Where we are not.

In 1990, the capital of sunny Ethiopia - the city of Addis Ababa. At the time, there were about a million inhabitants, including a couple of dozen Soviet diplomats and several hundred Soviet military advisers and members of their families.

To say that diplomats disliked the military would probably be an exaggeration. Rather, it was some arrogant contempt of the aristocrat who discovered a Roma camp near his mansion. Families of military personnel, accustomed to the joyous conditions of life in remote garrisons, calmly perceived such "discomforts", as life in the midst of slums, the absence of a personal car or one TV on the whole apartment residential house, and that shows only one channel four hours a day. The ambassadors lived better, and their supplies were better. In short, in order not to confuse the minds of the holograms who were unstable from a sudden departure abroad, military personnel and members of their families were prohibited from visiting the territory of the embassy (except for children attending the embassy school). The argument was simple: “Officially you are not here.”

I must say that in a sense they were right. Officially, the only Soviet soldier on the territory of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was a Soviet military attache, who was permanently in the territory of the same embassy. The rest were officially Cubans. His father, like all other military advisors, carried the Cuban military uniform without distinction. Passports were collected from everyone after crossing the border, and were issued back only when returning to the homeland. Well, for us, it was a puppy: many of us were not officially there then, and now too.

One day there was a significant meeting. We met a colonel from our house and either the second or third secretary of the embassy (he knows who he was, I know only that his wife, the worst aunt, was our English teacher). They met their cars. Military UAZik met with Ambassador Zhygulenko.

Here we need to stop on the cars a little more detailed. The Ambassador's car was an export "seven" snow-white color. Not a stranger, of course, but almost the dream of any Soviet man. A month from the union. The fellow diplomat himself lovingly struck her in the morning, as we drove from the school bus to the school building.

And UAZIK... well what to say, was abandoned in Ethiopia for at least 10 years before my arrival, and how much he had previously wheeled through the vastness of our vast homeland – only God knows. All beaten, all slapped. The roof was made of woven insulate, since the breeze has long broken down in the conditions of African climate (or maybe, and before that broke down, nobody knows).

And here these two loneliness met right in front of our house. Colonel UAZik decided to cross the opposite strip and go to the courtyard, the Ambassador Zhygulenko did not like it and he went to the tarantula. The result: a broken mouth of Zhygule and a messy side of the goat. The cars disappeared after a while. Gigi, of course, under the magazine. UAZik on the weekend the men leveled with a kiwi, painted - and it became in some way even better than before the accident. But then began the entertainment in the form of ambassador’s attempts to obtain compensation from the military.

Whoever had the misfortune to get into an accident involving a military car, he is aware - even inside the Motherland to get some compensation at the same time is almost impossible. But the diplomats were persistent, reminding about their demands almost every week, every time appealing to an increasingly high-ranking rank. Until, finally, at the reception on the occasion of some of the holidays (such as it was on November 7th) to the chief military adviser who was present at this reception (I don't remember the name for years) did not approach the same victim and did not start the old song about the fact that it would be good to get new Zyguli in exchange for the murdered old ones. On which, according to the testimony of individual comrades, he received from the comrade general the answer of approximately the following content:

You have always said that there are no Soviet soldiers in Ethiopia. On what grounds do you then try to demand compensation from the Ministry of Defense of the USSR? As you said before, the Cubans are here? Go to the Cuban Embassy!