The first ’’story books’’ I read were the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales.

I had a soft spot for stories that transported me to a completely different milieu. With talking mirrors and wolves in grandma’s clothes. Or, better still things that I felt sure would be easy to find if I really really wanted/prayed hard/behaved like a ’’good’’ girl. Fantasies where perhaps: when I grow up I’ll share a house with seven dwarfs, if I dig below my bed the Lilliputs will come up the tunnel to meet me...Or so I was content to daydream.

However, as I grew up, true belief in the possibility of these things turned to half hopes...

But one set of stories has always moved me. Tales from far away Kazakhstan in Russia. Though the place has metamorphosed, I prefer to retain the impression of Alma Ata as the town of Olga Perovskaya’s rapturous childhood.

I have visited Olga and her sisters Sonia, Yulia and Natasha and each of their pets over a hundred times since my eighth birthday.

The stories of the ’’Kids and Cubs’’ made me laugh and cry. They didn’t always have fairy tale endings.

Olga and her three sisters had the most unusual pets I’ve ever heard of. Her father, being a forest officer, raised the girls with many farm and wild animals.

I loved the wolves Dianka and Tomchik. Was amused by the pranks of the frisky maral (a kind of deer) Mishka. Stumped by the mother and daughter donkey pair -- Ishka and Milka. Life was never boring around them!

But, the tamest of them all turned out to be Vaska -- the tiger cub. Yup, if you had ever heard felines were vicious, knowing Vaska would have changed it like nothing else.

What they say about a fox being a clever creature however was borne out by Frantik who was cunning as they come. Especially, when it came to hunting chickens despite being chained!

Though I loved reading each of their exploits, I always remained partial to Chubary -- a dying horse the girls nursed back to health. His courage and love marked him as a hero. And ever since I have always looked at horses with awe and admiration. Handsome as they come with silky manes and strong physiques it was only too easy!

I can never thank Olga enough for letting me truly ’’share’’ her pastoral childhood. What more could an city bred girl like me ask for?