Do you want to live for 100 years? So it is your time for reading these confessions of a woman who did and change your perspective of a long, happy life.
Raisa Korneevna Komisarova. 100 years, Moscow.
She was born in Kashira. She worked in Magadan as a warehouse manager and in Moscow as an electric train driver.
“I had a family, and everyone died. Of the 11 people in the family, only I am alive. I lived for a hundred years; it was an anniversary. Now it’s on to the second hundred – when I die, I don’t know. I’m even afraid that I might live a long time again? I’m tired of living. I am alone in a three-room apartment. There is no one to talk to.
Once I killed a man. In 1925 I worked as a telegraph operator and morse operator. After six years in the telegraph office, I went to the subway as a machinist. She worked there for nine years and six months. And during this time, I ran over one – to death. When I began to enter the Okhotny Ryad station, I see a woman jumped off. I slowed down – I thought she would run forward. And she knelt and put her head on the rail. And when she did that, I let everything down, all the air. And the car continues to go, and it keeps on stretching, stretching, stretching … I got up, and I looked – it cracked. And I sat down. The car stopped. What to do? You need to pull it out.
The station’s head brought a stretcher; we went down on the rails and began to shine flashlights under the train. They finally found the remains – the head is separate from the body. One of the shoes bounced off; the shoes were lifted up and covered with a piece of overcoat. And they carried it away. In the pocket of the suicide, they found a letter to his mother, where she wrote: “Dear mommy, I deceived you, he was married for the second time, I can’t live like this … say hello to dad.” I was not punished for what happened. It was not my fault.
In our garden in Kashira, there are currants, plums, and apples. I myself once planted them, tried, brought them from nurseries. But what’s the point, you know? Anyway, now there is no one to eat them.
I lie down to rest, wake up – and I do not understand what time it is, morning or afternoon, and how much I slept. This is how life goes on.
I have gratitude and congratulations – from Putin five, from Luzhkov four. They treat me well. And everyone writes: “Live long, we need you.” They respect me.
I also have a party card. They didn’t take me to the Komsomol – I fell asleep on one question. And I never went to church. And when it is very hard for me or offended, I say: “Lord, why did you punish me like this!”
I always had money; I never borrowed from anyone. I’ll tell you frankly: I’m not going to sweep, and I’m not going to be a cook. Where the salary is higher, there is mine.
I do not like greedy people. There are some, they save on everything; they complain that there is no money, but they themselves save everything. All my life, I earned and spent as much as I wanted and always helped everyone.
I watch TV only at nine o’clock news. I no longer think anything – neither about the country nor about politics, about anything. I just think about how to die as soon as possible. But Putin, by the way, is not a bad man – now you will not find someone like Putin. Good man. And his wife is modest. Here Raechka accompanies Gorbachev everywhere, and this one sits and brings up her daughters. Leads correctly, as a woman should. But I would not invite either one to my centenary—only close people: doctors and social worker Tanechka.
Now I don’t know what to expect. Before, everyone always said – jubilee, jubilee, they waited for centuries. And now what after 100 years, the second anniversary? That’s all they say: “Live long, we need you.” And I don’t know why they need me.
