by Ashley
Summary: [ANASTASIA] An account from the future keeper of the orphanage- before she became a bitter old hag. Makes you sympathize for her, once you know her story... ©98. Plz read&review, thx!
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Part One:
"Annie! Annie Ivanovna! Get up! You start working in the factory today!"
Those words were to spell doom for me. After that day, my life would never be the same. For you see, I had to go work at the fish factory, in the Fisherman's Village by the Gulf of Finland, near St. Petersburg, Russia. I was eight years-old.
My family had lived in St. Petersburg all my life and my older sisters, Lebed and Elena, were already working there to help provide for our family. My brothers, Mikhail and Igor, were already married and away from home. My mother, Arina, took in sewing. My father, Ivan Phlemenkoff, worked all day delivering mail. We had a hard life. Let me explain.
For generations, my family, the Phlemenkoffs, had been serfs. That was the term used by everyone to refer to the peasants owned by rich landowners. The serfs had to farm the owners land, but could never leave without permission. He owners could do whatever he felt like doing to us. But thankfully, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs back in 1861, eight years before I was born.
My family had no money after that and with no many to take care of, my father moved my mother and brothers and sisters to St. Petersburg to find work in the factories. My grandmother Anya told us not to go, but no one ever listened to her, since she nearly did away with my uncle. So they mover. In 1869, I, Annie Ivanovna Phlemenkoff, was born. At the age of eight, I went to work at the fish factory.
It was terrible work there. My sisters had to cut off fish heads and I had to pull the giant winch that mashed up the tails and heads. The huge work place was filled with hundreds of men, women and children as well as the terrible smell of fish. Day in and day out, Lebed, Elena and I worked there, working our fingers to the bone.
But it was money, if not much, that put food in our bellies, clothes on our back and a roof over our heads. We worked hard, but not heard enough I suppose, because if we slacked off once, we were whipped. Once I ran off after a whipping and made my way down to the water. I was ten at the time and still filled with hopes and dreams.
I had always wanted to do something wonderful, have adventure. I used to pretend I was a Cossack for the mighty Imperial army. I imagined I would do away with all the revolutionaries. And there were plenty in those days. Revolutionaries wanted to free the people from the Romanov tsars and create a new equal world. I should know, my brother Igor was a member of those revolutionary groups.
But my father threw him out and we never heard from him again. We hated the groups, and when they failed to persuade the peasants into revolt, they backed off. But they kept pushing for revolution. But we didn't think it would come. We were wrong.
Meanwhile, I was full of dreams of the future. I wanted to get out the factory and go somewhere else and have my own family. I wanted to get away from my family terribly. My parents were always upset and worried over money and always yelling at us. Mostly what they fought over was my sisters' and mine dowries. all fathers had to give their daughters something when they got married, usually money.
We had hardly enough to get by on. Poor Mama. She was always sick, but worked harder than the rest of us. Papa, he was always cross. They used to fight. I used to run out of our tiny apartment to get away from the sounds of fighting.
But I told myself I would get away one day and never come back. But until then, it was the factory for me.
(to be continued someday)
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ANASTASiA™ is copyright of 20thC.Fox, etc. ^_^
PS. Believe it or not, this is a work of fiction. All the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.
Any resemblence to actual persons etc, living or dead, is completely coincidental. ^_~
written by Ashley ©98, edited by SimbiAni™ ©2G4