About five meters from a huge office building. “He deliberately spent the money for other purposes, allowing for misuse

Only strong people who know the value of human life are capable of showing compassion for the enemy. Thus, in the novel “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy has an interesting episode describing the attitude of Russian soldiers towards the French. In the night forest, a company of soldiers warmed themselves by a fire. Suddenly they heard a rustling sound and saw two French soldiers, who, despite wartime, were not afraid to approach the enemy. They were very weak and could barely stand on their feet. One of the soldiers, whose clothes identified him as an officer, fell to the ground exhausted. The soldiers laid out the sick man's overcoat and brought both porridge and vodka. It was officer Rambal and his orderly Morel. The officer was so cold that he could not even move, so the Russian soldiers picked him up and carried him to the hut occupied by the colonel. On the way, he called them good friends, while his orderly, already pretty tipsy, hummed French songs, sitting between the Russian soldiers. This story teaches us that even in difficult times we need to remain human, not finish off the weak, and show compassion and mercy.

L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”

At first glance, it seems that in the novel “War and Peace” the Bolkonsky and Rostov families are two different poles, two completely different worldviews.
If for the Rostovs the main thing is emotions, then for the Bolkonskys the main thing is order, established by them once and for all. But there are also common features, one of which is love for each other, all their actions are dictated by good
intentions. Countess Rostova is sincerely devoted to her children; she cannot indifferently accept the news of her son’s death, and this pain is also understandable to her youngest daughter, who will never allow herself to leave her mother alone in grief. Natasha is responsive and kind. These qualities were brought up in her by her parents.
Speaking about the Bolkonsky family, you should pay attention to the fact that the old prince, at first glance, seems cruel and indifferent towards children, but all his words and actions are dictated by love for them. Behind the external severity of the old man Bolkonsky hides the kind, loving heart of his father. So, he wants only the best for Marya, and she, in turn, blindly obeys him, fearing to upset the old man.
I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons"

I. S. Turgenev in the novel “Fathers and Sons” touches on the issue of the cruel attitude of children towards their parents. Using the example of the figure of E. Bazarov, the reader sees what pain indifference causes: he did not see his old people for three years, but came to them for only three days. The father barely dares to reproach his son, and the mother only secretly sheds tears, caring for her Enyusha, but the son is burdened by this attention, he is busy with his own interests. Bazarov did not even talk to his father when he arrived after a three-year separation, although he did not sleep all night. Unfortunately, only before his death the hero understands that kindness should be the basis of family relationships, and asks Odintsova to take care of the elderly: “After all, people like them cannot be found in your big world during the day…”

K.G. Paustovsky "Telegram"

The plot of Paustovsky's story tells about the life of Katerina Petrovna, an elderly woman who was lonely waiting for her daughter to arrive. Nastya lives in a big city, works as a secretary in the artists' union. She is respected at work, she tries in all her manifestations to be a responsible, responsive, kind person in relation to the people around her. The heroine helps the young sculptor with the organization of the exhibition, understanding how important it is for him. But at the same time, he indifferently puts a telegram in his bag with the news of his mother’s imminent death, without even reading it. This act is nothing more than a manifestation of cruelty towards the dearest person. And only after losing her mother, Nastya realizes that her daughter’s debt should not be reduced only to a money transfer; loved ones need attention, love, support, and indifference “kills” them.
Cruelty does not always manifest itself in specific actions; sometimes it is enough to simply step away. Nastya realized this too late, when there was no one to ask for forgiveness.
The heroine of B. Ekimov’s story “Speak, Mom, Speak...” turns out to be wiser. The young woman understands in time that she should be sorry not for the money given for telephone calls, but for her elderly mother, whose life could end at any moment. The daughter realizes that by indifferently cutting off her mother’s story, she is causing her a severe offense.

A. Platonov “Yushka”
Another hero of Russian literature who has to endure the cruelty of others is the blacksmith’s assistant Efim Dmitrievich, popularly nicknamed Yushka. Very often, children and adults offend Yushka, beat him, throw stones, sand and earth at him, but he endures everything, does not take offense and is not angry with them. Sometimes the guys try to anger Yushka, but nothing works out for them, and sometimes they don’t even believe that he’s alive. The hero himself believes that those around him show “blind love” to him.
Yushka does not spend the money he earns, he only drinks empty water. Every summer he goes somewhere, but no one knows where exactly, and Yushka does not admit it, he names different places.
Every year Yushka becomes weaker from consumption. One summer, instead of leaving, he stays at home. And in the evening, returning
from the forge, for the first time in his life, he responds to the cruel attacks of a passerby making fun of him. Efim Dmitrievich states that if he was born, it means he is needed on this earth for something. The offender, who did not expect a rebuff, pushes Yushka in the sore chest, he falls and dies.
Particular attention in the story is paid to the hero's adopted daughter, to whom he went all these years, taking the money he earned to support her in the boarding house.
Knowing about Yushka’s illness, the girl studied to be a doctor and wanted to cure him. No one told her that Yushka had died - he simply did not come to her, and the girl went to look for him.
The heroine remains to work in the city, selflessly helps people, and everyone calls her “Yushka’s daughter”, that’s how good begets good.

An argument from the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?"
What is the role of goodness in human life?

By doing a good deed for others, even while infringing on one’s own rights and opportunities, a person becomes happy because those close to him are happy. The characters test this theory with their lives. When Lopukhov saw that Verochka Rozalskaya needed to be saved from her own mother, who intends to marry her to the rich and immoral Storeshnikov, he decides to marry her, although this requires him to quit his studies and look for work. He completely disinterestedly passes on the data of his scientific research to his friend Kirsanov, making it easier for him to get his diploma. Vera Pavlovna starts workshops for poor girls, saving them from poverty and consumption, and divides the profits equally. In case of marriage, he gives a substantial dowry for the girl. When Vera Pavlovna fell in love with Kirsanov, she informs her husband about this, trusting him infinitely, and he stages his own suicide, freeing Vera from marriage.
As a result, this universal dedication leads to universal happiness: Lopukhov, having gotten rich honestly somewhere in America, finds love and mutual understanding with Vera Pavlovna’s friend Katya Polozova.

An argument from the novel by B.L. Vasiliev "Don't shoot white swans." Cruelty towards nature.

One of the main characters, Yegor Polushkin, is a man who does not stay in one job for long. The reason for this is the inability to work “without a heart.” He loves the forest very much and takes care of it. That’s why he is appointed as a forester, while firing the dishonest Buryanov. It was then that Egor showed himself as a true fighter for nature conservation. He bravely enters the fight against poachers who set fire to the forest and killed the swans. This man serves as an example of how to treat nature. Thanks to people like Yegor Polushkin, humanity has not yet destroyed everything that exists on this earth. Goodness in the person of caring “polushkins” must always act against Buryanov’s cruelty.

An argument from the novel "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" by J. Boyne. Kindness towards people, its role in human life. What makes a person good? How can a person learn kindness?
Compassion and kindness can and should be learned. The main character of J. Boyne's novel "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" Bruno is a striking example that confirms my position. His dad, a German military officer, hires a tutor for the children, who should teach them to understand modern history, to understand what is right and what is wrong. But Bruno is completely uninterested in what the teacher says, he loves adventure and does not understand at all how some people differ from others. In search of friends, the boy goes to “explore” the territory near his home and stumbles upon a concentration camp, where he meets his peer, a Jewish boy, Shmuel. Bruno knows that he should not be friends with Shmuel, so he carefully hides his meetings. He brings food to the prisoner, plays with him and talks through the barbed wire. Neither propaganda nor his father can make him hate the camp prisoners. On the day of his departure, Bruno again goes to a new friend, he decides to help him find his father, puts on a striped robe and sneaks into the camp. The ending of this story is sad, the children are sent to the gas chamber, and only by the remains of their clothes Bruno’s parents understand what happened. This story teaches that empathy needs to be cultivated in oneself. Perhaps we need to learn to look at the world the way the main character does, then people will not repeat terrible mistakes.

An argument from David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas. Kindness and humanity, their role in people's lives.

The novel takes place in the dystopian state of Ni-So-Kopros, which developed on the territory of modern Korea. In this state, society is divided into two groups: purebreds (people born naturally) and fabricators (clone people raised artificially as slaves). They are treated very inhumanely and cruelly: they are not considered people, they are destroyed like broken equipment. The author focuses on the heroine Sonmi-451, who by chance finds herself involved in the fight against the state. When she learns the terrible truth about how the world really works, Sunmi can no longer remain silent and begins to fight for justice. This becomes possible only thanks to caring “purebreds” who understand the injustice of such a division. In a fierce battle, her comrades and her loved one are killed, and Sunmi is sentenced to death, but before her death she manages to tell her story to the “archivist.” This is the only person who heard her confession, but it was he who later changed the world. The moral of this part of the novel is that as long as there is at least one person for whom humanism is not just a word, hope for a just world will not fade.

Is there a place for mercy in war? And is it possible to show mercy to the enemy in war? The text by V. N. Lyalin makes us think about these questions. Here the author raises the problem of showing mercy to the enemy.

In the text, the author talks about Mikhail Ivanovich Bogdanov, who in 1943 was sent to war to serve as a nurse. During one of the fiercest battles, Mikhail Ivanovich managed to protect the wounded from SS machine gunners. For the courage shown during the counterattack with the SS division, he was nominated for the Order of Glory by the battalion commissar. On to the next

the day after the battle, noticing the corpse of a German soldier lying in a ditch, Mikhail Ivanovich showed mercy, deciding to bury the German. The author shows us that despite the war, Mikhail Ivanovich was able to retain his humanity, not remaining indifferent to the enemy. Having learned about this case, the battalion commissar decided to cancel the orderly's nomination for the Order of Glory. However, for Mikhail Ivanovich it was important to act according to his conscience, and not to receive a reward.

I agree with

the author’s position and is convinced that mercy has a place in war. After all, it doesn’t matter whether the enemy is dead or unarmed, he no longer poses any danger. I believe that Mikhail Ivanovich Bogdanov committed a worthy act by burying the body of a German soldier killed in a shootout. In conditions of a brutal war, it is very important to be able to preserve your humanity and not let your heart grow cold.

The problem of showing mercy to the enemy is raised in the works of V. L. Kondratiev, Sashka,. The main character Sashka captured a German during a German attack. At first, the German seemed like an enemy to him, but, looking closer, Sashka saw in him an ordinary person, just like himself. He no longer saw him as an enemy. Sashka promised the German his life, he said that Russians are not animals, they will not kill an unarmed person. He showed the German a leaflet that said that prisoners were guaranteed life and return to their homeland. However, when Sashka brought the German to the battalion commander, the German did not tell him anything, and therefore the battalion commander gave Sashka the order to shoot the German. Sashka’s hand did not rise to the unarmed soldier, so similar to himself. Despite everything, Sashka retained his humanity. He did not become bitter and this allowed him to remain human. As a result, the battalion commander, after analyzing Sashka’s words, decided to cancel his order.

The problem of showing mercy to the enemy is touched upon in L. N. Tolstoy’s work, War and Peace. One of the heroes of the novel, the Russian commander Kutuzov, shows mercy to the French fleeing from Russia. He feels sorry for them, because he understands that they acted on Napoleon’s orders and in no case dared to disobey him. Speaking to the soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Kutuzov says: We see that all soldiers are united not only by a feeling of hatred, but also by pity for the defeated enemy.

Thus, we can conclude that in war it is necessary to show mercy even to the enemy, no matter whether he is defeated or killed. A soldier is, first of all, a human being and must retain such qualities as mercy and humanity. They are the ones who allow him to remain human.

Mikhail Chvanov

Stories about our little brothers

I was tired of writing about human passions that exhaust the soul, about wars, about politics, I wanted to write about the simple, artless, which sooner or later, apparently, every writer comes to. For example, Vasily Ivanovich Belov, after his “Business as usual”, wrote an artless book “Stories about all living creatures”...
So, true stories about our little brothers.

BIRDS ON THE BALCONY
There was a time when, after a serious injury in the caves, and then after hypothermia on the volcanoes, my leg was almost amputated, and after the surgical clinic for a long time I was not so much tied to a bed, but had limited mobility: I walked on crutches. It was a harsh and snowy winter, and I spent most of my time at home. As if anticipating all this, in early autumn, in front of the hospital, I placed a large branch on the balcony, broken by the wind, almost a small tree, and hung bunches of rowan, viburnum, hawthorn on it... Later, a snowstorm, circling along the balcony, twisted something like caves. And now in winter, on the balcony, smoothing out my life, on frosty days a variety of birds gathered, sometimes at the same time: bullfinches, tits, waxwings, of course, sparrows, a magpie flew out of curiosity... And one waxwing, apparently sick, even lived for some time -spent the night on the balcony, settling down for the night on a lower branch in a snow cave filled with blizzards, closer to the balcony door - apparently, heat came from there.
We lived like this for half a month, two disabled people.
And how beautiful it was on a frosty sunny day: a variety of birds scurrying among the bunches of rowan and viburnum!..
And one morning I didn’t find the waxwing. Having climbed out onto the balcony, I did not find, as I was afraid, his corpse. There was hope that, having grown stronger, he flew away.
Since then, every year I began to arrange such a tree on the balcony: to the delight of the wintering birds, myself, and the people living opposite. Even those walking down the street, with their heads raised, look at my ordinary, extraordinary tree in clusters of rowan, viburnum and cheerful colorful birds.
In the fall, “plant” such a tree on your balcony. It won’t be a big deal, but in winter it will be a great joy, both for yourself and for the birds who remain to spend the winter with you and who have not left their homeland for the winter.
And if someone in the family is sick, sometimes more medicine helps.

HARE AND CARROTS
This was a long time ago, when we were just settling into the dacha.
We had a bed of carrots planted right under our windows. And the hare got into the habit of finding holes in the fence. I filled these holes, and he found others.
But the time has come, we removed the carrots. The next morning I woke up early, looked out the window to see what the weather was like there, and a huge brown hare was sitting in an empty garden bed and turned its head in confusion: just yesterday there were carrots here, where did they go?
I knocked on the glass, the hare galloped off into the bushes. And for a long time, the dents from his ass remained on the freshly dug ground.
How many years have passed, but the bewildered and offended muzzle of a hare is still before my eyes.

DOG AZA
The dog Aza lived at our dacha as an assistant guard. Her fate from childhood was not easy: the guards changed every now and then, one was a drunkard, the other was a repeat criminal. For this reason, she generally spent the winter alone for one year, but did not leave her post, was not given to anyone: neither the forester, nor the village peasants, who, out of pity, wanted to take her to the village, and I visited, brought her food once a week, and then generally I was hospitalized for a month...
Aza considered herself the mistress of the garden and loved order in everything: so that everything would be orderly and noble. It got to the point that she did not allow the children to play ball and ride bicycles in the collective garden; she regarded this as hooliganism. Parents kept coming to complain about her to me, because over time, with the frequent change of guards, she moved in with me and considered me her master.
If in winter her life was harsh, then in summer everyone tried to please and treat her. In front of her kennel there were always bowls of soup and milk, all of which often turned sour, because Aza was physically unable to eat it all.
Having explored, the hedgehog fell in love with this abundance. But really: why waste food? But Aza perceived this not only as an encroachment on her property, but also as a direct insult. I have observed this picture more than once: Aza, who, as they say, had eaten her fill, nevertheless could not allow anyone to encroach on her food, honestly earned in the harsh winter, and most importantly, respect. She well remembered winters of being hungry, if not completely hungry. Nevertheless, she never left her post, and at that time the hedgehog was calmly sleeping in his warm hole, and here, you see, he came to rest. Aza tried to drive the hedgehog away, but she couldn’t: it curled up into a prickly ball. But as soon as she moved away a little, he started eating again.
Then, to prevent the hedgehog from getting her food, Aza closed her eyes so as not to see the disgusting food, and so, with her eyes closed, choking, she finished it.

THE DOG RAZHIK AND THUNDER
The dog Ryzhik appeared in our garden cooperative about twelve years ago. On a frosty pink morning, my wife and I walked along a narrow and deep path in the snowdrifts to get water to the spring: just for these minutes it was worth coming to the dacha in winter. And near the spring itself, unexpectedly, a red-and-white tiny lump rolled out towards us from the path leading from the watchman’s house; he, too, was confused by surprise and began to back away along a narrow but deep path in the snow. There was no need to guess what the puppy’s name was: of course, Ryzhik. And so it turned out. I remember the pink pads of his paws when he, after all, managing to turn around, ran away from us.
It turned out that a watchman from a neighboring garden cooperative came to our friend Slava Polyanin to do carpentry, and Ryzhik came with him. The carpenter-caretaker Peter was in the past a famous boxer and then a coach, but, as for some reason often happens with good people in Russia, for some reason he started drinking, his wife, of course, left him, he drank everything, he could drink whatever he could in the apartment, and lastly, the apartment itself, and now he lived in the garden shed, and his former boxer friends, who, due to their strong character, had become people, gave him the opportunity to earn extra money at their dachas.
Over time, when Slava said goodbye to the carpenter-watchman Peter because he began to assemble in Slava’s bathhouse, in which, while working as a carpenter, he lived, a drunkard from the surrounding gardens with a similar fate, the already slightly older Ryzhik began to come to visit us alone and in In the end he stayed with us. He had, perhaps due to the homeless nature of his owner, a bad character; he knew when and who to suck up to, when, on the contrary, to bark at someone and even grab someone by the leg with impunity. Not only did he settle down as our resident, he also tried to dominate our dogs, and what surprised us, he, tiny against them, succeeded: he suppressed them not so much by behavior against dog rules, but by ordinary impudence, and that , that they were all born and grew up under him and therefore, according to dog ethics, he remained their godfather-authority.
So, as a result of constant bullying, he drove away from us Dinky’s son, the big, kind and intelligent dog Dick, whom I loved very much and who eventually went to live in a nearby collective garden, because a male dog needs independence and its own territory; Ryzhik deprived him of both, and Dick had too much dog delicacy to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake him properly, much less tear him to shreds. I punished Ryzhik several times, he pretended that he didn’t understand why and began to whine offendedly and walk dejectedly with an offended, humiliated look and complain to everyone about his life, but as soon as I stepped aside, and even more so, went to the city for a week, he set about his own, and what’s more, he began to take revenge on Dick for the humiliation suffered because of him. To this day I regret that we lost Dick because of the asshole Ryzhik. But I didn’t know how to get out of this situation. There was, of course, a way out: to drive Ryzhik away once and for all, but no hand was raised: the carpenter-watchman Peter no longer appeared on the horizon, only once, probably five years ago, he suddenly showed up in a carefully ironed white suit, but without a shirt and even without a T-shirt (and in shoes without socks), lush gray hair curled on his tanned chest, it stood out very impressively against a white jacket and was, as it were, instead of a bow that society dandies wore in the nineteenth century, and I didn’t know if he was alive he was there at all, and that’s why I couldn’t raise my hand to drive Ryzhik away, he could become homeless. And smart, handsome Dick soon disappeared from the neighboring cooperative. It was rumored that he had become a victim of a Korean family who had settled at a nearby railway stop; the whole district was already grumbling about them: they seemed to be hard-working gardeners, but they had already eaten all the strays in the district and not only stray dogs.
But in winter, Ryzhik, unlike the rest of our dogs, which were poorly fed by our caretaker, still went somewhere, and in the spring he returned well-fed, even fat, but all black, covered in coal dust. As we assumed, he fed near the dining room in one of the boarding houses not far from us and spent the night in the boiler room. As we jokingly said: he went to work for the winter, sometimes appearing with us on Saturdays and Sundays, as we said: he got a day off. We all wondered what nickname he goes by there. Most likely, Ryzhik too. And only recently I accidentally found out that the carpenter watchman Pyotr is alive, that Ryzhik lives with him in the winter, actually feeding in a neighboring boarding house, where he pretends to be homeless, and Pyotr, in turn, wonders who Ryzhik lives with in the summer and what his name is there.
Coming from wintering in the spring, Ryzhik began to whine, complain about life, so that he would be welcomed, and most importantly, not driven away. To curry favor with Dinka, who grumbled at him not angrily: where did he hang around so much? Having received her forgiveness, at a convenient moment he would slip between his legs into the house, settle down in a nook by the warm stove, look gratefully and sorrowfully at everyone with watery eyes, but, having warmed up and make sure that he would not be driven away, he began to feel like a master and mistreat our dogs, and, surprisingly, they, being two or three times his size, obeyed him, with the exception, of course, of Dinky.
But I started the story about Ryzhik for a different reason. When a thunderstorm started, all the dogs hid in all sorts of places: in a kennel, under a porch, under a veranda; she was especially afraid and asked to go to Dink’s house (I suspected that in the winter, would-be hunters shot at her; you have to shoot at someone in frustration that no game came under the gun). Ryzhik was the only one who jumped out in the rain, in the downpour, raised his head high and barked at every clap of thunder.
And so in every thunderstorm from year to year. And now, when Ryzhik has already become quite old and in the spring comes with force (his joints hurt), complaining for a long time about his life, he began to obey other dogs and even curry favor with them, as soon as a thunderstorm begins, he jumps out from under the veranda for every strike of thunder the heavens bark furiously and fearlessly.

JACK THE DOG
The handsome dog Jack (it seemed to me that he was a cross between a shepherd and a wolf) was brought from somewhere by Dink. Shepherd dogs have a hanging belly, but he was tall, lean, and slender. Most likely, Jack fell behind the mushroom pickers and was a city dog. When I left the car door open, he immediately sat down in the front seat next to the driver’s and began whining impatiently, clearly getting ready to drive. For some reason I didn’t want to believe that he was deliberately abandoned in the forest. Most likely, his name was not Jack, Jack was the first thing that came to mind when we got him.
Why did I still think that he had wolf blood in him? At night, he raised his head and began to howl terribly, and other dogs began to howl at him, and this made me feel uneasy. He howled, not barked, expressing joy when we arrived at the dacha on Friday after a week's absence. Even after Jack was taken away from us, our dogs greeted us no longer with the same bark, but, imitating him, with a joyful howl in several voices.
Jack's watchman was, of course, no good, but he inspired respect from strangers with his appearance.
For some weeks he disappeared from time to time, perhaps looking for his previous owners. Then he would appear with a piece of rope around his neck, or with a long chain torn out by the roots, and I assumed that the village children, to whom he fearlessly and out of his kindness approached, were trying to tame him, but he could not stand it and broke out to us.
Closer to autumn, the garden watchman began to approach me: what will I do with him in winter, pampered, not adapted to forest life, and how much food will he need? More than once or twice, a neighbor who heard this conversation eventually asked me to bring Jack to town: we need to guard the warehouse, they will feed him there. Everything seemed to be resolved well.
But one late autumn evening in the city, my wife and I were almost approaching our house when a pack of dogs came towards us. And one of them looked like Jack to me. I wanted to hide this from my wife, expecting unpleasant questions (she was against the fact that we gave Jack away), but it turns out that she also paid attention to this:
- I thought it was Jack.
- How could he end up here! “It really seemed to you,” I tried to calm her down, although I was almost sure that it was him.
On Friday, arriving at the garden, I went to a neighbor.
“And he ran away,” he looked away. - I followed the mechanic who fed him, jumped on the tram with him, and then jumped out at some tram stop somewhere in your area...
I still can’t forgive myself for listening to the watchman and giving Jack: I hoped that he was in good hands...
Jack gave birth to a smart and kind hook-nosed dog, Dick. He could sit for hours and look at the path along which we would come or come from the village...
Because we all loved Dick very much, Ryzhik disliked him and did everything to survive him.

DO DOGS KNOW TIME?
They say they don't know. But our garden watchman Igor is firmly convinced of the opposite.
Our garden cooperative consists of two plots separated by forest. From Monday to Friday, Dinka and his sons guarded our forest plot, and the watchman went to our house to feed them. And although they were not on a leash, they did not go to the watchman’s house in the first area, where the “master” was the chained dog Chester. But on Saturday morning they went out to his house in the clearing to the transformer, sat in a row and looked at the snow-covered path along which we came from the village on skis. And if for some reason we didn’t show up, we dejectedly went to our side.

THE LAST HARE
Once upon a time, our garden was full of animals. The moose lived right behind my bathhouse, and in the mornings the dogs, fearing that they weren’t doing enough to earn their keep, went to bark at them. Wild boars and roe deer were common. On the slope of the mountain towards the lake there lived a badger; I had never seen him, but, passing by the hole, I saw his fresh tracks. There’s nothing to say about the hares: in March, after the February snowstorms swept over the garden fence, during their weddings they trampled the snow around the apple trees so much that they turned it almost into asphalt, at the same time feasting on apple tree branches that were sweet to their taste; One day in the spring, a neighbor came and thanked me in all seriousness: “Are you the one who trimmed my apple trees so well? I kept wanting to consult with you about pruning; I don’t know much about it myself.”
If earlier some village poacher in a padded jacket with an old gun would occasionally wander into our forest with a cautious look, then for some time now hunters armed to the teeth and equipped like special forces soldiers, with all kinds of licenses and permits, began to wander around our gardens in almost crowds. , and then also on snowmobiles. After some time, the snow in the forest and in the fields around it became pristinely clean, without a single animal trace, and therefore began to seem as if artificially poured from flour-foam, like the kind that filmmakers use in the summer for winter filming. Of all the once numerous living creatures, there is only one brown hare left, only its footprint still, warming the soul, sometimes crosses, according to old memory, an abandoned field to a long-defunct stack of straw. But even this single hare does not give them rest at night, every Saturday-Sunday, and even in the middle of the week, as I already said, armed to the teeth and equipped like special forces soldiers, literally crowds of hunters follow his only trail along his hare soul.
And the only one in the entire area, and sometimes it seems to me that in the entire Universe, the hare, having seen or smelled them from afar, having confused the tracks in the gardens and vegetable gardens, climbs under the veranda of the watchman’s house behind the booth of the ferocious dog Chester, who does not allow hunters to approach him. However, it can’t even occur to them that the hare is hiding behind the guard dog’s booth.
But in the spring I was happy to see tiny footprints of a hare in the snow. This means that our hare was not the only one in our area.

TRAVEL BIRDS
The five of us sailed, traditionally on our short vacation, on a sea life raft along the beautiful Ural River Yuryuzan. We stopped for the night on the high right bank.
In the morning we woke up - the water that had unexpectedly risen by more than one and a half meters during the night (apparently there had been heavy rains in the upper reaches of the river) almost carried away our raft and boats. We stood on the shore and looked in confusion as all kinds of snags, branches, logs floated past us... Some kind of bird was sitting on one of the logs and, importantly, even looking at us somehow condescendingly, swam past.
“I went to visit my relatives,” suggested one of us, a doctor somewhat obsessed with mysticism, esotericism and anomalous phenomena, who no longer treats with drugs, but with his boundless kindness and hands, capable of finding some hidden nerve or other points in a person, by inflicting pain on them, he relieved pain from diseased organs, including the human soul. - Why fly and waste energy when you can swim along the river, and besides, it’s free.
- I wonder how far she plans to swim? - asked another, forty-year-old, but already completely gray-haired general director of one of the Ural defense plants, or rather, its owner. If you don’t know the essence of the matter, you could say that he successfully bought the plant by chance, but if you know, then only a madman could throw all his fortune and the fortune of his friends into this plant, which was quietly brought to bankruptcy and destruction, although according to Russian law this plant, As the only one of its kind in the country and therefore especially important, it can neither be bankrupt nor privatized. Someone, either with a malicious grin or with sympathy, behind his back said about him: “The last romantic of Russia,” and this nickname firmly took root behind him. And what else could be said about him: in the past, a teacher at the famous Baumanka and one of the developers of rocket and artillery installations, in the troubled 90s, when his design bureau was closed “due to uselessness,” he was a quickly oriented successful Moscow entrepreneur. And recently, unexpectedly for everyone, he abandoned his thriving business in order to save what was considered a completely hopeless plant, which in Soviet times was thoroughly hidden in the mountains, and during the troubled times of “perestroika”, it was unable to hide not so much from the ubiquitous Western intelligence services, but from those who had sold out to them. domestic businessmen and politicians. If the rest of us, the four of us, at rest stops and parking lots in our free time from general work, grabbed fishing rods and spinning rods, then “the last romantic of Russia” spent all his free time collecting and burning all kinds of civilized garbage that had accumulated along the banks of the beautiful Ural river, on which he was born, I buried the bottles in the hope that those floating behind me would not again mess up the sites we had left in perfect order...
The log with the bird floated around the bend. We returned to our fire.
But then another log floats past us with the same traveler on board. And this one, looking at us just as importantly, swam past. And she clearly liked this activity - floating along the river and looking at the banks, including us.
After some time, a third bird swam by and looked at us just as condescendingly...
While one bird was swimming, this could be explained by chance, but when the second, third...
The all-knowing Nikolai Nikolaevich, an entrepreneur who successfully turned into a “new Russian”, an old Russian, but remained an old Russian at heart, a former fighter ace and helicopter pilot, a master of sports in parachuting and aerobatics, tried to explain the essence of what was happening at breakfast. on combat aircraft, who later tasted, in addition to this glory, the delights of prison bunks, an experienced taiga dweller, a commercial hunter:
- The logs were lying somewhere on the shore. They rotted underneath, and there were a lot of different living creatures in them that were inaccessible to birds on the shore. And when the log suddenly found itself afloat, the living creatures, fleeing the water, climbed up, becoming easy prey for the birds. So they settled on the logs.
“But you can’t see them collecting bugs or spiders,” doubted the famous Moscow poet-playwright, who in his poetic dramas delves, like an archaeologist, into the first centuries of Christianity and tries there to find answers to the questions of today, to which there may be an answer , absolutely not. And if there is, then humanity has successfully avoided them all these centuries.
- And by the time they swam to us, they had already had breakfast, unlike us, they fell asleep, and now they are resting, admiring nature while waiting for lunch. After all, these bugs and worms will not run away from them,” Nikolai Nikolaevich retorted.
- How long will they swim like this? - I also wondered, one might say, a man of the Universe, free from everything and everyone, having lost almost all of my relatives and closest friends in six months, and long before that, having lost myself, living for a long time with a feeling of a life lived in vain and, rather, only inertia. - After all, sooner or later they will have to return home. And already on its wings.
“I don’t know that,” the all-knowing Nikolai Nikolaevich threw up his hands. - Probably until they eat all the bugs and worms...
But for some reason his explanation seemed unconvincing to me. For some reason it seemed to me that it was not only such purely practical interest that motivated the birds. Firstly, I also did not see at least one of them pecking at any living creatures. And secondly, they sat so importantly and with dignity on the logs and looked at their surroundings with such important curiosity...
- Maybe they, like us, having raised children, carved out a vacation for themselves and, taking advantage of the flood, went on a trip? - as if reading my thoughts, suggested the doctor, somewhat obsessed with mysticism, esotericism and anomalous phenomena.
And everyone liked this version, everyone agreed with it.
But now, already in the city, at my desk, I thought: what if, without intending to fool us - we were fooling ourselves with our conjectures and guesses - the same bird was fooling us: it would swim past us around the bend of the river, fly over the river bend straight ahead and float on the next log?
Is it not on similar life observations, is it not on similar self-deception - conjectures and conjectures that we humans build many, as it seems to us, harmonious and logical constructs of thought and even entire philosophical systems?

FISHING CATS
They say that cats don't like water. This is not true or only applies to spoiled city cats. When it comes to fish, cats forget that they don't like water.
We sailed on our sea life raft past the village of Kalmash. Two cats sat near the water next to the children who were fishing and looked intently at the floats, not paying any attention to us floating past, as if we were not there.
A little later we sailed past the village of Safonovka. The cat sitting on the shore, on the contrary, was carefully watching us, but, making sure that we were swimming past and that there was nothing to be expected from us, it entered up to its belly into the water, into the coastal grass flooded by the flood, and tried to catch fish with its paw.
We sailed to the village of Shamratovo, located on the beautiful right bank of the Yuryuzan. We had to call the city to let them know where the car was supposed to come pick us up.
Before we had time to land, and our main fisherman, a Moscow poet-playwright delving into his dramas in the first centuries of Christianity, had not yet had time to disassemble the tackle so that, while we were going to call, try to see if he was biting, a villager came down to him from the high bank the cat began to rub against his leg.
Having eaten four decent perches, the cat, with half-closed eyes, lazily watched the further fishing for some time. Then, purring and gratefully rubbing himself against the leg of the Moscow poet, he lazily began to climb the steep bank, where the old owner was already waiting for him.
“This is what,” said the old man. - As soon as I go to check, cats from all over the street follow me. And how will they know that I went to watch it? I’ll go to haymaking or somewhere else, not a single head will turn.

MAGIC WORD
So, we sailed along the Yuryuzan River. The proximity of villages was unmistakably determined by flocks of geese grazing on the water. When our raft approached, just in case, they either hid in the coastal reeds, or even climbed further ashore.
Geese are very intelligent and loyal birds to humans.
I remember in childhood it sometimes happened: they would take out chicks, and, not relying on us, the boys herding them, to save the chicks from kites and hawks, deceiving us, they took the broods to Yuryuzan into the mysterious density of river oxbows, and sometimes were considered hopelessly lost, because We never came home during the summer. With all our efforts, we could not find them, but they suddenly appeared in late autumn, without losing a single chick, solemnly trumpeting, not suspecting that most of them would go under the ax.
But the ancient instinct is still alive in domestic geese. In the fall, before the departure of the wild geese, they also began to train their chicks, teach them to fly, and prepare them for long-distance flights. Like wild geese, they gathered in noisy flocks in the open meadow, their cackling echoed in the rocky shores of Mount Sosnovka and strangely disturbed the soul; they even rose on the wing and circled for a long time over the bend of the river. There were cases that they followed wild geese flying south, even echoed them, but either they were not strong enough to fly far, or something else stopped them, including the fact that they were already domesticated, after all. they gradually lagged behind their wild brothers and for several days after that they were despondent, as if some kind of internal struggle was taking place in their goose soul: an ancient instinct struggled with attachment to man. But there were cases when they, following wild geese, flew far from the village and returned only after a few days, or even weeks, exhausted and silent. And sometimes they disappeared altogether. And the mother, like other housewives, clipped their wings in advance, just in case...
But I digress. Our route along Yuryuzan was already coming to an end. It was necessary to choose a good place for the last stop: and that there would be a place for a bathhouse, so that straight from it, steamed, we could throw ourselves into the water, and for fishing, and that there would be an entrance for the cars that would come to pick us up.
Having chosen a suitable parking spot, we went down the river to look at possible approaches to it. A village was visible ahead on the high left bank. Near the shore, geese were digging in the newly arrived water.
Suddenly a boy rolled towards them on a bicycle from the shore. They raised their heads out of the water at once. The boy said something to them and, without looking back, leaning his whole body on the bicycle, began to climb up, leaning on one pedal or the other. And after him, also waddling from side to side, the geese ran in single file, one after another. The picture was amazing: a boy on a bicycle, waddling from side to side, and geese running after him up the mountain, also waddling from side to side.
What was the magic word he told them?

A HOMELESS DOG CHOOSE AN OWNER
At a huge government building, where there are probably hundreds of institutions, I was waiting for my wife, who was late. The working day was over, and an endless line of people came out from behind the heavy, constantly slamming doors.
About five meters from me, on the icy dirty asphalt, a thin homeless dog with teary eyes stood on three legs and was also looking for someone in the doorway. The sore leg was apparently freezing, and the dog, continually pressing it to its stomach, involuntarily squatted.
With a tormented, haunted gaze, she indifferently saw some people off, began to wag her tail ingratiatingly in front of others, but both of them passed indifferently, without even noticing her. Still others noticed and even threw something at her like: “Well, Bug?” - and her eyes lit up with hope, she involuntarily took a few steps after them, but those who noticed her mechanically already forgot about her and left just as indifferently, or, worse, began to wave them off in warning and with disgust, and her watery eyes faded, and she crouched down again, tucking your sore leg under you. And I realized that she does not wait for anyone, but chooses the owner. Homeless life was no longer bearable for her, and she chose the owner. She was shivering from the cold and was hungry, she shifted from foot to foot, and her eyes, thin body, tail begged: “Well, someone look at me! You see, I feel really bad. Well, someone take me, otherwise I will disappear. And I will answer you with such love!..”
But tired people walked and walked past. Some didn’t notice her at all, others didn’t like dogs, and still others probably had their own dogs. Brilliant and windy, the frost seemed to be gaining strength every minute. The poor sick dog caught every gesture of those coming out of the door, tried to follow one or the other, even took a few steps after him, but immediately returned.
She chose a young woman, one of hundreds of others, just as worn out and tired. Why she chose her, I don’t know, this woman, like the others, carefully, so as not to stumble, went down the icy stairs, she, like the others, did not beckon to the dog and, it seems, did not even notice it. For this reason, I, unfortunately, paid attention to her too late and in the approaching dusk I did not get a good look at her face. Now it seems to me that she glanced wearily at the dog and walked past. But the dog suddenly followed her, at first hesitantly, then decisively and recklessly.
While walking around the snow-covered lawn, the woman accidentally looked back, saw a dog, which immediately wagged its tail devotedly; It seemed to me that the woman slowed down for a moment, but only for a moment, and walked even faster. The dog stopped, lowered its tail and drooped, but, somehow overpowering itself, limped and trotted after the woman again. She, already forced, looked back again, the dog again faithfully wagged its tail, before reaching the woman a few steps, she lay down and put her head on her paws. The woman walked on, but then looked back again. The dog continued to lie with his head on his paws. The woman stopped.
The dog no longer caressed her humbly and beggingly, as before, she simply lay and waited, not taking her eyes off the woman.
The woman said something to her.
The dog happily wagged its tail and crawled almost on its belly to her feet.
The woman began to rummage through her bag, took out a bun and placed it in front of the dog. But she didn’t eat, without blinking, she looked into the woman’s eyes, she understood that they wanted to get rid of her with a handout.
Then the woman squatted down in front of the dog and fearlessly stroked its head. She happily and devotedly wagged her tail, trying to lick her hand.
“Eat!” I guessed rather than heard.
The dog, choking and every now and then looking up at the woman, fearing that she would leave, ate. The woman took out another bun, then a pie, a piece of candy, and another. And she kept stroking and stroking the constantly shuddering animal and sadly said and said something to it.
Then she pulled out another pie from her bag, put it in front of the dog, looked at her watch and quickly walked away without looking back.
The dog, leaving the pie uneaten, ran after the woman, whined, and she stopped in confusion at the corner. The dog immediately lay down at her feet again.
“Well, what should I do with you?” the woman asked almost in tears.
The dog was silent and looked down at her faithfully, wagging its tail.
The woman took another candy out of her bag and placed it in front of the dog. She took the candy more out of politeness, so as not to offend, and ran after the woman more confidently. The woman looked back, was forced to slow down again, otherwise the dog would have been hit by the car, and the dog ran next to her, happily and devotedly wagging its tail. So they disappeared around the corner.
Why did she choose this woman out of hundreds of others?

"NEW RUSSIAN" SOROKA AND SOROCHONOK TISHKA
People of my generation are people of cruel times, and on us, maybe not all of us suspect it, it left its heavy mark. In childhood, we were taught to divide even animals and birds into friends and enemies, into a kind of “red” and “white”, useful and harmful - there was no middle ground, harmful, all predatory animals were included in them, subject to undoubted and every possible destruction.
Probably God alone remembers how many magpies and crows’ nests I destroyed in my childhood, not the most hooligan boy, quite the contrary. It’s terrible to remember, now I can’t even believe that I could do this: we sat the magpies or crows somewhere above a river cliff and, as if in a shooting gallery, competing in accuracy, we shot them with stones, firmly believing that we were doing the best thing possible a good deed: we are freeing the earth from vultures, although now I know that this was far from the worst sin in my life, which I realized only later, alas, too late, and it wears me down because there is a constant and unquenchable pain and melancholy that nothing is cannot be changed.
Many people from my generation, especially from the previous generation, have already written about how we tore out pages from textbooks with portraits of overthrown semi-leaders who suddenly turned out to be “enemies of the people,” having previously gouged out their eyes. And then they did the same to the leader himself. I remember, for example, how, having once again gathered on the river bank in the bushes for a secret smoking place, we carefully began to study the bottoms of matchboxes taken from our pockets, because one of us somewhere reliably learned that the packer or packer who had bet on matches are branded No. 9, exposed as an enemy of the people, and the smoke from these matches is deadly poisonous, but this does not affect immediately.
I still remember with shame another incident from my childhood. One day, four people were sailing past our village along the beautiful Yuryuzan on two kayaks, which were strange to us at that time. They stopped for the night just below the village, under Mount Sosnovka, and one of them went, almost at dusk, which aroused special suspicion in us, to his beloved us Sosnovka, and along the way he stopped every now and then, looked around and kept writing something down in a notebook. “Spy,” we unmistakably determined, having been secretly following him for a long time. For us, thirsting for exploits in the name of the Fatherland, our finest hour was finally coming, although we knew that on Sosnovka there were not only secret objects, but nothing at all except an abandoned apiary. Three, including me, remained to continue watching, and two rushed two kilometers to the police, and, the wildest thing, the police took our message seriously, jumped, as if on dashing horses, on horned motorcycles, spewing a terrible fume from the mixture gasoline and oil, which then seemed sweet to us, and grabbed the bespectacled man, who was already returning to the fire, and at the same time, of course, three others. But it turned out that these were ordinary, although still rare for that time and even more so for our area, tourists. They had the relevant documents with them in this regard: a travel book and everything else, but we still didn’t believe it internally, even when the stupid police officers on duty kicked us, it just didn’t fit in our rural consciousness how it was possible to sail down the river just like that, on vacation, doing nothing, for the sake of relaxation, for the sake of pleasure. In our village they didn’t even know what a vacation was, and if our village adults went down the river, it was to float timber and firewood, but for an adult to float down the river just like that, for the sake of pleasure! - only some crazy person with a bruised head, or the most notorious slacker, of which there seemed to be none in our village, could afford this. And this strange bespectacled man wrote down (his glasses also confused us: if anyone in our village wore glasses, they were classic round glasses; we then wore everything “classic”: the same black or gray padded jackets, the same black or gray trousers tucked into tarpaulin boots or down to black boots, on holidays white unironed shirts; no one seemed to force, but everyone wore the same, you’re watching TV now - until recently, while we still had enough cotton wool for quilted jackets, they dressed prisoners, only instead of round ones convicts' caps, in our own happy time, were worn with caps - and this one had rectangular and huge glasses lenses, almost half the size of the face, the kind we only saw in movies, then for some reason they would be called director's ones, I wore them myself) , so he wrote down in a notebook, as it turned out, his artless poems, inspired by our Yuryuzan.
But I digress from the topic of beneficial and harmful birds. As I have already said, magpies and crows were categorically classified as harmful by the bird scientists of that time, in accordance with the general political line; I also had no doubt about this for the reason that I myself had seen more than once how magpies pulled nestlings out of birdhouses, and crows carried away newly hatched chickens and even goslings. Although at the same time I recognized some special beauty of the magpie, for some reason I liked the magpie’s chirping, especially over the sadly jubilant autumn fields and meadows with stacks of straw and haystacks, it did not occur to me then that magpies were catching near them mice, but the enemy is the enemy, and with the enemy there is only one conversation...
Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, even the country that was called the USSR no longer exists. This devilish abbreviation for defeated Russia was invented by a stiff-necked tribe, which, from all the rabble that had broken away from its peoples, created an artificial people overseas in order to eventually replace all the peoples existing on the planet, and an artificial country, which was called another devilish abbreviation - the USA. Who would have believed just ten years ago that Russia would return to the borders of almost the 16th century, abandoning tens of millions of its sons and daughters to the mercy of fate outside its borders, not to mention the other peoples who voluntarily entered it. And is it really Russia at all - a strange semi-vassal state entity with the bastard name of the Russian Federation? So that country no longer exists, and my beard has long been gray, although, I understand, this is not a sign of intelligence or virtue, because until very recently I continued to destroy magpies’ and crow’s nests, though not in the same way as in childhood , savage form.
The magpie, like the sparrow, constantly stays in human habitation, perhaps except when chicks are hatching. It is no coincidence that the magpie is called a thief. She carries around the dacha not only all the shiny, accidentally left objects, such as watches, teaspoons, women's jewelry, but for some reason she always carries soap. This harm, of course, is nonsense, it even gives dacha life some kind of charm, but when the magpies and crows begin to roam around your strawberry and other beds cultivated with such difficulty, this already affects our proprietary (not so long ago they would say - petty property) interests, and magpies and crows, either to be as close as possible to these beds and dog bowls, or here they feel safer, try to build their nests right in my dacha. And just in case, I destroy their nests, but not as in childhood, not with eggs and especially with chicks, but when the construction of the nests is completed. After which they fly away and settle somewhere further away, trying to stay out of my sight as little as possible.
And this year, one magpie became insolent: it built a nest on a young Christmas tree opposite the kitchen window right above our only strawberry bed and did it openly, most likely, it was young and inexperienced...
Without waiting for the nest to be built, I climbed the spruce, surprised by the strange ringing from above. Having climbed in, I discovered that the nest was entirely woven from aluminum wire of different lengths and thicknesses, and only inside, for comfort, or something, it was traditionally coated with clay. I called my neighbor and he marveled with me. Well, okay, if in the city, but in the forest, where there are so many branches and other natural building materials and where it is more difficult to find wire, it would be important to build a nest out of aluminum!
“New Russian magpie!” - we unanimously called it. Moreover, on a neighboring spruce I found another magpie’s nest, but it was, as befits a normal magpie, made of dry branches.
I destroyed the nests, I still show the aluminum one to curious people, the magpies flew away and, apparently, made new nests. I seemed to have already forgotten about it, when suddenly, after some time, a month, or maybe more, one day, arriving at the dacha, I saw a little magpie on the porch of the house. When he saw me, he didn’t fly away, he just jumped onto the dog’s kennel. Then I smacked my hands, from surprise he almost fell out of the kennel and clumsily, like a child - apparently he had recently learned to fly - flew up to the roof of the house and, without fear and, as it seemed to me, looked reproachfully at me from above. From somewhere, a mother magpie immediately appeared and rushed about and chirped, warning the little magpie about the danger: maybe that “new Russian” or another, ordinary magpie, whose nests I destroyed. Or maybe it was a completely different magpie.
But the little magpie, not paying attention to his mother, still bowed his head slightly, looked at me from above and suddenly began to babble, as if trying to explain something to me.
I clapped my hands again, the shirt flew into the bushes behind the fence, and I forgot about it.
Leaving the house after some time, I unexpectedly discovered that the little magpie had not flown away anywhere, moreover, it galloped, albeit at some distance, after me to the toilet, muttering something, then back, and I was convinced that that he was not a wounded animal, and the mother magpie was again chattering anxiously in the bushes, but he did not pay any attention to her warning or did not understand her warning.
I lived at the dacha for three days, and all three days the little magpie literally did not leave my side. After some time, he no longer just took food from my hands, but also sat on my hand and even on my shoulder, and what amazed me most was that he was clearly trying to explain something, to explain something to me in his magpie language. There was no doubt that he was trying to talk to me. Bowing his head somewhat, he babbled—sometimes affectionately, sometimes, it seemed to me, sternly, still poorly pronouncing his magpie words.
And so it went on for three weeks: as soon as I arrived at the dacha and turned off the engine, he appeared from somewhere out of the bushes, as if he had been waiting for me all week, greeted me loudly, and then, quietly and persistently explained something to me in his magpie language, constantly followed me. As I understood, he was not hungry, did not beg, and food in our communication was not the main thing for him. Just at this time, in my absence, my faithful dog Dinka whelped under someone else’s house, I crawled under my veranda to rake out the old bedding from there before bringing the puppies. I got out from under the veranda in the cobwebs, in the straw, the little guy immediately sat on my shoulder and began to pull out garbage and dog fleas from my disheveled hair, while clearly tidying up my hair and, again, doing something affectionately and at the same time, It seemed to me that he was babbling sternly.
What amazed me most was that he trusted me completely. If I was chopping wood for a bathhouse, then with each blow of the ax he would only slightly jump to the side and again jump sideways and again persistently explain something, clearly surprised at my lack of understanding, and it turned out as if the other way around: it was not I who looked after him, but he who looked after me, foolish. Of course, he ate from my hands, but no, I repeat, he did not beg, he did it as if out of a desire not to offend me. At the same time, if a mother magpie appeared, he spread his wings to the sides and fluttered them, demonstrating his childish helplessness, while squeaking pitifully, and she began to feed him like a baby from beak to beak.
But once I arrived at the dacha, I did not find Tishka, as I silently called the little magpie. Either he paid for his gullibility and fell into the teeth of some cat or the stray and mischievous dog Ryzhik, who immediately hated Tishka, most likely out of jealousy. Or, having matured, he was finally convinced by his magpie mother that hanging around with me, much less being friends, was mortally dangerous, because none other than this bearded man ruined their first nest, and that’s why Tishka was born so late. I don’t know, but I can’t get the shirt out of my head.
And the question torments me: why did he become attached to me? What was he trying to persistently explain to me? Whose son was he: that “new Russian” magpie or another whose nests I destroyed? Or he had nothing to do with them, or maybe this is some kind of punishment for me for all those who were lost in childhood, and not only in childhood, forty?
Don't know. Only my soul remained and remains in great confusion.
I only know that after Tishka I will treat magpies differently, that I will no longer be able to destroy a single magpie’s nest, no matter where they nest and no matter what sins they have committed. Through Tishka they became not so much like family to me... I don’t know how to explain...
And one more thing: whether by chance or not, Tishka appeared in my life; he came to me, perhaps, at the most difficult time for me, when in the morning I woke up with the only thought of how good it would be if one day I didn’t wake up at all.
I don’t know if it’s Tishka, but now, when I come to the dacha, I constantly notice a hidden magpie’s gaze behind me. Maybe this happened before, I just didn’t notice, didn’t pay attention, but now as soon as I think a little, putting the ax aside or putting the shovel aside, an invisible magpie will chirp somewhere in the bushes, distracting me from my dashing thoughts. Or it will simply jump from branch to branch, but will definitely remind you of itself...

Well, okay, (3) old man, (4) goodbye. Forgive me for everything (5) if you can.

11. Specify quantity grammar basics in sentence 38. Write the answer in numbers.

12. In the sentences below from the text read, all commas are numbered. Write down the number(s) indicating the comma(s) between the parts of a complex sentence connected creative writing communication

I forgot about him a long time ago, (1) and here he is hobbling towards me like an old man and still doesn’t see me. I remembered (2) how we shared our bitter days with him, (3) because he was my only friend, (4) how he accompanied me to the well-trodden road, (5) not suspecting, (6) that I was leaving forever.

13. Among sentences 14–20, find a complex sentence with homogeneous and consistent subordination of subordinate clauses. Write the number of this offer.

14. Among sentences 17–24, find complex offer with non-union And conjunctive subordinator connection between parts. Write the number of this offer.

15.1. Write an essay-reasoning, revealing the meaning of the statement of the famous linguist Nikolai Maksimovich Shansky: “Using the example of a complex sentence, you can trace how a person expresses the relationship between the world and his own point of view.”

To justify your answer, give two example from the text read.

You can write a paper in a scientific or journalistic style, revealing the topic using linguistic material. You can start your essay with the words of N.M. Shansky.

Work written without relying on the text read (not based on this text) will not be graded.

15.2. Write an argumentative essay. Explain how you understand the meaning of the ending of the text: “ I jumped out to never again be separated from the most devoted friend in my life...»

Bring it in your essay two arguments from the text you read that support your reasoning.

When giving examples, indicate the numbers of the required sentences or use citations.

The essay must be at least 70 words.

If the essay is a retelling or completely rewritten of the original text without any comments, then such work is scored zero points.

Write an essay carefully, legible handwriting.

15.3. How do you understand the meaning of the word KINDNESS? Formulate and comment on the definition you have given. Write an essay-discussion on the topic “ What is kindness", taking the definition you gave as a thesis. When arguing your thesis, give 2 (two) examples-arguments that confirm your reasoning: one example-give an argument from the text you read, and second– from your life experience.

The essay must be at least 70 words.

If the essay is a retelling or completely rewritten of the original text without any comments, then such work is scored zero points.

Write an essay carefully, legible handwriting.

Option 91

(1) About five meters from a huge office building, on the icy dirty asphalt, a thin homeless dog with teary eyes stood on three legs and was looking for someone in the doorway. (2) The sore leg was apparently freezing, and the dog, pressing it to its stomach, involuntarily squatted.

(3) With a tormented, haunted gaze, she indifferently watched some people go, wagged her tail ingratiatingly in front of others, and still others threw something at her like: “Well, Zhuchka?” – and her eyes lit up with hope. (4) But those who automatically noticed her already forgot about her and left indifferently or waved them away with disgust, and her watery eyes faded, and she crouched again, tucking her sore leg under her.

(5) And I realized that she is not waiting for anyone, but chooses her owner. (6) Homeless life, without a doubt, was already unbearable for her, and she chose the owner. (7) She was trembling from the cold, she was hungry, and her eyes, thin body, tail begged: “Well, someone look at me, well, someone take me, and I will answer you with such love!..” ( 8) But the tired people moved on. (9) The poor dog tried to follow first one, then the other, even took a few steps after him, but immediately returned.

(10) She chose a young woman, just as tired. (11) The woman glanced at the dog and walked past, but the dog followed her, at first hesitantly, then decisively and recklessly. (12) The woman accidentally looked back, saw a dog, immediately wagging its tail devotedly, but immediately moved on. (13) The dog lay down and put its head on its paws. (14) She no longer caressed her humbly, she simply waited, not taking her eyes off the woman. (15) The woman said something to her, and the dog wagged its tail and crawled almost on its belly to her feet.

(16) The woman took a bun out of her bag, put it in front of the dog, but she didn’t eat, she looked into the woman’s eyes: she understood that they wanted to get rid of her with a handout.

(17) Then the woman squatted down and stroked her on the head, handed her a bun, and the dog began to eat, every now and then glancing at the woman: she was afraid that she would leave. (18) The woman kept stroking the dog and said something quietly and sadly to the equally sadly shuddering animal. (19) Then she took a liver pie out of her bag, put it in front of the dog and quickly walked away without looking back.

(20) The dog, leaving the half-eaten pie, ran after the woman, whined, and she stopped in confusion.

- (21) Well, what should I do with you? – the woman asked almost in tears.

(22) The dog looked at her reverently.

(23) The woman took candy out of her bag and placed it in front of the dog. (24) She took it - just out of politeness, so as not to offend, so as not to frighten off her happiness, and ran after the woman more confidently. (25) So they disappeared around the corner.

(26) Why did the dog choose this particular woman out of hundreds of others?..

(According to M.A. Chvanov*)

*Mikhail Andreevich Chvanov(born in 1944) – Russian writer, publicist, director of the memorial house-museum of S.T. Aksakova.

2. What question is in the text? No answer?

1) Why did the dog press his leg to his stomach and squat?

2) What reason made the dog choose its owner?

3) Why didn’t the dog first eat the bun the woman offered?

4) What was the marital status of the woman who took the dog into her home?

3. Indicate what means of expression is used in the sentence:

Related information:

Question 6. How to turn the situation around if something goes wrong?
Chapter III. Psychology of early and preschool childhood. 27.Essays on the development of children left without parental care/ I.V.

About five meters from a huge office building. “He deliberately spent the money for other purposes, allowing for misuse

Other works on this topic:

Mikhail Chvanov

Stories about our little brothers