The Most Russian Person. Владимир Шатакишвили

To make the soup come out rich small fish is added at the very beginning and is boiled for about two hours until it is completely cooked and turns into a porridge, and then it is filtered and cooled.

      Then pieces of larger fish are added to a cooled broth, and again it is boiled for a long time. Only at the third time, the most valuable types of fish are cut (in our case, whitefish, sterlet and burbot) and cooked at low fire until it is ready.

      The membership of our delegation was more than impressive: I. V. Kurchatov, B. G. Muzrukov, I. M. Tkachenko, Y. B. Khariton, E. P. Slavsky, A. A. Alexandrov, I. N. Medyanik. Suffice to say that four of the seven who came – Kurchatov, Khariton, Slavsky, Alexandrov – later became three times Heroes of Socialist Labor, Muzrukov – twice Hero, only Tkachenko and I were without stars. In any case, seven had fourteen Stars of Heroes, an average of two each, a joke, of course, though a pleasant one. Being warned in advance about the visit of the high management, the drivers did their best and laid a fabulous table. In addition to the amazingly tasty fish soup there were also sterlet and burbot fried on coals, something from vegetables and, of course, lard. We drank three glasses of Armenian brandy and having eaten tight walked to the next shed and seeing the carpet some of the guests wanted to lie down and rest. So they did, some rested, some sailed on a boat and some swam in the lake. A couple of hours later, we sat down at the table again, drank one more glass and cheerful, rested, smiling left this wonderful place, giving the word to the hospitable drivers to visit the place in future. And Muzrukov promised, if possible, of course, to allocate funds for the construction of a modern recreation center, and he kept his word later.

      I often happened to be there with guests, because we were visited by a lot of the capital's authorities and major world-famous scientists. We sometimes came to ease stressful situations. Posheev, as the owner, always joked in such cases, “Shall we eat sitting or lying down?” It meant under which shed the table had to be laid. And on that day, despite it was day-off, everyone went to work. By the way, the working day of the management team lasted until one in the morning.

      “Well, who do you want to hear about? After all, it is impossible to tell about everybody.”

      “Perhaps, about Slavsky.”

      “Efim Pavlovich was, perhaps, the only one whom I can safely call, one of the few of my friends. In addition to work, we had passion for hunting. All the years of joint service at “Mayak” we were neighbors, our cottages stood nearby just like the houses of Muzrukov, Kurchatov, Tkachenko. For almost thirty years he was in charge of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, three times awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor, winner of the Lenin and State Prize. Perhaps, sometimes, I even misused my relationship with the minister, because for many years after “Mayak” I was trying to get, to search for something and solve problems with the help of his ministry. In fairness, I will say that I never received a refusal from him to my requests and appeals.”

      Here is his life story: chief engineer, director of the base. He got to the Urals during the war where the Zaporozhye aluminum plant was evacuated and there, in Kamensk-Uralsk, he quickly rebuilt it. A great specialist, knowledgeable, authoritative.

      He started at the time serving in the First Horse division of Budyonnyi, was a straight man, sometimes unrestrained, even rude. Liked four-letter words. Muzrukov had to “correct” the seething character of Slavsky, sometimes complex, sometimes aggressive. By the way, when he once had a breakdown in his work and Beria removed Slavsky from all his high posts, it was Muzrukov who succeeded in returning Efim Pavlovich to atomic projects. Yes, and it was difficult to replace him, because then he was the most knowledgeable expert in the country. And he was the talented leader. He lived, by the way, 93 years.

      “The human memory keeps pleasant recollections. I am excited at the case related to hunting for saigas in the Kalmykia steppes. I think it’s worth telling about it and the reader is awaiting interesting facts.”

      “You know the moments of my long life as well as I do, because I told you.”

      “That case is not taken into account. You could have just told about some event not being sure that the author would be interested, because for so many years I have been listening to you, remembering, appreciating, weighing, building up my line of interrogation, because, as an investigator, I need to extract maximum information. Today is another thing, our conversation is recorded, then I can only decipher this conversation.”

      “Okay, let's try. As avid hunters, we immediately became friends with Efim Pavlovich Slavsky, back in 1948 at “Mayak”. Yes, and problems he had with Beria were because of addiction to hunting. Even this did not prevent us from continuing to go hunting together. After his appointment to the Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, seems in 1949, he often visited us, and each time I was assigned to meet him. Well, there were always guns in the car, the outfit that matched the weather conditions, and brandy was also at hand. We managed to wander through the woods and shoot something. We went to the drivers for the triple fish soup. This has become a kind of ritual.

      In 1957, Efim Pavlovich became our minister. I had already moved to Pyatigorsk by that time. I had worked at “Mayak” for about seven years, the most difficult and significant years of my long life. For more than half a century I have been languishing in Pyatigorsk, although even here I could not sit idle.”

      “Yes, I have heard about your “inactive” period of life: the city of Lermontov was built almost from scratch, several car maintenance stations, four luxury sanatoriums for nuclear scientists in each of the Mineralnye Vody cities, the runway at Mineralnye Vody airport, a television tower on Mount Mashuk, a polyclinic of the “Impuls” plant, residential buildings for employees… But let's get to the point, how about hunting?”

      “Every year Efim Pavlovich came to rest in our region. Most often he stayed at the “Krasnye kamni”, but he also liked to relax in our departmental sanatoriums “XXII Partsyezd” in Pyatigorsk, where Nina Vladimirovna Nikonova worked as the chief medical officer for many years, “Beshtau” in Zheleznovodsk, “50 let Oktyabrya” in Yessentuki, “Dzinal” in Kislovodsk and the fact that these sanatoriums appeared is the main credit of the minister.

      That time Slavsky stayed at the “Krasnye kamni”, then the most prestigious sanatorium of our region. Usually he was met by a retinue from among the secretaries of the city committees where it was planned to spend his vacation. That was how it was supposed to be. Anyway, no one could occupy my “hunting niche” because our passion for hunting lasted almost until his death. So he called and said to give, say, about ten days for acclimatization and then we would go to Kalmykia. It must be taken into account that the saigas are wild, roving animals. Thousands of their herds are constantly moving across the steppes, at least in those years when their livestock was excessive and numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Rafailov, a very good and professional hunter, worked with me as the head of the personnel department. He had to be sent to Kalmykia a day earlier in order to learn in advance from the hunters where saiga herds drifted. We left in two cars: one guest car, the Volga assigned to minister, and my official UAZ vehicle, with guns, uniforms, food, alcohol stocks. This time there were two ministers. In addition to ours, there was Tikhomirov, the minister of chemical industry or chemical engineering. Before the Muscovites, it was necessary not to lose face and arrange not only hunting, but an overnight stay, food.

      We arrived at the appointed place, Rafailov reported to Efim Pavlovich the situation and the approximate place of appearance of the herd. We settled in places and waited for the hunters to chase saigas towards us. Soon there came the approaching roar of hoofs, and a herd of thousands of wild, uncontrollable animals was moving. I was even afraid that we would be crippled or trampled down. After all everything went right and after the first shots the herd changed direction, suffering some losses. Slavsky shot down three, Tikhomirov one and I and Rafailov one each. And then there was an improvised lunch with shulum and shashlyks. For your future book on alcohol consumption this episode may not be suitable because we drank our beloved Armenian brandy very little, about 250 grams per person, and the age of my boss and friend didn’t allow consume more. Although, in fairness, I should admit that in our youth none of us drank much.

      I delivered our trophies to the Lermontosky ORS (workers' supply department) to the refrigerator where the experts skinned them (took off their skins),