Kalaskshinovka 1912.
"Your letter enclosing Pata's and the picture of Lutie was the reward of a walk of six to seven miles with a ton of mud on each boot, a night on the floor and a return at dawn on a rickety horse horseback. Everything is flourishing here, plenty of occasion for meditation and consideration. I enjoy tremendously the peasants' bath house. One can climb higher and higher and lie on shelves in different stages of heat. I got so steamed up I wanted at one moment to open the door and just fly out into the field without a stitch. When I look out on the plains here and then think of New York and the subway, my brain simply stops. This is about as small and poor a village as exists, yet there is a teacher and all the younger generation read and write, and the Tartars are really wise owls. I have no more desire to go to Persia. I am afraid that country is done for. I think Arizona is as safe as anywhere if they don't irrigate. Still those mission teachers are a pest. There is something fundamentally wrong with everything I know!"
Hardly had this episode of the famine finished, that the Red Cross sent units to Belgorod in the Ukrania where there was a great concentration of pilgrims for the canonization of St. Josephat. The Government once again set up feeding stations and hospital units to take care of the sick and aged and all emergencies arising from the concentration of many thousands of pilgrims. Once again Nelka was there and it was of great interest to her.
During all of these absences Nelka kept her little dog Tibi either with us in the country or with friends in Kasan, the Krapotkins. She went to pick up Tibi in Kasan from where she wrote in 1913.
"I caught some horrible microbe just before I arrived and had a terrible grippy cold which kept me in the house and in bed—but it is over now. I feel rejuvenated 15 years and full of energy. I almost believe it is climatic. The feeling is so different. Isn't it awful about the priest being hung in Adrianople? I don't see how the whole of Europe doesn't stand together to drive the Turks out of Christian countries."
(This was written just before the start of the Balkan war.)
Nelka returned to St. Petersburg and made preparations to leave for the Balkans. The Russian Red Cross was sending out units to the Bulgarian Army. After returning from Kasan, Nelka stayed for a while at my mother's place in the country. This was a time when I was preparing for my entry examinations to the Lycee and she wrote about that to her aunt, who was interested in everything pertaining to education.
Writing from Poustinka (our country estate) in 1913:
"I am very much hopped up and stirred up and feel very full of life. I had a very pleasant short stay in Kasan. Enjoyed seeing people very much—so much youth I have not seen for ages—young people, young officers, young marriages, and then such delightful old people. The young officers were just simply waiting for mobilization. About war, everything is most uncertain. Half the people say it will be immediately, the other half that it will be avoided—no one can tell anything. I am going to Adrianople Tuesday. Baroness Ixkull is there with a large division and I think that just now there will be more to do than ever. I go first to Sofia."
"Yesterday I went with Veta (my mother) and Max to town. We came back in the evening and after dinner I had a most delicious sleep on the sofa by the fire—Max waking me up every few minutes."