Timotei: Romania, Mihail: Bulgaria, Miloš: Slovakia, Kveta: Czech Republic, Jyrgal: Kyrgyzstan
Odna bol'shchaya schastlivaya sem'ya, is what Ivan had said. One big happy family, so we should all get along, yes?
Which had proved to everybody who hadn't already been living with him that Ivan was completely insane, because who would look at Erzsébet and Timotei and say "Yes, those two would never tear out each others' throats", and who would really expect a happy family under Ivan anyway?
And they all had their ways of dealing with it, with the tanks in their capitals (Erzsébet would spit in Ivan's food if she cooked it) and the isolation from the rest of the world (Gilbert stole all the extra vodka and poured it down the toilets) and the close quarters (Mihail carried out orders as slowly as he could or not at all) and Ivan breathing down their necks.
Raivis is Ivan's little industrial darling, but there are not enough of his people to operate the factories. Eduard has his window on the West for good behavior, and Tolys keeps quiet and keeps his head down and might just falsify a few reports if it'll keep some of his people safe.
When collectivization brings back the old aches in their bones, though, when Latvia's growth is still stunted by the thirty percent gone from the war and Eduard's window shows only that the West grows and flourishes and leaves them in the mud and Tolys's scars pull and ache; when Ivan lines up all his little satellites and republics and has them stand at attention for hours and hours while he lectures in his silvery voice until Kveta faints from locking her knees (and the tanks, more tanks) and Jyrgal and Gilbert who started out making faces when Ivan wasn't looking are swaying in place; when Ivan and Ivan's boss and Ivan's government send out orders that have Miloš slipping into the attic to wait out the storm and Feliks bent over the toilet retching—
—then, Raivis and Tolys and Eduard sneak out.
In the big, drab house they all share now, there is a crawlspace leading to an underground room which is too small to convert into a bunker.
In this room, when everything is just—too—much, Raivis and Tolys and Eduard sit together and talk, about the peace and plenty they had and the peace and plenty they will have again when they and their people push Ivan out for good.
They talk, and maybe Raivis cries (he always has, too easily, not good in a house with Ivan) or Tolys gives in and curses and rants (he has to work as a secretary for Ivan, see the papers he passes that crush the rest of them) or Eduard curls up with his head between his knees (he remembers all the time the cemeteries they dug up, the homeless dead and the old history blowing away). They speak in their own languages, not the Russian being taught even in preschool, and share the snacks they make of leftover ingredients and when they have to leave they assure each other that this will not last.
It hasn't before, and it won't this time, and all three of them tell each other that over and over again.
It won't last, this "big happy family", and when it falls they will still be there for each other.
latvia lost thirty percent of its population in world war two and also became a manufacturing center of the ussr; estonia was more open to the west than many of the other republics and so was able to see their progress; also a lot of cemeteries and war memorials were destroyed in estonia by the soviets
