Age — 26; Russia, Moscow.

‘Olya’ was born on May 13^th, 1976, in the evening.  The spring that year had been cold and rainy, and that night there was a powerful thunderstorm.  While I was pregnant, my sister said that if I had a girl I should name her Olga, because it was a pretty name.  Thus was born Olga Romanova, together with thunder and lightening.  And she died with thunder as well.

She was a quiet baby, and I had no grief with her.  When she turned one I took her to the crèche.  Later came kindergarten, then school.  At ten she was already helping me – she would peel potatoes, or cut onions, and she tried to clean house as best she could. 

One day she came home with bruises.  I asked her: “Where did those come from?”  She said that kids were hurting a girl, so she had to help.  That is how she was: always trying to help everyone.  Girlfriends ran to tell her their secrets and their problems.  Olya would help everyone, and act as a referee.  She was a very warm-hearted girl, and her friends called her Romashka (Daisy).

She took piano lessons for nine years in that very same DK.  She was starting to think about where to go next.  At first she wanted to attend the medical institute, but later she changed her mind and went to work at the Red October candy factory.  She worked there for seven years.  She was not afraid of work, and everything was going well for her.

We lived modestly.  Olya never complained, though once she asked that, should we ever have enough money, could she buy a leather jacket? Olya dreamed having fruit, vegetables, and red caviar on the table, I chided her: you want to live rich, but she said to me: not always, but sometimes you just have to.

Now I understand that this was a mandate, so sometimes now I set a rich table: fruits, pickled vegetables, and red caviar.

Olya worked for a while for the post office, then found a job at L’Etuale.  It was there that her labor and life ended simultaneously.

Olya loved children, and loved animals.  We have two cats – Dasha and Knopka (Button).  Knopka fell out an open window while Olya was washing windows, and ran away, and Olya was very worried.  This was in August.  On October 21^st I bought her an identical kitten, and Olya rejoiced just like a little girl.  But on the 24^th Olya died.

When we went to identify her, they brought her out on a gurney.  A black plastic bag was over her face.  The doctor said that there was not enough to stitch up.  We identified her from the keys she had, and from her boots.  Her crucifix was gone.

We did not get to bury Olya until October 30^th – we could not receive permission from the prosecutor’s office (it was a criminal case).  There were a lot of people at the funeral – friends, classmates, colleagues from work, and a priest.  Olya’s fiancé Ruslan could not get her ring onto her finger, so he left it in her coffin.  He said that he bought it for her, and that it would stay with her. 

Four years after the tragedy, on the day of Olya’s death, Father Nikolai came from the Cathedral of the Sovereign Russia in the city of Zhukovsk, in order to give last rites.  Father said that he would register Olga with the Romanov martyrs, because she was just such a martyr.  Pilgrims still come to Olya’s grave.

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