"... and that’s enough for today!“
  Stirring and wonderful childhood memories of A. Saveliev (adapted by G. Oberle)

Uncle Fedia is what we called an old man who, from time to time, brought us eggs, honey and goat’s cheese.  Sunburnt, with a white bushy beard, always dressed in suede leather, this “uncle” smelled of the woods and honey.

It was the beginning of that unfortunate year, 1933.  Here and there on the roadsides in Kiev lay the dead bodies of those who had frozen or starved to death, and civil servants dragged away all those whose hands bore no blisters, never to be seen again!
The „uncle“ came again.  This time he had brought nothing with him.  Too dangerous, he said, the militias had already shot some people because of a few potatoes they had tried to smuggle into town in their coat pockets. 
The uncle had come because of me. "Your father seems to have been arrested, and if it is so, they will soon come to fetch your mother too, but you we want to save” he said. 
And the “uncle” took me away from Kiev.  We journeyed by train approximately 80 kilometres to the village of Irpen, in a forest and peat marsh region.  From there we went on foot hour after hour through frozen moorlands and dense mixed woods. 
The “uncle”’s hideaway stood by a stream surrounded by woods.  It included a ooden hut and some small barns.  The yard was teeming with turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens and some birds that I was familiar with.  In the dirty snow, amongst  the colourful birds, there were also some multi-coloured goats. 
A crane ruled over the scene.  He had been assigned the position of “overseer” for years already.  He kept the order between the feathered comrades, protected them from all beasts of prey.  Even the big birds of prey showed respect for his enormous beak.
Thus it had begun, a wonderful game of Robinson where I as a ^thirteen-year old city boy played the man Friday. 
Uncle Fedia knew how to cook delicious buckwheat with mushrooms and to bake sweet-smelling gingerbread.  The goats provided us with milk and butter and in the stream one could catch fish even with ones hands. 
One day Uncle Fedia repaired old beehives which had been carved from a stump, and I was allowed to fill in the cracks and crevices with hot wax.  Then we started to run out of wax, and Uncle Fedia sent me into the hut to get some more from the big box behind the cupboard.  Behind the cupboard were two boxes of equal size.  I opened the first one – it was full of icons.  In the second one was the wax.  In the evening, I told Uncle Fedia that I had seen the icons and asked him to tell me about them.
At the time, in Russia, anything that had to do with religion was forbidden.  All the churches and church facilities had been torn down or converted into warehouses, cinemas and factories. The priests, nuns, monks and many believers had been killed by the millions or deported to Siberia.  The icons too were forbidden, and if anyone was found having some, it was a certain one-way ticket. 
“Good” said Uncle Fedia, “but if there is something you don’t understand, ask right away.  These icons are family icons.  When your grandmother was driven from her house, she was only permitted to take with her as much as she could carry.  She took with her neither jewellery nor furs, just two suitcases full of icons.  And I was to hide them for her”.

"And why are the icons so valuable?", I wanted to know.  Uncle Fedia stoked the fire and put on some more wood, lit a candle in front of the Mother of God icon and made the sign of the cross.  “It is so ", he said as he sat down to face me.  “you saw the train.  Our ever-benevolent Father, God, is the station.  All trains have but one destination – home, home to the Father.  The engine is God’s son, Jesus Christ.  Only through Him are the trains able to journey homewards.  That’s how it is, you understand? 
But the railway station, the engine, the train cars make no sense without rails.  The rail tracks are what connect everything up, like common love.  Without love, movement is hardly possible and without love Jesus Christ finds it difficult to take us home. 
"And what about belief?", I asked. "Without love, belief is useless” Uncle Fedia replied. 
"Look at the heathens and the Jews, they all believe in the same God as we do, but they know not Jesus Christ or not enough or refuse to accept Him for who He is.  With Jesus Christ, it’s like this: if you know Him, you must love Him; it can’t be any other way.  Yes, he continued, you have to know Jesus Christ – have you understood that?”
"And what about the icons?” I persisted. 
“In order that God’s train keeps on running, the heavenly Father sent down the Holy Spirit and founded the Christian brotherhood, the brotherhood of love, of joy and mercy, the brotherhood of those who have received salvation!.  And these are all the holy Church of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  And that we may not miss the train, we have been given a timetable: the Holy Bible and the icon.  They describe to us the history of salvation, the sacraments that have given us the Holy Spirit, the Saints who pray with us and for us and set an example of love, and the liturgy, in order that all leads to recognition of Jesus Christ.  Enough said for today” Uncle Fedia said.  “You are quite tired already.  Let us say prayers together”.  Uncle Fedia kneeled down before the icon, and so did I.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to us sinners.  Take us along on your train, also those who do not know you, and those who do not want to know you!”