How the Iron was tempered

But it just so happens that I had to participate in a competition after I quit boxing.

I don’t remember the reason exactly, but my coach told me that I had to stand up for our boxing class, and there is no one else in my weight division.

And I agreed, because I don’t like to let down people I respect. By that time I hadn’t been training for several months, which was very embarrassing for me, and I told the coach about my doubts.

To which he responded: «You’ll get there and hop a bit, winning is not important, it’s the taking part that counts, and the opponent is weak, maybe, you’ll win» His words cheered me up, of course, but it turned out differently.

The opponent turned out to be a well-trained hulk of a guy, and I wasn’t even fit for the fight.

To keep it simple, he beat the crap out of me.

I wasn’t thinking clearly and I remember one moment between rounds.

I’m sitting down, I feel sick, my face hurts, I’m out of strength, out of air, my head is cloudy, and the coach tells me: «Put your hands up, keep your hands up,» and I raise them up in the air, and he tells me: «Not now, put them up during the fight.»

I lost, but the most valuable thing for me was that the coach made an example out of me and told everyone that they’re got to learn courage from me, despite the fact that I looked deplorable.

And after the fight, being all courageous, I was sitting in the shower and throwing up, but throwing up proudly, as a hero should.

Boxing helped me beyond the school years.

The most important thing is that boxing gives you not only the ability to fight and to defend yourself.

Boxing gives you inner confidence and peace of mind, which is felt from a distance and very well felt by the attackers.

That’s why most of conflicts didn’t come to an actual fight.

Army: the school for men

After school I, like everyone else I knew, went to university to become an engineer: this career was deemed prestigious back then.

My father didn’t pull any strings to get me exempted, and after my first year at the university I was drafted.

Of course, I didn’t want to join the army and didn’t understand why I should join.

But here, as in the saying goes, what does not kill you makes you stronger.

I’ve already said that I was a sickly child, I had flat feet, I had some bumps on my knees. Anyway, I was very hopeful that I wouldn’t be enlisted due to my health condition. I underwent a medical examination and all my conditions were confirmed, which gave me even more hope for an exempt.

What a surprise it was to me when I was not just enlisted, but also assigned to the border troops and sent to serve in the Far East on the border with China.

I was shocked, and my whole family as well, except for my dad. I had to leave for 2 years for 9,000 km from home, and I had never been to a youth camp or gone from my parents to my grandmother’s village for more than a week.

The situation was worsened by the fact that at that time the USSR waged a war in Afghanistan. Even our town saw some coffins returning home instead of lads sent to war.

Before going to the transit terminal in Syzran, I got a short haircut, cutting my curls for the first time in my life. They shaved me with a hair clipper in Syzran. And we started waiting for a «buyer», as they called them.

It was interesting to look at the process.

An officer would come out into the middle of the square and shouts out some conscripts’ names.

They would come out, and the officer would take them to the unit. There was a real chance to change your initial assignment by simply not responding to the call.

That’s what many did if the «buyer» was a navy officer (since the service in the navy took 3 years instead of 2).

But then the «buyers» got wiser, and some random officer came out at first, and then, when the group was formed, the real «buyer» revealed himself, and until the last moment you didn’t know where you are going to end up.

In general, I was «bought» by the border guards, packed into an aircraft and sent flying with warning that 90 percent of will be sent to the Afghanistan. We were terrified.

And then we arrived to the destination.

We got out of the plane and found ourselves into a completely different climate, the humidity was so high that there were droplets of water in the air, something I had never seen before.

They drove us into the barracks and told us to wait. There were wooden mattressless beds in the barracks, after 15 minutes of lying down the whole body was aching.

We were taken to a boot camp in Blagoveshchensk. As we were drafted after the first year of higher education, we were assigned to the communications unit, and based on the complexity and specifics of training, it had to last 9 months instead of normal 6.

Those were hard times. We were drilled like… I don’t know who, there was nothing to compare with.

I naturally like being clean and tidy, and there you were sleep, eat, run, train wearing the same field uniform, and it is supposed to dry on you. You can only wash in a washbasin with cold water only. Linen and clothes are changed once a week after the bath.

What I didn’t like most was the «political information» sessions, because they put it right after forced foot marches, and we had to sit down, listening and drying out slowly.

Meals… I’d hardly call that food.

Most days it was «wallpaper paste». I don’t know how to explain what it was, but believe me, it was some inedible shit.

At least we had bread to eat our fill. There were state holidays, of course, when we were allowed to go to the store and buy crackers and candy.

The most delicious food was a «sandwich»: two crackers put together and a candy in between.

And it could only be eaten at night, and if you don’t get caught by the sergeants. In this case they’d take all the sweets, and you had to wash the toilets until morning.

All recruits have lost a lot of weight from that poor nutrition. Generally, when you arrive to the boot camp, everyone would know everything about you, and senior soldiers would know the most.

Boxing helped me out here again.

I was respected, never been beaten and even showed the highest degree of respect: they called me to work out with them at night.

The rest were less lucky: be a wimp, and the seniors would harass the shit out of you.

At that time dedovshchina hazing practices were still present in the army.