Next to the Associate Professor, on the first floor in a one-room apartment, lived the great-grandmother Rosa - the old woman who survived from her mind 92 years old with the explicit complex of Plyushkin. Obsessed with the idea of providing a dowry to her expensive great-granddaughter Rosa, the old Kazakh woman devastated local garbage dumps, dragging their "precious" contents into her apartment, which she turned into a real "Ali Baba cave". At the same time, the old woman, making with enviable constancy her shuttle tours to local garbage dumps, was so hilarious that I could not resist the temptation to joke on her. From afar, seeing her, I stood on the edge of the balcony and, folding my hands like a speaker, screamed from the fifth floor: "Allah, Allah akbar!" (Grandma, Allah is Great!) Grandma froze, laughingly put her hands to the sky and sang the creaky old woman In a voice like a mullah on a minaret: "Allah akbar!" I shouted again: "Allah Akbar!", The old woman immediately echoed me and so continued indefinitely. In the end, the grandmother forgot about the purpose of her voyage, and I could no longer restrain myself from the Homeric laughter on the balcony, holding my stomach and sinking from the stifling laughter to my heels. When the grandmother, finally, to the relief of the neighbors gave God a soul, the local ZHKO (house,s department) needed eight trucks to bring all of its "treasure" to the city dump. It remains only to guess where the old lady managed to live, eat and sleep! And one more character of our story should say a few words: it's Sasha Tkachenko, nicknamed Bandera. The reader may have a natural question: was there a nickname in the childhood of the author of these lines? Responsibly I declare: yes, the Count was "chasing" (apparently, by analogy with Count Vorontsov), which completely superseded the "Crow" bored with me since my childhood. I was very proud of this nickname and tried to behave in the courtyard as befits a true bearer of a count's title. Bandera was a native of Western Ukraine (from here he "drove") and lived with his mother on the second floor next to the already known to us Rose. Sasha's character was bad - vindictive, aggressive and mercenary. It was this self-interest led by Bandera in 1982 to the disciplinary battalion - during his service in Afghanistan he managed to sell grenades to Afghan mujahedin. In his free time Tkachenko taught languages: Kazakh and Ukrainian, apparently, seriously intending to become a "polyglot". "Do you know how the" Nightingale the Robber "will be in Kazakh?" He would say to me. "No!" "Babu is a basmach! And do you know how the Little Red Riding Hood will look like in Ukrainian? Chervona the Capun! A sexy maniac? Sinister pisukaty! "- and Bandera burst into joyful screeching laughter, exposing brownish nicotine large horse teeth. To play with Bandera in our courtyard games - mostly "leapfrog" and "goat" - was always a very risky occupation. Sasha Tkachenko was unpredictable and extremely touchy, and the offense sometimes arose on a flat spot, but immediately followed by a merciless revenge Bandera. In my memory, during the game in the "goat" Pulik inadvertently touched Tkachenko, slightly dirty boots his trousers. Bandera's answer did not take long - when Pulik, in order of priority, became a "goat" in a well-known position, Tkachenko dispersed and foolishly shoved Polyakov's knee in the ass, that is, as they say, "ruined the goat". Pulik only managed to gasp, went into a "shaving" flight, piercing the face with asphalt. At the same time, he broke his nose and lips so severely that we did not see him more in this game. I was surprised to see how the blissful smile of the sadist froze on Bandera's face at that time.
The game of "leapfrog" in our yard has always been an extreme activity, but it became an "extreme" on the verge of a "foul" when Vova Sadovsky - 120 kg weight, 2 m tall, the candidate for master of sports in heavy Athletics. Lord, how lucky it was for those who had Vova in the team, and how great was the luck of the one against whom the team of Sadovsky played. Not only that to sustain the "live" weight Vovik almost no one could, but grief was especially for those who fell under the cannon ball Sadovsky. According to the rules of the game, the losing team was in the gate, and Vova began to methodically break through the "fat", i.e. shoot unfortunate victims with a soccer ball. In case of a successful hit on the victim's body, a crimson trace was formed, as if from a burn with boiling water, and then a huge hematoma. I remember how Misha Petrov, accustomed, in general, to the pain and injuries of a hockey player, after another such ball hit Vova Sadovsky in the waist area fell to the ground and sobbed! It was then that an event of esoteric nature took place, which especially crashed into my childhood memory and I want to tell about it. Once, on an April evening, we divided into two teams, as usual, began to play "leapfrog." Everything went fine until the moment when Vova Sadovsky appeared at the school yard and asked to play. Cast lots, and Sadovsky, to our great dismay, was in the team of the enemy. We fell out to be a "horse". The tactic of "leapfrog" is very simple and well known - one must find and jump into the weakest link of the "horse". It is clear that I was such
