Воронин Сергей Эдуардович : другие произведения.

Son of God Ra

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  • Аннотация:
    Английская версия романа "Сын Ра".

Sergey Voronin

Son of God Ra

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   Childhood
   I was born on a sunny June morning in a small, very cozy Siberian town, spread out on the left bank of the majestic river Ob. My mother tried to get rid of the burden for a long time, but I, apparently anticipating the future vicissitudes of Destiny, stubbornly did not want to leave the warm, sheltered place. "Probably, we'll have to impose a" paw "," said obstetrician Sergeev gloomily, with the ominous smile of Dr. Goebbels approaching the table, on which lay obstetric forceps, called "paw" in professional jargon. His words definitely had an effect on me, and I hastened to leave the shelter which had become painful to my native people, announcing the world about its emergence as a thin, disgusting squeak. And even then, according to statistics, about 90% of the cases of using the "paw" end with a birth trauma and dementia of the child. This is clearly not included in my and the Creator's plans.
   Maternity hospital number 2 in Barnaul, where this "space" event happened, is still in the center of the city. To the left, the maternity house adjoins the chic, very beloved city dessert shop "Lakomka", on the right - with the city morgue and the adjacent morphological corps of the medical institute. The architect, conceiving this existential architectural composition, seems to have been a great philosopher, giving the mothers the opportunity to watch the sad picture of death day after day from the hospital window and think about the frailty of human existence. As I understood much later, it was under the sign of the earthly pleasures symbolized by Gourmand, and the constant sense of death that did not frighten, but it always caused almost morbid curiosity and mystical respect, and whose presence, like the sword of Damocles, I constantly felt by everyone Fibers of the soul, and my whole life will pass. "Memento mori" - remember death, "said the ancient Romans, and how right they were! Only the finitude of being causes mankind to slowly, but still move forward. If the Lord suddenly, for fun, decided to give Man immortality, He would condemn the world to eternal stagnation and absolute chaos. Death is the eternal engine, the universal source of progress, with the ingenious perspicacity given to the Creator by our perishable world. 
   My childhood was cloudless and quite happy. My parents were upset only by the fact that I grew up in an incredibly frail "tree", in which it is not known what and how the soul flickered. I could not eat for days, at the same time I was always the ringleader of all boyish companies, games and fights. Surprisingly, but more anti-child than I, I did not have to meet in my life. In me, as if, there was a little imp, making me constantly make disgusting people around me and arrange minor provocations, for which I, quite legitimately, received a neck from my older comrades, but the lessons of education were short enough - bruises and abrasions did not have time to come off, As I started another dirty trick. In general, the old woman Shapoklyak has always been for me an incredibly attractive way and almost a native being. Some of my children's actions still cause me a feeling of burning shame, as if I did it yesterday.

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   The fact is that as a child I was a pathological nonsense. By provoking the guys and bursting into conflicts, I immediately ran to complain to my father, who always had a tough temper. This was inevitably followed by the father's "vendetta", about which legends went about in the yard. Boyish folklore from mouth to mouth handed over "legends" in which the glorious Batman "Papa Edik", then working as an investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, arranged a stand shooting from the gun in the park of the Melanzhevy Combine for a running wild boar, whose role was successfully performed by the retarded son of our locksmith 33 apartments in Lenya. And although the bullets from Makarov's pistol only whistled over the head of poor Leni, cutting off the birch twigs like machetes, the rumor about the heroic exploits of the home-grown Batman quickly spread from the VRZ area to the Housing Square - these two historically conflicting territories of Barnaul, as well as in the well-known American Musical "West Side Story". I do not know if this fact really existed, but my father refuses to do this in every possible way, but the event had an undoubted positive effect - I was afraid and my father respected. And here again my nasty, rotten nature was manifested. Instead of "resting on my laurels," peacocking my tail and enjoying life, I rushed with renewed vigor to carry out new provocations and dirty tricks, forcing the guys to beat me, despite the fear of retribution. And again, the usual scheme has worked: the child is offended, the slanderer runs to his father, another "vendetta". My father's patience was already over and before each "special operation" he "imposed" on my full program already to me, expressing thereby a vexation that through the efforts of his son turned into Frankenstein - a scarecrow for the whole court. And the guys finally boycott me. This was the first boycott in my life, which made a very strong impression on me. Until now, from this boycott, I had a feeling of cold and oppressive loneliness. And the reason was the following event.
   In the neighborhood with us in 35 apartments (and we lived at the address Komsomolsky Ave., house 132, apartment 34) lived the family of the hereditary builder Victor Epifanov. He had two children: Lena, my same age, and Sergei, older than me for 2 years, which according to children's standards is a very significant difference. Lena Epifanova - my first love - the first aching and joyful feeling without any admixture of sexuality; The real quintessence of Love achieved by boys only at an early age - from the kindergarten "Snegirek", in which we were in the same group. The love of this swarthy girl, like a charming lemur monkey, was given very simply and cost me numerous cuffs and blows of Destiny. My peacock essence actively protested against someone else's success; Zealously concerned with any, even insignificant, signs of attention given by Lena to another, but not to my person. In order to attract her attention, my creative nature embarked on various tricks.
   One autumn, our group of kindergarten was taken out by the teacher Valentina Aleksandrovna for a walk. There was a classic "Boldin Autumn", a real riot of colors withering nature. Children, as always, played on the veranda. Valentina Alexandrovna, usually in a gloomy, irritated state, was unusually gay this morning. Lively paint in the overall palette of joyful excitement was added by the boy Vasya, who brought yellow, crimson and orange leaves in a bucket, which he poured out on the verandah and began to throw up his arms. The leaves swirled enchantingly in the air, fascinating the look and causing universal rejoicing. "Very beautiful! What a fine fellow you are, Vasya! "- said Valentina Alexandrovna, and Lena gave Vasya such a look, for which I was ready to jump off the bridge across the Ob. This I could not forgive the boy Vasya. I took a bucket and, without specifying where he took such beautiful leaves, went to the nearest garbage dump, picked up leaves, which generously heated the janitor, came and with great pathos dumped the contents on the veranda. All would be nothing, but the leaves, as it turned out, contained "naturprodukt", namely - dog feces. Needless to say, what effect produced my action! Valentina Alexandrovna in one instant for ever got rid of depression, as a real karatek with an edge of the hand slammed my neck, and then grabbed my ear and twisted it so that the blood gushed from the auricle with a fountain. This strange physiological feature of my body, which is apparently explained by too thin capillaries, close to the tympanic membrane, more than once later rescued me in army fights. Abundant bloodletting from the ear at the slightest blow, not causing serious harm to my health, plunged opponents into panic horror and forced them to abandon further violence. Valentina Alexandrovna, I remember, was very frightened then, took me to the shower, where I hastily washed off the "traces of the crime," and then, before the father who came to take me, spilled such oil that it disgusted me. I did not say anything to the parents about the incident; I was not so ashamed - when I remembered the scornful look Lena had given me - the witness of the failed "Golden Autumn Festival".
   There were other, no less "successful" attempts to win the love of this cute girl. Once, after watching the feature film "The Red Tent", I decided to demonstrate to Lena and the whole court my contempt for the cold. Let me remind you that the main character, a hardened polar explorer, gives his clothes to his freezing comrades, remaining only in his underwear at 50 degrees below zero. I really liked this episode. And one frosty February morning, when I found the worthy audience and Lena in the courtyard, I loudly declared: "Look at everything!" - began to throw off his clothes in the snow, left only in shorts and a vest. On the home-grown asshole came out to see almost the whole of our house, in which mainly police officers lived. But my mother came back from my store, which did not let me get warm in the "rays of glory", immediately showered the "polar explorer" from the heart, and, grabbing her clothes from the snow, dragged her "scumbag" home. Another attempt to win a woman's heart failed!
   And yet, I do not remember how and when, but I managed to reverse the situation - Lena, at last, answered me with her. We became friends, and this friendship lasted from 1 to 3 classes. The main mistake of adults is that they underestimate children, their undoubted emotional maturity, sometimes on equal terms, competing with the emotionality of adults. Sometimes it seems to me that the Creator, by the age of 5 completing the formation of consciousness and perception of a person, carries them, practically without change, through the whole human life. Anyway, now I fully identify myself with that boy in love with Sergei, I perfectly remember my then shame for unseemly acts and my love experiences, which are still fresh in memories, as if it were yesterday. The tender love of two small creatures manifested itself in rather chaste things: together we left and returned from school, and I, of course, carried Lena's portfolio; They clung to each other in awkward embraces at the corners; I do not remember exactly whether they kissed, but if they kissed, it was only on the cheek.
   And I also gave Lenochka gifts from my mother's wardrobe. The fact is that the 70s of the last century gave a message of modest existence in virtually all spheres of human life. Women of that time dressed in much the same way as the Chinese during the "cultural revolution" - not gray jackets, of course, but very monotonous and miserable. The eye had nothing to catch on the streets of the city: everywhere flashed products of the Barnaul factory "Avangard" of the same cut and color. My mother, a proud Polish girl, would never have accepted such a monotonous "disgrace". Wherever we came, in the new place, my mother always got a personal tailor, who was "wrapped" in patterns from Soviet fashion magazines. And things from her, I tell you, at that time were very exclusive. For every thing: a dress or a suit - my mother carefully chose jewelry, modest in price, but matched with taste and indubitable decorative delights. All this mother's treasure was kept in the malachite casket. It was to this casket with jewelry that I "laid eyes", and it was she who caused the story, which I can not tell you in any way, without being distracted by anything.
   The tactics of taking jewelry for Lena from the casket was developed by me in full accordance with the laws of psychology - I chose discreet decorations so that my mother did not notice the loss before the time, taking into account the seasonality of the clothes for which the jewelry was intended. But if you only saw how much happiness shone in the brown eyes of Lenochka, when I solemnly handed her another gift from my mother's magic casket! No, of course, my adventure was worth it. However, the celebration of the soul ended also suddenly, as it had begun.
   One day, with my friend Andrei Markinov, I went for a drive from the hill in the park of the Melanzhevy Combine. It was a real bobsled, where a stretcher was used as a bean. With a deafening roar, we were on a stretcher and rushed along the ice slide, experiencing a sense of enthusiasm and adrenaline of the regular riders. On our trouble, on the hill came the moron Lenya (classic oligophrenic in the degree of debility from the "bad" 33 apartments) and brother Lena Seryozha, who immediately started teasing me: "The bride and groom, they made a dough! Well, Lenkin Khachal, when will you come in? I've already given a brooch! "I do not know why, but his words hurt me very much. I felt terribly ashamed before Andrei Markin. The fact is that at that time all those who were friends with girls deserved universal contempt in the boyish environment. Some devil began whispering to me mean, treacherous words - and I burst out: "Ha, I found a bride! Yes, if you want to know, I did not give her anything, she stole that brooch, and you're a goat, the real one! "After these words, Sergey attacked me and gave me quite weighty kicks. He was joined by the debaucher Lenya, and Andrei Markin also came under the distribution. Arriving home with a tear-stained face and obvious signs of beating, I had to tell my father everything, which immediately went to find out the relationship to the locksmith, Father Leni, in the next apartment. After a while a noisy procession reached our apartment: a locksmith, his wife and Lenya himself decided to arrange a big "psychopathic show" for us. And, although I hated this moron because he tied the paws to the cats and threw them to the inevitable death from the parachute tower in the park, this heartbreaking scene still stands before my eyes. Tandem kickboxers - a locksmith and his wife - with the words: "Why did you offend Seryozha?" - Conducted academic series of accurate, well-placed punches and kicks on the moron head and fillets of the trunk of Leni. At the same time he squealed like a pig, and from his eyes, like a real clown, fountains were beating with tears. Then, already in my childhood, I finally realized that I would never be able to work as the executor of death sentences, although, as is known, "... all works are good, choose to taste!"
   But troubles do not come alone. No wonder the folk wisdom says: "The trouble has come - open the gates." Once - at this time, my mother noticed the loss of the brooch, and Serezha kindly conveyed my vile words to his sister Lena. Mom made a very serious "debriefing", according to the results of which she went straight to Lenin's parents and finally returned the lost brooch. Lena, as expected, stopped talking to me, and, on top of everything, Seryozha fell under the "hot" hand of my father, who was returning from work far from in the best mood, saw the offender of his son and, in front of the whole court, arranged an impressive, Stunning in the literal sense of the word scene "vendetta", in which the pope - the actor surpassed himself. The next morning, when I went out into the yard, it became clear that the world had changed, and for me - far from the best. Ahead, near the sheds, stood a group of conspiratorial guys, among whom was my best friend Andrei Markin. When I approached them, animatedly talking about something, the guys fell silent at once, and Andrei pointedly turned away when I greeted him. "You see, they've already done a good job with him!" - I thought sadly and wandered from them where my eyes looked. Lena silently proffilirovala Lena with an offended face and a look full of contempt. Well, now I had to get used to this new status of an outcast for me, in which I would have to live for several months until my family left for permanent residence in Kazakhstan.
   Then, in my childhood, I could not even think that, it turns out, the Lord had already since childhood begun to teach me to be alone - this is truly the most valuable gift of Destiny, and that it is in this state that I will learn, after all, to draw inspiration and To fully enjoy life. Now, thanks to this harsh school of life, I am like a submarine in an autonomous voyage - unsinkable, with tightly closed hatches, only occasionally surfacing to the surface, once again to remind people that I'm alive, I'm still a fighting unit and that me It's too early to discount. However, then in my childhood, I suddenly realized with sadness that along with this first serious lesson in human communication taught to me by Life itself, my cloudless childhood was forever ended - the young man Sergei was born, already endowed with some life experience of responsibility for his words and deeds , And this is an indispensable attribute of adult life already.
  
                                  Adults
   In the autumn of 1974, in connection with the transfer of my father to a new duty station - to the Higher School of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs - we moved to Karaganda with our family. The glorious period of my "Kazakh" life began, which lasted until the summer of 1981. "Remember the rule number 1 - never call the Kazakhs" kolbitami "," Igor Sidorov, my classmate and neighbor in a new house on Yerzhanov Street, taught me the universal rules for dealing with the title nation. "For Kazakhs, this is the same insulting word as for African Americans The word "nigga". "But why, what's wrong with that? - I protested weakly. After all, the word "kolbit" is derived from two English words: "count" - coal and "bit" - to beat, which is an analogue of the word "miner". It is well known that the British, who had numerous coal concessions in Kazakhstan at the beginning of the 20th century, actively used local Kazakhs to work in mines. " "I will not argue with you," Igor said. "Call it that and see what happens." Only I will not help you, so know. My business is to warn. "
   Yes, the local color in Karaganda was felt in everything, and Asian exoticism at first caused all of us, especially the father, a feeling of real euphoria. And, indeed, in comparison with the order boring Barnaul, Karaganda appeared before us in an amazing splendor. We walked with my father along the wide avenue named after Nurken Abdirov, a Kazakh pilot, who repeated Gastello's feat during the Great Patriotic War; Drank koumiss, which was sold at every step instead of kvass; Ate beshbarmak in the cafe "Botakoz", which means in Kazakh "camel's eye" - in general they enjoyed life in full in this, as we then thought, a fertile Asian region. There was one more circumstance that favorably distinguished Karaganda from Barnaul in the early 70s of the last century and especially pleased mother - food abundance in the stores. After the chronic "torricelli emptiness" on the Barnaul shelves, we really thought that we were in paradise - it affected the miners' special supply in the city of all-Union significance.
   One thing only at first exasperated us, the forest inhabitants of Altai - the absence of nature outside the city. After the rich ribbon pine forest - the relic coniferous forest of the glacial period in Barnaul - the Kazakh steppe, with the endless ocean stretching around Karaganda, looked very poor. It took time to find delights in this ascetic nature. And indeed, the steppe in its own way, too, can please the eye, unless you are, of course, agrophobic, and no less than forests and mountains.
   The steppe in Kazakhstan is especially good in the spring. The red disk of the Sun, rising above the horizon like a giant UFO, transforms the steppe in an instant, adding soft, surreal shades to the colorful palette of spring flowers and grasses; Fragrant herbage, as in a slow motion picture, gently sways in the plasma of the solar wind; Languishing in the sun, plunging you into the magical world of steppe scents. All your senses are working at the limit, eagerly trying to embrace, sense, absorb all this splendor! Creator only once a year allows himself "in full" to relax in the steppes, turning after a bored winter from a grumbling misanthrope into a real merry fellow and an impressionist artist. The range of colors used by Him is impressive: red and yellow tulips, crimson poppies and undersized irises with yellow and purple flowers, fragrant violets and mauve anemones, frivolous buttercups and appetizing shrubs of wild asparagus all merge into a multicolored rainbow, a many-voiced chorus of smells and watercolors of spring Steppe. I happened to visit both the Gobi Desert and the Roerich sacred corners of the Altai Mountains. And one can argue where the breath of the Cosmos is felt stronger. In any case, I was able to make sure on my own experience that the meditative practices of Mongolian nomads are not inferior to the spiritual practices of Tibetan monks.
   While finishing work was taking place in our new house, my father settled us at the hotel "Chaika" - the only hotel of the representative class at that time. She looked like an imposing manor surrounded by a high fence, with a park and even a fountain inside. At our disposal was a three-room suite, with a luxurious bathroom and even a queer bidet for that time. On the territory of the hotel there was an exclusive two-storey bungalow for VIP persons, namely cosmonauts, who after returning from space, tired of long overloads, were brought from Baikonur to restore their strength. I, the ubiquitous child, quickly became friends with the hotel staff, who took care of me as my son, arranging improvised excursions to local attractions. The old resident of the hotel, Uncle Semyon, a janitor with a 30-year experience, told me in a "big secret" that the walls of this mansion were remembered by Yuri Gagarin, Herman Titov and Valentina Tereshkova. "My dearest woman, by the way, and very modest in my life!" - Uncle Semyon recounted, remembering with warmth the eminent hotel guests. Fantasy Uncle Semyon knew no boundaries. In the hotel lived the general favorite of the staff of the elderly mongrel Belka - folded bitch - albino with a pointed but very expressive muzzle. Uncle Semyon whispered to me "the most important state secret", having first taken with me the obligation of non-disclosure: "This is the same Squirrel that flew into space with the Arrow!" I was struck to the core of this news, although the worm of doubt continued to gnaw my childish Consciousness: "And where is the Arrow?" "We buried her a year ago," Uncle Semyon answered unperturbedly. "Do you want me to show you the grave?" I did not look at the grave of the heroic dog, at last, having believed in the legend of the "1960 space odyssey". At the same time, I began to treat Belka with such reverence and trembling, which, probably, would not apply to Valentina Tereshkova, whether she is at the hotel now. Unfortunately, Squirrel did not reciprocate me and even tapped my hand lightly when I tried to get her newborn puppy, another blind kitten, from the dog's cot in the stokehouse of the hotel.
   The territory of the hotel "Seagull" closely adjoined to a high fence, fencing us from the city park-arboretum - an object of special pride of Karaganda botanists. The fact is that to break such a rich forest park in Kazakhstan is an incredible effort. Only at a depth of 1 meter in Karaganda soil there are deadly solonchaks for all plants that do not allow the roots of trees to go deep into the soil, and, therefore, do not give the opportunity to draw from it the necessary for life juices and minerals. Therefore, the work of local botanists, who turned the steppe Karaganda into a green oasis, certainly deserves all due respect. Perhaps, except Barnaul, which is rightly called the "Green Athens", and a glorious city on the Amur of Khabarovsk, drowning in lush greenery as a real southern city, I did not meet such greened cities in the vastness of our then immense homeland. Park - arboretum with a wide ribbon stretched for many kilometers across the city and ended with a botanical garden, next to which was our new five-story house on Erzhanov Street. Looking back at the years I lived, I can say with certainty that in Karaganda at that time there were two genuine miracles of the Light: one man-made is the Botanical Garden, and the second is not made by hands - the Fedorovsky Reservoir. Once in the Botanical Garden, you could fully feel yourself in the forests of the middle part of Russia, get lost among the numerous birch trees and oak groves. The young birch trees were so delicate and thin that their snow-white trunks caused a full sense of human flesh to touch, and touching them was almost erotic. The pride of Karaganda botanists, of course, was a greenhouse in which palm trees, baobabs and other exotic trees of the tropical flora grew. But the object of the "carnal" lust of boys in the Botanical Garden, of course, were berries irgi, which in Kazakhstan is called, for some reason, Irgis. It is a very beautiful tree, a small grove of which was a real decoration of the Botanical Garden. Irga in May is covered with white foam flower brushes, reminiscent of bird cherry. By the way, and its astringent taste, the irge also resembles a bird cherry and a chokeberry at the same time. The bushes are plentifully hung with tassels of green, red and almost black color, which the bird's and boy's brothers greedily fall into early autumn. Especially good is the autumn iride, when its foliage is painted in orange-red and purple tones. Let me remind you that all this miracle was created by people in a practically lifeless solonchak zone, which cost them truly titanic efforts; Labor and efforts of these beautiful people, fanatically devoted to their work.
   Another miracle of nature is the Fedorov reservoir, named after Fedorovka, a suburban settlement. Despite the fact that this lake was located on the territory of the coal mine, that is why it reached a depth of up to 200 meters in places, it had a unique, non-manual nature. Once it was a prosperous state enterprise - a coal mine in which coal was mined in an open way. But in one of the unlucky days a giant excavator touched and damaged the water artery of the earth; The water poured into the cut with a powerful stream, burying under its thickness all the machinery and tons of coal that had already been mined. However, despite the rapidity of the events, people managed to evacuate on time. Scuba divers, who occasionally plunged into the depth of the reservoir, told that there, at the bottom, you see a completely surreal picture of a fantastic blockbuster - excavators, trucks and other mining equipment rests under the water almost intact, as if left and abandoned by people on Fate of fate only yesterday.
   Fedorovskoe reservoir has always been a favorite place for Karaganda residents. The cleanest, almost spring water, which has the properties of self-purification and regeneration, was pleasantly cooled in hot summer days, and an improvised boat station on which it was possible to rent a boat "Kazanka" inexpensively, made the rest simply unforgettable, especially for a thirteen-year-old teenager who " Sweeter "dirty pond in the Melange Park of Barnaul did not even try.
   One day, my dad and I, like two captains, took the boat for two hours and set out on an open voyage between the islands formed by former waste tanks, on which the luxuriant vegetation settled for a long time already. Landing on these uninhabited islands, we fully felt like Robinsons, but on one of the islands we were waiting for some disappointment - there was already a mighty sporting party of drunken young guys, thus depriving us of our "sea" journey adventure fleur. "Eduard Ionovich, Comrade Major, join us!" One of the young men shouted, waving a friendly hand to us. This guy turned out to be Seryozha Girko, a cadet of the Karaganda Higher School of the USSR Ministry of the Interior. I imagine how surprised we would have been if we had learned that in 30 years I, the police colonel and doctor of law, will work in Moscow under the rank of Major General of Militia Sergei Ivanovich Girko at the All-Russia Research Institute of the Ministry of the Interior. "Lesha Shirvanov caught crayfish once and we will cook them now!" - Sergey reported joyfully, preparing a smoked pot for the future "exquisite" dish. - True, it's - well, very small crayfish, but three rubles, like Roman Kartsev! "
   Surprising pirouettes still sometimes write Fate - with Colonel Militia Aleksey Amirbekovich Shirvanov we will sit in the Research Institute in one office, putting "our precious lives" on the altar of departmental science. I watched with curiosity the mustachioed creatures I had seen for the first time in my life. One such creature I even put my finger in the claw, for which I paid immediately. Angered by the boorish behavior of the cancer and angrily waving a bitten hand, as punishment for this mustached scoundrel I sent the first into the boiling water, with almost sadistic satisfaction watching him blush from the strain and viciously "puffed up" in boiling water. The whole honest company, we began to greedily weave crayfish, which turned out to be insipid, because the children had no salt in the "meanness law", but this did not spoil our appetite, and soon the crayfish was forever destroyed - only armor and others remained on the ground Inedible rachium ammunition.
   One day, on one of the hottest July days, we met on the Fedorov reservoir my classmate from 47 schools of Sergei Novikov, who was resting on the local beach with his father and elder sister Natasha. With Sergei at school, I almost did not communicate, since he seemed to me a very arrogant little man, to which he could not be approached. And then to say, he had something to be proud of and rise above all the guys. The fact is, in this same school his mother Tamara Semenovna worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature, which provided Serezha with a special position among classmates and teachers. The special status of Sergei was also promoted by his living natural mind, developed by years of rather strong intellect and an extraordinary sense of humor. Contrary to expectations, on the beach, finally, "this deity descended from heaven" - the good thing that we are all naked - and I had a pretty nice talk with Novikov in a very relaxed and conducive environment. As it turned out, this became the pledge of our future friendship, which we will carry through many years.
   The Novikov family lived next door to us in a two-story brick house built in the 50's on Poletaeva Street. From the same street, a very impressive microdistrict of two-story buildings began, which, on the one hand, rested directly in the territory of our secondary school N47, and on the other - in the grocery store "Ayman". First of all, this grocery store was remarkable because it acted as a kind of "state" border for two boyish rival factions: the so-called "Aiman" or railway stations, and the "flying" or "green transit" groups. The groupings were in a state of permanent war: the wall to the wall was periodically converging on the Stony River, a city sewage channel crossing across the vast area of ??the "greentrust" - the urban park zone; Arranged forays into the enemy's camp at the station square and retaliatory actions of intimidation on the territory of our 47th school. I never took part in these mass fights for two reasons.
   Firstly, our house in Yerzhanova Street stood apart from all the other yards, therefore, formally, all the children living in the house did not join any permanently operating group at the time.
   Secondly, in adolescence and adolescence, I was a cowardly and incredibly frail boy, so I was never considered by the organizers of brawls as a serious fighting unit. However, there was also a third, very formidable force, in the face of which the "Aimanovs" and "Flying Men" forgot all their past grievances and, if possible, united in one grouping to give a worthy rebuff to the enemy. They were Chechens from the Old City, a small suburb of Karaganda, in which the Chechen diaspora was then compactly residing. These victims of the Stalinist national resettlement policy from the North Caucasus have always differed in Kazakhstan with an incredibly malicious disposition, cunning and cruelty. In addition, they did not disdain to use cold steel, which made skirmishes with them deadly. The acts of intimidation organized and conducted by the Chechens were distinguished by an excellent organization and were conducted according to all the rules of military tactics. In my memory, one such action, held by Chechens in Karaganda on May 9, 1977.
   This festive day began, as usual, lightly and joyfully, not foretelling any cataclysms. A military parade and a parade of veterans of the Great Patriotic War were still running along the main street of Karaganda, and a group of radical Chechen youth from the Old City was already preparing to arrange an "enchanting" show - an act of retribution for the mistakes of our ancestors. The matter is that on May 9, 1944 - a special day in the Chechen calendar. This is the day of the end of the special operation under the code name "Lentil" by the NKVD troops for the resettlement of Chechens to remote areas of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. And the Soviet government had more than enough reasons for that. The fact is, the Chechens during the war actively cooperated with the fascists in the fight against the Soviet Army.
   For example, there were such connections of the Abwehr as Sonderkommand "Bergman", which in German means "Highlander", manned exclusively by Chechens. The tasks of the "Bergman" included sabotage and terrorist operations against our troops, coverup of the Wehrmacht troops, struggle with the Soviet partisans. The North Caucasian legion of the Wehrmacht was quite a serious force: the number of Bergman alone consisted of about 1,200 spetsnaz people, that is, it consisted of serious, skilful and hardened fighters.
   So the operation "Lentil" under those conditions was historically absolutely justified and, of course, necessary action, and, moreover, hand on heart, quite humane in the conditions of wartime. It is clear that the Chechens evaluate the historical events that have taken place from their "bell tower", forgot nothing and never missed the opportunity to painfully bite the authorities, demonstrating their independence and the "famous" Caucasian pride. Only for all the global historical decisions taken by the authorities, for some reason, it is necessary to be puffed up by a simple Russian person. So it happened this time. About 21 hours a group of Chechens on four buses arrived from the Old City to Karaganda. Having built himself in a harmonious column, a gloomy Kuklukkslanovskaya procession moved from Privokzalnaya Square to Lenin Avenue. The Chechens silently marched along the central street of the city, occasionally, in a Chechen guttural manner, shouting: "Zig hail!" - and throwing up his right hand. The cowardly Kazakh militia, as usual, hid in their homes along with the frightened residents. Then the column was divided into several groups, which flowed into the courtyards of urban courtyards and squares. And bloody fun came. Beat all the Russians indiscriminately, whether it was a guy with a girl, a disabled person or a teenager. If someone offered resistance to the Chechens, he was stabbed. The city hospitals were overcrowded by those who suffered from night skirmishes, but the authorities were still inactive, and the famous, best in the world special service of the KGB of the USSR kept a "proud" silence and pretended that nothing was happening. Having finished the intimidation action, "faithfully" having fulfilled their "political" mission, the Chechens, in the same organized order that they arrived, with a feeling of deep satisfaction, finally left Karaganda. This "epoch-making" event was overgrown with such speculation and fables in boyish folklore, according to which the Chechens did not roll out howitzers and volley-fire installations "Grad" to Lenin Square. For a long time word-of-mouth "deep traditions" were transmitted from mouth to mouth, where young homegrown "homers" did not spare colors for greater effect and forcing the horror, clearly maintaining the classic genre of thriller and horror film at the same time. The event described above physically passed me by, as in Karaganda I was absolutely a home child and in the evening on May 9, fortunately, was already at home. But, alas, I could not avoid the second, real meeting with the Chechens from the Old City. And it was so.
   One day, on one of the sunny April days, Sergei Novikov, with whom we were already friends, periodically quarreling and enduring long artistic pauses in communication, invited me to go for a company with him to the Old Town. The fact is that in the only store of industrial goods of the Old City "thrown out" for sale very scarce at that time magnetic tape "TASMA" for reel tape recorders. "Sarafan radio" in Karaganda instantly reported that a large batch of this "sacral" for boys was brought to the Chechen department store from Kazan, and the most popular length of the magnetic tape is 480 meters. From the very beginning, we did not have a voyage - we arrived just in time for a lunch break at the department store. I did not have time to figure out how to approach Novikov, right at the bus stop, a sturdy Chechen of 25 years approached, who put his arm around his shoulders and passionately (at least that was the impression he had from the outside) whispering something in his ear, leading him aside One-story building of the district executive committee (above it the USSR national flag fluttered), separated from the stop by a tall wooden fence. I had no choice but to follow them - obediently, like a sheep to meet Fate. Vano (that's the name of a Chechen, judging by the tattoo on his right hand) had an expressive, shaved skull, deep-set brown eyes, a predatory cartilaginous nose and tightly compressed sad lips of a sadist. "Well, guys, get the small change out of your pockets, the" shmona "begins!" Vano solemnly proclaimed and, for the sake of convincing his intentions, took out a knife of zek work from the back pocket of his trousers. Sergei had a bill of 5 rubles (a huge amount for a boy of that time), I had a small change of 2 rubles 80 kopecks - all that I could scrape out of my mother's box for "working" trivia. All this "wealth" safely migrated to Vano's pocket. "And what's that you have," Piston "?" Asked the Chechen cheerfully, running two fingers into the secret pocket of my trousers. "No," I answered. "These are old grandfather trousers, sewn by my mother to me. And the pocket was intended for watches on a chain, which used to be worn either in a waistcoat or in trousers, just like in these same "pistons".
   In this extremely dirty situation, I decided at full power, as they say, "to include a fool," and, I must admit, it turned out very well for me - my Chechen idiotic behavior was clearly to my liking. "Well done, you know!" - Vano praised me, who after a successful "hunt" wanted to talk culturally. "And who are your parents?" - He asked me with genuine interest. Apparently, I liked him, unlike Sergei. This is - a rare case in my life: usually in the face in unpleasant situations of childhood I always got it, and Novikov managed to safely avoid this fate. But here everything happened exactly the opposite. "Mom is a musician, and Dad ...," I hesitated a bit (try to say that Dad is a lieutenant colonel of the militia), is also a musician, a horn player. " "Look at you - the intelligentsia. And what is a horn player? "Asked the Chechen puzzled. "Well, you know, it's such a healthy curved pipe, it's necessary to blow there, that there are forces!" - I answered with some familiarity, as if we had been good friends with Vano. Sergei with envy looked at me - my inspired delirium clearly surprised and puzzled. "What a fine fellow you are, you understand everything in everything!" - Vano again praised me and smiled with a broad, radiant smile. "Well, and who are your parents?" - he turned to Novikov with a completely different face. "Dad and Mom are teachers," Sergei answered, and immediately received a sharp punch in the face. He cried out, and I burst out: "Do not beat him!" "Do you still have dengi?" Vano Novikov asked with a strong Caucasian accent and, without waiting for an answer, bent down, took off his boots from Sergei's feet and a professional reception (" Apparently, there was some experience of inspections in prison) with a knife forged insoles. Not finding anything interesting there, the Chechen was disappointed, more likely for pro forma, again asked Novikov: "Why did you come here, gondon?" It became clear that Sergei was elected to them as a victim of mockery and the reason for it was clearly not needed. The absurdity of what was happening was especially striking in the face of the screaming scenery of this more than a strange spectacle. All this "gop-stop," all this hypocritical action took place, very everyday, and therefore especially cynical, on a beautiful April day in front of the government building of the district executive committee, in which there was no one (as luck would have it, it was a non-working Saturday). In a break between our "friendly communication" to the building of the district executive committee, two very beautiful Chechen boys, apparently acquaintances of Vano, suddenly came up. They exchanged several phrases with him in the Chechen language, gave him a cigarette, and looking closely at me and Sergei, they retired proudly. "Come on, come with me," Vano told Sergei and dragged him into the cubicle near the building of the district executive committee, which was apparently used as a wood warehouse. He started Novikov for a small fence, through a narrow crack in which I could see what was happening there. "We must go there and hit the Chechen with a brick on the head," - feverishly knocked in my head and threw in sweat from the thought that I might have to kill a man. Nearby, on a flowerbed, lay a heavy brick. My legs became wadded, I sank to the ground and felt that not only was I not able to hit someone, but simply to take a step.
   Suddenly I saw the Chechen begin to strangle Sergei. We had to act. Some unknown force picked me up and carried me to a stop on which there were quite a few people - adult men and women. "Help! "I shouted." There the Chechen strikes my friend! "The men at the bus stop looked at each other in fright. "You see, we do not have time. We are late for work! "- At last one of them, the Russian man (Russian in the Old City, at that time were absolutely" zadrochennymi "Chechens of the national minority) guiltily blamed) 40-45 years. Then I ran towards the pub, which was located next to the stop. At one of the tables I saw two men, obviously "exhausted with narzan," with beer mugs in their hands. "Help, please, there the Chechen beats my friend, as small as I am!" - I asked one of the stocky Russian men at the table. "Petya, do not get involved!" Said the lanky drinking companion to the stocky. He thought a little and briefly left me: "Show me where it is!" We passed for the fence of the district executive committee; Lanky, something grumbled discontentedly under his breath, followed us. As soon as we entered the fence, the Chechen, like a wild panther, jumped out of the cot and, furiously spinning with thorns, yelled at the stocky man: "What does tebe need? I - chechen, I live here! "" Take at least a brick, "I said to Peter, who only looked at me in amazement. "Do not, not to anything! Did he offend you? "He asked Sergei, who, with a pale face, while buttoning his jeans, left the room. He only nodded in silence and whispered to me: "Seryoga, we run away from here!" We ran as though Death was following us with a scythe and with all his court retinue. Fortunately for us, the bus pulled up to Karaganda, we jumped into it and, already departing, saw with horror how Vano was rushing to the stop, maliciously looking out for us among the passengers of the bus. All the way to Karaganda we were silent - Seryozha was clearly in shock. It was clearly visible that this is the first most powerful shock in his still short life.
   When I arrived in Karaganda, I, of course, told everything to my father, who was just furious with what I heard: "It is necessary to find this nit!" Through the graduates of the Karaganda school of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, working in the criminal investigation department, he struck a file of the tried Chechens of the Old City, the more so I gave a pretty good description of the exterior and special features of Vano. His capture was just a matter of time. However, soon afterwards, Sergei Tamara Semyonovna's mother came to our house, who asked her father to "put the brakes on", because Sergei has a sick heart, he is still in a terrible depression and will finally finish his trial. As Father Tamara Semyonovna did not convince, that such things can not be left unpunished, she remained adamant.
   After this event, my rating among the boys is incredibly grown. The next morning I went out into the courtyard where our courtyard guys and Sergei Novikov were sitting on the bench, like perches on a perch. "Here it is, our hero!" - shouted Borya Morozov, and the guys looked at me with obvious respect. By the way, about whom - about, but about Bora, certainly, it is necessary to tell more in detail.
   Boria Morozov, was, in general, an outstanding personality in our yard. The pendulum of my boyish sympathies constantly swung from Novikov to Morozov and vice versa. To say that Borya was always charming and in all cases an attractive person, of course, it is impossible, but that, he was a charismatic guy - this can not be denied. First, he was older than us with Novikov for two years, which, of course, us, the salag, bribed. Secondly, he was a very well-read, inquisitive person, which greatly raised him in our eyes, especially considering Borino proletarian origin. And then, such funny funny things were always associated with him, that Bore was forgiven very much - and his incredible greed, and natural cowardice, and small growth, which in the tenth grade made him look like an eighth-grader. One of these curiosities especially crashed into memory. Boris had an older brother, Valera, a finished drunkard, whose alcoholic adventures were the subject of numerous anecdotes of our court. Especially funny was Borina's interpretation of the anecdotal events of this very entertaining family chronicle. "One night I woke up from a strange sensation," Borya told us another story of the adventure of his "legendary" brother, - it seemed that someone was standing over me. I peered into the darkness and saw ... the penis right in front of my face. Looked closely - and this is as always a drunk brother Valerka. "What are you doing, you goat?" I cried. "Be silent, bitch," said his brother, and he hit me hard with his fist in the jaw. I got angry and ... (here we all froze in anticipation of active fighting from Bori) turned on his side and fell asleep! And this asshole still pissed me off at night! "Here we all could not stand it - the courtyard burst into a homeric laughter, which did not stop for a long time and spread to the botanical garden itself with a reverberating echo.
   At one time we approached the charismatic Boreas Morozov even more than with Sergei Novikov. The reason for this was our new enthusiasm for astronomy. I must say that by 1980 the country's craze for ufology began, and our proximity to Baikonur and the frequent occurrences of contact with UFOs, apparently in an interesting zone for the aliens, constantly fueled the boyish interest in the problem of "flying saucers." To a large extent our interest in astronomy was also contributed by my father's fascination with the works of the well-known Soviet ufologist, Academician Azhazh Vladimir Mikhailovich, who periodically shocked the public of that time with his sensational statements about extraterrestrial civilizations and their constant visits to the Earth. It was then that my father constructed my first telescope, finding instructions on how to make it in the popular journal "Technique of Youth." On the balcony of our house (and we lived on the last fifth floor) I equipped the most "real" observatory, covering the balcony with a blanket and fixing it with pegs, with a porthole for the telescope, a starry sky map, a notebook for recording astronomical observations, a compass and a flashlight. In general, all necessary, that is supposed to be a real "astrologer" in his space position.
   All the evening long we spent with Boreas on the street, peering at the starry Abyss and trying to view the signs of life there. Borya also made a telescope, which in terms of workmanship was much inferior to mine, but he, unlike me, had already undergone a school course in astronomy, so he approached the study of the starry sky more thoroughly.
    Fortune once smiled at us and we saw a more than strange phenomenon, from which, I remember, then goose bumps went on the back. In the autumn evening, armed with telescopes, we, as always, settled in the courtyard, causing ridicule of the children, who, apparently, envied our enthusiasm and in every way tried to humiliate us along with Her Majesty the Astronomy. Among the guys was a famous hockey player of the Karaganda team "Motorist" my classmate Misha Petrov and Sergei Novikov - an incorrigible skeptic, compared to which Thomas the Unbeliever simply "rests." Borya gave us a lengthy lecture about the constellation of Orion, showing him in the sky, like a real lecturer in a planetarium. Suddenly across the sky, right above our heads, apparently at very high altitude, a strange object, like a boomerang, swept past. Two bright glowing points, located at a distance of about 40 cm from each other (it is clear that the actual dimensions of the object at such an altitude can not be estimated), were connected by transparent spheres through which the sky and sparks of numerous stars could be seen. The object flew absolutely silently, swiftly, but slowly enough that it could still be clearly discerned. The first to see him was the trained view of astronomers I and Boris. We only managed to exclaim from surprise and amazement, feverishly peering into the night sky, hoping to once again see a strange stranger. After about 15 minutes, the object again appeared in the sky like a fantastic bird, silently hovering over the earth. This time, Misha Petrov saw him, who afterwards, like us, could no longer tear off the enchanted gaze from the starry sky. Vexed Novikov, who again could not see anything, began to point outly defiantly us, urging him to turn to the clinic named after Kashchenko. However, exactly in the same interval of time the object flew over us again, and this time it was seen by all the guys, except ... Sergei Novikov. His annoyance at the same time did not know the limit - in the end he frankly "splashed" with us and proudly retired home, saying that he was sorry to waste time with such accomplished assholes as we are.
   As with most telescopes of refractive (lens) type, ours had a significant constructive drawback - an inverted image that made them not very convenient for observations, especially not related to astronomy. The fact that our telescopes can be used not for their intended purpose and much more "interesting", we were prompted by the resourceful Sergei Novikov. It is clear, what kind of "interest" can have a pimply, "anxious" teenager, "expiring sexual genitalia" - spying on naked women in the windows of neighboring five-story buildings. In general, the idea of ??Novikov, of course, was not very novel and original, nevertheless, this message from Lukavoy found response in our fragile children's souls.
   Observant point young "paparazzi" equipped on a pointed roof of a two-story building of Sergey. It was a very dangerous roof, with a rather impressive angle, so in slippery shoes, especially in rainy weather, there was nothing to do. Work shoes "hunters before the strawberry" - Soviet-made shoes, in which you could still feel more-less confident on this extreme slate roof. We spent long hours in our lair in anticipation of suitable subjects-nude. If the long wait was rewarded with such a "cheerful" story, at least with bare chest, it was for a whole week a subject of noisy discussion in the yard, and "lucky" - the voyeur, although for a short time, became the object of undisguised boyish envy. Our society of young erotomaniacs has now been replenished by Sergei Novikov and Misha Petrov, with whom we have already gone to the roof as a work, that is, with enviable constancy. Soon, and our roof was not enough for us. We began to master the sloping roof of my five-story building. It came to curiosities bordering on a deadly risk.
   One summer evenings, Misha Petrov, armed with my telescope, spied a suitable plot with nudity - a mature attractive person on the fourth floor of a nearby building was preparing for the next beach season, "rolling" a collection of Soviet unpretentious swimsuits in front of the mirror. If she was all right with the chest, then everything that was below the belt, to Misha's great disappointment, was hidden by the outer wall of the house at the level of the window sill. Having taken a great interest in this "fantastic" spectacle, Mishan slid forward in a plastunistic way, and without calculation, with his telescope began slowly, but surely, to crawl from the peak of the cornice. "Hold me by the feet!" - only he managed to shout to us, and Morozov and I, that there are forces, grabbed his legs and dragged him. "What a wonderful evening today!" - enthusiastically said below, right below us, my mother, who went out on the balcony to breathe a full breast with the elastic July air and, fortunately, did not hear our noisy fuss on the roof. Mishan flushed like a cancer, and was sweating profusely, the sweat streamed down his face and neck - it was obvious that he had survived not the best seconds of his life. After this unpleasant incident, we no longer changed our own, become native, roof of the Novikov house, which also became a savior for me in the most direct sense of the word. And it was so.
   One day, resting from pretty podnadoevshih erotic sessions, we Morozov, armed with telescopes, looked with curiosity at the full moon. A lanky guy with a sheepdog passed by - as I found out later, it was Vova Pashko from the parallel 9 - "in" class. I do not know why, I gave a loud meow, causing his dog's nervous barking. "Now like meow, goat, learn to bark!" - Grumbled with a quiet threat Pashko and went on. On that incident, and would have been exhausted, but the devil pulled Morozov to blurt out: "If I were you, I would have caught up and let into the face!" Without thinking twice, I did so. "Come on, stop, you fool!" - I caught up with Pashko. He stopped with a brazen smile, comfortably, turning his nasty, pimply face to me deliberately, and I seriously and very efficiently conducted a beautiful, put "hook" to his left in the jaw. He was taken aback, grabbed his cheek, and then panicked, along with the frightened sheepdog, shouting: "Well, all right, now we'll kill you, you bastard!" It was not long before I heard the noise of the approaching crowd, which foreshadowed absolutely nothing good for me. Ahead were tall men, holding miner's lanterns. "I would have fled if I were you," Morozov said unperturbedly, sitting on the wooden table for dominoes. "Run with me," I said. "What for? I did not do anything. " "Well, as you know!" - I already threw on the run and rushed that there are forces to the entrance, where our beloved hatchway was located. Quicker than the monkey, I jumped on the stairs and quickly climbed to the attic.
   Through the embrasure of the attic hatch, I could clearly see Vova Pashko running into the entrance, followed by me, holding a bicycle chain. He wanted to climb up the stairs to the attic in a fever, but when he saw my arm with a brick brought over him, he changed his mind and ran out of the entrance. "The boys, who climbs on the roof with me?" - I heard his trembling voice, and, without waiting for possible volunteers, climbed on the roof. The calculation in this case was simple - on the roof I felt myself like God or almost like God. Even if the guys suddenly climbed on the roof, I would successfully attack them with cobblestones that were abundant here, and in case of unfavorable developments, there was always a reserve path of retreat to the roof of the neighboring two-story building. And then, in the attic, there were so many hidden secluded corners to bury, that even with miner's flashlights, the enemy would need a very long time to find me. In this case, the time worked for me.
   As was to be expected, there was no one wishing to climb to the roof, so I sat quietly on the roof, listening attentively to what was going on below, and when the noise died down there, cautiously descended the stairs and left the entrance. In front of me there was a depressing picture. Boria Morozov, with a battered face, stood in the middle of the yard children, among whom was Sergei Novikov (he left the house exactly to the end of this tragicomedy) and Misha Petrov. Strongly gesticulating with his hands, Borya heatedly told the guys how Voronin's pricker was beaten by Egor's gang. The name of Egor, an ethnic German with pathological criminal predilections, caused horror throughout the 47th school. It was a burly marginal from a family of criminals with a height of 190 cm, who already in the tenth grade looked like a 25-year-old man. They told us that Yegor had been living with him since the age of 15 with a 30-year-old woman who had a child in his arms, and at school, in his mistresses, a tall girl Tanya from a parallel class named "Baby" walked in her mistresses. This Baby was a real gangster who was afraid not only of girls, but even of guys. I witnessed how Tanya kicked a strong guy in the groin with a powerful kick - a hockey player nicknamed "Fatima". In "apprentices" Yegor went to a large Tatar from 10 - "B" class Albert Gilmanov. It was he who "froze" for me Bora Morozova. In general, according to my humble person, all the local "beau monde" gathered from the neighboring criminal court, which of course, of course, could not but "please" me. "Tomorrow you will have a" Karachun "in school!" Morozov hissed maliciously. "They said that they will get you in school, there you can not get away from them." I just did not reply, because the prospect of being beaten, if not killed, was so obvious in the school. "No need for words, gentlemen of the jury!" I thought glumly and went home. My dejected state could not remain unnoticed for the parents. "What happened?" - asked my father and frowned when I told him my sad story. "So, tomorrow, when Pashko approaches you, and he always comes to you between lessons to enjoy your fear, you will say to him:" If something happens to me, my father, the police lieutenant colonel, will send a platoon of cadets to school The Ministry of Internal Affairs and then we will talk with your whole honest company in another way! "This was a brilliant move by my father. From myself, I added a little improvisation, peeped in the then popular movie "Petrovka -38". There the criminal investigation inspector said the key phrase, which I really liked, to the "hot" Caucasian man who unreasonably jealoused him of his companion: "Dear, if you are satisfied with my apologies for the injury done, I bring them." The next morning everything happened as predicted by the pope. In a break between lessons Vovan came up to me and hissed like a snake: "Well, get ready, you dick, after classes you will have a kayuk!" I gave him the learned words of my father, adding the phrase I liked. And - about a miracle! When I said it, in the eyes of Vova Pashko there were tears. He silently gave me his hand, I shook it with feeling and we, very pleased with ourselves, proudly parted. Then, after the lessons, I noticed how Pashko approached Yegor and gave him my words. He looked at me with obvious respect, and the incident was exhausted - for me, but not for Boris Morozov! Since he had already finished his studies at school, Pashko's friends undertook to catch and bang him near the house in the courtyard, in the Botanical Garden, on the way to the store. It got to the point that he tried to walk on the street either at night or accompanied by his parents, and this continued until his very call to the army. So I got my first lesson of how severely, but fairly punishes the fate of provocateurs and instigators.
   The inhabitants of the glorious house, on the roof of which these remarkable events of my childhood happened, deserve special attention in our narrative. On the second floor, as we already know, the Novikov family lived, which was five times in a two-room apartment of the old type, the so-called "subcompact". The fifth member of the family was elderly, very nice and neat grandmother Seryozha from Tselinograd (present-day Astana) - apparently, the mother of Eugene Yegorovich. The situation in the apartment was so tight that Serezha had to sleep on a chair-bed, which he in turn shared with his sister Natasha. To the right of Novikov there lived the well-known "rastoman" in the district (an auth-an addict who consumes cannabis plants) with an impressive experience of Sabir Tuleubayev. This young Kazakh, who does not know Russian well, from the "tender" age with might and main consumed Chui hemp growing in the mountainous regions of Kyrgyzstan (not to be confused with the Chui valley of Gorny Altai). As usual, in the morning, nowhere else working Sabir occupied a favorite observational position on the balcony of his house, rotten from the chronic "breaking" view of the inhabitant of Chinese opium establishments peering at the faces of passers-by. "Zholdas, tenge bar?" ("Friend, money is"?) - he asked when he saw me. "Tenge Jok" ("There is no money") - I answered, having exhausted all my stock of Kazakh words. "Ket, ball!" ("Get out, boy!" - Kazakh analogue of the Russian letter in three letters) - Sabir threw evil and grabbed a nearby cleaver, began to cut furniture rubbish stored on the balcony, apparently, just for these Goals. The yard had long been accustomed to these psychopathic concerts Sabir and was not surprised by anything.
   To the left of Novikov lived the Polyakov family. Seryozha Polyakov nicknamed "Pulik" from the parallel 9 - "B" belonged to the category of people whom the outstanding Russian psychiatrist Peter Borisovich Gannushkin called "constitutionally stupid". That is, it can not be said that he was a moron or mentally handicapped in the literal sense of the word, but his judgments were so infantile that he seemed to have in his brain a certain blocker that does not allow him to rise above his simplest physiological needs such as "eating" And all that successfully rhymes with this word. At the same time, Sergei was so skinny that, against his background, I, myself a rare geek, felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently, speech in this "clinical" case was already about dystrophy, but Sergei Polyakov did not care and did not depress him at all, and he was always in an even cheerful state of mind, which caused me genuine envy. To the left of Pulik lived a family of taxi driver Kolymberger nicknamed "Baryga." Baryga had the appearance of a classic, very untidy Jew - fat, with a huge belly-like watermelon; With short crooked legs, overgrown with hair; With completely absent neck. At the same time, to the envy of the whole court, this garden scarecrow was married to a very pretty Tatar woman, who gave birth to this Shrek daughter Olya - a real oriental beauty. It's amazing how sometimes such different genes are intertwined, forming in the union a magnificent gentle pattern full of charm and harmony. If Olya's appearance was in order, then her character can not be said at all. It was a spoiled young woman, spoiled by her father, who allowed herself such things as no girl in our yard could afford. Once, during a joint game, I quarreled with Olya, and she, for no reason, hurt me with a foot in the groin. I did not even have time to figure out how my hand had slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground and even traveled some distance back on the grass. She looked at me with eyes full of tears, but ... even with obvious respect. With sadness, I recently learned that Olga had died before she was 18, from criminal abortion and the general blood infection caused by him. And the culprit of the tragedy was "a happy father" (who would have thought ?!) - her neighbor - the "brains" Seryozha Polyakov.
   In the summer Baryga, when he had a good mood, arranged for us in the courtyard of improvised discos. He exhibited 100-watt columns on the balcony, included the "Arcturus" turntable for those times, with a diamond, as they used to say, "the eternal head" and started the company's vinyl records of the ABAV Group and Boney M, extracted from the speculators. It was on the basis of foreign pop music that Baryga became friends with Vitya Zlobin ("Katipupa"), who lives with her mother on the ground floor, right under Kolymberger. Katipupa (that is, "Pup of aunt Kati - moms Vitya Zlobina), so named Novikov, who was always a great inventor of households" chased ", was a stocky, brutal boy with manners of a real fist, but a lumpen proletarian mentality. The fact is that Vitya was lazy to the point of disgrace (which later greatly spoiled his life), and Aunt Katya, as a weak and insecure mother, a loner, finally waved him down, refusing to educate a long-time slacker than Finally spoiled Katipupu. After the eighth grade, Vitya Zlobin entered the mining college, where he taught physics and mining the father of Novikov, Eugene Egorovich.
   One summer, after studying, Katipup went to the peninsula of Mangyshlak, located on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan, where for a month he passed industrial practice on a drilling rig. He returned from there as a mother, a "hardened" peasant - an oilman, who "fully" knew women and Life. The fact is that there, at the drilling site, only two girls worked as chefs in the company of hungry peasants - plain-looking girls, with an obvious inferiority complex and infantile ideas about Life. Once these girls muzhichki strongly podpoili on one of the impromptu festivals, and the entire team drill, taking advantage of their helpless condition, missed the girls "through the system" - as they say, "took the choir." Vitya told this with such ecstasy and gleam in his eyes that it was evident how this event of "group sex" changed all his existing ideas about the world. But most of all I was struck by Katyupupa's story that on the morning the chefs were so obstructed and humiliated by lascivious males that they were forced to quit and go away from shame and shame where their eyes are looking. In the second entrance of our famous house there lived personalities even more charismatic and unique in all senses. On the ground floor to the right lived an eternal bachelor - a photographer of 40 years, nicknamed "Associate Professor", in his old-fashioned glasses with a thick frame, really, like a scientist or a teacher of a classical university. The senior lecturer was engaged in pornography, which he manufactured and himself distributed in the form of playing cards for Kazakh prisons and correctional institutions. The docent had a regular clientele from local putans, not disdaining youngsters who were brought to the "photoshoot" by adult prostitutes. It is clear that everything happening in the "bad" apartment of the Associate Professor, excited our children's imagination, causing burning curiosity and irresistible physiological interest. To our great disappointment, the attention of the militia and the "paparazzi" to the Associate was to nothing, and he always so carefully curtained the windows of his apartment with a sheet that, in addition to the light of the soffits making their way through the washed sheet, nothing was ever seen.
   One autumn, as usual, we sat on a bench and tweeted like a flock of sparrows, when another "sweet" couple appeared in our yard, heading towards the Associate Professor. It was Kazasha Rosa, who was leading a hand, apparently on a photographic test, to a charming Russian girl of 14. Rosa, who looked like a person and figure for the singer Masha Rasputin, always considered herself unlike her colleagues in the "shop", "educated" Confused, hosted by clients, mostly married men, in his one-room apartment on the second floor, located directly above the docent's lair. Sometimes Rosa, in order to replenish her budget, was also earning money from the Assistant Professor, while simultaneously supplying him with a new clientele for taking photos. Katipupa, wishing to impress us with his brutality, rushed across to the girls. "Rose, take me to the shooting, I would gladly have given you both!" - very voluptuously, with great feeling and aspiration, said Witek. "You first grow up, young fagot! And then the "suvalka" has not yet grown, "- retorted Rosa to our universal laughter. Katipupa blushed like a cancer, not expecting such impudence, and hurriedly retreated from brisk girls.
   Next to the Associate Professor, on the first floor in a one-room apartment, lived the great-grandmother Rosa - the old woman who survived from her mind 92 years old with the explicit complex of Plyushkin. Obsessed with the idea of ??providing a dowry to her expensive great-granddaughter Rosa, the old Kazakh woman devastated local garbage dumps, dragging their "precious" contents into her apartment, which she turned into a real "Ali Baba cave". At the same time, the old woman, making with enviable constancy her shuttle tours to local garbage dumps, was so hilarious that I could not resist the temptation to joke on her. From afar, seeing her, I stood on the edge of the balcony and, folding my hands like a speaker, screamed from the fifth floor: "Allah, Allah akbar!" (Grandma, Allah is Great!) Grandma froze, laughingly put her hands to the sky and sang the creaky old woman In a voice like a mullah on a minaret: "Allah akbar!" I shouted again: "Allah Akbar!", The old woman immediately echoed me and so continued indefinitely. In the end, the grandmother forgot about the purpose of her voyage, and I could no longer restrain myself from the Homeric laughter on the balcony, holding my stomach and sinking from the stifling laughter to my heels. When the grandmother, finally, to the relief of the neighbors gave God a soul, the local ZHKO (house,s department) needed eight trucks to bring all of its "treasure" to the city dump. It remains only to guess where the old lady managed to live, eat and sleep! And one more character of our story should say a few words: it's Sasha Tkachenko, nicknamed Bandera. The reader may have a natural question: was there a nickname in the childhood of the author of these lines? Responsibly I declare: yes, the Count was "chasing" (apparently, by analogy with Count Vorontsov), which completely superseded the "Crow" bored with me since my childhood. I was very proud of this nickname and tried to behave in the courtyard as befits a true bearer of a count's title. Bandera was a native of Western Ukraine (from here he "drove") and lived with his mother on the second floor next to the already known to us Rose. Sasha's character was bad - vindictive, aggressive and mercenary. It was this self-interest led by Bandera in 1982 to the disciplinary battalion - during his service in Afghanistan he managed to sell grenades to Afghan mujahedin. In his free time Tkachenko taught languages: Kazakh and Ukrainian, apparently, seriously intending to become a "polyglot". "Do you know how the" Nightingale the Robber "will be in Kazakh?" He would say to me. "No!" "Babu is a basmach! And do you know how the Little Red Riding Hood will look like in Ukrainian? Chervona the Capun! A sexy maniac? Sinister pisukaty! "- and Bandera burst into joyful screeching laughter, exposing brownish nicotine large horse teeth. To play with Bandera in our courtyard games - mostly "leapfrog" and "goat" - was always a very risky occupation. Sasha Tkachenko was unpredictable and extremely touchy, and the offense sometimes arose on a flat spot, but immediately followed by a merciless revenge Bandera. In my memory, during the game in the "goat" Pulik inadvertently touched Tkachenko, slightly dirty boots his trousers. Bandera's answer did not take long - when Pulik, in order of priority, became a "goat" in a well-known position, Tkachenko dispersed and foolishly shoved Polyakov's knee in the ass, that is, as they say, "ruined the goat". Pulik only managed to gasp, went into a "shaving" flight, piercing the face with asphalt. At the same time, he broke his nose and lips so severely that we did not see him more in this game. I was surprised to see how the blissful smile of the sadist froze on Bandera's face at that time.
   The game of "leapfrog" in our yard has always been an extreme activity, but it became an "extreme" on the verge of a "foul" when Vova Sadovsky - 120 kg weight, 2 m tall, the candidate for master of sports in heavy Athletics. Lord, how lucky it was for those who had Vova in the team, and how great was the luck of the one against whom the team of Sadovsky played. Not only that to sustain the "live" weight Vovik almost no one could, but grief was especially for those who fell under the cannon ball Sadovsky. According to the rules of the game, the losing team was in the gate, and Vova began to methodically break through the "fat", i.e. shoot unfortunate victims with a soccer ball. In case of a successful hit on the victim's body, a crimson trace was formed, as if from a burn with boiling water, and then a huge hematoma. I remember how Misha Petrov, accustomed, in general, to the pain and injuries of a hockey player, after another such ball hit Vova Sadovsky in the waist area fell to the ground and sobbed! It was then that an event of esoteric nature took place, which especially crashed into my childhood memory and I want to tell about it. Once, on an April evening, we divided into two teams, as usual, began to play "leapfrog." Everything went fine until the moment when Vova Sadovsky appeared at the school yard and asked to play. Cast lots, and Sadovsky, to our great dismay, was in the team of the enemy. We fell out to be a "horse". The tactic of "leapfrog" is very simple and well known - one must find and jump into the weakest link of the "horse". It is clear that I was such a weak link - as my mother sometimes called me, "a mosquito with thin legs". In this situation, the victory of Vova Sadovsky's team was ensured. I stood in the middle, ahead of me was Sergei Novikov, behind - Katyupupa. The first to us jumped Boris Morozov. He landed safely on Novikov, so we did not even feel his weight. It's time to jump to Sadovsky. He fled, noisily breathing and hard, like a rhinoceros, stamping his knives (it seemed that the earth was shaking and walking with staggering under his weight), loudly grunted like a boar and jumped straight onto me. It seemed to me that a bulldozer fell on my back, my bones cracked, but strangely enough, my legs, slightly bent at the knees, still withstood an incredible weight for me. Complementing this "oil painting" and, apparently, wishing to finish me, Sasha Tkachenko perched on top of Vova Sadovsky. Thus, all this astonishing weight fell on my poor bony back. "Count, hold on!" - yelled Kathipupa, and, surprisingly, at some point I really ceased to feel this heavy weight. The blood poured into my head with a hot wave and noisily knocked at my temples, as if I wanted to pierce the temporal bone. But now all this cumbersome construction had to go twenty long, endless steps to the football goal. The "horse" slowly but surely moved into its last, tragic way. All the way, while we walked "horse", before my eyes stood the image of a beardless man about 40 years old in a white chiton, sitting in some white room. Yes, I forgot to say that this image has haunted me since my earliest childhood and always appeared when I was ill (for example, during pneumonia) or when there was a real danger. Many years later I learned in this man the third Angel with the amazing and most mysterious in the History of World Art icon Andrei Rublev "Holy Trinity." Then, in my childhood, I did not attach any special significance to this fact and quickly forgot about it. And yet we reached the end, defeating our more than worthy rivals. Vova Sadowski looked at me with obvious perplexity, not fully understanding what had happened. "Voronin, you now put the world record in weightlifting, if you take into account your" hare "weight!" - he muttered. "Well, you, Count, give!" - Seryozha Novikov said with admiration, and with great piety Katipupa extended his wet hand to me. This was the first serious recognition of my merits of a male in this harsh male world. However, the titanic "struggle against gravity" did not pass for me in vain - I have earned varicose veins in the groin, which occasionally reminds me of past victories and which I now "proudly" bring through life. 
   The next morning, as was to be expected, I fell ill - apparently, seriously overstrained and, in addition, caught cold. The temperature is under 40, a runny nose, a dry, nasty cough, a semi-bodily condition - in general, a "gentlemanly" set of universal "joys" in such cases. In the inflamed imagination, the image of an Angel from the icon "Holy Trinity" and another strange subject with a bird's beak, which the Ankh holds in his hands - an ancient Egyptian cross with a loop at the end, arose from the childhood. Many years later I saw this picture in real time in the Krasnoyarsk museum of local lore, which, for some reason, was originally conceived and built as an accurate, only a small copy of the ancient Egyptian museum on Tahrir Square in Cairo. It turned out that it depicted the ancient Egyptian God Ra with the head of a bird, giving with the help of Ankh ("the key of the Nile") the life of his son - the pharaoh. Many millennia later, the symbol "Ankh" will be called the "mirror of Venus" and will be used in genetics to refer to the female X chromosome, that is, the feminine origin. Believe me, this was not the first message of God Ra, addressed exclusively to my "humble" person. 

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   Once in the program "Obvious-improbable" Academician Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa talked about mysterious circles in the fields, the origin of which is still unknown to science. In one of the circles I saw the familiar symbol of the female principle - the "mirror of Venus". Above the "mirror" was a sphere - a symbol of God Ra, and inside the "mirror" is placed a five-pointed star - a symbol of the Divine Man. I immediately guessed that this composition in the meaning exactly repeats the fresco of ancient Egypt known to me - God Ra with the help of Anha (earthly woman) gives life to his Son - Pharaoh - "the governor of God on Earth." And one more, more than strange image during the illness was remembered to me then. My whole brain, filled with heat, was filled, crushed by an absolutely black Void, a huge Abyss. It was infinite, but at the same time it did not frighten me at all, but attracted me with some special magnetism, sucking in myself, like Malevich's Black Square. Suddenly, in this Abyss, a spinning hourglass appeared from nowhere. They, as in computer graphics, began to grow from a small point and turn into huge vessels, which are now a terrible burden, that there are forces that put pressure on my entire child's being, completely filling the inflamed consciousness with its transparent heavy spheres. Then all this vision just as suddenly disappeared, as it appeared, and I already, as from above, saw the same hour glass, only in miniature, which lay on a huge male palm. Despite the fact that I saw this image from above, I had a full feeling that this palm is still mine, because through the feverish delirium I could physically feel on the wet child's palm the enormous, incommensurable weight of these cosmic hourglasses, although they And looked, compared to the hand, like a microscopic grain of sand. Surprisingly, after decades, I saw and recognized this hourglass in a photograph taken by the American Hubble Space Telescope. In the picture, a stunning picture of the death of a supernova was recorded, which I immediately mentally dubbed "a greeting from a distant childhood."

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   In general, I must say, the state of trance is familiar to me from the very early childhood. The thing is that I suffered from "sleepwalking", which only added extra touches to my odious image of a "very strange boy". My somnambulism sometimes caused very curious and frightening parents of incidents. 
   One autumn of 1980 (it was November 16th, for some reason I remembered this date well), my classmate and friend Igor Kupriyanov, whom I will talk about a little later, gave me just one day to read a unique book about astronautics and the conquest of the moon. It was a chic, beautifully illustrated edition, where the author, a very knowledgeable man, called "in the subject," allowed himself to dream about the future of mankind on the path to the development of the distant and near cosmos. I was so carried away by reading that I did not notice how deep the night had come. My mother was already quietly snuffling in the next room (my father was already serving in Khabarovsk and was expecting my graduation from Karaganda high school), when I decided to go to the "side" too. What happened to me further, can be called a state of deep trance or somnambulism - I think that it is unlikely that these definitions will fully explain the nature of this psychic phenomenon. In short, as soon as I got up from the chair and turned off the floor lamp, my mind went out. A quiet male voice ordered me to take the scissors, to go to our large Persian carpet hanging over the bed of my mother, and cut out a large piece of it. I started to work, and the thick carpet of my mother's miniature scissors with bent ends cut easily and at ease. Finally, I finished my "black" case, and then came a complete "failure" in my memory. I woke up from the loud cry of my mother in the morning, sitting on the bed with a large piece of carpet in my hands. Mom looked at me in horror, not understanding anything. Later, she told me that I was really scared at that moment - my blind eyes in pink povoloka made me look like a real zombie. Without saying anything, Mom only sobbed softly, took a gypsy needle and with great difficulty sewed a cut piece to an unhappy carpet. Only the next day she dared to ask me: "Why did you do this?" "I do not know, Mom, there was a voice, there was no possibility to resist!" - I answered. "And if this voice next time orders you to kill me, huh?" - Mom asked nervously. I did not answer, because I was shocked by what I had done. The existence of some powerful influence on my consciousness from the outside, to admit, I was very frightened myself then. Although intuitively, from the very childhood I sensed that There, Above, (for some reason I immediately mentally called His Ra), there is a Living, Loving Being that has clearly put an arm or some other part of its body to my birth; Always protects me and helps me Live! This time, apparently, It arranged for me another, somewhat exotic "communication check". It's an amazing fact, but on November 16, 2010, I read on the Internet a message from NASA scientists that they were able to open the youngest "black hole" in our universe using X-ray telescopes. With the help of these telescopes, it was possible to "detect" the birth of this "black hole" only 30 years after the explosion of the supernova. Having made some simple calculations in my mind, I came to the conclusion that on this day on November 16 30 years ago I made a big "black" hole in our family carpet that is still hanging in my children's daughters' room and has long become a family legend ". Well, now it's time to talk about music and the place that she occupied and occupies in my life. Since my childhood with music, I have, frankly speaking, formed a complex and very contradictory relationship. My mother, the teacher herself in a children's music school in piano class, tried to send me to her school at the age of seven. From the very beginning, this attempt was doomed to failure. From the very first moments I hated the school, the initial lessons of solfeggio, which were led by a bearded young man, from whom was blatantly bluish and an obvious complex of male inferiority. The tasks he gave us on a musical score were evaluated on a six-point scale, with two grades: one for correct writing of notes, a violin key and signs of alteration; Another - for "calligraphy", i.e. Accuracy and elegance of the task. The highest score "6/6" according to the established "blue" tradition was rewarded with loud applause of the whole group, consisting mainly of girls.

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   Since I was retrained "left-handed", I was particularly hard at giving small marks and musical symbols; However, as well as uppercase letters and numbers. On the musical camp, huge freaks in the form of a curved violin key danced and lived their strange life; Strongly crumpled, as if with a hangover, "notes" that did not fit on two or even three lines of musical staff. It is clear that my stable estimates because of this quite rightly varied in the range of "2-3", so I did not threaten to hear applause in my address in the foreseeable future. But my envious nature every time desperately rebelled when we clapped the next happy girl who received the cherished "6/6". But the cup of my patience was overflowing, when my esteemed competitor and my contemporary Kostya, the son of my mother's friend Lyudmila Konovalova, who worked as a teacher at the same school, was awarded the highest rating. I frankly "hit" my mother, after which she elegant calligraphic handwriting, while trying not to "overdo it", she painted for me another task of the teacher.

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   By the way, already being in Karaganda, my mother, talented in everything, obviously overdid, performing for me my homework on drawing for the 7th grade. She "drew" to the point that I, who can not properly represent the right circle on paper, were nominated for an international competition for young artists of Asia. And now just imagine just for a moment what a great intellectual resourcefulness and resourcefulness at the age of 14 was required to fight back from participating in this ill-fated competition, and then another year to fool a poor drawing teacher who seriously believed in my outstanding talent as a painter!
   It's clear that the woman's handwriting was too obvious to belong to me, and one very correct girl with a voice full of indignation said: "He did not draw this himself!" The teacher looked at me with obvious condemnation and said: "My friends , Let's pat Serezha! "- but none of the class, in protest, naturally, did not clap. It was quite a sensitive blow to my vanity, and every time after this incident I raped myself, going to these lessons of the initial solfeggio.
   Finally, to my great relief, two weeks of this torture ended, and my mother identified me in the specialty classes for the best teacher in Barnaul in the class of "piano". But here again I was in for another embarrassment. I do not know, maybe this woman was a wonderful teacher (unfortunately, I did not have time to appreciate it), but the fact that she suffered a very severe strabismus is a fact, immutable and "reinforced", like the construction of a sarcophagus at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. For my subtle nature, the fate of this teacher was finally solved and irrevocably in the first lesson. I decided to feign illness. "Serezha, the musical style consists of 7 notes: before, re, mi, fa, salt, la, si", explained the unhappy teacher, stubbornly looking past me sideways. "And here beans, lentils and other legumes?" - I thought evil and decided to cry. "What's wrong with you, Seryozha?" The teacher seriously took fright. "My head hurts, I want to see my mother!" - I whimpered, and she ran in panic after mother to the next class. My evacuation from the lesson was, as they say, "without noise and dust," and more I never showed up at this school. Discouraged teacher for a whole year was interested in my mother, when I still come to the next lesson, my mother explained something inaudible to her, but time went on, everything was quietly forgotten, and soon I became absolutely free from nasty lessons and all obligations On learning music. Only after decades I realized that Ra deliberately took me away from the routine of academic music education, developing the natural talent of an improviser. In the meantime, I sincerely and carefree enjoyed the music, listening to vinyl records on our old Rigonde, like a bee, saturated with the nectar of the Italian Capriccio, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, under which we with the woman Sasha (the elderly mother of his father, who he brought to Barnaul from the Moscow region ) Arranged a "simultaneous crying" session. Then the heartbreaking, whiny "Capriccio" was replaced by the first Soviet musical of Gennady Gladkov "The Bremen Town Musicians", two plates of which for a long time in 1971 his father got it. This life-affirming music was then broadcast from every apartment house in Barnaul, and the song of the Bremen musicians "Nothing is better in the world" was a real hit of the season.
   I was absolutely not burdened by the fact that when I'm a mom-teacher I do not know how to play the piano, but when my neighbors' grandmothers put this in a perfectly legal reproach, I felt very ashamed; In a fit of feelings I "pressed" on my mother, she unfolded notes, and we proceeded to exercises and sketches, but here, at home, I was missing for a maximum of one month, and then again I abandoned my studies for many years with music. Mom could not find the best method of my piano teaching, as I was extremely unsure and, in addition, quickly tired of the instrument. One Ra knew how to entice and interest my irrepressible "twin" nature (on a horoscope I am a classic Gemini). "Scherche la lama" - as the French say in such cases, which means: "Look for a woman!". And Ra found for me such a "woman". She was a black-haired pretty girl with blue eyes from my class, Lena Mitereva, surprisingly similar to my first love to Elena Epifanova; Besides, by chance it is or not, but just like her, she studied at the music school in accordion class.
   As Lewis Carroll wrote in her Alice in Wonderland, there is always a "lot of confusion" around a beautiful girl. So it was in our class. It turned out that Lena Mitereva had at least 4 secret "admirers": Igor Kupriyanov, Misha Petrov, Seryozha Novikov, well, I, your humble servant! And it all started with a banal boyish rally. One day in grade 5, at the beginning of the lesson, I, as usual, climbed behind the textbook in my satchel, when suddenly a note dropped out. I lifted her from the floor and with surprise read: "Sergei, I love you! Let's meet after the lessons. Lena Mithereva. " The color of rabies rushed to my face - I, for some reason, immediately thought of Vadik Makarov, a hooligan boy with whom he had been sitting for one year at one desk. Our class teacher, Elsa Grigorievna Rain, had such a peculiar tactic for seating the students in the classroom: the hoodlum was always seated next to the "right", from her point of view, boy. Vadim Makarov, a native of the hereditary "zek", lived in Karaganda village Unsha, one name that terrified the then-kids. There were always a lot of settlements like Unsha in the USSR, as, indeed, now in Russia: this is the village of Queta near Barnaul, and the village of Chesnokovka near Novoaltaysk, and many other "green" places in the vastness of our vast homeland. They were united by the fact that in such settlements the criminals and their marginal families, who had been "abandoned" after serving their sentences, lived predominantly. Apparently, wishing for Vadik other than their Destiny, his parents gave him to the people's circus, then working on a voluntary basis in the Palace of Miners. Strangely enough, Makarov really liked this study and work in the circus, he became an excellent acrobat and always at school physical education classes, at the numerous requests of boys, surprised us with elegant flips and other acrobatic exercises. However, the genes did take their toll, and criminal tendencies, no yes no, from time to time showed themselves. Vadik was an "honest kleptomaniac" - there was no bagatelle, by which he could safely pass without pocketing. The logical result of this "god-forgiving" activity was Makarov's statement in the children's room of the police, which, incidentally, he was always very proud of. Naturally, the shadow of my suspicion immediately fell on this "charismatic" person closest to me. In indignation, I slipped the note into his face, and even then struck him painfully in the shoulder with his bony fist. "Voronin, what do you allow yourself at the lesson?" - angrily screamed Elsa Grigorevna, for which my actions on the first row, of course, did not go unnoticed. Makarov, in bewilderment, picked up the crumpled note, skimmed it over and whinnied like a horse. At the same time, he slyly looked at Lena Mitherev, who was sitting behind, with a flirtatious wink, "I'm aware of your secret." Then, many years ago, in a fit of anger, I did not even have time to figure out that the handwriting was not Vadik in the note. But it was too late - the flywheel of the "public scandal" was spinning. The note went along the rows, causing Homeric laughter from the "leaders" of the class - Vitya Chernysheva and Boris Arsenyev; Well, then, as usual, the "chain reaction" went on - soon the whole class was already aware of this incident. Even now, decades later, I do not know for sure who was, after all, the author of this scandalous note, but the obvious resentment for me of Lena Mitereva and her condemning gaze, which occasionally afterwards I caught on myself for a long time , More and more often make me think about the fact that it was this "unknown" author! In general, I "lopuhnulsya" with a beautiful sex once again.
   However, the whole story with the note aroused the genuine interest of the male half of our class to the brave girl - "emancipse", and for four youngsters became a kind of detonator of a powerful "hormonal explosion" that drew them, as the well-known glamorous pimp, Petya Listerman, would say The last and decisive battle for "shaggy gold." In this "quartet of courageous", as usual, leaders were immediately outlined (Sergei Novikov) and outspoken "outsiders" (Igor Kupriyanov). And even then, Igor did not have the slightest chance of winning in this frenzied "obstacle race". It was an ugly young man with a pock-marked face; As he himself put it, the son of simple "menes" (junior research associates in the laboratory of the metallurgical plant in Temirtau), constantly complaining about the poverty and everyday problems of his large family. In addition, Kupriyanov's socks exuded such an "ambre" that only added additional unpleasant strokes to his already unattractive image. By the way, the latter circumstance played a fatal role in the fact that Igor could not get accustomed to our VIA (vocal-instrumental ensemble), where he longed to be a guitarist - we were able to withstand just one rehearsal his unique "ambre".
   It was truly brilliant and at the same time adventurous idea of ??Sergei Novikov - to create an ensemble with people, practically (except for my meager piano skills) not able to play musical instruments, to perform with the ensemble at a school evening, make a splash and conquer, finally , The heart of the young beauty Lena Metereva. The backbone of this musical "gang", as usual, was I (keyboards), Sergei Novikov (bass guitar) and Misha Petrov (drums). But these "brand" musical instruments, of course, deserve a separate story.
   With great difficulty I managed to "untwist" my mother on a miniature keyboard instrument "Faemi", from which only for 70 rubles of magic sounds, of course, did not have to wait, but when I put it on a stool under our family piano "Petrof" and tried With all the foolish clatter on the two keyboards at the same time, the view was just as good (at least then it seemed to me so) than the best organist of the world, John the Lord. Sergei in the "folding", we acquired the last squeak of the then fashion - pickup and timbre - a block for the guitar. Removing superfluous strings on the usual Soviet "wooden", with the help of a timbre - block we managed to achieve the sound of an almost real bass guitar. Pope Novikova is a national craftsman, having conjured with a soldering iron over an old bus loudspeaker, according to our flaming order and to "joy" my neighbors in the house from the bottom "piled" us a miracle - an amplifier of 10 watts, equipped with a similar mixer console with inputs for several instruments and Sound speakers. But with the drums there were unforeseen problems. It turned out that this, in general, the most necessary tool in the variety ensemble, is also the most expensive one. Entering the store of musical instruments, we were shocked at the cost of Amati shock equipment - two and a half thousand rubles with an average salary of an engineer of that time of 120 rubles. It is clear that there could be no question of buying an installation or even something remotely resembling it. The solution to the problem came, as always, unexpectedly. One day I was caught in the corridor by the recess of our school's Komsomol - the ugly 30-year-old German Isolda, who asked me to help her remove all unnecessary trash from the pioneer room. As soon as I crossed the threshold of this room, I realized that Luck itself was hurrying to our hands - it turned out that we had to write off a dozen of the pioneer drums, from which it was quite possible to choose worthy and more or less whole copies. After the lessons, Misha and I carried all this "treasure" to our main musical base - to my apartment, where I carefully selected the most suitable drums in tone, timbre and coloring. After Borya Morozov donated an old can of white enamel from his garage with a "lordly shoulder" from his garage (though, at one of the last rehearsals, this exclusive jar exploded under the pressure of the accumulated gases, pouring on Mishani's face and clothes with paint, So he looked very pale), which produced such a marvelous sound that it became Misha's most favorite percussion instrument in his probably exotic percussion band in the world, the process of manning the drum set could be considered complete. 
   And finally, in one of the autumn days of 1979, all this splendor burst into all its "natural" power, "stretching" after a long sound "abstinence", Niagara Falls suddenly collapsing on the "happy" tenants of my house (good, father in it Time already served in Khabarovsk, and my mother worked almost daily until 22 hours). Soon after the tsunami began, a frightened neighbor from the bottom of the house, twenty-year-old pretty Lusya Frolov, came running to me, but the "old" seducer Seryozha Novikov quickly enchanted her and calmed him, promising that torture "music box" would last only once a week and not More than 4 hours. On that and decided, and Luce in the course of time even liked listening to our rehearsals. But now the most important thing was to come up with a name for our group. The "old" hooligan and inventor Sergei Novikov offered an outrageous, in the Western manner, the screaming title of "Mоdis Liplis", which in translation from the Tabarar language meant "Moody stuck together". It is well known that "as a ship you will call, so the ship will sail." To sail into the history of world rock music by "sticking mud", of course, was not very desirable, so we came up with another, more academic, although slightly napthalline-tied "Passage". If only we knew then, what kind of future our musical "gang" was predicted by this name! Indeed, the "passage", and even what, did not take long to wait.

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   Once our informal team leader, as they would say now, the creative director of the art group "Passage" Sergei Novikov came up with the brilliant idea - to perform at a school party, a concert timed to a meeting of graduates of the 8th grade. The fact is that in the ninth grade, we with Misha Petrov and three other boys, practically, remained in "proud" solitude among the girls of the 9th grade: the majority of the guys went to vocational schools and technical schools, Novikov and Kupriyanov were transferred to the elite school N3 with Physico-mathematical bias, and Lena Mitereva and another girl Larissa Migranova - in the Karaganda musical school. Teachers of our school decided to arrange a meeting of alumni "a la nostalgia", which was planned to invite a musical team from our sponsor organization "Autopark No. 9" "Songs of the Far-Shoulder", which Novikov, in his characteristic Bernese manner, immediately dubbed "Song Dolbo ... Ba ". We decided to use this circumstance. The chefs had equipment that was excellent for that time, in which we could show our "uncommon" talent and "outstanding" musical abilities in full blaze. And in order to give this event a greater importance and officiality, Seryozha decided before the beginning of the speech to address a fiery speech to our former classmates and devote this "epoch-making" speech to them. On the advice of the collective, from our, quite frankly speaking, quite small repertoire, we selected only two suitable works: the famous song of the rock group "Animals" "House of the Rising Sun", the Russian text for which was written by Novikov, and the instrumental play of the French group "Space "From the 1978 album. The evening was held on Friday October 13, 1980 - I will remember this "Friday the 13th" for the rest of my life! From the very beginning, things did not go very well for us.
   First, according to a strange tradition in Kazakhstan, all boys of pre-conscription age in the tenth grade of the military enlistment office forced them to shave in those years. As a result, Misha Petrov and I, with our bare skulls on the eve of this sacred evening, looked like some kind of humanoids or Hare Krishnas waiting for the arrival of the long-awaited God of Krishna, which, of course, did not add any attraction to our still very young musical image. But this fate successfully escaped Sergei Novikov, since his elite physics and mathematics school did not allow the military commissariat to produce such executions over his expensive pets.
   Secondly, on the day of his speech, Serezha caught a severe cold, having earned a sore throat and completely lost his voice. He ran into my house in a panic in the morning and screeched in a nasty voice: "Seryoga, do you have eucalyptus?" Mom was still at home and gave him a gum solution for eucalyptus. "You know that we have one more" bummer "- Misha went to hockey competitions today, - struck me one more blow" below the belt "Seryozha .- So we, with the same, remained without the drums!" "Serge, it all comes down to canceling the speech," I summed up grimly the current state of affairs. "That's really shit, we'll still perform, we can not lose that chance to be heard. Moreover, yesterday I called Lena Mitereva and invited her and Larisa Migranova to our performance! "Well, now there was nowhere to retreat. Taking into account the current situation, we decided to play "Space", and the drummer from the chef's team would ask us to accompany us on the drums.
   With a heavy heart, like Golgotha, we walked with Serge in a stuffy, crowded gymnasium of the 47th school in which, in a few minutes, one of two things must happen: either world glory befallen us, or we'll be showered with rotten eggs, or else They will also give from the pure soul to the neck for arrogance. Seeing Lena Mitherev standing near the window with Larisa Migranova, we approached to say hello, after which Seryozha solemnly declared: "Soon we will play with the Count!" Lena looked at me with genuine interest. It was obvious unconcealed female curiosity, and in the blue eyes of the young prelestress the almost professional challenge was read: "Well, well, let's see what you, laps are capable of!" "Truckers" worked five or six songs under the approving roar of the crowd, wriggling a huge snake in the dance "Neck" - the forerunner of modern "hip-hop", when we ventured to approach the musicians and invited them to take a coffee break, giving us the tools. I went up to the red long-haired drummer and asked:
   - You could not play the first song of the 1978 band "Space", or else the drummer got sick!
   - Yes, it's not a question. Of course, I can! We also play this song. Do you have it in A-minor?
   - Yes!
   - Well, that's great! We will play. We took places according to the "combat calculation": I, respectively, for the two-row German body "Vermona"; Serezha - with a deathly pale face and a huge bass guitar on his shoulder behind the microphone stand. Yes, frankly, it was why it was pale. We saw professional tools of such a high class for the first time in our life! Even if I have the kind of body that has, in general, the same keyboard as my favorite Petrof, caused a quiet panic in the soul by the only kind of toggle switches and registers, what should we talk about Serezha, who is the first time in his life Picked up a bass guitar, the giant neck of which was almost 1.5 times longer than his "wooden" with a pickup. "I immediately realized that I will not play on it; I just did not know where and what notes to take on these huge frets! "- Novikov later told me, but I did not know that and started as a right musician, to play the introduction to the play in good faith, trying not to notice the huge crowd, curiously moving Practically close to me and my instrument. As I bowed my head above the organ, the view was absolutely surreal - the crowd could only see my bare skull and the keys that ran along the keys. The sound from the organ was absolutely squeaky and very quiet, which was also repeatedly reflected from the walls of the acoustically unsuitable sports hall, but I could no longer switch registers, since my hands were busy; Besides, I was afraid that as a result of my manipulations on an unfamiliar instrument, the picture with sound could become even worse. The second bar of my introduction was coming to an end, I was already on the third circle, and the promised sound support of the "virtuoso" bass guitar and drummer was not there. I threw a quick glance over Novikov's shoulder, who in confusion twisted and flipped the bass guitar tumblers, pretending that he was trying to make the sound louder. The drummer sat unperturbably behind the drum set and, judging by his detached mind, was not going to play along. "We do not play like that!" - he shouted to me through the increasing rumble of the crowd.
   At such critical moments in my life, from somewhere deep in my soul, boiling lava raises anger at myself and the whole world, which makes me suddenly gather, completely blocks fear, makes me angry and stubborn. As if nothing had happened, as if experiencing the patience of the crowd, I began to play a very long and rather monotonous part of the "Space". In minutes, two of my "passages" the crowd began to lose patience: "Hey, you bald dick! We ... from there on x .., and then right now we're piling so that my mother does not mourn! "I, as if nothing had happened, continued to play coolly, and the crowd of such unheard-of audacity fell into some strange numbness and Suddenly quieted down - I think it was unlikely she was so fascinated by "marvelous" sounds, quietly flowing in the stale air of the sports hall from under my fingers wet with excitement! The respectable audience was simply stunned by such unprecedented impudence of a bald-headed dude! The last measures I finished in absolute grave silence, which did not bode well. Finally, I finished this long-suffering play, and we, as in a dream, descended from Serezha from the stage; The crowd at the same time quietly parted and menacingly let us through the system, to the exit from the hall. As we passed Lena and Larisa, I caught their frankly compassionate glances, and my ear caught scraps of a girl's conversation:
   ? What kind of play was it?
   ? Yes, in my opinion, something from the repertoire of "Space".
   Coming out of the stuffy hall to the dank autumn street and having experienced a great deal of relief, Sergei and I sincerely rejoiced that they did not begin to devote their "enchanting show" to the graduates of the 8th "A" class. Then, in the schoolyard, in the midst of the fallen leaves, under the cold autumn rain, two comrades ardently vowed each other to remember forever this damned "Friday, the 13th!" Yes, we had to drink this bitter cup of defeat to the full, and, nevertheless, I am grateful to Ra for this my first "baptism of fire". How can you not remember the great prophet Zarathushtra: "Everything that did not kill us today, tomorrow will do more!"
   However, this incident made us fundamentally reconsider our attitude to music.
   First, we decided to completely abandon public speaking. It became absolutely clear that it was impossible to play well on foreign, completely unfamiliar instruments, but I did not want to play badly.
   Secondly, we decided to work on recording to fix and save for ourselves and "grateful descendants" all our musical exercises. Thirdly, we took a rather bold decision to record only "large formats" - large genre works such as rock operas or musicals. I must say that 1980 was very interesting in terms of musical discoveries. Just this year, because of the Iron Curtain, finally, the cult opera of Andrew Lloyd Webber, "Jesus Christ the Superstar", broke out of England in the USSR from us in 1970. Under the clear impression of this brilliant musical work, Alexei Rybnikov wrote his first rock opera "The Star and Death of Joaquin Murietta" in 1980 about the fate of the famous Chilean bandit, which was successfully staged by director Mark Zakharov in the Lenin Komsomol Theater - Lenkom. And, finally, in the same year, the iconic English band Pink Floyd, playing the famous psychedelic rock, hit the world with its most powerful epochal work - the album "The Wall", in which, in an absolutely surrealistic light that turns the "Wall" into almost The biblical parable, in front of the enchanted listener there is a horrifying panorama of the life of a modern Man, horrified by his hopelessness.
   Surprisingly, in only six months, after listening to the stupidity of all this brilliant music, we managed to write two major musical "canvases" - a musical "The Happy Life of the Golden Klondike" based on works by Jack London and the rock opera "Jimmy the schizophrenic "- the piercing story of an American teacher - a hippie who accidentally killed a policeman and was executed in an electric chair, written under the sheer impression of Pinkfloed's" Wall "and" American tragedy "by Theodore Dreiser (genius described in Oman fate Clyde Griffiths executed electrocuted). Of course, most of the musical material was borrowed from famous rock operas, but there were also original findings, for which I am still not ashamed. I, for one, am very proud of my finale in "The Happy Life of the Golden Klondike" - in fact until this moment I have never been very fond of poetry and much more writing:
   "Yes, that Klondike showed us his predatory grin,
   His face is ugly like death.
   Here a person loses the meaning of life,
   Is he a crown of nature? No!
  
   He is a slave of his desires and aspirations,
   He is lost here in the dusk of nights,
   Here begins his fall
   In a world where the light of rays does not penetrate!
  
   In a world where indifference reigns,
   Where a man is at the mercy of yellow sand,
   Where the thirst for gold incinerate souls,
   In a world where there is a mortal struggle between good and evil! " After these words of the author, full of existential meaning, followed by a piercing, soul-taking requiem, the main theme of which I use after 30 years in my later rock opera "Spetsnaz: The Story of My Contemporary".
   The last six months before graduation we worked as possessed, afraid not to have time to finish "Jimmy the schizophrenic". Especially surprised and at the same time pleased Mishan - he, with great difficulty finding time in his hard sports schedule, as a routine, went to all rehearsals, mastered his unique drum set and sometimes gave out such "tasty", intricate syncopes and virtuosic rhythmic drifts, Which he himself could not repeat in just a couple of minutes. Now, to save time on the road, Misha always came to me with a huge bunch of hockey equipment, which caused admiration and curiosity (then hockey was in special honor among the people) of all the children of our house. All the musical parts and scenes of the rock opera we recorded on my quite good for that time reel tape recorder "Saturn -201", and in order not to take precious rehearsal time, in the absence of the guys, I tried, by trial and error, to find in the room the optimal, From the point of view of acoustics, sector, where it was necessary to put microphones.
   We worked like catechesis, with a fanatical gleam in our eyes, until June 1981 - my last summer in my beloved Karaganda. Suitable time for final exams was appropriate and it was necessary to finish urgently with music. Finally, "Jimmy the schizophrenic" was completely recorded, but we lacked a "grateful" listener to appreciate the merits of our titanic work. Soon a solution to this problem was found - we decided to put the speakers on the balcony and arrange, thus, our first public appearance in the courtyard of my house. So we did, and while doing so, having descended incognito down the street, from a secluded place, we began to observe with interest the reaction of the improvised auditorium to our debut. t was a beautiful June afternoon, the street was full of the people who were muffled by the heat, so the time for demonstrating the audio was chosen at the right time. And our "Jimmy the schizophrenic" burst into the whole Universe. The rock opera started very effectively - with the heartbreaking cry of Sergei Novikov: "Killed!" - and immediately, "off the bat", very dynamic, as in Chase's detectives, unfolding an exciting, almost detective story about the fate of the unfortunate hippy, who finally Was entangled in his search for the meaning of life and found peace only in the electric chair. Music produced in the courtyard the effect of a bomb exploding. A few minutes after the recording ended, there was a grave silence in the courtyard, and then the tenants of the house, among whom were young women with children and numerous teenagers, began to discuss loudly what had been heard, trying to understand that, after all, they were so interesting and At the same time a very strange thing was shown. As far as we could judge from scraps of phrases that came to us, none of them even had the thought that it was made in the artisanal conditions of an ordinary apartment, and their own houses. They all came to the same conclusion that they were shown some new production of a radio play on an American story, in which, of course, professional artists played. I confess that this gave us a lot of pleasant moments then. Then I suddenly clearly understood what, after all, this is a contagious thing - "star" disease! When our music sounded on the air, we looked sadly at each other, suddenly realizing that not only our joint creative life ended at this premiere show of the rock opera, but also a happy, carefree childhood.
   Finally, the long-awaited summer of 1981 came, and with it the hot, well, just very hot time of graduation examinations. Here, I believe, it's time to say a few warm words about my dear and ardently beloved teachers of the 47th school, which I, truly, owe everything I have in this life!
   The teacher of mathematics Vera Gavrilovna Krasnov (to my great regret I recently found out that she was dead) taught mathematics in my class from grades 5 to 10. She lived with her husband and adopted daughter in the neighboring porch of our house. It was a very affable, tall, slender woman with the kind face of Saint Matrona of Moscow and a very friendly attitude to people. Quite recently, in 2008, in Moscow, I learned from my mother Sergey Novikov Tamara Semenovna that Vera Gavrilovna always loved me almost with maternal love. I, of course, felt this and understood that it was not for nothing that this wonderful woman for five years did not call me to the mathematics board, taking care of my mental health, and at the end of the 10th grade I did everything so that I had a "good" algebra in the certificate And geometry instead of a legitimate "triple". The matter is that since childhood absolutely exact sciences have not been given me, and Vera Gavrilovna, of course, immediately understood this. And the wisdom of this woman consisted in the fact that she calmly accepted this fact, not arranging a scene of jealousy for her subject, as the young physicist constantly did, believing that I was ignoring her subject, giving preference to other academic disciplines. The problem was also that I always shone in all the subjects of the humanitarian cycle, which, of course, gave me some reason to think so. But no (now I can say it at the top of my voice), this woman was deeply mistaken - I was hopelessly stupid for the natural sciences, and when it came to trigonometry, in general turned into an idiotic soldier Svejk. Already Sergei Novikov, a born teacher, hastily promised to my mother, tried to do something in this direction, especially on the eve of the final exams, but he hopelessly waved his hand with the words: "Well, you, my friend, and the dumbass!" Of course, wise Vera Gavrilovna, the Kingdom of Heaven, did the very best that was possible in this situation, protecting me from public appearances and demonstrating my "extraordinary" mathematical abilities, but at the same time she turned me into a hostage to the situation - it cost her only To abolish and change to the teacher, as the journal in my graph on algebra and geometry instantly began to dazzle with "deuces". So there was no question of moving our family to another city before graduation - I really risked to remain in the new school without a certificate of secondary education. The second, dear to me, the person I want to talk about is Elza Grigorievna Rain, our class teacher, teacher of the Russian language and literature, who has been unchanged for a long and happy 6 years. Elsa Grigorevna was a purebred German, who was resettled in Kazakhstan from the Volga region during the Great Patriotic War. Our daughter Lilya also studied in our class - elegant, like a porcelain doll, always neat, in a snow-white apron, with a constant blush on the plump cheeks. The nature of the mother, and her daughter was God grant to everyone! They were very friendly, sincerely friendly to people, nice women, always ready to help everyone and everything. From the very beginning, Elsa Grigoryevna and I had mutual sympathy, which over the years only grew stronger and grew into almost a kindred affection. Elsa Grigorevna was an excellent teacher: for every lesson she, in German pedantically, very carefully prepared, each time coming up with something something to interest us. In my memory, such a remarkable lesson on literature in the 6th grade was cut. Elza Grigorievna with great feeling told us about the most amazing in the World History of Art icon Andrei Rublev "Holy Trinity". "Guys, look, this is amazing! The whole icon abounds in animals, and in fact the Byzantine school of iconography, to which Andrei Rublev belonged, was categorically forbidden to draw animals. You see, above the third Angel on the right is depicted a lizard, as if clinging to a rock, in it we see a bear with a raised muzzle, and in a bear - a howling dog. What Andrei Rublev meant to say is that none of the experts in the field of iconography can answer this question. In the lower left part of the icon, look - right on the frame, you can see the handle of a saber or dagger, and under it - the face of an unknown man. At the bottom of the icon, in the green platform on which the Angels sit, the ocean clearly looks out, from which outlandish fish look and miniature boats sail. Here's a strange, mysterious icon, guys! I think that the three angels depicted on the icon "Holy Trinity" are aliens who flew to Earth from the Cosmos. Look, the haloes around their heads are very similar to the helmets of astronauts, and in their hands - ray weapons! "As enchanted we peered at what seemed to be so familiar and, it turns out, a completely unfamiliar icon, marveling that we had not noticed all these intriguing Details. After many decades, Ra will make me remember this sacred lesson of Elsa Grigorievna and seriously, in all the rules of science, to study the "Holy Trinity".
   It is clear that with such wonderful teachers at the final examinations in mathematics and the Russian language, you could not particularly worry. And so it happened - Vera Gavrilovna started the finished solution of the problem in the rows, and Elsa Grigorevna in her composition autographically placed the missing punctuation marks. But with the exam in physics came a complete "bummer"!
   On the eve of the physics exam, I decided to relax and, despite a warning on the radio about high solar radiation (in Karaganda there was constantly monitoring the ultraviolet associated with the activities of Baikonur), went to sunbathe the lake in the city park. The result of this adventure did not take long to come-I received a very palpable dose of solar radiation with symptoms typical of her, so that the next morning I hardly managed to get up and, like a zombie, sadly wandered to the ill-fated exam.
   Truly, the "starry" hour of the physic has arrived. She did not enter into the state of my, frankly, much shaky health (too much was her antipathy towards me) and decided to finally "break away" in full. As I remember now, I got on the ticket the principle of the generator. And after all, like, I was teaching, but in my sick head now felt an absolute "Torricelli emptiness". In general, my answer at the exam was very reminiscent of the well-known anecdotal situation, when the teacher asks the student: "How does the generator work?" "Uh-uh!" - buzzed the resourceful student. "All right, you can go, you're free!" The physicist said gloomily. "Is this" deuce" (2)?" I asked indifferently. "Well, why did you say the first question of the ticket for the" three" (3)?" I left the audience and, completely lost, wandered home. Strange, but the "troika" (3) in physics in the certificate did not upset me at all, there was only a slight annoyance at myself - after all, I taught this damn physics in the "sweat of my face", and the result still exceeded all my expectations! When I got home, I collapsed, as if it had been knocked down, on the bed and briefly forgot a painful dream. I woke up from the fact that the apartment doorbell rang. I opened the door - Lilya Rain stood on the threshold. "Seryozha, my mother sent for you, so you went to retake physics, you are already waiting!" - she said. Elsa Grigorievna, as always, again acted as my Savior and with great difficulty agreed with the physicist about the retake of my ill-fated "troika" (3). As she did not frown, she did not puff in displeasure, but still this obstinate woman did not dare to go against the teachers' team (Voronin will leave, and she still has to work and work there) and was forced to put me this exhausted "four" (4).
   The day of our separation was approaching, as Novikov liked to say, "a trio of bandura players from the city of Odessa." I already had a ticket for the plane to Barnaul exactly the day after the prom. Our last school evening was held in a quiet, almost family atmosphere, with the parents of graduates, champagne and dancing until the morning, a night walk "a la nostalgia" with classmates and Elsa Grigorievna in the Botanical Garden. My mother could not come for the evening, because at this time, together with his former colleagues, my father was engaged in moving from our posh two-bedroom apartment to a two-room "Khrushchev" on Diesel Street near the station. This unequal exchange mom started in order to somehow save the Karaganda apartment for the family. The fact is that the main reason for the transfer of his father to a new duty station in Khabarovsk was his very serious interpersonal conflict with the chief of the Karaganda school of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, General Besenov, a rare tyrant and "maramoy" (that is, a marasmus in prison jargon), although the deceased And do not say bad. Besenov, to somehow annoy Voronin - the eldest, gave a command to his "six" to take away from his family a three-room apartment, once provided to us by this famous police institution in Karaganda. But the idea was not successful: and even then say that the well-known Kazakh sluggishness and natural dullness of the nomads of Polish passionarity and my mother's ingenious ingenuity can oppose everything! She very quickly agreed with her colleagues - musicians who with great pleasure gave us their "half-burglary" "Khrushchev", operatively, until we changed our minds, having entered our luxurious apartments. The only problem was that when I left for the graduation party, I did not specify the address of our new apartment on Diesel Street with my mother. For more than two hours, thoroughly tired after a night vigil, I wandered like a shadow near the station, finally getting lost in the gray five-story buildings, until finally I happened to see my mother taking out the garbage from our new home. Going into the "killed" "bohemian" tenants "kopeck piece", thoroughly soaked with foreign smells, I immediately went to bed and slept through a deep sleep until the evening. The next morning, Sergei Novikov and Misha Petrov came to the airport to see me off. Here, our roads completely disagreed - I went to enter the Altai State University in Barnaul, Serezha - to the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, and only Misha stayed in Karaganda, deciding to enter the local polytechnic institute. Tu-154 with me on board was dispersed on the runway, heavily pulled away from the ground and, making a farewell circle over the city, a silvery cloud disappeared in the ultramarine sky. Friends for some time gazing intently into the horizon, as if trying to catch the disappearing phantom plane, and then suddenly with sadness and aching longing looked at each other - in the eyes of both guys there were tears. After all, and the hedgehog is understandable - who wants to forever part with a cloudless childhood and change the quiet, cozy harbor to the open, raging Ocean, in which if you can find peace, it is probably only at the bottom! Then involuntarily you will reflect - how, all the same, it is good to be a submarine!
  
                                
                                Youth
   "Why did you give in to this juridical - the Faculty of the Faculty! Whether it's a medical institute, "Lena, a Polish grandmother on the maternal line, urged me passionately. - Imagine, you - a young, talented therapist, and you come to the medical examination pretty girl with a beautiful chest! It's not work, it's a song, an eternal holiday of the soul for a young man! "Baba Lena knew very well which strings of my passionate nature can be played best. "Can it be better then a gynecologist?" - I continued the theme of eroticism in the professional activities of a doctor. "No way, because this is a natural" zagrebilovka "men in a sexual relationship. I tell you this from the experience of my colleagues and doctors, "my grandmother strongly objected. The fact is that she spent her entire adult life as a surgeon, and in an ambulance, which is actually the same as the work of a military surgeon in the front line, only in peacetime. This entertaining conversation took place on July 2, 1981 in the apartment of my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's line, which for a while turned into a base for the preparation of the future student of the Altai State University. It was exactly a week ago that I left Karaganda and flew to Barnaul, my hometown, and all the time my grandmother urged me to go to the medical institute day after day to continue the dynasty of doctors. And after all, she practically persuaded me! I was stopped only by the fact that I had to take physics and chemistry to the medical institute, with which I had, frankly speaking, very complicated relations with my child. In addition, it was a pity, painfully sorry for the titanic work of my parents, who from the eighth grade purposefully prepared me for admission to the Faculty of Law - Dad, respectively, engaged with me in the History of the Fatherland; Mother, the philologist herself by education, the Russian language and literature. In general, with all these soul-saving conversations, my whole mind went to the "Nagaska" - I turned into a solid lump of "torment and doubt." Fortunately, my father came to Barnaul, insure me on admission, and everything fell into place - on the family council it was decided, to the great chagrin of my grandmother, to continue the dynasty of lawyers.
   And the "hot" time for preparing for the exams began. I was shut up along with the textbooks in the grandmother's room, from which I went out only for want and for food, and I began, from day to day, intensively "gnawing the granite of science." Soon I could easily "flash" on any issue of military history, and illustrate my answer on the card with a map - a scheme of military operations in world-class battles, and confidently quote them with a capacious quote from the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Even better things were in literature. I learned such a volume of poems that when in the examination of literature and the Russian language I had a question about the work of Fedor Tyutchev, the examiner simply "caught my eye on my forehead" in surprise - I not only cheerfully recited a whole cascade of poetry of this great poet, but also made Their detailed philological analysis, which could be envied by Mr. Belinsky, himself Vissarion Grigorievich. "Well done, Voronin, I put you" excellent! "- exclaimed the examiner, who, as it later turned out, was Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philology Vera Anatolievna Pishchalnikova - the largest in Russia and Europe specialist in psycholinguistics. We would probably be surprised then if we found out that in 2001 Vera Anatolyevna would work (admittedly, a full-time employee) under my supervision at the Criminal Procedure Department of the Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.
   I had some difficulties in the entrance exam in English. The fact is that the entire 10th grade foreign language teacher in Karaganda was ill, so I thoroughly forgot English, which, by the way, was very good at 8th and 9th grades. It was necessary, once again, to connect my "peacock" to become - I boasted in completely wild English with an unknown "Altai" dialect, so that two charming young examiners laughed affectionately, listening to my frank delirium, and, apparently, pitying me, All the same, put "excellent".
   In the final of the entrance exams, I approached with a very good result, scoring 22, 5 points. However, already during the exams, the "passing" point for applicants who did not serve the army rose to 23 units, and I was catastrophically short of the coveted 0, 5 points for entering the university. For such "problematic" children, the dean of the Faculty of Law Valentina Platonovna Kolesova arranged a personal interview with a view to getting to know more about future students. I had to "fluff the peacock's tail" again, remembering the unforgettable "Jimmy the schizophrenic"; A little bit, just a little bit, for a brightening blezer, while at the same time, promising to make a real breakthrough in the amateur art of the faculty in the case of my admission.
   My great portfolio, definitely, had an effect, and here we together with the father almost faint with joy, finding our name on the coveted list of enrolled applicants. In honor of such a case, my father took me to the restaurant "Central", near the main building of the university, and I, for the first time in my life, grown up drinking vodka with my father, sitting in a posh restaurant and getting something new for me, hitherto Untested, "zhlobskoe" pleasure from lackey servility of the waiter.
   The next day my grandmother made a festive family banquet in honor of my admission to the university. God, how I loved these family banquets! Our heroic grandfather, a front-line soldier, a KGB colonel in reserve Vasily Fedorovich Sokolov, wore his military medals and medals and appeared to the festive table as a deity from Olympus.
   Yes, my grandfather Vasily Fedorovich had an outstanding military past, which, of course, could become the theme of a separate military - patriotic narrative: after a serious injury and a concussion in battles for Moscow in December 1941, he was transferred for further service in military counterintelligence " SMERSH "(" Death to Spies "), where during the period from 1942 to 1945 inclusive actively fought with spies and saboteurs of various stripes, as well as suppressed the bloody uprising of" Bandera "in Western Ukraine.
   Grandfather was always very stingy for the details of that terrible war. From childhood, I only remember his shocking story about how the "Bandera", who, as you know, never voluntarily surrendered to the "Chekists" before launching a bullet in his temple, from some special gangster courage ( They say that even after death, nothing worthy of this "filthy Moskali"!) Shot themselves in the left hand, where almost everyone had a personal watch - a gift from the Wehrmacht "to the faithful sons and true liberators of Ukraine").
         After a short "heroic" foreplay of the grandfather - the order-bearer, the grandmother solemnly placed on the table a decanter, like water in a mountain stream, with chilled vodka of her own preparation (she absolutely did not trust the factory vodka, preparing an exclusive home drink from the purest, 90-degree, medical Alcohol); The table was bursting with all sorts of phenomena, from which I have with Zhenya (Zhenya is my younger cousin with whom we grew up in the family as brothers), just "drooling" in anticipation of the upcoming "royal meal." Soon the whole family "beau monde" is important at the table, and the traditional family "show" begins, which I, with almost "sadistic" impatience, expect all evening - a stormy family debate about the role of Stalin's personality in History.
   The tradition of festive banquets in our family begins already from the sixties of the last century, when Aunt Vitya's own sister, Victoria Vikentievna, was still alive. The father of his grandmother and aunt Vitya - Vikenty Pavlovich - was a Polish revolutionary, exiled in 1905 by the tsarist regime to the Siberian city of Tomsk, from where, in fact, the entire lineage of our mothers originates. In fact, her grandmother's name was Helen, therefore, until she came of age she passed Galina, and only with the receipt of a passport at the age of 18 began to be called Elena. Unfortunately, the woman Vitya did not have her own children, so she poured all her unrealized maternal tenderness onto me and Zhenya. Is it any wonder that my brother and I always fled with enthusiasm, we hurried to visit my aunt Vitya, where we were caressed, fed all sorts of "delicacies", presented with generous gifts.
   Only my aunt Vitya and my grandmother could cook such amazing Polish dishes as "begos" (in Altai it is called "bigus") - stew from fresh cabbage with smoked sausage and pork ribs; Duck in apples and salad with fish balls and prunes! Everything is so tasty, and there are so many, too many on the table, that my father, who always had a hungry military childhood before his eyes, always had a terrible indigestion after the banquet. The first ideological attack, traditionally, begins with Aunt Rita. She recently graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the Sverdlovsk State University and with all the fibers of her soul hates Stalin's "personality cult". Grandfather, on the contrary, was an ardent Stalinist; His father always treated the so-called moderate opposition of the "waverers", from time to time changing his political views on the History of Russia, so that the "show" promises to be very bright and memorable! In vain, the grandmother before the start of the banquet from all its participants takes a "subscription" about not "getting" grandfather - after the first glass of vodka, everything repeats with enviable constancy.
   "Daddy, I'm telling you - Stalin was a real demonic person, a match for Hitler! Hitler and Stalin are "two boots - a pair". What can I say? Even Hitler, a fascist, did not mock his people as Stalin did! "" You understand a lot, little fellow! - began to start a grandfather. - Do you know what a terry counter-revolution flourished in the late 1930s? Yes, if Stalin did not start repression, "kirdyk" would have come to the country! "
   "No, Dad, you're wrong," Father entered into a dispute. - Here Uncle Sergei, for example, says: what Stalin did in the army is a real sabotage. Interrupting the whole army commander on the eve of the war is just a complete insanity! "" Many of your uncle Seryozha - a penal battalion - understands (his father's uncle, being a fighter pilot, was captured in German at the very beginning of the war, and after escaping from the camp - Battalion, and in the assault of his company, specially assembled from the officers - penal officers, so he hated Stalin pathologically and everything connected with him!) "Dad, in the fact that he was captured at the beginning of the war without even having to take off from the airfield - also the share of Stalin's guilt. What, did not Richard Sorge warn him about the coming war? Even the exact date of the beginning of the war informed our intelligence service, and nothing, no reaction from Stalin, "his father defended Uncle Sergei, while at the same time he stuttered with excitement-the consequence of a strong fright in a distant military childhood. "Edik, you have no idea what was happening on the eve of the war," Grandfather heated himself. - "Deza" (author - disinformation) pearl from all sides - from Germany, Japan, England. Go and understand this stream of lies! "" Therefore, it is better, just in case, to shoot the military genius of Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Blucher! "Insisted his father. "What a genius he is, this rascal is Polish! - Finally, my grandfather exploded. "Do not you know how the Poles treat us historically?" This scumbag prepared a real military coup - this is now openly spoken by all historians. What was left for Yoska? Sit and wait for the Polish Jews to come and hang him? "" Friends, maybe enough, eh? - Grandmother prayed. "Can not you just sit and celebrate quietly and without scandal at least once?" "And your uncle Seryozha is a real traitor to the Motherland, once he was taken prisoner to the Germans. The order "alive not to give up" everyone knew then very well! "- could not calm down the grandfather in any way. Well, that was too much for my father! "Who, Uncle Sergei - a traitor? Yes, if you want to know, Dad, in captivity, he was in the Kiev anti-fascist underground in the hero of the Soviet Union Mironchuk, - with a hurt in his voice, stuttering more than usual, his father cried. - And after that they "packed" in the filtration camp, and then - in the penal battalion! And then, you know, the traitor of the Motherland will not be the chief engineer of the LiAZ plant after the war! "" Yes, I wanted to put the "appliance" with eggs on your uncle Seryozha and this - how is it? - Mironchuk! "- So, in a traditional manner, with his crown phrase from the glorious army past, Grandfather triumphantly finished this noisy political discussion at the table. And the family holiday went on as usual until late in the evening, but only without a grandmother, who fled in tears to the kitchen, once again upset because of her "homegrown pranks." Sometimes the tactical situation at the festive table developed in a completely different scenario - all were silent, like guerrillas, not wanting to be the first to start a dispute. In this case, the grandfather, who became very bored at the table, himself began to provoke the debaters, setting up his old ripped "song": "No, do not say that, and Ioska (author - Joseph Stalin), after all, is a super-genius of a planetary scale - What a great country "raised"! Not that modern political "dwarfs"! Well, tell me, please, what is Brezhnev? The complete insignificance and one pity! "Such a" political short-sightedness and criticism ", the philosopher Aunt Rita, of course, could not stand it - with the enthusiasm and enthusiasm of the real fighter, she again and again, like an embrasure, threw herself into an ideological battle, raising her" thrown glove " And delivering him a huge, incomparable pleasure. I suspect that his grandfather definitely had a dependency, almost a narcotic dependence on such ideological disputes - and he felt "not at home" if the holiday was going on "dry".
   Finally, the long-awaited morning of September 1, 1981, and with it the first Day of Knowledge in my university life, came. Having come to our legal building on the Prospekt Socialist, despite the festive entourage of this event, I was completely taken aback by so many unfamiliar, too adults, as I then thought, people. This was aggravated by the fact that subjectively, against the background of these adults, "uncle" and "aunts," I felt like an absolute child. Apparently, in a similar way, judging by their contemptuous views, in reality I was perceived by these "uncles" with "aunts." At some point, I terribly wanted to turn around and run away from the university, where my eyes were looking - suddenly panicked that I had to spend five long years with these absolutely foreign, adult people. And I did not even have an idea that in 5 years I myself can grow up - it seemed that I will forever remain a little boy Seryozha.
   These adults, of course, were rabfakovtsy (applicants from the faculty) - the guys who have already served the army and have a decent work experience (from 3 to 5 years) in law enforcement and national economy. And we can imagine the degree of irritation experienced by us - yesterday's schoolchildren these already "lived" people. Some of them, for example, Valya Osipova, three times unsuccessfully entered the university, storming the impregnable "bastions" of the law department. All these three years, lost for university studies, Valya worked as an inspector of the military attire in the pretrial detention center of Barnaul - she saw enough of that God forbid anyone!
   Among the Rabfakovites there were immediately distinguished by some special, special article and amazing charisma, two giants - Sasha Kalinichev, nicknamed "Kalina" and Sergei Kandrin with the appearance of the famous French actor Gerard Depardieu. Even now, in the lobby of the main building of the university, they stand on top of a head, let's say, too, quite a bit of army men who arrived at law school this year. "Kalina" 2 years served "urgent" in the secret unit of the GRU, preparing submariners - saboteurs (the so-called "combat swimmers"), which we then did not even know and even did not know. It was a detachment of super-professional killers (agent "007" James Bond is just resting here), who in special diving equipment were dropped from an airplane or helicopter into the water, they went to the depths and put mines on enemy ships. You can only imagine the level of training of people who can do this! In addition, Sasha had such a huge physical strength, which, coupled with secret techniques of hand-to-hand combat of the special forces, turned him into a formidable military "superweapon".
   One day our student group, as usual, sent us with the "Kalina" for beer to the nearest beer garden in Peschanaya Street. When we came there, as always, we were met by a huge "kilometer" line of "suffering" - a picture typical for that time in Barnaul - there was a catastrophic lack of beer spots for a strong drinking local population. Our "saboteur", of course, was not going to stand modestly in line and wait patiently, but calmly approached the hand, grabbed the hand with a slight movement of his hand and pushed aside a dozen bruises, and with the second hand handed the seller two empty jerricans. The indignant crowd seemed to be jerking at first, but immediately bitterly regretted it - on the dirty, beer-filled floor, there were already three "lifeless" bodies - this "Kalina" with lightning movement of the hand "turned off" them.
   I told this story to my grandfather, and he liked it so much that he again and again asked me to repeat it. I gladly fulfilled his request, completing the story with new funny details, in "faces" and paints depicting the picture of this happening in the "brewing" of the "sacred" event. "In short, we go to the pub," I once again told this heart-rending story, "and there shaking" bruises "(auth - former" zeks "or alcoholics in prison jargon), such nasty and smelly - brrr !!! "Kalina" grabbed them with this hand - I showed my grandfather how and what he did - and easily pushed from the bar, and there was a man of 30! And then, as he gave to the five, they all immediately fell! "Grandfather laughed with a joyful, giggling laugh, imagining this entertaining picture. Very much he, a truly Russian person, loved strong, brave people; Their insolence and valiant daring! "Prefect, Sergey, prefect! - it was my grandfather's favorite word. "Ahhh, yessss, Kalina, ahhhh, you, son of a bitch!" Strong, a tramp, nothing to say! "So grandfather forever, in absentia, with disinterested" platonic "love fell in love with this Russian, almost epic, soldier from the special forces. The second character, which should be told, was Sergei Kandrin ("Depardieu") - the most grown-up student in our course - he was already 26 years old. He was born from the Mamontovsky district - one of the most picturesque forest areas of the Altai Territory, managed 3 years to serve "urgent" in the navy and work in agriculture. Particular attention, of course, deserves his service in the Pacific Fleet. The fact is that Seryozha, thanks to his outstanding abilities and knowledge in the field of radio electronics, served as a cipher on the flagship missile cruiser, which, moreover, did not get out of combat campaigns on the far seas and oceans. The cipherer is the second person on the ship after the commander of the ship, and one can only imagine what kind of service DePardier had. "Not life, but raspberries!" - as is sung in the famous chanson of those years. When Kandrin took out his dubborn album from under the bed in the student hostel and began proudly to show his naval photographs, we, salagians who did not serve in the army, simply caught breath with envy.
   Here, Seryozha, tanned to black, in shorts and a tropical cork helmet under the huge palm trees is in an embrace with charming flip flops, which he just waist-deep and "breathe in the navel." And in this picture he is already posing in front of the camera, sitting on an elephant in Sri Lanka. Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam - it is difficult to name a place where the ubiquitous "Depardieu" would not have visited. And, mind you, it was in Soviet times, in which, beyond the friendly countries of the socialist camp, it was simply impossible for an ordinary person to break through abroad.
   Once at the university, I, remembering my solemn oath, given to the dean of the law faculty at the interview, went to the local student club - to offer my exclusive services to the musician. But here I was awaited by a cruel disappointment: at the Law Department, with the exception of the ensemble of the political song "Gloria", there was nothing else. In this ensemble, completely zaideologized, at that time Yura Dranishnikov (my classmate), Sasha Petrov, Oleg Pronin and Galya Lisitsyna (the student of the last, 5th year) sang, which, in fact, was the initiator of me, after all, Took in this ensemble - the male part of the group rested "horn" and was categorically against the new member of the team. At that time, Valentina Platonovna Kolesova, the dean of law faculty, displayed simply outstanding organizational skills, having managed somewhere to get for the faculty a magnificent concert grand piano "Estonia", at a cost equal to the car "Volga". This grand piano was so good for its sound and design that it came to him to study on it beforehand, asking the dean for permission in advance, the teachers of the Barnaul Musical College (for example, the well-known organist Sergei Budkeev in Russia), located near the building of the law faculty. It was this piano that became the main Teacher in my life, defining for many years my musical preferences and developing an uncommon technique for playing the piano.
   Once in the ensemble of the political song "Gloria" I, as always, with all my heart, fell in love with my patroness Galya Lisitsynu. Galya, of course, felt her instinct of a married woman, but she treated me with an emphatically maternal tenderness, as a child, which I, in fact, was at that time. Wishing me, as it should, to consolidate in the ensemble, Galya made me even sing with her cackling "syphilitic" voice in the cold room of the Altai Regional Drama Theater named after Vasily Makarovich Shukshin, but this should not be done with my voice and my "breath"! Having swallowed during rehearsals and a concert in the drama theater of cold autumn air, I worked six months ahead, until the summer, to get such a bronchitis that teachers of the law faculty with angry screams drove me out of the audience when I balked them with my barking cough. I had to abandon my "uncommon" vocal data and use me only as an accompanist. But here it was not without curiosity.
   Once the ensemble "Gloria" was invited to a concert in honor of February 23 in the Palace of Culture, secret at that time, the enterprise "Rotor" in the village of Southern Barnaul. Since the morning, this day, on the eve of the concert, immediately somehow did not work out. I woke up in my bachelor two-room apartment on Potok (the result of a well-planned apartment exchange with Karaganda, very competently produced by my talented mother) and felt that my left cheek was swollen. Going to the mirror, I was just horrified - on the cheek, in the most bad place at the junction with the neck, a huge boil was ripening. It should be noted that at that time in my life, apparently, something weakened organism, endlessly attacked all "evil spirits" - various infections, so I managed to get used to the attacks of harmful bacilli. But this time I immediately understood that everything was much more serious. Feeling the disgusting chill in my soul from the imminent death threat, I ran to the second city polyclinic, serving students of the Altai State University. The young woman who met me, a surgeon with a trainee, did not conceal her anxiety, immediately put me on the operating table and began gently opening the abscess, surprisingly with this trainee: "Look, what a deep cavity formed, a little more, that's all!" I Gladly realized that my intuition did not fail me this time, and I caught myself in time. Getting up from the operating table, I, with the pride of a soldier wounded in battle, found on my cheek a huge bandage through which blood was dripping abundantly. "Well, the concert show promises to be fun and memorable!" - With the irony of the man who had the worst thing left behind, I thought, and went to university. Seeing my bloody bandage, Galya flung her arms in horror and nearly collapsed. "How are you going to perform now, Seryozha?" She exclaimed. "It's all right, we'll sort it out on the spot," I said optimistically and, really, figured out - after arriving at the South, I ordered to put the piano in such a way that my left, raspornovannaya surgeon cheek was turned in the opposite direction from the hall - directly to the chorus. Accompanied on the piano in the song "Streets without end" with a very tragic, military content (as in the topic of my "combat" injury), with the satisfaction of the "peacock" I managed to note to myself how the choristers from the first row, With pity and fear watching my bloody bandage. At the same time, I was extremely proud of myself and my "unprecedented" courage, certainly appreciated by these pretty girls from the choir.
   In "Gloria" I still worked for a while and even managed to star in some idiotic program on regional television, dedicated to political song; But as soon as my permanent "producer and philanthropist" Galya Lisitsyna, Petrov and Pronin left the ensemble after graduation, they "squeezed" me out of the collective, referring to my absolute "incompetence" and too noisy instrument. Then they made their "musical - political" career without me, and I went to the student theater of law department named after Commissioner Magre (the so-called STEM - student theater of pop miniatures).
   At the theater named after Commissioner Magre for that period, as it is not surprising, there were at once two art directors. They were teachers of the Barnaul Institute of Culture Zhenya Sinitsky and Sasha Vitruk, who consistently put their director's experiments on us. One of them (Sinitsky) represented the school of the so-called "theatrical cubism", building from our, let's say, absolutely not "gutta-percha" bodies, some idiotic figures in the style of the 30s of the last century. The second (Vitruk) was absolutely obsessed with the works of the Italian director Federico Fellini and, in particular, his cult film "Amarcord". This "modernist horseradish" absolutely tortured us with his bicyclists, scooters and scooters, now and then, appearing on the scene in the midst of the theatrical action, shocking the respectable audience, who apparently did not yet grow to the genius " "Of this home-grown" Fellini ". However, in the middle of all this director's "husks" sometimes came across the most real "nuggets".
   Such a "diamond" in the "crazy" repertoire of our theater, I believe, was the production of The Three Musketeers, in which our permanent theater choreographer Natasha Deyun played a special role (unfortunately, this real Russian beauty with a luxurious, up to the waist, Undoubtedly a talented choreographer, recently died, finally drunk and ended up in Barnaul, without the support of relatives and friends, on the lowest social "day" - oh, this is our mean, cruel, indifferent time!).
   The actions of this wonderful performance took place approximately in the same chronological sequence as in the novel of Alexandre Dumas, only they were transferred already in our time and to our beloved law faculty. With this theatrical performance in 1985, we successfully toured in Khakassia, where in the famous after August 17, 2009 to the whole country, thanks to the terrible accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower station, the settlement of the hydro-builders "Cheremushki" after the performance, we even got a real ovation!
   In the play I got, as always, the most interesting work for me - writing musical score to this "grandiose" vocal - choreographic "oratorio". Of course, I did not bother myself with the exorbitant volume of writing work, but, without a long time thinking, for some scenes in the play I took well-known arias from "Jesus Christ the Superstar"; In the final scene - "tutti" used Karl Weber's "Invitation to Dance", and in a few vocal numbers - the time-tested hits of the famous Beatles Liverpool four.
   The role of D, Artagnan in the play is absolutely brilliant, in my opinion, was performed by Sergei Bulygin - known at the law department as "buzoter" and a drunkard with the beautiful face of the famous actor Igor Kostolevsky. The role of Porthos, also very talented, was performed by Oleg Kazakov - our "informal" leader in the theater, a lanky undergraduate student who, despite his size and excessive obesity, performed such breathtaking "cabbage rolls" in the air during the final " We have already captured the spirit! Unfortunately, in 2001, the lawyer Oleg Rudolfovich Kazakov, who is famous in Barnaul, graduated from the university with a red diploma, got into some very strange sect, from which he could still get out, though with great difficulty. But, of course, the most brilliant actor's work, recognized even by high professionals from the Altai Regional Drama Theater, visited our performance somehow, was the role of Athos performed by Zhenya Sysoyeva. Stunning natural plastic, bright appearance and unmatched actor's charisma have done their work, and, to date, Evgeny Sysoev is the highest paid "bandit" lawyer in the city of Barnaul, and this, as they say, "is worth a lot!"
   The long-awaited summer of 1982 came, and with it - the most terrible and the most difficult, because the first, summer session at the Faculty of Law. However, this session, to which all students were frightened from the beginning of the academic year, to everyone's surprise, passed without much shock - and even the most "terrible" teacher of Soviet state law, Aleksandr Pavlovich Vlasov, the party organizer of the university (in fact, the same zampolit in the army) Despite all the severity during the seminar sessions in relation to me and Oleg Korobkov, with whom we already became friends, set us both "excellent". We did not know then and, of course, we could not know that Fate would again bring us together with Alexander Pavlovich, but in completely different circumstances. And it was so.
   With Oleg Korobkov, a student from Novosibirsk, we agreed on the first course on the basis of tourism. Oleja was an avid tourist, and every summer, as a routine, he left for the Altai campsite in Biysk, where he worked as a guide for tourist groups in the Altai Mountains for almost the whole summer. Subsequently, to this worthy occupation, he introduced me, which I will talk about a little later. But there was one more thing, one thing that united us: it is an unlimited love for literature.
   One day Oleg offered me to write a novel on one of the most boring lectures of associate professor Adikhanov about the tragic story of the old zoophile Afrikanych who fell in love with his "goat" love to his goat Zorka and fell down with her at the hands of the accursed evil creature, the sexy maniac, Zootechnician Arnold. I do not know where I saw or overheard this instructive story of Korobkov, but I did not see anything more idiotic and absurdist in my life. It was decided to write the most boring lectures: Adikhanov had environmental law, Tena had civil law and Fedoseev had a civil process. And the work went on, the painstaking literary work about which Vladimir Mayakovsky said so well at the time: "You produce a single word for the thousand tons of verbal ore!"
   We worked as obsessive, covered with literary "fever": paragraph - Oleg, paragraph - I. Finally, this immortal work was written, and we decided at the lecture of Tena to read it completely in order to form a holistic impression of this "classic of modern times".
   Yes, "Mankina love", indeed, impressed with a gallery of carefully prescribed images and characters, took for the soul the "majestic" panorama of the rural life of the modern Soviet village! Especially the tragedy was astonished by the scene when the unfortunate Afrikinych, bending over the lifeless body, brutally raped and killed by Arnold the goat Zorka, with the scream of the poor Karandyshev from the "Dowry": "So do not get you anybody!" - a sickle blow, in an instant , Oskoplyaet itself. While we were finishing this terrible bloodthirsty scene, we hardly both cried for pity for the unfortunate old man, who had lost his precious eggs in the name of Great Love to the animal; I just wanted to sob out loud at this senile, simply "lame" lecture by Leonid Vasilievich Tena, who, with an unflappable air of the Dalai Lama, tells us about some sort of useless supplies. And here deliveries, fines and other penalties, when such serious passions are boiling here! After reading my literary "bestseller," Oleg and I were horrified only by the thought that this "criminal fiction" can get into the wrong hands, and swore to no one and never show it. But, as they say, "fresh legend"!
   One day, Oleg, noisily marking some other significant event in the student hostel, could not resist and arranged a loud group "reading" of "Mankin love" in one of the girlish rooms where our dear classmates lived. During the reading of this "epoch-making" work in the maiden room, there was such an eerie, simply Homeric laughter that passing neighbors on the "hostel" were simply perplexed: what could cheer these frivolous girls so? They literally rolled on the floor with laughter, holding on to their bellies, but .... Not long music played! As usual, there were "goodwill", which this event did not quite like; Rather, I did not even like it at all. And soon a storm struck: we were summoned to our office by the party organizer of the university - our old "kind" friend San Palych Vlasov. We did not even immediately know what the rendezvous was for.
   As soon as we entered the office of the party organizer, we immediately saw an angry, somewhat irritated San Palych who was standing by the window in the strained position of Dr. Goebbels, and already from a distance, for some reason, showed us a very ugly, simply ugly "faqa" ( Author - a very indecent and offensive gesture in the youth subculture), because of which I immediately mentally dubbed him "Faker". Only then did Olezhi and I realize that as a child, San Palych apparently broke his middle finger on his right arm, he did not properly grow up, and the Party organizer for life was doomed to the world, so imperfect, the world to show this involuntary "fake" to his superiors, his wife , Friends, children; And now here we are, unhappy students, like rats driven into a corner. "Well, guys, they played hard, they got to know that you were already interested in the KGB! - "off the bat" went into the attack "Faker". "Well, tell me, what did you write for the rubbish?" Oleg and I exchanged glances at each other in perplexity. After all, I, unlike Korobkov, did not yet know about the "literary readings" in the hostel. San Palych began indignantly, back and forth, walking through the office. "Well, why are you silent, like schoolchildren who have been attacked? Here, read what kind of paper was sent to you from the KGB! "He threw us a paper on the table with the stamp" The Administration of the KGB of the USSR for the Altai Territory, "in which we read the heavy lines of death sentence:" Students of the Law Faculty of the Altai State University Voronin S .E. And Korobkov OL Wrote and arranged in a student's hostel a public reading of a literary work of anti-Soviet content "Mankina love", discrediting the way of life of the Soviet village. " "Well, have you read it? "Faaker asked us when we, stunned, finally raised our heads from the paper." In general, sit down and write the explanations! "He seated us at different tables and gave us a pen and a blank sheet. When we finished writing, he ordered Korobkov to leave, but I stayed. Left alone with me, the Party organizer began his insinuating soul-saving speech: "Seryozha, how did you do it? After all, we have been friends with your father for so many years (this, indeed, was so). Can you imagine how upset he will be when he finds out about what he did? Why did you contact this Jew (Oleg's father is Russian, and his mother, Elena Naumovna is Jewish)? Yes, surrender this Korobkov with all his "giblets", and let him go into the army - away from sin! "" No, Alexander Pavlovich, I can not do this, if necessary, we will join the army, but only together! " "Well as you know! You made your own choice, Sergei! "- Sadly said angrily and called Oleg back into the office. "So, guys, today go to the military registration and enlistment office, fall at the feet of the military commissar and persuade him to take you to the same spring call! This is the only way out for you in this situation. But first bring the notebook! "
   We rushed to my house with all my might and feverishly rewrote the novel in a specially bought for this general notebook. For 3 hours of titanic work we managed to turn "hardcore" into "light eroticism", throwing out all the most frank scenes, while retaining the main literary hero of the novel - the charming goat Zorka. When we brought in a new, fairly "slippery" version of the novel "Fakeru", he read it reluctantly, loudly grunted and said, somehow without much enthusiasm: "Yes, you have all the golimaya pornography here!" We did not go into the nagging stuff Discussion, than differs "porn" from "eroticism", and went straight to the military registration and enlistment office of the Oktyabrsky district at the place of my registration, went to the military officer and told him my sad story. He turned out to be a very wise man. "Guys, do not you even imagine what it means to serve in the army with an incomplete higher education? You will immediately be given "chased" by the "student", and you will never get out of the outfits - well, they do not like half-educated people in the army. With higher education, it is difficult to serve, and, in general, horror! In general, do not fool, go and calmly finish your 5th year, everything will resolve by itself. And then - "welcome", as they say! "
   No, I still get lucky, oh, how lucky it is for good people, who occasionally, from time to time, thanks to Ra, come across on my way. On that and decided. We continued to take the session, as if nothing had happened, when Vera Vasilievna Tikhonova, the curator of our group, came to us one day in the corridor of the law faculty (the wife of the well-known criminalist, Professor Yevgeny Nikolaevich Tikhonov). I have never loved this woman, because the heart of a musician has always felt in it some carefully concealed falsehood. "Guys, what happened to you with Alexander Pavlovich Vlasov? "Vera Vassilyevna asked, opposing grimacing." I heard that you are going to join the army? "" We are not going anywhere, not into any army, only through the "corpse" of Alexander Pavlovich! "- suddenly I got angry, so much so that at Tikhonova The spectacles crawled upwards in surprise and surprise. "Well, then I'll tell him so," she said softly and menacingly and went to the pulpit. And soon we learned from our classmate Vali Dolzhenko about how Vera Vasilyevna solemnly announced in our group that "the boys are leaving for the army-to protect the Motherland!"
   Fortunately, we successfully surrendered the session and "hiccupped" all summer with Oleg to the Altai Mountains, which reliably sheltered us from these half-crazed "Pasha, from their all-seeing eyes, from their ears," as Mikhail once wrote in his heart Yurievich Lermontov, leaving to serve in the Caucasus.
   In September 1985, my frightened neighbor, my university friend Misha Tatyanin, came running to my house and told me a "terrible" secret: it turns out that on September 1 there was an enlarged board at the party's regional committee, attended by Misha's father, the editor of a large regional newspaper. At the collegium, the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU, Popov, made a report and told the audience about the state of affairs on the ideological front of the Altai Territory. At the same time, he read out a certificate prepared by the KGB, from which it followed that the students of SF Voronin and Korobkov were expelled from the university for the anti-Soviet work "Mankina Love" together with 30 "punks" from the Pedagogical Institute. Thus, San Palych decided to reinsure, giving in extreme false information about our deduction from the ASU. This incident with Alexander Pavlovich Vlasov and his powerful organization was exhausted.
   All this time, while we were "hammering" with San Palych, we were supported, as they could, by our good university friends - Kolya Makeyev and Yura Korchak.
   Kolya Makeyev (Makesha), born in a family of ordinary workers and without any serious social support from outside, did everything himself in life. He became, forever spitefully "croaking" to doctors, an excellent fighter, although he had a congenital heart disease; He made an excellent career for that time on the Komsomol line, although he had neither "pusher" nor, as it is customary to call now, any serious "sponsors". In addition, Makesh with all the power of his passionate nature selflessly loved animals and birds, which were always abounded in his house, which already says a lot - an evil and cruel person can not so much like animals as he did Kolya Makeyev. He very early, from high school, began his conscious journey along the Komsomol line; And, went very persistently and purposefully for a nondescript teenager from the working family, rising to the secretary of the Komsomol organization of the university. Despite the career growth so rapid for that time, this did not affect his human qualities at all - Makeda was and remains a generous, kind and sympathetic comrade; Even now, when he rose to the first deputy prosecutor of the Republic of Khakassia. Yura Korczak came to us on a law faculty from the Barnaul Higher Military Flight School, which then trained pilots for assault aviation. In the second year of the school, he seriously contracted a kidney and was written off for health reasons. The disease greatly affected Yura's character; Yes, and this is understandable - permanent renal colic and associated with nephritis intoxication of anyone you want will lead to rabies. Despite constant irritation and quick temper, Yura was and remains a good companion, and just a good person. Unfortunately, Fate struck him with a terrible, crushing blow - Korczak several years ago became ill with multiple sclerosis, and today this terrible disease is firmly bedridden in the city of Kherson, which is in Ukraine.
   We met each other in the second year, and, since then, became friends "do not pour water," in the literal sense of the word. Always and everywhere we were together. Our general student life is replete with such "epoch-making" events as: cleaning the multistage Gothic roof of the Rossiya cinema from the snow in March 1984 (Oleg and I used this experience for our future service in the army very much), numerous trips to restaurants and "girls" "(Here I already" banked ", as often, in the evenings, in the" dead "season for musicians, moonlighting as a" session "keyboardist in the restaurants" Central "and" Siberia "); An extreme alloy on a holey plywood boat along the Ob River, which had just been freed from the April ice, from the Ob basement camp to Bobrovka village, which then nearly ended badly - and much more, which sometimes with nostalgia and great warmth is remembered by "fighters" With rare, especially in recent times, friendly meetings.
   "To go for girls" - on our, only to us four intelligible slang, meant "to descend into" Cockerel ". This legendary ice cream shop on Lenin Avenue near the cinema "Russia" has long been famous in Barnaul for the unusual accessibility of girls of very "easy" behavior (apparently, at the time of the opening of the "Cockerel" in 1984, the peak of the "sexual revolution" in Barnaul had happened) Which were always there a lot every night, with a bored look waiting patiently at their tables next erotic adventure. For us, it was just a kind of usual hunting, only without guns (we will start hunting with Metsha only in 1998, and we are still doing this) and not on waterfowl, as usual, but on some previously unknown scientists Fauna called "girls from the" Cockerel ". Surprisingly, in this "sexual hunt" of the four of us, Yura Korczak was particularly successful. Obviously, there was in him some kind of charisma - something that energetically irresistibly attracted representatives of the fair sex. As a winner, he always got the most "tidbit" place - my room with a wide bed, where he could indulge in sexual pleasures until the very morning. We, the three "losers", had to share a relatively small room in the hall for three. The places in the "reserved seat", at the same time, were traditionally distributed as follows: The make-up got a very narrow space between the sofa and the storeroom, for which we called it "pent-up master"; The box was comfortably located with the partner on the couch, somehow standing on four piles of book volumes because of the lack of legs; Well, I, your humble servant, modestly fit with the next, got to me a passion on the floor near the piano. All these evenings of "rest" (almost, but not yet promiscuity) represented a very comical sight - everything around puffed, groaned and groaned; Behind the couch near the pantry throughout the night, some kind of terrible fuss did not stop, which was periodically interrupted by an exhausting maiden cry and a selective mat of the Mashi - it was on him and his partner, once again, the sofa with the Box and his girl overturned.
   The poles of attraction in our "brave" quartet, surprisingly similar to the famous French quartet - D, Artagnan and the three musketeers - were distributed as follows: I was more drawn to Korobkov, and Kolya was more drawn to Korczak. The role of D, Artagnan in this four, obviously, I performed - this, of course, had to match, so the role of the "gatekeeper" - Gascon in our company, I always took the decisive step.
   One thing only surprised our gay Barnaul "musketeers", and surprised to the depths of my soul - how did I manage to live without special problems and nervous shocks for 5 years alone, in my two-room apartment ?! I could not tell them that I live not alone, that I live with Ra! I'm afraid that then, as well as now, they would misunderstand me.
   I really loved and love my "bachelor bungalow" on Potok (the most industrial microdistrict of Barnaul since Khrushchev's time). This love is not overshadowed even by the fact that under the windows of my apartment on the second floor there is a lively industrial highway along which heavy and heavy trucks rush through the streets and nightly. All my "lair" is imbued with the sounds of the piano "Tyumen", which my grandfather and grandmother gave to my mother on my birthday on June 4, 1964. Thus, we are absolute coevals; He is my brother, friend, wife and mistress in one bottle. On this occasion, my classmate Misha Galtsov devoted me a remarkable epigram that reflects the essence of this phenomenon:
   "Do not think that our Serge is impotent.
   Saying this, you would not be right.
   It's very simple: a tool for Serge - a woman,
   A woman is just an instrument! "- Ra has long been careful to protect me from women - these ideal" vessels for sin "; Apparently, I need Him absolutely for another!
    We are absolutely matched with him, with this plain black "guy" from Tyumen - a gift from God Ra on my birthday. I could sit for days at the piano in my free time, something softly playing under my breath. Not knowing the musical notation, we had to learn how to fix the music that emerged from nowhere from our old, but robust, like a Kalashnikov rifle, the "Saturn" tape recorder.
   One day, in the spring, as usual, I sat at the piano at home and suddenly felt: "She came here as a spring like paranoia!" - as Nikolai Noskov's famous song says. Something in the soul "sang", "whistled", "zasverbilo" and "ziskryabalo", trying to write something like that, significant, - that all the surrounding people are finally "stunned"! In the end, the "peacock" slept the whole winter. It's time to finally wake up and shake this eternally sleeping world with your moss-tailed tail! So the idea came to write a rock opera "Steppe Wolf" based on the famous novel by Hermann Hesse.
   And it all began with Andrei Voznesensky's poem "Fragment of a self-portrait" from his 1975 Michelangelo poetic collection. I liked these verses, which corresponded to my hypochondriac mood at the time, that I immediately "put" blues on them. Also has gone, and has gone!
   "I'm a poor carrion. I am food for the morgue.
   I feel stifling, like a gin in a rancid,
   As in the darkness of the spine to the bone marrow!
  
   In my closet, as in the tomb of a dank,
   Arachne wove her cobweb.
   My Dolce Vita smelt of garbage.
  
   I hear urea talking about the wall.
   The gloomy giant of the sacred hose
   My house washes away. He's drunk, obviously.
  
   Full in the yard of human slag.
   Shit swayed like a cathedral head.
   Excess of shit in this world, however.
  
   I'm not your public restroom!
   Proud of your confidence. But I'm not an urn.
   My fate is modest and miserable.
  
   Now I will describe my appearance from life:
   My face is terrible, my beard is like a brush.
   Zubariks dance like a keyboard.
  
   Besides, I'm deaf. And in the throat tickling!
   The spider inhabited my left ear,
   And in the right cricket roars like a rattle.
  
   My voice buzzes like a glass fly.
   From the lower throat, archangelsky booming,
   The fugue of the captive spirit will not break out.
  
   Where are the blue eyes? Raised burkaly.
   But seriously - I'm glad that I'm sad,
   I'm glad that I was dressed, how crows were scared.
  
   A great misfortune supplants a smaller one.
   The more bitter, the sweeter is the fate.
   Now slap in the face of the kisses.
  
   The paradox is cheap, but I'm happy, tormented.
   More truly I find pleasure in grief.
   In a desperate share there are a number of advantages.
  
   Let the wallet empty. What details!
   But in the bladder, like coins
   Three stones solemnly zabrenchali.
  
   My madrigals, my triolets
   Will serve as a wrapper in grocery
   And they will become toilet paper.
  
   Why did you, the artist, soar in empyrean,
   To other generations, he raised his tripod ?!
   All the dust and vanity. In poverty I'll die.
   Such is your result, venerable artist! " The last quatrain of Andrei Voznesensky will become a programmatic, key, and soon will serve as an epigraph to my new rock opera.
   Roman Hermann Hesse "Steppe Wolf", published in Germany in 1927, immediately became an epoch-making, landmark event for his time. The fact is that in it, as in a mirror, the unusually increased public interest in the so-called psychoanalysis of Josef Lang, the pupil of the famous Karl Jung, was reflected. In fact, the Magic Theater, described in the novel, is nothing more than a psychoanalysis of Lang. The protagonist of the novel "The Steppe Wolf" Harry Galler, certainly the prototype of the Hessian himself, is in an eerie mental crisis, in strange half-mad rumors between the world of the Spirit and the world of Matter. Once, during the aimless walks around the city, he meets a "black man" who gives him a small book - "Treatise on the Steppe Wolf", which tells of a certain Harry Galler, nicknamed "Steppe Wolf." Naturally, the main character immediately recognizes himself in this "Wolf" and he becomes terrified of this; Especially since life at it from this moment begins to develop in that chronological order, as it was described in this "Treatise". Completely entangled in his own experiences and pretty tired of his almost schizophrenic "split personality", Harry eventually decides to commit suicide, but meets a strange girl in the restaurant, which discourages him from suicide, offering to kill himself first. In general, the plot of the novel is more than strange and very psychedelic. How - just what was needed in my current spring - depressive mood.
   The role of the girl was decided to give my brother Zhenya, who just turned 14 years old, so his voice was not yet mutated and was surprisingly similar to the girl's. As soon as the erotic sound appeared in the tape recording, with the enchanting hoarse of a pretty roaming girl, Zhenya's voice, Vitaly Fefelov and I could not help smiling. Vitaly Fefelov is a sound engineer for the DK "Motorostroitelei", in which I played then in a local rock band. He kindly agreed to my request to help record all the soundtracks for the rock opera, and at the same time brilliantly played the role of director of the Magic Theater. All theatrical scenes we recorded in my pantry to achieve a "flat", natural sound and get rid of the absolutely unnecessary reverberation effect in our case. Only now I understood and appreciated the whole complexity of the work of actors working in radio performances - try it with a voice, only with its intonations and nothing more, to convey the whole gamut of human experiences!
   Finally, "Steppe Wolf" was recorded, but clearly there was not enough audience that could appreciate this "epoch-making" work. Fefelov, a radio electronic engineer from God, suggested using the latest achievements of scientific and technological progress. To do this, he brought to my house a powerful 100-watt amplifier, which we connected to the radio in my apartment. The recorder was connected to the amplifier and at 21.00 (when the majority of people are already at home) the rock opera "Steppe Wolf" was aired. The amplifier at the time of the broadcast completely cut off local radio broadcasting in the region of approximately two quarters (and this, then, and now it was a legal matter), and people were simply forced to listen to our existential, "beyond meaning" for human understanding, musical and literary composition. It is a pity that we could not "enjoy" their reaction, and without this, of course, there was no complete satisfaction from what was done.
   Unfortunately, my personal copy of Steppen Wolf was lost somewhere irretrievably - from all this titanic work I had only one left, though the central theme of Harry Haller himself, written specifically for the clarinet (see phonogram 1). But I know for a fact that the original of this "imperishable" rock opera still remains with Vitaliy Fefelov, who still carefully keeps it in memory of our joint Creativity.
   On July 1, 1982, with great "enthusiasm" I went to my first student construction team "Rusichi" of the Faculty of Law of the ASU (then there will be two more). We were 30 guys from different courses and only 5 girls - a cook. So, apparently, a big "gender" show was expected, especially when we learned that the place of deployment of the construction team is a huge Altai field 30 km from the village of Shelabolich in the Pavlovsky district. We were "bought" from the faculty by the famous in the Altai Territory director of the state farm "mirror carp" Hero of Socialist Labor Sapunov, whom we, for his too boring character, immediately dubbed "a precursor".
   When we arrived at the site of the construction squad, I was simply shocked by the majestic panorama that opened to us such a familiar and, it turns out, completely unfamiliar nature of the Altai. What a beautiful, after all, this "small" my Motherland! In front of me was a magnificent emerald field, as in Alexander Volkov's fairy tale "The Wizard of the Emerald City". Solar spots from the burning July sun lifted from the magical field of a jet of hot, hot-white air, in the haze of which the silhouettes of distant skeletons, disorderly scattered across the field, and our two construction wagons, wretched on the edge of a birch grove, wavered. All the space around the trailers, even on those rare black and white photographs that remained of this construction team, is flooded with some fantastically unreal, dazzling white sun.
   Next to our trailers was a large van on wheels, in which there were drivers of scrapers and graders (road construction machinery) who came here to the "red-hot" of Talmenka. Together with them we had to build a new pond for the "mirror carp".
   The first night in building trailers for all passed just a nightmare. For a day, the heated, sheeted iron car was transformed into a sauna that it was impossible to sleep until 3 am. Then, at last, somehow falling asleep in the morning, an hour later you were already waking up from the wild cold - it turns out that these thin, plywood walls of the trailer could not keep the heat and were completely defenseless before the icy Altai morning. 
   The morning of the next day was immediately clouded by a sad incident in which we all saw a bad sign and an omen. When I got out of the car, I saw that some very bad movement was taking place near the van of the workers from Talmenki: the workers were running, excitedly waving their arms and shouting something, while on the ground at that time lay absolutely indifferent to what was happening, two A man between whom the doctor of the construction team of the Light of Samoylov was worn, as if it were a routine. Sveta graduated with honors from the sixth year of the Altai Medical Institute and was now an intern. She was sent to the construction team for the post-graduate training and production practice, which was so tragic and, at the same time, so ridiculously started today.
   It turns out that two workers, wishing to get drunk after yesterday's noisy feast, already from the early morning they slurped up the brake fluid, from which one died instantly, and the second, apparently stronger, continued to torment and torment our Light for a long time, sobbing in its voice from its own impotence and screaming "If I only had serum, an antidote, he would not have died!" The corpses lay all day under the scorching sun, and the hard workers now found a "legitimate" occasion to drink again and not go to work - dignified, as it should , In Russian to remember "without time" but gone. " 
   Sveta liked me at first sight. She was ugly, but with some special charm, which actresses with a similar appearance have - Andy McDowell and Barbara Streisand. I fell in love with her purely platonic love, and for many years we became real friends, which rarely happens between a man and a woman. Already on the second day of our stay in the construction team, we went to the production facility. The essence of our work was as follows: as I said, we built a pond for an elite "mirror carp" - scrapers and graders were preparing a "bowl" of the pool for him, and we had to, respectively, prepare and concreate the space around the lock Sections and pipes that feed water into the pool of the pond. From the very beginning, the capricious Altai nature began to avenge us for our arrogance, disorder and frivolity.
   Pyotr Semenov, a man of 45, who recently graduated from the Faculty of Melioration of the Altai Agrarian Institute, recently supervised all the works of the very "cheerful" technician from Pavlovsk, and therefore, like all the present part-timers, he feels in himself simply extraordinary forces and the desire to "turn the northern rivers backwards." It was a real "giant" of hydraulic engineering thought, which did not get tired from day to day, surprising us, miserable and stupid students. Every time he invented something for us, something innovative, we again and again took in the hands of heavy birch chocks for ramming the soil, and, like slaves on the galley, sweating afterwards under the ruthless July sun, with great "warmth" remembering all Closest relatives of hydraulic engineering, began to frenzy knead some very strange blue clay, disgusting "porridge" appearing through the earth in the sluice channel.
   A very complicated hydrotechnical situation arose at the site. The fact is that in the Altai the groundwater lies very close to the surface of the earth. Even photography from space (I personally saw this at the scientific and practical conference of the geographical faculty of the ASU, which I visited in 1993) showed that a vast artesian lake stretches along the entire territory of the Altai Territory, relatively in shallow depths. This underground lake, as time, and nourish numerous waterways and "capillaries", which now ruthlessly broke scrapers and graders that cut off the upper layer of the earth. As a wounded beast, the earth now just blew "blood", every minute highlighting the abundant groundwater even under the action of a simple shovel.
   Every time when we arrived at the site in the morning, we were disappointed to find out that our entire three-day work per night was washed away with water and mixed with a strange blue clay, which I met in such quantity only in Altai and which locals attribute incredible healing properties. Under the influence of groundwater in the earth formed numerous "pockets" and "voids", in which it was easy to drive the most "hat" three-meter armature. And again our "cheerful devil" - a hydro technician resorted, sanguine waving his hands and enthusiastically insane calling us not to "lower" our hands, but "fun and easy" to start everything from the beginning. And again we, as catechumens, began to ram the slopes and the bottom of the lock, and the next morning there was the same familiar picture of destruction. It resulted in some worthless, completely useless "Sisyphean labor". The first could not stand Valera Khmykin. "Yes, e ... this n .... technician (author - swearing at the bad gynecologist)! He cried angrily one day. "How long will this" gambler "still experience our patience?" Valera Khmykin is a tall, prominent guy of 24 years with the appearance of the then famous actor Yevgeny Kindinov and an unmatched, simply extraordinary sense of humor. He came to our university already "grown-up" from the Soviet Army, where he served an "urgent" in the militia battalion of internal troops in Irkutsk and even contrived to guard the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Valera by that time was already a married man, having a dependent wife and a small child, that's why he used unconditional authority in the construction team, being our "informal" leader. The difficult material situation in the family will soon force him to transfer to the correspondence department of the law faculty and get a job at the police.
   With the water element, of course, it was possible to cope with the condition of proper organization of the production process, which, as at the "hero of labor", Sapunov was not in sight. "And why did they only give him the" Hero of Social Labor "?" Khmykin was perplexed all the time. As soon as we prepared the site, carefully ramming it with heavy birch chocks, it was necessary to urgently concreate it, and Sapunov, as always, did not have a mortar ready. Again a day of forced downtime, and in the morning it was necessary to start everything from the very beginning. In the end, as a result of this blatant disorder and mismanagement, the state farm of the "mirror carp" was left without a pond, and without profit, we went to the construction team idly, unlike the happy colleagues in "Ermak" and "Skif".
   Once, during breakfast, I found that I can not keep a tablespoon at all - a huge lump flared on my right palm. In a panic, I ran to Sveta Samoilova, who immediately pronounced her disappointing "verdict": "Seryozha, it's bad! You have torn the inner corn and formed a vast abscess. We must urgently operate, otherwise we can lose the whole hand. Here, in the field, I will not risk doing this operation on your "precious hand". Go to the city, and it's urgent! "Yes, why did Bozhenka get so angry with me that I did such a thing to him, seditious - it's the second time in a year that I have to lie under the surgeon's knife!
   Arriving in Barnaul, I immediately, at full speed, rushed to the already familiar to me the second clinic, where this time I received an elderly doctor, a man. "It's okay," he said optimistically and assigned me a warm-up for UHF. And by the evening the hand "diluted" already on the wrist itself. "Seryozha, you can not pull until Monday," my grandmother said, looking at her hand anxiously, "now it's Friday, for two weekend abscesses it will rise to the elbow. It is necessary to cut, and immediately, but it will be very painful. I just nodded my head in silence. Brother Zhenya, who was just 12 years old, was sitting with interest next to him, waiting for a soul-stirring spectacle. Grandmother wiped off the nail scissors with her alcohol, worked her hand, and with a lightning movement of her hand she cut 0x08 graphic
out to me a pretty decent piece of inflamed flesh. In my eyes it turned dark, and Zhenka shouted loudly: "What are you doing, it hurts!" I ran to the toilet and immediately vomited from the pain. When I returned, my grandmother began to force me to squeeze out pus from my palm, and then forced me to lower my hand into the hot brine.
   When I came to the clinic on Monday morning, he looked jealously at my renewed, almost healthy hand and asked, obviously wounded: "Who did you have the operation for?" "Grandma, she's also a surgeon!" I replied. "Well done," - only and could say this doctor - a loser.
   During this ill-fated construction team, I again had to turn to Sveta for medical help. And it was so.
   One day, together with Sasha Safronov, a rare drunkard and a drunken fellow from my own academic group, I went to the nearest nook to feast on strawberries, which scattered all the surrounding meadows like precious nuggets in a plentiful scattering. After eating enough strawberries, we began to frolic fun in the sun, as is usual in such cases, throwing a jagged berry into each other. And then they began to fight noisily and to ride on the emerald grass, as if they were jokingly disheveled cubs, covering their bodies with abundant ruby ??drops from the crushed under our weight of meadow strawberries. However, the severe payment for this childish prank and frivolity soon did not keep itself waiting. Returning to the camp, I was horrified to find three hefty ticks, a "dead" grip on the scrotum. "Valera, what should I do?" - almost crying, I turned to Valery Khmykin, our unconditional "authority" in the construction team and just a reliable friend, showing him his scaly swelling from the tick bites. "Yes, however! Eka "thrashed you," Valera said sympathetically, and apparently wanting to at least somehow reassure me, he added: "You, Serega, do not worry much about your eggs; You know how I was bitten by one bl ... at the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980 - still hiccups noisily, as I recall. We stood then in patrol with one sergeant from Novosibirsk in the Gorky Park of Culture. Us, "Pepsi" (the author - PPS patrol service) then in Moscow from all over the country chased. We go in the night through the park, not a soul around; Suddenly, we hear - somewhere the woman yells! We are friends in the bushes and we see: a woman is lying, and two naked peasants "treat" her. Here are such unsightly, "scotomogilnye" affairs (it was his favorite expression)! We both thought then - in the park commit group rape. One muzhik, the fact that the woman, I did not think for a long time, shoved the handle of the pistol on the head, so much so that he lost consciousness. I chased after the second, but he hid somewhere, naked, in the bushes. My friend, as in a stupor, all this time stood side by side, open-mouthed, and simply watched as I heroically deal with the "gang of maniacs". A woman, instead of gratitude, tells us, very angrily: "Have you done anything, garbage? Say, we had everything here by voluntary consent, and you almost killed my fuck! "It turned out that this" holy trinity "was working in some Moscow research institute, and each weekend arranged for itself a" great erotic show ". It was my turn to get angry. "Well, then suck," I say, "a bitch, for a" false challenge! "So she" sucked "," biting "her cock with all her heart, so that I would continue to be polite with the ladies. Such a story happened, and you say: "My eggs, eggs! Member - that's it! "Very much I was amused and a little calmed by this" instructive "story of Valery Khmykin.
   My situation was "worse than the governor's" - after all, we should not show our "economy" to our doctor Sveta Samoylova, to whom I had such tender and sublime feelings. But there was nothing to do-it was necessary, after all, to go to the medical unit. Sveta listened attentively, gave threads and petroleum jelly, explaining how to extract ticks from such tender flesh. And soon I, already happy, cut through the camp with a proud look of the winner of this nasty creature, sent by the Creator to Earth, apparently, for edification to people.
   The further fate of Valery Khmykin was very dramatic. Immediately after the construction team, he for family reasons transferred to the correspondence department of the law faculty and found himself an inspector of the criminal investigation department at the Leninsky District Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Barnaul. Soon, only after six months of service, he was detained, arrested and convicted, fortunately conditionally, for imprudent murder during the detention of a criminal. And it was so.
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Once in the autumn, a criminal message was received from the desk of the duty officer on the Leninsky district police department that two unknown persons on KAMAZ had stolen a trailer from the forest with a forest. To detain the criminals immediately sent a rapid reaction group (GDB), which included a young criminal investigation inspector Valery Khmykin. The car with the stolen forest was found very quickly. Behind the wheel of KAMAZ was a young soldier - the term of service for the first year, and next to him was a captain - an artilleryman from the air defense division deployed in the village of Berezovka near Barnaul. Chase began, during which Khmykin, as in a detective movie, effectively jumped on the step of a military truck and began to fight the soldier behind the wheel, forcing him to stop. At that moment, a spontaneous shot occurred (this was fired by a pistol fired from the safety guard in Valera's right hand), the bullet hit the captain next to him, killing him on the spot.
   And long, painful ordeals Valera began. The whole ROVD rushed to the defense of Khmykin (admittedly, he was loved by him, after all, the people) - experts - criminologists deliberately cut the trigger's trigger spring from his "PM", proving thereby that the shot was, nevertheless, For the technical defect of weapons; The ROVD leadership put three whole public defenders on trial and hired the best lawyer in Barnaul-Spiez to protect Khmykin. But all these truly titanic efforts proved futile and the convictions, even the conditional, still could not be avoided. Khmykin was fired from the bodies, expelled from the university, and he was forced to maintain a family for a long time working as a turner at the Altai Motor Plant (AMZ), making diesel engines for the excellent domestic tanks "T-72" and "T-80". Somehow, many years after the event described, I accidentally met Valera in Barnaul Street - in front of me there was a mature man with a gray head who had survived a lot in his life. "Eka" pokolbasilo you ", however!" - I thought then.
   Only Valery Khmykin, with his extraordinary combinatorial thinking of the real operative, could come up with and twist such an existential conception in the construction squad as a tragic-comic production called "Korablin hanged himself". And it was so.
   One day in August 1982, Volodya Korablin, incredibly frail and skinny, just like Kashchei the Immortal, a 25-year-old student from a parallel group, received a letter from a beloved girl who informed him that she was leaving for another man. Khmykin and a couple of undergraduates who had conceived all this "operational-tactical combination" tried to make sure that on the eve of such an exciting event all the guys in the construction team learned about this shocking letter. Volodya, completely "crushed by grief", spent the whole day, hungry, lying face down on his armored bed in our stuffy trailer and grabbing at his heart, showing his whole life that "his life is not nice." I, really frightened of attempted suicide, summoned Sveta Samoilova to Korablin, who immediately gave him a sedative. This continued until the evening.

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   At night, we all woke up from a horrible hysterical scream, almost like in an unforgettable "Jimmy the schizophrenic": "Hangs!" This was screamed passionately by our cook Olga Marshina. A terrible news ran through the chain: "The ship hanged himself!" Then a real hysterics happened to me. "After all, I knew, I knew because I did not do anything to keep him alive! I, only I am to blame for his death! "- I cried to the whole car and sobbed loudly. "Well, I hanged myself and hung myself, dick with him!" - philosophically spoke Misha Tatyanin and turned on the other side - to sleep on.
   With the whole crowd we ran to the edge of the forest, where in the light of the full moon the body of the unfortunate hanging man was swaying ominously in the wind. On arriving at the place, we all froze in horror, not daring to approach the "deceased": Korablin's pathetic, lean body in his immovable, very touching blue-haired hood on his head (the loop he threw over his head) swayed from side to side under the disgusting creak of an old birch. "Guys, he can still be alive!" - Sasha Kashirsky shouted and grabbed Korablin's legs, trying to pull him out of the loop. However, only sneakers remained in his hands, and two clumsy birch sticks protruded from under his old tattered trousers. "What the fuck is this?" Kashirsky asked in surprise and tore off the sham body from the birch. It fell to the ground, and our favorite soccer ball rolled out of the hood. "I'm really hanging this Korablin!" - Sasha shouted, and with a noisy, very excited crowd we began to search for Korablin throughout the camp. However, that night we did not find it, because the prudent Khmykin, expecting such a reaction of the masses, hid Vova in his car ahead of time.
   Only two days later Volodya Korablin ventured to appear in public, approached me and said with a great sense of gratitude: "Thank you, Seryozha, for your sympathy and humanity - only you really regretted me in that difficult situation!" Despite the totem "Dry Law", proudly and hopefully standing in the middle of the camp, which masterfully carved from the tree a mountaineer Slava Tyukhtenev nicknamed "Marshal", Khmykin and the senior students living with him in the trailer regularly "puffed up". A disgusting swill, a product of village brewing, was brought to them, day after day, by local children from Shelabolichi. They came to us with their noise and crash on their motorcycles, and for a long time, after midnight, lingered over alcohol in a neighboring trailer.
   One day, late in the evening, on the eve of my departure to Barnaul after the construction season, I lay in my trailer and was suffering from a terrible toothache (from the ice spring water we drank every day, the periosteum of the tooth was inflamed) when a cute young guy came to us Shelabolichi and asked: "Who is Sergei Voronin here?" I am his second cousin. " It turned out that this is my distant relative of Petya along the lines of my cousin Zhenya. My uncle, Valery Stepanovich Gulimov, himself from Shelabolhi, joyfully informed his family in the village that I was in the neighborhood of them in the construction squad. So Petya decided to get to know me - his distant relatives from Barnaul. A very unpleasant and at the same time amazing story happened to this "cheerful" relative.
   One day Petya was riding his favorite motorcycle "Java" (the most fashionable and prestigious at the time), completely drunk. Asleep behind the wheel, he, along with the motorcycle, made an incredible acrobatic sway from the 20-meter cliff to the Ob, broke his pelvic bone in several places, but, most surprisingly, he did not drown in the very precipitate of a mighty river and did not even wake from the pain . The river safely delivered him, asleep, to the shore, where he was picked up by fishermen. Once again, with his personal unique experience, Petya proved to the whole world that "to the drunk - really, the sea is knee-deep!"
   Finally, it's time to part with our wonderful natural place, in which two months of my happy, cloudless youth passed. With sadness and great tenderness we looked at two wagons running off into the distance, wretched and sad standing in the midst of a huge meadow - abandoned and forgotten for many years temporary dwellings for three dozen young dunces (according to the stories of my classmate Yura Dranishnikov, who recently went there, they are up to Are still there, in the same place, together with the wooden totem "Dry Law" lonely sticking out in the middle of the meadow, quite green with time and dampness).
   Arriving at the end of August 1982 in Barnaul, I, first of all, went to a local polyclinic, where "on the path" put an injection of anesthetic medication. Ahead of it was 5 days of a difficult journey - the first time I went to my parents in Khabarovsk by train.
   Arriving in Khabarovsk, I was pleasantly amazed by the nature and people of this wonderful land. Especially I liked the girls of Khabarovsk - languid southerners with piercingly burning black eyes, with perfect Greek noses and sumptuous seductive figures - a successful cross between Cossack and Jewish blood (the proximity and influence of the Jewish Autonomous Region affected).
   In front of me was a majestic and absolutely mesmerizing panorama of the great Amur: its picturesque banks and beautiful waterfront, river port and surprisingly inscribed in Ussurian nature of old, but very wide and spacious (even by modern standards) streets.
   Beautiful landscapes (a view of the arrow of Ussuri and Cupid) were opened even from the balcony of the parental apartment, overlooking the Amur River, so I could not resist and on the first day of my stay in Khabarovsk I made some wonderful photo sketches. In one of the photographs (see photo 12) the boat berth was recorded once, from which we set off shortly on a boat to the "legendary" trek along the Amur River (Dursu Uzala was not "lying around" nearby, I answer!). Once in September, the deputy head of the Far Eastern legal institute of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation for training Alexander Plotnikov suggested us with his father an exclusive walk down the Amur River. We, the "old sea wolves" and adventurers, gladly agreed to this. And although the old "Kazanka" Plotnikova endlessly swallowed, choking on its own gasoline, we still managed, with God's help, to get started and move into this "dangerous" adventure-filled way. At first everything went smoothly. We walked along narrow canals, diligently bending around the numerous islands overgrown with dense willow and inhabited by hordes of completely distraught mosquitoes - "crocodiles" (I never met such huge ones anywhere else in my life), making some of them short-term because of mosquitoes. I was even allowed to steer a little boat as a sign of special trust, and I was proud of this incredibly, famously laying bends and pouring cold seawater on the left side of my father's side. We were smoothly smooth until we began to approach the state border of the USSR and China. San Sanych Plotnikov, in view of the importance of the moment, moved behind the wheel of the boat and with an imperturbable air he headed straight for our border guard, about 100 meters from which was already a boat of Chinese border guards. Behind the Chinese,
    
   The pagoda of the Chinese village of Fuyuan (now a developed industrial and tourist center in the northern province of Heiludzyan, from which thousands of "barygs" from the Khabarovsk Territory are currently feeding) are now on their way.

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   At first, the Soviet border guards did not pay us any attention at all, apparently taking for themselves, pretty "podguljavshee" bosses, but then, having clearly seen through binoculars, obviously nervous - and here the border boat had already started the engine and menacingly moved in our direction. There are already jokes aside - we did not begin to tempt fate any more, but sharply took to the left of the fairway, mooring to our Soviet shore, where there was a lonely border pillar; They took a cognac and a snack from the glove box, solemnly celebrating such a significant event. Border guards, seeing the usual drunkenness of "our compatriots", and even on the border, immediately lost all interest to us and returned to their original position in the center of the fairway, and we, having emptied the bottle, with a joyful feeling until the end of duty, set off on the return journey.
   One day, on a warm September day, my father and I went to visit his good acquaintance - the former deputy head of the Khabarovsk police department, Pavel Sigismundovich Shelutinsky, who, now retired, worked as an archivist in the Department of Internal Affairs of the region. "Guys, I have such a criminal case in the archive, from which your hair" will stand on end "! - cheerfully told us Shelutinsky. - This - the case of Private Terekhov, who moved from 1941 to 1948! It's just some kind of mysticism! "He gave us to read this unique case, from which my father and I really had hair on his head. This story occurred in July 1941 near Orsha. During the reconnaissance, private Terekhov's battle was stunned by the explosion of mines, after which he came to his senses already in the German dug-out. Seeing the enemy machine-gunner, he immediately attacked him. Enraged by the act of captive the Germans decided to shoot him. When the soldier was led to the nearest forest, the unexpected sky lit up with dazzling light and a shrill whistle was heard. Opening his eyes, the Soviet soldier discovered that he was lying on the green grass among the trees, and next to his guards, unconscious. He quickly assembled their submachine guns, pushed them through, ordered them to raise their hands up, led the Germans in the direction where our unit was supposed to be. Soon, to Terekhov's amazement, the forest was over, and on the road he saw an approaching cart in which sat an old man and a girl.
   "Hello, Father!" The soldier greeted them as they approached quite close. "Our far?" I've been in trouble, yes, you see, I've got out, I've been leading three reptiles.
   At these words the old man opened his eyes, began to baptize fiercely and inartically moo.
   "Are you deaf and dumb?" The rank-and-file asked sympathetically. Then the girl came to the rescue, saying that he was with the captured Germans in the ... Far East, and in the courtyard - the summer ... 1948 ... And then almost froze Terekhov ...
   The Enkevedists, suspecting some sort of provocation, carefully studied the file of the soldier and found that he had actually participated in the ill-fated reconnaissance fight at Orsha and then was listed as missing. In Vladivostok, several soldiers were summoned from the unit in which Terekhov served. They identified their colleague and noted with surprise that in the past seven years he had not changed and looked as if he had been "spirited." Tireless Chekists in one of the camps for prisoners of war on the Volga found an officer from a company in which soldiers of the Wehrmacht, captured by Terekhov, served in 1941. He confirmed their testimony.
   Despite the fact that the investigation was conducted for a long time by the best "experts", to answer the question of how the Soviet soldier along with the three Germans "transferred" to the Far East, and where all four were for 7 years, it was not possible. In the end, the case was closed: the Germans were sent to the camp for prisoners, and Terekhov was ordered to hold his tongue tightly, which he did for more than 50 years. Such amazing stories happened to me in my first, most interesting and memorable, visit to Khabarovsk - a wonderful city on the great Amur, which became for me the second Russian family, very dear and spiritually close to me.
   In July 1985, hiding from the ubiquitous "Faker" San Palych Vlasov, Oleg Korobkov and I arrived at the Altay camp site, located in a picturesque corner of the ancient "merchant" city of Biysk. Arriving on the spot, I had to decide urgently - on what, all the same, the route to conduct "dummies" - tourists. On the eve, in April, I, as expected, "in the adult", completed additional university courses of the Faculty of Public Professions (FOP) for instructors in mountain tourism, and in May passed the most real "spetsnaz" training in the tourist center "Katun" under the leadership Known in the Altai super professional in the tourist business of Sergei Zyablitsy. For us, "Dummies", this person was charismatic and extraordinary in every sense. In 1980, Sergei, along with his future wife, successfully graduated from the Faculty of Law of ASU, but, naturally, he did not work in his specialty, but devoted himself entirely to his favorite business - tourism, which was betrayed to absolute fanaticism, and in which he excelled extremely, In the tourist world. By the way, at the present time the Zyablitskiye spouses are successful masters of a very decent tourist complex in the village of Manzherok, which is in the Mayminsky district of the Altai Republic, which was once dedicated to his famous song by the famous Soviet composer Oskar Feltsman. Zyablitsky taught us, future instructors in mountain tourism, a real spetsnaz school of survival in the taiga, and then organized such "epoch-making", such a memorable ascent for us - descent in full climbing equipment into the crater of an extinct volcano on Mount Lukovka (there, at the bottom of this crater , We were met by such a fantastic spectacle that it is simply impossible to convey words in words - ready-made scenery for the film based on the novel by Jules Verne!), So "I was eager to fight" to apply my theoretical knowledge in practice in full. At the same time, I always envied the "white" envy of Oleg, who by that time was already a seasoned "tourist" and drove "dummies" along the most difficult walking routes of the Altai Mountains - "76" and "77", on which he felt equally confident. Because of this, Boxes on arrival at the base were instantly transformed and behaved emphatically, even arrogantly - as, perhaps, experienced in numerous "alterations" a fighter from the German division of mountain rangers "Edelweiss" behaves with neobstrelyannymi fascist "suckers".
   However, for me the problem of walking routes in general has never stood in view of the total absence in my head of a "natural compass". I could spend hours wandering "even in the three pines" of my native Barnaul, not to mention the Mountainous Altai with its impassable, sometimes completely impenetrable taiga. With such "extraordinary" abilities, I could really start a group in such a deafness (such precedents were already at the camp site with other instructors, when the poor, exhausted by many days of wandering tourists had to be evacuated from the taiga by helicopter), where "Makar did not drive calves." Therefore, my choice, in the end, I stopped on the so-called "mattress", 318th route.
   The 318th route is a rafting along the Biya from the "gold - bearing" village of Artybash, in which historical events of the Civil War, shown in the famous Soviet militant of 1975 "The Missing Expedition", occurred right up to Biysk. Objectively it turned out that this frightening title of the film mystically determined all the future fate of our tourist group - we also "disappeared without a trace", not meeting the schedule schedule and being late for the base for as long as 4 hours.
   "The route, in general, is quite uncomplicated - just one threshold and two shivers near Artybash (the author - small reams on the stony bottom of the river) on the way," explained the deputy director of the Altay camp site, very obese and Always drunk Vitya Mazurov nicknamed "Diesel" .- Your main task is to go on rafts clearly along the fairway and follow its signs along the river banks. The most unpleasant thing that can happen to you is to accidentally wander into the "predilection" - then "write - it's gone", you will not get out forever! "" And what is this "zapon"? I asked with genuine interest. "And this is a very narrow channel of Biya, to the very top clogged by a half-rotten forest left by the rafting. Yes, and more. Stay away from the "bumpers" (the author - wooden structures on the river, "beat off" during the rafting of the log from the shore). We had a case recently, when two kayakers were delayed under the "bump", and they both died. Now in Artybash for three days your friend Yura Korchak is sitting with a group of tourists from 10 people and is looking forward to seeing you with a sailing boat. Blow there, as quickly as possible, and then the tourists, they say, have already started to rebel from lack of work! "
   Having reached the Artybash on the Rocket, which easily overcame this distance upstream in just 4 hours (our rafting down the river will take exactly one week), I saw Korczak, "blackened" from the "booze," in the absolute "depresnyak" sitting in the smelling Some disgusting sour percale tent. "But could it be faster to go! Yura muttered with obvious irritation. "I do not know what to do with them." Just pulled out the "teapots"! A Th sent you? I was told that there will be an experienced instructor! "I calmly explained that it was not up to me. I was told - I immediately came, what can be claims to me. "Well, then let's agree," Korczak, his usual "song", "always attracted the authorities in any form," "sang". "I will be the captain, since I already know this group well, and you are a pilot!" "Yes for God's sake, Yura!" I exclaimed joyfully, which was always oppressed by the responsibility for other people-the constant companion of any kind of power.
   The main core of the group (and this is 6 people - 2 girls and 4 guys) were graduates of Barnaul secondary school No. 79 - the most dangerous contingent by its unpredictability. In addition to them, there were 3 students of the Pedagogical Institute and one extremely unpleasant type - Major - the Zapolit of Chelyabinsk Tank Regiment Vitaly, who, "as always in bad time", broke out a sultry affair with one of the students - Tanya. In general, the alignment of forces for an impeccable campaign was, frankly, not "hot." At our disposal were two inflatable life rafts (FPS), four tents and many - many different kinds of food - stews, condensed milk, which was always abundantly allocated by the tourist center "Altai" to the tourist groups of the water route. We have appointed the start for tomorrow, and today we decided once again to thoroughly prepare for the rafting, carefully checking out the equipment for marching. Water - it is water in Africa! As they say, does not forgive!
   I will not bore the reader with the completely uninteresting details of the camp life, which is everywhere and always the same. I will only say that in my life I was not so psychologically tired as on this accursed water route. The entire campaign was spent in perpetual fear of "crouching" in jail for some teenager who had perished in the "abyss", accompanied by a grumbling grumbling of the "fucking" political deputy, who, for some reason, absolutely did not like this campaign, and he tried to establish Their own, familiar to him, army order. Remembering well Oleg Korobkov's order that it is necessary, whatever it takes, to break down the "informal" leader (it's easy for him to say - try to break the 35-year-old -tankist major who owns 200 people himself) who appeared in the group , The whole trip was the only thing I did, completely exhausting myself and the group, but without achieving the desired result - this stubborn major remained "in his interest." The only bright spot in this frankly unsuccessful hike is the delightful nature of the floodplain part of Biya - one of the most beautiful rivers in Western Siberia, the second in terms of water content in the Altai Territory and the Republic of Altai after the Katun.
   Biya - the mother, unlike the frenzied Katun, with a roar rushing from the mountains and sweeping everything in its path, originates in the "pearl" of the Mountainous Altai - Teletskoye Lake, therefore in its current is the same unhurried and even somewhat phlegmatic, A sensible woman is a northerner. Nevertheless, in its upper reaches, this calm, in general, river is happy with rapids - it is full of whirlpools and rushes (shivers), of which the largest is "Circled" (2nd category of complexity) and the last one, which is 2 km from the village Turochak, threshold "Boiling water" (1st category of complexity).
   Despite the fact that Katun ("Kadyn") in translation from ancient Turkic means "woman", in my opinion, there is very little female origin in this river. She, unlike Biya, nevertheless, personifies the rough sexual Energy - from morning till night, she hammers on the stones with the insistence of a sexual maniac, producing the thresholds of unprecedented power and the roar of a never-ceasing construction site. Have you ever tried to sleep in a tent near Katun? Try it, get an unforgettable impression! It will be just great luck, if you can close your eyes in this inhuman roar for at least an hour!
   In the area of ??Biysk, this fast-moving, sexually anxious young man-kjigit named Katun nevertheless catches in horror the fleeing very calm and very positive girl Biya, terrified of him, without the permission of her permission, while giving birth to the girl even more Brutal kind and behavior - the Ob, on which, as once, was born and grew up your humble servant - the author of these "imperishable" lines. Such is the ancient Altai legend in the new, as it is fashionable to say now, actual reading of "a la Roman Viktyuk!"
   The main "cheese - boron" with the deputy political officer Vitaly always happened because of the parking lot. Every time the night was up, there was a rowdy debate about where the group was best placed. In an active dispute with the major, yesterday's schoolchildren were involved, turning a "principled" discussion into an ordinary bazaar. In the end, I got fed up with all this cursing, and I showed "unprecedented" hitherto "voluntarism" - personally determined the parking place.
   In one of such "discussion" days, the night found our group in the village of Ust-Pyzh, in which an event happened, which gave a lot of mysticism.
   Having dragged the rafts full of food stuffed with food to the boat pier of Ust - Pyzhy, Yura Korchak and I stayed on guarding tourist property (mainly from local residents), settling directly on the banks of Biya, and the group was sent to rest - after all, for us it is - Work, and for them - paid summer vacation. To somehow resist the sleep, Yura and I boiled the pot of hot water and threw a pack of Ceylon tea. Of course, we obviously overdid it, and although the "chifir" case obviously did not come up, the "merchant" turned out to be very notable (aut.- very strong tea in prison, but not "chifir"). With pleasure sipping tea and seizing his pleasant bitterness with condensed cream, suddenly we dropped the cups with tea from our hands and froze with horror - right along the river bed, about 20-30 meters above us, a huge translucent sphere in the form of a bird's wing or a boomerang , Surprisingly similar to the one we saw with Morozov in far Karaganda. Korczak even cried out in surprise and surprise when he saw such an impressive sight. After about 15 minutes, the sphere reappeared, but it flew much slower, so this time I managed to see it quite well.
   This was clearly not a material object, in any case, in the sense in which it is customary to understand it. "Boomerang", apparently, had the consistency of some kind of ultralight gas, still unknown to science. In this translucent sphere, through which it was easy to see the river, the trees and the village houses standing on the other side, there was nothing that would indicate at least some signs of life - unless one could assume that the spheroid itself was alive.
   We were silent for a long time, shocked by what we saw. "What was that, Yura?" I finally said. "Damn, it was definitely a devil!" Whispered Korczak and, superstitiously, three times, made the sign of the cross.
   The next morning zampolit, as always, ran out to his traditional morning run. He ran up to us with Korczak, greeted him with obvious mockery, and was about to run further, when Korczak suddenly blurted out: "Vitaly, and yesterday we saw the devil - there!" And he pointed to the river. Zampolit looked at us with surprise at our "narzan-worn" faces with huge circles under the eyes from the night vigil, scooped up a mug of thick, rich tea from the pot, sipped it, spat at once, poisonously remarking at the same time: "However! Yes, with such a "chifir" is still not a pride! "And here an event occurred, a harbinger of which, apparently, was the appearance of the night" boomerang ".
   Student Tanya, waking up in the morning and razmolev from nightly sexual pleasures with a political deputy, decided to cool off a bit, bathing in the morning cool of Biya. But how - only the girl went knee-deep into the water, suddenly she uttered a cry and, like knocked down, fell into a swoon right into the river, the good it was in shallow water. Vitali ran quickly nimbly, picking her up in his arms. From the right leg of Tanya, the bloody red blood flowed from the right side of the throat - she jumped all the way to the jagged bottleneck. We put the girl on an old camel blanket and, taking the four of us, carried her to the medical station in the village of Ust-Pyzh. While carrying, Tanya came to herself. "Do not worry, Tanyusha, do not worry - we'll fold the whole group and buy you a posh denture!" I said cheerfully, wanting to cheer her up a little. She smiled back and thanked me gratefully. In the medical unit the paramedic carefully processed the girl's wound and stitched, making an injection of tetanus. With all these events, we lost about 4 hours and completely got out of the "control time" set by the local control and rescue service (KCC is a prototype of the modern MOE), which earned strong idiomatic expressions from the incredibly angry and excited "Diesel" , Who met our group on the river wharf of Biysk.
   Arriving at the Altay camp site, I saw a very nice girl there, similar to the Australian singer Kylie Minogue, whose fan I am up to now, walking in proud solitude in the shady alley of old poplars. Something unrealized, very powerful pushed me then to her, forcing me to approach the girl. We met - her name was Olga Istomina, she was from Novosibirsk, where in 1984 she graduated from the Institute of National Economy and was distributed to the personnel department of the Barnaul garment factory "Avangard". Tomorrow she ended the tour, and she left for Barnaul. The whole evening we walked with Olya and cheerfully and casually communicated. Olya was an extremely pleasant interlocutor and immediately I liked. But the devil pulled me, however, to take her home address, which she shoved to me the next morning right in the arm, taking a bus to Barnaul.
   Arriving in August 1985 in Barnaul, I first of all ran to Olga. She met me more than cool, explaining this as follows: she was facing a very painful break with a young man with whom she was bound by a two-year close relationship. With my help, that is, the person to whom she had such strong and tender feelings, she hoped that this gap would pass more or less calmly. Even after these words, I should have turned around and left - it was obvious, it was quite clear that I had been drawn into a very bad story from the very first meeting, turning myself into a victim of an incomprehensible intrigue.
   "You see, Volodya is a good man, he has a lot of things, something unspoken," Olya explained her decision to break with her beloved. "But I waited too long for him from his cherished words, waited for him to finally" be born! " "It was not difficult to guess which words Olya was waiting for from him, of course, the proposal to get married, but Volodya obviously had something to keep from this step. What exactly - I'll soon understand on my own skin.
   I can imagine how surprised I would be if I learned that Olya is horoscope Gemini, the same as me, only with a difference of 3 days (she was born on June 7, and I am 4). But, probably, I would be even more surprised when I learned that all women without exception meeting on my life path will be absolute Gemini (my wife Natasha is also Gemini, born on June 9). No, without the intervention of Heaven, of course, there could not have been - it is hardly possible to explain such a strange pattern by mere coincidence. And I have certain considerations in this regard.
   It was a "casting" of God Ra, and Ra is a Time that Always knows what it does! "And he knows thoughts and actions in advance!" - Mikhail Lermontov wrote brilliantly in his famous poem "The Death of a Poet". Time is a living, thinking and feeling Being! Man is created in His image and likeness! Emotional sphere of Man - this is an accurate "tracing-paper" of the sensually-emotional sphere Ra. Just like Man, Ra loves and hates. He rejoices and is sad. He laughs and cries, with a cold autumn rain mourning his bitter, boundless disappointment in the human nature he created!
   And with Olga began problems, and "specific" problems, which can be fully explained by the duality of her "twin" nature. We did not have time to get rid of the master from the boiler factory Volodya, as on the horizon, unexpectedly, "sailed out" agronomist Seryozha (what we with him - namesakes, even more offended), which Olya met at the farm, where she went with the factory To harvest potatoes. And went - gone! It was necessary to me, probably for the next Experience, to fully understand the depth of female cunning. One day, in the fall of 1985, Olya came to me in an unusually high spirits mood and stayed up all night. In the morning she tenderly kissed me and went to work, saying that she had a very responsible duty at the factory today. Classes in my fifth year have already ended, and the training and production practice in the ROVD has not yet begun, so there was absolutely nothing to do at that time. No worse than Harry Haller from the Steppenwolf, I went to wander through the autumn Barnaul, "winding" on the wet gray asphalt tens of kilometers. Soon my feet brought me to the cinema "Rodina" and the factory "Avangard" located next to it. Suddenly I saw a familiar silhouette in, painfully familiar, spotty, "under the leopard", an artificial fur coat. It was my "precious" Olenka in an embrace with a handsome tall guy (above her and me on the whole head) who gently cooed, and I obviously did not have time to notice. I swiftly darted into the nearest gateway and began to watch them closely from there. The couple went to the box office of the cinema and bought tickets for the afternoon session of the movie "One Hundred Days in Palermo". I stayed for a while near the cinema, and then went home - "digest" what I saw.
   In the evening, about 21 hours, I went to Oli's hostel on Yurin Street. They were all well-known in the district 4 hostels called "CPH" (central storehouse), as they were cynically christened by Barnaul muzhiks, who sometimes use the services of this treasured "storehouse". In the third nine-storey building, on the third floor, as once, Olya lived. There was a light in her room, which means they were already at home. I entered the entrance to the next hostel, and, having risen to the seventh floor, I began to watch the window of the room of the olgin.
   The view from here was just wonderful - even without the theatrical binoculars, I could see everything that was happening in every detail. In front of me was an enchanting picture of human passion and "bestial" lust worthy of the "brush" of the great master of erotic cinema Tinto Brass. As in a slow frame, slowly swaying downwards-upwards, frying, the sporty ass of an agronomist, making frictional movements in the intimate, muffled light of a night lamp, under which I once lay and forgotten by everyone the unfortunate "boilermaker". "I'll kill a bitch!" - I thought evil and with horror realized that, really, I'm ready at this moment to kill a man, as I began to think very coolly about the plan of killing and avoiding criminal responsibility.
   Finally, the agronomist ended his "dirty" business and left, apparently, to wash himself. And Olya stayed in bed, painting her legs "beautifully" and dreamily put her hands behind her head. More to look at all this, for some reason, not at all. I went home, completely crushed by female cunning and human meanness, feeling nothing in my soul except contempt for myself. So that's why the "boilermaker" Volodya persistently conveyed to Olga the request to meet with me - he wanted to sincerely warn me about this side of the character of the "fatal" girl.
   Olga came to me exactly after 3 days, as she promised, and, as if nothing had happened, began to tweet, telling the latest news of the "secular" life of the Avangard factory. I listlessly listened to her, and then, with no reason, never said: "And I recently went to the wonderful film" One hundred days in Palermo! "Olya immediately stopped and looked at me with studying eyes. "When did I go?" I called the day and the session of her "legendary" campaign in the cinema. She was even more embarrassed. "No, they say the film - so-so!" - Only the girl could pronounce. "You know what, Olya," I said decisively. -We need to stop our relationship. This is not love for a long time, but solid lies and deceit! For both of us it will be better to leave, to part for ever! "" Please! "Shouted Olya and wept bitterly. She ran to the door, hurriedly dressed and left - gone forever from my life, to occasionally return from oblivion in the form of a long forgotten, sad image.
   However, after severing all relations with Olya, I clearly overestimated my capabilities. Stefan Zweig has a marvelous novel "Amok" on this subject (the author is a painful state of mental fatigue caused by an obsession). The hero of the novel is a gynecologist, obsessed with a passion for her patient, chasing her around the world to take possession of it, and finally becomes completely insane after learning about the death (partly through his fault) of this girl, who became "forbidden" Fruit, which he did not manage to disrupt. Something similar seems to have happened to me. For a long time, for 5 months, right up to the army itself, I could spend hours standing by her hostel, feverishly peering into the window of her room in the hope of seeing at least the silhouette of this "fatal" beauty, which caused such severe spiritual pain. Some kind of sadomasochism, a real sadomasochism in Altaic! In March 1986, finally, our three-month training and production practice ended at the ROVD. Oleg Korobkov came to Barnaul, who, in order to distract me from the love experiences caused by the break with Olga, offered me another stunning adventure - an "extreme tour" to Tashkent and Samarkand, with only 50 rubles each and using as a hotel for spending the night Train car. And that the trip had a more or less specific goal, it was decided to make a friendly visit to a good acquaintance of Oleg Rafael Hizmatullin, whom he met in one of the campaigns in the Altai Mountains.
   In just two and a half days we covered a huge distance almost to Uzbekistan, driving along the dull Kazakh steppes in the compartment car on the branded (then still very decent) train Irkutsk-Tashkent. Everything went smoothly until we arrived in Shymkent, located directly on the state border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. There, in Shymkent, with our train there was an extremely unpleasant story, which could be regarded as a bad sign at the beginning of this "epoch-making" journey.
   And what happened was that our locomotive with all the foolishness rammed the truck at the crossing, which resulted in the death of two Kazakhs, who are in the cab of the truck. We all left the train and waited for four hours until finally the investigative team arrived and examined the scene of the incident. All this time, while the train was standing, the Kazakh driver continued to agonize and died literally before our eyes from injuries incompatible with life.
   I walked around our diesel locomotive and just admired how the child is the same power as this unit, that it so easily faked and threw a three-ton truck by itself like a toy, and then dragged it 50 meters more like a baby carriage , Their wagons on the railway line! From all this terrible, just murderous action, the locomotive left, on memory, only a slight scratch on the bumper and several cars - and nothing more!
   Arriving in Tashkent, Oleg and I immediately plunged into the marvelous atmosphere of the famous Alai market, not having enough time to saturate our insatiable student's womb with the most real Uzbek chebureks and manti, seizing all this magnificence with a fragrant lagman. Yes, then we could afford it!
    For tickets back and forth we had postponed 40 rubles each, and 10 rubles (as much as 10 rubles!) Still remained for food. So we really "chic"!
   Looking at the strange subjects, for the next cheeks chewing another fourth cheburek, the charming Uzbek girl finally broke down, languishing with feminine curiosity, and asked the beautiful, like a murmur of a stream, with a voice: "And where are you guys from?" "We - from Siberia! "- proudly said Oleg, vainly trying to straighten his eternally stooped back. "Oh, how you are there, probably cold! - With pity and great compassion extended the Uzbek. Wishing to make an even greater impression on her, I said meaningfully, once again "loosening my peacock's tail": "We belong to a very rare Siberian nation, listed in the Red Book -" chaldones "!" I just, on the eve of the trip , Read "King - Fish" by Viktor Astafyev, where for the first time in his life he met this strange name of Siberians in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The girl enthusiastically threw up her hands and from the bottom of her heart gave us another cheburek, wishing, apparently, to feed this amazing "endangered species". Wandering aimlessly around Tashkent, we decided to go to the first police department we came across. According to the legend, we came to Tashkent to find out about our future work in the militia, where we got by distribution (at that time we actually had one place in the investigation department of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, not Tashkent, but Shymkent). Once inside the ROVD, we went into the office, on which hung a sign "deputy chief of the investigation department, Major Mukhamedshin." In the office we were very polite, orientally hospitable, met by a huge Uzbek, fattened during the years of "heavy" service in the police to the size of a thoroughbred "elite" boar at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements, to which we shoved our trainee certificates into the face (nothing with an expired validity ), Remaining from the training and production practice, and blatantly stated at the same time: "We were distributed to your department! I would like to get acquainted with the working conditions in advance! "Inspired by the" magic "perspective to work with" the chaldones themselves "(I already had time to fool around with all my heart), a trustful Uzbek, like Ostap Bender, began to paint us with wonderful fires the wonderful prospects of working in the" glorious " The Tashkent police. We understood from his lengthy speech only one thing: if we behave correctly with the leadership of the ROVD, we will not only make a brilliant career here, but also earn a lot of money!
   We did not know then, and, of course, we could not know that the "cotton business" of Gdlyan and Ivanov, which is famous for the whole country, is coming, which will soon thoroughly shake and update the entire law-enforcement system of Uzbekistan.
   Soon Tashkent was fed up to us, and we decided to change the disposition - to go to ancient Samarkand (I wanted something "new" or "well forgotten very old").
   Our choice for Samarkand did not fall by accident. This was preceded by an active "promotion" Oleg, who almost shouted at the top of his voice, convincing me: "Well, when will you still be in life in Uzbekistan? You do not specifically go on an excursion to Samarkand! And to be in Uzbekistan and not to visit Samarkand is a total absurdity! Imagine - the grave of Tamerlane, Avicenna, Registan! It's just a song! No, of course, Bukhara is also not bad (we were originally going to go there), but Samarkand is better, much better! "
   And soon we already rode on the sighted train in an almost empty seat reserved car. Falling asleep, I just had time to notice how an elderly Uzbek-conductor was looking suspiciously at us, lying on the lower shelves.
    We did not have time to wake up, when an obliging Uzbek guide came to us in the compartment again, who informed us in an almost voluptuous whisper: "The guys in the next compartment are playing a class game -" sec. " You are invited to play! "We looked at him indifferently, without showing any interest, at least for two reasons: firstly, we were always indifferent to cards and other gambling games with Oleg; Secondly, after an internship at the Police, we felt like motherly "traces", which you simply can not spend on chaff. But "an old woman, as they say, happens to be an old woman"!
   Once the mountain does not go to Magomed, then Magomed goes to the mountain. And soon a cheerful trio appeared in our compartment: Russian started for about 45 years with the appearance of a mother "zek" and an incredibly hoarse, drunken voice; And two young pretty Uzbeks. "Guys," Siply greeted us cheerfully, actively portraying himself as a mass audience - an entertainer. "You are bored, we are bored, let's get bored together!" And he began to pour out a joke of jokes - jokes that clearly belonged to the genre of prison folklore, and therefore we were well acquainted with the course of criminalistics. "And let's play the" interest "in a cool game -" secka "is called. Only two cards - and how much happiness! "" No, we do not play this shit, "I snapped, but Siply did not calm down. In the end, Oleg, unable to withstand his onslaught, said to me: "Let's play, Serega, there's still nothing to lose." And we sat down to play. "Seca" is a fairly primitive map game, where the principle of the game is about the same as in similar card games, such as "borax" and "azi". As usual, the card wins by seniority, and "jack-off" here, for some reason, are two jacks. The second combination of "nebitki" is a jack and a lady. In Karaganda, I played quite well, and even occasionally won from Novikov and Morozov, who were all recognized in the yard as carte "aces", but here, in the car, in a foreign country - quite another thing!
   The first one, as usual, this trio gave us 10 rubles each. All the fun, as always according to the law of the genre, began in the second game. I got almost "nebitka" - jack with a lady. But, obviously, these three came also a good card, because they immediately raised the stakes up to 25 rubles. But the worst thing in our situation was that Oleg, apparently, had a very good card, because his eyes caught fire. And he began to raise the stakes, but we had money in common. Soon the bank reached 200 rubles (our 100), and there was nothing for us to support the con. It was necessary to determine urgently - who to stay in the game. "Seryoga, go away, I have a great card!" - whispered Oleg. "So, in fact, I, quite frankly, are not bad at all!" - I objected weakly and still dropped the cards. The game continued. "All bets are accepted! - solemnly proclaimed "Siply" and opened his cards - he had a "nebitka" in two jacks. We have the same with Oleg he gave to the lady and jack, psychologically, everything is very accurately calculated. The maps, of course, were "sprinkled".

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   Thus, in just 10 minutes of the game Siplom managed to get all our money from us, including money for the way back to Barnaul. I decided to act. I grabbed an ID card from my pocket, and I cried out loud: "Stand, the police, the bank is confiscated!" - and covered the money with his hand. The Uzbeks became very pale; Siply also was at first confused, but then quickly "took himself in hand" (apparently, the prison hardening affected) and hissed like a snake: "What is it, cops, lost, so pay, you that do not know whether you know what ? "- and he quickly cleared all the money from the table into his pocket with the words:" Here you guys are not Siberia, here you guys are Asia! Here, such things do not pass, and you can very quickly turn out to be a "blunder", dropped from the train. No one will even look for you here. Okay, the road is a road - here you have 3 rubles each for "maintaining your pants", and walk, Vasya, "chew the filings"! "
   The trio rose and proudly retired to the next car, very pleased with herself. We were sitting with Oleg, completely crushed, seeing absolutely no way out of the situation.
   Arriving in Samarkand, we immediately took tickets for the return trip to Tashkent (he once cost 3 rubles - "Siply" that turned out to be a real humanist). It was necessary to pass the whole day in a pocket without money for the hungry in Samarkand.
   But once came, we must travel, no matter what. And we went to Registan. 
   Registan (from "reg" - sand, "stan" - place, literally - "a place covered with sand") - the traditional name of the main squares in the cities of the Middle East. Registan Square in the center of Samarkand refers to the famous architectural ensemble of the 15th-10th centuries, centered on Ulugbek madrasah, Sherdor madrassa and Tilla-Kari madrasah. Thus, Registan in Samarkand is nothing more than an architectural and religious complex consisting of three madrasahs, connected in series, and the area between them (see photo 13).
   Oleg and I liked Registan very much, especially its mosaic panel with geometric ornamentation, made of colored bricks, irrigated and carved ceramics. And, of course, the traditional attributes of the madrasah are magnificent minarets, domes and pointed arches.
    Only now, after leaving Registan, we felt - what you want to eat! With water without money in Samarkand, too, there was a big "strained" - I had to drink tap water in the toilet of the railway station. A little inspiration only thought that in Tashkent, Oleg has a longtime acquaintance in tourism Rafael Khizmatullin. All our hope was only for him. What if he's not at home? I did not even want to think about it. Wandering aimlessly through Samarkand to "kill" the time remaining before the train, we accidentally wandered into the Muslim cemetery, standing on a hill between the highway and a small apricot grove. By the cemetery, "healthy" boogies of the Asian type "defile" with hideous, brutal faces. They angrily looked at us and, apparently surprised by our arrogance (ignorance of the real situation gives sometimes courage - "courage of insanity"), for some reason, did not dare to attack first. I only later realized that this Ra had taken away from us a real death threat - they were Crimean Tatars, who always had incredible cruelty. They are not in vain so angry with us, because in the cemetery of the Crimean Tatars at that time the Russians were generally categorically forbidden entry.
   Finally, we, somehow, held out until evening, and now we are sitting, "happy", in a stuffy dirty car, packed with Uzbeks like herring in a barrel. After all, it was necessary to know that for the weekend, according to the ancient Asian tradition, Samarkand relatives go to visit relatives of Tashkent. And we once happened to be on the road in this unfortunate car just on such a "family" Saturday - eight people on one shelf and the drunken Uzbek always fell to us on top (he probably broke all his ribs during these falls!). In the car periodically someone turned off the light and there was a heartrending female cry in Uzbek, understandable and without an interpreter: "They stole!" A gang of thieves was running all the way in the car.
   Arriving in Tashkent, we first went in search of our Raphael, praying to God that he was at home. However, God did not hear us, and no one discovered us in an apartment on the third floor of an ordinary five-story "Khrushchev" (unlike ours, there are no heating systems in the entrances). "But where is your Michelangelo?" I asked Korobkov with sarcasm and immense bitterness. Our situation was "worse than the governor's".
   In order to somehow earn money for food, Oleg offered to go to the station - unload the wagons. But not here - it was ("Here you have Asia, not Siberia," - correctly said "Siply"). Arriving at the station, we saw a brigade of quick homeless people unloading a car with meat carcasses. Approaching their Russian "brigadier", I asked how much the car was worth and offered its services to the loader. He reacted very sharply: "10 rubles for the car, but you guys, you better get out of here, for good - great! We do not need competition. Go to the second platform, where today the fish is unloaded, but only the prices are very low - only 4 rubles per car. " But even for such money, for these unfortunate 4 rubles, us and from there resolutely pogled the local, threatening to pound well.
   There is nothing to do - there was only one way out - it is, after all, to try to find our only Savior Raphael. And again we went to the house we already knew, cherishing the secret hope with the help of the Tartar to get to our native Siberia, after all. We walked along the avenue dotted with white petals from cherry blossoms and apricot trees (all the same it is amazing - in March, in an instant, as if by magic, to move from the cold Siberian winter to the warm Asian spring, almost Siberian summer!), When Saw a young Uzbek with a knife sticking out of his belly. Uzbek with a suffering view was directed directly to us. In the head immediately a scary legal reality about the detention on suspicion of the murder of a local resident of two incomprehensible "chalcedons" appeared, it is not known why and to whom the money arrived to Uzbekistan without money. We, frightened by such a prospect that there is spirit, "hurled" through the avenue from the wounded man into the Uzbek stomach, periodically looking around and horrified to see that he, as before, is running after us. This time, fate was more favorable to us - our kind genius Rafael was at home. "Guys, how lucky you are! After all, today we all gathered for two days to go to the dacha! "With great sympathy, Rafael listened to our sad story of an unsuccessful voyage to Samarkand (we concealed only the shameful fact of the game of cards, saying that there was an ordinary theft in the train), but especially pitifully and Gently looked at us by his 18-year-old daughter Dinara - a charming Tatar woman, looking at which I suddenly clearly understood that I had to "get my legs off faster", otherwise I risk staying in Tashkent forever!
   Raf without excessive questions allocated to us from the family budget 100 rubles, which we will send him by mail immediately upon arrival in Barnaul; We bought two tickets for the train to the "capital of the world", and another huge fragrant melon "Torpedo" - for what, I will say below.
   The Tashkent melon "Torpeda" was intended for one wonderful, very talented tailor - Oleg's distant relative on the maternal line - a huge two-meter-tall Jew with magnificent Persian eyes and inordinately large Morfan hands, with which he cut a thick double-layer cloth with tailor's scissors easily, like cardboard paper. And Oleg's idea was the following - he started after awarding the diplomas "a campaign of the century" - rafting along the Peschanaya River on a catamaran consisting of two nacelles filled with inflated condoms. It was Korobkov's know-how; It, simply brilliant, engineering thought - the gondons performed the role of compartments in a submarine, making the catamaran practically unsinkable. When we explained this idea of ??the rafting to the tailor, he laughed for a long time, and then suddenly became gloomy and said, already in a sad tone: "Guys, I will not take this job - I do not want to take sin into my soul. After all, you will drown in this terrible mountain river! How can I look after Auntie Lena (Oleg's mother) in all eyes?! "Here Oleg showed all his gift of eloquence, convincing him, nevertheless, to sew to us from a strong canvas fabric these two coveted gondolas. To give greater strength to this unreliable, from his point of view, design, the tailor folded and stitched the tarpaulin in two layers (then, on the river, we often remember the kind word of this remarkable man who, for his titanic work, except melon, We are not a penny).
   June 25, 1986, the second day after the delivery of university diplomas, our "expedition" started.
        The Sandy River of the third category of difficulty for the alloy we chose, of course, is not accidental. The fact is that on this river there is everything that makes up the "blue" dream of a real waterman: in the upper Peschanaya you can completely relax in the absence of rapids of any complexity category and enjoy the "mattress" tourist, sweeping with great speed and laying bends, like A real racer, on a winding, rushing down river route.
   But there is also a special place, which attracts even the real "water leopards" (it is customary to call experienced pilots in the tourist world), hungry for another portion of adrenaline. It is a 23 km canyon - a canyon near the village of Solonovka, at the very bottom of Peschanaya, whose banks are dotted with numerous sad crosses erected here in memory of the water workers who gave their soul to God in this picturesque place. Arriving with their huge "trunks" - easel backpacks (the author - only in the backpacks on the aluminum frame can accommodate a large water tourist equipment) in Biysk, we were met there by the permanent director of the tourist center "Altai" Viktor Petrovich Vasilyev - the waterman himself with a great experience: "Oh, guys, you did not start your event on time! "Big water" has not yet come, you will sit on the stones until completely blue. And then, see what's going on !? "- and he pointed to a large package in cellophane, lying in a military truck under the scorching June sun. "What is it?" I asked. "A military pilot, just graduated from the Barnaul military school and decided to celebrate this event with a single kayak trip. Tightened into a "meat grinder" in the Akkem "pipe"! " 
    "Akkem breakthrough" or as it is also called - "Akkem pipe" - on the Katun river, named after the mountain village of Akkem, next to which it is located - a sacred place familiar to any tourist of the water route (see photo 14). It is a very narrow canyon, on all sides clamped by impregnable rocks, about 5 km long and a very large angle of incidence - at times the water level drops reach 10 meters, actually forming waterfalls in miniature. I know this place well - once we with Oleg floated from the village of Ust-Koks and passed it. Particular danger in this "pipe" is the so-called "meat grinders" - rocks standing right in the middle of the Katun, in which a powerful stream of this crazy river forms deep underwater rills - the so-called "pockets". We threw logs, like crazy people, into these gullies and watched in horror as it broke into pieces, completely disfigured, swam out on the other side of the rock. It was in this "meat grinder" that this pilot, who risked alone, got himself without insurance to go through this ruinous place.
   I went to the cellophane convolutions and slightly unfolded it in the head area. In front of me lay a young handsome guy in a fine suit of foreign production (the dream of any waterman), on the petrified, sculptural face of which there was already no emotions and emotions - the soul - his "violin" was already very far from here, and here there was only a lifeless, No one needed "case". The fate of this unfortunate pilot on the eve of our "epochal" campaign, which will, in fact, also without any insurance, seemed to me a very bad omen.
   Having registered in the KSS (leaving the rescuers a "checkpoint" for our return), on the same day we went to the German village of Ilyinka, which is in the upper Peschanaya, where we planned the beginning of our rafting.
   We arrived late at night in Ilyinka, went into the nearest courtyard and asked the pretty, elderly woman where the exit to Peschanaya is located, from which, usually, the water workers start rafting. "Tomorrow is my son," she pointed to a sullen blond German about 30 years old ("A true Aryan," I thought about him then), will go there on his milk car and take you. And now for the time being settle down for the night in our yard, only do not freeze - at night we are cold. "
   In this our "exclusive" in all respects, we decided to retreat from the usual rule and not take a tent with us, but only sleeping bags and a cellophane bag from the rain. Quietly located in a clearing near the house of the Germans and hiding behind a warm camel blanket, carefully taken by Oleg from the house, we immediately fell asleep with the strong sleep of the righteous.
   In the morning, dawn dawned, the woman woke us up and generously treated her with fresh milk. Our "cheerful milkman", with the sullen look of the "SS punitive man", loaded the heavy milk backpacks on the "milk cart", carefully tying them to the side of the car, and did not utter a word for the whole journey. Similarly, without a word, he rudely dropped our backpacks on the ground and left without even saying goodbye. "However, the" affectionate German "was caught!" - I thought, somewhat surprised at the harsh customs of the local Nordic population.
   As soon as our small, frankly speaking, the team descended to the river, we immediately lost no time in preparing the willow for the future catamaran frame. This was very difficult to do in those conditions - the willow growed on the left bank, and to get to it, it was necessary to cross the waist in the water for 15 meters in the seething stream of Peschanaya. The current was so strong that even knee-deep in the water the river was completely knocked down and did not allow it to rise. A swollen, fetid carcass of a cow swam past us, which apparently got into a similar situation and, crossing the river ford, was knocked down and carried away by a swift water flow. I had to bind myself with a climbing rope and already with the insurance of Oleg to move to that shore. In a similar way, I went back, loaded on the chin with willow branches for the future frame. Finally, the frame for the catamaran was almost ready when suddenly a loud human voice was heard from the nearby willow - we even froze in surprise. We went to these voices, and soon a very strange picture appeared before us: a large perkalevaya tent for 8 people (very expensive and scarce for that time), two rafts on wheels from KAMAZ, on which were tied with ropes, two halves split in half Kayaks. Near to all this "economy", in fair podpitii, there were 3 guys and one girl. We talked. It turned out that they were Muscovites, who frivolously, without preliminary exploration, decided to overcome the Sandy (at this time of year!) On kayaks. The trek ended very badly, without having had time to start - kayaks immediately broke on the rocks in the shallow water. Then the guys came together with the local population, who built two rafts for money and alcoholic Muscovites, but, not wanting to let "the rich sponsors", decided to draw out of them all the money to the end. As a result, the whole four have simply "blackened" from drunkenness, forced from morning to evening to "abuse" with "hospitable" owners. We only sympathized with the guys, drank a glass of vodka and went to our "miracle" - a catamaran on the "big" way. More to us about the fate of Muscovites is not known, but only once, already swam to Solonecka, we suddenly saw the remains of their ruined raft and one of the kayaks floating past us. Are the owners of this kayak still alive? I do not even know now.
   The Peschanaya River on all existing sites is clearly divided into areas that are very different in nature and complexity. Below Ilyinka, near the village of Baragash, the water workers, as a rule, have the most unpleasant problems one can imagine: the so-called "combs" (low-lying fallen trees above the water), which always unexpectedly "float" Because of the steep turn of the river, blocking the way of a catamaran in the narrow channels of Peschanaya. In one of these "combs" once pleased me and Oleg. It happened so.
   Sandy, once again, gracefully made a bend, turning almost 90 degrees to the right, and suddenly, pouring out from behind a turn, in a dark tunnel from twisted trees, we saw a huge "comb" lying across the river. "Seryozha, hold on!" - just managed to shout to me Oleg, as it had already picked up some unknown force, rudely ripped off the catamaran and dropped into the bubbling around the "comb" water. Now it's my turn to fall. Under the influence of all the existing laws of physics, unexpectedly left alone on an unstable "ship", I make a spectacular "overkil" (an automatic - overturning a catamaran) and I am underwater, losing my paddle. Then I was "kolbasit" and hurled the river from side to side, and only the life jacket did not let me drown and drown in this situation. Remembering that it was completely useless to resist the mountain river, I completely surrendered to the power of a boiling stream, which, fortunately, soon took me wet, like a water rat, to a sandy desert beach.
   A little later, on the horizon appeared wet through Oleg, who angrily looked at the overturned catamaran to my own shore. "After all, I cried to you - hold on! And why did you jump off the catamaran? "He said angrily to me with some kind of another stupidity, in order to somehow shed some of the irritation that had accumulated during the cold bathing in the mountain stream. "Who, I jumped off? - I exclaimed in surprise .- Oleg, what are you talking about? The first "comb" you first knocked off the catamaran, and then it overturned me! "" And why did you lose the paddle? "- Oleg was already calmer, more for the pro forma, which, after all, Then I "eat". "I could not hold it in my hand, so what can I do?" And, really, nothing terrible happened. The good thing is that Korobkov, a resourceful one, in advance, tore off from the chairs in the university audience with a dozen backs for future wooden oars. On this sandy beach and it was decided to make a parking for the night, to dry off properly and put himself in order after an unsuccessful "overquisition". I, as always, "cooked", cooking on a fire noodles with meat stew (such as "pasta in the Navy"). With us we had a full flask of pure medical alcohol and a bottle of semi-dry red wine, to which, most surprisingly, we did not even touch during the whole trip - there were already enough "hormones of joy" caused by the majestic, simply indescribable nature of the Mountainous Altai The Swiss Alps simply "rest"). Located near the fire, we surrendered to memories and dreams - the cherished dreams of these "water leopards", which we ourselves felt at that moment. And our dream was one for two - to pass the Chulyshman River of the 6th (most dangerous) category of complexity, not accidentally chosen for the international competitions of the "Splav-Raft" watercraft, held annually in the Altai Mountains.

0x01 graphic

   The Chulyshman river, which is the most vigorous and beautiful in Siberia, is the main feeding artery of the Teletskoye Lake - this genuine "pearl of Altai". It flows in the highland zone of the eastern part of the Altai Republic, located in the very picturesque nature reserve of Ulagansky district. The beauty of Chulyshman, his simply indescribable beauty has long been appreciated by many tourists, including because of the "hillock": it is not by chance that Chulyshmansky canyon, amazing imagination, was successfully nominated for the contest "7 Wonders of Russia" in 2008 ( See photos 15 and 16). The deep narrow canyons of Chulyshman are comparable only to the famous Grand Canyon in America, and, in my opinion, in no way inferior to it. The valley of Chulyshman is amazingly picturesque, full of beautiful waterfalls and mightiest rapids, in places absolutely not passable for catamarans. By the way, the most cascading waterfall Uchar (Chulchinsky) is also located in the valley of Chulyshman - not on the river itself, but on its right tributary Chulche (the left inflow of Chulyshman, to the attention of the reader, is the legendary Bashkaus - also "not at all feebly Mountain rivulet "of the 6th complexity category), which is 12 km from the confluence of this relatively small river in Chulyshman.
   Oleg told me that the director of the Altay camp site Viktor Petrovich Vasiliev in May 1986 also took part in Splav-Raft on Chulyshman as a member of the USSR water slalom team. The Americans are kayakers (kayak is a type of rowing boat, like a single kayak designed for rowing slalom), having gone far beyond the most complex plums of the Tudan cascade (see photo 17) stated that "only crazy Russians can raft along this insane Siberian river" And refused to further raft the Chulyshman, shamefully withdrawing from international competitions. The team of Petrovich, who, as is known, "is not bastard of shita" and "not done with his finger", bravely walked the whole river to the end, which earned a huge "respect and respect" in the entire "water world" (see the clip on You Tube "Rafting - an extreme on Chulche ").
   After talking about water sports, as usual, they started talking about women - these lovely natural creatures that bring us, men, as much joy as misfortune. Once again, having complained about the insidiousness and inconstancy of Olga Istomina, with whom Oleg was also familiar, like me, since the summer of 1985, Boxes told me an almost anecdotal story of his unsuccessful acquaintance with the adorable girl Marina. And it was so.
   At the end of August 1983 Oleg's mother Elena Y. Naumovna decided to introduce him to the girl Marina from a good Jewish family of the well-known Siberian scientist - nuclear scientist, who lives in Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk. The girl immediately liked our "happy" groom, and the next "weekend" young people, in honor of the upcoming engagement, decided to have a picnic on one of the picturesque islands of the Ob Sea. The picnic was timed to coincide with the opening of the autumn hunting season and was to be held in the style of the "Siberian safari". To this end, Oleg prudently took with him an inflatable boat and an old 12-caliber tozovka gun belonging to his still heroic Jewish grandfather - a front-line soldier. Marina, however, assumed the quartermaster role, ensuring this promising erotic expedition with all the necessary provisions. And so that the picture of "jolly sexual hunting" was logically completed, Oleja took with him his beloved Airedale Terrier Beliash. As it turned out later, this he made a fatal mistake!
   "You see, Serega, when Marina laid out the sausage, cucumbers and milk on the grass - my heart jumped," said Box with a nervous laugh. - There was a spontaneous feeling that I was doing something wrong, consuming all this still life. But then we started talking and under the conversation "crushed" cucumbers with milk. When the boat was inflated, I already felt "Puccini" in my stomach. They sat, swam and somewhere halfway to the island, I felt that I was just going to die, and here in the boat, if I did not let the air out of my stomach. The "congenial" solution to the problem ripened in my head almost instantly. Seeing a low flying duck over me, I threw up my gun, loudly shouting to Marina: "Duck down!" And fired, simultaneously with the shot "booming like a horse, having made obscenity." However, to my horror, the old gun of my grandfather misfired, and my uterine sound rumbled through the whole Ob reservoir in a thunderous sound. Marina turned out to be a girl who was extremely educated and only said quietly: "It's okay: everything that is natural is not at all ugly!" Eh, I also at first thought that nothing terrible had happened until I realized that here, in this damn boat , Not only loudly farted, but also crapped with liquid diarrhea! Now the task was to quickly get to the island and wash, so much so that Marina did not notice it. Approaching the shore, I told Marina that she was going to choose a parking lot, and while I was dragging ashore and unloading our rubber boat. As soon as Marina left, I quickly threw off the soiled panties, disgustedly threw them into the willow bushes and thoroughly washed. I returned to Marina already clean, deeply pleased with myself and my incredible resourcefulness. In the eyes of the girl, I realized that an unpleasant incident on the water, fortunately for me, has already begun to forget. We lit a fire, opened a red semi-dry wine (by the way, the same as we have now) and have already prepared for pleasant erotic games, as at the same time fucking Belyash brought to me from the bushes my crocked cowards! "Here we both laughed loudly , In colors and faces, presenting this, in fact, quite unhappy situation. "You would only see Marina's eyes, those girlish eyes that were rounded with horror and disgust, when this horrible, simply disgusting sight of my cowards appeared in front of her bewildered gaze!" Oleja exclaimed nervously with a homeric laugh, recalling with dismay the extremely unpleasant incident he had endured . It is clear that soon the girl hastily zasobiralsya home, while not even caring about the plausible pretext, and the romantic acquaintance at the stake at them on this ingloriously ended. As they say, "love has passed, wilted tomatoes!"
   Of course, if this unpleasant story occurred in the midst of the novel, at the peak of sexual relations, when people are already getting close enough, it's not so bad. But when romantic relations between young people are just beginning, as Stendhal wrote in his famous Treatise on Love, while in the stage of the so-called "crystallization of feeling," here even the most insignificant trifle in the appearance of a partner can turn out to be fatal and put an end to what has not begun Love relations. Reflecting on all these vicissitudes of fate, I quietly fell asleep in my favorite sleeping bag near a dying fire, faintly flickering in the summer night with its reddish sparkling coals.
   The next morning I woke up, sweating, when, judging by the sun, standing at the zenith, it was already about 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Nearby I slept, sweetly snoring in my sleeping bag, Oleg Korobkov. In front of me I saw an absolutely fantastic sight of the Alpine meadows of the Altai Mountains. Until now, this unforgettable mountain landscape stands before my eyes.
   We lay (it seemed, together in the whole Universe) on this huge emerald glade, flooded with a dazzling mountain - Altai sun. Everything around was fragrant with smells of mint, fragrant forget-me-nots and bright yellow bathing suits (for good reason, Altai honey from the herbage of alpine meadows is one of the most delicious and useful in the world). Around life boiled - a magic range of smells and sounds. The bees buzzed, the grasshoppers chirped, birds sang to all voices. I noticed that the colors of the surrounding nature in the midday reddish sun still remained somehow muted, not bright, as in the famous paintings of Flemish artists.
   About 800 meters from us proudly towered an impregnable rock, in the sunlight of some special, golden color, which, with its snow-capped peak, as a sharp peak, ruthlessly pierced the ultramarine heavens. "The picture of oil" was complemented by a rustling mountain river beside us, which once in this place did its charming, very erotic bend.
   Next stop for the night we made in the camp with the Altaic shepherds, who drove the cattle from Mongolia. The shepherds kindly provided us with two berths on the edge on huge wooden bunks, apparently designed for ten to twelve people, completely covered with greasy mattresses, which had long since lost their form and color, exuding a hideous smell of mustiness and mold. For this we, "from our bounties," gave the shepherds two cans of sprats in tomato, to which they immediately threw themselves greedily, like the natives who had never seen canned food. Grateful peasants for this piled on us a huge plate of freshly caught and well-fried grayling, which Oleg and I, thoroughly hungry, instantly ground for "both cheeks", asking for more supplements. The delicious silvery grayling was brought to the parking lot by a tall young cowboy, sunburnt in the sun to an eerie black that was fishing for a spoon-bait, without going straight down from its short, stocky Mongolian, standing on the horse's knee in the icy water on a ridge of a mountain river.
   After dinner, well-fed and satisfied shepherds, as usual, wanted spectacles. Under the loud hooting of the barbarians, which, apparently, symbolized a simple "muzhik" happiness, the cowboys arranged, right here in the pen for livestock, the most real dog fights, squashing among themselves huge shaggy wolfhounds. Looking at the costumes, the natural make-up of all these extraordinary, simply amazing actors, and the surrounding mountain landscape as the scenery of such a thrilling sight of dogfight, the long forgotten images of Jack London's favorite stories about White Fang and the courageous prospectors from Klondike , Who lived in Alaska during the "gold rush". It seems to me that little has changed since then in the way of life of these so surprisingly similar people living on such different continents and talking in such different languages.
   Two days later we finally reached that sacred place, because of which the whole "cheese-boron", the great canyon of the Peschanaya River, was being conceived. About its approach, we learned already 2 hours before entering the gorge - a terrifying roar from the water falling from above stood on the whole district within a radius of 5 km.
   We begin on the catamaran slowly and smoothly, just like a woman, enter the canyon, still not even knowing what awaits us ahead. Caught at the top point of a falling river, clamped on all sides by black granite rocks, I was simply horrified to see Peschanaya swiftly disappearing somewhere very deep down. From this point of view, there was a complete sense that there was simply no exit from the canyon (apparently, because of this visual effect, the gorge on Peschanaya was called "grand canyons" at the peak of the Grand Canouon American). Then I manage with great difficulty to make out a narrow gap between the rocks on the right, into which the capricious river "dived", and where, in the end, it drags us, madmen. And now we are already caught up in the powerful water flow of the river, with a roar that carries our catamaran towards the four-hour nightmarish "meat grinder" of the "big", but not American, but Altai canyon. Ahead of us was an unforgettable spectacle - a test - a continuous cascade of rapids, which for a single moment made it impossible not only to relax, but at least just to catch our breath.
   The oars had to work continuously, so much so that the hands were finally numb with fatigue. Despite our "titanic" efforts, the river did with us all that it wanted, exposing our absolute, total nonentity. Now, two decades later, I understand that it is our duty to live only to the God of Ra, who, in fact, arranged for us this transcendental test of water. There were times when we were just doomed to throw the oars, completely abandoning ourselves to the will of the crazy stream, and we, after a powerful throw to the next "barrel" (the author - a mini-waterfall on the mountain river), when we head down to the bottom again and again plunged into Boiling foam, the catamaran was suddenly thrown out from under the water to the surface, miraculously avoiding, as it were, such an inevitable, terrible blow to the rock, threatening imminent death. Nothing really depended on us here. Ra completely gave us to the river.
   However, Oleg is already very tired and more and more often throws an oar, dangerously substituting the left side of the catamaran for blowing a roaring stream, trying to knock us into a boiling foam. I scream in frenzy at him, because the second gorge of the canyon begins with the most powerful water.
   Suddenly, we are blocked by a huge rock of pinkish color - the "Pink Boom", which extends to the right of us almost half the river and is famous for the so-called "imitation of the clamp" (that is, pressing water to the rock according to all the laws of physics, as it should be , But its, for some reason, no). Here the river again makes a big loop around the rock, turning 180 degrees, and here it is, the most terrible, especially in the "big" water, the threshold is "Jaws", it is "Abramych". For normal, not "psychoballic" water experts before the passage of the "Jaws", thorough preliminary investigation is always necessary - so for normal people, and for us, "dummies", this is just another adventure. Fortunately, Abramych, contrary to expectations ("dummies" is always lucky for the first time), we pass without much difficulty.
   And now, finally, the long-awaited way out of the canyon. The last time the river dispersed our catamaran to "supersonic" speed, and with all its foolishness struck a granite rock; So much so that the front crossbeam of the frame was cracked and cracked in half like a match. And all - here Sandy - as if "turned off" - from the turbulent mountain river, she suddenly turned into a calm flat river. There was absolutely no sense to go farther. We pulled the catamaran ashore and began to collect things.
   At this very time a shepherd of an indefinite age with a black face from an eternal sunburn rode up to us on a horse. Right on his stocky, powerful Mongolian "powerful" pectoral muscle, he drove to Oleg with words full of threats: "Eh, little one, and now give your wetsuit!" Wetsuits that we with great difficulty, honestly, borrowed from Lena Yadryshnikova - also a waterman, and with a very decent experience - to give, of course, no one was going to. I calmly lifted my ice ax from the ground and walked with an imposing gait to the rider, having a sincere desire and a very serious intention to cut off his leg. Apparently, there was something in my glance that made him turn and quickly retire.
   Only when I arrived in Barnaul did I understand what exactly had frightened this unfortunate shepherd. When my mother opened the door to my apartment and came to Barnaul to visit her grandfather and grandmother, she screamed in horror at me with the words: "My God, Seryozha, is this you?" "And what's the matter?" I was surprised at the unexpected Mother's reaction. "Yes, look only at whom you looked like!" - and I rushed to the mirror. From there I was staring at a horrible, scabby, scabby from the merciless mountain-Altai sun, a hideous face of completely incomprehensible age and sex. As a result of the constant action of the "lens" of water and sun, all the skin on the face and hands turned into an absolutely non-elastic parchment, and the hands - so generally swelled up to incredibility and under the effect of maceration of the skin very much resembled the famous "death glove" from the drowned man.
   That's how I "happily and at ease" went to his last campaign of his happy youth!
   Two days after returning from Gorny Altai, I looked in my mail box and found a summons there in the military registration and enlistment office. "Well, everything, the ice has started, gentlemen of the jury!" - I thought gloomily, looking curiously at a sheet of gray paper, where I was invited tomorrow at 10.00 in the 16th cabinet. Arriving on the following morning at the military registration and enlistment office of the Oktyabrsky district, I looked into the 16th room - there was nobody for some reason, and on the table there was a cardboard box with the personal files of the recruits. Some unknown force (now I know for certain that it was Ra) pushed me in the back, and I confidently, in a farmer's way, went into an empty office, quietly shutting the door behind me.
   Considering the box with the cases and the inscription on the side "Team 23 - Chernobyl" (in April 1986, he just "rumbled" to the whole world), I found in my weighty pile my personal file and another matter of Yuri Pavlov, a student from the Economics Faculty, With whom we together in 1986 played in the ensemble of the club VRZ (auto - car repair plant) and to which I immediately called, informing about "unpleasant news".
   I am still very far from the idea that an empty office in the military enlistment office was a mere coincidence. Apparently, my service in Chernobyl was not at all part of Ra's plans.
   My mood fell below the "waterline". When I got home, I told my mother everything, which was extremely upset. Striving to somehow dispel my painful thoughts, my mother and her own sister, Rita, often took me to the city beach - the Bulyginskoye reservoir (the so-called "Pioneer Lake").
   In one of these visits to the city beach, I met with the charming investigator from the Oktyabrsky District Department of the Internal Affairs of Barnaul Irina Sheveleva. Ira was two years older than me, and we liked each other so much that she immediately gave me her home address. I went to the army a couple of times to visit her, but the novel did not work out for us. Yes, and what kind of "hot" novel, tell at the mercy, can develop from the relationship that arose on the "brotherly sexual grave" - ??on the city beach ?! Unless "Notes from the Crypt" - and nothing more!
   Everything changed dramatically, suddenly, when Oleg Korobkov came to Barnaul to resolve the issue with the military enlistment office of the Central District (he decided to join the army with us from Barnaul to get into one team). "Sergei, are you a cretin? Do you want to become impotent and work for a lifetime on medicines? He persuaded me passionately. "Do not fool around!" Tomorrow, go to the military registration and enlistment office, withdraw from military records and go to the distribution of this "fucking" Pankrushi. And then, in October, we'll all leave for the army, from one recruiting station! "
   I am very grateful to Oleg for that sensible advice, and for "the coffin of life" owes him! The next day I did it - I withdrew from the military register, presenting the military order with an order to my distribution to the glorious village of Pankrushikha of the Altai Territory, and for the whole 2 months I fell out of the turnover of the regional military enlistment office (on arrival in Pankrushy, due to the negligence of the personnel officer of the district police, I And did not register the local military commissariat). And now I'm on the train to the "treasured" village of Pankrushishha, in which two months of my already very young student's youth will pass.
   These two months of life in Pankrushieh flew absolutely imperceptibly and so rapidly that there is nothing special to remember. My constant attributes of the "external" form of life in the village were the absolutely incompetent, meaningless work of the legal adviser in the regional consumer cooperative and the unrestrained, general, simply "universal" drunkenness of the local population. Pankrushisha turned out to be a perfect illustration to our immortal work "Mankina Love" - ??the same images, the same characters, the same closeness to nature, the same Love! (And where only our unforgettable San Palych "Faker" saw in our and Oleg's novel an outright lie and slander against the Soviet village ?! He would come here!) Particularly clear parallel with the "Manka's love" was seen in the local village bakery, where I occasionally worked as a baker, to somehow reduce the "ends meet." There, right before my eyes, a "sultry" village novel developed between the technician-alcoholic Mikhailich and the brutal woman, two meters tall, a woman-baker Varvara, who easily, playfully, juggled hot "forms" with bread and moved huge jugs along the hall with Test. When we all had dinner at the same table, the enamored Mihailitch with tender tenderness in his gaze asked Varvara affectionately: "Come on, pig pork, send me some bread!" And the happy "kunka," laughing joyfully, flirted with coquettishness Mihalich with fragrant hot bread. Looking at this touching, "idyllic" scene of village Love, I involuntarily recalled the words of the popular folk song about the unforgettable Akulka:
   Do you remember, native Akulka,
   That first our love,
   That's our first date
   In the cowshed near the cows?
  
   You swallowed the swill of the cow,
   I cleaned the sovkhoz shed,
   You stepped on my foot,
   As if, quite accidentally.
  
   And I'll fool you, fool,
   Warmed on the broad back,
   You cried: "Damn hairy!"
   In response, she smiled at me.
  
  
   Now, native Akulka,
   You long and gently revenge,
   Then you'll throw bugs into the kettle,
   You'll piss me off the roof!
   Once I rashly, without "preliminary intelligence", went into the shower bakery, where the "beautiful" Varvara was at that time in the absolute "negligee". She was not at all embarrassed, unlike me, and very so eroticly called me in a passionate whisper: "Well, come to me, my doll!" From horror I asked a baker from the bakery that they only saw me there. Bless and save! So in fact not for long, and without the unfortunate Chernobyl, to become impotent - "IMPO -1986"!
   Finally, it was October 1986 - the autumn call began.
   The draft company and its accompanying medical commission is not by chance, already long in Russia, is the subject of numerous "male" anecdotes. The thing is that in these commissions very often young people - doctors - are interns. Already this fact itself contains a significant element of intrigue - after all, we have to bare ourselves naked, and a woman, even a doctor, "she is also a woman in Africa!" So, my draft company did not become a "pleasant" exception to this rule.
   Another embarrassment on the medical board occurred because of my pants. I always wore army grandfather's pants, richly spattered with greasy stains (my grandfather had a strange habit of dining at the table in his underwear). Moreover, this time, apparently half asleep, I put my grandfather's pants directly on my naked body, and the elderly ensign in the military registration and enlistment office, tightly clinging to my underwear, forced me to remove them altogether. I can imagine how I looked on the general "dressed" background of the draftees with their genitalia, bored with cold and shame.
   Looking into the office, where the young doctors were sitting, I realized that I would never, even under pain of death, go there in Adam's costume. Quickly ran into the locker room, put on his pants, tucked them like a golf trousers.
   But this did not save me from the curiosity. A pretty young girl, a doctor, gazing intently at my defecating spots, asked me straight and plain: "Are you engaged in masturbation?" I was taken aback by surprise and blurted out without thinking: "Yes it's not me, it's grandfather!" She She laughed loudly. A tall, pimply guy of a degenerate kind came in after me, to whom the girl said softly, in a low voice: "Take off (she meant his swimming trunks) and put it on the table!" The guy, without a long thought, took off the trunks, and, in turn, lifting his legs, neatly Put his "farm" on the table, right in front of the stunned doctor. "Yes you are today, all conspired, or what? What do you allow yourself, young man, what kind of rudeness !? "- she angrily exclaimed and hit the guy, though not much, a pointer over the genitals. "Yes, there is much in nature, Horatio's friend, which our wise men did not dream about!" - just want to exclaim in the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet when you remember these "golden dots".
   Finally, these long medical tortures ended and we were taken to the regional assembly point, where teams were being formed to be sent to the troops. In this fairly crappy institution - "bomber" we spent three whole days, while we, dirty and pretty overgrown with bristles, finally were not scattered around the teams (Oleg was immediately pulled out by some tall handsome major - the "buyer" from the Far Eastern motorized rifle division, Located in the city of Obluchye Amur Region). I, along with 15 of my classmates, were sent by train to the city of Omsk. As I remember now - it was already November 11, 1986, and Barnaul, "dropping his tears," said goodbye to me with a warm, almost summer rain. Arriving in Omsk, we realized that this, it turns out, is also not all. In the 14th military town of signalers, where we were brought, in the large sports hall the second and last stage of the formation of the military commands began. Hefty major - tanker immediately separated from the rest of our group of 15 people, leaving only me alone, standing in the middle of the hall. "And why do not you take it?" Asked his lieutenant-colonel with the emblem of the communications troops. "To hell with this" dystrophin "," said the major, the Tankist, pointing contemptuously at me. "He'll be dumped in a tank when a 40 kg shell is lifted!" And I, already unnecessary, were taken away from the tank crew of my fellow students. So, incidentally, incidentally, the Fate of the "slave" in this Omsk "slave market of Zanzibar" was solved.
   A sergeant with an artillery emblem (only later, after a while, I recognize Sergeant Mezentsev in it) took me and Kashirsky to the empty barracks of the 14th town. Sasha Kashirsky (with whom we were practically not friends and did not communicate at the university) silently perched on the second tier of the soldier's bed and fell asleep.
   I could not sleep for a long time in this first army night, overwhelmed by strong feelings and emotions. In my head, the sharp piercing melody for the saxophone - the theme of nostalgia, which will pass a sad leitmotif through my entire army service - was piercingly winding from where it came from.
   After all, there, behind, somewhere very far away, my bright and happy Youth has remained. Waiting for me was only gloomy darkness and complete uncertainty!
  
   Army
   "Why are you look at me as beast? Do not you like me? Yess! I promise that soon you will love me more than your own father! "- ensign Vyacheslav Ukolov greeted me with such sinister words in the Ishim Guards training of the artillery regiment of the sergeant-major of the battery. Perhaps it was the most charismatic person I met in the army. Sergeant Major Ukolov had something about 45 years old, 20 of which he spent in soldiers' barracks. The army has long replaced his family, and the barracks - the house and comfort, so necessary for any person. The ensign had a rather strange oblong face, entirely covered with vascular veins, with ears protruding to the side, frost-bitten during the service in the Far North, and a huge fleshy nose that the Creator hastily, somehow stuck to his already extremely unattractive face. In spite of everything, it was the best sergeant I met in the army; A real soldier - a professional, which, in fact, from time immemorial, and keeps the Russian army.
   From Omsk forwarding, Kashirsky and I were brought to the ancient merchant town of Ishim, which is in the south of the Tyumen region. At the railway station, we were quite severely and more than coolly met by Sergeant Merzhinsky - a hero of gigantic growth, like two drops of water like the legendary boxer - "heavyweight" Vitali Klitschko, in the smell of huge shoe khazen boots 47 size, with the arrogant glance of the Polish hat, not Expressing absolutely nothing but contempt for everything and everything in this world. As hunted animals, we looked from the open body of the army "Ural" to the gloomy autumn city, in which we had to spend six months, comprehending all the "charms" and wisdom of soldier's life. But, despite the terrible stress of what was happening around, I immediately liked Ishim - he was really similar to his native Barnaul: the same quiet energy, the same unhurried rhythm of being, the same hospitable, good-natured, though somewhat quick-witted South Siberian folk .
   Upon arrival in the barracks immediately began a long and painful process of turning us into "real warriors". The show with changing clothes lasted several hours in a row - in the end, I got a soldier's uniform of 52 sizes, although I left for the army, having only 46 sizes. "Nothing, you'll get better at state grub, how - once in a time will be!" - as ensign Nikolai Ukolov could comfort me. In my swollen robe, I looked like a strange mythological creature - an ugly bubble with an armored waist with an aspen waist and a small head on top of the bladder. The picture was supplemented with oil by huge, obviously not the size of crocheted shoemakers, rattling at every step like fishing boots. The only consolation was that the people around me did not look much better than me.
   Finally, the enchanting show with disguise was over, and we, now completely unrecognizable from the soldier's uniformity, got on track. It's time to enter the stage of the brilliant Ensign Ukolov. Moscow theater "Satyricon" Konstantin Raikin just resting when the foreman played his legendary reprises. "Soldiers, today you have a new form," insinuatingly began his famous speech, Ukolov, in a cat's way, walking along the line with gentle steps. - You got new PS (auth. - half-woolen tunic and trousers - breeches), beautiful winter hats. You received winter winter clothes, summer underwear. You got winter and summer cotton woolen footcloths, "- the ensign held a long pause for a long time, obviously remembering that the longer the pause, the more brilliant the actor, and suddenly, like a suddenly awakened volcano, exploded, bursting with heated verbal lava : "And now take all this, tear and fuck ..., bl ... bitch! We had the army of fools, homemade pies from the ass did not come out, monkeys fucking! Here you - not here, here you - the army, the boobies of the King of heaven! "And, he began, like a catechumant, to rush along the cadet system, showering us with curses and curses. At that moment, he was so much like the "great" Duce Mussolini, that he just wanted to come up and say to him in a proper way: "Well, Benito, what about you? Your exit, Benito! Grazie, Senor Benito! "Dumbfounded by this enchanting, almost circus show and knowing nothing at all about what was going on in the theatrical performance, as enchanted, we looked up to our heavenly host, the future ruler of soldiers' thoughts and destinies. However, the sergeant's energy passes soon ended as suddenly, as they had begun, and now the calm, even apathetic Ukolov leads us, like the shepherd of obedient sheep, to the city bathhouse for the first soldier's "bathing" in our life. Perhaps there is no more sacred place for the soldier in the army than a bath, especially if this bath is urban, civil. Only there you can forget about the army madhouse for an hour, blissfully stretch out on a bench in the steam room, substituting under the burning steam the skinny soldier's body frozen in the fierce Siberian frost and the wind. The faces of the cadets at this moment are as blissful as, probably, the inhabitants of the opium chicken or Tibetan monks - full of Nirvana and Absolute Void. And only a disgusting voice - Sergeant Mezentsev's "glass cutter", like a whip blow, brings you back to the miserable army reality: "Finish the wash!" The hour of bliss, so long and short at the same time, is over, the illusions are melting like the smoke of incense, and we are really clean , And because immensely happy with the relaxed system we rave through the ancient streets of Ishim to our native barracks.
   With Sergeant Mezentsev, our deputy commander, I somehow did not immediately develop a relationship in the service. I did not know, and, of course, I could not have known that all six months of schooling would take place under the sign of a fierce confrontation between me and this irrepressible sergeant. He was a slender young man with an athletic figure, with a pale psychopathic face, on which grimaces, like masks in the Japanese Kabuki Theater, were continuously replaced by one another; Moreover, as I said, with a nasty shrill voice - the so-called "glass cutter". In general, the person was repulsive in all senses. Antipathy for each other at us arose somewhere very deeply, at the level of energy, and absolutely had no clearly expressed cause and motivation. It is precisely these antipathies, I believe, that are most dangerous in our lives, because the motivating motives in this undeclared war of characters are fully controlled by the subconscious mind, not by reason, which is always fraught with unpredictable consequences.
   Yuri Mezentsev was a native of the ancient Siberian city of Tomsk, where, incidentally, my mother and grandmother came from, but thanks to the psychopathic antics of this more than a strange sergeant, Tomsk citizens forever became for me character names. This "youth pale with a burning eye" immediately reminded me painfully familiar image from my distant childhood - Sasha Tkachenko, nicknamed "Bandera", about which I already wrote earlier. How can you not remember the old days of Leonhard with his magnificent theory of accentuated personality! Indeed, outwardly similar people related to one typological group (accentuants), to one psychotype, almost always in certain situations give out absolutely identical behavioral reactions. By the way, in our battery cadet Leonhard from Omsk served, which, in my opinion, is deeply symbolic - after all, I studied and examined people from the student's bench through the prism of the famous theory of the outstanding German psychiatrist Karl Leongard.
   In 1984, Mezentsev successfully graduated from Tomsk Radio Electronics School - a very prestigious educational institution for that time and was drafted for two years in the army, where for his outstanding abilities he was left as a sergeant in the training division of the Ishim Guards Artillery Regiment. Of course, in many respects Mezentsev imitated his hero, Sergeant Ukolov, thanks to whom he, a diligent student, mastered the art of shocking the respectable audience. If some overly discouraged cadets started a noisy fuss in the barracks, for example, a fight or a friendly brawl, painting the feet of the parquet polished with shiny grease strips, the sergeant creeped up to them quietly, and bending over, like Ensign Ukolov, started yelling right in the ear Fighting: "Break him dick, break his balls, rip his ass! Two outfits are out of turn for everyone! "This acted always without fail, also sobering like an ice shower, and for a long time after that there were no more willing to arrange such" Olympic "games in the barracks. The working day in the training started very early - at 6.30. The dazzling light of the lamp in the barracks and the disgusting glass cutter Mezentsev catapult tossed me from the second tier of the armored cot, and now I'm flying my legs down straight on the head of my neighbor from below Sasha Kashirsky (oh, I would have known then that I was so dashing, in cavalry I will saddle the future lieutenant-general of the customs service), who, swearing loudly, already somehow put on his trousers and thrust his bare feet into the crocheted boots. It was a little soldier's cunning. The fact is that there was no time for anyone to wrap up the footclothes in the morning. However, all the cadets knew well that in the morning a little time was given for the administration of natural needs. It is this time that can be successfully used to wrap up the footcloths, and the soldiers do this operation so respectfully, with such great piety that, perhaps, even the newborn child, future fathers do not swaddle as their favorite soldier's leg. Yes, and that's right - a badly wrapped handkerchief is fraught with bloody calluses, and this in the army of death is like.
   And now we are running out of the warm barracks in the morning frosty morning in Ishim. Like the frisky, overnight staggering stallions, we rush for the running sergeant, rumbling boots on the frozen asphalt. We run silently, furiously, breathing heavily and often blowing his nose. Since my childhood, I have not run well for long distances (only in 35 years in the military hospital doctors have determined that I have a congenital defect in the mitral valve), so I tried to run smoothly, rhythmically breathing and listening attentively to the blows of my heart. Behind us, the cadets from the second battery of mortar men, who lived on the second floor of our barracks, were catching up. "Greetings to greetings!" - sergeant of the second battery Mamedov greeted us cheerfully. "Our blowjobs with a tassel," Mezentsev croaked in response, and the "box" of the second battery, still not tired from running, went far ahead, passing us on a corner.
   After making six laps around the parade ground, the sergeant led us to the sports town. And here begins the traditional sadomasochistic show - "the faint-hearted ask to retire". Until the very horizontal bars we go by the so-called "goose" step, from excessive physical exertion gulping the transparent morning air of Ishim with uterine smells and sounds. Squatting, with hands laid behind the head, we really look like a crazy flock of geese, who ran away from the slaughterhouse and finally lost their happiness, that they were still alive. It would be ridiculous if it were not so sad - it cost some weakened "goose" to fall, violating the system, as the sergeant's team, as ruthless as a whip, followed: "The battery, the emphasis is to take!" - and we begin to act with frenzy Frictional movements, although, as in the well-known anecdote about the Chinese and the Frenchman, "the lady has already left, and the muzhchinka (little man) - then this did not notice." So in the armies of all times and peoples at the level of reflex, the soldiers are hammered into the head by the main law of the military brotherhood: "one for all, and all for one!"
   On the horizontal bars, the situation "one for all, and all for one" is exactly the same. Ten cadets are doomed to hang on the crossbeams and are waiting for some "bag" to be finally reached at least once more. The role of "bags" in our battery is traditionally performed by the Kelgevat, Kashin and Jupit cadets. Old idiomatic expressions, somehow connected with the sacrament of childbearing, which are spewed out of the mouth of the hapless "hanged men" who lost all their strength and patience for a long time of limp hanging, are sung in their address. However, it is impossible to help words where nature has openly "rested", rewarding the "pompous" representatives of the "strong" sex with inordinately weak hands.
   Finally, this ill-fated physical show ends with the joy of the cadets, and we, pretty tired and sweaty with sweat, go to the barracks to put ourselves in order and prepare for breakfast. For breakfast, we are already completely clean and tidy. In the big bright hall of the dining-room we sit down vis-a-vis for five people at a rectangular table, filled with unprecedented hitherto manifestities. To the honor of our cooks, we must admit that the feeding in the training division was more than excellent. All cooks were graduates of the Novosibirsk cooking training, about which they said that who passed it, Buchenwald is not afraid of it - the severely harsh customs reigned in this military unit. In their incomplete 20 years, our brave chefs were finally drunk "drunkards" - they drank everything that burns: hair spray, windshield wipers, "Chypre" cologne, pre-mixing all this "treasure" with compote of own preparation. Despite this regrettable fact, the guys knew the matter tightly, and getting into regular troops, I long recalled with a nostalgic feeling the smell of fragrant borsch and the taste of crispy cutlets in breadcrumbs, which the chefs prepared with great diligence and trembling in our school. In the Biysk motorized rifle division, I encountered quite another reality-in the dressing-gown of the canteen, I personally saw how the cook-Uzbek cooked a "marvelous" soup soup for "infidels" from pork with spoons, feeding his own colleagues with the most real carrion, from Which then all the week long the division did not leave the sorters and was eating coal tablets. The real jihad is in Altaic!
   After breakfast, fighting began. The classes were conducted by the most trained sergeants, among whom Sergeant Mezentsev, a born pedagogue, favorably distinguished himself. For the sake of objectivity, it must be admitted that the material he gave was very interesting, in good literary language, in a very accessible form. It's unfortunate that Yura Mezentsev, possessing extraordinary abilities, could not find a worthy place in life in our ill-fated, "very vague" time, he finally drank himself in his native Tomsk and somewhere specifically "got sick" (I was told about it Sasha Kashirsky recently, to which the half-drunk Mezentsev came to the Novosibirsk customs house).
   Classes on the theory of shooting were held in completely unheated classes, so that in winter after two hours of study, the PN jacket became just a glass and ice cake that was frozen to the upper underwear. To somehow warm the cadets, the sergeant periodically interrupted his studies and commanded: "Branch, the emphasis is to take!" - and we again started our erotic movements, remembering a certain lady who for some reason left, and did not wait for something or Someone. Surprisingly, it was only in the army that I was pleased to master applied mathematics, along with geometry, which had never been friendly before and without which artillery was completely inconceivable. Especially I liked and well gave me ballistics - the science of the flight of the projectile. I learned how to master the parallel fan of 6 battery guns masterfully using expensive artillery optics - a bus, a panorama and a collimator. I fully learned the basics of the so-called "reference" shooting, when the rupture of the projectile is used as a reference point. Only now did I finally understand why naval officers are the highest caste among all the other servants of the "God of War," who, moreover, are in themselves the most privileged class in the active army. After all, before, when there was no satellite navigation such as GLONASS and homing missiles such as "earth-to-ground" and "land-to-air", the only way to navigate the sea was the benchmark. But the task facing the naval gunner was complicated by the fact that the situation of guidance was constantly changing - after all, not only the aiming gun moved, but also the fire target. In such difficult conditions, the naval artilleryman could rely only on his combat experience and intuition. By the way, with such a situation of orientation on the terrain, I also encountered exercises in the Gobi desert of the Mongolian People's Republic, where, a year later, I went with my artillery regiment to combat firing, already in the regular army. After all, in addition to the Mongolian croakers (and they, I must admit, the guys who are completely devoid of complexes, real natural people who are in need of where they take it), there are no guidelines for artillery shooting in the Gobi. Therefore, behind each artillery regiment there was a large machine - a booth worth $ 1 million - the so-called cosmic gyrocompass, which is a satellite radioelectronic index of the geographic meridian needed to determine the bearing and binding of guns in such a problematic area as, for example, Is the Gobi Desert.
   After studying in the classroom, we put on our greatcoats and go frozen in tactics and fighting shooting, which are already taking place outdoors. On the street, we are greeted by the same fierce Ishim cold, but naturally, no one canceled the classes, and we, completely bored with the cold, are doomed to our guns near the parade ground, which, from afar, caused unpleasant sensations from their breezes from the distance Close contact with finally a common cold.
   In the arsenal of the Guards Artillery Division in Ishim at that time there were 122-mm howitzer M-30 of the 1938 model. Some of them had "patches" from shrapnel hits of the Great Patriotic War, and obviously saw a lot in their time. In general, it was a good weapon for its time, very reliable, like a Kalashnikov rifle, and quite simple to handle. If not for one "but" - it is very difficult to roll on the initial firing position. And it's not even that this howitzer weighs almost 4 tons. In regular troops I served already on a heavy 152 mm Howitzer D-1, which weighed more than 122 mm per ton, but together with the gunner, we rolled it to the desired position without much difficulty. What is the matter here? And it's all about the length of the trunk. The D-1 howitzer in Biisk had a nearly three-meter barrel, which made it easy to find and balance the center of gravity of the gun. Completely different things are with the 122-mm howitzer, which because of the short trunk had to be raised to the level of the chest, in order to balance the center of gravity. With this task, even seven is difficult to cope, especially in the mountainous terrain. With such a laborious operation, army "phylons" are especially dangerous, which only mimic the taking of weight, and all 4 tons of the gun fall heavily on the remaining numbers of the combat crew. And this is very dangerous. Only in my memory - a dilated foot, a blunt stomach injury and a rupture of the spleen in three cadets due to the fact that someone has betrayed treacherously. Therefore, the roll of the gun on the edging cut in the ice is not a spectacle for the faint-hearted. Eerie mats, burlat rattles and moans, and excessive general suspicion with the slightest signs of weighting the gun - this is the typical picture of the 122 mm howitzer on the initial firing position. With jealousy and anger, we look at the neighbors on the left of the second battery of mortar men, who immediately and easily, like small children, warm up with their graceful minetists - just toys compared to our iron monsters. We envy "black" envy and "gunners" from the third battery of anti-tank guns on the right, since their 100 mm "rapiers" have such long trunks that even one person can cope with them.
   But most of all, perhaps, I was afraid for my musical hands during the transportation of the gun. In this case, you have to rely entirely on the jewelry work of the driver of the "Ural", which must carefully start the tow bar of the artillery tractor under the gun's base, after which the soldiers will fasten the howitzer to the car. All this time, while the driver gives back, the calculation keeps the gun at the towbar level and prays to the Lord God so that the driver does not pass back too sharply. In this case, the trauma is simply inevitable, and the severed fingers here absolutely do not count - it's about much more serious injuries. However, for me and the loss of fingers was always like death.
   Only now, after a quarter of a century, I realized what a truly royal gift Ra made to me in the army, putting the piano right in the barracks of the training. It's just some kind of mysticism: well, from where, you ask, could I take in Ishim, in the artillery regiment exactly the same tool as "Petrof", like my parents in Khabarovsk? Moreover, an expensive Czech instrument with German mechanics was kept in excellent condition, being under the vigilant protection of sergeants of the curriculum, which were more reliable than the Cerberus guarding him from the dowdy soldier. Thus, my comfortable existence in the training was provided by Providence itself until the end of the training period. As soon as the "Otboy" command sounded, all the sergeants of the training and the demobilization of the "constants" gathered around the instrument; I, like the Deity from Olympus, descended down from my armored bunk on the second tier, sat down at the instrument and began to perform a sacred act on the keys, filling the spiritual and physical space of the barracks, which Buddhists call "akasha", the divine sounds of the piano. Fortunately, during the time of student workings in Barnaul restaurants, I formed such a weighty repertoire of classical and variety music that I could easily play for 4 hours in a row. The rumor of a "miracle musician" soon spread all over the shelf, and I began to bathe in the rays of glory, enjoying universal respect and love. And only one person began to hate me even more, with all the fibers of the soul; Eaten by the Salieri complex, he genuinely wanted me to take my hand off, or rather two, or that I somewhere would get cold from the cold. This man was Yura Mezentsev.
   Once, during the afternoon rest our sergeants asked me to play something for the soul. I sat down at the instrument and played a potpourri on The Beatles. At this very moment, the sergeant-in-chief of the Ukolov battery came into the barracks, who froze by the door and stared at me, numb-he obviously did not expect to hear such a musical miracle in the barracks. When I finished playing, he was silent for a while, and then loudly, so everyone could hear, told Mezentsev: "That this person you no longer put on dresses! It was not for that that God gave him such a talent that he carried parachas in the dining room. I generally wonder what he is doing in our madhouse! "I just had time to notice how badly the eye caught fire and Mezentsev's nervous face twisted. It became clear that from now on I was declared a secret, merciless war, the fault of which was ordinary human envy. The natural result of this war will be my 32 outfits on the canteen for 4 months - an absolute record for the entire time of the Ishim curriculum, worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. To start the fighting, Mezentsev needed a good reason, and he soon found him. This was the reason for drill training. The thing is that since my childhood I developed a very, very peculiar walk, which turned me into an army into a very real driller - an "pacer". "You see, Sergei, you have a leg, like a hinge, bending at the knee at every step," Tolya Frolov told me, a tall, handsome man from Kemerovo, who had been engaged in the folk dance ensemble for many years. - It is difficult to even represent your exclusive gait. In addition, you have such an inverted foot, which ballet artists can envy. Only here, in the army, this is not necessary for you, not even for sergeants. " And yet, despite everything, Sergeant Mezentsev rushed to zealously correct my drill step, not regretting either my strength or my personal time. "Rather, Mezentsev will be able to conceive and give birth than Voronin's straight leg in his knee," laughed cadet Lesha Jupitov, who received my nickname "Elderly" from my light hand for a great resemblance to eternally old actor Leonid Markov. Both Tolya Frolov and Alexei Jupitov in 1986 both successfully graduated from Kemerovo State University and for their calligraphic handwriting were soon taken on as clerks to the headquarters.
   Finally, Sergeant Mezentsev began to lose patience with me and during one of the training sessions on the parade ground imprudently called me a "fag". "You are a fagot," I answered with the words "Boy of Bananan" from the cult film of Sergei Soloviev "Assa", for which I received two outfits out of turn. So began my famous "kitchen" marathon length of 32 dresses.
   However, it was evident that there were only some outfits in the dining room for sergeant Mezentsev - it was necessary to have a convincing psychological victory over me in front of the entire battery. Being a good psychologist, Yuri decided to tie me in one bunch with the local barracks "schmuck" cadet Kelgevatov. To this end, the platoon commander began to incline the Voronin and Kelgevatov family names day in and day out before the system in order to develop a stable association of Voronin + Kelgevatov-Chmo cadets.
   Dima Kelgevatov is a white Jewish Jew, 2 meters tall, with a strange oblong, like a giant worm, with a body, narrow shoulders and an unreasonably wide pelvis. Because of his huge nose hanging down, as well as the strange manner of speaking, strongly spitting his lips, he received the nickname "turkey". And indeed, when Kelgevatov was angry, swelled and blushed, there was a complete resemblance to this fossil bird - perhaps the strangest and most absurd in the whole bird community. Dima was the son of a large construction magnate in Omsk, if one could call it in 1986 the chief of a large construction trust. In 1986, Kelgevatov successfully graduated from the law faculty of Omsk State University and even managed to work a bit on the certified position in the criminal investigation department, although, as you know, they did not take there without the army of ordinary mortals. Upon arrival in the training, Dima directly and categorically stated to us that he was not going to "drag" the soldiers' service and would soon leave us, the shameful ones, after joining the military prosecutor's office or tribunal. However, somewhere upstairs, there was an unfortunate failure, the father's agreement with the division command collapsed overnight, and Dima was forced to remain in the training until the end of the entire training period. This circumstance occasionally caused him noisy hysterical attacks, which were thoroughly taken out in the barracks: of cadets, sergeants, and our remarkable battalion commander, Captain Adamov. All these people sincerely wished that Kelgevatov's secret dream - to become a military lawyer - finally come true, and he, to everyone's joy, will forever leave Ishim. In addition, Kelgevatov treated a very caste of "shortage" in the army-he was always eating something like a rat rustling at night with candy candy wrappers, which only added unpleasant strokes to his already unappealing image.
   Neighborhood with the "schmuck" (gey) Kelgevatov in the attire for the dining room did not bother me at all. The fact is that in the dining room I was greeted by a "decision and respect" in the face of my fellow countrymen - cooks from Altai, besides fans of my musical talent. Thanks to their support, I made a fast "career", going from dishwashing to assistant chef. And now I'm already masterfully shinny salads, I'm preparing a pass for borsch and even in a businesslike way I shout at the sluggish "halls". Fed up with complaisant chefs - countrymen, I was greatly aroused for a month in a dress on a borscht and delicious crispy cutlets, so Sergeant Mezentsev, once entering the dining room, was unpleasantly surprised when instead of the expected walking corpse, Voronin, exhausted by backbreaking labor and chronic underdelivery He saw a rounded face ie very full and contented bumper. And, finally, something happened that should have happened long ago - as the English say, Yurok "lost his nerve". On one of the January days, after completing all the errands of the cook, I went to the hall for lunch. At the table, lovingly covered for a dress on the dining room, I sat alone, as everyone had a long lunch. At this time, Sergeant Mezentsev, the duty officer on battery, came into the dining room, and behind him the giant Merzhinsky ("Klitschko"). Following them at the door were my fellow countrymen cadets Sasha Kashirsky and Zhenya Myakishev. Seeing me, Mezentsev grinned angrily and loudly said: "Are you munching everything, Voronin?" I unperturbed continued to weave cutlets, paying no attention to him at all. It only infuriated the sergeant. "Stand up, Voronin, when you talk to a sergeant! - rolling his eyes screamed his "glass cutter" Mezentsev.- I see you completely "zaburel" (bad behavior), Voronin! What, the hair is already an industry? "I decided to get up, although the Charter in this situation was more than favorable to me. Continuing silently to stand at the table, with his invariably charming smile, I stroked myself over the unusually tough "hedgehog" - indeed, the hair is already quite good in the industry to turn to the services of a hairdresser. And then an unforeseen, but long-awaited event happened - this long-awaited "boilie" finally broke. As a kite, Mezentsev flew up to me and hit me with all the foolishness, but rather pushed me with the palm of his forehead. I quickly flew to the floor, and along a rather strange trajectory parallel to the ground, as the legs at the knee level were cut by a bench standing right there. Past, literally in millimeters from the temple, "whistled" the corner of the table. Then everything happened, as in a fog - it seems, I again fell into a trance. Like a cat, I easily jumped on Mezentsev's chest, wrapped it around my legs, almost like in the famous Kama Sutra position, and calmly strangled the sergeant with the collar of his jacket with the words: "Well, all right, lad, I've got to get to you, now I'll stare you. You'll rot in the dysbi, you scumbag! "With a sidelong glance I managed to notice how my" dear countrymen "Kashirsky and Myakishev" quietly "disappeared from the dining room, apparently not wanting to be dragged into this conflict; As the serpent face of Sergeant Merzhinsky froze in horror. I do not know how, but Mezentsev still managed to throw me off. He stood, frightened with his eyes, a sweat poured down his face. "Voronin, what did you call me? Yurok stammered in a trembling voice, now not a formidable sergeant, but a miserable and frightened child. - Well, nothing, we'll deal with you after the lights off! "- and, turning sharply, he almost ran out of the dining room. "Completely insolent cadets!" - quiet murmured Sergeant Merzhinsky, reproachfully shaking a huge bear's head, and a heavy walk also went to the exit. The rest of the day before the "lights out" passed for me in anticipation of the sergeant vendetta. An inflamed imagination painted heart-breaking pictures, one more beautiful than the other. And now I see myself defeated in a soldier's loo, and fierce sergeant faces bent over my lifeless body. However, everything went more than calmly and, surprisingly, pacifically. After the command "rebound" sounded in the barracks, Mezentsev summoned me to the toilet and began to explain inconsistently something, as if apologizing for his behavior. "You see, Voronin, I do not like you very much, I do not like you, I do not even know why!" "You do not like me, comrade sergeant, by the way, but it does not give me the right to beat your face! "" Today you were very aggressive in the dining room, but I would still manage with you! "" Do not grind nonsense, comrade sergeant, you yourself brought the situation to the brink. You know, when I went into the army, "I suddenly began very ingratiatingly and heartfeltly," my grandfather, a military man, a KGB colonel told me: "Serezha, learn how to tolerate insults and mockery from the military authorities in the army. Try not to pay attention to these little things of life. But there is one thing that can not be forgiven under any circumstances: it's a blow to the face. Hit the muzzle right away, without thinking, regardless of faces and titles, and not thinking about the consequences! "Until now, I have lived this way. Have I at least once responded to your verbal abuse? "" Your grandfather said correctly, "Mezentsev began to worry greatly, and from this it is somewhat confused to speak. "But you do not even know what a sergeant's job is, it's - God forbid anyone!" This is the battalion commander Adamov is a democrat, and you do not even know that all sergeant terror takes place in the battery with the knowledge and tacit consent of Adamov. He simply "rakes the heat" with our own hands. And after the "lights out" in the office of the battery from the bottom of the heart "clears" us "guzno" for you, fucking courses! "" In general, let's agree, comrade sergeant - I abruptly and fairly unceremoniously interrupted this inappropriate discussion here in the outhouse "If you hit me or any of the cadets even once, I'll write an application to the military prosecutor's office of the garrison, and you will not live to the demobilization!" Mezentsev had only six months left until the end of the service, and after a moment's thought, he agreed to my terms.
   It was a complete and unconditional surrender. In the first round I won a convincing victory, but it was too early to calm down, oh, how early! The retaliatory blow of the sergeant, in a Jesuitically mean and insidious manner, did not take long to wait. The fact is that despite the full and very effective victory, I continued to go to work in the canteen as a job. Obviously, Mezentsev was expecting that I would run off to whistle for Sergeant Ukolov, and the sergeant would at the same time fully enjoy my weakness, but then suddenly my Polish pride woke up and began to speak, and both of us, they say, "bit a bit." As my grandfather liked to say, Yurok simply "put the appliance with eggs" on the "historical order" of the good "patron" of ensign Ukolov, in order to thereby emphasize his own exclusivity and his special privileged position in the division. This "samopir" Mezentsev cost me very, very expensive.
   In December 1986, Colonel Shutov, the commander of our training division, planned a three-day outreach, which included a 40-km marchbrosok on skis in full stretch to the VAP polygon (automatic rifle artillery range), training firings and artillery exercises. In anticipation of this grandiose show, the entire barracks, like an agitated hive, began to move. All rushed to the warehouse from the old ski trash to choose more or less suitable for a hike. In the selection process, all the cadets totally quarreled - yes, that's understandable: the prospect was too frightened because of the broken skis to remain alone, in a fierce frost, in the middle of the snow-covered field. Knowing perfectly about the difficult situation with skis and the forthcoming march-throw, Mezentsev deliberately "pricked" me into another outfit on the eve, without giving me the opportunity to decently prepare for the march. Arriving late at night with a dress, tired and completely broken, I did not check equipment, but collapsed into bed and fell asleep with a deathly dream.
   Waking up early in the morning, I once again became convinced that there are no miracles in this world, and the cheerful barracks house himself, on his personal initiative, will not fix the broken attachment at my skis, "carefully" left for me by "kind" colleagues. On the day of the field trip, a good Siberian winter turned out, the thermometer fatally showed 35 degrees below zero, and a dense, dank fog descended on the city, repeatedly exacerbating the already frigid cold to the bones. But there are no goodwill and philanthropists in the army, for the commander of the training division, Shutov, did not rise to the rank of colonel, because of some despicable weather, to cancel his "tsarist" decision about the forthcoming march-throw. And now we are already skiing in the channel of the frozen Ishim River - the tributary of the great Irtysh - and we are waiting for the team: "Start the traffic". From the height of the bird's flight, the column of our division is very similar to a giant relict reptile that recklessly crawled out of its warm nest and now crouched crawl along the ice towards imminent death.
   As was to be expected, very soon my ski attachment flew off the shapeless army felt boots, and I was forced to stop. A column was pouring down from behind, rudely and very foully demanding to free the track, and skipping skiers ahead, I made an awkward step to the left, suddenly knee-deep into the river thaw; Wet skis, boots and cotton pants in the cold immediately grabbed hard ice shell, and here I am, for all the lost poor fellow, as in the famous hooligan poem, already "I stand on the asphalt in skis shod; Whether the skis do not go, whether I'm fucking ... ". The situation "neither there nor here" - you can not imagine worse. The divisional column has already disappeared in the distance, and I have not advanced a meter on my ice skis. Soon Mezentsev drove up: "What happened, Voronin?" I explained, cautiously noting at the same time that I probably should return to the regiment. On Mezentsev's pale face, a gloating smile broke out, he said with a fake pathos: "There is no way back, Voronin. Die, but catch up with the column! "- and rushed on his good skis to catch up with the division. There is nothing to do, we must go - "do not sit, but you will not be drunk." I took off my skis, took out a bayonet - a knife and began to scrape the ice off my poor wooden pieces. It became noticeably easier to go; And all the same, at each descent from the hill I was stretched out to the full height, the machine and stuffed with a junk bag every time I fell painfully beat me on the back of the head, so much so that my eyes darkened. After about an hour of uninterrupted somersaults on the snow, I suddenly saw my nose clearly, not immediately realizing that something extraordinary had happened. Busy with skis, I completely forgot about the frost, and he did not fail to remind me of himself - he froze my nose from the heart, so much so that he looked like a plum hanging in front of his eyes and covering the view of the area. I left the ravine and saw Commander Battalion Shutov standing on the hill "UAZ-469". Shutov, like two drops of water similar to the artist Georgy Zhzhenov, jumped out of the car and shouted angrily at me: "Voronin, why are you so ill prepared for service in the army? You can not do anything! "" It's to blame, Comrade Colonel, I studied, I spent the night and spent the night in libraries, and somehow I did not think about the army! "" It's bad that I did not think. And who will defend the Motherland? Everything, you are killed, completely frostbitten, now it will fall off like a syphilitic! "Immediately called the ambulance ambulance car and I received first aid. The sergeant is a paramedic who examined my frostbitten nose anxiously, and rubbed it with an alcohol swab, so that I almost jumped out of the car into the window for pain. There was a full feeling that a burning torch was brought to his face. Soon we drove up to the VAP, where I saw our battalion commander Captain Adamov. "Shitty soldier of me turned out," I said sadly to him, to which he smiled and said with sanguine fervor: "It's all right, Sergei, everything happens, the main thing is that you did not freeze your hands. They are your real treasure! "The battalion commander treated me with great piety.
    
   The thing is that Nikolai Petrovich Adamov (aka Petrovich) was a very big music lover. Often he would take me off the clothes in the dining room, and we would go with him to the soldiers' club, where I played for him for 2-3 hours on the old but well-tuned piano Tyumen, while he listened attentively and peacefully to my music, closing his eyes and thinking Judging by the blissful smile on his face, about something of his own, very pleasant. It was Adamov who agreed with the captain of the club, Captain Larin, that he often put me in an outfit for the club - the most prestigious and desired outfit in the entire training. All cadets were well aware that only being in this outfit, you can go, and without any particular risk to be "fired", into the "self-propelled" in the "Cooking" adjacent to the club and eat real, civil pancakes with meat or dried apricots, drink Coffee with milk, and then seize all this splendor with a sweet "basket". After that, pacified with a hearty and tasty meal, I loved to visit the ancient Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God, which is located nearby, and resembles a wooden miracle - a house standing in the middle of miserable, gray five-story buildings. The cozy atmosphere of the church and the divine singing of the church choir were always soothing, and from the temple I left already updated and well rested, like after a kind session of a highly paid "dollar" psychotherapist. There is a story connected with this temple, about which I want to tell and which only recently shocked me to the core. Already in the status of a police colonel and doctor of legal sciences, in 2006 I was in active service in Khabarovsk as a professor at the Far Eastern legal institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Once, while sitting in the officer's hotel, where I had to live almost 2 years, I almost jumped on the couch from surprise when in a report about the Ishim miracle I saw the painfully familiar barracks of our battery - all also standing alone in the corner of Petrof , All the same bunk beds, all the same floor rubbed with red mastic! Imagine my surprise when in the rector of the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God, Father Peter, I recognized our coach for hand-to-hand fighting in the training battalion of the Ishim artillery regiment of Captain Oleinikov Peter Ivanovich. It turns out that after resigning, he took the priest's degree, and it was in his parish that the so-called "Ishim miracle" happened that shocked the entire Orthodox world in Russia and abroad. In his interview to the journalist Moskovsky Komsomolets, Father Peter said that one autumn in 2003 he approached the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands and was overwhelmed by surprise: the image of Christ the Savior was miraculously imprinted on the glass covering the image, as on the negative of the film. The distance between the glass and the icon was about 5 cm, so the paint could not radiate and transmit the image. It could not go to glass and under the influence of heat, light. When Father Peter carefully examined the image, he found on the glass a kind of wax and oil. And then absolutely mystical things began.
   Once in Ishim, a family couple from the Lipetsk region came to visit their relatives. The guests decided to show the local "attraction" in the church. A woman, accompanied by her relatives in the church, overshadowed herself with the sign of the cross, approached the icons, lit candles beside some. Finally, she approached the icon "The Savior Not Made by Hands" and the black and white image of the Savior on the glass. At that moment, the woman shook violently, she became a man's voice in every way malign the temple and its ministers. Relatives tried to somehow rest the woman, but she burst out of her hands and screamed so that all present was uncomfortable. "The Lord obstinately prevented the obsessed woman from walking toward Himself," Father Peter told the journalist. "It became absolutely clear to me that this icon is unusual, and all that is happening around it is a very real miracle!" According to the old military habit, Father Peter immediately filed A report addressed to the Archbishop of Tobolsk and Tyumen, Father Dimitri, who detailed the facts of the event. After some time, carefully examining the icon of the "Savior of the Holy Face", Father Peter was surprised to note that the person on the glass does not belong to Jesus Christ. First, the face oval is too wide for a lean Jesus; Secondly, he has a very stern, almost ferocious look that does not fit perfectly with the Savior's habitual image and his angelic humility. Apparently, Christ will have such a face in his Second Coming to Earth. And now it's time to tell about our legendary battalion commander, Captain Adamov, our remarkable Petrovich. Nikolai Petrovich Adamov is a short, stocky man, as Sergei Esenin wrote in his famous poem "The Black Man", "though with a small but catchy strength", and the appearance of the famous film actor Andrei Rostotsky. The character of Adamov was simply "magical" for the subordinates and "disgusting" for military superiors. For the first time in my life, in the person of a battalion commander, I saw a sanguine person in a "pure" form, which, as is known, does not exist in nature. Adamov's soldiers were simply adored, and whenever he appeared in the barracks like a sun, with a beautiful baritone, uttering his famous: "Battery, sis!" (Auth. - sit down), all the cadets noticeably rose their spirits.

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   The battalion commander was a hyper-zealous man, like a hummingbird, who lives enjoying life and fragrant flower nectar, and which has nothing to do with anything that could upset her. Probably, it was for this that the Lord presented Adam with a beautiful wife with an angelic character and unconquerable female charm, to which I fell in love at the first glance, as soon as I saw her in the officer's five-story building of the Ishim regiment, where one day a messenger came running during the "alarm". Because of his independent and ironic nature, Petrovich clearly stayed on his captain's post, although he was already 35 years old, but it seems that it touched him little; In his life, he was occupied with very different things, for example, music. He possessed a fine baritone, which was not very much in tune with his small height and too youthful face. At one of the New Year's concerts we even performed a romance with him "I Met You", which he, for an amateur, performed just fine. Despite his fantastic cheerfulness, the battalion commander was absolutely not afraid of death, being a convinced fatalist.
   One day during a training exercise at the training ground in Yurga, Kemerovo Region (the largest artillery range in the Siberian Military District), a 122 mm projectile was stuck in the canal of my howitzer trunk. There was a situation, as they say, "worse than nowhere." The fact is that the projectile, which entered under the action of the powder gases, into the trunk channel, is automatically removed from the fuse and becomes cocked, ready at any second, from any touch to explode. In the instruction on combat shooting in this case it is recommended to recharge the gun with a new powder cartridge and again to fire a shot, thus pushing the projectile through the barrel channel. It is clear that this operation is extremely explosive in the literal sense of the word. Adamov without hesitation took all the calculation to a safe distance, lit a cigarette, loaded the gun with a cartridge and fired a shot, safely releasing the howitzer from such a dangerous burden. He returned to us, completely unruffled, as if nothing had happened. Exactly one year later, at the same Jurghin test site, under approximately the same circumstances, the mortar calculation was much less fortunate - the defective shell of the mine exploded in the barrel channel, killing all combat crew, that is, two men. The remains of these unfortunate guys we have long, all the division, collected in tarpaulin bags across the vast Jurga field. International Women's Day was approaching on March 8. The head of the club, Captain Larin, was preparing a festive concert, which, as usual, included the time-tested "classic" for our battery numbers: a romance for verses by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov "I'm leaving alone for the road", performed by battalion commander Adamov under my accompaniment; A song on verses by Yuri Galich performed by Lehi Jupitov, who from his student years was his devoted fan and apologist; Russian folk dance performed by Tolya Frolov. In a word, everything, as usual, is quite smooth, but also without any zest. With the local battery "shalopa" and "buzoter" Lekhoy Gryaznov, cadet from Novosibirsk, we decided to add "peppercorns" to the "presenyatinu" of the Larin, ideologically sustained concert; And make it an absolute surprise for everyone in the division.
   Alexei Gryaznov, despite his hooliganism and defiant behavior, graduated with honors from the Physics and Mathematics Department of Novosibirsk State University, which is located in Akademgorodok; Was an artillery calculator from God, beautifully sang and played the guitar. This time he decided to read poetry about the Woman. I, wishing at least a little to shock the tender audience, decided to sing my new song "Afghan Syndrome" (see phonogram 3), which due to another mezentsevsky dress on the dining room did not manage to sing at a concert dedicated to the men's holiday on February 23rd. And it's nothing that the song absolutely did not fit the theme of the concert, the main thing is to sing with the soul!

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    It was March 8, 1987. "I announce the concert dedicated to the international women's day open!" - solemnly announced the head of the club Larin, and a festive concert began. Everything went smoothly until the time when I did not stick to the program of performances with my "Down syndrome". I stepped onto the stage and began to sing quietly this existential capella full of passion and accusatory anger:
   "And in his hands was a machine gun,
   And he has an excellent mate in his tongue.
   On the belt, the grenade was flirting,
   And he threw it at his colleague! "- then I sat down abruptly at the piano and, almost breaking to scream, began to sing aloud to my accompaniment a heart-rending refrain of the song:
   "He did so and the earth was uplifted in the heavens,
   He did so and a man flew to heaven,
   Whom they called an enemy! "- after that I was completely included in the" rage "and, with an even greater tear, not letting the audience come to my senses, continued to force up passions. There was a grave silence in the hall, then someone "liquid", very pathetically clapped; These claps were supported by officers, at first timidly, then more confidently; Applause began, and soon, cadets and soldiers of the "constant" gave me a real ovation, applauding loudly and shouting: "Bravo!"
   It was Lehi Gryaznov's turn. He stepped onto the stage with a confident gait of the real artist of the colloquial genre, pictured Alexander Pushkin in a pose (he lacked only his famous sideburns) and began his congratulatory verse, apparently of his own composition, dedicated to women:
   "Half a pound of truth, a pud of treachery,
   Three grams of faithfulness, a pood of evil,
   Insolence of 10 kilograms,
   Pretense 22 buckets.
   1/8 grams of honor,
   And the constancy of one gram,
   Three tons of greed for money.
   Now put it all together,
   Add fools two buckets,
   Put everything in a cold place,
   And here's a woman's soul! "- it is clear that after such poetry Lehe no one, especially the female audience, did not applaud, but a grand scandal broke out. The fact is that the poet did not like the poems of the commander of our training battalion Shutov. We did not know then, and we could not have known about the family tragedy of the unhappy Colonel-his wife was a complete hysterical person, also a schizophrenic patient. With her right there, at the concert, there was another fit of hysteria; She demanded to punish, to tear, to tear down Gryaznov for the fact that he publicly dared to insult and disgrace all women of the planet Earth, and even when - on their most sacred, sacred Day of March 8! The scandal somehow managed to be hushed up, but the joke of the raging wife of Shutov, finally, led out of the hall.
   "What have you done, Sergey?" said the head of the Larin club after the concert, with condemnation and obvious resentment. "After all, your battalion commander Adamov has already agreed with everyone to be left behind after training by a projectionist in my club." Now you can forget about this - the regiment commander and Colonel Shutov even do not want to hear about it. How did you come up with the idea - to perform such a pacifist song in the midst of the Afghan war? Now you will go to the troops, and Gryaznov and even further - the leadership decided to send him to serve in the DRA. " This was an extraordinary decision for our artillery regiment - although our training unit, especially the mortar battery, purposefully prepared teams for the so-called reserve of the General Staff sent to Afghanistan, there was an unspoken command of the army command not to send persons having higher education to the combat area. In this case, apparently, the authorities were guided by sound logic that it is very costly for the state to turn "finished" specialists into "cannon fodder" in this stupid, unnecessary war. It turned out that the initiator of this "auto-da-fefe" over Lekhoy Gryaznov was the crazy wife of Shutov, who achieved her full, constant "rolls" on her weak-willed and indecisive husband - Lehu, indeed, sent to serve in Afghanistan as a gun commander. Fortunately, he returned from there alive and healthy, besides having combat awards. They decided to send me to serve in their native places in the Altai; What is called, "under the garden" - in the Biysk motorized infantry division.
   The Guards training of the Ishim artillery regiment will forever remain in my memory as an example of a real Russian army, as it should ideally be everywhere in our great Fatherland. It was then assembled all the color of Russian officers, its most advanced and educated detachment - the artillery brotherhood, which was able to achieve the fact that in 1987 the training in all indicators was recognized as the best military unit in the Siberian Military District. Of course, it was not without cunning and soldier's wit.
   So, the battalion commander Adamov told me in great secret how they, the officers of the Ishim regiment, began to prepare very carefully, in advance, for the autumn draft company. It was decided to collect in the training division of persons with higher education, mainly Siberians. To this end, secret dispatches were sent to all military enlistment offices in Siberia, which, they say, is being recruited into "elite" troops, with the request to organize a thorough check of candidates at their place of residence. And I was still wondering why our district police officer in Barnaul went and frightened my neighbors, asking them in detail about my way of life, character and bad habits. It is thanks to this fine military team that the Guards Artillery Regiment has long enjoyed the deserved respect and love of the local population in Ishim. I felt this fully, when in March 1987 I "roared" to the city hospital (in Ishim there was no military hospital) with acute sinusitis - a natural and quite expected consequence of that unsuccessful march-throw. Women in the hospital surrounded me with such love and affection that I was very surprised if in the morning I did not find on my bedside table the next home sweets and delicacies, which every day brought me from all the chambers of caring mothers. During the entire existence of the training during the "dismissal" in the city there was not a single serious emergency involving cadets. The situation was quite different in the neighboring regiment of internal troops guarding the special regime colony for especially dangerous repeat offenders, stationed in the city and known for its electronic products in the USSR, namely, the Ishim-003 amplifier and the iron loudspeaker-the so-called "bell" , Hung out in those still glorious Soviet times on poles in villages, pioneer camps, schools and military units. But the guys, in fact, were not to blame for being served in such a "green" place; Meanwhile, the local population fiercely hated the "reddish", so the soldiers were released into the city in large groups of 10 people and only accompanied by an officer. Day after day during the construction, we read out orders and reports of terrible suicides or failed attempts to commit suicide by soldiers of the internal troops committed directly on the towers during the guard duty. At such moments, I always happily noted to myself - how could I, still, be lucky that I came to serve just here, and after all my military grandfather, though in all sincerity, wanted to "prat" me into the guard of the detention center of the city of Barnaul , Using all of their front-line regalia and communications in the organs of state security. Fortunately, then in the USSR military commissariats strictly observed the principle of extraterritoriality, and all conscripts without exception were sent to other regions - to serve away from home. Thus my six months ended with a "new", in general a happy, soldier's life and now I had to learn a completely different army.
   In the motorized rifle division of the city of Biysk, located south of Barnaul in two hours by car, we went three: I, Sasha Kashirsky and Zhenya Myakishev - all fellow countrymen from Altai. On the way, Myakishev, a very exalted and restless young man, swore to me in eternal friendship and devotion, repeating like an endless mantra: "Seryoga, we will not hurt anyone in the troops!" I just smiled back, perfectly remembering the behavior of "dear Countrymen "during my fight with Mezentsev.
   In Barnaul, we arrived on May 8, 1987 - it was a warm May day on the eve of the great Victory Day, and the train to Biysk was still 3 hours long. I decided to visit my grandfather and grandmother. The old men were delighted with my arrival, the grandfather proudly and with great piety stroked my sergeant shoulder straps, with the genuine interest of the military man looking at my brand-new "parade" (before graduation we were given a completely new uniform, Cried, lamenting and complaining pitifully that she would still be stolen from us in the troops on the first day - so it, incidentally, happened). "Suitable, Serega! It's fitting! "Repeated the satisfied grandfather, reviewing my army photos from the training, which I, just in case, decided to leave with the old people in Barnaul (and very correctly did, otherwise they would have suffered the sad fate of the" parade "in the troops). Grandmother told me the latest news of the family chronicle - Aunt Rita married a very talented artist and sculptor Vasily Rublev, having moved to live in his master workshop in Sulema - "sleeping" area of ??the city of Barnaul. Eugene's cousin specifically "disappeared" with a girl from the machine-building technical school Oksana Tislenko and in his incomplete 18 years already seriously thinking about getting married. In general, life was going on in its usual way, and nobody cares about my army experiences, in which all my personal History and all my unique army-pre-Army experience were pressed by Time. We arrived in Biisk early in the morning on May 9th. I used to visit many times in this ancient merchant town, by the way, very similar to Ishim. Probably, they are all alike - these Siberian merchant cities. Once in the army, in contrast to the noble training, it seemed to me that I was in some incredible, pretty surrealistic, panoptic of human characters and types. From the characters of the third artillery town, stationed near the station, directly opposite the famous Biysk Boiler Plant (the so-called production association Sibenergomash), it was possible to collect with success the local museum of the Kunstkamera (with the Altai coloring) "). And the scene of our acquaintance with the inhabitants of the local barracks on the very first day of arrival in the Biysk artillery regiment is very reminiscent of the well-known scene in the prison cell from the Soviet comedic opera "Gentlemen of Fortune", only with a unique Caucasian accent.
   Everything that happened around seemed like an incredible, simply unthinkable theater of the absurd. We go with Kashirsky and Myakishev like zombies, pulling their heads in the shoulders, between the rows of "one-story" armor beds on which monkeys sit, the most real apes, such as gorillas or orangutans - pretty overgrown with hair in front and behind, publishing some creepy Monkey roar instead of articulate human speech. One of them, apparently a Chechen, scratched his chest with a crunch, scrutinizing with interest the large clump of wool that fell out from there and trying to find the lost mandalos in it, loudly but lazily growled after us: "Er, sergeant, soon veshatsya budesh, look for a rope !! You still do not understand where I've got to, uebische? "It's all for nothing that he says, absolutely in vain - I've already understood everything very well; And, from the very first moment of my stay in this "amazing" place, I understood.
   On the "nightstand", right on the course, is a two-meter-high Russian man, his heroic complex very similar to Sergeant Merzhinsky ("Klitschko") - orderly on the division, to which the Tajik, who passed by with a towel suddenly jumped up, looks like a well-known Hollywood actor Dani De Vito, and dealt an exact blow to the verze right in the solar plexus. He only grunted loudly and limply sat on the nightstand, without saying a word, although the bayonet-knife was threateningly hanging on the belt. In the evening, the big man surrendered his attire and, sitting on the bed, right in front of my bunk, said softly and wearily, as if in a void: "Tomorrow is a" demobilization! "Everyone has arrived! A creepy "oil painting" was finished - by the Creator, the Devil - I do not know, but still completely finished and put on public display! I was finally overwhelmed by this new, for me, terrible, simply absurd reality.
   And for tomorrow there was even more interesting, very cognitive acquaintance with our immediate superiors - people no less exotic than the wild inhabitants of the barracks. In the morning I was summoned to the rendezvous to the headquarters of the regiment, where the chief of staff of the regiment, Major Skorobogatov, was solemnly introduced to his new division commander, Major Bukhteev. We must immediately clarify that the division is "sounds too proud" for such a "funny" army, which was Biysk "framed" artillery regiment. "Cropped" means a regiment that unfolds to the size of a conventional military unit only in wartime conditions. In peacetime, one half of the officer is half the soldier. It's especially funny to see what the alarm looks like in the "framed" parts: zapoloshnye officers are fleeing (for some reason they were called "jackals" in Biisk), holding huge suitcases with documentation for reservists; All this team of military clowns is lining up on the parade ground, and two officers of the regiment with suitcases have one cripple - a soldier, a real "servant of two masters."
   Major Bukhteev, a short bald fat man, looking like a small funny boar, with a woman's appearance and the voice of "Castrati Farinelli," immediately solemnly announced to me that since I am a lawyer, he will trust me with the most delicate tasks in running the division. By the big secret, confidentially, almost like a friend, Bukhteev told on the "ear" that very soon I would be entrusted with a very responsible mission - to deal with a certain sergeant Dzagoev, who the other day should return from Novosibirsk disciplinary (auth. - disciplinary battalion). I pictured a cheerful face from such unprecedented confidence in me and assured the major that we, of course, would "work together", and I will do everything necessary for the benefit of the "native" division. Bakhteev's pederast face lit up with a joyful smile, and he, like a bobber, rolled into the barracks to boast before the officers in the division's office as a valuable personnel acquisition for his "amusing" army. "He does not know who he's gotten into yet, nerd!" - I thought evil at that moment and after Buchteev left the headquarters. There, near the headquarters, I saw another remarkable character from our division - Major Cherkasov nicknamed "Cadet", since in his distant childhood he graduated from the Moscow Suvorov School.
   Cherkasov with his appearance and charisma was very similar to Generalissimo Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich, only "severely tormented by narzan." There was not a day that the drunken Cadet did not get into various unpleasant stories with the massacre and the "members of the party," so Major Bukhteev long ago reconciled himself with the inevitable and uncomplainingly went to the Biysk regional police stations to rescue his irrepressible colleague, almost like a job.
   Major Cherkasov was very disliked in the barracks. His alcohol-mutilated brain sometimes performed such pirouettes that it was absolutely impossible to predict. Especially terrible was the "Cadet", who took charge or on duty in the regiment. And it looked something like this: the soldiers in Biysk, unlike the "correct" Ishim training, did not go to bed immediately after the "lights out", and for a while they wandered about the barracks, smoked and loudly fluttered. No one knew that behind the doors of the barracks at this time a real storm is ripening, a fierce tornado. Suddenly the door to the barracks opened and a "magic" flying stool flew into the room like a cult Italian film director Federico Fellini, suddenly, out of nowhere, motorcyclists, cyclists and other moving objects appeared in the frame. "So that's Fyodor Fellini," - you will say, but here, in the barracks, Vova Cherkasov - "himself a director"! Well, if you managed to dodge a flying stool, and if not? Himself followed the stool to the barracks. Instantly calmed down "khachiki" embarked on a trick - they started quietly from different corners of the barracks, chanting in an undertone: "Cherkasov chmo, Cherkasov - schmuck!" Eventually, the Cadet could not stand it, snatched a pistol out of its holster and ran like a madman , Between soldiers' beds, began to roar with a wild voice: "Yes I am schmuck, I am a schmuck, but let at least one fagodar come out and tell me this in person!" This show, as a rule, ended before the next "Cadet" watch.
   Surprisingly, all but Caucasian - Asian herd, as indeed all of Russia, was "successfully" ruled by only two Jews: the commander of the unit, Colonel Yelsukovich and his right hand, is Lt. Col. Korotich. This was the real "Jewish kingdom", as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky rightly called it, where all the leadership was represented at the top by Moscow Jews - graduates of the capital's military schools, and below - drunk and concussed, and therefore well-run by Russian officers from Siberia and the Urals . The only cherished dream of Colonel Yelsukovich was to quickly leave the "accursed Siberia", especially unbearable after a prestigious and comfortable service in the GSPV (auth - a group of Soviet troops in Germany). The transfer promised to him in the Moscow military district was too prolonged for completely incomprehensible reasons, which caused Yelsukovich frequent fits of bouts, followed by noisy hysterics. It was clearly smacked by a serious psychiatric clinic - such idiocy, which suited the commander of the regiment, it is difficult even for himself to imagine to the uninitiated. Trying at least something to occupy himself (and his family categorically refused to move to Biysk, remaining to live in Moscow), he arranged for the soldiers to rise at 3 o'clock in the morning, absurd night inspections in the barracks; Spent hours in ambush near the checkpoint, trying to catch the "autocrat". Do not lag behind him and Korotich, competing with the regiment commander in the number of captured after the "lights out" soldiers. Our "amusing" division, led by the "castrato" Buchteev, numbered only 6 people and was a "powerful" international team: two Russians - I and driver Sasha Shevelev, two Azerbaijanis - Aladdin and Vagif, one completely "frozen" Chechen - Jamalov, One wild half-turkey - a Tuvinian - Sayan-Ool. "Oil painting" was soon to be supplemented by Ossetians Dzagoev, whose return from the battalion was so eagerly awaited by the whole regiment. "Nothing, sergeant, Dzagoev will come soon, he'll show you!" Aladdin, who I just "propresed" for some household trifle, frightened me. This Wizard of the "Thousand and One Nights" concurrently "worked" as a "Baghdad thief", trying to "clean" me on the first night of being in the barracks. And it was so.
   Already warned of barrack theft, flourishing flourishing in Biysk (everything was stolen here-towels, footcloths, filing, even the missing English notebook that I started to prepare for the entrance examination for postgraduate study was soon found to be used for a "direct" appointment in a soldier's Toilet) before going to bed I put a military ticket with the money under the pillow. I woke up late at night with an uneasy feeling, as if an insect had crawled into my ear. Someone was obviously fumbling under my pillow in search of money. Looking under the bed, I saw there lying a prone subject in his pants and a T-shirt. My first wish was to hit the soldier standing on the nightstand with a decanter on the head, but I changed my mind - I did not want to begin with such a serious incident on the first day of my stay. I pretended that I fell asleep and carefully followed where the night thief would go. The thief crawled under the beds, collecting all the dust, and pretending to come back from the toilet, lay down on the edge of the bed. All clear! It was Aladdin Hasanov. I pretended not to notice anything, hiding before the time. Knowledge is always a formidable, very powerful weapon that you must be able to use in a timely manner!
   Another circumstance began to greatly complicate my army life in Biysk - a suddenly awakened libido. The fact is that in the training this problem did not exist at all - physical activities were too great to think about "beautiful". Here, the hot July sun and the lack of full-fledged physical activities have made their artful work - my loins overflowed with life juice, and the "fatigued by the sun" flesh more and more insistently and unceremoniously demanded its own. And the appropriate case for this did not take long. Once our battalion commander Captain Shirokov sent me to the central warehouse of the artillery regiment for rags for the division's guns. The chief of the warehouse was a very full ensign of Lusia, for 30 years; With a pockmarked ugly face and a rather comical gait of "duck", which usually go all the full women of the world. I went into a stuffy, sun-warmed warehouse, and asked Lucy for a rag. The woman went into the back room and in her short uniform skirt very indiscreetly, too low, bent down behind the rag, revealing her magnificent "facade", tightly covered with clean white linen. In my head it became dull, and I, not long thinking like a cowboy, nimbly saddled Lyusya, drowning her pock-marked face in a dirty dusty rag. And as soon as the poor woman was not suffocated ?!
   When everything was over, the ensign said thoughtfully, lighting a cigarette: "There have not been such brazen soldiers in our regiment yet!" "I'm sorry ... those," I said embarrassedly, and fastening my trousers, hurried to the exit. "Wait, soldier, you forgot rags - oh, you; Completely forgot what he came for, mormyshka, "Lusia laughed without acrimoniousness, and I realized that the incident had been exhausted. We did not see her again in an intimate atmosphere; However, according to the coquettish views of other ensigns in the regiment, I realized that our little erotic adventure, thanks to Luce, was made public.
   Captain Shirokov, commander of the "conventional" battery of our "conditional" division - the next remarkable character in our narrative - we also met under very exotic circumstances. And it was so.
   Somehow the battalion commander stepped in on duty and led our monkey flock to dinner. It always looked about the same: the dining-room doors burst open with a noise, and the "hachiki" roared with a roar to the food-stuffed casks, pulling out the most delicious pieces of meat and pouring out the disgustingly cooked soup on the table and the fat floor. Shirokov tried at least somehow to sort out this chaotic "Brownian" movement, but this was not the case - the "beasts", as usual, had snapped up the most edible part of this so-called soup. Without waiting for me to leave the hungry day, even without sweets, I ran my hand into a plate of sugar and grabbed a handful of "white deaths." Immediately followed by a blow with a logarithmic ruler on the head - not so much it hurt, how much is insulting. "Voronin, you're a lawyer, what kind of example do you give to young people?" Said Captain Shirokov reproachfully. "You know, it's you, officers, who are to blame for all this mess! We in the training did not even dream of that. Turned the soldiers into a herd of pigs, the real pigs! "- with indignation, almost like Clim Samghin on the barricade, I pushed the diatribe in front of my astonished soldier's eloquence. Mikhail Shirokov silently looked at me with a strange, studying look and went to another table. As always, in this chaos I did not get a tablespoon. I went to the cook for a spoon. Near the boiler there was a huge two-meter cook - an Armenian with a scoop in his hands. Remembering how we were taught to address the junior military servicemen in the training, I approached him and asked sternly: "Comrade soldier, I did not get a dinner spoon!" From amazement, the thick, dense arched eyebrows of the Armenian crawled upward. With one hand he grabbed me by the breasts, he easily tore me off the ground, so that in the air, without support, I kept on chattering in inertia, and started to slap me on the head with a scoop, saying: "Comrade soldier, comrade sergant, on You spoon, on, bitch! "Sparks sprang from his eyes, was terribly offensive and ashamed of his helpless condition. Suddenly the Armenian put me on the ground - captain Shirokov came into the cook, suspecting something was wrong. "Voronin, what's going on here?" He asked, looking at my disheveled look. "Nothing happened, Comrade Captain, I just went for a spoon," - cheerfully, as far as possible, I answered, and the cook obligingly gave me a tablespoon. Shirokov looked suspiciously at both of us, and without saying anything, he left the cook. Two days later the Armenian approached me on the parade ground with a guilty look and apologized: "I did not know that you are a lawyer, such an adult guy. Thank you for not giving me the jackal. If you need any help, feel free to contact me "- we hit on the hands and parted, pleased with ourselves.
   Eating food in the Biysk artillery regiment has always been an existential measure - the most real struggle for survival. Of the 55 soldiers in the regiment, only 7 had Slavic roots. My "dear countrymen" Myakishev and Kashirsky got into the neighboring Caucasian division and, forgetting about their road vows, not wanting to complicate their already difficult life, completely "lay down" under the Chechens (I do not blame them for that - in this situation everyone Survives as best he can). I, as always, stayed all alone, once again proving to everyone that, after all, even "one is a warrior in the field".
   Once, during lunch, I as always was without bread, meat and butter. With hungry rage looking at the chomping "beasts", I, without thinking twice, blatantly ran my hand into the plate of a bald Azeri named Azer, appetizingly tasting pieces of delicious beef - the grown-up of those sitting at a table very similar to the legendary Said from the cult Soviet film "White Sun of the desert. " Azer fled from the table in fury and with the words: "I'm your mother, I ... I'm your dad," - I did not hit my jaw very hard. "And I'll f ...", I said, and overturned the tank with the already cooled soup right on his head. All the "beasts" sitting at the table: Uzbeks, Tajiks, Ingush - jumped up from behind the table and surrounded me, began to poke me with spoons from all sides. "I'll drop you all, rams, into the disciplinary battalion!" I shouted in fury, brushing them away with a scoop. At this time, the orderly on Major Cherkasov arrived (this time very even in time), which radically stopped these "riots" in the dining room. After the "lights out", Azer summoned me to the toilet (Lord, yes, I probably have deja vu!), And began his insinuating "Persian" speech: "Voronin, do you know whom you raised your hand today? I am Iranian, Persian! "The newly-born Aryan proudly said. "Something I did not hear about such nationality in the USSR -" Iranian ", - I said. - Azer, and why did you first insult my parents? I have an "iron" rule - in such cases, immediately hit the muzzle! "" Okay, sergeant, I'm sorry, I did not know that you are so sharp. I, like you, graduated from a very good university, only in Baku. And I respect you, you - well done, did not get scared! Know that I am here - in great "authority"; If anything, please, always help, than I can! "- so, once again, this foolish" food "conflict ended - beautifully, bloodlessly - as they say," a lot of noise from nothing".
   In July 1987, our regiment commander, a born Moscow mercantile Yelsukovich, decided to earn a "bride money" for us - for three weeks he "sold" me and another 10 soldiers to the Sibpribormash defense enterprise in Bii. These were, truly, golden days. Three weeks of civilian feeding in coupons in the factory canteen, as well as the opportunity on the way back to take a walk around the city (in the morning for the soldiers the administration of the plant served a bus to the military unit) - it's worth a lot! The management of the enterprise has identified us in the most "problematic" shop for producing the so-called "Druzhba-1" chainsaw, which is so necessary for the national economy (our humorous people have long since called "Friendship-2" an ordinary two-handed saw). "Problem" this shop was because it had the lowest prices in the entire "SibpriborMash", therefore in this shop only older women, students of the CCP agreed to work and now we, the soldiers are a free labor. Surprisingly, I do not know why, but this, in general, is an insignificant event in my life, has firmly sunk into my subconscious, and after a quarter of a century I sometimes dream about this shop chainsaw and the new shroud of the secret "galvanic" shop adjoining it. Indeed, the secrets of the human subconscious are incomprehensible!
   In the workshop we were met by a drunk man Peter, aged 50, nicknamed Petruccio. Of course, there was little Italian in it, except for the desire to have something to drink. However, unlike Italian gourmets, Petruccio exuded around himself such a smell of "ambre", as if it were some kind of "goodwill" - the painters were painstakingly painted from the inside with an extremely toxic acetone paint. Petruccio once served as a major in the autobat in the Biysk motorized rifle division, retired and settled in the most prestigious shop at Sibpribormash, a galvanic shop in which the salary of workers at that time a month was from 500 rubles and more. For his alcoholic tricks, the administration of the company periodically chastised Petruccio with a ruble, transferring it for a certain period to a low-paid sawmill shop. He did not want to work there at all, so he was very happy when he saw soldiers sent to help him. This event he decided to note with pomp, and before I had time to look back, how 5 of the 10 of my soldiers (I was appointed commander of the regiment to the senior group) were drunk, making a disgusting smell of acetone around him. It turns Petruccio treated them with his trademark "ambrosia nectar", prepared from the glue "BF". To do this, a pinch of common salt is thrown into the glue jar as an absorbent, the contents of the jar are shaken well, and the rubber glue ball formed from the "cherished" alcohol-containing liquid is removed. I was just horrified! "You all will die, you idiot!" I shouted angrily at the drunken soldiers, and Petruccio just smirked with a drunken grin and calmly calmed me down: "Nothing will happen, we have been drinking glue here for three years and nothing." He could not rejoice at me. The fact that I really liked the work on assembling the chainsaw - the most skilled operation in this shop, and I gave out two rates per shift - "for myself and for that guy." For this, after a delicious lunch in the factory canteen, I was supposed to have an afternoon nap. I went to the warehouse of finished products and, covered by a dirty rag, under the roar of the chainsaw that the inspector tested, was forgotten by a deep, but somehow painful dream. I always woke up from the same thing - from all sides, with all the foolishness I was "hammered" by factory mosquitoes - some horrible alien mutants, who learned to live and multiply in solid gasoline pairs.
   But the most remarkable thing in this short-term business trip was, of course, the way back from the factory. Before reaching my military unit, I went out at the tram stop "Stadium" Lokomotiv "and confidently walked to the recreation center located here" Chemists ". I already knew that in this DC there is a beautiful concert grand piano of red color. I found him once on stage, during the next "self-drive" (at that time, I remember, I had to walk quickly, courtyards, from the military patrol, like the legendary black-brown fox "Domino", looping and deftly trailing the track among monotonous "Khrushchev" "), Shook with joy, as a drug addict in anticipation of the long-awaited" dose ", and for two hours absolutely fell out of reality. The sound engineer of the club jumped to the sounds of music from the back room, but after seeing the "wretched" soldier at the piano, he left without saying a word. With his tacit consent, being in the "self-propelled", I often began to "zarulivat" to his red Savior, in order to surrender entirely to his Muse for at least an hour. It was there, at the Khimikov House of Culture, that I composed my most complex polyphonic, with a very intricate polyrhythmic drawing, the work Fantasy on the Theme of George Gershwin, which for two decades has not ceased to amaze and shock the astonished listeners (see phonogram 4).
   Finally, the main "event of the year" took place - Private Dzagoev returned from Novosibirsk's battalion. The Caucasians of the Biysk regiment arranged a noisy meeting for their "well-deserved" countryman, and Aladdin, like a snake, hissed maliciously: "Well, all, sarge, now you'll hang!" By that time, I was already a seasoned fighter - where I lacked strength in the struggle With adversity, cope cunning, which I was always not to borrow, so it was difficult to surprise me with something, much less frighten. And in general, than it is possible to frighten the person who since the childhood as the native being, not only is not afraid, but deeply respects and esteems Her Majesty Death, perceiving it as the Beginning of a new Life!
   Dzagoev "king", accompanied by the "court suite" went into the barracks and, as on the royal throne, sat on a bed carefully guarded by the "six" on duty. Aladdin Hasanov immediately ran to him obsequiously and diligently began to pull off his boots, whispering something in his ear, conspiratorially pointing at me. I looked with curiosity at this famous hero of the army "comics", which for extortion and robbery in the barracks for a year "thundered" in the disciplinary battalion. It was a tall, athletic-built Ossetian, in front and behind, densely overgrown with hair, with obvious traces of degeneration on the face (subsequently my observations were fully confirmed by the act of a stationary forensic psychiatric examination conducted in the framework of another criminal case - schizophrenia). "That's what I'll tell you, my sons," he generously treated the grateful listeners with cheap sweets from the soldier's tea-room, he began his very instructive story. - There is no place more terrible than the Novosibirsk disbat. Who passed it, Buchenwald is not afraid of that. There are sergeants such beasts, such beasts! "Then I immediately remembered actor Alexander Kalyagin as a drunk aunt Charlie in the movie" Hello, I am your aunt ":" There, in Brazil, there are so many wild monkeys. They like to jump! "The soldiers, fascinated by the story, looked reverently at their idol. From the very beginning of his appearance in the barracks, Dzagoev began to establish his informal leadership in the division. Intuitively feeling that I'm dealing with an inadequate person, I chose tactics of non-interference, for the time being not getting involved in an inevitable conflict with a crazy Ossetian. This I finally angry and disappointed Major Bukhteev, who was waiting for me to act actively, or rather to say "stool", despised in the national army at all times and all peoples. The commander "boughed" from morning till night, fully justifying his name; As always, breaking down on the falsetto of the "castrati Farinelli." "Fuck you, and not a report, an" unfortunate hanger "!" I thought sullenly, standing in the office of the division in the next session of Bukhteev's marasmus, looking curiously at the "castrate", which was roused by my own cry.
   As expected, my inaction led to the fact that Dzagoev finally became impudent. He began to shit me constantly, for any reason, by any means. He could steal from me a cap, one handkerchief, one boot - in general, did everything so that I finally lost my "nerve". I was ready for this development of events, as I was already "tempered" by barrack thefts - in such cases I either went to the next division, or to the captain of our same division and stole the missing object there. Looking at this quiet confrontation and clearly sympathizing with me, Sasha Shevelev, the driver of our division, said somehow: "Voronin, how much can you tolerate the antics of Dzagoeva - you either fuck with him, or complain to Bukhteev. After all, this can not continue for so long, the people in the division were completely out of control and insolent due to the lack of power! "" All in good time, Sasha, I know what I'm doing! "" Well, well, let's see! "Skevelev said skeptically and went In the fleet to his beloved "Mustang" - the car "Ural", in which he carefully touched and washed every little screw with his own hands. In the end, I managed to completely dull the vigilance of Dzagoeva, and the phase of active hostilities began.
   One morning after the divorce, we with Shevelev and Sayan-Ool went to the division's park. As is known, the main task of the framed regiment is to maintain the equipment, which is on a long-term conservation, in the proper condition. In other words, to ensure that our 18 152-mm D-1 howitzers and 18 Ural cars are always ready to disengage from the pads on which they hang without traffic, sometimes for five years or more, and move forward with a confident column to the scene of hostilities. On this day, with Shevelev and Sayan-Ool, as usual, we were engaged in the logistics division - our auto repair shop (auto - materially technical support). In the logistics are workbenches, lathe, drills and other tools needed for repairing tools and vehicles. Soon the imposing Dzagoev landed in the park with the apparent intention of the full program, finally, deal with me. Climbing the stairs to the MTO booth, he did not waste time on unnecessary diplomatic passes, and like Hitler, without declaring war, decided to immediately attack me. "Now I'm you, chmoe!" He shouted and inflicted two precise, rather painful blows to me. One blow hit my right eye and cut my eyebrow, the second blow - into the left ear, so much so that from it, as usual in such cases, a fountain sprinkled blood. Dzagoev stopped, looking dumbfounded at the red fountain that was beating from my auricle. My eyes darkened, I grabbed a heavy hammer from the workbench and stabbed Dzagoev in the chest. He crouched, after which, with a powerful kick of his foot, I pushed the pernicious Ossetian out of the booth of the MTO, so much so that he, with all the swing, "rattled" the pelvic bone to the ground from a height of about 1.5 meters. Promptly jumping down from the stairs to the lying Dzagoeva, I began to twist his ears with great pleasure: "Ah, it hurts, my ears, my ears!" Dzagoev chuckled, and I immediately let them go. "Seryozha, yes, enough, all, calm down, you're a man, enough for him!" Shouted Shevelev, along with Sayan-Ool, dragging Dzagoev and me in different directions. "Next time I'll kill you, monkey!" - breathing heavily, I croaked maliciously. "Voronin, I respect you, because you are" old "; I came here to tell you about it, and you flew at once, "Dzagoev mournfully complained, and staggered out of the park, rubbing his long-suffering ears as he walked.
   It was a victory - an absolute, convincing victory of the spirit over the insidious and extremely dangerous enemy! After this incident, Shevelev looked at me with obvious respect and pride for the Russian nation, which, once again, in my face, proved its fighting ability and unbending will to Victory! Sasha, as well as me, was brought up by his parents - Siberians in the best traditions of the Russian army, so he knew the taste and price of such Victory very well. He was born and raised in the Siberian village of Shushenskoye, which is in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which is well-known for the fact that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was there in his time in exile. In Shushenskiy, as far as I know, local peasants are still fighting "on the wall" on holidays, and some of them, especially desperate, as before their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, go alone to bear.
   Sasha, perhaps, was the only living soul in this crazy house called "biysk artillery regiment". Especially we became friends with him, a driver from God, on the exercises in the Gobi desert, where we went with the division in the summer of 1987. It was in all senses a memorable voyage - a true esoteric journey through sacral sites of truly planetary significance. Here is just one, a small sketch from this trip, so that the reader could understand what I'm talking about.
   As soon as we cross the border crossing in the village of Naushki, located 250 km from the capital of Buryatia, Ulan-Ude, we find ourselves in a very strange and very mysterious country of Mongolia. Our course is the South Gobi aimak, and, in short, the great Gobi desert. The Gobi is one of the greatest deserts of the world. It stretched a huge arc for 1600 km - from Northern China to southeast Mongolia. The name itself in the Mongolian language means a deserted, waterless and barren terrain. Since ancient times, this area was known as the desert of Shamo. Its area is 1.5 million km and its territory is approximately equal to Alaska. For nearly 65 million years, these desert regions have remained virtually waterless and unchanged. For so long, ferocious winds blew tons of sand from the surface and exposed the bones of prehistoric dinosaurs, attracting the attention of scientists from all over the world.
   This sacred place of the Earth, being the natural boundary of the inhabited world, still remains absolutely clean today from the presence of man, and only for a short time, limited by water reserves, scientific research expeditions penetrate here; Moreover, we are the ubiquitous military. Perhaps, this is the most sparsely populated place of the Earth at the present time.
   For example, in South - Gobi aimak of Mongolia only 47 thousand people live. And it is especially surprising that here, on the edge of the Light, in the most desolate place of the planet, Russian handsome - Siberian Sasha Shevelev almost met his Destiny.
   The girl Tanya, to which Sasha soon so "sunk", we met on the way to the administrative center of the South Gobi aimak Dalanzadgad, which translated from the Mongolian translates as "the city of 70 wells." We marched last (in the army it is customary to say "extreme" from superstition) in the column of the divisional "Ural", when they saw the charming Russian girl voting on the road, and did not believe their eyes - where from here, in this desolate place such a miracle? I ordered Sasha to stop. The girl asked us to take her to Dalanzadgad. I squeezed in the cockpit, the girl sat next to me, and we went to catch up with the column. Tanya (as we introduced herself as a girl) was born and grew up in Dalanzadgade in the family of the descendants of Russian emigrants - the so-called "Semenovites" who came to Mongolia back in those days when the white movement in Transbaikalia was headed by Ataman Semyonov. She was a mestizo, since her mother is a purebred Mongolian, and her father is Russian. However, Russian genes still overpowered the Mongolian, and Asian blood only slightly added a subtle, elusive charm of a bright Slavic appearance. Such girls in Russia are called "semenovkami", and I remember how our demoniac Zampolit Lieutenant-Colonel Korotich, like Dr. Goebbels, yelled at his idiotic political studies: "Do not let God contact you in Mongolia with these" seed-seeds "! These are the real vrazhin, terry counterrevolution, convinced anti-Soviet! "And now this" vrazhina "sits in our cab, cheerfully chirping in the purest Russian, and to us from its presence it becomes so good, so cozy that it does not happen! We have been going for a long time on this lifeless desert, looking at which come to mind the ingenious words from the poem by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov: "The desert takes care of God!" What exactly do they convey the essence of this cosmic phenomenon! Outside the window, rocky mountains, clay and stony hammades flash; Our car hardly climbs the next steep mountain, going round a vast hollow with a rare, burnt out on a merciless (in the summer in the Gobi +40, in the winter -40 degrees Celsius), the sun is an oasis. Here Tanya asks Sasha to stop in need, and, quite unconcerned with us, pulls up the hem and trustingly, childlike, squats right next to the "Urals". We continue the movement. Tanya looks thoughtfully at the surrounding lunar landscape and says: "Do you want me to tell you what the old people say about these places?" "Of course we do!" - we exclaimed with Sasha unanimously. "So, the old people say that this is a magical desert," the girl began mysteriously. "There are no birds or animals in it, because they have absolutely nothing to eat here." And suddenly a miracle happens: travelers are traveling along this terrible desert, and some traveler lags behind his companions. He tries to catch up with them and seems to him that his comrades call him by name. He goes to their call, but it turns out - these evil spirits of the desert lead him to a place where he can never escape, where his imminent death awaits. In the Gobi desert, there are a lot of evil demons and hot winds, a meeting with which promises nothing but death. That's why all travelers unanimously assert that they constantly hear demons playing on musical instruments, and, more often, on a drum. Those who meet with spirits face to face, perish all to one. How many do not peer into the wilderness, you do not know how to go through it; And the only signpost of the path on it is the dried bones on the sand, once lost travelers. " Tanya finished her tragic story; She turned to the window to hide her tears from us, sadly looking at the desert landscapes that swept away into the distance. We remained silent for a long time with Sasha, shocked by this gloomy legend of the Gobi desert. Finally, I said: "Tanya, I do not understand what keeps you in such a dark place? Why not return to the Motherland, in the USSR? "" Parents, the house is held, "the girl answered." My father does not want to leave anywhere - he does not expect anything good in Russia; All will endlessly reproach our White Guard past. For all my 18 years of life, I have not been anywhere except Lake Hubsugul in the north of Mongolia. This is really a very beautiful place, and the lake is translated from Mongolian as a "blue pearl". "You yourself, like a pearl, only pink, in this terrible, just terrible place!" Sasha complimented. She smiled affectionately at Shevelev, looking at him with interest and feminine curiosity. "All are, she's lovely, just lovely; A real treasure in this hell! "- I thought. Finally, we arrived in Dalanzadgad, where the Soviet motorized rifle division was stationed - the final destination of our assignment. We landed Tanya almost at her very house; Before this, Sasha in his soldier's notebook accurately recorded all its coordinates - and drove on. In the rearview mirror, I still saw the sad figure of a good girl Tanya waving good-bye to us with a hand, and suddenly I felt very sad, almost melancholy - I was sorry, unbearably sorry for the youth of this beauty, so ineptly passing in this lifeless, God-forgotten land.
   Upon arrival in the division, Sasha and I immediately noticed that all the artillery tractors they had for some reason were broken and badly crumpled. "What's the matter, ah, warrior?" Asked Shevelev, who was passing by the driver of the same shattered "Urals". "Yes, nothing! The driver mumbled angrily. "We fall asleep while driving, when we go in the column." It turns out that traveling in a column across the desert is a real torture. Drivers endlessly fall asleep from the monotony of the landscape and "ram" ahead of the car.
   And Sanya, ours, it seems, fell in love with Tanya very well-he fell in love, one might say, without memory, at first sight; To the dismay of Major Bukhteev, going to marry her and even informing his parents about this decision in Shushenskoye. A long, painful "elaboration" of this completely "overcomer" guy from all sides began. To this process the battalion commander Shirokov joined. In vain he appealed to the common sense of a soldier, who, it seems, had long since left him - there were only emotions left! A day later Sasha ran to Dalanzadgad to the house of a beauty and even met her parents. Realizing that his arguments to the mind of "blinded" and "deaf" from Shevelev's love will not bring any results, Bukhteev went the other, proven way.
   Once, to the parents of Sasha in the Krasnoyarsk Territory came stern people in civilian clothes, explained the delicacy of the situation and the possibility of an international scandal; Advised them - properly, in a parental way, to work on their son - a novice anti-Soviet. To death, frightened parents began to bomb Shevelev with letters with threats, parental blackmail and plaintive entreaty. And he, at last, could not stand the parental onslaught - he tore out a hot piece together with feeling from his heart, and from the head - the image of the beautiful Tanyusha. As far as I know, Sasha submissively returned after the army to his native Shushenskoye, married there to a local modest girl and heartily "tuned" (made) three children. During the Gobi exercise, I became even more intimate with our battalion commander Shirokov. Mikhail Shirokov was a person of extraordinary, very interesting, and in all senses. Born in Ukraine, he was in the same city in Khmelnitsky, in 1981 he graduated with honors from the Higher Artillery School and was sent to continue his service in GSVG (Germany). Service in Germany to the depths of the soul struck Shirokov, and, having got into the Biysk artillery regiment, he could not come to his senses and get used to the new reality. Sitting with us in a divisional technique park, sunbathing in the sun with his athletic torso, he watched gloomily as Sayan-Ool and I sorted out the shutter part of our D-1 howitzer, and said without hiding sarcasm: "Voronin, what You are now engaged, it is not even early feudalism, it is a primitive communal system. No, you can not fight on such a technique at the end of the twentieth century. We only had self-propelled guns in Germany, in which meteoro-ballistic summators (the prototype of a combat computer, the automatic aiming device, without human intervention making corrections for the wind and the angle of the projectile's derivation) were already standing, and there was automatic delivery of shells. It's just a song! "In Berlin, not life, but raspberries!" - as it is sung in one famous chanson. And what's that? Some kind of hopeless gloom and horror, - as Ellochka told The Ogress.
   Conducting classes with reserve officers in retraining courses, Misha said directly to them: "Let's face it and not be cunning!" I am a military man, and, therefore, my profession is to kill people, although it can be said otherwise - to defend their Motherland. And I must do it efficiently, competently and very qualitatively. After all, what is the deep philosophical essence of artillery - to kill as many people as possible with fewer shells. This - the harsh truth of life. We want it or do not want it, but the army is created for war, and in peacetime, in conditions of long inactivity, it inevitably falls into marasmus, which is perfectly illustrated by the magnificent history of the brave soldier Svejk, told once by Yaroslav Hasek!
   While still in Mongolia, Shirokov began active work with me, agitating to stay in the army. "After all, just think, Voronin, where you can still go to such an exotic place as the Gobi desert, you can shoot from the heart, and the state will pay you for this, for your own pleasure; And, big money, which you will never see in a civilian? In my youth, I was seriously engaged in triathlon (among other things, master of sports), and you know what a triathlon is? It's also horse racing. Triathlon includes swimming, cycling and running along the highway. Once I fell down terribly on the cycle track and got seriously injured, so I had to leave the big sport. It was a very difficult moment in my life. All my life plans, all my youthful ambitions, suddenly fell apart. Then the father told me the right thing: "You, son, there were only two ways in life - either sport or the army. So, go to the army! "What I did, I absolutely do not regret!" One way, in October 1987, I was walking along the wet autumn plinth of the artillery regiment, and suddenly I saw a battalion commander Shirokov running towards me, across the parade ground, who had stepped on duty the day before. "Well, everyone, Voronin, write letters in small handwriting," he said with unconcealed resentment and anger. "They take you to the military prosecutor's office!" It turns out that Sasha Kashirsky, who was taken to the military prosecutor's office a month ago, recommended my candidacy to the new prosecutor of the Biysk garrison Sergei Nikolaevich Chepurnov, who came to us for further service from Krasnodar. The prosecutor immediately sent a dispatch to the unit, which so upset Misha Shirokov. "We will not give you anyone!" - Bukhteev screamed wildly in the office of the "castrato", waving his own hands - sausages. "We, you freak, on the" lip "(author - guardhouse)" roll up "; There is no prosecutor to find you! "Thus began the open sabotage of the officers of our division, who did not want to carry out the order of the division commander, who Sergey Nikolaevich Chepurnov connected to the solution of my question. In the end, the patriotic prosecutor himself came to the unit and made noisy "showdowns" with the regimental commander Yelsukovich. He called Bukhteev, who noisily "burst into tears", that he has no one to go to the teachings in Yurgu - they say, the soldier did not remain at all in the division. We decided to compromise - to postpone the issue of my transfer before returning from Yurga. So I, by the will of Destiny and the Biysk military commanders, went to my "last crusade".
   Before Yurga, the largest test site of the Siberian Military District in the Kemerovo region, we traveled in the most real "wagons" of the times of the Great Patriotic War. We were given a daily dry ration, and at the stops near the train the soldiers of the housekeeping squad rolled out the field kitchen and boiled tea. In our "canteen" there was a stove - "burzhuyka", which smoked fairly, so we never shut the doors in the car. At night, when I got up on the need and tears from the wooden bunks, an absolutely surrealistic picture appeared in front of me: "the fire is beating in a close fire" under the cozy snuffle of sleeping soldiers; This ancient car, in huge cracks, terribly swaying and rumbling with wheels in the open wide door; This half-rotten door beam, on which you can gently lean back, staring fearfully into the night's darkness and your own shadow running along the ground. I again feel the feeling of "de Zha vu" - somewhere I have already seen it. Remembered - well, of course - in the old chronicles of the war years and feature films about the war.
   Yurga (translated from the Turkic - "rotten pit") fully justified its name, on the day of arrival we met with icy rain and squally, piercing to the bones of the wind. When unloading the train, an unexpected hitch occurred, the involuntary culprit of which was once again me - the "historical" personality, in the sense of constant falling into bad stories. The matter is that the "Cadet" Cherkasov gave me three-inch nails before the echelon departure, strictly punishing how to fix the "shoes" fixing the movement, under the wheels of guns and divisional "Ural". I carried out his assignment with the usual zeal of a brave soldier Svejk, with all his heart "ten-inch" ten-centimeter nails in the platform of the composition to the very hats. The unloading started, Major Cherkasov tried to take off my shoes, but that was not the case - "made in the USSR - done on conscience!" "Fuck ... Voronin, what have you done! - yelled "Cadet", unsuccessfully trying to hit the "shoe" with a naildriver. "Yes, so that your hands withered with eggs, you're a wretched lapin!" "I told you that you will regret bitterly that you did not let me go to the military prosecutor's office and took you to Jurga," I told Cherkasov, who Immediately jaw dropped from such impudence. Behind pressed, savagely swearing, the other divisions - according to the law of meanness, our platform stood right in the center of the train. Finally, with grief in half, collective efforts managed to strip off my "shoes" from the platform, but, as they say, "the residue remained." The beginning of the "big way" was laid - very, very not bad for a real adventure! When unloading the platform, another unanticipated embarrassment arose: our driver Aladdin Hasanov, who apparently bought his driver's license in Baku, trembling with fear, like an aspen leaf, flatly refused to move out of the platform on his Ural through narrow, swinging All sides of the slipways. Long watching this entertaining picture Shirokov soon broke down, and, great psycho, he sat behind the wheel of the "Ural", jewelry having moved from the platform of the convoy.
   Unloading the platforms and wagons with shells, the column finally moved through Jurgu towards the landfill. We camped in a very picturesque place - on the steep bank of the Tom River, right in the center of a birch stalk. Nature here is almost the same as in Altai, and yet something is different - something very elusive in the landscape and vegetation of the surrounding terrain, which we have chosen for the bivouac.
   Having broken up the tents and arranged the way of life, before the shooting we did not do anything for three days, loitering around the camp and stupidly avoiding idleness. At such times, all sorts of criminal thoughts come to mind and you want, like Karlsson, to play a little prank.
   Once I suggested to Aladdin to make a "raid" on the officer's tent, while the officers are at the training ground - on the eve they brought there from Yurga a box of fresh "Zhigulevsky" beer. Aladdin really liked the idea, but he refused to go to the tent, remaining on the "strem". I "professionally" climbed into the officer's tent, designed for four people, rummaged in the things of Bukhteev and Shirokov, not finding anything interesting there; But the "Cadet" under the camp bed was a box of beer, a bottle of vodka and a bag of stew. Taking two bottles of beer and a jar of buckwheat with meat, I safely left the tent. Cozy settled on the shore of Tom, we opened the beer and with pleasure began to drink this bitter "fertile" drink. Very quickly, the "bald" hit us in the head weakened from alcohol. "Voronin, now you are the same thief as I am!" - Aladdin joyfully informed me with his tongue, sipping "trophy" beer - I had already told him about my nightly discovery in the barracks on the first day of my stay in the unit. I pretty much wiped beer lips with a handkerchief and uttered with deliberate pathos: "No, I'm even a thief is much better than you!" Hasanov laughed loudly with the joyful, gurgling laughter of the child who had been upset.
   We repeated our raids on the officer's tent a couple of times, further it became dangerous, since the officers began to notice the loss of beer and every time after returning from the testing range we sniffed at us. However, it was difficult to smell something to the officer's nose out of the foul-smelling precarious soldiers' mouths.
   A special object of my pride is the sophisticated mockery of the thick ensign Savrasov, the quartermaster of the artillery regiment. It was a thief who did not see any light. The fat man, apparently, suffered kleptomania, because he was dragging everything that came to his eyes. In Biysk, it was thanks to Savrasov that we ate such a perfect carrion that God forbid anyone - he managed to leave us for weeks without fish canned food and stews, which the ensign, as a caring head of the family, every day, dragged home from the military unit with whole grids.
   One day, while I was passing by the quartermaster's tent during lunch, I saw ensign Savrasov, who, in anticipation of a delicious meal, stood near the entrance to the tent and serenely smoked. In my Jesuit's head, an insidious plan instantly ripened. I walked around the tent from the rear and looked out the window - the spectacle was simply amazing: fried potatoes with pork cracklings; 100 grams of vodka, appetizingly covered with salted cucumber and eggs, sprinkled with a green onion. I waited until I got into the window of the tent, "waved" 100 his "legitimate front" grams without looking; He ate a cucumber, and, stuffing his mouth full of fries and fried eggs, hurriedly retired. But I really wanted to see what effect my hooligan trick had on the ensign! I hid in the bushes in front of the tent and watched with interest. Finally, Savrasov finished his cigarette and went inside the tent. A few seconds later, his enraged carcass was taken out of the tent - like a bear, standing on its hind legs, standing like a huge stone statue on the edge of a forest, head spinning in fury in search of an unknown "forest" pest. A few minutes later he calmed down a bit and, heavily sighing, left without dinner, wandered wearily to the PCB (the author - a park-farming day).
   Finally, the long-awaited exercises with live firing began. On the way to the "Cadet" training ground Cherkasov again, again, spoiled my mood. The fact is that on a regular pothole in our "Urals" with "meat" a towbar ripped out, the howitzer with a roar disengaged and fell into a puddle, plunging almost to the breech part of the trunk in the dirty autumn slime. Aladdin jumped out of the cab and began, as always, to wail: "Sergeant, what are they doing, what are they doing?" I tried to find a towbar in the pool, but I could not do it. Then an irritated Major Cherkasov came out of the cab and began to closely monitor my actions. Suddenly, not for nothing, with the words: "How did you get me, the student, that you, b ..., ripped!" - He swiftly jumped to me and inflicted a bandwagon (a wooden hammer for a shell similar to Baseball bat) is a very sensitive blow to the neck. In my eyes it turned dark. I ripped off the scrap heap and went to the Cadet in a frenzy. However, at the last moment, I thought better of it, and began that there are forces, pounding the tools with a crowbar, so that the crowbar bent an arc. "Well, kill me, Voronin, kill!" Cherkasov teased me, but I, already exhausted, sank down on the howitzer's bed: tears flowed from my eyes - from pain and undeserved resentment. "Calm yourself, Voronin, everything happens in life," Shirokov said sympathetically, and together we all began to search for the hitch in the ill-fated puddle. Having found it, we finally fastened the gun to the Urals and continued the march.
   Arriving at the test site, we began to set our Dove 1 howitzer and the ZIS -76 aiming infantry gun at the firing position, previously selected by Bukhteev, slowly, "with feeling, with good sense,". Then Bukhteev and Aladdin left for the CNR (the auth - the command observation post) to adjust the fire of our "conditional" division from there, and we stayed with Cherkasov and Shirokov to equip the firing point.
   The artillery calculations of the combined army units, according to the battle formation established on the exercises, are located from the line of fire in three small echelons. The first, the smallest echelon is our squalid division and five 122-mm howitzers of the Mountain Altai division stationed at that time in Tashant. We were followed by a division of "saushek" (self-propelled guns) - 152 mm "Hyacinths-S" and 203 mm "Pions" from the Jurgen division. These are powerful self-propelled guns on caterpillar traction, designed to defeat not only the enemy's manpower on the march, but also its long-term defensive structures. In these tools, powerful hydraulics, a torsion-type suspension, and a meteoric-ballistic adder, which Misha Shirokov described with such nostalgia, were already provided for these weapons. With one of the "Hyacinths" there was a very unpleasant embarrassment in these exercises.
   Captain Shirokov ordered me to throw a field link to the instruments of the Gorno-Altai. As soon as I unwound tens of meters of telephone cable on the whole front, connecting its ends to each other by the terminals of the ancient field-communication equipment, suddenly, out of nowhere, appeared this absolutely macabre "Hyacinth". On the tower of the "saushki" it was very important to sit a huge Russian man, who in his tank helmet, like the Buddha, absolutely did not hear anything and saw almost nothing. Its powerful caterpillar chassis "Hyacinth" in a single moment collected all my 2 hours work in a bunch, wound two cassettes with a telephone cable, two field communication devices. I ran after the "runaway" phones, screaming and waving my hands, but nothing that could hear the big guy stopped only after 100 meters. "What have you done, made a fool?" - I cried angrily at him, and he only blamed his eyelashes, pulling the remnants of the telephone cable from under the caterpillar. I had to start all over again.
   And, finally, the third, the farthest from us train - the division of rocket artillery from the Abakan division - the "Grad" range of salvo fire, whose firing range, in contrast to our archaic howitzer, is more than 20 km. The "crest of the shelter" (planted for snow retention of the forest belt from tall old poplars) was from my gun at a distance of about 11 km. While the officers were installing and equipping the tent to control the fire, I hastily dug in and fixed the howitzer, taking up the ramp and the "slot" for the shells. Having at hand a decent trench instrument from the MTO, I quickly dug out a small (2 by 1.5 meters), a cozy trench, which, as it turned out later, will be very useful to me on this frosty October night. "Cadet" Cherkasov famously "saddled" our infantry cannon "ZIS-76" and began for fire patchers frenziedly, like a maniac, to conduct aiming shooting, covering one hand with his ear, and the second inserting a small elegant shell of this miniature and very elegant, especially in the background Heavy howitzer, cannon in a wedge-shaped bolt. This he, by the way, correctly does, since the sound of "ZIS" is simply disgusting - sharp, clanking, painfully hitting the eardrums. Even our heavy gun D-1, producing a loud, bass sound during the shooting, which is much easier to transfer (though with an open mouth all over the mitten) than the shrill squeal of this small infantry gun.
   Finally, everything was ready, and there was a calm before the battle. "Cannon to battle!" - shouted battalion commander Shirokov. - The sight is "8-5", the reflector is "zero", the fragmentation is high-explosive, the fuse is fragmentation, the fugitive fire! "- and the work went on, a real man's work, thanks to which only there is at least some sense of the existence of the army in a peaceful time. Shoot a "quick fire" - this means, to produce one shot in 6 seconds. Approximately in a minute of conducting such fire the soldiers already, like a dog, "stick out your tongue on your shoulder", sweat rolls from him with hail, and your legs break under the weight of a 50-kilogram projectile. And now multiply this by 7 (in the framed division I was the only one who "performed" all the numbers of combat calculation), and the "oil painting" will be complete.
   In addition, we should not forget that I went to the army, weighing only 57 kg. As I said, the 152 mm shell of my gun weighed 50 kg. Figuratively speaking, I had to push myself from the knee with the help of a heavy wooden rammer to the narrow mouth of the howitzer, and even at an angle of about 70 degrees - this is the elevation angle the D-1 gun has when firing at 10 or more kilometers. The result of this simple arithmetic did not take long to wait - the next shell slips out of my weak hands and echoed to the ground, and after it I, full length, stretched out near the gun. Somewhere behind us, heavily weaving, shaking the earth, heavy "Hyacinths" and "Peonies". The sky is struck with lightning, the cigar-like rockets of the Grad, which are imperceptible like shadows. In general, the war - it is in Africa and the war!
   Finally, the fighting shooting was over and the KNP came to our "castrato", noisily waving "wings" and choking with words for joy: "You imagine, Cherkasov put 8 of the 11 targets! We are there, at the CNR, they just fucked! "" Here you have the Cadet drunk! "- I thought in surprise. The fact is that in shooting at 14.5 km, almost beyond the range of the shot for our howitzer, according to the instructions, it is permissible to deflect the projectile by 40-50 meters. Our "miracle-shooter", thanks to his phenomenal eye and natural artillery instinct, gave the battalions such precise firing coordinates that they managed to get shells into 8 of the 11 wooden shields, which, of course, is simply incredible!
   It was evening, and the officers of the battalion were gathering in the camp. "Voronin, we leave you on guard of the object - look, do not go through ... optics, you will not be able to pay us back then!" Cherkasov grinned maliciously, probably thinking: "May you fall out of the cold!" It was revenge, the sophisticated revenge of the jackals, for leaving me and going to the military prosecutor's office. "Well, nothing, let's see who - whom!" I thought angrily, watching the car leaving the officers. Soon it was drawn by the piercing Arctic cold - this severe Siberian night persistently entered into its rights. It was necessary to find a solution to this problem urgently. I carefully looked around and found around the gun a lot of excellent litter material - the pumpkin leaves from harvested crops. There was one small problem - to dry it from the rain. I threw empty boxes of shells into my trench and set them on fire. A dried, well-painted tree broke out like a gunpowder, giving a lot of smoke and heat. I laid on the sticks, directly above the fire, a wet top, periodically taking off the dried and laying wet. Soon I formed a pretty decent bunch of well-dried grass, which now could be lined the bottom of my trench. I laid down with pleasure on the soft, still warm from the fire, the litter, on top covered with a pea jacket and a pumpkin top, and fell asleep in a deep, blissful dream of a righteous man. I woke up from the voice of the battalion commander Shirokov, who looked down at me with surprise and undisguised respect: "You are just like an Indian, Voronin, a real Indian in the prairie! Well done, I managed to survive in severe climatic conditions! I declare my gratitude to you! "Major Cherkasov, apparently from the deepest hangover, approached the trench, always unhappy. "This is how you guard the gun, comrade sergeant!" - with obvious mockery, officially underlined, said the Cadet and trotted to the tent to check the safety of the gun's optics. He came out very disappointed and did not say a word to the camp.
   On the last day of the exercises, it turned out to be such a wonderful sunny day, quite unlike the usual cold October in Siberia, that I decided to say good-bye to the forest and the river that had become so dear to them during this time. Entering the pine, the real "ship" forest on the bank of the Tom, I lay down in a homely fashion on a soft warm cushion of fallen pine needles and fell asleep - so sweetly - sweetly, to the singing of forest, in autumn very few birds. I dreamed of a parent's house in Khabarovsk - my father and mother sitting at a dinner table in our favorite kitchen - such touching, painfully native faces that even in a dream I was unbearably sad from the feeling of unreality of what was happening.
   Returning from Yurga to his own, half-yearly completely disgraced military unit, I without saying a word and with anyone except Sasha Shevelev, without saying good-bye, busily packed up modest soldiers' possessions in a small bag and, having a ready warrant in my hands, headed for His new place of service - in the military prosecutor's office of the Biysk garrison. So trivial, very everyday, the third (legal) stage of my army service began.
   Sergei Nikolaevich Chepurnov, military prosecutor of the Biysk garrison, was from Krasnodar, where he was later sent to continue his service after graduating from the Moscow Military Law Institute - a very prestigious higher education institution in that country in our country. He came to us from Krasnodar in the autumn of 1987 and immediately immediately declared himself to the command of the Biysk division. He began regularly, not childly, to "masturbate" the division commander, who had recently arrived from Cuba with a two-meter high man, knocking out a car, a soldier and criminological equipment. Sergei Nikolayevich was a bright southern handsome man of 27 years, with the appearance of Al Pacino, only stronger and broader in the shoulders. Being, of course, a very talented person, he would have made a dizzying career in the army, had he once been in the post of prosecutor of a flotilla in the city of Novorossiysk, in the autumn of 2000, he did not disappear under mysterious circumstances. According to his wife, a charming and very intelligent woman, on the eve of the disappearance, two policemen of Caucasian appearance came to Sergei Nikolaevich late at night and took him to an unknown destination. Since that time Sergey Nikolaevich Chepurnov has never been seen again. It was rumored that he had some "dark deeds" with the Chechens, for which he paid. Whether this is so - now, apparently, and to our great regret, we will never know.
   For three months of service in the military prosecutor's office, I remember only two things that should be told: the local rats and the case of "Ensign Yemelyanov."
   Biysk rats are very, very rare rats. I have never seen a more intelligent and brazen creature than a rat in the glorious Siberian town of Biysk. Until now, with a shudder, I remember how I woke up one night in our cockpit on the second floor of the "shkonka" and found with horror on my head this disgusting creature. She busily dug into my bald skull, trying it on the tooth. I do not remember how, but with a fist blow, I knocked her on the pillow (she was a pretty well-fed gray rat of medium size), who glared at me angrily (I remembered this clever, cold look of the hating creature well) and hurriedly went downstairs; Slowly, imposingly, walked along the sleeping Kashirsky and retired to her hole. In the morning with me almost there was a hysterics - on a division the epidemic of a tularemia (the dangerous infection extended by rodents) went, from a self-suggestion I have started to be scratched and with all legs have run in medsanchast. A woman - a military doctor - dug for a long time in my head, and, not finding any traces of bites, said irritably: "If you would go, sergeant, from here to treat your old syphilis! I have nothing more to do, how to treat your phobias. "
   Once I was in my office in the prosecutor's office and sewed up clothes. In the next room, the prosecutor interrogated some other witness in the criminal case. Suddenly there was a terrible crack, noise and squeal in the wooden partition between the offices. The noisy fuss did not last long, and to my horror, a huge rat appeared in my office, which no one could see. She, pretty bitten by her fellow tribe (obviously, two females fought for a nest for future offspring), headed toward me. I, like the legendary Jedi Obi-Wan (author of the George W. "Star Wars" hero), flew over the desk and with two legs simultaneously sank directly onto the head of the rat. I began to trample on her furiously, while she doubled up, tried to tug on my leg. Chepurnov came running to the noise and din, and looking at the "hunting" trophy in my hands, he said in amazement: "However, a hunk!" Looking at the rat, I found her swollen nipples, and I, for some reason, felt sorry for her so and so not born offspring. The war with the rats in the army, a fierce war not for life but for death, was conducted in Biysk day and night, however, without special combat successes. According to the established tradition, I answered the hozblok in the prosecutor's office, preparing meals for all our few prosecutorial and investigative brigades. During the "cooking" all at the bottom, somewhere not deep under the floor, suddenly came into a chaotic movement. Tempted by tasty smells, the rats noisily crowded near the exit from the hole, not daring to crawl out to the "white" light. At the same time, they nibbled the weakest rat, forcing her to go on scouting. Armed with a poker, I walk out the door and begin to watch with curiosity what is happening. A young rat crawled out of the burrow and, cautiously walking along the perimeter of the room, descended back into the hole. After that, a bigger rat came out, and they, already with a young, familiar to me special, busily walked around the kitchen, sniffing the legs of the table and chairs. And only after that appeared their "boss" - the queen, a huge fat rat with an unreasonably long tail and a militantly pounding withers. And here on the stage I appear - the "legendary" St. John's wort with its invariable poker. What is urine, I start to thresh rats, and the two did not dare to hide in the burrow before the queen, which with its thick back tightly, like Winnie the Pooh, got stuck in a narrow hole, giving me the opportunity to calmly deal with all "uninvited guests " separately.
   In January 1988, our military prosecutor's office was at the center of events that caused a very large public resonance throughout the Altai Territory and was called "the affairs of ensign Emelyanov." On December 31, 1987, the prosecutor kindly let me go to Barnaul for two days to meet the New Year with the elderly. When I returned on January 2, a terrible picture appeared before me - the whole office was packed with cardboard boxes with bloody rags; Disorder and chaos reigned in all the offices. Towards me came Kashirsky, blackened from lack of sleep and nervous experiences, who angrily threw me: "You still do not ... rest, but," Course "?" I realized that something extraordinary had happened. And the following happened.
   On New Year's Eve from December 31 to January 1, 1988, the ensign of my former artillery regiment Nikolai Yemelyanov, who was in a clothes order for the KTP (an auto-control and technical point) in a state of strong alcoholic intoxication, shot two civilians with gunshots from a service pistol. I knew this ensign well. He came to us from the penitentiary system - for a long time Yemelyanov served as a controller in the colony of the general regime of Barnaul (the author - UB-14/1 institution, the so-called "Shinka") - and immediately began actively planting cruel prison orders in our country. I remembered this devilish "piece" with his remarkable philosophical "revelations": "A soldier is worse than a" convict ", Kolya liked to repeat. - He is a complete "schmuck", he must be f ... and again e ... Maybe then, the soldier will become a man. And so no, forever will remain an ape! At least a stake on the head of a buck! "Yemelyanov was a complete alcoholic, and I immediately thought that this was the main cause of the night incident. So it, actually, was. Sitting on New Year's Eve at the KTP, Emelyanov alone "drained" a bottle of vodka, brewing it for a more effective effect with a dimedrol pill, and the "brave hero" was drawn to adventure. He went for a walk along the Ugolnaya Street, adjacent to the fence of the unit, dropping his post and taking with him a loaded pistol. And the "adventure" did not take long. On the way, the prapor met two girls who were grouchy and drunk in the insole, who suggested that he "catch up" with the "spinner" (the author - a cheap, usually apple, wine in the USSR) and make a salute in honor of the New, in 1988. And then something happened that at one time, obviously, happened to the notorious Major Denis Yevsyukov - he "pereklinilo" on the basis of alcohol. This "buhoy in the wood", the unconsciously lost ensign ensign arranged a real stand shooting for "running wild boars", starting to firing indiscriminately into everything that moves: in the girls (fortunately, missed), in some old man who made him a remark , Killing him on the spot; In a young guy who, just like that, just in case, hit the thigh with a gun. Then Emelyanov got into a taxi and ordered a taxi driver, who on that day had turned 40 once, to go to Barnaul, and when he flatly refused, made two shots in his head. Obviously, this devilish prapor (old sergant) from drinking had finally "torn off the cuckoo," which at that time was "rarely at home." Here is such an "oil painting"! All night, Chepurnov and Kashirsky, in fact, followed the killer's tracks, examining the still-dead corpses of the old man and the taxi driver, as reports of another murder were received. It is easy to understand the state of Kashirsky, who "pierced" this way throughout this endless night of "long knives"!
   By his actions Kolya Yemelyanov achieved the fact that the local population of Biysk organized real terror against all officers who had the same black warranty and emblems with crossed guns as those of the ensign. They began to be shattered everywhere, where only they appeared in military uniform. It is clear that this smelly affair immediately fell into the special control of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, that's why Chepurnov, trying to investigate him, tried harder than ever, and for us this criminal case was just a good training and production practice. Not every investigator still has such a case - to investigate a criminal case that is under the control of GWP - it's worth a lot! In 1989, Nikolai Yemelyanov, in order not to tease the geese, quickly and quietly, was shot on the verdict of a military tribunal, which was carried out in the remand prison of the city of Kemerovo, which at that time had a special status of an institution executing death sentences.
   It was April 1988, and it's time for us, to the great chagrin of Sergei Nikolaevich Chepurnov, to go to the training courses for ground artillery officers in the village of Shilovo in the Novosibirsk region. The last time I went into the office of the nachprod's division - to the charming ensign of Nadezhda - a "damn attractive" woman with an undoubted charm, albeit of Balzac's age. Nadia all three months of my service in the military prosecutor's office did not hide her feelings for me and in fact offered close relations. "Well, you're a fool, Sergei! I would not be married; Oh, you, "Course"! "- Kashirsky shamed me. And I was just afraid, for some reason, I was very much afraid of women, especially those who were as beautiful and bright as Nadia; Not knowing the great Iranian prophet Zarathushtra who said on this occasion such wonderful and very accurate words: "A real man is always a child, and a woman for him is always a toy, very dangerous and therefore too expensive!"
   April 5, 1988, Kashirsky and I arrived at the artillery station, stationed in the village of Shilovo, which is in the south of the Novosibirsk region. The fate for the whole time of the army firmly linked us to Sasha, so we decided to go to the "demobilization" together, marking this case as it should, in Barnaul - the "capital of the world". I told Kashirsky that before leaving for the army, especially for such a case, he prudently put a bottle of fine Bulgarian cognac - the brandy "Slynchev Bryag" ("Sunny Beach") in a safe, dark place, and God himself told us to drink this coveted A bottle with such good, army endurance. Sasha liked the idea very much. Still would!
   In Shilovo, no studies on officers - commanders of the fire platoon, of course, was not in sight. It turned out that we, 35 "conscripts" with higher education, who had behind them the "giant" experience of the construction squad movement, commanded Special Military Forces to Shilovo to build a military camp for reservists there in 1.5 months - a large-scale deployment of the Novosibirsk motorized rifle division was expected. All this time we were engaged in the usual construction business - digging, sawing, planing, building, so that, in addition to work, there is nothing to remember especially. And then, finally, what happened sooner or later had to happen - the long-awaited grandfather "Dembel" came! And after all, we knew, we knew very well that "the demobilization is inevitable," and he nevertheless crept up unnoticed-suddenly burst out, "like a shoe on the head"! June 1, 1988, finally, a long-awaited order was signed on our dismissal to the reserve, and now Kashirsky and I are already on our old Hungarian Ikarus home, driving such a native Altaian Talmenka.
   Upon arrival in Barnaul, it turned out that my grandmother, as always, lost the keys to my apartment, which I left her for safekeeping. We immediately went with Kashirsky to the Stream (for some reason, the industrial microdistrict of Barnaul, which was not liked by the townspeople, laid down even in Khrushchev's time), where my bachelor "bungalow" was located, and kicked the neighbors, methodically "planting" the door. But this production of the Soviet woodworking combine, to our surprise, was made "on conscience" and quietly withstood our soldiers' onslaught. At the noise and din came my neighbor in the staircase, old man Galatsevich, who, with the help of an ax and from where the "Fomka" came from, helped us, at last, to open this ill-fated door. I rushed, first of all, to the pantry, where I extracted the cognac cognac on the "white" light. After taking away the "simple" snack that our dear friend Galatsevich brought us from the house, Kashirsky and I went to the arboretum, perhaps the most amazing place in the upland part of Barnaul, located on the basis of the famous for the whole country institute named after Academician Lisovenko. In the arboretum we also chose the most beautiful and enviable place for "sabantuya" - on a high rocky cliff, from which a wonderful view to the picturesque Obskaya canal and to the holiday village "Korablik" - "nahalovka" appeared on the map of Barnaul already from 1905 of the year. On the grass neatly spread an oilcloth on which in the center of the "table" the desired "Slynchev Bryag" was planted. "Waved" on the first, then on the second for "successful end of service"! The third toast, standing, "for those who did not return." And again, as always after the third glass, a magnificent Siberian peacock woke up and flushed in my tail. "Do you know that God Ra exists?" - I decided to shock Kashirsky to the end, and to the most "victorious". He looked at me like an idiot, and said nothing. "No, it's not an allegory, not a metaphor for a figure of speech. God exists for sure, I tell you, otherwise, without Ra's help, we would simply not be able to pass through what we managed to do in the army!" "No, of course, there is definitely something up there," cautious Sasha said thoughtfully. "I do not know whether Rah, Jesus Christ, or anyone else - certainly should be!" "Let's drink, Sanya!" - suddenly I had a magnificent toast. "Let's drink to the Great God Ra, without which Life on Earth absolutely loses its meaning, and humanity, like a giant, completely uncontrollable ship, remains without a compass and any other navigation in the pitch darkness of the immense Ocean of the Universe!" "As you well said," Course "! "Exclaimed Sasha, and we at once drank the rest of the brandy. Overwhelmed by conflicting feelings, and even excited by strong alcohol, from which I had completely lost the habit of a year and a half of the army, I climbed a huge gray boulder lonely protruding from under the earth at the very edge of the cliff, and, that is, pissed right there, down, into The abyss itself:
   "I love you, Life!
   I love you, Ra!
   Long live Life!
   Long live Ra! Urra! Urra! Urra!"
   And for a long time, my triple, victorious "Urra!" (In the Old Slavonic language of the Hyperboreans "Urra" means "Near Ra" or "With God!") A rolling echo spreads across the vast Ob vast expanses - just a miserable squeak of a mosquito, a lonely mosquito in the universe, Living with a weak hope that "Someone, after all, will hear it!"
  
  
   Philharmonic Society
   "Seryo, here and see for yourself, what it is more profitable for you to work today - a rock musician, that is, always be in chocolate and with money, or an unfortunate investigator in a smelly" mentovke "- without money and all sorts of perspectives - Short bearded Yura Makarov after another concert of our "legendary" group "Convoy", which, along with Mikhail Muromov - the author of the "immortal" work "Apples in the snow" - quite lousy played two of his songs today in the so-called "compote" (author - Concert concert - "solyanka", collected Th of several, as a rule, unknown to the public artists) at the Barnaul stadium "Dynamo". And by the way, this "eternal student" Jura Makarov (he managed to study for eight years at the law faculty of the ASU) this time was absolutely right - even for this shameful, I would say, shameful in "the newest History" concert, the duration of only 1 Hour, the producer Mikhail Muromov, the hefty cunning Tatar Rafael Mazitov, rolled off our "five brave" from the "Convoy" for 200 rubles each - almost one month's salary of the Interior Ministry investigator.
   For two months already, as I came from the army, I threw my higher education diploma in the "far dusty corner" of my Khrushchev in my heart and, yielding to the persuasion of Yura Makarov and Nikolai Gributsky, I finally decided to fulfill my cherished dream of "dedicating it completely" His life pop music.
   The odious figure of Raphael Mazitov, with looks and habits very similar to the "legendary" producer of the band "Na-na" Bari Alibasov, appeared on the musical horizon of Altai quite by chance. Perestroika and the notorious Gorbachev Law of 26.05. 88. "On Cooperation in the USSR," as a powerful hydraulic press, in the same "revolutionary" year of 1988, squeezed out many similar businessmen, who were employed in 10-15 places and "cutting coupons", on the surface of Soviet public life in the form of dirty foam. Only it is possible and impossible, throughout our vast Homeland. That Mazitov, himself originally from Kazan, had at that time more than ten labor books in various organizations of the country, in one way or another related to show business. He was employed in the Altai Regional Philharmonic. Being a rather successful organizer of numerous musical "compotes", Rafael actually contained our restructured almost to utter poverty symphony orchestra, periodically contributing money to the cashier of the Philharmonic for the next "compote" - the future salary to the poor musicians of the orchestra. Without these episodic, but rather generous handouts of Mazitov, they simply would not have anything to eat. For this leadership of the Altai Regional Philharmonic simply prayed for Raphael and was ready to put a monument to him in life.
   It was Mazitov who brought to Moscow Altai and employed in his philharmonic society "the greatest composer and singer of all time" Muscovite Mikhail Muromov; And it was he, this irrepressible Raphael, who initiated the creation of our "legendary" group "Convoy" instead of the recently disbanded local group "Manzherok" in Barnaul.

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   The name "Convoy" to our group was invented by Misha Muromov. He knew that there were three lawyers in the team: I, guitarist Gesha and drummer Vitaly Bykovsky. Our lawyer was the permanent head of our ensemble Kolya Gributsky, who officially at that time worked as the director of the student club of ASU. "Imagine, I'll go on stage under the" Convoy "as a" zek "!" Misha laughed and, indeed, at some concerts in Siberia, which, as is known, the historical theme of the prison was always very close and understandable, Public, leaving ahead of us with the hands laid behind the back.
   We were far from being the only project of Rafael Mazitov. He also managed to find a group "Freestyle" from Poltava in the Altai Regional Philharmonic, in which, at that time, the great Nina Kirso was a soloist and which was soon replaced by a very sentimental singer - lyricist Vadim Kazachenko; As well as the Moscow show-ballet "Prospekt". With the charming dancer from this dancing capital collective Larisa Raphael twisted at that time a very short time, but very "stormy" for emotions and emotions novel. This novel for Larisa ended then very badly.
   One day Raphael came to us in September 1988 in the rehearsal room in the Philharmonic in very upset feelings and told his sad story that his "poor Lorik" will no longer come on tour to Barnaul as part of the show-ballet "Prospect." And the following happened. Strongly missing Larissa, Mazitov decided to call his beloved in Moscow, and lovers began to gently coo on the phone, completely forgetting about the time and the surrounding hostile world. P ... c in the form of a jealous husband Larissa crept up unnoticed. He silently walked to Larissa, astonished listening to her erotic delirium, from which he understood only what she wanted, right now, without delay, to take and put some secret parts of Mazitov's body, like the best candies in the world, into his mouth and To swallow. Afraid of what he heard (and it is quite understandable in this situation), the deceived spouse immediately struck Larisa with such a crushing force that she broke her lower jaw - and in two places, providing her, for at least a month, " Fun "life with a tube between the teeth. Here, as they say, not to "candy"! Soon after this extremely unpleasant incident, the couple was filed for divorce. 
   I met Nina Kirso on August 13, 1988 during a concert at the Barnaul stadium "Dynamo". On the day of this ill-fated concert, a very cold, unusual cold weather, unusual for early August, appeared, and I was dressed only in a lightweight canvas suit of the Spanish bullfighter (because of the lack of money, we did not have uniform suits in the rock band, and every member of the collective Dressed, who is in that much). Looking at me, finally turned blue from the cold, Nina finally broke down and gave me from her "lordly shoulder" a warm shaggy sweater that still kept the warmth of her luxurious body and immediately warmed me. This obviously feminine sweater already from far away was conspicuous and became one more bright stroke in my already absolutely absurd costume. Why is the concert, after all, unfortunate - probably, the curious reader will ask? Yes, because it was held on Friday 13, like that ill-fated concert in Karaganda in the distant 1980. Only now the situation was even worse than then, in the "pink" childhood. The thing is that right there, during the concert at the stadium, my old "Korg-RA800" synthesizer "flew" as always. To say that it is broken means to say nothing. The synthesizer at one point dropped all its "marvelous" timbre and sounds, and I simply had no use to play. The situation was further complicated by the fact that unlike Mikhail Muromov and Nina Kirso, we played "live", and the introduction to all songs without exception was to be played on my keyboard.
   We had to begin our speech with our "epochal" song "The convoy is going", which was written by our vocalist Seryozha Matsievsky clearly under the impression of the very popular then Leningrad band Avia. After my virtuoso "penetration" on the synthesizer, Matsievsky, usually, effectively threw up his leg, as in a cancan, and began to sing. This time everything went completely in a different scenario.
   Touching the keys, instead of the sound of a flute in the familiar instrument register, I heard only a hideous hiss, like the hiss of a snake; And, hissing very loudly - the whole stadium. In a panic, I began to sort through all the registers on the synthesizer, but there was still the same terrible picture everywhere - one hissing, and more - nothing. But we must understand, the reader, that at that time our unfortunate musicians were already playing this stupid song with might and main, coming out on the third circle, unsuccessfully waiting for my "mighty" introduction, and Matsievsky had already thoroughly tired to toss his pudgy Jewish leg up endlessly, every time , Like a dumb fish, opening his mouth funny, once again preparing to sing. "Katz, you're dead ... l have everyone, zalupa!" - Suddenly screamed at me, unable to withstand my endless "folding starts", our unsurpassed bassist Sasha Korablin (from his "light hand" I was christened Katz for Some resemblance to this legendary maestro - conductor of the Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra). His words definitely had an effect - finally, I found in the instrument somehow miraculously preserved a disgusting, simply lousy sound and, with a sin in half, painted his long-awaited party - solo. The result of our "sacred" speech is quite natural - we were booed from the heart. "Kolkhozniks!" - loudly and angrily shouted to us from the stands of the stadium, and we, drooping our heads, hurried to get out of the football field from these "ungrateful fans" - just in case, "not to tease the geese" - the case then, dear Reader, "as is known, there are everyone"!
    "Seryozha, why do you need this! - hotly persuaded me, completely depressed after this damned concert, Nina Kirso. "The show business is a mess, and you have such a beautiful profession as a lawyer." Moreover, I have already served in the army. You everywhere, in any legal office, simply "with your hands torn off." Throw this dirty business, before it's too late! "Later I often remembered her wise words, but only now I realized how right she was then. Well, now, finally, it's time to tell about our wonderful creative team - the "legendary" rock band "Convoy" and his "outstanding" personalities.
   The most charismatic person in our musical "gang", of course, was Yura Makarov - the permanent sound engineer of the group and, in combination, a loader of musical equipment (despite his growth of 1 m 60 cm, he had an incredible, just bearish force). I met Yura in 1985, when he himself, without an invitation, came to the theater named after Commissioner Mehre. On stage, he was a born comedian, and Charlie Chaplin, as they say, "did not lie next to" with his monotonous grimaces and pretty podnadoevshimi pantomimicheskimi "penetration." Jurin reprises were always distinguished by great improvisational courage and represented psychologically exactly verified theatrical sketches - sketches. And the most amazing thing is that he never studied a complicated acting profession anywhere, but at the same time could calmly "give odds" to any student at the Shchukin school. Talent, as they say, he and in Africa talent - it will not spend on drink!
   For his unchanging beard, Yura received his nickname "Beard", famous for all of Altai. Soon after demobilization, on June 15, 1988, I came to visit the Boroda in the student hostel of the ASU on Krupskaya Street. Looking at the more than modest life - the existence of Makarov, I suddenly felt very sorry for him - this eternally restless publican, but the devil pulled me by the tongue, however, to invite Boroda, from "his bounties," to move to my permanent residence in his "Khrushchev "On the Stream. Naturally, Yura, after many years of wandering around student hostels, happily and without hesitation agreed to my proposal, and as a result, we obtained a real "hemorrhoids" for a whole six months from the cohabitation of two completely different adult men with long-standing bachelor habits and each With their creepy "cockroaches" in my head.
   But at first everything was like a "tip-top" and, it seemed, did not foretell any more or less serious domestic cataclysms. In joy, with great enthusiasm, Yura immediately rushed to make a major overhaul of my "hut", pretty dilapidated during the army service. And his hands were, I must say, "God grant everyone" - these "golden" hands of Boroda grew from the "right place"!
   Once, during our great repair, we raised an old carpet from the floor and found a crumpled chervonets underneath it - these are "maddened master" Makesha in the winter of 1985, fearing that a certain Larissa, a girl, is a kleptomaniac of very "light" behavior From the legendary "Petushka", "during the next session of the" group sex "during the next session the last money from the pocket of his trousers was" curled "by this unfortunate chervonet under the carpet, while completely forgetting about him. Chervonets safely lay in his secret place for three whole years (I somehow did not particularly bother myself with the capital cleaning of the apartment, being content with small ones), and now came, as it is impossible, to my recently completed demobilization. We decided to take a good look at this matter - it was decided to "sink" the "chirik"(10 dollars) fallen from the Sky in the chic restaurant "Altai Dawns", which is located not far from my house on Potok. Leaving the entrance, we paid attention to a young guy with an exotic pigtail on his head and a covered guitar, sadly sitting near the first entrance of my house - apparently, the guy was left without keys to the apartment. "This is Zhenya Lobanov!" - exclaimed Beard and went straight to the guy. I did not know then and, of course, I could not know what a fateful meeting this would be for me. Zhenya Lobanov, a teacher of philosophy at the ASU and son of a member of the USSR Union of Composers Alexei Fyodorovich Lobanov, was already known in Barnaul by the author and performer of very original lyrical songs, which even now would decorate any concert of quality, very high-quality variety music - Not "pop music". And I should - with such a "megastar" I lived in the same house for 7 years without even guessing about it. Soon after Lobanov and I, after the inglorious "death" of the "Convoy", we will create our own musical project "Amateur", with which many concert stages of Barnaul were conquered in "dashing" 90s and which gave such a powerful impetus to our joint Creativity, that it Does not stop and to this day (see Sergey Voronin's clip "The Freak" on You Tube).
   Me and Zhenya, until now, are all the same friends "do not waste water" and, as soon as a free minute is given out, we "sculpt" our exclusive music together, recording the third album in his studio that is located in the village of Ganba not far from Barnaul.
   And recently we recorded in this wonderful studio and my old, time-tested song "Bacchanalia", with which we usually started our performance at the concerts in 1990. Zhenya "bungled" such an awesome arrangement of this "immortal" work on his amazing, simply "chum" synthesizer "Korg - Triton Studio", that I, the peacock, again could not resist, offering the reader to listen to this magnificent record, so that it was clear Direction and style of our many years of musical creativity.
   "Zhenya, come with us to the restaurant!" - invited Lobanov Beard. Lobanov politely declined, explaining that because of a stomach ulcer he does not drink at all; And for this reason, by the way, he was not taken into the army. We went to the "Altai Dawns" alone - to drink chervonets Metshi - another, such an unexpected gift of Ra. Arriving at the restaurant, Boroda and I became involuntary witnesses of a very amusing incident. Ordering salad, steak and french fries, as well as the decanter of the Moldovan cognac "White Stork" (exactly 10 rubles per month), we with great pleasure began to listen to the song "Chubby Kucheryavy" performed by the well-known then, and now, in Barnaul Musician Sergei Lomovatsky ("Loma") - a cousin of Sergei Kandrin - the same Depardieu from my course, about which I already wrote at the beginning of the novel. Lom had a beautiful tenor (exactly the same as that of Peter Leshchenko); Besides, he brilliantly graduated from the Barnaul Music College and the Institute of Culture, so, in perfect complement to his remarkable natural data, he was also a literate, very clever (which happens very rarely in a musical environment) vocalist:
   "Chubchik, chubchik, chubchik curly,
   Wander, chubchik, downwind.
   Earlier, chubchik, I loved you,
   And now I can not forget.
  
   Spring will pass, summer will come.
   In the garden, the trees will flourish,
   And I'm poor - poor boy
   Chains of the handle - feet will be snapped! "
   When Lomovatsky left on the last verse of the song, suddenly the following happened:
   "But I'm not afraid of Siberia, Siberia,
   Siberia, after all, is also a Russian land.
   Oh, hang on, hang on, a curly-
   "Immediately after these heartfelt words," an elderly man of about 65 years old, apparently a former "zek", broke out from his place from behind the last table to the left, and ran up to Lom and, choking with tears of joy, Began to kiss his hands frenziedly, laughing funny at the same time: "Oh, thank you, son, my dear son! It's Peter Leshchenko! "
   Unable to withstand this heartbreaking scene, a young guy of 25 years old suddenly stood up in the center of the hall and walked unsteadily towards the stage, trying to lift the fallen man to Lom's feet, just like before the Great and Mighty Deity who had just descended on this sinful Land, thoroughly drunk The old man. This guy was Vadim Kolokolnikov ("Kolokosha") - the future youngest "thief in law" in "the newest History of Russia". The stream and restaurant "Altai Dawns" have always been its traditional "fiefdom". "Went to the h .., fagodorous fagots!" - shouted at him grandfather, furiously fighting off his hands and feet from the astonished, completely bewildered in this situation Kolokoshi. Vadim died pale from such a terrible insult to any man, and even more so for a criminal "authority", accustomed in any situation to "be responsible for the market," but, here we must give him his due - he did not say anything and did not even hit his grandfather back , But only politely, along with two other criminals, brought the old man from the restaurant's hallway to the end. "Here it is - the magic power of Art!" - I thought with reverence then, with respect and some special envy of the musician, looking at the happy Sergei Lomovatsky bathing in the "ocean of people's love", like a dolphin spoiled by universal attention. We sat with Borodoy for cognac until 23 hours, that is, until the very closing of the restaurant, and then decided to go to his student hostel and continue the so well begun, spontaneously arisen holiday. Besides, my apartment smelled terribly toxic acetone paint, so it was absolutely impossible to sleep there, and just stay inside the room for a while.
   Without hurrying, we reached Lenin Avenue and stood up as a very ridiculous sculptural group (an incredibly skinny "dude" in an army jacket and a fat, short bearded man) on a trolleybus stop, just opposite the Transmash recreation center, waiting for the last trolleybus No.1. Our lonely figures in the night, lit by the bright light of the road lantern, already from a distance were struck by the passers-by at this late hour. As always, I was wearing a military camouflage jacket "Afghan", which in 1987 was brought to "test" for army warehouses in a relatively small number and only in the army in force (at first, after my dismissal, I liked to emphasize "Demobilization"). By the way, in it I was sitting in the restaurant, causing numerous curious looks bored there women.
   A couple of guys and a girl of 16-18 years old were parading around us. The guys periodically threw up their right hand and shouted out loud: "Zig haill!" "Shut up, Aryan rat!" The Beard grumbled grimly, addressing one of the guys - with his blond head, he really looked like a "true Aryan". The guys stepped aside, briefly conferred, and then began to break the fence in the nearby front garden. "Seryo, get up here!" - said Makarov, grabbing my elbow and pushing to the wall of a two-story house, built in the 40s by Japanese prisoners of war. We stood side by side, elbow to the elbow, pressing our backs against the brick wall, ready to simultaneously repel the attack.
   Soon two sinister figures emerged from the darkness. The guys came to us with great impetus: one held a wooden fence in his hand, the second one - a long sharpening. "Well, muzhiks, will we do?" - hoarsely said "Aryan", holding a stick in his hand. I decided not to wait for his attack and attacked first, inflicting a series of accurate, but apparently not very strong side attacks in the thin oblong face of the "Aryan". He crouched, but at the same time the second, black-haired guy ran up and inflicted a sharp, sharp, inconspicuous blow to his eyes, sharp as an awl, sharpening directly to my chest. Then I finally became enraged: grabbing the lying snake on the ground, I began to pound it, like crazy, over the head of the black one. In pain and fear, pouring blood, he threw his sharpening onto the roadway and, with all his strength, rushed off. After him ran the "Aryan" and abandoned by his knight maidens. Having caught up with the girl, I gave her such a "juicy" kick in the ass, that she flew out of her sandals and stretched out on the asphalt, stretched out on the asphalt, sobbing loudly and spreading girl's tears on her soiled face.
   All this happened so swiftly that Beard did not even have time to intervene, continuing to stand, as if dead, near the wall of the house. Only now, after the fight, I felt a strong pain in the left side of my chest. Unbuttoning the "Afghan", I was horrified to find that the sharpening had pierced through the jacket and shirt, slightly soaking it with blood. Having punched a very thin skin in this place, the sharpening, however, did not go any further, but miraculously rested against the rib, just opposite the heart. A small bruise with a bruise immediately formed around the small opening. So Ra once again closed me, the fool, with his huge chest and for the second time gave me such an invaluable and such a fragile Life. And how does He do this? - still I will not put my mind into it! I suspect only that here the matter clearly does not do without the intervention of Ra in the gravitational field of the Earth - only so, in this particular case, it is possible to explain the Divine effect on the direction and force of the strike with cold weapons.
   However, on this our adventures are not over yet. Under the "curtain" of this more than a strange performance - "buffoonery" Ra decided to show us his "crown" number - "trick with the disappearance"! So without waiting for the trolleybus, Boroda and I moved along Leninsky Prospekt in the direction of North-West Street, and suddenly we saw a crowd of 20 guys with beats in hand walking towards us. Ahead of the crowd, our "cheerful Aryan" walked briskly, shouting loudly and shrilly to the whole night street; Just like the demon fuhrer, hurrying up those who go: "Guys, quicker, until they're gone!" "Here it is!" I thought, clearly seeing the terrible picture of our bodies lying on the asphalt, tormented by an angry mob . We had absolutely no help waiting in this situation. The beard took me by the right forearm and said quietly: "Seryoga, go quietly, do not look in the eyes!" And here a miracle happened, the most real miracle - the crowd led by the "Aryan" passed us at a distance of only an outstretched hand. Apparently, Ra temporarily deprived this blond guy who simply could not forget us, memory and reason, providing us with a safe passage through the crowd. Turning around the corner, we asked such a "squeak" along the Gorno - Altaiskaya street, and then ran through the yards right up to the North - West street, as if they were crazy, without stopping, still not completely believing in such an incredible, simply miraculous salvation. "Seryozha, it's just a miracle that we won - in spite of everything, contrary to common sense! We defeated the crowd! "- exclaimed enthusiastically Beard, and I, of course, could not help but share his feelings at that moment.
   Somewhere in the middle of June 1988, in the midst of our "epochal" repair, Oleg Korobkov came to me from Novosibirsk. He decided with some Novosibirsk friend to raft over Peschanaya and for that he asked me for equipment for a catamaran. With him, he brought "on the tail" a lot of "fresh" news from the "secular" life, from which I completely fell behind with this ill-fated repair.
   Olezhka sadly told me that Viktor Petrovich Vasilyev, director of the Altay camp site, was convicted in May 1988 for 3 years on probation for violating safety techniques on the water, which caused the death of a tourist. This dead tourist was the investigator of the Railway Department of the Barnaul police department Nikolai Egorov, a classmate and friend of our informal leader in the theater named after Commissioner Megre Oleg Kazakov (yes, the one who, in the "dashing" 90s, got into the insidious networks of the totalitarian sect of "Jehovah's Witnesses" "). And it was so.
   Once in the spring of 1988 the Vasilyevs' spouses offered Kolya Egorova, with whom they had long been friends, to raft on a trimaran along the already familiar Peschanaya River. The trimaran is a boat rarely used in water tourism, which is used only when there is no pair for one of the rowers, and the catamaran slightly falls short of the "four" (the gondola for the third "passenger" with a two-way kayak paddle is attached to the catamaran's frame - " Deuces "at the back).
   At first, the raft seemed to be not foreshadowing this terrible tragedy. For two days the trinity reached the well-known gorge, where the sand poured and boiled from April's "great" water, like in a hot-cooking pan. Almost immediately after entering the canyon, the trimaran performed a graceful "overkil"; At the same time, the spouses Vasilyev, by some miracle, managed to get out onto the inaccessible stony bank of the canyon. But Kolya Egorov at this time, it can be said, was not at all lucky-he was dragged down by the mad flow of the river down to the gorge, where he smashed to death with a powerful water stream about sharp, jagged stones.
   So, the famous Peschanaya gorge was replenished with another sad cross soon established by water experts in memory of the Barnaul investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and just a good man Nikolai Egorov, who was never destined to conquer Peschanaya - another tribute to this capricious, capricious, but beautiful Altai river, which Admits everyone, but not all let go "in peace." It turns out that this was not the only loss at the Altay camp site in that ill-fated 1988 year. The famous "Doctor Diesel", the permanent deputy director of the tourist center, finally got drunk and became a victim of apartment swindlers, lost his home in the city, and soon after that "gave up" in some "bomber" at the Barnaul railway station.
   But that was not all. Boxes with a mysterious look told me, slyly winking at the same time with his completely atypical Jewish eye of ultramarine color, as he once met on the street of Novosibirsk, Olga Istomin, in the summer. They warmly, very cordially greeted, even embraced, like old bosom friends, and got to talking. From Olga's short story, Oleg realized that her relationship with the agronomist had suffered a complete "fiasco." She, for some reason, with a scandal, resigned from the personnel department of the Barnaul factory "Avangard" and moved to Novosibirsk, where, in fact, she always lived all her working family, settled in the personnel department for some heavy engineering enterprise. About me, she did not ask anything, and Oleg did not take care of her old wounds from delicacy.
   About this scandal associated with the dismissal of Olga, I once told and Aunt Masha - my very drinking neighbor in the apartment from the third floor, who worked all her life as a seamstress at the Barnaul factory "Avangard". From her words it turned out that all the conflicts Olga had at work in one way or another were connected with men. Apparently, Olga was a complete nymphomaniac and absolutely did not know the measures in her feverish search for the "ideal" man.
   After dropping all his news of the "secular chronicle", the happy Box went off to the Altai Mountains, and Borodoy and I stayed to finish this endless, thoroughly podnadoevshy repair of their "bungalow."
   However, soon I was tired of not only this ill-fated apartment repair, but also Beard himself. In Yura Makarov's life was just disgusting, extremely uncomfortable character, so our joint living became a kind of continuous protracted conflict lasting almost 1 year. He lived with me until April 1989, and then, after all, I did my best, including with the help of my future wife Natasha, forcibly evicting him from the apartment. In the spring of 1989, to my great relief, an insufferable Beard left my house and returned to "my own place" - in my hostel, ASU hostel on Nadezhda Krupskaya Street. Until his death, he was never able to forgive me this "great migration of peoples", which Yurok, for some reason, regarded as outright meanness and betrayal on my part. In part, probably, he was right - as Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, "we are responsible for those who have tamed!"
   In June 1995, Yura Makarov died tragically, dropping out of the window of the eighth floor of the student hostel (I always felt a karmic seal of doom on him that bore in all this tragicomic appearance of Beard - in the people it is called "not a tenant"). As they say, "God gave, God took"! Ra saved Yura Makarov's life in 1988 to take her back in 1995. Well, He knows best - who, when and how (KKK)!
   The next character, about which I want to tell and which is quite worthy of our esoteric narrative, is Sasha Korablin - an unsurpassed bass player of the group "Convoy". Korablin came to us at the invitation of Kolya Gributsky from the symphony orchestra of the Philharmonic, where he played for a long time and still plays the double bass. This, of course, a psychotic personality for 30 years or so was devoted to music before some painful, just frenzied fanaticism. Music (and in any of its forms) has always been the main interest and meaning of his entire life.
   Like all bass players, Korablin often complied with the "green snake", who, however, did not stop him in any condition from being a virtuoso musician; In contrast, for example, from me, a drunkard, whom alcohol always backhanded "beat on the hands" and who absolutely violated any coordination of movements.
   Arriving in the group, Sasha Korablin at one point became our informal leader. Of course, it was not difficult at all - to become a leader for three illiterate lawyers, amateurs - "labuchs", who did not know any musical notation and did not have even the slightest idea of ??even the elementary theory of music. This circumstance, of course, terribly infuriated professional musician Korablin, who at the rehearsal, unable to withstand the next "kicks" of our drummer, also a lawyer Pasha Bykovsky ("The Bull"), angrily exclaimed: "What is this" zhopkin chorus ", maramoyka Khrenova?" - and threw a maracas or a shaker into the head of the Bull, not by the time falling under his arm. The bull also did not stay in debt - he unperturbedly removed a heavy cowboy from a bracket of a shock unit (a metal prism imitating the sound of a "cow bell" in the drum set-hence the name of the English "cow-bell") and launched it into Korablin, seeking Get into the chest or belly of this irrepressible bass player (he would simply kill him). The bull's throw was always accompanied by a selective mat of the "hit target", but soon the rehearsal was already in its usual course, as if nothing had happened.
   Almost every rehearsal ended with port "777". Drunk Korablin, who in this state often "punched" for a sentimental mood, tried to kiss me with the words: "Katz, Katsulya dear, how I love you! Yes, we will soon break such firewood with you! We will become famous all over Russia! Why are you looking at me like that on a dolbob? Do not you believe that? Be sure to be - remember my word! Only the Bull and Gesha of the group will be expelled, because they are full of maramas! "
   He is in vain, absolutely in vain says so. Speaking of the Bull, this tall blond guy from Chisinau, who possessed enormous physical strength, was a drummer "from God" who has in his head a real natural metronome. The Bull had a fantastic sense of tempo-rhythm, and he "chopped" the strong parts in the ensemble with such rhythm and accuracy, absolutely not looking at us, "labuchi" (this is the most valuable quality for the drummer - to play, listening only to his inner rhythm, and not "Follow" the "crazy" musicians) that we all treated him with great respect and quite deservedly called him "the heart of the Convoy". The same can be said about Geshe (Gene Seleznev), a guitarist from Zarinsk. Gesha (by the way, also a lawyer) was very original, just a unique technique for playing the guitar. Absolutely not knowing the notes, he made such virtuoso things on it, which often were beyond the power and many professionals who graduated from the music school.
   If Bykovsky was the "heart of a rock band", Sasha Korablin was certainly her "prostate gland", which doctors call "the second heart of a man". Korablin with his music exuded such a powerful sexual energy in the ensemble that simply fascinated us all, forcing us to carry out all his "brilliant" ideas without resentment.
   Being a powerful generator of musical ideas, Korablin gradually tidied up all the reins of government in the collective, considerably squeezing our leader Nikolai Gributsky, including in dealing with personnel issues. Wishing to somehow dilute us, lawyers, professional musicians, Korablin brought in the "Convoy" a new vocalist Sergei Matzievsky and keyboardist Marat Ryabenko.
   Sergei Matsievsky ("Matsik"), a handsome youngster of 25 years, had excellent vocal data, but, to our great regret, according to the well-known classification of the outstanding Russian psychiatrist Peter Borisovich Gannushkin, belonged to a group of accents of a constitutionally stupid type; What is called, "stupid and even stupid"! This, in fact, is a difficult case, similar to the one that already occurs in our time with the famous tenor Nikolai Baskov. The natural stupidity of the singer will never allow him to reveal even the most ingenious vocal data - he, simply, will not be able to convey the idea and feelings of the musical work to his listener.
   So it happened with Matzik. For half a year we, as "slaves on galley", prepared a program of performances for 12 hours a day (mainly composed of works of our own composition), all rhythmic syncopes were sharpened to brilliance, using absolutely avant-garde, in their "advanced" jazz-rock compositions, still Before us unused means of ornamentation and arrangement, and with his vocals, "one stroke of the pen," Mazik "smeared" all our work - the regular commission for the tarification of the Altai Regional Philharmonic, headed at that time by the conductor of the symphony orchestra Burakov (musicians in the orchestra "for the eyes" called him "our Fools"), after listening to us in November 1988, delivered his ruthless verdict: "The music of the rock band" Convoy "is beautiful and corresponds to European standards, but vocalist Sergei Matsievsky does not Could deliver to the listener any idea of ??the music presented to the commission of the commission. " Therefore, we, for the second time this year, have remained without even this meager monthly salary of the musician of the regional philharmonic society of the 7th grade, equal to 70 rubles for that period of time. This circumstance, as well as the future debilitating tours in Kemerovo with Mikhail Muromov, pushed me in December 1988 to the final and rather painful (it was painful for my titanic work of the musician for these six months in the group) to leave the "Convoy". Even more musical "fruit" in our creative team was, undoubtedly, Marat Ryabenko. Marat graduated with honors from the theoretical department of the Barnaul Music College and before the "Convoy" worked for two years as a keyboard player in the cult of the Barnaul art group Zhenya Chikishev "Uncle Go" in the 80s of the last century. At "Uncle Go", by that time, there was already all - Union fame in the world of rock musicians, and even Boris Grebenshchikov, in one of his interviews with great piety, spoke about her. She also went to the famous, beautifully illustrated "Anthology of rock music", published in Moscow in 1990 by Artem Troitsky - the permanent organizer of rock festivals in Barnaul, held from 1986 to 1989. Therefore, Marat, obsessed, like all Jews, with boundless vanity, had every reason to develop a "star fever".
   And Marat, I must say, almost immediately, "in full growth" "zazvezdil" in our completely not "old" music team - I think, no worse than Philip Kirkorov at the time, bravely attacking the "pink blouse".
   Once, Beard, unable to withstand the rehearsals of the next "star" whims Ryabenko, with all his heart, "charged" him in the "tambourine", quite severely smashing his lip. However, this lesson of male education from Boroda was enough for a little while - a little crying, women quietly regretting themselves, Marat already at the next rehearsal was, as always, in "his own role" - "starred" disgruntled, , "Poor, unhappy" lawyers.
   Ryabenko did not have time to come to the "Convoy" at the invitation of Korablin, as he immediately began, in the "best" Jewish traditions, to "weave" vile intrigues, pushing the members of the collective with their musical foreheads.
   Once Gesha accidentally overheard the talk of drunken Marat and Korablin, the two of them left in the Philharmonic after rehearsing for their beloved "port." The essence of the conversation was that the conspirators planned to conduct a "large-scale" personnel reshuffle in the "Convoy", removing, for me, Gesha and me, and replenishing the ranks of the rock band with professional musicians from the school. "Here I am surprised Katsu," the drunk Ryabenko was perplexed. - Do not understand who he is - "Labuh" or not "Labuh" ?! He does not know the diploma at all, he even puts his hand wrong, but he plays, and moreover, plays well for an amateur! But all the same - it must be cleaned; And, first of all, remove from our group. Very, I'll tell you, a bad man in the team! "
   I conveyed the content of this conversation, almost word for word, to Kolya Gributsky. He was simply amazed to learn that so fatal, unnoticed for himself, lost all control over the situation in the rock band. At the same time, he assured me swiftly that Marat and Korablin would leave the "Convoy" rather than me and Gesha - by the way, his best friend since his student years.
   Fate cruelly punished Marat Ryabenko for his selfishness, envy and excessive pride - in the spring of 1999 he hung himself in the toilet of his one-room apartment, kneeling in a loop (the feeling that he prayed before his death) for more than two weeks. On the table, the investigator found a suicide note: "The work is over, now life has lost its meaning."
   It is unclear what was missing for this more than a strange man? Papa Marata, the general director of the largest silicate plant in the Altai Territory, did everything to make his son happy. He bought him a separate apartment, a car, a chic for that time synthesizer - the port studio "Yamaha". Ryabenko graduated with honors from the composer department of the Novosibirsk Conservatoire and got a job as a teacher at the Barnaul Music College, enrolling in absentia in the Novosibirsk post-graduate course. It would seem that life was a success! True, shortly before the suicide from Marat, the second wife left, but, unlikely, this circumstance can be considered a serious reason to settle scores with a life that is successful in the whole young man. In general, I was particularly perplexed, completely not knowing what else this person needed in life.
   Everything became clear after a visit to my long-time friend, the owner of a chic recording studio in the Khimikov Palace of Culture, Yuri Borodin, who now lives with his son Arseny in Moscow and works as a sound engineer in the popular Chelsea capital group. In the winter of 2000, Marat Ryabenko's parents brought him a synthesizer and asked him to "dump" all his son's work in the port studio over the past three years. It turns out that Marat has been working on a symphony for the last three years. "Do you want to listen to the sounds of hell?" Borodin asked, trembling in his voice. "Come on!" - I said, quite intrigued by his such unexpected statement. He included a recording, which, by the way, lasted only 15 minutes. And these 15 unfortunate minutes the young, "talented", "promising" composer recorded for as long as 3 years? But what were these sounds, the reader ?! This, indeed, was the sound of Hell. Tonal and harmonic reminiscences of this so-called "symphony" immediately evoked the terrible image of Lucifer. The blatant dissonance of this piece of music, which I would call "On the threshold of the underworld," was simply shocking, and on top of all this terrible cacophony to enhance the "hellish effect" Marat covered with a heavy, like a sledgehammer, a symphonic bass, from the infrasound which is just "goose bumps "Went and, like the living snakes of the Gorgon, rare hair moved on my already balding head!
   Now "the court was clear", as they say - Marat Ryabenko, driven by his excessive pride, at some stage of his life made a deal with Satan, becoming his faithful servant - the real "Satanist"! Is it any wonder that "always honest and sincere in his intentions?" The devil once in return took away his unlucky life, watering up vodka and preparing a "smart" place for a suicide in his underground diocese - in Hell!
   In December 1988, Rafael Mazitov decided to take our rock band together with Mikhail Muromov and the group "Freestyle" for a two-day tour in Kemerovo. This "epoch-making" trip was scheduled for December 12. Rafael suggested that by this time we prepare two pieces for the performance, which he particularly liked from all of our, frankly speaking, not very weighty repertoire: it is ragtime "Walking in Sochi" and a rock ballad "Siberia". We began to actively prepare for tours, rehearsing these two musical things for 12 hours a day - it was painful to make a good impression on the exacting Kemerovo audience.
   The author of the main musical theme in the ragtime "Walking in Sochi" was Gesha. He came, as always, sober and very neat, to our next rehearsal - a sort of supercluster "person" - and just played us this simple and at the same time brilliant melody on his excellent, good-sounding "acoustics" Cremon. The light, sparkling theme of the guitar immediately appealed to all of us. And then Sasha Korablin took up the job, as always, with great enthusiasm, deciding to arrange the "Walk" in the style of "fusion" (meaning "rafting" in English), that is, to give this essentially chamber piece a characteristic jazz - Fatal sound.
   In order to preserve the elegance and purity of the Gesha melodic line, it was decided in the "Walk" to completely abandon the electric guitar and save the main theme in "acoustics." The "great" music theorist Marat, as always, could not resist and inserted (although, I must admit, this time very competently and to the point) in our ragtime a fragment of the "Well-Tempered Clavier" by Johann Sebastian Bach. And finally, in order to thoroughly "break" and change the rhythmic drawing of the work beyond recognition, Korablin added his favorite syncopation (the rhythmic shift of the strong parts in the rhythm of the musical work) to the "grunting" bass "slap" of "Fender". So, in the end, we got this rather "appetizing product" of genuine collective creativity called "Walking in Sochi"! The second work "Siberia", which we prepared for the concert in Kemerovo along with "The Walk", was also the result of a joint "brainstorm" of the participants of the "legendary" rock band "Convoy". The music for the rock ballad "Siberia" I wrote, the words - Sasha Korablin, although I suspect that only Korablin's brother could have written such piercing, frankly "prison" verses, who was serving another punishment in the colony of strict regime UB - 14/3 In the village of Kueta, which is near Barnaul:
   "Siberia has long been smelling of creosote,
   Heavy smell of prisons and barracks.
   Where will lead us the dictates of rock,
   Desperate descendants of convicts?
  
   Where to get us all, Lord, today's faith
   Unbelief and fear in spite of?
   The militiamen will not help us
   And faithful Latvian arrows! "
   The late Yura Makarov was very fond of this psychedelic rock ballad, and I must say that he was far from alone in his love for Siberia - we often noticed at concerts, how the audience was strangely frozen during the performance of this soulful philosophical song, and In the room suddenly established a "dead" silence - as they say, "a mosquito will fly - and then you can hear" (see phonogram 8).
   And then, finally, the long-awaited day of December 12, 1988 arrived - we are going by the whole group of "Convoy" in a dirty second-class car to the Siberian city of Kemerovo towards "universal glory and world popularity". All the way on the train, we, as usual, "knocked out", and I, of course, "slightly" guessed that this - just a prelude to a grand booze with brother-soldiers (if the reader remembers, my best "sidekick" from Ishim training Lech Jupitov ("Elderly") and Tolya Frolov ("Dancer") were from Kemerovo.
   Before we arrived in Kemerovo and stayed in the hotel near the railway station, as Raphael Mazitov immediately had problems with the local "brotherhood" - skinheads of obviously criminal type demanded that he immediately pay a "tribute" to the Kuzbass "obshchak" for the concert on the accountable Their territory. Miserly to the disgrace of the Mazit, of course, was not going to pay anything to anyone, but immediately called to Kazan, and by the evening of this day in Kemerovo the nearest flight was a brigade of tall, hefty Tatars who quickly and without serious losses solved this unexpected problem, Literally "breaking" the situation with the local "mafia". Having lunch at the hotel restaurant, we went to the Sports Palace in full force, where from 16.00 we had to start setting up the equipment and the general "run". In the Sports Palace, unexpectedly for ourselves, we found a very unattractive picture - Misha Muromov had already somewhere to "get drunk" and in all his capital dope swam on this despicable "provincial" scene. He sang, or rather roared in a drunken, bad voice, obviously "warming up", annoying all the earthlings before him and, above all, "Apples in the snow," only substituting for him the words of his musical "masterpiece" with a choice of foul language and vulgarity:
   "Fuck her in the snow,
   Pink on white.
   What am I to do with it,
   Fuck her in the snow?
  
   You will help her,
   I can not do it anymore.
   You will still fill it,
   I'm not going to be able to do it anymore! "
   I have never seen so drank Muromov. For the sake of justice, it should be noted that Misha at that time seldom afforded such a shock, practically not abusing alcohol. Now he is a completely drunk old man who drags around in Moscow a miserable, "semi-burglar" existence, somehow wreaking his stupid, useless age. And then, in 1988, Muromov was the favorite of Fortune and women, who every time at his concerts in hysterics chased him through the stadium, wanting to touch any part of the body to this newly appeared Deity. Already in 1989, the star of "captivating happiness" Muromov finally sunk - however, as unexpectedly as it rose.
   In the dashing 90-s Misha unexpectedly for all the fans decided to repeat his "phenomenal" variety - commercial success, having arranged in 1993 in Barnaul something remotely resembling a modern nightclub; But, as is known, "you can not enter the same river twice". He through Kolya Gributsky rented the hall of the Palace of Culture of the Melanjevy Combine, installed tables with some kind of second-rate "food" right in the hall for spectators (again, as usual, Moscow's "zhalbizm" - they say, all these Siberian pigs will eat) And "all" for 3 thousand rubles invited to his concert skinhead guys in "crimson jackets" - apparently, thus hoping to find Altaic "suckers" - potential sponsors for their "imperishable" creativity.
   Well, the banquet from Mikhail Muromov, I must admit, "was a success" on that memorable evening - a banquet for everyone "for joy" and everyone for a very big "surprise"! As always, having touched before the concert with alcohol, Muromov crawled onto the stage, drunk in the "firewood". To sing to him, of course, did not want at all, but instead he first began to belch the whole scene of this oldest and most respected Palace of Culture in the city.
   After this tremendous "uterine extravaganza", feeling, apparently, a certain sense of guilt in front of the "slightly" fenced public, Misha, nevertheless, decided to correct his fatal mistake and return the hall completely to a spoiled appetite, and to himself - lost in an instant respect Viewers. He, in his own way, perched on the edge of the stage, dangling his feet in dirty boots right into the hall, and began to talk in a heartfelt manner with the "crimson jackets", which is called "for life," and when they began to protest noisily against Muromov's autobiographical revelations, he drunk offense, he began to generously "treat" them to "faсka", all indiscriminately in the hall showing the middle finger. Then everyone will have patience, let alone "brothers"! The enraged "brothers" dragged Mishan from the stage and were about to beat him up, as it should, but the time came to protect the club in time, nevertheless, pull out from the rapacious paws of crowds the mortal body of the "living classic" - the author of the immortal work "Apples in the snow" As they say, "imperishable" of our time! As soon as sobered up, Muromov's mood began to deteriorate catastrophically, and he "zazvezdil" (he became as real "star") this time more than usual. Approached to him with a tray of an elderly mustachioed clarinetist from Freestyle, which looks very similar to Presnyakov, the eldest (also a clarinetist, by the way), he kicked the tray - as a result, the alcoholic cocktail intended for the "megastar" was completely overturned to a concert suit An elderly musician. Silently wiping the sleeve of his inexpensive, worn out jacket, the clarinettist only shook his head sadly at this shameless escapade of the "great" singer, and, completely humiliated, retired from the stage.
   Seeing us in the hall, Mishanya suddenly with a voice that does not tolerate objections, categorically stated that he will not play in one concert with such "Honduras" as we do. Rafael Mazitov, of course, went to meet the wishes of the "megastar". So, overnight, the fate of the "Convoy" was decided - we hopelessly "flew like plywood" past our first and then second tour day. Well, my hands were completely "untied" now (I guess they will not have to play any more) and, having called Lyosha Jupitov, I "started all the worse" on the same day, along with my faithful kind friends - fellow soldiers.
   Returning to Barnaul, I finally and irrevocably decided for myself: "It's time to" make legs "from the" Convoy "!" As old man Blackmore said, leaving the legendary "Deep Perplex": "I was too crowded in the format of this rock - Group! "Let the guys -" escorts "go to" world fame ", but only without me!
   On the same day, secretly from Gributsky and Boroda, I ran to the regional prosecutor's office to Kolya Makeyev, who at that time worked as a prosecutor of the personnel department and asked to work for the Altai Territory Prosecutor's Office. "Sergun, there are no places in the city at all, but yesterday the place was vacated in the special prosecutor's office. The local assistant of the Barnaul prosecutor for overseeing the observance of laws in the ITU, Sergei Derechey, was transferred to the military prosecutor's office. Are you going to go to the prison in the prosecutor? "Makeshka asked me. "Of course, I'll go!" - without hesitation, almost immediately I agreed, and I was taken to the reception first to the head of the personnel department, Krasnoperov, and then to an audience - presentation to the prosecutor of the Altai Territory Ivan Pavlovich Gushchin. Soon the question of my employment was resolved positively, and already on January 2, 1989, I was bound to be immensely happy in anticipation of a new, very bright Labor Life, to serve as an assistant to the Barnaul Prosecutor for Supervision of the ITU.
   Telling about my fateful decision to leave the rock band to Kolya Gributsky, I, of course, greatly upset him. With ardor he long persuaded me to stay; Even tried to press on "conscience", convincing, that it is impossible to throw it in such a difficult moment for the "Convoy". "I still can not pay Rafael Mazitov for those stupid tours in Kemerovo!" - laughed Kolya, but all this was already useless - as the saying goes, "the Moor has done his work, the Moor can go"!
   And soon after I left the group Gesha and Pasha Bykovsky - they also did not wait until they were "squashed" by "real professionals". And the "Convoy" by itself, without help, quietly "died" in early 1989 - as they say, "rested in the Bose", so that only in 1997, like the legendary bird Phoenix, "rise from the ashes" - once again reborn in the A new quality and a completely different composition in the Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. But this, dear reader, is a completely different story!
  
  
   Jail
   "Tomorrow, at a concert dedicated to International Women 's Day on March 8, you, Solovyov, read something from imperishable classics, and best of all Pushkin - you are very good at it!" - with these words the deputy of the executive system of the UB -14/8 Major Salomasov's inner service to the lanky skinny "zek" for about 40 years, from the heels to the neck tattooed domes, female faces and huge picturesque spiders, one of which managed to "weave" the web even on the neck and cheek of the convict. "Well, Pushkin, so Pushkin - to me without a difference," Yuri Borisovich Solovyev said indifferently and, taking a picture pose, began loudly and with an expression to recite "Eugene Onegin", transferred by local "craftsmen" to prison "argo": "
   "My uncle, a scoundrel, a thief in law,
   When I hung on the cross,
   He's cut off like a bull in a pen,
   Although the mind was already worm.
   His joke is another science:
   But stremno - century I will be a bitch!
   Sit with "income" day and night -
   Do not drink, do not wait, do not shudder!
  
   What kind of pancake, cheap "zeher"
   I play with a woman in blind man's buff,
   He smsyadachiv sour,
   Wheels drive for doing neher,
   Sigh and mutter under your breath:
   "When you shark horses, dog!"
   "Oh, enough is enough, Solovyov, that's it, stop all this shit! - Salomasov waved choleric to the "reader". - Are you crazy, put on such a "vomit" for a concert for women? And do you know Lermontov, "The Death of a Poet," for example? "" I know, "grinned Soloviev," to read? "A poet died, a slave of honor ..." "Well, that's quite another matter," Salomassov snapped, "and you'll read it at a concert!"
   All this entertaining conversation took place in one of the most "sacral" institutions of the Altai Territory - the correctional labor colony UB-14/8 of the strict regime, located near the town of Novoaltaysk, specially created for convicted tuberculosis patients sent here from all over the Soviet Union. I have been a supervising prosecutor in this colony for a year now, working, "sparing no loss of myself and stubbornly", in the Barnaul special prosecutor's office. After spending the rest of the army after the army and having worked as a musician in the Altai Regional Philharmonic Society for just six months, I, without thinking twice, got a job in prison, guided by the principle that the prison is probably an even more existential place than the army, Me it will certainly be interesting!
   Vasily Petrovich Shulga, the head of my supervised colony, invited me to this concert, dedicated to the International Women's Day. And now I'm sitting in the prestigious first row for the guests together with the management of the ITC and watch with great interest how the already convicted Yuri Borisovich Solovyov comes out on the stage, wagging, and solemnly announcing: "Mikhail Lermontov's poem" Death of the poet " Begins very pompously, with excessive pathos, like a real artist of a colloquial genre, to recite:
   "Uryli honest zhigana
   And the boy was forsworn.
   The olive in the belly of the revolver,
   Makitra on one side - and Khan!
  
   Did not endure the soul strained,
   Rotten bazaars and Ponts.
   Specifically boiled vagabond,
   Poper, like a tractor ... and ready!
  
   Ready! ... Do not howl over the barracks,
   Blind and shut your mouth.
   Now at least stand sideways, even with cancer,
   He had a bad suit!
  
   Did not you, the nits,
   And for fun, for durnery
   All your shoe pushed
   Is it empty on the urkagan?"
   And a scandal broke out, what kind of light did not see! The officers neighing like horses, almost falling under the armchairs of the "red corner" hall, in which all this "sacrament" took place; The women were loudly indignant, and only Yuri Borisovich Soloviev stood in the middle of the stage with his invariable contemptuous grin, quite pleased with the effect produced in the hall. I remember that at that time I had to work very hard to "brush off" Solovyov from the punishment cell (SHIZO) - Vasily Petrovich Shulga was really angry with him, to whom he, in essence, thwarted the official event.
   The behavior of the convicted Solovyov, who had always been in good standing with the ITC-8 administration and even held the post of director of the "zonal" canteen, having lost all at once for some incomprehensible courage, made me seriously think about the "mysterious Russian soul" of our, Prisoner. There is a lot in our "zeks" that there is something that you will not find in any other nations. About this, as well as the "psychotype of the Russian criminal" I want to talk in this chapter.
         The phenomenon of the so-called "mysterious Russian soul" has already decently rampant in both artistic and scientific literature, having long ago become the subject of numerous chauvinistic speculations. The postulate "this is the mysterious Russian soul" often sounds bravado in the mouth of a single Russian person to justify his drunkenness, ignorance and lack of action. The nature of the Russian people, due to its complexity, originality and paradoxicality, always aroused and irritated Europeans, who, without bothering with the existential analysis of the features of the Russian character, created his rather primitive image of a drunkard and a completely unruly idler. According to figurative remark F.M. Dostoevsky, "... in the person of Russia, the Europeans see only a sleeping, nasty, drunken creature stretching from Finnish cold rocks to flaming Colchis, with a huge shtof in their hands."
         Drinking in Russia is one of many and very peculiar manifestations of the ultimate existential nature of Russian nature. It is not by chance that Snegirev in the Brothers Karamazov exclaims: "In Russia, drunken people are the best people in Russia. The most kind people at us and the most drunk! ". Very deep thought. The kindest are only people in an abnormal state. What is a normal person in this Russia? Apparently, the norm is evil. The last part of the statement does not leave room for ambiguity - drink good.
       The existentialism of the Russian man has been brought to the extreme and thoroughly saturated with the spirit of sadomasochism, often leading to the complete destruction of the individual, both morally and physically. Drunkenness is only one of the manifestations of such self-destruction, to which a Russian person is given selflessly, with all the passion of his unbridled nature. The self-destructor in general, as is known, bears a powerful destructive charge, incl. Aimed at surrounding people. Maybe this is partly explained by the fact that a Russian person is an excellent warrior from time immemorial, and much less - a builder.
     Experiencing a hypochondria and severe boredom from everyday systematic work, a Russian person, due to the emotional-volitional characteristics of his psychotype, is more prone to affective actions, often directed toward destruction than to creation. It is not accidental that the energies of a Russian criminal are more responsive to crimes of selfish violence. There is aggression and encouraging active, often destructive actions, a very attractive for the Russian people mercenary motive.
      Thus, the share of convicts serving sentences for mercenary-violent crimes in the penal colony UB-14/1 of the general regime is 43.7%; In the colony of strict regime UB-14/3 this share already makes 53.2%. Given that the proportion of ethnic Russians in these correctional institutions prevails (97%), these figures are sufficiently representative for logical conclusions about the national preferences of the type and method of crime in a Russian person. However, the Russian existentialism brought to the extreme is also manifested here - a Russian person can successfully create when he is captured by a global national idea, for example, a worldwide social reconstruction (again carried out in accordance with the Russian notions of "world happiness"). Therefore, it is quite obvious that communism, as a sadomasochistic theory, threw seeds on a very fertile Russian soil, for it is much easier to sacrifice oneself in the name of even the most absurd and utopian idea for a Russian person than to engage in daily systematic work of creation.
      A very peculiar attitude in Russia and in the criminal sphere. The great Russian actor Fedor Ivanovich Shalyapin in his memoirs on this occasion wrote: "The game of robbers is attractive, probably for all children everywhere, throughout the world. It has a lot of romantic - an enemy, a danger, an adventure. But this game is especially loved by Russian children. Hardly anywhere in another country robbers occupy such a large place in the imagination and games of children, like ours. Maybe it's because, so that
   There were many robbers and that in folk fantasy they merged with the majestic decoration of the dense forests of Russia and the great Russian rivers. With the image of a robber, the Russian boy is connected with the idea of ??a crimson sash on a red shirt, a freedom-loving song, a free, broad, sweeping life. Perhaps this is also because in the old days, when the people felt oppressed by the bars and officials, he often saw his defender in the bandit rebel against the domination of the people. Who from robbers especially fell in love with Russia? The robber king is Stenka Razin. Magnanimous and cruel, stormy and overbearing, Stenka rebelled against the authorities and called under his rebellious banner of disgruntled and offended. And it is remarkable that most of all in Razin the legend was chosen by his wild romantic impulse, when he, "cheerful and inebriated", raised his beloved Persian princess overboard and threw her into the Volga river - "a gift from the Don Cossack", as it is written about him In the song. He pulled out, undoubtedly, a piece of a hot heart from his chest and threw it overboard, into the waves ... That's what he, this popular Russian robber! "
     In this example, the Russian sadomasochistic beginning is also clearly seen - both in the image of Stenka Razin himself, and in the Russian ethnos in general.
      And then F.I. Chaliapin writes: "The Russian temperament does not seem to be the middle one. To the extreme, his mental states, his feelings, are intense. From this, Russian life seems so contradictory, full of sharp contrasts. There are contradictions in every human soul. This is her natural chiaroscuro. In every soul there are dissimilar feelings, but in the midst of their states they peacefully coexist side by side in an excellent neighborhood. Along with poetry and beauty in the Russian soul live heavy, depressing sins. Sins, let's say, universal - intolerance, envy, anger, cruelty, but this is our strange Russian nature, that everything in it, bad and good, assumes immense forms, thickens to an unusual density; Not only our longing is special - viscous and impassable, but Russian apathy - some, I would say, piercing. The through emptiness in our apathy, for any European spleen is not similar. Perhaps this is due to some primitiveness of the Russian people, from the fact that it is still "young", but in the Russian character and in Russian everyday life the contradictions do, in fact, act more sharply and sharply than others. Broad Russian nature, no doubt, but how much in Russian life petty, captious, grumpy narrowness. Ultimate tenderness, the utmost pity, is the Russian heart, and at the same time, in Russian life, brutal cruelty, excruciating mischief, sometimes simply aimless, as if completely selfless. The Russian spirit is refined surprisingly, and how often in the Russian relations clumsy insubordination and insulting suspicion, and rudeness. Yes, indeed, in nothing, neither good nor bad, the Russian does not know the middle! "
       The native, sometimes quite primitive, beginning is manifested in the Russian man and in the motivation of his crimes, sometimes striking imagination with his senselessness, disproportionate desire and means for achieving a criminal goal. Here's how it just says, and with an understanding smile on his lips, the main character of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Idiot" Prince Myshkin: "Two peasants, and in years, and not drunk, and who have known each other for a long time, friends, got drunk tea and wanted to go to bed together in one of the closets. But one of the other peeped, in the last two days, hours, silver, in a beaded yellow string, which, evidently, he did not know from him before. This man was not a thief, he was even honest and, in peasant life, not at all poor. But he liked this watch before and so tempted him that at last he could not resist: he took the knife and, when the friend turned away, approached him gently from behind, began to notice, crossed his eyes to the sky, and said to himself bitterly Prayer: ""Lord, forgive me for Christ's sake!" Stabbed his friend once, like as ram, and took out his watch. "
     By this example, it is possible to clearly illustrate the definitely existential relation of the Russian man to religion, and to someone else's life. In this regard, recalled the criminal case of the murder of a former convict colony of the strict regime of Novoaltaysk Nikiforov. Despite the trivial-domestic character of this murder, the criminal situation described below demonstrates a very peculiar attitude of Russian people towards universal values ??and norms of social behavior.
     Three comrades, three former convicts of a strict regime colony, serving their sentence in the institution's hosobsluzhu, noisily and with an abundant libation of alcohol celebrated the "bright" holiday of October. All three men aged 25-30 years, according to the existing prison hierarchy, certainly belonged to the caste of the so-called "goats". "Goats" are open employees of colonial administrations who agreed to take any position - manager, club manager, librarian, commandant of the zone, or those who joined the CPR - "crime prevention section", i.e. To the internal police of the camp. They are also called "bitches". "Suced" - agreed to work for jailers. The administration calls the goats "an asset", "persons who have firmly embarked on the path of correction". Of course, prisoners are not good for them, and if we take into account the fact that in each zone between the administration and prisoners the war is going - then "cold", then this one, this attitude will become clear. "
     Despite such extreme, frankly speaking, existential conditions for the joint serving of punishment, Nikiforov, Novichikhin and Egorov became friends with each other, continuing to maintain relations and at large. This friendly meeting was the last and fatal for the owner of the apartment Nikiforov.
     It seemed that nothing in this ordinary feast did not foreshadow such dramatic events. Fluent conversation and vodka poured into glasses, memories from prison life "a la nostalgia" stirred the mind and sentimental sentiments. And then, after the next glass, Nikiforov reproached Yegorov for saying that he had exposed him in a disadvantageous light before the "godfather", passing the latter to Nikiforov's discontent with the methods and style of the administration of the penitentiary colony, its administration. "Kum" - deputy chief of the colony for routine and operational work (currently - deputy to the BOR), I remembered then remained displeased with Nikiforov's statement and almost translated it into the category of "roosters", forcing to remove the "ban" (the restricted area of ??the correctional institution - the exclusive "privilege" caste "omitted"). Yegorov, in turn, objected that he had done it in revenge to Nikiforov, who, having received a parcel from relatives, did not share his cigarettes and tea with his countrymen. Nikiforov, gradually annoyed, told everyone that he was not going to share with the "rats", the will of the destinies living with him in one box. In the colony he lived in the same room with Egorov and Novichikhin in the detachment of economic services. Then it was time to get annoyed by Novichikhin, who, not possessing the oratorical abilities of his two friends, with one blow of the kitchen knife, cut the "Gordian knot" of the flare-up dispute - stuck a knife in Nikiforov's eye socket. The latter only managed to wheeze: "Bitches!" - and fell down dead on the floor. "No, you see how he called us!" - exclaimed Yegorov and grabbed an ax in the corner, cut Nikiforov's skull. And went "fun" of two brutalized convicts - mockery of already dead body.
   The observant reader has probably noticed that a Russian person is generally inclined to affect actions. Apparently, in the Russian national psychotype there is nevertheless an accentuation of a constitutionally excitable type, superbly described in due time by the outstanding Russian psychiatrist P.B. Gannushkin, predetermining the subject's inclination to an emotional impulse, extreme behavior.
   This is indirectly confirmed by the data of the examinations of convicts in one of the correctional colonies of the strict regime of the Moscow region, received by psychiatric experts of the Institute. Serbian.
        It was found that 75% of the examinees had different mental disorders, of which 8.9% were recognized as psychopaths of an excitable circle. According to Yu.M. Antonian this percentage of psychopaths of an excitable circle in the infrared strict regime varies slightly and is 14.7%.
       I will not bore the reader with the naturalistic scenes of mockery over the corpse of Nikiforov, performed in the "glorious" traditions of the Marquis de Sade. I can only say that after a thorough demolition of the murdered heroes of our criminal narrative, Yegorov and Novichikhin, completely exhausted, finally came out to smoke in the yard and discuss the situation that had arisen. Again, I did not want to be in prison positively. "Eager" Egorov, critically looking at the figure of Novichikhin, said: "And you, you know, the texture is very similar to the deceased. Let's cut off his head and hide it. The cops do not agree who killed whom: does he own you, or are you the master. And we meanwhile - on the run. " No sooner said than done. Painful work began on the dismemberment of the corpse, which could not be resisted, so that Yegorov, exasperated in his heart, exclaimed: "Come on, goat, called us bastards again!" And grabbed a knife, on the buttocks of the corpse derived the word "fufel." Finally the titanic work was finished, Nikiforov's head was thrown into the garbage can, and the satisfied accomplices sat down to finish the remaining alcohol.
       The end of this drama, the reader, may seem unexpected, but in fact it is absolutely existential and predictable. In the morning, Yegorov and Novichikhin, terrified of what had been done, went to the Central District Department of Internal Affairs in Barnaul, where they very emotionally confessed to the crime, having delivered to the investigative-operative group, who arrived at the scene, a real "aesthetic pleasure".
   The existential situation is that the hard behavioral stereotype of Egorov and Novichikhin has worked. In places of deprivation of liberty, they, being "goats", in difficult everyday situations always sought protection from the administration of the institution. So here, having found themselves in a non-standard, unsolvable problem situation for them, they instinctively went for the help of a psychological or legal plan - this is not so important - to the workers of the territorial militia, and in their perception, all to the same administration of the correctional colony.
      In the described criminal situation, there is one more psychological moment, which, in my opinion, deserves attention. The motive of a crime, as it does not sound paradoxical, is the attitude of a Russian person to a word, in this case, an abusive one. It should be noted that the Russian people in general are very tremulous, sometimes brought to the point of absurdity, attitude to the word. The word-symbol, but the Russian in this symbol introduces too much existential sense. According to the figurative expression of A. Camus, "the symbol implies two planes, a world of ideas and a world of impressions, and a dictionary of correspondences between them. The most difficult thing is to establish vocabulary vocabulary. But to realize the presence of worlds means to follow the path of their secret relationships. "
      Russian man by nature is a spontaneous symbolist, therefore it is no coincidence that symbolism as an art direction of the early twentieth century. So organically blended into the distinctive culture of Russia. The existential relation to the word is also reflected in Russian folklore: "The word is not a sparrow, it will fly out - you will not catch it," "What is written with a pen - you can not cut an ax", etc. Therefore, it is not by chance that, to insult a word, a Russian person is often more vulnerable, more painful than an insult to an act or physical violence.
       Russian symbolism as an existential attitude to the word is brought to the extreme in the domestic penitentiary system. Well-known human rights defender V.F. Abramkin writes about this: "Mat in prison and in the camp is swore much less often than in the wild. First, it is prohibited by prison law. For the prisoner, the mother is a sacred concept. Therefore, in strict mode, for example, a mat can not practically be heard. Secondly, swearing obscenities is almost insulting someone. In the conditions of the zone, to send a person to x ... means that you consider him a "rooster". If this person is not a "rooster", you will keep an answer for your words, and it will be deplorable for you to end. You can not also call a person a goat, if he is not a goat. Goat, by the way, on x ... can not be sent either - he is a "goat", not a "cock". One can not say to a heated person: "Why are you mumbling?". The barracks, in which the peasants live, can not be called a chicken coop. In general, it is better to exclude all "bird's" names from your speech.
       In the zone in general, the responsibility for the word is much higher than in the free will. Before you say something, give an assessment of what is happening, talk about yourself, especially about another person, the prisoner should not count to ten, but to count up to a thousand. "
         Therefore, it is not by chance that a rude or obscene word, spoken at the wrong time and place, often becomes the cause of "purely Russian murder."
   Symbolism as an existential phenomenon, thriving in a Russian prison, allows us to successfully consider this phenomenon from the standpoint of semiotics - the science of signs and symbols in the broad sense of the word. Semiotic processes in the subculture of places of deprivation of liberty are often used by the administrations of correctional colonies to address the management of these institutions, in particular, in simulating symbolic situations that allow the denial of criminal authorities.
       For example, according to this principle, a correctional colony with the romantic name "White Swan" was organized. This colony was specially created for thieves in the law, becoming for them a nightmare, almost mystical horror with the transformations of the convict, like the characters of Kafka, from "authority" to "omitted". Not accidentally, the author of the original idea of ??the "White Swan" was sentenced in absentia by criminals to death. The essence of the idea was that a thief in law was placed in a colony where all the attendants (the so-called prison "hozobslug"): cooks, dishwashers, etc. - consisted entirely of convicts who belonged to the caste of the so-called "omitted". Symbolism in Russian prison life forbids taking various items, especially food, from the hands of the "lowered." A person who ignores this rule either by ignorance or by inattention does not matter, he risks becoming "squashed", i.e. Actually all the same "omitted". One can only imagine the depth of the moral torment of a hungry thief, who, in the final analysis, has to choose either a hunger or an outcast. And we are talking about the debunking of not one dozen of thieves in law, who solved this complex dilemma in favor of life.
        By the way, Yuri Borisovich Solovyov, already convicted to us, also became a hostage to the situation connected with Russian prison symbolism, having received his next term in the form of 5 years of imprisonment for malicious hooliganism. And it was so.
       Soloviev, after his release from prison, in May 1985, got a job as a river tugboat driver to the port of Zaton, near Barnaul and famous throughout the county for his wonderful village bakery. In one of the fine days in June, Yuri Borisovich on his river pusher ("RT") was driving a barge loaded with rubble. Capricious Fate would have liked to push his forehead into the forehead with his former cellmate at the Barnaul SIZO Vladimir Lebedev, who was returning to the port already "empty" also on his brand new "Erteshka." By the way, I should note that I somehow stayed at Zaton with Solovyov, who helped me get a job at Barnaul river port after liberation from ITK-8, and was "pleasantly" amazed to find that practically all the people who were present at the festive " Banquet "in my honor, almost to the third tribe, had there been convictions for a variety of crimes - and, mainly, against the individual. "It's great, cock!" - Lebedev shouted maliciously to Solovyov, with whom he still had very hostile relations with the "snake". "You yourself are a rooster, a goat" red-ripper "! Now I'll "cook for you" to do, a freak "holey!" - Yuri Borisovich answered in reply, after which Lebedev decided to move to the phase of active combat operations. As soon as his "RT" came to the level with Solovyov's ship, Lebedev threw himself rather aptly, like a boomerang, which fell under the arm of mounting in Yuri Borisovich, landed directly in the cabin of his beloved "ertshka" and smashed the glass. Courageously clenched teeth and glaring at the enemy like a legendary pilot Gastello, Solovyov, playing with tight jaws on his bronze face from the sun, sent his tug with a heavy barge straight to Lebedev's ship without a shadow of a doubt, with all the foolishness ramming him in the side and literally Within 5 minutes by sending to the deep sandy bottom of the Ob. Lebedev himself, the direct culprit of the incident, strangely enough, survived this completely idiotic "boarding", and Soloviev received for his malicious hooliganism on the water, and even with the use of a vehicle, a term of 5 years with the serving of punishment in UB-14/8 , Where we met with him under the circumstances described above. When I got acquainted with the personal matter of Yuri Borisovich in the special department of the institution, I could not help smiling, imagining what a wonderful story, worthy of the pen of Vasily Makarovitch Shukshin, could be obtained come from this tragicomic and at the same time Russian history - right in the "spirit of our time".
   It must be said that the Russian person in general, by virtue of the prevailing in his national character accentuation of a constitutionally excitable type, is very inclined to reactive hysteroid states, violent psychopathic concerts, aiming to shock the people around him, or at least to draw attention to his person. Sometimes the form of such outrageous behavior is the commission of extraordinary crimes. As an example, let us cite the case of the ogre Alexander Maslich, instituted in 1994 by the Rubtsovsk Prosecutor's Office for Supervising the Observance of Laws in the Execution of Criminal Sanctions. In the premises of the penal colony of the correctional colony UB-14/9 in Rubtsovsk for the various violations of the regime were convicted Maslich, Dziuba and Goluzov. All three are almost the same age.
   Alexander Maslich in his twenty-three already four times was tried - robbery and hijacking. Alexei Goluzov is two years older, and his convictions are one less - all for theft and robbery. The third inmate, Alexei Dzyuba, had twenty-three second convictions and the same set-robbery, theft, theft. True, Maslich was the only one among them who had an article for the murder - already strangled the convict in the colony because of "hostile relations arose." The order in SHIZO has been planned and approved for centuries: the rise, retreat and food intake. In between, it's boring. It is possible to sleep, and it is possible and simple, stupefied by doing nothing, "scratching" the languages. Despite the less experience of "cast-offs", Dziuba was the most active in the company. In the evenings, he told horror stories and fantasized: they say, it would be nice to look at the world, and for this, a trouble-free way to transfer to another colony is murder. For killing a convict, as a rule, they do not give much - one can always refer to "self-defense", having agreed with a group of witnesses. Dziube did not have to persuade his homies for a long time - to kill so to kill, which is easier! Moreover, Maslich is a specialist. They came up with the idea of ??strangling the first person who would be put in a cell. The new comrade proved to be an ideal candidate. Firstly, L. was a dozen years older than the conspirators, and secondly, his friendliness was not different. At night, when the controller had tied up on the post, Maslich and Dzyuba attacked the victim. But whether L. was stronger, or more experienced - he managed to free himself and get off with bruises. The next morning, finding an excuse, L. transferred to another cell. The Trinity lurked in anticipation of a new victim. One evening, Dzyuba suggested: "What if we try human beings? Man-eating must be sent to Moscow for expert examination - we'll go for a ride. And if you're lucky - we'll bite you under assholes! "I liked the idea. Maslich recalled that when he was young, he heard several stories when they closed cafes and restaurants because they allegedly found pies with a human. Sasha then wanted to try, how it all tastes ... Goluzov, by nature more inert - he looked like an underdeveloper of all - to the proposal reacted without emotion. But he also wanted to go to Moscow. Maslich drew in the evenings on a piece of cardboard: "I want to eat someone." This note will then fall into business. But they did not put anyone in the cell anymore. And one day, when Dzuba went to sleep, his cellmates came to the idea: to kill and eat the initiator himself, Dziubu. Almost the same evening, Maslich worked out a plan, as always accompanying his thoughts with drawings: on the card appeared a small dismembered man and a tank for drinking water, set on fire. "Sacrifice" was scheduled for the next night, but it broke - along the corridor until almost in the morning the convicts were taken to the shower. The door to the chamber in which these three sat sat was mesh to easily observe what was happening inside. But the next day turned out to be extremely calm. The Controller went to the post, the neighbors in the cells calmed down, and Dziuba fell asleep surprisingly quickly. Maslich and Goluzov waited until midnight and started. Before strangling, Dzyuba for some reason woke up. Maslich threw a ribbon around his neck, and obedient Goluzov grabbed his feet. Dziuba did not even resist. Then they began to cut the body fragments from a safety razor. Light Maslich seemed dark and unappetizing, and he threw the "whip" into the toilet, where the victim's blood had been poured before. The water tank was strengthened over the toilet bowl, a bonfire was made from the blanket and Dziuba's trousers. How can you weld the meat in a chamber with a mesh door so that the inspector does not smell anything in three meters? Investigators of the prosecutor's office say: it was the mesh door that played its part - it happened in the summer, only the grilles without glasses were on the windows, and the smoke from the camera was blowing a draft through the window. Convicts from neighboring cells later told us that they were singing the song "White Swan on the Pond" all night and laughed. At 6.15 am the patrol began a detour. "Hey, citizen chief, first come to us," cried Maslich. "We ate the Dzyuba!" For real!". Already while in the detention center awaiting trial, Maslich strangled another cellmate, who lost to him in cards, but could not give it away. In the case of Maslich it was recorded that, as an orphan, at the age of 12 he entered a boarding school for juvenile offenders, where he was subjected to monstrous bullying by other teenagers with a difficult fate - tortures, beatings, rape for years. The description of these mockeries by Maslich during the judicial interrogation caused tears in many jurors. It was then that the existential essence of the future cannibalized killer was laid, sworn by blood all his life cruelly to take revenge on the criminal world. Therefore, it is no coincidence that all the victims of Maslich were convicts of the IC and prisoners of the SIZO. The conclusions of forensic medical reports I have studied show that we are dealing not with real cannibalism, but with its skillful simulation: organs and parts of human bodies were only bitten by Maslich. In this, in my opinion, the quintessence of the "Russian courage" is a kind of bravado, say, look and be surprised at how disgusting and terrible I am! Judicial and investigative practice shows that many crimes of mercenary-violent orientation and crimes against the person committed in Russia contain elements of this "courage": a maniacal, absurd desire to shock society, remember at least in this version.
      Of particular interest to the criminologist is the open Lombrozo phenomenon of analgesia - the dull sensitivity of criminals to pain. This phenomenon is in itself an absolutely stable symptom of many forms of mental disorders, which also indirectly confirms our data on the high percentage of the spread of psychopathies among convicts. Working as an assistant prosecutor to supervise the observance of laws in prisons, I have repeatedly been convinced of the truth of this conclusion. And it is not so much about the swallowed nails and buttons sewn to the body, but rather about an indifferent, truly existential attitude to one's health and life.
       In this regard, one recalls the case of a mass "hara-kiri" or "secuke" in Russian convicted in one of the institutions of the strict regime of the Altai Territory. From regime considerations, the need arose for the transfer to prison of a thief in the law of Pachuashvili, nicknamed "Pacun". Naturally, the prospect of being imprisoned in the European part of Russia, where the criminal world is extremely negative towards the Siberians, did not suit him, and he threw a directive letter ("malyavu") into the premises of the SIZO-PKT with an order to organize convicts in protest against the transfer of a thief in law Mass suicidal blackmail of the administration of the IC. What was done! Arriving at the place, I saw with horror, as blood drains from the cells into the general corridor with scarlet streams. About 30 convicts in ShIZO, with indifferent faces of the inhabitants of Chinese opium establishments, sat on the floor of cells with nails in their stomachs and opened veins in their hands. They were provided with urgent medical assistance with surgical intervention, and without anesthesia, during which convicts did not publish a single groan.
      In general, a Russian person has a very peculiar attitude to prison. Prison in the Russian mentality can be anything: "home", "school of life", "abode of the sufferers" - only not a means of correction and punishment for the crime committed. Maybe, the specificity of the domestic penitentiary system is to blame for this - the convict has no time to think about what he did, to repent. A person is forced from the first days of his stay in the colony to join the system of unusual and very complex social relations. Otherwise, you can not survive in a national prison and you can lose all human dignity.
       This is confirmed by numerous examples from the judicial and prosecutorial practice. The existential formula of becoming a "real man" in Russia - "served - served" - is still alive in the national mentality. True, it is not entirely clear why, for the sake of what idea "stayed", but the formula works without fail and still bewitches the hearts of underage criminals with thieves' romance. So, the adults who have reached the age of majority of the educational colony ask the court to transfer them to an adult general regime, although there is an opportunity to stay in VC until the age of 21. At the same time their motivation is more than absurd, but it is completely inscribed in the national concept of the behavior of the "real man". The convict explains this in the following way: "I can not go to my native yard, to my native city, a village from a children's colony. It's not prestigious: it's like coming from a pioneer camp. " The halo of the martyr and the sufferer sometimes gets a high price, getting into the correctional colony, a pupil of the VC often becomes a victim of violence and mockery on the part of adult convicts, replenishing the ranks of outcast criminal world - "roosters". After 6-8 months, the administrations of the educational colonies receive tearful letters from their former wards with a request to transfer them back to the VC, but there is no turning back.
       The well-known criminologist A.I. Gurov, stressing that the danger here lurks not so much in imitation as minors, but in the assimilation of elements of the criminal-thieves subculture. In conversations with youth criminals it turned out that each of them knew the symbols of tattoos, the decoding of abbreviations, the meaning of "stars" and "rings." Obviously, it is also not accidental that 70% of juvenile offenders with tattoos maintained contact with previously convicted persons.
        The existential attitude towards the prison is expressed in the special color of the personality of the employee of the Russian penitentiary system. Only in a domestic prison, a truly transcendental, completely beyond the limits of the European understanding of the show, entitled "9 circles of hell", could have arisen and successfully existed for a long time. "9 circles of hell", created not by Dante's ingenious imagination, but by the sophisticated mind of the Altai employees of the penitentiary system, as in a mirror, reflect the peculiarities of the national prison and the attitude of Russian society towards it. Like Eugene Francois Vidoc, former criminal and chief of the French criminal police Syurte, who believed at the end of the nineteenth century that only a criminal could cope with the crime, the employees of the Barnaul pre-trial detention center believed that it was also necessary to fight prisoners with the methods of prisoners.
      The tactical operation they invented was surprisingly simple, but very effective. Getting into the crowded cell of the pre-trial prison, the defendant began the thorny path from the "non-prestigious" place near the parash to the place near the camera window. Since the turnover of "cadres" in the pre-trial detention center is high, the defendant had a chance within two or three weeks to make this difficult path through the prison hierarchy. But the officers of the SIZO masterfully turned the prisoner's movement into Sisyphean labor, moving him from one cell to another endlessly, where he again and again was forced to resume his attempts to approach the coveted window. Working in tandem with the investigator, the prison operatives achieved good results - after the third or fourth transfer, as a rule, they obtained recognition of the person under investigation in the crime committed by him.
       A Russian person has a very peculiar attitude toward death, incl. And to his. It does not at all resemble either the wise and respectful attitude toward the death of the Chinese Taoists, nor the stoicism of the Peruvian Indians, sung by Don Carlos Castaneda. Rather, it is a dumb obedience to the fate of a savage native. Only in Russia could there be a suicidal idea called "Russian roulette". A meaningless game with the death of a Russian person is completely different from the self-sacrifice of a kamikaze. If in the latter case we always deal with ideological suicide, then in the case of the "Russian roulette", the dear reader, the same bravado, the same struggle with boredom, the same Russian courage. A good illustration of this, in my opinion, can serve as a "household picture in modern taste", described by an outstanding Russian writer and journalist V.G. Korolenko at one time a sensational essay on the death penalty "Household phenomenon." He happened on January 3-4, 1909, to go by evening train from Stavropol Caucasus. They drove, as they usually do in third-class carriages, and the conversations went on normally. At the first stop a man entered a car in a neat suit, which in the Caucasus is called "Khokhlatsky". The figure is also ordinary, ordinary, and it was immediately, as usual, attached to the usual wagon conversation: who? Whence? On what business? trade? It turned out that he was going to Tavria and his business was not trading ... And which ones? "Yes, so ... a little misfortune came out ..." Well, this is the usual thing. "There are misfortunes with every man. Without this it is impossible. It's an everyday thing. " "Is anyone sick?" "No one is sick ... They hanged their son". Everyone was amazed at the calm tone of this answer. The news was unexpected and not quite ordinary. Someone, maybe, at once did not believe. But the "quiet" stranger took out his "documents" from his pocket and read them.
     Death for a Russian person is often a continuation of his absurd desire to assert himself in society. It is manifested as in intricate ways of suicide with the same sacred desire to shock the public, and in the no less absurd passion of Russian bandits to erect monuments and tombstones during their lifetime.
     In this regard, I remember the report from the funeral procession, prepared by the journalists of the TV program "The Man and the Law". In Moscow, buried criminal authority from the so-called "nut-borisov" brigade, shot by members of the "Solntsevo" criminal group. Pompous funeral cost "obshchaku" of 100 thousand US dollars. During the interview, a young man, a member of the "nut" brigade of about 20 years old, was asked: what does he dream about in life? He quite sincerely stated that he dreams of being buried with the same pomp as his boss. This is the depth of the existential understanding of the most complex philosophical question of life and death.
       The problem of the attitude of the Russian man to death, in my opinion, includes also the victimological aspects, i.e. Questions of the victim's behavior at the time of the commission of the crime. As you know, between the murderer and his victim at the time of the crime there is a rigid psychological connection, the study of which with the help of existential analysis, perhaps, would allow to separate in the legal psychology an independent section of knowledge "Existential victimology". It could include data on the national psychotype of not only the criminal, but also his victims, the behavioral characteristics of the victim Russian, Jewish and other nationality, the threshold of his psychological endurance and the threshold of frustration; The degree of victim's victimization, depending on the national mentality. I will venture to suggest that there is something in the Russian character that provokes a criminal assault on a person. We have already talked about addiction to alcohol as one of the reasons for domestic killings in Russia. This is an obvious provoking factor of crime. We are now talking about the bravado behavior of the Russian people - the most typical victim victim of the Russian victim. As I noted above, in the behavior of a Russian person, especially a woman, there is often an element of theatricality, games for the public, which often becomes the cause of affective murders. With brilliant precision, it was Nastasya Filippovna's behavior that was described by F.M. Dostoevsky in the novel "The Idiot." Nastasya Filippovna, with her usual scope, arranges in her house an enchanting show with the burning of one hundred thousand rubles. "Well, listen, Ganya," she says to her ex-boyfriend, "I want to look at your soul for the last time; You tormented me myself for three months; Now it's my turn. You see this pack, it's a hundred thousand! Now I'll throw it into the fireplace, into the fire, that's for all, all the witnesses! As soon as the fire grasps it all - climb into the fireplace, but only without gloves, with bare hands, and unscrew the sleeves, and pull a pack of fire! Pull it out - it's yours, one hundred thousand of yours! And I'll take a look at your soul, how you'll come down with my money into the fire. " In the course of the narrative, Nastasya Philippovna's psychopathic concert is repeated many times, but reaches its apogee in the scene with the captain, whom she swallowed in the face with a wicker cane only because he expressed indignation by her unworthy behavior in a society of strangers.
       The ending of the endless shocking Nastasya Filippovna in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky is well known - she was killed out of jealousy by a merchant Rogozhin. But how often does this story repeat in Russia and one hundred and thirty years after the events described in the novel. And how often the image of Nastasya Filippovna, as in the mirror, is reflected in the psychological portrait of the modern victim of similar crimes.
        In support of this thesis, I will quote an excerpt from the conclusion of a forensic psychological examination carried out on the identity of the injured Fomina, who was killed on January 2, 1989 because of jealousy by her husband (chief engineer of a large enterprise in Barnaul): "The character is stubborn, strong-willed and quickly irritated. Capricious, theatrical. Behavior in everyday life, and at work has the character of "playing to the public." Arrogant, envious, vindictive, fidgety, hysterical, attachments are fragile, interests are shallow. The main goal in life is to attract attention. Claims for unconditional leadership in the family. " Agree, the classic set of victim qualities of the victim is "purely Russian murder." And there are a lot of such examples. The reactive, psychopathic behavior of the Russian victim often provokes a crime against the person, charging the assassin by aggression according to the boomerang principle.
       By the way, I remember very well this extremely unpleasant affair of the chief engineer Sergei Sergeevich Fomin. This, as - time, was my first watch as an investigator of the prosecutor's office in the city of Barnaul. As I remember now, on January 2, 1989, I went to work on my first day of service in the Barnaul Special Prosecutor's Office for Supervision of Law Enforcement in the ITU. In fact, according to a long tradition established in the prosecutor's office, the assistants of the Barnaul prosecutor did not attend daily duty on the city for compliance with the laws in the ITU (it was understood that we are in permanent duty in the correctional facilities that we supervise), but that day the senior investigator of the Oktyabrskiy Prosecutor's Office City of Barnaul, with the employees of which we shared our two-story wooden "chicken coop" on Sizova Street, Valery Dmitrievich Ivanov (the oldest and most experienced investigator of the Altai Territory Prosecutor's Office) Thread it during the daily duty, as he had to urgently leave the city for family reasons. "Seryoga, you do nothing on duty, nothing - the people after the New Year holidays" soaks away "and he clearly is not up to the crime!" - Valery Dmitrievich persuaded me. I must say, here he completely did not guess - for the night I "picked up" 6 "bloomers", of them 2 criminal and 4 suicides. This duty, dear reader, I remembered for all life. Arriving at the place of the murder of Fomina, I was met at the door of the criminal apartment by the investigator of the Prosecutor's Office of the Industrial Districts Pinchukov - an extremely unpleasant type of 40 years, who immediately appreciated that he was still a fledgling chick, and began to load me in full: "Listen , Guy, the crime is committed on my territory, I have already examined everything, there is no 103 (article 103 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, providing for responsibility for the murder), there - "clean" 108 (Article 108 of Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, providing for liability for serious bodily harm , Entailing E death of the victim). So quietly bring a criminal case under art. 108 and "baldy" further on his duty! "And with a sense of accomplishment Pinchukov retired from the scene. His maneuver was extremely simple and unsophisticated - initiating a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 108 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, Pinchukov got rid of a completely unnecessary criminal case, which automatically went to the jurisdiction of the territorial investigative bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
         Entering this ill-fated apartment, I saw a drunk man of about 45 years old, who was sitting near the kitchen table, tragically wrapping his head in both hands. Directly in front of him, face down, in the puddle of dark - brown, already withered blood lay the corpse of a beautiful young woman. After a quick inspection of the scene, I proceeded to question Fomin, although by law I had to postpone this investigative action until his full sobering. But I still had student knowledge in the field of criminalistics, which says that there is no more effective tactical reception than interrogation "hot on the trail", when the criminal is not yet ready to give the investigation active opposition and quite well "pricked."
          And the circumstances of the murder were as follows. Sergey Sergeevich Fomin, chief engineer of the Barnaul plant ATI (plant of asbestos products) two years ago married Lyudmila Fomina, who was almost 20 years younger than Sergei, very nobly adopting her two children from her first marriage. Married life immediately did not work out, as Lyudmila turned out to be a nymphomaniac, and Fomin, probably because of long years of work in this extremely harmful enterprise, began to have disorders in the sexual sphere. Infinite reproaches and reproaches of his wife only exacerbated this problem.
        On January 2, 1989, Fomin decided to arrange a romantic candlelit dinner for his wife, having bought flowers, champagne and cake, having sent his daughters to the mother-in-law. However, everything went wrong from the very beginning. Lyudmila came about 20 hours from the New Year's Eve, under the "shafe" and clearly in a bad mood. From the very beginning she attacked Sergei with reproaches, not forgetting to remind him that he was not only a weakly sexually male, but also a bad master - even the wallpaper in the kitchen could not be pasted to the holiday. Fomin immediately rushed to the storeroom behind the wallpaper and shoe knife, hastily began to measure and cut them, intending to produce at least a "cosmetic" repair. "No, just look at this idiot! - Lyudmila screamed hysterically. - New Year, however, and he decided to do repairs! No, Fomin, I'll leave you, you fool, to a young, strong man! "Well, this completely overwhelmed Sergei's patience: in passion, he threw himself at his wife, double-literally cutting through her chest with a razor sharp knife. "What have you done, Sergei, my daughters are orphans!" Luda said quietly and gave her soul to God. Fomin grabbed the already lifeless body of his wife, embraced her, and, reveling in hot tears, began to kiss the face of his beloved woman. After a while he called the police, saying that he had committed the murder and before the arrival of the investigative-operational group began, like water, to jam in the kitchen without a snack. In this state, we found him at the crime scene.
       After listening to Pinchukova, I filed a criminal case under Part 2 of Art. 108 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (and where only this half-witted saw signs of this article ?!). The reaction to my procedural action was immediate.
       The next day, Sasha Vorotnikov, the head of the Investigative Department of the Industrial ROVD, telephoned to the prosecutor's office, and in the university days the permanent and rather successful commander of the detachment Ermak, the main rival of the Rusich at that time, and very demanding, with metal in his voice, Phone: "Sergey, why did you initiate the case under Part 2 of Art. 108 CC? It's not yours, but ours! Be kind then to come to our department and put the registration card on the perfect crime! "I immediately ran to Valery Dmitrievich Ivanov and told him about the situation. He frowned and gloomily uttered: "Seryoga, this is a concretic shit! Pinchukov set you up, and me along with you! I did not think he was such a nit! You can not put any cards - both of us will then be "facking" to the regional prosecutor's office! "
   Following the advice of the master of law, I began to avoid Porotnikov, stubbornly not answering his calls, but Sasha was also "not bast-sewed" - and without waiting for me to respond positively, he complained about my procedural actions to the Investigation Department of the Prosecutor's Office of the Altai Territory . Since I was still quite a "young" employee of the prosecutor's office, Valery Dmitrievich Ivanov was "pulled" to the "carpet" to the regional prosecutor Ivan Pavlovich Gushchin. He returned from there darker than the clouds; However, he did not say anything to me, not a word of reproach, but only sullenly passed me to his fairly smoky office, where, with a fierce sadomasochistic frenzy, he puffed his pipe, as if by Sherlock Holmes, filling all the surrounding tobacco smoke with dense clouds of tobacco smoke His space on the first floor of the prosecutor's office.
       My mood fell below the "waterline" - it turned out that on my first day of work I managed to "substitute" a senior comrade seriously! My dejected state did not go unnoticed for our only investigator of the special prosecutor's office Sergey Arkadevich Karasev, a brutal man of 40, a very large and very representative, besides a former paratrooper exiled to us from a prosecutor's office in the Altai Territory for an accident in a drunken state. Wishing to at least solace me, he told me an almost anecdotal story from the life of my chief at that time offender - investigator Pinchukov.
      "You know, Earring, why Pinchukova" behind the eyes "everyone is called a" father-in-law "? - Intriguingly began his story Karasev .- And it was so. One day in February 1983, I was summoned to the Industrial Court for questioning as a witness in my own criminal case. At that time I worked as a senior investigator for especially important cases of the Investigation Department of the Krai Prosecutor's Office. Entering the courthouse, I saw an eerie and simultaneously comical picture: two hefty nurses, through the construction of visitors, on a stretcher bear the unfortunate investigator Pinchukov, who was lying on his stomach, covered with a white sheet and moaning, and through the sheet his bloodied ass showed through. "What happened?" - I asked the nurse, being in complete perplexity. And the following happened: Pinchukov, precipitated for questioning in court, recklessly decided before the trial to go to the toilet, where he was peradventually perched with his feet on the toilet; Old "fissure", as usual, could not stand his boar weight and fell apart, severely injuring his ass. They say that Pinchukov was even sewn up in a torn "point"! So, Serzhik, God - not Timoshka, sees a little! "
       This "amazing" story, indeed, somewhat consoled me, and soon I completely forgot about this unpleasant incident on my first watch on the city of Barnaul.
       For three years of service in the prosecutor's office, I went more than 30 times on duty to the investigator in the city, and even took with him to some watch his cousin Zhenya, with whom we were always more in-laws than the very first brothers, and who, by the time, was already 19 years old - So he was quite mature for a real police job. It was these nightly "voyages" that determined Zhenya in the choice of his future profession - up to the present time Evgeny V. Gulimov, already a lieutenant colonel of the militia, has been successfully working as a crime expert in Zheleznodorozhny district police department of Barnaul. Our night expeditions were actively encouraged by my grandmother, who accompanied us to watch, as, probably, women escorted their men to the war, equipping with all the necessary provisions and saying affectionate parting words. Of all our night shifts, one thing, for some reason, was especially deep in my memory. This was in April 1989. Zhenya and I, who unofficially acted as a freelance assistant to the investigator, arrived at the police department of the Altai Territory and did not have time to enter the room of the resting shift, as they had already called us to inspect the scene of the incident. In the central district of the city of Barnaul in a nine-story building along Krupskaya Street, a seventy-year-old, very well-fed grandmother hung on a battery of steam heating.
       Even then, the circumstances of this extremely unpleasant incident seemed more than strange to me. Grandmother lived in a separate room in a three-room apartment of her son, who had a wife and two children. In this "friendly" family, as usual, there was a fierce war between the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, where the son completely rose to the position of his wife, also against his mother. Unable to endure the humiliation of a brisk daughter-in-law and Jesuit's betrayal of her son, one evening my grandma cleverly fixed the clothesline on the pipe of steam heating and somehow managed to hang herself in an extremely "uncomfortable" sitting position, in which she sat, judging by cadaveric phenomena, more Of the week. It is noteworthy that the household was not at all alarmed by the fact of the long absence of an elderly woman in public places, and they only missed her when the smell of decay finally pulled him out from behind the thick door of Grandmother's room. Only after that, the "loving" son guessed to call an investigative-operative group. We arrived at the scene of the apartment on this ninth floor of a panel house about 22 hours. The door of the grandmother's room was locked from the inside - obviously, a granny, pursued by all sorts of different phobias, was constantly shutting herself from her "dear" household members to the key. The policeman, armed with an ax, promptly cracked the door: and then we were struck with such a stifling, sickening wave of stench, just knocking down - the hideous smell of the decay of the human body, which it is impossible to get used to - that all household members, district and Zheka, rushed out of the apartment to the staircase Pad. However, the smell there and thoroughly got them, so they soon ran amicably galloping up the staircase to the street (the elevator, for some reason, under the law of meanness did not work), where at that time a decent crowd of tenants from the 8th and 9th floors had already gathered, also Who smelled in their apartments this unique "ambre". Near the grandmother there were only me and an elderly medical examiner of Altai regional bureau of SME Nikolai Frolov - the most experienced and most humorous forensic physician in Barnaul; Yes, perhaps, and in the whole Altai Territory.
      Looking at my green face (I was about to puke), Frolov rushed to open the window in my grandmother's room. Convulsively, like a fish, breathing in fresh air, I began to examine the body.
       The spectacle was clearly not for the faint-hearted. The unfortunate grandmother was like a rather wrinkled mushroom - a morello, from under which a stinking puddle of dark brown color, like the one that sometimes forms when the conditions for drying the white mushrooms is spreading. "Man left the Ocean, apparently, and leaves after death!" - I philosophically, very thoughtfully, I concluded, remembering the academic lecture of our wonderful lecturer in forensic medicine at the ASU Alexander Ilyich Zorkin. Zorkin told us how, during the Vietnam War, American soldiers were poured into the veins simple seawater because of a lack of plasma, and they, surprisingly, survived. The fact is that the blood in its chemical composition is completely identical to sea water, which once again proves our oceanic origin.
      The arms of the gallows resembled the gloves of the notorious murderer, the maniac Fredi Krueger, because they were incredibly swollen by the action of cadaveric gases to the size of hockey leggings, and 8-centimetric, rapaciously clawed claws adorned their fingers like sausages. Horror! Alfred Hitchcock with his naive "horror stories" is just resting here!
      It is clear that in such extreme conditions I finished the inspection very quickly. Now it was necessary to "turn over" the unfortunate body from the ninth floor to the street where the city "corpse" was already standing. Relatives of the grandmother and Eugene, for obvious reasons, immediately refused to participate in this "sacred" event. As a result, the corpse was dragged by a threesome - I, the district police officer and Nikolai Vasilyevich Frolov. My grandmother, as I said earlier, was very, very "well-fed," and I had to drag 9 long floors. We put her on a camel blanket, "kindly" provided (he was clearly sorry for this blanket for the "beloved" Mom) son of the deceased, and carried; And the district and forensic expert Frolov were at the top, and I was holding the ends of the blanket from the bottom. Somewhere between the 6th and 7th floors grandmother suddenly poured a stinking stream and straight onto my new jacket, which my mom, who was talented in all respects, just recently built for me to birthday. Fortunately, that the prudent mama jacket from above was covered with a waterproof raincoat, but all the same - there is very little joy in such a "sanctification" of the subject. When we finally came down with all this funeral procession down, standing in the street, the crowd suddenly, like a leper, jerked frantically away from me - such a terrible "ambre" exuded my wonderful jacket. All the way back, while I was driving on the police "UAZ", filling the interior of the car with a sickening smell, I dreamed of only one thing - to quickly get to the toilet of the GUVD region and wash my unhappy jacket. However, I did not really get this done either. I did not have time to go to the toilet and go to the tap of cold water, as Zhenya had already fled to my feet - our investigative-operative group was urgently summoned to the next incident - group rape. "They are worn with their own p .... mi, mokrochechalki unhappy!" - grumbled angrily every time Valery Dmitrievich Ivanov, with great reluctance to proceed to investigate another criminal case of rape, which is traditionally terribly disliked and never liked by all without exception investigators of the prosecutor's office . Roughly and deliciously swearing at all the "shaggy suitcases" put together, I doomed wandered after Zhenka in the direction of the front entrance of the GUVD of the Altai Territory, where we waited impatiently on duty "UAZ".
      This rape committed in the upland part of the Central District of Barnaul was completely atypical and generated more questions than answers. Arriving in the Central ROVD, I began with the interrogation of the victims. There were three of them, these girls from 16 to 19 years old. The most talkative of them was a 16-year-old, very cute girl Ira. She willingly told me the sad story of "group sex" and expressed the wish that I, such a young and pretty investigator, would lead their business to the end. The other two girls suddenly closed in themselves; They were silent as partisans, denying even the very fact of sexual intercourse. God kill me, but I could not see signs of violent acts of a sexual nature with respect to the victims - they went to the house of the three freshly released convicts completely voluntarily, several times went outside to the store for alcohol and had the opportunity to call for help, but this Persistently, for some reason, did not. "I do not see anything and absolutely do not understand anything about this absolute" wood-grouse, "Borya!" - I turned to the senior criminal detective of the Central District, Boris Komarov, with whom I grew up together in a house on Komsomolsky Prospekt. "If you, Seryoga, saw the suspected Sviridov, you would understand everything at once. This is not necessary - you'll give it yourself, anywhere! "As it turned out, Sviridov is a two-meter gorilla, very similar to the boxer -" heavyweight "Nikolai Valuev, and repeatedly convicted for robbery. It was he, according to preliminary data, raped a minor Irina.
       There was nothing to do - I sent all three girls to a forensic examination. And the GUVD of the region found nothing better than to send for the injured girls a small military truck "ZIL", on the high side of which I with great difficulty helped them to climb. "There was no other transport for these boobies, is it?" - I thought angrily and suddenly found out with horror that all three girls had no panties. I remembered that it was I who forced them to remove all the underwear that was sent to the biological examination to the ROVD.
      After a while, Frolov, a forensic examiner in the city, called me to the Central District Department of Internal Affairs, who asked me just one question "on the forehead": "Sergei, did you put the question of sexual intercourse in a perverted form in your decision? So I need, after all, take a smear from the anus or not? "" No, Nikolai Vasilyevich, do not - I put this question more for "pro forma", it does not follow from the circumstances of the case, "I answered. "I need only one thing from you: was Irina a minor virgin and did she have a sexual act with Sviridov?" "Well, here you do not have to worry at all," Frolov answered with a laugh. - This Ira - "just a hole", just a "sorceress" - such a developed device, God forbid to everyone. And I did not find the sperm in her vagina - apparently, there was an incomplete sexual act. You understand, the former "zek", it is possible "failure" from prolonged sexual abstinence! "
      Soon, along with my brother Zhenya and the forensic expert Alexei Yanchenkov (8 years later we will work with him at the same department of criminal procedure and criminalistics at the Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation), on duty, "UAZ" went to inspect the scene of the incident. These unfortunate events, so similar and simultaneously unlike the "classic" group rape, occurred in the private sector near the Altai cinema in the upland part of the Central District of Barnaul, where sedentary gypsies and former criminals settled long ago. Long evolution and natural selection have led to the fact that in this very criminal area of ??the city there has been a long time, successively replacing each other, more than one generation of "glorious" Altai "zeks."
      Based on the testimony of the injured Irina, I immediately found a "cherished" place in an abandoned flock, where Sviridov took possession of the girl from behind. On the wet sand, two miniature ladies' shoes and two huge bear traces of Sviridov 48 sizes were clearly imprinted. "Alexei, we need to remove the gypsum prints from these tracks; It's just a wonderful "snap" to the victim's testimony and a perfect addition to the protocol of the site inspection! "- I turned to the expert - criminalist Yanchenkov. "And I do not have gypsum with me, dear!" - cheerfully reported that. "Well, then let the silicone paste" K "come!" - I did not lag behind him. "And this I especially do not have in the department for a long time!" - almost joyfully exclaimed Yanchenkov. "Well, you're just" ai maladtsa, "Lesha! - With open sarcasm I said sarcastically, surprised at such a strange, completely incomprehensible to me disparaging attitude to their professional duties. - Powerfully prepared for inspection, hovering, there's nothing to say! "
       During the entire time that I was inspecting the site of the incident, the owner of this "bad" log house, which had long since turned into a hangout for the former Altai "zek", an elderly man of 60 years, looked at me with his cunning, screwed-up eyes, and then, When I heard my name sounded during the inspection, I suddenly asked: "Tell me, citizen investigator, Eduard Voronin, you do not accidentally come to you, it's painful to you like him?" "That's right, this is my father!" I replied in surprise. It turned out that my father in 1969 investigated a criminal case against this grandfather, citizen Cherepanov, who caused serious bodily harm to another citizen Ignatov, which caused his death. "Your father is such a wonderful, such a good man! - Cherepanov loudly exclaimed with excitement in his voice. "Do you know how he helped me then?" After all, I really "haggled" "vyshak", if not for your father! "And it was so.
        Once Cherepanov, then quite a young man, came to his great-uncle - beekeeper Ignatov to drink mead with vodka. This grandfather had a terrible, almost bearish, physical strength, and in a drunken state he became completely uncontrollable, completely losing his reason. In the midst of merriment, as usual, they quarreled, the grandfather attacked his granddaughter and began to choke him. Feeling that a little more, and he will give his soul to God, Tcherepanov hardly reached for the cleaver standing near the stove, and struck them on the tangent blow to the temple of his grandfather, almost immediately killing him. Chances to him, the recidivist, who had already been convicted for murder, was impossible to avoid the highest measure under such circumstances. My perspicacious dad immediately "missed" this difficult situation; He was able to persuade Cherepanov, after all, to give truthful testimony (he completely withdrew into himself during the investigation, resigned himself to the inevitability) and, through numerous expert examinations, proved murder committed in the state of necessary defense than actually saved Cherepanov from imminent death penalty. Here is such an amazing story, so unexpectedly discovered the historical connection of generations of fathers and children in the Altai, occurred on this night duty around the city in April 1989! However, after indulging in the "sweet" memories of the "golden dots" of my glorious prosecutor's youth, we, as always, got too distracted from our basic esoteric research - this "over-mysterious" soul of the Russian criminal.
     My observations in the domestic prison showed that in our completely unpredictable Russian life metamorphoses often happen, when the victim of life circumstances suddenly becomes a criminal.
      As an example of the transcendental transformation of a respectable citizen and a diligent family man into an inveterate recidivist, a criminal case against Vladimirov, accused of committing a crime, provided for under item "c" of art. 102 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, may serve.
        Nikolai Vladimirov, a native of the Altai Territory, 37 years old, married, father of two children, had three outstanding convictions. The first conviction was obtained at the age of 30 years. Working as a truck driver, in April 1985 he was traveling with a cargo to Tomsk. On the way I decided to rest and drove the car to the edge of the curb. He went to bed, forgetting to include the parking lights on his KAMAZ. In the middle of the night I heard a blow on the trailer, which did not attach importance, but in the morning I found under the trailer of my car an inverted Ural motorcycle with a stroller and the corpses of two men. For the crime committed the court appointed Vladimirov punishment in the form of 5 years imprisonment with serving punishment in the colony of the general regime. The detachment chief noted in the journal individual interviews with the convicts that Vladimirov was very worried about what had happened, missed his family and for a long time could not adapt in places of deprivation of liberty. In addition, he was very sensitive to insults from the administration and convicts from the category of so-called "thieves." There were also conflicts with the latter, as a result of one of them, Vladimirov, who possessed great physical strength, broke the head with the scrap of the convict Grigoriev, who tried to rape him. Already in the colony was secondarily convicted of this crime under Part 2 of Article 108 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (serious bodily injuries, which resulted in death) and transferred to a strict-security colony. "Thieves" mail worked, and "criminal", to the cast of which belonged to the victim Grigoriev, gave Vladimirov strong psychological pressure. However, the latter did not complain to anyone, he endured suffering stoically, while losing hope of ever getting out. Conflict with the connivance of the administration of the IU was inevitable, and as a result of the fights in the industrial zone of the institution, Vladimirov inflicted mortally wounded injuries on the "leased" Bochkarev, a representative of the "rubce" criminal group. For this crime, Vladimir was convicted under Article 103 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (deliberate murder), recognized as a particularly dangerous recidivist and sent to a special regime colony. Fearing revenge on the part of the leaders of the negative groups, the administration of the colony placed Vladimirova in a solitary confinement cell (SHIZO), thus protecting him from the convicts. Here, in Vladimir Vladimirov, who behaved extremely aggressively, defiantly, constantly demanding a meeting with his wife, a conflict arose with Ensign Naumov, the inspector of the military garb, repeatedly insulting those convicted of obscene language. During the distribution of food Vladimirov in response to another insult Naumov through the window of distribution dragged the controller into the cell and strangled him. The investigator of the prosecutor's office presented the convicted Vladimir with a charge under clause "c" of Article 102 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, that is, In committing a premeditated murder in connection with the performance of the victim's duty.
       The age-old topic of the "guard-prisoner" conflict, which has the same tragic outcome as in the case of Vladimir Vladimirov, is very well revealed in the story of Victor Hugo "Claude Ge". Describing the story of the relationship between prisoner Claude Ge and the shopkeeper in the Parisian correctional home, the tragic denouement of which was the killing of the latter and the execution of the prisoner, Hugo emotionally appeals to the powers that be: "Visit penal servitude. Collect all the convicts around you. Examine one by one these rejected human law. Measure all these profiles, touch these skulls. Each of these fallen people has as its prototype some animal; It seems that everyone stands on the verge of a particular kind of animal and man. Here's a lynx, here's a cat, here's a hyena, here's a hawk. It turns out, therefore, that the main blame for all these undeveloped heads falls, first of all, of course, on nature, and then - on upbringing. Nature badly molded, education badly polished. "
      Obviously, without a thorough analysis of the life situation in which the criminal and his victim were located, without taking into account the psychological and national characteristics of the characters of both parties to the conflict, it is impossible to understand the mechanism of the crime, its inner, in-depth essence. In my opinion, this is what existentialism serves as a method of scientific research. Following the logic of our esoteric narrative, I can not ignore the question of the attitude of a Russian person to property - to his and others'. Here, not everything is as simple as it might seem at first glance. The fact is that a Russian person in relation to things often manifests a paradoxical combination of extreme fidelity and an inadequate assessment of the consumer value of things.
     Theft in Russia is a national crime, which at one time was an outstanding Russian historian, NM. Karamzin invested in the ultimately laconic formula: "And what about Russia? They steal-with! "And in their desire to possess this or that thing or satisfy their urgent need, a Russian person will stop at nothing. Let's recollect at least the textbook image of a bandit from the song "Murka", which has become almost folk classics and very poetic about the romance of criminal life. "Once they went to work - I wanted to drink!" The motivation for the crime is clear to all Russian people and is extremely simple. Just as the savage natives in the desire to have mirrors and glass beads did not stop at anything, including. Before the murder of the "white deity" - the Spanish conquistadors, the Russian man, because of stupidity and a momentary desire to have fun, goes to crimes of selfish and mercenary-violent direction.
     This situation was described very well in his story "The Intruder" by the great Russian writer A.P. Chekhov. The plot of the story is devoted to the trial of a village peasant because he unscrewed the nuts with which the rails to the sleepers are attached. Dialogue is written in the good traditions of the theater of the absurd.
   "... The investigating judge asks Denis Grigoriev:
   - Why did you need this nut?
   - Not something? We are making weights from nuts ...
   - But for the sinker you could take lead, a bullet ... some carnations ...
   - You can not find lead on the road, you have to buy it, but cloves are not good. Better than a nut and not find ... And heavy, and there is a hole.
   - What a fool he is! Do not you understand, stupid head, what does this unscrewing lead to? Do not look at the watchman, because the train could have gone off the rails, people would have been killed! You would kill people!
   - Good Lord, your honor! Why kill? Are we not baptized or villains? Glory to those gentlemen, Mr. Good, lived their century and not just to kill, but there were no thoughts like that either ...
   - And why do you think there are train crashes? Unscrew two or three nuts, here's a wreck!
   - We understand this ... We do not all unscrew .., leave ... We are not without a mind .., we understand. "
       Absurdity of the judicial situation Chekhov masterfully achieved the description of this absolutely native relationship of Grigoriev to the perfect crime, which perceives his act as anything, but not as a theft, especially for which a criminal penalty is possible. The paradoxical attitude of the Russian man to property has long been the theme of the study of Russian writers (ME Saltykov-Shchedrin "Lord Golovlevs", NV Gogol "Dead Souls", VM Shukshin "My son-in-law stole a firewood machine", "Kalina Red ", V. Astafiev" Tsar-fish ", etc.). One thing is clear that such an attitude obviously has an existential nature, conditioned by the traditionally low standard of living of the Russian people. Hence the inadequate evaluation of material values, the disparity of the means selected by the perpetrator to achieve the goal.
      Another existential touch in the national psychotype of the criminal is the attitude of the Russian person to power and law enforcement agencies. Sadomasochism of the Russian people is very peculiarly manifested here. In the Russian mentality there is a persistent rejection of official authority, and counteraction to it (and in any, sometimes completely absurd forms) is often estimated by society as a manifestation of male prowess.
       To this conclusion numerous observations are made of the behavior of detainees in the duty units of the internal affairs department of Russia. Bravado, frankly evocative behavior of detainees in relation to police officers, usually ends with the same thing - the application to "riotous" rich arsenal of special means, including. Police "know-how" under the touching name "pose of a cube-rubik". It is clear that in this fact there is nothing remarkable for our research, but another interesting thing, when returning to the cell, the "victim of police arbitrariness" proudly tells the inmates about the fanaticism of the police officers towards him, immediately surrounding himself with the halo of a national martyr. This is, in my opinion, existentialism in action, conditioned by the historical conditions of the development of the Russian state, which have developed a completely nihilistic attitude towards the state power and its representatives from the Russian people. Legal nihilism is much more inherent in Russian mentality than law-abiding, which definitely distinguishes us from Germans and Japanese, and also imposes an imprint on the nature of crime in Russia as a phenomenon in general.
     However, the paradox of Russian nature often manifests itself in relations with the authorities. As a result, sometimes absolutely amazing symbiosis of criminals and law enforcement officers is formed. An example of such a remarkable symbiosis, I believe, was described by V. Gilyarovsky in his book "Moscow and Muscovites". Describing the criminal life of the inhabitants of Khitrovka (one of the most virgin districts of Moscow in the early 20th century), Gilyarovsky noted that "... all the cunning market was run by two policemen, Rudnikov and Lokhmatkin. Only their pudgy kulaks were really afraid of "punks", and "business guys" were with both representatives of power in friendship and, having returned from penal servitude or running from prison, first of all went to them to bow. They both knew in the face of all the criminals, looking at them for a quarter of a century of their irremovable service ... And the "well-wishers" under such power. Rudnikov was a type of one of a kind. He was even considered to be fair in escaped convicts, and therefore he was not killed, although he was beaten several times during arrests. But he was not wounded by malice, but only by saving his own skin. Everyone did his job: one caught and held, and the other hid and fled. Such is the convict logic. "
    Examples of such a symbiosis of criminals and law enforcement officers can be found in modern legal reality. This is the often occurring friendship between the criminal investigation operatives and their confidants, and the merging of the employees of the departments of the Internal Affairs Directorate in combating illicit drug trafficking with the drug mafia.
      It is clear that the phenomenon of corruption of law enforcement officers takes place in virtually any country in the world, but in the Russian interpretation it takes on sometimes quite bizarre forms, which I also tend to consider as one of the manifestations of the Russian people's original relationship to state power and its representatives.
       Such "strange" conclusions about the "mysterious Russian soul" and the "psychotype of the Russian criminal", based on their personal observations of the convicts and their guards in the domestic penitentiary system, I made in three years of work as an assistant to the Barnaul Prosecutor for Supervision of Law Enforcement in jail.
       However, August 1991 came, and with it - the famous "coup" CCHR. All over the country, suddenly burst into flames, "zakolbasilo" (shacking), as if a certain wicked joker threw it into a deep pool with a sadistic curiosity, observing that "she will come out, after all, or not come out"?
       The prison turned me in three years, worse than the bitter radish, and I decided to change the "place of dislocation" again - to switch from the prosecutor's office to the service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. 
        So, very everyday and trivial, in August 1991, began my 17-year-old police,s marathon called "Facking"!
  
   "Hello, God Ra!"
  
   "Yes, put your instrument on the top shelf," the young Kirghiz, who was sitting on the second shelf of our compartment, was trying to convince me with false participation, directly above me. "It will be more secure there." And you are calmer! "I, without paying any attention to him, shoved the" Roland "under his lower shelf, where he stood up perfectly, and looked around. Contingent in the compartment was caught - "God forbid to everyone" - one another "more beautiful"!
   On the contrary, I was sitting (it's just incredible) a real, living "Antibiotic"! Not in the sense of medicine, of course, but in the sense of the artist Lev Borisov, genius, just incomparably played the role of "mafia" in the cult series "Bandit Petersburg". Such an incredible, just "funky", similarities in life I have yet to meet!
   In addition to the "Antibiotic" two more go in the compartment: a suspicious Kirghiz, of whom he has already spoken, of a very criminal appearance; And the whitish Jew Victor, who looks very much like the "hero of my novel" already known to the reader from the glorious army past - Dima Kelgevatov.
   Nearby, in the next compartment, already started a noisy drinking, which, as it turns out later, will continue throughout the journey. In general, this trip from the very beginning promised to be "exciting", in all senses of the word!
   "Oh, I do not like all this, oh do not like it! - feverishly knocked in the head of the same thought. - After all, my wife told me - take a ticket for the train "Moscow - Krasnoyarsk"! And I said, quite arrogantly told this to the Moscow cashier. How come it turned out that I found myself on this "hellish" train "Moscow-Bratsk", which rushes to the underworld? "Only a long time later I will understand that this Ra deliberately pushed me into this ill-fated train, having arranged his next test of strength for his son !!
   I'm traveling on this "cheerful" train from Moscow not somewhere, but home, to my native Siberia, leaving behind 17 years of impeccable service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Over the years, there have been many significant events, which, of course, do not fit into the pages of one novel, even such an unusual - esoteric! The service, of course, has given me a lot in my life-only thanks to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, I successfully defended my Ph.D. and Doctor's dissertations, I served in Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk and even Moscow, in which I actually retired, In one, very "mysterious" and very "secret" VNII Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (see on You Tube clip Sergei Voronin "The case in Moscow").
   The head of the "hellish" train was a small Azerbaijani Jew Yasha, aged 30-35, who paced the carriage with an important kind of royal penguin, giving his subordinates valuable instructions. I immediately noticed that he was clearly connected by a close relationship with the conductor of our car, which I mentally dubbed "Marilyn Monroe" - the one that showed such a heightened interest in my musical instrument on boarding. They often retired together in her compartment for the conductors and softly cooed about something, while being embarrassed when one of the passengers passed by.
   "Antibiotic", which was already clearly over 60, as an elder began to actively "bank" at the table, assuming the ungrateful role of the road massovik - entertainer. With his stupid jokes - jokes he again reminded me very much of a character from my "gay" youth - the same "Siply" from Samarkand - I even thought at first that I again had "de Zha vu". From his travel bag - luggage "Antibiotic" extracted to the light of God a piece of smoked bacon, an aromatic boiled pork and a bottle of vodka. Of course, the four of us quit the bottle very quickly, after which the Antibiotic, with a conspiratorial air, took out a 100 gram "scoundrel" of "gorilka" and, slyly looking at me, said: "Of course, I do not force anyone to drink - as "I, without thinking of anything, poured the entire contents of the bottle into my glass (here, as they say, and one will not be enough!) And drank a single volley, biting a piece of delicious boiled pork. "Eh, listen, my dear, for a snack - that is not very much" leash, "and then there are very few of it left!" - suddenly, for no reason, read "Antibiotic" and faster than a macaque snatched a hefty piece of meat straight From my hands. "Yes, let him eat, do you feel sorry for the meat?" - unexpectedly stood up for me, the Jew Victor, surprised at the incredible greed of the old man. From the drunk in my head went a nice "bald", I grew sleepy, and since the "Antibiotic" all alcohol has dried up, I decided to go to the restaurant of the train - "catch up" and have a good meal. In the restaurant I "took on the chest" another 150 grams, zaev their delicious Ukrainian borsch. Then it became quite "good" for me, and I went out for a walk in the tambour. Our train, at this time, made a long stop in Vladimir - once, opposite the ancient Orthodox cathedral.
   Looking at the gilded crosses proudly towering over the domes of the ancient temple, I suddenly heard Ra say to me: "Son, be careful, there is a serious danger ahead!" I will specify that it was not even a voice in the true sense of the word, but, As if, a running line below the "blue" screen, which I easily and naturally read from my drunk at the time of consciousness. Later, I will get used to this line as my own, and I will learn to read it very calmly and judiciously, separating it from my own thoughts, and then, for the first time, it was completely new, unfamiliar, and therefore a little scary (I always feared schizophrenics with their "Split" personality, endless "voices" and visions) sensation.
   "I do not understand, in Vladimir in general, according to the schedule, the parking lot is only 15 minutes, and we are already 45!" - said the "Marilyn Monroe" indignantly to the conductor from another car, and I suddenly realized that this parking area is meant exclusively for me, so that properly All to think about and prepare for the next test of Ra.
   A Kirghiz came into the vestibule, who carefully and with great interest told me: "And what are you here alone, is it really that much more interesting? You would at least change your clothes, otherwise you'll go by train for 4 hours! "" Yes, I'll have time, the road is long! "I said, turning away from the Kirghiz to the window, letting me know that I did not want to communicate with uninteresting ones Interlocutor. Kirgiz turned and left, and after him, the train's head Yasha appeared in my tambour, who, with no less compassion and pity than the Kirghiz, asked: "Is it bad for you?" "And why did you suddenly take it? "- I was surprised, which was very even" good "at that moment. "Well, you are so strange," the Jew portrayed my face on the outstretched neck, "they stared out the window, which I thought was probably bad for a man!" "No, do not worry, it's all right," I replied, and Yasha Ran away on his business. Such an increased participation of others towards my humble person seemed to me then more than strange and very suspicious.
   Past, apparently from the restaurant, passed an officer with the emblem of the signalman, who was traveling in the last compartment next to the toilet. We talked - the major was called Dmitry, I introduced myself as a colonel of militia, and he invited me to tea in his compartment. I promised to go somehow, and for a while I stood alone in the vestibule. But, there is nothing to do - it's time to return to my "native" compartment, which, for some reason, my feet "did not go by themselves". Something incomprehensible, completely unknown, persistently repelled me from these suspicious and extremely unpleasant neighbors.
   Until the evening we sat in the compartment and had extensive arguments about politics, completely forgetting about the immutable truth that "wagon disputes are the last thing", as Andrei Makarevich's famous song says. I was already sober when I was called into the corridor by the Kirghiz and said in a menacing tone: "Look, the guys from the next compartment asked me to pass on, so you yourself, voluntarily gave your money. So it will be better for you! "Did not know this" woodpecker "- to whom he says this! "What is it, I do not understand? What money and who should I give? "I hissed angrily, but the Kirghiz was already hurrying away from me along the corridor of the car.
   At this very time, from the next compartment, where all this time was a buster, and now it was suspiciously quiet, "Antibiotic" appeared with an extremely frightened face and a conspiratorial air. Everything immediately fell into place. "So you're with them at the same time, bitch ?!" - I cried and put a crushing blow to the jaw in my left hand, "Antibiotic", from which he fell dead, like a knuckle, and fell to the floor. Immediately two men jumped out of the compartment - one with Arnold Schwarzenegger's complex (apparently, the "hillock" of this criminal team), and the second, slightly smaller, being in considerable drunk. "Why did you hit an elderly man? Shame on you? But how dare you? "- the great man" Schwartz "bellowed. "So, I dare, because I am a police colonel, and in my compartment ride car scoundrels!" "What - what? "And what is the colonel like?" "But this one," not smeared and not dry, "I growled, which everything that was happening here was already beginning to enrage me. I went straight to the conductor. Seeing the "Marilyn Monroe," I almost shouted in her ear: "I'm a police colonel, call a patrol, thieves and scammers are coming in my compartment!" "I will not call any police, but I'll call the train's chief-he understands you" , - the blusher blonde Marilyn grumbled irritably. "Yes, my boss surrendered to you! Everything is so clear - you are with them, too! "- I said and quickly went into the compartment. "Listen, what do you allow yourself? - suddenly began to "run into" me "Long", standing next to the manor near my compartment. "Yes, if you want to know, I fought in Afghanistan, in the Airborne Forces, and I will not allow any" dick from the mountain "to offend the old people!" "So what, I also fought in Afghanistan!" I did not blink. "What, what? "And where did you serve, let me ask you?" "At Kandahar, the artillery block post of the D-30 howitzer," I reported cheerfully and added with pride: "I heard, I suppose, About "3 SHK-1" (the author - a shell projected with international conventions, like a Japanese "shimoza", used by our artillery only in high-altitude areas of Afghanistan when firing with a remote tube)? My work! "" And I do not believe him! - "good mate" roared "Afghan", bursting from the hands of the hard-restraining his "Schwartz". "Let him call a" point, "call it a" point, "an asshole!"
   I immediately remembered the unforgettable Buratino, who screamed outrageously from the pitcher to the unfortunate Karabas - Barabas: "The door is where the door is, despicable!" "Now I'll show you the erogenous" point ", the fester is festering!" - I said, and menacingly moved to the "Afghan ". And then something strange and strange happened, which I still can not give a more or less intelligible explanation.
   "Schwartz," who apparently for too long suffered and could no longer restrain his boiling anger, with agility and agility, surprising for his gigantic weight, with a terrible animal roar jumped on me, collapsing on a slender, elegant "peacock" 120 - that kilogram carcass of the "elephant". Falling to the floor, he saddled me from above and with the words: "You have sat in the wrong car, you scoundrel!" - he began to "pound" my huge fists into my face. But .... None of the strokes has reached the desired goal! And now I will try to describe in detail all my feelings at this moment, so that the reader will become more or less clear what actually happened in that ill-fated car (although to myself, frankly, nothing is clear).
   My first feeling, when this "gorilla" jumped, that a huge bulldozer brought down on me - such roughly a force was a blow into my "feathered" chest; With pain, which is surprising, I did not feel at all. Then I felt an incredible weight on my stomach (it seemed he was bent under the weight of this "gorilla" to the very floor) that he could not stand it and emitted a sound along with the air to the whole car. Then the weight of the "Schwartz" suddenly disappeared somewhere - it felt as though someone had taken it off me sharply. Despite all this nightmare, my brain continued to record and analyze everything happening around with an extraordinary clarity and coldness for the given situation. A thought that frightened her with frankness flashed through her head: "Well, everything, n .... ts, Seryozha; Jumped up, sparrow! Now they will throw you off the train and "no one will know where your grave is!"! "
   Suddenly I saw the whole picture of what was happening as if from above: here I lay, spread out on the floor, and on top, over my head, that there are forces, threshes Schwartz with his huge "sledgehammers". Next to us is the frightened Jew Yasha, and, like a parrot, calls the police on the radio.
   Again, calmly and dismissed, as if it did not concern me at all, but another person, I noticed to myself that I was not lying on the floor - that is, on the floor, but, for some reason, I did not touch it. Between me and the floor was a small space - a gap, a kind of "air cushion," thanks to which I did not feel pain and did not earn a single bruise, when it crashed to the floor with a terrible roar.
   I saw almost no one who was sitting on me, I could hardly see him, I could only hear his voice and feel the fetid breath from the fumes - from the "Schwartz" I was separated by some strange pinkish veil, viscous in texture and pleasantly scorching in the neck and temples, Apparently, and vyle his lethal blows (any missed blow to my head of this one hundred-kilogram gorilla, no doubt, threatened an imminent death).
   Then all of a sudden ended - as if a drunken projectionist woke up from a dream and abruptly stopped the film projector; And now I'm walking with fists on the Schwartz and the Afghan with their faces twisted from me along the train with horror-twisted faces (these grimaces of horror will soon be very often seen on the faces of people who have business with me). "You're gonna chew me now, fat fagot!" - I yelled, so much so that the whole car hid in its compartments. "You are, you fool, now you'll be eating shit from a can of spoon!"
   I do not know what would have ended this "wonderful" scene, if from the next compartment with us (from the one where the day before was a drunken debauchery) did not jump out like a devil from a snuffbox, apparently, their ataman or just the wife of one of the "brothers" ". She ran to me frightened, gently clutching at her hands, trying to calm me: "Oh, do not, please, do not! What's your name? "" Sergei, "I said, and suddenly calmed down. "No, but according to the father?" "Eduardovich." "Sergei Eduardovich, there was an unfortunate misunderstanding, tomorrow we invite you to dinner in a restaurant, but without alcohol, agree?" "Okay, I agree!" - I said and smiled my invariably charming smile.
   The head of the train Yasha came up to us with a face twisted in fear. "Listen, dear," I began to "work through" him, "if your pedlars - hamadry once again stick to me, I'll take a fork and put them in the eye, and nothing will happen to me!" "Is that why?" - He asked quickly. "Because the diagnosis is such - schizophrenia!" - I said and pointedly rolled my eyes. "Why did you drink this vodka with klofelinom?" - Suddenly the Jew let slip. "Ah, that's how you treated me to your" old man "! I exclaimed in indignation. "By the way, I immediately copied you with your little dove, the conductor, on the platform: from the moment she asked me about the instrument; Then you appeared, you planted this "left" Kirghiz so that he would rob me of the distance of the road - in general, the picture is quite understandable. Darling, I have 19 years of experience in operational deployment, I began to lie in an inspired way. "Compared with the intra-chamber development, your lousy car with these vile" scumbags "is just babbling!" "Yes, I immediately realized that you are a professional !! The Jew said flatteringly. "Can not you show the documents?" "What documents? I am already a pensioner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs since yesterday. Form the colonel of the police show, if you want! In general, today you are very risky with your "booth" - but if the corpse was now? Everything, you then crank, as the head of the train. " The Jew shook his eyes in confusion, and then mournfully mumbled: "And you will not write a statement to the police? I've already got it all myself, I'm here myself - a captive person. " "Yes, I will not write anywhere, I'm tired of all this in my police service."
   Entering the compartment, I found there only a depleted Jew Victor - neither the "Antibiotic" nor the Kirghiz on the spot was not there. After a while Yasha looked at us: "Er, guys, guys are afraid to go in the compartment, do not offend them, okay?" Here Victor already broke through, who apparently tried to hold back for a long time in this whole situation. "Listen, my dear, there may be enough bandits, eh? I want to get home alive and well, what kind of mess did you make here for our money? Wow - "use the services of the railway transport!" "Okay, okay, everything will be fine!" Yasha tried to calm him and hurriedly disappeared behind the door.
   A moment later, the Antibiotic came into the compartment, pressing in fear from me to the lower shelf. "Grandfather, why did you want to poison me with clonidine?" I asked purposely. "Yes, the guys asked for the next compartment," the old man answered in a listless tone, without even trying to justify himself. "Listen, and if they asked you to kill someone, would you do it too? You are standing with one foot in the grave, soon you will go to report to God - and in what form, God forgive, you will appear before him, and? "The old man, without speaking a word, lay down on the shelf, breathing hoarsely and sighing without end .
   Soon the Kirghiz appeared on the horizon. "Well, you, Kirghiz," I turned to him, "what do you think?" If you go to the Russian prison tomorrow, God forbid, you will be there, with great pleasure, hammering in the ass like a "beast," in the morning and in the evening, day and night, and without days off. So you, the Kirghiz, are waiting for the brilliant future of the finished Asian fag, unless you come to your senses and live like all normal people, which I personally deeply doubt! "
   At last I calmed down, and everyone, except me, pretended to fall asleep. Sleep did not go, but it is understandable after the experiences of anxiety. "All the sleep was broken, the goats!" - I muttered and went to the conductor for tea. "Pour me a cup of tea, Marilyn is fucked!" I threw to the "blonde in chocolate" with unconcealed anger, which frightened me to make tea.
   Back in the compartment, I again and again asked myself the question: "Well, all, have they happened today? Is this a hallucination or am I really schizophrenic? "With that same sensation, I woke up in the morning.
   Remembering yesterday, I began to feel my body - there seemed to be nothing hurting anywhere. I got up and looked in the mirror - there was not a single visible bruise or bruise on my face. Tore up his shirt - the whole body was covered with small bruises, which, with pressure, however, did not cause absolutely no pain. On the back and neck, there were also no signs of falling. And only on the tips of the fingers of both hands there were two small scratches from the fixing strap for the rug in the corridor of the car (I fell backwards on my back, with arms outstretched - apparently, at the hands of the saving "pillow" was gone). The gold watch was also a whole - a gift from my student Misha Chernyakov - and it was they who I had to hit hard on the floor during our noisy fuss with "my friend Schwartz". And what is most surprising - no, even the slightest signs of a hangover syndrome (usually I'm very sick after such libations, and here the matter was further aggravated by clonidine).
   "Who am I, Angel?" I asked myself, and even became very uncomfortable with this seditious thought. "No, you are not an Angel, Angels live in Heaven, and you are a Man: this is a much" steeper "Angel. You are my son, son, son! You are my joy! "- I was answered by a soft, insinuating voice somewhere very deep in the back of my head. It was Ra.
   Finally, He decided to show His Face. "Well, hello, Batya!" - I loudly and articulately said aloud, and "Antibiotic" looked at me with horror, like an idiot.
   Kirghiz made several more attempts to "stifle" my instrument to Yekaterinburg, but I was day and night on "guarding the object entrusted to me", "I was dragging the service properly", so in the end, the unfortunate Asian "got drunk on the insole" and with the words : "They're going to roll over me now!" - the bandits were eagerly waiting for him with the "musical goods" from Moscow. But I did not feel sorry for him, for some reason.
   The rest of the way to Krasnoyarsk, "gorillas" along with their Jewish Yasha, walked along the "wall" of the car, trying not to touch me and not to look into my eyes. It was very nice, but for the complete moral victory of this "peacock" is already scarce. I decided to hold a parade in my honor - my last parade of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on the way to the New Life. Already in the morning I put on the uniform of a colonel of militia, which, surprisingly, did not completely wriggle in the Chinese plastic bag, went out into the corridor, and everyone in the car was stunned. Then, with a confident gait, I approached the young conductor - the substitute Marilyn, who was the only one of this "bad company" showing any signs of sympathy for me in our difficult situation, and said to him: "Boy, do you want to live long?" "Yes, I would like, in general - that!" - he said with fright. "Then you need to get off this train faster. He's cursed! "" And for a long time? "Asked the astonished guide. "Yes, it's decent already," I said importantly, deliberately not naming dates for greater persuasiveness-let him himself put on my "mulk" the events he knew that had happened all along the train. - And we must call the priest - to light this car. I as entered it - I was so "torknulo" that even pumped - there is a terrible "evil spirit". You see that you are going on in the car - a complete devilry! Apparently, it's not me - the first, not me - the last one, right? "He only nodded in silence in the affirmative. "And tell this to your Jewish Yasha - very soon, if he does not quit his criminal craft, he" glues his fins "- turns black with a terrible illness and dies. And his girlfriend, this "blonde in chocolate," will endlessly root on the female line and, in the end, will become barren. Her whole "melted" surgeons in city gynecology of Bratsk. Will you give them all this? "And he nodded his head in horror again.
   Coming out with their huge "trunks" in Krasnoyarsk, I decided to "finish off", finally, and "Antibiotic". "The old man," I said, "do you see this trunk with the instrument? In it, consider 500 thousand rubles (Grandfather's jaw dropped from astonishment)! Look, the tool costs 250 thousand (actually 55 thousand), and I put the calculation for 10 years of service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs - also 250 thousand (in fact, 150 thousand). So in the right direction, you and your "gorillas" worked. Yes, nothing you could not do it anyway - the tool is "namolenny." I knew that there was such a "fun" trip in the "infernal" train, so I was well prepared! "And leaving the astonished old man in complete prostration, I got off the train.
   If any of my readers have doubts about the truthfulness of the told story that happened in this "bad" car, then for special skeptics who want to check the facts themselves, I report: this sacred event occurred on November 12, 2008 on the train "Moscow - Bratsk, and in the Krasnoyarsk LOVD in transport on this fact, there is material about the refusal to open a criminal case for lack of corpus delicti, and in fact - due to the lack of all its judicial perspective.
   And what else, please tell me, can there be a judicial perspective in a case that gives so forthright mysticism? After all, mysticism is, as is generally known, not at all incompetent!
   ........................................................................................
   Since those memorable events more than 40 years have passed. I was already "knocked" 88 and, frankly speaking, I was so thoroughly tired of all this earthly twaddle ("All the vanities of vanities and vexation of the spirit!" - how true, how poetic is this our, this strange, terrestrial existence in the book of Ecclesiastes) , That just want to "croak in all his crows throat": "How do you get it all, brothers! Awful want to relax, gentlemen, from all this "booth"! "
   I know that in the near future I will leave this world and will appear with a detailed account before Ra. I will go away, pacified, not even intimidating at all, but such a Abyss, dear to me from childhood, with its perfect Cosmic Majesty and Absolute Emptiness, without regret leaving my "case" on Earth, so that, like the great prophet Zarathushtra, "return and start over again"! Life is the "Eternally Twisting Wheel", where Death is by no means the End, but only the beginning of a new life Act. Life is "stalking", and "stalking" is Art; Moreover, the art of fighting - and the more skilful the "stalker", the more correct, reasonable and beautiful is the ordinary human Life, generously presented to us by Heaven!
   ......................................................................................
   С тех памятных событий прошло уже больше 40 лет. Мне уже "стукнуло" 88 и, честно говоря, я так основательно подустал от всей этой земной канители ("Все суета сует и томление духа!" - насколько верно, насколько же поэтично определено это наше, такое странное, земное существование в книге Екклесиаста), что просто хочется "каркнуть во все свое воронье горло": "Как же все "достало", братцы! Ужасно хочется отдохнуть, господа, от всего этого "балагана"!"

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   Я знаю, что в ближайшее время покину этот мир и предстану с обстоятельным отчетом перед Ра. Я уйду, умиротворенный, в совсем даже не пугающую, а такую родную и близкую мне с детства Бездну, с ее совершенным Космическим Величием и Абсолютной Пустотой, без сожаления оставив свой "футляр" на Земле, чтобы, как великий пророк Заратуштра, "вернуться и начать все сначала"! Жизнь -- это "Вечно Крутящееся Колесо", где Смерть является отнюдь не Концом, а лишь началом нового жизненного Акта. Жизнь -- это "сталкинг", а "сталкинг" - это Искусство; причем, Искусство боевое - и чем искуснее "сталкер", тем правильнее, разумнее и красивее обычная человеческая Жизнь, щедро подаренная нам Небесами!
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