Читать книгу The Adventures of Kesha the Russian Boy - Константин Воскресенский - Страница 12
Chapter 4. 1990. Mischief amp; More
1996. Gorodki and a gas mask
ОглавлениеYeah, that was a pretty serious mistake to make. But life goes on and so does my moderately criminal track record. Now let's switch from pets to items. It was summer, I was at a sanatorium in Stupino, outside of Moscow, and I was in a bad crowd.
Well, they weren't that bad, but they did force me to climb into someone else's shed. It fit snugly against the fence of the sanitorium. So I broke in, and heroically retrieved one gas mask and Gorodki set[13]. The gas mask was lost quickly – hidden under a pillow and successfully seized by unidentified persons. But we played Gorodki for ages. When the adults asked where we got it from, our official story was «I got it for my birthday».
So, yeah, they tricked me again but I recovered quickly. When I was getting ready to go home, I started to gather it up to take it with me. The band of lads started pressuring me to leave it behind for others. Of course, I was hardly going to do that. It was a matter of principle! I said: «It's my birthday present, why the questions? Do you want to discuss it with the adults?» And as a result, I took it home, which I am still childishly happy about.
At least one lesson was learned from this. Later, I realised I could smell bad crowds a mile off and always avoided them, not getting involved in any confrontations.
13
An old Russian folk sport similar in concept to bowling. The aim of the game is to knock out groups of skittles arranged in various patterns by throwing a bat at them.