That old building was the heart of my childhood. Before I got taken away from my mother, I lived in a small village in Russia. ¬¬¬¬The village was about 3 hours South-East of Moscow by car. The village had a dirt road and a few small houses on each side. Not many people lived there. Patches of bright green grass were everywhere. The sky was always bright and blue with puffy clouds that formed different shapes. There was this building that was nearly torn down to the ground. The only parts of it left were the sides and the floor. There was no roof, so it was nice seeing the bright blue sky on the crisp cool mornings. The cement walls were gray and the cement floor was full of gravel and scraps of fiberglass that had broken off the paper rolls.

My friend Nastia and I were around 4 or 5-years-old. She had brown hair and green eyes like me. We were probably as short as a regular 5-year-old is. We loved to race. Stupid thing was we didn’t wear shoes. Stepping into loose fiberglass was a habit of mine. Nastia would say, “Let’s race” and my reply always was, “I will beat you,” followed by my giggle and grin. “Why do you always think that Anya?” “Because it’s true little one” I would say. We leaped from parts of jagged walls, in our bare fiberglass itchy feet, laughing. The smile on my lips was probably as wide as the width of my face. Then right at the end, I would fall onto fiberglass. I yelled “OUCH!” and my friend just finished the race like it was a piece of cake. After she had finished laughing about my fall, she came over to help pick the fibers out of my feet.

Most of the day had gone by and we were still having a blast running around, talking, and not worrying about what is ahead of us. At the end we compared our bruises and scratches. I would win this “wounded” prize, since I was the clumsy one. Our thing was that whoever had the most would punch the other. “Yes! I win!” I shouted, and she would run away screaming, and she screamed for the whole world to hear. I was faster so I would catch her and give her a big one right in the arm. We would walk home picking up pieces of grass and chewing on the blades. We pushed each other in the dirt and would trip and fall. There weren't many days that this broken down old building could not satisfy me and my friend Nastia. The gray structures were just the fun part of the stressful days we had at home.