Аннотация: MMMCDLXXXV. Builders of railway. A story. - April 24, 2024.
Builders of railway. A story.
Taiga.
Late evening. Campfire.
The song ... "In general, green, young people ...".
The song ends, the guys look at the fire.
- And my great-grandfather worked on the construction of the Great Siberian Railway, - recalls one of those present.
Those sitting around the campfire turn to the speaker:
- So what? Was he was dekulakizated, probably, in 1917? [dekulakization was the political campaign against of millions of kulaks]
- No, it's not. How it was said in the Nekrasov's poem? "And all the bones on the sides are Russian." "The authorities were beating. The need [lack of means of subsistence] pressed them."
A silence.
Another Komsomol member enters the conversation:
- And my great-great-uncle worked on the construction of the CER (Chinese Eastern Railway)...
All sitting around the campfire hear these words with silence, no one asks any questions.
Everyone is looking at the fire.
- And when I was at school and lived in Rostov-on-Don, I swam in the Don River all year round. But I had dry clothes there every morning. Here is a good river, but the coast is bad, mosquitoes do not give passage, and clothes do not dry out for weeks. If to swim in cold weather and then to put on wet clothes, it's possible to get a cold.
The memory of Rostov-on-Don revives the company.
One of the people sitting next the campfire says:
- We had such a legend in our family. One of my great-great-grandfather's brothers was wounded during the war of 1870-71. Then he moved to France. He participated in the building of a railway in the colonies. After returning, he moved to Spain, bought a house in the village where Salvador Dali later settled with his wife from Russia. Me relative sunbathed, fished and looked at the sky, and then got married. He was a lucky man, he managed to make the move before the bank burst...
A cheerful conversation is interrupted by the brigadier-Komsomol foreman.
He comes up to the campfire with some papers:
- Guys, tomorrow we need to hand over the documents to the authorities. It turned out that your signatures are not in the required documents. Put your signatures at papers.
In the dark it is not visible what kind of documents, and where to sign, but the brigadier-Komsomol foreman directs a flashlight to the right places on the documents.
The guys put their signatures.
The brigadier-Komsomol foreman shines by a flashlight, checks if everyone has signed in the right places:
- Well, okay, guys, I'm off, - there are a lot of documents to be processed by tomorrow. Moreover, they are calling me to the capital tomorrow, they say I will get a huge troubles.
Everyone is sympathetically silent. The brigadier-foreman leaves.
- And what did we sign for? What kind of documents there were? - someone asks from around the campfire.
- Yes, it is necessary... Bureaucracy is getting to us....
The fire is gradually burning down.
Someone sings for cheerfulness:
"... A plane will land right in the clearing in taiga..."
- Well, guys, let's go to the wigwam, it's time to sleep.
- When I was in Rostov, in every the evenings, before going to bed, I took a shower, every day...
- Don't whine! Otherwise, you will be called to Moscow and a reprimand will be rolled in, with inscription into the Komsomol member card...
- You're right. When we will finish building the railway, then we will go to Sochi, will buy houses on the shore, not far from the sanatorium of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, we will sunbathe, fish and look at the sky, and then we will change our marital status.
- And there are good places in Abkhazia!..
- No, in Sochi!
The company, focusing on pleasant prospects, rises, moves to the wigwam, everyone climbs into wet sleeping bags.
April 24, 2024, 14:04
Translation from Russian into English: April 24, 2024 15:40
Владимир Владимирович Залесский ' Строители железной дороги. Рассказ '.
{3514. Строители железной дороги. Рассказ. - 24 апреля 2024 г.
MMMCDLXXXV. Builders of railway. A story. - April 24, 2024.
Vladimir Zalessky Internet-bibliotheca. Интернет-библиотека Владимира Залесского. }