“Farewell Of The Slavic Woman” March: an immigrant’s story

by Mark Sashine

When you leave the country for good you take a part of it with you forever.

I play the march named that way every day although it is not for the CD. It is a railway march and it needs an orchestra in the open air. The old country was a railway country. The first sound I remember as a child was a train whistle. Nobody played that march at the station on the day of our departure and there were no crying women or soldiers waving hands through the doors. The evening was cold and we were standing under the shadow of the overpass in a frozen silence. The mist crawled from beneath a train, red and black from the sparks and coal- fed heaters of the carriages. It enveloped us, took us in and pushed us towards the river as if not just the train but the whole platform was on the way to the great bridge, the only one leading to the capital, to the airport, to the gate abroad, out, away forever.