Leonid talks about himself. I was born in Yasta village, in Dolbanskiy ulus of Kalmyk Soviet Socialist Republic. People grew cotton in my village. I was four when World War Two broke out. I remember how my family was deported to Siberia. We were not allowed to take any possessions with us. We were loaded on tracks and taken to a railway station, which was, I think, in Astrakhan. The carts that we travelled inside had an iron stove each and a bucket with coal. The journey was cold. When we arrived at a train station in Tyumenskaya oblast, we were told to undress. Our clothes were then sterilised. After that, we were given random clothes, and people ended up wearing someone else’s clothes. Afterwards, we were transported to a village and housed in a dugout. Many children became orphans that winter. Old people could not bear the cold and died in droves. Since the earth was frozen, we could not bury our dead that were left on the ground under the snow. In the spring, when snow melted and the corpses emerged, people buried them. The local Germans, who were also deported, helped us to bury the deceased. Later my nephew gathered all our relatives together and settled us in a military camp. There was plenty of food, for the army was well-provided. Afterwards, we all moved to Tyumen where we worked in logging industry and timber warehouses. There I went to school with many other Kalmyk children. Among us we did not distinguish between Torghuts, Derbets and Buzavas. We were all united by the same label of ‘the enemy of the people’. In 1957 we heard that Kalmyks were permitted to return to Kalmykia. Excited with the news, people could not even sleep. My family decided to return to Kalmykia. When we arrived in Kalmykia, our village had ceased to exist. The streets were empty. The local people had given the land away to another kolkhoz. We tried to get our land back, but to no avail. That kolkhoz was a Tatar village, called Dizel’. Today it is called Zenzeli. We went to that village and talked to the local Tatars, who invited us to stay with them. That is how we ended up living here. I worked as an accountant on the watermelon farm. One day, an old Tatar man showed me a place in the watermelon field with three trees that Kalmyks considered to be sacred. Several men from Bantir village set fire to these trees, but the trees would not burn. To get rid of the trees, the men decided to dry them out by leaving them without water. Eventually the trees died. The land in that spot is bare, even in winter. We worship this sacred spot. I often visit that place. There is a hill, which is also bare, without any vegetation. The land around that place, by contrast, is covered with grass and cane. I think that after the trees were killed, the land around became offended. Russians think that this place is haunted. Today I am a pensioner. I worked for 41 years at the local garage. I have three children, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of my daughters lives in Ovata village in Kalmykia. The other two children live with me.