KHOKHOL

I was born in the Soviet Union. For us, Ukraine was always an integral part of our common culture and history. Russians and Ukrainians, we are of the same blood and soul. Whatever politicians say, they can go to Hell. In my heart we are brothers. Now, a brainwashed generation on both sides is being fed the usual concoction of propaganda and doctored history. This conflict is a golden goose for some and there are too many vultures feeding on blood and hate. Brothers are killing each other. When they capture prisoners, they don’t need interpreters because they speak the same language. They eat same food, sing same songs, read same books and listen to the same music. Weapons are different though, Russian AK’s on one side and American M16th on the other. It’s just not right.

But let’s go back in time. I would like to tell you about the Ukrainian friend of mine. The year is 1984. USSR. Army. Our unit is called ‘Evakovzvod’ (an evacuation platoon).

We are a very small part of the tank battalion. Our tanks are T54, T55 and T62. They are heavy, clumsy, noisy things, they stink, they break a lot, they are cold, and they have been designed by someone who was a midget. I don’t know much about modern tanks, but our tanks were a tight squeeze. For drivers, that is. Most of our drivers were from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan (former Soviet republics) etc, as they generally are slightly smaller, and can fit in the hatch without much drama. Those poor souls came from the land where temperature can get as high as forty degrees Celsius, and most of them have never witnessed snow or frost. Our winter could easily get to minus thirty or forty Celsius, which was ok for us, but definitely not ok for ‘Sredneasiatov’(boys from mid-Asian republics). To make things worse, our drivers were not allowed to wear ‘Valenki’ (felt boots), so frostbite among those kids was as common as flu.

We usually didn’t bother ourselves with proper names, so we gave each other nicknames based on our ethnicity. My best friend Rashid was born in Tatarstan, so naturally, we called him ‘Tatarin’. My name was ‘Tzigan’(Gypsy). Others were called accordingly – ‘Katzap’(Russian),‘Tcheburek’ (Uzbek), etc. Each one of those nicknames would be considered an insult in the outside world called ‘Grazsdanka’ (civilisation) – a mythical land where people live freely, eat food (what we ate was not food), and sleep on real beds for at least 5-6 hours a day on something which is called sheets. We slept 1-3 hours a day (if we were lucky), on something which only our officers would call ‘sheets’. They were not.
My friend ‘Khokhol’ (Ukrainian) was big. I mean he was BIG. At least his top half was. His lower half was quite uneventful. He had a barrel chest, each one of his arms was as thick as my thigh and his fists were the size of my head. His own head was small, round and looked very thoughtful, which could be very misleading at times. He did two things with his head. He ate with it and he smoked with it. Occasionally he spoke with it, but that’s an overstatement.
He didn’t buy cigarettes on principle. He always knew who had a cigarette stub stashed in the ‘Pilotka’(a military headgear, commonly known as ‘vagina’). He also was an irreplaceable member of our platoon because of his unique quality. He didn’t have any pain receptors. Or rather it looked like he didn’t, it’s just the gap from the moment of actual contact to the moment of registering pain was massive. So, in those frequent moments of the natural selection process, it was always a good idea to have Khokhol at the front – he’d go through the offending side like a snow plough without registering any received blows, thus giving us some tactical advantage. Sharing my last cigarette with Khokhol was the least I could do after those incidents. I can honestly say that he saved my hide more times than I care to remember. True brotherhood it was. We shared everything, morsels of food, cigarette stubs, we helped each other on marches or exercises, we covered up for each other…..
Now, according to politicians on both sides, we are enemies. It’s too much for me to comprehend. I sincerely hope that people responsible for this will burn in Hell for eternity.
Khokhol and I were sitting and smoking on a window cill in the ‘Sortir’(a moderately offensive name for a bathroom). The evening was a success. Our battalion was somewhere on field exercises, we were on guard duty, barracks were empty, there were no officers, we had a full pack of smokes, we were warm, we didn’t have to run anywhere or shoot at anyone, which is always a good thing. We were enjoying a view of a night landscape. Everything was covered with snow. Skies were clear and bright moonlight was reflected in billions of snowflakes. We felt united with the outside world, we were immersed in poetry of delicate balance of light and darkness… We were discussing humanity, which unfortunately was sucked in the flurry of mundane and earthy tasks, thus missing the depth and beauty of the world.
As long as Khokhol had access to my cigarettes, he seemed to agree with everything I said, and we’ve allowed ourselves to be lost in the complicity of the universe. It was wonderful.
Out of nowhere came a loud ‘crack’. (A sound of a belt buckle landing on someone’s head).
There’s a huge advantage of not having any of the pain receptors. Khokhol didn’t even flinch. He turned around. He saw a bunch of ‘dedov’(soldiers who’ve spent more than 1.5 years in the army), noticed one of them still swinging a belt, made a logical connection and decided that something was not right. Khokhol didn’t like when something was not right. Our ‘Ded’ decided to make another attempt at cracking Khokhols head and made a mistake of getting too close to the target. I told you K had thick arms. His arms also were very long. He was able to scratch his knee without bending. So he reached out, grabbed Ded’s head and started to shake him like a puppy would shake a doll. Ded’s entourage gradually lost their enthusiasm and started to move away. I remember I had enough time to lit a new cigarette before Khokhol decided that our Ded had enough motivation to leave us alone. He let him drop on the floor and turned back to finish our conversation. Good timing this was as well, as Ded has turned slightly greenish by that time. His crew dragged our opponent away, promising to be back with vengeance.
We continued our conversation uninterrupted.
I still had 5 or 6 smokes left..