On many roads that connected almost 2 000 objects scattered all over the launch site, there was round-the- clock movement of cars and buses of all types and sizes, construction and military equipment… A car going past you made you feel that you are not alone, but when it drove away, loneliness surrounded you from all sides again.
The atmosphere of the launch site was absolutely unique and incommunicable. It can probably happen only on our numerous earthly cosmodromes. Each rocket and its multiple parts, components, devices, systems, materials were the results of work of hundreds of design offices and scientific and research institutes, thousands of enterprises and hundreds of thousands of people scattered all over the huge country.
And all that was delivered, brought and concentrated on the launch site. The launch site gave a final touch to all that, checked and tried it many times in accordance with numerous technologies and rules, until the final and probably the most important stage came – rocket launch, for which the Launch site was created.
But the launch site – it’s not only hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, steel, integration buildings, launch grounds and a long list of parts that make it up: these are just instruments. The main thing is people working there, so the launch site is really alive…
Considering the schedule of launches which was the most intense on Earth, the working environment in the many-thousand team of the launch site was quite tense… It probably reflected on the northern nature surrounding it, and it produced the atmosphere which was nothing like any other cosmodrome on Earth.
While they are flying, the launch site could have launched a good hundred of rockets with satellites and research craft to the Moon, Venus or Mars. Some rockets are still in the integration house, some are already on launch grounds, some are being delivered, and some are being assembled on plants. But sooner or later they will meet in the place from which they started – on the launch site.
The word “cosmodrome” was not very widely used then, rocket engineers had their own terms and designations, and other military units had theirs. But most of them called it all simply a launch site.
Probably some part of him, Andrey, as well as the whole crew, remained there, and they took some part of the atmosphere with them…
It was a place where you could meet representatives of practically any kind and service arms available in the USSR Armed Forces. It was probably just sailors and paratroopers that Andrey did not meet there… but probably they were there but just he did not encounter them? And access was given not everywhere on the launch site, but only to those related to direct duties.
And very often, based on the specific character of a regular program or project, officers wore shoulder straps and collar patches of the service arms they were not connected with in any way. Only a few people knew what exactly they were doing at the launch site, and curiosity was not welcomed there.
It was Andrey’s colleagues, KGB officers, who “loved” and probably just had to change their uniforms. These were the representatives of the Special Department of the launch site. There were a lot of units, so the staff was just as diverse in quantity: there were small units of communications men that contained several dozens of people and separate battalions, regiments and brigades which contained thousands of soldiers and officers.
Practically nobody wore the uniform of a KGB officer: if you are posted to rocket engineers, wear the same uniform, any uniform except for the real one.
Somehow Andrey liked visiting the airfield most of all. It was located a little aside from most other military units of the launch site and lived its own independent life, and a part of it was surely subjected to the launch site as a whole.
The checkpoint was located just near the wing, the staff office of the barracks, the club and the dining hall were lost among birch trees… There were surely a lot of evergreens in the taiga, a lot of mixed vegetation, and birch thickets were not that frequent. Maybe that was the reason why the wing seemed so homely and comfortable and people were attracted here?
The pilots were not the most secret part of the launch site, that’s why there was no fence around the unit. The pilots themselves lived in the cosmodrome’s main camp. The wing and its barracks accommodated soldiers from two assigned separate support battalions, as well as the soldiers included directly in the separate wing.
There was quite a comfortable club with a large audience hall and quite a big screen where movies were shown at weekends. In the other part of the club there was a good gym where soldiers from the regiment and battalions sometimes played volleyball.
The acquaintance with the life of taiga pilots happened all of a sudden. There was still some time before another board was to be met, so Andrey left the ordinary military offroader near the checkpoint and went out to walk among the birches. The road bifurcated to barracks and staff office of the regiment. On a small drill field there was a row of a dozen soldiers or officers – a usual work formation or instructions before the shift.
The soldiers of the air regiment were dressed probably best of all at the launch site. One could rarely see them in ordinary uniforms. In summer they wore summer technical clothes: a dark blue cap, a light and comfortable jacket with pockets and slacks of the same color, and the main thing – they wore light and comfortable low shoes on elastic and comfortable soles, almost like trainers, instead of tarpaulin boots with foot wraps as indispensable attributes.
In autumn they had to put on boots, cold-proof bib overalls, a demi-season jacket with a cold-proof hood that could be worn in a pocket on the back. All these clothes were almost black.
In winter, when the temperature often fell to minus 30–4 °C°, they wore felt boots and thick, warm and long overalls that reached the neck. As for outdoor clothing, they wore a very thick jacket of very warm material with a tied lining of good well-dressed sheepskin. There was also a huge collar of beaver lamb which rose above the head with a hat on it, which could be fastened if necessary.
Above all that you could also put on a thick and warm hood with dog fur, and when it was especially cold, there was a knitted helmet with holes for the eyes. Moreover, all that was put on over two sets of underwear – cold (summer) and warm (winter), and then there were semi-woolen peg-top trousers with a service coat, and then the rest.
This is not like knight’s armor, but quite heavy; however, you will not be afraid of cold or wind. There were also thick and warm mittens of the same natural sheepskin with leather inserts on the palm; they were long and had lapels of different kinds – white, blue, even orange. Soldiers liked to put them in the pockets of the jacket or overalls, so that these bright lapels could be seen against the background of the rest – the jet blue uniform.
All changes of seasons and uniforms of the soldiers from the air regiment assigned to the launch site stuck in the memory by themselves.
It was summer, and soldiers were wearing the lightest summer technical uniform. A little aside, a senior lieutenant was walking; he seemed to be here by change and to bear no relation to what was going on. In his hands he was turning a long chain with keys and in the form of a pendant, with about five cartridges to the modernized Kalashnikov gun, but all of these were shining as if chrome-plated.
Andrey felt that it was his colleague by the department, came up and shook his hand. Pilots had somewhat strange pendants… The colleague laughed and said that these were the amusements of local demo bees: they found cartridges somewhere and polished them with sand paper in their free time. The trick was that the cartridges in arms rooms were strictly accounted, and it was hard to imagine where they took these.
They started talking, Igor turned out to be a landsman, and they got on more familiar terms.
Pilots and technicians finish their working shift soon, and they are going to play volleyball. Shall we join them? – Igor suggested.
Let’s try, said Andrey. And where’s the ground? – It’s near the airfield, we can cut through the forest. Soldiers trod paths to every quarters, Igor answered.
There were at least ten paths from the asphalted part of the air regiment’s camp to all cardinal points. There was taiga everywhere, and you could get lost in ten meters from separate buildings of the camp. However, one could see the high control tower of the airfield.
Igor selected the path leading to the left, and soon they crossed an asphalt road that ran almost parallel the airfield: one could see massive АN-12 cargo aircraft from it.
The path divided into three again, but one could already see the ground with a row of houses on wheels (shelters), a hangar with almost unneeded, cumbersome plane parts that were probably written off, and a smoke room in the form of a large covered octagonal pergola. The volleyball ground was located not far from it.
Everything was painted green, just the white volleyball net stood out. A technician sometimes went out of the shelters that merged with the forest, and it could seem from afar that some wood spirits appear from nowhere…
