Funny stories. About cow dung. Dried cow dung - gavi Dry cow dung what is it called

If in a dream you make flatbreads, it means that in life you will be very lucky in the lottery or some kind of gambling. Eating flatbreads in a dream means success in your professional activities will not take long to arrive. If you have overcooked your tortillas or they are burnt to a charcoal crust, this dream foretells that you will make your loved ones very worried about your life, thereby urging you to be more careful in communicating with strangers.

Undercooked flatbreads, raw inside - you will be lucky in creating an ideal married couple, in which the husband will constantly turn a blind eye to his wife’s shortcomings, considering it his primary duty to earn as much money as possible, because of which he simply will not have time for the rest, and you will be left to your own devices, if not basking in luxury, then at least dipping into it from time to time.

If you bake cakes from corn flour in a dream, in reality this foreshadows the fulfillment of passionate desires. Eating cakes made from it means that you will unwisely create obstacles for yourself on the path to success.

Dream Interpretation - Cow

If you bring a cow or a ram into the house, it portends joy.

Riding a cow into the city - foreshadows a joyful event in the near future.

Leading a cow on a rope up a mountain means wealth and nobility.

A yellow cow comes to the house - wealth and nobility lie ahead.

A cow coming out of the gate indicates that something good is about to happen.

Entering the city riding a cow is a joyful event in the near future.

A cow gives birth to a calf - everything you wished for will come true.

A cow butting means failure in everyday affairs.

A buffalo entering a house portends mourning.

A cow or a bull climb the mountainside - great happiness and prosperity, good luck.

Horse, cats and cow. Fairy tale.

One Saturday, I bought tea, milk and biscuits and went to the dacha. Ever since I became much older than I was before, I do this every week. Every one, every one, you can be sure. And since my next birthday I even stopped going for walks and go there without any passes, like a tram on a government route.

I can’t do it any other way; now at my dacha my horse lives in a barn. By the way, she calls the barn a stable and is offended by the barn, so don’t give me away if she asks. Will he ask? He will ask and ask if she is like that.

I never thought that all sorts of popular speculation and beliefs could come true in reality. When they said that as soon as a person is given a fourth horseshoe for good luck, he should immediately have a horse. Or a horse. In general, since childhood, I was sure that if a person washes his hands before eating, brushes his teeth in the morning and evening, and takes a shower a couple of times a day, then he can’t even start a small thing, let alone a horse. And she took it and came after the fourth horseshoe. And he lives. Together with the cats in the sara... in the stable, that is. The cats protect the horse's hay from mice, and the horse prepares tea with milk for them on the primus stove. I bring tea with milk, and the horse earns its own hay. I let her take the lawnmower and cart. She mows the neighbors' lawns with a mower, and with a cart she does little things. That's how they live.

I got to the dacha well, it just took a long time. On foot, by metro, by train, by bus, then on foot again. I ate two sushi on the way. I'm hungry because... But the milk tea is intact, that's all. I go up to the gate, and there is some kind of devastation there. Someone gnawed my lilac, broke a small oak tree, tore the birch tree out of the ground along with the peg it was tied to so that it wouldn’t break in the wind. And right in front of the gate there is a cow dung.

I’m almost a country person, although I came from the city. And for those who are completely city dwellers, I’ll explain. Cow flat cakes are somewhat different from, say, Uzbek flat cakes. First of all, because Uzbeks bake and eat their own flatbread, but cows do not. To put it bluntly, they do the exact opposite with flatbreads. They do it anywhere and right in front of my gate in particular.

True, it wasn’t so much the cake that outraged me; the cake, after all, is fertilizer. The broken trees upset me. Sorry for the trees. I planted, watered, and practically raised them myself. How could. And they were broken. And someone was tyrannizing the bushes in front of the fence. It’s a completely outrageous thing, because the berries there are delicious in the bushes.

While I was upset and indignant, a white Volga stopped on the road behind me.

I wish you good health! - this is a neighbor saying hello in a military way without getting out of his car. He is a military man, only retired. But a whole lieutenant general at once.

You,” he asked me, upset and indignant, sternly, “haven’t you seen my cow?” The cow is missing. I've searched everything, it's nowhere to be found. And the tracks lead straight to your site.

So, who brought ruin and chaos here, it means that when I’m upset, I’ll be stricter than any general - your cow? I gnawed the lilac, broke the oak, uprooted the birch tree, all the bushes were broken, and now I have to jump through the gate so as not to get into this very thing. Your cow, you say, inherited it?

No, my cow is a decent animal, accustomed to discipline at least a little, - the general immediately backed down, - she couldn’t have done such a thing, I probably made a mistake in the tracks. And it was another cow that was acting up.

The general backed down - this is understandable: which general is responsible for the cow's tricks. None.

But we don’t have any other cow in our village. She is the only one, the general. Red with white spots. And at the station I was quietly suspicious. Neither the horse walks nor the cats appear. Cats actually meet me near the gate. They have a nose for milk. The horse is also polite. She comes out and is the first to say hello. I’m still no one, but the owner. Moreover, I come with dryers. Salty.

Well, I’m going straight to the barn, to the stables that is. He knocked and opened the door. It's not all like that. You can feel it right away.

Hello, - I say, - ours is for you with a brush, tea, milk and dryers.

We weren’t expecting you, but you showed up,” the oldest cat meowed. She is completely rustic with us. With street education. He never goes into his pocket for words. She doesn't have pockets because... But there are all sorts of words in bulk. There are some decent ones among them, but, basically, that’s all they are. She’s so kind, she even knows how to purr, but she won’t hesitate to be rude either.

One day you arrived unexpectedly - the horse came out to meet me after all - we weren’t expecting you so early.

Didn't you wait? - I’m surprised, feigning it, but I myself hear that someone is puffing in the barn behind a pile of hay. He puffs and slurps some more, - Yeah. I’ve been coming for three years at the same time, why should I wait? You don’t need to wait for me, I’ll come anyway. By the way, have you seen a cow nearby? A neighbor's cow has gone missing, and the tracks lead into our yard.

We didn’t see any cow, red with white spots and wearing a collar - these are the younger cats in almost unison - we buy milk all the time in the store, or you bring it, and we only saw cows in pictures in Brem’s encyclopedia.

Any cat will lie inexpensively, everyone knows this, but our limits have already been crossed. In the corner they puff, slurp, one horn protrudes from behind the hay, but they only saw it in pictures. More in Brem's encyclopedia. It’s interesting, though, how they know about Animal Life. But we’ll find out later, and first we’ll deal with the current cow.

Okay,” says the horse, “you can’t hide this anyway.” Come out and let's get acquainted.

She's the one talking to the cow. I have nowhere to go, I’m already in the middle of the barn... that is, I’m standing in the stables. I talk to cats.

I wish you good health, comrade owner, - the cow comes out from behind the hay, - the foreman of the first cow articles, Mukha, I introduce myself regarding the arrival at the new place of the stall.

No need for applications, I think. And then there's the horse:

Really. We thought about it and decided. Let him live with us. The general has completely drilled her, you can see how he talks. I feel sorry for her, she has no strength.

Go and rest, and we’ll chat for now,” the horse is already turning to the cow.

I obey! – the cow turned around, clicking its hooves in a military manner, and went back for the hay, starting the movement with both left legs, as it should be in the army.

So we decided,” the horse continued, and the cats nodded their long-eared heads, “let everyone live with us.” A cow is a gentle animal, you need to treat it with affection, and not practice stepping according to the drill service regulations. And they named her after a grenade launcher and they force her to sing at the evening roll call and “fight back” while the match is burning.

“You decided,” I said, “but it turns out that you whistled the general’s cow, and I will answer.” General, he’s going to complain to the police about me. There's no point in complaining about you. If you say that a horse and cats took a cow out of the yard, no one will take any action, but if a neighbor stole a cow, then they will immediately drag him by the collar and to the slammer.

“Allow me to address you,” a voice was heard from behind the hay, “you need to offer the general money for me, he won’t take much because I’m losing my marching pace and confusing left with right.” The general wanted to hand me over to the guardhouse for this. So I left. Stand still, - the cow added neither to the village nor to the city and fell silent.

You see,” the horse continued to handle me, “to the guardhouse.” It was he who told her that he wanted to sell it to the guardhouse,” the horse began to whisper, “he wanted to sell it for meat, honestly.” So, whatever you want, go to the general and negotiate.

“Agree, negotiate, and while I fire up the primus,” the older cat supported the horse, “we’ll drink tea with milk.” We are now given fresh milk twice a day. No match for your city one from the refrigerator.

What about lilac and birch? Who mangled the bushes? I don’t ask about the obstacle near the gate; everything is clear to me about the obstacle.

Excuse me, let me address you,” the cow still calls out from behind the hay, “but while I was knocking on the gate, a little trouble happened. You don’t have a call, while you’re trying to get them to open it, anything can happen. And I accidentally tried lilac, it doesn’t taste good. I won’t do it again, I obey, that’s for sure.

We will repair the bushes, remove the obstacle,” the horse declares, “while you negotiate with the general, we will even plant a new birch tree, and use the obstacle as fertilizer.” You go.

Go, go,” the younger cats support the horse, “it’s a real benefit for you: now you don’t need to carry milk from the city, now you’ll be transporting milk to the city.”

You can’t argue against such logic, after all. I liked the cow myself. She mows the lawn very well. Cleaner than any lawnmower. And it does not require gasoline with electricity. I still have one last argument.

“But what about,” I ask the horse, “the horse?” After all, in a month they should give me a fourth horseshoe again for good luck. You yourself said that now the horse may appear. Where will he live if we take the cow? The barn is not made of rubber.

“It’s better to have a cow in the barn than a horse in your apartment,” the horse remarked philosophically, “and will there still be one, this horse?” And here is the cow. You can be friends with her right now.

And I went to the general. Negotiate about the cow. And it turns out that everyone I have is kind: the horse is kind, the cats are kind. I'm the only one who is angry and doubtful. No, it won't work. More cows, less cows - it doesn’t matter when there is a horse.

I went to the general to negotiate. And I agreed.

Now, when I go to the dacha, I don’t bring milk from the city. Only tea with dryers. True, you have to buy twice as many dryers, but that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that I am a little more welcome at the dacha than before. And now the milk is fresh. “I wish you good health,” true, but that’s not the main thing either.

Should I just throw it in a heap and forget, or think a little about the environment?

“Just think - manure! - someone will say. - There is nothing more natural for animal husbandry. He was, is and will be and it’s not worth even thinking about him for too long!” Meanwhile, with the increase in the size of livestock complexes and the increasing intensification of the processes of production of meat, milk and eggs, the problem of waste processing is becoming more acute.

Too much... manure

Do you need a front-end loader, a truck and an excavator with a bucket to clear the pens of manure and haul it off the feedlot? Do you feel like there is too much manure on your farm?

For example, let’s take a family farm or a medium-sized enterprise, where about 11 thousand head of cattle are fed. The main part of any employee's job here is to care for the animals. That is, give them food and clean out the barns.

The irony is that owners of small and medium-sized livestock farms often don't even use their cows for food, they can barely keep up with the endless stream of manure that the herd produces every day.

With more than 2.3 million head of cattle in feedlots across the region, costing the state millions, one can only imagine how much manure they all produce combined.

People in the West have been thinking about the danger of such a concentration of waste for a long time, but what last years There is a tendency to enlarge the size of feedlots, which clearly will not improve the situation.

Livestock farming certainly needs to be developed. But with government support, having the opportunity to grow and increase production capacity, enterprises producing meat, milk and eggs can significantly worsen the environmental situation.

What exactly is the problem?

Cows don’t really care where they take a bath, so many of them are quite capable of climbing into clean bodies of water, leaving large quantities of their feces there. And if they exist in a feedlot in numbers of more than a thousand head per pen, their waste accumulates in huge piles.

During heavy rains, manure is washed into nearby water bodies or flows into groundwater, polluting it. All this makes drinking water hazardous to health (for example, E. coli can live in it), kills fish and other wildlife, and has an overall negative impact on the environment.

In Europe, where the environmental problem has been taken up for a long time, many farmers admit that they feel responsible for such pollution.

“From time to time I worry very much, what if what we are doing could harm the environment? says Allan Sands, owner of an 11,000-head feedlot in Kansas. “At the same time, I really hope that environmentalists who can prevent such pollution will tell us how to do it correctly.”

On everyone's conscience

The Kansas Department of Agriculture and Environment (KDHE) is actually responsible for ensuring that manure from the state's feedlots does not cause environmental pollution. But in fact, the responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the farmers themselves. But, unfortunately, it still occurs to few people that in order to keep drinking water clean, they need to make their own efforts.

All feedlots in the state are required to be certified for water contamination by the county. This ensures that animal waste does not leave the facility or wash into waterways or groundwater.

But despite the fact that more than 800 livestock enterprises across the state have already received such a license, the Department does not yet have time to cover everyone. This means that there are farms that can cause significant damage to the environment.

More animals - more waste

According to University of North Carolina professor JoAnn Burkholder, with an increase in the number of livestock, farmers need to take care of increasing the technical supply of the farm. Joan argues that beef cattle farming has recently undergone a phase of intensification, which inevitably entails increased impacts on the environment.

“The main pollution problem associated with livestock farming is that animals are too concentrated in one place,” she explains. - In traditional livestock farming there have never been such problems, since it is completely natural when cows or sheep fertilize the soil with their waste. But just as any, even the most necessary, fertilizers are harmful in excess quantities, manure, of which there is now too much, can have a toxic effect on soils and water, causing pollution.”

Many farmers in Kansas and other states install expensive systems of drainage channels and wastewater collection basins to control waste from their operations. Special equipment is used here to clean and clean the pens.

It makes no difference whether you have 5 thousand or 100 thousand head of cattle. As production volumes increase, it is imperative to think about how this will affect the environment. And you are as fully responsible for controlling your herd's waste as you are for its health and daily weight gain.

Are we adapted to this?

The level to which Russia is still far away is the “Environmental Intensive Protection Program” (EQIP) in the USA. It provides billions of taxpayer dollars each year to help agricultural producers upgrade environmental protection technologies.

For example, it costs about $300,000 to remodel a livestock farm to include a new configuration of sewer pipes and waste collection manifolds. The program allows you to reimburse about 75% of this amount. This money really goes towards things that livestock farmers really need. This is especially true for those small farmers who are simply not able to rebuild the waste collection system on their farm on their own.

The invention of 42-year-old John Lopez from Texas - pens made of manure. The author claims that after a series of technological manipulations the material resembles cork or ordinary wood

Experts, although they talk about protecting the environment, practical side The issue always depends on the financial capabilities of the performers. And many farms are simply not equipped accordingly.

Since the beginning of the project, about 130 million a year has been spent on it, now almost 1.8 billion is allocated for these purposes. And more than 60% of the total amount goes to the livestock industry.

The manure is still there

Cattle waste can be useful, but not every farmer is able to wisely use what he has. At best, slurry and solid fraction of animal waste are used as organic fertilizers in the fields. But more often than not, these piles are simply left to rot somewhere in the backyard. But from manure you can obtain concentrated safe fertilizers for heating rooms and even construction material! In this case, it is possible to control the level of waste and make livestock production more profitable.

Most medium- and large-scale farms in Kansas operate on the same principle. Of the 10 people employed in a feedlot, 1-2 are involved in manure removal.

All waste flows into a sewer, and livestock farmers try to ensure that nothing gets into the environment. For many of them, doing all this correctly is especially important, because they themselves live not far from their farm and are not interested in drinking poisoned water and getting land on which it will be impossible to grow anything.

In our country, livestock breeders of family farms or medium-sized private plots are in exactly the same situation, but do they think about the environment?

Read about the processing of livestock waste in Russia

Cow patties.

When we come to visit my mother, usually after the feast she collects the remaining bread, carefully cuts it into cubes and puts it on a baking sheet in the oven.
When I asked why she was doing this, two small bags of crackers had already accumulated, my mother replied:
-How else. After all, this is bread, guys! How to throw it away?
This time I suggested taking the crackers out to the bird feeder. Mom looked at me sternly and replied that there was no need to take it out yet. She eats crackers with chicken broth, and it’s very tasty.
“Don’t be offended, son,” the mother continued, “your generation has not experienced either war or real famine. That’s why your attitude towards food and bread is, so to speak, superficial and disrespectful. If you want, I’ll tell you how we starved after the war.
I nodded affirmatively, and my mother, saddened, began to tell me.
-I don’t remember the famine in the early thirties because I was young. And my parents said that it was not as scary as in Ukraine and in the central regions. Again, back then we didn’t grow wheat, but barley, oats, and rye, and they grew well in our area. And besides, there are potatoes and vegetables from the garden.
A very terrible famine occurred in the village in 1947. There was also hunger during the war, but still not like that. There was at least some stretch on potatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots, and turnips.
The collective farm came out of the war completely poor. There are almost no horses left, only those rejected by the military commission, and without them what can you do. There were no tractors or cars then. Everything is on horseback. Again, who should work? Only women and children on the collective farm.
In 1946, crop failure occurred almost everywhere, and especially on our collective farm. They didn’t even give out hay for workdays, let alone anything else.
In 1947, I graduated from a medical school in Kirov and was sent as a paramedic to the Berezovsky village council. To our Darovskoy district, but far from our village, almost sixty kilometers.
Before work, I was allowed to go home for a few days. The situation at home is depressing. Mom worked on the collective farm from morning to night, father, after returning from the army, had not yet fully recovered from his illness, he could barely walk with a cane, but he was also assigned to the collective farm at the stables. Younger sisters and brother do housework. They have a vegetable garden, a cow, and chickens, and they are not even teenagers - primary schoolchildren.
For several days I helped with the housework, time flew by instantly. We already need to get ready for Berezovka.
They didn’t give lifts back then. And I spent almost all the money, the last scholarship, on gifts for my parents and younger children. I have to leave tomorrow, and I don’t even have anything to pack for the trip. The vegetables have not yet grown, and there are no more stocks.
Mom walked around the village at lunchtime and barely managed to get two glasses of oatmeal from the Maltsevs at the other end. The brother went to the meadows and brought a basket of clover and quinoa flowers. They ground quinoa and clover, mixed it with one glass of flour and baked something like pancakes in the oven. Maybe there were twenty of them. Mom gave the kids a kolobok, me, herself and my father too. The rest she wrapped in a rag and put in a bundle.
On the road I punished:
- You, girl, won’t eat all the kolob at once, who knows what will happen with the food. And brew the oatmeal that is in the bag with water. A tablespoon will be just right for a mug, and a little salt. Maybe you'll make it until you get paid.
In the morning I reached Darovsky on foot. I came to the district health department for an appointment. There they look at me, they can’t understand what kind of miracle happened. Skinny, her eyes sunken from a long walk, she had a duffel bag with simple belongings on her shoulders. A teenager, and that's all. What are eighteen years like there? And you can hardly give sixteen.
They wrote out a referral to the Berezovsky village council, stamped it and told me to wait in the yard. The car was supposed to go there in the afternoon.
The secretary of the district health department, who gave me the direction, admonished me:
-You're lucky, girl. Good village council, rich. You won't get lost.
The car drove off in the evening. I got to the village council by nightfall. There is, of course, no one there. It was difficult to find the secretary. The woman took me to the hut where the first aid station was located.
The hut is ordinary, rustic. The stove separates a third of the room. The large room is divided by a wooden partition into a waiting room, with benches along the walls, and the medical office itself, with a desk, a medical couch and two cabinets.
One with medicines, the other with instruments, sterilizers, bandages, cotton wool.
The next day in the morning I went to the village council and received explanations on the organization of work. I returned to the first aid station, and there the owner of the hut was already waiting for me.
We met. A woman of about forty, a widow. My husband was killed in the war. Two kids. She herself lived with her parents, and rented the hut to the village council so that a first-aid post could be located there.
She showed me where to get wood for the stove, where the toilet house is located, where to go to the well to get water, how best to light the stove, and, most importantly, where the can of kerosene is and how to use kerosene gas. There was such a device there for boiling syringes and other instruments in a sterilizer.
In a word, Glasha (that was the woman’s name) really helped me get comfortable.
For two days I washed, scrubbed the floors and benches, treated them with bleach, put the rooms in order, and on the third day I started seeing patients.
There were two entrances to the hut. One from the road to the reception area, and the other from the yard to the kitchenette. The kitchen was separated from the office by a wall with a door.
I’m conducting a reception, listening to the child with a phonendoscope, and I myself hear someone walking around the kitchen. But I’m embarrassed to go out there.
Then I hear someone enter the emergency department. I recognized the owner, Glasha, by her voice.
I couldn’t hear what she said first. Some kind of muttering. And then Glasha says:
-Girls, I was just in the kitchen, the assistant has nothing to eat. Look what I found.
She apparently showed my kolobs to those sitting in line.
Someone from the queue asked:
-What’s happening? Is the felcheritsa eating cow cakes out of hunger?
“What am I talking about,” Glasha added, “she’s a really skinny girl.” Soon she will need to be treated herself. Women, what am I thinking, go home and bring at least some food.
I hear the line move. The door began to slam. Then, after half an hour or an hour, the line began to gather again.
Before late evening hosted the reception, and only closer to sunset was she able to receive everyone. When I went into the reception department, I found packages on the windowsill, on the benches and even under them. And in them there is a whole wealth for me: where are the jacket potatoes, where are the beets, where is the crust of bread. And someone even put in a boiled egg.
Word quickly spread throughout the village that I was starving, and in the days that followed I also found small packages of food.
And a few days later, the secretary came from the village council and began to scold me for not saying anything about the fact that I had no money at all and practically no food. Gradually she stopped cursing and handed me a statement where I signed for twenty rubles, given as an advance towards my future salary.
Glasha offered to bring a large container of milk and several slices of bread for a ruble every three days.
That's how I survived. She didn't die of hunger.
A month later I received my first salary, a whopping three hundred and seventy-five rubles. The advance was deducted from them, but still, by village standards, it turned out to be a lot of money.
The chairman of the village council went to Darovskoye, and I gave one hundred and fifty rubles with him to my aunt, my mother’s sister, who lived with her husband in the regional center, and she, in turn, gave them to my father, who came with a convoy to the region to hand over collective farm products.
The younger brother later recalled:
-Your money, Ninochka, probably saved us. Of course, by that time they had already begun to dig up potatoes and pull ears of barley from the garden, but for the most part they still ate beet tops, turnips, cabbage leaves and onion feathers. And then my father returned. I brought half a pound of rye flour, linseed oil, salt, a kilogram of sugar and even a small bag of candy. Then for the first time that year we ate our fill of bread and boiled potatoes with onions and linseed oil.
In the following months, I sent home a hundred rubles each. It didn't work anymore. We already had to pay for loans to restore the national economy, and we gradually had to settle down. Life began with one dress, a pair of panties, and a coat made from a soldier’s overcoat.
And I really started eating better. The village council was rich. In the sense that the surrounding collective farms were located on the high bank of the Moloma River, where the land was more fertile and even in lean years, good grain was produced.
The following spring, the village council allocated me about fifteen acres of hut for a vegetable garden. Thanks to Glasha and his father who arrived, we managed to plow it up and plant it with potatoes, oats and rye. The harvest from the free-flowing land turned out to be huge, so much so that it was enough not only for me to last the next winter, but also to fill a whole cart for my relatives, so that they could pay off debts on loans and taxes.
That's how I survived, son.

I regularly drive around the Chelyabinsk region and its environs. A call from a relative. You, he says, won’t be in Bashkiria this month? If there is a road, then stop somewhere and fill a bag of cow pats, otherwise it’s spring, garden and all that. Fertilizer in general.

Well, naturally, I ask, why suddenly Bashkiria? If all gardens soon have trucks with any kind of manure on duty, even a bag or a Kamaz truck will be delivered directly to the site. And there is no need to wander through the fields.
No, he answers! They had a meeting at the entrance of such pensioners who love seedlings and mulch. And one of the verdicts of this “listened to and decided” is this: Bashkir manure is environmentally friendly. And everything that cows shit in the Chelyabinsk region is just some kind of shit!

I have an employee at work, Vera, a young woman, a little over thirty. It doesn't particularly shine with beauty. She walks along the wall and almost never sees her talking. Our secretary, who knows everything about everyone, sometimes says sympathetically: Eh, the girl is missing. But she will make a good wife. I'm going home after work. I get into an unexpected traffic jam. I’m just getting ready to go into standby mode when a Niva pulls out of a traffic jam ahead. She pulls onto the sidewalk and begins to turn around. The traffic jam beeps indignantly. The Niva stops and our Vera gets out. In a loud commanding voice, calling those standing in traffic jams people of non-traditional sexual orientation, she asks everyone to shut up. After that, getting into the car, she finally turns around and drives off along the sidewalk, through a flowerbed, into the distance. The next day I saw her with her head down, mincing down the corridor. I’ve never believed in theories about split consciousness, but I don’t even want to guess. By the way, I didn’t tell anyone. Everyone has their own life.

Oh this wedding, this wedding...

February, Israeli winter. Outside the window there is rain, wind, and a storm at sea. I am sitting in an armchair, on a small table there is a glass of brandy, a plate of sliced ​​lemon, a cup of coffee. I don’t feel like reading, I don’t watch TV at all, I look through the archives, and delete some things. I discover a congratulatory letter from ten years ago, hand-drawn for the 30th anniversary life together my old friends. It’s crazy, this year already forty years have passed since that significant event.

I met Gena at the company where I worked in distribution after technical school. He was a couple of years older than me, we didn’t become friends, more like good friends. One early work morning, Gena announced that he was getting married.

Gena, why are you so impatient, you are only 21 years old. Is it really on the fly?
- No, it’s just that her mother is the head of the hospital. works in the department, and as soon as I am called to the military registration and enlistment office, she puts me in her department for examination.
- And that’s why you’re getting married?
- Where to go - either get married or join the army.
- Interesting arrangement, okay, you know better. And what is required of me?
- I want you to be my witness.
- Gena, don’t you need to dance freylekhs in the square?
- Well, it’s difficult for you.
- Of course it’s difficult, I don’t know how to dance.
- There will be no one except relatives, maybe a couple of friends. And the witness will be good, I’ll introduce you, you’ll like her.

I don’t like feasts, I don’t like companies at all. For me, all the weddings, birthdays and other gatherings for sharing alcoholic drinks and eating food, which I sometimes attended, always followed the same scenario. If I couldn’t excuse myself and not come at all, then I would arrive last, hand over a gift and, after sitting for a maximum of half an hour, quietly leave in English. So the last thing I wanted was to be a best man at a wedding.
After 40 years, I no longer remember how he managed to persuade me to take this rash step. I remember that he and his fiancée came to my house, they talked with my mother for a long time, found common people, if not relatives, then almost relatives. One way or another, I agreed to be a witness at the wedding, having absolutely no idea where it would lead me.

What is a Jewish wedding? This is a gathering of some relatives, friends and acquaintances who are remembered only on very big holidays and then not every year. Everyone gathers at the wedding.

But the biggest evil is the toastmaster with his stupid competitions and other crap. I started working on it right away. Taking him by the arm, he took him aside smiling.

My friend, I hope you know what circumcision is. Do you know? Wonderful. And you escaped this fate as a child. Escaped? Well, that's weird. So, if you pester me with your shmonkurs competitions and other crap like bride kidnapping or drinking out of shoes, then your reduction to zero will be inevitable, like the victory of communism. And this will happen immediately after the end of the celebration. I hope we understand each other. Smile, smile, you're at a wedding.

Next came the relatives.
- Genochka, you have grown so much, you are already 20 years old, you are very big. Do you remember how you bit Grandma Dora?
- Grandma, this is not Gena. This is Sasha.
-Where is Gena?
- Here's Gena.
- Genochka, happy birthday, grow up big.
- Grandma, this is not a birthday, this is a wedding, Gena is getting married.
- Is Gene getting married? Why is he doing this?

A couple of guests come up to me.
- Listen, is she pregnant?
- Who?
- Bride.
- I don’t know, I wasn’t interested.
A woman pulls his hand
- Fima, what do you care, leave the man alone.
- So why is he getting married if she is not pregnant? I'm just wondering.

Izya, put down the bottle, you have an ulcer.
- Can’t I even drink a little to the health of the young people?
- Drink mineral water for your health. Put down the bottle, I told you!

Listen, I have a question for you. Are you a witness here?
- Still a witness
“Won’t you tell me the bride is Jewish?”
- Yes, yes.

You don't know who his parents are?
- Some engineers.
- Poor girl, it will be difficult for her.
- Sofochka, what’s wrong with this, not everyone works in trade.

In the middle of the wedding, the waiter comes up to me.
- They are asking you.
- Who?
- On the street.
I get up and go out. Near the entrance there are five syaks, or, as they say now, gopniks.
- I'm listening to.
- So, you don’t want us to start a fight and ruin the wedding. In short, bring five bottles of vodka and a dime of money. You have five minutes.
- Okay, we'll decide now.
- Don't even think about calling the cops.
- Why, we will sort everything out ourselves.
I go to the gym, I figure, well, I’ll definitely knock out two, maybe three, but there are five of them. The suit may be torn. And even in a suit you can’t reach your face with your foot, your trousers might burst, but do I need it? Wait, I saw the Bull among the guests.

A small digression.
I knew the bull for a long time, from school. A normal guy, although without brains, but with a cannon punch. At the age of 19 he was a master of sports in boxing in heavyweight. I saw him send one pretzel flying. The body flew into the window, destroying the frame.

Girl, I'll pick up your boyfriend for five minutes, if you don't mind.
- Igor, I need you, urgently.
I will briefly describe the situation. The bull, without saying a word, quickly goes out, taking off his jacket as he goes. I also start taking off my jacket.
- No need, I'll do it myself.
From the porch I manage to see how Igor quickly approaches the freebie lovers, they don’t even have time to utter a few words, five lightning strikes and five deeply knocked out bodies are resting on the asphalt. The whole procedure took no more than three seconds. I stand with my jaw hanging open, Igor takes the jacket from my hands.
- Will you figure it out yourself?
- Yes thank you.

Igor goes into the hall. I quickly drag the unconscious bodies into the nearest gateway. There are many police patrols at this time. If they see you, then five bottles of vodka will not pay you off. But everything ends well. Having carefully laid out the idiots, I also return to the hall.

I pour it and drink it to calm my nerves. An hour passes. The waiter comes up again.
- They are asking you.
- Who?
- On the street.
- What now?
I look outside. Some kind of deja vu. The Holy Trinity stands. Those two are missing, either they haven’t come to their senses yet, or they’ve decided to leave. One is twirling a folding knife in his hands. As luck would have it, the Bull disappeared somewhere. Yura approaches.
- Sasha, why are you standing here? Did someone offend you? Let's go break in now. I don’t have time to really tell...

Second retreat.
I met Yura completely by accident. He worked near my house in a watch workshop. I brought his watch to be repaired, we started talking, and it turned out we had a lot of mutual friends. Yura is a very good guy, but if he drinks, he’s always looking for someone to fight with. Only his wife can stop him. At that moment she was a little distracted and Yura went looking for adventure.

Yura didn't listen to the end.

Oh, that's it, I'm off.
- Wait, I'm with you.
- Don't interfere, I'll do it myself. Damn he's waving a knife.

I still didn't have time. The blow was strong. The knife flew in one direction, teeth and snot in the other. The rest did the legs. Olya, Yuri’s wife, jumped out onto the threshold.
- You can’t be left alone for five minutes, march to the hall.
Yura somehow immediately turned sour, even decreased in size and dejectedly trudged after Olya.

Having dragged the body into the already familiar gateway, I also went into the hall. He sat down and gulped down an almost full glass of cognac to calm his nerves. I feel someone's gaze on me. I raise my head and some fat woman, hung with shiny trinkets like a Christmas tree, is looking at me intently.

Oh. Look, he drinks like a cobbler, and I also wanted to introduce you to our Firochka. Why does she need this alcoholic?

When will this... wedding end...

But everything has its beginning, and everything comes to an end. The wedding dinner is over. The guests leave. Those who live nearby walk, some take a taxi, most take the ordered bus. I went with them too.
I thought, another twenty minutes and I’ll be home. Not the case.

Five or six minutes pass. Again that nasty voice from behind.
- Bora! Will you tell me where we are going? Who's in command of the parade here?
- Tsilya! The driver knows where to go, sit still.

I squeeze my way up to the driver and ask him to stop. Jumping out on Fresh air. I'll go on foot and get some air at the same time. Half an hour and I'm already home. Mom watches TV. I quietly walk into my room.

Sasha, how's the wedding going? There were a lot of visitors? Have you been introduced to a nice girl?

The answer was a heavy sigh...