The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy. Константин Воскресенский
a bus to a nearby village
A little boy with no pranks is like a pair of shoes that fasten with Velcro: flat, predictable and uninteresting. Little boys should always have at least a little bit of zest and mischief going on in their heads, or else where would we get our brave and daring heroes come from?
It's hard to tell whether this story is one of recklessness or not, but at the age of five I went out without my parent's permission and got the bus to the nearby village of Sertyakino, where there was a pea field. I had no adult supervision, I was just with a mate of mine, Roma, from the second floor. He was wise and experienced, two years older than me. At this age, you can feel the difference: it's like a high school student hanging out with a university graduate.
We were quickly ratted out, and on my return home, instead of being greeted with bread and salt[7], I got a good spanking from my mum before being made to sit in the corner. By the way, in my time, the corner was often used. We can't really do that these days, times are different.
Just imagine: a whole field of peas! I don't know if it was a fodder field or not, but either way, it was an unreal even by adult standards. I often have to drive along this road even now, and these memories of it are the best. The smack I got at the end of that day pales in comparison to the joy of that pea field. I'd felt such a rush of freedom, an impenetrable sense of excitement on the edge of a big adventure with a hint of mischief. Just like the Russian poet Sergey Vasilyev said in his song: «Everything around me is kolkhoz[8], and everything around is mine!» And it all paid off in the end: stuffing my face with young, springy, juicy peas…
1991. The lift: riding with open doors
Of course, it is very risky for children of such a tender age to travel to whole other villages, but that's not to say home can't be just as dangerous. We had a lift in our apartment block. Boy, what a lift it was! The coolest! Why? Because, from the inside, you had to open and close the large, wooden folding doors by hand. On the outside, on each floor, there was also a large metal door which you also had to operate manually.
Have you ever taken the lift with the doors open? Oh, you're missing out. It's an indescribable feeling. I don't remember who taught us this little trick, probably some older boys in the building. But this is what we did: we headed inside the lift, closing the outside door but not the inside one. Then, we would push our arms to both sides of the lift wall and, feeling steady, would lift up our feet to hang there. The lift senses that there's no one there anymore, and so will wait until someone presses the button on another floor. Next, your partner in crime (which you need to arrange beforehand) would press the button on another floor and the lift would shoot off and the metal bars from the elevator shift would flash before our eyes. If we got dizzy (which was a common occurrence), then we'd just drop back down to the floor and the lift would stop dead. No need to worry, the ride's not over yet, you'll be off again soon.
There's another trick «for the older ones». Why? Because you want to keep the outside door open too. To do this, your partner needs to get in place before pressing the button to call the lift. They must:
1) Open the outer door;
2) Reach behind the wall and find the little switch that senses when the doors are open or closed. Switch it so the system thinks the doors are closed (when actually, they're open). Then, reach into the elevator shaft to find the lever and pull it out;
3) Then, they can twist this lever clockwise to tighten it and put it in the «outside door is closed» position;
4) Then, the doors will stay like that until you undo the lever. So, your partner can go up all the floors, doing this, leaving all the doors open;
5) All that's left if for you to fly up all the floors in the lift, watching all the open doors fly past you!
When these new modern lifts with automatic doors came out in the 00s, parents everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. Now our children will not be able to get themselves into such danger. The elevator shaft isn't a playground, no sir.
But what I'd give for another go right now! Especially with the new mod cons…
1992. The tunnel under the bridge
No less dangerous were our little walks through the tunnel under the main road. That's where the river Petritsa flowed through. We used to go there all the time. What on earth for? First of all, there were lots of crayfish. I didn't catch any of them, but the boys I was with managed to. I was just afraid to stick my hands under the stones – what if it bit me! Even now I would think twice before doing that…
Second of all, me and my friends had made a dam there. I'm not really sure what it was for, but we took joy in the making of it. It was quite fun wading through the wet mud against the current; we had to be resourceful, trying not to drop our building materials but also not falling into the water ourselves. We didn't always get it right, so quite often our spare parts would float off downstream or we'd lose them. We'd finish the day soaked, wet all the way through, stood in this raging stream. We'd walk home, tails between our legs. When mum always asked «Why are you so wet?» I told her the standard lie «I fell in a puddle…» If she had seen this «puddle», I'd have got a clip around the ear.
1992. Bike theft
One day, my list of fibs I used to tell my mum grew one lie longer. It was about a stolen bike. Not my bike, I was the one who stole it… Not exactly GTA, of course, but these criminal acts were barefaced, committed in broad daylight. And the thing was that I was forbidden to ride a bicycle, because, well, the roads were chaos! Gena from flat 36 would drive around in his cherry-coloured Lada Zhiguli[9] and there would be at least three Zaporozhets[10], including ours, out on the road each hour…
And suddenly there it was, the transport of my dreams. A kind of confusion came over me, an inner tightness at the same time as a rush of determination and a passionate desire. It was impossible to resist. I wanted it and that was enough.
Within just fifteen seconds of riding the stolen bike I saw a whole spectrum of emotions: it went from euphoria, to joy, to lightness, anxiety, burden, fear, and finally horror. The latter was so depressing that I immediately parked the bike behind the khrushchyovka[11] opposite us. And immediately the horror turned into annoyance, then even into anger. With that, I ripped off the spoke nipples and threw them into the bush. If I couldn't enjoy it, nobody could!
The next day, my friend's father had a polite conversation with me, trying to nip anything like that in the bud. It was very embarrassing, and I couldn't say anything, not even the standard «I won't do it again.» I muttered something to myself, and they let me go. I didn't do it again. At least not with bikes. You know, it's busy out there, with all these cars about…
1993. Prawns and dentists
Though not criminal, it was dangerous of me to try and catch prawns underneath an abandoned building. It was when I was at the Oleg Koshevoy summer camp in Yepatoria. Of course, we didn't realise it was so dangerous, but that's another story…
When we were caught red-handed, the supervisors made a note of our names. In the evening, they cooked us these shrimps and made us eat them. The next morning, we were sent before the Comrades' Court[12]. It was quite the event, you know, but there was an issue: someone lost that list with our names on. The teachers asked us to own up and stand up. All the culprits stood up, except me. I just sat there. What was it to me? Nothing to do with me what they got up to. My mates whispered to me, «Get up!» But I couldn't. I was an excellent student and an exemplary little lad. I was the first to «perfectly» make the bed, the first to brush my teeth… You name the Soviet summer camp activity, I excelled in it. So, I didn't own up.
Later these mates launched a campaign of blame against me, and then a terrible punishment. A couple of days later, we were taken to the dentist for a routine check-up. I wanted to go among the first so I could finish earlier.
A traditional greeting in some Slavic, Nordic, Baltic, Balkan and Middle Eastern countries
A form of collective farm in the Soviet Union.
A car designed and manufactured in the Soviet Union.
A series of rear-wheel-drive superminis from the Soviet Union.
A type of low-cost, brick or concrete-panelled apartment block of three to five floors. They were common in the Soviet Union during the early 1960s, named after then-leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev.
A special form of collective justice that existed in the Soviet Union.