Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR – OUR COMPANY. THE SAMOVAR
In fact, the samovar is not such a typical household item for Georgia. It’s not that they don’t know it there or don’t use it. It’s just that it is not a frequent attribute of the Georgian tea ceremony, which traces its tradition to the East: Turkey, Persia and China, places where the samovar was popular long before it appeared in Russia. In general, perhaps, it’s all a matter of time – in the twentieth century in Russia it was not used very often.
Now imagine the picture – a red-haired, curly-haired guy in a colorful shirt, cap and with a samovar in his hands looks around and gazes at passers-by. And do you know where this all happens? In the capital of Georgia, sunny Tbilisi, on the central square of the city, on the steps of the Central Department Store, in the eightieth years of the twentieth century.
What associations does this picture evoke for you? Probably some visiting “goof” with a penchant for colorful purchases.
So, in any case, reasoned the head of the OBKhSS (Financial Police), a theater lover and esthete, who dressed my friend Tyoma Rybakov in the described outfit.
It was like this… One day, police and security officials showed up at the radio plant where Tyoma worked. They were looking for suitable types and characters here. Not that stupid approach. Many Russians, military children, Komsomol members and communists worked at the paramilitary defense production enterprise. And the “stage director” needed all these signs to select a suitable character.
At that time, a gang of crooks was operating in the city. They found simpletons from among the visitors roaming the city’s shops in search of goods, offered to look at carpets for sale, took them to secluded places and robbed them. The police rightly decided that the role of a visiting simpleton would be suitable for a Slavic type guy, a Komsomol member who would agree to play it.
Young people were gathered at the enterprise and asked to help in the operation of police. I’m not sure that the radio factory contingent was sufficiently trained in police infiltration operations, and a seemingly simple task could turn into a dangerous game with robbers. But someone turned out to be an enthusiast of his business and was looking for enthusiasts among young people. I can’t say that there were many volunteers, but several romantic adventurers, similar to the heroes of the novel “How the Steel Was Tempered,” turned up. And among them was my comrade Tyoma with his red curls and his dad – Colonel Rybakov, a pilot of the undeclared Korean War.
Tyoma was told that there was no need to do anything. Just walk around and ask the price of everything, the crooks will find him themselves, and the police, “don’t even doubt it!” will tie up the bandits in time.
Honest Tyoma, naturally, was not privy to the statistics of kidnappings and robberies, including of two disguised police officers, whom cunning swindlers, in front of their slow colleagues, dragged into the basements of the store and robbed. The failure of the operation was attributed to the insufficiently realistically images of the visitors. That’s when the plan arose to find a real non-indigenous Tbilisi resident and set him up as a decoy.
So Tyoma became a police sitting duck. And now, hesitantly looking around and clutching a bulky samovar to himself, he hang about on the steps of the Central Department Store, preparing to quack.
It was then that my other friend, Gavriil, Sasha’s former classmate at mathematics school, noticed him. Gavrik was big and fat with a very loud voice. The son of the secretary of the district party committee, he studied in Germany, from where he returned with his wife and son. Seeing Tyoma in an unusual outfit and with a samovar in his hands, he neighed hysterically and shouted across the entire square,
“Ha-ha-ha, Rybakov, are you going to the carnival? Oh, I can’t! Ha-ha-ha! Behold, the Ryazan clown!”
Tyoma pointed Gavrik aside as best he could with his eyes and eyebrows, hinting that he needed to disappear. How else could he say that he was disrupting the planned infiltration operation!
“Do you have a nervous tic? Ha-ha-ha! Is this because of a samovar? Did you steal it? Ha-ha-ha!”
“Get off!” Tyoma hissed, “You’ll ruin the operation!”
“What operation will I fail? Selling a samovar? Ha-ha-ha! Do you think that if you dressed up like that, they will buy it from you? Oh, I can’t! You have killed me! Ha-ha-ha! Oh, you looks like a transvestite!”
People gradually gathered around them, some laughed, not understanding what was going on, but picking up a laugh from Gavriil. Even Tyoma stopped frowning, and at first timidly, and then laughed harder and harder at the unsuccessful setup and fat Gavrik, shaking in a fit of laughter.
Two weeks later, a gang of robbers was detained by the women’s police division, dressed in the uniform of cleaners of the Central Department Store. As you may have guessed, the artistic inspiration for the disguise was a theater lover and esthete you know. And the samovar was given to Tyoma for his participation in a dangerous operation.
And I completely agree with this award!
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