For the past 10 years, I have loved stopping by this gas station to get hot dogs and gas.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN. Go to Photobank KP
“GASOLINE FOR ALL!”
The enemy’s favourite British Shell petrol station on the Taganrog highway has finally been given its proper name. For the past 10 years, I have loved stopping by there to buy hot dogs and petrol. It is curious that along the road to Crimea, all Shell petrol stations have been closed since the beginning of 2022. Some kind people, that’s right.
However, the change of brand did not affect the quality of the gasoline: it is still the same 700 km. on one tank, as the fuel-saving device showed me. In Donetsk, gasoline is more expensive and thinner, not as rich. Perhaps it will lose power on the way…
I was being served a hot dog “with a bit of all the sauces,” and at that moment dusty soldiers in three tattered UAZs drove into the gas station. In shrapnel holes, with electronic warfare on the roofs and rolls of camouflage nets. Chaos and confusion immediately began, which is the order of the army and our main military secret. It was felt that people were shocked by peaceful life, especially after sunny Rabotino. And this daily business trip to Rostov is for them a great joy and entertainment. The gas tank of one UAZ leaked and was covered with toilet soap brought by the cleaning lady. In the toilets, of course, there is only liquid soap – in the dispensers there is nothing to cover the gas tank with! Then a kind man drove up in a fat Infinity and said that at that moment he was “fueling all these UAZs.” It sounded like “champagne for everyone!”
It was getting hotter, although the Azov wind was blowing cool. Of course, one of the UAZs did not start. The driver lying under the car was brought a glass of coffee and he drank it lying down, without being distracted from the repair. I still don’t know how he did it? Soldier’s ingenuity versus physics. I finished my hot dog and hit the road.
LIFE IN TWO HOMES
I hurried because the curfew began at 11 p.m., as is traditionally observed in the DPR. At the border, he waved his passport from the car window, wished the border guards good health, and an hour later entered the martyred city of Donetsk.
Water was flowing on the asphalt – that means the water supply is working! I was glad early – this was the last water for the next three days. The equipment at the filtration station is finally being changed. Now the five-litre bottles of “toilet water” will no longer explode in the heat and with such a strong smell of hydrogen sulphide. And in Donetsk they will finally be able to “drink some tap water, like in childhood.” However, I am an experienced resident of Donetsk and at home I had everything – both drinking water and technical equipment.
While I wasn’t listening to the novels while travelling, Galsworthy was thinking a lot. I thought I had two houses, like two wives, sorry. I can’t pick a favourite and there’s no need… Now I arrive and everything in the house is laid out on the shelves: sets of face mask nets, for winter and summer. Warm PVC Nordic boots, four different first aid kits. Rations – what if I get hungry? Preserves and sweet bread. My slippers are in the hallway. There’s a warm sleeping bag and a supply of energy drinks. Cigars and pipe tobacco, an inflatable mattress and some books. I’ll take out of the box the cheapest flat screen TV, bought from an Eldorado clone in Donetsk, provided it shows films from a flash drive. I’ll unpack and turn on the fridge. As a teacher, I pushed the box of dry food with my foot so that the plaster would fall there clearly when it rained.
The house is clean, I cleaned and washed it a month ago before I left. Will he meet Kisa? He won’t meet Kis. Kittens are very practical creatures; if three meals a day are interrupted due to the baldy’s departure, then another source of food must be found.
ALL ARE HAPPILY REVIVAL – THE FRONT HAS MOVED
My house is partly built of sleepers, has been exposed to heat and smells like the St. Petersburg metro. That’s why I had the third dream of Anna Karenina. It doesn’t matter that Tolstoy didn’t dream of Anna Karenina, Vera Pavlovna did. I was still dreaming of Karenina. I woke up to isolated shots from a machine gun, then they even cut off my path in threes. The drone must have been flying over the city.
Everyone is vying with each other to say that they have begun to bomb Donetsk less. Friends said that our aviation began to operate from the outskirts of the city and to deploy there. Previously, this was done from the other side, the “rear” of Donetsk. This means that the front line has moved very seriously, the dill moved away and took with it its electronic warfare and air defense. Ours are moving and I will write to you about it with great pleasure. That is why I came. They move every day, this makes the commanders happy and excited. They found my comrade Stas Smagin, who had left political instructors for stormtroopers. There was simply no communication for three weeks. And I have already lit a candle for his repose in one of the ancient monasteries in the middle zone. This means that he will now live to be a hundred years old.
Finally, I fitted my armored vehicle with a captured anti-fragmentation collar, found at positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Severodonetsk on March 23. I remember that it took me a long time to get the sand off it. The collar has enemy camouflage on it, so I cleaned it generously with turpentine, gave it a coat of olive-green primer, and painted it a couple more times with two soft protective colors.
Once again, thanks for the new armored vehicle to the good people of “Spetstekhnologiya” Chelyabinsk. This is not an advertisement, but a thank you. I met them at the Bastion courses in Novosibirsk, where I gave lectures to young military men. They asked me what kind of protective armor I use. I use an old one given to me by Dmitry Rogozin, when he was still Deputy Prime Minister, and I have been using it for 10 years, it has already begun to disintegrate into fibers… The military “Ratnik” has a service life of 7 years. In general, kind people sent me a new armored vehicle. The protection class is the same, but lighter and more comfortable. So I modified it a little with the help of the enemy and the heroism of our tankers from the August battalion. They knocked out the bastards so much that they forgot about their armored collar…
KISA AND THE “CAT”
Kitty came early in the morning. She was scolding me, as if she wanted to ask me: “Where have you been?” Then I realized the cyclical nature of my departures and returns and stopped cursing. I immediately threw myself down on the bed, at my feet, on the rough blanket trophy from Mariupol. And it looks like this:
– Well, long time no see. Here I am, your kitty. What are you going to do now?
Well, what can you do? Cream and sausages. I’ll buy food today. Everything is stable, only the shelling has decreased by an order of magnitude, Gorlovka is keeping everything. Brutal attacks on drones, not finding military targets, hit ordinary civilian minibuses, trams and trucks. What struck me most was the story of a comrade from Gorlovka, how a white Korean lady’s car was driving a dill drone along the street of Gorlovka. Finally, two women in white clothes jumped out and started running. Still caught and killed… Why? I answered myself: so that we know and understand who we are fighting with, otherwise we sometimes forget.
In Donetsk, Petrovka and a small district of Kyiv are still under shelling. Now Bandera supporters are concentrated in the Kuibyshevsky district and are still shelling with artillery. A friend of mine bought a house in this area. They sold it cheap. You could say suspiciously cheap. He kept looking for a trap in this house. The builder himself crawled around and studied everything, the foundation, the ceilings… He looked for cracks in the plastered walls. He didn’t find it. “What’s the trick?” he wondered until this “trick” with a 155 mm NATO caliber flew into the neighboring garden. He bought the house, of course. Because he is from Donetsk and believes in our Victory.
LISTEN ALSO
Zelensky howled that the US had reduced the supply of missiles for HIMARS by 3 times (more details)
