June 22 at exactly four o'clock ...
Honored Artist of Russia and Ukraine Nikolai Dupak was born on October 5 1921. He studied with Yuri Zavadsky, was shot with Alexander Dovzhenko, a quarter of a century was the director of the legendary Taganka Theater, where he brought Yuri Lyubimov and where he hired Vladimir Vysotsky ...
But today's conversation is more about the Great Patriotic War, with which the commander of the 6 squadron of the Guards Cavalry Corps, Senior Lieutenant Dupak, returned with three military orders, three wounds, a concussion and a disability of the second group ...
Fist son
- June 22 exactly at four o'clock Kiev was bombed ...
- ... we were told that a war had begun.
Yes, everything was like in a famous song. I lived in the hotel "Continental" two steps from Khreshchatyk and woke up from the powerful, growing roar of engines. Trying to understand what was happening, I ran out onto the balcony. On the next door, I was as sleepy as a military man and looked at the sky, over which heavy bombers flew low-low. Lot! I remember asked: "Scho tse take?" The neighbor did not answer too confidently: "Probably, the teachings of the Kiev district. Approximate to the combat ..." I pointed at the planes with my finger: "And what is the reason for the wings on the wings?"
A couple of minutes from the Dnieper came the sounds of explosions. It became clear: no these are not teachings, but real combat operations. The Germans tried to bomb the railway bridge in Darnitsa. Fortunately, missed. And they flew low in order not to please our anti-aircraft guns.
But, probably, it is necessary to tell how I found myself in June 1941 in Kiev and what did I do there?
To do this, let's rewind the film twenty years ago.
- By the time of your birth, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- Well yes. It’s a sin to complain about life, although sometimes you can grumble. Suffice it to say that I almost died at the age of three. My grandmother and I sat in the hut, she broke the collected poppy heads and handed them to me, and I poured the seeds into my mouth. And suddenly ... choked. Cork got, as they say, not in that throat. I began to choke. Well, the parents were at home. Dad grabbed me in his arms, put me in a cart and rushed to the hospital. On the road from lack of air, I turned blue, lost consciousness. The doctor, seeing my condition, immediately understood everything and cut the trachea with a scalpel, pulling out a jammed piece of poppy box. The scar on the throat, however, remained for life. Here, see? ..
I grew up in a fist family. Although, if you figure out which of the bati enemy of the working people? He was the head of a large family, the breadwinner of five children, a laboring muzhik, a real plowman. My father participated in the imperialist war, returned to his native Vinnitsa, then moved to the Donbass, where they distributed land in the Donetsk steppe. Together with my relatives, I took fifty free hectares, settled on a farm near the town of Starobeshevo, and began to settle. He sowed, mowed, shook, threshed ... By the end of the twenties, his father had a strong economy: a mill, an orchard, a kuni *, various animals, from cows and horses to chickens and geese.
And in September, 1930 came to dekulakize us. He commanded all the poorest man in the village, the former father's servant. He was not very well adapted to work, but he knew the road to the glass very well. We were told to collect belongings, load them, which would fit, on a cart and go to Ilovaisk. There was already a squad of eighteen freight cars, into which the families of the kulaks were being driven. A few days we were taken to the north, until we unloaded at the Konosha station of the Arkhangelsk region. We settled in the pre-built huge huts. Father together with other men sent to the logging company - to procure building materials for the mines of Donbass. They lived hard, hungry. People died, and they could not even be buried properly: go deep into two shovels in the ground, and there - water. Around because the forest, swamps ...
A year later, the regime was loosened: relatives left outside were allowed to pick up children under the age of twelve. Uncle Cyril, a fellow countryman from Starobeshevo, came for me and seven other guys. We traveled back not in a freight train, but in a passenger train. I was put on the third, luggage rack, in a dream I flew to the floor, but did not wake up, so tired. So I returned to the Donbass. At first he lived with his sister Liza in some kind of barn. By that time our house had been ransacked, having taken away everything valuable, then even the brickwork was dismantled, allowed to build Starobeshevskaya GRES ...
Zavadsky student
- And how did you enter the drama school, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- Well, that was a lot later! First, mother returned from the Arkhangelsk forests, then her father ran away from there. Thanks to the peasants who helped him hide between the logs in the car ... Batya managed to get a job, but someone informed the authorities about a quick fist, and we had to urgently leave for Russia, to Taganrog, where it was easier to get lost. There, my father was taken to a local pipe-rolling plant, and I was accepted to 27 school.
Even in Ukraine, I started going to the House of Folk Art in the city of Stalino, present-day Donetsk, I even got into the group of the best pioneers who were entrusted to welcome delegates to the First All-Union Congress of Stakhanovists and Drummers - Alexei Stakhanov, Peter Krivonos, Pasha Angelina in the Artyom Theater ... We in turn they said what we want to be when we grow up. An engineer, a miner, a combiner, a doctor ... And I said that I dream of being an artist. Such is the role I got! Hearing these words, in the hall they laughed approvingly, but I, emboldened, added a reply not from the script: "And I will definitely be there!" There was applause. The first in my life ...
Although I got on the scene even earlier. His older brother, Grisha, worked as an electrician in the Postyshev Culture Park in Stalino and took me with him to a performance by the Meyerhold Theater, which came on tour from Moscow. We stood backstage, and then I missed Grisha from sight. I was confused for a second and even slightly frightened - it was dark around! Suddenly I see my brother in front with a lantern in his hands. Well, I went to him. It turned out that I was going through the stage, and artists were playing around! Some guy grabbed my ear and dragged me backstage: "What are you doing here? Who let you go?"
- Was it Vsevolod Emilievich himself?
- If! Assistant Director ...
In Taganrog, I went to the drama club of the Palace of Culture named after Stalin, where I was noticed by the director of the city theater, who was looking for the performer of the role of Damis in "Tartuffe". So I began to play with adult, professional artists. Then I was introduced to a couple of performances - “Pad Silver”, “Guilty Without Guilt”, the workbook was opened ... And this is fourteen years old! There was only one difficulty: I studied seven classes in a Ukrainian school and did not know Russian very well. But coped!
Meanwhile, in 1935, in Rostov-on-Don, they built a new building for the regional drama theater. Outwardly, it looked like ... a huge tracked tractor. Grand building with a hall for two thousand seats! The troupe was headed by the great Yuri Zavadsky, who brought with him from Moscow Vera Maretskaya, Rostislav Plyatt, Nikolay Mordvinov. Yury Alexandrovich traveled with master classes in the region and at the same time recruited children to the studio school at the theater. Visited Zavadsky and Taganrog. Something I caught the attention of the master. He asked: "Young man, do not want to learn from the artist?" I almost choked with delight!
He came to Rostov and was horrified to see how many guys and girls dream of enrolling in the drama school. Even from Moscow and Leningrad rushed to Zavadsky! Then I tried to pull myself together and thought: since I got involved in a fight, I must go to the end, take exams. He crossed himself three times and went. Read poems by Pushkin, Yesenin and Nadson. Maybe this set made an impression on the teachers and actors who were sitting in the admissions office, but they took me. As Sergei Bondarchuk, who came from Yeisk. He and I then lived in the same room, went to classes together, played in performances. We were also paid five rubles of the fee for participation in the crowd!
Student Dovzhenko
- But you, Nikolai Lukyanovich, you did not finish your studies, after the third year you left for Kiev?
- This is the next plot twist.
In April, two men came to the theater 1941, sat at rehearsals, selected a group of young actors and began taking pictures of them in turn. I was also clicked several times, asking me to portray different emotions in front of the camera. We took off and left. I forgot to think about the visitors. And in May, a telegram arrives: "Rostov School of Reconciliation with Nikolay Dupak tchk. I ask you to arrive urgently at Kiev. Tchk. Trial of the role of Andriya. ZPT film" Taras Bulba "" Tchk Alexander Dovzhenko ".
Imagine my condition. Everything was like a magical dream. However, the invitation was an event for the school. Still would! The student was called by the person who shot "Earth", "Aerograd" and "Shchors"! I did not have money for the road, but I did not hesitate for a second. If necessary, I would leave on foot from Rostov to the capital of Ukraine! Fortunately, in the theater for such an emergency created a mutual aid fund. I borrowed the required amount, bought a plane ticket and repulsed a telegram to Kiev: "Meet."
Indeed, a personal car was waiting for me at the airport. They took me to a luxury hotel, settled in a private room with a bathroom (I only saw people in the movies so luxuriously!), Said: "Rest, go to the studio in a couple of hours." On the "Ukrfilm" I was led to a man with a hoe in his hands, who was doing something in the garden. "Alexander Petrovich, this is an actor from Rostov on the role of Andria." He carefully looked into my eyes and extended his hand: "Dovzhenko". I replied: "Dupak. Mykola."
And the conversation began. We circled the garden, discussing the future film. More precisely, the director told how he was going to shoot and what was required of my hero. "Have you noticed: when the Cossacks die, in one case they curse the enemy, and in the other they glorify the brotherhood?" Then Dovzhenko told me to read something out loud. I asked: "Can" Sleep "Shevchenko?" After receiving consent, he began:
"Everybody has his share
ї I sviy way wide:
That mura, that ruin,
That bear the eye
Over the edge of the gap ... "
Well, and so on. Alexander Petrovich listened for a long time, carefully, not interrupted. Then he called the second director, told me to make up, cut "under the pot" and took me to the set for tests. They took a few takes. Of course, I was not the only contender for the role, but they approved me.
The shooting was planned to start from the scene in which Andriy meets with the mural. In the crowd called three hundred people. Imagine the scale of the picture?
- And who was supposed to play the rest of the role?
- Taras - Ambrose Buchma, the main director of the Kiev Drama Theater named after Franco and a wonderful actor, Ostap - Boris Andreev, who was gaining popularity, was filming with Dovzhenko in Schors.
Sorry, my collaboration with these outstanding masters turned out to be short.
- Well, yes, the war ...
- German planes brazenly flew over the rooftops! After the first air attack, I left the hotel and rode the tram to the movie studio. On the way, I saw the bombed out Jewish market, the first dead. At noon, Molotov spoke on the radio, saying that Kiev already knew about the treacherous attack of Hitler's Germany on the Soviet Union. Then Dovzhenko gathered a film crew for a rally and announced that the film “Taras Bulba” would be shot in a year, not two, as originally planned. They say we will make such a gift to the Red Army.
But it soon became clear that this plan was not implemented. When the day after we arrived at the shooting, the crowd, in which the soldiers participated, was no longer there. There were more important cases of the movie ...
The bombing of Kiev continued, a flood of refugees from the western regions of Ukraine rushed into the city. To my room put extra beds. The studio began to dig a gap. Do you know what it is? In fact, the holes in which you can hide from bombs and debris. For several more days, we continued to withdraw by inertia, but then everything stopped.
Guards trooper
- And when did you get to the front, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- I received a telegram from Taganrog that the agenda came from the recruiting station. It seemed to me more logical not to go a thousand kilometers, but to go to the nearest Kiev recruiting office. And he did. At first they wanted to enroll me in the infantry, but I was asked to go to the cavalry, explained that I could handle horses, said that I had been practicing horse riding for almost a month on the set of Taras Bulba.
I was sent to Novocherkassk, where the KUKS - cavalry command personnel courses were located. We were taught to lieutenants. The squadron commander was the champion of the country Vinogradov, and the platoon was commanded by a career officer Medvedev, an example of valor and honor. Were engaged, as expected: combat training, dressage, dzhigitovka, vaulting, felling of the vine. Plus, of course, care for horses, cleaning them, feeding.
Classes were supposed to continue until January 1942, but the Germans were eager for Rostov, and we decided to plug the hole. We moved closer to the front, for two days on horseback we searched for the enemy. The forward patrol came across motorcyclists, our commander Colonel Artemyev ordered to go on the attack. It turned out there are not only motorcycles, but also Tanks... They shattered us, I got a wound in the throat, grabbed my horse’s mane in fainting consciousness, and Orsik carried me eleven kilometers to the Kalmius river, where the field hospital was located. I had an operation, a tube was inserted until the wound healed.
For that fight, I received the first military award, and KUKS were taken away from the front line, ordering me to go to Pyatigorsk on my own to continue my studies there. A few days traveled. The winter of the 1941 of the year was harsh, even in the area of Mineralnye Vody, where it was usually relatively warm in December, there were strong frosts. They fed us moderately, the mood was the same, not too joyful. We knew that the battles were going near Moscow, and were rushing to the front ...
In the evening we return after dinner to the barracks. Company commanded: "Sing it!" And we are not up to the songs. We are silent and continue to walk. "Roth, run! Sing it!" We run. But we are silent. "Stop! Lie down! For-the-time!" And above it pours rain, underfoot - slush, liquid mud. "Sing it!" We are crawling. But we are silent ...
And so - one and a half hours in a row.
- Who overpowered whom?
- Of course, commander. We sang like pretty ones. We must be able to obey. This is an army ...
After graduating from the school, we were sent to the Bryansk Front via Moscow. There the horse saved me again. In the area of Bezhina Meadows, which everyone knows thanks to Ivan Turgenev, we came under mortar attack. One charge exploded right under the belly of the Cavalier. He took a blow on himself and collapsed dead, and on me - not a scratch, just a hood and a Hungarian cut off with fragments. True, I did not escape the contusion: I practically stopped hearing and spoke poorly. Apparently, the facial nerve hooked, and diction was disturbed. By that time, I was already commanding a cavalry reconnaissance platoon. And what scout without hearing and speech? Kompolka Yevgeny Korbus treated me well, in a fatherly way - after all, I started as an adjutant with him, so I sent him not to the front-line hospital, but to Moscow, to a specialized clinic.
I was amazed by the view of the virtually empty capital. Military patrols and soldiers marching from time to time met on the streets, and civilians were extremely rare. I was treated in different ways, everyone tried, I gradually began to speak, but I still heard badly. They wrote out a hearing aid, I learned to use it and got used to the idea that there was no destiny to return to the front. And then a miracle happened. One evening I left the clinic and went to Red Square. There was a legend among the people that Stalin was working at night in the Kremlin and the light in his window could be seen from GUM. So I decided to look. A patrol did not give me a walk around the square, but when I was leaving, the song "Get up, the country is huge!" Suddenly burst out of the speakers. And I heard her! Even goosebumps on the back ran ...
So the rumor returned. I began to prepare for discharge. And Yevgeny Korbus, my commander, sending me to Moscow for treatment, ordered me to find wind instruments in the capital and bring them to the unit. Yevgeny Leonidovich said: "Mykola, well, judge yourself, what kind of cavalry without an orchestra? I want the lads to attack with music. Like in the movie" We are from Kronstadt. "You are an artist, you will find." The regiment knew that before the war, I studied at the drama school and started filming with Alexander Dovzhenko, although during my service I did not participate in any concert. I decided: we will win, then we will remember peaceful professions, but for now we are military and must bear this cross.
But the order of the commander is sacred. I went to the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol, I say: so and so, help, brothers. To the request reacted responsibly. They began to ring up orchestras and various musical groups, until in one of the fire departments they found what they needed. The instruments lay idle there, there was no one to play them, because the musicians signed up as volunteers, went off to beat the enemy. In the city committee I was given an official letter, according to which I received thirteen pipes of different sizes and sounds, took them first to the Paveletsky railway station, and then further to the Bryansk front. About this trip, you can write a separate chapter, but I will not be distracted now. The main thing is that I completed the assignment of Yevgeny Korbus and delivered the wind instruments to our regiment under the Yelets.
I remember, under the "March of the cavalry" we walked in a westerly direction, and a column of captured Germans ponorously drifted to the east. The picture was spectacular, cinematic, I even regretted that no one was filming it.
The tank army Rybalko broke through then, in December 1942 of the year, the front under Kantemirovka, and our corps rushed into the resulting breach. So to say, ahead, on a hard horse ... We hurriedly took a large railway junction of Valuyki, stopping there trains of food and weapons, which were marched to the parts of Field Marshal Paulus near Stalingrad. Apparently, the Germans did not expect such a deep raid on their rear. For Valuyki, the 6 Cavalry Corps was given a Guards name, and I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In January, 43 began new bloody battles, the squadron commander was mortally wounded, and I took his place. In my submission there were about two hundred and fifty personnel, including a machine gun platoon and a battery of 45 millimeter cannons. And I barely passed twenty-one years old. I still wonder how I did it ...
Under Merefa (this is already in the Kharkiv region) we were confronted with the Viking division deployed there. The mothers were warriors, did not retreat, fought to the death. Merefa changed hands three times. There I was injured once again, I was sent from the medical battalion to the hospital in Taranovka. The documents went ahead, and I was delayed, my horse breeder Kovalenko decided to personally take the commander. It saved us. The Germans broke into Taranovka and killed everyone - doctors, nurses, wounded. Then they will find my medical card among other papers, decide that I, too, died in the slaughterhouse, and send me a funeral to my homeland ...
I brought Kovalenko and mytyug, called Nemets, to me. Behind us, we put the sleigh on, and I lay on them. When they arrived at the village, they noticed the soldiers on the outskirts, maybe a hundred meters away. We decided that we wanted to move on, and suddenly I saw: the Germans! Kovalenko turned his horse and started up the pace, he rode with terrible speed. We flew through ravines, hummocks, without dismantling the roads, just to hide from the gunfire.
This is how the German horse saved the Soviet officer. However, injuries to the feet and hands were serious. In addition, tuberculosis opened, I had a bad cold, while I lay on my sleigh for six hours. At first I was sent to Michurinsk, a week later transferred to the clinic Burdenko in Moscow. He lay there for another ten days. Then there were Kuibyshev, Chapaevsk, Aktyubinsk ... I understood: if I had had a chance to return to service, they would not have been taken so far. Lying around the hospitals, until they were completely clean, they did not give a disability of the second group ...
Comrade Director
- After the war, you, like going, returned to the acting profession?
- Twenty years he served as an artist in the Stanislavsky Theater, even tried himself as a director. In the fall, 1963 asked me to be sent to the worst theater in Moscow. Then such sincere impulses were in fashion, while the reputation of the Drama and Comedy Theater at Taganka left much to be desired. Squabbles, intrigue ...
So I got into this theater. At the meeting of the troupe I honestly stated that I did not consider myself to be a good artist, but I would work as a director on conscience. In place of the chief director persuaded to come Yuri Lyubimov.
One of our first joint projects at a new place was an evening with the participation of poets of different years - both honored front-line soldiers and very young Evgeny Yevtushenko, Andrey Voznesensky. We spent it in 1964 on the eve of the anniversary of the Victory and agreed that everyone would read war poems.
The first to speak was Konstantin Simonov.
"That longest day of the year
With its cloudless weather
We were given a common misfortune
At all, for all four years.
She pressed such a trail
And so many people laid down,
What is twenty years and thirty years
I can't believe that we're alive ... "
Then Alexander Tvardovsky took the floor:
"I am killed under Rzhev,
In an unnamed swamp,
In the fifth company,
On the left,
With a cruel raid.
I did not hear a break
And did not see that flash, -
Exactly in the abyss from the cliff -
And neither the bottom nor the tires ... "
Read two hours. The evening turned out to be emotional, shrill. We began to think how to preserve it, turning it into a unique spectacle, unlike any other.
- As a result, the idea of the poetic presentation "The Fallen and the Living" was born?
- Absolutely! Lyubimov asked me: "Can you make the Eternal Flame burn on the stage? This will give a completely different sound to everything." I remembered the old ties with the Moscow firefighters who at one time lent wind instruments to our cavalry regiment. What if once again help out? I went to their chief commander, explained Lyubimov's idea, said that it was a tribute to the memory of those killed in the war. The fireman was from front-line soldiers, he understood everything without further ado ...
Of course, we ensured safety, took the necessary precautions: after all, there was open fire on the stage, and a hall full of people was nearby. Just in case, and fire extinguishers placed, and buckets of sand. Fortunately, nothing was needed.
He invited the fire brigade to the premiere, sat him down at the best places. The presentation began with the words: "The performance is dedicated to the great Soviet people, who bore the brunt of the war, persevered and won." A minute of silence was announced, the audience stood up, and the Eternal Flame lit up in complete silence.
There were poems by Semyon Gudzenko, Nikolai Aseev, Mikhail Kulchitsky, Konstantin Simonov, Olga Bergholz, Pavel Kogan, Bulat Okudzhava, Mikhail Svetlov, many other poets ...
- including Vladimir Vysotsky?
- Volodya wrote several songs especially for the performance - “Mass graves”, “We rotate the earth”, “Stars”, but then performed only one from the stage - “Soldiers of the“ Center ”group.
"The soldier is ready for anything, -
The soldier is always healthy
And dust, like carpets,
We knock out of the roads.
And don't stop,
And do not change legs, -
Our faces are shining
Boots sparkle! "
I know that many people are still amazed, no matter how hard a day Vysotsky wrote poetry and songs like an experienced front-line soldier. And for me this fact is not surprising. Need to know the biography of Vladimir Semenovich. His father - a career officer-signaller, went through the whole of the Great Patriotic War, met the Victory in Prague, and was awarded many military orders. Uncle Vysotsky - also a colonel, but an artilleryman. Even mother Nina Maksimovna served in the headquarters of the interior. Volodya grew up among the military, saw and knew a lot. Plus, of course, God's gift, which is no substitute.
Once Vysotsky came into my office with a guitar: "I want to show a new song ..." And the lines sounded, which, I am sure, everyone heard:
"Why is everything wrong? It seems everything, as always:
The same sky is again blue,
The same forest, the same air and the same water,
Only he did not return from the battlefield ... "
I sat with my head lowered to hide the tears, and I massaged my leg, which began to ache in the bitter cold. Volodya finished his drink and asked: "What is your leg, Nikolai Lukyanovich?" Why, I say, the old wound aches from the cold.
Ten days later, Vysotsky brought me imported fur boots, which were never born in Soviet stores. He was such a person ... Then I handed over these shoes as an exhibit to the Vladimir Semenovich Museum in Krasnodar.
Vysotsky was born in January of 38, Valery Zolotukhin - 21 of June 41, Nikolai Gubenko - two months later in the Odessa catacombs, under bombing ... They are children of a scorched generation, "wounded". War from the first days of life entered their blood and genes.
- Who, if not them, was to play "Fallen and Living".
- That performance is still considered to be one of the most piercing stage works devoted to the Great Patriotic War. There was no place for excessive sentimentality and pathos, no one tried to squeeze a tear out of the audience, there were no director's innovations, a minimum of theatrical techniques were used, there were no decorations - only the stage, the actor and the Eternal Flame.
We played a play over a thousand times. This is a lot! They drove "The Fallen and the Living" on tour, organized special trips of the type of front-line brigades.
And so it happened that the Eternal Flame on the Taganka stage caught fire on 4 November 1965 of the year, and a memorial to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Alexander Garden near the Kremlin wall appeared only in December 66. And a Minute of silence throughout the country began to be announced later than we did.
- Probably, more importantly, not who first began, and what followed.
- Of course. But I am now talking about the role that art can play in people's lives.
- And how did the play “And the Dawns Here Are Quiet” appeared in the repertoire of Taganka?
“If I’m not mistaken, at the end of 1969, director Boris Glagolin, who worked with us, brought to the theater a number of the magazine“ Youth ”with the story by Boris Vasiliev published in it. By the way, did you know that after leaving the entourage in 1941, Vasiliev was engaged in a regimental cavalry school?
I read Dawns, I really liked it. He told Yuri Lyubimov, began to convince him, did not lag behind, until he agreed to try ...
To work on the performance, I attracted a young artist David Borovsky from Kiev. At the film studio, which already bore the name of Alexander Dovzhenko, I starred in the film “The Truth” and in a free evening went to the Lesia Ukrainka Theater for “Days of the Turbins” directed by student Meyerhold Leonid Varpakhovsky. The performance was good, but the scenery made a special impression on me. I asked who made them. Why, they say, we have a painter Dawa Borovsky. We met, I offered him the post of the main artist of our theater, which was vacant. Taganka already thundered across the country, but Borovsky did not immediately agree, asked to be helped with housing in Moscow. I promised and did, "knocked out" an apartment from the then head of the Moscow City Executive Committee Promyslov.
Thus, a new talented artist appeared on Taganka, and the performance based on the story by Boris Vasilyev became an event in the life of the theater capital.
Stanislav Rostotsky came to the premiere of "Dawn" and set about trying to make a feature film. He made an excellent picture, which the audience still watches with great pleasure. With Stas, we are fighting friends, fellow soldiers, he served as a private in my 6 Guards Cavalry Corps. He is also a war invalid. As, by the way, and Gregory Chukhray. We fought with Grisha on different fronts, met and became friends after the Victory. I played in almost all the pictures of Chukhrai - "Forty-first", "Clear Sky", "Life is Beautiful" ...
Both he and Rostotsky were talented directors, wonderful people with whom I had many good relations. Sorry, they have not been around for a long time, both died in 2001 year. But I lingered on a white light ...
Veteran of the Great Patriotic War, guard lieutenant of cavalry, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation and Ukraine Nikolay Dupak at the opening of the Victory exhibition in the State Historical Museum, in which documents, photographs and subjects related to the Great Patriotic War are presented. 24 April 2015. Photo: Mikhail Japaridze / TASSActris Galina Kastrova and actor and former director of the Taganka Theater Nikolai Dupak at the opening of an exhibition dedicated to materials on front-line theaters and front-line theater brigades presented on the 70 anniversary of the Victory. 17 April 2015. Photo: Artem Geodakyan / TASSR, head of the Moscow Department of Culture Alexander Kibovsky and veteran of the Great Patriotic War, guard lieutenant of cavalry, Honored Artist of Russia and Ukraine Nikolai Dupak (left to right) during the opening of the Victory Train architectural and art exposition on Tverskoy Boulevard. 8 May 2015. Photo: Sergey Savostyanov / TASS
Honored Veteran
- To tell the young about the past.
- Yes, I do not sit at home. They constantly call for meetings, creative evenings. Recently, even flew to Sakhalin ...
- May 9, as noted, Nikolai Lukyanovich?
- The last forty years, and maybe more, I was invited to the Red Square, and I, along with other veterans from the stands, watched the military parade. But last year, for the first time in a long time, they did not call. And in this too. It turns out that someone showed concern for the elderly, who, you see, it is difficult to withstand the burden associated with holiday activities. Thank you, of course, for such attention, but we were asked about it? For example, I still drive a car myself, in the middle of April I participated in the action called “Library Night”, read poems on the Triumphal Square near the monument to Vladimir Mayakovsky ...
And the parades now seem to be going to call those who are no more than eighty. But if we consider that the country celebrated the 71 anniversary of Victory, it turns out that in May 45, these veterans turned out to be a maximum of nine years. However, I begin to grumble again, although I promised not to grumble at life.
As they say, if only there was no war. We can handle the rest ...
Song about my foreman
I remember the military enlistment office:
"The landing is not good - so, brother, -
like you, there nevprotyk ... "
And then - laughter:
Like, what kind of soldier are you?
You - so right in the medical battalion! ..
And from me - such a soldier, as with all.
And in war as in war,
and to me - and not at all, to me - twice.
The tunic on the back has dried to the body.
I lagged behind, failed in the ranks,
but once in one fight -
I do not know what - I liked the foreman.
Noise trench chap:
"Student, how many twice two?
Hey, single, and the truth - was the count Tolstoy?
And who is the evon wife? ... "
But then my foreman interfered:
"Go get some sleep - you're not a saint,
and in the morning, fight. "
And only time I got up
to his full height, he told me:
"Get down! .. - and then a few words
without cases. -
Why two holes in my head! "
And suddenly he asked: "And what about Moscow,
can it really be at home
five floors? .. "
Above us is a squall. He groaned.
And in it the fragment cooled off.
And I could not answer his question.
He lay down in the earth - in five steps,
for five nights and five dreams -
facing west and feet facing east.
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