Book: Area

We curse comrade Stalin, and, of course, for business. And yet I want to ask - who has written four million denunciations? {This figure appeared in closed party documents.) Dzerzhinsky? Yezhov? Abakumov with the Berry?
Nothing of the sort. They were written by ordinary Soviet people...

I always wanted to be a student's own ideas. Maybe I will achieve this in old age.

... hell is ourselves. Just do not notice it.

It's a shame to think that all this abomination - creatures of freedom. Because freedom is equally favourable to bad, and good. Under her rays equally quickly blossom and gladiolus, and marijuana...

"Hard" literature exists for several centuries. Even at a young Russian literature this theme presents Grand designs. Starting with "the Dead house" and ending with "Gulag". Plus Chekhov, Shalamov, Sinyavsky
Along with the "convict" has a "police" literature. Which is also rich in significant figures. From Chesterton to Agatha Christie.
This is a different literature. Rather, the opposite. With the opposite moral values.
So there are two moral price list. Two scales ideological views.
One convict is a figure of a suffering, tragic, deserving of pity and admiration. Guard, respectively, the monster, the villain, the embodiment of cruelty and violence.
The second convict is a monster fiend. And the police, therefore, - a hero, a moralist, a bright creative personality.
Becoming a warden, I was ready to see in the enclosed victim. They see themselves as the Punisher and murderer.
I was leaning towards the first, more humane scale. More typical raised me Russian literature. And, of course, more convincing. (Still he's not Dostoevsky.)
After a week with these fantasies was over. The first scale was completely false. The second even more so.
I, following Herbert Marcuse (which, of course, not read), found a third way.
I found a striking similarity between the camp and will. Between prisoners and staff. Between the burglar recidivists and the controllers of the production zones. Between the prisoners-narachika and ranks of the camp administration.
On both sides of zapretki stretched uniform and soulless world.
We spoke the same, priblatnennogo language. Singing the same sentimental songs. Endured the same hardships.
We even looked alike. We sheared the car. Our weather-beaten face was colored with purple spots. Our boots spread the smell of the stables. And the camp's robe from a distance it seemed indistinguishable from a worn soldier's jacket.
We were very similar and even interchangeable. Almost every prisoner was fit for the role of a security guard. Almost any warden deserved prison.

There is such a classic story. Poor kid looks through the crack aristocratic manor. He sees the young swell, rolling around on a pony. Since then, his life is subordinated to one goal - to get rich. To his former life, he did not return. Its existence is poisoned by participation in secret.
In the same slot and I looked. Just saw not a luxury but the truth.
I was stunned by the depth and variety of life. I saw how low a man can fall. And how high he can soar. The first time I understood what freedom, cruelty, violence. I saw freedom behind bars. Brutality, senseless as poetry. Violence commonplace as dampness.
I saw a man, completely reduced to an animal state. I saw what he is able to enjoy. And I think I saw the light.
The world in which I was, was horrible. In this world fought sharpened rasps, eating dogs, covered the face tattoo and raping goats.
In this world killed for a packet of tea.
In this world I saw people with a nightmarish past, repulsive present and tragic future.
I was friends with the person tasoluk once in the barrel the wife and kids.
The world was terrible. But life went on. Moreover, it maintained the normal life proportions. The ratio of good and evil, sorrow and joy - has remained unchanged.
In this life there was anything. Labor, dignity, love, debauchery, patriotism, wealth, poverty. It was lumpen and bloodsuckers, careerists and playboy, conformists and rebels, functionaries and dissidents.
But the contents of these concepts changed drastically. The hierarchy of values has been completely disrupted. What seemed important faded into the background. Trivia obscured the horizon.
A completely new scale preferred the good things of life. On this scale, is extremely appreciated - food, warmth, the ability to avoid work. Everyday became precious. Precious - unreal.
Postcard from home were a shock. Bumblebee flew into the hut, produced a sensation. Altercation with the warden perceived as an intellectual triumph.
On a special mode I knew a man who wanted to be hleboreza. This post promised huge benefits. After receiving it, snakes are like the Rothschild. Grain crop was equal to the mineral deposits of diamonds.
To make such a career was a fantastic effort. It was necessary to curry favor, to lie, to climb over the bodies. Had to go to bribery, blackmail, extortion. By hook or by crook to succeed.
The same effort will open the way to the sinecures of the party, economic and bureaucratic leadership. Similar methods achieved the peaks of state power.

- So, I have these forty thousand! So I would spin. You think life is that? It is a kaleidoscope! I gave a tour in the wild. Will come, happened, in the cocktail lounge. Toss three gold pieces. You - brandy, beef Stroganoff, fillet... Again the music plays, throughout Virgo. Let me, as they say, the waltz? I mean, the tango She danced, dressed up, shines like a pike... After taking her to the hut... In the road - anything from Newspapers, Sergei Yesenin, flying saucers... Well, I was giving a tour!.. And if I refuse, then I knew the method of how to persuade any good. The method is simple: "get Down, - I say - bitch, I'll kill you!.." Yes, I was able to move his horns. Much of the virgin beneath me screaming!..

- Yes, my godfather loved to joke. Sometimes, says from the doorway: "Come little one!" I only wear galoshes, and the godfather laughs: "as you were, I have." And pulls out a bottle of red. We have wine sold for four. And tastes for a ruble and seventy-two. Pour used to... Grace the house in order...

You want tiriki war?..
The answer is ready, Sergeant,
Who drank all I could,
From belt to boots.
The answer is those soldiers
The Board are drunk,
And you have to understand,
You want tiriki war...

- Until the New year for another six hours, said the officer, and you're already drunk as pigs.
- Life, comrade Lieutenant, ahead of a dream, ' said Fidel.

- I'm in heaven to go hunting. I have since the Day of the Constitution a goal set.
You'll get assured him Alikhanov - in protection you don't have much competition.
- I think - agreed, Fidel, - the audience we are unmatched. Thieves Yes the bullies... as if there is heaven... and Such a disciplinary battalion will not accept... And I'm against this background, maybe as a non-slip...

In the summer, just seem in love. Warm green twilight wander under the branches. They turn every word in the mysterious and dark mark... ”
Outside the window the snowstorm began. White flakes fell obliquely on the glass from the darkness.
And summer just seem to love, murmured the warden.
Sleepy lance wandered the corridor with the rustling touching the Wallpaper.
“In the summer just seem so in love...”
Alikhanov felt a quiet joy. He lovingly crossed out two words and wrote:
“In the summer... not to seem in love...”
Life has become malleable. It was possible to change the movement of the pencil with cold hard edges and an embossed inscription - “Orion”...
- In the summer it is not easy to feel in love again and again Alikhanov...”

Remember, you can escape from the knife. You can block the ax. You can select the gun. Everything is possible! But if you can run away - run! Go on, son, don't look back...

Freedom is equally favourable to bad, and good.