Adults

In the autumn of 1974, in connection with the transfer of my father to a new duty station - to the Higher School of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs - we moved to Karaganda with our family. The glorious period of my "Kazakh" life began, which lasted until the summer of 1981. "Remember the rule number 1 - never call the Kazakhs" kolbitami "," Igor Sidorov, my classmate and neighbor in a new house on Yerzhanov Street, taught me the universal rules for dealing with the title nation. "For Kazakhs, this is the same insulting word as for African Americans The word "nigga". "But why, what's wrong with that? - I protested weakly. After all, the word "kolbit" is derived from two English words: "count" - coal and "bit" - to beat, which is an analogue of the word "miner". It is well known that the British, who had numerous coal concessions in Kazakhstan at the beginning of the 20th century, actively used local Kazakhs to work in mines. " "I will not argue with you," Igor said. "Call it that and see what happens." Only I will not help you, so know. My business is to warn. "

Yes, the local color in Karaganda was felt in everything, and Asian exoticism at first caused all of us, especially the father, a feeling of real euphoria. And, indeed, in comparison with the order boring Barnaul, Karaganda appeared before us in an amazing splendor. We walked with my father along the wide avenue named after Nurken Abdirov, a Kazakh pilot, who repeated Gastello's feat during the Great Patriotic War; Drank koumiss, which was sold at every step instead of kvass; Ate beshbarmak in the cafe "Botakoz", which means in Kazakh "camel's eye" - in general they enjoyed life in full in this, as we then thought, a fertile Asian region. There was one more circumstance that favorably distinguished Karaganda from Barnaul in the early 70s of the last century and especially pleased mother - food abundance in the stores. After the chronic "torricelli emptiness" on the Barnaul shelves, we really thought that we were in paradise - it affected the miners' special supply in the city of all-Union significance.

One thing only at first exasperated us, the forest inhabitants of Altai - the absence of nature outside the city. After the rich ribbon pine forest - the relic coniferous forest of the glacial period in Barnaul - the Kazakh steppe, with the endless ocean stretching around Karaganda, looked very poor. It took time to find delights in this ascetic nature. And indeed, the steppe in its own way, too, can please the eye, unless you are, of course, agrophobic, and no less than forests and mountains.

The steppe in Kazakhstan is especially good in the spring. The red disk of the Sun, rising above the horizon like a giant UFO, transforms the steppe in an instant, adding soft, surreal shades to the colorful palette of spring flowers and grasses; Fragrant herbage, as in a slow motion picture, gently sways in the plasma of the solar wind; Languishing in the sun, plunging you into the magical world of steppe scents. All your senses are working at the limit, eagerly trying to embrace, sense, absorb all this splendor! Creator only once a year allows himself "in full" to relax in the steppes, turning after a bored winter from a grumbling misanthrope into a real merry fellow and an impressionist artist. The range of colors used by Him is impressive: red and yellow tulips, crimson poppies and undersized irises with yellow and purple flowers, fragrant violets and mauve anemones, frivolous buttercups and appetizing shrubs of wild asparagus all merge into a multicolored rainbow, a many-voiced chorus of smells and watercolors of spring Steppe. I happened to visit both the Gobi Desert and the Roerich sacred corners of the Altai Mountains. And one can argue where the breath of the Cosmos is felt stronger. In any case, I was able to make sure on my own experience that the meditative practices of Mongolian nomads are not inferior to the spiritual practices of Tibetan monks.

While finishing work was taking place in our new house, my father settled us at the hotel "Chaika" - the only hotel of the representative class at that time. She looked like an imposing manor surrounded by a high fence, with a park and even a fountain inside. At our disposal was a three-room suite, with a luxurious bathroom and even a queer bidet for that time. On the territory of the hotel there was an exclusive two-storey bungalow for VIP persons, namely cosmonauts, who after returning from space, tired of long overloads, were brought from Baikonur to restore their strength. I, the ubiquitous child, quickly became friends with the hotel staff, who took care of me as my son, arranging improvised excursions to local attractions. The old resident of the hotel, Uncle Semyon, a janitor with a 30-year experience, told me in a "big secret" that the walls of this mansion were remembered by Yuri Gagarin, Herman Titov and Valentina Tereshkova. "My dearest woman, by the way, and very modest in my life!" - Uncle Semyon recounted, remembering with warmth the eminent hotel guests. Fantasy Uncle Semyon knew no boundaries. In the hotel lived the general favorite of the staff of the elderly mongrel Belka - folded bitch - albino with a pointed but very expressive muzzle. Uncle Semyon whispered to me "the most important state secret", having first taken with me the obligation of non-disclosure: "This is the same Squirrel that flew into space with the Arrow!" I was struck to the core of this news, although the worm of doubt continued to gnaw my childish Consciousness: "And where is the Arrow?" "We buried her a year ago," Uncle Semyon answered unperturbedly. "Do you want me to show you the grave?" I did not look at the grave of the heroic dog, at last, having believed in the legend of the "1960 space odyssey". At the same time, I began to treat Belka with such reverence and trembling, which, probably, would not apply to Valentina Tereshkova, whether she is at the hotel now. Unfortunately, Squirrel did not reciprocate me and even tapped my hand lightly when I tried to get her newborn puppy, another blind kitten, from the dog's cot in the stokehouse of the hotel.

     The territory of the hotel "Seagull" closely adjoined to a high fence, fencing us from the city park-arboretum - an object of special pride of Karaganda botanists. The fact is that to break such a rich forest park in Kazakhstan is an incredible effort. Only at a depth of 1 meter in Karaganda soil there are deadly solonchaks for all plants that do not allow the roots of trees to go deep into the soil, and, therefore, do not give the opportunity to draw from it the necessary for life juices and minerals. Therefore, the work of local botanists, who turned the steppe Karaganda into a green oasis, certainly deserves all due respect. Perhaps, except Barnaul, which is rightly called the "Green Athens", and a glorious city on the Amur of Khabarovsk, drowning in lush greenery as a real southern city, I did not meet such greened cities in the vastness of our then immense homeland. Park - arboretum with a wide ribbon stretched for many kilometers across the city and ended with a botanical garden, next to which was our new five-story house on Erzhanov Street. Looking back at the years I lived, I can say with certainty that in Karaganda at that time there were two genuine miracles of the Light: one man-made is the Botanical Garden, and the second is not made by hands - the Fedorovsky Reservoir. Once in the Botanical Garden, you could fully feel yourself in the forests of the middle part of Russia, get lost among the numerous birch trees and oak groves. The young birch trees were so delicate and thin that their snow-white trunks caused a full sense of human flesh to touch, and touching them was almost erotic. The pride of Karaganda botanists, of course, was a greenhouse in which palm trees, baobabs and other exotic trees of the tropical flora grew. But the object of the "carnal" lust of boys in the Botanical Garden, of course, were berries irgi, which in Kazakhstan is called, for some reason, Irgis. It is a very beautiful tree, a small grove of which was a real decoration of the Botanical Garden. Irga in May is covered with white foam flower brushes, reminiscent of bird cherry. By the way, and its astringent taste, the irge also resembles a bird cherry and a chokeberry at the same time. The bushes are plentifully hung with tassels of green, red and almost black color, which the bird's and boy's brothers greedily fall into early autumn. Especially good is the autumn iride, when its foliage is painted in orange-red and purple tones. Let me remind you that all this miracle was created by people in a practically lifeless solonchak zone, which cost them truly titanic efforts; Labor and efforts of these beautiful people, fanatically devoted to their work.

Another miracle of nature is the Fedorov reservoir, named after Fedorovka, a suburban settlement. Despite the fact that this lake was located on the territory of the coal mine, that is why it reached a depth of up to 200 meters in places, it had a unique, non-manual nature. Once it was a prosperous state enterprise - a coal mine in which coal was mined in an open way. But in one of the unlucky days a giant excavator touched and damaged the water artery of the earth; The water poured into the cut with a powerful stream, burying under its thickness all the machinery and tons of coal that had already been mined. However, despite the rapidity of the events, people managed to evacuate on time. Scuba divers, who occasionally plunged into the depth of the reservoir, told that there, at the bottom, you see a completely surreal picture of a fantastic blockbuster - excavators, trucks and other mining equipment rests under the water almost intact, as if left and abandoned by people on Fate of fate only yesterday.

Fedorovskoe reservoir has always been a favorite place for Karaganda residents. The cleanest, almost spring water, which has the properties of self-purification and regeneration, was pleasantly cooled in hot summer days, and an improvised boat station on which it was possible to rent a boat "Kazanka" inexpensively, made the rest simply unforgettable, especially for a thirteen-year-old teenager who " Sweeter "dirty pond in the Melange Park of Barnaul did not even try.

One day, my dad and I, like two captains, took the boat for two hours and set out on an open voyage between the islands formed by former waste tanks, on which the luxuriant vegetation settled for a long time already. Landing on these uninhabited islands, we fully felt like Robinsons, but on one of the islands we were waiting for some disappointment - there was already a mighty sporting party of drunken young guys, thus depriving us of our "sea" journey adventure fleur. "Eduard Ionovich, Comrade Major, join us!" One of the young men shouted, waving a friendly hand to us. This guy turned out to be Seryozha Girko, a cadet of the Karaganda Higher School of the USSR Ministry of the Interior. I imagine how surprised we would have been if we had learned that in 30 years I, the police colonel and doctor of law, will work in Moscow under the rank of Major General of Militia Sergei Ivanovich Girko at the All-Russia Research Institute of the Ministry of the Interior. "Lesha Shirvanov caught crayfish once and we will cook them now!" - Sergey reported joyfully, preparing a smoked pot for the future "exquisite" dish. - True, it's - well, very small crayfish, but three rubles, like Roman Kartsev! "

Surprising pirouettes still sometimes write Fate - with Colonel Militia Aleksey Amirbekovich Shirvanov we will sit in the Research Institute in one office, putting "our precious lives" on the altar of departmental science. I watched with curiosity the mustachioed creatures I had seen for the first time in my life. One such creature I even put my finger in the claw, for which I paid immediately. Angered by the boorish behavior of the cancer and angrily waving a bitten hand, as punishment for this mustached scoundrel I sent the first into the boiling water, with almost sadistic satisfaction watching him blush from the strain and viciously "puffed up" in boiling water. The whole honest company, we began to greedily weave crayfish, which turned out to be insipid, because the children had no salt in the "meanness law", but this did not spoil our appetite, and soon the crayfish was forever destroyed - only armor and others remained on the ground Inedible rachium ammunition.

One day, on one of the hottest July days, we met on the Fedorov reservoir my classmate from 47 schools of Sergei Novikov, who was resting on the local beach with his father and elder sister Natasha. With Sergei at school, I almost did not communicate, since he seemed to me a very arrogant little man, to which he could not be approached. And then to say, he had something to be proud of and rise above all the guys. The fact is, in this same school his mother Tamara Semenovna worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature, which provided Serezha with a special position among classmates and teachers. The special status of Sergei was also promoted by his living natural mind, developed by years of rather strong intellect and an extraordinary sense of humor. Contrary to expectations, on the beach, finally, "this deity descended from heaven" - the good thing that we are all naked - and I had a pretty nice talk with Novikov in a very relaxed and conducive environment. As it turned out, this became the pledge of our future friendship, which we will carry through many years.

The Novikov family lived next door to us in a two-story brick house built in the 50's on Poletaeva Street. From the same street, a very impressive microdistrict of two-story buildings began, which, on the one hand, rested directly in the territory of our secondary school №47, and on the other - in the grocery store "Ayman". First of all, this grocery store was remarkable because it acted as a kind of "state" border for two boyish rival factions: the so-called "Aiman" or railway stations, and the "flying" or "green transit" groups. The groupings were in a state of permanent war: the wall to the wall was periodically converging on the Stony River, a city sewage channel crossing across the vast area of ​​the "greentrust" - the urban park zone; Arranged forays into the enemy's camp at the station square and retaliatory actions of intimidation on the territory of our 47th school. I never took part in these mass fights for two reasons.

Firstly, our house in Yerzhanova Street stood apart from all the other yards, therefore, formally, all the children living in the house did not join any permanently operating group at the time.

Secondly, in adolescence and adolescence, I was a cowardly and incredibly frail boy, so I was never considered by the organizers of brawls as a serious fighting unit. However, there was also a third, very formidable force, in the face of which the "Aimanovs" and "Flying Men" forgot all their past grievances and, if possible, united in one grouping to give a worthy rebuff to the enemy. They were Chechens from the Old City, a small suburb of Karaganda, in which the Chechen diaspora was then compactly residing. These victims of the Stalinist national resettlement policy from the North Caucasus have always differed in Kazakhstan with an incredibly malicious disposition, cunning and cruelty. In addition, they did not disdain to use cold steel, which made skirmishes with them deadly. The acts of intimidation organized and conducted by the Chechens were distinguished by an excellent organization and were conducted according to all the rules of military tactics. In my memory, one such action, held by Chechens in Karaganda on May 9, 1977.

This festive day began, as usual, lightly and joyfully, not foretelling any cataclysms. A military parade and a parade of veterans of the Great Patriotic War were still running along the main street of Karaganda, and a group of radical Chechen youth from the Old City was already preparing to arrange an "enchanting" show - an act of retribution for the mistakes of our ancestors. The matter is that on May 9, 1944 - a special day in the Chechen calendar. This is the day of the end of the special operation under the code name "Lentil" by the NKVD troops for the resettlement of Chechens to remote areas of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. And the Soviet government had more than enough reasons for that. The fact is, the Chechens during the war actively cooperated with the fascists in the fight against the Soviet Army.

For example, there were such connections of the Abwehr as Sonderkommand "Bergman", which in German means "Highlander", manned exclusively by Chechens. The tasks of the "Bergman" included sabotage and terrorist operations against our troops, coverup of the Wehrmacht troops, struggle with the Soviet partisans. The North Caucasian legion of the Wehrmacht was quite a serious force: the number of Bergman alone consisted of about 1,200 spetsnaz people, that is, it consisted of serious, skilful and hardened fighters.

So the operation "Lentil" under those conditions was historically absolutely justified and, of course, necessary action, and, moreover, hand on heart, quite humane in the conditions of wartime. It is clear that the Chechens evaluate the historical events that have taken place from their "bell tower", forgot nothing and never missed the opportunity to painfully bite the authorities, demonstrating their independence and the "famous" Caucasian pride. Only for all the global historical decisions taken by the authorities, for some reason, it is necessary to be puffed up by a simple Russian person. So it happened this time. About 21 hours a group of Chechens on four buses arrived from the Old City to Karaganda. Having built himself in a harmonious column, a gloomy Kuklukkslanovskaya procession moved from Privokzalnaya Square to Lenin Avenue. The Chechens silently marched along the central street of the city, occasionally, in a Chechen guttural manner, shouting: "Zig hail!" - and throwing up his right hand. The cowardly Kazakh militia, as usual, hid in their homes along with the frightened residents. Then the column was divided into several groups, which flowed into the courtyards of urban courtyards and squares. And bloody fun came. Beat all the Russians indiscriminately, whether it was a guy with a girl, a disabled person or a teenager. If someone offered resistance to the Chechens, he was stabbed. The city hospitals were overcrowded by those who suffered from night skirmishes, but the authorities were still inactive, and the famous, best in the world special service of the KGB of the USSR kept a "proud" silence and pretended that nothing was happening. Having finished the intimidation action, "faithfully" having fulfilled their "political" mission, the Chechens, in the same organized order that they arrived, with a feeling of deep satisfaction, finally left Karaganda. This "epoch-making" event was overgrown with such speculation and fables in boyish folklore, according to which the Chechens did not roll out howitzers and volley-fire installations "Grad" to Lenin Square. For a long time word-of-mouth "deep traditions" were transmitted from mouth to mouth, where young homegrown "homers" did not spare colors for greater effect and forcing the horror, clearly maintaining the classic genre of thriller and horror film at the same time. The event described above physically passed me by, as in Karaganda I was absolutely a home child and in the evening on May 9, fortunately, was already at home. But, alas, I could not avoid the second, real meeting with the Chechens from the Old City. And it was so.

One day, on one of the sunny April days, Sergei Novikov, with whom we were already friends, periodically quarreling and enduring long artistic pauses in communication, invited me to go for a company with him to the Old Town. The fact is that in the only store of industrial goods of the Old City "thrown out" for sale very scarce at that time magnetic tape "TASMA" for reel tape recorders. "Sarafan radio" in Karaganda instantly reported that a large batch of this "sacral" for boys was brought to the Chechen department store from Kazan, and the most popular length of the magnetic tape is 480 meters. From the very beginning, we did not have a voyage - we arrived just in time for a lunch break at the department store. I did not have time to figure out how to approach Novikov, right at the bus stop, a sturdy Chechen of 25 years approached, who put his arm around his shoulders and passionately (at least that was the impression he had from the outside) whispering something in his ear, leading him aside One-story building of the district executive committee (above it the USSR national flag fluttered), separated from the stop by a tall wooden fence. I had no choice but to follow them - obediently, like a sheep to meet Fate. Vano (that's the name of a Chechen, judging by the tattoo on his right hand) had an expressive, shaved skull, deep-set brown eyes, a predatory cartilaginous nose and tightly compressed sad lips of a sadist. "Well, guys, get the small change out of your pockets, the" shmona "begins!" Vano solemnly proclaimed and, for the sake of convincing his intentions, took out a knife of zek work from the back pocket of his trousers. Sergei had a bill of 5 rubles (a huge amount for a boy of that time), I had a small change of 2 rubles 80 kopecks - all that I could scrape out of my mother's box for "working" trivia. All this "wealth" safely migrated to Vano's pocket. "And what's that you have," Piston "?" Asked the Chechen cheerfully, running two fingers into the secret pocket of my trousers. "No," I answered. "These are old grandfather trousers, sewn by my mother to me. And the pocket was intended for watches on a chain, which used to be worn either in a waistcoat or in trousers, just like in these same "pistons".

In this extremely dirty situation, I decided at full power, as they say, "to include a fool," and, I must admit, it turned out very well for me - my Chechen idiotic behavior was clearly to my liking. "Well done, you know!" - Vano praised me, who after a successful "hunt" wanted to talk culturally. "And who are your parents?" - He asked me with genuine interest. Apparently, I liked him, unlike Sergei. This is - a rare case in my life: usually in the face in unpleasant situations of childhood I always got it, and Novikov managed to safely avoid this fate. But here everything happened exactly the opposite. "Mom is a musician, and Dad ...," I hesitated a bit (try to say that Dad is a lieutenant colonel of the militia), is also a musician, a horn player. " "Look at you - the intelligentsia. And what is a horn player? "Asked the Chechen puzzled. "Well, you know, it's such a healthy curved pipe, it's necessary to blow there, that there are forces!" - I answered with some familiarity, as if we had been good friends with Vano. Sergei with envy looked at me - my inspired delirium clearly surprised and puzzled. "What a fine fellow you are, you understand everything in everything!" - Vano again praised me and smiled with a broad, radiant smile. "Well, and who are your parents?" - he turned to Novikov with a completely different face. "Dad and Mom are teachers," Sergei answered, and immediately received a sharp punch in the face. He cried out, and I burst out: "Do not beat him!" "Do you still have dengi?" Vano Novikov asked with a strong Caucasian accent and, without waiting for an answer, bent down, took off his boots from Sergei's feet and a professional reception (" Apparently, there was some experience of inspections in prison) with a knife forged insoles. Not finding anything interesting there, the Chechen was disappointed, more likely for pro forma, again asked Novikov: "Why did you come here, gondon?" It became clear that Sergei was elected to them as a victim of mockery and the reason for it was clearly not needed. The absurdity of what was happening was especially striking in the face of the screaming scenery of this more than a strange spectacle. All this "gop-stop," all this hypocritical action took place, very everyday, and therefore especially cynical, on a beautiful April day in front of the government building of the district executive committee, in which there was no one (as luck would have it, it was a non-working Saturday). In a break between our "friendly communication" to the building of the district executive committee, two very beautiful Chechen boys, apparently acquaintances of Vano, suddenly came up. They exchanged several phrases with him in the Chechen language, gave him a cigarette, and looking closely at me and Sergei, they retired proudly. "Come on, come with me," Vano told Sergei and dragged him into the cubicle near the building of the district executive committee, which was apparently used as a wood warehouse. He started Novikov for a small fence, through a narrow crack in which I could see what was happening there. "We must go there and hit the Chechen with a brick on the head," - feverishly knocked in my head and threw in sweat from the thought that I might have to kill a man. Nearby, on a flowerbed, lay a heavy brick. My legs became wadded, I sank to the ground and felt that not only was I not able to hit someone, but simply to take a step.

Suddenly I saw the Chechen begin to strangle Sergei. We had to act. Some unknown force picked me up and carried me to a stop on which there were quite a few people - adult men and women. "Help! "I shouted." There the Chechen strikes my friend! "The men at the bus stop looked at each other in fright. "You see, we do not have time. We are late for work! "- At last one of them, the Russian man (Russian in the Old City, at that time were absolutely" zadrochennymi "Chechens of the national minority) guiltily blamed) 40-45 years. Then I ran towards the pub, which was located next to the stop. At one of the tables I saw two men, obviously "exhausted with narzan," with beer mugs in their hands. "Help, please, there the Chechen beats my friend, as small as I am!" - I asked one of the stocky Russian men at the table. "Petya, do not get involved!" Said the lanky drinking companion to the stocky. He thought a little and briefly left me: "Show me where it is!" We passed for the fence of the district executive committee; Lanky, something grumbled discontentedly under his breath, followed us. As soon as we entered the fence, the Chechen, like a wild panther, jumped out of the cot and, furiously spinning with thorns, yelled at the stocky man: "What does tebe need? I - chechen, I live here! "" Take at least a brick, "I said to Peter, who only looked at me in amazement. "Do not, not to anything! Did he offend you? "He asked Sergei, who, with a pale face, while buttoning his jeans, left the room. He only nodded in silence and whispered to me: "Seryoga, we run away from here!" We ran as though Death was following us with a scythe and with all his court retinue. Fortunately for us, the bus pulled up to Karaganda, we jumped into it and, already departing, saw with horror how Vano was rushing to the stop, maliciously looking out for us among the passengers of the bus. All the way to Karaganda we were silent - Seryozha was clearly in shock. It was clearly visible that this is the first most powerful shock in his still short life.

When I arrived in Karaganda, I, of course, told everything to my father, who was just furious with what I heard: "It is necessary to find this nit!" Through the graduates of the Karaganda school of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, working in the criminal investigation department, he struck a file of the tried Chechens of the Old City, the more so I gave a pretty good description of the exterior and special features of Vano. His capture was just a matter of time. However, soon afterwards, Sergei Tamara Semyonovna's mother came to our house, who asked her father to "put the brakes on", because Sergei has a sick heart, he is still in a terrible depression and will finally finish his trial. As Father Tamara Semyonovna did not convince, that such things can not be left unpunished, she remained adamant.

After this event, my rating among the boys is incredibly grown. The next morning I went out into the courtyard where our courtyard guys and Sergei Novikov were sitting on the bench, like perches on a perch. "Here it is, our hero!" - shouted Borya Morozov, and the guys looked at me with obvious respect. By the way, about whom - about, but about Bora, certainly, it is necessary to tell more in detail.

Boria Morozov, was, in general, an outstanding personality in our yard. The pendulum of my boyish sympathies constantly swung from Novikov to Morozov and vice versa. To say that Borya was always charming and in all cases an attractive person, of course, it is impossible, but that, he was a charismatic guy - this can not be denied. First, he was older than us with Novikov for two years, which, of course, us, the salag, bribed. Secondly, he was a very well-read, inquisitive person, which greatly raised him in our eyes, especially considering Borino proletarian origin. And then, such funny funny things were always associated with him, that Bore was forgiven very much - and his incredible greed, and natural cowardice, and small growth, which in the tenth grade made him look like an eighth-grader. One of these curiosities especially crashed into memory. Boris had an older brother, Valera, a finished drunkard, whose alcoholic adventures were the subject of numerous anecdotes of our court. Especially funny was Borina's interpretation of the anecdotal events of this very entertaining family chronicle. "One night I woke up from a strange sensation," Borya told us another story of the adventure of his "legendary" brother, - it seemed that someone was standing over me. I peered into the darkness and saw ... the penis right in front of my face. Looked closely - and this is as always a drunk brother Valerka. "What are you doing, you goat?" I cried. "Be silent, bitch," said his brother, and he hit me hard with his fist in the jaw. I got angry and ... (here we all froze in anticipation of active fighting from Bori) turned on his side and fell asleep! And this asshole still pissed me off at night! "Here we all could not stand it - the courtyard burst into a homeric laughter, which did not stop for a long time and spread to the botanical garden itself with a reverberating echo.

At one time we approached the charismatic Boreas Morozov even more than with Sergei Novikov. The reason for this was our new enthusiasm for astronomy. I must say that by 1980 the country's craze for ufology began, and our proximity to Baikonur and the frequent occurrences of contact with UFOs, apparently in an interesting zone for the aliens, constantly fueled the boyish interest in the problem of "flying saucers." To a large extent our interest in astronomy was also contributed by my father's fascination with the works of the well-known Soviet ufologist, Academician Azhazh Vladimir Mikhailovich, who periodically shocked the public of that time with his sensational statements about extraterrestrial civilizations and their constant visits to the Earth. It was then that my father constructed my first telescope, finding instructions on how to make it in the popular journal "Technique of Youth." On the balcony of our house (and we lived on the last fifth floor) I equipped the most "real" observatory, covering the balcony with a blanket and fixing it with pegs, with a porthole for the telescope, a starry sky map, a notebook for recording astronomical observations, a compass and a flashlight. In general, all necessary, that is supposed to be a real "astrologer" in his space position.

All the evening long we spent with Boreas on the street, peering at the starry Abyss and trying to view the signs of life there. Borya also made a telescope, which in terms of workmanship was much inferior to mine, but he, unlike me, had already undergone a school course in astronomy, so he approached the study of the starry sky more thoroughly.

 Fortune once smiled at us and we saw a more than strange phenomenon, from which, I remember, then goose bumps went on the back. In the autumn evening, armed with telescopes, we, as always, settled in the courtyard, causing ridicule of the children, who, apparently, envied our enthusiasm and in every way tried to humiliate us along with Her Majesty the Astronomy. Among the guys was a famous hockey player of the Karaganda team "Motorist" my classmate Misha Petrov and Sergei Novikov - an incorrigible skeptic, compared to which Thomas the Unbeliever simply "rests." Borya gave us a lengthy lecture about the constellation of Orion, showing him in the sky, like a real lecturer in a planetarium. Suddenly across the sky, right above our heads, apparently at very high altitude, a strange object, like a boomerang, swept past. Two bright glowing points, located at a distance of about 40 cm from each other (it is clear that the actual dimensions of the object at such an altitude can not be estimated), were connected by transparent spheres through which the sky and sparks of numerous stars could be seen. The object flew absolutely silently, swiftly, but slowly enough that it could still be clearly discerned. The first to see him was the trained view of astronomers I and Boris. We only managed to exclaim from surprise and amazement, feverishly peering into the night sky, hoping to once again see a strange stranger. After about 15 minutes, the object again appeared in the sky like a fantastic bird, silently hovering over the earth. This time, Misha Petrov saw him, who afterwards, like us, could no longer tear off the enchanted gaze from the starry sky. Vexed Novikov, who again could not see anything, began to point outly defiantly us, urging him to turn to the clinic named after Kashchenko. However, exactly in the same interval of time the object flew over us again, and this time it was seen by all the guys, except ... Sergei Novikov. His annoyance at the same time did not know the limit - in the end he frankly "splashed" with us and proudly retired home, saying that he was sorry to waste time with such accomplished assholes as we are.

As with most telescopes of refractive (lens) type, ours had a significant constructive drawback - an inverted image that made them not very convenient for observations, especially not related to astronomy. The fact that our telescopes can be used not for their intended purpose and much more "interesting", we were prompted by the resourceful Sergei Novikov. It is clear, what kind of "interest" can have a pimply, "anxious" teenager, "expiring sexual genitalia" - spying on naked women in the windows of neighboring five-story buildings. In general, the idea of ​​Novikov, of course, was not very novel and original, nevertheless, this message from Lukavoy found response in our fragile children's souls.

Observant point young "paparazzi" equipped on a pointed roof of a two-story building of Sergey. It was a very dangerous roof, with a rather impressive angle, so in slippery shoes, especially in rainy weather, there was nothing to do. Work shoes "hunters before the strawberry" - Soviet-made shoes, in which you could still feel more-less confident on this extreme slate roof. We spent long hours in our lair in anticipation of suitable subjects-nude. If the long wait was rewarded with such a "cheerful" story, at least with bare chest, it was for a whole week a subject of noisy discussion in the yard, and "lucky" - the voyeur, although for a short time, became the object of undisguised boyish envy. Our society of young erotomaniacs has now been replenished by Sergei Novikov and Misha Petrov, with whom we have already gone to the roof as a work, that is, with enviable constancy. Soon, and our roof was not enough for us. We began to master the sloping roof of my five-story building. It came to curiosities bordering on a deadly risk.

One summer evenings, Misha Petrov, armed with my telescope, spied a suitable plot with nudity - a mature attractive person on the fourth floor of a nearby building was preparing for the next beach season, "rolling" a collection of Soviet unpretentious swimsuits in front of the mirror. If she was all right with the chest, then everything that was below the belt, to Misha's great disappointment, was hidden by the outer wall of the house at the level of the window sill. Having taken a great interest in this "fantastic" spectacle, Mishan slid forward in a plastunistic way, and without calculation, with his telescope began slowly, but surely, to crawl from the peak of the cornice. "Hold me by the feet!" - only he managed to shout to us, and Morozov and I, that there are forces, grabbed his legs and dragged him. "What a wonderful evening today!" - enthusiastically said below, right below us, my mother, who went out on the balcony to breathe a full breast with the elastic July air and, fortunately, did not hear our noisy fuss on the roof. Mishan flushed like a cancer, and was sweating profusely, the sweat streamed down his face and neck - it was obvious that he had survived not the best seconds of his life. After this unpleasant incident, we no longer changed our own, become native, roof of the Novikov house, which also became a savior for me in the most direct sense of the word. And it was so.

One day, resting from pretty podnadoevshih erotic sessions, we Morozov, armed with telescopes, looked with curiosity at the full moon. A lanky guy with a sheepdog passed by - as I found out later, it was Vova Pashko from the parallel 9 - "in" class. I do not know why, I gave a loud meow, causing his dog's nervous barking. "Now like meow, goat, learn to bark!" - Grumbled with a quiet threat Pashko and went on. On that incident, and would have been exhausted, but the devil pulled Morozov to blurt out: "If I were you, I would have caught up and let into the face!" Without thinking twice, I did so. "Come on, stop, you fool!" - I caught up with Pashko. He stopped with a brazen smile, comfortably, turning his nasty, pimply face to me deliberately, and I seriously and very efficiently conducted a beautiful, put "hook" to his left in the jaw. He was taken aback, grabbed his cheek, and then panicked, along with the frightened sheepdog, shouting: "Well, all right, now we'll kill you, you bastard!" It was not long before I heard the noise of the approaching crowd, which foreshadowed absolutely nothing good for me. Ahead were tall men, holding miner's lanterns. "I would have fled if I were you," Morozov said unperturbedly, sitting on the wooden table for dominoes. "Run with me," I said. "What for? I did not do anything. " "Well, as you know!" - I already threw on the run and rushed that there are forces to the entrance, where our beloved hatchway was located. Quicker than the monkey, I jumped on the stairs and quickly climbed to the attic.

Through the embrasure of the attic hatch, I could clearly see Vova Pashko running into the entrance, followed by me, holding a bicycle chain. He wanted to climb up the stairs to the attic in a fever, but when he saw my arm with a brick brought over him, he changed his mind and ran out of the entrance. "The boys, who climbs on the roof with me?" - I heard his trembling voice, and, without waiting for possible volunteers, climbed on the roof. The calculation in this case was simple - on the roof I felt myself like God or almost like God. Even if the guys suddenly climbed on the roof, I would successfully attack them with cobblestones that were abundant here, and in case of unfavorable developments, there was always a reserve path of retreat to the roof of the neighboring two-story building. And then, in the attic, there were so many hidden secluded corners to bury, that even with miner's flashlights, the enemy would need a very long time to find me. In this case, the time worked for me.

As was to be expected, there was no one wishing to climb to the roof, so I sat quietly on the roof, listening attentively to what was going on below, and when the noise died down there, cautiously descended the stairs and left the entrance. In front of me there was a depressing picture. Boria Morozov, with a battered face, stood in the middle of the yard children, among whom was Sergei Novikov (he left the house exactly to the end of this tragicomedy) and Misha Petrov. Strongly gesticulating with his hands, Borya heatedly told the guys how Voronin's pricker was beaten by Egor's gang. The name of Egor, an ethnic German with pathological criminal predilections, caused horror throughout the 47th school. It was a burly marginal from a family of criminals with a height of 190 cm, who already in the tenth grade looked like a 25-year-old man. They told us that Yegor had been living with him since the age of 15 with a 30-year-old woman who had a child in his arms, and at school, in his mistresses, a tall girl Tanya from a parallel class named "Baby" walked in her mistresses. This Baby was a real gangster who was afraid not only of girls, but even of guys. I witnessed how Tanya kicked a strong guy in the groin with a powerful kick - a hockey player nicknamed "Fatima". In "apprentices" Yegor went to a large Tatar from 10 - "B" class Albert Gilmanov. It was he who "froze" for me Bora Morozova. In general, according to my humble person, all the local "beau monde" gathered from the neighboring criminal court, which of course, of course, could not but "please" me. "Tomorrow you will have a" Karachun "in school!" Morozov hissed maliciously. "They said that they will get you in school, there you can not get away from them." I just did not reply, because the prospect of being beaten, if not killed, was so obvious in the school. "No need for words, gentlemen of the jury!" I thought glumly and went home. My dejected state could not remain unnoticed for the parents. "What happened?" - asked my father and frowned when I told him my sad story. "So, tomorrow, when Pashko approaches you, and he always comes to you between lessons to enjoy your fear, you will say to him:" If something happens to me, my father, the police lieutenant colonel, will send a platoon of cadets to school The Ministry of Internal Affairs and then we will talk with your whole honest company in another way! "This was a brilliant move by my father. From myself, I added a little improvisation, peeped in the then popular movie "Petrovka -38". There the criminal investigation inspector said the key phrase, which I really liked, to the "hot" Caucasian man who unreasonably jealoused him of his companion: "Dear, if you are satisfied with my apologies for the injury done, I bring them." The next morning everything happened as predicted by the pope. In a break between lessons Vovan came up to me and hissed like a snake: "Well, get ready, you dick, after classes you will have a kayuk!" I gave him the learned words of my father, adding the phrase I liked. And - about a miracle! When I said it, in the eyes of Vova Pashko there were tears. He silently gave me his hand, I shook it with feeling and we, very pleased with ourselves, proudly parted. Then, after the lessons, I noticed how Pashko approached Yegor and gave him my words. He looked at me with obvious respect, and the incident was exhausted - for me, but not for Boris Morozov! Since he had already finished his studies at school, Pashko's friends undertook to catch and bang him near the house in the courtyard, in the Botanical Garden, on the way to the store. It got to the point that he tried to walk on the street either at night or accompanied by his parents, and this continued until his very call to the army. So I got my first lesson of how severely, but fairly punishes the fate of provocateurs and instigators.

The inhabitants of the glorious house, on the roof of which these remarkable events of my childhood happened, deserve special attention in our narrative. On the second floor, as we already know, the Novikov family lived, which was five times in a two-room apartment of the old type, the so-called "subcompact". The fifth member of the family was elderly, very nice and neat grandmother Seryozha from Tselinograd (present-day Astana) - apparently, the mother of Eugene Yegorovich. The situation in the apartment was so tight that Serezha had to sleep on a chair-bed, which he in turn shared with his sister Natasha. To the right of Novikov there lived the well-known "rastoman" in the district (an auth-an addict who consumes cannabis plants) with an impressive experience of Sabir Tuleubayev. This young Kazakh, who does not know Russian well, from the "tender" age with might and main consumed Chui hemp growing in the mountainous regions of Kyrgyzstan (not to be confused with the Chui valley of Gorny Altai). As usual, in the morning, nowhere else working Sabir occupied a favorite observational position on the balcony of his house, rotten from the chronic "breaking" view of the inhabitant of Chinese opium establishments peering at the faces of passers-by. "Zholdas, tenge bar?" ("Friend, money is"?) - he asked when he saw me. "Tenge Jok" ("There is no money") - I answered, having exhausted all my stock of Kazakh words. "Ket, ball!" ("Get out, boy!" - Kazakh analogue of the Russian letter in three letters) - Sabir threw evil and grabbed a nearby cleaver, began to cut furniture rubbish stored on the balcony, apparently, just for these Goals. The yard had long been accustomed to these psychopathic concerts Sabir and was not surprised by anything.

To the left of Novikov lived the Polyakov family. Seryozha Polyakov nicknamed "Pulik" from the parallel 9 - "B" belonged to the category of people whom the outstanding Russian psychiatrist Peter Borisovich Gannushkin called "constitutionally stupid". That is, it can not be said that he was a moron or mentally handicapped in the literal sense of the word, but his judgments were so infantile that he seemed to have in his brain a certain blocker that does not allow him to rise above his simplest physiological needs such as "eating" And all that successfully rhymes with this word. At the same time, Sergei was so skinny that, against his background, I, myself a rare geek, felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently, speech in this "clinical" case was already about dystrophy, but Sergei Polyakov did not care and did not depress him at all, and he was always in an even cheerful state of mind, which caused me genuine envy. To the left of Pulik lived a family of taxi driver Kolymberger nicknamed "Baryga." Baryga had the appearance of a classic, very untidy Jew - fat, with a huge belly-like watermelon; With short crooked legs, overgrown with hair; With completely absent neck. At the same time, to the envy of the whole court, this garden scarecrow was married to a very pretty Tatar woman, who gave birth to this Shrek daughter Olya - a real oriental beauty. It's amazing how sometimes such different genes are intertwined, forming in the union a magnificent gentle pattern full of charm and harmony. If Olya's appearance was in order, then her character can not be said at all. It was a spoiled young woman, spoiled by her father, who allowed herself such things as no girl in our yard could afford. Once, during a joint game, I quarreled with Olya, and she, for no reason, hurt me with a foot in the groin. I did not even have time to figure out how my hand had slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground and even traveled some distance back on the grass. She looked at me with eyes full of tears, but ... even with obvious respect. With sadness, I recently learned that Olga had died before she was 18, from criminal abortion and the general blood infection caused by him. And the culprit of the tragedy was "a happy father" (who would have thought ?!) - her neighbor - the "brains" Seryozha Polyakov.

In the summer Baryga, when he had a good mood, arranged for us in the courtyard of improvised discos. He exhibited 100-watt columns on the balcony, included the "Arcturus" turntable for those times, with a diamond, as they used to say, "the eternal head" and started the company's vinyl records of the ABAV Group and Boney M, extracted from the speculators. It was on the basis of foreign pop music that Baryga became friends with Vitya Zlobin ("Katipupa"), who lives with her mother on the ground floor, right under Kolymberger. Katipupa (that is, "Pup of aunt Kati - moms Vitya Zlobina), so named Novikov, who was always a great inventor of households" chased ", was a stocky, brutal boy with manners of a real fist, but a lumpen proletarian mentality. The fact is that Vitya was lazy to the point of disgrace (which later greatly spoiled his life), and Aunt Katya, as a weak and insecure mother, a loner, finally waved him down, refusing to educate a long-time slacker than Finally spoiled Katipupu. After the eighth grade, Vitya Zlobin entered the mining college, where he taught physics and mining the father of Novikov, Eugene Egorovich.

One summer, after studying, Katipup went to the peninsula of Mangyshlak, located on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan, where for a month he passed industrial practice on a drilling rig. He returned from there as a mother, a "hardened" peasant - an oilman, who "fully" knew women and Life. The fact is that there, at the drilling site, only two girls worked as chefs in the company of hungry peasants - plain-looking girls, with an obvious inferiority complex and infantile ideas about Life. Once these girls muzhichki strongly podpoili on one of the impromptu festivals, and the entire team drill, taking advantage of their helpless condition, missed the girls "through the system" - as they say, "took the choir." Vitya told this with such ecstasy and gleam in his eyes that it was evident how this event of "group sex" changed all his existing ideas about the world. But most of all I was struck by Katyupupa's story that on the morning the chefs were so obstructed and humiliated by lascivious males that they were forced to quit and go away from shame and shame where their eyes are looking. In the second entrance of our famous house there lived personalities even more charismatic and unique in all senses. On the ground floor to the right lived an eternal bachelor - a photographer of 40 years, nicknamed "Associate Professor", in his old-fashioned glasses with a thick frame, really, like a scientist or a teacher of a classical university. The senior lecturer was engaged in pornography, which he manufactured and himself distributed in the form of playing cards for Kazakh prisons and correctional institutions. The docent had a regular clientele from local putans, not disdaining youngsters who were brought to the "photoshoot" by adult prostitutes. It is clear that everything happening in the "bad" apartment of the Associate Professor, excited our children's imagination, causing burning curiosity and irresistible physiological interest. To our great disappointment, the attention of the militia and the "paparazzi" to the Associate was to nothing, and he always so carefully curtained the windows of his apartment with a sheet that, in addition to the light of the soffits making their way through the washed sheet, nothing was ever seen.

One autumn, as usual, we sat on a bench and tweeted like a flock of sparrows, when another "sweet" couple appeared in our yard, heading towards the Associate Professor. It was Kazasha Rosa, who was leading a hand, apparently on a photographic test, to a charming Russian girl of 14. Rosa, who looked like a person and figure for the singer Masha Rasputin, always considered herself unlike her colleagues in the "shop", "educated" Confused, hosted by clients, mostly married men, in his one-room apartment on the second floor, located directly above the docent's lair. Sometimes Rosa, in order to replenish her budget, was also earning money from the Assistant Professor, while simultaneously supplying him with a new clientele for taking photos. Katipupa, wishing to impress us with his brutality, rushed across to the girls. "Rose, take me to the shooting, I would gladly have given you both!" - very voluptuously, with great feeling and aspiration, said Witek. "You first grow up, young fagot! And then the "suvalka" has not yet grown, "- retorted Rosa to our universal laughter. Katipupa blushed like a cancer, not expecting such impudence, and hurriedly retreated from brisk girls.

Next to the Associate Professor, on the first floor in a one-room apartment, lived the great-grandmother Rosa - the old woman who survived from her mind 92 years old with the explicit complex of Plyushkin. Obsessed with the idea of ​​providing a dowry to her expensive great-granddaughter Rosa, the old Kazakh woman devastated local garbage dumps, dragging their "precious" contents into her apartment, which she turned into a real "Ali Baba cave". At the same time, the old woman, making with enviable constancy her shuttle tours to local garbage dumps, was so hilarious that I could not resist the temptation to joke on her. From afar, seeing her, I stood on the edge of the balcony and, folding my hands like a speaker, screamed from the fifth floor: "Allah, Allah akbar!" (Grandma, Allah is Great!) Grandma froze, laughingly put her hands to the sky and sang the creaky old woman In a voice like a mullah on a minaret: "Allah akbar!" I shouted again: "Allah Akbar!", The old woman immediately echoed me and so continued indefinitely. In the end, the grandmother forgot about the purpose of her voyage, and I could no longer restrain myself from the Homeric laughter on the balcony, holding my stomach and sinking from the stifling laughter to my heels. When the grandmother, finally, to the relief of the neighbors gave God a soul, the local ZHKO (house,s department)  needed eight trucks to bring all of its "treasure" to the city dump. It remains only to guess where the old lady managed to live, eat and sleep! And one more character of our story should say a few words: it's Sasha Tkachenko, nicknamed Bandera. The reader may have a natural question: was there a nickname in the childhood of the author of these lines? Responsibly I declare: yes, the Count was "chasing" (apparently, by analogy with Count Vorontsov), which completely superseded the "Crow" bored with me since my childhood. I was very proud of this nickname and tried to behave in the courtyard as befits a true bearer of a count's title. Bandera was a native of Western Ukraine (from here he "drove") and lived with his mother on the second floor next to the already known to us Rose. Sasha's character was bad - vindictive, aggressive and mercenary. It was this self-interest led by Bandera in 1982 to the disciplinary battalion - during his service in Afghanistan he managed to sell grenades to Afghan mujahedin. In his free time Tkachenko taught languages: Kazakh and Ukrainian, apparently, seriously intending to become a "polyglot". "Do you know how the" Nightingale the Robber "will be in Kazakh?" He would say to me. "No!" "Babu is a basmach! And do you know how the Little Red Riding Hood will look like in Ukrainian? Chervona the Capun! A sexy maniac? Sinister pisukaty! "- and Bandera burst into joyful screeching laughter, exposing brownish nicotine large horse teeth. To play with Bandera in our courtyard games - mostly "leapfrog" and "goat" - was always a very risky occupation. Sasha Tkachenko was unpredictable and extremely touchy, and the offense sometimes arose on a flat spot, but immediately followed by a merciless revenge Bandera. In my memory, during the game in the "goat" Pulik inadvertently touched Tkachenko, slightly dirty boots his trousers. Bandera's answer did not take long - when Pulik, in order of priority, became a "goat" in a well-known position, Tkachenko dispersed and foolishly shoved Polyakov's knee in the ass, that is, as they say, "ruined the goat". Pulik only managed to gasp, went into a "shaving" flight, piercing the face with asphalt. At the same time, he broke his nose and lips so severely that we did not see him more in this game. I was surprised to see how the blissful smile of the sadist froze on Bandera's face at that time.

The game of "leapfrog" in our yard has always been an extreme activity, but it became an "extreme" on the verge of a "foul" when Vova Sadovsky - 120 kg weight, 2 m tall, the candidate for master of sports in heavy Athletics. Lord, how lucky it was for those who had Vova in the team, and how great was the luck of the one against whom the team of Sadovsky played. Not only that to sustain the "live" weight Vovik almost no one could, but grief was especially for those who fell under the cannon ball Sadovsky. According to the rules of the game, the losing team was in the gate, and Vova began to methodically break through the "fat", i.e. shoot unfortunate victims with a soccer ball. In case of a successful hit on the victim's body, a crimson trace was formed, as if from a burn with boiling water, and then a huge hematoma. I remember how Misha Petrov, accustomed, in general, to the pain and injuries of a hockey player, after another such ball hit Vova Sadovsky in the waist area fell to the ground and sobbed! It was then that an event of esoteric nature took place, which especially crashed into my childhood memory and I want to tell about it. Once, on an April evening, we divided into two teams, as usual, began to play "leapfrog." Everything went fine until the moment when Vova Sadovsky appeared at the school yard and asked to play. Cast lots, and Sadovsky, to our great dismay, was in the team of the enemy. We fell out to be a "horse". The tactic of "leapfrog" is very simple and well known - one must find and jump into the weakest link of the "horse". It is clear that I was such a weak link - as my mother sometimes called me, "a mosquito with thin legs". In this situation, the victory of Vova Sadovsky's team was ensured. I stood in the middle, ahead of me was Sergei Novikov, behind - Katyupupa. The first to us jumped Boris Morozov. He landed safely on Novikov, so we did not even feel his weight. It's time to jump to Sadovsky. He fled, noisily breathing and hard, like a rhinoceros, stamping his knives (it seemed that the earth was shaking and walking with staggering under his weight), loudly grunted like a boar and jumped straight onto me. It seemed to me that a bulldozer fell on my back, my bones cracked, but strangely enough, my legs, slightly bent at the knees, still withstood an incredible weight for me. Complementing this "oil painting" and, apparently, wishing to finish me, Sasha Tkachenko perched on top of Vova Sadovsky. Thus, all this astonishing weight fell on my poor bony back. "Count, hold on!" - yelled Kathipupa, and, surprisingly, at some point I really ceased to feel this heavy weight. The blood poured into my head with a hot wave and noisily knocked at my temples, as if I wanted to pierce the temporal bone. But now all this cumbersome construction had to go twenty long, endless steps to the football goal. The "horse" slowly but surely moved into its last, tragic way. All the way, while we walked "horse", before my eyes stood the image of a beardless man about 40 years old in a white chiton, sitting in some white room. Yes, I forgot to say that this image has haunted me since my earliest childhood and always appeared when I was ill (for example, during pneumonia) or when there was a real danger. Many years later I learned in this man the third Angel with the amazing and most mysterious in the History of World Art icon Andrei Rublev "Holy Trinity." Then, in my childhood, I did not attach any special significance to this fact and quickly forgot about it. And yet we reached the end, defeating our more than worthy rivals. Vova Sadowski looked at me with obvious perplexity, not fully understanding what had happened. "Voronin, you now put the world record in weightlifting, if you take into account your" hare "weight!" - he muttered. "Well, you, Count, give!" - Seryozha Novikov said with admiration, and with great piety Katipupa extended his wet hand to me. This was the first serious recognition of my merits of a male in this harsh male world. However, the titanic "struggle against gravity" did not pass for me in vain - I have earned varicose veins in the groin, which occasionally reminds me of past victories and which I now "proudly" bring through life.

The next morning, as was to be expected, I fell ill - apparently, seriously overstrained and, in addition, caught cold. The temperature is under 40, a runny nose, a dry, nasty cough, a semi-bodily condition - in general, a "gentlemanly" set of universal "joys" in such cases. In the inflamed imagination, the image of an Angel from the icon "Holy Trinity" and another strange subject with a bird's beak, which the Ankh holds in his hands - an ancient Egyptian cross with a loop at the end, arose from the childhood. Many years later I saw this picture in real time in the Krasnoyarsk museum of local lore, which, for some reason, was originally conceived and built as an accurate, only a small copy of the ancient Egyptian museum on Tahrir Square in Cairo. It turned out that it depicted the ancient Egyptian God Ra with the head of a bird, giving with the help of Ankh ("the key of the Nile") the life of his son - the pharaoh. Many millennia later, the symbol "Ankh" will be called the "mirror of Venus" and will be used in genetics to refer to the female X chromosome, that is, the feminine origin. Believe me, this was not the first message of God Ra, addressed exclusively to my "humble" person.

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

In general, I must say, the state of trance is familiar to me from the very early childhood. The thing is that I suffered from "sleepwalking", which only added extra touches to my odious image of a "very strange boy". My somnambulism sometimes caused very curious and frightening parents of incidents.

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

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

By the way, already being in Karaganda, my mother, talented in everything, obviously overdid, performing for me my homework on drawing for the 7th grade. She "drew" to the point that I, who can not properly represent the right circle on paper, were nominated for an international competition for young artists of Asia. And now just imagine just for a moment what a great intellectual resourcefulness and resourcefulness at the age of 14 was required to fight back from participating in this ill-fated competition, and then another year to fool a poor drawing teacher who seriously believed in my outstanding talent as a painter!

It's clear that the woman's handwriting was too obvious to belong to me, and one very correct girl with a voice full of indignation said: "He did not draw this himself!" The teacher looked at me with obvious condemnation and said: "My friends , Let's pat Serezha! "- but none of the class, in protest, naturally, did not clap. It was quite a sensitive blow to my vanity, and every time after this incident I raped myself, going to these lessons of the initial solfeggio.

Finally, to my great relief, two weeks of this torture ended, and my mother identified me in the specialty classes for the best teacher in Barnaul in the class of "piano". But here again I was in for another embarrassment. I do not know, maybe this woman was a wonderful teacher (unfortunately, I did not have time to appreciate it), but the fact that she suffered a very severe strabismus is a fact, immutable and "reinforced", like the construction of a sarcophagus at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. For my subtle nature, the fate of this teacher was finally solved and irrevocably in the first lesson. I decided to feign illness. "Serezha, the musical style consists of 7 notes: before, re, mi, fa, salt, la, si", explained the unhappy teacher, stubbornly looking past me sideways. "And here beans, lentils and other legumes?" - I thought evil and decided to cry. "What's wrong with you, Seryozha?" The teacher seriously took fright. "My head hurts, I want to see my mother!" - I whimpered, and she ran in panic after mother to the next class. My evacuation from the lesson was, as they say, "without noise and dust," and more I never showed up at this school. Discouraged teacher for a whole year was interested in my mother, when I still come to the next lesson, my mother explained something inaudible to her, but time went on, everything was quietly forgotten, and soon I became absolutely free from nasty lessons and all obligations On learning music. Only after decades I realized that Ra deliberately took me away from the routine of academic music education, developing the natural talent of an improviser. In the meantime, I sincerely and carefree enjoyed the music, listening to vinyl records on our old Rigonde, like a bee, saturated with the nectar of the Italian Capriccio, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, under which we with the woman Sasha (the elderly mother of his father, who he brought to Barnaul from the Moscow region ) Arranged a "simultaneous crying" session. Then the heartbreaking, whiny "Capriccio" was replaced by the first Soviet musical of Gennady Gladkov "The Bremen Town Musicians", two plates of which for a long time in 1971 his father got it. This life-affirming music was then broadcast from every apartment house in Barnaul, and the song of the Bremen musicians "Nothing is better in the world" was a real hit of the season.

I was absolutely not burdened by the fact that when I'm a mom-teacher I do not know how to play the piano, but when my neighbors' grandmothers put this in a perfectly legal reproach, I felt very ashamed; In a fit of feelings I "pressed" on my mother, she unfolded notes, and we proceeded to exercises and sketches, but here, at home, I was missing for a maximum of one month, and then again I abandoned my studies for many years with music. Mom could not find the best method of my piano teaching, as I was extremely unsure and, in addition, quickly tired of the instrument. One Ra knew how to entice and interest my irrepressible "twin" nature (on a horoscope I am a classic Gemini). "Scherche la lama" - as the French say in such cases, which means: "Look for a woman!". And Ra found for me such a "woman". She was a black-haired pretty girl with blue eyes from my class, Lena Mitereva, surprisingly similar to my first love to Elena Epifanova; Besides, by chance it is or not, but just like her, she studied at the music school in accordion class.

As Lewis Carroll wrote in her Alice in Wonderland, there is always a "lot of confusion" around a beautiful girl. So it was in our class. It turned out that Lena Mitereva had at least 4 secret "admirers": Igor Kupriyanov, Misha Petrov, Seryozha Novikov, well, I, your humble servant! And it all started with a banal boyish rally. One day in grade 5, at the beginning of the lesson, I, as usual, climbed behind the textbook in my satchel, when suddenly a note dropped out. I lifted her from the floor and with surprise read: "Sergei, I love you! Let's meet after the lessons. Lena Mithereva. " The color of rabies rushed to my face - I, for some reason, immediately thought of Vadik Makarov, a hooligan boy with whom he had been sitting for one year at one desk. Our class teacher, Elsa Grigorievna Rain, had such a peculiar tactic for seating the students in the classroom: the hoodlum was always seated next to the "right", from her point of view, boy. Vadim Makarov, a native of the hereditary "zek", lived in Karaganda village Unsha, one name that terrified the then-kids. There were always a lot of settlements like Unsha in the USSR, as, indeed, now in Russia: this is the village of Queta near Barnaul, and the village of Chesnokovka near Novoaltaysk, and many other "green" places in the vastness of our vast homeland. They were united by the fact that in such settlements the criminals and their marginal families, who had been "abandoned" after serving their sentences, lived predominantly. Apparently, wishing for Vadik other than their Destiny, his parents gave him to the people's circus, then working on a voluntary basis in the Palace of Miners. Strangely enough, Makarov really liked this study and work in the circus, he became an excellent acrobat and always at school physical education classes, at the numerous requests of boys, surprised us with elegant flips and other acrobatic exercises. However, the genes did take their toll, and criminal tendencies, no yes no, from time to time showed themselves. Vadik was an "honest kleptomaniac" - there was no bagatelle, by which he could safely pass without pocketing. The logical result of this "god-forgiving" activity was Makarov's statement in the children's room of the police, which, incidentally, he was always very proud of. Naturally, the shadow of my suspicion immediately fell on this "charismatic" person closest to me. In indignation, I slipped the note into his face, and even then struck him painfully in the shoulder with his bony fist. "Voronin, what do you allow yourself at the lesson?" - angrily screamed Elsa Grigorevna, for which my actions on the first row, of course, did not go unnoticed. Makarov, in bewilderment, picked up the crumpled note, skimmed it over and whinnied like a horse. At the same time, he slyly looked at Lena Mitherev, who was sitting behind, with a flirtatious wink, "I'm aware of your secret." Then, many years ago, in a fit of anger, I did not even have time to figure out that the handwriting was not Vadik in the note. But it was too late - the flywheel of the "public scandal" was spinning. The note went along the rows, causing Homeric laughter from the "leaders" of the class - Vitya Chernysheva and Boris Arsenyev; Well, then, as usual, the "chain reaction" went on - soon the whole class was already aware of this incident. Even now, decades later, I do not know for sure who was, after all, the author of this scandalous note, but the obvious resentment for me of Lena Mitereva and her condemning gaze, which occasionally afterwards I caught on myself for a long time , More and more often make me think about the fact that it was this "unknown" author! In general, I "lopuhnulsya" with a beautiful sex once again.

However, the whole story with the note aroused the genuine interest of the male half of our class to the brave girl - "emancipse", and for four youngsters became a kind of detonator of a powerful "hormonal explosion" that drew them, as the well-known glamorous pimp, Petya Listerman, would say The last and decisive battle for "shaggy gold." In this "quartet of courageous", as usual, leaders were immediately outlined (Sergei Novikov) and outspoken "outsiders" (Igor Kupriyanov). And even then, Igor did not have the slightest chance of winning in this frenzied "obstacle race". It was an ugly young man with a pock-marked face; As he himself put it, the son of simple "menes" (junior research associates in the laboratory of the metallurgical plant in Temirtau), constantly complaining about the poverty and everyday problems of his large family. In addition, Kupriyanov's socks exuded such an "ambre" that only added additional unpleasant strokes to his already unattractive image. By the way, the latter circumstance played a fatal role in the fact that Igor could not get accustomed to our VIA (vocal-instrumental ensemble), where he longed to be a guitarist - we were able to withstand just one rehearsal his unique "ambre".

It was truly brilliant and at the same time adventurous idea of ​​Sergei Novikov - to create an ensemble with people, practically (except for my meager piano skills) not able to play musical instruments, to perform with the ensemble at a school evening, make a splash and conquer, finally , The heart of the young beauty Lena Metereva. The backbone of this musical "gang", as usual, was I (keyboards), Sergei Novikov (bass guitar) and Misha Petrov (drums). But these "brand" musical instruments, of course, deserve a separate story.

With great difficulty I managed to "untwist" my mother on a miniature keyboard instrument "Faemi", from which only for 70 rubles of magic sounds, of course, did not have to wait, but when I put it on a stool under our family piano "Petrof" and tried With all the foolish clatter on the two keyboards at the same time, the view was just as good (at least then it seemed to me so) than the best organist of the world, John the Lord. Sergei in the "folding", we acquired the last squeak of the then fashion - pickup and timbre - a block for the guitar. Removing superfluous strings on the usual Soviet "wooden", with the help of a timbre - block we managed to achieve the sound of an almost real bass guitar. Pope Novikova is a national craftsman, having conjured with a soldering iron over an old bus loudspeaker, according to our flaming order and to "joy" my neighbors in the house from the bottom "piled" us a miracle - an amplifier of 10 watts, equipped with a similar mixer console with inputs for several instruments and Sound speakers. But with the drums there were unforeseen problems. It turned out that this, in general, the most necessary tool in the variety ensemble, is also the most expensive one. Entering the store of musical instruments, we were shocked at the cost of Amati shock equipment - two and a half thousand rubles with an average salary of an engineer of that time of 120 rubles. It is clear that there could be no question of buying an installation or even something remotely resembling it. The solution to the problem came, as always, unexpectedly. One day I was caught in the corridor by the recess of our school's Komsomol - the ugly 30-year-old German Isolda, who asked me to help her remove all unnecessary trash from the pioneer room. As soon as I crossed the threshold of this room, I realized that Luck itself was hurrying to our hands - it turned out that we had to write off a dozen of the pioneer drums, from which it was quite possible to choose worthy and more or less whole copies. After the lessons, Misha and I carried all this "treasure" to our main musical base - to my apartment, where I carefully selected the most suitable drums in tone, timbre and coloring. After Borya Morozov donated an old can of white enamel from his garage with a "lordly shoulder" from his garage (though, at one of the last rehearsals, this exclusive jar exploded under the pressure of the accumulated gases, pouring on Mishani's face and clothes with paint, So he looked very pale), which produced such a marvelous sound that it became Misha's most favorite percussion instrument in his probably exotic percussion band in the world, the process of manning the drum set could be considered complete.

And finally, in one of the autumn days of 1979, all this splendor burst into all its "natural" power, "stretching" after a long sound "abstinence", Niagara Falls suddenly collapsing on the "happy" tenants of my house (good, father in it Time already served in Khabarovsk, and my mother worked almost daily until 22 hours). Soon after the tsunami began, a frightened neighbor from the bottom of the house, twenty-year-old pretty Lusya Frolov, came running to me, but the "old" seducer Seryozha Novikov quickly enchanted her and calmed him, promising that torture "music box" would last only once a week and not More than 4 hours. On that and decided, and Luce in the course of time even liked listening to our rehearsals. But now the most important thing was to come up with a name for our group. The "old" hooligan and inventor Sergei Novikov offered an outrageous, in the Western manner, the screaming title of "Mоdis Liplis", which in translation from the Tabarar language meant "Moody stuck together". It is well known that "as a ship you will call, so the ship will sail." To sail into the history of world rock music by "sticking mud", of course, was not very desirable, so we came up with another, more academic, although slightly napthalline-tied "Passage". If only we knew then, what kind of future our musical "gang" was predicted by this name! Indeed, the "passage", and even what, did not take long to wait.

Once our informal team leader, as they would say now, the creative director of the art group "Passage" Sergei Novikov came up with the brilliant idea - to perform at a school party, a concert timed to a meeting of graduates of the 8th grade. The fact is that in the ninth grade, we with Misha Petrov and three other boys, practically, remained in "proud" solitude among the girls of the 9th grade: the majority of the guys went to vocational schools and technical schools, Novikov and Kupriyanov were transferred to the elite school №3 with Physico-mathematical bias, and Lena Mitereva and another girl Larissa Migranova - in the Karaganda musical school. Teachers of our school decided to arrange a meeting of alumni "a la nostalgia", which was planned to invite a musical team from our sponsor organization "Autopark No. 9" "Songs of the Far-Shoulder", which Novikov, in his characteristic Bernese manner, immediately dubbed "Song Dolbo ... Ba ". We decided to use this circumstance. The chefs had equipment that was excellent for that time, in which we could show our "uncommon" talent and "outstanding" musical abilities in full blaze. And in order to give this event a greater importance and officiality, Seryozha decided before the beginning of the speech to address a fiery speech to our former classmates and devote this "epoch-making" speech to them. On the advice of the collective, from our, quite frankly speaking, quite small repertoire, we selected only two suitable works: the famous song of the rock group "Animals" "House of the Rising Sun", the Russian text for which was written by Novikov, and the instrumental play of the French group "Space "From the 1978 album. The evening was held on Friday October 13, 1980 - I will remember this "Friday the 13th" for the rest of my life! From the very beginning, things did not go very well for us.

First, according to a strange tradition in Kazakhstan, all boys of pre-conscription age in the tenth grade of the military enlistment office forced them to shave in those years. As a result, Misha Petrov and I, with our bare skulls on the eve of this sacred evening, looked like some kind of humanoids or Hare Krishnas waiting for the arrival of the long-awaited God of Krishna, which, of course, did not add any attraction to our still very young musical image. But this fate successfully escaped Sergei Novikov, since his elite physics and mathematics school did not allow the military commissariat to produce such executions over his expensive pets.

Secondly, on the day of his speech, Serezha caught a severe cold, having earned a sore throat and completely lost his voice. He ran into my house in a panic in the morning and screeched in a nasty voice: "Seryoga, do you have eucalyptus?" Mom was still at home and gave him a gum solution for eucalyptus. "You know that we have one more" bummer "- Misha went to hockey competitions today, - struck me one more blow" below the belt "Seryozha .- So we, with the same, remained without the drums!" "Serge, it all comes down to canceling the speech," I summed up grimly the current state of affairs. "That's really shit, we'll still perform, we can not lose that chance to be heard. Moreover, yesterday I called Lena Mitereva and invited her and Larisa Migranova to our performance! "Well, now there was nowhere to retreat. Taking into account the current situation, we decided to play "Space", and the drummer from the chef's team would ask us to accompany us on the drums.

With a heavy heart, like Golgotha, we walked with Serge in a stuffy, crowded gymnasium of the 47th school in which, in a few minutes, one of two things must happen: either world glory befallen us, or we'll be showered with rotten eggs, or else They will also give from the pure soul to the neck for arrogance. Seeing Lena Mitherev standing near the window with Larisa Migranova, we approached to say hello, after which Seryozha solemnly declared: "Soon we will play with the Count!" Lena looked at me with genuine interest. It was obvious unconcealed female curiosity, and in the blue eyes of the young prelestress the almost professional challenge was read: "Well, well, let's see what you, laps are capable of!" "Truckers" worked five or six songs under the approving roar of the crowd, wriggling a huge snake in the dance "Neck" - the forerunner of modern "hip-hop", when we ventured to approach the musicians and invited them to take a coffee break, giving us the tools. I went up to the red long-haired drummer and asked:

- You could not play the first song of the 1978 band "Space", or else the drummer got sick!

- Yes, it's not a question. Of course, I can! We also play this song. Do you have it in A-minor?

- Yes!

- Well, that's great! We will play. We took places according to the "combat calculation": I, respectively, for the two-row German body "Vermona"; Serezha - with a deathly pale face and a huge bass guitar on his shoulder behind the microphone stand. Yes, frankly, it was why it was pale. We saw professional tools of such a high class for the first time in our life! Even if I have the kind of body that has, in general, the same keyboard as my favorite Petrof, caused a quiet panic in the soul by the only kind of toggle switches and registers, what should we talk about Serezha, who is the first time in his life Picked up a bass guitar, the giant neck of which was almost 1.5 times longer than his "wooden" with a pickup. "I immediately realized that I will not play on it; I just did not know where and what notes to take on these huge frets! "- Novikov later told me, but I did not know that and started as a right musician, to play the introduction to the play in good faith, trying not to notice the huge crowd, curiously moving Practically close to me and my instrument. As I bowed my head above the organ, the view was absolutely surreal - the crowd could only see my bare skull and the keys that ran along the keys. The sound from the organ was absolutely squeaky and very quiet, which was also repeatedly reflected from the walls of the acoustically unsuitable sports hall, but I could no longer switch registers, since my hands were busy; Besides, I was afraid that as a result of my manipulations on an unfamiliar instrument, the picture with sound could become even worse. The second bar of my introduction was coming to an end, I was already on the third circle, and the promised sound support of the "virtuoso" bass guitar and drummer was not there. I threw a quick glance over Novikov's shoulder, who in confusion twisted and flipped the bass guitar tumblers, pretending that he was trying to make the sound louder. The drummer sat unperturbably behind the drum set and, judging by his detached mind, was not going to play along. "We do not play like that!" - he shouted to me through the increasing rumble of the crowd.

At such critical moments in my life, from somewhere deep in my soul, boiling lava raises anger at myself and the whole world, which makes me suddenly gather, completely blocks fear, makes me angry and stubborn. As if nothing had happened, as if experiencing the patience of the crowd, I began to play a very long and rather monotonous part of the "Space". In minutes, two of my "passages" the crowd began to lose patience: "Hey, you bald dick! We ... from there on x .., and then right now we're piling so that my mother does not mourn! "I, as if nothing had happened, continued to play coolly, and the crowd of such unheard-of audacity fell into some strange numbness and Suddenly quieted down - I think it was unlikely she was so fascinated by "marvelous" sounds, quietly flowing in the stale air of the sports hall from under my fingers wet with excitement! The respectable audience was simply stunned by such unprecedented impudence of a bald-headed dude! The last measures I finished in absolute grave silence, which did not bode well. Finally, I finished this long-suffering play, and we, as in a dream, descended from Serezha from the stage; The crowd at the same time quietly parted and menacingly let us through the system, to the exit from the hall. As we passed Lena and Larisa, I caught their frankly compassionate glances, and my ear caught scraps of a girl's conversation:

 What kind of play was it?

 Yes, in my opinion, something from the repertoire of "Space".

Coming out of the stuffy hall to the dank autumn street and having experienced a great deal of relief, Sergei and I sincerely rejoiced that they did not begin to devote their "enchanting show" to the graduates of the 8th "A" class. Then, in the schoolyard, in the midst of the fallen leaves, under the cold autumn rain, two comrades ardently vowed each other to remember forever this damned "Friday, the 13th!" Yes, we had to drink this bitter cup of defeat to the full, and, nevertheless, I am grateful to Ra for this my first "baptism of fire". How can you not remember the great prophet Zarathushtra: "Everything that did not kill us today, tomorrow will do more!"

However, this incident made us fundamentally reconsider our attitude to music.

First, we decided to completely abandon public speaking. It became absolutely clear that it was impossible to play well on foreign, completely unfamiliar instruments, but I did not want to play badly.

Secondly, we decided to work on recording to fix and save for ourselves and "grateful descendants" all our musical exercises. Thirdly, we took a rather bold decision to record only "large formats" - large genre works such as rock operas or musicals. I must say that 1980 was very interesting in terms of musical discoveries. Just this year, because of the Iron Curtain, finally, the cult opera of Andrew Lloyd Webber, "Jesus Christ the Superstar", broke out of England in the USSR from us in 1970. Under the clear impression of this brilliant musical work, Alexei Rybnikov wrote his first rock opera "The Star and Death of Joaquin Murietta" in 1980 about the fate of the famous Chilean bandit, which was successfully staged by director Mark Zakharov in the Lenin Komsomol Theater - Lenkom. And, finally, in the same year, the iconic English band Pink Floyd, playing the famous psychedelic rock, hit the world with its most powerful epochal work - the album "The Wall", in which, in an absolutely surrealistic light that turns the "Wall" into almost The biblical parable, in front of the enchanted listener there is a horrifying panorama of the life of a modern Man, horrified by his hopelessness.

Surprisingly, in only six months, after listening to the stupidity of all this brilliant music, we managed to write two major musical "canvases" - a musical "The Happy Life of the Golden Klondike" based on works by Jack London and the rock opera "Jimmy the schizophrenic "- the piercing story of an American teacher - a hippie who accidentally killed a policeman and was executed in an electric chair, written under the sheer impression of Pinkfloed's" Wall "and" American tragedy "by Theodore Dreiser (genius described in Oman fate Clyde Griffiths executed electrocuted). Of course, most of the musical material was borrowed from famous rock operas, but there were also original findings, for which I am still not ashamed. I, for one, am very proud of my finale in "The Happy Life of the Golden Klondike" - in fact until this moment I have never been very fond of poetry and much more writing:

"Yes, that Klondike showed us his predatory grin,

His face is ugly like death.

Here a person loses the meaning of life,

Is he a crown of nature? No!