It is never funny.
of Crimea. Summer of 2104. All events have already been shaken, the referendum has passed, and Crimea has joined Russia.) We and our colleagues work in Crimea – we meet with the population, we try to understand how they had everything arranged here, and they, the population, try to understand how Russia lives today and what it really is).
In our group - four, we live in Yalta, we are responsible for the Razdolnensky, in my opinion, the district, in the very north of the Crimea, no matter how strange it sounds.) To the district center - 320 kilometers, then transported in the settlements, 1-2 on the brother, again gathered in the district center, and in the hotel, in Yalta. The circle is 700 kilometers daily, the temperature is 35-40 warm, there is air conditioning in the minibus, but the shirts / clothes are wet through, get up every day at five in the morning and cut off at 12...
We come back somehow. Lunch at the road cafe. Externally, it is not a very large building, not completely decorated; as it turned out, the "Greek-Ukrainian" option: you don't pay taxes. Inside - very even decent - the hall is huge, good floor, good textiles, decent identical dishes, homemade normal tables, comfortable, although simple, wooden chairs. Very clean and very light, even somehow comfortable.
The owner is a Tatar, low, rooted, sloppy-perforated, just over fifty. Rare hairs, almost a chokhlatsky "chub", or rather, the remains of a chub, there is no eye, brushes like legs (I have wide hands, but he generally has one - like two of mine), rushed, in the dark from the ground and everyday work cracks.
We were fed by the owner, sitting with us at the table (eight or nine people, together with the accompanying district-republican headquarters), which is called, "from the pulp", I only meat dishes five pieces counted, respectively and vodka went as a drink, not alcohol).
We finished, we drank tea, it was time to go.
I wanted to account for everyone - the owner does not take money. I told him, thank you, of course, for the hospitality and salad, very pleasant, but we are able to pay for ourselves. He is something like - I owe you a life, I will eat and drink for free all my life.
I’m a “life-debt” – a speech figure, Eastern hospitality and all that, but I’m used to paying for myself always and everywhere.
He owes me – Russia, Putin, always, life, I will not take money, you will offend, etc.
I again - we can pay for ourselves, we can not eat a good person, and the local bosses are like two of my... although I have a lot of)), a joke of the type I...

Here he told me:
“My family and I have more than 2,000 sheep in the herd. The family was my wife, my eldest daughter with my son, my grandson, and my youngest. We do it ourselves, we bring something to the market and to restaurants, we sell something here in the cafe. Especially no money, but for clothes and gasoline is enough, barks chew grass, and we have our own food)) (This is now he, as if, jokes)
With all friends, we do not pay anyone, everything is calm and well.
In the winter, at the beginning of the year, two cars come to us - one with our guys from the messies, the other - with strong men aged 35-40, as they presented themselves, from Western Ukraine. Everyone was sitting at the table, I fed them, they ate, they ate; they are told that they have a training camp of 25 kilometers here in the steppe, 200 people and dozens of American instructors. They like my food, ready to take a lamb for camp.
They pretended that 20 sheep a week would be enough. I tell them how it is more convenient - I can raise and refresh here and bring them only bodies, I can bring alive if they want to eat fresh food every day. And what about the money - will there be an advance or on delivery will be paid?
The eldest of them quietly looks at me and says - grandfather, and lambs - is your contribution to the independence of the country and money, you understand, nobody is going to pay you.
I am silent, he is also at first, just looking at me normally, and then completely quietly, without threats and screams, says: Grandpa, I don't like your expression of the face. You, of course, we will kill immediately, your wife is old for us, will wash dishes in the camp and cook - will live a little longer. The puppy (the grandson) will also be shot immediately, he is still looking at us as a wolf, here are your daughters normal, we have two hundred hungry men, they will fuck in three shifts, without a break for lunch, according to my experience of two or three weeks they will last, then they will die themselves, so choose you, we will come in a week.
They stood up, thanked for lunch and left.
What to do... I would have a large family with uncles-brothers-neighbors, even if a man of 30, took the guns and nobody would touch us, no one would start the war.
Run...and where are the bears? You will not steal with you, but our, from the meslis, will show the road again...; leave here - and ourselves for what to live, neither money nor relatives of the rich...
I thought, I thought, in the day they found the granddaughter bride, 13 years old, immediately the wedding played, here in the same room, there was a man 300, everyone I could, called, walked away as needed, I young three days from the bed did not let go, so that I endured for sure.
The grandson was bound, so that he would not break out, and sent together with the young wife to her relatives; his mother, my eldest, barely convinced them to go with them - who will raise her grandson, and about us and mother will tell too.
The younger refused to leave, he says, daddy, well who I need, where I will live, there is no money, no work, close relatives too, only prostitutes go, I don't want to, I'll stay better with you and my mom.
Well, wife, it is understandable where she is without me, all her life together, not even thought, with you, says, I will stay...
I understood that I had to kill my wife and daughter first, because I would shoot again and again, and then they would kill me, and they would get these guys.
But the worst thing was when I began to think which one of them to kill first. If you kill a wife, the daughter will never forgive me; the first daughter, the wife will curse me.
I almost went crazy, I began to fear that I would put my hands on myself, and they would get them.
Here the daughter approaches me and says, “Dad, don’t be afraid, my mom and I will wait for you there, you won’t wait long.”

Fuck, I am a healthy strong man, with iron nerves, and then from the usuality of the story of this one-eyed Tatar was covered with muzzles...
I look at him and really fear to ask what happened next.

He looked somewhere in himself, as if he had remembered something, breathed and said, "And the next day Putin brought troops to us.
Now you understand that we all owe him our lives.”