Notes of an old refiner

Today the radio told again that our Kobozev boy flew to the stars, in 1984. I was already a shift engineer, and the whole refinery had the television in the control room that day. The cosmonaut died last year in Moscow and they buried him in our city. His street is not far from our house.

I don't discuss the other things around his name, I'm a technical person. I only say that when a man from your town flies to the sky, you feel a little taller at the bus stop for a week.

The canal is dry since Wednesday. The water master does not answer the telephone, and the cooperative chairman says the water goes first to the big farms. I went to the canal with the bucket and found out the reason: somebody dammed it at the third bridge with the old tires. I removed three tires. I am 77, and I feel like a hero.

The water came by the evening, and the neighbours looked at me as at a saint. Please, do not do such things at home.

Today my first guests this year at the dacha: Kolya and Rustam with their wives. Rustam brought a watermelon from the bazaar, a very sweet one, and Kolya brought a bottle of kvass for himself, because the doctors do not allow anything stronger for any of us. We sat under the apricot tree until the evening. Kolya cried a bit when we talked about Lyudmila, and said it is the dust.

The table under the apricot tree, with the watermelon.

We talked about the old shift. In 1975 we were twenty-two people, and now four. I said: let's not be sad, let's be a good four.

I opened the dacha. Alone this year. The apple tree is alive. I planted Lyudmila's (her mother's) yellow tomatoes, the seeds she kept in the envelope.

I decided: I will write again. Every Sunday if possible.

On the 14th of February my wife Lyudmila Petrovna died. 49 years together. She was a teacher of chemistry at school no. 12 for 35 years, half of Dastgoh learned chemistry from her.

Thank you to everyone who called. I don't know if I will write here more. Dima says write. I will try.