Bar in the Departure Zone. The Story of One Escape

“There’s nothing illogical about it,” the major responded quietly. “There isn’t a single shift change at the bar without shortages. The porters typically steal beer and cigarettes. They drink the beer and break the empty bottles to claim they were damaged in transit, and the cigarettes are smoked in the storage room, eliminating the need to carry them through the checkpoint. Sometimes, they loosen the caps of the cognac bottles and extract ten or twenty grams. Currently, they’re short of a porter. All the shift bartenders have to come in an hour early and transport the goods themselves on carts – they complain, but it’s better than shortages. A porter who doesn’t drink and happens to be a relative of the senior bartender administrator is precisely what they need.”

“Well, what good is a teetotaling porter to us then?” the General asked, again emphasizing the word “us.”

“None. But “Larin’ wasn’t rewarded at all for the mother-of-pearl icon case,” the major replied.

“Tsarevich Aleksey?” the General became interested.

“Yes, it all happened in his bar, and he was the one who provided the initial information,” the major confirmed.

“Right, but all the glory went to the Counter-smuggling team! He should be punished for this,” the General exclaimed, laughing.

It had been a significant incident involving the wife of an African diplomat who had attempted to smuggle out an antique icon by strapping it between her legs and nearly strangling Officer Shubin from the Tenth Department (counter-smuggling) with his tie. Many employees from the Tenth Department were rewarded, the woman was expelled from the country, and Sasha Shubin became the head of the department.

“Well, I can’t tell an informant that contraband isn’t our job, that Department “T” and Department ’10” are not the same,” the major explained.

“True, of course,” the General agreed. “But could he be revarded with money?”

“You clearly don’t understand how much they make over there,” Valov replied, daring to show a touch of audacity as he gazed out the window, his eyes filled with hatred. “So let me tell you – up to three hundred rubles daily! In just one day! And during the Olympics, that faggot managed to earn enough to buy a one-room cooperative apartment.”

The general disliked Valov’s tone and wanted to put him in his place, but Valov continued, “The bartenders receive more tips in rubles and foreign currency in a five-day week than you and I together in a month. They’re the ones who could motivate us with money.”

Noticing the expression on the general’s face, Valov fell silent.

“Well,” said the general, “try to control your emotions and explain what you want from me. You could have approved the nephew yourself.”

“I can’t. They are close relatives. The instruction states ‘in special cases.’”

“What instruction?” the former Party member asked, immediately regretting his question.

“Instruction Two Zero Sixty,” the major replied in surprise.

Oh, you’re a bitch, thought the general to himself. He was upset and changed the subject. “Is he really a homo?”

“Yes. He was recruited in 1977 in an incident with his homosexual partner – he was pulled out of the incarceration unit of the Zelenograd police department. Jealousy. Fight. Non-penetrating stab wound in the stomach.”

“I don’t care for your attitude toward sources,” pronounced the general in the officious tone of a former instructor of the Central Committee. “But why so much hate? Why do you speak with such irritation about your informant, who has worked with you for years? Yes, sometimes they have a lot of money; yes, they are not awakened and called to report in the middle of the night as we sometimes are. They live materially better than us in some ways, but tell me honestly, would you change places with this ‘Larin?’”

And again, the apparatchik realized he had blundered. After all, the informant was a homosexual. What a day!

NEPHEW AND UNCLE

“Well, everything seems to be settled,” said Vlad. “You start work on Friday.”

Dima’s heart beat a tattoo – what incredible luck! He had been living for four months in his uncle’s new cooperative apartment on Leningradskaya Street, a life he found pretty pleasant. Although the apartment had only one room, it was quite large, with a glassed-in balcony and a spacious kitchen.

Vlad had a custom-made sofa in the corner of the kitchen. One side of the couch was wide, and the other was narrow. Dima slept on this couch and kept his clothes in large drawers. Vlad was rarely at home, and when he was, he usually played LPs on his expensive audio equipment and read Western magazines that foreign customers left at the bar.

After graduating with honors from the Moscow Institute for National Economics, Vlad quickly climbed the corporate ladder before becoming bored and requesting a transfer from the Moscow Food Production Center to manage a small café in the Moscow district of Izmailovo. His request was granted, and Vlad began to enjoy a life of freedom and sound money.

Having been on the receiving end of fiscal reports for years, Vlad spent his evenings revising almost all his paperwork. An old accountant, Nina Ivanovna, had been asking for a pension for a long time, complaining of failing eyesight. Instead of retirement, the new manager started paying her a quarterly bonus and took over half of the accounts from her. The old lady could hardly believe her luck, and soon, the enterprise began to function almost like a private business – with neat reports and revenues just a bit higher than those of the previous manager, while Vlad kept a significant portion.

The café didn’t earn much, maybe a tenth of the culinary turnover, but the young manager made acquaintances by renting it out to the right people for weddings and birthday parties. The food service also brought in a lot of money. Bones, for example, were a profitable commodity. Vlad received two small truckloads of bones per week from the meatpacking plant. He would bring his nephew, Dima, to the café to help, and the two of them would trim the bones of cartilage and residual meat with special curved knives. These trimmings would then be used in meat pies and dumplings.

The unexpected arrival of his nephew pleased Vlad, not only because the boy was his only relative but also because Vlad’s own life had somehow stalled. Two years earlier, Vlad had experienced bouts of severe depression followed by some improvement, but the turbulent 1980s with the Moscow Olympics and the transition to work at Sheremetyevo brought about further improvement.

Vlad’s relationship with Jurgenson, the Estonian, continued, but it had become monotonous. His life was well-structured, and he didn’t expect significant changes at work. When a letter arrived from distant Vladivostok, Vlad was enthusiastic and looked forward to seeing his nephew. Dima was a kindred spirit and an exciting and unusual person in many ways.

From kindergarten to seventh grade, Dima had a clear notion of his future. He wanted to travel! He will be a world-famous traveler. He found conversations among other kids about astronauts and the military amusing because those dreamers knew nothing about space or the military. But Dima knew everything about his future life. He could easily name all the capitals of all countries. He knew which countries bordered Paraguay and could easily find the city with the strange name Papeete on a map. Putting little Dima to bed was never a problem. He would close his eyes, and a huge, slowly rotating globe with mountain topography and blue oceans would graciously descend from the ceiling. All that remained was to concentrate on the southern tip of Chile, bring it closer, feel the spray of Cape Horn on his face, listen to the cries of thousands of gulls, and the boy would fall asleep with a smile.

But around the seventh grade, he realized the catastrophic nature of his situation as a Soviet schoolboy. His mother was the first to explain that his plans were unrealistic, but it was not easy to deprive a person of their dreams, and Dima felt offended, not by the system, but by his lonely, hard-working mother. He thought that if she were, for example, the Secretary of the Regional Party Committee, he might have had a chance to become a traveler. He saw that Julia from another class went with her parents to Bulgaria, and her father was only a Komsomol apparatchik, not even a Party member.

Closer to the end of school, Dima’s understanding of the situation became more apparent, but his childhood dreams of traveling the world did not fade away. Strangely, he had no interest in the geography and beauty of his homeland, whether it was the White Nights of Leningrad or the vast forests of Siberia. Realizing that the country’s political structure hindered his dreams, he became a quiet, passive enemy of the system.

He started listening to the BBC in English and the Voice of America in Russian, not because he was interested in dissidents or exposing regime crimes, but to learn about the world and how people lived abroad. He didn’t intend to fight against anyone; he just wanted to escape by any means possible. However, the problem was that there seemed to be no escape. The extensive Soviet border was heavily guarded primarily to prevent people from leaving. Entire regions were designated as “state border zones,” with forbidden zones reaching up to two hundred kilometers wide. Approaching the controlled border strip was unthinkable, and crossing the land border was out of the question.

Meanwhile, school ended, and Dima’s confused mother called Vlad. “Listen, he’s flying to Riga to join some aviation institute.”

Vlad was taken aback. “That’s strange. I don’t remember him showing an interest in aviation.”

“Vlad, we need to dissuade him. He should go to a technology institute.”

“I’ll try to talk to him.”

However, Dima didn’t apply to the Institute of Electronic Technology, the only institute in Zelenograd. Instead, he flew to Latvia despite knowing his chances were slim. Soon after his failed attempt to enter the Riga Institute of Aviation Engineering, he received his draft notice in the mail. The dreamer accepted the news calmly and decided to request to serve in the border troops.

Night after night, he was tormented by the same recurring dream where he would throw his AK-47 gun and cap to the side and briskly run through the plowed control strip trail, escaping from the Soviet country.

Overcoming his hesitation, Dima turned to his only relative for help. After all, Vlad knew everyone and could do anything. He must have a friend in the military registration and enlistment office who could help his nephew join the border troops. Dima shared his confused request with his uncle, who asked a few questions and then began staring at his nephew. Vlad remained silent for a long time and suddenly buried his face in his hands. Dima knew his uncle was sensitive and sentimental, but he became genuinely frightened this time. Suddenly, Vlad stood up, opened a vintage cabinet drawer, and took out a map of the USSR. He spread it out in front of his silent nephew and began nervously tracing the entire extensive border with a pencil, piercing the paper as he did so.

“Here, here, here, and here!!!” Vlad hissed, pointing to the length of the Soviet borders from China to the Arctic Ocean. “And this tiny piece is the Turkish border. See how small it is? You already know that the Finns and Iranians immediately return defectors, right?”

Dima didn’t know, but he nodded. Vlad tore out a section of the border with Turkey using his fingers and handed the piece of paper to Dima.

“Take this, measure it along the border, and calculate.”

“What do you mean?” whispered Dima, shocked.

“This fraction, this unit, divided by the rest, will give you your odds, your one-in-a-thousand chances to make it there.”

Later, when Dima was in the army, he learned that there was a unique selection process for serving on the Turkish section of the USSR border. He realized that he had no chance at all.

Vlad’s attitude toward Dima changed. He became attentively alert. Knowing about his nephew’s childhood dreams, he couldn’t imagine that Dima was still holding onto them, that he hadn’t outgrown or abandoned them. This earned Vlad’s respect but also instilled fear. At eighteen years old, Vlad had never experienced anything like it. Could it be the call of Balkan blood? He knew little about Dima’s father. He knew his exotic name was Dzhanko, but the Hungarian communist Dzhanko was far from Zelenograd.

During her passionate Komsomol youth, Vlad’s sister won a two-week all-inclusive tour to the newly opened Sputnik International Youth Camp, and Dima was conceived there. Apart from the unusual name, his father was known to be an ethnic Serb but held Hungarian citizenship for some reason. Dima’s mother categorically refused to talk about him, and Dima never asked. Vlad made inquiries initially but soon realized it was a dead-end. Many years later, Vlad discovered that Dzhanko was alive and well, having moved to Yugoslavia, where he married and had many children. “Such a nimble dad, a prolific bastard,” Vlad thought, but he didn’t take any action. Contacting anyone abroad was dangerous, very dangerous. Vlad’s sister had long since cooled toward the Komsomol and worked at a military factory. Vlad didn’t need a relative abroad mentioned in his personnel file; it would mean an immediate end to his career. “To hell with him, this gypsy,” Vlad decided and never returned to the topic.

Vlad had his dreams of escaping the USSR. He even attempted to register a marriage with a cheerful Odessa woman of Jewish origin, hoping to be included as her husband in her exit visa to Israel. However, it ended horribly. The woman had hoped to turn the marriage of convenience into a real marriage. Vlad had no choice but to confess his sexual orientation to her, leading to an emotional explosion. Even with a lot of money, it was difficult to pay her off as she had already envisioned herself in Jerusalem with her handsome husband, whom she believed owed her his escape. This was followed by a failed attempt to get a job on a cruise ship with the Black Sea Marine Company. Thankfully, he was rejected at an early stage. The personnel department explained that no one would allow him on a foreign cruise without collateral in the form of a loving wife and a couple of children ashore. Gradually, Vlad’s hope of escape faded and was replaced by prolonged episodes of depression. But after a few years, Vlad was unsure if he truly wanted to leave. He was earning a significant amount of money by Soviet standards, and his life was settled and comfortable, but it was from this dead dream that his unnoticed mental disorder began to take hold. However, helping and being involved in the lives of his few relatives distracted him and gave his life a special meaning.

Vlad’s sister was torn between work and doctors, and Vlad felt the need to talk seriously with his nephew. He didn’t ask direct questions, fearing to push the boy into lying and causing pain for both of them. Instead, he requested Dima to listen.

“You see, there’s nothing unusual about your desire to leave. Thousands of people dream about it; many have tried and ended up in penal colonies, and only a few have succeeded. And there’s no guarantee that you’ll be one of them. My advice to you is not to freak out! You’ll completely ruin your life.”

“It seems like it’s not really my life at all,” Dima replied wistfully.

“None of us here are living our own lives. Learn to accept reality.”

“So, what can I do?” Dima whispered.

“Just live. Don’t take unnecessary risks, and live with your dream. Without dreams, all you have is crap. Go to the army, and we’ll think of something. There are legal ways to leave. You could marry a Jew and then apply for a permit to emigrate to Israel,” Vlad said, but his words lacked conviction, and Dima didn’t pay much attention. At eighteen, two years in the army felt like an eternity.

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