: Ukraine, 1920s. A teenager participates in a civil war, studies, receives a working profession. The fight against gangs and imperialist spies makes the boy an ideological Komsomol member.
Book one. Old fortress
The narration is conducted on behalf of Vasya Manjura.
Previously, the twelve-year-old Vasya Manjura with friends - Yuzik Starodomsky, nicknamed Kunitsa, Petka Maremukha and Sasha Bobyr - studied at the city high school. Most of all teachers, the boys loved the historian Lazarev. He told a lot of interesting things about the Old Fortress, which towered above the Ukrainian border town, and even promised to take the guys into an underground passage that began near the fortress.
Lazarev did not have time to fulfill his promise - the army of Petlyura entered the city. Shortly before this, Vasya’s neighbor, Ivan Omelyusty, brought a stranger to their house and asked him to hide until the return of the Red Army. The next morning, the stranger disappeared, and a new power was established in the city. First of all, the Petliurites tried to capture all the remaining Communists in the town, including Mistletoe. Vasya and Kunitsa watched him shoot himself from the Petliurites from the tower of the Old Fortress.
Soon it became known that the new authorities were going to force Vasya's father, typewriter typesetter Miron Manjuru, to print Petliura money. Not wanting to become a counterfeiter, Miron went to his brother in the village of Nagoryany, and Vasya stayed with his aunt Mary Afanasyevna. Vasya had to part with his beloved teacher. The high school became a gymnasium with a new teaching staff. Lazarev with Petliura power was not on the way.
From the very first days of study, the company of friends broke up. Petka Maremukha joined the “dexterous and boastful schoolboy Kotka Grigorenko”, the son of the head doctor of the city hospital. The Maremuhi family took off the outhouse in the Old Manor owned by Dr. Grigorenko. Following went over to Kotka and Sashka Bobyr. He was afraid that the doctor’s son would tell Petlyura officers about his main wealth - the bulldog revolver. The gymnasium banned the study of the Russian language and common history, and the portraits of Russian writers were removed from the walls.
Soon Vasya was in trouble. During the gala evening, which was attended by Petlyura himself, the boy read the wrong verses, for which he was beaten and thrown into the school punishment cell. From there, the boy was rescued by loyal friends, giving a bribe to the guard Nikifor. After that, a fight broke out between Vasya and Kotka, because of which Manjuru was expelled from the gymnasium. Aunt Vasya lied that he had ringworm. He did not tell the truth to his best friend Kunice.
Once friends gathered on a hike for cherries that grew in the courtyard of the Old Fortress. Having crept past the watchman at dawn, the guys saw how a gang of Petliurists shot a thin and sick man in the fortress yard. Vasya recognized him as a stranger who, one night, was brought to them by the Mistletoe, and Kunitsa was a Bolshevik who had been caught the day before near the Old Estate. The death of the executed was witnessed by Dr. Grigorenko.
In the morning, the entire gymnasium learned that Manjuru had been expelled. In the afternoon, Maremukha asked for their company. The head of the scouts ordered him to be flogged, and Petka did not want to return to them. In the evening, with the consent of the guard of the Old Fortress, the children covered the grave of the shot hero with flowers and always vowed to protect each other and help those who are fighting for Soviet power. Then the guys went to the house of Grigorenko and made a Skoda - knocked over a burning lamp on the veranda, which caused a small fire.
Vasya did not sleep at night. He remembered his father. When the boy’s mother was alive, the Manjuris lived in another city. Miron drank heavily. He was not expelled from the printing house just because he knew how to type texts in different languages. Unable to withstand such a life, the mother went to her sister in Odessa, intending to pick up her son later, but along the way the ship ran into a German mine, and the woman died. Then Miron moved to live with his sister.
In the morning, Petka and Kunitsa informed Vasya that they wanted to arrest him for arson. The marten advised me to go to the Reds, and Vasya agreed, but first decided to visit his father. The uncle greeted the guests joyfully and whispered to his nephew that they wanted to arrest Miron, so he was hiding. The uncle was also at odds with Petliura’s power and supported his brother.
In the morning, Vasya led friends to the famous Fox Caves throughout the district, where he met with his father. Miron and Ivan Omelyusty hid a small printing house in these caves, where revolutionary newspapers were printed. The guys told Omelyusty about the shooting of an unknown communist. This man, Timofei Sergushin, the Mistletoe family sheltered when he, sick and dying of hunger, was returning from German captivity. After the Reds drove the Hetmans out of the city, Sergushin joined the army, where he met many fellow countrymen from Donbass. Together with him, Ivan went to the Reds. When the troops of Petlyura burst into the city, Timothy was seriously ill and did not manage to leave with the Reds. After spending the night at Miron, he hid at Maremukh, where he was discovered by Dr. Grigorenko.
Suddenly, a scout squad approached the Nagoryans. The guys were afraid that the “panics” would climb into the Fox Caves. They gathered a squad of local boys and attacked the scouts. Using water and lime bottles instead of bombs, the guys gave the “panic” a decisive battle and captured their banner.
The guys returned to the city on time - the unrest began. The streets were teeming with armed Petliurites, red approached the city. Then one more “defector” joined the guys - Sasha Bobyr. The onset of the red guys decided to watch from the wing of the shoemaker Maremuhi. There, they stumbled upon Miron with his brother and Mistletoe, who were preparing to shoot retreating Petliura from a machine gun.
By evening, the city was taken. Manjur settled in a lodger - the red commander Nestor Varnaevich Polevoy. Two weeks later, Maremukha said that they had Dr. Grigorenko living in their outhouse, whose house the Bolsheviks requisitioned. The guys showed the Mistletoe grave of Sergushin, and a week later it was already decorated with a simple monument of smooth marble, surrounded by an iron grate.
A week later, Dr. Grigorenko was arrested with his wife. On the same day, Vasya was invited by registered letter to the district Cheka. Arriving there the next day, the boy was happy to see that the KGB also called Kunitsa. The guys testified against the doctor, talking about his participation in the execution of Sergushin.
A few days later, Kunitsa announced that he was leaving for Kiev with his uncle, who was planning to arrange a nephew for a sailing school. A friend was escorted by the whole company. Maremukha said that Kotka and his mother settled with the former director of the gymnasium, but the doctors were never released.
Late in the fall, classes began at the First Labor School named after Taras Shevchenko, which replaced the gymnasium, the director of which was the beloved historian. He fulfilled his promise and showed the guys an underground passage. A little later, Kotka Grigorenko appeared in the Vasin class, and at school they began to study political literacy.
The second book. House with the ghosts
The district committee of the party sent Miron Manjuru to work with a co-student school, where he was to arrange a small printing house. Since all employees of the concurrent schools lived in state-owned apartments, the Miron family also had to move. Before leaving, Vasya traded a Sauer pistol at Maremuha. Walking to Petka after the Sauer, the boys passed a tin workshop where he worked as an apprentice of Kotka Grigorenko. Having publicly abandoned his parents, Kotka became a simple worker and settled at the gardener Korybko. Handing Vasya a gun, Petka spoke about the ghost of a nun who lives in the building of a co-art school - a former convent.
Manjuram was given a spacious three-room apartment with two kitchens. One of them, separated from the rooms by a corridor, was occupied by Vasya. Exploring the school’s large garden, the boy came across Kotka - Korybko let him in here. Soon Vasya again ran into his foe. Grigorenko looked after Galya Kushnir, which the boy really liked.
Soon Maremuha visited Vassa. When it got dark, friends went to the garden to experience Sauer. By a shot, they frightened off a man who shot back and ran away. In the morning, Vasya found a spoon and an aluminum bowl in the bushes.
Having met with Galya again, Vasya found out that Kotka was taking her to the most expensive confectionery in the city. The boy decided to outdo Kotka. The only wealth of Aunt Mary Afanasyevna was six silver spoons. She kept them as a "dowry" for Vasya. Deciding that the spoons were already his, the boy stole three and sold them to a jeweler.
Meanwhile, Polevoy allowed Vasya to visit the Komsomol cell, but Vasya got to the first meeting without him, and the boy was kicked out. That same evening, Vasya invited Galya to the confectionery. They ate cakes when Miron saw them through a large window. Vasya returned home when everyone was sleeping. Suddenly, shots were heard from behind the Old Fortress, and the cadets rose in alarm. Soon, one sentry remained in the courtyard of the coincident school, cadet Marushchak. Suddenly, Vasya heard a bell ring in the school building. They ran for a long time along the dark corridors, but they did not find the bell or the joker who called it. Vasya told Marushchak how he and Petka had found an armed stranger in the garden, and about the ghost that lived in the joint school.
Soon Marya Afanasyevna discovered the loss of spoons. Then the father went into Vasina’s kitchen and began to inquire about how much money his son feasted in the confectionery. It was not possible to get out, I had to confess. Redeem spoons went together. On the way back, Vasya began to ask his father not to tell anyone about spoons, but he did not promise anything, and, angry, threw spoons into the river. Aunt Miron said that he gave them to the commission for helping the homeless.
Before entering the rabfak, his father suggested that he work at the sponsored state farm co-sponsored school, and Vasya left, not having time to say goodbye to his friends. The first night the whole team spent in the hayloft. In the evening, Polevaya sent Vasya into the garden to break plum branches for tea. The boy decided to return to his streets. Jumping over the fence, he frightened off a man with a rifle in his hand. The cadets combed the garden, but found no one.
Vasya was assigned an assistant to Nikita Fedorovich Kolomeyts, the very cadet who put the boy out of the Komsomol meeting. First they knitted sheaves, then they worked on a thresher. Nikita was not much older than Vasya, and the guys became friends. The brigade was housed in a former manor house, and friends took a cozy balcony entwined with wild grapes. Soon, wasps started on the balcony, and the guys moved under a stack of straw at the thresher. After a couple of days, the Kolomeets were too lazy to go to the stack, and Vasya decided to spend the night alone. At night the boy was woken up by a collective farm dog - he barked at strangers who had crept up to the thresher. The bandits wanted to set fire to the stack and shoot the cadets who had escaped to the fire. Vasya rushed to run to warn his comrades, but stumbled and sprained his leg. He had to open fire from the Sauer. In response, the bandits threw a grenade, which exploded next to Vasya.
A boy woke up in a hospital. He did not remember how he was transported to the city, and how the doctor removed fragments stuck in the cranial bone, cut out a broken rib and adjusted his dislocated leg. From Kolomeytsya, Vasya learned that people who injured him were going to the aid of a local gang. In the city, the bandits had an accomplice - the gardener Korybko. No one knew that the gardener had an adult son, who had once served with General Pilsudski. When the general was driven out of Ukraine, the guy was recruited by British intelligence. It was here that the agent came in handy to the father. It was him who Vasya and Petka frightened the concurrent schools in the garden. Suspecting Korybko, Marushchak found in his dresser a note from his son and a Mauser hidden in the chimney. After the old man was arrested, the komorka was searched again and an iron ring was found in the chimney, for which they heard a ringing bell - the ring connected to the bell walled in the wall. The bell ringing, which used to frighten superstitious nuns, Korybko decided to scare the Communists.
Galya and Maremukha, who came to visit the boy, said that Kotka Grigorenko was going to become a Komsomol member. Then Polevoy entered the room and suggested that the children go to study at the factory-apprenticeship school, whose director he was appointed.
The guys agreed to jointly “challenge” Kotka Grigorenko at the Komsomol meeting, but it turned out that Kotka wrote the whole truth about himself in the questionnaire, and Manjur had nothing to add. Then Kolomeets spoke and proved Kotka’s connection with the gardener. Grigorenko was not accepted into the Komsomol.
A month later, the guys were already studying in the factory. Vasya decided to become a caster, Maremukha - a turner, Sasha Bobyr learned to repair motors, and Galya stood behind a bench machine.
The third book. City by the sea
Vasya Manjura lived with friends in a fabzavuch dormitory. Father and aunt moved to Cherkasy, where a new printing house opened. Walking on Sunday along the main street of the city, friends saw a fight in one of the pubs. The scandal caused a fellow student at the factory head Yashka Tiktor. Komsomolets was drunk. The guys tried to take Ticktor away before the police arrived.
The guys were dragging Yashka home when shots rang out - a signal of Chonov's alarm. They hastened to the main headquarters of the CHON, where they gave out weapons to everyone. Senior Chonovtsy went to the border with Pansky Poland, and the students were instructed to guard the arms depots. Vasya got the most dangerous post. Suddenly, he heard Sashka Bobryr's scream - he noticed someone, but didn’t have time to shoot, the unknown went along the roofs. The persecutors found a bloody stain on the porch of one of the houses and Bikford cord with a fuse in the attic of the warehouse.
Six months before the end of the factory education, the town "Pecheritsa suddenly arrived from Kharkov, the new head of the district department of public education," a short man with a very magnificent red mustache. He ordered the dismissal of all Russian-speaking teachers, and then decided to completely close the factory headquarters. The nationalist Pecheritsa did not believe that Ukraine would soon need working hands. At the Komsomol meeting, the guys decided to send Manjuru to the Kharkov Central Committee of the Komsomol.
On the way, Vasya collected a large sum of money. An unexpected companion - Pecheritsa - appeared on the boy’s train. He was without a mustache, spoke Russian and pretended not to recognize Manjuru. The clerk asked Vasya to show his ticket to the controller, lay down on the shelf and fell asleep. Soon Vasya also fell asleep. Waking up, the boy found that his neighbor had disappeared. The ticket that Vasya stayed with was issued in the name of student Procopius Shevchuk.
Arriving in Kharkov, Vasya could not resist, and decided to go to the cinema. After the session, the boy discovered that he was robbed. He spent the night at the station, and in the morning went to the Central Committee. Wandering around the large building, Vasya stumbled upon the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) U, whose photograph he saw in the newspaper. The boy told him about Pecheritsa and that he had been robbed. The secretary promised to help the factory teacher and arranged the boy for the night.
Manjur returned home as a winner. Upon learning that the boy was traveling to Kharkov with the Pecherich, Kolomeets dragged him to the authorized border guard Vukovich. Then the boy got to the head of the regional GPU, to whom he repeated his story about Pecheritsa. After Kolomeets told that Pecheritsa was an enemy agent. It was on his porch that they found a bloody stain. The blood belonged to a wounded bandit who could not be arrested that night. The bandit Vukovich detained, and Pecheritsa managed to escape. Vasya regretted for a long time that he had not guessed to detain him.
After some time, Vasya found out that Yashka Tiktor insisted on his expulsion from the Komsomol due to the fact that he was riding in the same carriage with Pechericha and had not deliberately detained him. At the meeting, Tiktor’s statement was not taken seriously, and he himself was expelled from the Komsomol for drunkenness and casting parts for handicraft workshops during working hours.
A week before the end of the factory education, directions came from Kharkov. Pupils were assigned to the factories of large cities of Ukraine. Vasya with Petka Meremukha, Sasha Bobyr and Ticktor came to the city of Azov. Yashka did not want to stay in their company, and the guys rented a cozy attic from an elderly woman. Going down to the sea, the guys saw a girl who was swimming, despite the storm.
The next day, the friends went to the machine-building plant, but the head of the labor department, dressed up and reminded of the dandy, told them that there were no places at the plant. The only vacancy was Yashka Ticktor, who was the first. Deciding not to stop, Vasya went to the director of the plant. He listened to the guys and found places for them in their specialty. So Manjura became a student of an experienced caster Vasily Naumenko. Yashka Tiktor got to the factory drunkard Enute nicknamed Kashket.
Soon, friends found that in a beautiful house next door lives a girl bathing in a stormy sea. It was Angelica, daughter of the chief engineer of the plant. She was looked after by dandy Zyuza Trituzny from the labor department, who was kept at the plant only because he played football well.
All this time, Sasha Bobyr dreamed of catching the Pecheritsa, which is why he “saw” him at each station. He saw the enemy at the station of the coastal town, but the guys did not believe him, and then Sasha decided to write a statement to the head of the city department of the GPU.
Vasya met with the local Komsomol leader Anatoly Golovatsky. Tolya dreamed of eliminating Madame Rogal-Piontkovskaya’s dance salon, where almost all the youth of the city disappeared. He believed that the tosteps, foxtrots and mazurkas taught by Madame corrupted young people. Promising to take a look at what was happening with Madame, Vasya went to the salon and on the way saw a man strikingly similar to Vukovich.
In the cabin, Vasya met Angelica. After making sure that Charleston was not given to the guy, Lika invited him to ride a boat. During the walk, Vasya realized that Angelica was raised in a petty bourgeois family. She dreamed of a cozy house, peace, "to get rid of worldly vanity and go into the kingdom of dreams." Vasya liked the girl, but they spoke different languages. The guy decided that Lika is incorrigible. He finally became convinced of this at a dinner with the chief engineer Andrykhnevich, who worked at the plant even under the tsarist regime. Stefan Medarovich believed that the young Soviet Republic had no future, and was looking forward to when the old days were back.
Every day Manjur became more and more involved in the hard work of the caster. His friends were not far behind either. Beaver even enrolled in an air club. The tiktor, meanwhile, finally came under the influence of Kashket, the most malicious "scammer" in the shop. Vasya constantly corresponded with classmates in the factory and Kolomeits. In one of the letters of reply, Nikita asked for help to buy five self-cultivating reapers for the sponsored state farm. On instructions from Kolomeits, Vasya went to the director of the plant, but he refused - the plant lacked pig iron. And then Vasya remembered the cast-iron scrap, which was very much in the vicinity of his native town. He sent a telegram to Kolomeits with the order to collect this scrap as much as possible.
To cast the details of the reapers from the collected scrap, which Nikita brought, they organized a subbotnik. It was attended not only by Komsomol members, but also by experienced workers. After the subbotnik Nikita spoke about Pecheritsa. Fleeing from the prosecution of the GPU, the traitor killed the student Procopius Shevchuk and under his name settled in one of the German colonies of Tavria. Then, again changing his name, Pecheritsa went to the city of Azov, where Bobyr saw him and his statement helped the investigation very much. Following the traitor, Vukovich appeared in the city, accidentally catching Vasya’s eyes. Soon Pecheritsa was arrested.
Talking once with one of the plant's oldest foundry workers and communists, Vasya was surprised to understand that he did not consider the eighteen-year-old Yashka Tiktor to be lost, and he believed that he could be sent on the right track. Manjura was convinced of this by accidentally hearing the conversation of Tiktor with Golovatsky. It turned out that the stepmother did not give Yashka a meal, and he had to take private orders to feed himself. He began to drink when friends turned away from him.
Soon, the Komsomol foundries organized a Sunday, to which Tiktor also came. The guys cleaned up dry sand and debris from the workshop, making room for new molding machines. Under the sand, the Komsomol members discovered a mine, laid back under Wrangel. Apparently, during the retreat, the enemies of the Soviet regime wanted to blow up the martens, but did not have time.
Soon Komsomol members fought a dance salon. The artists of the drama circle showed a parody of the regulars of the salon. It went to everyone, including Zyuza Trituzny, who came to the play with Angelica. Zyuzya indignantly left the room, and Lika remained with Vasya. The guy has long decided that for Angelica, as well as for Tiktor’s Yashka, it’s worth fighting. Lika admitted that such a life does not tire of her, but she herself cannot be free, and is waiting for a strong person to help her. She counted on Vasina for help and was very upset when he waved a hand at her. Manjura advised her to start life first in another city. Soon, Lika went to her aunt in Leningrad and entered the conservatory.
After the performance, the Komsomol members urgently gathered the director of the plant and reported on the sabotage. Mines were found in the stoker and near the foundry furnaces, which the Kashket was supposed to blow. He was recruited by Madame Rogal-Piontkovskaya, covering up "secret subversive work against the Soviet state with a sign of a peaceful dance class." It was to her that the Pecheritsa made her way. Arresting him, Vukovich tied together all the threads of this complicated case. Madame Rogal-Piontkovskaya did not have time to escape.
Some time later, the guys were sent to Mariupol at the Komsomol district conference. They sailed on the ship "Felix Dzerzhinsky", the navigator of which was Yuzik Starodomsky. Kunitsa sailed for a long time, and even managed to become a communist. Friends talked all night, shared plans. Yuzik was going to go to the Black Sea, and Vasya wanted to go to a working university and study on the job.
Epilogue. Twenty years later
Twenty years later, engineer Vasily Manjura returned to his hometown to wander along the familiar streets and visit the Old Fortress. Vasily survived the siege of Leningrad, during which his father died, by which time he had moved to his son and worked at the Printing House. Rummaging in old magazines, Manjura stumbled upon an article telling about the German henchman Kosta Grigorenko.
During a walk around the city, Vasily remembered his friends. His first love, Galya Kushnir, even before the war, became a candidate of historical sciences. Manjur still did not know whether she managed to leave Odessa on time. In the fortress, Vasily discovered a historical museum-reserve. At the grave of Sergushin, he encountered a lieutenant colonel-tanker Peter Maremukha. Soon an old museum director approached them, in which friends recognized Lazarev. He told how the Red Army defended the Old Fortress, holding back the German offensive. The fortress was surrounded when a local resident got into it and offered to show the exact location of the enemy batteries. During this operation, the conductor, who was Yusik Starodomsky, was killed. He got to his hometown after a heavy concussion.
They also remembered Sasha Bobyr - he died, helping republican Spain. Angelica survived the blockade. Her first husband died, and now she and Manjura were about to get married.
