Kommunalka Child

by Nanda Milbreta

Nine months after she was conceived as a way to contribute to population growth, a kommunalka child was harvested from a cabbage patch, like every other Soviet child. She grew up in a bilingual family in a communal home, searching for her place in the world as the Soviet way of life slowly collapsed in the face of the Western liberties and luxuries.

This groundbreaking collection of funny, touching, embarrassing and absurd
illustrated stories provide a unique look at life in the last decade of the Soviet Union through the eyes of a Latvian child.

185 pages, Paperback

Published November 27, 2020

About the author

According to my mother, I was ‘born soon enough to get the taste of the Soviet Union, but late enough to not be brainwashed by it’. I found a passion for music in my early childhood, and discovered the power of words through Latvian poets who rebelled against communism in the 80s. I'm fluent in five languages and hold arts degrees from Latvia, France and the Netherlands.
I write and illustrate poems as @littlequibbles and work with my partner in the Neon & Landa art duo (neon-landa.com), designing experimental musical instruments and building poetic, organic sound and light installations. Regardless of the season, I love eating jam straight from the jar.
For more things related to my debut book Kommunalka Child, join @nandamilbreta on Instagram!

Reviews

[Liva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dzīve komunālajā dzīvoklī un komunālā valstī caur pieaugušā muti un atmiņām. Kādam par Padomju savienību mazāk lasījušam jaunietim šī grāmata noteikti būtu interesantāka nekā man. Nebiju līdz galam īstā grāmatas auditorija.

Plašāk blogā: https://lalksne.blogspot.com/2021/07/...

[Ulla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the rare books I couldn't put down until I finished it. Some of the stories were so funny that I was laughing out loud. Then the following ones made me cry. With this book you never know what to expect next. Sometimes the stories seemed like science-fiction but then again, these are the stories that happened in the Soviet Union where everything was possible...
Since I'm a slow reader, I greatly appreciated the short story format which allowed me to read the book while commuting, and finish them before heading to work/home.
Very fast-paced and entertaining book with the drawings that explain each story in a nutshell.

[Iveta · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5*

[Ellie Karnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It's a really interesting look at life growing up during the fall of the soviet union. Despite this being a very important time for latvia, I'll admit I did not know much about this era. This was a very enlightening and easy read

[Marta Martinsone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is an even more interesting read for those who have no connection or memory of Soviet regime.
A bittersweet read that makes me even more grateful of living in a free country.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short episodes of how it was - being a child in soviet system which luckily collapsed. Living in an apartment with strangers. Absurdities in everyday life. You laugh, you cry. Happily this time is over. thanks a lot to the author for this testimony and really nice illustrations! Translate it to french :)

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book in which the author describes her childhood and youth in Latvia and Western Europe in the time before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is written as a series of stories and anecdotes starting from her childhood in a Komunalka in Riga, as a daughter of a press photographer. I liked the way the book is written. It is about the experience of historical events but also funny and sometimes sad anecdotes about growing up, finding a place in life & creative work, portraits of people and everyday life under difficult circumstances. The stories are in chronological order and can be read one by one and come with nice illustrations by the author.
Me, as someone who was born in Western Germany in cold war times, I found it also very interesting to see how life was perceived from the other side of the iron curtain, and this book made it quite possible to get an idea.

[Ada Angharad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a lovely book! Growing up in Communist Romania, I have found numerous similarites with the author's childhood experiences in Communist Latvia.
I enjoyed it thoroughly and was highly delighted by the childlike illustrations. Such nostalgia...

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a deeply moving harmony of bite-sized chapters illuminated by effervescent illustrations, Kommunalka Child takes its reader by the hand through a colorful array of personal memories. Milbreta chronicles the everyday in a spectrum of playful, concise yet encompassing, and multi-sensory recollections, beginning in the author's early childhood as Latvia's Soviet period draws to a close and ending as Milbreta begins a new life chapter in Western Europe. Each chapter adds new brushstrokes to a detailed painting of young life in Riga at that time in history, in a way that is remarkably in touch with the ingredients that intertwine to form how we first interpret the world around us as children, such as the devising of internal logics or explanations, the strong grip and interplay of imagination, absorbing and enacting storytelling, and the far-reaching impact of visceral childhood experiences.

Milbreta meticulously soliloquizes memories of lived experiences from the various stages upon which her everyday life took place, as clearly and crisply as if they happened yesterday. Examples include life inside the kommunalka where the author and her family lived, connections and frictions between residents, uses of communal living spaces, life alongside one another, differences between aspects of the residents' social and cultural identities, as well as the author's childhood thoughts and longings as a child, such as dreaming of devouring the delicious-smelling meal wafting through the air from the neighbor's apartment.

Along with life in their kommunalka, we journey into the schooling system with Milbreta, feeling the discomfort in our bones as a bowl of fish and milk soup is served as a kindergarten meal and the agony of attending a school with open toilet stalls with no door to maintain privacy.We are invited to share in the joy of consuming a wonderfully exciting—and extraordinarily rare in that place and time—gift of Hubba Bubba chewing gum, which was brought home by Milbreta’s father all the way from Spain. In another chapter, we accompany the author to Moscow's Red Square, where her father clarifies that Lenin, despite the commonality of people referring to him as "Grandfather Lenin," was not the author's biological grandfather.

When viewed through the lens of heritage studies, Kommunalka Child can be understood as a device of memory in which a tremendously diverse array of relationships, memories, and meanings associated with both tangible and intangible cultural heritage, as well as collective memory events such as the Baltic Way, are recorded. Milbreta portrays a rich and diverse array of details pertaining to "object biographies"during this period of history in Riga (see Appadurai, 1986). Instances of this include the author's memories of forbidden books, such as the manner in which James Joyce's Ulysses had become a treasured item shared among close and trusted acquaintances after being sneaked into the country or Milbreta’s sister receiving a gift of art supplies from a penfriend in the United States in colors that up until that point had remained completely unknown to her and her sisters. Another captivating moment depicts the author embarking on one of her first international journeys only to recognize the airline's logo as one she was familiar with from spoons dwelling within her kommunalka's cutlery drawer.

In a different chapter, Milbreta recalls attending school when it was divided into two streams based on students' nationalities, with one stream being Latvian and the other being Russian. The only time both would interact was in sports, in which she recalls the overt presence of competitive sentiments expressed by students during gameplay as having been deeply enmeshed with each group’s collective perception of their assigned nationalities.

This text can also be seen as an account of family memory, revealing the intersection of familial culture with many of the aforementioned aspects. The author articulates lived experiences within her family unit, such as the transmission of values, life goals, philosophical systems, and, at times, moments when she became aware of contradictory realities.

Milbreta’s intricate impartations of memory are intrepid and unafraid of illustrating the humor and humanity of the individuals, situations, and dynamics they recall. As someone with no prior knowledge of the sociopolitical dimensions of this era in Latvia and the myriad ways in which this influenced the social and cultural realities of the country's inhabitants, let alone a grasp of how these aspects manifested in the lived experiences of individuals, I found this book to have been both an exceptionally fun and accessible read as well as enormously educational.

[Ieva Strazdiņa [mrs.lasitaja] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grāmata ir Nandas atmiņas par dzīvi Latvijā pēdējos Padomju Savienības gados un pēc tās sabrukšanas. Tās ir skumjas, priecīgas un absurdas lietas, ko cilvēki piedzīvoja, dzīvojot kroplīgajā savienībā aiz dzelzs priekškara un pēc tā krišanas.

Es esmu dzimusi nedaudz vēlak kā autore un Padomju Savienību “izbaudīju” trīs savus pirmos dzīves gadus, taču arī manā atmiņā saglabājušās rindas uz piena veikalu un aizliegtie Ziemassvētki ar eglītē iekarināntām bārkšu konfektēm. Taču vairāk atmiņu, man ir par pēcpadomju laiku un šī grāmata tās uzjundija - lika smaidīt atceroties pirmās pakas no Kanādas radiem, plastmasas maisiņus, kas bija zelta vietā un košļenes ar kurām bija nolipinātas skolas solu apakšas. Viss strauji mainījās pēc Padomju Savienības sabrukuma, taču sistēmās strādāja tie paši cilvēki un arī es pieredzēju Padomju disciplīnas metodes skolā, kur vecākie skolotāji uzskatīja par pieņemamu raut aiz matiem un sist pa pirkstiem ar lineālu. Atceros gadījumu, kad skolotājs meiteni stundas laikā nelaida uz labierīcībām - līdz viņa vienkārši apčurājās skolas solā. Šķiet neiedomājami šodien? Jā, bet viss piedzīvots un turklāt ne tik senā pagātnē.

Lieliska grāmata - laika liecība bērna acīm, kas lasītāju aizvedīs pagātnē un liks atcerēties piedzīvoto un pārdzīvoto.

[Ansis Egle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ļoti laba grāmata.

Es jau sen biju aizmirsis komunālo dzīvokļu tēmu - arī pats tādā dzīvoju bērnībā Mežaparkā, bet šī grāmata tik dzīvi to aprakstīja, ka atcerējos visādus bērnības notikumus un piedzīvojumus - pat kā tā laika sajūtas.

Brīnišķīgs ceļojums laikā un bērnībā.

Īpaša epizode, kas raisīja neviltotus smieklus, bija stāsts par mazgāšanos vannā.

Es vannu pirmo reizi ieraudzīju ciemos pie vecmāmiņas, kura dzīvoja Brīvības ielā 313 - Martas Staņas projektētajā mājās.

Mūsu mājās vannas vietā bija tāds kā baseins/izlietne, kurā varēja mazgāties, uzsildot ūdeni ar malku kurināmā krāsnī.

Reizi nedēļā kājām gājām mazgāties pie vecmāmiņas, bet pārējā laikā pāris reizes nedēļā kurinājām krāsni un mazgājāmies mājās.

Vienā brīdī pārgāju uz norūdīšanos un mazgājos ar aukstu ūdeni - taupījām malku.

Vārdu sakot - padomju laiks mācīja izdzīvošanu dažādos veidos✨

Iesaku šo grāmatu izlasīt katram, kas grib saprast - kā tad īsti bija aiz dzelzs priekškara.

[Sandra]

I sort of expected the book to be a bit more funny, at times I felt like it was a bit simplistic, as if the author didn't speak English, but it didn't feel like the right reason. At the very end there's a biography that mentions the author illustrates children's books and that made the book make sense.

I picked it up thinking I might find out something more about Soviet Union times, but I don't think I did much. The author's slightly younger than my parents, and gives off similar impression of the times as my parents and their siblings have.

I love that the stories are divided up into these short etudes as that let me pick the book up after having put it down more easily.

[Sergejs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flipback to the end of soviet era and beginning of the independence with all the madness and charm, described with attention to the details.

[flēra ☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

ļoti asprātīga, izlasīju dienas laikā

[Baiba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man patīk, ka savas atmiņas par pagājušā gadsimta beigām sāk rakstīt tie, kas okupācijas laiku ir piedzīvojuši vien bērnībā. No tāda viedokļa arī bija interesanti lasīt autores stāstu - lai gan mums ir gandrīz desmit gadu starpība, atpazinu diezgan daudz elementu gan no viņas bērnības (piemēram, Ziemassvētku konfektes), gan studiju laikiem (Disnejlendas atlases process). Vienlaikus man tas nešķita tik ļoti stāsts par padomju gadiem vai dzīvi komunālajā dzīvoklī kā, iespējams, varētu sagaidīt no nosaukuma un apraksta uz grāmatas vāka, bet vairāk kā autores atmiņas un stāsts par viņas ģimenes dzīvi. Ja lasītājs to ņem vērā, tad vilšanos grāmata nesagādās.