The weather was perfect, and all the orchards were drowned in color. My morning’s work done, I made my way to the river. Suddenly, a black-bird alighted on a bough of a neighboring birch and sang, and I answered him.
I had been singing since my early childhood. Everybody who had anything of a voice did – and still does– in my country. We sang at play and at work – mostly old folksongs, and singing with us was as natural as putting on a shirt in the morning. If Gapka did not sing when mixing the dough for vatrushki, the sweet cheese tarts, my mother might have wondered.
Prose and Poetry 