One of the most important components of the Chief’s teachings was the conviction that all mentally ill people definitely have visual and auditory hallucinations. I never fully knew what that meant, but since they always asked, I agreed. When they asked me to describe them, I never knew what to say. For visual hallucinations, I used my imagination. For voices, I said what sounds I actually heard, which of course were real. I remember really wanting some hallucinations, since that was what they expected of me. I listened to myself specially, but to my disappointment there was nothing there to delight the adults in white coats.

MONEY

Our parents sent money for living expenses, 60 rubles per month per child. Our parents also sent clothes. But the lion’s share of the money was not spent on feeding us or providing for us, but on something else entirely. There was no doubt that the Chief and a few other adults were significantly better fed than us. But they did it by stealing.

They said we were all equal in our fight for a bright future, that regardless of age we were all making an equal sacrifice, denying ourselves everything and working tirelessly. But in actual fact, those closer to the Chief got the choicest and tastiest morsels. This was not even considered shameful; on the contrary, we all thought it was right. Truly, if someone managed to get close to the healthiest person on earth (which the Chief was, without doubt), then it couldn’t be a coincidence. Those people deserve more. They must have good thoughts and the right attitude.

HOW SCARED WE WERE OF MEDICINE

It wasn’t just the Zionists who were our enemies, it was doctors too. The words “medical”, “pills” and so on were dirty words, almost curses. Nothing except our treatments of layering and psychotherapy (including mechanotherapy, in other words beatings) could help a person. In all the years I spent in the cult, I never once saw a normal doctor. I somehow also avoided the standard annual checkup at school. I know the Chief was terrified of dentists. Nobody to my knowledge ever visited the doctor, not for anything. All the adults had terrible teeth. In some sense it was good that I was a child and so couldn’t go totally to seed.

However, cases requiring medical attention were not all that rare in the commune.

For example, once while our children’s collective was living outside Moscow, I fell sprawling on my back from a swing; my back was so sore I could hardly move. I was taken away immediately on my own to the Chief’s apartment on Kotelnicheskaya embankment, in a prestigious part of Moscow. I stayed there alone for a while with several adults who (as normal) layered me. However, strangely, they did not scold me very harshly for having a sore back. I probably wasn’t up to it.

Once a boy managed to knock a boiling pot off the stove over himself, and he got immediately coated in panthenol as treatment. That medicine was only available nearby by chance, only thanks to the fact that we were living in the centre of Moscow at that time, in one of the parent’s apartments.

Another boy, when we were on the move somewhere, fell and scraped his whole naked torso on the hot metal grate we cooked on.

And once while working in the fields a girl was hit on the hands with a hoe.

One of our male teachers fell between the platform and a moving train, severely damaging his thigh and almost losing his leg.

One of our female teachers was attacked by a trucker who tried to rape her in the cab of his lorry.

And this is just what remains from my childhood memories.