Chepenko Evgenia

Notes on the "Tailed Star"

1. Great writer

"... - You are my life, my soul, my love. Without you, the future loses its meaning.

With these words, he hugged Katie and kissed her passionately, tenderly, as a man truly in love can kiss."

I looked up from the book and sniffed. How beautifully Cole writes about love. What words do her heroes say, their nobility, education, pride. I sighed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my cheeks starting to itch from the salt water. My stomach was raging. Wow! I didn’t even notice at what moment I started bawling. It’s a pity to part with the novel, but fate is calling.

I allowed myself to swim for another five minutes in the vast ocean of dreams and fantasies, then returned to cruel reality. Judging by the clock, there was no more than forty minutes left to sleep. Here are the green trees! This again managed to get so read!

I got up from the chair, straightened my numb limbs, walked up to the table, pressed a button on the luminous panel of the remote control, and the curtain against the transparent wall moved to the side. An orange dawn dawned behind the glass. Since the indefinite strike of utility workers ended, it has even become beautiful.

The city below was in full swing. Cars were rushing along the three-tier highway. Trains dropped off and picked up passengers. People crowded at bus stops, sidewalks, and pedestrian bridges. The snow that fell overnight had already melted a little and mixed with dirt, forming a black-gray coating on horizontal surfaces, as always happens in mid-January. And if the road workers' unions do not stop their strike immediately, then by tomorrow, taking into account the meteorologists' forecast, the entire city will be stuck in one big traffic jam, and as a result, people will pour into the subway. The crush is guaranteed. Br-r.

I felt a little uneasy. I winced. Almost five years have passed since I left the position of HR manager, but I preferred not to return to the memories of the majestic subway during rush hours. I loved the smell of the metro, its halls, the train, but only when there was an opportunity to turn around and look around, and not at those moments when you are carried into the carriage and taken out, practically without moving a single limb, and you ride with someone the whole way - under the arm, and not always clean. Some things don't change for centuries.

An ambulance rushed along the upper tier. Few gave way to her. I sighed. No. There are definitely no good guys left in this world.

The laptop beeped for a video call. Someone decided that it was time for Svetik to get up. I glanced sideways for a moment. Wow! It turns out that thinking about existence took more than half an hour. Pressed connection. The face of Lisa, my editor, appeared on the screen, slightly inhibited by distance.

Hello! Great writer. Are you up?

Got up. - I sighed.

That is great. So how? Have you collected everything?

Yes. “Just in case, I looked at the suitcase in the middle of the bed, which I had filled so diligently yesterday according to the list. Unfortunately, the rest of the room was absolute chaos.

Documentation?

Telephone?

Laptop?

You speak on it.

Oh! Well, don't forget. How many times did you go through the list?

Class. Why am I calling? You leave early. Yaroslav just told me that the trains are running late. Well, did you hear about the explosion yesterday?

I got lost.

No, no. What explosion?

Wow! Haven't watched the news yet?

All clear with you. - Lizka waved her hand at me from the other side of the screen. - In short, two cars went off the rails. The guys haven’t been able to do anything serious for a long time. Thanks to the FSB. Passengers have a maximum of bruises, bruises and the like. But the schedule was completely spoiled. There was confusion all night. So, let's not stay there for coffee.

Okay. Thank you, Liz. - My face apparently took on a concerned look, judging by the way my friend playfully shook her finger.

You, Light, most importantly, don’t bother too much. If you don't make it on time for your flight, call me, I'll arrange the next one for you. In the end, the trip is not going anywhere. No one will take your place in the hotel.

OK. Lick! Thank you. You have always been my salvation.

Well, that's it! Let's. Happy holidays! Have a nice walk! So that five years in advance.

I laughed.

Fine! Bye.

Bye. - She passed out. The window darkened and rolled up.

I hurried to the kitchen. Yaroslav, Lizka’s husband, won’t just talk like that. If he said things are bad with the schedule, so it is. Better early. We'll have to sleep on the ship.

The coffee maker whirred and poured sweet coffee and cream into the cup. I took out the pita bread, spread it with mayonnaise and began to chew it while standing, feverishly going over the list of things for vacation in my brain. This is the third run.

My gaze fell on a colorful brochure printed a week ago, promising heavenly pleasures in a comfortable hotel and an unforgettable safari through the wild jungle of Kedrovka.

From the textbook "Planetary Science. 5th grade."

Kedrovka - the fourth planet solar system in the constellation...

Main stream economic development- tourism, forestry industry. The population is settlers who migrated from Earth in the mid-twenty-first century. Indigenous people- absent. Flora and fauna are specific. Scientists are still debating whether some types of vegetation are considered intelligent...

She carefully packed the laptop into a suitcase, got into a T-shirt, jeans, a hoodie, a jacket in record time, and wrapped a scarf over it. She grabbed the keys from the table and flew out into the corridor like a bullet. The elevator doors silently launched me into their interior and, a moment later, released me almost as silently. The concierge downstairs, paying tribute to tradition - an elderly, blind granny, nodded affably to me goodbye.

How long are you leaving us?

For two and a half weeks. - I smiled. Are the holidays starting?

Have a happy rest. Will you come straight away for a new book?

Yeah. - I smiled.

Grandma leaned in conspiratorially.

If it's not a secret, do you have any ideas?

There are some, Nastasya Andreevna. But no one knows, they haven’t fully taken shape, the editor doesn’t know yet. I think the holidays will give me a boost.

Nastasya Andreevna, having received valuable information, nodded her head in understanding. I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, there were no new ideas in my head. Over the course of five years, she became so devastated that Lizka decided to give me legal leave.

I walked out of the hall, the unpleasant smell of sidewalk shampoo and the hum hit my nose. Familiar signs of the awakened big city. I started looking around for a taxi; the car had been in the paid parking lot since yesterday. The taxi driver was found surprisingly quickly. The price, of course, is exorbitant - who would doubt it - but it was more important to catch the flight.

The warning was in vain, the train for which I took the ticket was late, direct transit to the spaceport. So I sat for forty minutes at the station at the exit, right on my suitcase, since there were no other places. But already in the carriage I found a place and arrived almost comfortably, bought heated coffee from the machine and, while drinking, bought another four in reserve, I don’t know why, you never know in life with my luck, plus a couple of bottles of water.

However, then everything went like clockwork. It's absolutely amazing! I checked in, scanned my luggage, then safely boarded and - voila! - my legal single junior suite number thirty-nine. I placed my simple luggage under the bed and began to look around for disposable underwear. It takes 24 hours to fly to Kedrovka by high-speed train. A flight attendant in a stupid green uniform poked her head through the door.

Get your tickets ready, I'll deliver the laundry! - And quickly disappeared, apparently not expecting a polite answer.

FIRE SNAKE OVER NOVGOROD

In 1728, a “fiery serpent with eight heads” appeared over Novgorod the Great. Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod, reported to the Synod that Mikhail Iosifov, who was detained “on some matter” in Moscow, in the cell office of “the village of Valdai,” announced the following. When he was kept “on the same matter” in the Novgorod archbishop’s house, “under discharge, in the office of schismatic affairs under arrest,” then cell attendant Jacob Alekseev came to him “and spoke to him the following words: “What was the vision in heaven at night, like if a fiery serpent with seven heads flew over the Novgorod cathedral church, which came from Ladoga and hovered over that church and over our house (Feofan Prokopovich - M.V.) and over Yuryev and over the Klopsky monasteries, and then flew to Staraya Rusa. And this will happen to both the house and the monastery not without reason; which many citizens allegedly saw,” but who exactly did not say that.”

When Feofan Prokopovich was informed about this “chatter,” he ordered the cell attendant to “interrogate in detail” and, “if it comes to a corporal search, then send him to a secular court.” The “case of the fiery serpent” began. They took Jacob's cell attendant in for questioning. The cell attendant “locked himself up.” He repeated: “He, Jacob, the priest, never had such speeches about any vision...” “They took hold of the priest. -Have you heard such speeches from him? - I truly heard... [...] - Why did you show something wrong before? “Otherwise I showed it by my unconsciousness.” And the cell attendant continued to repeat: the priest “told” about the fiery serpent, wanting to “annoy the serpent” to the church hierarchs. Why did the priest invent the “fable about the serpent”? Being “on trial in some case,” he was under arrest - both in Novgorod and in Moscow. “And here, sitting under arrest, he comes up with the idea of ​​a “fiery serpent with seven heads” and goes to Novgorod: “They told me about the serpent there, when I was sitting there and on trial.” And who spoke? - Some Yakov, “cell attendant of the judge Archimandrite Andronik.” This, it seems, is the whole solution: he was probably judged by this same Andronicus... So we need to annoy him with a “fiery serpent,” even through his cell attendant.” “What does it mean that the serpent hovered over the Novgorod cathedral, and over the archbishop’s house, and over the Yuryev and Klopsky monasteries, and then flew to Staraya Rusya” - let the judges themselves figure it out and shake their heads... " (Mordovtsev 1882:

483-483) The meaning of the appearance of the fiery serpent both in the 18th century and later could be interpreted in different ways. This mythological character is traditionally polysemantic. The ideas about the fiery serpent reflected the concepts of animated celestial, “fiery phenomena” (about “living” flying, falling stars, meteorites, unusual flashes) and the deceased, the inhabitant and “master” of another, underground (possibly celestial) kingdom , which visits people living on earth, mainly mourning widows. “Having flown over the chimney and scattering sparks,” the snake pretends to be a handsome guy or a deceased husband and, as a rule, destroys women: they begin to wither and wither (the snake “sucks out” their strength , and sometimes even crushes and eats them themselves). A fire serpent can serve a person endowed with witchcraft abilities. He brings wealth and prosperity to the house, but in the end, he destroys the owner. You can only escape from it by a miracle - Novg., Skull., AREM. f.7, op.1, no. 798:1; Vlad., Smirnov 1922: 72; Ural, Fairy Tale Commission 1927:30; Zabayk., Loginovsky 1903:14. See also: Vlasova 2001:192 (Arch., Tamb., Kaluzh., Sarat., Simb., V. Sib.).

D.K. Zelenin considered “fantastic money-bearing serpents, incubi and succubi” an international phenomenon (Zelenin 1936: 202). In the beliefs of many provinces of Russia, a fiery serpent (dragon, snake, club, ball), described not quite clearly, is a form of existence (transformation) or evidence of the presence of unclean spirits, mainly the trait: a fiery serpent - overthrown from the sky, but did not reach earth devils (Tul.); flame around the invisible devil (Vlad.); unclean spirit (Kur.), etc. According to scattered evidence about Novgorod beliefs of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a fiery serpent can serve people endowed with witchcraft abilities (he “whispers” with the sorceress Nastasya Minkina, Arakcheev’s cohabitant - Memoirs 1871 :556).

On March 15, 1895, at 9 o’clock in the evening, a “fiery serpent with a tail” (or a “couple”) allegedly flew over the Pomeranian station in the Novgorod district: “bringing money to someone.” The couple, local residents claimed, were an unclean spirit flying at night in the form of a fiery serpent “to those people who are familiar with him." He “brings money to them, which makes them rich. So if a person suddenly becomes rich, then people say that he got a couple of bucks.” N. Sinozersky, who reported this information, considered the snake of “extraordinary size a fireball” and separated it from “falling stars”, which “are taken by the people to be angels flying to earth for the souls of people - the righteous, or for angels carrying the souls of babies about to be born.” "(Sinozersky 1896: 143).

The published text most likely reflects ideas about the “sign serpent” - an animated, prophetic celestial phenomenon, or about a “star with a tail.” Wed: peasants sometimes directly called meteorites snakes (Arch., Don, Kostr.); revered as fiery serpents (Simb.) (Vlasova 2001:191; see also: Vlasova 1998: 386-396). “In the Urals they said that at the end of the summer of 1858, in the Kyrgyz Bukeyev horde, a huge snake fell from the sky: “How do you find out where it came from and why? “Maybe, what a sign”” (Zheleznov 1910:111). In Perm, the comet of 1858 was simply called “a star with a tail” (Zelenin 1910:165). In turn, comets were called “hairy or tailed stars.” Sometimes the fiery serpent was distinguished “from ordinary shooting stars”, which in the St. Petersburg and Yaroslavl provinces were called “snakes”. They stated: “While the “snakes” fall immediately, quickly - the fiery snake flies impetuously, in leaps (Smol, lips.) or makes an arched flight (Ryaz. lips.) - all these features are well noticed by the people" (Svyatsky 1913 : 181-182).

These are very common beliefs in Russia, noted by A.N. Afanasyev, were studied repeatedly (Senatorsky 1883; Zelenin 1910, etc.). All such phenomena, harbingers of future changes, have attracted special attention since ancient times. “Russian chroniclers associated the comet of 1223 with the unfortunate battle of Kalka, the comet of 1264 with a severe cattle pestilence, the comet of 1382 with the invasion of Russia by Tokhtamysh. After the comet of 1471-1474, “there was a lot of evil on earth, famine, pestilence and violence,” notes the chronicler.” The comet of 1858 “schismatics called the star “com” and based on it they argued that the second coming would soon come” (Zelenin 1910: 164-165). In general, such celestial phenomena were traditionally considered in Russia as “warnings” (harbingers of troubles) or “punishment from God”: “brooms that sweep the sky before God’s feet”; “stars with smoke tails” that “hang” below the clouds - “God sends them to correct people” (Arch.) (Svyatsky 1913: 179-80).

At the same time, the upward “tail” of the celestial phenomenon predicts war, and the downward “tail” predicts pestilence (Zelenin 1910: 167). However, many believed that “generally important” and even favorable events could be predicted in this way (“God’s planet cannot portend evil”). “In September 1618, when the Polish prince Vladislav settled near Moscow, a comet appeared in the sky. Its head, according to the chronicle, stood above the city of Moscow itself, and its tail stretched to the Polish and German lands. The Tsar and those around him saw this as an omen that Moscow would be taken by the prince. But others objected to them: “When this star appears over which state stands as the head, it shows all good things, silence and prosperity, but when the tail stretches out, in those countries it shows the existence of disorder, bloodshed, internecine warfare and great wars" “And it will be fulfilled,” adds the “New Chronicler,” “and this will be the end.”

Similarly, “before the abolition of serfdom, the comet lay in the sky for six weeks” (Zelenin 1910:165, 168). On the other hand, although with the adoption of Christianity, comets and other celestial phenomena began to be considered signs of the omniscient God, “faith in the law of the stars,” the view of comets as living beings, “willful” or generated by the forces of evil or omniscient nature, was never it has been completely eliminated either in folk cosmogony or in vapocryphal literature. This is evidenced by the persistent image of the “snake comet”. Therefore, the appearance of a fiery serpent over Novgorod could be interpreted in different ways, completely oppositely: both as a “warning sign” sent by God, and as a manifestation of the unclean, who was attracted by the sinful acts of the church hierarchs. The appearance of the serpent could be considered a consequence of the “witchcraft” of the church clergy, who in Russian beliefs (the educated classes were not alienated from them) was endowed with special supernatural abilities (Truvorov 1889: 714-715; Galkovsky 1916: 221-222, etc.).

The seven-headed nature of the serpent probably emphasized its power, or the degree of sinfulness of the clergy. And yet, what is of particular interest here is, perhaps, not so much the traditional beliefs captured in the document, but rather their specific refraction in the political and social first life quarter of the 18th century. The fiery serpent was at the center of the trial. However, one or another presence of supernatural forces and creatures in legal proceedings is quite traditional for Russia - and in numerous trials of witchcraft and corruption (see: Esipov 1883; Kostomarov 1883; Astrov 1889; Truvorov 1889; Cherepnin 1929; Eleonskaya 1994 and etc.), and in civil matters, where evil spirits turn into a kind of “proof of unreliability” of the one who comes into contact with it (this feature is especially characteristic of early XVIII century).

Characteristic, for example, is a selection of cases from the archives of the Secret Chancellery, analyzed by M.I. Semevsky: the spread of rumors about the appearance of a kikimora in the Trinity Cathedral of St. Petersburg is interpreted as “a fiction for the desolation of the city”; the Swedish doctor’s prediction of the year of Peter I’s death as “fortune telling” with the aim of destroying the sovereign (Semevsky 1884: 88-100; 90-95). All this is fully consistent with the motley confusion of concepts that reigned in the minds of many Russians at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In pre-Petrine Russia, “witches’ dreams” and their consequences could be considered both quite real and “socially significant.” In particular, “the government requirement was that, when swearing allegiance to the king, they swear not to resort to conspiracy and also to actions and objects associated with it” (Eleonskaya 1994:100-101).

The non-superstitious Peter I interpreted “witchcraft” and other manifestations of the supernatural, mainly, quite prosaically, that is, as a kind of disguised anti-state and anti-social activity. But his subjects - either out of habit, or because of lingering superstition - continued to put irrational meaning into rational concepts and with redoubled zeal sought in the course of legal proceedings not only treason, but real “witches' dreams”, accompanied by the intervention of evil spirits. In the end (although in the legislation of Peter the Great and post-Petrine times, cliques, demoniacs, and sorcerers were automatically recognized as pretenders and deceivers - Tatishchev 1978: 326-327; Kostomarov 1883: 481-494) superstition still took a strong place and in everyday life, and in legal practice seemingly transformed by Peter I of Russia.

"1. It influences the motive of the crime - it is the superstition of the subject who violated the law, a legal historian summarized a century later. — 2. It is a means of fraud when a criminal takes advantage of the superstition of a famous person in order to steal his property by deception. 3. Superstition is a weapon of revenge in cases of hysteria and false accusations of witchcraft. 4. Superstition creates imaginary crimes, which are often made the subject of legal proceedings” (Levenstim 1897: 153).

In the “case of the fiery serpent over Novgorod,” the serpent most likely became an “instrument of revenge,” although the more specific meaning of its appearance remained unsolved. The Most Reverend Aaron, “Bishop of Korel and Ladoga” (it was not without reason that “the serpent came from Ladoga”) - in his consistory in Novgorod an investigation was carried out about the mysterious serpent and “interrogations were underway of Priest Joseph and the judge’s cell attendant Yakov, accused by him” - reported to Feofan Prokopovich: “ Both interrogated people stuck to their previous testimonies and demanded a “civil search.” And this is already “torture, dungeon.” In addition, this search will inevitably “hook” many others whom the ill-fated priest plans to annoy. Feofan Prokopovich nevertheless informed the Synod of the need to send “this Yakov” and then “this priest Mikhail” to a civil court, which “without a determination from the Synod is dangerous and requires a resolution for this.” The matter apparently got lost in the Synod. Or, at least, it did not receive the wide public response expected by priest Joseph (Mordovtsev 1882: 484-485). And the “serpent with seven heads,” waving its fiery tail, melted without a trace in the Novgorod sky.

Chepenko Evgenia

Notes on the "Tailed Star"

1. Great writer

"... - You are my life, my soul, my love. Without you, the future loses its meaning.

With these words, he hugged Katie and kissed her passionately, tenderly, as a man truly in love can kiss."

I looked up from the book and sniffed. How beautifully Cole writes about love. What words do her heroes say, their nobility, education, pride. I sighed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my cheeks starting to itch from the salt water. My stomach was raging. Wow! I didn’t even notice at what moment I started bawling. It’s a pity to part with the novel, but fate is calling.

I allowed myself to swim for another five minutes in the vast ocean of dreams and fantasies, then returned to cruel reality. Judging by the clock, there was no more than forty minutes left to sleep. Here are the green trees! This again managed to get so read!

I got up from the chair, straightened my numb limbs, walked up to the table, pressed a button on the luminous panel of the remote control, and the curtain against the transparent wall moved to the side. An orange dawn dawned behind the glass. Since the indefinite strike of utility workers ended, it has even become beautiful.

The city below was in full swing. Cars were rushing along the three-tier highway. Trains dropped off and picked up passengers. People crowded at bus stops, sidewalks, and pedestrian bridges. The snow that fell overnight had already melted a little and mixed with dirt, forming a black-gray coating on horizontal surfaces, as always happens in mid-January. And if the road workers' unions do not stop their strike immediately, then by tomorrow, taking into account the meteorologists' forecast, the entire city will be stuck in one big traffic jam, and as a result, people will pour into the subway. The crush is guaranteed. Br-r.

I felt a little uneasy. I winced. Almost five years have passed since I left the position of HR manager, but I preferred not to return to the memories of the majestic subway during rush hours. I loved the smell of the metro, its halls, the train, but only when there was an opportunity to turn around and look around, and not at those moments when you are carried into the carriage and taken out, practically without moving a single limb, and you ride with someone the whole way - under the arm, and not always clean. Some things don't change for centuries.

An ambulance rushed along the upper tier. Few gave way to her. I sighed. No. There are definitely no good guys left in this world.

The laptop beeped for a video call. Someone decided that it was time for Svetik to get up. I glanced sideways for a moment. Wow! It turns out that thinking about existence took more than half an hour. Pressed connection. The face of Lisa, my editor, appeared on the screen, slightly inhibited by distance.

Hello! Great writer. Are you up?

Got up. - I sighed.

That is great. So how? Have you collected everything?

Yes. “Just in case, I looked at the suitcase in the middle of the bed, which I had filled so diligently yesterday according to the list. Unfortunately, the rest of the room was absolute chaos.

Documentation?

Telephone?

Laptop?

You speak on it.

Oh! Well, don't forget. How many times did you go through the list?

Class. Why am I calling? You leave early. Yaroslav just told me that the trains are running late. Well, did you hear about the explosion yesterday?

I got lost.

No, no. What explosion?

Wow! Haven't watched the news yet?

All clear with you. - Lizka waved her hand at me from the other side of the screen. - In short, two cars went off the rails. The guys haven’t been able to do anything serious for a long time. Thanks to the FSB. Passengers have a maximum of bruises, bruises and the like. But the schedule was completely spoiled. There was confusion all night. So, let's not stay there for coffee.

Okay. Thank you, Liz. - My face apparently took on a concerned look, judging by the way my friend playfully shook her finger.

You, Light, most importantly, don’t bother too much. If you don't make it on time for your flight, call me, I'll arrange the next one for you. In the end, the trip is not going anywhere. No one will take your place in the hotel.

OK. Lick! Thank you. You have always been my salvation.

Well, that's it! Let's. Happy holidays! Have a nice walk! So that five years in advance.

1. Great writer

"... - You are my life, my soul, my love. Without you, the future loses its meaning.

With these words, he hugged Katie and kissed her passionately, tenderly, as a man truly in love can kiss."

I looked up from the book and sniffed. How beautifully Cole writes about love. What words do her heroes say, their nobility, education, pride. I sighed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my cheeks starting to itch from the salt water. My stomach was raging. Wow! I didn’t even notice at what moment I started bawling. It’s a pity to part with the novel, but fate is calling.

I allowed myself to swim for another five minutes in the vast ocean of dreams and fantasies, then returned to cruel reality. Judging by the clock, there was no more than forty minutes left to sleep. Here are the green trees! This again managed to get so read!

I got up from the chair, straightened my numb limbs, walked up to the table, pressed a button on the luminous panel of the remote control, and the curtain against the transparent wall moved to the side. An orange dawn dawned behind the glass. Since the indefinite strike of utility workers ended, it has even become beautiful.

The city below was in full swing. Cars were rushing along the three-tier highway. Trains dropped off and picked up passengers. People crowded at bus stops, sidewalks, and pedestrian bridges. The snow that fell overnight had already melted a little and mixed with dirt, forming a black-gray coating on horizontal surfaces, as always happens in mid-January. And if the road workers' unions do not stop their strike immediately, then by tomorrow, taking into account the meteorologists' forecast, the entire city will be stuck in one big traffic jam, and as a result, people will pour into the subway. The crush is guaranteed. Br-r.

I felt a little uneasy. I winced. Almost five years have passed since I left the position of HR manager, but I preferred not to return to the memories of the majestic subway during rush hours. I loved the smell of the metro, its halls, the train, but only when there was an opportunity to turn around and look around, and not at those moments when you are carried into the carriage and taken out, practically without moving a single limb, and you ride with someone the whole way - under the arm, and not always clean. Some things don't change for centuries.

An ambulance rushed along the upper tier. Few gave way to her. I sighed. No. There are definitely no good guys left in this world.

The laptop beeped for a video call. Someone decided that it was time for Svetik to get up. I glanced sideways for a moment. Wow! It turns out that thinking about existence took more than half an hour. Pressed connection. The face of Lisa, my editor, appeared on the screen, slightly inhibited by distance.

Hello! Great writer. Are you up?

Got up. - I sighed.

That is great. So how? Have you collected everything?

Yes. “Just in case, I looked at the suitcase in the middle of the bed, which I had filled so diligently yesterday according to the list. Unfortunately, the rest of the room was absolute chaos.

Documentation?

Telephone?

Laptop?

You speak on it.

Oh! Well, don't forget. How many times did you go through the list?

Class. Why am I calling? You leave early. Yaroslav just told me that the trains are running late. Well, did you hear about the explosion yesterday?

I got lost.

No, no. What explosion?

Wow! Haven't watched the news yet?

All clear with you. - Lizka waved her hand at me from the other side of the screen. - In short, two cars went off the rails. The guys haven’t been able to do anything serious for a long time. Thanks to the FSB. Passengers have a maximum of bruises, bruises and the like. But the schedule was completely spoiled. There was confusion all night. So, let's not stay there for coffee.

Okay. Thank you, Liz. - My face apparently took on a concerned look, judging by the way my friend playfully shook her finger.

You, Light, most importantly, don’t bother too much. If you don't make it on time for your flight, call me, I'll arrange the next one for you. In the end, the trip is not going anywhere. No one will take your place in the hotel.

OK. Lick! Thank you. You have always been my salvation.

Well, that's it! Let's. Happy holidays! Have a nice walk! So that five years in advance.

I laughed.

Fine! Bye.

Bye. - She passed out. The window darkened and rolled up.

I hurried to the kitchen. Yaroslav, Lizka’s husband, won’t just talk like that. If he said things are bad with the schedule, so it is. Better early. We'll have to sleep on the ship.

The coffee maker whirred and poured sweet coffee and cream into the cup. I took out the pita bread, spread it with mayonnaise and began to chew it while standing, feverishly going over the list of things for vacation in my brain. This is the third run.

My gaze fell on a colorful brochure printed a week ago, promising heavenly pleasures in a comfortable hotel and an unforgettable safari through the wild jungle of Kedrovka.

From the textbook "Planetary Science. 5th grade."

Kedrovka is the fourth planet of the solar system in the constellation…

The main direction of economic development is tourism and the forestry industry. The population is settlers who migrated from Earth in the mid-twenty-first century. Indigenous population - absent. Flora and fauna are specific. Scientists are still debating whether some types of vegetation are considered intelligent...

She carefully packed the laptop into a suitcase, got into a T-shirt, jeans, a hoodie, a jacket in record time, and wrapped a scarf over it. She grabbed the keys from the table and flew out into the corridor like a bullet. The elevator doors silently launched me into their interior and, a moment later, released me almost as silently. The concierge downstairs, paying tribute to tradition - an elderly, blind granny, nodded affably to me goodbye.

How long are you leaving us?

For two and a half weeks. - I smiled. Are the holidays starting?

Have a happy rest. Will you come straight away for a new book?

Yeah. - I smiled.

Grandma leaned in conspiratorially.

If it's not a secret, do you have any ideas?

There are some, Nastasya Andreevna. But no one knows, they haven’t fully taken shape, the editor doesn’t know yet. I think the holidays will give me a boost.

Nastasya Andreevna, having received valuable information, nodded her head in understanding. I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, there were no new ideas in my head. Over the course of five years, she became so devastated that Lizka decided to give me legal leave.

I walked out of the hall, the unpleasant smell of sidewalk shampoo and the hum hit my nose. Familiar signs of an awakened big city. I started looking around for a taxi; the car had been in the paid parking lot since yesterday. The taxi driver was found surprisingly quickly. The price, of course, is exorbitant - who would doubt it - but it was more important to catch the flight.

The cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl are notorious throughout the world. Few people will be able to remain indifferent to stories about the fate of people who suddenly lost everything they had: a home, a job, an established life. But in Russia there are many cities with a similar fate. And if a lot has already been said about the tragedy of Chernobyl and Pripyat, then most people do not even suspect the existence of other dead cities. Former residents of abandoned cities and towns create their own websites on the Internet, try to communicate, maintain relationships, but most of them are scattered by life...

Notes by Alexander Benkendorf

Before us are memories written by an officer of the Imperial Main Apartment, who was quite knowledgeable about its activities at the beginning of the war as the main military headquarters of Russia. This is clear from the way the author writes about the initial hostilities. Benckendorff wrote a description of the raid of the Winzengerode detachment deep into French-occupied Belarus, as well as the battle near Zvenigorod. The story about what happened near Moscow in the days when it was Grand Army, about the liberation of Moscow and its condition after the departure of the enemy. Evidence...

Notes from a U-2 pilot. Women aviators in the years... Irina Dryagina

The author of the book, pilot I. V. Dryagina, fought in the famous Taman Guards women’s air regiment of night bombers in 1942–1943. She completed 105 combat missions on the U-2 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Then she served in the 9th Guards Fighter Aviation Division, commanded by A.I. Pokryshkin. In her memoirs, I. V. Dryagina gives a vivid series of portraits of female pilots and navigators with whom she had the opportunity to carry out combat missions, and talks about the outstanding Pokryshkin pilots - the menace of the Luftwaffe.

Notes on the "Tailed Star" by Evgeniy Chepenko

Svetlana Shmeleva has two joys in life: romance novels (not the ones she writes herself) and her first vacation in five years. And it had to happen that, without even reaching her cherished goal, she was captured by alien mercenaries. What can help the average earthly woman in such a situation? Chronic bad luck, unquenchable optimism and love...

Revelations of a German tank destroyer... Klaus Stickelmeier

After Hitler came to power, ethnic Germans, the Volksdeutsche, whose ancestors fate had scattered all over the world, began to return to Germany. The author of this book was born in Ukraine, from where his family emigrated to Canada. In the spring of 1939, Klaus Stickelmeier returned to his historical homeland and was soon drafted into the Wehrmacht. Served in the 7th tank division gunner on the Pz IV, then he was transferred to the Jagdpanzer IV self-propelled gun - so from a Panzerschutze (tanker) he turned into a Panzerjager (tank destroyer). Like many of his colleagues who went to the front after Battle of Kursk,…

Earth and sky. Notes of aircraft designer E. Adler

in your hands A new book memories. This time its author is an engineer who has worked for about 70 years in the leading aviation design bureaus of our country. E. G. Adler was the developer of a number of aircraft from the A. S. Yakovlev Design Bureau, and participated in the creation of the first supersonic machines from the P. O. Sukhoi Design Bureau. His memories, containing many interesting facts, will allow the reader to take an inside look at the history of the development of our aviation, understand the mechanisms of formation of certain technical solutions, and learn more about the work style of famous aircraft designers.