"In winter he's bored, asks for chores or to play checkers."
How the only child in the village lives
The village of Chasha in the Kletsk district is 160 kilometers from Minsk. About thirty years ago, there were children in every yard here — both local kids and visiting grandchildren. In the late 90s, the village began to die. A report from the village council sticks in the memory: "deaths for the year — 11 people, births — a dash"...
Today, 41 people live in Chasha, and only one of them is a child — Maxim Shamruk. Thanks to this boy, a bus with a "School Bus" sign drives into the quiet village every day at 7:15 AM. At the bus stop, in a patch of light from a lamppost, two figures stand every morning — Maxim and his grandmother, Zoya Petrovna. The boy is an orphan: his father died seven years ago, and his mother passed away four years ago. His grandmother, grandfather, a puppy named Jack, and the village of Chasha — this is Maxim's whole world.
Today, 41 people live in Chasha, and only one of them is a child — Maxim Shamruk. Thanks to this boy, a bus with a "School Bus" sign drives into the quiet village every day at 7:15 AM. At the bus stop, in a patch of light from a lamppost, two figures stand every morning — Maxim and his grandmother, Zoya Petrovna. The boy is an orphan: his father died seven years ago, and his mother passed away four years ago. His grandmother, grandfather, a puppy named Jack, and the village of Chasha — this is Maxim's whole world.
In August, Maxim Shamruk will turn 11. He became a permanent resident of Chasha and its only child four years ago. Zoya Petrovna and Alexander Mikhailovich Grusha had just lost their only daughter, Tatyana (she was only 27), and found their only solace when they were given custody of their grandson, Maxim.
Zoya Petrovna is 64; she worked as a milkmaid at the local collective farm for twenty years and, as she says, retired at 53 due to the "hazardous nature" of the work. Maxim's grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich, will be 65 in May. Both are still strong and keep a small homestead with chickens and a piglet.
Zoya Petrovna is 64; she worked as a milkmaid at the local collective farm for twenty years and, as she says, retired at 53 due to the "hazardous nature" of the work. Maxim's grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich, will be 65 in May. Both are still strong and keep a small homestead with chickens and a piglet.
— "My heart aches for Maximka. Our only joy is that we have him," says Zoya Petrovna. "This morning he got up and said: 'Granny, happy birthday!'". "And he gives me this little pincushion, the one he sewed in his crafts class. He saw that I was just sticking my needle into the spool of thread. I had already helped him stitch this little cushion and gave him some cotton to stuff it..."
Maxim's weekend is quite ordinary. He does his homework, builds with Lego, and runs outside in any weather, more than once a day. Zoya Petrovna admits that Maxim misses interacting with his peers, especially in winter. In the summer, children come to visit Chasha; not many, but enough to gather about six kids for a game of ball.
Maxim's brother Nikita also drops by sometimes; he visits his grandmother in Chasha, who lives on the next street.
— "But in the winter, he might follow me around asking for some chore to do, because he's bored. He'll fetch water, clear the paths of snow, last week he was cutting firewood with his grandpa," Zoya Petrovna shared. "In the evening, he'll ask either me or his grandpa to play checkers with him. He just begs not to play with the 'white' pieces, because then he loses," she laughs.
Recently, Grandpa Sasha brought his grandson a puppy tucked inside his coat for amusement — someone from a neighboring village gave it to him. The puppy is still afraid of strangers; when he sees someone new, he throws his head back and whimpers. But as soon as Maxim appears in the doorway, he follows him around like he's glued to his side — they're friends, after all.
Recently, Grandpa Sasha brought his grandson a puppy tucked inside his coat for amusement — someone from a neighboring village gave it to him. The puppy is still afraid of strangers; when he sees someone new, he throws his head back and whimpers. But as soon as Maxim appears in the doorway, he follows him around like he's glued to his side — they're friends, after all.
The winter day fades quickly. For the evening meal, Zoya Ivanovna peels potatoes, sitting on a low stool by the glowing "slupok" (the local name for a small heating stove). The thin peel, twisting into long and short spirals, falls into a small basket at her feet. Then a short "plop" — and a new spiral follows. "У дзве нядзелькі па Пакровах прывезлі Яську ў лапцях новых; за ім два боты без абцасаў - насіў іх Яська з даўніх часаў…" — Maxim reads a passage from "The Director" aloud so his grandmother can hear. Only Grandpa Sasha remains indifferent to the fate of "The Director" — the Olympics are on TV, and his thoughts have flown at least seven thousand kilometers from Chasha, to where our athletes are fighting for medals.
— "He gets sevens, eights, nines in school [on a 10-point scale], sometimes a six might slip through in math," says Zoya Petrovna. "He can spend a long time thinking over a word problem. When we can't figure it out together, I call one of the teachers on their mobile phone — they help. Now they've started fractions, and those are coming easily to him."
— "He gets sevens, eights, nines in school [on a 10-point scale], sometimes a six might slip through in math," says Zoya Petrovna. "He can spend a long time thinking over a word problem. When we can't figure it out together, I call one of the teachers on their mobile phone — they help. Now they've started fractions, and those are coming easily to him."
People go to bed early in the village. After seven in the evening, few windows are lit, except perhaps in Maksim's house.
In the morning, the boy wakes up at the beginning of the seventh hour, sometimes even at half-past six. His grandmother hates to wake him, saying her grandson knows how to get ready "real quick." School starts at nine in the morning, but the school bus has to make two trips to pick up all the children from the surrounding villages. The bus arrives for Maxim in Chasha at 7:15 AM. Every morning, Grandma Zoya walks Maxim to the bus stop. Tonight, a lot of snow has fallen. No one has cleared the road yet, and their tracks to the stop are the very first. In the glow of the streetlights, you can see the February blizzard swirling.
— "I drive to the school, meet Maxim, and we ride our bikes home together. The road is through the forest, so I worry about him. In winter, you can't ride a bike, so Maxim waits at school for the bus. Of course, he also attends a club there, and plays chess with someone — not all the children live close by, they're waiting for the bus too."
The school Maxim Shamruk attends is in the village of Oreshnitsa — about four kilometers through the forest. It once had 240 students; now there are only 24. The ground floor of the building houses a kindergarten with ten children. In Maxim's school diary, the name of the school takes up several lines: SEI "Oreshnitsa Educational-Pedagogical Complex Kindergarten - Basic School of the Kletsk District."
Maxim has an hour and a half before his classes begin. He passes the time playing chess with other kids, right in the hallway. Everything here feels somehow home-like. It smells of warm milk, cocoa, and baked cottage cheese pudding. A high school student on the stairs is discussing something with the head teacher and smiles back at her. The physics and math teacher, Vladimir Ivanovich, with a grade book under his arm and an eighth-grade physics textbook, stops to ask which publication the journalists are from and thanks us for our work. It turns out he knows my dad well — they used to play, and later refereed, amateur football in the village together.
Maxim is in the fifth grade. There are only four children in his class; you could say each has their own desk. Closer to nine o'clock, his classmates arrive — Vitalik and Yaroslav, and a little later, the only girl in the class, Evgenia. The kids' first lesson is Belarusian Literature. They were reading "The Director"...
