Vladimir Shatakishvili - The Most Russian Person

And I plunged headlong into a wonderful peaceful life. If anyone needed help to fix the wiring, plumbing, repair the car I did it with pleasure.

But I was strongly attracted to the spaciousness, so that the wind would sort of tingling from running, from moving car, from any speed. And then the OSOAVIHIM call came up: “Young people go on airplanes!” And I went as an airport driver, I got friends among pilots, they took me on board and I even sat behind the control wheel. But I didn’t become the pilot. I already passed the exams, but the problem with the chassis took place and the instructor took the control wheel. But nevertheless the accident happened, I was thrown out of the cabin. It ended in concussion and spinal disc movement. I came to consciousness in the hospital, where I was treated for four months… The military registration and enlistment office acknowledged me as non-combatant.

I started working at a military sanatorium, they gave me a room there, I was repairing all the equipment. For working well, they put me on extra fare. The salary was decent. I started getting better.

So, the time came – I met love. Her name was Lyubochka and then she became the wife, Lyubov Alekseevna. In 1933 there was wedding, and in 1935 the son was born – Yevgeniy. And daughter – Lyalya or Lydia Ivanovna appeared only nine years later after Yevgeniy.

I did not know, and no one could know what a bitter fate was awaiting my family. Lyubov Alekseevna would tragically die. And I did not know that the Urals, the steppes of Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk would arise more than once in my fate.”

Ivan Nikiforovich thought and smiled, “According to your age you probably don't know such a song, but at the time of my dreamy youth, it was a match.”

“Which song? Maybe I know,” I replied. And he softly sang,

“I know, why do you think not? I have heard it, Ivan Nikiforovich. But as far as I remember, there were not “young” cities, but “blue ones”!

“Okay, I do not mean that. I am about those cities that did not have a name like the cities of my fate: Chelyabinsk-40, Chelyabinsk-70, Arzamas-16…”

“Moretea?”apologizing interrupted ourconversation tactful Vera Nikolaevna, the wife and faithful friend of Ivan Nikiforovich, whom he met in 1962.

I was always amazed how this woman managed to become for him such a well-cut half, replace his children’s mother and the first wife Lyubov Alekseevna who had died in the car crash. But she managed! She has been near for forty-four years. She strengthened the family so that the children of Ivan Nikiforovich, Lyalya and Yevgeniy, and her son from her first marriage Mikhail, right away when were still children, did not know the differences in their parents. There were just mom and dad.

“So what about tea?”

I thank and refuse. I say goodbye to the quiet house and beautiful people. Until next interview! And what happened then, we will talk tomorrow.

I’m giving word to the character of the book – Ivan Nikiforovich MEDYANIK.

“Well, it was in the global calendar sense. World War II was for the whole country. And my war started with the Finnish where I got after several changes in peaceful life. And here they are.

I worked as a garage mechanic at the Pyatigorsk regional executive committee. The executive committee was transferred to Stavropol but they did not part with me and I got an apartment there. The branch office of the Stavropol Tank School conducted classes for the officer school, where I studied at the distribution of the regional draft board and where I received the officer's rank.

Then I graduated with honors from Zhytomyr Tank School and was recommended to the Moscow Tank Academy.

I did not get to the academy because was recommended to serve in the NKVD. I graduated from law school and at the same time from Rostov road technical college.”

I cannot hold it, “Well, how many professions do you have, how many specialties, Ivan Nikiforovich?!”

“A lot, Volodya. And all my life something was added. Here, for example, being a beekeeper – a hobby or profession?”

“I think both. As well as a hunter, a fisherman.”

“That's it! So one can add a lot of things.”

Ivan Nikiforovich thinks for a minute. Then he continues the story, “So the war began for me from December 1939. I’m not the only one to remember it. There were terrible frosts at that time, snow piled above the head, the roads were not visible, a complete white veil! And we, with our BT-7 and BT-8 tanks, turned out to be helpless before the Finns, who very well knew their secret forest paths and roads covered with snowstorms. But against those frosts both people and equipment were powerless.

I do not want to stir up the wound that has long since healed!

It is only on paper that war fits in a few lines. And in fact any of the days of that short war, not even war, but as they called the Soviet-Finnish border dispute, is still experienced personally. And how humiliatingly Finns fooled us with their ski training. They ran like white devils, these famous “cuckoos”, but in fact snipers, elusive, accustomed to their swamps, forests, frost, skis.

What did we seem to them with our clumsy tanks, which even had no heating? Inside in the morning we were covered with frost. We spent half a day to start the engine. We used a blowtorch to heat up the fire bar…

And not to freeze we heated the salt in a tin and filled felt boots with it. Well, in short, it was necessary to finish this “forest tale” and as soon as possible.

A special, selective, mobile detachment of skishooters was sent. And our “skiers” were at their best – a defensive barrier defeated, and the Finnish campaign ended in April in 1940.

Ahead was a year of restless, anxious, but still peaceful life. Stavropol met me with windy spring. As friends were joking, this city is not in the seven, but seventy-seven winds. And nevertheless, it was my own house, it was my family, five-year-old Zhenka walked on the earth, in the evenings we gathered for dinner in the cozy dining room. A soft light poured from under the lampshade. Lyubov Alekseevna tried to keep the mark of a good housewife, a caring wife and mother.

June of 1941! How memorable it is to the present- day old men who have lived to the third millennium!

Light breeze blew on that day, poplar fluff flew, a crazy sweet smell of acacia teased enamored hearts. Life rang in all bells, youth – bright and happy time was spreading its wings, ready for peaceful labor, accomplishments, studies, love.

And no one could have imagined that this bright world and this silence, and this peace with fragrant acacias and poplar fluff would explode unexpectedly with the stern voice of Levitan, who announced Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union.

The strings of this ringing joy broke off on June 22, the date that without a pity cut life to pieces before and after the war…

You know, Volodya, my friend, I have already told everything Alexander Mosintsev, the author of the book “Without Guarantees of the Century”. Why should I tell the same thing again?”

“And still, Ivan Nikiforovich, what's wrong with that? Someone will read the book by Mosintsev, someone mine. And even more people will know about you. In fact, your fate is also the history of the country. I write in my own way. You will agree that repetitions can happen, the facts of your life before the war, during or post-war no one will cancel, change or alter. Do you agree with this?”

“Well, ok, let's do it? Just in general. There are so many books, poems, plays have been written about the war, so much research has been done, so many good and bad films have been shot that we will not repeat,” Ivan Nikiforovich told me. “I can only say about the memorable facts in my life which happened during the war time.