The Most Russian Person. Владимир Шатакишвили

the most Russian in the world – Ivan

      Height: 194

      Weight: 110 (before retirement)

      First sat behind the car wheel in 1927

      Still drives it today, in 2008

      Member of the CPSU – since 1935

      Employment record – since 1925

      It all started with cabbage

      I first heard about it in the year of 1984. The father of my school friend Volodya Avetisov – Georgiy Alexandrovich – told us a curious story about the benefits of consuming cabbage. We went with a buddy to the Yessentuki Hotel buffet to have a snack, and there were only boiled eggs and fresh cabbage salad, and, of course, tea. At this small meal I was told the story I have remembered many years.

      The essence of the story was the following. One distinguished person ate cabbage daily for many years: in the morning, at lunch and in the evening. He ate cabbage habitual for each: fresh, sauerkraut, pickled, stewed, stuffed cabbage, pies with the appropriate filling, in addition to the borsch, cabbage soup, etc. On the one hand, there is nothing surprising in gastronomic passions of a man to like popular and beloved by people vegetable, of course not, but cabbage saved his life long ago.

      This conversation took place two years before the Chernobyl disaster, and the world still has not known the horrors suffered by our country. All the facts were urgently classified about previous similar accidents. People who had information or were affected by this accident gave a subscription not to disclose state secrets and this is serious. According to Georgiy Alexandrovitch we found out that his good friend Ivan Nikiforovich Medyanik, in the early postwar years, worked as the head of a major undercover unit engaged in the production of atomic bombs. There were tens of thousands of people under his command, among which, besides, were volunteers, prisoners and even German prisoners of war. The trouble happened suddenly, many got almost fatal dose of radiation. People were tested daily, taken blood tests, but the results were disappointing. Frankly speaking, it should be noted that at that time nobody knew that this was the disease with possible fatal consequences.

      One day a German prisoner of war came to the receiption to Ivan Nikiforovich and said he was well aware of the seriousness of the situation and being a medical doctor was willing to share with a known way of treatment by cabbage.

      He said to let Chief try this method himself first, and, if blood tests improve, then this experiment can be applied on all affected. The Chief agreed and ate almost tons of cabbage in different forms for a few months. Soon he was invited to the lab and offered one more analysis because the previous had failed to conform to the established indicators. They did the second, third, 10th time… Everything spoke of a stable tendency towards improvement. And echelons with cabbage went to the Urals. Radiation receded.

      Spring of 2003. I’m sitting in the office of the General Director of JSC “Gorjachevodsk” A. P. Sahtaridi. It was the time when the project for the construction of ice palaces was started in Mineralnye Vody. I and Alexander Petrovich were going to Moscow by evening flight for talks with Vice President of the Professional Hockey League of Russia V. T. Shalaev.

      Before departure it was necessary to discuss and take some important organizational decisions. The secretary was asked not to let anyone come in the cabinet although there were a lot of people in the reception. Despite the warning she let in a tall old man decorated with orders and medals. I must say that the head office was located in the car service station No. 1, and the newcomer, familiar with the current owner of the cabinet, was introduced as its first director who had built it from scratch. The guest had been the friend of Pyotr Pavlovich, father of Alexander Sahtaridi, for many years. The veteran asked to help to repair his old Moskvich-2141. The foreman was invited and told to carry out a complete maintenance of the vehicle at the expense of the enterprise. Then tea with honey was brought, and the conversation about the problems of transport started.

      I only joined the conversation when the guest said, that, by the way, he was going to be 91 in a month. I think you will agree that it is a considerable age for a driver. As my head was clogged with hockey and a possible solution, simple men's conversation seemed not to be interesting at all for me. But suddenly, I heard the name, which was in my head, Medyanik, plus his involvement in the testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. One should be complete ignorant (and I don’t consider myself to be such), so as not to realize that the very same man-legend was sitting in front of me, whose life was saved by cabbage. I had known this fact for two decades. Of course, I dreamed of meeting him, but I could not even assume that he was still alive and good (forgive me, Ivan Nikiforovich), and fate would give me a magnificent gift. Soon we became not only familiar, but friends.

      I was very much excited and confessed to my new acquaintance that I knew about his miraculous healing. It turned out that not everything in the legend corresponded to reality: something had been changed taking into account the requirements of the post-war time, something was embellished, but in general this fact really took place in the biography of my hero. Printing of the book “Without guarantees of the century”, dedicated to the brilliant biography of Ivan Nikiforovich, written by a well-known in the Caucasus and a member of the Writers' Union of Russia and respected by me Alexander Fyodorovich Mosintsev, was being completed. After reading the book, I was convinced that there were still a lot of facts left for me.

      And I also thought of writing a book about Medyanik. His fate is amazing. Awesome. Fiery fate! So I will try to interview this Fate. The Fate of a wonderful person.

      On June 2, 2006, Ivan Nikiforovich Medyanik turned 94, and this little story is about him. I hope it will be my gift for his jubilee, the 95th anniversary, in appreciation for what he had done for millions of people.

      I'm on friendly terms with my memory…

      WHEN Ivan Nikiforovich goes through the memory of past days and years, it takes me aback. Top secret ideas, classified towns, objects, names in his stories acquire the coloring of such frank commonness, the taste of the ordinary servitude that at the beginning of our acquaintance (I confess!), somewhere deep down doubt arises if it was in reality. Has his memory changed? Isn’t there a natural desire to attach your name to the significant and fateful events of the Fatherland? After all, human vanity is a mysterious and incomprehensible category.

      No, no and no! His memory didn’t betray him, he was, in fact, a witness and direct participant of those bygone events. And he does not boast, does not expect the thunder of copper pipes of glory – this tall, grayhaired man with a piercing glance of intelligent eyes and a faint grin, that seems to forgive my disbelief, speaks calmly and confidently.

      Yes, he is not a nuclear physicist, not a professor, not a doctor of science. He did not take part in “capturing” the evasive neutrino, did not invent the electron brain, did not split the atom, did not “weigh” the star from Andromeda or Cassiopea's, did not beat his head against the wall seeking the right solution in clever projects.

      He introduced himself as an experienced motorist, builder, transport worker. He has got a lot more professions that he had mastered, complying to the most severe life circumstances. Later I will tell about it, too.

      Now, at ninety-five, he continues to drive. He himself drives. The driver's license of the new sample is valid until 2009. The traffic police GAI (I use the old, familiar to the ear abbreviation of the team of law enforcement officers) do not stop him to verify the identification or for violation of the medical, precisely, age restrictions. Yes, they know, they know our grand-dad, they know Ivan Nikiforovich in Stavropol region, and Mineralnye Vody, in Moscow, in the Urals, he is remembered in all classified “Chelyabinsk” ones, and on the once super classified “Mayak”.

      He is neither a professor, nor a doctor of science, nor an academician. But he has the title “Veteran of Nuclear Energy and Industry”. And he is proud of it by right. He was directly involved in the preparation of the testing of the first Soviet atomic bomb which our brilliant nuclear scientists, the finest scientific minds in the world, created “to fear the enemies and world imperialism”.

      The first received radioactive plutonium – this monstrous deadly “stuffing” for the first