Stories from Lyubavino. Chronicle of an extraordinary Incident

© Olga Palagina, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0068-7381-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Chapter I The Bucket of Fate

The workers dug the trench without tears,

Mixing drinks, stories, and parties.

They came across a cable and said “hello” to the light.

Thus we get a funny storyline.)))

In a small, cozy provincial town with the pleasant-sounding name of Lyubavino, where life flowed along at a measured and comfortable pace, something truly extraordinary occurred! The sun had risen a little earlier than usual, the daily morning routine had been treacherously disrupted, and everyone’s beloved ritual morning beverages – hot tea and aromatic coffee, without which one simply cannot imagine a proper morning – had become the most coveted, yet, alas, utterly unattainable, like an evergreen oasis in the desert!

Why?

Because the town had been struck by a veritable emergency of catastrophic proportions!

The electricity had vanished without a trace!… And it had conveniently taken the gas, the water, and… oh, Heavens!… even the internet with it!

This catastrophe had befallen the townsfolk on a day sacred to every working person – a Friday. And right from the crack of dawn! To be even more precise, it had struck during the very night – precisely from Thursday into Friday.

At the time, no one could have guessed that the culprits were none other than the infamous “Whoo-hoo!” crew – consisting of Zhenya the excavator operator, Lyosha the tractor driver, and the dashing worker trio of Sasha, Dima, and Valera. And, of course, their ringleader, Mikhalych, a foreman with sky-blue eyes and a soul cheerful enough to liven up even a funeral home. Together, they formed a volatile mixture capable of unleashing chaos in the most peaceful corner of the universe.

It should be noted that they had pulled off this large-scale “stunt” not entirely of their own accord. Although, of course, it took a special kind of talent to make such a grand mess of things.

Now, recalling those most amusing events that stirred our – allow us to say without exaggeration – truly delightful little town, it’s impossible to suppress a good-natured smile.

And it all began quite ordinarily and innocently, giving no hint of the catastrophically funny things to come…

So, dear reader, a couple of days before this very incident, at one of the sites under the crew’s care, Zhenya the excavator operator, in the process of laying pipes, accidentally struck “manna from heaven” in the form of a defunct copper cable!

And that, friends, is where it all started. This is precisely why the Whoo-hoo Crew fell behind schedule and was forced to make up for lost time in crash mode, and at an ungodly hour at that. Which, in turn, led to those comical events that will be recounted shortly.

And really, who would have ever thought that in this sleepy, cozy town, as if it had stepped right out of a pastoral painting, where life flows at a leisurely pace and all the residents know each other not just by sight, but by the sound of their voice from behind a fence, such incredible stories could possibly occur? That right here, among the idyllic streets, drowning in greenery, where even the local cats merely raise a lazy eyebrow at the sight of a dog, and the postman knows everyone by name, something so unexpected and downright hilarious could unfold?

But let us lay it all out for you in order…

So, this defunct copper cable had apparently been lying there since the days when the word “internet” would only elicit bewilderment from a Soviet citizen. Then and there, after a brief consultation, Mikhanych’s brigade unanimously decided to pull out a bit of this very cable for their personal, so to speak, needs. Which Zhenya successfully did, procuring a couple of meters to the delight of the entire crew, which had immediately and noticeably perked up. Their working day concluded right then and there. Sasha and Lyosha promptly cashed in the found treasure at a non-ferrous metal collection point (fortunately, in Lyubavino, everything was close at hand).

The cable brought our crew a tidy sum, and, of course, the lads immediately threw a merry banquet and stocked up on the full spectrum of strong libations, not forgetting a modest but soul-warming snack – all in order to properly celebrate this generous gift from fate that had so timely fallen on their heads, literally from the heavens.

By the end of the shift, the site foreman found the entire “Whoo-hoo!” crew in a state of rare unanimity and exceptional mental elation. The men were munching on their latest rounds of fiery liquid with an appetite worthy of a king’s python. Witnessing this spectacle, the site supervisor unleashed a torrent of curses and, with a frustrated wave, disappeared beyond the horizon.

Meanwhile, it was getting late in the evening. The party was in full swing, and memories flowed like a river. The men were reminiscing about various incidents in their lives, delving into the most amusing details. Suddenly, Mikhalych became animated and slapped his knee, causing Sasha to shudder as if he had been electrocuted.

“Sasha, come on, confess,” Mikhalych’s voice rang out with intriguing notes, “you probably haven’t heard about our famous epic about Zhenya and the plumbers. Or has someone already blabbed about it?”

“No… I didn’t hear…” Sasha shook his head, feeling that something grand awaited him.

Sasha was a round-faced lad with a thick, straw-colored mop of hair sticking out in all directions, as if he’d just been pulled from an electrical socket. His most prominent feature was a snub, freckled nose. From his earliest days, he had been obsessed with motorcycles: he slept with “IZH” catalogues and dreamed of a “Yamaha.” Having recently joined this brigade, he didn’t know that the local stories were more than just bedtime tales; every story smelled of diesel fuel, alcohol, and adventure.

The men, immediately grasping what story was coming, exchanged glances and burst into joyful guffaws.

Zhenya – a swarthy, curly-haired fellow with enormous brown eyes that held the entire tragedy of his heroic past – merely let out a heavy sigh. Feigning a scowl, he cast a gaze around the laughing company, but the corners of his lips betrayed him with a treacherous quiver, revealing a hidden smile. For everyone else, it was a hilarious story. For Zhenya, it meant a month in a hospital bed and eternal ribbing from his comrades.

“And what are you all laughing at?! I spent a whole month laid up in the hospital after that!” he exclaimed with feigned indignation, the same roguish grin still on his face.

“But Zhenya, you’re a real HERO! No!” the excited foreman shouted even louder. “You are the most exemplary, responsible CI-TI-ZEN!!!” – and Mikhalych’s index finger hovered in the air above everyone’s heads, like a solid, physical exclamation mark.

Mikhalych, a wiry, hardy man in his fifties, had wide-open, childlike blue eyes, the corners of which were crinkled with laughter lines. He was barely containing the chuckle that bubbled up inside him. In good company, with a shot glass in his hand, Mikhalych was transformed – his energy was downright infectious.

“No, I mean it, good for you! You thought about the people around you, you worried about their safety…”

“So, what happened then?” Sasha couldn’t hold back, his whole demeanor radiating impatience to hear the story.

Mikhalych mysteriously raised his shot glass. Everyone clinked glasses together and heartily dug into the snacks. Only Zhenya, making a face, knocked it back in one gulp without even reaching for a bite.

And since Mikhalych was known among his friends as the most skilled storyteller, he was the one who began this entertaining tale:

“This happened last August. Our Zhenya here was backfilling the trench after connecting the heating main. It was a Friday evening, right before the weekend. Everyone had gone home, and there was nobody left at the site. Only our watchman, Ivanych, was around, and even then, the guy has been stone deaf in both ears for years. And you can hardly drag him out of his guard shack for anything. So anyway, Zhenya had been messing with something longer than everyone else and was the last one heading to get changed, when he suddenly sees – the manhole cover had been left open!”

“What manhole?” Sasha asked, interested.

“To the underground heating unit, you know, where all the pipes from the heat main are… valves, check valves, pressure gauges, and all that stuff… So, our valiant Zhenya is standing there, scratching his head and thinking: “Well, would you look at that! They left the manhole open! Two days off ahead, kids are running around here – who knows, someone might just fall in! Ought to cover it up…“” Mikhalych cartoonishly portrayed Zhenya scratching his head and, with the zeal of a seasoned storyteller, continued: “And since he couldn’t find the manhole cover anywhere nearby, he had a simply genius idea!” Here he jabbed his index finger against his forehead and declared with pathos: “Absolutely astounding, for an excavator operator!.. Our Zhenya starts up his excavator again, drives up to the manhole, and without a second thought, plops the enormous bucket right down on top of the opening!” Mikhalych accompanied this with a very eloquent gesture.

And then Zhenya, unable to contain himself, chimed in:

“Yeah… I’m walking away, all proud of myself. So, I think, now no one’s gonna take a tumble in there, can head home easy. Did a good deed…” He fell silent, heaved another deep, disappointed sigh, and then waved his hand dismissively into nowhere.

“So, here’s the thing,” said Mikhalych, nodding sympathetically at Zhenya, and continued in an ironic-mocking tone: “After having a good drink with us on Friday, going fishing with us again on Saturday,” – Mikhalych used a glass, filled to the brim, to gesture in a circle, indicating all the men sitting at the table – “and after celebrating some buddy’s birthday on Sunday, the poor fellow finally made it to work on Monday. The excavator, his pride and joy, is parked up, bucket on the ground. He fires up the engine and, of course, lifts the bucket!..” Mikhalych paused, hanging on an intriguing cliffhanger…

The men buzzed with eager interest, demanding the continuation.

“So, turns out, our valiant guardian of order locked up a whole crew of our plumbers there for the entire weekend!!!” What a coincidence, I ask you!..” Mikhalych, feigning wide-eyed astonishment, swept his gaze over the laughing faces of his friends and continued with drunken enthusiasm: “Can you imagine, just before leaving, these comrades, distinguished by their particular intellect and quick-wittedness, after their shift, decided it was a brilliant idea to polish off a bottle among the three of them! And they couldn’t find a single other place for it, the weirdos!..”

The men, chuckling, hung on every word uttered by their quick-tongued foreman. It wasn’t the first time they were listening to this comical yet simultaneously tragic story as told by Mikhalych, and and every time, it was an absolute masterpiece! And besides, Mikhalych was known as a humorous and eloquent fellow, with a good imagination and considerable storytelling talent. So even Zhenya, despite this being a tale of his own misadventures, was thoroughly enjoying being immersed once again in the captivating plot.

“So,” Mikhalych went on, “the heat was unbearable back then. They decided to sneak off somewhere for a quiet drink. They figured the coolest spot would be the utility vault, you know, where the heating pipes are! And why not? It was pretty comfortable in there… A little room, about two by two meters; you could get quite cozy. There was a place to lay out their snacks and booze, and room to sit down.

And so, as was to be expected, they went on a proper bender. They poured so much down their collars that they passed out cold, right there in the vault. And as fate would have it, it was precisely at that moment that our valiant Zhenya, wanting to protect the public, started up his excavator and placed the bucket squarely over the open manhole. He then headed home, proud of his good deed.

So the plumbers woke up in utter, tomb-like darkness, with no idea where they were or what had happened.’ He laughed, picturing the sheer absurdity of it all. ‘Just imagine – pitch black, concrete all around, cramped, terrifying! In their hungover haze, they’d completely forgotten where they’d chosen to sleep it off…

Well, one of them, Vasily Gavrilov – Vaska, you know him by now,” Mikhalych nodded at Sasha, “managed to strike a match to see what was going on. And that’s when, before the eyes of these hardened plumbers – men who’d seen a thing or two in their lives and were, let’s be frank, bricking it from fear – a reality no less harsh was revealed: they were trapped in a concrete box, sealed in by several tons of excavator bucket.”

Here, Mikhalych got slightly distracted, raising another shot. With a faux-profound look, he declared solemnly: “It’s not scary when your ass leads you to adventure… What’s scary is when adventure leads you to your ass! There!” As if to confirm the truth of his latest witticism, he raised his index finger affirmatively.

The men burst into unanimous guffaws, nodding their heads in agreement.

Mikhalych, snickering boyishly and unable to contain a fresh wave of laughter, went on:

“So let’s, fellas, hee-hee-hee… let’s drink to… to everything being in its proper place for each of us!.. And for adven… hee-hee… for for-tu…” – here he completely gave up, waved his hand dismissively, and burst into tears of laughter.

The entire work crew roared with laughter, following their foreman’s lead.

A little later, having had their fill of laughter, wiped away a tear, taken a drink and a bite to eat, Mikhalych, skillfully stoking everyone’s curiosity, continued:

“So, there they are, sitting in this tiny two-by-two meter cubicle, surrounded by concrete, and the only window to the outside world is blocked by something heavy and clearly immovable! The poor devils didn’t know then that they were stuck there, of all places, until Monday morning! They did have, fortunately for them, one bottle of water to share among themselves and half a loaf of sausage. Not to mention the fact that they had to improvise a latrine right there on the spot!!!”

Mikhalych’s face contorted into a perfect pantomime of tortured revulsion, his entire posture screaming the unbearable plight of plumbers trapped in a

latrine-less prison. Then, switching gears in a heartbeat, he brandished three splayed fingers under the noses of his listeners and carried on, his voice dripping with theatrical passion:

“Pushing three whole days! Can you conceive of it?! In a four-meter square!!! Just picture the scene!.. So there’s our three-man crew of plumbers, now completely and utterly feral… you have to imagine this spectacle! These are serious men, coarse, men of few words, with fists like blocks of granite… And then, when our ever-so-thoughtful Zhenya,” – Mikhalych jabbed mockingly – “hoisted his excavator bucket, they, naturally, were thirsting for blood. By that point, their rage was so absolute, they came spewing out of that hole like demons vomited forth from the infernal pits! And each face was a train wreck, uglier than Quasimodo’s worst day! And they’re armed, I tell you: one with an adjustable wrench, another with a beast of a thirty-two-millimeter… The moment Zhenya laid eyes on that whole apocalypse bearing down upon his very soul… he was blown out of the excavator’s cab at the speed of sound! And then, all hell broke loose!!!”

“And then Zhenya, with eyes as big as saucers, takes off running for all he’s worth, with no particular destination in mind. And hot on his heels, with curses that would make a sailor blush and the most blood-curdling death threats, come these three horsemen of the apocalypse, holy moly… in the form of these grimy, furious plumbers, clutching, and I mean clutching, these monstrous pipe wrenches in their gnarled, work-calloused hands!” – Mikhalych gestured vividly to convey the sheer, unimaginable size of the wrenches and the calloused hands – “Chasing after them comes the supervising foreman, white as a sheet from pure terror. Then our boys, seeing the commotion, joined in the fray, and I was right behind them… And so there we were, all running after one another in a giant circle, just running… We must have done a good five laps, for sure, when their Kostya upped and hurled that damn thirty-two-millimeter wrench, smack dab into our Zhenya’s head.”

“Well, it mowed down our intrepid soldier of the hidden fronts right in mid-stride! The vision, I tell you plainly, was not for the squeamish! The Battle of Kulikovo can take a holiday, right alongside the Battle on the Ice!* They swarmed over him, a single furious mob, and we swarmed over them… They wouldn’t back down an inch, pounding him with anything they could lay their hands on. And that Kostya, he was downright trying to gnaw his ear clean off…”

“Somehow, by some miracle, we managed to wrestle him back from the clutches of those zombie-plumbers. The final result? We carted our poor, unfortunate Zhenya off to the hospital with a shiner under his eye the size of a dinner plate, a broken rib, a cracked skull, and a thoroughly chewed-up ear.”

The whole boisterous, well-lubricated company was now bent double, howling with laughter, but Sasha’s infectious, pealing laugh rose above all others. Only Zhenya stood apart, barely suppressing a smile, gazing upon the rest with proud defiance as he gently rubbed his heroic, patched-up left ear – a veritable roadmap of stitches and glorious combat scars.

“Oh, he’s a great one for cooking up some weekend trouble, that one!” Mikhalych went on with gusto. “The stories about him are piled up to the rafters!..” – and to illustrate his point, he sketched something immense and immeasurable in the air with his hands.

“Take his first winter with us, for instance. He decided to save time on warming up his excavator in the mornings. So, you know what he dreamed up?!…” – Mikhalych turned to Sasha again, who responded with nothing but a puzzled shake of his head. “And the frosts we had that year – don’t even get me started!..” – He gave a sudden, full-body shudder, as if that bitter, icy cold had pierced him to the bone even now, and added with a dramatic sigh: “And it wasn’t just for a day or two…”

Here, Mikhalych paused and poured everyone another round. They clinked their glasses in unison, took their drinks, and followed them with a bite to eat.

“So, our bright spark was suffering then, warming up his machine for an hour, hour and a half every morning. He kept racking his brains, trying to figure out a scheme…”

He made a theatrical pause, allowing his listeners to fully absorb the anticipation.

“So, our local genius, our regular Kulibin, sees this – steam, hot steam, pouring out from a manhole cover… So-o-o, he just stands there, thinking, ‘What a brilliant solution! I’ll just park the belly of my excavator over that hot steam, and it’ll be absolutely perfect!’ Without a second thought, he drives right on over it, and then, his brilliant mind is already racing ahead, and he’s rejoicing: ‘What bliss! Come Monday, I’ll get to sleep in a whole hour longer!’”

Mikhalych rolled his eyes theatrically, imitating Zhenya’s blissful expression.

“And with a clear conscience and a sense of duty accomplished, he proudly carried his ‘bright little head’ home for the weekend, peace in his heart.”

The men, anticipating the punchline, exchanged merry glances and chuckled gleefully.

“So, we come in on Monday… The place is packed! The entire construction site is gathered! Over those two days, the excavator had turned into a literal iceberg! Can you even imagine?!.. A meter-thick layer of ice!!! A METER!!! There’s still a photo hanging in the site office to this day. It took us a whole week to thaw the thing out…”

The entire crew, groaning and snickering, their eyes wet with laughter, raised their glasses in unison to Zhenya – to his health and to his ever-so-“bright little head.”

Need I tell you, dear reader, that each of these men, in their work lives – which were meager on bonuses but rich in adventure – had their own share of absurd tales, and certainly more than one. But Zhenya stood out from the rest with a particular talent: thanks to his unconventional way of thinking, he consistently managed to get himself into situations that were… well, let us say, a touch more ludicrous than anyone else’s.

The next morning, so as not to cause any trouble for the site supervisor (and he was known to be a good sort), they put in a bit of work according to the schedule. After lunch, however, they returned to the previous day’s business, which had been left half-finished, and managed to pull out the entire cable, right to the end. Their haul was over fifty meters of a hefty, fat copper cable, for which they got a truly substantial sum. They gave the site supervisor a generous cut for his understanding of the situation and, naturally, stocked up on alcohol and snacks for another feast, to duly give thanks once more to the higher powers for their such benevolence towards them, mere mortals!

Once again, the air was filled with heated debates, discussions of burning issues, work stories, and army tall tales.

This time, Mikhalych, with great relish and fascinating detail, told the story of Lyosha the tractor driver, who, according to him, wasn’t just any tractor driver, but a genuine treasure hunter and a man blessed by Lady Luck.

“So, here’s how it went,” began Mikhalych, squinting and deliberately drawing out the pause to build suspense. “Lyosha was plowing a field for an acquaintance of his… An ordinary, everyday job, right? But that day, everything went, as they say, through a ve-ery well-known place…” Mikhalych gave a sly smirk, sweeping his assessing gaze over his audience. “Right at the edge of the field, his plow suddenly hit something – like it was a concrete slab. Lyosha, of course, started with a few choice curses, thinking he’d hit another damned boulder. But when he took a closer look, he was stunned: sticking out of the ground was a whole clump of fused copper plates, like the scaled skin of some giant serpent turned inside out. Turns out, it wasn’t just rusty junk, but the real deal – ancient coins, ‘scales’ they call them, from pre-Petrine times, I think! Well, can you imagine?! The uproar that caused – you wouldn’t believe it! Our local archaeologists were drooling – clearly, they’d been dreaming of such a find their whole lives, and then here’s our Lyosha, a tractor driver from the back of beyond, who goes and stumbles right into history! TV crews showed up with their cameras, newspapermen swarmed him like locusts, and our modest Lyosha was a local celebrity for a whole week. Right, Lyosha?” Mikhalych winked at the man of the hour, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “The find, of course, was promptly scooped up by the ‘right people,’ but the field’s owner still rewarded Lyosha – with cash. Not a gold ingot, mind you, but it was enough for a couple of crates of Zhiguli beer…”

Mikhalych proposed another toast, and the men, listening in rapt attention, could only shake their heads in wonder, glancing at Lyosha with a mixture of admiration and mild envy.

It must be noted, our dear reader, that Lyosha was, in general, a man upon whom life had smiled with particular favor. If he got into a car accident, he would emerge without a single scratch, although the car itself would be damaged beyond repair. He would frequently find money lying right on the road – and in bills, no less, and not small ones. He would regularly stumble upon forgotten troves of scrap metal – abundant remnants of metal structures left in the fields and rivers of Russia – which he would then sell for a handsome sum and use the proceeds to spoil his wife.

In short, Lyosha was lucky: one day he’d find a treasure, the next he’d win the lottery. The men, listening to Mikhalych, just kept shaking their heads: “Well, some people have all the luck!” – and with a certain degree of awe, they kept glancing in the direction of Lyosha, that born lucky charm.

“Yeees…” Mikhalych drew out the word philosophically, bringing the point home, “it seems if our Lyosha were sent to the Sahara, he’d manage to find a diamond vein there, and stumble upon an oil field for good measure!”