The greeting-card from Leningrad

Òîìà Ìåäîâà
       - What have you done? Why? Mum tried not to seem angry. She was in a fog. I had cut off the edges of all post-cards in a “Pushkin” series.
       My mother collected post-cards. She started it in her youth, and it was about subject series: “Alexander Pushkin”, the Russian towns, the paintings of Viktor Vasnetsov and Ivan Shishkin, “The treasures of the armory” and stuff like that. Later, when she was left alone with two children, she had lacked the money for series. Then she began to collect just beautiful greetings-cards that we received from relatives. Sometimes we spent our evenings looking at the cards or cutting and pasting collages of them. But the series – they were not for destruption.
       - I did not like their white frames, I explained.
       - But these cards are damaged now. They are ugly without the frames. Since that I did not damage any post-cards.
       Most often we received greeting cards from our Grandmother Tanya in Leningrad. I liked gammer Tanya. When she visited us in Moscow, she always bought the cake Napoleon. She was kind and talked to me in a simple and gentle way, without the pretence of an adult. At every festival she sent out greetings to all relatives – at the New Year, at the International Women's Day, at the Victory Day and the anniversary of the October Revolution, and usually she didn't forget anyone.
       Once we received a Christmas card from her where she wished us a Happy New Year. The text was written on a paper which was glued to the backside of the card. We thought that grandmother had no money for a new card…
      
       ...Thirty years later my kids inquired the boxes with old things and found the Christmas card. They tore off the paper and discovered a ten ruble note with a picture of Lenin underneath it. In my childhood you could buy two bags full of food for that money…
      
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       When I remember this story, I feel sorry for Babushka Tanya; I don't know why. I still wonder if my mum has thanked her for the greeting, at least.