My darling Filippo,

When you read this letter, your Russian wife, your “birdy”, your uccelino might be in heaven already.

It’s good that you left Brescia a month ago. Then no one saw this bad fortune coming and I stayed at home to watch vineyards. And when everybody began to panic, all the trains to the south were canceled. If you had seen what was going on at the station!.. This might have been like that during the war… Taxi drivers asked for 1500 dollars in cash to take passengers to Rome, but where do I get them, so I stayed in our village.

Then bad news came out. These scary pictures of coffins in Bergamo – and there’s only 40 km from us! And two weeks ago signor Corrado, a lieutenant of our carabiners, celebrated his birthday. The whole village gathered, because he is an important man, but four days later he got ill. In our village there’s only one shop, one pharmacy, so we all caught this virus…

Next to the vineyards there’s a camp for the ill, where I am now… It’s terrifying here. People die without an opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones. Medics’ faces are a complete bruise, because they have to wear protection. They have no possibility to drink water or time to go to the toilet…

In daily reports at 6 o’clock they say that the average age of the dying from Covid-19 is 79. I don’t know… Maybe, it is so, but I have a weak immune system. You said that the best prevention of any disease was our homemade grappa, and I was angry with you and called you beone… I wish I had drunk it, maybe it would have helped. And now… In Russia we say “It’s late to drink Borzhomi when your kidneys shut down”. Borzhomi is a healing water, like our Boario…

I don’t know whether I see you again, my sweet Filippo. Because the cough is strangling and I’m burning inside because of the fever, and I can’t breathe, and  there’s no cure… And you won’t be allowed in, no matter how you try.

But this is what I want to tell you, Pippo.

I regret nothing. I have always made a choice myself. I stayed at your flat in Bibirevo myself – do you remember that day? I decided myself to get married to a man 15 years older than me… I moved to Italy with you by myself, leaving university, mother and sister in Moscow. My mom was strongly opposed to my departure. She considered you to be a bounder, but I couldn’t but follow you… Your belly, your bald head, which is so smooth and lovely… I buried myself in your vineyards. Then I thought it was figuratively, but now…

But I think this is how a person should live – act as they want, not adjust to others. Only in this case at any moment they will be able to say goodbye to the life, instead of saying “Why was I such a fool not to do what I wanted to?” This person didn’t betray themselves, but fully realized themselves, and that was of Divine Providence.

The only thing I regret now is that I didn’t drink your grappa, my dear Pippo, my sweet beone.

Be happy and think of me longingly, my sweetheart.