War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 298 The Relic in the Apartment
Under the leadership of Teacher Dalia, we left the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the uneven Red Square.Wei Ran took the keys handed over by the other party, got into an unremarkable old car, and drove all the way to the southwest under the guidance of Dalia, and finally stopped at a ring-shaped building that can also be called a Moscow landmark. The apartment is downstairs.

This ring-shaped apartment with an inner diameter of more than 150 meters is also not small. It was originally designed and built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The original drawings had five ring-shaped buildings of the same size.

However, when the first circle was completed, these architects whose brains were larger than the land area of ​​the Soviet Union realized that it seemed that the money was not enough.Although the installation of B failed, at least the first circle was repaired. Although the Soviet Union is gone now, this circular apartment has been preserved.And looking at the cars parked downstairs, it was obvious that there were quite a few people living there.

Wei Ran obediently followed Dalia out of the car, went upstairs, and finally stopped outside an old anti-theft door on the top floor.

"Teacher Dalia, what is this place?" Wei Ran asked curiously.

Teacher Dalia did not answer, but took out a key from her pocket and opened the anti-theft door, signaling Wei Ran to follow her in.

Different from the late-Soviet buildings in Wei Ran's impression, this room is much larger in size, a typical three-bedroom, two-living room, one kitchen and one bathroom.

However, the various furniture in this room looked extremely old and simple, and on the floor facing the entrance, there was a crate over one meter long without a lid.

There are not many things in this small crate. A SVT40 semi-automatic rifle with an optical sight lies on a neatly stacked Soviet cloak, a telescope and a Soviet military cap from World War II. Allotted helmets.

Under Wei Ran's gaze, Dalia took out a semi-automatic rifle and handed it to Wei Ran.It was only at this time that he noticed that there were actually two plain silver rings on the hollow ring at the end of the charging handle of this gun.

On the left side of the wooden butt, there are four "卌"-shaped notches and a "Chuan"-shaped notch. On the right side of the butt, there are two rows of 14 five-pointed stars in total.

If these are used to record the record, so this gun has killed 37 enemies in total?Although this number is not as good as those of the so-called "Top Ten Snipers of World War II", it is still considered terrifying.

Before Wei Ran could ask, Teacher Dalia introduced, "The owner of this house passed away two months ago. According to his will, the contents of this wooden box include this house and some other items. Everything was donated to the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War five kilometers away.

The only condition is to investigate the story behind the contents of this wooden box before the first anniversary of his death.Victor, this is your job.In addition, as I told you before, the deadline for your investigation is February next year. "

"Just investigating these things, can I become a consultant to the museum?" Wei Ran looked at the other party puzzled, "Is the other party a World War II veteran? This doesn't sound like a difficult job."

"Although my understanding and interpretation of history may not be as professional as yours, it is not an easy task."

Dalia shook her head and explained, "The male owner of this house was born after the war. Before he retired, he was a construction engineer who participated in the construction of this apartment. As for the things in your hands and mine, they were actually left by his father during his lifetime. Yes. But according to the museum’s investigation, his father had no service experience because of a congenital leg disability.”

"Just these clues?"

Wei Ran fiddled with the rifle still in his hand and asked, he was not unfamiliar with this rifle, he could even be said to be familiar with it, after all there was a same model in the metal book.

Daria took out a folded kraft paper file bag from her satchel and handed it over, "Here is some information about the donor's father. Although it is not much, it may be helpful."

"No more?" Wei Ran put the rifle in his hand against the wall, and asked while reaching for the file bag.

Dalia spread her hands, "If there are more clues, the museum will not exchange a formal consultant title."

Wei Ran didn't rush to respond when he heard the words, but sat cross-legged on the edge of the long wooden box. After looking at the semi-automatic rifle against the wall again, he carefully took out a telescope from the box.

The lens barrel on the right side of this 6X30 magnification telescope seems to have been pierced by a bullet, the front objective lens has been broken, and there is an obvious bullet hole in the second half of the barrel wall.

Putting the binoculars aside, he picked up the steel helmet again, which was an SSH-40 steel helmet issued in large quantities by the Soviet Red Army during World War II.

It can be seen that the original owner has preserved it very well. Not only can there not be much rust on the helmet, even the paint on it and the scratches left by it can be clearly seen.

Turning the helmet over, Wei Ran frowned involuntarily. Clear black stains could be seen on the three-piece artificial leather suspension and canvas webbing on the inside of the helmet.At the same time, there is an inconspicuous defect on the brim and the edge that is almost close to the back of the head.

Glancing at Teacher Dalia standing aside, Wei Ran put the helmet on his head, and then raised the telescope to his eyes.

With just such a simple action, even Teacher Dalia who was standing on the side could tell that the owner of the helmet and binoculars was likely to have been sniped at that time. After the bullet passed through the objective lens barrel and the copper cover at the rear end, It is very likely that the edge of the "brim" of the helmet that continued to stick hit the face of the soldier who used to wear the helmet, and even left a small finger-sized bullet hole on the artificial leather suspension at the other end of the helmet.

He took off the helmet and put it together with the telescope in the wooden box. Wei Ran picked up the neatly stacked Soviet canvas cloak at the bottom of the crate and unfolded it.This cloak also has black stains left by the oxidation of blood, but on the chest, there is a sunflower-shaped gold brooch the size of a Chinese dime.

In addition, at the place where the brooch is pinned, there seems to be something written in black handwriting, but I don't know whether it has been wet by water or it has been too long, and the not-so-long handwriting has been blurred. Clear, only one or two mottled letters can be seen.

After thinking for a moment, Wei Ran put all the things back to their original places, and conveniently closed the cover on the side of the crate.After thinking for a while in silence, he stood up and asked, "Can I take these things away?"

"Send it back to Volgograd?" Dalia asked, puffing out smoke.

"certainly"

Wei Ran gave an affirmative answer with a smile, "I keep a lot of historical files in my studio. Although it's not as good as the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, I can't investigate here, can I?"

Daria nodded nonchalantly when she heard the words, "These things will be delivered to your studio within two days."

"So I ran all the way from Volgograd to Moscow just to visit here?"

"Of course not." Dahlia pointed to several other rooms, "I thought you would look for clues in this house, after all, that's what the people at the museum did at the time."

"Forget it, this is not a murder scene, and I'm not a detective. If clues can be found in this house, I'm afraid I won't have a chance to come here." Wei Ran half joked and half seriously teased his colleagues.

Teacher Dalia took a last look at the crates on the floor, took Wei Ran out of the room, locked the anti-theft door, and said as she walked downstairs, "Besides this matter of letting you come to Moscow, what else is there to do?" There's another thing."

"What's the matter?" Wei Ran, who was following behind, asked without knowing it.

Teacher Dalia was not in a hurry to explain, but waited until the two of them went downstairs and got into the car, and then said, "Some people will invest in our film studio the day after tomorrow, and you need to show up for a few interviews. I've got you covered, and it's the same as before, and you'll pay two thousand dollars per error."

"The previous mistakes were not so expensive." Wei Ran, who was in charge of driving, muttered something in Chinese.

"Do you dare to repeat what you just said in Russian?" Teacher Dalia, who was sitting in the back row, asked with a smile.

Wei Ran grinned, not daring to look at the woman in the rearview mirror at all, and said empty-mouthed, "I just said, it's really hard for Teacher Dalia, I promise that there will be no mistakes."

"Since you're so confident, $5000 per mistake."

Teacher Daria lowered the car window in a happy mood and lit a cigarette again, "Also, Gorman will come to help you complete this interview."

"Teacher Dalia"

Wei Ran slowed down the speed of the car, turned his head and asked with a bitter face, "Why don't you raise the price again and don't bother Mr. Gorman to come over?"

Teacher Dalia seemed to like seeing Wei Ran's appearance very much. She deliberately paused for a long time, until the former turned his head back and then said with a smile, "I will pass your opinion on to Mr. Gorman."

"I just owe"

Wei Ran, who wanted to slap himself, stepped on the gas pedal irritably, and drove the car to the entrance of a nearby high-end hotel under the guidance of the overjoyed Dalia teacher behind him.

(End of this chapter)