Mikhail Lesin died as he lived

We didn't meet him very often. More often I met people who saw him every evening. But anyway.

He could have abandoned his entire previous life. One day I stopped, so to speak, cooperating with the authorities. About two months later I asked one of them where Lesin was.

- What don’t you know? - he was amazed. - Go to the website of the Portuguese Open Blue Marlin Championship!

I came in. The championship has just ended. His boat came first. It said: “LesinMichail.” That is, he became the champion of Portugal in blue marlin fishing.

I then asked him:

- Why do you need it?

- How? - he was surprised. - This is fishing!

And once it was the birthday of one of my friends. They celebrated it, of course, on the ice arena. We played hockey.

We all spent a long time getting dressed in the locker room. He also did all this, painfully and hardworking. We went out onto the ice and began to warm up as best we could. And there were those who knew how.

He was the last one to appear. There was a chair in front of him. Or he stood after him. It turns out he wasn't skating at all. But he went on the ice. And with a stick.

And he played on the same team as me. And with this stick I passed the ball to Fetisov when the score was 4:4, and he gave it to me... I just had time to think that I had to shoot, because I still couldn’t stop this vaunted puck, and I scored. We fell, and not just fell, but collapsed on the ice, Lesin and I at the same time.

And one more time he called and said that he had a glass for one interview that he had just read. “Do you even understand what you wrote?! — he asked. “Do you understand that there are twelve readers for this interview?!”

I thought even less.

And I still haven’t poured a glass. Let's meet, pour it. Sure.

Andrey Kolesnikov

To death