the life of a fighter pilot were tempered by reality. You simply did not hop into the cockpit of a jet fighter and roar off into the sky to do battle like a Hussar on his horse. Modern combat aviation was more a science than adventure.
Now my working days revolved around the mundane but essential problems of mission planning: fuel consumption, optimum climb angles, tactical navigation, multichannel radio communications, radar sights, and formation maneuvers. We also were given the additional complication of learning to evade surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and antiaircraft artillery (AAA), just to make life more interesting. It was engrossing work, but it was not the mindless excitement I had once envisioned.
Then one morning I woke up in my comfortable two-man room in the upperclassmen’s dormitory and realized I was about to graduate and be commissioned as a pilot lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force. I had passed all my final written and flight exams. The only unfinished business was our graduation party, the actual graduation ceremony, and, of course, the matter of my assignment.
Our experimental program had proved successful, and I was rated near the top of the group. But I still dreaded the possibility of being kept back here as a MiG-23 instructor. In early October the academy was visited by unofficial “agents,” officers from advanced schools and combat regiments, recruiting promising graduates. I had already stated my preference for a Frontal Aviation regiment, and tried to make a favorable impression on the officers from combat units who came to observe our final flight exams.
One of the visiting officers who interviewed me was a major from the PVO’s advanced instructors’ school at Savaslayka. He had a list with the six most promising cadets in the MiG-23 program. Although I was still averse to the idea of becoming an instructor, he did pique my interest when he mentioned the instructors there would be trained for advanced “fourth generation” aircraft, such as the MiG-31 and the Su-27, that were just completing flight testing in prototype.
“Zuyev,” he said, “we can certainly use a man like you. Think it over.”
I promised the major I would and he left the interview room reminding me that the sign-up deadline for his program was the next afternoon.
That night we had our graduation party. I didn’t go to bed until dawn, and I didn’t wake up until midafternoon, my mouth dry and my head pounding. Still fuzzy, I rolled out of bed, now convinced that the opportunity of flying truly advanced fighters at Savaslayka was too good to miss. Wandering down the corridor in my hangover daze, I discovered that all six openings for the major’s program had already been filled. The guys said that everyone with family connections had pulled out the stops to get on that list. If I hadn’t enjoyed the party so much, I might have made the deadline.
The suspense about my assignment was finally broken when one of Sergei Mashenko’s girlfriends, a typist in the commandant’s office, revealed I was on the list of six cadets destined for Frontal Aviation regiments in the Transcaucasus Military District. That was good news. There were three MiG-23 regiments in Georgia, the 176th at Mikha Tskhakaya, the 512th at Vaziani, and the 614th near Meria. Rumor had it that these regiments were training hard, preparing to send squadrons to Afghanistan. That was the kind of action I wanted.
Besides, I had visited Georgia on my summer leave with my friend Gary and knew what a pleasant place it was. The small republic was wedged between the high wall of the Great Caucasus and Turkey, bounded on the west by the Black Sea and the east by the mountains of Armenia and Azerbaijan. It had a mild, subtropical climate and lush vineyards and citrus groves. Georgian families were renowned for their hospitality and Georgian women for their dark-eyed beauty.
When my friends asked if I was pleased to be heading for Georgia, I quoted that old Air Force saw, “It’s better to eat white bread by the Black Sea than black bread by the White Sea.”
But the guys who were headed to isolated bases on the Arctic shores of the White Sea reminded me of the heat and food poisoning that had plagued us in the South. Deep Freeze Morozov shut them up.
“Look,” he said, “it’s better to wash the sweat off your balls than to have to defrost them.”
At the graduation parade, I watched as Lapwing Siskin and Deep Freeze were presented with the coveted Red Diploma, signifying academic excellence. And their noses were definitely not blue. But I was more than satisfied with the citation on my own diploma, which noted my flying skills and dedication to duty.
“Staunch in aerial combat, prepared to give his life for the Motherland and the ideas of Marxism- Leninism.”
CHAPTER 5
Combat Training
1983-84
I spent my graduation leave at home in Samara, working on my grandmother’s tiny apartment in the old wooden house in Bezimaynka. I had received a 540-ruble bonus after four years at the academy, and it gave me great pleasure to spend most of it on paint, plaster, and electrical fittings for Grandma’s little room.
Life was certainly becoming difficult for elderly pensioners, especially those who lived alone. As a boy in Samara there had always been plenty of food on the shelves of the grocery stores and clothes on the racks of the State department store. But around the time I graduated from school, shortages of meat and cheese became more frequent. And I had been so busy with my flight training over the previous two years that I had hardly noticed the general deterioration in living conditions. Now people actually had to wait in line for staples like milk and flour. And I saw many more drawn, angry faces on the crowded sidewalks.
When I had visited home from the academy, I had always brought flowers and a small gift of cheese for my mother. Now I saw that the precious cheese, which was still available in Armavir, was even more appreciated than the flowers.
My mother and stepfather had been able to exchange their two small apartments for a comfortable larger flat in Microrayon 4. But even the food stores of “Micro-Israel” were no longer well stocked. My family, however, was able to build a tiny “dacha” on a parcel of land outside the city, which they could garden in the summer. They rented 450 square meters from the oblast, where they planted tomatoes, potatoes, and a variety of berries. They even planted a line of apple and cherry trees. This was still a hobby for them, but one that promised to see them through any real food shortages.
And now people were beginning to complain about the chronic, unexplained shortages. Their complaints, however, went unanswered, unless an important delegation of Party officials visited the city. Then, miraculously, the shops were always stocked with meat and dairy products people hadn’t seen for months.
I reported to the 176th Frontal Aviation Fighter Regiment at Mikha Tskhakaya in December 1982. The base, known by its call sign “Ruslan,” was just south of this western Georgian city. The Republic of Georgia was ringed by high, rugged mountains, with a hilly plateau in the east and the marshy Kolkhida lowlands running to the Black Sea in the west. Our base stood on this rich alluvial plain, not far from the Rioni River. The region was a citrus-growing area that had been reclaimed from stagnant marshland since the Soviet Union had annexed the republic in the 1920s. The city of Mikha Tskhakaya was the ancient Senaki, which like so many Soviet cities had been renamed for a local hero of the Revolution.
The area was historical. Known as Colchis to the ancient Greeks, the hero Jason and his Argonauts had struggled hard to journey there in search of the Golden Fleece. And judging from the bustling open-air markets beneath the towering eucalyptus trees and palms, there were still plenty of riches to be found. I had never seen such diverse and beautiful produce. The vendors’ stalls were piled high with gleaming peppers, pyramids of huge oranges, and bunches of the season’s last fat purple grapes. There were stacks of yellow squashes, mounds of big white onions, beets, carrots, and yams. Freshly butchered lambs and goats hung on hooks in the butcher stalls, and old peasant women in bright head scarves sold both plucked and live chickens. There was an exotic southern spice to the air. Beyond the snowy wall of the Caucasus to the north, there was winter. Here the December sunshine was bright, and the air smelled of jasmine.
Riding the bus out to the base, I saw farm carts and trucks carrying even more produce to the city. Obviously the prosperity in Georgia was due to more than just the favorable climate of this protected, subtropical valley. The Georgians had a reputation for being energetic and enterprising. For every hectare of collective farm
