Hero of Socialist Labor A. G. Stakhanov I myself am an Orlovsky. Born in the village of Lugovaya, Ostrovskaya volost, Livensky uyezd. We lived poorly in our village. There were about 120 yards in it, and only 10 - 15 could boast of prosperity. Our family lived poorly. There was almost never enough bread from our farm, and there were 5 mouths in the house - my father and mother and there were three of us children: two sisters and me. It was necessary to borrow grain from Kulak in the spring for sowing and for food. It got really bad for us when the First World War broke out and my father was taken into the army. My mother decided to rent me out to Kulak when I was 9 years old. The owner fed me for my work and plowed four tithes of our land. That's all the pay, the landlord didn't even give me my trousers, and I went around in rags. There was enough work to do. I had to graze the cattle and clean up the yard. At the age of eleven, I was assigned as a lieutenant. In the summer he helped herding a herd, and in the winter he finally got into school. And so it went: work in the summer, and school in the winter. I learned three winters off, but failed the fourth. I had to go back to renting, but I could already read and write. Our family knew nothing about my father's fate: no news came from him. Only in 1919 did he return home. It turned out that he had been an Austrian prisoner for four years. With his return, we felt better. My father bought a horse (helped by a combat engineer), life began to gradually improve. Soon a big trouble came to our family. My father got cold in the forest when we were harvesting firewood in the winter, was ill for a long time and died in the summer of 1922. A few months later, my mother also died. There are three of us left. I had to eat and drink, and the farm was completely ruined without my father. Again I went on loan to Kulak. Farmhand at the mill-worked at the engine, loader. And then I had a dream: to earn money, buy a horse and ... ge ... Читать далее