Many times I have seen on TV people riding in a sleigh pulled by sled dogs in the tundra and on the Arctic glaciers of the world. I secretly envied them, in the finest sense of the word, and dreamed about riding in such sleighs some day.
Now, to realize my dreams, I made a wooden sleigh with wheels from a motorcycle and
harnessed pigs instead of dogs.
The pigs did not like my invention, the colors, in particular. Like a lion-tamer, I had been
working hard to tame the pigs. I would sit down in the carriage and spur them whipping the knout. They would disperse in fear; the sleigh would fall down to children"s laughter.
Once it so happened that my pigs pulled me, along with the upturned sleigh, towards the swamp.
At last I thought up a clever device fastening a head of cabbage on a stick and putting it up as a lure that would make the pigs run ahead. The device worked, and I started riding in this sleigh about the streets of Matarak.
One day the Head of the collective farm stopped me and said:
- We have a harvest festival tomorrow. You should decorate your carriage with balloons of all colors and bells, and, remember to hang a stripe of red cloth with a slogan on the side of your sleigh. Ask our artist, he will help you. When the carriage is ready, go to Khasan Aby Dovud"s corn field where we plan to arrange the festival. Take care not to be late for very important people will be there.
I walked to the club where the Artist Khasan Aby was working all day long and asked him to decorate my carriage. He even attached to it the portrait of Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, an untiring fighter for the cause of Communism, a three times hero of the Soviet Union, an esteemed follower of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Leader of the World Proletariat.
That night the feeling of responsibility before my Motherland gave me no rest. Early in the morning I rode in my carriage to Khasan Aby Dovud"s the corn field. When I arrived at the field there were already militiamen there, walking around, .and some officials of the collective farm. The corn field was mowed down, and the counters of movable field shops had already been set in a row. There was a fire smoldering in the hearth with a big bowl hanged up, for making pilau . A man, bending down over the samovar, started building a fire. While I was servicing my carriage musicians with a brass band arrived. They started rehearsing at the eminent platform from which high rank officials were to make speeches.
At 9 a.m. the big officials arrived and the meeting began.
After greeting the people the officials came down to shake hands and chat with them. The band began to play and the singers from the Palace of Culture started singing songs.
People were elated. The dancers were waltzing, hopping and jigging. The horsemen began to play the national game "Kupkari". Sitting in the saddles of pedigree horses, some wearing a fur cap others a tanker"s helmet or a turban, they were racing in chase of a stuffed goat called "Ulak". One of the riders dashed ahead as fast as the wind, holding the whip, like an arrow, between his teeth.
- The wind! The man is the wind! The lucky one! - I thought. Unlike me, the tractor of a man. It"s a pity I haven"t got a horse. I cannot catch up with them in my carriage, can I?
I looked up and saw that they were calling me. I wheeled towards them. The head of the collective farm felicitated me on the festival and whispered in my ear that the VIPs, wishing to cheer people up, wanted to take a ride in my carriage.
The VIPs included Kalankhan Adalatov, Director of Uvada Fctory, Kaipnazar Durmanovich Kaimanov, Chief of Environment Protection Department and Gulyamkadir Khaltayevich Baltayev, Director of the Oil Refinery.
I moved up to the platform and the big men got on my carriage. The moment they got on I felt a strong smell of alcohol.
- Get going, coachman! - Kalankhan Adalatov said.
The officials burst out laughing. I raised my whip and set off. Ringing the bells, the three pigs harnessed abreast dashed along.
There was hue and cry and laughter all around. Off and on the officials waved their hands to people, the way Yury Gagarin, the space conqueror did. Kaipnazar Durmanovich Kaimanov waved his hat occasionally.
Suddenly an accident or a "State of Emergency" occurred. I don"t know who had frightened them but the pigs went out of control. They went mad scattering in all direction and upset the cart with the esteemed passengers.
-Stop the carriage, you fool - the bosses yelled in chorus.
The pigs would not listen to me. They carried us along with the carriage to the place where the wastes of the oil refinery had formed a man made bog. Dragging the carriage along with the officials the pigs carried them there. The stinking and boiling bog began to sucking in the troika and the people.
Kalankhan Adalatov swam in the bog trying to get hold of a pig"s ears. I sat in the drowning carriage as if on board the Titanic, calling for help. The Chief of the Regional Department of Environmental Protection seized at the portrait of Comrade Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, an untiring fighter for the cause of Communism, a three times hero of the Soviet Union while Baltayev Gulyamkul Khaltayevich the Director of the Oil Refinery, now disappearing now coming out, kept crying: "Mama! Mammy! He-e-elp! Luckily, some peasants had responded on time, and, armed with beams, saved the drowning men i.e. us, like a rescue team on a beach where slant eyed sharks furrow the azure waters of distant warm seas.
Pilau (also pilaf) - a steamed rice dish with meat, mostly mutton, onions and carrots, in a seasoned broth.