training vehicles in
excellent condition and reviews of senior colleagues are positive, in what are the problems of
unreliability? – continued the military commissar, drilling me with a brown look of brown eyes.
– In one of the questions asked at a lecture by the colonel of the headquarters of the military
district about the leader of the world proletariat, Vladimir Ilyich. – | answered as seriously as
possible.
– Interesting, and what did you ask this? – said the major with great interest.
– I did not understand the political information about the leader, | did not understand that it is
possible to speak so frankly, avoiding the negative qualities of Lenin, ideally only in positive key.
But he was a man and he could not have negative qualities? So | asked:
– Why didn’t you say anything negative about the leader”? – Commissar rolled his eyes, looking
at me, grumbled:
– Found, lieutenant, to whom to ask such questions. Don't you understand that you were
confronted by a "celestial being", a colonel of the political department of the elite of the
military district?!
– So what, I'm wrong, so you and |, like every person, have flaws, the leader, for example, had a
mistress in addition to his legal wife Krupskaya, he liked playing cards and did not like to lose to
the writer Maxim Gorky, and died in Gorki at the age of fifty-five from syphilis.
– I hope you did not tell this to the colonel, because you were given a term to serve there?
– Otherwise, Comrade Major, | wouldn't be standing here in front of you, as if in court, and
wouldn’t justify myself?”
– So, not Comrade Major, but Mr. Major, we are in a free European country, by the way. Well,
as for your loyalty, you are loyal to our European power, and we will deal with this
misunderstanding like this! – having said this, the major again opened my personal file in a
greenish cardboard book with a five-pointed star on the front side, leafed through, found a
characteristic about my expressed unreliability and tore out the page, tore it into pieces,
throwing it into the wastebasket. Then he looked at me, took a prescription from the table and
handed it to me with the words:
– I hope you know where the settlement is Bila Tserkva, and how to get there?
– By bus from the bus station, which is at the Lebedskaya metro stop. – | answered.
– Give it to the commander of the aviation regiment, he will tell you what to do and what to do.
Any questions?!
– No way, Major! May | go?
– In six months you will be given the proper rank of major, go!
– Eat!
| went out into the corridor, a big man stood up to meet me, grumbling asked:
– Why did you drink vodka there, what took so long?
– Come find out! | threw after him.
After leaving the draft board, | decided to get to my place of service tomorrow, since it was
already five o'clock in the evening. And on the way home | went to the Velyka Kyshenya
supermarket, where | bought a bottle of Armenian brandy Noy, smoked sausage for a snack, a
pack of ground aromatic coffee LAVAZZA in a red metal can, and went home. Having made a
feast for himself, | lay down in bed and began to think:
“It turns out that | was seconded to a military airfield in my military specialty, it would be
nothing in peacetime, but during the Russian-led Special Military Operation on the territory of
Ukraine? – after thinking, agreed with the thought, – Still not in the trenches! – and fell asleep
quite early, the sun was still shining, it was still day in the room … At night, | jumped up for no
reason, glanced at watch, the showed ten minutes to one in the morning. | went out into the
kitchen, there was an unfinished bottle of cognac on the table. He poured himself half a glass,
drank a couple of sips and suddenly the roar of an explosion thundered.
– Wow! – | said as | sat down on a chair. | went out to the balcony and saw the glow of a fire not
far from the Vinogradar residential area. Just in case, | put on trousers, socks, a shirt and a
jacket, then added a first-aid kit with medicines and iodine to my travel bag. And so he lay in his
clothes until the morning. At six in the morning | left the house and went down to the subway.
At that time, to my surprise, there were no passengers anywhere. Near the ticket office, two
military men on duty noticed me, and both moved in my direction. One of them addressed me:
– Dear, a curfew has been announced until eleven in the morning, it is allowed only with official
IDs, your documents!
| rummaged through my travel bag and handed him my direction. He studied it for a long time,
then replied:
– And that there are no other ways besides the metro?
– Me in the direction of the bus station and the bus to the White Church.
The military man folded my directing and returned it.
– | wish you to get there without incident, come in! – he nodded to the woman on duty at the
checkpoint, she let me on the platform.
In the underground hall of the platform, along with me, there were two more military men in
camouflage uniforms. They looked at me suspiciously from a distance, they seemed surprised
at my civilian clothes. But my inspection was prevented by a train rolling up to the platform. |
got into an empty car and the train started moving. At the station "Petrovka" three people got
into the car, and when they arrived at the final stop "Lebedskaya" there were already quite a
lot of people with things in the car, all these passengers followed to the bus station. At the
ticket office of the bus station, | saw a crowd of passengers near the window of the ticket office
selling tickets in the direction of Belaya Tserkov. They made noise and demanded
administration. Soon the head of the station came out with two military men.
– Dear citizens! – he addressed the crowd, – In connection with the shelling of a military facility
in the territory adjacent to the White Church, traffic to the settlement of the White Church has
been temporarily stopped! – his words caused a storm of indignation among the crowd.
– What are you saying, we live there, we need to get home! –