Today, with the restructuring of the state security service, many papers from secret archives are in the public domain. Of course, no one is going to naively believe that people are shown documents in their original form: almost certainly all the most important remains under the cover of secrecy.
However, even from fragments of information, one can get an approximate idea of ​​​​the affairs that were going on under the roof of the State Security Committee.

Portable nuclear weapons

Back in 1997, General Alexander Lebed, in one of his rather chaotic interviews, let slip that the special services possessed about a hundred portable nuclear devices, each with a capacity of one kiloton. Literally two days later, Lebed retracted his words, attributing everything to fatigue and a reservation. However, physics professor Alexei Yablokov confirmed the existence of such devices. According to information received from him, in the mid-70s, the top leadership of the KGB ordered the development of nuclear charges for terrorist operations. Moreover, there was information about the presence of similar devices in the United States.

Operation Flute

The secret services of the Soviet Union were often accused of developing biological weapons. According to some reports, the first samples of biological weapons were tested on the Germans near Stalingrad - the enemy was infected with rats. In the 1990s, microbiologist Kanatzhan Alibekov, who emigrated to the United States, spoke about the secret operation of the KGB "Flute", in which the latest psychotropic drugs were created and tested. Alibekov claimed that the KGB leadership planned to provoke a conflict with the United States and unleash a real biological war.

blue folder

Any citizen of the Soviet Union knew for sure: there is no god, no devil, much less alien nonsense. At the same time, any information from eyewitnesses about UFOs fell into the special department of the KGB, where they were carefully documented. In 1967, Felix Siegel, a prominent physicist, mathematician and convinced ufologist, appeared on TV due to someone's mistake. Immediately after this, the group of the scientist at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was disbanded by order from above, and all the materials collected by the researchers were sent to the KGB. Here they were filed into the so-called "Blue folder", which was curated by the head of the Chekists, Yuri Andropov.

The book by K. Andrew and O. Gordievsky gives a broad retrospective of the operations of the Soviet foreign intelligence from its foundation in 1917 until the collapse of the USSR. The book is based on extensive factual and historical material obtained by the authors and testimonies of eyewitnesses and participants in these operations. And the personal experience of Oleg Gordievsky, who served 23 years in KGB foreign intelligence, and the knowledge of Professor Christopher Andrew, the leading scholar of intelligence history in the West, make this book even more significant. The Russian edition is supplemented with historical facts that became known at the time of publication in Russia.

Secrets of the Lubyanka: a view from Britain 1

Preface to the Russian edition 2

Evolution of KGB 3

List of abbreviations 3

Introduction 4

Chapter I - Roots (1565-1917) 8

Chapter II - The Cheka, the Counter-Revolution and the "Lockhart Plot" (1917-1921) 13

Chapter III - Foreign intelligence and "active actions". The era of Dzerzhinsky (1919-1927) 21

Chapter IV - Stalin and spy mania (1926-1938) 33

Chapter V - "Enemies of the people" abroad (1929-1940) 44

Chapter VI - The Radio Intercept Service, the Infiltration of Agents, and the Fab Five from Cambridge (1930-1939) 51

Chapter VII - World War II (1939-1941) 67

Chapter VIII - The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) 78

Chapter X - Cold War. Stalin stage (1945-1953) 102

Chapter XI - The Cold War after Stalin (1953-1963) 116

Chapter XII - The era of Brezhnev. East, Third World and West (1964-1972/73) 132

Chapter XIII - The Decline and Fall of Détente (1972-1984) 148

Chapter XIV - Under Gorbachev (1985-1991) 168

Application: 179

Bibliography 179

Oleg Gordievsky, Christopher Andrew
KGB

Secrets of the Lubyanka: a view from Britain

Oleg Gordievsky is a spy. Or, to put it elegantly, a foreign intelligence agent. In this case, English, which he served faithfully for more than a dozen years.

Gordievsky is not the first KGB officer to commit an act of treason against his homeland: in Kryukov's KGB, at least half a dozen Chekists were caught red-handed while conducting espionage operations in favor of other states. He managed to escape from the networks of counterintelligence and now he and his family are enjoying the fruits of freedom somewhere in a well-fed English province.

No matter how we judge the actions of our compatriots who have changed the geography of their place of residence, who have fled or emigrated from a country of developed socialism, the attitude towards spies is always unambiguous. And not only with us. Kim Philby, John Walker, Heinz Felfe, hundreds of other people who in the past connected their lives with Soviet intelligence and worked for it sometimes from the most noble motives, in the eyes of the people they betrayed, are criminals. They will remain such in the history of different peoples, no matter what clothes they dress themselves in during their lifetime.

The foregoing does not mean at all that spies are inveterate scoundrels and mediocre creatures who are unable or unwilling to earn their daily bread in a righteous way. Rather, on the contrary: living a double life for many years, constantly walking on the edge of a knife, wearing the guise of a loyal citizen and a respectable family man, carefully following the instructions of one boss and then secretly running with a report to another is not an easy task, requiring not only good mental health, but also outstanding acting skills, the gift of reincarnation, in which virtuoso deceit crowns all the efforts of the player.

Oleg Gordievsky certainly belonged to this category of spies. He can be safely put on the same level as Penkovsky, a colonel in the Soviet military intelligence who collaborated with the British in the 60s. Unlike Penkovsky, who ended his life on death row, Gordievsky was lucky: he not only escaped the well-deserved punishment, but also wrote a book in collaboration with Christopher Andrew: "The KGB. A History of Foreign Policy Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev." This book was published for the first time in England in 1990 and is now becoming available to the Russian public.

I'll say it bluntly: a more thorough and reliable study of Soviet intelligence has not yet been published by anyone and nowhere.

Of course, even before 1990, the Western book market offered the reader in abundance the memoirs of former KGB and GRU officers (Orlov, Deryabin, Khokhlov, Golitsyn, Levchenko, Suvorov), the works of numerous Sovietologists devoted to the activities of Soviet state security agencies (Conquest, Dallin, Epstein, Hanson , Hingley, etc.) But perhaps the most noisy success was John Barron's book about the KGB, which was published in several editions after the scandal with Soviet "diplomats" in London in 1971. Unfortunately, this bestseller contains a lot of fabrications, gossip, distortions and inaccuracies. It can rather be attributed to a fascinating reading material than to a detailed and verified story about the almighty Soviet department.

Gordievsky's book favorably differs from all previous publications on this topic with a full-fledged retrospective analysis of the formation and development of intelligence structures in Russia and the USSR. It contains rich material that was previously inaccessible to the average citizen and the press, clearly reveals the mechanism of functioning of the most closed system of a totalitarian state. Giving credit to Gordievsky himself as an author, I cannot but say that a significant part of the book came out from the pen of Christopher Andrew. This applies primarily to episodes from the activities of Soviet intelligence, about which Gordievsky, due to his official position, could not know. Thus, the case of the murder of the Bulgarian writer, emigrant G. Markov was known to a very limited circle of people, and Gordievsky did not have access to it. Many of the pages devoted to the work of Soviet intelligence in the United States are apparently written by Christopher Andrew on the materials of American intelligence agencies and the testimony of former KGB defectors. However, this is the merit of the book: it captures broad layers, gives a global vision of problems.

The reader will probably want to gallop through the first hundred pages, which describes the history of the emergence of the Russian political police and its direct successor, the Cheka, and plunge into modernity with its twisted plots and many familiar names. Do not hurry. To understand the roots, the origins of our current troubles, you need to know how and where it all began. But to know not from the "Short Course" and textbooks of the Ministry of Education, not from slick and sterile historical monographs, but from unbiased, objective sources, which this book can serve as. The role of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky in organizing mass terror, the "Lockhart plot" and the figure of the British spy Sidney Reilly, the activities of the Comintern and the "successes" of the Cheka-GPU on the domestic front will be seen in a new way. An entire chapter is devoted to Stalin and his relationship with law enforcement agencies. The history of the preparation for the assassination of Trotsky is described in detail. Sorge, Philby, McLean, Burgess, Blunt - the names that once filled the headlines of all the world's newspapers, except for Soviet ones, are now, thanks to this book, portraits and, undoubtedly, will become closer and more understandable to those for whom they made enormous sacrifices. .

The activities of Soviet agents in the United States during World War II are vividly presented. The Stalinist state security, taking advantage of the friendly disposition of the Roosevelt administration towards its ally in the East, managed to weave a very effective spy network in Washington. However, Gordievsky casts a shadow on the president's closest adviser, Harry Hopkins, in vain. In those years, sympathy for warring Russia was so strong in American society that any official could be considered an agent by unscrupulous Chekists only because of his willingness to share information and favorably treat the requests of Soviet representatives.

The problems of the post-war system in Eastern Europe, the control of the party-police mafia there, the vile role of the then Soviet ambassador to Hungary Yu.

Soviet intelligence is presented in the book most impressively. Its history essentially began with Alexander Sakharovsky joining PGU in 1956, who did a lot to turn intelligence into a powerful, well-oiled bureaucratic mechanism. Having inherited from his predecessors an extensive network of agents, Sakharovsky managed at first not only to consolidate, but also to expand the scale of foreign operations. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the aggressiveness of the KGB counterintelligence apparatus, shamelessly seducing or forcing foreign citizens in Moscow to cooperate with the KGB, whether they were ambassadors, military attaches, clerks or embassy guards. They did not disdain the rare tourists and businessmen in those years.

Laurell Hamilton Stories from the collection "Strange Candy" Someone sees in my stories the premises with a more serious work. The last story, "The Girl Who Loved Death," was selected by my editor for a collection of short stories by mystery writers. So any of my readers could get acquainted with it on a par with the stories of other authors of the anthology. As for the rest of the stories in the collection, they were written...

Brass Moon: Asar Eppel Stories

Asar Eppel won fame as a master of short prose back in the nineties, having published first abroad, and then in Russia, two books of stories “Grass Street” and “The Mushroom of My Life”, translated in many European countries. This was followed by "Crushed Satan", "Sweet Air and Other Stories" and high awards for literary activity, which Asar Eppel - a brilliant translator of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bruno Schulz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Brecht, Kipling - received before: the officer's cross of the Polish Order of Merit , medal "For merit ...

Phantom Taxi (collection of short stories) Dmitry Suslin

In the spring of 1999, I came to the editorial office of the SCH-Stolitsa newspaper and brought the story "The Death of the Belyash King." After the publication of the newspaper, the public liked the story so much that I began to write further, trying to make each story look like a real report from the life of the city. And people believed that everything that was written actually happened, and alarmed townspeople called the editorial office all day long. People passed newspaper sheets to each other, and they passed from hand to hand, and the fame of them went far beyond the redistribution of Cheboksary. "He's not Stephen King yet, but reading his stories...

Stories by William Faulkner

The Thirteen (1930) Victory of Ad Astra All of them are dead, those old pilots Cleft Red leaves A rose for Emily Justice Hair When the night falls Dry September Mistral Divorce in Naples Carcassonne Dr. Martino (1934) Smoke Full circle Wash Come down, Moses (1942) Was Fire and hearth Black harlequinade Old men Autumn in the delta Knight's ride (1949) A hand stretched out on the water An error in the chemical formula Seven stories (1950) Arsonist Tall people Bear hunting Mule in the yard ...

Requiems (Stories) Lyudmila Petrushevskaya

The cycle of stories "Requiems" introduces the reader to the problem of death as a separate, independent subject of artistic representation. At the same time, the concept of death is considered by L. Petrushevskaya in various manifestations. This is the death of marital love (“I love you”), and the collapse of the bright hopes of youth, the loss of life optimism (“Jewish Verochka”), and the dying of the soul, spiritual degradation (“Lady with Dogs”), and the loss of compassion for someone else’s misfortune (“ Who will answer?"

The Sorcerer in October (collection of short stories) Mikhail Babkin

The collection "The Sorcerer in October" includes 12 short stories by Mikhail Babkin. All of them are about how magic breaks into our everyday life without asking and what comes of it. Accordingly, among the characters - the most ordinary people - suddenly appear fairies, demons, sorcerers, Santa Claus, the serpent Yermungandr and even V.I. Lenin himself.

Terrible tales about Shgara. Story Five: “Oh… Rustam Niyazov

Despite the fact that in this story about the glorious city of Shgar, we will talk about a completely different city, no less glorious, the terrible story will not become more gratifying, and the thought of how strong the habit of judging loved ones is in us, not giving them the opportunity to defend themselves from our judgment - this thought depresses, without any doubt ...

Stories of the Hedgehog Victor Dan

This book is about the adventures of the Hedgehog. In his stories, the Hedgehog will share his life observations and conclusions from meetings with the inhabitants of the garden and its environs: the Mistress, Worm, Uzh, Magpie and many others. For children of preschool and primary school age, as well as for adults who will read the book to children and grandchildren.

Stories, feuilletons, pamphlets Yaroslav Gashek

The first volume of the Works of the Czech writer Yaroslav Hasek (1883-1923) includes stories, feuilletons, and pamphlets written in 1901-1908. Translation from Czech Compilation and notes by S. V. Nikolsky The text is printed according to the publication: Gashek Yaroslav. Collected works in six volumes. T1.– M.: Fiction, 1983.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

"The Canterbury Tales" by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340? - 1400) is one of the first literary monuments in a single common English language. The book clearly showed the remarkable qualities of Chaucer's humanism: optimistic life-affirmation, interest in a particular person, a sense of social justice, nationality and democracy. The Canterbury Tales is a framed collection of short stories. Based on the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Chaucer painted a broad canvas of English reality...

White and Black (Stories) Leonid Sergeev

The writer's new book contains stories about animals. Some of them are cheerful, they have the joy of communicating with living beings. Others are sad, because we are talking about people who treat animals cruelly. But all the stories are united by the author's concern for the fate of "our smaller brothers." CONTENTS: Buran, Polkan and others Grass at our house By the forester Gray Plutik Anchar Tale for Alyonka White and Black Ginger My friends hedgehog Menagerie in my apartment

The Life of Remarkable People: Novels and Stories Vyacheslav Pietsukh

Everyone is pleased to communicate with a wonderful person, even if he (or her) is no longer in this world. You can mentally talk, or even write a letter ... So to speak, into space and eternity. But, most importantly, it should be remembered that wonderful people sometimes meet in completely unexpected places. For example, in a neighboring apartment. And the fact that every village has its own remarkable thing is a proven fact. Want to make sure? Read the stories that Vyacheslav Pietsukh wrote down for you - also, by the way, absolutely wonderful! The collection includes the following...

Who among us has not watched the Soviet comedy "Office Romance", where the awkward Novoseltsev tries to hit on the strict director Lyudmila Prokofievna for the sake of promotion! After a series of funny cases and ridiculous situations, the affair develops into a sincere feeling of two lonely people, and the audience is waiting for a happy ending. In life, “like in a movie” rarely turns out, although office romances occur in almost every institution, whether it is a hardware store warehouse or a doctor's office.

Particularly persistent, of course, adhere to the rule “You don’t have to shit where you eat” (read “you work”), because fiery feelings can quickly come to an end, and then try to find a new job. Others can't resist and still have an affair at work. We talked to Petrozavodsk residents and learned three real love stories.

Nastya and her reflective story

“I was on vacation when a colleague called me and told me that we had a new employee in our office. I remember that I was still scared that they were calling me from work, all of a sudden something urgent, but I still want to rest! It turned out that a colleague just missed me and at the same time shared news from work. I wasn't happy about this news at all. A colleague can be called practically a friend, we sat together in the same office, dined together and walked at lunchtime, chatted and laughed, sometimes visited each other. It was so much fun with her, and now she is being transferred to another floor, and another person is already working in our office!

And it's a man! His girlfriend has already taught him everything, explained the specifics of the institution, and I will come, as if not to my own office ... With a man at the workplace you will not keep secrets and laugh, as with a girlfriend, of course, and even your every movement will need to be controlled. Oh! I was even a little offended: they could have warned, and a friend could have called immediately, as she found out about the movement of personnel. And what kind of a man is still unknown. Although a colleague said that he was nothing, tall, normal, handsome, and generally hinted that I should like him. If she hadn't said that, maybe nothing would have happened, just colleagues, employees. But at these words, somewhere deep in my heart skipped a beat, and I unconsciously prepared for an intrigue. Like this: a friend intrigued - I have an intrigue and formed.

Actually, I'm married. Long and solid. But, probably, not firmly enough, since I got into this story. To be honest, I can't explain how it happened. Slowly, little by little, like an avalanche from a snowball - and do not stop. Who else would know whether to stop. I never believed in the phrase "I'm confused", and this happened to me. I condemn myself and am pleased with myself: what a fatal woman I am, I’ll get whoever you want! Such is the dual feminine essence.

Before, everything in my life was simple: I studied, got married to a man I knew from school days, got a job. I didn't really believe in feelings either. It's time to play a wedding, well, they played, we live, I bring up my daughter. The husband is somehow on his own, he brings money, and it's good. And passions, feelings - it only happens in the movies. But, apparently, something was missing. Bored, right? Or I wanted it to be "like in the movies."

For the rest of the vacation, I was fueled by curiosity as to who the man was in my office. And when I saw him, I was even disappointed: that’s really “nothing”, as a colleague said, just nothing special. There was no such spark between us. I ran to work early to make up for lost time during the vacation, well, curiosity urged on, and he came in, said hello and buried himself in the computer. In my embarrassment, I didn't even introduce myself or talk to him. Later, later, the boss came and introduced us to each other, ordered me to love and not offend the newcomer. It was like everyone was pushing me on purpose! I must love him, you see!

Until the lunch break, we were silent, I looked at him, but did not see what my friend found in him. At lunch, she went up to her and expressed, they say, she was intrigued in vain! And she told me: “What are you, he is so cool!” And indeed, gradually I began to notice that I was beginning to feel sympathy for the way he behaved, the way he talked: everything was jokes, jokes. This is when we got to know each other better. And the door will gallantly open for me if we manage to come at the same time. And give you candy. And he will gobble up half of my dinner without a twinge of conscience, if nothing has been brought, and I treat him. And he will say something that only applies to me, like: “Oh, who came to us!” - Well, who else will come, if the office is designed for us. So glad, or what, to me? I wanted to think so.

I immediately spoke about my marital status. He did not spread about his own, and I was not interested. In general, he never took our relationship beyond work: he didn’t call, he didn’t write, he didn’t see him off, nothing like that. And he didn’t bring home problems to work. But he started flirting first. Sits, looks and smiles. If you smile back, you will surely say something pleasant. You laugh it off - he will also joke, talk. And he always readily agreed to help in the work. I no longer carried heavy folders and books, I didn’t wait for the engineer’s help in problems with office equipment, I didn’t grab my head with some snags anymore - he raked everything himself. And he always somehow turned out to be nearby, strove for communication, violated borders.

And then it happened that we had to stay late at work. Actually, I had to. There was a power failure, and we didn't have time to finish what everyone was supposed to finish today. I called my husband and warned that I would be late so that he would meet the child (then my daughter went to first grade) and take her to her grandmother. It gets dark early in autumn, and we only have a table lamp, the situation is so promising. After all, we turned off the overhead light just in case, turned off the power when the interruption occurred, and when the electricity was given, we rushed to work, and it got dark. They completed it almost simultaneously and said “wow!” in unison. And he stretched himself and said that it turned out to be his birthday, and there was even something to celebrate, only everyone had forgotten in the park. That's how it all happened. And I finally came home in the morning. The husband and child spent the night with their grandmother, had breakfast there and went to the park on the occasion of the day off. My husband didn't seem to care, he didn't even call.

And my conscience terribly tormented me both for my behavior, and for my attitude towards my husband, and because of my daughter. After all, I do not need this colleague! Yes, and love these relationships can not be called. Simple flirting, true office romance. I can't explain myself how it happened. There was not enough romance, something forbidden, interesting. I tried to convince myself that nothing terrible happened, that this happens at every step. Somehow I coped with myself, on Sunday, even with my husband and daughter, the three of us spent time, which rarely happens, walked on the lakefront, ate ice cream in a cafe. And on Monday they offered me to drop everything and leave ... “What is keeping you here? Come with me to Pskov!” This is where the real mental and moral suffering began. His roots are from Pskov, and he offers me to leave at least with my daughter. Get divorced, quit and leave. With a half-familiar person. I only know him from work!

And, the saddest part, I wanted it. I even started planning. I was tossed like a ship during a storm, I either wanted to be with this person, then I began to doubt him, my feelings, what I want and whether I need it, I rushed to my husband, tried to treat him better , was afraid for her daughter, and told a colleague that, most likely, I would not get divorced and that in general it was necessary to end the relationship. As a result, I fell into depression, I didn’t want anything at all. A colleague was angry with me, I was angry with myself, a colleague and my husband, my husband did not want to see anything. I lost interest and energy in my work. Colleagues did not whisper behind my back, and thanks for that. I shared it with a friend, she would have figured us out anyway, but gossip didn’t go further than her, apparently.

So I was tormented for about a month. The colleague left the last word for me: "I suggested - think." Our relationship has hung. At work, I could not do anything, my head was thinking badly and was busy all the time with the wrong things. And it all ended when I was deprived of the award for such work. It kind of pissed me off, sort of. And I made a choice in favor of the family. Who is this colleague to change your whole life because of him? He created problems for me anyway ... I didn’t swear love to him to the grave, he didn’t swear to me either. Just tired. And he left for Pskov, as he intended. And it’s good, because I’m so tired of being afraid that everything will be revealed, that I will have to leave work, that my husband will find out, that I myself will go crazy from experiences! I am now sitting and waiting for someone else to be appointed to my office. But no more romance!

Male perspective on office romances. Alexander about his novels at work

“Who said that men are cynical in this matter? Cynicism is just characteristic of the female character! Indeed, in the Orthodox religion, women are considered unclean beings. After all, they themselves do not know what they want, some intrigue, intricacies ... But a man is simpler, more naive. If he found another, he will say in plain text: "Sorry, goodbye."

Personally, I have no illusions about my own age. But the hands are still stretching! Reflexively stretching hands to the young! The spinal cord sends an impulse, and you want to grab it! What - pills to drink? Everyone lives as they see fit, and I believe that I will live as I need, I don’t make excuses and I’m not going to teach anyone. At the age you want to flirt. The desire to please results in compliments, maintaining appearance at the level, some word games: understatement, ambiguity.

Romance between colleagues is not good and it is not bad. Even between colleagues, even just strangers. It's all about whether a romance occurs or not, no matter where. If the romance flows into something valuable, that's good. And just something somewhere in the corner - generally great. What's wrong with that? After all, it is always better to make a mistake before a serious relationship is accepted.

Again, we spend so much time at work! So much time that I call my wife by the name of a colleague. But this does not mean something like that at all, it is already a reflex. And my wife understands this very well, she realizes that we have been sitting for many hours in the same office for many years. And we obviously have some kind of romance with her. A work novel, not a love story. After all, you can do without coitus. Yes, I see her more than my own wife! I already forgot what my wife looks like. When a colleague cuts his hair, I will immediately see. And when the wife is not. Because I haven't been able to persuade her to do it for five years. I don't like long hair. And the wife loves it. So an office romance is inevitable. And its form can be completely different, as in any relationship between people.

Personally, office romances do not interfere with my work. Although it happens that this is a terrible thing - to twist love at work. When two colleagues lay eyes on one colleague, this is both jealousy and some intimate conflicts ... And flirting - every day! And while it is standing normally - there is hope that everything is proceeding normally, I'm not talking about you, but about this beam. Do you see? Everything is simple.

The main thing is to realize the following thought, which will help you understand that there is no smell of cynicism here. A person is realized in everything: in children, professions, hobbies. This is a normal, natural state of a person. It is impossible to be realized in the family and at the same time not be realized in relations with women in other places. And where? Not on the street! Although, deviating from the topic, why not, in the end.

Here, imagine, spring, puddles. Nothing is removed. And a woman walks in front of me. She reached a puddle and could not bypass either on the left or on the right. I advise her, they say, you can slip through there, and she told me: “I'm afraid, I have Italian boots!” I hop on her hands and moved. My son was with me, so my son constantly reminds me of this beneficence: “Do you remember how you endured a woman?” The son felt that it was necessary to do this and that it was good. But you won't wear them all!

Here we are realized in work and at work. Somewhere you need to realize yourself as healthy, somewhere smart, somewhere professional, somewhere sexy. Women have different experiences. And it is impossible for a man not to be realized, not to show himself sexually with a colleague of the opposite sex. With his wife - one thing, with his mistress - another. With a woman who is neither a wife nor a lover - the third is also not bad. I have an implementation. This is good.

Men cross the border in films. But this rarely happens in life, in a certain environment. Someone is on duty at night with the opposite sex - that's the talk! Sleep, sleep! And it may or may not be. It is important that they spend time and prove themselves in this respect too. There is nothing surprising, nothing strange, reprehensible. And it is not at all necessary that if you smiled at a colleague, then with the next movement you should get her in the corner. Maybe it's illegal in Europe. Here in the USA, they say, you can’t open the door for a woman, give a coat - I haven’t been there, I don’t know. I live here, and for this nation all these courtships, even with subtext, even without intentions, are the norm.

One of my friends went to work in Australia, so six months later he was forced to leave there. He is married, but traveled alone, without a wife. A week later, after sidelong glances, he was warned not to pull up the woman's chair, otherwise there would be trouble. The police will stop. All courtship is prohibited - it is illegal. Not only professionally - not even the beach. And he broke the contract and left: “I can’t live like this, I’m alone. The men look askance, the women warn about the police.” It is culture that defines. And how to be realized then? Where is everything to go?

We have a national feature - to take care of a woman. So, the Boxing Federation made a decision: in Russia you can’t look at a woman in a bikini - they say, it’s impossible to box after that. What nonsense! And next time they will demand a veil! Russia is not for this. A woman must have a heel, must have a cleavage, otherwise she is not a woman. With her, a man should feel a craving for realization. He must take care of her. And flirting is completely normal. Like an office romance."

That's where expressions like "sailed and quit" come from. Although the sailors have absolutely nothing to do with it, the following story is about them.

Like in the movies. A short but happy story of an affair at work from Olga

“In medicine, there are whole dynasties of medical families. And not only in medicine, I guess. A family of scientists, for example. Or athletes there, teachers - in my opinion, this happens and is not uncommon. People are looking for a person by themselves. Just with close views or meet where they are most often. We met at the faculty, then got married. Or they were colleagues. Or at the conference, fate brought together. She also brought me together, although not with a colleague, but at work the relationship was very close, laughter with laughter.

I then only after the medical school was, I got a job as a nurse in the hospital. Once, during my day off, colleagues call me and say: “Go to work, come on, there are such guys lying around!”

Oh, that didn't make me happy. The shifts are already difficult, long, exhausting, and then there is still fun with the daring youth, a whole company, as I understand it. They won't let you work in peace. Sailors often get inflammation of the tonsils, this is professional. And now we had to bring a new batch. And this one didn’t even want to go to bed, he said: “A friend persuades me, they say, what are you, there is such a sister, young, beautiful, he himself would hit, but not before.”

He refused, refused, in the end thundered anyway. Of course, I liked him - a young, stately sailor, a good guy. I only gave him one shot! And he courted, waited for my shift, I don’t know why, he helped to fill out the magazines on the shift, although this is impossible, he will take a pen and write, write. During the shift, after all, you get tired and stand, and sit, and hold the pen. Here he worked at night instead of me. Invaluable help! He lay down, recovered and went to sea. Before that, I found out my address. In the hospital. He didn't tell me anything.

And here I am sitting at home, suddenly the doorbell rang: it appeared. The bouquet is huge, larger than himself, and where he only got it. I cut off all the flower beds in the district, probably. We walked for two weeks, cinema, parks, said: “I’ll return from the flight - we’ll get married!” He sent me jeans from Italy, handbags. I sat and waited. I think that she is naive, she will go far and forget, in every city there are a million like me. Yes, I spent time. An no. I returned with my suitcases. He left his homeland, he left everything. Right to me. Married, 35 years together. That's such a strong love."

Maria Sidorova

When the issue with the captain had already been resolved, he suddenly announced that if the ship called at foreign ports, a visa would be required, and in this case it was simply powerless, this was the parish of a completely different department, the KGB. When my father-in-law said that he had no acquaintances there, I thought I misheard. In the few days that I spent in my new family, I realized that if my father-in-law doesn’t have an acquaintance somewhere, then it’s possible only in space, and even then only temporarily. Amazing!

Do you have someone there? - Our Evgeny Mikhailovich asked the captain.

The captain admitted that he even has a friend, he oversees the ship's radio stations, in other words, listens to what the ship's crews and their radio operators are chatting about.

Well, what's the matter? Pick up the phone, call and try to persuade to join our party.

The captain obeyed, and a few minutes later Natasha and I were taxiing out in my father's seven, as the most sober in this company, with the captain dozing in the back seat. As soon as we drove up to the right house in the center of the city, we saw a tall man with a military bearing, obviously waiting for us. After saying hello, he got into the car and we drove back.

Indeed, in order to go to sea on a ship that called at a foreign port, each sailor on the ship must have an open visa in the sailor's passport, and to open the visa itself, you must spend at least half a year at sea. But the captain immediately reassured me that as long as our ship was fishing in our waters, a visa was not needed yet. I was already going crazy with the prospects - foreign countries, albeit northern ones, like Norway, Finland .., imported clothes, cars .., this was my life! Today, when schoolchildren go on vacation in the summer to Bali, the Canary Islands, or wherever their parents think, you can hardly find a domestic car in the city, and you can simply order clothes on the Internet, it seems incredible, but then few people could even dream about it.

Yes, and some opportunities were not enough, it was necessary to pass through the sieve of the ubiquitous KGB. But our new acquaintance swore that in half a year, which was exactly what was required for the initial survey, I would have no problems with opening a visa, he promised to personally follow this. For which he was immediately rewarded with an offer to visit one of the furniture factories tomorrow and purchase Finnish cuisine, which the wife of a stern KGB man had dreamed of for so long. And he wasn't that harsh. Natasha and I were invited to visit him.

When we visited the Chekist the next day, he showed us a computer he had built himself. Of course, by that time we had already heard about them, read them, even seen them on TV, but we did not dare to look at this miracle of human thought with our own eyes. The machine consisted of a small Soviet television set, a cassette recorder, a typewriter, and an endless array of wires. There may have been something else, but that's what I saw for sure. Some programs were recorded on the cassette recorder, and we saw the text on the screen.

Especially for us, he conducted a compatibility test and calculation of our characters - we answered many, sometimes completely stupid questions, and at the end the machine summed up. But most of all we were struck not even by this, he had a unique apartment by the standards of that time. Imagine a huge dome of a building and it all belonged to him alone. It was the second floor of his apartment, his study, where you could play football. And there was also a real telescope, with which he examined the night sky every evening.

That's how another very smart friend appeared in our family.