A Tale of Russian Mothers
by Swanee Hunt, Rocky Mountain News

Ida Kuklina is a powerhouse. Five-foot-three. Short brown hair-dyed. Voice husky from decades of heavy smoking. In the year-and-a-half I've known her, she's impressed me as a whirlwind of energy. I was surprised when she told me recently she's almost 68.

We were sharing some local breads and tea from her favorite bakery on the Old Arbat in the heart of Moscow, around the corner from the Foreign Ministry, where Ida and I had bent the ear of an official in charge of women's affairs and human rights. The official had insisted all was well for women in the Russian government, even though there is not one woman in the fleet of Russian ambassadors, and only one woman minister-down from five-in the entire cabinet of 30. The wretched statistics I could understand; for a host of economic and sociological reasons, most women have taken a giant step backward since the fall of communism. But the denial�

I know Ida as a force behind the Committee for Soldiers' Mothers, an enormously powerful, in-your-face non-government organization that defends the human rights of soldiers, confronting Russian judges, generals and presidents with the deaths of 3-5,000 soldiers who perish not because of war, but because of abuse by their commanders and peers during peacetime. While we were in her office, a letter arrived (the Committee receives 10 to 100 requests for help each day) describing a conscript being burned repeatedly with cigarettes. Others told of suicides and desertions. "My dear Mama, I can't stand this anymore. Don't look for me," one read, with excruciating ambiguity.

What motivates Ida to work every day, unsalaried, on this enormous project that covers 200 cities, and that touches the lives of tens of thousands of desperate families every year? Asked about her own childhood, she described how her father was sent from Moscow to the front lines in World War II when she was eight. She and her mother were heading back home to central Russia when her mother collapsed from typhus. In the commotion as her mother was taken from a train to a hospital in Dagestan, Ida was left on the platform. For a year she was homeless, pilfering food, and rolling herself up in a rug she stole from the bazaar to keep from freezing.

In a true Dickensian tale, an Azeri man took her in to join his children, but his whole family was taken to jail when he stole meat from the slaughterhouse where he worked. At the jail, the police discovered that one of the children was not his; she spoke Russian. Sure enough, it was the same little girl being sought by a woman who had been going from one police station to another. Ida and her mother were thus reunited by the police. After all that each had been through, neither recognized the other; but Ida was still wearing the same dress she had had on when she was left behind at the train station.

Pondering the story beyond the sheer drama, I thought of the connection between the work of this woman in her retirement years helping mothers all over Russia protect their sons, and the little girl left somehow to fend for herself when her own mother was unable to protect her. What allows some people to make of hardship a driving force for life, while others are damaged and destroyed by a similar experience?

Perhaps the saving element is an inborn quality. Perhaps a companion who offers a helping hand. Or a string of lucky breaks. Whatever the combination, I left my conversation with Ida feeling not pity, but appreciation for the all the Idas of the world, who have an understanding born of grit and grind, who look for solutions where others see hopelessness, who will stand up to anyone, or anything.

At another meeting at my hotel, the manager of the breakfast room told Ida and me we couldn't have our papers out on the table. My Russian friend boldly chided him, saying he should be ashamed of himself, saying such a thing to a guest. Sounds like my mother, I thought. But then maybe we all could use a few more moments of shame as we glide through our easy lives, finding this or that to complain about. We'd do better to remember Ida-and create from the hardships we encounter an empathy that can change the world.

more articles by Swanee Hunt

return to top