I knew from childhood that ours are the best

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

December 30 is the birthday of the USSR, the largest state in the world in terms of area, the second in economic and military power and the third in population. The USSR occupied the eastern half of Europe and the northern third of Asia.

As a child, I knew for sure that ours are the best. He painted big red stars on paper airplanes. Glued from cardboard "tigers" according to the scheme spied in the appendix to "Young Technician". Then, with rapture, he burned them in the courtyard, imitating the battle at Prokhorovka. On the street, the guys and I often played "baker" than "war games", because no one wanted to play for the Germans.

From the cradle I knew that my country is the largest in the world. What a sense of pride I felt when I opened the geographical atlas! I could spend hours devouring with my eyes a huge piece of land, on which, with giant spaces between the letters, it was written: C C C R.

There were soda machines in the factory park. The water and syrup cost three kopecks. There were also cups. Wash them in a fountain of water - and drink to your health. Local drunks sometimes took a glass in order to crush half a liter in the bushes for three. Then they carefully returned it to its place.

A steam locomotive was walking along our street at night and was carrying some materials to the Svet Shakhtyor plant, the gates of which were a hundred meters from my house. It was necessary to pretend to be asleep, to lie for two hours with closed eyes to wait for an unforgettable sight, when the room was illuminated by bright light and the shadows on the walls reminded of fairy-tale characters.

At home we watched filmstrips. And when we got a TV, I learned what "cartoons" are. The Cipollino cartoon was one of my favorites. I remember my joy when the villagers united and drove all these "Tomato Signors" away.

It seemed to me then that as soon as all the people of the planet unite, any problem can be solved together.

And I also remember, I was terribly worried when in the cartoon "Santa Claus and the Gray Wolf" the gray robber took the hares into the forest. I watched this cartoon a thousand times, but I was always worried - will they catch up? Will they be saved? And every time they caught up with the wolf. After that, they generously forgave. And I, too, did not hold the wolf angry.

We skipped school and went to the river to catch crayfish. I had a rakolovka of a special design - I sewed a bag onto the iron rim from the barrel, and tied an old sock with lard into it. You lower such a thing from the bridge into the river - and in half an hour you raise it. You look - and in it from the heels of the barbel. Oh, how delicious they were!..

We went to the sea a couple of times. It was a real adventure! There were children from all over the Union on the beach. We played in the cities, and I always won, because I learned to read in kindergarten and have never parted with books ever since.

My favorite reading material of that time was Sergei Alekseev's book "The Unprecedented Happens" - stories about Russian soldiers and their exploits. Countless times I passed with Suvorov through the Alps, took Shlisselburg with Peter and personally saw the Bird-Glory over the battlefield of Borodino.

Once we were passing through Moscow. The train stopped for only half an hour, it was in the middle of the night. I did not sleep on purpose to see Moscow, the capital of our Motherland, through the carriage window. Returning home, he shamelessly lied to his friends that he was on Red Square.

In the first or third grade, I don’t remember exactly now, we wrote a dictation at school. There were words - USSR, Motherland, Lenin. I had a terribly clumsy handwriting, but these words I deduced like a real calligrapher. My hands were trembling with excitement.

One of the most precious gifts in my childhood was a "hero's set" - a helmet, shield and sword of red color.

Armed to the teeth, he tirelessly chopped burdocks in a neighboring vacant lot, presenting himself as Dmitry Donskoy. Weeds played the role of Mongol invaders.

And somehow, quite unexpectedly, Ukraine came into my life. Independence, democracy, coupons … What they are and what they are eaten with - I did not know then. Understanding came later.

Then the plundering of the Soviet legacy began. The process was accompanied by a "cultural program" - third-rate propaganda films in which some Rimbaud mows hundreds of Soviet soldiers from a machine gun. They said on TV that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya suffered from a mental disorder and that is why she set fire to the houses of noble fascists. I also remember a film in which Stalin came to life and frightened some young couple with his insidious plans. They fed Vissarionich with "hard-boiled" eggs, because he was allegedly afraid of poisoning.

Many around openly declared that it would be very nice if the Germans defeated us in that war. And some of them had their favorite program “America with Mikhail Taratuta”.

I didn’t give up and found solace in books. I argued with my uncle-neighbor that ours would come back and show everyone where the crayfish hibernate. But he did not receive confirmation of his words. The homeland was getting sick before our eyes and turned into the devil knows what.

Unbeknownst to myself, I grew up, graduated from college, and began to work. I was not looking for like-minded people - the time was such that the most important issue was the question of physical survival. The people I came across had such a mess in their heads that I preferred not to discuss issues of post-Soviet life with them. We drank singed alcohol and did all sorts of bullshit. We no longer had any goals in life; Turkish chocolates and a reaper tracksuit were swarming in our brains.

Gradually, it began to seem to me that I was left alone, and that the Motherland could not be returned, that it had disappeared forever in currency exchange and clothing markets. But, little by little, people with similar thoughts and feelings began to appear in my life.

And now I am not alone. Here are a dozen of us. Here is a hundred. Here is the first thousand!

Now I know for sure that our guys are in Odessa. They are in Moscow, they are in Donetsk, they are in Kiev. In Sevastopol there is. And in Minsk. And in Yerevan. In hundreds and thousands of other settlements of our vast Motherland.

And I believe: as long as they exist, the Motherland is alive. She will definitely come back.