"Astrakhan World", No. 36 (707), dated 09/12/2013

Tatyana Leukhina, Znamensk

I remember it was in 1972. Early March. It was as if we had specially guessed so that we would come to Kapustin Yar for
a few days before women's holiday to have time to prepare for the first joint family celebration. Husband
decided to invite colleagues and introduce them to his wife. The young lieutenants who came together to serve on
the famous training ground, there was an unspoken rule: if you bring your wife, show your friends the newly minted lieutenant. Sometimes it happened that after such gatherings between young families a friendship was struck up that lasted for years, according to
at least as long as the officers remained to serve at their training ground. I was looking forward to how I would prepare for such a responsible event, especially since before that I had neither set tables on my own nor received a large number of guests. In a word, I had a test.

Of course, I was afraid that I might not be able to cope. One hope was for the help of her husband. And if he is not a master in terms of cooking? During the time of our acquaintance before the wedding, there was no chance to find out about this - on romantic dates, usually about
they don't say things like that. The Vilnius plane landed at the airport in Volgograd with a big delay - they made an emergency landing in Kharkov and stayed there for several hours. So now from the hero city to Kapyar could only be reached by taxi. Fortunately, the lieutenant's salary at that time allowed me to do this. It got cold by night, but the dashing taxi driver, having learned that he was taking the newlyweds, drove at full speed, so sometimes it was even breathtaking, especially on that part of the highway where certain sections of the highway were covered with a crust of ice, as if
it rained during the day. But these icings were caused by completely different reasons. Only after living for some time in the edge of the steppes and
semi-deserts, I found out: in these places it doesn’t rain in March, not like in the Baltic states, and frosts in the first decade of March are worse than in January. It was impossible to talk inside the car. Even being next to each other (we sat in the back seat hugging all the way), we did not hear each other's voices - everything was roaring, ringing and rattling inside the car, and rubber was also squealing outside. Closer to midnight, the taxi stopped at the Volgograd checkpoint. To be honest, our
the young family was already two months old by this time, but we were still real newlyweds: immediately after the wedding, my husband left and returned for me only after he was given a room for our joint residence.
True, there was no warrant in hand yet, but the order had already been signed. Here he is to celebrate on a day off, asking the commander to visit him for two more days, and flew to Vilnius for me. He warned in advance that we might not be able to immediately move into our first joint housing. The GZHCh, where warrants were issued, worked during the hours when the officers were on duty. But could reasons so trifling as it seemed to me at the time have prevented me from going? Yes, and the parents were convinced that the young from the very beginning should live together. “After all, you are not going to a remote village,” he reassured
father, - there is probably a hotel there - at first you can live there. The main thing - the apartment is allocated. When we arrived in Vilnius, at first we also had only rented housing. In the end, as they say, with a sweet paradise and in a hut.
Loaded with suitcases, we immediately set off along the deserted streets to the Uyut Hotel, the only one in the town. They say the first impression is the strongest. So, my first impression of the military town, where I
had to live, as it turns out, the rest of his life, was very ambiguous. Not only were there no people on the streets at all, but in the houses we passed, no matter how hard I looked, I did not see a single luminous window. And the lighting on the streets themselves seemed insufficient to me. After Vilnius, where nightlife
illuminated by bright colorful illumination, everything here immediately seemed dull and gloomy to me.
In the few minutes that we spent on the road to the hotel (it was only two blocks from the checkpoint), what thoughts just came to mind - one more disturbing than the other. In these very moments in my hometown people are returning home from theaters, from cafes and restaurants, couples in love are walking along the streets at night - after all, spring has come, trolleybuses are moving smoothly along the roadway, cars are scurrying about, taxis are sparkling with green lights ... Here, while we are walking, we are not not a single car overtook And I, stupid, also wanted to offer my husband to catch a taxi. The best transport for those who have a travel bag in each hand, even if it is as small as mine, cannot be found. As it turned out, she did well that she didn’t mention a taxi - there simply weren’t any in the town. This first night in Capjar promised me a lot of surprises and a lot of different impressions. I'll start with the hotel. What I didn’t expect at all was that, given the availability of rooms, we could not be accommodated in any of them without special instructions. And to the question
where we should spend the night, in response I heard a categorical: “Wherever you want, spend the night there. It's your problems". Even in the foyer they were not allowed to sit to warm up. So we, with our luggage, again found ourselves on a dank night street. While she was sitting on the steps of the porch, spreading the first warm thing pulled out of her bag, her husband returned to the hotel. I thought he would persuade the angry duty officer to let us at least spend the night, but she only allowed to call the military
part of the attendant. When, joyful and smiling, my husband flew out of the hotel doors, I felt completely numb. The only thing that could warm me at that moment was the good news about the lodging for the night. news, with
with which my husband approached me, were really about an overnight stay, only in fact it was oh so far from him!
As the duty officer told him, after consulting with one of the authorities, we could be temporarily settled in the dormitory of the unit, on the territory of the town, but for this we still had to get to the 30-ku and take a referral from the duty officer. Alas, getting there at night was out of the realm of fantasy. My lieutenant, seeing that I was literally falling off my feet, managed to take all four bags and led me to the cinema "Youth" - the most illuminated place in the city, where there were benches. There he left me and ran for permission to move in right along the roadway. God! How far did he have to run! Only I didn’t know it then, but he knew - and he ran anyway. Only those who have ever served in the thirty can understand that such a march on a frosty March night in wedding shoes with thin leather soles and short jacket on fish fur is akin to a small feat.
Night, silence, not a soul around. I feel so alone in a world that is still alien to me, as if I accidentally ended up on a distant planet, on which it is possible to settle down only after going through enormous difficulties. I involuntarily raise my head to the sky, as if trying to find my native planet, abandoned, it seems, forever. That's truly
a game of imagination: I try to find with my eyes the familiar constellations, which I have often admired on quiet, gentle nights in Lithuania, but I can’t find them. With my mind I understand that both there and here the same sky of the northern hemisphere, but why am I
I don’t recognize him, why does it seem so distant and alien to me? And why the glow of the stars here strikes with its piercing
coldness? Why do I feel so uncomfortable under this sky? ..

About two hours later, a policeman approached me, lined with travel bags on all sides. I was so happy with him, for some reason deciding that he would certainly take me to the duty unit, because I didn’t have any documents with me. My husband took my passport with him. After listening to my story, the policeman,
that’s what she didn’t expect at all, without waiting for my consent, she picked up the bags and, without any preludes, offered to spend the night with him. Apparently, noticing that I was literally dumbfounded by such a proposal, he reassured me: “What did you think about,
cute girl? Get up, otherwise you are completely frozen to the bench. I live nearby, on Lenin Street. Now we'll come, we'll wake up my wife, she'll give you hot tea to drink. Maybe he’ll pour something hotter, and then put him to bed. I'll come back here and wait for your lieutenant. Do you have any idea how long it will take him to turn back and forth?” I
and in fact I was so cold that I was afraid that I wouldn’t sit in the frost for more than ten minutes. I just started to rise, I look, and along the road, wide open, my Volodenka runs, waving his hand, in which the necessary piece of paper is clutched, which even in the darkness of the night street turned white for me with the long-awaited light of a lighthouse in the raging sea. True, the adventures of our first night on Kapyar land were not over yet.

The dormitory attendant, a woman of pre-retirement age, apparently long forgotten what it is to feel like a newlywed, dissatisfied with the fact that she was woken up in the middle of the night, looked for glasses for a long time, and then just as long studied the contents of a small piece of paper, on which only a few words. She did not even invite us to sit down, however, it seems that there were no chairs there. Well, what she said, having studied the paper, she said, as if she had pronounced a sentence: “Follow me, woman. I will take you to a spare room. And you, young man, go to your thirty. Are you registered there?" Volodya followed us with things. Only when he was in the room where there were two iron beds, he dared to ask the duty officer to allow him to stay here for the night, but he was refused: “The direction says only about your wife,
See for yourself, - and she handed us a piece of paper that had had time to pretty wrinkled, - there is not a word about you, as you can see.
And only after I burst into tears, trying through tears to tell about the misadventures of the day and the night steadily moving towards morning, the woman took pity on us, grumbling in the end: “I’ll just ask the second bed not
enjoy. I put fresh linen in the evening. What if in the morning they send some more tenant? We didn't have dinner.
although both were deadly hungry, and, needless to say, not in the mood for lovemaking. We had one desire for two: to fall on a narrow bed, to snuggle up to each other, rather in order not to fall than in order to warm up,
although both were chilled, and plunged into sleep. But the young lieutenant had only two hours to sleep - that was how much time was left before the departure of the car that was supposed to take him to the service ...

I never thought that I would be in the status of an officer's wife! And even more so, I didn’t imagine that someday I would be deprived of all the joys of modern life: going to the cinema, cafes, walking around the city and just living human communication. Having lived more than twenty years in the world of civilization, I had to leave it and visit only in short days holidays. Life, of course, is a tricky thing! She does not ask what you want to become and where you prefer to live. She decides everything for you! And, due to certain attachments, it will only have to be understood and forgiven.

I gave an account of who I marry, and what lies ahead for me. For four years, my husband mentally set me up for life on the border. “Get ready to live in a leaky wooden house and wash from a basin,” he said solicitously. And I, after these words, imperceptibly spat over my left shoulder and prayed for more comfortable living conditions. Yes, I did pray. Well, at least not a basin! Remembering my childhood years, when hot water was turned off in the city every summer for three long months, I perfectly understood how bad and terribly cold it was. But after four years of intense auto-training, it began to seem to me that I could even live in a tent and get my own food in the forest.

So it was until the day when there was no distribution at the border institute. With a sad voice and, most likely, a drooping look, my husband called and dejectedly announced - we are going to Nalchik! Having completely forgotten the school geography course, I began to rummage through the Internet in search of this Nalchik, and after five minutes I had a tantrum: I personally imagined myself in a cold wooden house, there was an ill-fated basin in the bath, and outside the window there were mountains and a flock of sheep. And it was inevitable! Divorce late, and give birth from day to day. Moreover, I endured all the “preparation” so steadfastly that to chicken out at the last moment would be unworthy of the title of an officer’s wife. Therefore, having become a little sad, I pulled myself together and began to imagine our cozy and warm outpost house. Thoughts are material!

By the way, practice shows that many border guards are abandoned by girls, and even wives, when they find out where they are assigned to serve. One friend, being in a relationship with a cadet, broke them off just when the time was right to find out a new job. Or this: the wife of a young lieutenant, after three months of living in a village on the border of the Far East, filed for divorce and fled this backwater. It is difficult to judge them for this: not every girl is able to give up worldly entertainment in favor of life on a remote border, even if she herself thinks otherwise.

After two months and 12 hours of flying from one end of the country to another, I experienced extraordinary relief: we had our own apartment, with heating and hot water. The village has a hospital and shops, and the people, despite their different faiths, are extremely kind and open. You can live! But most importantly, we were in a resort area where tourists from all over the world come all year round to ski and look at the beauties of the republic. Sources flow here mineral waters, fresh vegetables and fruits are always sold, and the mountain air does not compare with the one you breathe in the city. The only thing I forgot to mentally imagine and sincerely wish for is good neighbors. It turns out that they, like their parents, are not chosen, which is a pity.

Military service is like a roulette - today you are "in chocolate", and tomorrow you will be in Magadan. Moreover, the city of Magadan for the military is like a horror story at night: everyone is afraid of this place and does not want to go there. We were more fortunate with the place of service than the rest of the graduates. Many do live in cold houses, which in the past were, for example, an ordinary stable. When your husband is in the military, and also in the Caucasus, you begin to love hiking uphill. Indeed, nothing so invigorates after long gatherings at home as a walk high in the mountains. And the beauty there is extraordinary. We even took our son with us when he grew up a little. They put him in a backpack and went to the mountains. When you climb for the first time, wild horror reigns inside: a rocky path along the edge of the mountain, which crumbles in places - invigorates, so invigorates. But over time, you get used to it and even start to get adrenaline, especially when you meet jackals or a bear there.

Looking back, I do not regret at all that I married a military man. I will not list all the benefits that I gained with this choice. I will say one thing: I am glad that my life is developing this way and not otherwise. I see many examples happy life in a family where the husband is a military man. They have children, make repairs in the apartment and plan their vacation, despite the fact that outside the window Far North, hot spot or impenetrable swamp. They are not hindered by the hardships and hardships of military life - they simply do not notice them! By marrying a military man, I received not only a loved one, but also a pass to an extraordinary life that cannot be found in megacities and cities. Choose with your heart and try to see the positives in everything!

I he served a lot in remote garrisons (Arctic, Far East). Life and problems are different there.
Even the outlook is different there, but the most acute and important problem is women's. A woman, she ... either is (and then the problem is to get along with her) or she is not (and then in full height the problem is to find it). Such lucky people like me, who didn’t have this concern, and just happily lived in perfect harmony with the woman they love, are rarely seen even in bikes, let alone in life))) but I also had problems ... what is there.

Women also have many difficulties with the military. It’s easy for “civilians” (in the sense of the wives of civilian men). Three classic problems prevent them from living peacefully:

1. Nothing to wear.
2. Little space in the closet.
3. How to lose weight by overeating at night.

For women in the military, to the above problems is added:

4. There is no place to buy what you are not ashamed to wear.
5. There is no place to put on something, because of which there is not enough space in the closet.
6. There is no one to go where you will be appreciated .. the horror is that, in fact, there is even no one to do this, except for the married colleagues of the husband ... and this makes problem number 3 useless and even impossible.

All of the above problems torment women alone, because a military man is always on a campaign or in preparation for it. All planned and “worn out” in dreams “weekend or holiday” women's plans are easily crossed out with one call from the service. When it is a single case - God bless him, but when it is a system. And you really believe - this is not even a system, but a tradition, which the bosses are not ready to change for the sake of women.

A year later, the woman has a strong impression that the spiritual comfort of the soldier Zasrantsev is much more important to her husband than her personal, precious and easily vulnerable psyche. And here omissions, resentment, problems like - "she came up with it herself, she was offended", etc. begin. Does not love! And maybe never loved! Because he brought him into the wilderness, and even left him alone with the pans, the devil knows what he does in this service.

They part, of course, not only because of the impossibility of fulfilling "women's plans." Bytovuha is the officer's scourge. It ruthlessly and cynically interferes with the military's family happiness. The state is obliged to provide the officer with a life. So the law says. It provides for him, but ... subtly .. unobtrusively ... so that in the process of serving the military it would be easier to give his life for his homeland.
Therefore, the life of a military man is like a boot - smelly, smeared and hard until you get used to it. Officers get used to it in ten to fifteen years. Some are twenty-five. But these are details. An officer has been preparing for such a "life" from his youth. And he understands where he ended up in a military school. And his wife, during the period of courtship, saw only her beloved in dress uniform with a cap dashingly thrown back on the back of his head or with a guitar in shorts ... at his feet (some other minor options are possible). And she simply had no time to prepare herself for a harsh life, she had to impress such Happiness, keep the "chance" and be better than those who he might meet on dismissal. The girl, of course, heard something out of the corner of her ear about service, the army, exercises and small military units in the mountains ... but she associated all this with wonderful mountain air, excellent photographs, the absence of mother's moralizing, and a handsome man in a brilliant military uniform who will be there and forever love only her. What else is needed for happiness? She didn’t think at all that it would blow cold from all the cracks, that, in principle, you could miss your mother, and that her husband would be more important than the barracks, where he would disappear day and night, and even on weekends. In moments of doubt, his image surfaced in his memory ... with a guitar on a white horse. .. and doubts died by themselves in heavy short convulsions. How else? They call me married, and love ...

The officer is rarely asked about life. In the service, he is often asked about duty and combat readiness, and only at home about conscience and money ... He, of course, hints to the girl about future problems, difficulties, but not much, so as not to frighten her away. After all, he needs her in the garrison as a wife and fighting girlfriend, and not somewhere far away, like a muse.

Therefore, at first it is difficult with many wives. Some women can't stand it - they leave... not having time to taste it. Others remain and are even drawn in. There is an opinion that, unlike “some”, “others” simply have nowhere to go.

When children appear, the military is easier. Women's children discipline. Firstly, a child needs a father, and secondly, it is more difficult to go with a child to his mother and there she is less expected. Thirdly, the child does not allow her to think much and creates a lot of trouble, which is useful for wives, especially in the wilderness.
Besides, with the child and the husband it is easier to bring up. You can always move away from the topic of low wages and reproach them with the lack of a male upbringing in a child.

It is worse if parents, in addition to children, also bring up each other. Here, individual advanced educators of human souls, as a rule, already follow the path of shock therapy. For example, I remember telling me about such a case ...

One ensign came home for dinner. He aggravated it slightly in the service, so that his hands would not tremble, he received a pistol - he was preparing for firing. It means he sits at home, has dinner and listens to his wife's crying. Yaroslavna is resting...

The wife wailed and pressed on old household calluses. She lamented the lack of hot water in the house (you look at my hands, look at my red hands ...), reminded me of a filled trash can (after all, you promise to endure it for two days ...), reminded me of a broken shelf in the kitchen (but how much now!), reminded me of a broken toilet bowl (piss, and someone is looking at you from the glasses ...) And in conclusion, tactfully reminded of ruined youth and a warm and caring mother waiting for her. Concluding her speech, she said: “So that you eat now, a loafer, I have not sat down even once in the morning!”.

The ensign felt complicity, suspended the meal and took out a pistol. My wife squatted long and hard, confirming the TRP badge received in the fifth grade with her athletic form. Perhaps she would have sat down more, but the dinner was over and the ensign left to defend the Motherland.

So what? And nothing. In the evening she went to her mother. Four people led her to the train - she forgot how to walk herself. The doctor said - temporarily ...

The unit commander, having learned, of course, severely scolded the ensign ... but quickly lost his thoughts, habitually dragged on about maintaining combat readiness and even forgot to punish him.

Another well-known case of shock therapy is connected with everyday life. General shock therapy only:
It happened during my service in Skovorodino in the Far East. One lieutenant colonel came home on Saturday at 23.00. Sooty, dirty and evil. He was a good officer - a tanker, an almost round honors student in combat and humanitarian training since childhood. As soon as he was going to have a cultural rest, like a wife he had known since childhood, about a trash can ... full from last week ... about a broken door in the kitchen, etc. ... instead of sex, lunch and dinner.
He was angry, of course, hard. I took this bucket, said something "positive" to her, on the road ... and as I was in shape, I went to take out the bucket.

His wife waited from the trash can all night. I called the service ... there "he was not listed." Mobile phones had not yet been invented, but even then communication by wire was sometimes "out of coverage area".

On Sunday, she was looking for him and a bucket along with her friends, at local points and taverns.

On Monday and Tuesday, the regiment began to look for him ...

On Wednesday - connection ...

On Thursday, a bucket was found by the lake ... (later it turned out to be someone else's) they reported the emergency to the police and the district headquarters.

On Friday, they began to trawl the lake and scour the taiga with a human chain - to look for a corpse.

On Saturday and Sunday, instead of resting at home, the whole compound roamed through the forests with flashlights ...

And only on Monday morning, the lieutenant colonel found himself on his own - he arrived on the rise and carried out exercises with the soldiers ...

The soldiers tried to explain to their commander WHAT TO LOOK FOR... for a long time. They said: “We were looking for YOU this night in the basements, now we have to rest until ten in the morning, and then breakfast, and into the forest ... in search of you!” But he did not believe. He even punished some, especially touchy ... and I got used to doing exercises on Monday on the rise of charging ...

Then, of course, they "took him." The investigation established the harsh truth - it turned out that out of resentment he left for another village, to his sweetheart. There he aggravated in the wild ... repeatedly ... and involuntarily went into a deep binge.

He wakes up in the evening with a sweetheart ... in a bunk ... aggravates ... he will ask her, deeply preoccupied with combat readiness, what day is it supposed to be? She, the fool, felt sorry for him, she said: “It’s still Sunday.” And she herself thought - let him rest, dove ... The motherland will not be lost without him. When will I see again ?! Maybe my wife will understand how he is here with me ok and quit...

Dove rested like that, in a love coma, for almost a week ... Until he accidentally turned on the TV and saw the date.

This is such an unkind joke that life can throw out because of everyday disorder and rare rest. For a long time, that part of the consequences felt - I did not see the weekend. The divisional commander said that it was harmful to them ... Only the lieutenant colonel felt good - no one saw him with a bucket from now on. Even in the regiment of buckets they trusted with caution. And he reconciled with his wife. And they got better with sex - the lieutenant colonel never left the town again (poor sweetheart, as she felt).

To complete the discussion about the role of wives in the army, I will add that in addition to a well-established life, the vast majority of women need sex. Sex is the great mover of a woman's mood. He is important. He increases their motivation to live in this jo... in the town... Unfortunately, many military men underestimate his influence on their wives. In addition, there are other women, which is also important (after all, they definitely won’t wait, so they are on the “sexual list” in the forefront).

As a result, many military men have no time to deal with such nonsense with their legal wives. They are on alert! They have equipment, a warehouse, a favorite personnel! Let, judging by the Kama Sutra, there are no hopeless situations, but the Kama Sutra of the military is a charter and a technical description! The charter, of course, does not advise bad, therefore, for many military men (especially for soldiers), the charter is the sexiest book. Not a single picture, but they have it on every page (just kidding).

Jokes aside, sex is a real problem. Not everyone succeeds in combining love for service and a woman. An officer after the service, as they say ... is unable to go deeper, even into the forest. And no wonder! While in the barracks, you will look into the soul of each fighter through a chocolate eye ... you will lay out some, insert others ... the desire to repeat this at home disappears. Clean. You will come after lights out, at 23 - 24 hours. You want, of course ... just eat and sleep. At best, some are enough for midnight sex on the principle of Caesar - came ... saw ... fell asleep. These things definitely do not stick with women.

Some wives, without understanding, are offended. Others are convinced that their husbands are simply cheating on them and in retaliation they do not know who their children are from. Women always know how to find an alternative. And sometimes, having caught courage on the side, they are even glad of the husband’s service impulse and ... they themselves see him off to the Motherland ... - to strengthen her combat readiness. And themselves at this time ... alas - for many women (especially those deprived of the daily attention of their husbands) moral instability easily turns into persistent immorality.

Here he is! The moment of TRUTH... for the state. The officer is a statesman, but only at this moment, in a single impulse, the wives are in solidarity with the Fatherland and commanders of all degrees! An officer in the barracks is a wife in demolition. What difference does it make to him from whom she is demolished ... to the state! The main thing for him is that there will be a change (if it calls). What will be the new defenders! And it, the state, always supports wives! It helps the military serve, and wives give birth more often. It's not stupid...

Anyway. There are wives who are even happy with a complex of problems. Some husbands, too. A person gets used to everything, especially if he does it, that way - 15 or even 25 years. So the Motherland needs it that way. After all, we are still living and serving the Motherland as a legal state. And this means that the state is “always right”! And it will have to be reckoned with.

Fortunately, for us military men, there are few such "light" women among wives. They meet, of course, not without it, but they are really few. Even less than I would like ...))) There are many "such" among the ex-wives. They will come with their husband to a new place of service. Young, pretty, active, proud. Something will not work out there, in the family plan. They will snort, get divorced Not everyone will go back to their mother (if she has one) - no one is waiting, and not everyone has housing. Ex-husband somersaults in this hole for a year or two and leaves for a new duty station. And she lives in an apartment, as a rule, also with a child, but she is waiting for her prince. After a couple of years, she starts looking for herself. After a couple more, look actively, but not the prince, but whoever you hit. Although the white horse is old, and the child is being urged on. He needs a normal school, he needs theaters, libraries.

In general (as in a joke) she is preoccupied with one thing - how to find the man of her dreams and what to do with this beast. You'll be lucky if you manage to recapture someone and leave with a new peasant, and if not, he will rot as an old maid in a garrison hole or get drunk.

Some servicemen use eumelo such women. Arrange bridal contests (usually closed). They try to help fighting divorced girlfriends in an intimate way. As they say, - all I can ... some women are not very upset. They even manage to look like a million bucks, albeit with worn banknotes.

Anyway. Enough about the sad, albeit beautiful. So you can offend the Motherland. Anyway, today, for real, even a pathologist is not able to understand women (cosmetic medicine has stepped far ahead).

I would erect a monument to the wives of officers. Large, with an eternal fire in the hearth. After all, the feat of an officer's wife is no less important for the country than the feat of an unknown soldier! After all, they cannot work in their specialty, in fact they are ruining their youth and beauty, for the sake of dubious happiness to see a sleeping husband at night and serve him, for the sake of his service to the Motherland. It is much easier for us with women than for them with us. Make a monument to the wives of officers! I googled ... as it turned out, there is already one based on the movie "Officers". It stands on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow, next to the building of the Russian Ministry of Defense. But one is not enough! Thank you, our beloved ones! What would we do without you!

Journalist and writer Vasily Sarychev has been writing down the memoirs of old-timers for fifteen years, fixing the history of the western region of Belarus through their destinies. His new story, written especially for TUT.BY, is dedicated to Soviet women, who in 1941 were left to fend for themselves by the Soviet authorities. During the occupation, they were forced to survive, including with the help of the Germans.

Vasily Sarychev is working on a series of books "In Search of Lost Time". As the author notes, this is “the history of Europe in the mirror of a Western Belarusian city, which was told by old people who survived six authorities” ( Russian empire, German occupation during World War I, the period when Western Belarus was part of Poland, Soviet power, German occupation during World War II and again Soviet power).

Fundraising for the publication of a new book by Sarychev from the series “In Search of Lost Time” ends on the crowdfunding platform “Beehive”. On the page of this project, you can get acquainted with the content, study the list of gifts and participate in the publication of the book. Participants will receive a book as a gift for the New Year holidays.

TUT.BY has already published Vasily about the incredible fate common man, caught in the millstones of big politics, "polite people" from 1939 and about escaping naked from prison. New story dedicated to the wives of Soviet commanders.

When Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR, they came to our country as winners. But then, when their husbands retreated to the east with the active army, no one needed them. How did they survive under the new government?

I'm on you like in a war. Abandoned

“Let your Stalin feed you!”

Many years ago, in the sixties, there was an incident at the checkpoint of a Brest factory. The enterprise is more female, after the change of workers, an avalanche hurried home, and conflicts occurred in the crush. They did not look at faces: whether it was an editorial or a deputy, they applied it with proletarian frankness.

At the turnstile, as in a bath, everyone is equal, and the wife of the commander from the Brest Fortress, who headed the factory trade union - not yet old, twenty years had not passed since the war, having survived the occupation - was pushing on a common basis. Maybe she hit someone - with her elbow or during distribution - and the young weaver, who heard from her friends such things that they don’t write about in the newspapers, whipped backhand: “German prostitute!” - and she grabbed her breasts and croaked: “If you have small children ...”

So in one phrase - the whole truth about the war, with many shades, from which we were carefully taken away.

In conversations with people who survived the occupation, at first I could not understand when they made the remark “this is already after the war” and began to talk about the Germans. For the inhabitant of Brest, hostilities flashed in one morning, and then another power, three and a half years of deep German rear. Different categories of citizens - locals, Easterners, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, party workers who got out from behind the wire of prisoners, commander's wives, soltyses, policemen - each had their own war. Some survived the misfortune at home, where neighbors, relatives, where the walls help. It was very bad for those whom hard times caught in a foreign land.

Before the war, they arrived in the "liberated" western region as mistresses - yesterday's girls from the Russian outback, who pulled out a lucky ticket ( we are talking about the events of 1939, when Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR. - TUT.BY). To marry a lieutenant from a stationed regiment meant to take off in status. And here - the "liberation campaign" and in general a different world, where people, when they meet, raise the brim of their hats and turn to "pan", where in the store without an appointment there are bicycles with wonderfully curved handlebars, and private traders smoke a dozen varieties of sausages, and for a penny you can take at least five cuts on the dress ... And all these people look at them with their husband with caution - they look right ...

Nina Vasilievna Petruchik - by the way, the cousin of Fyodor Maslievich, whose fate is already in the chapter “Polite People of 1939”, recalled that autumn in the town of Volchin: “The wives of the commanders were in boots, printed cotton dresses with flowers, black velvet jackets and huge white scarves. At the market, they began to buy embroidered nightgowns and, out of ignorance, put them on instead of dresses ... "

Maybe the weather was like this - I'm talking about boots, but they are met by clothes. This is how an eleven-year-old girl saw them: very poor people came. People, chuckling, sold nightgowns, but laughter with laughter, and the newcomers became the masters of life in a year and a half before the war.

But life calculates for random happiness. It was these women, perceived with hostility, with children in their arms, with the outbreak of war, who were left alone in an alien world. From a privileged caste they suddenly turned into pariahs, thrown out of the queues with the words: “Let your Stalin feed you!”.

It was not so with everyone, but it was, and it is not for us now to judge the ways of survival that young women chose. The easiest thing was to find a guardian who would warm and feed the children, and protect them somewhere.

“Limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away young women, the inhabitants of this house”

Vasily Prokopuk, a boy from the time of the occupation, who was snooping around the city with his friends, recalled that on the former Moskovskaya (we are talking about one of the Brest streets. - TUT.BY) one could see young women with soldiers walking in the direction of the fortress. The narrator is convinced that it was not local girls who “spasted” under the arm, for whom it is more difficult to accept such courtship: there were parents, neighbors, in whose eyes the church grew, finally. Maybe polkas are more relaxed? - “What are you, the Poles have ambition! my respondents answered. “There was a case, a panenka was seen flirting with an occupier - the priest screwed this into his sermon ...”

"The war is walking around Russia, and we are so young ..." - three and a half years is a long time in a short Indian century. But this was not the main motive - the children, their eternally hungry eyes. The troubled boys did not delve into the subtleties, they muttered contemptuously about women from the former houses of the officers: “They found themselves ...”

“In the center of the courtyard,” writes the author, “there was a rather exotic wing in which lived a German major, our present chief, along with a beautiful young woman and her little child. We soon learned that this ex-wife Soviet officer, left to the mercy of fate in the tragic days of the Red Army in June 1941. In the corner of the barracks yard stood a three-story brick building inhabited by the abandoned families of Soviet officers. In the evenings, limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away the young women who lived in this house.”

The situation allowed options. For example, weren't the commander's wives forcibly taken away? According to Ivan Petrovich, “it was a small barracks, converted into a residential building, with several apartments per floor. Young women lived here, mostly with small children. It is possible that even before the war it was the house of the command staff, where the families found the war: I did not see guards or any signs of forced detention.

More than once or twice, I witnessed how the Germans drove up here in the evening: our camp was across the parade ground from this house. Sometimes they dropped in on the commandant, other times straight. It was not a trip to a brothel - they were going to the ladies. They knew about the visit, smiled like good friends. Usually the Germans came in the evening, went upstairs, or the women themselves went out dressed up, and the cavaliers took them away, one might assume, to a theater or a restaurant. I didn’t have to catch the return, with whom the children were, I can’t know. But everyone in the camp knew that these were the wives of the commanders. They understood that for women it was a means of survival.”

Here's how it turned out. AT last days before the war, commanders and party workers who wanted to take their families out of the city were accused of alarmism and expelled from the party - and now women have been left for the use of Wehrmacht officers.

The son's name was Albert, the Germans came - he became Adolf

It would be wrong to say that the women left behind were looking for such support, it was just one of the ways to survive. Unpopular, stepping over the line, beyond which - gossip and piercing glances.

Women who came to Western Belarus from the east often lived in twos, threes, it was easier to survive. They went to distant (they didn’t give them to the neighbors) villages, but you can’t live on alms alone, they settled down to wash wagons, barracks, and soldiers’ dormitories. Once a German gave a large postcard to the wife of a political worker from the artillery regiment, and she hung it on the wall to decorate the room. Many years have passed since the war, and the baboons remembered the picture - they vigilantly looked at each other during the war.

The wife of the battalion commander of the rifle regiment, who stood in the fortress before the war, at the beginning of the occupation rewrote little son from Albert to Adolf, she came up with such a move, and after the release she again made Albert. Other widows moved away from her, turned away, but for the mother this was not the main thing.

Someone will be closer to her truth, someone to the heroic Vera Khoruzhey, who insisted on going to the occupied Vitebsk at the head of an underground group, leaving a baby and a little daughter in Moscow.

Life is multifaceted, and those who survived the occupation remembered different things. And a romantic-minded person who left the terrible building of the SD was clearly not after torture, and the German’s love for a Jewish girl, whom he hid to the last and went to a penal company for her, and a city plantation worker who hastily appeased a Wehrmacht soldier nearby in the park, until she shot by a client who caught a bad disease. In each case, it was different: where is the food, where is the physiology, and somewhere - a feeling, love.

Outside of service, the Germans became gallant wealthy males. Bright in her youth, the beauty N. said: at least don’t go beyond the threshold - they stuck like ticks.

Statistics will not answer how many red-haired babies were born during the war and after the expulsion of the Germans from the temporarily occupied territory, as well as with the Slavic appearance in Germany at the beginning of the 46th ... This is a delicate topic to take deeply, and we went somewhere then to the side...

Maybe in vain in general about commander's wives - there were enough restless women of all statuses and categories, and they all behaved differently. Someone tried to hide their beauty, while someone, on the contrary, turned it to good. The wife of the commander of the reconnaissance battalion Anastasia Kudinova, older, shared shelter with young partners who also lost their husbands in the fortress. All three with children - such a kindergarten-day nursery. As soon as the Germans appeared, she smeared her friends with soot and kept her away from the window. I was not afraid for myself, my friends joked, our old maid ... They pulled their mother's strap and survived without the enemy's shoulder, then they joined the fight.

They were not alone, many remained faithful, waiting for their husbands throughout the war and later. However, the opposition - arrived, local - is not entirely true. Everywhere there are cultured and not very cultured people, with principles and creeping, pure and vicious. And there are depths in any person where it is better not to look, the nature of all sorts of things mixed up, and what will manifest itself with greater force depends largely on the circumstances. It so happened that since June 22, 1941, the most destitute, stunned by these circumstances, were the “easterners”.

Another would not be missed - the reason. How did it happen that you had to flee to Smolensk and further, leaving weapons, warehouses, the entire army of personnel, and in the border areas - also wives to the delight of Wehrmacht officers?

Then there was a noble rage, the science of hatred in a journalistic performance and a real one, which increased tenfold strength in battle. This hatred helped to carry out combat missions, but in a surprising way it was not transferred to the direct culprits of many sufferings.

Any married woman no matter how happy she is, she knows that family life- these are not only joys, but also worries, problems, worries for a loved one and children, and a lot of everyday affairs. But for those who decide to link their fate with an officer, this applies to an even greater extent. A military wife is not only a family status, but also an honorary title, which is very difficult to comply with.

What does it mean to be a military wife

Being an officer's wife is not at all easy, she also serves with her lover, obeying the same orders and the same daily routine as he does.

What should a girl be ready for when she decides to connect her fate with the military:

• To long separations and often unexpected business trips, when all domestic problems and the upbringing of children fall on her shoulders
• To frequent shifts places of residence, and few people can like semi-nomadic life, disorder of life and temporary apartments
• To the need to be for your husband not only a faithful and loving wife, but also a family psychologist who knows how to relieve stress and create a cozy atmosphere in the family
• To the fact that the husband will not talk about official affairs and share work problems, that there will always be a line in his life beyond which he will not allow it
• To self-denial, because often the wives of the military have to give up their work, their careers, and petty female joys. In distant garrisons, there are often no fitness centers, no beauty salons, no large stores.

But there is one very important circumstance that makes women endure all these inconveniences, put up with both the husband’s workload and his absences. This is Love. And those who know what family life is with an officer are sure that you can become a real wife of a military man only out of love.

How to be a military wife: features of life and relationships

Military service is not a job, but a lifestyle. This should be understood by women who have chosen the fate of an officer's wife. In order for family life with the military to not be a burden and bring not only problems, but also joys, it must be built on love and understanding.

To do this, it is necessary to take into account a number of features of coexistence with a military man:

• The spouse is a military man and remains at home, which means that the family and life most often obey a strict routine
• In officer families, most often patriarchal orders. A woman should not only understand, but also accept her role as the guardian of the hearth
• Military service is difficult not only physically, but also psychologically, so the house should be that island of comfort and peace where your man can relax and unwind
• Life in the garrisons forcedly makes most of the officers' wives housewives. In order not to get annoyed with boredom and not complain to your spouse, find a job you like, a hobby or a specialty that will be in demand everywhere

But most importantly, remember that you yourself made the choice by becoming the wife of an officer