When Igor and I decided to get married, there was no question that I would move in to live with him and his mother and stepfather. Having our own place was absolutely out of the question: as I mentioned earlier, the housing market didn’t exist, and only a very small fraction of people rented; the vast majority lived in their “given” apartments. I didn’t have a room of my own: I shared a room with my mother in the same gigantic apartment on Galernaya Street – my childhood apartment. Igor lived with his parents (as everyone did), but he had his own room, so I was supposed to move there.
That might explain the alarm of his parents: all of a sudden, they were getting a roommate. One thing we did a little bit differently: I said from the start that we would have our own household, meaning that we would cook separately and have our own budget. I was used to that situation because that’s how my mom and I lived in one apartment with my father’s relatives, but for Igor’s parents, it was something unheard of. To their credit, they didn’t make a big deal out of it.
Later I learned that they were absolutely sure that we rushed to get married because I was pregnant, and since I got pregnant shortly after the marriage (that’s what we wanted, or rather, I wanted and Igor agreed), they were still sure it was the case, and were surprised at the end. After our son was born, we overheard Igor’s mom saying to somebody over the phone: nine months and six days! That was the time between our marriage and the birth of Igor-junior.
Igor’s parents had a washing machine, which not everyone had at that time. What I learned, however, was that they used it in an interesting way: they would turn it on once a month or so, and do several washes. Since there was no custom of daily clothes changing, everything was worn for several days and required more than a quick rinse. Igor’s mom used to soak everything in the bathtub before washing. The soaking could take a couple of days, and during this time, it was not possible to take a shower 😂. I was alarmed only the first time, but later I got used to the situation.
A more challenging thing was that Igor’s mom had almost all of his clothes in this dirty laundry pile just before our wedding, and then she got upset with him. I forgot about what, and she pulled all of his dirty laundry out of the big pile and handed it to me; now, I was in charge.
Needless to say, I found it absolutely normal. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that it was very difficult to hand-wash the clothes, which stayed in a dirty pile for weeks. I spent a long time scrubbing the dirty shirt collars, and fortunately, I never had to do it again, since I washed everything right away.
The only chores we did together with Igor were shopping, at least sometimes. I was doing cooking, dishes, laundry, and ironing. I didn’t think something was wrong with that: that’s what all wives were doing, it was normal, expected, and was a source of pride: I am a good wife, and I can “serve” my husband well.
It was all fine during the first six months of our marriage because I had just a few classes left in the University, and was finalizing my thesis, so I could focus on “being a wife.” I still worked on some tasks Boris gave me, but it was far from being “full-time employed.” Later, when I started working, things became more challenging.
My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.
Hettie's Reflections 