Aria Semyon Lvovich. Vladimir Sofienko. sky cobra

(story)

She found herself in this enclosed space with the suffocating smell of dust, old things and human flesh before sunset. It seemed that with the first rays of the new day a way out of here was found, but an invisible obstacle stood in the way, delimiting the emptiness, and did not allow him to reach the light. She froze for a moment, trying to guess the right direction. Her antennae on her head trembled slightly, and she again spun in a graceful dance, as if feeling the space around her.

Having made a final steep pirouette, the wasp froze for a moment. In impatience, she soared upward and for the umpteenth time, buzzing angrily, crashed into the sunlight. Now he was not filled with the breath of meadow grass, the intoxication of flowers and that delicate, sugary aroma of viscous nectar that lured her into this trap. Without these smells, the light seemed sterile. The wasp fell silent, gaining strength. The striped belly of the celestial killer trembled nervously on the blind surface of the light, as if trying to sting an invisible enemy. The light beckoned her, suggested the direction, but the wasp could not find the right way home.

Well, we need one more! Where do they come from?! “It really is smeared with honey,” grandfather Semyon put his glasses aside, carefully, so as not to wrinkle the portrait of the new “owner” of the Kremlin, folded the “Arguments” he had just read in four - to the required elasticity of the newspaper sheets, opened the window wider and, pushing it under the shaggy the belly of the wasp, a newspaper, brushed it out into the street. “We should fill the lids on the jars with wax, otherwise there’s no peace from these wasps.”

Grandfather looked under the bed to see if he had arranged the jars of honey well yesterday. Groaning, he straightened his back and unfolded the newspaper again, once again looking at the photo with the inscription “B. N. Yeltsin."

Yes,” said grandfather Semyon thoughtfully, “that’s how people are; It happens that everyone is running around the world, looking for something, poking around. It’s as if blind kittens are going crazy in search of theirs; hiding from their fate... And she’s right there, nearby,” he waved the newspaper towards the window, “just open your eyes wider and you’ll be free.”

Lately he's been enjoying talking to himself.

Yesterday, my grandson brought a jar of honey to grandfather Semyon. The village of Elino, where he lived during the honey harvesting seasons, was located sixty kilometers down the river from his grandfather’s village of Listvyanka. The road there, even for the tight-fisted grandson’s UAZ, was not always passable, again there was gasoline... They rarely saw each other.

“It’s not in vain that Styopka came to see me,” thought grandfather Semyon, accepting a can from an unexpected guest, “he wants to find out something, he’s a businessman. Has the woman’s chatter already reached Elino? Maybe Alexey blurted out something while drunk.”

Grandfather Semyon only recently became the object of a woman’s close attention. Many rumors circulated around the Siberian village about his trips to the taiga. One fable replaced another. The grandfather was still silent - he would only smile at another story he heard half-heartedly. And he suspected Lyokha, his assistant, in vain - in the taiga there is always an eye for something. In these parts everyone knows: man and beast each walk their own path. There is no need to show off, especially when you meet a person, there is no beast more terrible than him... Who knows what the traveler is carrying within himself? How heavy is his burden? That’s why it’s the taiga – people change here: they shed their masks, like a snake’s skin in spring, and become themselves. The taiga has seen everything: greed, cowardice, envy, frustration over lost dreams and grievances of the past. She then cleaned up after people, hid traces of their weakness and anger, covered them with pine needles and branches, and brought scavengers to a bloody feast. What kind of fables did they weave in the village about Semyon’s grandfather! They made up a whole story! Both old and young gossiped in the village, but whether it happened or didn’t happen, no one knew for sure. Lech was silent, like a partisan. They chatted as if a hunter had seen his grandfather alone from a distant village. They clarified that it happened on the Zmeevka River near the abandoned Sibpromohot base...

It all happened this spring. As soon as the snow melted, all the villagers went to the taiga to cut the flask. We left for half a day. The hardiest returned in the evening, dragging backpacks, baskets, buckets filled with onions and the first taiga primrose: kandyks and anemones. In the spring, not a single Siberian table is complete without a flask. It is added to okroshka, to salads, eaten simply with sour cream, seasoned on shish kebab, salted for the winter, pickled... The most enterprising still manage to sell a bunch or two to lazy companies, spreading out their simple goods along the highways. Young people take a liking to the meadows warmed by the spring sun, and while a flask is being gathered around for a snack, juice flows into glass jars in a vigorous stream from a hollow stalk of a reed or a piece of a ballpoint pen inserted into a birch tree - for drinking. Each collector of this taiga grass has his own treasured places. Semyon Panteleimonovich Semenov also had such a place - Semyonchik, as he was called in the village. He went there so often, when only his legs were worn.

Semyonchik is a short, wiry old man with strong, calloused hands beyond his years. His old woman died five years ago. After her death, his previously smiling face darkened, and somehow his freckles suddenly blurred into dark spots. His shoulders sagged, sagged, and filled with the weight of his arms. Previously, eager to exchange a word, he was now mostly silent in public: he would mutter something under his breath in response to a greeting - he wouldn’t even look. The dog Umka - and he became depressed. For a long time no one heard his ringing bark at the evening roll call of yard dogs. Sometimes he would come out of the booth, yelp about something of his own dog's own, rattle the chain and back - stick out his muzzle and lie there all day. Semyonchik went into the taiga for a short time and always tried to return before dark. He will untie the dancing Umka, wave his hand to his neighbor dozing in the sun, saying, hello Nikitichna, straighten the old gun behind his back, hook the gate - and into the taiga. The sun is at its zenith, and Semyonchik is already creaking the gate: come on, Nikitichna...

The neighbor, dozing on patrol at her fence, became alarmed immediately as soon as on the first evening she did not notice the usual flickering of the electric light behind the frayed curtains, grayed with time, in Semyonchik’s windows. For a couple of minutes, Nikitichna intensely peered into the dark block of the house, into the eye sockets of the windows with rickety, gaping shutters. Her chin shook slightly with anxiety, she stood up with difficulty and, muttering with a sunken mouth, shuffled towards the fence. Grasping the picket fence with both hands, Nikitichna called out into the darkness of the yard in a creaky voice:

Semyonchik, are you listening?

Holding onto the fence with her hand, she looked into the yard, trying to see the uninhabited side of the house, where after the death of his old woman her grandfather no longer went. The house was silent. The old woman returned to the gate.

Called:

Umka! - An iron chain lay motionless next to the orphaned booth.

The old woman looked around again - not a soul. Once upon a time, his and Semyonchik’s houses stood in the very center of the village. Now there was only one path leading to them on the slope.

Below, in the streams of fog that swallowed the streets one after another, old squat houses winked at their windows, as if passing fresh gossip to each other at a distance. In the thick air, generous with spring taiga smells, one could hear the buzzing of already awakened wasps, flies, and the calls of forest birds . Nikitichna looked at the path leading steeply down and sighed. “Maybe he went to his grandson? - she thought. “So Umka is gone.” A cold breeze blew. The neighbor adjusted her padded jacket on her hunched shoulders and decided to leave everything as it was until the morning.

In the morning, when she was about to run to the local police officer, Nikitichna heard the usual creaking of the gate near the house opposite. She wanted to ask Semyonchik what and how, but while she was thinking about how to approach her unsociable neighbor, the hook fell into the eye on the door with a slight rattle. Umka took a post at the booth, and the front door to the house slammed loudly. From that time on, Semyonchik began to often go into the taiga for two or three days. Grandfather had changed a lot: he walked down the street, tanned, fit, with a shovel on his shoulder, looking around - his face was bristling with red stubble. There are crazy lights in the eyes, as if he knows something, but he certainly won’t tell anyone. Nearby, Umka is screaming and teasing the neighbors’ dogs. What a miracle?!

“He’s probably wandering off to the swamps to see his mistress,” the old women gossiped.

On the very day when Semyonchik did not return home for the first time, alarming Nikitichna, he, as usual, went to his place to collect the flask. But, thinking about something along the way, I got lost. I woke up already on the winter road. “Ugh, you! - the grandfather cursed loudly. - The hard thing has brought me to such a distance! “You should at least bark or something,” he looked angrily at the dog wagging its tail. “Now I would have time to get home before dark.” But then Semyonchik remembered that this road led to the abandoned base of the Sibpromohota trust. Once upon a time, the trust was engaged in collecting berries and wild plants. As boys, Semyonchik and others ran along this road to see how the buildings were being erected. In his youth, he even managed to work as an assistant foreman. In the mid-eighties, the trust went bankrupt and its property was sold under the hammer. All that remained were the useless office walls and storage facilities as a monument to Perestroika.

The base was just a stone's throw away. In that place, the Zmeevka river made another bizarre turn. They called her that because there were only one or two straight places in her - she circled around the taiga like a silver snake back and forth. It runs loudly between swamps and lakes, rolls mischievously through fir and spruce forests. Such a river is a disaster for travelers. You keep to its left bank, and look - and it’s already running on the right. She probably played a bad joke on grandfather Semyon too - she took him, immersed in his thoughts, away from the treasured fir tree, as if she felt sorry for his grandfather’s taiga onion. And as luck would have it, he left his gun at home... After some thought, the grandfather decided to wait out the night at the old base: “Let's go, Umka. We know that it is our destiny to spend the night in the taiga. Maybe it’ll be okay!”

The forest ended unexpectedly. The office of the Sibpromohota trust stared at Semyonchik through its orphaned window openings. The sun was already touching the treetops, it was getting dark, we had to prepare for the night. On the way, Semyonchik tightly filled his backpack with brushwood, and, seeing a suitable piece of wood under his feet, he grabbed it by one edge and dragged it to the place of his future overnight stay.

The asphalt path leading from the lattice gate along a rickety, half-rotten fence with traces of peeling green paint is overgrown with grass. Rusty pieces of iron, bolts, nuts, pieces of pipes, wire bent into strange balls and all other rubbish, indicating complete desolation, were scattered everywhere. There was once a garage on the ground floor of the office. Now the iron gates, torn from their hinges, lay not far from the entrance. “The Chermetovites were operating,” guessed grandfather Semyon. - How were they going to bring out such a giant? Wonderful! Leaving the backpack and wood in the garage, he decided to make another trip to get firewood. Using a sharp hunting knife, I cut the spruce branches, laid a thick dry branch on top, tightly tied one edge with a belt, and, grabbing the other, free one, dragged my future forest bed into the garage. Already at the very exit from the taiga, at a dull decay, Semyonchik noticed the green bristles of the flask. “Here comes dinner!” - he thought, pleased, as he carefully cut off the green shoots and stuffed them into his jacket pockets. Near the garage, Umka, who had been hanging around all the time, suddenly became wary, there was a dull gurgle in his throat, but he did not bark loudly. He looked with alarm at where the dark ribbon of the river, stretching straight for about a kilometer, made a sharp turn and disappeared from sight. Grandfather Semyon knew his dog - Umka will not worry in vain. “Eh, I left my gun at home...” flashed through his head.

A couple of minutes later a low, even sound reached Semyonchik. What is this?.. A plane emerged from behind the clouds and, growing faster and faster in size, began to approach the dilapidated buildings of Sibpromohota. Umka, rising on his hind legs, barked loudly and loudly. Coming out of his daze, Semyonchik, obeying some unconscious inner impulse, waved his hand to the winged car. The dark silhouette of the plane began to turn around. Having entered the river alignment again, the car began to descend. Almost touching the chassis of the tops of trees, it flew to the beginning of the plateau, and, diving down, onto the rocky surface of the beach, it touched the dark brown slabs that stretched along the right bank of the river.

A cloud of dust rose from under the wheels, the engine roared hysterically, and, slowing down, the rotorcraft rolled along the river towards the base. The fence in that place had already completely rotted, showing rare columns of spans into the sky, and Semyonchik could see how a pilot in a leather jacket and helmet climbed out of the cockpit of a military aircraft (namely a military one!). Jumping to the ground, he motioned to the stunned grandfather. Semyonchik no longer doubted that in front of him stood a military fighter from the Second World War! He's already seen enough of this equipment at repair sites! During that war year, their family lived in Krasnoyarsk. Semyon's father Panteleimon was a mechanic, as they say, from God, his mother disappeared for days in the hospital, so five-year-old Sema hung out either in the hospital or at the repair site.

There the affectionate “Seed” stuck to him for the rest of his life. The repairmen kept calling: “Semyonchik, bring this!” Semyonchik, give it to me!”

Then the main American machine going to the front was the Aircobra fighter, or simply “Cobra”, as the pilots called it. The plane performed well in combat, but was not at all ready for the Russian frosts. So the repairmen in Krasnoyarsk had to adapt the car to the Russian latitudes: they changed the tires that were unsuitable for the icy weather, the overseas anti-icers with ours - frost-resistant, and installed stronger tubes... Some of the hatches on the Cobra were so small that only a child’s hand in a mitten could get through there , and it was impossible to work without gloves - my fingers instantly became stiff in the cold. So then little Syoma froze to death, helping the adults as best he could.

It was there along the Krasnoyarsk air route Uelkal - Seymchan - Yakutsk - Kirensk - Krasnoyarsk that our pilots ferried American planes under the agreement of the allied states. There, in short moments of rest, the mechanics conveyed stories they had heard from the pilots about dangerous and sometimes fatal flights over the Cherbsky and Verkhoyansky ranges, Oymyakon, where the most terrible enemy of our aces was severe frosts. They told, for example, about the pilot Terentyev, once near the Verkhoyansk Range his Cobra engine failed. So he managed to land the car in the impassable taiga right on the river. They say that if it weren’t for the reindeer herders, I would have frozen to death. The story he heard was firmly stuck in the memory of little Semyonchik; he often imagined this Terentyev, and at night he and he heroically planted a “cobra” in the forest and met with reindeer herders.

Whatever he changed his mind about, whatever he remembered, grandfather Semyonchik, while approaching the fighter, at the same time scolded himself once again for leaving the gun at home. Then he completely calmed down like this: the plane, they say, belongs to some historical and patriotic club, but the inexperienced pilot got lost. Grandfather more than once saw television programs with such game battles, when the participants, dressed in the uniform of soldiers from different eras, or even dressed in armor, went wall to wall. Well, children are children! Whatever people do to entertain themselves! They would have been so brave in the hayfield... But with every step the plane was getting closer and closer - you could already see the pilot. Something already told the grandfather: everything he had just used to calm himself down was fiction. And the wary posture, and the unbuttoned holster, and the nervously trembling fingertips at the handle of the pistol, and the suspicious look of tired but tenacious eyes - everything betrayed the strong tension of the pilot.

No matter how hard Semyonchik tried to walk firmly, his knees trembled treacherously. Sensing evil, with his tarry muzzle stretched forward with a white “blank” under his right eye, as if he were prey, Umka walked cautiously nearby. The fighter painted his eyes with fresh paint with a picture from his distant military childhood. The nose of the plane rested on a long thin pillar and in the gathering dusk it resembled a clumsy giant taiga mosquito with its sting stuck into a stone.

Lieutenant Terentyev, pilot,” the pilot introduced himself first.

“Grandfather Semyon, a tank driver,” Semyonchik remembered his past army years and even somehow perked up.

You’re a joker, father,” the lieutenant smiled slightly, “there were no tanks in the Russian-Japanese war yet.”

After a strong handshake, he somehow immediately went limp - fatigue took its toll, took off his helmet, and wiped his wet forehead with his sleeve.

Verkhoyansky completely exhausted me, the engine malfunctioned, I thought it was all over. And then I look: the strip along the river is just right - even, smooth. This horse’s front leg just breaks, but now it’s okay, he can stand it,” the lieutenant looked affectionately at the “mosquito sting.”

Is the settlement far away?

How can I say it? – Semyonchik hesitated. - If it’s along the river, it’s one thing. Directly, through the thicket – it’s different.

Can you show me on the map?

“Why can’t you do it?” Semyon’s lower lip stuck out touchily.

The lieutenant took off the tablet and unfolded the map.

Here,” the grandfather confidently pointed his finger and, after hesitating a little, looked into the pilot’s eyes: “Where are you from, son?”

It seemed that there was no trace left of the grandfather’s former wariness.

Are you being vigilant, father? Right. This is the time now. Is there anything to highlight? - For some reason, the pilot unbuttoned his chest pocket.

“I’ll start a fire now - it’s cold already,” the grandfather began to fuss.

And that’s right, we’ll have dinner at the same time. How are things going with your groceries?

Yes, there is a little,” Semyonchik remembered the crust of bread at the bottom of the backpack and the fragrant lard, prudently captured just in case. With a flask this is already a delicacy! In anticipation, he pulled out of his pocket a good bunch of taiga onions.

Nothing, father,” the lieutenant’s moist eyes suddenly lit up with hatred.

He watched as in the west a cinnabar-colored glow had already filled the peaks of centuries-old trees with its fire, and the reflections of this fire fluttered in his eyes.

Let's defeat the fascists - we'll live! - the pilot became more and more excited. - The bastards will answer for everything! For the comrades who lie in the taiga, for the fact that you eat grass here, for everything! - The pilot clenched his fist and shook it threateningly in the air.

“No, he doesn’t look like an amateur,” thought the grandfather, “he plays too naturally.”

You can see better from above, son, when will the war end? - the grandfather decided to play along in order to mentally give the final diagnosis to the overplayed “lieutenant”.

Soon, father, soon. I heard from American pilots that a second front was about to open.

Grandfather scratched the back of his head. He looked at the new fighter, then at the pilot, fixed his gaze on Umka and waved his hand:

For the sake of such a thing, we’ll taste the “second front,” the pilot winked, jumped onto the wing and, leaning into the cockpit of the car, rummaged through his things.

Hold it, grandfather! To hell with this NZ,” he threw down some dark object.

Semyon deftly caught him and was stunned. In the rays of the setting sun, one could still see the inscription on the glittering yellowish surface of the tin can: “Pork stew”; below were some writings in English. Semyonchik did not understand them, but at the very bottom, near the very bottom of the can - there was no way to make a mistake - it was stamped: New York, N.Y... Semyonchik recognized it: he once received the exact same can of American stew on his birthday from one fighter pilot at a repair site in Krasnoyarsk in the winter of '43. He no longer remembered what the stew tasted like, but the shiny jar with inscriptions in Russian and English stood on the shelf for a long time, reminding him of his wartime childhood. Grandfather looked at the jar in fascination. The lieutenant was telling something, walking back and forth next to Semyonchik, stunned by such a coincidence, but he didn’t seem to hear him.

“...Tell them in your village council: so, so, let them provide people,” the pilot shook him by the shoulder.

What? - Semyonchik perked up.

I say: people would come here to have the beach strip straightened. You never know. I was lucky - I landed. And I will report to my people that there is a spare lane in case of emergency. Well, agreed?

Is there any brushwood? - the pilot shook the box of matches.

“Yeah,” the grandfather answered thoughtfully and shook out the brushwood from his backpack. He took the box held out in the dark - on the label there was a picture of a fighter with red stars chasing a burning plane with a swastika. With a habitual movement, Semyonchik took out a match and struck it on the rough surface of the sulfur. The match flared. Suddenly a gust of wind extinguished the fire. Grandfather finally made up his mind: he struck again and asked sympathetically:

Tell me, dear man, what year do you think it is today?

Semyonchik raised the match so that in the twilight he could see the face opposite. There was no face. Grandfather came out of the garage, looked around - no one.

What the hell is this?! - he whispered with dry lips.

Soldier! - he called plaintively into the darkness. Silence.

He looked at the river and an unpleasant chill ran down his spine. In the darkness that had set in, it was still possible to see that there was no plane there - not even any traces. There was a river, the black wall of the taiga still covered the beach where the fighter had recently stood, but the car itself had sunk into the water. Semyonchik, deeply regretting his party past, expressively crossed himself three times:

Queen of Heaven, save and preserve!

The grandfather did not sleep a wink all night. The full moon - a huge yellow one - lit the smooth path of the beach with silver. And the grandfather was burning wood, and he imagined all sorts of evil spirits: either a shadow would separate from the trees on the other side of the river, then the river itself would suddenly come to life with bizarre creatures, or someone in the taiga would cry out pitifully. Umka didn’t sleep either. He will move not far from the fire, listen, move his muzzle - he will collect alarming smells and - back to the fire, under the protection of the owner.

With the first rays of dawn, Semyon got ready to head back. Only at home, having tightly closed the door behind him and curtained the windows, he looked into his backpack. He didn’t dare take the jar out right away, he felt everything, looked at it in the dark womb of the backpack, as if he didn’t believe the chill under his fingers, and then, pulling the jar of stew into the light of day, he placed it in the center of the table and looked at it for a long time.

Okay,” he finally said to himself, “let’s see.”

The next morning Semyonchik was fully armed. The backpack already contained simple food for three days, a box of ammunition, a warm sweater and other things needed in the taiga. Pausing in the entryway, the grandfather grabbed a shovel from a pile of garden tools piled in the corner and untied Umka, who was jumping joyfully, near the porch.

Where have you been, Semyonchik? Yesterday I already wanted to go to the local police officer,” Nikitichna, a neighbor, called out near the gate.

You better assign him to Lyokha, your grandson. “I played roulades under the windows again at night,” the grandfather snapped, stopping the questions.

The hook on the gate rattled, and the owner, without turning around, hurried towards the forest - Umka did not lag behind. Now the grandfather took a short route and was there by noon. I collected some brushwood, broke some more spruce branches, set up a place to spend the night and began to wait. The plane appeared unexpectedly, just like the day before. Flapping his starry wings, he went to land. Having tucked the gun into the corner, Semyonchik now came out to meet the pilot.

Lieutenant Terentyev, pilot,” the pilot was the first to introduce himself again, as if they had not met yesterday.

The same anxious look, nervous fingers at the holster...

Semyonchik also introduced himself.

What kind of buildings? - the pilot asked.

“Yes, I’m protecting you,” the grandfather said evasively.

We went to the fire and started talking: “Here is the second front... We need to prepare the strip... Do you have any brushwood?” Semyonchik conscientiously answered all yesterday’s questions and listened attentively to the pilot’s seemingly memorized speech about the suitability of the runway. And at midnight, as if the fairy-tale Cinderella and her carriage, both the pilot and the plane disappeared again.

By mid-June, on Semyonchik’s kitchen table there were fifteen cans of American stew and fifteen incomplete boxes of matches. Grandfather Semyon still regularly walked into the taiga, cleared moss from the rocky surface of the beach with a shovel, cut off bushes, and met the plane. He had long ago stopped tormenting himself with questions and various thoughts: what kind of plane, where does it come from, who is this pilot Terentyev? You can't think of anything anyway. There was a lot of work, and my grandfather, like little Syoma once, helped his family. Once again, after the death of his old woman, he enjoyed life: he liked to meet the plane, be “surprised” by the second front, and even listen to the pilot’s hackneyed speech. Grandfather once tried to change the topic of conversation, but the pilot, as if he had not heard Semyon, insisted: he had to do a strip, and that was that. And Semyonchik did. Only his strength was no longer the same. Earlier, in his youth, he could carry entire tree trunks on himself, even if not the largest ones. Now, in order to fell a couple of fir trees, he needed an assistant. The worker should have been chosen to be quiet and to have the strength in his hands - not to go for a walk. After some deliberation, the choice fell on Lyokha the paratrooper, Nikitichna’s grandson. He was nearly thirty. After the army, this Lyokha moved to the city, in the village they said that either the gangs came after him there, or he himself went to the gangs. In general, he fled the city from someone - maybe from the authorities, or maybe from bandits. The story is dark, but Semyonchik didn’t care about that. Lyokha drank heavily. Sometimes in the evening he would start screaming songs - I won’t save him. In the morning he walks around the yards looking for work, sometimes for money, sometimes for half a liter, and in the evening he starts up again “An twelve is gaining altitude” , and at the end of the song some guy, “not finding the dome above his head,” once again falls to his death. The last verse was always mixed with the sobs of Lyokha and the wild howl of Buyan, Nikitichna’s dog.

Well, can you fell a fir tree? - Grandfather asked Lyokha.

For you, grandfather, I’ll even kill an elephant,” Lyokha was returning from the hack job and was tipsy. - I, Semyonchik, have always been on the right flank.

The two-meter tall fellow smiled smugly and flexed his greasy blue beret on his head.

You wouldn't start your organ today...

What other organ? - Lyokha’s dull eyes stared suspiciously at his neighbor.

The one because of which the paratrooper keeps falling and cannot break. I need to get some sleep. Let's go early.

The next morning, a fairly rumpled Lyokha went to see Semyonchik.

Grandfather, I wish I had an avant...

What other “avant”? - Semyonchik raised his eyebrow sternly.

One hundred grams...

It’s okay, you’ll get hung up on the spot, guardsman. Wait for me in the yard,” the grandfather was adamant.

Before leaving, Semyonchik opened the closet in the bedroom, took out a huge bottle with a brownish liquid from under all the rag trash, pulled out the cap with effort, winced at the moonshine fumes that hit his nose, and, filling a half-liter bottle with liquid, put it in his backpack.

Lyokha was silent all the way. Traces of hangover suffering were visible on his sweaty face, red from the night's fun. He trudged along, not understanding the road well, breathing heavy fumes into Semyonchik’s back. We reached the base, as they say, on schedule - as my grandfather planned.

Don’t be tormented, Semyonchik,” Lyokha whined, collapsing like a sack onto a spruce tree in the garage, and looked pitifully at his grandfather.

He leisurely untied his backpack and took out a bottle.

Look, Lyosha,” the grandfather warned in a businesslike manner, nodding at the bubble, “this thing is very serious - I drove it myself and stood on the right herbs. She drew such right-flankers from her, no match for you.

Don't worry. There are only thirty-three “bulkas” here. I didn't hold it that much. - Lyokha blew forcefully into the faceted glass and honestly measured out one hundred grams in gurgles.

Make sure your “paratrooper” doesn’t come to you in the evening,” Semyonchik smiled slyly: who would believe drunk Lyokha that he saw a plane in the taiga?!

The matter got complicated. Lyokhin’s vest flashed everywhere: collecting brushwood, chopping firewood, felling fir, trimming bushes here and there. By evening everything was ready. The rocky plateau was now unrecognizable - everything was as smooth as a board.

Little Semyon, why do you need this? - Lyokha waved his hand free from the glass towards the strip.

“You should drink less, Lyosha,” the grandfather changed the subject, avoiding explanations.

Lyokha tossed the contents of the glass down his throat, grunted and reached for the snack. At the same moment, a plane appeared over the taiga. Lyokha’s hand froze in the air, not reaching the piece of lard. Flapping its wing, the “Cobra” went for a second circle. Lyokha, sitting with his mouth open, pointed his finger at the plane that had just landed on the runway and mumbled something.

“I warned you, Alexey,” Semyonchik said sternly and headed towards the plane.

We said hello. Grandfather received another gift. Let's go to the garage. Everything is as usual, but not quite. Suddenly the pilot said to Semyonchik:

It turned out to be a good streak, thank you, father. Maybe you will be nominated for a reward. Now you can sit down.

Who should sit down? - the grandfather, hoping to hear something important, held his breath, catching every word.

The pilot shook his head, as if shaking off some kind of stupor, but instead of answering, the grandfather heard:

Is there any brushwood? - And another box fell into Semyonchik’s dirty, calloused palm.

Hidden to the side, Lyokha sat on a pile of garbage, the whites of his eyes sparkling from a dark corner. He stared in bewilderment at the man in the leather jacket, and he, in turn, glanced sternly at the big guy in a tattered vest, pointed a finger at him, as if from a poster from the time of the Patriotic War, and asked menacingly:

Deserter?

He’s shell-shocked all over his head,” the grandfather carefreely waved his hand at Lyokha and lowered his eyes, “he was recently discharged.” I'm fiddling around now.

By the way Lyokha cried out in surprise, covering his face with his hands, as if protecting himself from a blow, Semyonchik realized that the pilot had disappeared into the air again.

Should I pour more? - the grandfather grinned, holding out a quarter-filled bottle.

Lyokha muttered in fear.

And I warned you - this is a serious thing! - the grandfather drawled edifyingly, and then with an experienced eye he measured one hundred grams into a glass and drank it in one gulp. Semyonchik was pleased. And he was not so much happy that the pilot promised him a reward (why did he need it?), but rather happy that he was able to help his own people. Like in childhood, when I held a frozen instrument in my frozen palms, when I ran to meet every plane, looking with envy at the tired but happy faces of the pilots; I was glad that here, in this secluded taiga place, as before, people live together, when man is a friend to man, and that everything, as in childhood, was fair - there were no businessmen, no bandits, no obese bankers here, no suckers. There, in the west, there was an enemy - and he will be defeated! It was always like this when they played war games with the guys.

Grandfather sat down by the fire, wiped a happy tear from his cheek and boomed at the top of his lungs:

The armor is strong, and our tanks are fast,
And our people are full of courage,
Soviet tank crews are in formation,
Sons of their great Motherland.

The next day Semyonchik brought the quiet Lyokha home. Stepan’s UAZ stood next to his grandfather’s hut. The grandson had his own cooperative in the city. From early spring, he traveled to villages and negotiated prices for honey with beekeepers. He was a rare and inconvenient guest with the old man. And I’ve never stopped by during the height of honey harvesting, but here – an extraordinary case, I arrived in July. The grandfather loved his grandson, but could not accept his occupation. And now I started reading morals to my grandson:

Stepan, your wealth has blinded your eyes. And this is why he is a man, so that he can look inside himself, understand who he is and why he smokes in this world. Now, if he understands this, then every day of God will be more valuable to him than gold and silver...

So Stepan left without finding out why his grandfather was roaming around in the taiga with a shovel.

And the next day Semyonchik fell ill. The taiga pulled strength out of my grandfather and took him away on damp nights. If Nikitichna had not known her neighbor’s new habit of going into the taiga for a long time, she would have visited the old man, but it so happened that they missed her grandfather too late. And the culprit is a civilian plane with authorities from the region, which, out of the blue, suddenly landed on the grandfather’s runway. This emergency landing caused a lot of noise. The plane was flying to the city when something happened to the engine along the way. The pilot of the AN-28 immediately realized that someone was cleaning up the beach near the river. “There is nowhere to sit - taiga. I look: the river glistens like a line and the beach - not a bush, not a tree, clean, smooth, as anyone guessed! I circle, and then the glide path,” he later told reporters.

If this had not happened, he would not have saved either the cars or the passengers on that flight. Reporters from the city came to the village in large numbers. Local newspapermen made a fuss: what and how, who is the hero? Then Lech remembered about his grandfather Semyon.

Having woken up from his fever, the grandfather looked in surprise at the crowd of people around him, it seemed that his hut would burst from so many people. Doctors in white coats, reporters with photographic equipment, officials in formal suits, villagers were busy around the bed... But most of all he was surprised by the man in flight uniform who was sitting opposite him, and by his anxious, tenacious eyes. He would have recognized these eyes from the thousands of others he had ever seen throughout his long life. With what impatience he waited every time for those tired, incredulous glances of gray eyes from under a flight leather helmet to light up welcomingly and a hoarse voice to cheerfully say: “For the sake of such a thing, let’s try the “second front.”

Terentyev,” the pilot said in surprise. - How do you know my last name, grandfather?

Semyon looked around the room with a dull gaze, trying not to miss anyone’s face, and looked at Lyokha and the reporters. Suddenly the grandfather’s eyes lit up with a guess.

Planted? - he asked the pilot with only his lips.

Planted it, grandfather, planted it! How many people have you saved!

“We saved,” lips whispered, “and also, your grandfather is Lieutenant Terentyev.”

Did you know him? - The pilot even stood up from his chair in surprise.

“I knew,” the words were difficult for Semyon, “he gave you a gift: the second front.” There, on the table...

The grandfather was taken to the regional hospital. Afterwards the doctors said - a day earlier... “Who knew?” - Nikitichna threw up her hands, wiping away a tear that had rolled down with the tip of her handkerchief. A compassionate neighbor wanted to take Umka in, but the dog disappeared somewhere. One autumn, a hunter from a distant village told me: in the taiga, right on the river where the plane had recently landed, he saw a black dog with a white “blank” under his right eye - sunken sides, just skin and bones. The skinny dog ​​sat motionless. Stretching his pitch-black muzzle forward, he listened. As if he was waiting for something...

_________________________________________

Born in the city of Temirtau (Kazakhstan), lives in Petrozavodsk. Graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of KSPA. Author of the books “Waiting 2000 Years” (2008), “Under a Cinnabar Sun” (2012), “The Riverkeeper” (2015). Published in the publications “North”, “Noon”, “LITERRATURE”, etc. Organizer of the “Petroglyph” festival.

Vsevolodo-Vilva is significant not only because famous personalities visited it and contributed to the development of the village, but also directly by the residents of the area. It was thanks to their work that Vsevolodo-Vilva grew and developed, people worked at the plant for generations, gave their health and strength, gained experience and skills.

Grandfather's story Kalina Semyonovich – cashier at the Metil plant.

Parents from Ilyinsky district. My grandfather worked for 25 years as a cashier at the Metil plant. It was just the time of eviction, relocation. There were a lot of people evicted from Ukraine, from the Leningrad region. They worked for Iwaka. There was, as it were, a branch of the Metil plant, and grandfather went there to issue money. I don’t know this thoroughly, but he worked as a cashier for us for quite a long time.

Grandfather was from a family of peasants; he graduated from a parochial school. I was always surprised that if he had been given an education, he was of an intelligent type and knew how to speak beautifully. And this ability to speak beautifully and correctly was inherited by his son Artemy. He graduated from our school, there were only 7 classes here, he graduated from a pedagogical school in Solikamsk and tank in Saratov, before the war. The war began - he was in Tbilisi. He went missing during the war and spoke German very well. A man who was once a prisoner of war somewhere in Austria. His students also knew German very well. Artemy gathered large audiences and gave lectures. The whole club was going to listen to him.

E I can tell you more history about Cali Well, Semyonovich, his grandfather. According to the church name Kalinnik is a saint. July 22 is St. Kalinnik's day. It's his birthday on this day. He was a tailor. I'll tell you the story of how he saved his life with his sewing skills. There was a civil war, the village was changing hands, then the whites would come, then the reds, beating each other. Grandfather had a family four people: Kalina, Ivan and Semyon - three brothers. Ivan was a commissar for the Reds. But in the village they know who is whose. And Kalina was already burdened with a family. Semyon had no family, Agafya, their sister, too, and Kalina had two, and maybe one. The whites came running, Kalina had already been denounced, Semyon was punished with rods, Agafya too, and the whites took Kalina and her family and took them with them to some merchant’s house, they stayed there. It was before Christmas. One of the officers needed dress clothes. During the night, Kalina sewed a jacket for him. This kind of work is pure exceptional. The officer looked and said: “I will go against God if you are shot,” and let them go. He was, of course, an exceptional master. If you look at his work, it’s like a work of art.

Recorded by M. Kuznetsova and T. Kataeva. From Maria Mikhailovna Berdnikova, born in 1943, Vs. Vilva village, 2010.

Family history Belykh.

(Did they kill their father for gold?)

So he went looking for gold. This was before the war. I thought I could make money this way. He came from a large rich family, and his mother was poor. She didn’t even know him, his parents came to marry him, they lived there (in Berezniki), we are here (mother’s family). She went and didn't know. This is how they used to give it out before. She didn’t mind, she got used to it, and then she fell in love with him. He said: I won’t live on pennies! He always went with his mother to construction sites, where they were doing something - he goes there straight away, you will earn more there. What's going on here? There is only one plant... They will leave to earn money, but I was already studying. He somehow paid off and went home, where they killed him. He had gold because he was so businesslike. And my mother’s parents were sent here because her grandmother was not Russian. She (the mother) herself did not know what her nationality was, because her parents were also sent here. She said that the grandmother (that is, the mother’s mother) was non-Russian, and the grandfather was born here (the father of Belykh’s mother).

History of M.P. Belykh. Work during WWII

I worked throughout the war. First in the timber industry trade, during the war I finished 7 classes. And 10 had to be completed in Alesandrovsk, but the war is going on. And after 7th grade I went to the timber industry trade, and how did they hire me there as a freight forwarder?! I brought flour from Kizel. I’ll come to Kizel, I had a power of attorney, I’ll hire movers, I’ll agree with them on how much, 7-8 people. When I arrived in Kizel, there was all this, there were many people who wanted it, bread and flour were needed. I load the car and directly with the same car, I get into the car, seal it and that’s it. Afterwards I didn’t work there. One man in Kizel said to me: “What do you think, you’re so young, they’ll kill you with your bread!” I say “How?” “No way, no way, they’ll kill you and that’s it!” - he says - “for one for flour, what are you talking about, no security, nothing! Pay it off." I didn’t bother paying, my aunt worked in Ust-Igum, there were supplies of potatoes and grain, I got a job with her and sorted potatoes all winter. Well, there are potatoes, there is bread, my aunt will exchange potatoes for milk, and for that I lived well through the winter there, and then my mother gave me a job, she worked as the head of a nursery on a state farm, and there I worked as a teacher until 1946. I went to school with the workers to study. I've been studying for a year and I'm so tired of it! I can not anymore. She worked there for two years and in 1948 she entered Kizel for medical school. I studied well, very well, without any B's.

Recorded by E.V. Zvyagintsev Mazeina E.A. from Belykh Maritsa Pavlovna.

About workers at the Morozov chemical plant

(Under Savva Morozov, what kind of houses were built?)

- Residents built for themselves. Our mother told me that she came from the village of Isanka, this is in the direction of Skopkornaya, and so she says there was still forest all around. There were several houses in the village, who apparently arrived first, the plant, the bulk of the workers were still on Ivaka, 15th and Ivaka, the plant started there from there, and then it began to grow here. And so the manager, he recruited people, but did not build housing. There were barracks there on Ivak, but here I don’t know the factory barracks. From Isanka to Iwaki there was a direct road through the 15th, not only the road there, but also The narrow-gauge wooden railway; carts (with products) were transported along the wooden narrow-gauge railway by horses. IN 1936 . left Isanka. Apparently collectivization took place, this and that, someone came to the plant to work for Ivaka, and apparently they thought it was better.

(Before, they weren’t allowed to leave the collective farms, they weren’t given passports, how did they leave?)

- They didn’t join the collective farm, I don’t know, many didn’t join the collective farm and that’s it. They were apparently afraid that if they had a strong economy and everything was taken to the collective farm, and they would be left with nothing, they were afraid of this. One will come here and the other will reach out. She and dad were married and already had children. I was born in Vs.Vilva 1941 .

Recorded from Buzmakova (nee Syurkaeva) Nina Alekseevna1941.R.and Buzmakov Mikhail Fedorovich born 19...,village V. Vilva,the conversation was conducted by Firsova A.V.

A story about the father and mother of A.N. Votinova.

In the photo the mother is Klavdiya Georgievna Istomina. She was brought up in Solikamsk in a convent, where she learned needlework, knitting, weaving stockings, she was a believer all her life, and had a calm character.

Mom was the eldest in the family. Her father was a shipbuilder. He built ships. Was not with the family much. It was difficult for my grandmother. There were 6 children in the family. When he came home, he saw that the family was living hard and he decided to give her in marriage to a widower. And her mother took her to the monastery, to Solikamsk.

Recorded by S.Yu. Varov, N.H. Yanaeva from Votinova A.A. p.V.Vilva, February2005.

After the revolution, the convent was dispersed and she went to Kizel, worked there, knitted stockings at home, sold them, got dressed: coats, boots, various dresses. And my father was a Red Guard, from the Kizelovsky regiment. Just when the civil war was ending and while they were disbanding, he also ended up in Kizel and was looking for a bride, so he found his mother and immediately got married, because before, girls who were brought up in monasteries were highly valued.

1929.R. p.V.Vilva, February2005.

About names

My paternal grandmother's name was Fekla Trifonovna. My grandfather was Filat Agafonovich, my father-in-law was Vladimir Yakovlevich, and his father’s name was Yakov Kharitonovich. Kalina Semenovich - it was among the Old Believers.

Recorded by S.V. Varov Yanaeva N.Kh. from Alexandra Nikolaevna Votinova,1929.R. p.V.Vilva, February2005.

Family history of Germis B.V.

B.V. 1950 .R. Was born in the village Mine 6th capital, in the vicinity of Kizel. Grandfather and grandmother on the paternal side are repressed Evpatorian Germans, on the maternal side they are native Ustyugum residents ( 8 kilometers from Vsevolodo-Vilva). My father worked in Kizel, after his brother’s death he could no longer work in the mine, so he went to develop virgin lands in Kazakhstan. From 7 to 14 years old B.V. lived in Kazakhstan, then moved to work in the city of Rudny, then lived in the Krasnodar region. After the army he lived in Moscow (worked at the Moskvich plant). Graduated from Lyubertsy College of Agricultural Engineering. At that time ( 1975 .) divorced his first wife. Lived and worked in Moscow, Leningrad, Novgorod, Nab. Chelny, Nizhnevartovsk, Tyumen. IN 1983 . came to Vsevolodo-Vilva, where his mother lived (in this house) and grandmother (in another, older one). Parents B.V. moved here to 1981 . from Ukraine. Here he worked as a fitter, mechanic, and repairman. Married in 1985 .

OK. born in the village of Talitsa, Ochersky district, from 1958 to 1968. I studied at school in Vsevolodo-Vilva, then worked at a factory and studied at the workers' faculty,

in 1972-78 received a military training in Sverdlovsk and, as assigned, went to work in Vsevolodo-Vilva.

Recorded by Dubrovskikh A.V. Moskovkina from Hermis B.V., p.V. Vilva, 2005.

Zenkov Yuri Petrovich:

Born in Nizhny Tagil. Graduated from Sverdlovsk UPI. He worked for 2.5 years at a coke plant in Nizhny Tagil, and for 10 years he worked in plastics production. For 1970-1975 Graduated from the Institute of Plastics and Applied Chemistry in Novosibirsk. In 1975 he left for Sverdlovsk, where he graduated from the faculty of production organizers (3-4 months). Then he was sent to Vsevolodo-Vilva, to the Metil plant, where he worked from 1975 to 1984. IN 1984 . was fired from work. WITH 1985 . again worked in Tagil in the production of plastics, was the head of the consumer consumption department. IN 1993 . as a result of the elections, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Metil plant, and in 1994 . became its general director.

. I came here for the first time from the then one and a half million science city. But one way or another, we had an idea of ​​what Vsevolodo-Vilva was, what the Metil plant was, because we did reviews. He moved to Vsevolodo-Vilva in 1978, 79 or 80. There was no waiting list for housing back then. We had a huge queue for kindergartens, but there was no queue for housing. There was one kindergarten. The head before me was Vasily Kuzmich Guzenkov

Recorded by Dubrovskikh A.V. Moskovkina N.A. from Zenkov Yu.P.February2005.

Family history of V.N. Zakharov.

Born in the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva. Mother is from the village of Glyaden, father is from the village of Gora. The family had four children. We lived on Svobody Street. The parents' house has still been preserved, but is no longer residential. During the years of collectivization it was very difficult to live, everything was taken away. My father was drafted into the Finnish war, and then into the “German” war (as they used to say). At the front, my father was wounded in the leg and chest. After the hospital he was sent home. But the wound did not heal, and in the fall of 1945 my father died. It was hard to be a mother with small children in her arms. The year 1946 turned out to be a lean year. In 1947, the rationing system for bread was abolished, but people had to queue at 3-4 o'clock in the morning in a small store. Mother worked for about ten years in a bakery, which was located at the end of Svoboda Street. She had to work in the Vilvensky quarry, rolling trolleys with limestone.

1939.R. village Vsevolodo-Vilva.April 2005

Zakharov V.N.. About myself.

As a child, I loved being in the forge. Later he himself worked for some time as a hammer hammer.

In the summer, I tended horses so that I could use the money I earned to buy everything I needed for the start of the school year.

After completing seven years of school, I went to work at a factory. Okatiev organized a section of weightlifters at the construction workshop. In demonstration performances at the club he took first place. At the same time, a brass band appeared at the plant and became interested in music.

At the age of 17, I took a driver’s course from DOSAAF in the city of Kizel. After receiving a driver's license, he worked as a car mechanic in the repair and mechanical workshops of private household plots before being drafted into the army. He served as a driver in Hungary. You could say he traveled around half of Hungary. After his military service he returned to the garage as a driver. Then, until retirement, he worked in the lower warehouse in a private household plot. At first he was a motor truck mechanic. The work was hard: they transported timber from the lower warehouse to the station on motorized locomotives. At that time, a motorized locomotive could only carry one wagon of wood. The volume of work was large, so they worked in three shifts. For three years he worked on a handcar. And then in 1966 he took a course to become a crane operator. The salary of crane operators at that time was good - 180-200 rubles. But he didn’t stop there either. Again I went to study mechanics courses in the city of Kungur. After completing the courses, he was a mechanic, and then worked as a bus driver in a private household farm for about ten years. And again I had to study, this time in Dobryanka, in order to master a new profession - a diesel locomotive driver, who also worked for ten years.

Recorded from Viktor Nikolaevich Zakharov,1939.R. village Vsevolodo-Vilva.April 2005

The story about Pavlova’s father A.V.

He was repressed and sentenced to 8 years for the phrase: “Does it matter who you work as a laborer for, whether it’s the communists or the fascists?” He did not participate in WWII. Because first he was drafted to the Mongolian war, then he came to the Finnish war and was taken away, then he returned, worked here and said this word. One of my friends passed it on and that’s it. He died on the border with China, somewhere from there last letterit has arrived. His parents themselves were dispossessed. Despite. That they were middle peasants, that they didn’t even have farm laborers, but they had 6 children, sons, a grandfather himself, a grandmother, there was also a father-in-law and a mother-in-law, a large family. Everyone worked and we had everything. Grandma always said: you have to work, not that these communists came, lazy people, for something ready. They took everything and lived on what was ready. That's what she always said. (He was from the village of Yurkovo, Bolshesosnovsky district)

Recorded by Firsova A.V. from Pavlova A.V.. p.V.Vilva

Family history. Mom is in the service of the managers.

(Are you local?)

- My mother is local, she doesn’t come from Vilva, but from Iwaki, she seems to have spoken, and all her life she was, in stiarin’s terms, in the service, i.e. as nannies, then she got along with my father Ioan Danilych and they didn’t build it, he was drafted into the army, she bought it without him, she called it a hut, she bought this house - that’s the big one. We built a house for our son. And my father was taken into the army, the civil war had already begun and back and forth, and for seven years, as they say, he fed lice. He stayed for a long time, came back from the war, well, the house was already ready, his mother was already living in the house. And we were all born in this house; seven of us lived there. We slept on the floor, spread it out. Everyone was asleep.

(Whose mother was in her service?)

- She was in Ivak with some rich man, I think he was German, she said so, he was very kind, I don’t know his last name. And here is the old hospital where, someone also lived there and she said she was also in service, she was in two places, but in fact, she married Iwaki, the owner was rich, helped with something, gave a gift, and go. And she got along, my father’s name was Ivan Danilovich, and my mother’s name was Praskovya Farapontovna. Mother lived 94 years, and Ivan Danilych lived 57 years. Not enough... He didn’t get into the second war, he was old, they didn’t take him after 50. They took me instead.

(Did you fight? You didn’t take the 1926 vehicle!?)

- They just didn’t take 1927. And when they took me in 1943, I stayed for seven and a half years and now I was brought back. These are mathematicians. I was in aviation. But I'm not a pilot, I'm a groundman. We were taught in Svizh... -sk, I came out of there as a master in small arms, cannon, bomber weapons. We trained for 6 months. And forward.

(Was there a big house on Iwaka?)

- I don’t know, she only spoke. That there were 6 cows.

Recorded by Firsova A.V. from Pendurova G.I.,1925.r., local. P.V.Vilva

Khudyshev T.M. About Me

I worked as an economist in the purchasing department. Then I worked as a mechanic in the Menolith workshop, which produced aminoplasts. Then I worked as the head of the PPU - polyurethane foam workshop, then as a foreman in the same workshop, then as the head of the Menolithic workshop, then as an inspector of the State Technical Supervision Authority in Berezniki, then I got a job. I was fired due to old age, and I got a job as a surveyor. I have been retired for 13 years and work as a surveyor.

When I arrived, two- and five-story houses were built only where houses 65 and 67 on Gabova Street were built. And these houses – I’m still living here.

Recorded by N.H. Yanaeva from Timur Mikhailovich Khudyshev,1942.r., in the village. Vsevolodo–Vilva, February 2005.

Family history of the Kudryavtsevs

Kudryavtsev Timofey Viktorovich (May 161916). An economist by profession. Originally from Belarus, lived in Leningrad, and survived the besieged city during the war. I moved here for work, in the direction of URS. Arrived at1969. I came with my wife Zinaida Alekseevna. In V-Vilva he was the head of the ORS. He died on November 181989. His wife, Kudryavtseva Zinaida Alekseevna, is alive, she came to V-Vilva and stayed to live here.

Recorded by Getmanchenko Yu. from Zinaida Alekseevna Kudryavtseva, V. Vilva, April2005.

Family history of Nina Grigorievna Malinovskaya.

Originally from the Leningrad region. Arrived in1958to work. She worked at a factory and had three children. The workers' settlement was in its prime. I was surprised by the hardworking people. When the plant was working, life was better. The first plant was a copper smelter.

Recorded by Getmanchenko Yu. from Malinovskaya Nina Grigorievna,1923.r., V.Vilva village, April2005.

Family history

A.V. Pavlova: My father worked in a factory, then in an office as an accountant. He is from Bolshesosnovsky district, the village of Yurkovo. They began to be dispossessed there, and they had 3 brothers, all of whom worked. They made it before dispossession and arrived here at the plant (Ivakinsky).

Recorded by Firsova A.V. from Pavlova A.V., p.V.Vilva,July2003.

A story about a mother (Zharova A.P.)

Mom was born in the village of Bolshaya Vilva in 1921. Honorary mother - six children (1 son and 5 daughters). Now there are already 12 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. The husband died in 1973, he was shell-shocked in the war: heart, leg. I raised the children myself, almost everyone scattered across the country,Only the youngest daughter and son remained nearby. During the war she worked as a milkmaid - she has the title of honorary milkmaid.She worked in the fire department at the plant for 50 years. In 1940, the brothers went into the army - Vasily and Ilya, and then the war had just begun... Then a notice saying that they had gone missing... The house where my mother now lives has been standing for almost a hundred years.

Recorded by Sycheva I.A., Golub A.S. from Tamara Ilyinichna Bondareva, born in 1950. Vs.Vilva village, 2010

A story about yourself and your husband.

The village of Shumkovo consisted of 10 houses. Next there was the village of Senkino (behind Shumkovo), I was born there. Then she went to Kospash (?), married a Ukrainian (Nikolai Dmitrievich Zavaley) there, and then came back. We didn't have a wedding. We signed and that's it. We were friends for three years. Then he came to Lunyevka. I left for Kospash. We registered in Lunyevka. I changed my last name. That's how it is. Why is it a wedding? What good is she? They will celebrate the wedding, but they live neither a candle nor a devil's poker. Although he was rude, rather rude, he had golden hands, he was a carpenter, he worked in a mine. She came to work at Kospash. They weren't recruiting then. That's how we left. I worked on a collective farm. In Lunievka she worked at a bakery. She lived in an apartment in Lunyevka. I lived better before. I could go everywhere. From Poltava we always traveled to the Far East. But right now I can’t go to Perm.

I already worked on the collective farm here (in Shumkovo). Then I worked here at the bakery. She worked as a salesperson. And he worked as a carpenter on a state farm.

My husband was already bored out of his mind. Four children from him. My husband was a hunter. I didn’t kill any bears, although I did kill 2. I removed the skin myself. The lard was heated. I didn’t eat it, but they did, and they’ll come with some bread. They drink vodka and have a snack.

Recorded from the words of A.I. Zavalei Pakhomov L.V., Melkozerova A.A. and Firsova A.V.2010

Here is how it was. My dad was the proud owner of a 1986 brown four. Dad has been her second owner since 1998. Every year after the winter it sat idle in the garage, he literally rose from the ashes of this four. But this year it was finally decided to do away with the four and buy another car. Parents were afraid of the recycling program and wanted to sell the four and buy, adding money, some kind of secondary market. I persuaded them to trust the state and we got in line.
Our turn, as it usually happens, came completely unexpectedly. They literally caught us by surprise. The parents were at the dacha, and the four stood in the garage, leaning on one side. Having abandoned everything, I rushed in my stately black Skoda to follow them to the dacha. I collected them in a pile and brought them home so that they had time to prepare. Here in the photo you can see how I’m driving after them to the dacha with an average speed of 130, temperature of 90 and average consumption of 10.4

In this photo, dad and I have already broken into the garage and are resuscitating the four - changing their spark plugs in order to get to the disposal site under our own power.

Here in the mirror you can see how dad is timidly huddling behind me, a four because he is extremely unreliable.

Here you can see our arrival at the disposal site. a number of old cars that have seen their day. People say goodbye to them as if they were family members. And I was sad to leave the four there forever.

And this is my proud Skoda standing ready when they give me a direction to deregister for the four.

In the VAZ showroom, we are waiting for a direction to deregister and a direction to pay 3,000 for disposal.

And this is already in the MREO. Oh, and the gas chamber. It’s hot, everyone is angry as hell, yelling, pushing, I spent 3 hours there, 100 rubles and frayed my already weak nerves.

We then returned back to the store, where we left the four and, before paying money for the seven at the cash register, we were allowed to inspect it. Here dad looks at the injector and touches it with his finger. The injector didn’t scare dad away.

We chose the seven in black. The current black VAZ color is called Cosmos. The choice was between red and black. They decided to go black, the pop color red scared my parents right away. They decided red was too provocative.

And this is in a day. We received numbers from the same MREO, paying about 2,500 for all operations.

Our cheerful seven Blacks were kicked out of the store site. Look how deep the color is!

Dad decided to drive it immediately following our traffic in the city, and therefore the first seven kilometers became mine.

Then, having reached a quiet place, they let dad drive, and dad jerkily walked, walked, pooooool! So even my fast Skoda struggled to keep up.

And in this photo you can look at me with amazement, the smile does not leave my face, I like the black diplomatic seven so much.

But not everything went smoothly for us. The seven were not even a couple of hours old when dad almost managed to snatch the gear shift lever from her. But this didn’t upset us one bit. Jumping into the Skoda, we drove to the store, where we bought a repair kit for the gearshift lever for only 20 rubles, which contained 5 different types of plastic and rubber bands. They picked out these old rubber boots from the lever, filled them with new ones, and again the seven were in the ranks - smiling more cheerfully than before.
When I lay down to sunbathe in the shade of the black seven, I discovered an uneven bottom profile. In the store, the auto mechanic Antonich happily explained to me that after running in, this pipe automatically falls into place with the characteristic sound “Chpok”! Like, for the first 5 thousand, the engine gives final shrinkage and the pipe straightens. Like the fact that on carburetor engines they used to put plugs on the carburetor in order to prevent everything from being torn to pieces from the mad power, but now on injectors they bend the pipes like this!

Now the mileage on the black seven is off the charts to 100 km. And the cat never tires of repeating: “What have you done?”

Those who returned from the war became either fatalists or believed in God. Many times I had the opportunity to experience by my own example how cruelly and inevitably Fate acted in war.
In the winter of 1942-43, the tank brigade suffered heavy losses in the battles for Mozdok. I served in this brigade and survived. Fate, foreseeing the most likely development of events, then decided to transfer me from the position of a tank driver to another, less dangerous branch of the military. Urgently and at any cost, but this did not happen immediately.
On a gloomy winter day, a tank column, in which our T-34 was following, after a long march, was drawn into the village of Levokumskaya. The retreating Germans blew up the bridge across the Kuma behind them, instead of which we were faced with a temporary log crossing, built by sappers using everything that came to hand. Having examined it incredulously, our battalion commander asked the sapper chief:

Aria Semyon Lvovich

Will the tank get through? Twenty-five tons?
- Don `t doubt! - he answered. - Guards work! But - one at a time.
The first tank slowly and carefully crawled along the playing flooring. The second one drove in just as carefully, stepping back slightly from the center line, reached the middle and suddenly, in front of everyone’s eyes, began to move not across the river, but along it, and then, along with the bridge, fell sideways into the stream, leaving only the leading “star” on the surface. caterpillars. The crew was caught from the icy water with some difficulty. We had to dive after the driver. Our tank was the third.
After an energetic confrontation with the sappers and threats to shoot, the battalion commander brought a local grandfather from somewhere, who undertook to point out the ford. Having seated my grandfather in his Jeep and explained to me the full extent of my responsibility as a leader, the battalion commander ordered us to follow him.
“Don’t speed up too much, but don’t lag behind either,” he warned.
- If something goes wrong, I’ll signal you with a flashlight.
And we moved along the river until it got completely dark. We didn’t have any headlights left from the first battle, and even if we had them, it would be dangerous to shine because of the German aircraft. So, in the darkness, slightly diluted by scattered moonlight, not seeing the road, I reached for the jumping blue light of the commander’s “goat”. The column was following me.
So we drove about ten kilometers. As it became known later, the battalion commander simply jumped the bridge across the ravine without stopping or signaling. My tank flew up to him at a fair speed and the bridge collapsed as if knocked down. The tank immediately hit the slope of the ravine with its frontal armor, turned over and slid upward with its paws to the bottom.
Stunned by the blow, I found myself buried under a pile of 76-mm shells that had fallen from the “suitcases,” interspersed with machine-gun discs, tools, canned food, captured food, a saw, an ax and other tank property. Acid flowed from the overturned batteries in thin streams from above. Everything was illuminated by the green, ominous light of the signal light.
I myself was unharmed, but pretty battered. My first thought is that I crushed the crew. The fact is that on the march, the crew, as a rule, sits not in the belly of the car, but on the transmission - in a warm place behind the turret, covered with a tarpaulin. However, it turned out that everyone was alive - they were thrown during the coup, as if from a catapult, forward to the ground. Now the commander, Lieutenant Kuts, shouted from somewhere outside:
- Aria! Are you alive?
“Sort of,” I answered. - How are the guys?
Then I climbed out through the bottom (but now ceiling) “landing” hatch and looked around. The spectacle was impressive. The tank stood on the turret, its tracks raised. The cannon barrel stuck out from below, from the ground. Never during the entire war have I seen a tank in a more impossible position. We looked at the car in silence.
The battalion commander emerged like a jack-in-the-box. After a detailed explanation in Russian of everything he thought about me and the situation in general, he ordered:
- I leave one car for towing. By morning - to pull him up, put him in order and follow us. If you don't do it, I'll shoot you!
We didn’t explain what we thought about him and got down to business. During the night we dug a road to the top, using a tug to turn our tank, first on its side, and then onto its tracks. Then they unloaded it from the iron blockage inside and tried to start it with an emergency start using compressed air. And this, the best tank of the Second World War, started up after such troubles!
There was an hour left for sleep and food. At dawn we moved on. Fate's first attempt to remove me from tank service was not entirely successful.
By the middle of the day, having successfully crossed the designated ford, we caught up with the column, reported to the battalion commander and joined the column. All four were exhausted to the limit, but I suffered the most. I fell asleep uncontrollably in the driver's seat. I kept dreaming of a tank walking in front, and it was dangerous. The lieutenant, seeing my condition, stayed inside, encouraged me and kept pushing me in the back from his seat in the tower. There was no one to replace me. The commander refused, citing little driving practice at the wartime school; turret commander Kolka Rylin and radio operator-machine gunner Vereshchagin were not trained to drive a tank at all. The interchangeability of the crew, mandatory in war, was completely absent. So they lay outside on the warm casing of the diesel engine, and I alone toiled behind the control levers, taking into my chest the flow of freezing wind sucked in by the fan turbine roaring behind me.
At our first stop, after eating porridge with Lendlease stew, we discovered an oil line leak in the engine. The fall of the tank into the ravine was not in vain. We decided that the leak was insignificant, and, having tightly tightened the crack with several layers of electrical tape and a wire on top, we moved on.
After another half a hundred kilometers, something happened: after a short stop, the engine did not start. They called a technician. He crawled inside for a short time, tried to turn the turbine with a crowbar and said:
- Only a cretin could expect that such a cuff would hold oil! It all leaked out. Your engine is dead, it's jammed...
- What do we do? - asked the lieutenant.
- What you will do will be decided by the brigade commander. But it is impossible to return a tank to service in the field; you need to change the engine, which requires a stationary facility. Sit here for now, and I will report and send a tug tomorrow.
The column left, and we were left alone. In the bare, snow-dusted steppe, there was a chalk of drifting snow. Not a tree, not a bush, and only in the distance, off to the side of the road, a couple of squat sheds. It is impossible to sit in an ice tank. They tried to build something like a hut by throwing a tarpaulin over the cannon. A bucket of diesel fuel was lit inside to give the appearance of warmth. Somehow we ate. After a couple of hours we were unrecognizable from the soot.
“So,” the lieutenant summed up, “we can’t die here... Let’s go spend the night there,” he waved his hand at the blackened barns in the distance. - There is a pipe there, which means there is a stove. There was probably some straw left too. We set up a post at the car. You need to get some sleep. Therefore, you are the first and stand for an hour and a half - and I will send a shift. But then you’ll be camping all night.

I stayed by the tank with a light machine gun on my shoulder. Time dragged on painfully. Back and forth. Back and forth. You can't lean against it - your eyelids close. But neither after an hour and a half, nor after two hours did the shift show up. Overwhelmed by fatigue, the crew slept soundly. Fired a burst from a machine gun - no effect. Something had to be done, otherwise I would simply freeze to death. And my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.
I locked the tank and, stumbling, wandered along the snow-covered stubble towards the barns. Having difficulty waking up the lieutenant who was sleeping on the straw, he told him that they don’t do that... Rylin, who was not thinking well, was raised. He was handed a machine gun and escorted out the door. Without undressing, I collapsed in his place and immediately fell asleep.
Rylin stood in the cold wind and broke his oath. At dawn we left the barn, cursing Vereshchagin, who had slept through his shift. We looked at the road, but there was no tank. Stolen. Rylin - no. They found him in a nearby barn, where he was sleeping peacefully, hugging a machine gun. When the situation was outlined to him, he jumped out, as if stung, to check. Later he explained that when he arrived at the scene at night and discovered that the security object was missing, he returned and went to bed to get some sleep. In response to the natural question of why he didn’t immediately alert everyone and why he fell into another barn, he explained that he didn’t want to bother...

This version, despite its complete absurdity, completely absolved him of considerable guilt. Therefore, he stood his ground firmly and lied blatantly, looking the three of us in the eyes. Since there was nothing to refute this nonsense except logic, I was the last one to be beaten, having abandoned my post as a sentry. And Lieutenant Kuts as the commander, responsible for everything.
With that, we wandered along the wide Kuban highway, along its frozen ruts, with a feeling of doom and without things.
Having tramped about ten kilometers in complete silence, we reached the outskirts of a vast village, where we discovered traces of our ill-fated tank. It turned out that quick repairmen, having arrived at night and finding the tank without security, opened it with their key, and then dragged it away in tow. Of course, they saw the field camp and understood where the crew was, but they decided to joke a little...

This joke, combined with the persistent lies of our comrade and friend Rylin, cost us dearly. For all our affairs, the brigade commander ordered that Lieutenant Kuts and I be put on trial and tried to the fullest extent of the laws of war. Which, after a short investigation, was done.
But this is a completely different and completely sad story, after which I never returned to the tank forces, although I emerged from this next scrape alive.
How creatively Fate can act if it wants to save someone and transfer them from one type of army to another. Who, besides Her, could use such an amazing combination of incidents for this purpose?
I will add that many years after the war, I tried to find out the further fate of my crew members. But the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense did not have such information. They disappeared into the past without a trace. And one more thing, Rylin deliberately sacrificed me and knew that with his words he was destroying me. But didn’t he turn out to be just a blind instrument of Fate protecting me? This is how everything is relatively in our world.

HELL. Semyon Lvovich, how did the war begin for you?

I studied at the Novosibirsk Institute of Military Transport Engineers. When the war began, the entire course was mobilized, and we were taken to Moscow, but I did not make it to the front, because our train was bombed, I was shell-shocked and ended up in the hospital.

After the hospital, I was sent to the 19th training tank regiment, located in Nizhny Tagil. The regiment consisted of battalions, each of which trained tankers of a certain specialty: in one they trained tank commanders, in the other - turrets (loaders - approx. Artem Drabkin), etc. I ended up in a battalion that trained driver mechanics.

The training was carried out on location: there were tanks, we were taught driving, communication with the commander, the design, and maintenance of the engine. It must be said that in winter conditions it was very difficult to start the tank’s engine. To do this, it was necessary to warm it up two hours before leaving, that is, slide a baking sheet under the tank, slightly smaller in size than the tank, pour diesel fuel into this baking sheet and set it on fire. About an hour and a half later, the tank, which, like us, was covered in soot, began to start up.

The crew was required to be interchangeable. In fact, there was no interchangeability - there was a very short training, but I fired the gun several times. They also took us to the training ground, put us in a tank, forced us to overcome obstacles and change the track (this was a very difficult operation - repairing the caterpillar). During these two or three months that the training lasted, we also participated in the assembly of tanks on the main assembly line of the plant.

HELL. Were you taught to leave the tank?

Well, how did you teach? You open the hatches and jump out. In addition, there was a landing hatch in the bottom through which it was possible to leave the tank hidden from the enemy. In general, no training was required here.

HELL. I read that they ripped pockets off peacoats so as not to get caught on the protruding parts of the tank.

Nothing was ripped off. I had a nice peacoat. What is there to cling to? The hatch was smooth, with rounded edges, and getting in and out of it was not difficult. Moreover, when you got up from the driver’s seat, you were already leaning out almost to your waist.

After training, everyone was loaded onto a train with the T-34 and sent to the front. We were sent to the front through Central Asia. We were transported by ferry from Krasnovodsk to the Caucasus, across the Caspian Sea. On the way, the wind blew the tarpaulin off our tank. And, I must say that without a tarpaulin it was tight in the tank. The tarpaulin was extremely necessary: ​​they covered themselves with it when they went to bed, they sat down to eat on it, if they were loading into a train, they needed to cover the top of the tank, otherwise it would be full of water inside. These were wartime tanks. There were no gaskets at all on the top hatch, and there were some gaskets on the driver's hatch, but they did not hold water. So without a tarpaulin it was bad. So I had to steal a sail from a warehouse, but there is nothing special to talk about this, this is not a combat episode, but rather from the military-economic sphere.

We went to the North Caucasus and took part in the battles for Mozdok, as part of the 2nd Tank Brigade. Then we were transferred to the 225th Tank Regiment, which took part in the battles in the Mineralnye Vody area and further to the Kuban.

HELL. Was the tank's transmission reliable?

The transmission on the T-34 tank was unique. There was no cardan transmission. The drive sprockets of the gears were attached directly to the extension of the secondary shaft of the gearbox. For this reason, the alignment of the gearbox relative to the crankshaft had to be perfect. It was set up with special devices. The fastening was done tightly, because even a micron deviation led to the destruction of the entire transmission. In principle, the tank was very successful. My tank, for example, flipped over the turret and started up.

HELL. Were there radio stations on the tanks?

Yes, communication with the unit commander was via a radio located on the right side of the corps. There was an internal connection by telephone, but it worked poorly. Communication inside was carried out with the legs, i.e. I had the boots of the tank commander on my shoulders, he pressed on my left or right shoulder, respectively, I turned the tank to the left or to the right. When I worked as a lawyer, the head of our consultation was Krapivin, Hero of the Soviet Union, commander of a tank regiment. When I told how they fought the enemy with boots, he said: “Oh! Now I admit that you really are a tanker.” In addition, on the driver's hatch there were absolutely ugly triplexes, made of yellow or green plexiglass. It was absolutely impossible to disassemble anything through such a triplex, in a tank jumping on potholes. Therefore, the war was waged with the hatch ajar.

HELL. What, in your opinion, are the most vulnerable places in the T-34 to enemy artillery fire?

Side armor.

HELL. If a caterpillar was knocked out in battle, what should you do: leave the tank or try to repair the caterpillar?

Trying to repair the caterpillar. This is a simple injury. Spare tracks were always available. They lay on the sides and were, in essence, additional armor. Replacing the track is a simple operation.

HELL. What disadvantages of the T-34 can you highlight?

Complete lack of concern for the comfort of the crew. I climbed into American and British tanks. There the crew was in human conditions: the inside of the tanks was painted with light paint, the seats were semi-soft with armrests. There was none of this on the T-34. Caring for the crew was limited to only the most primitive. It’s hard for me to judge the rest; I’m not an engineer.

HELL. Have you probably had to deal with tank repairs? Were there any unreliable parts: transmission, rods, gearbox?

I have not encountered any major design or technology defects. The tanks were good and trouble-free.

HELL. There is an opinion that English Matildas with a gasoline engine were much easier to set on fire than ours with a diesel engine.

And the American ones had a gasoline engine. They burned like torches. That is, on the one hand, concern for the crew, and on the other, neglect of protection. How can we explain this? It's hard for me to say. In addition, they had a narrow base, and therefore they fell on their sides on the slopes. They had strange defects, incomprehensible.

HELL. Was the electrical equipment of the T-34 reliable?

Reliable. The armament was insufficient, of course. The two machine guns on the T-34 did not provide a circular firing sector. True, it was possible to turn the tower back, but this was a real hassle.

HELL. Is a tank machine gun an effective weapon? Used often?

Often enough. One machine gun was in the turret, it was controlled by the turret, and the second was on a turret in the hull of the radio operator-machine gunner. The turret was also on the turret, but the turret had a very small horizontal aiming angle, and the lower machine gun was on a very good turret - it rotated 45, or maybe even 60 degrees, and it was also easy to remove.

HELL. Did you have a personal weapon?

No, they didn’t give it to us. After all, I was removing the machine gun from the turret, but apparently there was no other weapon. Otherwise I would have remembered it.

I can't say now.

HELL. But you yourself have not encountered any enemy tanks or self-propelled guns?

No, I haven't met. We met with anti-tank artillery, machine guns, and even anti-aircraft guns. In our regiment, during the time I was in it, about 12 tanks were burned.

HELL. Did the crew manage to get out of the tank when it was knocked out?

The chances are 50 to 50. If a shell hit inside the tank, then everyone there was already blown to pieces, and if it was a tangential hole, or a shell hit the engine compartment and the tank caught fire, then they started jumping out. The losses were enormous; it is a very rare occurrence for one of the tank crews to go through the entire war and remain alive. The losses there were almost the same as in fighter aviation. In fighter aviation, the life of pilots on the front line was a maximum of 40-60 days. It was close to this in tank units, but there were still people there who fought for a year or two.

HELL. Were there any aces in your unit?

Were. I remember the last name - Sustavnev. He was a driver mechanic - all decorated. He was considered a smart and lucky tanker.

HELL. In battle conditions, what characteristics of a tank seem to be the most important?

Well, everyone is important here: maneuverability is important, speed is important, it’s difficult to single out anything here. First of all, of course, life support, impenetrability, protection.

HELL. Was the German infantry well protected from tanks?

Just like the Russian one. What protection does infantry have? He has a trench. He burrows into the ground and sits. If he runs, he cannot do anything against tanks. They had equipment, uniforms, equipment much richer, they were well prepared for war. But all this was in a disgraceful state; the army was not ready for war, neither quantitatively nor technically. All this was done on the fly, on bones. I saw with my own eyes how completely incompetently they screwed up the entire first half of the war. Our population is huge - there was plenty of cannon fodder. If the country had not been so big, the war would have been won by the Germans in no time.

HELL. They say there is a saying that tanks fight along the roads. It's right?

I didn’t think about it, but in principle, of course, tanks are wary of impassable terrain. All this talk about tanks going through walls and cutting down trees is all nonsense. Apparently this is true. Tanks are fighting along the roads. Because the tank can roll over in a ravine and get stuck in a swamp. It will not work in the forests at all. The underbrush, of course, can put pressure, but I have never seen anything like this for a tank to pass through brick walls, as they show in our films.

HELL. Did you try to take the terrain into account when driving the tank?

I said you shouldn't climb into the ravines! I can tell you an episode that happened to me in the North Caucasus. I was driving along a mountain road and driving. Then it narrowed and one of my caterpillars went slightly to the right of the roadway. My entire tank went down, well, there was no abyss there, but a rocky slope at an angle of 45 degrees. I drove along this rocky slope to the very bottom of the gorge. Then they miraculously got me out of there. What if there was an abyss there?!

HELL. Did the Germans mine the roads?

Mined. I never ran into them, but I saw mines. They are about the same as they are now, these are the plates.

HELL. Weren't you supplied with trawls?

No, back then there were no trawls in tank units.

HELL. Did the Germans have anti-tank grenades?

Anti-tank mines - I've seen this; I have not seen the infantry use anti-tank grenades. And our Soviet anti-tank grenades are simply bunches of grenades.

HELL. Did they hit you?

They hit, but did not penetrate the armor. When a shell hits, there is a ringing inside, like a bell, and this makes you deaf.

HELL. Didn't the armor crumble with such a hit?

No, the armor was viscous.

HELL. How was it determined whether a tank would cross the bridge or not? Who did this?

Well, who determines this? In the engineering troops, it is the specialist who determines. What is the weight of the vehicle, is it permissible for passage, but in front-line conditions all this was primitive, everything was done by eye.

HELL. What can you say about KV?

The KV tank was in very small quantities. It was heavy, and all the bridges collapsed under it. It was a very unsuccessful tank.

HELL. In 1942, did the 76-mm T-34 cannon cope with all existing targets?

During that period of time, yes.

HELL. You write that after the first battle you no longer had headlights. Did they just get smashed by bullets?

Well, of course, they were swept away by shrapnel.

HELL. You had a fairly high education: you were studying at the institute when the war began. Why did you become a driver and not a tank commander right away?

I did not have an officer rank.

HELL. How did you shoot: on the move or from short stops?

From short stops.

HELL. Who monitored the tanks' ammunition load? What is the replenishment procedure? Was there any standard for ammunition consumption?

Well, what's the norm there? No, they shoot as needed. I don’t know who’s watching, probably the tank commander. What is there to watch out for? As they declined, they were replenished. That's all. There were no consumption standards.

HELL. What task was assigned to you most often: supporting infantry, fighting tanks, or suppressing enemy artillery?

Judging by the fact that we were constantly followed by landing troops, apparently the support of the infantry, which was sitting on tanks. There was no continuous front in the North Caucasus, and the fighting was carried out in raids. But these are generally questions for the officers. The soldiers weren't really privy to all these tactical ideas. The soldiers had a purely technical function.

HELL. And they didn’t push you, thank God?

I'm not here.

HELL. What speed did you maintain during the battle?

During the battle there was a decent speed, 45-50 kilometers per hour.

HELL. Did you shoot from closed positions?

HELL. Did they dig out a trench for the tank?

They tore it off. This is called a ramp.

HELL. Did they give you soldiers for this?

We dug ourselves. It took about three hours, probably. As a rule, ramps were not dug out of the blue, but they tried to choose some kind of shaft that would make the work partly easier. "Katyushas" were also driven into ramps at their starting positions, not at firing positions.

HELL. The Katyushas had a starting position, then they went to the firing position. So?

Yes. Volley - and back.

HELL. Have you been subjected to enemy air raids?

We were not subject to air raids while we were in the North Caucasus. Then I dealt with aviation when I fought in the Katyushas. There I received complete “pleasure” from meeting with their aircraft. But here, in the North Caucasus, the Germans did not have serious air forces.

HELL. What do you mean by "full pleasure"?

Well, there I came under massive bombing and air assault raids. I saw attacks by German planes; these were probably not Messers, but rather Henkels, which, almost touching the chimneys, flew over the formations of troops near populated areas.

HELL. Did they shoot at them, like they show in the films?

Well, if he flies low, you won't have time to shoot. The plane is flying by at great speed, but they were shooting. I served in the tank forces for a short time - from October 1942 to February 1943. After that, I was put on trial for a tank accident, and I never returned to this branch of the military. After the penal company, I ended up in Katyusha, where I served for the rest of the war as an artillery division reconnaissance officer.

HELL. After you were hit by guards mortars, did you immediately become a scout?

For some time I was a motorcyclist, a liaison officer at the regimental headquarters. In fact, the reason they were lenient about my unauthorized appearance was that they had a motorcycle, but there was no motorcyclist. That's why they made me a motorcyclist, but after two or three months the motorcycle broke down and they shot him while moving. After that, I was transferred to the division as a scout.

HELL. What was the function of an artillery division reconnaissance officer?

We went to high-rise buildings, set up observation points, set up a stereo telescope, observed the enemy, and prepared data for officers to fire on. We did not go behind enemy lines.

HELL. Did you do the calculations?

No, the scout was engaged in guidance, noted angles, prepared data and shouted to the officer, and he sat with a tablet and, using a template, trigonometric calculations (there were quite complex trigonometric calculations), prepared data for shooting. But I knew how to do it, and if necessary I could replace him.

HELL. Were observation points mostly chosen on your own territory or on neutral territory?

On our own, within the line of our troops. Rarely did they climb onto pipes and mills - it was risky, because these same points, as a rule, were the objects of close attention of the enemy. They tried to hit them just in case. And not by chance.

HELL. Did the snipers bother you?

There were snipers, of course. They hit us with snipers and artillery fire, knocking down these landmarks. So, for the most part, they buried themselves in the ground on high-rise buildings.

HELL. What settings did you have?

We had M-8 and M-16 on Studebakers.

HELL. Have you encountered German rocket artillery?

The Germans only got it at the very end of the war. We first encountered German rocket launchers only on the territory of Hungary. Moreover, they had barrel installations, the so-called “Vanyusha”, which emitted a terrible howl. And we saw installations of this type like ours for the first time only in Austria. They copied our Katyushas, ​​but did it with German thoroughness. Their guides were mounted on a light tank. There was only one person sitting in it, who was directing this vehicle for direct fire; there was no data for shooting there and the aiming was carried out using an optical sight. The artilleryman himself positioned, fired, turned around and left. And our Katyushas fired from afar, aiming was carried out as for artillery pieces. Data for shooting was prepared using a complex trigonometric table, referenced to the terrain. So the Germans are far behind in this matter.

HELL. Was the dispersion of the shells great?

The dispersion was quite significant, but we learned to deal with it. The mine had tails made in such a way that it began to unwind in flight. But the dispersion was still much greater than that of the artillerymen, and therefore they fired at areas and not at specific targets. Or they assumed that with a large number of mines, some of them would cover a point target.

HELL. Have you seen Katyushas fire at direct fire?

I saw it, but very rarely, because it was risky, and Katyushas were valued. After all, the Katyusha completely unmasks itself when firing, raising a large column of smoke. Therefore, we tried to shoot in the dark. If they fired during the day, then the likelihood that the enemy would cover the firing position increased. Therefore, the Katyushas did not have stationary firing positions. They had shelters where they stood and from where they went out to fire. After the shooting, they immediately left so that they would not have time to cover. Yes, and, as a rule, they simply shot from wheels, without using standard supports.

HELL. And when you were already in the guards mortars, did you have anti-aircraft cover?

HELL. What about our fighter aircraft?

Well, fighter aviation, it doesn’t cover the actions of any individual battery or even a Katyusha regiment. It covers a section of the front, covers important tactical objectives, and we had a separate regiment. He was thrown here and there. Sometimes they simply abandoned individual divisions. "Katyusha" had great firepower, so they even threw individual batteries to fire a salvo.

HELL. Between salvos, how long does it take to reload Katyushas?

Very few. Well, about 15-20 minutes. The Katyusha crew consisted of five people. They were quickly controlled: they loaded and then, immediately before firing, they put squibs into the shells.

HELL. Did you fire a second salvo from the same place?

It happened, but rarely. Usually they tried to shoot and leave. They preferred to leave and load up somewhere over the hill rather than shoot again from the same place.

HELL. Did you have big losses?

In our regiment? It depends on what you compare it to. Whether with tank units or fighter aircraft, our losses were very small. But in principle, we had a constant loss of personnel. Over the two years that I spent in the regiment, its composition was updated by 50 percent. There were killed and wounded all the time. The losses were mainly caused by air raids.

HELL. Were masking rules followed during the march?

Yes, definitely. Well, for example, at night, cars only drove with blue lights. Then the installations were necessarily camouflaged with branches or camouflage nets. They preferred to stay in plantings if there were no forests. In general, camouflage was maintained and this was strictly monitored.

HELL. Was there a special person who monitored compliance with the rules, or did you do it yourself?

No, the combat commanders answered, there was no special person. The commanders themselves observed this, because if they discovered a lack of camouflage, they were severely punished for it.

HELL. As an intelligence officer, did you encode the transmitted information?

Primitive, like everywhere else. The commanders were called by numbers, not by names, and the ammunition was called by some kind of vegetable. And the radio communication, of course, was encrypted. You won’t get more information from me, because I was a soldier, all this came to me in a very relative way. I can tell you a funny story from peacetime. After the war, I worked as a lawyer in the Krasnopolyansky district, and as a demobilized person, I was given a plot of land to build a house for myself. The main part of the land was given to the generals for construction, and the remaining small pieces were given to ordinary people. Therefore, I was surrounded by the generals’ stations, and as a result I made acquaintances among the neighboring generals. One day I was invited to some kind of feast with the general. We were sitting at the table, and my neighbor on the right was a very prominent man, so handsome and dignified. And so I pour him vodka, he puts me a vinaigrette, the usual table conversations, tare-bars. And, as often happens, we got to front-line topics, and it turned out that we were both at war and, moreover, we had been going along approximately the same route all the time. He says to me: “What army did you fight in?” I say: “I fought in 1944.” He says: “And I’m in the 44th. And who were you there?” I say: “Who was I there - a soldier. And who are you?” "And I am the commander." It was Lieutenant General Melnik, commander of the 44th Army. I tell him: “Kondrat Semenych, what a pity that you and I didn’t drink then!”

HELL. Didn't you ask him about Balaton?

No, then he was no longer a commander. He had some setbacks there; during the fighting in Ukraine, I think he was removed from his post. Although he remained on the 3rd Ukrainian Front, he was no longer the commander of the army.

HELL. What was the relationship with the civilian population in the liberated countries?

Very different. Starting from an almost brotherly attitude, for example, in Bulgaria, and ending with a severely hostile one in Hungary. The Hungarians treated us with deep hatred and simply shot us in the back. Well, of course, let’s get to work, because although such rampant banditry as we are seeing now did not exist in the Red Army at that time, the makings of it were quite visible. There was robbery and violence - all well-known character traits.

HELL. And in your regiment?

Well, our regiment was more or less cultured, and such excesses often occurred.

HELL. Are they Slavs or Asians?

Slavs, Slavs! The Cossacks were especially rampant.

HELL. What did they fear most at the front?

Death was feared. There death hovered daily, hourly and from all sides. You could sit quietly, drink tea, and a stray shell would fall on you. It was absolutely impossible to get used to this. This does not mean that there was non-stop jitters, that everyone was sitting, walking and looking around. Death simply arrived or did not arrive. It was scary when there were massive air raids. There people went crazy with fear. It felt like every bomb was flying straight at your head. It was terrible! This armada floats across the sky, two or three hundred planes, and they rain down bombs, and they all howl. Horror! I remember Nekrasov was like that - he almost went crazy. When the air raid ended, they could not find him. Then they found him in some trench. So he refused to go out! And what horror was in his eyes!..

HELL. Were there any signs or amulets that people believed would protect against death?

They wore some talismans, they wore crosses. There were people who foresaw mortal danger. For example, in our unit there was this Kondrat Khugulava, a Georgian with a big big face. So I kept going with him, he saved me from death twice, and himself, accordingly. The first time we were sent somewhere to establish contact with a rifle regiment. So he and I are walking along the lines of communication, and he tells me: “We won’t go any further.” I say: "Why?" “We won’t go, we’ll stand here!” We stopped, and a few seconds later a shell fell right into the trench around the bend! That is, they should have killed us there! The second time we stood with him during the bombing in a destroyed house. He told me: “Let’s leave here and move to another corner.” We crossed over and a bomb landed in the corner where we were. Such strange things happened. Premonition... I didn't have it.

HELL. How were our dead buried?

In the second half of the war they buried them quite diligently. There were funeral teams.

HELL. What kind of personal weapon did you have?

I had a carbine, a machine gun, a German machine gun, I carried it until the very end of the war, but I didn’t kill anyone with my personal weapon, of course I had to use it, shoot somewhere...

You are now holding a parachute from a German flare in your hands. Girls in Ukraine sewed blouses from such silk rags. There was no supply of material back then. If a box of such missiles fell into their hands, they cut off this silk, sewed it, and the result was a blouse.

HELL. Were there any women in your unit?

We did not have. Only some signalmen appeared, whom all the officers married. When later there was a congress of regiment veterans in Moscow, I saw these old signalmen who had already arrived as long-term wives of officers of our regiment. I thought then that they were just whores, but it turned out that they were for life.

HELL. Why did they give you the medal?

Medal for participation in the battles for Vienna. These battles were not accompanied by great destruction of the city, but there were heavy losses.

HELL. And for what exactly? For some episode?

You know, awards for specific episodes were rarely practiced at the front. Especially in artillery units. It is impossible to link this particular person to a particularly successful hit by a projectile. This means that if a person took part in hostilities and showed sufficient persistence and courage there, then he must start writing on the award certificate. What was specifically written there is, in fact, all fantasy. I was in good standing in the regiment, so at some stage I was included in the reward list. Then they began to write: “In the battles for such and such a block, he showed courage, neglecting mortal danger...” This is such folk art.

HELL. Did you end up in a penal battalion? What was its structure? How could one “atone for guilt”?

I ended up in a penal company where there were about 150 people. We were armed only with rifles. We had neither machine guns nor machine guns. All the officers were combat soldiers, not penalty soldiers, but the rank and file and junior command staff were penalty soldiers. You left the penal battalion alive either because you were wounded, or if during the battle you earned the approval of the commander, and he made a proposal to have your criminal record removed.

HELL. How did you manage to get out? Was the criminal record expunged on request?

Yes. It was near Taganrog on the Southern Front. I took part in reconnaissance in force. Since the situation was such that it was either hit or miss, I diligently carried out the combat mission. It worked. Immediately after this, I was presented for expungement of my criminal record and within a few days I was called to the division headquarters for a tribunal and my criminal record was expunged. After that, I was sent to a combat unit.

HELL. How long were you in the penitentiary?

Three weeks.

HELL. You talk very sparingly about this time. Why?

I told Yuri Ivanovich Koryakin a lot about this. O many times insisted that I describe it. But every time I tried to take it on, I realized that it was beyond my capabilities, because I did not have literary talent. Writing about this superficially is not serious. Once upon a time, many years ago, a very famous professional writer, after listening to my stories, insisted that I start writing.

The fact is that my appearance in the penal company was preceded by a long wandering around the Kuban. It turned out that I was left completely without documents and without a sentence. We had only documents for three of us, and two of us went on the run without me, and I was left alone and without any documents. Everything that followed looked like a wild adventure with a very bad prospect. And the period preceding the meeting of the military tribunal, when I was sitting on death row, also requires description; it is impossible to do without it, and it is very difficult to describe it in literary terms.

HELL. What was the worst thing?

The attack is the hardest test. You know that they can hit you, but you are forced to meet them halfway - this is terrible! It was difficult to get up, and the knowledge that, most likely, you would not return was also difficult. The mortar fire was terrible, and so were the machine guns. There was enough of everything there. Tracer fire, when it starts from above, and you see, only the luminous strip descends lower and lower towards you, now it will reach your level and cut you in half. Well, in short, war is war, what is there to interpret.

HELL. And then you were hit by guards mortars?

No, not right away. From the penal company I was sent to an infantry unit. There I was seconded to the 2nd reserve army regiment, located in the city of Azov, where I came on foot from the front line. There I was added to the team of candidates for the officer school, where they were supposed to train me to become a tank commander. But I already knew what they eat it with, so I just ran away from there.

HELL. What does it mean to be a tank commander?

It's disgusting. It's like being a soldier, but on top of everything else you have to be responsible for everyone. I didn't want to be an officer at all. Therefore, when they came there to recruit for some artillery unit, I just took it and left with them. He threw the duffel bag into the truck and drove off. For this matter at that time, of course, they could have put me up against the wall, but it didn’t work out. And there I stayed, in this regiment. Then, when we arrived at the front line, it turned out that this was the Katyusha regiment. It was luck! They were well fed, well clothed, and losses there were much less. I was very happy that I found myself in such a wonderful part.

Interview : Artem Drabkin Lit. treatment : Artem Drabkin