Our Chinese. He believed that we would live in other people.
He was small and inconspicuous. Yellowish-dark complexion, a bony face and slightly slanted, cunning eyes with a squint said that he was born far from the Slavic plains. He was found on the body of a murdered mother during a military conflict on the Sino-Eastern Railway in 1929. Red Army soldiers brought a child to the Soviet Union and surrendered to an orphanage.
In the registration journal of the orphanage, the Chinese were entered under the name October. The name he gave Vladlen - Vladimir Lenin, it means. But the middle name is Ivanovich. Date of birth set from the lantern, because the doctor said that the child is about three years old: 07.11.26.
Before 1938, Oktyabrsky lived in an orphanage and studied in elementary school, and in that year he was sent to the factory training system, and it is unknown how his fate would have been if not for the war.
In forty-second Komsomol Oktyabrsky fled to the front, adding two more to his sixteen years. The first battle took on the Kuban, near Krasnodar. The fighters called him Volodya and treated him affectionately and condescendingly, like a kid. Vladlena was extremely offended by the fact that the company commander, and sometimes the battalion commander, very often sent him with various foolish instructions to the rear. Later he realized: they were sorry, they saved his life, protected him from German bullets and fragments. And when he understood this, the feeling of gratitude and love for these people and his new great Motherland overwhelmed his soul and remained in his heart for the rest of his life.
MYSTERIOUS THESAURUS
I met Vladlen Ivanovich in May 1970, when I returned from the first foreign business trip. I don’t know if I was lucky or not, but at that very time, work on the creation of an automated control system for intelligence began at the head office of the KGB. It was not only a tribute to time, it was a necessity. It was necessary to create a new scientific management. Personnel was sorely lacking. And then a couple of dozen agent-operatives, that is, people like me, were merged into the new division. Our group was given a good bright room on the second floor in the fourth entrance of a large house on Lubyanka. We liked the place, because the dining room and cashier were close by. Each was given a new computer science textbook and was told that in a month we should master this science. It was then that the Chinese came to us.
Vladlen Ivanovich was then forty-four years old. The country just celebrated that May twenty-fifth anniversary of the Victory. What did the hero of my story do in the post-war years? He worked at the plant until our own special service laid eyes on him. This is where his new life began, full of dangerous adventures. True, the first years of this life were excitingly interesting. He was given a brilliant education. He mastered Chinese and English, studied history, literature, economics and politics of the countries of the Far Eastern region of our planet. A lot of time was spent on special disciplines that went under the heading "top secret". When the special training was completed, they warmly parted with him and sent him to where Makar did not drive the calves. Having done that, Vladlen Ivanovich returned, burdened with years of cargo and with fundamentally impaired health. When we had dinner together in our dining room, he, smearing the hated oatmeal on a plate, looked enviously at me, eating a pork chop, and gently said at the same time: "You will die from gluttony, Alyosha."
And he was allergic to almost everything. “Fuck knows,” he sighed, “either he ate too much pickled cockroaches, or ate an insufficiently roasted rattlesnake, or he poured himself with hot rice vodka.
Vladlen Ivanovich came to scientific management a few months before us. He impressed with the depth of knowledge in the field of computer science. Scientific terms such as “avan-project”, “R & D”, “R & D”, “data bank”, “kilobyte”, “ADC”, and all that kind of stuff, literally fell from it. The most ominous word was the thesaurus. It sunk into our souls and sounded even in men's toilets along with profanity.
When I read a computer science textbook, I learned only one thing well: what you would drive into a computer, and it will give it to you, if necessary. And don't expect anything good from her anymore.
The most "stupid" of us turned out to be operas, who spent six months with Bandera in the caches and eventually handed over a large gang to the organs, for which he was awarded the order. He was a very clever and very good man, but computer science didn’t go into his mind. Yes, and we all went far away. This is very fast rides Chinese and took to help us, although no one asked about it. I soon discovered that he knew my native language better than me and that he had a great feather set. Soon we found out that he was assigned to write the most important documents, and his superiors appreciate him very much.
But then came the doomsday of our management: intelligence acquired for us the Minsk-32 computer. It was such a hulk that all its blocks would hardly fit in a one-room apartment of the Khrushchev era. But there were no personal computers at that time.
ASU POSITION ALL KNOW
The information arrays of the ACS were still in their infancy, so for the beginning we decided to introduce ourselves into the electronic brain of the computer, that is, the personnel structure of our management. And there were two hundred and fifty of us, three hundred, no more. This decision turned out to be extremely timely and correct, which was confirmed by further events: the engine room of the management was visited by high management. The chief of intelligence, Alexander Mikhailovich Sakharovsky, was sick and going to retire, so he sent his deputy to us, a tough and ferocious peasant. The general appeared with his retinue. He stood for a minute in front of the car, around which pretty cameramen in white gowns bustled around and hit us, one might say, in the gut:
- Come on, show that she can!
The car did not know how. She winked conspiratorially at us with multi-colored light bulbs, as if making it clear: “think, think, guys, we will not give it out!” And then some of ours dawned. Perhaps it was a homework:
- And let's ask her if there are Chinese in Soviet intelligence?
- What other Chinese ?! - shouted the general. - Think first, then express your thoughts!
I must say that this reaction was quite reasonable: we were only two years away from the events on Damanski Island.
- But let's still ask! - insisted the representative of scientific management.
The general waved his hand:
- Okay, ask!
The request was instantly entered into the car, they pressed a button, and suddenly a wide paper tape crawled out of the ADCU, like a white anaconda. The general's suite bent over her. Then something clicked quietly in the printer, and the tape stopped. Someone from the suite read aloud:
- October Vladlen Ivanovich, 1926 year of birth, Chinese.
The general turned abruptly and headed for the exit.
- You will deal with this Chinese! - He threw on the move to one of the assistants. - And prepare a list for the promotion.
I must note that the general's visit did not have any negative consequences for Vladlen Ivanovich.
And it is time for me to go back to the overseas. The head of the Berlin residency, a general with two big stars, slapped me on the back, exclaimed: “Why, you didn’t seem to have left!” Then he looked at me carefully and added: “You have become something polished. You know, now you have to wash your informatics for a long time. ”
INFORMATICS AND CAT WITH MOUSE
I returned home after five years. Here I was again merged into scientific management, explaining that experienced operatives with knowledge of the fundamentals of computer science are worth their weight in gold.
I was amazed at the changes that occurred in my absence. Intelligence now sat not in the center of Moscow, but in the woods behind the ring road. An entire town was built there for her, which spreads out over a very wide area surrounded by a high concrete fence. When they built this fence, they decided not to chase hares, badgers, squirrels, hedgehogs and other animals that lived in the territory of intelligence. It turned out something like a reserve. Gradually, the animals no longer fear people. Sometimes they went to food waste tanks to feed themselves. Thousands of birds chirped in the branches of trees as we walked from the buses into service. We tried to go slower to enjoy the morning nature. But the most attractive in that forest were mushrooms. True, hunting here, as well as collecting mushrooms and berries was not recommended under the pretext of preserving the environment in its original form.
My native management has undergone dramatic changes: it has greatly expanded and matured. Former operas learned computer science and built an automated control system with knowledge of the matter. The data banks of the computer were loaded with information on the ears. Someone on the tables appeared personal computers. Seeing all this, I pined for my favorite agency, whose information just loaded electronic brains of computers.
I shared my nostalgic moods with Vladlen Ivanovich. He did not need to ask for help. He himself decided when and who needed help.
“Stop fooling around,” he said. - Let's go better to me and play cat.
- What is it like? - I was surprised.
- Let's go, let's go!
It turned out that he offered me to play a computer game! There the cat chased the mouse and could not catch it. There were other games. The personal computer was able to solve a lot of interesting problems.
- Start with a cat, - Oktyabrsky laughed, - and then you will not want to go abroad at all.
I gradually got into work. October helped me settle down, but then there was an incident with him, which defamed him for all intelligence.
KRYUCHKOV'S MUSHROOMS AND OTHER GASTRONOMIC EXPERIENCES
On that day, Vladlen Ivanovich, having solved some questions in the main corps of intelligence and having had dinner, headed home - to the building where our headquarters were located and to which they took a place in a far corner of the forest. It was possible to walk there either along a specially laid bypassing forest path, or along one of the paths trodden by employees. From kilometer, no more. He chose the second path. And at some point, he stepped off the path, suddenly seeing a miracle: it was a small glade completely covered with white mushrooms.
October was not allowed to eat mushrooms, but at home his wife and son were waiting for him, but he wanted to make them enjoyable. He built a big sack from a newspaper and quickly filled it with mushrooms. Suddenly he was hailed. He looked up and was stunned: in front of him stood Colonel-General Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov, chief of foreign intelligence of the Soviet Union. He sometimes liked to walk in the woods after dinner.
“Your official ID,” the general demanded.
October, with a trembling hand, extended a red book to his high authorities. Kryuchkov opened it and made some notes in his notebook. Then he returned the ID.
- I confiscate mushrooms. Let's get them here. I love, you know, mushrooms. I have them in the evening with potatoes ... Yes, there is still the soup will remain. And you declare a strict reprimand for picking mushrooms during working hours. Go and report to your superiors about the incident.
The rumor of a mushroom incident instantly broke up in control. I went to Vladlen Ivanovich. There were tears in his eyes. He was shaking a glass of a bottle of Valocordin over a glass, but drops were flying on the table. I took the bottle from him and dripped fifty drops. Then with a couple of true friends went to the forest. For half an hour we gathered a full sack of mushrooms and put them in front of the victim. However, it was a weak consolation for him. The next morning in the lobby of the main building on the bulletin board appeared information about the malicious violator of labor discipline and the punishment that he suffered.
After a while I went to the zagranku again. For a full six years. When he returned, Vladlen Ivanovich was already a pensioner. I gathered old comrades and went to his birthday party. He laid a chic table. Cooked everything with his own hands. The highlight of the program was plov. Vladlen Ivanovich with affection looked at how we devoured his delicacies, to which he could not touch. By the way, he praised his abuser Kryuchkov, who ordered to give him a ticket to Yessentuki every year.
The last time I saw Vladlen Ivanovich in 1994 was at a reception that was arranged by a new intelligence chief, Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov, on the occasion of the quarter-century anniversary of our scientific management. Naturally, veterans were also invited. Vladlen Ivanovich and I stood in a secluded place with glasses in our hands and remembered old times and friends who had already left. Evgeny Maksimovich approached us and clinked brandy with us. When he retired, Vladlen Ivanovich said:
- Such a brandy can not drink!
“He is no longer a brandy at all, but God's dew,” I supported him.
A few months later Vladlen Ivanovich was gone. He died suddenly.
Vladlen Ivanovich once gave me a birthday book, In the World of Wise Thoughts. One of these thoughts he brought to the avant-title: “You live in other people, other people live in you. Therefore, as long as at least one person lives, we all continue to live. ”
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