara and Semyon quarreled and he left.
* The daughter didn't like Semyon, although she remembers him well. She doesn't remember any tattoos. He was strict with her, but at the same time she doesn't mentioned any violence towards her (raising a hand or verbal abuse). But she remembers very well how he forced her to eat all her food. This was very typical after the war. I (Galina speaking) couldn't stand my grandma, because my sister and I were could not leave the table until we finished it all, including crumbs of bread, which fell on the table. My grandmother survived the siege of Leningrad from the first to the last day. Only later did I understand why she did what she did. Semyon, aged 11, survived the Holodomor and the famine of 1945-46.
* Tamara loved Semyon very much. And then hated him her whole life.
* Tamara also fought during the war.
This is what is known from Tamara's daughters. It is clear that all memories can be smoothed, especially childhood memories. And it is clear that the daughters will protect their mother, even more because they are loving daughters.
Now looking at it objectively hear is what I do not understand.
Everything happened in a very small village Lermontovo, also closed to outsiders, since uranium was extracted on its territory. All those who came to work in this city, were investigated. The village was recently founded and everyone lived in barracks. Those in one long house have many rooms and one family (no matter how many people) lives in one room. All have a shared toilet, a corridor, a kitchen. There are many neighbors.
I don't understand how is it possible to explain to the neighbors where did the child go. Neighbors could not help but notice. The same goes for the Semyon's family, how could the child disappear without anybody noticing, they lived in barracks too.
At that time in the Soviet Union the children were looked ta very fondly (they were a great asset), especially in the territories that were occupied by the Germans. Maybe you do not know, but in the same village Udobnoy, where Semyon is from, there was a German hospital for which children were selected, their blood was pumped out of them and their bodies were thrown into a pit behind the hospital. In the same pit, after liberation, they found bodies and women, with bullet holes, embracing their children.
A child at that time was considered sacred.
You (and people at the Russian forum) are wondering why is Semyon in the photos surrounded by women. Because there were no men (muzhiks). 25 million men of childbearing age perished. There was a very strong demographic bias. Women did not hope to get married, they wanted to have children at least.
Therefore, at that time, there was a government decree, on the support of single mothers financially. Perhaps this is the reason why none of Tamara's daughters had an official father and why Semyon was not put on the birth certificate. Tamara received money for this under a program that stimulates fertility. And they all lived very poorly. It is now difficult for us to imagine how poor and how difficult it was.
What am I getting at.
* The rejection of the child threatened Tamara to be condemned by the society. And very strong condemnation that is that could end up with dismissal from work. That didn't happen. She had to have a "storefront" story for neighbors and colleagues.
* The legal moment. Not only that she gave up the child, but she had to make out a number of legal documents - to write him out from the room, from the kindergarten, from the children's polyclinic, and so on. And everywhere give some reason why she does it. It was all controlled very strictly at the time.
* If she gave him up to an orphanage and relinquish her rights of a parent - the (condemning) information had to be sent to her place of work and there she had to be reproved at meetings of the work collective and, as a rule, became immediately known to the whole community. And there was always a woman nearby who couldn't have a child or husband.
But then the child could be quickly adopted.
* If she did not relinquish her rights of a parent, but simply abandoned the child somewhere, then this child was transferred to an orphanage, but was listed as "lost". There was a search for parents and it could last a lifetime, until the child grew up. Such children were kept in the orphanage, they could not be given up for adoption because orphanhood was not confirmed and there was no relinquishment of the rights from the parents.
The most realistic option to bypass all legal and social difficulties, was to give the child to be brought up in the village to some relatives. It was allowed, because life was really hard.
But the thing is that if she gave Sasha to Semyon's mom or Semyon himself - it was impossible to live in one small village and not meet with her son. So Sasha was clearly taken from Lermontovo. And Tamara did not know where, if she was looking for him.
Now there was information from Semyon's niece that when they were looking for him, they were told "you can't find him, he is in Germany".
I'm not very sure that there was cross-border adoption at that time, so most likely they are talking of Soviet citizens who worked or served in Germany at that time. Those who had the right to live there as families were few. There is a hope that this can be reflected in some archives in Germany - lists of diplomatic workers or military specialists.
The problem is that if Sasha was adopted at the age of one year, he could completely change his name and even his date of birth. And he may not even know about the fact that he is adopted. Although at that time it was not accepted to hide this. Too many children were adopted and this was normal.
By the way, Alla Borovikovskaya, whose photo you posted here, is also a foster child in Zolotaryov's family.
Off topic. Next day after the exhumation I was alone in the cemetery. The sun was shining, although it was cold. I went to church, put a candle for Semyon, and, waiting for the car, just walked along the paths. I heard a bell ringing. Maybe I went crazy (not every day digging up graves), but suddenly I realized that I had to find Semyon's son and make him come to the grave of his father. Semyon needs this, he is asking for it. It was like a bright explosion in the brain.
I will finish this and leave the topic.
There are many theories about Semyon. It so happened that no one knows about him as much as I do. He was a complicated man with a very uneasy fate, but at the same time I have a strong feeling that he was an extremely decent and good person. I can talk indefinitely about Semyon, perhaps enough is enough.
Teddy:
Wow. You keep writing I'll keep translating.
... and @ CalzagheChick I am retracting my words about the emotional charge wink1
CalzagheChick:
Please don't stop talking about Semyon.
But I must ask, how do you know all of this? How did you uncover all of this?
I obviously never could have being an American with limited access.
But also... this whole thing just kind of opened up a ton of other things.
It's kind of crappy when you think of it that this man survived every plague thrown at the Soviet people including by his own government and yet he dies mysteriously on a mountain slope skiing, doing something with which he was pretty much an expert.
CalzagheChick:
By the way...
You just said Alla is adopted. She knows she is adopted.
So all along they've known this DNA testing is moot?
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