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Tag: chekist

  • 06 – Russia

    RUSSIA, 1951

    Photo – 12-year-old Mironov in Budyonovka. The future General Mironov. The future “General Mironov” already with that proud look, as if he knew that Budyonovka would seal his fate. Almost like a KGB passport photo in slow motion, only twelve years too early and it’s easy to imagine how this boy would later be
    described in the memories of others as “always destined for greatness.”

    …I wanted to become a Chekist just like Uncle Sasha. I wanted to walk around town in a leather jacket and catch bandits and CIA spies. I also wanted to wear that Budyonovka Red Army hat, like that one on the picture in Uncle Sasha’s room.

  • 05 – Russia

    RUSSIA, 1951

    I knew that our guest Uncle Sasha was a Chekist. But why, for example, would a Chekist hide in Odessa?

    Chekists were supposed to walk around town in leather jackets and leather caps with stars, and at night catch American soldiers and spies, or hunt down smugglers at the port. Besides, Chekists seemed to me to be stern, elderly men, but Uncle Sasha was very young, no more than twenty-two.

    To me, a 12-year old boy, he must have seemed to be a serious old man! Just look at his mouth — it’s as if it had been cut with a chisel; his forehead is wrinkled like an old man’s, but his eyes are still quick, sharp, and completely clear, like polished glass. And he’s strong, too. Tall. His hands are large. I couldn’t wrap one arm around his wrist.