Night.
Let's say from December 30 to December 31, 1962.
After all, it was at this time, only a day later, that the events in the Strugatskys' story "Monday begins on Saturday" unfold.
And today we have December 30, 2022.
But this is all nonsense, and the day lasts the same, and its name is a century.
Take a sheet of paper.
Fold, but do not crumple, and mentally pierce the closed edges with the needle of time - here you have today, which has come yesterday, and yesterday, which has come tomorrow.
Today is the birthday of the USSR - that very state, the debate about which does not subside, and cannot subside.
Reflections of the greatness of Red Atlantis lie on everything we touch.
They are sometimes not clearly visible to us, but the eye of God cannot be deceived: 100 years since the founding of the unthinkable and impossible (it would seem) is today.
The USSR is our Ancient Rome!
Gloomy hangs over us
His muscles are hard.
And the mausoleum is indestructible!
This is Limonov.
It's not me.
Although I'm ready to subscribe to every word.
Just let go of the sheet of paper (why did you cling to it, like last year's snow?) - you see, it does not fall and does not straighten out - everything works as it was predicted, and all times flow at once and in one stream.
Today, a young researcher of a younger age, he is also an outstanding and the only software engineer of the well-known NIICHAVO throughout the country, Alexander Privalov has the most ordinary production day.
The fuses in his super-powerful computing "Aldan" will blow out only tomorrow, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, and only tomorrow, at about the same time, he will find out that he has been appointed on duty at his native institute at the most terrible, most responsible and most amazing time - on New Year's Eve. night.
What is he humming under his breath, beautiful-hearted (in the true sense of the word) Sasha Privalov?
And even if the “Song of the Snowflake” from the movie “Magicians”, it does not matter that it will be released on screens in 20 years - in 1982.
Such a thing in NIICHAVO is not even considered a miracle - for example, general knowledge is on the near horizon of event planning.
Gagarin flew and returned.
It is reliably known that our rockets will be on Mars - and soon.
Science is almost inseparable from magic.
Sasha Privalov sees no need to scan the future year after year.
He is unaware of the events of 1991.
Even in a dream he will not dream of the outgoing year, the year 2022.
Sasha Privalov lives and creates in the eternal state, in the state that lasts in that eternity.
Not without problems - yes.
Not without fools - that's for sure.
Not without showing off and arrogance - this is strictly necessary for humanity.
But.
In a state that lasts forever.
Too early we buried even the officially not abolished USSR by anyone.
When the young year comes
And the old one goes away
Fragile snowflake
Hide in the palm of your hand, make a wish.
Look with hope into the night blue
Squeeze your palm loosely
And everything that you dreamed about, ask
Think and wish!
Do you think it's so simple, for the sake of a red word, that the Strugatskys pumped up the night corridors of NIICHAVO with undead of all stripes?
How!
They, the Strugatskys, saw the Great Patriotic War with their own eyes, survived the blockade and gave us the shining world of Noon after the Victory.
Whether it comes or not depends only on us.
This does not depend on Sasha Privalov, he goes to the world of Noon with leaps and bounds, for him that world is an absolute reality and movement towards it is a true manifestation of inner strength.
And the main property of that power is the deepest calmness.
How dare we bury the USSR?
A spark of a short circuit, conceived by the Heavenly Father?
Or is it acceptable to assume that some events occur outside of his knowledge?
It's... It's very presumptuous and bold to suggest that.
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Twenty years after the war, the Strugatskys and their wives were sitting one evening having tea.
Boris, as usual, ate (with great pleasure) stone mint gingerbread, dried to death by himself - he did not recognize any other way to use them since the blockade.
I bought it, put it on a plate and waited for it to dry.
He argued that there is and cannot be anything tastier in the world.
So, four people in the room - two women, two men.
The eldest, Arkady, suddenly seemed to light up.
He recalled that he suddenly realized: none of the four of them had the slightest chance of surviving the war.
Each one had a chance to die from hunger, bullets, diseases with oh what a margin.
But they survived.
The USSR will also survive.
Undead in the night corridors - the most common test of eternity.
We have read about it thousands of times in fairy tales and legends.
The hero must reach the goal.
This is the meaning of his entire existence.
He must overcome his own fear, defeat his own demons - others that jump and rage around, the essence is an illusion, a frenzy of the mind, a phantasmagoria carried away by a gust of wind.
A hundred years ago, somewhere very high shorted.
And for a moment - because on the scale of eternity and the universe a hundred years is only one moment - the world was illuminated by the light of that same Noon.
And it does not matter that after that he again plunged into darkness: the electricians of the celestial spheres work, observing (if possible) all safety regulations.
Patience.
And also work, work and work, as the cat Vasily, who lives near Iznakurnozh (he is also a hut on chicken legs) in the territory controlled by a well-known institute, said.
Cat Vasily, who lives.
Uninhabited, mind you.
There is no past for the present.
There is only time for time.
When the young year comes
And the old one goes away
Any dream come true -
Such is this night.
Everything will calm down and freeze around
In anticipation of new days
And the snowflake will suddenly turn around
Firebird in your hand!
Reread "Monday Starts on Saturday."
Write in your notebook those lines that define the very essence of a hundred-year-old young state that has temporarily passed into a state of projection of a possible real future.
These are lines about the spiritual essence of the people who created the USSR.
Let them not seem pompous to you - both people and words.
That's how they lived then.
Then they believed in it.
“Labor legislation was viciously violated, and I felt that I had lost all desire to fight these violations, because here at twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve, breaking through a blizzard, people came who were more interested in finishing or starting over some useful it’s a matter of how to drown oneself with vodka, senselessly kicking one’s legs, playing forfeits and flirting with varying degrees of ease. People came here who are more comfortable with each other than apart, who could not stand any kind of Sunday, because on Sunday they were bored. Magicians, People with a capital letter, and their motto was - "Monday begins on Saturday." Yes, they knew some spells, they knew how to turn water into wine, and each of them would not have bothered to feed a thousand people with five loaves of bread. But that's not why they were mages. It was a husk external. They were magicians because they knew a lot, so much that they finally turned quantity into quality, and they entered into a different relationship with the world than ordinary people. They worked at an institute that dealt primarily with the problems of human happiness and the meaning of human life, but even among them no one knew exactly what happiness was and what exactly the meaning of life was. And they accepted the working hypothesis that happiness is in the continuous knowledge of the unknown and the meaning of life is in the same. what is happiness and what is the meaning of life. And they accepted the working hypothesis that happiness is in the continuous knowledge of the unknown and the meaning of life is in the same. what is happiness and what is the meaning of life. And they accepted the working hypothesis that happiness is in the continuous knowledge of the unknown and the meaning of life is in the same.
I am quite ready to accept a flurry of "critical remarks" and therefore I can confidently say: the USSR dealt with the problems of human happiness and the meaning of human life.
Yes!
With great faults.
And yes!
With great accomplishments.
With true breakthroughs in the field of both strength of mind and strength of mind.
The USSR is what we want, but we still cannot decide.
It's like a horizontal bar in the yard: here is the yard, here is the horizontal bar, here you are, passing by every day.
We should not exercise in snarling, talking about "the empty dreams of Soviet science fiction writers, among other things, all the ideas of those who stole from serious Western writers."
Not in gibberish...
Sasha Privalov, unequivocally and unconditionally, will fix Aldan, celebrate the New Year with friends and champagne created from the air, find his love and overcome all difficult circumstances.
Undoubtedly.
But how?!
Hear, brothers and sisters!
Privalov walks along the corridors of the night NIICHAVO, like a master walks on his own land!
On your own!
Earth!
Someone there in the form of a skeleton groans in dark niches?
Hosts of bloodsucking bats hang from capitals and columns?
Briares broke his finger on the eighteenth right hand, and the retired ghoul Alfred instead of tea drinks from the kettle, everyone understands what?
This is problem?!
Is this a problem for a Soviet person?!
I hope you understand.
One day, in the foreseeable future, we will turn to the horizontal bar.
At first it will be difficult - this is understandable: the form is lost and you need to type it.
And then things will go on.
Day after day.
Step by step.
A fairy tale quickly affects, but the work is not done quickly, but it is done - and it turns out well.
As it should be in a fairy tale, which is a reflection of reality.
The music for the "Wizards" (I think Privalov purred under his breath about three white horses, like all lyric physicists) was written by the legendary, there is no other word, Evgeny Pavlovich Krylatov.
He was born in 1934 into a working-class family in the town of Lysva, Sverdlovsk Region.
In the cruel Stalinist times - that's how it is customary to talk about those times.
And now here's what: the music for the cartoon "Umka", the same lullaby of the bear, from which everything freezes inside, music for the films "Guest from the Future", "Adventures of Electronics", music for the "Three from Prostokvashino" and "Grandfather" watched to holes Frost and summer ”- this is all Krylatov.
The list is long - read online.
It's all Krylatov.
Surname something.
"Property of the Republic" - he is also.
What to say on the day of the centenary of the USSR?
What to wish the birthday man and guests of the festival?
Will live!
Privalov Sasha, who is also each of us, will fix everything that has burned down, put the Aldan into operation, reconnect the circuits in a new and reliable way.
To be the world of Noon.
Hello USSR.
Such is the historical reality.
Extended in time.
Happy New Year, my dear people!
Please be happy!
And the New Year, which is about to come,
Fulfill your dream instantly.
If the snowflake doesn't melt,
Will not melt in your palm
As the clock strikes twelve...
Until the clock strikes twelve!
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.