Sergey Zagraevsky. My XX century. Chapter 8. Euphoria of epochs changing

Colonel Vasin arrived at the front

With his young wife.

Colonel Vasin called his regiment

And he said to them - go home

We are at war already 70 years

We were taught that life - a fight.

But according to new data intelligence,

We are at war with themselves.

I saw the generals

They drink and eat our death.

Their children are going crazy because

What they have nothing more to desire.

And the land is in the rust

Churches mixed with ash;

And if we want to be,

where to go,

Time to go home.

A range of burning torches -

Gathering all the dead parts;

And the people who fired at our fathers,

Making plans for our children.

We gave birth to the sounds of marches,

We are scared prison

But enough to crawl on his belly:

We have since returned.

This train is on fire,

We need not wait any longer.

This train is on fire,

We have nowhere else to run.

This land was ours,

While we are not bogged down in combat.

She will die if it is a draw

It is time to return the land itself.

Boris Grebenshchikov

I

"Landmark event" in the life of the Department of Applied Mathematics, MADI, and personally in my occurred in the spring of 1989. I even remember that in the court rang drops.

You may laugh, but it seemed it was a landmark event: the chair was the generosity of administration selected a personal computer!

Specifically - Deterioration Bulgarian copy of the famous IBM PC-XT. For those who understand: processor type 8086, with a clock frequency of 8 megahertz. Was he even a hard drive, hard drive, capacity, as I remember, 10 megabytes (I am now typing these lines on a portable computer that has the settings listed more than once that way in 1000).

But it was a bad, unreliable, but the real "personalka! And then they poured into the country rather wide stream, and the company began to see them all over at his place.

Few of the Soviet programmers knew how to work for them, but in our institute almost none. The famous (because the first) book Figurnov "Working at IBM RS also had not yet appeared. And here we are, that is, I and other programmers Department - Mishutushkin and Kulyabko - bent upon this technique to master and learn to deal with her our practical optimization problems.

There were familiar to businesses, where this technique has already been, we have them copied for the minimum standard software, and off they'd go.

Came to an end, my stormy personal life, Esperanto, Japanese, Pogorelov theater and more. We sat at this "Pravetz" (so called Bulgarian computer) days and nights. And if my colleagues were waiting for the house wives and children, I was not expecting anyone in particular, and sometimes I just stayed overnight at the department, if not managed in the last subway train.

The guards, who walked with evening rounds, I already knew, and even their great shepherd at the sight of me, wagging his tail, but when I saw it the first time, I almost did not become ill. Imagine, I was sitting that way in the midnight hour on an empty chair, a silent Institute, absolutely stupefied by flickering screen, and suddenly door opened noiselessly and silently is a huge dog!

Later, however, I used to and just never took off shoes, when sleeping on the chairs - on the floor sometimes ran rats, and in the shoe, I psychologically felt more confident. And seven in the morning I woke cleaner.

Youth! Do not even remember what I was eating, and have the same for two days did not bathe, shave and do not sleep without undressing, without a pillow and blanket! He tried to now ...

But I'm the chair has become a very respected professional. The computer was in the office of heads of department, so I also was aware of everything that is happening "in the higher spheres." Superimpozantny and solid head, Professor Kodolov (God rest his soul) is periodically approached and asked something like: "What problem, Sergey, you decide?" And, with absolutely incomprehensible answer like: "Designing an input mask data in Dbase III Plus", said : "Well, well, well" and ceremoniously removed.

Gradually try to work for "Pravetz" and other educators, we Mishutushkin and Kulyabko staged at the department sort of refresher courses, to intimidate people, computer viruses, so without our permission, does no one dared to include a computer ...

In short, it was then, in 1989, I no longer feel like a kid, and developing a complex before the "older uncles.

Practitioners' personalkam "was extremely small, and the summer of 1989 I began an apprenticeship as a programmer in some small traders computing. They went on foreign students' dorm and buy computers, which last brought from abroad, and my goal was to test each computer. We do this with Artyanovoy (traders were her friends), and honestly earned 50 rubles for each tested machine with Irina as brothers shared.

By the way, "personalka" PC-AT that way then cost 70 thousand rubles, ie, as two new machines "Lada" in the market, and if we count on "gostsene", then as ten ...

There were days when we have computers with Irina tested on several pieces, but it did not last long, for the beginning Wholesale supply and small traders "burned". But then I first learned what not count in your pocket change and have the opportunity to travel by taxi in a hurry.

And that summer we "knocked" on the First avtokombinate huge order for development to the personal computer of the optimization problem of motor transport. We made it three - I Mishutushkin and Kulyabko.

The amount of order was nevobrazimoy - about thirty thousand rubles (remember that at this time I at the Department received about 170 rubles per month). We concluded this agreement, I believe, through our institute Center NTTM (scientific and technical creativity of youth), but he gave the payroll is not ten percent, as it was "accepted" in the Soviet era, and whether 60, whether 70.

At First Avtokombinate were very solid machines - real PC-AT with a 286-m processor, we have mastered the latest database management system "FOXPRO", again had to sit late at night, but we've already had some experience with the problem of evil, we- poorly managed and immediately after the New in 1990 received the money. "The brother" had almost eight thousand.

I remember how we got to Mishutushkin and Kulyabko of the Center NTTM with thick wads of money in bags, daze looking at each other and did not know what to do. Immediately arose ugly feeling that looks at you the whole world, and thinks money is taken away.

II

I knew exactly what he wanted: a car. As far as I remember, my family had some no, but the cars, and this is a child fell on the "subcortex".

Eight thousand rubles on the market cost, for example, a ten-year first model Zhiguli. The same, if not less, on "gostsene" cost new "five" or "eight", but to buy it could only enrolling in place for many years. Or buying a place in the queue for another 15,000, and the market a new car worth the same 20-25 ...

I'm in a hurry - the money "burning hands. Not surprisingly, I made a stupid - bought at automotive market in the southern port of the second model, Lada, VAZ-2102, Beige, Universal, 1975 model year. More prestigious than the "penny" (VAZ-2101), but fifteen years. Its for sale, of course, bribed and put in order, but age is the age, and "pour" the machine was immediately.

Soon after, in May 1990, I was left unharmed by a miracle - my "kopeck piece at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour and broke the brake hose, rear-wheel brakes failed, the two front wheels are always inhibited only one (had no time to fix), and I was thrown the highway. I'm broke and riding in front of "Moskvich", and the front of his "kopeck piece, and a tree beside the road (the latter suffered the least).

However, I got insurance (she even cut off the payment of a broken "Moskvich") and the car repaired, but still "kopeck piece" fell off, parts of "gostsene" was not, in the markets they were expensive, high wages, too, was a long time, and I again had to "bomb".

"Bomb" I until the spring of 1991, when I reappeared decent wages, and when one day (that day, well be another night!) Any "clients" of the Caucasian type on my neck and the noose thrown away the purse, I decided not to take risks and "bomb" had stopped.

But I still can not safely go to work (God forbid), and a taxi driver and car mechanic - most of the repairs "kopeck piece" for lack of money and the service stations had to do everything myself. However, in electronics in modern cars, I understand a little, but if necessary osvoyu without problems - after all the candidate of technical sciences.

It all sounds cheerful, but ...

I have not much to be regretted in his life, but almost three-year purchase and operation of this unfortunate "kopeck piece was one of those cases. Virtually all the free time that I could spend years in the 1987-89 drawing, writing poetry, or at least, to improve the profession programmer in 1990-91 was to go on car maintenance and "bombing". How many hours and days have been lost - not even count.

And even if I do some damage to the car repaired is not himself, but struggled at the technical center "Warsaw" or "Kuntsevskiy" - all the same day was "a dog's tail. "Contact" on these technical center was a whole science. Generally speaking, their working day started at 7.30, and the people in order to get there during the day, stood in line somewhere in the 2-3 o'clock. By the morning of the centers was formed line of cars, and the window taking orders - noisy place.

My car was registered to her grandmother Elena Alexandrovna, she had a disability, and technically I had some right to come out of turn, but in fact to me for a mad car owners a couple of times nearly filled the shameless face, and save me, just a solid constitution. Sometimes, however, managed to get through, but this does not mean that the service would be needed spare parts, and that they were, still had to give "on a paw" master.

Gradually formed a circle of acquaintances masters, and a car to me for "gold coin" could at any time to put the line. If the parts were really, I gave them to "gostsene" but "from above" had to pay so much, that was obtained the same market price. Nature, as we know, do not be fooled.

- And why not go to a spare parts shop near the technical center and buy a desired item? - Can ask me.

My answer: in stores, as some technical center, and the distance, there was practically nothing. There could be based on any unmarketable parts that are broken once in a hundred years, but who needed them?

And no matter how much was given "on a paw" Soviet masters, they were insolent, as they had them run! Until now, when I see that the service station master somewhere important to go to their highest cases, followed by side, like a dog looking into his eyes, minces "mere mortal" client, it makes me uneasy. And I'm willing to overpay, but to repair the car at a service, which will be a normal relationship, that is an elementary courtesy.

And I had two friends, both Sergey - Kazakov and pesto. All of us were old cars, and we helped each other constantly - without that it was impossible. For example, remontiruesh car somewhere in Kuntsevo, went to eat (a technical center roasting shish kebab) - all, some new item replaced the old one. So we were watching the machines in shifts, replacing each other.

And if he remontiruesh car, without his partner seriously - something somewhere to hold, apply key "13 to 17, and just to think together about how to unscrew the nut zakisshuyu ...

I will never forget how we Kazakov within the autumn, late at night in the freezing cold for me in my car drive shaft (the one that is located underneath the body and transmits the rotation of the engine on the rear wheels). Well, I tell you, lie down for several hours the vehicle on snow and icy wind - it is something. We began at seven o'clock in the evening, when it was still relatively warm, but the night had turned cold, but to leave work was a pity ...

This repair. And petrol? Behind him stood in hours-long queue, and I'm usually dressed in 3-4 hours of the night, "bombed." That night (as, indeed, and in the afternoon), gasoline could not be at all. But I knew in Moscow almost every gas station, I must say it was easy - for private cars there were a couple of dozen. Do not refueled at river station - went to "Dmitrovka (Dmitrov highway), there's no there - went to" Altushku (Altufyevskoe highway), there stood an hour, 40 liters filled (more in some hands is usually not given) - and off you go . And the old "kopeck piece - not a new" Volkswagen ", it has the fuel consumption of the city was 12 liters per 100 kilometers at the most economical driving ...

What we just did! Buy gasoline from drivers of buses and trucks (those who went to the A-76), outbid coupons, and foul refueled at "state" gas stations. A friend of mine put on paper over the numbers with "public" letters, for private cars on goszapravkah not served ...

And how much money is "eaten" car! Practically all my wages went to him, and I was planning: here I get the money for a certain order - buy a driveshaft, and get there a down payment - will change the generator ... Just like a joke when a man comes to his neighbor and says:

- "Do you not find a bit of bread? And then yesterday I bought a car "...

But seriously, before any tangible benefits must ripen, otherwise it starts to hang over you and becomes an end in itself.

I do not understand why I'm so holding on to this car. I'm with considerable dimensions has always felt herself quite comfortable in public transport and a taxi if necessary, I would have enough money. To carry sacks of potatoes, too, there was no need, so that could well do without cars.

But the momentum was so strong that only in the summer of 1992, when the house at night rest "Planernoe" my "kopeck piece" tried to steal, set fire starter and stripped off her all that was valuable, I put her on an eternal trick "and soon sold it.

The new car, I started just over a year later, when he became engaged in a "real" business and the machine I was "laid on staff. Simply put, we need to look good and not very long trips. But the situation was quite different, and before we even reach out.

III

Taste of the money was not that sweet, but not disgusting. Still, when it is not always rummaging through his pockets in search of a lost dime, a certain number of problems in life disappears. Anyway, in 1990 I felt it.

We then have the same Mishutushkin Kulyabko, Artyanova, Efremov, and I began to wander in search of avtokombinatam orders for the software. In Mostransekspeditsii need to optimize the traffic no longer (the company realized that the more profitable book transport yourself), but somewhere (on the 1 st and 24 th avtokombinatah) in 1990 succeeded in something of little things to make.

In the end, we decided to create his company, that all orders flow through it and not pay all sorts of centers of "scientific and technical creativity of youth" or "interdisciplinary scientific and technological programs" (the latter sounds like a short Menatep, a well-known bank has grown from just a "center").

What were these "points" system of taxation - I do not think that any, as the majority of the then "newly" enterprises. There was, in my opinion, income taxes, and pass around to have overestimated the costs, could not only idiot.

And just then came the law on small businesses. " The Soviet system sought to modernize and give people the opportunity to develop the private small business, leaving a big industry in the hands of the state. In the end, of course, means from the last began to go through the loopholes in the form of this most "small business".

Here we are in autumn 1990 decided to create a "small business". Founders were five - the same Efremov, I Artyanova, Mishutushkin and Kulyabko. I became director, Artyanova - deputy.

As we recorded our Artyanovoy "Scientific-production company" Nodeks "- laughter! It was necessary to avoid a lot of district courts (firms that specialize in recording, in 1990, yet was not), these instances are not yet accustomed to the freedom of business registration, and everywhere to talk to us the highest chiefs, asked wild questions like: How many jobs your Firm brings area? "we wriggled like snakes, and eventually the company registered.

The funny thing is that neither in 1990 nor in 1991, the company "Nodeks" not done anything useful in terms of earning money. Indeed - from the team of Ephraim, I broke and stuck "to the data center Glavmosavtotransa, who by this time was just Mosavtotransom.

IV

It began with the fact that one day the spring of 1991 I was invited to CC Mosavtotransa "share experiences" working at the illustrative First Avtokombinate. Because of the vastness of his Mosavtotransa VC already in the seventies became an independent organization dedicated considerable three-story building not just anywhere, but at the Sofia Embankment, near the Moscow River bridge, directly opposite the corner towers of the Kremlin. CC spun into a separate legal entity even under Soviet rule, and after adjustment and did was in the "free floating".

Interestingly CC Mosavtotransa was the fact that almost all senior positions (in the eighties and the director) it took the Jews. This tradition went back to the early seventies, when the organizer and chief Glavmosavtotransa was the legendary Joseph M. Goberman, gradually dragging myself to the wild number (hundreds!) "Brothers in blood. He put on them, he naturally, in the most "high-tech" space, ie in NGOs Mosavtotransa the Leningrad prospectus and in the EC Mosavtotransa the Sofia Embankment.

Goberman died in the early eighties, and the funny thing is that the Soviet tradition, his name was given to large avtokombinatu, where I was in the near future have to work hard. Over the realities of Russian anti-Semitic near the intersection of the Moscow Ring Road and the highway Volokolamskoe proudly hovered big neon sign: "Avtokombinat № 36 named after IM Gobermana.

However, the EC, I found only the remnants of the former Jewish companies - most in the late eighties left the country.

Organised by EC was in a big way, typical for the Soviet love of centralization. In the seventies it stood in the huge series of computer EU, and there all avtokombinaty Moscow daily carried bales trip tickets. All of this huge number of operators (more than a thousand) is punched on punched paper tape and punch cards, input into the computer, cheated and betrayed who are out of the drivers as hitting, earned money spent fuel ... Issued as generalized indicators nevobrazimye mountains accounting and stuff like that, and all these papers and then went back to avtokombinaty. It was called this all the elegant acronym "Gozo" - "system of integrated data processing.

In the eighties, so little to reduce the huge costs in bringing the mountain trip tickets to the Sofia Embankment, on some of the largest avtokombinatah began to open branches CC Mosavtotransa for entering basic information, and then carried no piles of paper money in trucks, and relatively compact computer tape. The system, however, less of that did not - branches VC demanded higher maintenance costs, and final documentation will still have to drive to the Sofia Embankment ...

When the company began en masse to buy personal computers, have avtokombinatov natural question arose: Why all this complicated and expensive system, if possible all of the documentation process itself?

And in the early nineties avtokombinaty become one after another "sliver" of the EC Mosavtotransa, and he started convulsively, trying to keep them.

Deputy Director Vladimir Makovoz EC decided on this occasion to consult with me, and I painted a rosy picture of "tying" avtokombinatov: let them process the documentation in place to "personalkah, but CC Mosavtotransa should address the development for these centralized" personalok "software.

I was immediately introduced to the director of the Computer Center Borzov, and soon I was asked to create a VC with a small business engaged in the development of the software itself.

Developments, I had already had many, though, of course, after "aerobatics" - optimize transportation - processing logs, accounting and other similar tasks were far less interesting and more routine. But in 1990, in parallel with the continuation of optimization work on the First Avtokombinate I developed a program of inventory control at the trust of Tsentrospetsstroy ", so that the experience was.

It may seem odd: the development of accounting software, warehouse management on personal computers ... Did not buy a standard program, install it on your computer - and all?

What! Nothing like it! From standard programs were just the operating system MS-DOS and compilers for different programming languages. Well, Unpretentious games - "Tetris", and "Digger" ... Standard russified accounting programs established firms have appeared only in late 1992 and have been very demanding of computer configurations. And so it turned out that the development of my basic programs (eg, payroll), and tuning it to a specific customer takes from quarter to half a year or more.

For example, that I worked out at the trust of Tsentrospetsstroy "- neither in the tale to tell, nor pen describe! There stood the Soviet personal computer "-1840", in which there was no hard drive, and only 2 floppy diskettes to 360 KB. For those who understand computers: a Do you understand how I managed to squeeze in there program accounting and stock control to the DBMS Dbase III Plus? Personally, I do not understand until now.

Trust, however, acquired a super-modern at the time the computer PC-AT with a 80286 processor and a decent hard drive, but he spent exactly one day. The fact that the plug the printer did not come to our outlets, and one EC has decided to issue globally, that is, cut it and plugged in an ordinary, American. However, he confused the "earth" and "phase", so that 220 volts through internal grounding printer went on the electronic computer systems, which should be a half volts.

All burned so much that when I came to work, I feel sad Open your computer and showed embers.

An employee in this case got away with slight shock - in the Soviet period is nothing but 10-20 per cent deduction from wages for such things are not threatened. Besides, I think that privatization and inflation then all the "write off", or seventy thousand rubles, the cost of the computer would read that the rest of his life.

So there I had to work on "EU-1840. But every cloud has a silver lining - not for nothing that our engineers (and scientists in general) is still prized in the world: no one else so do not know how to overcome all sorts of difficulties associated with lack of resources, and solve problems the least possible means ...

And the funny thing that a little later, in 1991, I had to decide on the "EU-1840" is much more complicated optimization problem float furniture Mostransagentstvom. How much strength I have spent on "vtiskivanie! In the end I managed it, but everything was in vain - "normal" computers have become cheaper so fast that within a year, these horrific "ES-1840" is simply written off as useless.

V

Note that at this time I had almost ceased to paint and had stopped writing poetry.

Not only that, it will almost no time left - if you want you can always find the time. I, frankly, forgot about it.

Euphoria of the first years of capitalism did not begin during the Gaidar reforms of 1992. It started with the opportunity to earn "real" money, but it happened a little earlier, the year that way from 1989. Cooperatives, "small businesses", "joint ventures", the first joint-stock companies ...

And the thirst for earning money was so strong that the "buy-sell" threw everything. A typical call of some associate professor of Applied Mathematics, Senior Research Scientist ZAGRAEVSKY: "Sergei, there is a party in the 500 Camcorder" Panasonic-12345 "in the warehouse, such a performance, I can not find a buyer?" Sergei call up some friends, they call on ... In the end, before serious negotiations never took place even once.

Most large-scale "case" of those times - 1000 Jeep Nissan Patrol. I have a case of finding a buyer to rely one. Once it wanted to change the crumbling "kopeck piece" to "Nissan Patrol" - no words!

Needless to say, that the buyer and I did not find it? " Yes, and whether in fact the "Nissan Patrol" - only God knows.

Nevertheless, the "first wave of capitalism" get rich quick, my good friend, former deputy chief of the First EC Avtokombinata. He took out a bank loan and bought abroad lot of electronics, honestly, "running off" earned, returned the loan, took a new ... Banks then "give" without any collateral and under some ridiculous interest rate, the profitability of trade was enormous, and serious people who are prepared to deal with goods, transport, customs, bandits and other components of this "business in Russian, had a unique chance for superobogascheniya.

But then I was not ready. Moreover, at a meeting with the institute in 1991, friends found out that I was the only group who continued to work on the "programmer" specialty, with decent earning and was quite satisfied with his work.

When, in 1993-98 years I was earning far more decently and worked much more serious things, I will still always remember that all this is temporary, and my ultimate goal - to earn something, throw and do business exclusively in art.

And in 1990-91 - forgot, got carried away. Like thick wads of money.

But again I say that every cloud has a silver lining. When the attitude to work as not the most pleasant duties, something incomplete, something not to bring "to the mind", in short, are acting "to a minimum." And the result is also obtained usually minimal.

Of course, the lack of love for the cause that you do, you can replace the iron discipline, but a young man of twenty it still was not enough. Hence, the case (in this case, unfortunately, making money) I had a little, but loving.

Thank studies extrasensory (we have about them talking and talking) - they have restored the system of landmarks. Thank you and Gaidar's galloping inflation in 1992 - all eaten packets of money, but I finally sobered.

As a partial self-justification, I note that all my work at a software trucking companies, despite the full "commercialization" proceeded in line with the "gathering material for a thesis. Yes, and I am seriously interested in programming in early 1989, that is, without any money - it was a fascinating exercise for the mind.

Incidentally, formally, my employment history all the time lying on the chair, and I took it out soon, in 1996.

And in fact - in parallel with the creation in VC Mosavtotransa small business, I have not forgotten about his native department, and in 1991 entered into through it (with the active participation of Professor Ephraim) is one of the contracts associated with the optimization of float Mostransagentstvom kitchen. I must say that the task was interesting, and I'm on it "rest" after a routine buhalterskogo and inventory, even though financially it gave only a tiny official salaries. I think 190 rubles a month. Back in 1986, it seemed a lot of money, but wow ...

His own department, respectively, I also have not forgotten, conferred a great honor for my age the title of Senior Scientist (I remember that I "heart warming" the fact that Sakharov in his institute was also a Senior Research Fellow) and including me, finally, to protect theses.

VI

If I had the spring of 1991, today's experience, I would work created "by me" small business "Transinform" under EC Mosavtotransa built quite differently, and perhaps would have office across from the Kremlin is not the end of 1992, but much longer.

But then after the fight was shaking his fists? As a result, again, everything turned for the better ...

But in terms of business mistakes I've made a lot of time.

First, I poostorozhnichal and decided he is a small business does not lead. The fact that in Soviet times there was a ban on the combination of management positions, and I was the director of the firm "Nodeks.

However, it seems, this ban has not yet been repealed, but little of him who remembers. But then have not yet learned to distinguish between workable and unworkable laws, so I decided to play it safe and asked for the post of Director-MP 'Transinform "a good friend even introduced him to the Director CC Borzov.

The familiar thought, and refused (afraid to run the business), and Borzov offered me the Director of MPs former head of the ASU Glavmosavtotransa Vadim Leonidovich Andreev, who shortly before sent to the "nomenklatura link" - as a deputy to the pasha.

Frankly, I was glad of such a proposal because the sixty Andreev was a real value and to avtokombinatah knew well. Moreover, he was the contact and sociable person, and vast experience has taught the nomenclature of its excellent negotiation and not put on airs, where not necessary. By the way, and in communicating with me he too never "forgotten" and not let his boss notok. Pleasing to note that two years of joint work we have not had a single conflict.

But there was Andreyev one minus - oddly enough for the old nomenklatura, a long tongue. When we first got in the bank money to pay the entire VC knew who and how much. I tried to Andreev in this plan to fight, but to no avail.

As a result, Mr. Borzov, getting our wages once, later refused to do so. Of course, we had to go in communicating with him in "black cash", but then I have no idea about such a possibility - I had no experience in Soviet times "tsehovika. A "disinterested" director of the Computer Center is the first step to failure of the company, and even friendly relations with his first deputy, Vladimir Makovoz, did not help.

Secondly, and most importantly, I missed the point. Quickly gained several orders in different avtokombinatah and took a job a couple of programmers, I have almost stopped "marketing" and busied himself in programming, rather than continue to dangle with Andreev in Moscow in search of new customers.

Andreev then all I knew, and he knew everything, and we had really had the potential to "reach" several dozen trucking companies. But in late 1991 began a wholesale corporatization and mass change in leadership came new director, unfamiliar with Andreev, and most importantly - a rival to the much more powerful standard software.

Our advantage remained Processing trip tickets for "piecework 'traffic when were complex and unique for each avtokombinata calculations, based on the route, mileage, type of cargo and many other indicators. But this soon ceased, since the vast majority avtokombinatov switched to an hourly system: give the customer the car on so many hours - and all.

As a result, we have only five or six large orders, and besides, I made another mistake: do not fix prices in the "Euro" The new orders, I started to do it, but they were few. But the old order, we just went bankrupt, as in 1992, Gaidar began galloping inflation.

And there was a number of errors related to the relationship by CC. The fact is that through our Small Business Computing Center began to miss a large part of the money allocated for the repair of numerous equipment, and our problem was with the money to pay people a salary, leaving a certain percentage.

In 1991, the system worked, and in 1992, the State introduced frenzied payroll taxes that exist today. An experienced person would be without any questions, please send the money to some "left" cashed office, would receive cash minus a small fee per cent, with people paying "envelopes" and everything would have been happy. And then I about this mechanism did not know and pay "non-optimized" taxes. As a result, the payroll for employees of EC has steadily declined and he was to work with me interested.

Started degradation MP "Transinform. First, from the honorary office on the second floor, near the director's office, Borzov we moved to the third floor, and then, in winter 1992-93, and at all "closed shop".

Andrea will be retired, and I "brings to mind" a few orders avtokombinatah, prudently transferred to our firm "Nodeks" (although this time I realized).

To never return to this subject, talk about the future of VC: in the far wing of his rented premises "real" business people involved in the supply of minibuses, and they know that the gift of time is not lost. "Interested" Borzov, began buying up shares and by mid-1993 were almost complete masters of CC, holding Borzov "for entourage."

A year in 1994, as I learned later, they got to share a controlling stake, immediately drove the unfortunate Borzova retirement, threw all the great Soviet computer and made a great VC office complex. Indeed, a more prestigious location - opposite the Kremlin - is difficult to imagine.

VII

During this time I managed to take part in protecting the White House. Well, to take part - it is a strong word.

In fact "lucky" same country on my birthday - August 20! Apparently this is the height of the holiday, and all sorts of tricks such as putsches or collapses of the financial market does best - all that could prevent "troublemaker", basking in the southern sun.

It happened in 1991. Hearing Aug. 19 on the radio "Resolution of the National Emergency Committee," I, like everyone else, realized that something was amiss. I remember that in this ordinance voiced the need to combat pornography ... and this idiocy somehow remember the most.

I called my friend Mark Dmitriev and offered to go to the center to see what's what. At all angles, of course, there were tanks, one of them for some reason turned the tower, and his gun almost demolished the roof of my car.

But he worked a McDonald's, where there was no queue-evidently, the people decided that the "capitalist" institutions will storm.

Stop! No queues at McDonald's requires additional comments. I do not remember exactly when it opened in Pushkin Square on the first so-called "fast-food restaurant." It seems that year in 1988. To ensure that there is a "quick-serve basis, required to defend in a queue of up to two hours - the people were so tired from the Soviet squalor that were willing to wait as long as you like, just to" touch "to capitalism and try to" Big Mac ", which cost even then a lot - as I remember, three and a half. For comparison: in the production of table can be a meal for the ruble, and even less.

Mark Dmitriev an even more solid build, than I, and we usually "insolently" passed down the line, pretending that we are waiting somewhere ahead. Stop two burly men no one dared.

And then on August 19 we drove to "bigmachnoy" - and not a soul! We ate with gusto, and then even went to the tank and treated the soldier "Coca-Cola." Then we drove to the Radio (Mark there was appointed to some meeting), but could neither come nor to drive - the coup, true precepts of Lenin, the first captured the radio, telegraph and newspapers. We are in the day and drove to the publisher "The Truth", and it too was surrounded by armored personnel carriers.

I do not remember how the news spread that the White House is resisting, but knew about it all, and we decided to go there. I left the car on the Garden Ring, and we came to a huge crowd, blocking the entire area. Just spoke Yeltsin ... All this repeatedly shown on TV, even uninteresting story.

The most memorable moment came when from behind us, in the park, and started a motor, and the crowd, electrified by the expectation of a tank attack, turned sharply in our direction. Frankly, it was scary, when both shuddered and turned hundreds of thousands of people ...

There was an amusing incident when the late afternoon crowd resorbed, and I met ... Volodya Solomatina, former secretary of the Komsomol committee MADI! From him I heard that he was a year ago left the party and in general, it appears, has always been a staunch Democrat. Given that no one was sure of victory at the end of protecting the White House, it all sounded very sincere.

We agreed with Mark that day did not spend the night at the White House (in the evening there were some cases), and the next day, August 20 was my birthday. I have already told us that instead of celebrating all sat at the old gramophone and listened to "BBC" reports from the streets of Moscow.

Then, by the way, and crushed three former paratroopers, "Afghans" BMP (infantry fighting vehicle, the type of tank, only smaller and lighter). This BMP some idiot commander sent at night to patrol the Garden Ring, which is at the entrance to the tunnel under the New Arbat people had blocked the trolley. BMP tried to move the trolley (the latter then stood in the courtyard of the Museum of the Revolution, that is, the English club, but where is he now, I do not know), and it failed. At this time, it ran up a few defenders of the White House, so close the peepholes and forced to surrender. The driver abruptly backpedaled, three guys with BMP fell and got between her and the wall of the tunnel.

The next day, August 21, we have Mark in the morning again went to the White House. We have just gathered around him all night, but decided to first go and see how it matters.

People were again the sea, although much less than the first day. But the barricades significantly increased and reached the Garden Ring, there were concrete blocks, standing around trolley wheels with run-flat (as it turned out the night before, move them was beyond the power even armored personnel carriers).

There was a rumor that the tank battalion, on the eve of having gone to the side of Yeltsin, the White House wants to go. We were with Mark threw a woman shouting: "Young people, you have to prevent that, we headed a considerable crowd had rushed to these tanks, we have a captain explained that no one he would not leave and we went on.

Not far from the building of the CMEA (now City Hall) was the very same 'BMP-killer "with all hands. It turns out that the BMP, after she crushed three guys, all the same seized and the crew was beaten so that those unfortunate soldiers were a clear bruises.

They sat sadly in her BMPs in the crowd (and for some reason without any protection), just at this time on the radio that the coup in full force fled, and remember, we are sorry for Mark of the soldiers, gave them a cigarette and reported escape the coup. Those blankly nodded. Then they think the court acquitted - crushed, they are three "Afghans" really random ...

And in the afternoon I went to the office of the Sofia Embankment. Tank, who was standing nearby, had already left, and CC Mosavtotransa almost entirely listened to the radio - just resumed the transfer of "Lighthouse". Most of all rejoiced Makovoz deputy director - he has a son serving in the army, and in tank units, and he madly afraid that his son ordered to crush people.

... Bright summer evening, 21 August, we walked through Makovoz Moskvoretsky Bridge, where else as far as hours ago there were tanks, and it seemed that a new, happy life. Yes, I'm not kidding - the mood was like that.

And even if the coup was a performance, it is still the ensuing fall of the Soviet Union really completely changed the lives of people. Well, at least outwardly. In 1988-91, respectively, of course, freedom has been, but still kind of not so ...

Then a few months on all highways shifted asphalt - tanks smashed his cool, there was a feeling if you ride on washboard.

VIII

In the spring of 1993 I finally defended his thesis. This is a special story.

Samu's thesis, I wrote without any problems, a month and a half or two. "Practitioners of the material, to optimize the traffic I had by then accumulated in a wild number, and the number of so-called" acts of industrial introduction of scientific developments, I guess I could enter the "Guinness Book of Records."

I pulled those avtokombinaty, where something once implanted, and received from each of the relevant piece of paper that, say, such and such and such software systems successfully operate, and with a huge annual economic benefit. At the same time I even bothered to invent different wording, printed in all the acts were on the same printer in my office, so that it looked very funny.

The theme of the thesis was "replaceable daily transportation planning packaged cargoes on personal computers." I thought of my Mostransekspeditsiyu, and First avtokombinat, and the task float kitchen unit Mostransagentstvom gave me even a "scientific novelty."

Enter into a "novelty" that the firm "model-heuristic" method of Professor Ephraim still did not give the desired accuracy, and I do not sophistry, became the "chase" the calculation of the plan twice with different criteria. It turned out that the so-called "quality plan" (the minimum number of cars to carry a maximum load) while dramatically improving. And brought under this "notion" a solid scientific base was already a matter of technique.

Everything seemed to be normal, but a bureaucratic system was "passing" the dissertation before the defense at the Academic Council! If I was a graduate student, "resident student" might me those walking on the inconceivable number of instances does not seem a burden, but for the director of the firm with an office across from the Kremlin it was a bit hard. Do not even physically, but psychologically. A secretary is not send, everywhere must come himself, bow, and then present some small souvenirs ...

I suspect that this system exists to this day. However, perhaps simpler, at least because the so-called "summary" that is a summary of the thesis, it should be possible to print at its own expense, anywhere. And in 1992, to the institute's printer has printed this tiny pamphlet, wanted to build a lot of signatures until the rector. And so on.

And with the most protection is surprisingly nervous.

Each thesis' posited to have two "official opponents, who are chosen among friends in the" third-party organizations and, as a rule, write rave reviews about the value of the thesis for modern science. Or sign a pre-written paper ...

And I have one of the opponents, the old professor Kozhin, gave negative feedback on the pretext that the thesis is too much ... mathematical formulas! As it turned out, he could not stand the "school" my supervisor Ephraim and decided to spoil.

I never thought that it was very simple methods of Ephraim someone may seem too "mathematical", but Kozhin straight and wrote in response that this thesis is the degree of candidate of technical sciences is not as physics, mathematics, and she did not place on the motor Academic Council.

I wonder why I did not immediately Efremov said that this opponent is potentially dangerous. Apparently, they never crossed many years, and he simply forgot about it.

So indeed, Kozhin, writing a negative review, refused to go to a meeting of the Academic Council! Without this protection could not take place - could not come only opponent, who gave positive feedback. And to change the opponent was too late - summary showing the glorious names Kozhina was already printed ...

But the refusal to attend the defense was on the part Kozhina flagrant violation of scientific ethics, and Efremov was phoning friends in common and ask "influence" on Kozhina. As a result, apparently, after several calls last felt uncomfortable and decided to give to the Scientific Council "open war" - still just meant to break the protection in the near future and left without candidates for a degree (and for them yet, and something they paid), and decried themselves in the scientific world.

I sent the car for Kozhin, if only he had come. He came, gave, received a barrage of objections from the "team" of Ephraim, and eventually just played on my hand. Kozhin worked in some research institutes, and it turned out that Madi shnogo thesis offend a stranger.

Academic Council unanimously voted in favor, and went to the thesis statement in the WAC - Higher Degree Commission. But negative feedback Kozhina in left, and my unfortunate thesis in Vake sent to a special advisory council, where "biting" year.

As a result, in the academic status of candidate of technical sciences I was adopted exactly one year (plus or minus one day) after the defense, that is the spring of 1994, when I worked in the meat business "and did his thesis about the forgotten. I was quite surprised when I got a call from the Academic Council and was invited to come for the "crust".

But my grandmother Lydia V. very happy. She began to live a little, and shortly before the death of its cherished dream has come true - the grandson became a candidate of sciences.

IX

Cases of MPs' Transinform "went on as usual, and in 1991-92, I decided to use the office of the Sofia Embankment of the complete program and in parallel to do business.

We have to Artyanovoy was the same firm Nodeks. She arranged for the chief accountant and his girlfriend invited us as a commercial director husband of this friend. His name was Marat Vasilyevich, he was a participant in the war, then went on business lines and became deputy minister of some machinery. In 1986 he was sent to Chernobyl, where supervised the digging of a tunnel, got a huge dose of radiation, three years spent in hospitals with a transfusion of blood and bone marrow transplant, then, of course, retired and came to us.

And so began an unforgettable saga of "KAMAZ". No, not with the whole plant, but with specific Concrete - this is such a huge "pear" in the truck, which is spinning all the time, so that the concrete did not have time to harden.

At the very end of 1991, Marat V. on his old connections managed to negotiate with the factory, and we have this concrete hauler sold to the old "gostsene", that is almost for nothing. My friend Sergey Kazakov it from Tatarstan drove safely, we have parked in my yard (paid parking was still in Moscow, there was virtually no) and began to think what to do. More precisely, who sell them.

We looked for a buyer three months - from January to March 1992. Gaidar was walking inflation, and we could not manage to nominate the best price - it was disadvantageous to us, the consumers. All this time, a huge "KAMAZ" stood in my yard among the "Muscovites" and "Lada" - that was a sight!

Of course, there was a theoretical possibility for him to find a paid parking, but we decided to not spend the money - they were catastrophically low. I, for one, and went to his seventeen (!) "Kopeck piece, and was saved only what Marat Vasilyevich, using their endless acquaintances, there is a large parts (such as propeller shaft) on" gostsene.

In the end, "KAMAZ" free sourdough ... my grandmother Lydia V.. She watched him from the window and occasionally avoided.

And sell it has helped in serious trouble, caught a fluke. In a "perfect" night my grandmother and I saw no, and with "KAMAZ" pulled the batteries. We Artyanovoy and Marat Vasilyevich poohali and started looking for where to buy them - in early 1992 in the stores still had empty shelves.

Marat V. remembered that he had in the suburban Krasnogorsk familiar works as director of the factory cement (kindred Concrete, that is based on the same "KAMAZ"), he phoned back, you will not find a battery, but it turned out that the director just need a concrete hauler for a some construction!

Soon the men came from the factory, put the batteries and "KAMAZ" taken away. And even then the money at the expense of the firm "Nodeks" well received.

This was my first and last successful sales experience at that time. More us nothing major has neither bought nor sold. We tried to deal with wholesale trade, that is, to take on major stock clothes and shoes, and arrange on a business "sales", but this business would bring more problems than money.

In short, when closed MP "Transinform and us in late 1992, the Sofia Embankment" asked ", money for KAMAZ just ended, and it is our firm Artyanovoy quietly ceased to exist.

Marat V. somewhere got a job counselor, Irina Artyanova found a very high-paying job in a bank, and I finally felt the vanity business, resumed painting pictures, simultaneously modifying a couple of orders for avtokombinatah and wondering what to do next. I thought slowly, because at this time in our family began again series of diseases and deaths.

X

Elena after the death of Moses Naumovich left alone. We, meaning me, my mother and father visited her still quite rare, once or twice a week. It has always been very pleased by my visits to her could always come and spend the night. Sometimes I even came late at night, lifted her out of bed, and she was still happy.

Grandmother was well past eighty. Despite his age, she was physically surprisingly sturdy man of about eighty-five every Sunday floating in the pool, made long walks in the Neskuchny garden, and in summer went to friends in Leningrad. I remember once she went to Abramtsevo cottages, late for the train, and I quickly drove to the station on my bike ... the frame.

She still typed samizdat, only in the late eighties it had very few people had to be done. Roy Medvedev in the restructuring of "dissolute", Professor Lakin and several other "customers" have died, and the company of Moses Naumovich after his death broke. The only one who visited her grandmother and told the latest news - this is Elena Greene.

Also started "glasnost" and began to publish everything. But my grandmother still contrived somewhere to seek out something samizdatoobraznoe like: "And this bag out of rice, in which the bridge has been dropped by Boris" ... Remember the year that way in 1989, the future first president of Russia either dumped in a bag from the bridge, or whether he fell because of the influence of alcohol, and the bag idea. Both have different versions now seem complete nonsense, but then it all actively discussed and hands went above poems.

Anyway, the stereotype of "old lady" Elena could not match. One day I found her sitting on a bench near the entrance, she immediately began to make excuses, that "sat down for a second, because the elevator is not working and need a rest before climbing the stairs." Floor was really high - seventh, so that the soul is not twisted - more than I did on the bench with the old ladies did not see.

A bench at the door ... Older "ladies" sitting on it, intuitively elect someone weaker, usually young people, and loudly hiss after them in it like: "Every time a new girl ... Oh, noneshnie!" With "respectable gentlemen" they look with respect and washed their bones have already out of the hearing.

Interestingly, in Germany or France, the old lady on the benches at the entrances to sit? And if you sit, you behave the same, or a purely Russian phenomenon? How much do I have traveled the world, have not seen them.

The house on the Leningrad highway shops did not have - access was a high "basement", and they simply had nowhere to put. But was the "board room", and gathering of elderly ladies took place in it. But they at least have been more or less isolated from passing into the entrance.

But on Gagarin square, "run the gauntlet" was implemented in full. Someone, apparently, is so irritating that one night, both benches were taken away in an unknown direction. It did not help - a few days later there were new, but already bolted to the wall thick wire. Someone from the "regulars shops" so they quickly found - still do not understand.

A grandmother Elena read the book. And she continued to read even after the March 1990 it had a stroke and she fell ill.

She was slightly shocked psyche, it is almost unable to move independently (which we immediately moved into our house on the Leningrad highway, to make it easier to care), but it happens more or less aware of and ability to read the book is not lost.

XI

However, in 1987-1991 avidly read almost the entire country, although the spiritual development of the vast majority of it, unfortunately, affected little.

And yet, this reading was a real joy - I am not afraid of such big words. A few stragglers!

In Soviet times, because they did not print, even Joyce and Heinrich Boll! At last, for example, Soviet ideologues "offended" when he spoke in 1961 about the Berlin Wall, and immediately stopped flowing in print ...

And then, besides cheap booklets such as "How to become happy in bed," Russia has filled a huge stream of this literature. And Zamyatin, and Platonov, and "Doctor Zhivago", and the camp memoirs, and "The Gulag Archipelago" and "Faithful Ruslan", and the entire range of foreign literature.

But still it seemed that change comes slowly and gradually, and where they were, no one, of course, did not know. And the foundations of all this is not yet affected.

In 1987, I, for example, was from the department, together with one professor sent to either the November or on a May Day "demonstration of workers. I remember that the gathering was a энного post at the Leningrad Avenue (opposite the MADI), and then we walked and walked along the streets of partitioned off from all sides flowed like a river, the new inflows, in Red Square, the flow was tremendous, but his organization did this not suffer - all had been marked, standing around an unimaginable number of policemen and plainclothes agents.

We passed over the area. Somewhere in the distance I could see the Mausoleum, with his waving hands indistinguishable figures, everything was pathetic, boring and tiring physically. Stand-ka at 5:00 and walk around the piercing cold of the morning from the "Airport" to "Novokuznetsky! I have nothing else, as an elderly professor was pretty tired. And what were those who carried flags and banners? However, in MADI it was given to the students and staff from such an "honor" had been released.

Not surprisingly, Gorbachev's demagoguery about "perestroika" and "glasnost" was seen merely as yet another campaign, for a rapprochement with the West (such attempts have been made and Khrushchev and Eisenhower in the late fifties, and Brezhnev and Nixon in the early seventies). Everyone knew that the Soviet grain purchases in the West and everything else, and so the West today need. And tomorrow again lowered the "iron curtain" - and all ...

Now we have the era of transparency,

Comrade, believe - will take it

And the KGB

Remember our names!

This "popular" verse was then very popular. But the books came out, and all hurry to buy them. And suddenly disappear?

How much time I spent on the purchase of literature! Published then it all some cooperative publishing house, expensive, lousy, softcover, at some terrible yellow offset - so what? Anyway, it was a sensation, with nothing comparable - to keep in hand, in the form of quite normal book, then, that I had read once in a blind copy of samizdat.

As a historical anecdote: I remember, as a poem about Stalin, Mandelstam, "We live by themselves without feeling the country" was published in some sort of either Ufa, whether the Irkutsk newspaper, and all remembered a reference to this paper.

Why? Because of trouble for this poem has no one could be, once it is published in the official Soviet press. It's like they ask you in the KGB, why you mentioned this verse in such a company, and you're proud of him:

- I read in the newspaper Dawn Uryupinsk "from a certain date! And what we have allowed to quote the Soviet press? ..

Bases were to collapse in 1989-90. Once, in 1987, with the usual pomp and ceremony celebrating the 70 anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (VOSR, as it denoted the whole country in the summaries of Marxism-Leninism), everything began to fall, November parade imperceptibly abolished, then in 1989 Gorbachev assembled the first Congress of People's Deputies and the ballot appeared on a few candidates ...

Even a show of hands to stop a taxi Muscovites began to call "vote for Yeltsin."

Still, the end of Soviet power made itself felt outside of the "socialist camp" (the word-then what?) The unification of Germany, the fall of regimes in the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland ... All this happened in 1989-1990. These were already facts indicated the collapse of the system.

But the final point raised in 1991.

I woke up at six o'clock

Filled with happiness.

No gum from pants

And the Soviet government.

This "political" mess known indecent ditties sung in August 1991. The fact that the Soviet regime came to an end, everyone suddenly realized only when it tried to restore the vice-president of the USSR Yanaev with friends. In fact, the famous resolution of the coup was written only in the ordinary "Soviet-type" style, but have the same - it sounded so out of tune with the already far along the reality that half of Moscow rushed to the White House. It seems that Yanaev, Pugo and company so do not expect such a reaction (they are not supported even by the army) that escaped from the Kremlin on surprisingly fast.

I remember in early 1992 Terminally ill grandmother Elena, slightly aware of what is happening around him, suddenly said: "What luck that I survived to the end of Soviet power."

Indeed, the Soviet dictatorship came to an end. The era of freedom. And let it tends to degenerate into anarchy, and she is very, very many are not happy, but it is.

We are not afraid to talk and argue, and this is important. And the economy ... If in Soviet times, half the country working for the war, and these companies were ultimately not needed by anyone, along with millions of their employees, making light of our lives to normal did not have to wait and still do not have to.

And in political terms - the Soviet collapse sooner or later had to happen. Even the Russian Empire was called the "prison of peoples", and the Soviet Union not far away from her. I personally, for example, is very disappointing that in 1991 Ukraine was separated, but the Ukrainians can understand ...

Then came the "shock therapy" Yegor Gaidar. I have already told us that it is fully tested on myself: my then-company, which produces software products, almost completely ruined, and I, along with her. New business of food, I began only in early 1993.

So it happened that when the June 10, 1992, after spending two years in bed for several days in intensive care, Elena died, we did not have the money to order a funeral coach.

Fortunately, even on the move were my seventeen Zhiguli second model - "universal". Grandma was little, and the coffin was placed in the car. And all the friends and relatives (they turned out very little) in the crematorium Mitinsky went on an ordinary bus.

Actually, it was awful - there was incredible heat, freezing in the morgue, of course, done poorly, but what could I do? So I drove my grandmother in her beige "kopeck piece, and my father sat beside him on the floor (seat had to lay down) and holding the coffin.

In the living of my grandparents left with Lydia V.. She, by the way, forgetting past differences, and despite their own vosmidesyatipyatiletny age, helped take care of Elena Alexandrovna ...

XII

For my father collapse of Soviet power has coincided with the beginning of life in "big science".

Trust Mosoblstroyrestavratsiya "was not scientific, and production - emphasis on the architectural monuments to be" physical "recovery, and many interesting ruins and deep archival research had to do casually.

But by the mid-eighties my father was something of a head of department, ie, was able to more or less independently to determine what to do. So it happened that a restorer-production worker, he became a prominent historian of ancient Russian architecture. Plus the golden age of science - under 60, plus tried and tested communications, plus a complete lack of interest in the momentary earnings ...

Wolfgang Volfgangovich changed before our eyes. We've run periodic lying on the sofa - every minute was on the account. And when I started the "market", the trust has collapsed, the architects went to the "free flight" and the father of scientific work was in demand - where there was already lying on the couch? Recognition is usually stimulates a lot better than the non-recognition ...

I remember how my father in the early nineties noted a strange and unprecedented situation: we both welcomed what was happening in the country and good relations with the government. Never have I on my own this may not have expected, but from his father and even more so. It is a pity that our government in recent years makes all the more reason to back ...

As a mother, she shared the fate of the underground and at the turn of epochs. In the late eighties - the unprecedented rise of the reader and the viewer's interest up to the establishment in 1992 of its own poetic theater. In the mid-nineties - just as an unprecedented downturn, when poetry has become in Russia very few people want, as well as fine arts, and film ...

In short, during the Soviet poet Inna ZAGRAEVSKY was an outcast of literature, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of the literature was in the role of outcast.

This situation inevitably arises from the revaluation of values occurring in the mass consciousness of people from the spiritual realm to the material, and when now people are once again remember the true art - is unknown. But this fact, and much that is in a hurry. Your Service muses, as we know, abhors a fuss.

Inna ZAGRAEVSKY their word in the literature said, and after that was not her problem. Descendants will understand.

XIII

My "career as a professional artist" began about the same time - in 1992, when I published my first postcard.

The first time it happened by accident - my mother was going to publish a collection of his plays, and asked me to draw a picture for the cover.

The play, which gave the collection a title, called "The Prince", was a very modernist, even by present standards, and had the following story: the Lithuanian town wanders a strange young man and tells everyone that is a successor of the Lithuanian castles. Someone he trusts, someone laughs, someone offends ...

I will not retell the content of plays Ina ZAGRAEVSKY, would only say that I painted in watercolor on a piece of drawing paper drawing is Lithuanian castle. Anyway, the castle in my mind - I've never seen any castles in Lithuania or anywhere else, except for movies.

Based on the printing capabilities, my mother decided to print the images separately, the books separately, and then stick with his own picture on the cover.

Now, when at every turn offers a comprehensive selection of printing services, it may seem strange. But in 1992, printers were not enough, more so in the majority stood nightmarish Soviet equipment, absolutely incapable to reproduce the colors of my paintings. So it happened that we published a book, if not mistaken, the publishing house "Art", and illustrations - in the printing publishing "Young Guard".

Recent published "left" in a manner that is specific staff printing house at night and for the "unaccounted" money, and then they handed me copies from the gateway, also at night. But the print quality and color reproduction - without any computer verstok - they were given such that these prints look great and now, when the possibility of printing industry has leaped forward. People, as they say, to work for him.

And when we were preparing for my image to print, it became clear that it looks like a postcard. Then my "Autumn", and I asked on the reverse side of a postcard-type author's name and title of the painting. Stuck, we not then all copies, and two hundred cards in the end I have left.

Then I actually was published in the same printing several types of cards, original watercolor painting is almost life-size. I tried that in the end it was like a reproduction of oil, but he wrote in watercolor on Whatman paper, for such a picture is wholly placed in a scanner and a color depth is not lost on those days when retake not as good as the slides.

So moy developed a specific style in watercolor - "deaf" fill, without radiographic paper, and a dense overlay of colors.

But, of course, frosty nights spent at the gate printing on Tsvetnoy Boulevard - it was something! The fact that the fawn "kopeck piece" has been on an eternal trick, we agreed with the masters usually two or three o'clock in the morning, so I came to the last train station and waited. And if there were any delays in the process, the waiting could last up to four or five in the morning, and I was dozing on the benches tabloids, then jumped to warm up, and then he dozed. And then, having received the box with a print run, I drove them home on the first train station.

At the same time I wrote, and "heavy machine" work. The end of 1992 and beginning of 1993 proved to be extremely productive in terms of oil paintings on primed cardboard. On the canvas, I was saving - cost it dearly, but had little money. Fortunately, I then worked in small formats, and I size 50x70 inches was enough.

Pictures I bagetiroval, they stood in the closet (good board takes up little space), and I occasionally showed their guests. Then one of the paintings, "The Crimean patio, still stuck in a frame and hung on the wall. A postcard gave - and friends, and employees, and even some business partners.

Then came 1993, when I began to engage in "meat" business. Not surprisingly, painting pictures long gone by the wayside.

However, this year I already knew that my being in business more or less temporary, and sooner or later I'll get them to leave and the arts. The thought left me often, though usually had the appearance again of one of Chekhov's three sisters: "To Moscow! Moscow! "

Naturally, I did not shout about it, folding his arms in a tragic pose. This is not well known, and those who knew, believed that no more than rhetoric.

XIV

In autumn 1993, my grandmother Lydia V. fell ill with a stroke. Bit disturbed coordination of movements, but the mind remained perfectly clear. The only thing that appears - this is a kind of apathetic calmness, a protective reaction of the human psyche in the face of imminent death. Indeed, that person must feel, when almost all the same age and relatives have died, and he was terminally ill? And by the time this generation of the family survived only a grandmother and one of her sisters, Nina.

Inna arranged Lydia Viktorovna hospital Litfund on Kashirskoye, as well as the House was a double, then she "lay down next to her, that her grandmother was not alone. Why do something about the hospital say it is "lie", just like about the prison - "sit down". Stunning action my mother, I it so did not expect ...

"Lay" them there for three months.

Note that the hospital had to be unimaginable amount of champagne, cognac and other drinks for the doctors and nurses, and my grandmother once told me: "How is everything is expensive, thank God, that you do business."

What mindedness! People generation Lydia Victorovna able to perceive the inevitable for granted, without it they would have gone mad with terror during the Civil War ...

A remarkable fact: Associate Professor and member of the CPSU Lydia V. in 1964, when I was born, went to church, bought a small icon, and wrote on it: "God bless you, my little one.

That's me all about the same breadth of view, it is typical for the Soviet-Russian women "middle class". And the money, and God, and the business, and intrigue, and Stalin, and Christ - all mixed up in his mind of these people who wanted only one thing - that their children live better than them.

Well, let intellectuals arguing about where the person should leave his mark - in art, science or politics, and what the purpose of life is different from its meaning. And for Lydia Victorovna and millions like her purpose in life - to raise children - was intuitively clear, and they did everything to achieve it. To any conditions they quickly adapted and learned that children and grandchildren.

Lydia V. Died Dec. 1, 1993.

After the hospital Litfund we brought her home, but only for one day. She felt sick again, this time with the heart, the ambulance took her to Botkin, the next day the coma, but a day later she died.

My mother sat by her bed - the orderlies from the morgue arrived only a few hours later, and when her grandmother were taken away, we waved her hand as if she's just somewhere to briefly leave. But who knows, a long time we parted, or not ...

At the funeral of Lydia Viktorovna, despite a heavy cold, the people there were very many. And relatives and friends, and acquaintances, and neighbors. There were many of my friends - they knew how I treated my grandmother.

Two years later, in the same cold, dead last of the sisters detdomovok Petrovsky, Nina. In life they were outwardly Lydia Victorovna totally dissimilar, but at the funeral of Baba Nina, I always thought that in the coffin lies Baba Lida. Death has identified some related features in their faces and made indistinguishable ...

After the death of Lydia Victorovna our family simply ceased to exist - all dispersed to different parts of the globe. My mother went to Germany, and thank God - she always dreamed about. Father first went along with it, and now travels back and forth - in Germany for a working historian of Russian architecture of cases still not enough ...

However, finding people in different countries in our time in no way interfere with their communication - then I go to his mother in Germany, it is in Moscow, we meet on "neutral territory" - in a charming Czech Republic.

Who could imagine such at the time of the Iron Curtain? Remember, as in the Ascension in the poem of the sixties: "From the prison comes sometimes from abroad - never" ... Is it really ever end? May God bless.

And the fact that our family had departed, apparently, was bound to happen - and my mother and father, and I finally proved to be completely self-sufficient people. No wonder - so much power invested in our generation Lydia Victorovna Peter, Mikhail Naumovich ZAGRAEVSKY, Moses Naumovich Averbakh and Elena Alexandrovna Kavelmaher. And, apparently, each of us instinctively understand that the break - then undo their work, their work life.

Let us remember them. And let them be good in the kingdom of heaven - they deserve it.

The last words to me filled with very specific meaning and in no case are not banal phrase. My journey to understanding this was long, and it's time to start a story about him.

Chapter 9. Arkady

Introduction

Chapter 1. “Soviet burgers”

Chapter 2. Vorkuta

Chapter 3. Sixties

Chapter 4: “Stagnation”

Chapter 5. Psychoanalysis

Chapter 6. Lenin, Party, Komsomol

Chapter 7. “Scientific career”

Chapter 8. Euphoria of epochs changing

Chapter 9. Arkady

Chapter 10. Commerce

Chapter 11. The loss of the bank

Chapter 12. Christianity

Illustrations

To the page “Memoirs”

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