Sveta (at far right) and other children dance on Elijah's day in the village clubhouse.

July 30, 1995 Last night I was given club duty -- Alexei was busy and needed me to open the clubhouse for the children and sit there for a couple of hours while they play. I brought David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb along with me to read, which I managed for a while until the kids came pouring in, clamoring for attention. I was happy to see them; we'd been teaching one another songs and they liked to hear themselves on my tape recorder. Sveta, 13, is the leader of a group of about 10 girls -- lovely without exception -- who live in the village during the summer. She ran over to me and eagerly asked to look at my book and tried to pronounce some of the words. I wished that I had brought another book -- this one had pictures that hinted of atrocities. I had no idea what these girls did or didn't know about the political history of their country but I was reluctant to disturb their youthful flight. Sveta wanted me to translate the captions under the photos. I said, testing the waters, "Some very bad things happened in this country. There were these camps." Sveta jumped in, as if to blurt out the right answer in class, "The Great Patriotic War!" By now, an entire circle of pretty, lively girls was staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I asked them if they remembered the putsch, and Sveta wanted to know which one. "There have been so many," she said. "You know, when the tanks were in Moscow," I said. She interrupted again: "And Yeltsin stood up on the tanks!" After a few more questions, Sveta announced that that was enough and they would be going into the other room to listen to music and would I mind translating some songs for them. I agreed and left my book behind in the front room. .

Yegor Diashov cools off in Anufrievo's lake