Nikita, Fidel and Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is waiting on the east coast of the United States. And I, with everyone, moving from a fairly safe New York to New Jersey, where I stere the house of my son, who went abroad with the whole family. He sends the Emely: how they prepared what they did, whether they stocked up with water and conservatives, do not forget to lubricate the generator, etc.

Just these days, America celebrates the fifty anniversary of the Caribbean crisis, when, as they think, the world was on the verge of nuclear war. The Soviet missiles brought to Cuba were aimed at the States, and Fidel Castro was raging, buildinging the older brother of Khrushchev to launch them in order to forever dump American imperialism from encroachments on the island of Liberty. The bearded man did not take it. As it turned out, Khrushchev from the very beginning did not mean aggressive plans, but simply bluffed, forcing America to remove missiles from Turkey.

Nevertheless, the tension was large. You can even say panic. The Americans grabbed all the food from the stores, and for the first time in history they showed a spectacle of empty shelves, so familiar to Soviet people without any missile crises. Old -timers say that President Kennedy, who performed on television, trembled his lips. Well, talk about ordinary Americans.

Remembering these days in the Soviet Union, I can say that there was no panic. By that time, Soviet people were already accustomed to Nikita’s foreign policy escapades-there was a 1961 Berlin crisis, and even earlier something connected with Livan, or Libya. We knew that he was lying to Vanka and did not believe threats: it would make a joke and lag behind, except that the Berlin wall would build an Ulbricht. We already knew that the maximum of what he was capable of was at the UN meeting to remove the shoe and knock them on the table.

In Akhmatov’s diaries L.K. Chukovskaya is a record of those days: how the excited American Slavist, Professor Rive, screaming about the nuclear war, and was amazed at her calm, taking him for traditional Russian fatalism.

Fatalism with fatalism, talker Nikita Nikita, but there was another detail in this story, which is useful to recall and think about it. Do not forget that Soviet people lived in a deaf information isolation. We did not even know the tenth share of what collapsed to the consciousness of the Americans in October 1962. We were almost in full, and when in complete ignorance regarding what was happening in the world, or even in our own country. The scale of the Caribbean crisis was unclear. What did we know about the world? There was such a film journal "Foreign Chronicle": they showed how a power station was built in Bulgaria, and a bridge collapsed in America. So American concerns did not touch us. And now, when the current Russian television is scolded together, we should not forget what happened before. Yes, some NTV shows some “provocation” and do not say a word about Putin, but information in bulk-and not only about American disasters, but also the flooding of Crimean. Interruptions are another matter, but the facts are known to everyone and all. In October 1962, on Soviet television and radio, an hourly report on Cuban events - look, and we would be frightened. Life in today's Russia, whatever you say, is not like the Soviet one.

As for the Americans, they are no longer afraid of Fidel, and he seems to have been going to die - but they are afraid of Sandy. But the shops in anticipation of a natural disaster are also devastated. A nuclear missile will not fall on America, but a tree on a house may well collapse. And the electricity will turn off - so beer in the refrigerator will become warm.

By the way, do not forget to buy candles.