Hills, being cut by ravines, from a distance seem like a set of loafs, and their color depends on seasons. Our season is summer when each ravine is a separate world, full of snakes and spiders. In fact, the ravine in our language is designated as yar so we have two different notions. A ravine is a sandy place, and an "ovrag" is a ravine overgrown with grass and trees.
For many years, people have been using yars as dumpsters. Even before, children loved to play war, running through these littered places and making toy weapons from sticks, wire and old belongings.
You know that when you have no weapon, you can shoot with your finger. Very simple way. Stretch your hand, stretch your index finger, and then, you need to use militaristic sounds.
"Tj!"
"J-j!"
"Ta-ta-ta!"
"Bam!"
"Cha, cha!"
"Wh!"
"BJ!"
The choice of weapon in such cases is a very important thing. You know, Soviet stores had always been full of guns. The simplest pistol cost 15 kopecks - red plastic, no trigger, no attributes. To simulate the sound of shooting, it was necessary to produce battle cries. The more advanced models had triggers and could click, and the kids really appreciated that.
Growing up, children began to do inventions. Popular models of weapons were made on the basis of a stick, an elastic band and a clothespin. Such a rifle was loaded with corn grain and fired at a distance of up to fifteen meters. The direct hit was painful. This fostered a fighting spirit. All brands of such weapons were single-shot, so each warrior was ready take more than one unit with him.
Slingshot shooting was a logical continuation of the previous line. As they got older, the students were fond of chemistry and made firecrackers, the chemical composition of which included magnesium and potassium permanganate.
There have never been great chemists on our street. Maybe I were? Yes, I learned how to get chlorine from fertilizers, being in the eighth grade, but all this was done for aesthetic reasons. Dreams, nothing more.
Let's talk about bicycles. That time, I myself stood for hours in the "Culttovari" (Culture Goods) store, staring, dreaming. I had my grandfather's old bicycle designed for adults. Few people liked the driving method "under the frame", so called "Pod Ramkoi". Many put up with this, but it was the wrong method of biking. With the "Zif" ramp bike at my disposal, I was at heaven nine and could take part in the so-called air battles.
OK, we emulated planes with bicycles. Imagine, that your bike is a fighter. You are a hero, Pokryshkin maybe, and you bike is LA-7 maybe, two machine guns, 1250 horsepower engine, speed 620 kilometers per hour. Your friend is a Yak-3, very maneuverable fighter. Going by the streets, we meet a group of hostile planes. BF-109, German planes.
"Hello, there! How"s life?"
"We wanted to go to the bread factory to beg for hot bred. But it"s closed."
Let"s play the war."
"OK. Which side are you on?"
"We want to be Soviets."
"Great. We are fascist. Do you want to use apples?"
"Yes, I do."
"OK. I will be throwing plumes. They are rockets."
"Planes in WWII had no rockets."
"OK, let it be a very heavy machine gun."
First, we got two pockets loaded with apples to throw them to the enemy. Second, there should have been bombers, and after a time one bomber joined us. It was two-men crew plane - Mozbruker brother, Sashka and Lioshka, blond boys. Sashka worked as a pilot and Lioshka, the foolish little fink, as a shooter.
"You"re the real Tu-2 plane," I said.
"We are heroes," Lioshka said firmly. His voice always sounded like the groan of a pink pig.
"Do you have medals."
"I am real Hero of the USSR."
"OK. Let"s fight."
We rode as devils ignoring obstacles, jumping over bordures and pits. I"ve just recalled that bordures were very dangerous. Both Mozbruker often stumbled upon them, and it ended with deafening whining. Lioshka had an ability to yell as a siren and people though he was tortured. On this occasion, I warned him:
"Watch out for the bordure."
To say the truth, Mozbruker were Germans by their father Kostya Mozbruker. Their parents divorced not long ago, but the mother, Love Mozbruker, now bearing the surname Sazanskaya, changed men like gloves. The brothers called them "fathers" or "Dyadyas" which meant Uncles. One Duadya = One Uncle. This was the subject of constant gossip.
Playing spies, were watched them sitting in bushes near their yard. The game assumed that we were monitoring the enemy headquarters. To say it honestly, it was worth it - the house of Mozbrukers was the real Fuhrer bunker. In addition, it was rumored that old man Verchenko, the grandfather of Lioshka and Sashka, served in the Gestapo in wartime.
Then, out dogfight went on. Doing circles around the DK (the House of Culture, bit municipal building), we shouted and laughed. In any case, La-7 were always better that BF-109, but the close fight was the most interesting adventure, and it was when, catching up with the enemy, you hit him with your front wheel. If you sent your adversary to the ground making him yelling, you triumphed. However, the bomber was brought down. Liosha flew parallel to the ground and met a tree."
"OO-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!"
He was always a master of loud howling.
Sasha Mozbruker howled less loudly, and it seemed that he was injured. He was a great simulator. Both of them were simulators.
"Our crew is killed," I said, "pilots couldn"t jump out with parachutes. They died the death of the brave. Glory to the Soviet heroes!"
* * *
In summer, we set out for trips, and the ravines were our magic places. As we played different role games, Mozbrukers came to the slopes to break bottles. It pissed us off, and sometimes we were ready to punish them. In 1985, we performed the Ku Klux Klan operation, specially to stop them doing this. Coming to the slopes, Sashka was filled with hopes for new horizons and new broken bottles. Yura the Pan sat in the bushes and wrote down everything what happened. He worked as a scout. Coming to my house, he reported on the situation.
"We have to punish him," I said.
Volodya the Bear has come.
"Let"s lure him into a trap."
"What will you offer to do?"
"Ku Klux Klan."
"Oh."
"We"" smear his face with pepper and put a hood on his head. It will serve him right."
We had suited the action to the word. Oh, the year of 1985 was the best of all. We continued to play agents. Volodya the Bear found a place on bottom of our ravine where we could smoke lard at the stake. Doing picnics, we were the happiest boys. It was beyond all.
Yes, we were great ravine explorers. We dreamed of finding the deepest, the darkest, and the Sand Yar was the first in our rating. We hoped that there were dinosaur bones there so we dug sand searching for different shells.
"I think they are ancient," concluded Gorokhov.
"I think not," I said.
"No! No! Look at them."
"OK."
"Have you read "The Black Light?"
"Certainly."
If you remember, there was a book where two fellows came into a ravine and found a spaceship. This apparatus lay in the sand for several billion years. It landed at a time when there were no even dinosaurs on earth. The guys found an audio recording and were amazed at the incredible story. As for us, we dreamed of something like that. The Sand Yar looked fit for having a space craft in its sand.
* * *
Autumn. Students go to school to sit their pants off, until holes, to throw their schoolbags to each over, depicting some athletes, playing the ape. A football game where an apple was besides ball was a common, standard thing for boys. Also, we often played ice hockey without ice, being like a swarm of mad subhuman examples. What was really the ice hockey without ice? Yes. It was popular.
Our sports equipment was different. For example, hockey sticks made of mops. Cans in a role of a hockey puck. Bags as bits or pins. Other types of sports. The seething youthful energy knew no bounds.
Now, imagine hummer throwers or even javelin throwers, their glory and greatness. Visiting dining room, student had been training in different aspects. At first, cereals throwing. Who is the best in it? Let"s clear it out. Well. You set you spoon on the brink of your plate and load some cereals into a dipper. The far end is a special device, a lever arm which forms a sort of throwing weapons.
"Get ready?"
"Sight 120!"
"Fire!"
You should hit the edge of the spoon with your palm. It flips. Moving by the energy of inertia, kasha is sent to flight. It comes as an echo of Gagarin"s performance in 1961. Eggs? No, no one could forget about them. Once they appeared on the table, an awful call was heard:
Embryos!
Immediately, the action unfolded with renewed vigor.
When boys and girls were running from their classes to the dining room, it"s was matter survival to grab a spoon or else you may stay hungry. All of the spoons lay in the big aluminum basin. When the first runner grabbed it, there came the second, the third and so on. Hand by hand, a crab"s competition. Whose grasp was stronger? Sooner or later, the cup was tumbled upside down. All spoons were on the table and part of them on the floor. One, who had no desire to run and snatch a spoon from someone else's hand, could remain without a spoon at all.
Some inventive students, of course, could bring the spoons with them. In a way, it was a rather unpopular decision because only a real kolkhoznik could do that. A student, being uncovered, could get many aliases. One boy got a nickname "The Spoon" in that manner. From time to time you could hear merry but offensive shouts:
"Hey, Spoon!"
"Come on, Spoon!"
"Give me the ball, Spoon!"
"Where is your spoon, Spoon?"
"Do you like eggs, Spoon?"
As for forks, they"ve often been used as swords. However, the diner time is short. The main battles have always been deployed on a football field.
Days went by. It grew colder. The hateful subjects were becoming harder. The teachers were armed, you know. A wooden pointer was a perfect thing for upbringing. One good hit on the head of a shouting hooligan, and everything is alright. The teacher of literature had a flair for mortification. Her ability to punish was above all other skills.
"Sergey! Look at me! What"s that?"
"Flies, he-he."
"Where did you get them?"
"I don"t know."
"But they are in the box!"
"I want to release them."
"Stop. Don"t do that."
"Sorry, Ludmila Ivanovna. It"s too late."
Being freed, the flies filled the classroom with terrible buzzing. Everybody laughed. The teacher chuckled angrily, took her eerie pointer, long and thick, and there was a blow of life. Pieces flew apart in all direction. Only think it over - she"s broken such a hard thing. V-Touch (the real name - Sergey) didn"t feel hurt. He laughed as a steed.
Students got more joyful closer to the winter, the time for strange inventors. One boy, whose name was Yura, tried to construct jet slags in 1984. Everybody remember his story. One snowy day he was able to drive as fast as 78 km per hour. That occasion took place on Gorka which was the slope of our traditional hill. On this basis, I have to describe our neighborhood. Our town is placed at the edge of a tableland which is the remnants of the ancient ocean, the Tetis. A man, who would arrive here for the first time, seeing from the top, could think that we live in a mountain region because slopes really remained hills.
Gorka!
Depending on the proximity to the streets, many of Gorkas were drinking establishments of natural origin. People came to these places, sat in a circle, drank moonshine and swore loudly. Seeing a passer-by, the drunks began to shout, greeting him. In those years, it was customary offer a glass to any random person, although sometimes fights happened here.
As you go there for a stroll, you have to pass by piles of garbage-locals throw it right behind their fences. Far ravines were clean and some kids went hiking there.
The popular slogan was: Let's go to Gorka. Passing further, we walked to the river, to the bridge, and beyond the bridge was the village of Severny. Approaching the bridge, you could see many graffiti on its metal sides:
Vasya is fool
Kolya is goat
Misha is condom
I was here
We were here
Your mouth is bad
It resembled signs of an ancient man. Under the main part of the bridge there was a technology stairway which went horizontally. It considered to be a matter of heroism to go the other side there.
But here is your rod. You sit here, you are fishing hoping to catch a greatest carp. As usual, you het only tiny roach and minnows. Cars run over you head with dull creeping sound. You are silent. Fishing is a holy occupation. You can tell after this:
Guys. I was fishing.
You can be proud of that.
What else about Yura? Producing his inventions, he lost his teeth on tests. Real boys are stunt-masters. Their slogan is - be like me while I am alive.
I can tell you one case. We were sitting on slope doing nothing, talking about nothing, dreaming to get to Islands. A group of hot fellows approached the clay road that led down, and it was a very steep place.
"Look, blokes," said one of fellows, "learn while I am alive."
He started. Then, he rolled over and flew, and in our slang such a fly had a definition "to fly like a fish." He landed on his belly, holding up a cloud of dust.
"Mmm," he moaned with pain, "never repeat this, blokes."
2. Pop-music, pop-actions
At that time, Lioshka was already in the second grade, and Sashka was either in the fifth or in the sixth, and the most popular music was "Modern Talking", "Joy", Pougachiova, Leontiev, Antonov. Although Lioshka was a great romantic, no cared about it. Having saved 10 kopecks, he bought notebooks and drew funny faces. The main thing here was that his mother, Love Sazanskaya, did not see it. The mother was a strict educator. She usually used a belt.
One could hear something thunderous which could tell us about how powerful were loudspeakers of Lenka Bakulina"s cassette player. It was a big topic as we dreamt about good audio devices. The song was "Bolero" by Fancy. Yeah, having this she was a princess. Lenka dressed brightly almost like her oldest doll, which now was dusted in the corner. Her name was Ira, she was plastic and pale gal. One eye cracked, one hand was absent. As for now, Lenka was indifferent to her considering herself as quite a grown-up. The music ran:
Let"s not be the ones outside
Looking at the world go by saw you standing all alone
Wasted time has gone for good
Play no more, its understood...
She resembled an actress of corps de ballet. She undressed and dressed again. She put on her newest dress, dotted, "Adidas" cap, fashion sneakers "Botas" and blue jeans.
She came out to the street where she met Lioshka who was loafing. He adored to wander here and there, trying to find something edible. The enthusiast idler, young and funny fellow of 8 years old, he liked to eat green fruits calling them "bubki".
"Oh! This is you," Lenka said "Come here, boy! Did you find bubki?"
"What do you want?" he asked proudly.
"Do it with me! I am the teacher!"
Lenka began to spring round, singing:
"Oh, ballet, ballet, ballet! O-o-o".
She sang it with the hope that she was a skillful dancer.
"Well," Lioshka said ",Billet, billet, billet".
He started to twist.
"Leg up!" Lenka commanded.
Lioshka lifted his leg, slipped badly and fell down right into the mud. Lenka began to laugh like a horse. It was the real heart-rending neigh. Lenka raised her leg and her jeans had burst. She ran away with wild screaming. Lioshka had nothing but to go home to hide his dirty trousers lest his mother should observe it. Otherwise, it would be a nice flogging.
It was darkening. Mom, Babushka and Gran-dad were sitting in the kitchen. Sashka and Lioshka were in the room where they composed several poems and proverbs for the future songs. Here, Sashka went ahead as a real poet. One of the texts spoke:
Three minutes, the hours.
The sign of sausage is ours.
The minutes of the sausage
It"s watch, not the porridge.
The bagel, it"s a sign of you,
It"s the watches too.
You and me
Is nothing and bread.
You and me,
And the bagel instead.
But no butter.
Only dry bagel"s mutter.
If you want many things
Lekhosha tried to do this.
Here, I can make a remark. Mozbruker brothers had many nicknames, which was due to their weird behavior. Lioshka is a diminutive for Liosha, Alexey. Also, Allyafa, Allyafontent, Lefontent, Lehonten, Gnida, the Crum, Lehosha. I have to add one thing- in the poultry yard there was two little chickens who had the same name. Both of them were Lehosha.
So, Lehosha was ready to play. He put on mother"s dress. He found a little white bonnet to try it on. Lastly, he used a lipstick so that he looked like a very smart girl. He began to dance and sing.
"Ballet, ballet, ballet".
Doing this he entered the kitchen, waving a scarf like a madam. A cap with sour cream had fallen on Granma"s head.
"Oy-oy-oy," Lioshka commented fearfully.
"Lioshka!" the mother yelled angrily.
Perhaps it was a very bad solution. Lioshka tried to escape when she grabbed a broom. Granddad had tooled up with a harsh brutal knout. Lioshka got away and was running through the raspberry bushes in the vegetable garden as one the doors led right there. The pursuit was very noisy.
Our neighbors had been always eager to watch a chase of that kind. Sergey "Sepa" Cropko was very enthusiastic about sitting in the bushed on slope, near their garden, waiting for something interesting. Such things happened so often that we had a good time being good viewers. Maslakov, his friend, took great pleasure in watching the chase.
Meanwhile, the action was in full swing. The mother slipped badly and flew into the garden restroom. Grandma stepped over her and ran on her fours, continuing to move through the raspberry. The dress of Lioshka was too long so that he hooked on a tree. The yellow leaves flew down. Continuing her evil running, Mother Luba looked like she was ready to tear the son into pieces. Alas, it was not him that was on her way so that she had a head-on collision with a whitewashed tree.
The nightfall was coming, but the pursuit was going on. For Lioshka, it was good to find a real shelter, such as a shed or maybe a loft, and now he came running to the shed where he hit his forehead on the board which was set vertically. The Mother and the Grandpa ran in next to him. That board propped an overhang which was full of different stuff like wooden boxes, bolts, nuts and something like that. All that articles fell down with awful sound. Lioshka whined. The Mother got through the logjam where she confused Sashka with Lioshka. Then, she captured Sashka and, holding his ear, led him for execution, the standing on a salt.
Being naïve, Lioshka came back, but punishment was inevitable. Justice has been done. Sashka was released, Lioshka was standing on salt with his knees, undergoing pangs of conscience.
With a sense of accomplishment, Mother Luba went to a disco which was held in the DK, a big social house near-by. Those years DKs were the main places for refreshment. "Modern Talking" was the most popular band of that year, people like to hum:
Brother Louie, Louie, Louie
Oh, she's only looking to me
Oh, let it Louie
She's undercover
Brother Louie, Louie, Louie
Oh, doing what he's doing.
So, leave it Louie
Cause I'm a lover
As we know, a very inventive and rather cunning singer, Sergey Minaev, sang those songs, inventing his own texts. Surely, you well remember the song "VDNH! A resident is waiting for at VDNH!"
3. Different things
In the pale morning sparrows tweeted, causing negative thoughts. Sashka yawned, there was nothing to do than to prepare his suitcase for lessons. He was in for a history lesson which he considered dangerous, so he was full of controversy thought. This subject was the most unloving for him. I have to say that many of students hated the History for no one knows what. The historian, Maria Alexandrovna, was strict and could maintain discipline during the lessons. However, indiscipline exemplars had many chance to get a blow in the head by a pointer. You have to remember, our teachers had always used pointers as a weapon of retaliation. Also, there was a rule - girls want to learn, boys want to remain dumbasses.
And here, Sashka came to school, and the lesson of Geography started. The task was to fill the contour maps. Being a master loafer, he couldn"t do such simple thing, but he tore the cover from an atlas and put it on maps. Doing so, he hoped to deceive the teacher, but there was nothing dangerous, and he didn't get a bad grade.
At a break, students pushed each other and played latki. You"re possibly don"t know that game, and the hell with it. Latki is the stupidest game of all. The essence of this game is to run after each other, shouting "Latka!" and clap each other.
Then, the Russian language lesson was coming as something inevitable and formidable, and Sashka got deuce, as ever. He was red as a tomato all through his breakup.
As for Lioshka, all day long Liosha spent standing in the corner sucking his finger and twitching his leg. For you, it"s not easy to understand this strange thing. Yes, Liosha sucked his finger. Parents and teachers tried to wean him from this bad habit, but in vain.
As Sashka returned home, and he could see Lenka going along the rows of her flowers, in the yard.
"Hello!" he cheered her.
She smiled, being in a pose of a pop-singer.
After half an hour, she was standing in the yard talking to her mother in a loud voice. Aunt Masha, Lenka"s mother, so called Marii, had a very sever face, as ever. Here, she tried to play a role of a yard teacher.
"Why don"t you do your lessons, Sashka?" she enquired.
"Let Lenka watch yourself."
"What do you know what?"
"What, what?"
"What?"
"Wwaht!"
"Sashka!"
"Shka, shka!"
"What you said? Boy, I'll whup you!"
"Fatty!"
"What you said to?"
"You heard! Horse!"
Aunt Masha took a brick and broken it on the Sashka"s head. He was lucky. He was diehard. But a fragment of the brick met Aunt Masha"s forehead, and one splitter got right into her open mouth, so she had to shut up. Waving her hands as a big dancing bird, she moved forth to get Sashka as her main motto was "I will get you". Sashka dodged so that she rammed the fence and broke down several boards.
"Brute! Ha-ha!" Sashka was in triumph.
Another strike aimed its goal. Rex, the Sashka"s dog, jumped out, got to the street with desire to bite everyone. It tried to approach Aunt Masha but her fists worked like a rotor mechanism, quickly and fatally. The dog was thrown to the side like a rag
"Oh, you snake!" where was a voice.
Sashka"s mother approached with threatening shouting. The fight broke out. Aunt Masha crashed the gates of her fence as she punched it several times, so at the end the gates broke in two.
Very soon the direction of events has changed. Mother was chasing Sashka as Aunt Masha revealed her the truth.
* * *
September sun was warm. Crows, hanging in the sky, looked like flying pieces of black issue. A blue "ZIL" truck, making gurgling sound, drove across the street. A red tractor, the sound of which resembled a knock of a skeleton with teeth, slowly moved in the parallel street. Geese loudly roared. Chickens sang their songs. In the puddle that was in the middle of the street, ducks swam.
Lioshka said to Sashka:
"Let"s catch Dunka."
"Well!"
Dunka was the tricolor cat about which Sashka composed a proverb: