Every nation has its own signature dishes. For Jews, it is sweet and sour meat, gefilte fish and kugel, cholent and tzimmes, kneidlach and latkes. Certain products are needed to prepare these treats, and the selection of products in Kopaigorod stores was very limited. As a rule, the lowest grade produce or rotted food was sold in our vegetable stores. The state did not sell trifles, such as berries for example. Nobody saw strawberries, currants, or raspberries in official produce stores. The sale of these delicacies was a business of the bazaar.

Every year we made our own marmalade and jam. We cooked the jam in copper bowls on bonfires, primus stoves, or kerogas stoves (similar to the primus) in our yard. High-quality marmalade required many hours of cooking after which it acquired the necessary consistency and taste. We couldn't leave the cooking process unattended because the jam could burn in the copper bowls, just not as quickly as in enameled ones. We had to constantly stir the cooking fruit with a wooden blade, to free the bottom from the viscous mass which could constantly burn. My sister and I, and then my brother Yukhym, always helped our parents with this process. While it was cooking we licked the marmalade off the blade with pleasure, but we did not forget to stir. Plum jam was a must in our house, almost like potatoes. And raspberry jam, too, as a medicine for colds. And then, whatever we liked. When I worked at a cannery we made cherry compote. Each time I supervised the production of the compote I remembered our own cherries. Dad once planted a cherry tree near the house. In the first year, when a flower appeared on the tree, we were told that it should be cut off. We waited, and after another year passed, it was possible to harvest the fruit. We cooked cherry jam - regular and dry with almost all the water completely evaporated out, with and without the pits. We also produced strawberry, currant, apricot, gooseberry and quince jams. My mother bought a special copper bowl, wide and big enough to hold two buckets of fruit. This bowl shone like a mirror. Masters of the copper bowl successfully cooked a special jam.

All food was cooked on primus, kerosene or electric stoves. We had both 2-burner and 3-burner kerosene lamps. We used three, two burner kerosine lamps for illumination. Kerosene was poured into a container, burners were placed on top, and the level of the burning flame was adjusted using a mechanism. Such a 3-burner kerosene lamp was sent to us by relatives from Moscow. Of course, the kitchen smelled of kerosene and it was necessary to ventilate the room from time to time. Then we started using an electric stove for cooking. We also had a gas stove, but my mother was afraid to use it and had to sell it. There was a warehouse store for fuel and lubricants in the town, where kerosene was sold. B. Hetsilevich worked in this shop. I often went there with a ten liter canister to purchase kerosene.

When I plunge into memories, I see a picture in my mind of my mother preparing chicken broth, and stuffed fish. While everything is grinding, frying, and steaming, Mom slowly prepares the herring. I salivate over this because I love forshmak (Jewish herring recipe) so much. And whoever knew of a Jew who does not love herring! How many anecdotes and Hasidic parables are connected with this herring. In the inns, herring was mostly the only kosher food available and so the Jews ordered it when they stopped for the night. Perhaps this is where the special affection for herring comes from. It is considered a snack before dinner in any form: cut into pieces with onions, “herring under a “fur coat”, forshmak, etc. High-quality forshmak should be tender, homogeneous, but not liquid, and should not resemble zucchini caviar (a Russian vegetable spread made of carrots, zucchini and tomatoes). Sometimes boiled egg yolks are added to this forshmak. The fish is refrigerated and then served on crusty bread sprinkled with green onions and ground black pepper. Here, it is not a sin to take 50 grams of cold vodka. “Jewish lard” always tasted good with herring - thinly sliced white onion rings, abundantly soaked in vinegar and oil and sprinkled with a little sugar. I liked to take a boiled potato, put a piece of butter on top and add herring and a lot of onions. We called black radish and onions “Jewish lard”. I peeled the radish, cut it into pieces and sauteed it with the same onion and oil. Are there those Jews who do not remember how their mother, grandmother, aunt or elder sister used to cook! Let's remember latkes, our delicious potato pancakes.Mom also stuffed them with liver pate. It was, as they said in such cases, “you swallow your tongue.” When hot, they begged to be eaten, many, many of them. And I can proudly assure you that there is nothing tastier than a stuffed chicken neck or a bean tsimmes!

This is the way the young hostess Manya learned to cook stuffed fish. She closed the door to her kitchen tightly and got down to work. She decided to stuff the carp. It is easier to remove the skin from a pike than from carp, but carp looks better on the plate, and pike can be added to minced meat. With the carp, of course, one had to tinker with the skin, but Manya won. She removed the head and the skin without damaging it. Now the carp is transformed into minced meat. A manual meat grinder that was screwed to the table was used to grind the carp and pike meat together with raw onions and the pulp of a white bread roll (at six kopecks each) or matzah meal as a binder. After grinding the meat once, Manya added walnut kernels to it. Then she ground this mixture two more times. Then she beat three eggs and added them to the minced meat along with fried onions and carrots, self and pepper. Oh, it's a difficult task to knead the minced meat properly. But Manya tried. Then she filled the carp skin with minced meat. Next, she put chopped onions and carrots in a huge pot along with the bones from the carp and pike. bones of carp and pike. Then she laid the carp stuffed with the minced meat on top of the bones and filled the pot halfway with water. Manya placed a heavy lid on the pot and put it on the fire. It took two hours for the fish to cook. It would take time for the fish to satisfy a person's hunger.

People set the tables in the yard with vodka, wine, salads, sausage, caviar from zucchini and eggplant. Manya brought out her stuffed carp arranged on a plate with a lemon in its mouth. People tasted it, then they tasted more, and then much more, and they understood that Manya's fish was a masterpiece.

I noticed more than once that all of the homes had roughly the same menu, among which was “yuh mit fasoles” (a broth with beans), which I did not get tired of, even though it was cooked almost every day. A choice of pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, or sauerkraut was served with mashed beans and meat from the cellar.

And who does not love elzl, which is stuffed neck? This tasty and simple Jewish dish was very common in Kopaigorod, and elsewhere. Originally it was food for the poorer Jews who often did not have any meat available in their homes. Elzl is nutritious and hearty, especially for those who are engaged in physical labor, and need good food to have the strength to work. And what could be easier, to remove the skin from a chicken or goose, add a little chicken fat, flour, fried onions, salt, pepper, a piece of meat (if available) and with a little liver, it was even better, fill the skin and sew it closed. Then the elzl was put in a pan over a stewed onion in chicken or goose fat. The neck should not be filled too tightly, otherwise it may burst. Then with some added water, salt, pepper, and bay leaf, it was ready to cook over a low flame. When the dish was ready, what an aroma! The thread was pulled out when the dish was well cooked. It was cooled on a plate and refrigerated. The neck hardened and could be cut like a sausage or served hot. Mom liked to add chopped chicken hearts and liver to this dish.

And what a delicious scent of meatballs greeted me even before I entered the house when I came home from school. It was especially wonderful in winter, when the air was cold and clean. The smell spread, and my saliva flowed just from the thought that cutlets with white fluffy homemade bread was waiting for me on a plate.

What can I tell you, it's delicious! Yes, such dishes as the neck and gefilte fish are still the main dishes on the Jewish table nowadays.

The writer Mendele Moyher Sforim described the table of the Jews of the town of Tuneyadivka and hundreds of other towns two hundred years ago:

A piece of bread with kulesh, or gruel, is not a poor meal! And about the sweet-and-sour meat with a bun on Friday, if anyone has it, its goodness is without saying. This is worthy of a royal table! Perhaps there is nothing better than this! If someone were to talk about dishes other than stuffed fish, fried, stewed carrots or parsnips, they would look at him like a savage and throw a lot of scathing words at him.

Dishes made from “mozemail” (matzah flour) are still very popular these days, because they are tasty and practical.

Today, no one can say for sure who invented this sweet and sour meat, in which the most diverse flavors are intertwined, how the bitterness of losses and the sweetness of gains, the slight sourness of disappointments and the astringent taste of our troubles are mixed in our lives. But we can clearly say that “esik-fleish” - as it is called in Yiddish - is more than an invention of Jewish national cuisine. This is a kind of culinary symbol of the Jewish people.

Confectionery was also served at the Sabbath table. There was kiheleh (honey or egg cakes), moneleh (poppy cakes), and zemeleh (shortbread). They were bittersweet, like weeping Jewish happiness. These sweets were baked first by our grandmothers, and then by our mothers. And now we want our children to try these yummies.

And in Kopaigorod, many people baked sharlotka: a cake prepared in honor of Charles. And Charles is Karl in German! And the Germans have a worthy Karl: Karl Marx, or maybe Karl Liebknecht. Mom peeled the apples, cut them into pieces and cooked them. Then she broke several eggs and separated the yolks from the whites. First, I beat part of the egg yolks with powdered sugar and cinnamon, then added the same amount of beaten whites, then flour, a glass of sugar and some vanilla. The dough was runny, but that's okay. Then my mother greased the pan, poured a thin layer of ground breadcrumbs on the bottom and poured in half of the dough. Half of the cooked apples went on top of that, the rest of the dough and the remaining apple were next. After whipping the egg whites with powdered sugar, she poured foam on top of the cake and put it right into the oven. This is how the charlotte cake was made in honor of all Charles, whomever everyone remembered.

Chicken broth was prepared from our chickens and homemade noodles. Such a broth was almost a delicacy, and everyone tried to prepare it for Shabbat. On regular weekdays, we ate other cooked soups, such as Ukrainian borsch, and in the summer, green borsch. I still remember the time when the chicken was still a chicken, and no one thought of using chemicals to make it look yellow, and a quarter of the bird was enough for dinner for the family. What is a quarter? Probably, many people know this. And for those who do not know, I will say that a quarter is, in fact, almost half a chicken. Wing, meat on the bone and a pulka or chicken leg. Greens were always thrown into the broth - a white parsley root, to which several green sprigs of the same parsley were tied with a thread, occasionally dill and a piece of carrot.

At home, the chicken was divided into parts. The bones, wings and stomach went into broth or soup. The meat was made into cutlets and the pulka and liver were roasted. The chicken fat was separated and set aside. Mother added water to the pot and the pieces of chicken that were saved for the broth were also thrown into the pot. Then, when the foam began to rise, it was carefully removed. The broth turned yellow and transparent spots of fat floated to the top. Then a peeled onion and parsley were thrown into the broth. Green twigs were usually left for later. After some time, the onion and parsley were removed and the broth was salted and tasted. Later, a whole carrot was added to the broth. I know that some families preferred to put the whole onion in the soup with the peel so that the color of the broth became darker. When the meat was ready, the pot was removed from the fire, greens were thrown in, and the lid was closed. Then it was time to make the chicken cutlets. The meat was passed through a meat grinder together with white bread soaked in water and squeezed, onions and a clove or two of garlic. Salt, pepper and eggs were added to the minced meat. Everything was mixed, cut into patties and fried.

Now the cutlets needed a side dish, and that side dish was mashed potatoes, or a potato puree. First, they fried chicken fat until it became crackling. Then the cracklings were removed, a piece of butter was added to the pan, and chopped onions were thrown in. Peeled and finely chopped boiled potatoes were cooked at the same time. The potato was pricked with a fork from time to time, checking its readiness. Later, after draining almost all the water, it was kneaded directly in the pan, adding the fried onions with fat that remained in the pan and cracklings and salted to taste. Dinner was ready. The smell of the broth, which was still cooking, spread throughout the house. Of course, whether there would be enough meat for cutlets depended on the size of the chicken, but the price of poultry at that time was not affordable for everyone, so they mainly bought chickens for children.

And the women also prepared Jewish borsch from beef broth. Cabbage was not added to Jewish borsch, only all of the other necessary ingredients. Now cabbage is added to the broth for borsch. Wealthy people prepared borsch from “mareh bein” - the entrails of a bone (shin) from a cow.

If you were to walk down the street, you would definitely guess by the smells, what was cooking for breakfast or lunch. Smells flew out of the open windows, filling the air with aromas and mixing with each other. And it was very noticeable, because the houses were close to each other.

We had a special cone-shaped earthenware dish for poppy seeds, called a makitra. It was used with a thick wooden pestle called a makogon. It was a grinding device, now replaced by blenders. I remember how I held the makitra with my hands, and my father rubbed the poppy in it with a makogon in a circle, and sometimes peas for pies, a specialty dish of Kopaigorod Jews. Mom baked very tasty triangular pies with poppy seeds called Hamentashen, mainly on the holiday of Purim. Purim is a fun Jewish holiday. It was said that those Jews who were not prone to drunkenness got drunk on this holiday. The executioner Haman wanted to destroy all the Jews, but Queen Esther saved her people from destruction. And only Haman's ears remained. Generally, my mother baked pies, usually half with sweet cheese and half with poppy seeds. They were tastier with poppy seeds. The pies disappeared while still hot. I remember how my neighbor grandfather Froim used to say, “Ein mul in pirim” (once on Purim). And so one day I asked him, what does it mean, once in Pirim? He replied, “It means very rarely. That is, what you do once a year.”

- What is it, once a year? - I asked.

- It happens like Yom Kippur once a year. - My mother told me.

But these explanations did not convince me. This is how a small child does not understand what an adult already understands. After all, intelligence comes with age, as grandfather Froim used to say, and he was a very intelligent person. And at the end of the conversation, he added: “But it is not necessary.” And he was indeed right. By the way, when I grew up, I understood what “ein mul in pirim” is. It's something you do once a year, and it's often better than doing nothing at all.

During the winter my mother always made chicken or goose lard. Chickens or geese were fattened for this purpose. Sometimes we fattened them ourselves, sometimes we bought them at the bazaar. In order to fatten chickens, we fed them millet soaked in bread and various grains. It was more difficult to fatten the geese. They needed water so we put a big trough out for them. Only my mother handled the feed for the geese because they hissed, fussed and could bite. I remember one day I saw how my mother was feeding a goose. She squeezed the big fat goose tightly between her knees and pushed food right into its beak. The goose gurgled and swallowed. When the fat bird was slaughtered, mother carefully plucked the feathers so as not to tear its skin. Then the skin was removed, like a stocking, and carefully trimmed with a knife. My mother cut it into pieces and drowned it in schmaltz - fat. When most of the fat melted my mother added chopped onions, which browned in the fat, fried, and then poured the already ready fat into jars. We adored the “hryvn” (grills) that remained, with onions. They were tasty, crispy, salted to taste. They were added to mashed potatoes and buckwheat porridge. But if there were cracklings left, we immediately ate them straight from the plate where they had dried after frying. Mom told us to take at least a piece of bread with the cracklings but it was delicious for us without bread. We always had cans of schmaltz, especially in winter, which my mother added to soups, borsch, porridge, or we simply spread it on bread, and it was very tasty.

For some reason, the goose always evokes an association in my mind with Sholom Aleichem's stories about how the housewives of all Jewish towns fed geese before Pesach. There is also a story by I. Singer called, Why the Geese Screamed, at the end of which the mother of the main character says: “Go and cook them (geese) on the Sabbath table. Don't be afraid, they won't gurgle in the pan.”

We should also talk about potatoes which are a component of our national cuisine. Almost everyone ate boiled potatoes. The long, pink potatoes were considered the tastiest, but they cost a little more. This primordial Jewish need: meat, fish, other delicacies cost a lot of money. Potatoes were always at hand and easier to afford. And always kosher! So Jewish housewives in every town came up with a wide variety of dishes using potatoes. Our family, like some of the Jews in the town, grew potatoes and other vegetables: carrots, beets, beans, etc. People had plots of land in different parts of the town that the authorities allocated for gardens. We had a plot behind the old post office, where our family cultivated the garden.

In Kopaigorod they even sang a Yiddish song about potatoes. Translated from Russian, it goes like this:

Potatoes are always on Sundays!
On Monday - that's trouble - potatoes again!
Tuesday and Wednesday - always potatoes!
Potatoes on Friday!
And finally, on Saturday – potato kugel!

Many people are familiar with this sweet word “tsymes”. It has firmly entered our language. One often hears the following: “What are you doing! This is the very tsymes!” The word speaks of unbelievable taste. Sholom Aleichem wrote the short story, Holiday Time, about the sweet, sour, and bitter Jewish life. Tsymes is the last course of a meal. What is tsymes? Everyone thinks that it is something so delicious that it is impossible to even imagine. Tsymes is a song! It should be sung, not cooked. The most important thing in tsymes are proportions! Everything in it should be equal. That is, a kilogram of potatoes, a kilogram of meat, onions, carrots and, of course, pitted prunes, but you can also keep the pits in them if you have a dentist nearby. Mix everything, pour water, salt, pepper, put one and a half tablespoons of sugar on top. We put this goodness in the oven and wait patiently, swallowing saliva. There are so many recipes to prepare tsymes and everyone has their own. The word is usually spelled as tzimmes, rightly explaining the origin of this magical dish from the Yiddish, tsim essen, meaning, to eat a snack. But the children's perception, built on small town stereotypes, still perceives and remembers tsymys. This word was always pronounced with a special delicious chic, taste, and at the same time fingers were often raised to the lips for a kiss.

There was no high-quality tea in stores at that time, although a good tasting Georgian tea was available, and Russian tea from Krasnodar, which was in short supply. The Indian tea in stores was of low quality. Tea bags were not popular at the time. Tea was brewed in a separate teapot and the resulting brew was added to glasses and cups of boiling water. The rule of good manners was to serve tea in glasses made of thin glass, which were then placed in coasters. When very hot tea was poured into such glasses, the glass often cracked and the contents spilled over the table. In order to avoid such trouble, teaspoons were placed in the glasses before filling them with tea to dissipate the heat. The glasses were tempered, not necessarily successfully, after purchase by boiling them for some time in salt water. When the tea was finished, the already swollen and lighter teacups were often filled with boiling water once more. The brew was weak, odorless and had a tart aftertaste.

There was a national drink, called vyshnyak, which was easy to prepare. You take a cherry, put it in a jar, fill it with a certain amount of sugar, close the jar with gauze and put it on the window for forty days. And after forty days, drink to your heart's content! One might notice that vyshnyak has an unusual taste, but it is a good way to get drunk, and also eat the drunken cherry. Everyone was in a hurry to get rid of the cherry that made the drink, but what a shame to throw it away! At first it was given away to anyone who wanted it. If not taken, it was thrown into the cesspool in the garden. The chickens in the garden feasted on this unusual delicacy, and could be found already lying together with their legs in the air. It was possible to infer that a terrible chicken epidemic had begun, but it turned out that the chickens were drunk. They could be found stumbling together in the garden with their combs askew, suffering from a hangover. This actually happened to our chickens.

Jewish cuisine cannot exist without fluden or strudel. These are types of cookies formed in different shapes; the recipes have not changed for ages. The Strudel is made in the form of a roll. Of course, there are many recipes, but the essence of this culinary product does not change. The oldest known strudel recipe dates back to 1697. As a sweet or savory puff pastry with a filling inside, strudel became popular in the 18th century during the Habsburg Empire (1278–1780). Austrian cuisine was formed under the influence by cuisines of many differing groups during the several centuries of Austrian expansion under the Habsburg Empire. Strudel is related to baklava, from the Ottoman Empire, which came to Austria from Turkey through Hungarian cuisine. The freshly made dough for strudel consists of flour, oil and salt, although there are many variations in the home recipe. Chefs say that one layer should be so thin that you can read a newspaper through it. The dough is carefully rolled out so that it is large enough to cover the kneading table. The filling is placed on a relatively small area of dough, then the dough is folded over the filling. The strudel is baked and served warm. In traditional Viennese strudel, the filling is spread over 3/4 of the dough, and then the strudel is rolled out, mixing the dough with the filling and creating a patterned swirl when it is cut. Perhaps this is where the name came from, which means a vortex, a funnel, a whirlpool. Flódni - a type of fluden, was later developed by Hungarian Jews. The cake turned from a roll into something flaky and baked in a round cake pan or in a tall pan. Its layers–poppy pulp, walnuts, jam, and apples–repeat those of Viennese fluden, but unlike it, Hungarian flodnie's ingredients are separated by cakes made with chicken fat and rolled out to a thickness of about a tenth of an inch. Although we don't know the name of the first baker who prepared this wonderful dish, today there are hundreds of options for baking strudel. The recipe for strudel, fluden, handed down from generation to generation from mother to daughter, from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, which was baked in the towns of the Bar region, was recorded by my wife Svitlana Kuperstein (Muk), and provided in Appendix 9.

Jewish strudel

And how did babushka bake it? First of all, she kneaded shortbread dough on fragrant, pressed sunflower oil and added walnuts, honey, raisins, cardamon, and breadcrumbs. When the cakes are ready, she makes Fluden. She cuts a roll, more often - cakes, layer by layer and cut into rhombuses. A mixture of sugar and cinnamon - no, not with cinnamon, but with a ground stick of cinnamon! - sprinkled before tea, tradition. In the summer, when I was visiting them, grandfather Berko, on Shabbat morning, smiled and pulled the batiste napkin from the pie with a magician's motion. I was giddy with impatience in advance. He winked and put a piece of pie on a plate with a silver spatula, the old one. Ashkenazi Jews treat this pie with jealousy and trepidation. It's like a password. Say it in any decent society. And they will begin to prove to you that Esther from Kaunas is the best in the world baking Fluden. Or Aunt Riva from Vinnytsia. Yes, there is nothing like that in the world.”

I still remember those times when all products were useful without exception. Now, of course, the quality of many of them has deteriorated. Only we, the inhabitants of the last century, remember how delicious the dishes prepared from these products were. An old Yiddish proverb says: “Alz ken a mench fargesen, nor nit dos esn” - a man can forget everything except food. Food definitely occupied a main place In Yiddish culture.

Every Thursday evening my mother prepared opara in a wooden trough. Opara is a white flour dough for baking bread. The actual baking process began early morning on Fridays when my mother baked a week's worth of bread. I remember the taste and aroma of this white bread to this day. My father made special dishes for our family and neighbors to use for baking this bread. The bread came out fluffy and large with a ruddy crust. It was such an incomparable feeling to eat only the edge of the bread, and to want to eat it again. The dishes with the dough for baking were placed in the oven that had reached the desired temperature after burning wood for a while. We always had the necessary equipment at home for our cooking activities which included a poker, a shovel, a special hook, etc. I will always remember the bread I ate as a child with its special, fragrant aroma. Bread such as this cannot be found in any store now.

This fragrant homemade white bread was baked in Kopaigorod

There is a lack of seed material for spring crops for the spring sowing campaign. The sale of livestock by the peasantry for a pittance due to the lack of fodder, will have a detrimental effect on the economy.

The Yaltushkov and Kopaigorod societies opened butcher stalls. Buying cattle and slaughtering cattle, meat cost 3 kopecks for a pound. A dry autumn, as well as the beginning of winter without snow, damage to crops by mice endangers the harvest of 1925 and causes the peasants' mood to decline. (DAVO. — F. P-31, on. 1, file 31. — p. 104)

We remember that in the early 1960's after Nikita Khrushchev, a great experimenter, toured the United States, he decided to plant corn all over the USSR instead of wheat. White bread quickly disappeared for several years. We had only black bread, which was a mixture of peas and something else.

Later on, it was difficult to obtain potatoes. Our neighbor, Aunt Manya, said that several American spies were caught on a train releasing Colorado beetles and clouds of American butterflies from the windows onto our fields, which ate the entire crop.

My parents, who survived the ghetto, claimed that everything was fine and wonderful. All loudspeakers and radio stations agreed with them. We supported the Cuban revolution; we were the first to send a man into space. That time was imbued with optimism and joyful expectations.

Let's go back to the early 1930's. The Holodomor, the Great Ukrainian Famine we experienced in the countryside was facilitated by the implementation of the November 1929 plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Ukraine –On Accelerating Complete Collectivization– and the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Ukraine dated January 5, 1930 –On the Pace of Collectivization and State Aid Measures for Collective Farm Construction.– They obliged the party and Soviet authorities to –move from the policy of limiting the kulaks, the independent farmers, to the liquidation of the kulaks as a class–, in order to break the ancient structure of the Ukrainian village. But that was just the beginning. Later, the Soviet authorities legalized violent actions and the mass murder of Ukrainians. In August 1932, the –The law of five spikelets– was passed, which provided for execution or 10 years in prison for collecting crop remains in the field. On November 18, 1932, the Politburo adopted a resolution that introduced another step in this repressive regime, the black boards. Listing on black boards meant a physical food blockade of collective farms, villages, and districts. All food was seized, trade and transport of goods were prohibited. Villagers were not allowed to leave the village; the territories of settlements were surrounded by military units and militia.

There was a famine in Kopaigorod in 1933 and 273 townspeople died of hunger as a result. Among them were thirty-two Jews. My mother's sister died in 1933. She was 10 years old. Such were the realities of that time. The population of the Kopaigorod district was 73,800 in 1932. In 1934 the number was only 58,620. It had decreased by 15,280 people.

This was a man made famine. Everything that was harvested from the peasant farms was taken away and redistributed. After the expropriation of food, the so-called secondary export still awaited the peasants. Documents from the Kopaigorod district committee of the Communist Party for August 1930 states: –The party and the government noted that for the last time the collection and preparation of minor exports, yarn, rags, bones, horns, hooves, furs, fur, feathers, herbs and others have significantly decreased, which threatens the fulfillment of the export plan.– Many spoke out against the forcible confiscation of bread. The documents of the Vinnytsia archive indicate that at the beginning of 1933, about 300 people were arrested in the Kopaigorod district for speaking out. And before that, on March 1, after a detailed tour of the city, the delegates of the Murovani Kurylivtsi group said:

Everything is fine in the city, it is clear that in order for the city to survive, the support of the village is needed. On our way to the meeting we saw many fallen horses lying on the roads. It is very difficult to see that the horses are dying and there is nothing to feed them. Villages are given big plans and everything is taken out of the villages, so that there is no opportunity to raise the economy, and many collective farmers are starving. (From the special summary No. 3 of the head of the regional department of the DPU, State political department of the Ukrainian SSR - D. Sokolinsky to the secretary of the Vinnytsia City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine U. Levinzon about the mood of the delegates of the first Vinnytsia regional congress of collective farmers. March 1, 1933)

At the time when collective farm workers were sent to other villages as tow crews, all of the grain was taken from their homes, leaving almost nothing for them to eat. In connection with food difficulties, one of the collective farm workers wrote a statement about giving him 20 pounds of bread, and the head of the collective farm imposed a resolution: –Give 20 pounds of snow.–

The last crumbs of bread were taken from the peasant families of Kopaigorod and the surrounding villages. There were corpses of people swollen from hunger lying on the streets of the town. This is how the strong young man, Maksym, passed away, A. Pirnatskyi's brother and sister died of hunger. My history teacher, Arsen Shportii, told us in the early 1960's, about the famine and cannibalism that occurred in 1932-1932, although it was prohibited to share this information at that time.

There was also an uneconomic attitude to work. For example, in the collective farm “Spark of Communism” in the Kopaigorod district in 1930, a day's work earned 60 kopecks, and in 1931 it was 35 kopecks. The decrease in the income from a day of work occurred mainly as a result of poor labor organization. As a result, the collective farm did not manage to harvest more than 6 hectares of beets, 3 hectares of corn and more than 80 tons of potatoes. There was also a famine in 1925–1926. For example, in the reports of the DPU, it was noted that the peasants of the town of Kopaigorod indicated at meetings that most families would have enough grain until January 1926.

R.M. Kozeiko was the secretary of the Kopaigorod RK Communist Party in 1932, and a member of the party from 1926. Stepanov was the head of the organizational and instructional department of the district committee of the party. These two men, and the entire department, did a poor job organizing the work carried out in the whole district. Yoinis worked in the apparatus of the district committee and was involved in the organization of collective farms in the village. Kyryl Hryhorovych Melnyk, a collective farm worker of the Red Vanguard Artillery, was awarded the Order of Lenin for his achievements in agriculture. His unit harvested 835 tons of sugar beet per hectare in 1936, and 1062 tons in 1938. Okhota Sava Dmytrovych, a member of this collective farm, was also awarded the Order of Lenin.

The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR was published in February 1939. And in 1940, the Kopaigorod district committee of the CP(b)U organized a permanent seminar for collective farm activists. These seminars, held once every five days, carried out party work to correct errors in operations, and covered special and general education subjects.

Pavlyuk, the head of the passport office of the Kopaigorod district militia (RVM) Tenderuk, the handler of the service search dog, and the policeman Hrytsyuk, demanded that Morozyuk surrender the illegally stored firearms that he had collected from the village of Luchynets. After receiving a negative answer, Pavlyuk beat Morozyuk, then shoved him against the wall where he stayed during an interrogation. Tenderuk also used physical force against Morozyuk during the interrogation. Pavlyuk, Tenderuk and Hrytsyuk used the same methods of interrogation in relation to Kolesnyk, Mocharny, Oleynichenko and Kryvko and other detainees. Subsequently, Pavliuk, Tenderuk and Hrytsyuk were brought before the court and were sentenced: Pavliuk to 6 years, Tenderuk to 5 years and Hrysyuk to 1.5 years of imprisonment. (From the transcript of the closed meetings of the party organization of the UDB UNKVS, the State Security Department, in Vinnytsia region on errors in operational work. December 26, 1938)

Immediately after the liberation of the town, D.O. Slobodyanuk was appointed as the second secretary of the district committee of the party and later as the first secretary. At that time, the quality of life in the district and town largely depended on the work of the district committee of the party. During the 1950s, V. Balyuk worked as the first secretary of the district committee of the party, Z. Kuzmenko as the second, and Dyug as the third one. I was friends with Yuriy Balyuk, Slavyk Kuzmenko, Misha Dyug, the children of these leaders. We were in the same class at school. They were simple, interesting guys, fun to be with and could help in any situation.

List of Jews of Kopaigorod who died of hunger and disease during the Holodomor of 1932-1933:

David Abramovych - 16 years old, shoemaker
Itsko Abramson - 60 years old, single worker
Abram Averbukh - 29 years old, teacher
Brana Averbukh - 50 years old, single worker
Khana Basyuk - 60 years old, single worker
Berko Brickel - 65 years old, shoemaker
Suchim Handelman - 37 years old, clerk
Nuhim German - 85 years old, single worker
Monya Hershkovich - 67 years old, single
Yankel Goinison - 60 years old, collective farm worker
Dragun Gurlik - 44 years old, tailor
Molka Zilbershteyn - 16 years old
Rukhlya Kishka - 85 years old, tailor
Azrei Kushnir -73 years old, single
Zeta Kushnir - 7 years old
Sura Level - 83 years old, single
Ios Lyunkin - 46 years old, artisan of artillery
Duvyd Masonzhik - 39 years old, carpenter
Aron Okstan - 28 years old, leather syndicate employee
Olel Hryhoriy - 2 weeks
Itsek Spektor - 58 years old, employee
Psania Spektor - 70 years old, tailor
Riva Spektor - 67 years old, sole trader
Beila Stinerman - 75 years old,
State Insurance inspector
Wolf Titer - 74 years old, teacher
Alter Ferdman - 76 years old, single
Feiga Ferdman - 74 years old, single
Haya Haskelevich - 56 years old, unemployed
Dvoira Tsvitman - 28 years old, unemployed
Danyil Schwartz - l 74 years old, poor
Khana Shechtman - 6 months
Reizya Shuster - 50 years old, single

From the National Book of Memory of the Victims of the Holodomor 1932 – 1933 in Ukraine

Information on the shipment of potatoes from the Kopaigorod district by Raiselkoop to the industrial districts of Ukraine in accordance with the orders of the Raisoyuz - district union during the Holodomor of 1932

As in every other town, there was a Lenin Street in Kopaigorod. That street name was changed to Tsentralna, and it really was a central street. I think it was the longest street in town. It began at the entrance to Kopaigorod and ended near the pond. Even though it was the main street, there were small houses on it that were built by the residents themselves before the war, and in the 1950's and 1960's. Willows grew by the edge of the pond and their branches leaned towards the water. I went to the pond to break off some branches before Sukkot. On this holiday, plants are assembled into a lulav, and we used the willow for this.

The older people in Kopaigorod remember how the Kopaigorod pond was once famous for the avenue of red weeping willows that grew along its shore, and were much admired by residents and guests. These old-timers said that the willows were planted before 1917. The size of the dam was significantly expanded with some reconstruction in the 1980's, and concrete slabs were laid in the place where those willows used to grow.

Cast your fishing rod and you can dream! They used to catch crayfish near the bridge. It was so beautiful to be fishing in the pond early in the morning. My neighbor and friend, Misha Spektor, really liked to go fishing in the morning. One can sit in silence near the water and wait for the fish to start biting. Too bad we can't bring those happy days back.

And who do you think lived on Ilyich Street? That's right, 80 percent of its residents were Jews. There were also shops on Ilyich Street and one could always meet fellow Jews when shopping in those stores. It often seemed as if there was more talking than buying going on in the shops. The area of the stores resembled the benches outside of homes, where the yakhnes, the talkative, gossipy women would share all of the nayas - the news. If the olte yakhnes, the old women, were sitting on the bench, the younger ones gathered in the shops, where the exchange of news took place standing rather than sitting.

In addition to the department store, there was, and still is, a church on this street and a bookstore. There were always a few people in the bookstore. Few people had books at home, though, except for textbooks for school children. Those who loved to read would borrow books from the library for free, rather than purchase them from the store.

There was also a teahouse (canteen) on this street where you could eat and drink. Many people crowded here in the evenings and on weekends and held all kinds of philosophical conversations over a mug of beer. This establishment was called the lower tea house as there was another one closer to the entry of the town. Later there was a grocery store-cafe on this street. Those schoolchildren who attended the extended day program, ate in this cafe. The cafe also sold ice cream which was produced at a local dairy. The talented organizer Riva Spektor managed the teahouse for many years. Back in 1913 there was a teahouse in the town that belonged to the Society of People's Sobriety, and that says it all.

There was a post office, a telegraph and telephone exchange, and a savings bank on Lenin Street. My father was able to get funds allocated for the construction of a new post office building, constructed in the 1970's under his guidance. There had been a post office in Kopaigorod as early as 1772. The postal route passed through the villages of Markivtsi, Snytkiv, Kopaigorod, Murafa and on to Bratslav. The mail coach arrived once a week. In Podillya, transportation along postal routes were mainly carried out by covered wagons, which, in addition to cargo, could accommodate several passengers. A new stage in the development of the post office began in 1885 when the postal and telegraph institutions merged. As a result, an extensive network of mail and telegraph offices, new institutions of communication, were created in cities and towns and larger villages.

The former premises of the canteen. The village club is now located here.

Around the same time, in 1904, the small town postal stations were transferred to the local Zemstvo administrations. The costs of operating the stations were taken over by the managers who had the right to profit from the provision of postal services. Kopaigorod had this kind of post and telegraph office at the beginning of the 20^th century. Urgent messages began to be transmitted by telegraph and telephone, and postal correspondence and parcels were forwarded by road or rail transport. The postal service still utilized horses for transportation and delivery for a long time. For example, mail delivery from the train arriving at Kopay station to the villages was transported in this manner into the early 1960's. At the beginning of the 20^th century Sh. Oksman owned the local Zemstvo post office in the town. Later, Oksman handed over the post office to D. Grebelsky as a dowry gift. D. Grebelsky owned the post office from 1916 to 1921. He employed three coachmen at the post office and had three pairs of horses. At a later time he had ten horses.The post and telegraph office in Kopaigorod, which also had a credit and loan desk, was called Kopaigorodska.

A telegraph form used at a telegraph station, 1872. Telegraph to Mogiliev-Podolsky from Kamenets-Podolsky on December 31, 1785

A piece of a paper mail bag in which periodicals were sent to the post office

A section of a postal envelope with stamps and an imprint of the Kopaigorod stamp, 1904

And there is a well that remains on the main street, a mute witness of our former life before the war. The box is still the same, the metal gate handle has been polished to a shine by tens of thousands of touches. The chain and bucket have probably been changed, and there is also a new fence around the well. You can approach it, touch it, and dive into memories.

The well on Central Street

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Bundians, those who opposed Jewish repatriation to Israel or the creation of a separate Jewish state gathered on Central Street. Sometimes everyone would gather at someone's apartment, carefully avoiding potential spies or gendarmes. You can imagine such gatherings. Ideological slogans, angry tirades, audacious plans to rob the cash register to replenish the party funds, so many disputes that had no end. There were usually homes of wealthy Jews, the gevirim, along the central street of the town, as early as the 18th century. Further away from these houses, and nestled close together, were kaptsunim, the homes of slightly poorer Jews. From this word, people in the city of Bar called the neighborhood Kaptsanivka. Jews sometimes enviously uttered the word gevirim and at the same time spoke contemptuously of kaptsunim. Artisans, such as cobblers, tailors, stove-makers, blacksmiths, carters, definitely belonged to a lower caste. Those who considered themselves higher in rank, although partially dependent on lower castes, turned their noses away from them. The Jewish writer, Mendele Moycher-Sforim, had this to say about artisans:

In the synagogue, his place was on the very back bench. He never participated in the meetings of the town councils where city affairs were discussed. No one was interested in his opinion. At the slightest suspicion of insufficient attention to him, they could be insulted, slapped, or even rewarded with fists. His children could be abducted and sent to the army instead of the children of wealthy Jews.

If the elderly liked to sit on the benches, then we, the younger generation, gathered near the Memorial Square, where we sat on the wooden railings of the fences. Every evening, young people gathered near the square which we called the stock exchange. Laughter and conversation could be heard near the houses until late in the evenings during the summer, but the adults did not complain about the noisy children. And there were Ukrainians who hung out among us who were mistaken for Jews. After all, many of their parents knew Yiddish and were welcomed into Jewish homes. For us young people, this square was a meeting place, where we played the bayan accordion, the guitar, and sang songs. It was in the square where everyone decided when to meet to go to the dance, or agreed to attend a birthday party or wedding. This went on for many years. It was so long ago. How I would like to spend at least an hour there with everyone, near the square where I spent my school years and my youth. Every time I came to Kopaigorod, the square was the meeting place.

The street also witnessed Jewish, Christian and Catholic holidays, funerals and weddings. The divine aromas of phlox and pansies, jasmine and matiola, and astringent scents of curly-purple lilac were inhaled everywhere. In the evening, the street fell silent, coughed, creaked, sighed. The clatter of the wheels of single carts, the clatter of shoes, heavy breathing, and laughter filled the air. Our Jewish streets were flooded with sun in spring and summer, smelled of cherry and apple blossoms, and the aroma of delicious Jewish dishes.

My sister and I liked to go out with my mother for a walk, and next to every hut there were neighbors sitting and talking.

- “A git morgn” or “a git tug”, good morning, good afternoon, - we told them. “Vus ertseh?” What do you hear?

And we didn't say these words just like that. We and the neighbors really wanted to know if everything was fine. Everyone naturally knew everything about everyone. These were simple Jews, among whom I spent my childhood and school years. All this is in my memory and lives with me. As long as we remember, we live.

Central Street ends in the distance near the river

The Soviets abolished the term, small town, by a resolution of the VUCVK, or Central Executive Committee. This resolution, dated October 28, 1925, introduced the designation of an urban-type village in its place. The Committee believed that an urban-type settlement would take an intermediate place between a city and a village. It was only at the beginning of the 21^st century that the word, town, was actively used again in maps, historical, geographical and local history.

Almost all towns were established and developed within the territory along natural landscaping, geographic structures and borders. This contributed to the formation of peculiar town boundaries and so the town plan was created. The geographical town landscape of Kopaigorod is called valley-slope. A well-defined center of town with streets, alleys, and squares was formed consistent with the natural landscape.

The schematic plan of the town's center shows only those streets on which the Jews lived and local institutions, from about 1960 to the end of the1980's. B. Khmelnytskyi Street, which is not shown on the map, is located perpendicular to May Day Street (now Travneva Street) and ends near the old Jewish cemetery. D. Kremer, the last Jewish woman in Kopaigorod, lived on this street. Across the street was the spring mentioned earlier in this book, from which people drew their water. The street names are listed on this drawing as they were known at that time.

Sketch of the development plan of the center of Kopaigorod

1. This is the power station that once supplied the entire village with electricity, but only in the evening and for several hours in the morning.
3. The families of G. Getsilevich, A. Feldman, and Duchovny lived in this house.
4. House of H. Katz. Katz worked in a hospital.
10. House of Khrenovetski and Averbukh on B. Khmelnytskyi Street.
12. House of K. Abramovich and Saletsky.
15. The families of V. Hetsilevich and S. Hetsilevich lived here, on B. Khmelnytskyi Street.
16. Bakery building, former synagogue and school building, on May Day Street.
17. The Edelman family lived here.
18. The house of the Milhiker family, my classmate Eti.
19. The families of K. Bidny and B. Iosevych lived here.
20. House of the Mesonzhnik family.
21. The Lyulkins lived in this house.
22. The house where H. Seltzer's family lived.
23. Lipkopker's house. He came from Shargorod, first rented an apartment, and then bought this house.
24. There used to be a shop here, at the corner of Pershotravneva and B. Khmelnytskyi Streets, where Pesya traded.
25. Workshops of the industrial complex which included the sausage workshop owned by V. Vinokur, father of my classmate Zyuni, and the silk workshop, owned by F. Herman.
26. The house of Sh. Cherkavskyi's family.
27. M. Kalika's big house.
28. The family of veterinarian A. Lindvor lived here.
29. Sh. Farber's family lived here. I was friends with their son Alik.
30. The family of Ya. Zhivylko lived in this house, and on the other side, Ya. Spivak who was a shochet.
31. The family of F. Herman, the owner of the silk factory, lived here.
32. Three families lived in this large two-story house: I. Bunyak, E. Spector and our Kuperstein family, as well as E. Hershkovich, my grandmother's sister.
33. Snipers and Naftulishins lived in this two-story building.
34. House of the Kalinovskys.
35. The house of R. Cherkavskyi, whose son was one of the first to leave for Israel, having returned money to the state to pay for his education.
36. The family of Ya. Zusia, a war invalid, a good tailor, and the family of L. Fishylevich lived here.
37. A. Grinshpun lived here.
38. D. Belenky lived here.
39. H. Shmuner lived here.
40. The house of the family of F. Schneider, who was the water carrier, the vosertruger, about whom I wrote in chapter 17.
41. The bank building, when there was still a district, on May Day Street
42. The Seltzer family lived here.
43. The family of G. Schwartz lived in this very old house.
45. The Liebman family and the P. Moraynis family lived in this house, which also contained a small bread shop. Before the bread shop, there was a bookstore where Z. Rosenblit, the grandfather of my classmate Izzy Rosenblit, worked.
46. Grocery store.
47. The Tkach family lived here.
48. The house where the Holoborodkas and Kodners lived, and my classmate L. Lyakhotska.
49. S. Fishylevich, Moskalnik, and A. Presman lived here.
51. The house where Berezin-Khasyuk, Weitzman, Shafir, and A. Rud lived.
52. The families of Ya. Braverman, A. Katsura, P. Rudya, and M. Tkacha lived here.
53. The Solomenskis lived here.

Schematic plan of the Jewish settlement of Kopaigorod

54. The house of A. Rosenblit's family, my classmate Izya, lived here.
55. The Zimmermans and Kernermans lived here.
59. House of the family of V. Kats.
61. The house where the families of H. Bilenkoy, Deginy, and Shtram lived.
62. The families of U. Avis, J. Kleban, S. Schneiderman, and Saltsmans lived here.
63. Sosis, Sh. Bogomolny, and Shtivelman lived here.
64. Ostrovsky, S. Koifman, and S. Fishylevich lived here.
65. T. Nishcha and D. Moreinis lived in this house.
66. The families of Hoykhman, E. Moshkovich, and L. Bogomolny lived here. Bogomolny worked at the post office as a telephone operator.
67. The families of B. Gelin, V. Hontmacher, and B. Shor lived here.
68. The Wasserman family lived here.
69. I. Kipershlak and Borukhovich lived here.
70. H. Belenky lived here.
72. House of the N. Milman family.
73. The house of the S. Segal family.
74. Sh. Erlichman lived here.
75. I. Schwartz lived here.
76. In this building there was the district finance department, and later a library for adults and children.
77. M. Abramovich lived here.
78. House of the family of Abram Hetsilevich on Lenin Street.
79. V. Zubok lived here.
80. The house of S. Gelina's family, my classmate Fira lived here.
81. T. Segal lived here.
82. E. Zubok lived here and there was a store of industrial goods.
83. A hairdressing salon in which only Jews worked.
84. The Shusterman, Tkach, and Leibish families lived in this house.
85. The Rabinovych and Pogorelov families lived here.
86. Store for household goods and iron products.
87. A department store, and a new post office building was built here, opposite the street from the store in 86.
88. The Shafir family lived in this house.
89. G. Katz and L. Epelboim lived here.
90. Office of the district consumer union.
91. District consumer union club.
92. Pesya Shkolnik lived in this house.
93. Here lived Y.Ya. Kramer, former director of a Jewish school.
94. The Shteymans lived here.
95. House of the Katzman family.
96. Industrial plant.
97. The Regional Executive Committee and a hotel were in this building.
98. The District Komsomol department and RAGS, the Bureau of the Registration of Civil Status Acts, were located here.
99. The family of M. Bogorochyna lived here. Bogorochyna worked as a postman.
100. There was a dental office in this building.
101. House of the families of E. Kisner, and Ya. Milman.
102. House of culture, former premises of the synagogue.
103. E. Vinokur lived here.
104. M. Hetsilevich lived here, and nearby there was a grocery store on May Day Street.
105. H. Braverman and H. Herman lived here.
106. The house of the family of Y. Farber. He was a photographer and worked at home.
108. Sh. Borukhovich lived here.
109. Several families lived in this house: V. Groysman, Veksler, Roizen, Moshkovich, and P. Krichevska.
110. Store for stationery, school supplies and musical instruments and assorted cultural goods.
111. The Binshtok and Okopnik families lived here.
112. Home of Greenman, a school music teacher.
113. B. Hetsilevich lived here.
114. S. Abramovich's family lived here.
115. Z. Binstok lived here.
116. In this building there was a tea house - dining room - now a village club.
117. The house where V. Vinokur's family lived. There was once a pharmacy at this address.
118. There was a savings bank here, which moved to new premises after the construction of the new post office.
119. The building of the Party District Committee. After the liquidation of the district, a kindergarten and the village council were located here.
120. A shop, formerly a printing house.
121. M. Borukhovich lived in this house. He sold gas pipelines and filled siphons.
122. A. Koifman's family lived here.
123. The family of S. Fishilevych, a war invalid and an active resident of Kopaigorod, lived here.
124. The school building where primary classes were located was built at the end of the 19^th century.
125. Church.
126. The office of the district consumer union, and later the retail village store or silpo.
127. Shop.
128. There used to be a children's library here.
129. A church, formerly a cinema.
130. A school dormitory, formerly a police station.
131. Polyclinic and pharmacy.
132. Shoemaker's workshop.
134. Shop.
135. Television and radio workshop.
136. Sewing workshop.

Of course, I could not remember all of them, because a person has a tendency to forget. So, let those I have forgotten forgive me. In addition, some of these buildings have been destroyed, and not a trace of them remains.

Photographs on the following pages taken by M. Heifetz show Jewish houses as they existed in 1989. The photos are from the St. Petersburg Institute of Jewish Studies. .

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

Jewish house, late 20th century

The basement of this building was a prison during the war in 1941–1944

One of the most famous places in the town was the public bathhouse which was located near our house. On Fridays, at the end of the week, people walked in the same direction on the road past our house. The scene was set with full bags in people's hands, laughter, the crying of children who were pushed to keep up, and the heavy sighs of elderly people. It probably looked strange if you didn't know what was going on. And where was this crowd going? To the bathhouse! The large room of the bathhouse was divided in half, for separate use by men and women. The adults had to buy tickets to enter the bathhouse from a ticket office like that of a movie theater. Ten people could use the bath at one time, and each person was allocated one hour's time in the facility. When entering the bathhouse, everyone carried full bags with them that included clothing, soap, a birch broom, a brush and towels, and the men also carried a bottle of vodka. Once in the bathhouse you could rent a separate cabin or wash in the common room. People were given a basin and a key to the closet where they put their clothes. All the rest, whose turn had not yet come, sat down to wait on the benches and took out sandwiches and sweet water for the children to keep them quiet and close by. The old men talked and joked among themselves. When a young man came out of the bath, the old men would say to a girl sitting next to them, “Kik, geyt a bucher, er ant reyn ober tumed shein” (look at the young man, he is clean today, but always handsome), or “Er iz a voylekh buher, mid agite mishpuche mid a gelt” (he is a good boy, from a good family and with money). As those who entered first left the bathhouse after their time was up, they passed by some of the waiting men, already drunk from their vodka. The men would exclaim, “Oh, azoy givein git” (this is so good), and the women answered : “Got tsidank, di bist ba mir reyn, shoyn kim a eim” (thank God, you are clean and go home). This happened every Friday morning, because on Shabbat you had to be clean.

Before the war, there was another well-known place in Kopaigorod which I previously wrote about in these pages. It was the multi-purpose artel named after May 1. This building also included the cobblers' shop, which was organized in 1929. Initially, eight shoemakers worked here: D. Oblingorskyi, A. Shisman, A. Presman, U. Avis, B. Babik, E. Rudnytskyi and others.

Davyd Moshkovich of Oblingor (born in 1900) was arrested on January 4, 1938, charged with counter-revolutionary activity, and sentenced to 10 years in the camps. On September 2, 1959, he was rehabilitated by the decision of the Vinnytsia Regional Court No. 9585. (National Bank of the Repressed). He served the entire term and then returned to work in this artel. Levit Marcus was the head of the cobblers' workshop and later became the chairman of the board of this company. He was a member of the Community Party from 1925, originally from Romania, and moved to Kopaigorod in 1934. He worked as the chairman of the local trade union committee of this artel before his arrest in 1938, at which time he was shot. Markus was a political strategist during the civil war. He was rehabilitated by the Communist Party in 1989.

By the way, many people in Kopaigorod knew the shoe business. My father also knew how to do small shoe repairs such as hemming insoles, hemming felts and other small jobs.

In the 1950's, hardly anyone in Kopaigorod had a home telephone. To be honest, it was not needed. But we had one, because my father worked as a chief accountant at the post office. If you needed to pass something on to someone, you could simply meet that person on the street, in the bazaar or in a store. Information quickly reached the addressee, while everyone already knew why you were looking for him. There was a telephone exchange if someone needed to place a call to another city. The telephone exchange sent you a telegram which indicated the appointed time for the requested telephone conversation. Everyone has a phone today and so there is very little live communication. We used to mail someone a postcard on which we wrote wishes with our own hand. Today, through a mobile phone, a message is sent with one keystroke.

This photo from the 1950's illustrates a shoemaker's workshop. All of the shoemakers here are Jewish. D. Oblingorsky is sitting on the far right, and Moskalnik is standing on the right.

Jewish weddings remain in my memory. The wedding processions were exciting. There were master Jewish klezmer musicians who played the violin, the drum, and clarinet. One heard the magical sounds of “Freilekhs”, then the cheerful “Tum-balalaika”, “Bagles (Baybelach)” and the famous “Seven Forty”. The sound of the violin was truly mesmerizing. The Jewish melody of the old town vibrates and resonates with the strings of the soul, and magically pours and spreads in all of its corners.

Klezmer Jewish folk musicians did not have a musical education in the usual sense for us. They studied either in families, or at weddings, or from neighbors who were musicians, and learned all of the melodies by ear. The Yiddish word klezmer comes from the words “klei” meaning tool, and “zemer” meaning melody. Previously, this word meant only the musicians who played the music, most often violinists. Klezmer came to be used not only for the music of an individual instrumentalist or ensemble, but also for the entire style of Jewish folk music.

Jewish musicians played so well that it took my breath away. They were invited from Zhmerynka, Shargorod, Mogilev-Podilskyi and other towns because good musicians were known everywhere. Weddings were arranged at home, and those who were wealthier would put up huts or rent a large room. Big weddings were held in the club. Many dishes of Jewish cuisine were prepared. The most important food, of course gefilte fish and the Jewish sweets fluden and leikah, were distributed in portions to each person's hands. The taste was always unsurpassed. The wedding celebrations usually began on Saturday evening and often continued all night until the morning.

In Raisa Husak's book Traditions of Klezmer of Podolia, the music at a Jewish wedding is described as follows:

Freilekhs sounds were heard throughout the town, from morning to evening and from evening to morning. Men and women danced separately from each other, creating two circles. Here the flute rejoices, overflowing with bravura trills, as if it wants to drown out sadness. But in this bravado, there is so much longing, so much pain, so much despair that, feeling amused by his powerlessness, the flute begins to choke on loud sobs. The violin echoes mournfully on a thick string.

The Jews had the most beautiful weddings. But the most interesting thing happened before the wedding. All those invited, especially women and girls, ran to join the line at the tailor shop, some even traveled to other cities for this. But before that, it was necessary to get material for sewing a dress through acquaintances who worked at the base. A wedding was also a fashion show. If the wedding was in the summer, then the summer season show started from the house to the wedding place. If the wedding took place during the winter, then the display of new models of fur coats, boots, sheepskin coats and coats began on the central street of Kopaigorod. More than half of people boasted about things they received from abroad or bought from someone who received these parcels. Everyone stood and waited for the bride and groom. During the time before they arrived the scene was a kind of fair of beautiful clothes. Those mothers who had adult daughters sent their sons to scout to find out if there was a handsome guy and would immediately make a shidduch (marriage agreement) on the spot. As everyone in the crowd saw these interactions, no one would further approach this young man or this girl for their acquaintance, because they were already spoken for. It was always like that. For example, perhaps that is how in 1867, Ruhlya Leiderman from Kopaigorod was married to Naftula Kartsman from Shargorod. Perhaps they met in Kopaigorod at a wedding.

I feel like I am in Kopaigorod again. While here, I am part of a Jewish wedding accompanied by klezmers from Shargorod. I walk next to the drummer and I'm the happiest person because Motl let me touch his drum and even hit the cymbal.

Kopaigorod was shaken by the arrival of a geological expedition to the town in the early 1960's. People worked in the surrounding area looking for minerals, but did not tell us exactly what kind. Most likely, they were looking for uranium or something similar. The members of this expedition stayed in town for about a year. Everything was interesting to us. We examined the strange machines and the elements of the drilling rig and other equipment that we normally would have seen only in books. And here, everything was in front of our eyes, and we could see this technique from all sides. Apparently the expedition did not find what it was looking for as it pulled out of the town. I remember that N. Didenko, a Ukrainian meteorologist, TV presenter, and blogger, was born in Kopaigorod. She wrote about her birth in April 1961 as follows:

The parents (the father is a geologist) were returning to Kyiv, the mother felt that someone was about to be born and they were forced to stay in the village of Kopaigorod of Bar district of Vinnytsia region, where the geological expedition was stationed and where I was safely born.

Another important location in Kopaigorod was the airfield of the Kopaigorod civil air fleet. Resolution No. 54 of the Vinnytsia Regional Council of Workers' Deputies dated April 19, 1944 was issued about the organization of air communication in the region. Then airfields were built in the district centers of the region, including in Bar and Kopaigorod. A resolution by the district executive committee on the allocation of land for the construction of an airfield was adopted in July, 1948, and in January 1949, this construction was approved by Resolution No. 96-016. Flights to Vinnytsia and some places of the region were organized. Sanaviation (sanitarian flights) and agricultural aviation also used the services of the airport. With the liquidation of the district and the expansion of the network of roads and railways, local aviation was closed. Since we, the children, knew the aviation schedules, we came at the specified times to watch the planes take off and land. Of course we were not allowed close to the action. Only the pilots of the agricultural flights allowed us into the cabin of the plane. What a joy it was to sit in the cabin. At present, the territory of the airfield is distributed among the workers of the social sphere of the village for conducting personal agricultural works. This information is displayed in the Public Cadastral Map of Ukraine.

Lilacs grew in most of the yards in Kopaigorod. In the morning, upon opening the windows, I was immediately intoxicated by the aroma of the lilacs which filled everything around the area. The color of the lilacs was certainly eye-catching, and it was the first thing one might experience stepping out into the yard. There was always a fragrant bouquet of lilacs in a vase in every house. And we, like all children, loved to look for a flower with five petals to know for sure that all our wishes would definitely come true.

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