Adel Khairov. ticket home. My precious Haer

"GRATEFUL" PAUL APPEARED...

In love with military parades, preferring the drumbeat of all music, and the smell of gunpowder of all incense, Paul I arrived in Kazan in 1798 with the aim of inspecting the troops of the Orenburg military inspection, which included units located in Kazan, Ufa, Perm, and also in the Orenburg provinces. Paul's retinue was grandiose; they say the cortege included up to 400 horses, and the royal procession stretched for a hundred meters!

They say that when Pavel rode in a ceremonial carriage through the Spassky Gate into the Kremlin, and the grenadiers fired all their muskets, the horses rushed in fear and carried the emperor to the Tainitskaya Tower, from where they took him out! I had to return again. In the Annunciation Cathedral, he venerated the holy icons, and then left for the apartment of Major General Alexei Letsky prepared for him (Lyadsky Street and Garden in his honor!).

By his order, the emperor was given a modest mansion “soldier-style”: a two-story wooden mansion made of freshly planed pine on the very outskirts of the city near the Arskoe field (the Actor’s House is located approximately here). He got up with the roosters and doused himself with spring water brought specially for this purpose. For breakfast, he demanded the same thing that was served to the soldiers. And they served it! A dozen quail eggs, a circle of Livland cheese, a French roll and coffee with lemon. After which he went out to the shelves, examined the nearby rows, and looked at the rest through a telescope. This happened in dead silence for half an hour. Having spotted the unfortunate victim, he ordered her to be flogged in front of the line, sometimes he himself assaulted him. Paul I was irritated, first of all, by his “unregulated” facial expression, grin, cough... After the drill, shooting, bayonet attack and hand-to-hand combat, the showdown was in full swing. Offending officers lined up in one line, soldiers in another. In Kazan, two officers of the Ufa battalion “for bestial drunkenness” had to move to the next line.

For the sake of objectivity, let's say that he loved to reward. According to the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Lev Engelhardt, after the end of the exercises, Paul I granted Colonel Langeron the Order of St. Anne, 2nd degree, and he called me to him and ordered me to kneel, after which he took his sword out of its sheath, hit the epaulettes three times and granted it.”

As local historian Nikolai Zagoskin reports, all these three days in the evenings near the house where the emperor was staying, folk festivities took place in the gardens. Representatives of the nobility, merchants and Islam were invited to the house by special summons from the court. They presented Pavel with everything that the Kazan land was rich in: morocco boots and slippers, a hunting bag and cartridge belt, a fox hat in the Bashkir style, a cloth cap, and fragrant soap of seven scents...

On the morning of the last day, Pavel participated in the foundation stone of the Cathedral of the Bogoroditsky Monastery. At the end of the celebrations, Pavel Petrovich was blessed with the icon of the Kazan Mother of God and, accompanied by his sons and retinue, headed to the banks of the Volga. From here on a longboat he crossed to Verkhny Uslon, from where he proceeded to St. Petersburg.

A native of our region, the poet Gabriel Derzhavin, expressed his feelings about Paul I’s visit to Kazan:

Sound, oh harp, you tell me everything about Kazan:
Sound like Paul appeared in her with grace;
Good news about our side is dear to us,
And the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to us...

SOLDIER STANDARDS

Today there is a lot of talk about the health of conscripts, or rather the lack thereof. They looked kind of skinny, a little small, in a word - not in good condition! It seems that all the large fish in the pond were caught, only fry and tadpoles remained...

It is interesting that under Peter I, recruits with a height of no less than 170 cm were taken into the army (we are not talking about the grenadiers of elite regiments), while in France they were content with 160 cm, and in Germany with 156 cm.
The health of a young man, first of all, determined his appearance - the guy had to have “the correct relationship of the body to the limbs, a healthy complexion and clear eyes,” as well as strong teeth that could “break turnips” (to the enemy, probably?). He also had to have “skin without spots or blisters, red lips, a pink tongue, a sonorous voice, a small belly.”
But they often checked the new recruit in the traditional way: they poured a jug of mash (ten to twelve degrees) and then observed...

In Kazan, the distribution of recruits to regiments took place near the walls of the Kremlin. A delegation came from each regiment to select soldiers. Tall brown-haired men with regular noses went to the Preobrazhensky regiment, blondes to the Izmailovsky regiment, red-haired men exclusively went to the Moscow regiment (people called them “fried crayfish”), tall brunettes with a slender figure to the cuirassier regiments, with mustaches to the hussar regiments, and with a beard to the cuirassier regiments. to the “monogram” companies of the guards regiments, where they carried heavy horsetails, banners and regimental order regalia in parades. Giants with broad chests were taken into the guards naval crew. And all this happened without any introductory conversation, purely by eye! At the same time, each recruit was tapped on the shoulder, poked in the stomach, touched by the nose, put fingers in his mouth, pulled down his eyelids and even... his pants.

On holidays, soldiers were taken to church in formation, where they stood in ranks. Each guards regiment had its own favorite church. There everything was done on command: “on your knees!”, “pray!” (at the same time the names of the saints were called) “stand up!” etc. According to a similar scheme, visits to brothels took place; 40 kopecks per month were allocated from the treasury for this bad deed for each soldier, and officially this action was called the “day of relief”! Later they invented bromine...

A deep imprint on the appearance of pre-revolutionary Kazan, its life and way of life was left by the fact that the Kargapol Dragoon Regiment was stationed in the city (nowadays a tank school is located in “these apartments”), and there were also many military institutions. The girls must have been thrilled, but the dads must have been speechless!

LOVE AND SPITSRUTENS

The story "After the Ball" is based on a plot from the life of Leo Tolstoy's brother Sergei. Varenka B., the heroine of the story, was copied by him from the Kazan beauty Khvoshchinskaya, with whom, as a Kazan student, Sergei was head over heels in love. This is what he said (or slandered?) about himself:

“I was a very cheerful and lively fellow, and also rich. I had a dashing pacer, I rode from the mountains, with young ladies in Russian Switzerland (now Gorky Park), recklessly caroused with my comrades. My main pleasure was evenings and balls. Often My brother kept me company, a great hunter of all kinds of fun...”

Before the revolution, the Assembly of the Nobility was located in the building of the Kazan City Hall on Freedom Square. In the luxurious hall, where a cast-iron staircase with two bronze Chinese lamps on the sides leads, balls were given on holidays. It was here that the hero of the story, hiding behind a column, observed the action of the future textbook story:

“It was clear that he had once danced beautifully, but now he was overweight, and his legs were no longer elastic enough for those beautiful and fast steps that he tried to make. But he still deftly walked two circles. When did he, quickly spreading his legs, he brought them together again and, although somewhat heavily, fell on one knee, and she, smiling and straightening her skirt, which he had caught, smoothly walked around him, everyone applauded loudly..."

Papa Varenki B. was “copied” from the head of the Kazan garrison, Andrei Petrovich Koreysha. During executions, he “constantly encouraged the soldiers to beat the criminals harder, to the bone!” So, in 1846, he pinned privates Bykov and Chaikin to death - for AWOL.

Leo Tolstoy could not have been unaware of this kind of fanaticism - they were driven “through the gauntlet” right under the windows of the Kiselevsky house, in which the Tolstoy brothers lived with their aunt (at the site of the execution there is now a Tolstoy park). By the way, the colonel himself lived nearby - his house stood on the very spot where the main building of the Technological University is now.

“When I went out into the field where their house was, I saw at the end of it, in the direction of the walk, something large, black, and I heard the sounds of a flute and drum coming from there. I was singing all the time in my soul, and occasionally I heard the motif of a mazurka But it was some other, hard, bad music. And I saw how he, with his hand in a suede glove, hit the frightened, short, weak soldier in the face because he did not lower his stick hard enough on the red back of the Tatar ... "

I must say that this punishment did not seem somehow wild at that time. Particularly sensitive ones, of course, were indignant, saying, “in Europe, Monsieur Guillotin invented a cunning machine a long time ago, and we, Asians, are still treating our citizens in a painfully ugly manner, who deserved a better fate! Even those same Tatars...”

But after the release of the story “After the Ball,” the Military Department issued a Recommendation to senior officers: “When carrying out disciplinary executions among their subordinates, demand the presence of a regimental doctor to provide assistance on the spot, thereby preventing the death of the person punished.” It worked!

TO GIVE THE HONOR TO THE YOUNG ONE!

After the revolution, when a hospital was located within the walls of a luxurious mansion (now the Fine Arts Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan is located here), stucco was removed from the ceilings, pound chandeliers were removed, in a word, they declared war on luxury, which once surrounded the owner of the house, General Sandetsky, commander of the Kazan troops districts.
The general himself was an ascetic by nature. It was rumored among the officers that he shunned luxury, contemptuously called civilians “shtafirks,” ate rough camp grub and slept 4 hours a day - under a rough overcoat, like Napoleon!

Rumors are rumors, but it is known for certain that the general was a passionate collector of weapons and portraits of Russian emperors, was known as an admirer of Alexander Suvorov and a monarchist to the core. Only once did he change his Spartan habits. General Sandetsky gave a magnificent reception to Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov. The refectory table occupied three halls. French champagne shot into candelabra from small gun carriages. Flowers hung from hanging bandolier bags - lyadunki...
Of the numerous dishes, we will mention only outlandish ones: chops called “Cannon fodder” and baked partridge, sarcastically called “General Kuropatkin,” apparently because this general surrendered Port Arthur to the Japanese!

After romances and mazurkas, a present was made to the Grand Duke: “A heraldic shield a yard high, depicting the attributes of royal dignity, assembled from the wings of beetles and butterflies living in the Kazan province.”

God did not give the general a son, and then he dressed his only daughter in the uniform of the Corps of Pages: in a uniform with transverse braid, with a white sword belt and a German-style helmet with a gilded cone. Showing strange love, the general taught the girl to take a step in the echoing halls of the palace, to hold a “frunt” and, scaring the household, to shout: “I wish you good health, Your Excellency!”

Cavalry maiden to horror maman played with a real saber and frightened governesses with dueling pistols.
In old newspaper files I found two “greetings” from the general:

From the Order to the troops of the Kazan Garrison dated February 12, 1907.

“On the streets of the city I meet lower ranks dressed differently: some wear uniforms, others wear saddle-back overcoats. The latter uniform has not been established.
I suggest strictly observing the main uniformity in the form of clothing. The commandant must each time ask for my instructions about changes in clothing and strictly follow Art. 28 of the Charter of the Garrison Service. Gentlemen officers wear their greatcoats wide open. Don't allow this!
Lower ranks are not allowed to walk in gardens, along boulevards and in places of public festivities.
(In the Derzhavinsky Garden, which was laid out on the site of the current M. Jalil Opera House, at the entrance there was a sign: “Entry for soldiers, gypsies and citizens with dogs is prohibited!” - author’s note).
Do not fire lower ranks to the city unless absolutely necessary. Make sure that in their barracks they find everything they need both for service and for rest.
On the day of my arrival in Kazan, I met several lower ranks even at the station, among the crowd, who were also not dressed in uniform. Nobody thought about removing them from here! In the future, those who are encountered not dressed in accordance with the Charter will be transferred to the troops, and fines will be imposed on the officers. The lower ranks pay honor sluggishly, not bravely. Achieve corrections as soon as possible. Those who cannot salute should not be put on leave."
“On the night of March 4, 1917, a company of soldiers led by Lieutenant Kolchin arrested the commander of the Kazan District troops, General Sandetsky, and took him to the guardhouse.”

Farewell, my general!

Adel Khairov

Journalist Adel Khairov about who the “creative class” of Kazan was and did in Soviet times

The country always needs strong guys who are ready to defend their homeland, work in factories, and build cities. It has always been this way and it will always be so. And what should we take from the puny hippies, from the creative dissidents, from those who oppose themselves to this society? How Kazan informals lived in the USSR and whether it was possible to feel free in Soviet society, journalist Adel Khairov recalls and reflects on this in Realnoe Vremya.

Walk past in your events!

I never joined the Komsomol. Immediately he somehow opposed himself to the society of the “correct and obedient”. There were no ideological differences, it just became boring. I wanted to live differently, more interestingly, not like everyone else. Subsequently, when I found a poem by the egofuturist Igor Severyanin, which was in tune with my views, it became programmatic for me.

I despise calm, sad, light and strict
People without talent: backward, flat, darkly stubborn.
My way is not their way.
My idols are not in crowded churches.

Why love them, so alien to me? Why kill them?!
They are so pathetic, so primitive and so colorless.
Walk past in your events, -
I am unquestionable: you are unanswerable.

I experienced the “pernicious” trend of the West in 1973. A long-haired Beatles fan named Alyosha lived in our yard, and he once invited me into his closet, where he turned on a tube tape recorder. The reddish film on the reel rustled and the awesome hit “Obladi oblada” began to sound. That day I heard the Beatles for the first time and immediately fell in love with them. And I was 10 years old.

My precious Haer

I wrote a lot about that time and that Kazan. For example, “Hair”.

Hair

“Immediately after our class was accepted into the pioneers with oaths and drumming at the monument to Musa Jalil, my friend and I gave up. We tied our brand new ties to the fence of Black Lake and went to wander around the city, alternately licking one popsicle for which we scraped together 22 kopecks.

Photo ypq.livejournal.com

I never joined the Komsomol. In my second year at university, I grew my hair long, my bangs reached my chin, and my mane reached the place where a poet should have wings. I bought a worn denim jacket at Sorochka straight from the shoulder of a visiting Latvian for 50 re (this is with a stipa of 30 rubles). , and went to classes, catching sympathetic glances from the teachers.

Kazan hippies accepted me into their shaggy flock and began to respectfully call me Haer, that is, Hairy. During the winter session, I started having problems passing the “Scientific Communism” test. After the tenth visit, one kind teacher at the department explained the reason for my failures with a short: “Get a haircut!”

He didn’t cut his hair; moreover, in retaliation for a failed test, together with unrecognized poets and artists, he painted a “dissident” newspaper overnight on seven Whatman papers called “Bells of the Cathedral of Senses,” which we secretly hung on the tenth floor of the philology department. It only hung there for about fifteen minutes, but many people managed to remember it.

Well, then there was the military registration and enlistment office. The stupid machine at the recruiting station painfully tore off my hair, leaving tufts of mohawks. I watched indifferently as my luxurious hair was trampled by the tarpaulin.

Although I was lucky with the army. I was sent to Ukraine to the old barracks of Catherine’s times, where the 2nd Life Hussar Pavlograd Regiment of Emperor Alexander III was stationed. The characters from Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” Nikolai Rostov and captain Vasily Denisov “served” in the same glorious regiment. The prototype of Denisov was the legendary Denis Davydov. The hero of the jokes, Lieutenant Rzhevsky, was also listed in the Pavlograd “squadron of flying hussars.” This greatly warmed my lonely soul.

I was given a large drum and a mallet, along with a dress uniform with braid and white gloves. I had never played a drum or any other musical instrument in my life, so at first his calf skin was spattered with blood from my thumb. I broke everything and broke my nail on the copper rim.”

Lyadsky Garden. Photo kazan-journal.ru

They asked for money, but cheerfully, without humiliating themselves

The favorite gathering place for Kazan hippies (they called themselves pacificists) was the Lyadskaya kindergarten. When, having drunk beer and become bolder, they released the hair hidden in their collar, the Kazan kindergarten began to resemble a corner of old Europe. Their very appearance was already a protest against the scoop. The most respected was the “elderly” forty-year-old informal Uncle, he spoke quietly and in a floating voice, but everyone became quiet. He spoke some nonsense, but it was perceived as a wise saying. In this company was my classmate Vadim Ivanov, nicknamed Milk Brother. How did they spend their time? They smoked weed on the sly and drank cheap port openly. In the morning they were engaged in asking (begging for money on the streets) and did it not humiliating themselves, but playfully, as if competing with each other, inventing some incredible stories for passers-by. Most often they portrayed lost Estonians and spoke with an accent. In the spring they began migrating across the country; in every major city they had safe houses where they could spend the night, eat, and wash their precious hair.

Tallinn was the center of gravity for all Soviet hippies. This is a city where there was no bullshit, where you could, without hiding, listen to prohibited records right on the bench, sing with a guitar and let your hair down.

Yes, of course, the authorities tried to somehow bring these bunch of people to their senses. After all, the country needed strong guys who were ready to defend their homeland, work in factories, build cities, and start families. This is still the case. What can a hippie with a pacifist badge on his chest do? Nothing.

Photo vk.com/kazanhistory

We returned the futurists to the people

I just got married. Because of the room, I got a job as a teacher in a workers' dorm. He held cultural events there. He invited lecturers from the temperance society, the skin and venous dispensary, writers, etc. At Tatar discos he played “Jethro Tull,” “Smoky,” and “Secret Service.” There was a red corner where I put the tincture in a milk can. He invited his friends to drink.

Hiding from the working class behind curtains and closets, we spent evenings of egofuturism. Celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Northerner. There they organized a society to protect ancient houses of Kazan from destruction called “Veterans of the Battle of Borodino.” They stole a table from the canteen for collecting signatures, which they took with them on the tram. Then, together with Batulla’s son from his first marriage (nickname Pankish), I founded the “Office of Social Modernism”. We organized poetry evenings by candlelight in Lobachevka and the Actor's House. I read poetry with a guitar. I was wearing a burgundy bow tie and white gloves, which I bought in an antique store in Kharkov. The people then greedily reached out to the “new” art. Many heard Severyanin, Kruchenykh, Burliuk, etc. for the first time. I remember my grandson brought his old grandmother to the evening. After the concert she came up to thank me. She admitted that she attended that famous evening of Mayakovsky, Burliuk and Severyanin at the Kazan Noble Assembly, everyone whistled, and she brought them a bouquet. Her name was Rosemary Shamova. She invited me over. And when I called, they told me: “She died.” Alas, I didn’t have time...

Photo vk.com/kazanhistory

The Ministry of Culture spoiled the mood

But our most striking action took place at the Youth Theater at the premiere of “Dragon” (dir. B. Tseitlin). Director Ovchinnikov came to us and offered to organize an exhibition in the hall. We even hung pictures on the ceiling. There were such installations. For example: hockey sticks with an angle and pink socks on them, it was called “Flamingo”. A corner of the room with torn wallpaper (I stole two rolls from home), broken furniture and broken dishes. It was called “Ernest's Brief Happiness,” etc. We brought a Chord player and played jazz. Handwritten collections of poems and short stories, decorated with their own drawings, were distributed free of charge. People came to this exhibition for two weeks, starting at ten in the morning. Young people, adults, grandmothers brought their grandchildren. It was new and fresh then. What Ilgizar Khasanov (artist, founder of the Smena contemporary art center) is doing now is approx. ed.) can already be called graying modernism. And that year it was spring outside and in our souls too. Second thaw!

The Ministry of Culture spoiled our mood a little. They sent some commission and they “asked” to remove several works. On one, the canvas was cut in the middle, the edge of a red flag was sticking out, and they thought it was a vagina. In another picture, a map of Africa was drawn on a round ass like a bald head - they imagined that this was an allusion to Gorbachev’s birthmark, etc. I think, if you ask around, many Kazan residents will remember our exhibition. The guest book was full. But the director took her. The last one was an exhibition in the editorial office of the Leninets newspaper. Some professor came who recognized herself among the nudes in the photo collage “Orgy with an Identical Bibliophile,” and created a scandal. We were thrashed.

You can spend hours reminiscing about your youth, transporting yourself back to the USSR. We had a good time there. Modern youth imagine life in the Soviet Union to be approximately the same as it is now in North Korea. I, born in the USSR, always felt like a free person and did everything that I considered necessary to do. On the contrary, I see that today’s young people have become more fearful and constrained. First of all, in creativity. Although there seems to be democracy in the yard?! Apparently there's something else going on here...

Adel Khairov

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Adel Khairov
White flowers

At the end of January, Alexander Mizintsev was sent on vacation to finish off the remaining two weeks from last year. Workdays went on without him, and he remained on the sidelines. I thought about retirement, which is four years away. Not close, but not far either!

I wandered around the apartment, ate a stale piece of cake, and washed it down with stale champagne. I wanted to finish smoking a Cuban cigar, but it stank. Then Mizintsev opened the shutters, took a rubber expander and began to stretch. The third time the sweet fingers slipped and the rubber expander cracked his ear. I immediately remembered how, at the dacha in Pechischi, his father slapped him in the ear for carrot sprouts that had been pulled out instead of weeds. The ear then grew like Cheburashka's. Sasha was about seven years old, and a year later her parents divorced.

Mizintsev did not see his father for probably twelve years after that chance meeting on Bauman, when they exchanged addresses. My father lived at the other end of Kazan on Marshal Ryumin Avenue with his third wife. It's his birthday in January. The old man is already over eighty. The son did not remember exactly how much. I searched for a long time for a piece of paper with an address. I took a bottle of Ararat and a box of chocolates left over from the New Year and went.

I got out of the subway car and, carried away by the crowd, found myself in a labyrinth of an underground passage. It smelled like shawarma and sewage. People flowed around him, lost, with a piece of paper in their hands. I read the signs, tried to ask the rushing passers-by, but the question hung uncaught in the air. I got out at random. Not there. He dived down again. On the piece of paper there was a note: “Nearby is the Family Store.” When I came out, I saw the neon letters of the store on the house, but the house was on the opposite side. I went down into the dungeon again, drawing a straight line. But in the transition the line broke, and he left the glass pavilion in the wrong direction. Made a few more attempts. Past! I got tired and decided to drink beer in an underground cafe. He handed the waitress a piece of paper with the address. She, taking out her headphones, began to explain loudly, as if to a deaf person: “You need to go down under the gallery, then go up the escalator, turn right there and go out to the shopping rows, from there...” Mizintsev looked fascinated at the sparkling ball on the saucer of her white tongue, nodded, but I didn’t listen anymore. I decided to give up and go home. So we never met!

(story)

The last snowfall hung on threads from the black sky. Vakif looked out the window with fascination, like a child. You can’t see the Vykhino metro station, you can only hear the tired knocking of the trains, slowing down just before Moscow.

The frame, hardened over the winter, gave way with difficulty, and the smoke-filled room became cold with freshness. Empty bottles whistled. This week I celebrated my first retirement, which almost became my last. The little engine ran and ran in circles and suddenly decided to jump out of his chest.

Large snowflakes hovered near the unshaven cheeks and looked at them. One sat on the nose and melted. He caught them with his palm - several of them at once. He squeezed and slowly, like a magician, began to straighten his fingers. Empty, wet place!

I remembered how my grandmother and her sisters made dumplings. Throwing them, long-eared, out the window, inside the icy frame. Outside, the titmice were fussing and chattering with their beaks. The window quickly filled up, and then evening came in the kitchen.

Vakif heard the soporific tapping of a rolling pin on the board, which in Tatar is affectionately called uklau. Flour tickled my nose, and there was a pungent smell of minced meat and onions. A song began quietly, accompanied by a rolling pin, the slaps of white palms, a wooden spoon churning butter in a bowl, and the crackling of logs in a howling oven. It’s surprising that he never heard this song again, but half a century passed and someone put a record in his head. Vakif immediately moved to the kitchen in a wooden house in the Novo-Tatarskaya Sloboda to his favorite place - the threshold, from where it was good to watch how the sisters were cooking. He had just come running from the street, where he had been knocking fox caps off the fence with a stick, and then rolled head over heels from the roof of the barn into a snowdrift. Knitted mittens with candy canes on the wool whine next to him, felt boots float like samovar pipes. And a spring puddle flowed under it. He warms his red fists under his ass and sighs.

The first dumplings await him in a stainless steel bowl, grabbed by his grandmother from the ship on which they plopped down to Astrakhan. She plucks two green arrows from an onion sprouted in a glass jar and crumbles it into dumplings. The sour cream slides off the spoon and plops importantly into the bowl. So the first pie in the shape of a boat loaded with raspberries floats into his mouth. Belatedly, they slip a plate under it so that the juicy filling does not flow out. But she is already running between her fingers, onto her shirt, onto her knees. Sticky, sweetest.

Vakif swallowed his saliva. On the third day of quitting the binge, hunger woke up. He scraped pebbles of soy dumplings from the bottom of the freezer with a knife. I cut open the skinny packet of mayonnaise and scraped off the rest with a spoon. Covered with snow and therefore unpecked, he took the bread back from the feeder and threw it into grandma’s black frying pan to warm up. The kettle whined, the faucet hummed - and again the sisters’ singing was heard from the depths of the apartment. They didn’t try, they didn’t draw out notes in Georgian with thin voices, and there were no voices - only a drawn-out whisper, almost a prayer.

The next day, Vakif phoned his niece from Kazan. She had difficulty recognizing him. He asked about his son. It turned out that he lives in Mamadysh, he opened a boutique of fashionable rags, but it didn’t work out. Then I switched to vodka. He has a daughter, Alfinur. Alya, in short. He is already finishing school.

The niece willingly told the story. I was glad to see the prodigal uncle return to the arms of his relatives. Wakif liked that she spoke to him respectfully. Still a Muscovite!

He set about general cleaning. The bottles flew in a race and exploded at the end of the garbage chute. Vacuumed, glued wallpaper, washed all the laundry. He perked up. I found a stash - a small glass of vodka, already unscrewed the lid to pour it into the sink, but for some reason I changed my mind and threw it further away on the mezzanine.

With a stub of a pencil, on a piece of wallpaper, I scribbled a list of who should buy what gifts, based on age and gender. Withdrew savings from the savings book. In Moscow, he knew only one store - GUM. That's where I headed. On the way, I stopped at the Kazansky station and bought a compartment ticket for Saturday. He was in no hurry to put it in his pocket - he looked at it. How beautiful!

All hung with packages, like Santa Claus, he burst home. I wrote the names on the wrappers so as not to confuse them. I also bought myself a gift - two bottles of Armenian cognac. He had already forgotten when he drank cognac. So I decided to pamper myself. Now you can.

Vakif spent half his life underground. I was digging the subway at a rapid pace. He lived by reflexes: eat, smoke, go to the toilet. I didn't even think about women. He came to life only in a dream. At first there was a lot of sun, friendly girls in openwork spray, oars broke the bonds of water lilies, wet catfish pressed against the body. Then equipment began to rumble on the shore. They started digging the subway. The tunnel had no end, boots splashed through puddles, and a light bulb dangled somewhere in the distance. Water flowed from everywhere. The drops hit my ears like hammers. The foreman, handing him a water lily, said that the river had gone underground. Vakif burst into tears.

The faceless days flowed on. Only once at a construction site did an event occur that awakened him and made him think about his passing life. He saw bones sticking out of the clay in half-decayed boots with spurs. Nearby glittered a bone in a shoe with a glass buckle and the still thin bones of a child. The whole family!

On weekends there is a public bath and drinking. First culturally - in a pub, then uncultured - at home. Accepted - leaned back, accepted - leaned back. On Sunday I was already sleeping on the floor, covered with a mattress. On Monday I bravely died from a hangover. But I thought about fooling around for a year or two and returning to Kazan, but...

At first, he regularly sent money home, but when he started building a cooperative, everything began to go towards an apartment, repairs, furniture... He still called home, but then less and less. And it broke off.

When my grandmother died, I didn’t even go to the funeral, I just took a double dose. The dearest person has left. She was like a mother to him. But I wouldn’t have time even if I wanted to: among the Tatars they bury on the same day, and in winter the days are short.

...I arrived at the Kazansky station in advance. I settled down with my suitcase and bags in an empty cafe. I ordered a glass of beer and, after thinking a little, took more vodka. I also took a flask and a shortbread for the trip. “I’m going home, I haven’t been in a hundred years,” he said to the bartender. "Uzbek?" - he asked, checking the five thousandth for the light. “Tatar,” answered Vakif and did not look up from his glass for a long time, letting in a fresh stream that was not broken into hasty sips. When there was half an hour left before the train departed, I grabbed the bags and went to the platform.

Here the washed train shudders, its gray sides shiny. Car No. 13. The conductor in a cap shines a flashlight at the passport, then at the ticket, while talking on her mobile phone. Vakif squeezes into the carriage. Crumples the rug with his feet. There is no one in the compartment. Carefully puts things away. He takes out a tracksuit and slippers. He is looking for something in his down jacket. He takes a long sip and packs into his bottom bunk, pulling the sheet over his head. Next, a guy and a girl enter the compartment. They try not to make noise.

There are five minutes left before departure, and a plump woman is hurrying towards the carriage. An oriental scarf has slipped to one side, gray curls are covering his eyes, the cart is squealing, and a golden tooth is flashing predatorily.

From the platform you can see how she, crushing passengers, makes her way to her compartment near the toilet and, opening the door, says something loudly and says. The conductor heads towards her. He shakes Vakif by the shoulder, he looks at them in fear, like a child who is scolded by his adult aunts. The conductor helps him quickly get ready and almost pushes him out of the carriage. He is unbuttoned, with his hat pulled down askew, with slippers in his hand, blinking after the train has started moving. Fine snow from the roof cuts a sleepy face.

Vakif, swaying, wanders along the platform to the exit. The bags hit my legs. The wheel of the suitcase is jammed and it draws white zigzags on the black ice.

Vakif talks to himself: “How did you leave yesterday? Well, it can’t be yesterday... You fool... Your train left, he says.”

There is a hustle and bustle in the cafe - the station rabble is warming up. Someone cheerful hugged him like an old friend, but then apologized. The bartender blows a slanting stream into the glass and mockingly greets: “Welcome back, Tatar!” Vakif frowned. He hasn't woken up yet. It seems to him that he is traveling to Kazan under a snow sheet. The guy and the girl are whispering, and the fat woman is twisting the chicken's leg and sticking a gold tooth into the meat. Outside the window, Vekovka winks with lights. And the wheels, tapping, persistently, syllable by syllable, repeat the words of the Tatar song: “Kader-lab uster-gen, kader-lab uster-gen...”*

Tobacco smoke covers the table with a tablecloth. There is a noise in my ears. The glasses and salt and pepper shakers are shaking, as if in a dining car. He looks in his pockets for money to pay, but cannot find it. A crumpled ticket comes out and rustles. Vakif offers the Armenian at the next table at half price the pink iPhone he was bringing to his granddaughter, and lies:

I wanted to give it to my wife, but she and her lover are tumbling. Well, I hit them on the head with a rolling pin... One-on-one!

The Armenian rolls his eyes, but immediately begins to shake. His big mouth splashes like a slice of watermelon:

Joker, did you really want to make me laugh? And I'm an ass - I believed him!

They both laugh and start kissing. Soon women join them at the table. Vakif falls in love first with the thin one, then with the plump one. He is generous. Girlfriends tear ribbons and unwrap gifts. Scarlet poppies glow on Vakif’s cheeks. He is happy. He is still going to Kazan...

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* “Grew up in love and care” (tat.)

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Born and lives in Kazan. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of KSU. Worked in Kazan newspapers and magazines. Published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, magazines Day and Night (Krasnoyarsk), Literratura, Friendship of Peoples, New Youth, and October (Moscow). Winner of the “Russian Gulliver - 2015” award in the poet’s prose category.