Kremlin bride. Valeriy Zhiglov

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      Three Vertebrae of Fish

      It was a rainy and cold November day, and we, army conscripts, were gathered in a conscription point of a military commissariat in Almaty. Although our departure by train to the military service destination was scheduled for the next day, we were put into this sort of “settler” for the entire day.

      A senior officer presented an explanation: we should have enough time to rest after farewell. Therefore, neither food, no drinks are allowed for military service conscripts. Furthermore, during this day we were under military guard inside a closed room with double-level beds and only one toilet.

      The room was with low ceiling, the cigarette smoke was above our heads. All non-smokers, including me, could barely breath this thick cigarette smog. Our military shift mainly comprised military university graduates, and we all had to complete obligatory military service with military practice as army officers.

      After one day, we, hungry and besotted with the cigarette smoke, were put inside a train, and the train departed eastwards. The road was long, more than three days inside the train, during which nobody gave us any food. It was only the fourth day, when we arrived to the railway station Divizionnaya, which was near Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryat Autonomous Republic. It was here where I had to do my military service, one year in a military hospital.

      The hut barracks were former stables, and now they had enough space for around fifty soldiers of the military hospital personnel. Our main meal was pearl barley porridge served thrice a day, with a small exception: there was also potato soup with pasta, and tea with a piece of sugar, or starch drink, for lunch.

      Sometimes small pieces of meat or fish were added to this pearl barley porridge, which soldiers also called “tarpaulin”. Those pieces were so small that once I decided to count all vertebrae of fish in my dish of a solder. The piece of fish was less than one centimeter thick, and it comprised exactly three vertebrae of fish. It was then, when I decided to write a story with the title “Three Vertebrae of Fish”.

      One day, there was a funny situation during our nighttime guard duty. No need to remind that soldiers were always hungry, and any chance to fill empty stomachs with something eatable was used. It was the feeling of hunger, that brought two soldiers on guard duty into the dark room of soldiers’ kitchen, where they tapped a large metal barrel with the starch drink cooling down.

      They later told us that was the moment, when they were so happy, as if the barrel comprised priceless treasure. Without thinking twice, the soldiers took iron cups that were near, and took some warm starch drink and started drinking it. Suddenly, one of them paused drinking and asked another, what might it be that was crisping on teeth, maybe raisins?

      They decided to turn on light to resolve the mystery, and they were surprised to see quite an unpleasant picture. Brown cockroaches, myriad of them, were right on the wall of the barrel with the starch drink. Having reached the thin dry crust on the surface of the starch drink, cockroaches started their feast, while new cockroaches were trying to find unoccupied space for the same. However, there were too many of them, therefore, getting there was not easy for them.

      Soldiers interrupted their feast and mixed, with their iron cups, all this mass of cockroaches with the drink, and that was what crisped on teeth, in some way like boiled raisins would do. In darkness, they did not recognize the taste of cockroaches.

      Later, during army officer practice, I saw cockroaches again, in a buffet, on a cake in a showcase. I told the barmaid about those disgusting cockroaches, and she replied that she shall not even touch those disgusting cockroaches, and in fact she left everything the way it was!

      Although winter in Baikal region came quickly, and the air temperature was very cold, we still had to march in a column for breakfast, lunch and dinner, without winter clothes. A senior officer gave an explanation that was a measure against lice. Soon, all windows were covered with thick layer of nontransparent ice, and even water on the floor of the barracks became ice.

      The winter between 1973 and 1974 was specifically cold in those lands, the air temperature was below -56 degrees Celsius. For some reason, the military commandment in the region decided to make military exercises lasting for 5 days, to see how the great Soviet army deals with extraordinarily low air temperature. Around ten soldiers with freezing injuries delivered to the hospital for the second day of those exercises convinced the commandment to stop the exercises.

      One day, it became warmer outside, and the wind brought some snow. I came to a thermometer and saw the temperature of air was -43 degrees. It meant that within less than a day, the air temperature became 13 degrees higher. Therefore, although -43 degrees was still very cold, one would feel that it became warmer. After I resigned from army, I still, as an army officer, had to be at military exercises many times, but never again in my life did I experience the winter that was that cold and foodless.

      In April, when nobody already believed spring would ever come, the air temperature went up, and the hills got covered with nice flowers of ledum in May. That was the time, when radio stations started broadcasting the song about the region behind the lake of Baikal:

      Although there was the feeling that the military service was going to last forever, I was discharged from the army after obligatory service late autumn, and went home as a civil person. On my way home in a passenger car with reserved seats, together with other former soldiers, I was singing my favorite song about my beloved friend, accompanied by a guitar:

      White Sun of the Desert

      After obligatory military service in Soviet army, I began working in a research institute, where many WWII veterans were working. One of them was Andrei Rublev, a former reconnaissance officer.

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