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Rockets and People
The area surrounding Moscow was amazingly pure ecologically. One could
judge this simply by the fact that our table was never without fish caught in the
Moscow River or the factory pond, which was formed by a dam on the Khodynka
River. During those hungry years of rationing cards, this was a great help.
The Khoroshevskoye Highway, which connected Krasnaya Presnya with
Khoroshevskiy Serebryanyy Bor, passed a kilometer from the factory.This highway
was paved with cobblestones and therefore considered to be an all-weather thoroughfare.
At the age of seven, some friends of the same age and I ran off to the
highway to watch the few cars that drove by.We secretly hoped we would see them
blow up the powder depots located across the highway next to the Khodynskaya
radio station towers. I got into a lot of trouble for such absences, since the
Khoroshevskiy arsenals instilled fear in everyone living in the vicinity.There was
talk that enemy counterrevolutionaries would sooner or later blow them up and
then our factory and every living thing in it would be obliterated.
The interesting thing was that the arsenals really did blow up. It was the
summer of 1920 and I had asked for permission once again to “go see how the
radio station operates.” Along the way, I saw smoke and flame of an extraordinary
height dancing over the powder depots. People were running toward me
shouting: “The depots are burning!” I was a pretty good runner and I took to
my heels as fast as my eight-year-old legs could carry me toward the village of
Shelepikha. Behind me it was already rumbling and thundering. The people
running beside me were yelling that we needed to take cover behind the water
tower—there was a very sturdy embankment there. When I reached the riverbank,
I ran at full speed to the stone water tower building looming up ahead.
Suddenly flames leapt up in front of me, and a hot wind full of sand and clumps
of earth hit me in the face.
It seemed as if I had fallen into some sort of pit. Someone’s strong arm pulled
me out and did not let go of me. Now I tried to break into a run, drawn in by
that arm. Only when I heard the cry,“Don’t try to break loose, I’m still not going
to let go of you!” did I recognize Vera, the young worker from the dye shop who
often came to see my mother. In the rushing stream of people we reached the railroad
bridge by Fili. The guard let everyone across, and finding ourselves on the
other Fili bank, we were able to catch our breath. Back where I had run from, a
mushroom-shaped column shot high into the air. Out of the cloud, hot clumps of
some unknown material were flying in various directions. I remember being given
water to drink and eating from the mess-tins of our Red Army soldiers.That night
we slept in their tents.
The next day we were allowed to return. Under Vera’s protection, I arrived
home. My mother had been convinced that I had died or lay wounded near the
depots. She had rushed to the fire, and according to eyewitness accounts,
remained alive only because Red Army soldiers stopped her and held her in a
shelter until the most dangerous phase of the explosions was over. Then they
helped her in fruitless searches, and finally despairing, they drove her home.
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