Sugar Child. The Story of a Girl from the Last Century, Told by Stella Nudolskaya

The girl has a rare name—Stella. And an uncommon for her time fate, since Stella’s childhood fell in the 1930s–40s. She has wonderful parents: together with Ela—this is their tender nickname for their daughter—they enthusiastically sing, read, and stage literary performances in different languages; their home is filled with joy and love. But one day trouble comes: gloomy people take her father away, and he is declared a traitor to the Motherland. And five-year-old Ela, together with her mother, leaves Moscow for the Kyrgyz steppes—into exile. Forced to live far from home, without husband and father, they go through trials of the camp, hunger, poverty, and illness, yet they preserve human dignity, not broken by the system and circumstances. Stella’s main support is her extraordinary mother—a strong and wise person—as well as books, music, and memories of a happy past… This story is biographical. Olga Gromova wrote the book based on memories of Stella Nudelskaya, who endured the ordeal of repression as a member of the family of an “enemy of the people.”