The past leaves memories of values ​​for posterity. And materialized artifacts do not always sink into the soul. Stories about love and devotion, sincerity and self-esteem – that’s what we perceive as the greatest value! Why? Maybe we are missing them today. This story is not a fiction. This is a memoir shared by Iryna Vyshnevetska, Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine, Head of the Research and Exposition Department of the Serhiy Korolyov National Museum of Cosmonautics

She died in 1976, almost 50 years ago. My grandmother is also gone, for whom Stanislava Venediktovna, or Mrs. Stasya, as we called her, was an older friend. My mother, who was with her in the last years of her life, left.… We remember Stanislava Venediktovna Yaskevych, a woman who became a model of culture, resilience and courage for us.

Our acquaintance took place in the seventies. I remember in my childhood mind that a gorgeous young lady in a fur dress, pictured in old photos, and a little grandmother who speaks Polish are one and the same woman. It was then that I learned that the father of our distant relative, Venedikt Prokopovych Yaskevych, had served in forestry, and in the 1906 List of Nobles of the Volyn Province, the Yaskevychs were listed at number 172.

When we met, Mrs. Stanislava lived modestly – she had one room left from the big house on Podilska Street, which once belonged to the Yaskevych family. But in the small, cozy living room were both ancient icons and paintings that Mrs. Stanislava had once brought from a trip to Italy. Particularly striking to my children’s imagination postcards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

An entry in the addressee’s column was striking: “Her Highness Stanislava Venediktovna Dolmat. Own house, Podilska Street, 15 (26)”. According to the Table of Ranks, which indicated the relationship between the various ranks of military, state and court services, this was the address given to civilian officials from the eighth to the sixth rank and members of their families. I really liked Stanislava Venediktovna’s memoirs about distant countries, about people she knew and loved; together we admired the colors and subjects depicted on the postcards. I remember a massive oak table with lots of cute little things, photos in frames – prints of life that left her forever, but so confused and excited me. Since then, I have decided that all old people are good and wise.

In her younger years, Mrs. Stanislava loved music and dreamed of a wonderful future. In the text of the postcard dated April 3, 1917, a good acquaintance addressed her: “I congratulate you on the feast of Easter, dear Stanislava Venediktovna, on the feast of spring both in nature and in your and my homeland. We live in great days! May God give you strength and vigor in your great good work, which, I think, thanks to the reforms, will be more fruitful and interesting. ” But life was not so romantic – it was drama, and sometimes tragedy. “Reforms” destroyed the usual way of life and the lives of entire families and placed a heavy burden primarily on women’s shoulders. In the mid-1930s, when my grandmother’s uncle Fabian Wojtkowski was repressed, Stanislava Venediktovna took care of his son Kirill, who would become a candidate of technical sciences, perhaps the most successful researcher of glaciology and permafrost.

Before World War II, Mrs. Stanislava received my “dispossessed” and miraculously surviving grandparents and two young daughters in her home. In May 1941, our family had a son, and they met World War II together – two women and three children. Mrs. Stasya loved these children as relatives: she hid them in the pit during the bombings, covering them with pillows and her fragile body, and gave them, the little ones, the last piece of bread. After the war, she continued to work as a music teacher, giving private lessons. She also brought the cookies she was treated to the children, and on rare holidays everyone drank tea together, talked and listened to biblical stories. One Christmas Eve, Mrs. Stasya was presented two pine branches, and we began to feel the holiday by decorating the green branches with homemade garlands.

So simply and devotedly a little woman with a big heart taught goodness, mercy, and devotion every day.
What do we have left in memory of a bright and courageous woman? An old photo and an invaluable belief in the good.