will cite for readers an excerpt from my first book, “The Casket of Colourful Contemporaries.”
"The table of the presidium"
In MOSCOW, I used to rent a room at the Orlyonok Hotel – a favorite, democratic, always hospitable and accessible. In the winter of eighty-three I and Volodya Avetisov stayed in Orlyonok for three days. On the eve of departure, we went to the center of Moscow, booked a table in the elite and closed to the non-artistic people restaurant of the WTO. Everything pleased there – excellent cuisine and excellent service, tremendous attention to the person and the opportunity to witness the capital celebrities – the people of the theater and cinema – meeting whom everybody dreamt in youth. I repeat, I do not belong to the artistic circle; in theatrical language I was introduced in this circle by Valery Shein, a great friend of Boris Rosenfeld, the manager of concert programs in Moscow. The restaurant began to live life to the fullest at midnight – from the hour when the theaters finished spectacles, and the artists went to have dinner, chat with each other, relax over a glass of brandy or vodka, move away from unrest, after the performance. During the day few people looked here. I really liked not to surprise Volodya Avetisov, but to show him that my frequent trips to the capital had paid of: I met interesting people, plunged into the world of art, gained connections, without which even the restaurant like the WTO was not possible.
Having wandered around the city, at half past seven in the evening, we went to Pushkin Square to that very restaurant. Boris Nikolaevich, the waiter with whom we agreed in advance, met us. He took us to the table I ordered, and I was surprised to read the sign, “The chairman's table.” Such a sign made it possible not to disturb us, because by half past ten the hall was full, there were not enough seats. And the sign was a kind of security certificate, that’s the way Boris Nikolaevich tried. “The chairman's table” was stunningly served. I think that the restaurant business designers were worth it for a reason: everything was decorated with taste, elegantly, richly. A lot of snacks, alcohol, although Boris Nikolaevich knew that I did not have an addiction to drinking. But he could not know my friend’s taste, and, naturally, as the serving protocol required, put a bottle of Armenian brandy. The situation itself was disposed to drink off, and we took two or three shots.
Looking around, we noticed that there were no vacant seats in the hall, except for our two. And then Boris Nikolaevich asked us if we would be so kind as to let two ladies sit down at our table. We didn’t object to ladies, but, frankly, we were not disposed to start new acquaintances. He explained the situation, “Our regular customers, both actresses.”
I will be frank, both ladies were nice, beautiful and, as it turned out later, really worked in the theater – either in the Theater for Young People, or in the theater at the House of Culture of the Likhachev Automobile Plant. I can not be accurate today, for many years have passed. When young women appeared, we proposed not to order snacks as we had enough of them and everything is untouched – appetizing, beautifully decorated greenery, decorated various cooking fixings in the form of twisted in a spiral rings of carrots, onions. Outlets of vegetables, cold beef melting in the mouth, ham, olivesd – just an exhibition of the achievements of the national economy, no less no more! But alcohol was asked to add.
And it all started! Volodya, who always controled himself, did not drink, and I, with my passion to making toasts, took control of the table. Our neighbors liked toasts, and it added enthusiasm. Things were gaining momentum and were worthy of attention by Eldar Ryazanov for his next masterpiece, when the master brings comedy to such an extent that tragedy could happen after it…
Somewhere by midnight I’ve had my doze and even exceeded it. When we were about to leave, I began to insist that our companions should be taken home. Volodya tried to stop me, persuade me, reminding that we had a plane early in the morning, that there was no time to sleep. But it was impossible to stop me. And Volodya, of course, could not leave his friend to the mercy of fate, to leave alone in Moscow at night with the drunk ladies, knowing my ability to throw money with or without reason.
We traveled by taxi for a long time, not knowing how far our lovely ladies had gotten. I was dozing, then came to my senses, and for this reason I did not remember the route. Volodya saw the road clearly, but he knew Moscow badly. The only thing that crashed into the memory was the monument to Kurchatov. I remember getting out of the car, how the ladies invited us to have a cup of coffee for vigour. And we went! What for? But having previously arranged with the taxi driver that he would wait for us for about fifteen minutes. Volodya was very unhappy with the night journey. Two o'clock at night, and we were far from the center drinking coffee on the outskirts… There was the reason to become indignant. Fifteen minutes or even more passed, finally, we said goodbye, to our luck found the taxi on the spot, got in and came back to the hotel.
At last! The concert was over, you could relax and even take a little nap… The clock hands showed three in the morning. The driver was in a hurry to the taxi park, as he had to be back and then like a bolt from the blue.
“Where is the jacket?” I howled like a wolf. “Volodya, tell me, where could I leave the jacket?”
Horror is drawn on his face too. In the leather jacket I took off in the hallway, there was everything: plane tickets, money, passports, other documents…
I sobered up instantly and remembered how we arrived, how I took off the jacket and stayed in a woolen pullover, and how I was leaving the ladies cosy home in the far outskirts, how threw on a sheepskin coat, forgetting about the jacket. Here it is, the very edge beyond which lies the tragedy! What to do? We did not know the names of random friends, their addresses, or phone numbers and was it at all? The only thing that I remember was a monument to Kurchatov! “Thank you, Igor Vasilyevich, thank you for that mark! Of course, you are a great scientist, physicist, we give you glory! But now it is you, Igor Vasilyevich, who must help, save me from being ruined!” In such a half-crazy delusion we ran out into the street. Fortunately, the hotel has taxi cars on duty.
“Where are we going?” one of the drivers cheered up.
“If you can find a monument to Kurchatov, we are going with you!”
The driver’s eyes popped out of his head. Just after three o'clock in the morning, two mad people rushed into the car and are crazily interested in the sights of the capital. How to react to it? Most likely, seeing us, he understood that it was a serious matter and got involved in the work. The monument was found. So what is next? We drove two or three blocks, but all in vain. There was not a single light in all the windows. At last we found the house. Seeing obscene inscriptions in the elevator we realized that we were on the right track. We rang the bell. The door of the apartment opened. Yes, it was them, our saviours! And the jacket was in the hallway, alive and good! We checked, valuables were in place – passports, money, tickets… All-in-all, the show was over! The public could go home. The women spoke in vying, “Your forgotten in a hurry jacket was immediately noticed, but it was late – you have already left the house. It became clear from the hotel business card where to look for, so we decided to inform the administrator in the morning.”
I don’t know if they would call the hotel or not, but I think that’s what would have happened. It’s good that the actresses turned out to be decent women, they didn’t touch either the money or the documents, otherwise we couldn’t get out of the trap we had made for ourselves. I instructed myself, children and grandchildren: taking alcohol, be circumspect and vigilant. Of course, first of all, I take it on my account, weigh this commandment up on myself, putting it in my own moral tablets.
“Yes, I agree, an interesting adventure. Good thing that it ended well for you.”
From molecular level to atomic!
Here is, for example, another case: when another star academician, Nikolay Antonovich Dollezhal, came to the Laboratory No. 2 (later it became Kurchatov
