And all the love... • Public Post • RIMA — Russian Independent Media Archive

I have a neighbor Valera in my village, some of my regular readers may know him, but occasionally I can’t help but mention him. Taxi driver and alcoholic. By the way, this is not such a rare combination these days.

He once worked in a real taxi company, but that hasn’t been around for a long time. However, Valera is not just bombing now, but as if from some official Dolgoprudny office, he is driving taxi, but in the advertisements with which all the surrounding poles are covered, he writes his own mobile phone and keeps the car mainly in the garage on his own site. The car, of course, is not the newest, but here we must pay tribute to Soviet professionalism, in excellent condition, a white Ford, quite large and very comfortable.

Valera himself is a rather nasty person. The relationship between us is far from cloudless, and he pierced my tires with an awl, and I once chased him all the way to the reservoir with a crowbar, but so, like neighbors, we still live next to each other for so many years, sometimes we communicate quite peacefully, although , of course, without any “to-tavern and takeaway” stuff.

So, some time ago Valera almost got married. That is, he thought so, and I am speaking exclusively from his words. Because I didn’t know the true opinion of the prospective bride candidate, Antonina, a saleswoman from a hardware store near our construction market. I, of course, like all the locals, know her very well, but not, of course, like Valera, not to the level of discussing the nuances of her personal life. However, indeed, for some time Valera, even in quite decent and almost sober form, could be found at Antonina’s counter somewhat more often than is required for a standard grocery purchase operation. And as if even Antonina didn’t strongly persecute him, as she usually did with many market traders who lived for a long time away from home and therefore, sometimes, in the anguish of male loneliness, crossed the boundaries of decency in communicating with, admittedly, really quite pretty at a certain point. taste of a female representative.

However, I didn’t particularly follow the ups and downs of Valerina’s romance, even if there was one, and I didn’t even suspect the difficulties there until Prikhodko appeared on the horizon. Although this is not entirely accurate. Police Lieutenant Colonel Prikhodko appeared in these places much earlier than me and, as far as I understand, he is one of those who looks after our construction market, I certainly don’t know on whose behalf. And they had also known Antonina for a long time, but without anything special, but here, either the age has approached, or he was so inflamed unexpectedly, this happens.

In short, a conflict began between the lieutenant colonel and Valera over this issue; I don’t know which side the saleswoman was leaning towards and whether the saleswoman was leaning at all, but the matter worsened. And somehow the taxi driver couldn’t restrain himself, went a bit too far and attacked the police with his fists. Prikhodko did not philosophize long and slyly, but called for a squad and sent Valera to stay for fifteen days. Yes, apparently, along the way, the cops I knew from the parish also gave the troublemaker a fair amount of trouble. Antonina didn’t take any risks; she didn’t wait for her supposedly unlucky groom even after such a cheap time and went with Prikhodko to submit an application to the registry office.

And then I meet Valera a couple of weeks after serving time, he’s walking unusually sober and angry, listen, he says, neighbor, can you imagine what an arrogant bastard this Prikhodko is! She calls me and places an order for catering for her wedding, saying that Antonina highly recommended her as a great driver!

I laughed politely, so I ask, how far did you send him? Valera looked at me in surprise: “What do you mean sent? You, Vasiliev, behind your high bourgeois fence, went completely wild in solitude. They offered me ten thousand for two hours of work, and then I could participate at the banquet with the rights of a guest. What am I going to send? I just wanted to tell you how much this Prikhodko has no shame, no conscience, the cops are completely insolent!”

And if anyone thinks that I simply made up this story for the occasion, then you can ask our village people. There, in the center, I’m not sure, but those on the edge, closer to the forest, will definitely confirm that I never lie. And so that my conscience is completely clear, I admit that Prikhodko is, of course, not really a lieutenant colonel, but an ordinary captain, but I embellished this not with malicious intent, but solely for the sake of respectability.

PS Yes, why am I all this? That is, why, I don’t really understand, but I remembered at the moment when I read the wonderful and very precise words of Alexey Alekseevich Venediktov: “Vladimir Putin’s invitation to observers from Yabloko to become observers from Putin is elegant and unbeatable.”

Moscow region, Mytishchi district, Gribki village.