My father, Leonti Semenovitch Frolkov, was born into serfdom at Nikolsko, a village in the province of Novgorod, some two hundred miles north of Moscow. He was fifteen when Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861, and remembers that historic event vividly, being fond even now of telling of the days of his boyhood. Impressed into the army in the early seventies, he served during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and distinguished himself for bravery, receiving several medals. When a soldier he learned to read and write, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant. Returning home at the end of the war, he passed through Tcharanda, a fishermen’s settlement on the shore of a lake, in the county of Kirilov, within thirty miles of Nikolsko. No longer dressed as a moujik, military in gait and bearing, with coins jingling in his pocket, he cut quite a figure in the poor hamlet of Tcharanda. There he met my mother, Olga, the eldest daughter of Elizar Nazarev, perhaps the most destitute inhabitant of the place. Elizar, with his wife and three daughters, occupied a shabby hut on the sandy shore of the lake. So poor was he that he could not afford to buy a horse to carry his catch to the city, and was compelled to sell it, far below the market price, to a travelling buyer. The income thus derived was not sufficient to keep the family from hunger. Bread was always a luxury in the little cabin. The soil was not tillable. Elizar’s wife would hire herself to the more prosperous peasants in the vicinity for ten kopeks (about 2¹⁄₂_d._) a day to labour from sunrise to sunset. But even this additional money was not always to be had. Then Olga would be sent out to beg for bread in the neighbouring villages. Once, when scarcely ten years old, little Olga underwent a harrowing experience, which she could never later recall without horror. Starting home with a basketful of bread, collected from several villages, she was fatigued but happy at the success of her errand, and hurried as fast as she could. Her path lay through a forest. Suddenly she heard the howling of a pack of wolves. Olga’s heart almost stopped beating. The dreadful sounds drew nearer. Overcome by fright, she fell unconscious to the ground. When she regained her senses, she found herself alone. The wolves apparently had sniffed her prostrate body and gone their way. Her basket of bread was scattered in all directions, trampled in the mud. Out of breath, and without her precious burden, she arrived home. It was in such circumstances that my mother grew to be nineteen, when she attracted the attention of Leonti Frolkov, who was then stopping in Tcharanda on his way home from the war. She was immensely flattered when he courted her. He even bought her a pair of shoes for a present, the first shoes she had ever worn. This captivated the humble Olga completely. She joyously accepted his marriage proposal.