Who are we?

Why are we who we are? Who or what makes us like this? Where do our roots go and where do we stand?

      At certain moments in life, a thinking person asks himself such questions. By personal example, I will allow myself to speculate and try to give answers to these questions.

It is known that every one of us has a genetic memory from birth (“ancestral memory”, “ancestral memory”). This has been proven by scientists.

The genotype of a person is determined by his ancestors, who give us their message through the centuries. The genotype has no time boundaries. Our ancestors live with us as long as we remember them. This memory enables us to use their experience.

         Traditions have an even greater influence on a person. Family traditions, traditions of the people, traditions of the nation. Here, in Ukraine, they are highly respected and cherished, passing them down from generation to generation.

         The elders of the family have always been role models for us.    

Maternal grandmother Varvara Mikhailovna and her grandchildren are the Bereginya of our family.

For me, my father was a great example!

His life (and it was a short one at 61) became the benchmark for his daughter's life, which I inherited and strictly adhere to.

        My father loved music, sang well, was cheerful and very handsome. 

Vladimir Vasilievich Galimon (1932-1993)

I remember the words of his favorite song:

Sleep rates, de kolishutsya visit,
Viterets in verbolosis falling asleep.
Here is a weeping guitar,
There the girl played the spring ...

          He had many friends. He was a kind-hearted man and a great worker. He was always short of time. After his main job, in the evenings and nights, he still worked in his workshop - he worked with metal, made magnificent forged gates, wickets, fences, made beautiful woodwork on a lathe. And I am always around.

        First, he drew a diagram of the product on a piece of paper. Then he forged, twisted, welded metal rods and got a beautiful, large gate. It took my breath away. I looked first at the piece of paper, then at the gate. And dad said that before you do something, you need to imagine it, see it in your head and remember it. Draw sketches from different sides to make it more accurate.  

Author: Ekaterina Moskalenko.

Author: Ekaterina Moskalenko. Details.

        He loved life and was in a hurry to do good, as if he felt that so little was allotted to him.

         Dad was expecting a son, but I was born. That's when he took over my upbringing. My older sister was more with my mum, and I was with my dad. He taught me to ski, skate, ride a bicycle, drive a car and everything he could do. No matter how many questions I asked him, he had the answers. And where the sun hides at night, and where it sleeps at night, and why the sky is one thing in the evening and another in the morning. My sister and I still remember the fairy tales, poems, and various stories that Daddy used to read, and more often he used to make up stories and tell us at night.  

            I remember that for three years in a row my father went to Kazakhstan to develop virgin lands. How we waited for him! The days were counting! He always came with gifts. I was very attached to my father. I loved him very much. And when he was gone, something in my heart snapped, like half the world was cut off from me.

          Dad has not been with us for 28 years. Mom is 83 years old and she has been living alone all these years in her own home, preserving the memory of her beloved husband. Mom is the second half of my and dad's amazing story. I want her life to go on and on ...

        But today I want to talk about the male half of our family.

   Grandpa.    

My father's father - my grandfather Vasily Grigorievich - was a watchmaker.

Vasily Grigorievich Galimon (1895-1970)

         Grandpa loved me very much. I was the youngest daughter of his youngest son. There were four children in my grandfather's family. The difficult post-war years passed. And in order for the family to survive, in addition to working on the collective farm, he mastered a lathe and made beautiful wooden products. This is the same machine that dad later worked on.

         He carried his products to Moscow to sell. And from there he brought us gifts (shoes, clothes, toys). I remember my grandfather brought a toy accordion and parsley. And I was so curious, who sits inside this harmonica and gives out these sounds? I climbed into a large lilac bush and cut it. It turned out to be empty. I am with tears to grandfather. He did not scold me, but explained everything. He was very kind, everyone respected him.

         On one of his trips to Moscow, money was stolen from him. There was nothing to buy a ticket for the return trip. And then a neighbor at the counter where they traded offered to work in a watch workshop with his friend. There my grandfather studied and worked. I came home with a baggage of knowledge. He began to make magnificent wall clocks. They were large, more than a meter long, with beautiful carvings. For us little ones, it was witchcraft. There a window opened and the movement of the arrows was visible. And this sound! I still remember the sound of the striking clock. As a memory, after the grandfather, each of the children has a watch made by his own hands.

        My grandfather's father, my great-grandfather, was a church employee. He and his great-grandmother served in the church.

    Founder of a dynasty of centenarians.    

And my maternal great-grandfather, Mikhail Ivanovich, was a tailor and shoemaker.

Novitsky Mikhail Ivanovich (1886-1983)   

        He lived to be 97 years old. He was clever, farsighted, a sturdy owner. He lived in a time of change and war, but always stayed afloat. He was an excellent tailor, sewing outerwear and shoes. I remember him well - tall, with a beard, standing at his work table, wearing a black apron. There are moulds hanging on the wall and huge scissors on the table. His daughters, and my grandmothers Varvara, Sofia and Evdokia, were also craftswomen - they sewed clothes, mostly for their families, as did my favourite aunts - Tatiana, Olga and Katerina. Every house had a sewing machine. Of his five children, the youngest son Leonid lives and lives to be 88 years old. What a dynasty of long-livers!

 Acquiring through life the experience of my ancestors, I always wanted to translate it into something of my own - beautiful and perfect.

         It is from there, from the origins, that the doll takes its soul.

I made my first doll only at the age of 53. But since childhood I felt a great desire to invent something, to make something. I remember when I, little, calmed down, my mother always sent my older sister to see what I was doing there. And I did: I will cut my mother's dress for dolls, then I will cut bugles from the chandelier for jewelry. But when in the sixth grade I sewed a suit for myself from my coat and went to school in it, my parents bought me a sewing machine.

         It was a celebration! Here we go! I sewed everything, because it's much faster than sewing with my hands. And if my parents praised me! It was very inspiring! My dad taught me from childhood that everything started should be brought to the end and not to abandon work halfway through. And my mum gave me confidence. "Our Katya can do anything!" she said. She taught me not to be afraid, to try to do everything with my own hands, and always go my own way. Parents' praise is the highest praise.

          I did a lot of embroidery, knitting, sewing clothes. There are a lot of my works in the house. But I always wanted more. I wanted to embody the images that emerged in my memory from my father's stories about brownies, mermaids, Mavks, about various fairy-tale characters. And just making dolls requires many skills from the master, the use of various crafts and techniques that I owned. You need to be an artist, sculptor, shoemaker, tailor, furniture maker and many others. And then I was able to embody all the acquired experience and knowledge. I don't have two identical dolls. They are all different, like people, each with its own character. I love the birth of ethnic dolls. I am pleased with the possibility of a creative approach in conveying the color of the nation, individual vision.

Composition "Vyshyvanka" Author Catherine Moskalenko.

"Family memory"

       I am a veterinarian by profession and I have no special art education. But the experience gained, passed on to me by my family, I use when working on the doll. And I do it with great love, remembering how my great-grandfather Mikhail stretched the skin on a shoe block. Then I stitched it with a special tool. And how I put the thread in a needle for my grandmother. How grandfather Vasily worked on watches, and what my beloved daddy taught me. I am infinitely grateful to my ancestors for their invaluable experience.

           The lathe, on which the grandfather worked, was inherited by the father and now stands in his workshop. Mom kept it, like many other instruments. You take it in your hands - and a feeling of warmth and quivering memories envelop your soul.

           I have two old chests in my house, two Zinger sewing machines and a carved wooden bench, which I inherited from my grandmothers. I keep these relics. I don't know how old they are. One chest is large, made without a single nail, on wooden wheels. The other is light, for clothes. They used to put dowry in it, and my grandmother Varvara married with it. Recently, when I was visiting my mum, I went into my dad's workshop and saw a jointer. Mum gave it to me. These things are very dear to me and I cherish them. 

Against the background of grandfather's clock.)

This is the connection between generations. When a person lives among people who know how to craft, do some things, objects with their own hands, then this cannot but affect his life and occupations.     

       Therefore, I must continue the work of my beloved and respected ancestors. If my art, my works will please people, bring them joy and serve for many years, then, I hope, my ancestors in heaven will be happy for me.

Katerina with her mistress, an opera singer.

Ganja doll.

Best regards, Ekaterina Moskalenko.