War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 758

In the early morning, continuous snowfall enveloped the island of Golonid surrounded by the Volga River.As the thick wooden door opened, the dog Beria rushed out, splashing the snow and ran towards a birch tree not far away.

Behind it, three big-eared foxes in floral padded jackets were leaning against the door frame with their heads stacked like arhats, watching the snow scene outside vigilantly.

Not long after, the big-eared fox belonging to Mr. Nicholas was the first to lose his curiosity, turned around and walked to the fireplace, stretched his body on the thick reindeer skin blanket.

It wasn't until Beria ran back after urinating and shitting that the other two big-eared foxes followed behind happily and walked to the edge of the fireplace step by step.

At the same time, Wei Ran, who was the first to get up, also helped close the door, and continued to be busy adding firewood to the fireplace.

Today is the last day of the year. According to the Russian tradition, there are too many things to do on this day.So early in the morning, the auntie and the professor greeted all the young people, even the nun and the old man got up early, obviously ready to help with the decoration.

"Thank you Alexis for such a New Year's gift"

At the breakfast table, my aunt picked up the warm soy milk and pretended to thank the professor sitting opposite, and then said, "I would like to thank him and Victor for cleaning the house so clean in advance, otherwise everyone would My first job was to clean the house."

Amidst the girls' chuckles, Zhou Shujin put down her cup and continued, "After breakfast, we will start preparing for the New Year. The most important of these must be the New Year's dinner and the New Year's tree."

"Victor and I are going to cut down a tree"

Professor Alexey said first, "There is a pine forest on the other side of the birch forest next to it, and there must be fir trees in it."

"It is enough to cut down trees alone"

The aunt smiled and said, "We brought a slaughtered sheep and all kinds of meat yesterday according to your request, so you have to stay and help chop the meat. Sui Sui, you also help prepare dinner, Lola and sister Ni Responsible for arranging the New Year's tree and lanterns, cards."

"Zhou, what about me?" Mr. Nicholas put down the soy milk he had already drank, "I can do something too."

"How about baking bread?" My aunt had already prepared to leave a not tiring but not easy job to Nicholas, "I don't seem to have succeeded in baking bread."

"I'm afraid I need some sawdust in my toast recipe"

Grandpa Nicholas made a small joke, "In short, leave this job to me! I will roast the goose together. Besides, how about asking the two girls to help me by the way?"

"We are very willing!" sisters Katenka agreed in unison without even thinking about it.

"In this case, let's start to act after dinner!" Zhou Shujin finished speaking, picked up the meat bun coated with caviar and took a bite.

After breakfast, Wei Ran picked up a hand saw and left the warm room with Beria, who was acting as a guard, and walked to the birch forest not far away.

Seeing that the green smoke from the chimney of the house behind him had been completely covered by the birch forest, Wei Ran immediately took out the half-track motorcycle from the metal book under Beria's amusing eyes. Jumped on the back seat.

Amidst the low roar of the engine, Wei Ran drove a half-track motorcycle back and forth in the forest, just to find a qualified fir tree.

This thing is also called a fir tree, and in this particular festival, it may also be called a New Year tree. The only difference is whether it grows in the cold forest or is cut down and placed in the room to hang various It's just an ornament.

Not only that, it is said that the Slavs pay more attention to the New Year tree than European and American countries. The latter may remove it after Christmas, at most after the New Year, but in the family of the Slavs, "a decorated tree The New Year's fir tree may last until May Day" is almost a well-known holiday joke.

Correspondingly, the requirements for the New Year's tree are also much higher, too tall, too short, or even not plump enough and not symmetrical, etc. These irrelevant reasons are all a chance for these fir trees to survive the New Year.

After choosing left and right, Wei Ran finally parked the car next to a fir tree that looked about as tall as a person. The dog Beria who had come with him jumped off the moment he stopped.

After cleaning up the excess branches at the root, Wei Ran kicked hard on the tree trunk and immediately dodged it. He waited until the snow on the top of the tree rustled and fell on the ground, creating a cloud of smoke. The trunk with a thick wrist began to pull the saw back and forth repeatedly.

As the sawdust fell down, the dog Beria, who was watching and studying, shaved his head and looked at his paws. He soon lost interest and looked for the most pleasing trees around him. A hind leg is patiently marking the territory that already belongs to it, or it is moving its thick claws upside down, trying to dig something out of the snow.

In their respective busy schedules, as Wei Ran put his foot on the trunk, the New Year's fir tree also slapped on the snow with a clatter, which also scared the dog who was concentrating on snow-shoveling. Jump.

"Belia, let's go!"

Wei Ran tied the sawn fir tree to the rear of the car and greeted him, but unexpectedly, the dog who was less than five or six meters away did not run back, but raised it back and aimed at the hole it had just dug out. Something pissed.

"Belia! Come back!"

Wei Ran hurriedly yelled again, saying that this dog is really good everywhere, the only drawback is that one eats a lot, and the other is the stinky problem of urinating on everything he catches. Let him feel helpless.

Waving the dead tree branch to drive away the dog Beria, Wei Ran frowned when he saw the object that had been doused with urine.

Although there is not much of this thing protruding from the ground, he can still recognize that it should be a tail section, or more precisely, it is the tail section of a ME-109 fighter jet!

"Why are you here?"

Wei Ran muttered to himself, and after looking around, he took out the engineering shovel from the metal book, and dug down along the tail of the aircraft.

Soon, he saw the tail landing gear still intact, and at the same time, there was an epitaph in Russian engraved on the horizontal tail of this section pointing obliquely at the sky: "Buried here is a worthy An adversary to respect is also an enemy that must be shot down."

Muttering to himself, he read the epitaph above, and then scraped the horizontal tail on the other side with the engineer shovel in his hand, and then found that there was a name engraved on it in German - Felix · Von Goethe
"Yo! Still a nobleman!"

Wei Ran glanced at the dog's urine stains on the vertical tail that were about to freeze, and the faintly visible swastikas under the urine stains. After all, he put away the engineering shovel, beckoned the dog to come over, and flicked a heavy blow on the dog's head. The insignificant brain collapse was an apology to the nobleman of the sky.

Just from the epitaph, one can roughly guess that this nobleman is probably a pilot. If he is also the owner of the two flying medals in his pocket, the person who buried him might be the one who shot him down.

Without divergent thinking, he followed this line of thinking and only thought about spending the holidays with his family. Wei Ran greeted the dog to jump on the half-track motorcycle, twisted the accelerator and drove back along the track marks when he came. The fir tree at the rear of the car swept away the traces of the track.

When he put away the half-track motorcycle, tied the fir tree he brought back with the traction rope, and walked out of the birch forest while cheering up the dog who was struggling stupidly, the main building of the Red Flag Forest Farm outside Kazan City. In the hall on the first floor, many middle-aged people headed by Karp and Darya also fixed a two-meter-high New Year's fir tree on the marble floor and added many decorations to it.

Also celebrating the arrival of the new year is the Aurora Tavern in the polar town of Tula. Girls wearing half-face masks also erected a New Year’s fir tree full of colorful lights in the center of the tavern. On the second floor of the open tavern, Boss Ivan himself brought a few children, erected a smaller New Year's fir tree, and piled gifts under the tree.By the way, he also put a sumptuous meal and various desserts from Europe on the long dining table in advance.

As night falls over the land of the Slavs from east to west, "Trick of Fate", which will be rebroadcasted on Soviet and even Russian TV stations almost every new year, once again ridicules the stereotyped housing in the Soviet era. , also presents a love drama of blunders and blunders.

When a plate of traditional Slavic dishes or Chinese dishes that everyone likes to eat was placed on the long table with the aroma of logs, Mr. Nicholas, with the help of sisters Katenka, cooked the freshly baked white The bread was sliced ​​and brought to the table.

"I also prepared caviar. How could the New Year's dinner be without white bread, butter and caviar."

While talking, Mr. Nicholas took out a backpack from the room, and took out boxes of caviar from it to distribute to everyone.

Amidst the cheers and laughter of the crowd, the lively dinner came to an end with the ringing of the Kremlin bell on TV.Sui Sui also lit a scented candle in the center of the dining table, calling everyone to light the small paper with their own wishes, and before burning their fingers, they threw it into the table in front of the table. On the prepared plate.

"This seems to be the first Soviet Russian. Um. Slavic New Year we celebrate!" After changing the address several times in a row, Anfeya finally found a suitable adjective.

"It won't be the last"

Anfisa waited until the note on which her wish was written was completely burned, then turned her head and responded in a low voice, and her eyes could not help but shifted to the red five-pointed star on the top of the New Year's fir tree.

(End of this chapter)