A letter from your parents.

Good day dear son, we are sending you greetings from all the family, and from the relatives, and from the acquaintances. We have received your letter and the money, 15 rubles, for which we are very grateful.

You asked about the harvest. From spring till Trinity there was a drought, and since Trinity it has been raining. So now the grains have rested a bit, and we will collect grain for the family. Though we will collect the grain, they will hardly give it to us, for we are having grain procurements here. They have imposed 20 poods on us, and we ourselves have been buying since the winter. With [us], they have confiscated a colt and four sheep; they take away everything from everyone in the village on credit. Whoever has two horses and two cows—they take away a horse and a cow and leave one horse and one cow per home. The rest they take away. They take away every single sheep. And whoever lacks a beast— they take whatever goods they have: clothes, furniture, and dishes. In Korolevka, from Uncle Vasia Badinov they took a horse, a cow, a heifer, a year-and-a-half-old bull, seven heads of sheep, a sowing machine, a samovar, a cloth coat, a feather bed, a tow, and even wool; and from Len'ka they will probably take a cow and two year-and-a-half-old bulls. They go from house to house and look for grain everywhere; where they find a pood or half a pood, they take everything away, leaving only one pood per eater. One can't buy grain anywhere, can't find [it], and can't sell [it]. They want to bring the new grain to one threshing-floor and thresh it all together there, and starting in the fall they want to give us a norm of one pood per month per eater, and all the rest they will take away and pour together in a common barn. Thus, Mitiunia, write to us how this whole business should be explained; there are rumors that there will be a big war soon and if not war, that they want to drive everyone into a collective farm, and we will all work together.

Write what is going on with you in the center. The people are greatly frustrated. They even don't want to sow grain. Write to us about all this, and write to us whether this decree has been sent out from the center, or it is the local authorities that manage things so; we know nothing about this. Also this is what happened: they hired us to put up house [izba] frames, we wanted to put up the frames 12 arshin long and 7 arshin wide. Now that they confiscated our animals we have postponed this, and we want to wait till the autumn; perhaps there will be some change. If they drag us together into one collective farm, then we do not need this. When you receive this, write what rumors you have [heard]. Even though we have no grain, still we do not wander around looking for grain, we have savings from the spring, so that there will be enough till the fresh reap; soon we will reap the new grain. With this, good-bye. Write in response; we are all alive and healthy and wish you the same. We all together send you our greetings. Write as soon as possible what is going on there with you.