The next morning General Shubin returned with a delegation of senior officers from the district to conduct a formal readiness inspection. Because my zveno had the duty alert, we were in the full glare of his scrutiny. Either we had to prove we were capable of intercepting light aircraft intruders, flying low and slow, or Shubin would “squash shit” in our personal dossiers. Luckily the resourcefulness of a wily Soviet pilot did not fail us. My former instructor, Captain Yevgeni Griek, had been up half the night drawing up elaborate diagrams — all convincingly postdated — of the squadron’s interception maneuvers against low and slow intruder flights, including enemy “deception” missions flown on civilian light aircraft.
Shubin and his staff of angry bears were visibly impressed. They left after half an hour to report to Moscow that at least one unit of the regiment of the VVS was prepared to intercept and destroy such provocation flights.
After the general left, Captain Griek rolled up his bogus diagrams and grinned sardonically. He then quoted a very appropriate old Red Army aphorism: “The more paper you use, the cleaner your ass.”
As it turned out, the PVO had certainly not used enough paper. My friend Sergei Rastvorov had a pal who flew a MiG-23 in the PVO regiment that had tried to intercept Mathias Rust north of Moscow on that sunny afternoon. That pilot had, in fact, conducted an effective visual intercept on the small plane droning only 120 feet above the budding orchards and muddy fields of the coastal plain. But when he called in his “visual contact,” to GCI, the battle-control officers said he was seeing things. He was informed that the radar blip he had been sent to intercept was just a “flock of birds.” Frustrated and short of fuel, he returned to base and was angrily trying to convince the GCI wizards he had seen a light foreign aircraft when the news of Rust’s landing came in.
Over the coming days, there was only a curt mention of Rust’s flight in Pravda, and no pictures on Soviet television. For those we had to rely on videos from West German TV recorded by friends based in East Germany and on photocopies of Western magazines.
So much for perestroika in the military; so much for official glasnost.
I did not arrive at Akhtubinsk until mid-June, and came via the long train and bus ride from Georgia, rather than flying in with my squadron.
The first interesting news I received when I signed in was that the center’s test pilots and engineering staff had finally gone on strike earlier that spring in protest of the chronic food shortages. A high delegation from Moscow had eventually appeased them with promises to restock the base Voyentorg. And the officers’ dining room was certainly well stocked with food. My first morning I ate a typically “light” Air Force breakfast that included a plate heaping with fried sausage and eggs, cheese, roll and butter, and a block of real chocolate, all washed down with cups of coffee. But I was told there was still no food in town, and most of the Akhtubinsk officers remained angry and frustrated.
I was one of approximately seventy-five applicant fighter test pilot students. There were two other similar groups, one for bombers, the other for helicopters. We represented the top 0.5 percent of the 30,000-odd Soviet military pilots in the VVS, PVO, and Naval Aviation. Most of my competitors were fellow captains, but there were also a large number of young majors, many with experience as squadron commanders. I even recognized a couple of my former instructors from my academy years. At least I was in good company.
My squadron mates confirmed what I had already suspected: They had become friends with the test pilots of the fighter division, but I did not have time to socialize with the center staff. Colonel Torbov had indeed extracted his revenge.
The tests began the next day. We were told that the week-long examination would be divided into five days of separate tests: theoretical aeronautical engineering tests; medical exams; physical fitness and dexterity; practical flight tests; and, finally, personal interviews before a board of center instructors. As my fighter group assembled in a school amphitheater to receive our test schedules, I could see that most of my colleagues — like me — were anxious to do well. Fighter pilots are a competitive lot by definition, and we were all acutely aware that we represented the cream of the Soviet Armed Forces.
The eight hours of theoretical exams went well. Glancing around me in the brightly lit test room, I saw my fellow applicants literally sweating over their exam sheets, some nervously rapping their slide rules on the varnished tabletops in frustration. They had not taken the months to prepare, alone each night in an empty flat, as I had. My investment in the big Minsk refrigerator, rather than in a distracting color television set, was now paying dividends.
The medical and strength and dexterity tests were rigorous, but I knew I’d done well. Unfortunately I walked back from the sauna in a cold breeze and came down with a sinus infection the morning of my practical flight test. A blocked sinus throws off your vestibular balance, which makes precision flying difficult. As luck would have it, the first of the two flights was with the test pilot school commander, Colonel Migounov. By definition, he was a pilot’s pilot, who had probably forgotten more about precision flying than most Soviet fighter pilots ever learned.
The flights were in a two-seat MiG-23UB, a well-equipped and very well maintained aircraft. I rode in front, with the colonel perched behind in the narrow instructor’s rear cockpit. He had a full set of instruments back there and could accurately assess how well I executed the demanding maneuvers he ordered. I had been flying such precision tests since preparing for the L-29 aerobatics competition years before in Azerbaijan. But this morning I was simply not in tune with the aircraft. One particularly exacting sequence, a descending sixty-degree spiral at exactly three hundred knots down to a precise altitude of 6,000 feet was needed, I was way off the required speed and dive angle.
But Colonel Migounov remained silent behind me. All I heard was his slow, rasping breath in his oxygen mask.
My second test flight was scheduled for 1500 hours that afternoon with Colonel Rizantsev, the school’s deputy commander for curriculum. Instead of fretting about my shaky performance that morning, I went back to the officers’ barracks, undressed, climbed in bed, and slept for almost three hours. Luckily I had been used to catching such “combat naps” while standing duty alert day in, day out at Vaziani. When I awoke, my blocked sinus was clear, and my headache was gone.
That afternoon’s flight was flawless. And climbing down from the rear cockpit on the apron, Colonel Rizantsev smiled broadly. “It’s not often I get to tally a ten-for-ten perfect score, Captain Zuyev.”
I knew I had more than compensated for my poor showing that morning.
Two days later when I faced the formal personal interview panel, I felt calm and confident. The interview took place in a conference room at base headquarters. I stood before a long table where Colonel Migounov occupied the center seat, flanked by his deputies, including a benevolently smiling zampolit and a typically silent representative of the Osobii Otdel.
“You’ve done very well, Captain Zuyev,” Colonel Migounov began.
I felt a stab of anxiety. If I had made the final selection, he or the zampolit would have begun, “Congratulations, Comrade Captain…”
My eye shot to the right-hand end of the table where an intricate rank-order diagram of all the fighter pilot applicants lay, its pink cover sheet pulled back. Even from this distance I could see that the name “Zuyev, Alexander M. Captain/176 FAR” filled the number seven line. I had missed selection by just two places. My cheeks felt hot and I had to suppress an urge to turn and leave the room. Colonel Migounov was still speaking.
“… So you see, Zuyev,” he said. “We managed to get another opening from our helicopter colleagues.” Now he pointed toward the diagram as if I had not yet seen it. “We’ve ranked Major Safonov number six to take advantage of this extra opening, even though the two of you had almost identical scores.”
I must have frowned, because Colonel Bazlevsky, the school’s flight operations director, now spoke up to ex
plain.
“Safonov is thirty-one years old, Zuyev,” he said. “This is his last chance to enter the school.”
I nodded glumly. All those months of hard work, all those long nights of dry study.
“We’d like you to apply again for the next selection in two years, Zuyev,” Colonel Migounov added. “It’s the best solution for all concerned. This way we will gain two good officers in two years, instead of losing Safonov.”
Obviously my interview was over. My arm felt wooden as I reached across the table to shake the colonel’s hand.
Colonel Bazlevsky followed me out of the conference room to the small smoking garden on the gravel path between the two wings of the headquarters building. He sensed my deep disappointment. I stood politely while he lit his own cigarette.
“How old are you, Captain?” There was a sympathetic glimmer in his eye.
“Twenty-seven, Comrade Colonel.”
He wrinkled his sunburnt nose. “This is June. When’s your birthday?”
He had me there. “In July, Colonel Bazlevsky. “I’m almost twenty-seven.”
Now the colonel smiled. “And not married yet?”
I shook my head. Had Torbov somehow poisoned the water with this panel? Then I realized that Colonel Bazlevsky was speaking of another matter altogether.
“This is an isolated post, Zuyev. We like our student test pilots to be married. It’s a sign of mature stability.”
“I understand, Comrade Colonel.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Find some nice girl, Zuyev. Get married. Come back in two years and we’ll have a place for you.”
Normally the prospect of marrying a pleasant young woman and embarking on the exciting career of military test pilot would have overcome my disappointment. But I just could not feel good about the way these events had come together.
I still had a few days’ special leave accrued before returning to Tskhakaya, so I took the train home to Samara to visit my family. My mother’s fiftieth birthday was coming up and I hoped to offer her a suitable present: ten days at the Pearl Hotel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. My KGB friend, Oleg, ran security for the resort, and I called him to confirm that he had landed me a reservation for my mother and young brother, Misha. Mother certainly needed a rest and a change of scene.
She looked worn, indeed haggard. Life was becoming harder every day. She toiled away in her demanding position as an irrigation project construction engineer, working on complex plans and blueprints for huge earthen dams, canals, and pumping stations, with little recognition and certainly poor pay. Twenty-five years before as a young engineering graduate, she had earned 120 rubles a month, enough to support her family. Now her monthly pay was only 180 rubles, and her and Valentin’s combined salaries were hardly sufficient. Luckily they had their small garden plot and packing-case “dacha,” to grow some fruit and vegetables each summer.
When I surprised her with the news of the Black Sea vacation, she was pleased but wary. “Where did you get the valuta, Sasha?”
She understood how the system worked, and knew such resorts were reserved for hard-currency clients. To my mother, the existence of luxury resorts on Soviet soil, open only to high Party apparatchiks and foreign tourists, could somehow be explained within the reassuring dogma of Socialist Economics. She looked forward to her holiday.
I arrived back at Tskhakaya the day after Jana Baglai returned from Kiev to begin her summer holiday. Sasha Olmelchenko’s girlfriend, Yelena, mentioned that Jana had asked after me.
That first weekend I invited her to an outdoor restaurant on the slopes of Senaki Mountain dominating the vineyards and orange groves north of Tskhakaya. Over a glass of good Georgian white wine, I plunged right into the subject.
“Well, Jana,” I said, taking her hand across the table, “maybe we should think about getting married.”
Her response was immediate. “Yes, Sasha, I want to.”
We had not had much of a romantic courtship. But this was often the case for Soviet military officers. Whatever romance there was would come after the engagement.
I sipped my wine and looked across the plastic tablecloth at this beautiful young woman. I felt lucky. It was common knowledge that many pilots’ wives were “noncultured,” but attractive rural girls whom the officers had snapped up out of desperation when they got an assignment to the deserts of Central Asia or the endless forests of eastern Siberia. This was usually an embarrassment because, by definition, the pilot was an educated man with four rigorous years of a service academy under his belt, while his wife was often a school dropout with only the minimum eight years of education.
But Jana had already completed a year of university toward her degree in biology. By the time we were ready to have children, I’d be a major, an established test pilot, and she would be a member of the intelligentsia with her university diploma. The more I imagined the lovely dark-haired girl sitting across the table from me in the shade of the grape arbor as my wife, the more desirable she became. Jana was exactly the kind of partner I wanted, not one of the nagging, frowzy military wives you saw in the lines at the Voyentorg, bloated fat at a young age, their hair in plastic curlers, wearing a stained housecoat instead of a proper dress. The only interest such women had was material possessions, and they drove their long-suffering husbands half-crazy with impossible demands for cars and household appliances.
But Jana and I would be different. We would have more in common than just sexual attraction and gluttony for possessions. I smiled. I was trying to be so logical about this engagement, but gazing at Jana’s face, it was exciting to realize that this beautiful girl would soon be my wife.
We sat under a shady arbor, sipping our cold wine and discussing the pleasant details of our wedding plans. Outside on the terrace, I saw a table full of noisy, drunken officers from the base. The group was hosted by the most corrupt staff officer at Ruslan. He had probably sold so much aviation alcohol and gasoline to the local black marketers that he was hosting this lavish luncheon to reward those other crooked officers who had helped him. This criminal even had soldiers cut the grass around our runway for sale as fodder to local dairy farmers. Men like that were a dishonor to their uniform and their country.
I turned back to Jana. We had decided to have our wedding in August, when my mother passed through Tskhakaya after her Black Sea vacation, and before Jana’s parents had to begin packing for their new assignment; Colonel Baglai was scheduled to become a senior military adviser in Syria. I was honest with Jana about my finances. After five years as an officer, I had managed to save just over 4,500 rubles, although I had already agreed to spend almost 500 on my mother’s fiftieth birthday holiday. So I suggested we plan a very small wedding with only our immediate families and then take a two-week honeymoon on the Black Sea ourselves. That would leave us with around 3,000 rubles to furnish the new apartment I was sure we would be assigned, once I announced our engagement. To me, the compromise represented a proper balance between the practical realities of Soviet life and the pleasant occasion of a family wedding.
Jana reluctantly agreed to convince her parents that this was what we both wanted.
But her parents would not hear of it. When I met them formally in their four-room apartment in one of the better buildings of the military housing compound, Colonel Baglai came right to the point.
“My daughter will not have a shabby little wedding, Captain,” he said, speaking with his deep, brusque “command” voice. “Her mother and I have many social responsibilities and obligations. Jana is not just some factory girl, and you are not some truck driver who runs off to the wedding palace, then drinks warm beer in the railway station buffet.”
I clenched my teeth, torn between speaking frankly to my future father-in-law and deference to an influential senior officer. By tradition, the families of the bride and groom shared equally in the wedding expenses. And the groom’s family was expected to pay for the wedding dress, shoes, and flowers, plus all the other expensive
decorations required for a “proper” ceremony and reception. Colonel Baglai assured me that we would split the real costs of the reception — champagne, wine, brandy, and food — equally.
“Don’t worry, Sasha,” he said, clapping my shoulder and addressing me informally, “all the senior officers we invite will load you down with generous presents.”
When I attended weddings of junior officer friends, I always presented the couple with an envelope containing five new red ten-ruble bills.
“We have so many close friends,” Jana’s mother, Yevgenia Vasilyevna, added. “And, with my husband’s important position, we simply can’t avoid offering a large reception. After all, Jana is our first child to marry.”
“Perhaps,” I conceded. I nodded silently, appraising my new in-laws.
The colonel was a typical professional Soviet officer, stocky but energetic, with dark hair and even darker, intelligent eyes, a face rendered just short of handsome by a broken nose squashed like a potato by years of wearing tight-fitting oxygen masks. He was known as a good pilot and a forceful leader. I quite liked him, although I resented his bulldozer decision about the wedding.
Jana’s mother was another matter. She was in her late forties, several years older than her husband, chunky, rather coarse-looking. As a younger woman, I imagined she had been quite sensually attractive, but she had aged badly; her skin actually looked stretched, like a sausage casing. And she tinted her hair and wore it in tight, springy curls. I realized that she had been one of the plastic curler matrons I’d seen on the Voyentorg.
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