Father returned home, I opened the door but could not recognize him as I was very little. Everybody was praising my father saying he was a good man, but form me he didn’t turn out as I imagined. I opened the door and run to bed without paying attention to him, neither father noticed me; he started to talk with my mother’s relatives in the living room. Father reprimanded to my aunt Luisa (she was very nice women, chief accountant in a bank) that he had left four children and when he was back there was not even one at home; Suddenly aunt called me “Oh my God, Luiza come, here is your girl” I approached him coldly as fathers’ love was strange feeling for me, I could not accommodate myself to male presence in the family.
Father often complained to neighbor crying “Why I returned? Louisa does not love me” Father always took me when he was invited, I always walked on the opposite side of the road, I did not want anybody to see us together, I was ashamed of father that was former prisoner.
Father had multiple scars and when I asked about them he told the story of the train; there were thieves travelling with the next cabin, they knew that my father was working and had artisans workshop in exile, they thought father had money and assaulted him at night, the scars were from that night; Luckily police and train conductor soon found out about the incident and this saved him from death. Thus he arrived in Molotovi region and continued work.
Father rescued two Georgian boys from death and took care of them. One was Getsadze from Zestaponi and the other Shalva Chitava from Tbilisi, this young boy was political prisoner arrested when he was serving in the army, father game him shelter and saved life. We did not know what happened with him later, father suffered from this and we tried not to ask anything about it.
Father was imprisoned in Astrakhan, later he was transferred to Ural (Molotovi region, district of Nirob in Siberia), he spent there 9 years and 3 months, while this period my brother and two sisters died and I stayed alone. In 1947, when my sister was struggling for life, we received congratulation telegram from the colony where my father was imprisoned. The senior of the prison was congratulating that my father’s penalty was halved and only several years were left.
“… When my father was walking on the one side of the street, I was walking on the other one. As he was a prisoner, I was afraid that someone would notice that I was walking with him…”
Alexander Robakidze was born in the village of Ghvanketi, in 1913. In 1926 he left the village and moved to live in Zestaponi. He mastered methods of treatment of leather and shoe-making. At the age of 18 he was already the director of the leather factory in Zestaponi. He got married and had children in this very city- Zestaponi. In 1941, when the war broke out between the Soviet Union and Nazi-Germany, Alexander was listed as a volunteer and went to war as the commander of one hundred soldiers in so-called “The Great Patriotic war”. In 1942 he was captive, but in 1943 he went back to his own hearth. In the same year he was judged and sentenced to imprisonment for 20 years. The reason of his imprisonment was that Germans hold him captive alive and he didn’t commit suicide. At first Alexander served his sentence in Astrakhan and then in Ural, in Molotov region. During his imprisonment he systematically wrote letters to Stalin. He considered that unfair treatment was held against him and claimed to facilitate his punishment. At last all his efforts had a result, his punishment was half diminished. In 1963 he came back to his family, but he found out that three of his four children were dead. They were victims of different kinds of diseases. As for the fourth child, Luiza, couldn’t accept Alexander, who arrived from exile, as her father. She was even ashamed of walking with him, as he was considered as the state criminal. Heartbroken Alexander lived in the hope and after some time he managed to gain her heart. He was successful in his business and he built up his destroyed family anew.
