Grisha, or Grigory Nikolaevich, and in a driver's way, simply and respectfully - Nikolaich.
Driver.
Elderly, experienced, behind his back hundreds of thousands of kilometers of difficult Russian roads.
He came to Tuva after the war and stayed.
Didn't study, got married.
Chauffeur on trucks ZIL-157, GAZ-51.
Then he began to carry bosses of different levels.
He grew up to the driver of the garage of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, moved to the "Victory".
He often boasted that he (more precisely, his boss) was the first to get the all-wheel drive "Pobeda".
Then it was called "iron".
Then there was the famous Volga GAZ-21 with a deer on the hood.
Then GAZ-69.
According to him, there is no more passable and more unpretentious machine than this and never will be.
And already just before retirement, he moved to the Soviet dream of the times of stagnation - the Volga GAZ-24.
It was the pinnacle of prosperity.
The limit of dreams.
Although on the technical side there was nothing special about it.
Against the backdrop of world achievements in the automotive industry.
In the USSR then, even in garage chatter with bikes and jokes, no one talked about an automatic transmission, about a car with two pedals - gas and brake, because no one knew about such a miracle.
Kilometers were wound on the odometer, tires were erased, Nikolaich lived to retire.
I wanted to work more, but it was hinted to him that enough was enough.
But he received from the management as gratitude for many years of work a coupon for "Zaporozhets".
Such a personal car was also a rarity at that time.
And he made an impression.
Especially somewhere in a distant village.
In general, Nikolaich left for a well-deserved rest.
Mushrooms, berries, vegetable garden, hunting, fishing.
The car was very handy for this.
Nikolaich dearly fell in love with his "Zaporozhets" from the first day of ownership.
And so I met him on a ferry across the Yenisei.
The ferry was about to leave by a cable stretched across the river when a Zaporozhets, signaling everyone a fiery red, like a pioneer tie, jumped out onto the pier.
And he was the last to catch the ferry.
The driver got out of the car with dignity.
His wife followed him.
The river ferry went slowly, and a small company gathered near Nikolaitch to talk.
“The blueberries have gone, and my wife and I have gathered some berries,” he explained and added with pride: “And in this car I will go anywhere, I will climb into any fool.
What is good - the engine in the back.
Do not walk in front, turned around - and backwards!
As on a tractor, up any mountain! "
Another student who came to us on vacation came up to us, kept up the conversation and asked for a lift along the way.
Nikolaich good-natured: "What is it about!"
The shore approached, moored.
One by one, the cars are unloaded, and the passengers sit down on land.
The last one is a red Zaporozhets.
Who does not know, I will tell you: where all normal cars have the first speed, the Zaporozhets has the rear one.
Bursting out in public with pride, Nikolaitch forgot that.
He threw his wife ashore in a businesslike manner together with a fellow traveler, started the Zaporozhets, gasped for courage and, turning on the first, which is the back one, dashingly jumped into the river.
Backwards.
Everyone rushed to save Nikolaich, but, in my opinion, the student pulled him out.
The car was visible at the bottom with a scarlet spot.
Of course, everyone vied with each other with advice on how to save the Zaporozhets.
They began to think about where to get the tap, how to fit it, how to restore it: "Get it out, drain the oil, blow it through and only then ...";
“You can hook and quietly pull ashore”;
“We need a tractor and a long cable”;
"The main thing is to dry it well, without rushing."
The ferryman concluded this reasoning as a great expert and naval commander: “There, downstream river tractors haul rafts of the forest.
I think they will pick up a bottle of bitter and slowly roll it out along the bottom onto a scythe, and then you can use a tractor. "
Several bottles were found to be bitter.
Judging by the faces and the conversation, the river workers, while walking towards us, had already received two or three hundred grams.
Or was it their usual state.
We dived, got dirty, hooked a car.
And a powerful boat, which drags rafts of four hundred cubic meters of forest along the river, moved a little deeper, pulled the cable, gave gas and dragged the drowned man to the spit, where it was smaller.
Naturally, everyone walked along the coast in anticipation.
From time to time, the roof of the Zaporozhets that appeared above the water caused no alarm in anyone.
In vain.
Nikolayich's love and pride, floating up and down to the bottom, spinning like a spoon, reached the shallows.
Stripped about the bottom to a metallic shine, the car, without glass and even traces of red paint, was lonely waiting for the second part of the execution - being pulled ashore.
Everyone who had a car at that time, especially a new one, remembers very well: not only the Zaporozhets, even the Ural motorcycle lifted its owner a little above everyone else.
At that time, the people were almost entirely rukasty, so I think, having calmed down, "Zaporozhets" was restored, straightened, painted.
***
You go over that time in your memory.
How we lived.
How they became different and the country became different.
And the feeling of happiness is this piece of memory.
Most often, when I remember my childhood, I remember one evening.
When dreams came true.
Before the New Year, my father calls me to the stove in the kitchen, takes out a package, tears up the waxed paper, there are “snow maidens” skates.
He opened the oven door and threw the skates into the fire. I didn't even have time to shout. All life was cut short. After some time, wiping my snot, he took out the skates with a poker, already without thick grease. He quickly went outside and dipped them into the snow, the blades hissing. These skates were without shoes - just metal blades that could be attached to any shoe with ropes. And the father in this way - in the oven - simply removed the factory grease from them so that they would not get dirty. After that I had a lot of different skis, skates, but I remember these.