…He was born in a remote Mordovian village and lost his parents when he was very young. He went to war while still a naval cadet. As a volunteer. On Victory Day, he was in the hospital with total nervous exhaustion, weighing thirty-eight kilograms. [A pause.] A tortured, sick, and dead tired army had triumphed. Emaciated, coughing. With spinal injuries and arthritis, gastric ulcers…That’s how I remember the victory…He and I are from the same generation, we’re the people who lived through the war. [A pause.] He rose from cadet to the very peak of the military pyramid. The Soviet state gave him
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