Classics fantasy – 9. A. Belyaev

they moved on fields a close formation, leaving behind themselves the black, loosened soil. Behind them other cars probably of a harrow crept, after they are seeders.

      In places among fields buildings were seen. Were under construction new two – three-storyed houses.

      – New villages – smiling, my neighbor told. – Old villages were under construction without plan. Now all area of collective farm – and it at us not small – is broken into sites; and all population occupied with agriculture will be evenly placed on all area of collective farm so that each settlement processed the territory adjoining to it. Distances will be reduced to a terminal point, so, and time for moving. Economy in fuel of cars, speed…

      – You in collective farm work? – I took an interest.

      – In collective farm. Accounting assistant. And you not the correspondent? – he asked me in turn.

      – No – I answered. – I go to work in collective farm too. I am an electrician.

      – Foreigner?

      – Yes, German.

      – Here we soon and at home – told помбух.

      I uvidat a high openwork tower of radio station on the horizon.

      – Send-receive. Our, collective-farm.

      Soon also houses seemed. It is a lot of good stone houses, the area surrounded with high buildings, a garden, a monument: the person with the raised right hand is Lenin. A mirror the river bend flashed. How many here is the rivers!.

      The airplane began to decrease, and we went down on good airfield soon. I left. I was surprised by abundance of the airplanes standing on airfield.

      – Whether has collective farm and own airplanes? – I asked my satellite.

      – Public. Osoaviakhimovskiye. For crops and pest control.

      With an easy suitcase (my baggage walked separately) I went to the village, collective farm, the city, агрогород – I do not know how to call.

      The city is brand new, very clean. Somewhere else end plaster and whitewashing of buildings.

      I without effort found the house and the room intended to me for housing. You want to know what this collective-farm room for lonely? Twelve-fifteen meters area. Oblong. A big Vienna window without curtain. Under a window – pipes of water heating. Bluish walls. At a window on the right – a small desk with a chair and a desk electric lamp. Other lamp under a ceiling. Near a table on a wall a small shelf for books. At the left wall – a sofa, the employee and a bed. Bedding – in a drawer in the sofa. Closer to a door, in the same left wall – the wall case for a dress which is a little acting. At the right wall – the wash basin separated from sides at belt height, thick glass walls not to spray water. Further, at a table – phone. Over an entrance door a loudspeaker loud-hailer.

      House quite big. In it there is a good public dining room, club, at it small library. If in it there is no book necessary to you, can order it by phone in the central city library. At the end of a corridor – bathrooms where at certain one o’clock in the afternoon you can shave.

      I have breakfast and went to “administration”. But about this visit allow to write another time.

      Be healthy. Your Karl E.”.

      Letter the second

      “ – You know agronomics? – the foreman when I was to him asked me.

      The question surprised me a little.

      – I am an electrician.

      – I am an electrician too – he answered. – But at us and in electrical equipment an agronomical bias. So to speak, the agroelectrician as there is an agrochemistry. Whether you thought that you will be invited to potter with electric bulbs?

      At us and school children cope with it. All electrical wiring lies in new houses on them. We have requirements to electrical equipment the. We demand something bigger from electricity, than lighting of houses and fields. You arrived to the interesting moment when we, using cheap electric energy which the piping gave us, pass to electrification of agriculture. We receive current from big power plant of the island of the Cone. Saw?

      I nodded:

      – Yes, grandiose construction. But you did not establish wires of high-voltage tension yet?

      The foreman grinned and answered:

      – You do not hurry to deny existence of what you do not see.

      This answer surprised me, but I understood soon. The Soviet scientists invented the insulators allowing to lay under the earth cables for high-voltage transfer on long distances several years ago.

      – Underground cables? – I asked.

      The foreman in the affirmative nodded.

      – It is cheaper – he answered – more economically in agriculture. Though we have lands and much, but we value each span. Elevated conducting would take away the considerable area of fields for installation of towers and would complicate operation of tractors.

      – What application will have electricity in your agriculture?

      – The most various. Idemte, I will show you our work. It is much made, it is necessary to make even more. – The foreman critically looked at me. – You already the person elderly, and you should study much.

      We came to the suburb of the collective-farm town. Where the field road began, there was a big, long one-storey building with many wide doors. Through open doors I saw tractors of type, new to me.

      – Electrotractors – the foreman explained. – Latest model. Work at accumulators. The Volga waters which thousands of years in vain spent the energy give it to us now. Our tractors as working horses, are sated with this energy and go on fields.

      – And what you will do with the old tractors using fuel?

      – And a lot of work will be them. Let’s transfer them to those collective farms which are too far from an electric power source. Electricity will preserve to us much precious fuel. To burn down oil from which it is possible to receive the most valuable chemical products, as a matter of fact – barbarity.

      We entered the neighboring building. There were other cars: electric harrows, mowers…

      – At us everything will do electricity – with pride he told. – Same spring we will take our fields in electric hand. And so were ahead of us. Somehow in the day off go to the next collective farm Realovsky – it is closer to Volga. Admire that there does electricity. By Idemte now on farmyards, they at us since fall are electrified.

      The road he continued to speak:

      – We not only process the earth electricity, but also we heat it. Underground electric hot-water bottles are laid. Too late spring and early fall to us will not be more terrible. But there is more to come. We have a field where we ionize the growing cereals, and the result turns out excellent. Here stalls.

      The pure, warm, aired rooms lit with electricity. Near each cow – electric milking.

      – The hand of the person does not touch neither a cow, nor milk. Electricity milks, processes milk, cleans cows and stalls.

      Then we examined incubators. The longest room reminding the factory shop.

      Yes so it, as a matter of fact, also is. It is the real factory. Here “semi-finished product” – egg – turns into “the final product of production” – a live chicken. Long black boxes last. Silence. Deficiency. For people electricity works.

      – It is not necessary to look after temperature more. It is regulated automatically. Electric hot-water bottles work ideally. Everything is calculated. When