It was in 1990. I served in the Church—where else to go after the philosophy faculty—and left the house early in the morning to sing before the liturgy began. There was a haircut on the sidewalk of the neighbor’s house. Large and incredibly, blindingly beautiful. A small graceful head, smooth flat wings, arrow-like wings - neither to give nor to take a fighter.
He lay down and tossed his cloth, as if he wanted to say something. The look is completely defenseless. He remembered that his cloth was so wide opened - as if the head was divided in half, into two equal parts. The hair looks perfectly healthy. I did not want to take off. Maybe his wing is broken? Looking at the wings, I don’t think.

I brought him home. And I had a cat, Boyan, a cool one - picked up at the time at the Yaroslavl station. The understanding between us was extraordinary. I lived, I could say, in the soul. I’ve always been like that with cats.
The cat met already at the doorstep, as if he knew everything in advance, with a characteristic face and with the most convincing murmuring: "Well, we're going to eat, right, Behemot? I know you brought something very tasty...” I locked the bird in the kitchen, in a box under my shoes. I put it high up to the refrigerator. The cat walked around in circles, mourning and mourning, in sight - and death sorrow, and hope for future happiness. He was sitting at the door until I returned. The love!

After the liturgy there was, as always, a panic, then a wedding, he was released only at 4 a.m. He picked up a box with a bird and went to the MSU, to the biofac, to the ornithology department. Nothing else could have come up with.
In addition, I have a best friend working at this school. Well, and in love with one biology at the time was very strong. On biofakes in general study very interesting and the most romantic girls, have written about it many times. The nostalgia...

I open the door to the chapel. Sitting classical such professors - old, wise, in worn jackets, all like one with huge gray beards.
They drink tea – small dishes, some cookies, old silver glasses... I go in, I greet you. I said, “Could you look at it?” I open the box.

The professors began to examine the bird with unfailing interest. Everyone got stuck in her. And with such, you know, untransmitted intellectual pronounce, just like in the old movie, they say, "Miserable lord, this is your haircut! A beautiful copy. Such an offended... Where did you find him, honourable?” You won’t understand why, but I was incredibly proud, as if I had fed a refined beast.

This was discovered. The hair is a very aristocratic bird. He does not walk on the ground at all - sleeping on the tallest trees or under the roofs of houses.
When you need to fly, he throws down, takes a decent move, and only then begins to move his wings. The minimum speed is 50 km per hour, the maximum is 140-150, the cruiser is about 100. Consumption of fuel...
Drinks only on the flight - descends on the brewing flight over the surface of the water, plunges into it the lower part of the clove, and the water with a thin jet itself flies into the esophagus. In the flight and feeds - at full speed breaks the clove widely, and the mosquito gets directly into the esophagus. The haircut itself cannot be fed - it has no swallowing muscles, it needs a long and very thin pincet to send each insect directly to the stomach. One of the professors feeding his hair for several months, the difficulties were incredible. In the city to live such a bird is difficult - a lot of wires, at high speed is not always able to react. Therefore, the hair is sometimes found on the ground.

I was told there was nothing to lose anymore. The metabolism at the haircut is so fast, food needs a lot (due to the constant energy consumption for the flight) that in a few hours he will begin to die of hunger - because from the early morning nothing has been eaten. "You know," said one of the professors, with the same untransmitted voice, "and he will fly from you. Yes, the merciful Lord. He must definitely fly. The bird is quite healthy, the eyes are not sick, the feathers are good, the bones and wings are all whole. Get up to a high building and throw it down. There is no other way - he will soon die of hunger, you will still not be able to feed him on your own."

Said is done. I went up to the last floor of the Humbak and opened a huge window in the same auditorium where we recently held seminars on scientific atheism. The beauty. A sunny, cloudless day, on the left is the crowd of the Main Building of the MSU, right in front of me - a beautiful park stretching to the Vorobyovy Mountains. My native eighth dining room far away... I crossed the shaft, and, with a hidden heart, threw it into the air, hoping for the best. Instead, the stone cut went down, straight to the asphalt. I watched with horror how he was now breaking down – as if eleven floors high the building... However, directly in front of the ground, literally a few meters away, the shaft quickly swung with its wings, made a very beautiful manoeuvre, leveled, and flew somewhere in the direction of the Moscow river, rapidly gaining height. He flew quickly and immediately disappeared from his eyes.

I think he hit the wire in the morning when he was performing another figure of the top pilot. I forgot about it all, pursuing another mouse.
The height was low, the speed immediately fell, he could not fix the flight, so he remained lying on the ground. The first cat.