Riga was a major port—but a river port, not a sea port. Whereas Tallinn had been actually in sight of the sea, to travel to the beach from Riga took about an hour overall, including a twenty– to thirty–minute train journey. But very close to where we lived was the Daugava River embankment (in Russian this river is called the Western Dvina). Its estuary being not far off, it ran wide and was an important feature of the city. My friends and I often went for walks on its embankment, and one of the most cherished memories of my youth is of a whole night's walk there with my classmates after our graduation ball.

I feel that I was fortunate in that each time I moved it was from a smaller to a larger city, and each time I found myself either living or working closer to the city center. In Tallinn, our flat was on the outskirts; in Riga, we were within quarter of an hour's walk of the central Lenin monument. But there were disadvantages inherent in this change.

There are three factors that influence urban children's development everywhere— their family, their school, and street life—but there is, in the Soviet Union, an additional one. That is the communal apartment.

Once, when my parents argued about ideology and the Soviet reality, my father taunted my mother: “You're nothing but a housewife—what do you know apart from pots and pans?”

My mother asked him in return: “And you, what about you?”

“I'm a mouthpiece of the Party!” answered my father proudly.

After that, every now and again, she would mock him (quite deservedly, in my opinion): “You, ‘mouthpiece of the Party.’ Why does your family have to be huddled in two tiny rooms and share the apartment with four other families? Can't your Party do something for its mouthpiece?”

My father had no answer. He'd make a desperate gesture with his hand and leave the room.

Our living conditions were not only very uncomfortable but bureaucratically complicated in a way typical of Soviet double–think. Officially, such overcrowding was not allowed.