"Almost seriously." From the memoirs of Yuri Nikulin about life and war

Yuri Nikulin is represented in the mass consciousness - gay actor and clown in the circus on the colored Boulevard, but not everyone knows that Yuri was two wars - the Finnish and the Great Patriotic War.

We offer you the best excerpts from the memoirs of "Almost seriously" Yuri Nikulin.

When I told my mother that I was going to write a book, she asked me:

- But please, nothing it does not lie. And in general, when you write, let me read.

I thought the book on himself to write, in general, is quite simple. Because I know myself well enough, I have, I think, finally formed the character, habits and tastes. Without hesitation, I can list what I like and what I do not like. For example, I love: read the book on the night, solitaire, go to visit, to drive ... I like witty people, songs (listen and sing), jokes, holidays, dogs, illuminated by the setting sun the streets of Moscow, meatballs with pasta. I do not like: get up early to stand in line, walking ... I do not like (perhaps many do not like it), when I was molested on the streets when I was deceived. I do not like fall.

Then came the first day of work on the book. I sat down at the table and sat for a long time, painfully searching for the first proposal. Walked over to the books, he revealed some of them. As soon as people began to write about myself! Right envy takes - what are all good, juicy, succinct words. But it's their phrase. And I need your first offer.

I walk around the room, consider books, pictures (as I always do, inventing tricks for performances in the circus) and try to write the beginning. And then the hand itself. He writes: "I was born on December 18, 1921 in Demidov, former Porec, Smolensk province." Immediately surfaced in the memory of all the questionnaires that had to fill in, and cross out "original" start. Again, trying to find salvation, looking at volumes of books: Arkady Averchenko, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Mikhail Svetlov ... That's because they talk about their lives clever, short, expressive and original. True, they are writers, they are supposed to write well, I - the clown. And, probably waiting for me to something special, eccentric. But funny is not remembered. Then I decided to start writing a book himself, it seems to me, a simple - with a story about how to pass my typical day.

In a communal apartment at number one on the ground floor and a single wooden, with peeling green paint at home, we took the penalty room.

Window curtains, green wallpaper, a small square dining table in the corner, followed by the father worked, and I managed to do my homework. Near - bed of parents, there is a chest on which slept a frequent guest in our family. In all corners of the room were stacks of newspapers and magazines (father forbade them to throw). On the night of the corridor for me to bring a cot. It was wooden, folding bed, sell us the old lady neighbor in the yard. On it during the Russian - Japanese War, he was sleeping in the campaigns of her late husband, a colonel of the Russian army.

The bed I was proud. I even thought that she still smelled of gunpowder. However, on the first night I fell on the floor: carnation that held the sack, rusted, and the material itself is rotten. Colonel cot the next day repaired by nailing new material, and I slept on it before graduation. Although I was born in December 1921, the school decided to send me in 1929, without waiting for the execution of eight years (at that time in the first class took eight years)

... Love began in the sixth grade. Short, slim girl with blond, neatly trimmed hair had not really attracted me. I studied with her since first grade. And in the house, she came to us often, a friend of Nina Kholmogorova.

And suddenly one of the lessons she looked at me so kindly for its green, like a lynx, eyes that I understood - in the world there is no better and more beautiful this girl. Since then, I began to think about it often, and look at it on - to another. After some time, I decided to take her out of school to home, though, and had to do a decent hook. On the way, talking about favorite books: I - about Conan Doyle, it is - about Edgar Allan Poe. Since then we began to exchange books.

see off from school to home soon stopped, afraid that the boys will tease. But she continued to love her. I often envision such a picture: it attacks someone, and I defend it. When she came to visit Nina, my heart began beating unusually. Then I climbed to the roof of the highest shed in our yard and waited patiently for her to come out of the house. It was from there I wanted to shout to her, "Goodbye!" To, turned around, she saw how bravely I stand at the edge of the roof. And at the thought of how to confess his love to her and say how I like it, blushing. It seemed she had no idea about my feelings. He spoke to me in the same way as with all the other guys from our class.

I increasingly began to look at himself in the mirror and father terribly worried that my head some oblong, melons, like my mother would say, and the nose is too big. So I felt like a thirteen years. Sometimes accompanied her father to the school. It was a gloomy, taciturn man. He carries daughter to the gate and, nodding her head stiffly, he went to work. And I thought: "That's what he did not even kiss. It's so nice it would be to kiss her! "In my dreams I've kissed her endlessly. Why - that kiss on the cheek or top of the head - where it converged little white hair. But then, to learn that she and her father runs regularly train in rifle shooting, imbued with respect for him and he decided to enroll in the shooting circle. But after the first class I and a friend drove from Tire, because we shot at the light bulbs on the ceiling.

In the army I was drafted in 1939, when not yet eighteen years of age. Do not take "- I thought after the first visit to the military enlistment office, when I was called for a medical examination and immediately sent to the TB clinic. I'm terribly worried, afraid that I will find something, and not called upon. Finally, after several medical examinations revealed that I was practically healthy. At the last in the military committee chairman, looked at me and said: - You are very tall in the armored units not fit. We think the point you in the artillery. How do you agree?

- Well, - I said - artillery - too bad.

Proud, coming home, I happily said:

- Called in the artillery!

They brought us to some railway station near the Krasnaya Presnya where we spent almost a day.

We all keep an eye on each other. I liked the guy, funny, cute, okay with a figure perfectly sang tirelessly told estimated stories. Another all praised what he had Gipsy world, how she loved him and how escorted to the recruiting station. Third, a person who always smile never left it, and he drew attention - remember my mother treated all the chocolates. Each of us talked to each other about themselves.

At the station we were taken to the bath. When I undressed, everyone began to laugh.

- Well, you figure: worm fainted ... What, you have not fed at home?

I must have looked really funny: thin, long, round-shouldered.

At night, we were brought to Leningrad. When we were told that we would be in Leningrad, all in unison shouted "Hurray." Immediately, cooling our zeal, we explained:

- On the border with Finland, the tense situation, the city under martial law.

At first I was killing the word "rise". Seven in the morning. The street was dark. Winter has come. We are sleeping. And for the rest of the barracks a loud: "Rise!"

Wake up you do not want, and it is necessary. No I could not learn how to quickly get dressed. Therefore, it is in operation almost the last.

Foreman during ascent is always shouting:

- Well, get a move on you, oblomchik!

For a long time we were puzzled that for "oblomchik". Then it turned out that the foreman was comparing us with Oblomov of Goncharov's novel.

Everything that happened on the first day after getting up, deeply shocked me. Houses in cooler weather I was never allowed to leave the house without a coat, washed always just warm water, and here suddenly brought out into the frosty air in the bottom of the jacket with a towel tied around the abdomen, and were forced to run a mile on the frozen, ringing under the boots of clay road. After charging on the street washed with ice water. I washed and was horrified to think that now begins pneumonia.

In one of the first days of life all of us built a foreman and asks:

- Well, who wants to see "Swan Lake"?

I am silent. I do not want to watch "Swan Lake", as seen on the eve of "Chapaev". And with the "Chapaev" it turned out. The foreman asked:

- wishes to see "Chapaev" is?

"Another asks," - I thought, and took two steps forward. Behind me came a few more people.

- Well, follow me, film lovers, - ordered the sergeant.

They led us to the kitchen and we peel potatoes the night before. This is called playing "Chapaev". In the film, as is known, there is a scene with potatoes.

In the morning my friend Nick Borisov asked how, they say, "Chapaev"?

- Well, - I answered. - We still have to show two newsreel so late and come back.

On the "Swan Lake" out of order four. Among them was Nick Borisov. They washed the floors.

In the night of June 22 at the observation post broke the tie with a battalion command. According to the instructions we had to immediately go to the link to find a place of damage. The two men then went to Beloostrov and up to two nights doing verification. They returned about five in the morning and were told that our line in order. Therefore, the accident happened the river at another location.

Morning came. We had breakfast calmly. On the occasion of Sunday with Borunova took the three-liter cans, went to the station to buy beer for all. Come to the station, we stopped an elderly man and asks:

- Comrades, the military, it is true that the war began?

- From the first you hear - quietly we answer. - no war. You see - go for a beer. What kind of war! - we said and smiled.

We passed a little more. We stopped again:

- What is true the war began?

- Yes, where did you get? - We were worried.

What? Everyone is talking about the war, and we quietly go for a beer. At the station, we saw people with confused faces, standing near the column with a loudspeaker. They listened to Molotov's speech. ... The first man killed in my presence it is impossible to forget. We were sitting on the firing position and eat from the pot. Suddenly, next to our instrument shell exploded, and charge shrapnel cut off his head. A man sits with a spoon in his hand, the steam flows out of the pot, while the upper part of the head is cut off as a razor, a clean sweep.

Death in war, it would seem, do not shake. But each time it is stunning. I saw the field on which lay rows of dead people: how they were going to attack, and mowed them all gun. I saw the body, broken shells and bombs, but the most offensive - an absurd death that kills a stray bullet accidentally got a splinter.

And death gun commander Volodya Andreev ... Which was a great guy! Songs sang great. good poetry writing, and how ridiculous died. For two days we have not slept. Afternoon squadrons fought off "Junkers", which bombed our troops, and the night change its position. During one move Volodya sat on the gun, and fell asleep, and in his sleep fell from the gun. No one noticed the gun moved Volodya. He only had time to say before his death: "Mom tell ..."

Remembering the loss of close friends, I know - I was lucky. More than once it seemed that death is inevitable, but all ends happily. Some randomness saves lives. Apparently, I was indeed born in the shirt, as the mother used to say.

... meet my former classmate, she gave her my number field post, and the girl I wrote a short letter. Nothing special about it was - of my service questions, stories about friends guys. About herself she wrote that went to study at the Institute of Foreign Languages. Letter I reread several times and learned by heart. Immediately answered her great message. Pondered each phrase, have sharpened their wits, the fields made several sketches of my army life. Thus began our correspondence, which lasted until the last day of service.

May 9, 1945.

Victory! The war ended, and we are alive! It is a great happiness - our victory! War is over, and we are alive! Alive !!!

The next day we saw on the road walked by surrendering prisoner by the Germans. t. e the Germans, who are ready to attack. officers went ahead, followed by fifteen German march played harmonicas. Huge look this column. Someone has said that more than thirty thousand for the half-day Germans. View all miserable. We looked at them with curiosity.

Soon our Division finally began to civilian life. And the 11 of June 1945 there was a record in this combat log. The last entry in the journal of hostilities first battery 72-th separate battalion of Pushkin: "Finished the full camp equipment in the area Līvbērze Station Station. An indication of termination of the combat log. Battery Commander Captain Shubnikov. "

And it come peacetime. We all seemed very strange to our state. We have lost the habit of silence. Most of all I was expecting letters from home. Interesting, I thought, as well as a victory met the father and mother?

... I went and thought about the war as the most terrible tragedy on earth, the senseless destruction of human beings to each other. Before the war, I read a book Remarque "All Quiet on the Western Front." I liked the book, but I was not impressed. And while returning home a few confused and in doubt, the main thing that felt - joy. I was glad to be alive, that are waiting for me their homes, girlfriend and friends. "All forms - I thought - if survived this terrible war, everything else somehow will overcome."

At the gates of the house I was waiting for my mother. Mama! During the war years it has changed a lot. On the haggard face stood out her huge eyes, his hair completely white. When I entered the room, the dog jumped happily fry. She had not forgotten me. Soon came my school friend Shura Skalyga. He recently returned from Hungary, where he served in tank units. On his chest wearing the Order of Glory of the third degree. Together with Shura, hastily eaten, we rushed to the "Dynamo". Time to time for the break. Father stood at the controls. I saw him from afar, stooped figure in a gray cap familiar to me. - Dad! - I shouted.

Father raised his hand, and we rushed to each other. While we kissed Shura shouted controllers:

- Look! Look! They all war no see! He is back! This father and son!

Under these cries we together with Shura walked past the stunned controllers on a single ticket.

I do not remember how to play that day, "Spartacus" and "Dynamo", but the match was for me a holiday. I am in Moscow. Houses. And as in the good before the war, sitting with his father and Shura Skalyga the South Stand of the stadium "Dynamo", I look at the green field on which run the players hear the screams and whistling fans and think, "That is, true happiness must have" .

... The first day I came home, I met with my beloved. After football, I called her and we agreed to meet near Elokhovskiy Cathedral. I went on a date with excitement. Feel free uniforms, besides chrome boots mercilessly shook. These are the first in the life of real chrome boots gave me a parting spies, who secretly made a booking to our divisional cobbler, but the wrong size. And I barely pulled his father's boots on a thin sock.

- Oh, Yuri, you really become an adult - she said happily when he saw me.

And I stood, shifting from one foot to the other, I do not know what to say, and excitement smoothing his mustache, which I thought gave my face a dashing look. That evening I was in the parade for the first time her kiss. And then for a long time did not let go. She is pulling her hand from mine, he said in a whisper:

- No, Dad can get.

We met almost daily. We went to the theater, cinema. Several times she came to us in Tokmak lane. My parents liked it. And two days later on the same staircase, where he first kissed her, made her an offer. Could have done at her home, where more than once visited, but ashamed. The family was a difficult situation. The father and mother were divorced, but lived in one room, partitioned piano and a screen. They did not speak to each other. (In their house I felt stupid: it came to her father's nook to drink tea, drink up the back half, where the mother and daughter lived.) - You really like the Pope, - she told me.

That evening, when I asked for her hand, she said:

- Come tomorrow, I'll tell you everything.

The next day, when we met on the boulevard, she, looking at the ground, he reported that loves me, but as a friend and a week later marries. He is a pilot, and she is friends with him since the war, just had not said. He kissed me on the forehead and added:

- But we will remain friends ...

And so I ended my first love. I worried, of course, very much. At night, I wandered alone in Moscow ...

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