Аннотация: A card game, a shoulder straps, a one kopeck of the State Bank. A story.
A card game, a shoulder straps, a one kopeck of the State Bank. A story.
Vladimir Vasilievich sometimes remembered about his father.
It seems that his father, Vasily Alexandrovich, graduated from a parish school, and after the outbreak of the First World War he joined the army instead of his older brother Ivan (who by that time apparently had a wife and children).
In the army, he became an ensign. Perhaps he graduated from the warrant officer school.
His attitude to military service was simple and efficient. He always emphasized the need to take care of the soldiers and spoke about the inadmissibility of stealing from soldiers. Even in the transmission of these words (through Vladimir Vasilyevich), there was some kind of religious indignation in these words against the facts of theft from soldiers. It seems that he considered caring for the soldiers (under his command) as a special own duty.
One of the main topics of his stories about the military events were a non-heroic themes. It were: a vigilance, a concern for the guard measures, for reconnaissance, for security and the other precautions and safety actions during the moving and deploying a military unit.
There are no memories of his exploits during the First World War. But there were military awards. A little baby Vladimir Vasilyevich smashed them with a hammer in childhood. They have become a kind of broken toy for the child.
Vasily Alexandrovich never aspired to high ranks and positions in the army, he was rather indifferent to them.
He had nothing to do with politics and parties either before or after 1917 - as far as it was possible in those period. He, using a polit-correct wordcombination, said that after the revolution he decided "to be with the people [of the country]."
One of the activities of the military during the period of a rest was a playing cards. Once (it was during the First World War) he played cards and won a rail train carriage with a sugar. After that, he ended the card game for good.
At some point, Lenin, the Soviet government announced the demobilization of the Imperial ("old") army. Naturally, the need for officers has not disappeared. Many of them returned to service after being mobilized into the Red Army.
Vasily Alexandrovich, after the demobilization of the "old" army, went home. He was walking in a military uniform. One of the main themes of the revolutionary propaganda of that time was the views of the officers. The officer's shoulder straps [epaulettes] aroused anger, and sometimes they could serve as the cause of revolutionary violence.
Vasily Alexandrovich crossed the railroad tracks. The place was deserted, distant. A forest. There was a trackman's booth nearby [a booth of a railway employee, who periodically controll a health of railroad tracks]. He took off his shoulder straps and put them on the window, leaning them against the window pane.
When shoulder straps were reintroduced in the Red Army during the Second World War, many servicemen did not know how to sew them on. Vasily Alexandrovich was explaining, was showing his colleagues how to wear shoulder straps.
Apparently, the return to their native lands after the demobilization of the "old" army took a considerable period of time. On the way, Vasily Alexandrovich fell ill with typhus. On the train, he rode unconscious and with a high temperature. There was no normal treatment. Accidental fellow travelers did not have the opportunity to organize assistance to the patient. A train was approaching the station where he was supposed to get off. At the same time, by coincidence, his older brother Ivan arrived at this station. He had no information about the return of his younger brother. Ivan walked along the platform and, for some unknown reason, looked into the wagon of the train, that had stopped for several minutes. In the wagon he saw his brother lying in typhoid delirium and unconscious. He drove his brother home on a horse cart and younger brother recovered.
For some time, Vasily Alexandrovich continued to serve and was related to the protection of various objects in the city of Rostov-on-Don.
He lived in a some house and he was a neighbor of a high-ranking employee of the State Bank in Rostov-on-Don. Perhaps Vasily Alexandrovich and his wife rented room in the apartment of this employee of the State Bank.
Based on a number of indirect signs, we can conclude that the State Bank at that time had a not visible, but quite tangible influence.
At the next receipt of wages, a high-ranking employee of the State Bank joked that under the tsar, wages were paid on time, and after the revolution they were paid late (or he issued out an analogical joke). An employee of the State Bank ended up in jail.
The wife of this employee in horror ran to Vasily Alexandrovich with disastrous news.
Vasily Alexandrovich had some responsibility to the protection of the prison.
He found a some reason, and he visited a new victim of the regime and took this man out of the cell, outside the walls of the prison.
The victim of the regime has turned out back into an influential person.
After some time, Vasily Alexandrovich completed his service. He started working at the State Bank in Rostov-on-Don in some position.
Vasily Alexandrovich's wife recalled how once he spent the whole night in the bank. This was the case when income and expenses (for the day) did not coincide (the discrepancy was one kopeck).
In the 20s - 30s, already in Rostov-on-Don, Vasily Alexandrovich received an education and gained experience in civilian life.
[MCCСLXXVI. Vladimir Vasilievich, the Holmes method and a sailor in a train. The story. - April 8, 2020.
MCCСLXXXV. Vladimir Vasilievich and the first occupation of Rostov-on-Don (in November 1941). The story. - April 9, 2020.
MCCСLXXXVI. Vladimir Vasilievich and the Georgian city of Gori. The story. - April 9, 2020.
MCCСLXXXVII. Vladimir Vasilievich in Kazakhstan. The story. - April 10, 2020.
MDCXLIX. Vladimir Vasilievich and Vuchetich. A historical note. - August 16, 2020.
MMXVIII. Vladimir Vasilievich and the hunt (for scientific achievements). A story. - February 18, 2021.
MMXXV. Vladimir Vasilievich and the financing of defense from the family budget. A story. - February 21, 2021.].
March 26, 2021 10:22
Translation from Russian into English: March 26, 2021 11:52.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Карточная игра, погоны, копейка из Госбанка. Рассказ'.