As Is

. .. .

(… during two years of compulsory service, a Soviet soldier climbed the hierarchical ladder.

In his first six months, he was a 'greenhorn,' also known as a 'youngster,' also known as a 'salabon.'

For the next six months—following the draft of new 'youngsters'—he became a 'ladler.'

A year of service is over, two more conscription waves arrived after you, and you're a 'pheasant.'

For the last six months, there are no senior soldiers above you; you're an unchallenged 'grandpa'.

And finally, the USSR Minister of Defense has signed the order discharging into the reserves those drafted, like you, two years ago. Demobilization begins; you're a 'dembil'!

Hierarchical terminology isn't very hieroglyphic.

'Youngster' therefore means junior at the service.

A 'ladle' is entrusted with dispensation of the food at the table—it's too early for the 'greenhorns,' and degrading the senior ones.

'Pheasant' sews up his cotton pants to make them tight and form-fitting, and he swaggers like a London punk.

'Grandpa' is the opposite of 'young,' and 'dembil' is a pleasantly pronounceable abbreviation for 'demobilizable'.

To climb this ladder, you need to live for two years… At 18 or 20, that amount of time seems like an eternity.

Moreover, the quality of time in the army is unpredictable: some days fly by almost immediately, while others feel like a week has passed—but you’re fucking wrong!—that's still today.

In the army, the total amount of time of the quality from the second example overrides that from the first exponentially.

The 'dembils' have it the hardest: they dragged this enormous thing of two years to the finish line. And now every hour feels like an eternity, filled with soul-excruciating, nagging anxiety, and disbelief that such a thing is even possible…

The soldiers on the lower rungs of the ladder attempt at spurring time with card calendars. Those that hold all 12 months printed on one side and the call to fly by Aeroflot airliners or save money in the Savings Bank, on the other.

They mercilessly prick each passing day with a needle, one after another. The card calendar loses its gleem and gloss, but if you raise it up against the sky, neat groups of tiny holes are visible.

Calendar acupuncture requires a disciplined mind and remarkable willpower.

I've never seen such calendars on any 'pheasant.' Eternity will tame anyone, humble any pride…)

~ ~ ~

The first day of service ended after midnight – we were drilled to go to bed within 45 seconds and rise within the same amount. In 45 secs, you must remove your outfit, carefully stack its items on a stool in the central aisle of the barracks. The lengthy fluorescent lamps fixed along the ceiling, would pour folorn illumination on diver to their double-decker beds in the quarters, to cover themselves with a sheet and blanket. The sport event went on for an hour.

The quarters are 2 double-decker beds, placed bedhead to bedfoot and an identical group of double-decker beds on the other side of the narrow aisle where you bump into another of the 8 divers being drilled.

How can you avoid pushing? The width of the aisle is determined by the width of the nightstand standing against the barracks wall at the end of the cul-de-sac, along which 8 recruits are scrambling, each one to their own… Oops!… Fuck!

. .. .

It's a squat, 40 x 40 cm nightstand, with a pull-out drawer under the top, and a door beneath it to close 2 two shelves. Isn't that enough for the population of eight in the quarters, whose double-decker beds loom on both sides of a half-meter-wide passage?

If any bed in the cul-de-sac is occupied by a 'grandpa', then all the nightstand is his sovereign domain, unquestionably. While the 'pheasant' nesting in the quarters might have allocated the bottom shelf to the remaining seven fellow, but then again, not everyone would.

The construction battalion teaches seabees to live lightly, without burdening ourselves with unnecessary materialism. As regards the Neva blades and safety razor those things can shelter on the shelf of the guys from your draft. Those lucky enough to spend nights in a quarter free of either old men or birds.

Seeking sympathy and assistance by officers in solving the problems of soldierly life is detrimental to one's health.

Since the 'pheasant-grandpa' system is the key to military discipline, an officer who violates it is sawing a branch under his own ass. And if you complain to him, he'll complain about you to the 'grandpas.' In the evening, the officer will go home after a day on duty, and at night, your health will be damaged…

Attempts at unsettling the fundamentals are more hazardous than nicotine.

. .. .

But all this becomes clear later, and for now, the sergeants pace the central aisle of the training barracks. They’re looking for a foot wrap carelessly wrapped around a boot, a belt not coiled over the uniform, or some missing piece of the uniform—the SOB’s dived under the blanket half-dressed!

Having found a fault, they command 'Reveille!' And the drill starts all over again…

It's highly unlikely we improved our results; rather, the sergeants themselves were getting sleepy. After another 'Lights-out!', the long fluorescent tubes in the ceiling above the central aisle went out, except for one over the orderly's nightstand at the entrance to the barracks. Its distant light isn't a problem; you can close your eyes and…

'Reveille!'

What? For what? Fuck! It's already morning! But where’s the night?

(… have I already told, eh? That time in the army is a fucking bitch…)

~ ~ ~

A couple of reveille!’s were trained, but they weren't over picky, just so you'd understand—‘you’re in the army now, bitch’.

The indulgence of attitude rooted in the upcoming breakfast, because if we were late for it, the cook-'grandpa' would give the sergeant his 'J'ai presque dû attendre' from the serving window.

(… the French kings had a specially trained courtier at their court, the floor jerk.

The job wasn't difficult—the jerk simply thumped the floor with a stick, signaling the king's entry into a particular hall of a particular royal palace.

He'd thump and yell, 'His Majesty the King!'

And so one day at the Louvre, another Louis—with the appropriate ordinal number—approached the door to enter, noticing that this floor jerk—(or was it jerkeau? I really need to work at my French! Merde!…)—wasn't there. Perhaps he'd had a reason to go around the corner, discovering something wrong about his court uniform and—he rushed there to button it up…

But the rascal managed to do it, at the very last moment, literally out of nowhere, and—done his business, according to regulations— Bang! He slammed his stick down at the floor: 'His Majesty the King!'

In fact, Louis didn't even have to march in place. As he passed the special courtier, he gave him a little reprimand, a so-called grandfatherly royal reproach:

'J'ai presque dû attendre,' he said, and then went on his way to mess with the other courtiers.

And his rebuke, translated from French, means, 'Just imagine! A little more, and I would have had to wait!'…)

But the 'grandfpa' in the window will deliver this royal phrase with a completely different subtitle:

— You, fucking asshole! Have you lost your scent, bitch? They dropped a sergeant's snot on your shoulder board, and now you've lost your sense of smell? I fucking fuck your fucking rank and you too as well! You're late again, I'll have you dispensing the fucking pots yourself from this window! You a fucking bird-doer!

And the sergeant has no answer to parry so courtly a subtitle, because, although he's not currently a bird-doer he's still just a 'pheasant'.

(…what could kings possibly have in common with our construction battalion?

Well, you're amazing! An inextricably direct connection!

Commonly, albeit unofficially, the Soviet Army's military construction units were referred to as 'royal troops'. Everyone who’s ever been stuck in the muck knows how to duck.

Got it? Let's move on then…)

~ ~ ~

The outfit of the military construction battalion (constbatt) soldier, aka constbatter, consisted of a khaki piss-cutter with a small red-cherry star screwed in its bow with the still smaller yellow sickle-and-hammer inside. The star was a very important detail called to make easy seeing the front from the rear in that headgear.

On the strength of its shape, the piss-cutter was of no use for protecting the soldier's ears. When caught in the strong wind or rain, you could turn off the cap's flaps and pull it on your skull, yet the trick bestowed on the serviceman the looks of a mugger in a 'condom'-hat.

Under certain circumstances, the constbatter could even put his piss-cutter crosswise, that is, with the star transferred into position above one or another of his ears. The cap applied in that manner was supposed to present a motif 'a-la Tricorn of Bonaparte', however, on the whole, that looked like a dull moron with the star on the side of his fucking gibbosity.

Alternately, a constbatter’s head might be covered with a forage cap, but, according to the Statute of Inner Service, the forage cap should co-occur with the jacket and trousers over the blunt-nosed high shoes of black leather. Such a set was briefly referred to as 'parade-crap' (ceremonial dress) with black shoulder-boards on the jacket. (…black is always in vogue, ja, immer so, Meinen Herren)…

The black insignia fields up the lapels of the ceremonial outfit were decorated with miniature emblems of military construction troops, made of a light yellow alloy. The same emblem was repeated in a larger size on the forearm part of the jacket's left sleeve, but already without any metal impurities.

The Brief Heraldic Explication of the Constbatt Emblem

'Battalion Commander pours forth Thunder-and-Lightning;

Ensign trots like a squirrel in the Wheel;

I dropped the Anchor and don't care a fuck,

They won't urge me onward

Not even with the fucking Bulldozer.'

~ ~ ~

But let's return to the other parts of the fatigue or 'everyday wear' because it was donned every day, being replaced once a year. It’s upper part (the piss-cutter) may be put aside, being already outlined in general terms.

The innermost layer of those sheathing a constbatter were underpants and a tank top (in winter long-sleeved undershirt and long johns).

These next to the skin items at the following layer (moving outward) had a composite cover of the khaki cotton jacket without any shoulder boards (in case you got promoted to any rank distinguished by a number of yellow stripes across the shoulder board, it was your responsibility to get the needed insignia and fix it in place).

Let's start with the top composite part of the second layer—the jacket.

Five round buttons of light green plastic had no holes but a single protruding eyelet in the underbelly so as to save the button’s entire convex face for the relief image of pentacle star with the same Siamese twins—a hammer and sickle in a crisscross position—in the center.

They were sewn onto the right side of the jacket, opposite the vertical row of horizontal buttonholes regularly spaced on the left side.

The jacket's hems reached mid-thigh, and on the sides, just below the waist, were straight, fairly deep, but not patch pockets, protected by wide flaps from clogging with soil when a constbatter is in a deep hole, digging.

The buttons in the wide cuffs of the sleeves completely replicated the chemical composition and design of the forward-facing buttons, despite being three times smaller.

Under the left side of the jacket, at heart level, was an inside pocket made of khaki canvas.

The trousers (the second component of the fatigue) were a proud manifestation of all-conquering Pragmatism—two cotton tubes tapering downward , reinforced at the knees with patches for durability and longevity of the item.

some proud manifestation of the ideals of pragmatism—two cotton pipes of legs, narrowing downwards, overlaid with large patches on knees for hardening and prolonging the service life of the whole item. Two upright pockets on the hips had no flaps and the small smooth buttons of emblematic to operate the fly.

(Just for the record. The lower leg openings, used for passing the legs through, were provided with wide, strong straps sewn across the foot. However, this elegant addition was cut off at once so that they wouldn't fuck your brains nor chafe your soles.)

The vertical hip pockets (one on each) had no flaps, nor did the small buttons used to control the fly ('closed-open') have any emblematic decorations.

In winter, your piss-cutter swapped for a gray faux fur hat with earflaps. Flaplaces at the tips of the long enough faux earflaps allowed the hat to be styled in four distinct ways:

1. 'ears up' style, aka the Crown of Solomon;

2. 'ears below the nape' aka the Humble Rabbit;

3. 'ears wide open' style, aka the Proud Petrel Weathering a Storm;

4. 'ears about the jawline' style, aka the Sparring Partner.

A jacket quilted with parallel seams, aka fooflo jacket, was the outermost and only winter/third layer of the uniform. Vertical seams an inch apart, used to secure the wool padding in between the course fabric softer lining, gave the quilted jacket the appearance of both an ancient suit of armor and a concentration camp prisoner's uniform. But, naturally, in a consistent monochromatic khaki color scheme.

Instead of a quilted jacket, a soldier might wear a trench coat with an unstitched, smooth surface. It was superior to the quilted jacket in many ways.

First, it was lined with twice as much wool and therefore warmer. Second, it reached mid-thigh, protecting the groin and buttocks from the harsh winter weather.

As for the 'paradt crap,' a double-breasted greatcoat of woolen felt was worn over it in winter to complete the ceremonial dress ensemble appropriate to the season.

The greatcoat ended just below the knees and had a pair of vertically parallel rows (one of which was decorative) of yellow metal buttons (yes, with the same relief of the pregnant star, etc.) on the chest.

Behind, at the rump, the greatcoat had a short transverse strap with a pair of decorative buttons on the edges. Below it, at the average rectum level, began a vertical slit—to have extra legroom for a revved gait, when needed, and for other related needs.

And finally, a crucial detail—a wide waist belt with a heavy metal buckle, aka blakha, which could be used for any number of purposes: be it an entrenching tool or a highly lethal weapon in a fight, a kinda flail on the wrist. The belt was not intended to hold up the soldier's trousers, but solely to gird the jacket or greatcoat. When in the dress uniform, it was discreetly worn under the straight jacket, just in case. That, in a nutshell, is how a military construction worker, aka a constbatter, dressed.

True, we, the spring conscription of 1973, initially had the honor of wearing the classic Russian and Red Army-style tunics (donned exclusively over the head, with a stand-up collar, which had been inherited and lying around in Soviet Army warehouses. Later, when we wore them out completely, and those turned into extreme rarity, the 'pheasants' pissed with steam desperate to find one like it, which you wouldn't see on anyone else.

A comparative analysis of the presented outfit components demonstrates that the most idiotic item is the peaked cap with a hard visor—which you can’t sleep in or on, and it’s impossible to pull it down over your ears.

~ ~ ~

The barracks entryway was through a vestibule attached from outside (in the middle of the long sidewall). This narrow hallway (3 m x 3 m) is paved with large tiles the color of wet ash. The ceiling of proportionate dimensions, allows you to brotherly touch its plywood. Two vestibule walls, reaching one meter height, give way to beam-framed glass panes; the other two have doors, one opposite the other.

Below the step in front of the outside door, a rectangle of parallel welded rebar rods (cross-section 12 mm) covers a shallow cemented pit—a place for dirt to fall into, when scraped off boots against the rods.

In 3 meters further out the vestibule and exactly its size, is a gazebo without walls, but with meter-tall sides. Four posts at the corners support a hipped roof. Within, along the gazebo’s three plank sides is a bench made of a triad of beams. In the center of the concrete floor is another pit, this time round and with no grating, for the personnel to throw their cigarette butts into, and the on-duty soldier would scoop them out later.

To the right of the gazebo, a portable three-meter-long pipe, positioned horizontally on legs appropriate for its intended height, allows several soldiers to simultaneously rest their feet on the support provided by the pipe while polishing their boots.

Forgotten anything? Oh, right! The grass flanking the asphalt path around the barracks.

When the sergeants get too hot to drill us in the torrid sun on the parade ground, surrounded by the mess hall, the lontrine, the endwalls of three barracks and the gate, or too tired by driving home the spirit and letter of the brochure 'Regulations of the Internal Service of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union,' they give the order 'At ambrosia!'

Of course, I remember ambrosia from my childhood. Then and there (by the Titan the Boiler) it made me envious of the eternally youthful gods of Olympus, who guzzled it down by the mug at their feasts!

However, in our complicated world, it's increasingly difficult to find a steadfast foothold—the godly drink turns into a trowaway piece of paper bearing a hazy black-and-white picture of some plant and the call in bold to find and liquidate the spiller of dangerous hay fever.

'At ambrosia!' is one of too few commands we're glad to hear, because the sergeants disappear for an hour, and we lie in the grass, and can leisurely get to know each other…

. .. .

I'm the only one from Konotop here; the others were drafted from other cities—Buryn, Shostka, Krolevets—in the Sumy Region we all share.

Accidentally, the entire spring draft of MCU-11 is from Ukraine. The Dnepropetrovsk guys had arrived before us. They'd already completed their training and been assigned to the battalion's companies. Taking advantage of the sergeants' absence, a couple of the Dnepropetrovsk guys snuck into the gazebo, picking larger cigarette butts from the round pit where we'd tossed them at the command 'Form up!'

No one really knew how or why the grass in the blurry picture became an outlaw. Combing through the military unit's grounds hadn't led to the discovery of the two-faced Ambrosia, but the idle chatter somehow distracted from the thoughts of the two-year eternity pressed upon us…

~ ~ ~

The newly donned outfits were fraught with pitfalls when executing the commands 'Lights-out!' and 'Reveille!'—the buttons either wouldn't fit or got stuck in the buttonholes. On the advice of a competent buddy, Vitya Strelianny from Shostka, at breakfast in the mess hall I slipped through the loops of my fly and cuffs the handle of an aluminum spoon. Creaking, it finally slipped through, the squeaky key cracked the problem without a drop of lubrication: the stubborn buttons started to get in and out in a twist tempo.

And where on earth do people get so much knowledge?

. .. .

The immediate goal of our endless drill training on the parade ground was to sell ourselves on the upcoming day of our Oath-taking. Three platoons were trained to march, but the marching song was just one for all. That very one aired daily by the All-Union Radio Station 'Mayak' in their concerts upon request. No less than twice a day. The Soviet Union was doomed to learn it. No matter where they scooped you up—from Konotop, Anadyr, or Vladivostok—you inevitably knew that:

'In two winters,

Merely in two winters,

In two summers,

Merely in two summers

I'll do my honest service in the army

And come back to you…'

The first platoon, at the command 'Halt! One-two!' stopped pounding the parade ground with the soles of their boots and shut up this hoarse, off-key chorus.

Without a moment’s delay, the second platoon would stomp onto the same ground with the roar of the same quality. The jaunty marching song would turn unbearably long. Eventually, they'd cut there wail-and-stomp.

Now, dear radio listeners, for those who’s managed to survive yet…

We, the third platoon, would whack the ground with our boots, yelling about the third pair of winters and springs, which felt like total overkill. The recruits chuckled, the sergeants of the first and second platoons laughed openly, and ours was visibly nervous…

When I told him I could prepare another song for us, but I needed a pen and paper, he didn't immediately understand what I was talking about. However, he dismissed me from the parade ground to benefit our platoon by means of volunteer mental toil.

For stationery, as instructed by the sergeant, I turned to the on-duty soldier guarding the nightstand at the entrance, whose drawer indeed contained a pen and some paper…

. .. .

Entering whichever barracks, the first thing caught with your glimpse is a soldier standing next to a nightstand. This soldier is the on-duty private, and the nightstand is his post. From that position post, he is to yell 'Company! Attention!' whenever an officer enters the barracks. Two privates stand guard for the entire day, taking turns at the nightstand every four hours. Before the company's mealtime, one of them (who isn't by the nightstand) goes to the mess hall to set the tables for his fellow soldiers, under the supervision of the company on-duty sergeant.

These three (the company on-duty sergeant and the pair of on-duty privates) are called a 'detail' and in the mornings, before breakfast, they relieve the previous detail, to be relieved by the next one after 24 hours.

. .. .

Walking to the end of the barracks, I turned into a room of two names. The lieutenant, the company political deputy commander, called it 'Lenin Room' because the walls were lined not with ordinary plywood but with chipboard. Besides, in its corner theree hung a yellow-brown icon with a minimalist profile of the Leader of the Revolution.

His bald head and pointed wedge-beard would instantly make you recognize the bugger in any stylized brushstrokes conveying signs of any racial background. The further to the East, the slanter became the optics slits, while Lenins from the Baltic republics looked reserved and thoughtful. And Kuba n murals are quite different kettle of fish…

However, for a soldier, this was a utility room, aka utilra, thanks to wall outlets for an iron or electric razor, the table, and the wall mirror wide enough to reflect two pairs of constbatters’ soap lathered pans.

However, this happened in the mornings and evenings, and now, due to the daytime, the utilra was empty. There weren't any problems with the melody; everyone knew the eternally popular hit even without Mayak the Radio Station:

'Maroosya, a black-haired girl,

Picked gelder rose berries:

One-two-three!

In her garden in the morn…'

However, not everyone knows that this song originally appealed to the fellow to finally unharness those darn horses… and, therefore, it's used to adaptations:

'Our parade march is the best,

And our song's the loudest,

That's the tune

Of our platoon!…'

Sitting over a piece of paper, I twirled the pen in my fingers, twirling the words in mind, adjusting them this way and that. And gradually, the cross of Lenin chapel and utilra around me, the smell of acetone from my unworn uniform, and the stinging pain in my right foot, rubbed raw by a merciless boot, faded. I went AWOL from the army…

And, yes, we learned it and sang it quite bravely…

~ ~ ~

At the end of the day, the recruits had a moment to smoke in the gazebo (those who managed to find room to sit on the 3-beam bench) and around it. The sergeant major of the fourth company, a man of about forty, with a round, good-natured face and a taut potbelly, was passing by.

He stopped to ask where we'd been drafted from. He probably just wanted to while away the half hour before departure—at five o'clock, all the sergeants major, officers, and other commanders, along with two pairs of women from the accounting department at unit headquarters, were being transported to Stavropol. Only the on-duty officer remained in the detachment for the night.