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6 Underground The newspapers issued a call to action, summoning us all to take part in the Five-Year Plan1 Our school's graduates scattered all over, aspiring to do their part to industrialize the nation. We wanted to work hard and study. That summer, my brother Vasily came to visit with his family. He helped Mama cut hay for the cow and prepare the farm for winter. He kept telling us all about Moscow, all the new construction there, and a new railroad they were building underground-a "metropolitan." "What's it for?" asked Mama. "So people can get to work faster," Vasya informed us. "Many developed countries have had subways since the middle of the last century! London's 'Underground: as they call it, was opened in 1863 with steam-trains. New York, in 1868, Paris in 1900... " We were certainly impressed with Vasya's knowledge. But most of all, the idea of a Moscow metropolitan enthralled us. We'd never even heard the word before! [ secretly promised myself that [ would go with Vasya to Moscow and find a way to work on this strange underground railway. When [ announced my plan to Mama, she wailed in protest. 'Tve spent my whole life raising you children, and now that I'm old and lonely, you go flying away out of the nest!" Vasya urged her to let me go, pointing out that in Moscow [ could continue my studies. With that, we left for the city. As soon as [ got to Moscow, [ headed straight for the district Komsomol committee. [ entered the building timidly, unsure of which door was the right one. "What are you looking for, young lady?" asked a man in worker's overalls. "[ want to work on the Metrostroy!,,2 [ announced. "You're a Komsomol?" uYes!U 1 The Soviet government implemented the first Five-Year Plan (1928-32) to transform (and tightly control) the national economy through rapid industrialization. It set production goals in mines and factories, eliminated private companies, and exported seized grain abroad to purchase modem machinery. "Laggards are beaten," said Stalin in 1931 (quoted by Robert Service in A History ofModern Russia). 2 A syllabic abbreviation word for "Metropolitan Construction." U NDERGROU ND 19 "Fill out this application," he said, then asked a girl who was walking by, "Where should we send her?" "What are her qualifications?" the girl asked him. "None yet," he answered for me. "Then send her to the Metrostroy training schooL" Standing in the corridor, the man wrote the address of the school on a slip of paper. "Take tram number 27 to the end of the line, then ask the way," he explained. When I arrived, the selection committee told me they desperately needed steel framework fitters. I had no idea what one was, but I answered firmly: "OK! I'll be a steel framework fitter!" Fifteen-thousand Komsomols and 3,500 communists, all in workers' overalls , helmets, and "metrowalkers" (as we called our special rubber boots), stood at the vanguard of the grand Metro-building effort. By 1935, in just three years, we finished the first Metro line. As shock workers, we drove ourselves hard, and the work was difficult. We weren't accustomed to hard labor, and at first our hands and backs ached. But no one lost heart. We girls didn't want to fall behind the boys. Every time the doctors told us we couldn't work underground, we found ways to get permission anyway. When they categorically forbade us, we sent three girl-delegates to petition Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin3 himself. "Why won't you let us work in the caisson?" asked the young Komsomols. "As I understand it," he said, "caisson workers descend into a hermetically sealed chamber and pump pressurized air in to force ground water out of the rock. Yes? And how on earth can a delicate female body endure such things? No, we can't have girls in the caisson. You won't be able to have babies." "We absolutely will have babies, Mikhail Ivanovich! We'll have babies and build the Moscow Metro!" The Komsomol Metro-workers persisted until the All-Union Elder said yes. The newspaper Metrostroy Shock-Workers printed a story about the first female caisson worker: "When on July 29, 1933, Sofya Kienya pulled on the stiff worker's overalls and awkwardly headed toward the mineshaft, it was all quite extraordinary and frightening to her. She later confessed that her eye3 Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875-1946). Titular...

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