Not the mine.

A stunning story

This gray, notorious building on the Old Square in Moscow rarely attracted the attention of passers. The real spectacle awaited them after turns to the right and three minutes drive – the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed, the Red Square and, of course, the majestic and legendary Kremlin. Everyone knew that one-sixth of the earth’s land, called the USSR, was governed from here.
Everyone was a little mistaken.
No, of course, there were high cabinets in the Kremlin, but the Soviet Empire was really ruled by those who placed themselves in the same gray building on the Old Square – in two turns and three minutes drive.
And it was here that the country’s most important cabinet, the cabinet of the secretary-general of the CPSU Central Committee, was housed, and at this historical moment, namely in the early spring of 1966, Leonid Brezhnev was in charge.
Today, an unusual vanity prevailed in the corridors of this grey building. You can even say, confusion. Instructed by the impatient screams of the secretary-general, the party officials tried to fulfill a single, but urgent task.
Find the citizen of the USSR Armada Michel.
It all started in the morning. The General Secretary was called by an agitated Minister of Foreign Affairs and on the eve of the visit to the USSR of the President of the French Republic General Charles de Gaulle the following. All services are ready for the meeting. All activities are determined. An hour ago, the last document came from the protocol service of the President of France, and this is also part of the ritual, quite a routine moment. But one, the third, point of the protocol caused the problem. The fact is that the high guest expressed wishes that among those who met him in Moscow, and directly at the trap, was his FRIEND and SORATNIK (just so) Armad Michel (see the attached photo), living in the USSR.
Well and what? Asked gentleman quietly. What is the problem?
"There is no such citizen in the USSR," the minister answered with a fallen voice. I did not find it, Leonid Illich.
- So, badly sought, - sentenced Brežnev.
After that, he dropped the phone, pressed a button and told me to search well.
In the first half an hour Armad Michel was looking for units, in the second half an hour - dozens.
Three hours later, thousands of people sought him. in many similar buildings. in the republics, regions and regions.
And soon it became clear: Armad Michel is a ghost.
There was no person in the USSR with such a name and surname. Well, if the whole KGB stands on its ears and does not find a person, it simply does not exist. Those who lived in the USSR understand what I am talking about.
They decided to do something unprecedented – called Paris and asked to repeat the third paragraph of the protocol.
The impatient tape of diplomatic communication gently repeated – ARMAD MICHEL.
Running forward, I will notice – of course, the French leader could not fail to know under what name and surname his friend and associate lives in the USSR. He deliberately caused these difficulties. It was a little vengeance. Not for myself, of course. for his friend and companion.
At the same time, a scandal broke out on the Old Square. And in many other addresses of the endless USSR, too.
And there fell hope. One of the engineers of the gray building, not without hesitation, that three years ago she had to print these two words ONCE, and that that document was intended personally for Nikita Khrushchev – namely, he ruled the USSR in that 1963 year.
Today, you would press a few buttons on the computer and get the result.
In the 66th year, dozens of pairs of hands began to scratch the archives, but no results were obtained.
In parallel with the engineer worked two narrow-profile specialists. And she remembered a very important thing – who exactly of the Assistants of Khrushchev instructed her to print that document. (This was a very high position, so the Assistants of the General Secretary were written with the big letter.)
By chance, this same Assistant was working his last day in this position today.
Brejnev, who came to power one and a half years ago, gradually removed the Khrushchev cadres from the game, and the turn of this Assistant came today.
They ran to the assistant who was walking around the office and gathering his things. Aide Khmuro explained that he did not work on this document, but only performed the order of Khrushchev, and only he can make some clarity in this matter. The helper was promptly offered to go to Khrushchev, who lived in the land that was dedicated to him. The assistant categorically refused, but the secretary-general himself called him and hinted that his official career could endure another very even interesting twist.
Two hours later, the Assistant was sitting in a very uncomfortable posture, on the corks, in front of the former head of the Communist Party, who was planting something on the garden bed. There were shouldered young men walking around, who not so much guarded Khrushchev as they guarded him.
The 72-year-old Khrushchev recalled immediately. He was such a stranger. From Azerbaijan. During the war he served in the French, in their partisans. So take these French veterans and send him a hundred thousand dollars. (The Strike of Khrushchev – aut. Take that guy and give up. I told him to bring it straight to me. And rightly, in the party, he said to him: I like, say, that you do not accept overseas submissions. But, on the other hand, returning money to these capitalists is somehow offensive. Will you, brother, contribute this amount to our Peace Fund? This will be the Soviet way.
And he brought in? Asked the assistant.
“I didn’t even cuddle,” said Khrushchev solemnly. I was able to persuade. Not the current ones. In short, we made a statement to him, at lunch I served his nobility, during this time the necessary documents from the Peace Fund were brought, he signed them and all the debt. I targeted him. Because, although strange, but conscious.
The assistant looked at the clock and began to perform the main task.
“That was his partisan nickname,” Khrushchev explained. “And his real name and surname were – without a half-liter is not something that you don’t remember – you won’t even say.
The assistant expressed regret.
And Khrushchev cried and cried out of annoyance.
What do I say about the Peace Foundation? The financial documents were not on the name! He looked at his former assistant and couldn’t stand up. And you, I see how stupid he was, so he stayed.
A quarter of an hour later, the Financial Report was raised at the Peace Fund.
Then the calls went to the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan – Baku.
In Baku urgently organized a cortège of several black cars of the brand "Volga" and sent it to the north of the republic - the city of Sheki. The car of the local authorities joined him. Soon, the cars drove off the track and headed on a narrow road to their final destination – a small village called Ohud.
The villagers behaved differently in relation to this automobile expansion. The older ones were recklessly frightened, and the younger ones ran around, shining with bare heels.
The time was already evening, so the court went to a small modest house on the outskirts of the village – now everyone who came knew who to look for.
He went out to the door. Rural Agronomy (ordinary position in agricultural structures) Forty-seven years of age, small in height and, which is quite unusual for these places, blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
He went out and absolutely nothing and surprised no one. When we get to know him closer, we will realize that he is never surprised at all - this is a trait of nature.
He was surrounded by officials of the most diverse rank and solemnly announced that the agronom must urgently go to Baku, and from there to fly to Moscow, to comrade Brezhnev himself. In the face of the agronom, no muscle trembled, and he replied that he saw no connection between himself and Comrade Brezhnev, but at work – a bunch of things, and he can not ignore them. Everyone was upset, the daring peasants began to gather around, and the agronom intended to return to the house. He was already on the threshold when one of the visitors was smarter or more informed than the others, put the name of de Gaulle in his replica and coherently explained the essence of the matter.
Agronom turned and asked him to swear.
He swore to his children.
That same night, the rural agronom Ahmedia Jabralov (which is exactly how he was called in the world), he was one of the most notable heroes of the French Resistance Armad Michel flew to Moscow.
From the trap he was taken to the hotel "Moscow", settled in a two-bedroom room, gave a couple of hours to sleep, and in the morning was taken to the GUM, to the two-hundred section, which served only the highest management of the country, and there picked up a few costumes, shirts, cravings, shoes, socks, pants, underwear, coat, semi-season coat and even an umbrella from the rain. Then we went to Brezhnev.
Gensek met him as a native, slandered, shaken his hand for a long time, said a few general phrases, and then, transferring him to two "comrades", advised Ahmedia to listen to them.
“Comrades” led him into a room with chairs and sofas, sat opposite and offered the rural agronome the following. De Gaulle arrives tomorrow morning. The program includes a trip around the country.
The route is agreed, but it may happen that the general will want to visit the small homeland of his friend and companion - the village of Ohud. At the moment there is an asphalt road, and this is also offered (on the table in front of Ahmedia lay a perfectly compiled map of the part of the village where his house was located). Here these neighboring houses (5 or 6) for two days will be compared to the ground. Those who live in them will be relocated and settled in more well-organized houses. The agronom’s house, on the contrary, will be raised on two floors, enclosed by a veranda, two adjacent buildings will be added, as well as a stall, a large chicken house, and a couple of garages – for a personal tractor and also a personal car. All this territory will be flanked with a good fence and formed as the property of the Jabralov family. And Ahmedie needs to forget that he is an agronom and humbly tell a friend that he became one of the first Soviet farmers. All this can be reworked in three days, if one very little thing is observed (this is what Leonid Ilyich insisted on), namely, if Ahmedia gives his consent.
Agronom listened to them, without interrupting, and then, without any pause, in pure Russian said:
I did not hear anything. You know why?
Why is? I almost asked “comrades.”
“Because you said nothing,” said Ahmedia.
Comrades began to realize what he said, and he stood up and left the room.
The high-guest encounters admitted to the Vnukovo-2 flight field were divided into two groups. One is high-ranking, those to whom the guest should squeeze his hands, and the other "squeeze", it was to be placed away from the staircase and move the guest with his hands. This was where Ahmed was pushed, and he stood up from the far end. Dressed with a needle, he did not feel any physical inconvenience, because he could equally freely wear any kind of clothing – from a military uniform to a smoking and a fractional pair, although in the last fifteen years he was wearing completely different.
When the tall, with no other comparable, figure of de Gaulle appeared on the upper platform of the staircase, the face of Ahmedia began to be covered with spots, which happened to him only in moments of strong emotional excitement - we will meet this property of his physiology several times.
The general escaped on the ladder not easily by age. A warm handshake with Brezhnev, translators grew behind both of them, a few common phrases, mutual smiles, the turn of the secretary-general to the swipe, now he has to spend a guest along the live row of meeting, to present them, but what is it? De Gaulle leaned to Brezhnev, in the face of the general something like an apology, the translator understood that the protocol was violated, but correctly translated, but the situation saved Brezhnev. He again turns to the guest and points his hand toward Ahmedia, in a moment everyone is already looking there, and de Gaulle begins a rapid move toward a friend, and he too - rushes to him. They embrace and freeze, comparable in size to Don Quijote and Sancho Panza. Everyone else, or almost everyone else, looks at them with amazement.
Ahmedia will be taken directly from the airport to the dedicated de Gaulle's residence - so will the general himself. De Gaulle will hold all the protocol events, and the evening program will be asked to either cancel or postpone, because he can't wait to talk to his friend.
De Gaulle will come to the residence yet bright, they will spend a long spring evening together.
This meeting will be the “base” for the drama of the future script. It is from here that we will leave in memory, but we will definitely come back.
Two friends will walk through the winter garden, sit in a cozy hall, dine with candles, gradually unfolding the upper buttons of shirts, weakening the knots of the tie, getting rid of the jackets, walking through the alleys of the residence, throwing two identical pleds on their shoulders and at the same time talking and remembering.
Memories will be different, both subjective and authorship, but they will make up the main event series of the script.
Per we will strictly adhere to chronology, or not. Per they will be held in a single stylistic key, or maybe not. The future work will show it.
In the meantime, I will briefly list for you the main milestones of one human destiny. If it attracts your interest, and maybe even more surprisingly, then I will consider the task of this application fulfilled.
So judge yourself.

I repeat, before you is the main event series of scenarios.
You already know exactly where our hero was born and raised. In his childhood and adolescence, he stood out with nothing but his appearance. He graduated from agriculture, but did not have time to work because the war began.
He enrolled in volunteers, and when he got to the front, immediately asked for intelligence.
Why is? I asked him.
“Because I’m not afraid of anything,” he replied, radiating with his blue eyes absolute sincerity.
He was laughed in front of the building.
From the first battle he returned later than everybody else, but the "language" of the soldier was one and a half times heavier than himself.
For this he was approximately punished – especially since the ordinary German army had no military secrets.
From the legal soldiers 100 grams before the battle he refused.
Do you not drink at all? I asked him.
I drink, he replied. If there is a reason.
The love of others did not add to him.
One day he was caught for an in-depth study of the Russian-German dictionary.
The reaction was peculiar:
Are you in captivity?
“The spy must know the enemy’s language,” he explained.
You are not a spy.
So far, he said.
Once he crossed up with the regimental translator and asked him to explain to him some of the subtleties of the German phrase, and he made the request in the language of the enemy. The translator was stunned by his pronunciation, satisfied the request, but then went to the headquarters and shared his doubts with the necessary comrades. The biography of our hero was carefully translated, but no German "traces" were found. His name was removed from the list of nominations for the medal.
In May 1942, as a result of an illiterately planned military operation, the battalion in which our hero served almost completely fell on the battlefield. But he was not killed. In his unconscious state, he was taken prisoner and soon found himself in France, in the Mongoban concentration camp. He hid his knowledge of German, rightly believing that he could be the "sixth" of the Germans.

Almost immediately he looked at the concentration camp cleaner Jeanette, a French woman. She managed to persuade the head of the camp to designate this no-not-not-not-not-not prisoner as his assistants. He began to pull her rubbish, and at the same time asked her to teach him French.
Why is it to you? She asked.
“The spy must know the language of the allies,” he explained.
Okay, she said. Every day I will teach you five new words.
Twenty five, he said.
You will not remember. She laughed.
He looked at her with his blue eyes.
If I forget at least one thing, you will learn in your own way.
He never forgot a word. Then went the grammar, the times, the articles, of which in the French language a great many, and a couple of months later the student talked in French with quite captivable for the experts of the Marseille pronouncement (it was from there was the birth of his mentor Jeanette).
One day he corrected one of her stylistic mistakes, and she even cried out of resentment, although she might feel proud of her pupil – with women all over the world sometimes something happens that puts us, men, in a deadlock.
And then he came up with a plan — simple, but so bold that he managed to implement it.
Janet took him out of the camp with the garbage. And with the help of her nephew sent to the forest, to the "maqui" (French partisans - aut.)
He lied to his future French friends only once. Asked who he served in the Soviet army, he replied, without blinking with a single blue eye:
Commander of intelligence.
He was believed and identified as intelligence officers – in the ordinary, right. After four walks, he was appointed as commander of the intelligence group. A month later, when he dropped a truck with German weapons, he was presented to the first French award. A little later, he was handed a note, written by his own hand by the self-designated leader of all free French, Charles de Gaulle. She was extremely brief: “Dear Armad Michel! On behalf of the fighting France, thank you for your service. “Your Charles de Gaulle.” And the signature, of course.
In other words, about pseudonyms. The name Armad he chose himself, and Michel is the French version of his father's name (Michael).
These two names became his main nickname, but intelligence and conspiracy laws sometimes forced even false names to be changed.
History has preserved almost all of his other nicknames – Fraji, Courage, Hargo and even Ruse Ahmed.

All this time our hero continued to improve in the German language, obliging to this and his spies. It was not easy because the French did not digest German organically. But even more he did not digest when his orders were not fulfilled.
And soon he began to practice marches in the back of the enemy – in small and large groups, in the form of German officers and soldiers. Particular attention was paid to German documents – they should have been without a sickle and a fist. He received tasks from his commanders, but planned them himself. And in the entire war there was no case that he broke or failed to fulfill the assigned task.
One day, a prize was brought to the location of Maki. He was awarded his first order, the Cross for Voluntary Service.
Two days later, in the shape of a German captain, he led a small group of spies and saboteurs on a difficult task – to stop the square with 500 French children sent to Germany, destroy the guard of the train and take the children into the forest. The task was performed artistically and brilliantly, but he did not save himself - several fragmentary injuries and loss of consciousness. He stayed near the railway for almost a day. In the pocket were impeccably executed German documents, as well as a photo of a woman with two blonde-haired children, on whose turn was the inscription: "To my dear Heinz from a loving Marika and children." Armad Michel loved such plausible details. He came to himself when he realized that he was found by the Germans and was searched by them.
He is alive, someone said.
Then he depicted the dumbness of a dying man and whispered something extremely sentimental:
“Dear Marika, I am leaving this life thinking of you, my children, Uncle Karl, and the great Germany.
In the future, the story about this episode will become one of the most favorite among the partisans and the rest of the members of the Resistance. And two years later, in public, during a friendly feast, de Gaulle asks our hero:
“Listen, I forget to ask you all the time, why did you plague some uncle Karl at that moment?
Armad Michel replied with a phrase that caused a homeric whistle and also became a winged one.
In fact, I was referring to Karl Marx, but the Germans did not understand.

But it was later, and at that moment our hero was loaded in a transport and sent to a German officer hospital. There he quickly went to the correction and became, without any exaggeration, the favourite of all his new environment. True, his face was more often than usual covered with spots, but only his true friends would understand the real reason for this.
Then the incredible happened. The captain of the German army of Heinz – Max Liechtheb – was appointed neither much nor little – commander of the occupied French city of Albi. (Neither here, nor before, nor after, I allow myself any dramatic twists, so this is another historical fact.)
Our hero has begun to fulfill his new duties. He established contact with his “makes” a week later. The result of his unwavering work for the glory of the Reich were regular crashes of German trains, massive outbursts of prisoners of war, mostly Soviet, and a mass of other sabotage acts. The new commander was kind to the chief and women and absolutely brutal to the subordinates, punishing them for the slightest provinces. Half a year later, he was presented to one of the German military awards, but he did not have time to get it, because two months later de Gaulle, concerned about his fate (the general understood how much rope he could not wire...), ordered Mr. Liechtheb to retire.
And Armad Michel again went into the woods, capturing with him at the same time the "language" of the high rank and all the cash of the command.
And then followed new feats, a personal acquaintance with de Gaulle, and a victorious march on the streets of Paris. By the way, during this famous passage Armad Michel walked in the third of the general's row. He finished the war in the rank of National Hero of France, Knight of the Cross for Voluntary Service, holder of the Higher Military Medal of France, Knight of the Higher Order of the Legion of Honor. The Military Cross is the highest military award of the French Republic.
Giving him this award, De Gaulle said:
Now you have the right to go ahead of the President of the country at the military parades of France.
“If you don’t, my general,” Armad Michel replied, hinting that de Gaulle had the same award.
- By the way, it is time for us to move on to “you,” De Gaulle said.
By 1951, Armad Michel was a French citizen, had a French wife and two sons, had an automotive farm (a small factory, in fact) and a responsible position in the office of President Charles de Gaulle in Dijon.
In 1951, he decided to return to his homeland, Azerbaijan. Read in the USSR.
For those who knew the Soviet order, it seemed like madness.
Those who knew Armad Michel understood that persuading him was also insane.
De Gaulle handed him a certificate of honorary citizen of France with the right to free travel on all modes of transport. Ten days later, the Dixon automobile company was named after Armad Michel.
In Moscow, our Hero was fundamentally shocked by the MGB (former NKVD, the precursor of the KGB - aut.) Why surrendered to captivity, why in the picture in the form of a German officer, how managed to escape from the concentration camp alone, etc. and etc. They did not repress in the real sense, they sent him to his hometown of Ohud and told him not to leave. All prizes, letters, photos, even the right to free travel were removed.
In the village of Ohud he was designated a shepherd. A few years later, he was granted mercy and appointed an agronom.
In 1963, he was taken to Moscow. The notorious one hundred thousand, the conversation and lunch with Khrushchev, the refusal to translate in favor of the Peace Foundation. Khrushchev ordered to return him all his personal documents and awards.
All except the most important, the Military Cross. It has long been an exhibition of the Museum of Fighting Glory. For in the USSR only two people had such an award – the chief Creator of the Soviet Victory Marshal Zhukov and the recent rural shepherd Ahmedia Jabralov.
He brought these awards to the village and carefully placed them on the bottom of the old family box.
And then the 66th year came, and we went back to the beginning of our script.
Specifically, to that spring date, when two old friends spoke to each other all night and night.
He is the head of one of the major European powers and a provincial rural agronom.
Our hero did not use the services of “comrades”. He went to the airport, bought a ticket and went home.
The maid of the hotel "Moscow", which entered the two-room "half-lux", which our hero occupied a little less than two days, was stunned. The guest left and left his things. A few costumes, shirts, cravates, two pairs of shoes. Even the underwear. Even the murders. Even an umbrella for the rain.
A few days later, the agronom will be “promoted” to the position of brigadier in the collage.
And in two weeks, two cars will come back to his country house again, this time only two. Some people will come out of them, but only one of them will rise to the doorstep, a man of fifty years of age, in a strange military uniform that has never been seen in these regions.
What can be understood, because in the village of Ohud never came one of the heads of the Ministry of Defense of France, and yet in the rank of brigadier general, and once a close friend and subordinate of the local collective brigadier.
You and I will know him. We have already met him on the pages of our script (when it is fully written, of course).
They will hug each other for a long time and knock each other on their shoulders. Then they enter the house. But before sitting at the table, the general will fulfill his official mission. He will hand over to his associate an official letter of the President of France reminding that the citizen of the USSR Ahmedia Mikhail Oglu (son of Mikhail – author). Jabralov has the right to visit France any number of times and for any time, at the expense of the French government.
And then the general, no, will not hand over, but will return to Armada Michel the Military Cross, the legitimate reward property of the hero of the French Resistance.
Well, in the end, they will do what they should do in such cases – they will sing “Marseille”.
In an old house. In the outskirts of a small Azerbaijani village.
If the author could only for these final moments to become the director of the film, he would act extremely simply - accompanied by the "Marcelise" would leave this house through the window, keeping all the time in the field of sight two silhouettes within the frame of this window and gradually putting in the frame the amazing nature of the Shekin district - lawns, forests, mountains, - and when he would be away on a very, very large distance, again would become the author and provide this image with inscriptions of approximately this content:
Armad Michel became the full cavalier of all the highest military awards of France.
Jabralov did not receive a single military award from his homeland, the USSR.
In 1970, he was removed from the label "non-exit", he was given the opportunity to travel to France and receive the houses of his French friends.
He has never been on a military parade in France.
In 1994, while crossing the road, he was killed by a passenger car, the driver of which was in a state of light intoxication. This was stated in the police report drawn up at the scene of the incident.