Genghis chopping block summary. Characteristics of the main characters of the work Plakha, Aitmatov

One of the main characters of the work; a former seminary student who works for a newspaper; preacher, moralist, ideologist of good. The full name of the hero is Avdiy Kallistratov. His fate is not easy, since he chose to fight evil alone. Avdiy believes in the triumph of good and tries in every possible way to convey this to people.

One of the key characters in the novel; an honest collective farmer and the best shepherd in the village; opponent of the brawler and parasite Bazarbai Noigutov. The full name of the hero is Boston Urkunchiev. This leader in production grew up in hardships, but achieved everything himself, through his own labor. Boston lost his mother early and was the youngest in the family.

One of the main characters of the work; she-wolf, “wife” of Tashchainar. She was constantly unlucky with her offspring because of people. Her first offspring were killed by the Ober junta when they were rounding up saigas. The second died when they burned reeds to build a road. The third offspring was stolen by Bazarbai in order to sell them and then drink the proceeds away.

One of the main characters found in the third part of the novel; the antipode of Boston Urkunchiev, a drunkard and parasite. Full name: Bazarbai Noigutov. This is one of the worst characters in Aitmatov’s work, who, with his envious actions, destroyed the life of his village neighbor and successful collective farmer Boston Urkunchiev.

One of the characters, the leader of a gang of drug dealers, the prototype of the “Antichrist” in the novel. This is a minor character who appears in the first and second parts of the book. Hemp transporters mysteriously call him Sam, so as not to give away Grishan’s identity. In appearance, he is a man of ordinary appearance, looking “like a predatory animal driven into a corner.”

Inga Fedorovna

A minor character, an acquaintance of Avdija, whom he accidentally met in Uchkuduk, and then it turned out that she was doing similar work. She came to see him in the hospital, after which Avdiy fell madly in love with her. Inga has not lived with her former husband for three years, with whom she had a son. She also liked Obadiah, and she was ready to connect her life with him.

Gulyumkan

Minor character, Boston's wife Urkunchieva. She was previously married to Boston's friend, Ernazar, who died in the mountains. After Boston also lost his wife, they decided to get married and gave birth to a son, Kenjesh, who helped them survive the grief. Unfortunately, fate was unfair to her again. The husband, trying to take his son away from the she-wolf Akbara, shot her and her son. And then he went and shot the culprit of this whole tragedy - Bazarbai. Thus, Gulyumkan again lost her husband, and even her son.

Petrukha

A minor character, a messenger for marijuana, who rode with Obadiah. He was about 20 years old, he was from Murmansk. I worked in construction, but in the summer I always went for marijuana. He was the main initiator of the throwing of Avdiy from the train. He was arrested red-handed.

Lyonka

A minor character, a messenger for marijuana, who rode with Obadiah. An orphan from Murmansk, he was about 16 years old. He defended Avdiy when he was thrown out of the train, for which he himself got punched in the nose. He was arrested red-handed.

Ober, Kandalov

A minor character, the leader of a brigade or junta of collectors of killed animals. He did not stop Kepa and Mishash from killing Avdiy, but even helped them.

Mishash

A minor character, one of the brigade of collectors of the killed beast, the second person in the junta. A ferocious and cruel person. He was one of the main initiators of the murder of Obadiah.

Kepa

A minor character, a driver from a team that collects dead animals. He was one of the main initiators of the murder of Obadiah.

Hamlet-Galkin

A minor character, one of the brigade of collectors of the killed animal, a former artist of the regional drama theater, an alcoholic. Tried to stop the murder of Obadiah.

Reflecting on how to rid nature of “scourge”, human tyranny, malice and cruelty, the writer comes to the conclusion that neither an individual righteous person nor the resistance of the animals themselves can change the situation. The situation of the people is so difficult that it simply makes no sense to fight alone for truth and justice. But Aitmatov points out the right of the animal world to fight for its freedom, for life, for its habitat. He writes about the inevitability of a moment when nature will begin to take revenge for itself, without understanding who is right and who is wrong. And this is our pain today, it’s worth thinking about now. And all of them, animals, are only victims of the moral degradation of humanity. Consistently and with vivid artistic expressiveness, the writer conveys in his works the idea that the liberation of the animal world, the situation of which was also aggravated by the inability to actively resist, is completely in the hands of human consciousness, we ourselves are capable of changing the situation, if only we want, everyone wants these changes peace! Such a statement about the need for a complete change in social consciousness has been heard more than once in Russian and foreign literature, but Aitmatov expresses this statement through the depiction of the life of animals, their feelings, their emotional charge. The unusual display of the spiritual essence of wolves also determines a new understanding of their characters, and a psychological analysis of the characters leads to the idea that the animal world is a much more complex phenomenon than it seems at first glance, and it conceals within itself the possibilities of moral self-improvement and renewal.

The image of Wolves is one of the central ones in the novel “The Scaffold”, bright, full, dramatic. It represents the defenselessness of animals, their powerlessness before humans. The heroes of this novel (Ober-Kandalov and the “junta” headed by him, Bazarbai and the anashists led by Grishan) more than once adhere to the opinion that people are the only rational beings in the Universe, that reason and memory are given only to man. The introduction of a wolf couple into the plot of the novel not so much refutes these assumptions as it raises the question of their correctness. It is these two lines - the debunking of theories that place humans above all other creatures on Earth, and the affirmation of the priority of moral principles - that run in parallel, and Akbar’s she-wolf embodies them. The entire system of characters, plot and composition are somehow designed to reveal the image of the she-wolf.

The she-wolf carries the idea of ​​moral memory; she, together with Tashchainar, personifies the world of animals, the world of nature. Hence the metaphorical comparison: the misfortune that befell her species is the misfortune that befell nature as a whole...

Our acquaintance with Akbara and Tashchainar occurs at the very beginning of the novel, and isn’t there a deeper meaning to this? Aitmatov begins the novel not with people who are eternally concerned about their well-being, but with a frightened she-wolf in the mountains, who hid deep into the rock and “shrank like a spring, raising her neck and looking ahead with phosphorescent eyes wildly burning in the semi-darkness, ready at any moment for a fight ". It was precisely this fear, simply from the stones and snow rolling down from above, that Aitmatov considered an important and necessary fragment with which to begin the novel. Tashchainar wakes up from panicked cries; with his tenderness and compassion he drowns out the unfounded fear and premonition of trouble in Akbara’s soul. It’s as if he shows an example of ideal harmony in the family, addressed to us, people who have biasedly hung a lot of all kinds of labels and meanings on the family model, who have treated her cruelly and unfairly: “Tashchainar the Stone Crusher, so nicknamed by the surrounding shepherds for his crushing jaws, crawled up to her I lay down and purred soothingly, as if covering her with my body from harm." This is how it should be, this is the spiritual essence of the relationship, and it is deeply human.

The she-wolf’s love for her unborn brood, the fear of losing it, is a symbolic generalization of the same humanity, presented in a metaphorical vein: “Listening to what was happening against her will in the revived womb, Akbara became worried. Her heart began to beat faster - it was filled with courage, the determination to certainly protect, to protect from danger those whom she carried within herself.” Akbara is obsessed with persecution mania - these are the results of human interference in her life. And we will find the origins of this fear in the fate of the she-wolf.

Wolves in nature live in pairs, Akbara and Tashchainar were no exception: two strong, intelligent and dexterous animals merged together, forming a powerful and worthy wolf union in nature. But they did not form it out of the need for a couple and reproduction of offspring - the essence of their couple is precisely love, mutual and reverent. And here the case of “Tashchainar’s betrayal” that happened once is indicative. Jealous, Akbara straightforwardly declares her spiritual need for love and the desire to prioritize: either a sneaky animal instinct, or undivided love with her, Akbara, because in this union she was both the mind, the head, and the mentor. The seemingly unshakable advantages of animals over people: the lack of fidelity, commitment and jealousy, are rebutted by the she-wolf with her actions. And here is the source of true feeling - a fundamental reluctance to share a loved one with anyone: “...Only once there was a strange, unexpected incident when her wolf disappeared before dawn and returned with the alien smell of another female - the disgusting spirit of a shameless heat, which caused her uncontrollable anger and irritation, and she immediately rejected him, unexpectedly sank her fangs deep into his shoulder, and as punishment made him hobble behind for many days in a row. She kept the fool at a distance and, no matter how much he howled, she never responded, did not stop, as if he, Tashchainar, was not her wolf.” Aitmatov, endowing Akbar with the ability to be jealous, puts forward a figurative definition of the social nature of feelings, capacious and precise, a kind of artistic formula: “a being that has entered into organic unity is not indifferent to the fate of its half.” Aitmatov also focused attention on Akbara’s “transparent blue eyes,” as if in the eyes of animals their soul, the whole world, the whole universe with its aspirations, desires, and needs.

But in the life of this couple there appear “those who themselves live, but do not allow others to survive, especially those who are independent of them, but are free to be free.” Harmony in nature is lost: humans disturb balance and peace, and animals, asking many questions, are unable to understand the source of permissiveness. “People, people are man-gods!” This thought has nothing to do with the ideas of the structure of the world, but this is only if we talk about the world of people... Yes, a person does not recognize the right to be above others, to administer justice, execute and pardon at his own discretion, but in relation to nature and animals everything otherwise. Elementary greed, the struggle for one’s own well-being, which is justified almost by state necessity, can lead to unprecedented cruelty and barbarity. But nature does not understand this, perceiving everything that is happening as universal horror: “cars, helicopters, rapid-fire rifles - and life in the Moyunkum savannah was turned upside down...”. For the inhabitants of the savannah, a person, as an intervention “from the outside,” is akin to a natural disaster, a real danger for the reversal of large-scale problems.

And this destructive force of human cruelty performs a terrible and bloody act of destruction of animals, in which Akbara’s first brood perishes. Newly born wolf cubs, going out hunting for the first time, “did not yet know what hardships hunting brings.” In these sucklings the she-wolf saw the meaning of life, loved them madly, fancifully giving nicknames to each wolf cub, as if distinguishing them. And they die. They die not because of their own mistakes, but because of a random combination of circumstances. And “how could they, the steppe wolves, know that their original prey - saigas - was needed to replenish the meat supply plan?” An exceptional horror takes over when reading the barbaric round-up of saigas: “a continuous black river of wild horror rolled across the steppe, along the white snow powder.” Through the eyes of the she-wolf, the entire action is shown: “fear reached such apocalyptic proportions that the she-wolf Akbar, deaf from the gunshots, thought that the whole world had become deaf and numb, that chaos reigned everywhere and the sun itself... was also rushing about and looking for salvation.” No, she doesn’t hear any screams or the voice of reason, only one thing is in her heart - horror and disbelief in what is happening... But when the sounds of the earth and awareness of reality return, horror is replaced by suffering... Where is the salvation? Where is the exit? Why, why is this attack? And a thin thread connects her current experiences with what Boston, a man, will experience, but also submitted to grief, having accepted the death of his only and dearest son: “he walked like a blind man, clutching the baby he had killed to his chest. Behind him, screaming and wailing, walked Gulyumkan, supported by the arm of a loud neighbor. Boston, stunned with grief, heard none of this. But suddenly, deafeningly, like the roar of a waterfall, the sounds of the real world fell on him, and he realized what had happened, and, raising his eyes to the sky, he screamed terribly: “Why, why did you punish me?” After all, for a thinking and feeling being there is no significant difference - before grief, everything is in moral equality. And in this race of life, when the “persecuted and the persecutors” ran side by side, no longer remembering their natural essence, they ran to survive. Didn't the way the wolves suddenly become like cowardly saigas during shelling mean that the natural plans of the world have been destroyed? And the wolves here seem more noble than people, and in this situation man is a predator. Aitmatov explains the reasons for crimes against the primordial harmony of existence. It is no coincidence that after the scene of the raid there are phrases about Akbara’s forced flight: “Sadly and bitterly the crumpled flowers of her traces stretched across the snow.” The she-wolf, physically exhausted, carries with her a spiritual illness: “every touch to the ground caused pain. Most of all they wanted to return to their usual lair, lose themselves and forget what had befallen their unfortunate heads.” A harsh assessment is given to those who have “crumpled up the inflorescences” of the free and familiar steppe life: “homeless people”, “tumbleweeds”, “professional alcoholics”, who have long been “angry at the world”.

And after that gigantic massacre, the wolves, leaving the Moyunkum steppes, moving closer to the mountains, to the lake, take with them crushing grief, suffering, and loss. And, having tried to start everything from scratch, the fierce couple is again faced with the deliberate crime of a person whose bet on immediate benefit, momentary gain reveals the whole cynicism of what is happening. What is eternity to them if a moment allows them to grab more? And what is the soul when the sadness is not about it, but about a prestigious career? It was said before them: burn everything with a blue flame. And Akbar and her family are again victims of the “doomsday in the Aldash reeds.” And the puppies born there die when people set fire to the area around the lake. “The fire started in the middle of the night. Treated with a flammable substance, the reeds flared up like gunpowder, many times stronger and more powerful than a dense forest. The flames were thrown up to the skies, and the smoke covered the steppe just as fog covers the earth in winter.” The death of the reed jungle, like the lake, “albeit unique,” ​​“will not stop anyone when it comes to scarce raw materials. For this you can gut the globe like a pumpkin.” This is the harshness of the modern world, and is presented by Aitmatov without exaggeration. As we see, the world comes up with much more sophisticated methods of its destruction than the most maximalist science fiction would do. And as Musa Jalil notes: “What are the wolves! More terrible and evil -// Packs of predatory two-legged animals.” Seeking salvation from this obsession, running away from dangers and their experiences, Akbara and Tashchainar move to the mountains - “now the only place on earth where they can survive,” “it was a last, desperate attempt to continue their family.” But even there, in an area unusual for wolves, the shadow of misfortune follows on the animals’ heels. Having tested the wolves with cruelty and callousness, people give them another test, which was destined to end in disaster - a man steals their last four wolf cubs from a hole in the mountains. This was the last straw of patience. The she-wolf loses interest in the outside world and is left alone with her grief and begins to take revenge on people. Akbar personifies nature, Mother Nature, who is overcome by the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bretribution, she is trying to escape from the people who are destroying her, because there is nowhere to run from this scourge, and is there any point? The she-wolf wants to save herself, her future, her offspring, but when Bazarbai steals her puppies, she begins to take revenge, without understanding who is really to blame. And as Boston said: “They are animals, they know one thing: the trail led them here and this is the end for them, the light has converged like a wedge.” In order to drown out the rage, despair and mental pain, into the power of which this pair of wolves fell and went mad in their misfortune, Akbar and Tashchainar howled, asking the “man-god” to return their brood to them: “A howl echoed over the shed, now mournful and painful, now furious and evil - these are wolves, blinded by grief, circling and wandering in the darkness. Akbara was especially stressed. She screamed like a woman in a cemetery.” No, after all, there is nothing worse for a mother than the loss of her children. And the heart does not want to believe everything that is happening. And a terrible fame spread about them. But people saw only the external side of the matter and did not know the real background, the real reasons for the revenge; they did not know about the hopeless longing of the mother wolf for the wolf cubs stolen from the lair. After Boston killed Tashchainar, Akbara’s life completely lost its meaning: “It was hopelessly hard for Akbara. She became lethargic, indifferent - she ate all sorts of small animals that caught her eye, and mostly sadly whiled away her days somewhere in a secluded place,” the world lost its value for her, and she lived exclusively in memories: “most often she remembered her wolf , faithful and mighty Tashchainar." “Akbara remained restless throughout the entire district. Only she was in no way affected by the life boiling around her. And people, one might say, forgot about her: after the loss of Tashchainara, Akbara did not remind anyone of herself, even at the winter quarters of Boston she stopped howling.” But not everything died in Akbara’s soul - unspent maternal love remained, full reservoirs of tenderness and affection... And here is the pre-final picture of the novel as a result of the fact that the created environmental situations will entail other, more serious consequences: man has violated the harmony in nature, and she takes revenge. He takes revenge unconsciously, obeying only his need. But this judgment of her on people is terrible, cruel, merciless. The death of little Kenjesh, carried away by Akbara, is shocking in its tragedy. After all, the she-wolf herself did not at all want the death of this human cub; she again succumbed to self-deception, a decision dictated by her heart - to take this cub away so that he could live with her. “And it is not clear how she discovered that this was a cub, the same as any of her wolf cubs, only human, and when he reached out to her head to stroke the kind dog, Akbara’s heart, exhausted from grief, trembled. She came up to him and licked his cheek.” “...Akbara got completely tired, lay down at his feet, began to play with him - she wanted him to suck her nipples,” “she licked the cub, and he really liked it. The she-wolf poured out the tenderness that had accumulated in her onto him, inhaled his childish smell.”

Wolves are not just humanized in the novel - they are endowed with high moral strength, mercy, nobility, which the people opposite them lack. It is in Akbar and Tashchainar that what has long been inherent in man is personified: a feeling of love for children and an indelible longing for them. The high, selfless loyalty to each other that determines the behavior of wolves is also deeply human. They are not given the gift of thinking and analyzing the facts of life, but they are capable of pitying us; why are we, who have the mental arsenal, not able to understand and pity them? All our experiences, fears, feelings are also characteristic of them... But if Gulyumkan, having lost her child, “howled like Akbar howled in the nights,” evoking the sympathy of others, Akbara’s howl only irritated everyone. And the murder of Bazarbai by Boston seems logical, while the killing of cattle by wolves is condemned by people, causing hatred. We do not understand that tragedy does not have important or unimportant reasons, it is the same for everyone. Misfortune has one face. The image of wolves personifies misfortune and carries anxiety for the nature that is dying due to the fault of man. This image itself is unexpected. Only the wolf in nature is considered to be bloodthirsty, that wolves do not know the limits in killings, they have a “dead soul”, for which the meaning of life is profit, satiety, peace. Having made his way into the herd, the wolf will slaughter all the sheep, despite the degree of his hunger, and will greedily drink the blood of one or the other victim... Neither a lion nor a tiger, gnawing their prey to the bones, will do this... And if you compare a wolf and a man , a person, naturally, always wins. But the image of wolves given by Aitmatov in the novel poses the question differently: Akbar and Tashchainar are perfect, pure in thoughts, endowed with the most human qualities. Aitmatov deprived people not only of morality, but also of a sense of unity with the world. Akbara’s strong and self-possessed character cannot withstand the mercilessness of the “human genius”, and she breaks down, resigns herself to injustice, but cannot accept the loss. The horror once experienced will not be forgotten. And that same “wave of human soullessness” has remained on Earth to this day...And how happy they could be, giving birth to children, bringing harmony and light! But people did not allow this happiness to come true. And this shocks, causing indignation, contributing to the revival of moral values ​​in us.

No, nothing can be stronger than reason and words. And if this priceless gift of thinking and speech is given to man, then why not value it? How long can we become like predators, suppress all moral impulses, live in lies and indifference... It will take centuries to restore the consequences of our “experiments”. Has the atmosphere of participation in the unfolding changes in the world become more tangible? No. Have we become more conscious, more thrifty towards traditions, towards nature? No. A certain psychology has taken root in the human consciousness and is gaining strength. And it lies in distrust of the world. Animals are also capable of pitying us, forgiving us, and tolerating our mistakes. But only for the time being... Chingiz Aitmatov warns that crossing certain boundaries is disastrous for all humanity. For development, for changing the course of history, the ecological situation and the plight of man in the world, one thing is needed: strengthening the sense of harmony in people's minds. Harmony in everything: in oneself, in connection with nature, with the past and future. “Nature does not accept jokes, it is always truthful; mistakes and delusions come from people” (I. Goethe) And Aitmatov, having humanized such vivid artistic images of animals, endowing them with charm, memory, mercy, showed, as a result, she, Nature, values ​​​​life, preserves the memory of the past, protects herself and others, she lives to the fullest. How do we humans feel the fullness of life? A person who has known the taste of victory, who feels his strength in this world, indulges desires, thinks about himself and unconsciously, and sometimes intentionally, breaks the connection with the surrounding nature. It seems as if some kind of abyss lies between a person’s desire to arrange his life well, to be the real master of life, and his ability to live here and now, in harmony with nature, to consciously live every moment of his existence.

May 25, 2011 overquoting
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"The block"- a novel by the Kyrgyz Soviet writer Chingiz Aitmatov, first published in 1986 in the magazine New World. The novel tells about the destinies of two people - Avdiy Kallistratov and Boston Urkunchiev, whose destinies are connected with the image of the she-wolf Akbara, the connecting thread of the book.

Heroes

First and second parts:

• Avdiy Kallistratov- the main character of the first two chapters of the novel. He is looking for a “revision of God,” the figure of a “contemporary God with new divine ideas.”
• Petrukha- one of Avdiy’s two “accomplices” who participated in the collection of drugs.
• Lenka- the second and youngest of the drug transporters.
• Grishan- the leader of the gang, the prototype of the “Antichrist” by Ch. Aitmatov.
• Ober-Kandalov- leader of the saiga hunt, leader of the people who will crucify Obadiah.
• Inga Fedorovna- Avdija's only love.

• Boston Urkunchiev- a leader in production, considered by many neighbors as a fist.
• Bazarbai Noigutov- the antipode of Boston, a drunkard and a parasite, but considered “a man of principle, incorruptible.”
• Kochkorbaev- party organizer

Plot and structure of the novel

The novel is divided into three parts, the first two of which describe the life of Avdiy Kallistratov, who lost his mother early and was raised by his father, a deacon. Having entered the seminary and faced with the misunderstanding of many priests about the development of the idea of ​​​​God and the church, he asks himself a question to which he never finds an answer.

Evaluating this act, Ch. Aitmatov writes that thoughts themselves are a form of development, the only way to the existence of such ideas.

First and second parts

After leaving the seminary, Avdiy gets a job at a publishing house and travels to the Moyunkum desert to write an article to describe the drug trade developed there. Already on the way, he meets his “fellow travelers” - Petrukha and Lenka. After talking with them for a long time, Avdiy Kallistratov comes to the conclusion that it is not these people who are to blame for breaking the rules, but the system:

And the more he delved into these sad stories, the more he became convinced that all this resembled a kind of undercurrent with the deceptive calm of the surface of the sea of ​​\u200b\u200blife and that, in addition to the private and personal reasons that give rise to a tendency to vice, there are social reasons that allow the possibility of this kind of occurrence diseases of youth. At first glance, these reasons were difficult to grasp - they resembled communicating blood vessels that spread the disease throughout the body. No matter how much you delve into these reasons on a personal level, it will make little, if not no, sense.

Arriving at the hemp harvesting field, Avdiy meets the she-wolf Akbara, whose image is the connecting thread of the entire novel. Despite the possibility of killing a person, Akbar does not do so. After meeting with Grishan, in the train carriage, Avdiy calls on everyone to repent and throw away the bags of drugs, but he is beaten and thrown out of the train. Having accidentally met former “comrades” arrested for drug trafficking, he tries to help them, but they do not recognize him as one of their own. Then Avdiy returns to Moscow and only at the invitation of Inga Fedorovna returns again to the Moyunkum Hermitage, where he accepts Ober-Kandalov’s offer to “hunt.”

Avdiah's last hours are painful - unable to tolerate the killing of many animals “for the plan,” he tries to prevent the slaughter, and his drunken employers crucify him on saxaul. Obadiah’s last words addressed to Akbara will be: “You have come...”.

Part three

The third part describes the life of Boston, living during the difficult period of the transition of socialist property to private property. The story begins with how a local drunkard steals Akbara's wolf cubs and, despite all persuasion, sells them for booze. This story tells about the injustice that reigned in these places at that time. Boston has a difficult relationship with the local party organizer. Boston's fate ends tragically - he accidentally kills his own son.

Aitmatov is one of the leading writers of our time. His novel "The Scaffold" is a very popular work because it touches on pressing issues of the present time. This book is the result of the author’s observations, reflections and anxieties about a turbulent reality that threatens the future, therefore it is significantly different from all previously written works: “Early Cranes”, “White Steamer”, “Mother’s Field”, “The First Teacher”, “Topolek” mine is in a red scarf." In “The Scaffold” Ch. Aitmatov, as an artist of words, fulfills the mission of a spiritual mentor of the current generation, who points out to his contemporaries the tragic contradictions of today. The writer touches on issues of ecology, morality, and the problem of the threat of drug addiction.

The novel is filled with images that at first glance are not connected with each other: wolves, expelled seminarian Avdiy, shepherd Boston, “messengers” for marijuana. But in fact, their destinies are closely intertwined, forming a common knot of pressing problems in modern society, which the author calls on us living now to resolve. The narrative begins with a description of the wolf family - Akbara and Tashchainara, living peacefully in the Moyunkum savannah. But this calm and serenity is only until the Asian expanses are invaded by a man who carries within himself not a creative, but a destructive force. And a terrible, bloody act of destruction of the animal world takes place, in which Akbar’s recently born wolf cubs also die. All living things around have been exterminated, and people, obsessed with a selfish attitude towards nature, rejoice that the meat supply plan has been fulfilled. Three times the wolves went to remote places, tried to acquire offspring to continue their family and live as the laws of existence dictated to them, and three times an evil and cruel fate, embodied in the form of people, deprived them of their cubs. Wolves, in our minds, are a danger, but it turns out there is an even greater evil that can crush and destroy everything - these are, again, people. Akbara and Tashchainar in the novel have mercy and do not wish harm to anyone. Akbara's love for wolf cubs is not an unconscious animal instinct, but conscious maternal care and affection, characteristic of everything feminine on earth.

Wolves in the work, especially Akbar, personify nature, which is trying to escape from the people destroying it. The she-wolf's further actions become a warning to man that sooner or later all living things will resist and will take revenge, revenge cruelly and inexorably. Akbar's mother, like Mother Nature, wants to preserve herself, her future in her offspring, but when Bazarbai kidnaps the wolf cubs from the lair, she becomes embittered and begins to attack everyone in order to drown out the rage, melancholy and despair that drove her to madness. The she-wolf does not punish. the one who really harmed her, but a completely innocent person - a shepherd from Boston, whose family had the misfortune of receiving into their home Bazarbai, who was passing by their home with the wolf cubs. The tracks led Akbar to the Boston camp. The shepherd understands what a vile act Bazarbai, who was envious and wanted to harm him, committed, but cannot do anything. This disgusting drunkard, capable of any meanness, hated Boston all his life, an honest worker who, thanks to his own strength, became the best shepherd in the village. And now Bazarbai gloated and rejoiced at the thought that the “self-important and arrogant” Urkunchiev was being tormented at night by the tormenting and exhausting howls of Akbar, who had lost her wolf cubs.

But the worst was yet to come for Boston. Seeing that the she-wolf who kidnapped his beloved son is running away, Boston kills Akbar and the baby, who was his continuation and the meaning of life, with one shot. Bazarbai also dies, having broken so many other people’s destinies and pitted two powerful forces against each other - humanity and nature. Having committed three murders, only one of which was conscious, Boston himself leads himself to the “chopping block”, suppressed by the grief and despair that overwhelmed him, internally devastated; but in the depths of his soul he was calm, because the evil he had destroyed would no longer be able to harm the living. Another pressing topic explored by the writer in the novel is the problem of drug addiction. Ch. Aitmatov calls on people to come to their senses and take the necessary measures to eradicate this dangerous social phenomenon that cripples human souls. The author truthfully and convincingly describes the path of “messengers” leading to a dead end and destroying lives, who, taking risks, go to the Asian steppes for marijuana, obsessed with the thirst for enrichment. In contrast to them, the writer introduces the image of Avdiy Kallistratov, a “heretic-but-thinker” expelled from the seminary for his ideas about a “contemporary God” that are unacceptable from the point of view of religion and established church postulates.

Obadiah's spiritual and thoughtful nature resists all manifestations of evil and violence. The unrighteous, disastrous path that humanity follows causes pain and suffering in its soul. He sees his purpose in helping people and turning them to God. For this purpose, Obadiah decides to join the “messengers” in order, being next to them, to show how low they have fallen and to direct them to the true path through sincere repentance. Obadiah strives with all his might to bring them to reason, to save perishing souls, instilling in them the lofty thought of the All-Good, All-Merciful, Omnipresent... But for this he is severely beaten, and then deprived of his life by those to whom he extended a helping hand. The figure of Obadiah, crucified on saxaul, resembles Christ, who sacrificed himself for the Good and Truth given to people, and who atoned for human sins with death.

Obadiah also accepted death as good, and in his last thoughts there was no reproach for the maddened crowd of killers, but only compassion for her and a sad feeling of unfulfilled duty... “You have come” - these were his last words when he saw a she-wolf with with amazing blue eyes, who looked with pain into the face of the crucified man and complained to him about her grief. The man and the wolf understood each other because they were united by common suffering - the suffering they experienced from the moral poverty of people mired in lack of spirituality. If Boston was brought to the “chopping block” by fatal circumstances, then Obadiah himself chose this path, knowing that in the human world one must pay cruelly for goodness and mercy. Obadiah's tragedy is aggravated by complete loneliness, because the impulses of his noble soul do not find a response or understanding in anyone.

Anxiety is the main feeling that the novel brings to the reader. This is anxiety for the dying nature, for the self-destructive generation, drowning in vices. “The scaffold” is a cry, a call from the author to come to his senses, to take measures to preserve life on earth. This work, strong in its content, can provide a person with invaluable assistance in the struggle for a new, bright, highly moral path, which is assigned to him by nature and to which people will sooner or later turn their eyes, illuminated by reason.

Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel “The Scaffold” touches on many problems of modern society. The writer touched upon very important issues that may confront a person if he is not indifferent to our own fate and the fate of future generations. Chingiz Aitmatov touched upon the problems of drug addiction, drunkenness, ecology, as well as various moral problems of society. If these problems are not resolved, they will ultimately lead humanity to the “chopping block.”

The main character of the first half of the novel is Avdiy Kallistratov. This is a person who cares about the conditions in which the people around him live. He cannot watch people destroy themselves without heartache. He cannot remain inactive, even though his actions, often naive and not giving the desired result, turned out to be detrimental to him. The writer creates a contrast between Obadiah and young drug addicts, thereby emphasizing two different directions in the development of human character. One path that Obadiah followed leads to the improvement of the best spiritual qualities of a person. The other leads to slow degradation, to spiritual impoverishment. In addition, drug addiction gradually makes a person physically weak and sick. A single protest by Avdija could not lead to global changes in society and even in that small group of people with whom he had the misfortune of collecting cannabis together. Society must think about this problem and try to solve it with forces much greater than the strength of one person. However, it cannot be said that Obadiah did nothing. He tried to show people what kind of disaster they could come to, and someone would certainly have supported him if fate had not led Obadiah to death. Someone would support his desire to change his life for the better.

By showing the death of Obadiah, the writer seems to be explaining to us what we will all come to if we close our eyes and turn away, seeing something terrible and unfair happening. The people who killed Obadiah are worse than animals, because animals kill to live, but they killed thoughtlessly, simply out of anger. These, if you look at it, pathetic drunkards end up slowly killing themselves morally and physically.

Another problem - the problem of ecology - is revealed to the greatest extent through a description of the life of a family of wolves. The author brings their perception of the world closer to human, making their thoughts and experiences understandable and close to us. The writer shows how much we can influence the life of living nature. In the scene of the saigas being shot, people seem to be simply monsters who have no pity for living beings. Wolves running with saigas are seen as more noble and even kinder than people. By destroying living nature, a person will destroy himself. This statement involuntarily suggests itself when you read certain moments of the novel.

The most important and most terrible, it seems to me, is the problem of morality. Unspiritual people are capable of destroying for their own benefit, and they will not feel pain or shame from this. They cannot understand that their actions will turn against themselves, that they will have to pay for everything. Spiritless people in the novel supply teenagers with drugs, kill Avdiy, destroy nature without a twinge of conscience, not realizing what they are doing. A soulless man steals wolf cubs from Ak-bara, which causes an even more terrible tragedy: a child dies. But he doesn't care. However, this act led to his death. All problems of humanity are born from the lack of a moral principle in people. Therefore, first of all, we must strive to awaken in people compassion and love, honesty and selflessness, kindness and understanding. Avdiy Kallistratov tried to awaken all this in people; all of us should strive for this if we do not want to end up on the “chopping block.”

The plight of the ecological environment has long been one of the most pressing topics of modern writers. Ch. Aitmatov in his famous novel “The Scaffold” also addresses this problem. This novel is a call to come to your senses, to realize your responsibility for everything that is carelessly destroyed by man in nature. It is noteworthy that the writer considers environmental problems in the novel inextricably with the problems of the destruction of the human personality.

The novel begins with a description of the life of a wolf family, which lives harmoniously in its lands, until a person appears who disturbs the peace of nature. He senselessly and rudely destroys everything in his path. You feel uneasy when you read about the barbaric roundup of saigas. The reason for such cruelty was simply a difficulty with the meat delivery plan. “The involvement of undiscovered reserves in the planned turnover” resulted in a terrible tragedy: “...across the steppe, along the white snow powder, a continuous black river of wild horror rolled.” The reader sees this beating of saigas through the eyes of the she-wolf Akbara: “Fear reached such apocalyptic proportions that the she-wolf Akbara, deaf from the gunshots, thought that the whole world had become deaf and numb, that chaos had reigned everywhere and the sun itself... was also rushing about and looking for salvation, and that even the helicopters suddenly became numb and, without any roar or whistle, silently circled over the steppe going into the abyss, like giant silent kites...” In this massacre, Akbar’s wolf cubs die. The Akbars’ misfortunes did not end there: five more wolf cubs died during a fire, which was specially set by people to make it easier to obtain expensive raw materials: “For this, you can gut the globe like a pumpkin.”

This is what people say, not suspecting that nature will take revenge for everything sooner than they expect. Nature, unlike people, has only one unfair action: while taking revenge on people for their ruin, it does not consider whether you are guilty or not before it. But nature is still devoid of senseless cruelty. The she-wolf, left alone due to human fault, is still drawn to people. She wants to transfer her unspent maternal tenderness to the human child. It turned out to be a tragedy, but this time for the people. But Akbara is not to blame for the death of the boy. This man, in his cruel outburst of fear and hatred for the incomprehensible behavior of the she-wolf, shoots at her, but misses and kills his own son.

Akbar's she-wolf is endowed by the writer with moral memory. She not only personifies the misfortune that befell her family, but also recognizes this misfortune as a violation of the moral law. As long as a person did not touch her habitat, the she-wolf could meet a helpless person one on one and let him go in peace. In the cruel circumstances imposed on her by a man, she is forced to enter into mortal combat with him. But not only Bazarbai, who deserved punishment, dies, but also an innocent child. Boston has no personal guilt before Akbara, but he is responsible for Bazarbai, his moral antipode, and for the barbarity of Kandarov, who destroyed Moyunkum. I would like to note that the author well understands the nature of such human cruelty towards the environment.

This is elementary greed, the struggle for one’s own well-being, justified almost by state necessity. And the reader, together with Aitmatov, understands that since gangster actions are committed under the guise of state plans, it means that this is a general phenomenon, not a particular one, and it must be fought. I believe that we all need to seriously think about what the nature of our fatherland will be like in the future. Is it possible to wish our descendants a life on bare land, without groves and nightingale trills?! This is why I completely agree with the author of “The Scaffold”: ecology and morality are connected by one line of life.

Russian literature is of enormous global importance. It is read in foreign countries and through these works a foreign reader can get to know a Russian person.

Ch. Aitmatov’s novel “The Scaffold” shows the flaws of socialist society. At that time, the problems that Ch. Aitmatov raised were never talked about. But nevertheless they existed. One of the main problems is the problem of drug addiction. The problem of drug addiction is now one of the most acute in the world. The novel shows the fate of the still very young, timid and good-natured Lenka, the fate of the twenty-year-old, naturally intelligent Petrukha. But these people are already “angry at the world,” and they have one goal in life: to collect more marijuana and get big money for it. Anashists have a law that states unquestioning service to the “owner of the enterprise.” The leader of the marijuana addicts, Grishan, prospers at the expense of those people who have already become involved in drugs and whose souls have become dead. Grishan takes advantage of this, but, as the author shows us, he himself does not use drugs. By the image of Lenka we mean those young people who have already become involved in drugs, and by the image of Grishan those who push the younger generation astray and thereby profit from their misfortune. To some extent, society is to blame for the fact that a person becomes a drug addict, but for the most part everything depends on the person, on his inner world.

Avdiy Kallistratov believed that it was possible to return a drug addict to a normal life, but from his own experience he was convinced that this was impossible. And if it is possible, then only in rare cases and if a person has willpower. Later, Avdiy Kallistratov saw drug addicts in the police, but Grishan was not among them.

Ober-Kandalov's group, into which Avdiy subsequently ends up, is internally close to the collectors of narcotic grass. It was at the hands of Ober-Kandalov that Avdiy died - he was crucified on the cross. It is through his death that he expresses his protest against drug addiction. And Obadiah’s last words were: “Save Akbar!” This confirms that sometimes an animal turns out to be more humane than a person himself.

It seems to me that the problem of drug addiction will exist as long as there are people thirsting for profit at the expense of another person, his grief and death. The Gospel episode is not introduced into the novel as a background for the story of Avdiy Kallistratov. His history is quite specific, and the case of the “eccentric of Galilee,” although it is said about him that he existed once in history, outgrows the framework of singularity. It is endlessly repeated in endless memories: “And people are discussing everything, everyone is arguing, everyone is lamenting how and what happened then and how this could have happened.” He rises to the level of eternal memory: “...everything will be forgotten throughout the ages, but not this day.”

The Gospel episode thus becomes not just a fact of the past in a single time series, it unfolds as a special dimension of the concrete in its relationship with the eternal, and Aitmatov’s Christ is the bearer of ideas that embody this special measure. Therefore, when asked by Pontius Pilate whether there is a God for people above the living Caesar, he answers: “Yes, the Roman ruler, if we choose another dimension of existence.”

A complex, multidimensional world is recreated in "The Scaffold". The artistic space of the novel is also, on the one hand, concrete, as a place where specific events take place, and on the other hand, it is correlated with another, higher space: “The sun and the steppe are eternal quantities: the steppe is measured by the sun, it is so large, the space illuminated by the sun ".

The figurative fabric of the novel is also complex. The layer of the eternal, the highest is outlined in the book not only by Christian motifs: the images of the sun and the steppe as eternal quantities are organically united with the image from another artistic system - the image of the blue-eyed wolf Akbara.

Although the images of Jesus Christ and the she-wolf Akbara go back to completely different and even heterogeneous mythological and religious traditions, in Ch. Aitmatov’s novel they are woven into a single poetic fabric.

Let us remember that in the appearance of each of these characters the same detail is emphasized - transparent blue eyes. “And if anyone saw Akbara up close, he would be struck by her transparent blue eyes - a rare, and perhaps one-of-a-kind case.” And Pontius Pilate sees Christ looking up at him with “transparent blue eyes that amazed him with the power and concentration of his thoughts - as if the inevitable was not waiting for Jesus on the mountain.”

The image of the transparent blue eyes of Jesus and the she-wolf acquires the force of a poetic leitmotif at the end of this figurative series - in the description of Lake Issyk-Kul, the image of a “blue miracle among the mountains,” a unique symbol of the eternal renewal of life: “And the blue steepness of Issyk-Kul was getting closer and closer, and [Boston - E.P.] wanted to dissolve in it, to disappear - and both wanted and did not want to live. This is how these breakers are - the wave boils, disappears and is reborn from itself again..."

In the complex artistic multidimensionality of Ch. Aitmatov’s novel, the fates of specific characters are marked with particular depth and significance.

This is, first of all, the fate of Obadiah. The name of the hero is already significant. “What a rare name, biblical,” Grishan is surprised. Indeed, the name Obadiah is “biblical”: the Old Testament mentions at least 12 people bearing it. But the author does not just mean the general biblical flavor. From the very beginning, he connects the name of his hero with a specific Obadiah: "... he is mentioned in the Bible, in the Third Book of Kings." About this Obadiah is told that he is “a very God-fearing man.” But the most important thing in it is the feat of loyalty to the true God and the true prophets: during the reign of the wicked idolater Ahab, when his depraved wife “destroyed the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them... and fed them with bread and water.”

Thus, the biblical reminiscence illuminates the emerging theme of Obadiah as the theme of a special person, with all his specificity, the theme of a person chosen by fate for his devotion to eternal, true ideals.

The embodiment of this true ideal in the novel appears, first of all, Jesus Christ, whom Obadiah passionately preaches, calling on people to measure themselves by his, Christ's standard. The whole life and martyrdom of Obadiah is the reality of the righteousness of Christ, who announced his second coming in the desire of people for righteousness, affirmed through suffering.

At the same time, Avdiy Kallistratov constantly raises his prayers to another god, whom he reveres and loves no less - the she-wolf Akbar: “Hear me, beautiful mother-wolf!” Obadiah feels his special chosenness in life by the way Akbara spared him, seeing his kindness to her cubs. And this kindness towards the little wolf cubs is no less important for the hero than his integrity as a Christian. Praying to Akbar, Obadiah conjures her with both his human god and her wolf gods, not finding anything blasphemous in this. To the Great Akbar - and his dying prayer: “Save me, she-wolf...”. And the last consolation in life is the blue-eyed wolf who came to his call. In the novel mythology created by Ch. Aitmatov himself, as we see, the figurative quests of different cultures were united. The she-wolf is a character that goes back to mythologies in which plastic thinking predominates; here the images are meaningful in their visible emblematicity. Jesus Christ is the hero of a fundamentally different typological organization, designed to comprehend not the external manifestation of life, but its innermost, hidden essence.

The writer subtly senses these differences. Perhaps this is why the theme of the she-wolf develops in the novel as the emotional and poetic basis of the author’s mythology, and the theme of Jesus Christ as its theoretical, conceptual center.

Some critics reproached the writer for the fact that Christ is presented in his novel only through the means of rhetoric and even journalism: “... in Aitmatov, Christ turns into a real rhetorician, an eloquent sophist, meticulously explaining his “positions” and challenging the opposing side.” We will not talk here about the justice or injustice of these reproaches; let us emphasize something else: the image of Christ in “The Scaffold” is built on the principle of being a mouthpiece for the author’s ideas. In detail, in detail, but at the same time clearly, he declares his credo: “... I... will come, resurrected, and you, people, come to live in Christ, in high righteousness, you will come to me in unrecognizable future generations. .. I will be your future, remaining thousands of years behind in time, this is the Providence of the Almighty, in this way to elevate a person to the throne of his calling - a calling to goodness and beauty."

That is why for Aitmatov’s Christ the most important thing is to be heard, and the most terrible thing is not execution, not death, but loneliness. In this regard, the motif of the night of Gethsemane acquires a special resonance in the novel. The Gospel Christ sought solitude in the Garden of Gethsemane. For him it was a moment of concentration of spiritual forces before the feat of supreme redemptive suffering. In “The Scaffold” this is an apocalyptic prediction of the terrible end of the world, which “is coming from the enmity of people”: “I was tormented by a terrible feeling of complete abandonment in the world, and that night I wandered around Gethsemane like a ghost, not finding peace for myself, as if I were alone - the only thinking being left in the entire universe, as if I was flying over the earth and did not see a single living person either day or night - everything was dead, everything was completely covered with the black ashes of raging fires, the earth flew completely in ruins - no forests, no arable lands, no ships in the seas, and only a strange, endless ringing was barely audible from afar, like a sad moan in the wind, like the cry of iron from the depths of the earth, like a funeral bell, and I flew like a lonely feather in the sky, languid fear and foreboding, and I thought - this is the end of the world, and an unbearable melancholy tormented my soul: where have people gone, where can I lay my head now?

The artistic life of Avdiy Kallistratov intricately connects different time layers: the concrete time of reality and the mythological time of eternity. The writer calls this “historical synchronicity,” the ability of a person to “live mentally at once in several temporary incarnations, sometimes separated by centuries and millennia.” By the power of this ability, Obadiah finds himself in the time of Jesus Christ. He begs the people gathered at the walls of Jerusalem to prevent a terrible disaster, to prevent the execution of Christ. And he cannot shout to them, because they are not given the opportunity to hear him, for them he is a man from another time, a man not yet born. But in the hero’s memory, the past and the present are linked together, and in this unity of time there is a great unity of being: “...good and evil are passed on from generation to generation in the infinity of memory, in the infinity of time and space of the human world...”. We see how complex the relationship between myth and reality is in Ch. Aitmatov’s novel “The Scaffold”: illuminated by mythological cosmicity, reality acquires new depth and thus turns out to be the basis for a new mythology. The introduction of gospel images gives the writer's artistic quest a special epic scope and philosophical depth. Time will still tell how successful and fruitful the search for the author was, one thing is already certain: it is evidence of the hard creative work of the master.

A wide variety of books, on any topic, for a wide range of readers can now be found on store bookshelves. But almost every person is interested in books on a moral topic, which contain answers to the eternal questions of mankind, which can push a person to resolve them and give him accurate and comprehensive answers to these questions.

This, for example, is the novel by the famous modern writer Ch. Aitmatov “The Scaffold”. “The Scaffold” is a rather large work; in terms of its ideological content, it makes a person think about a lot and cannot leave its reader indifferent to it. It is difficult to simply put this book back on the shelf and forget about it, having read it “from cover to cover,” delving into the meaning of every word, every phrase, which contains hundreds of questions and answers.

Ch. Aitmatov in his novel, as well as in each of his books, always sought to show a person looking for his place in life, his vices leading to the death of all humanity. He raised such problems as drug addiction - the “plague of the 20th century”, the ecology of the human soul, its purity and morality - the eternal desire of people for the ideal of man, and such an important problem in our time as nature, caring for it. Ch. Aitmatov wanted to reveal all these topics in his work, to convey their meaning to his reader, not to leave him indifferent to everything and inactive, since time requires us to resolve them quickly and correctly. After all, now a person kills himself every minute. He “plays with fire”, shortening his life, simply wasting its precious minutes, months, years with one smoked cigarette, excessive alcohol consumption, one dose of drugs... And isn’t the loss of morality for a person suicide, because he will be a soulless creature, devoid of any feelings, capable of destroying the harmony of nature, destroying its creatures: people, animals, plants.

Isn’t it terrible that a person’s face can frighten the wolves of the Moyunkum desert? “The Scaffold” begins with the theme of a wolf family, which develops into the theme of the death of the savanna due to the fault of man, as he bursts into it like a predator destroying all living things: saigas, wolves.

Wolves here are humanized, endowed with moral strength, nobility and intelligence, which people lack. They are capable of loving children and yearn for them. They are selfless, ready to sacrifice themselves for the future life of their children. They are doomed to fight with people. Moreover, everything turns into an inevitable tragedy for the savannah: the murder of an innocent child. Ch. Aitmatov also pays a lot of attention to revealing the characters of other heroes of the novel: Bazar-bai, Boston, Avdiy Kallistratov. He contrasts them. When creating Bazarbai and Kandalov, he omits the description of their inner world, since they are the embodiment of evil and cannot carry anything in themselves except destruction. But he pays a lot of attention to revealing the causes of the tragedies of Boston and Obadiah. They have the personification of humanity, a sense of balance in the relationship between man and nature. They want and strive to save at least one person or animal life. But they cannot, because they are not very literate, defenseless and impractical, and are not able to awaken conscience and repentance because of this.

But still, in our time, we need such spiritually pure people. Aitmatov connected the ideas of humanism with these images, since only such people can take a person away from the chopping block and rid the world of evil.

A very brief summary (in a nutshell)

A wolf couple lives in the reserve - Akbara and Tashchainar, who recently gave birth to wolf cubs. Suddenly, saiga hunters come to their region, and by chance, the wolf cubs die in this chaos. Among those hunters was Obadiah. He worked as a correspondent for a newspaper, which sent him to track how drugs were coming into the center from Central Asia. He contacted those who deal with this traffic and went there together with Petrukha and Lenka. On the way back, he revealed his cards and poured some of the drugs out of the carriage, for which he was beaten and thrown out of the train. All this was led by Grishan, the leader of the drug couriers. Avdiy ended up in the hospital, where Inga, whom he met earlier, comes to see him, and they begin to fall in love. At home, the editorial office refuses to print the material, he returns to Inge, where he meets Ober at the station and goes with his team to kill saigas. At night they get drunk and kill Obadiah, who tried to reason with them and demanded that they stop killing animals. Akbara and Tashchainar again have offspring, but when the reeds are burned, they also die. They do not give up and have a third offspring. Unfortunately for them, Bazarbai passes by and steals the wolf cubs. He hides from his parents in Boston's yard and then smuggles them out. Akbara and Tashchainar think that the wolf cubs are with Boston and walk around his yard. Boston tries to buy the wolf cubs from Bazarbai, but out of spite he sells them to someone else. The wolves do not allow Boston to live at all, and he tries to kill them, but only kills Tashchinar. Akbar, out of revenge, kidnaps Boston's young son, who, trying to fight him off from the she-wolf, kills them both. In anger, he goes to Bazarbai and kills him too.

Summary (detailed in parts)

Part one

The narrative of the novel begins with a description of the Moyunkum Nature Reserve, where a wolf couple lives: Tashchainar and Akbara. In the summer, the couple had their first wolf cubs, which were destined to live until the first winter hunt. With the onset of the first snow, the wolf family went to their original prey - saigas. They could not even imagine that a trap awaited them there in the form of helicopters, scattering the herd towards the hunters who had arrived in UAZ cars.

Oddly enough, this time they were allowed to use the “meat reserves” of the reserve. In this pursuit of saigas, only Akbara and Tashchainar survived. One of the wolf cubs was shot by a hunter with a gun, the other two were trampled under the hooves of the insane mass. When the wolves reached their native lair, they discovered that people were walking there too, collecting the corpses of saigas. The main organizers of this hunt were the former head of the disciplinary department Ober, the big man Mishka-Shabashnik, the seedy actor Hamlet-Galkin and local resident Uzyukbai. This was a good opportunity for them to earn extra money. They took with them the bound son of the former deacon Avdiy Kallistratov.

A little background about how Obadiah ended up captured by these vagabonds. A half-educated student at a theological seminary, a man who sincerely believes in goodness and preaches it everywhere, got a job as a freelancer for a regional newspaper and was sent to an unsafe and unusual “business.” The newspaper instructed him to trace the route of drugs from Central Asia and write a note about how marijuana penetrates among European youth. It should be noted here that Obadiah, being a follower of unchanging church postulates, dreamed of bringing his ideas about goodness and morality to the masses. The newspaper gave him just such an opportunity.

On his first trip with the “messengers for anasha,” he was sent to the Primoyunkum steppes at the very peak of hemp flowering. A group of young guys was formed at the Kazansky station, and they were from different parts of the country, but most of them were representatives of port cities, from where it is easier to sell the drug. Having familiarized himself with the rules, Avdiy learned that it was forbidden to communicate with each other, in case failure ensued, so as not to betray the “companion”. The most valuable product was considered to be the so-called “plasticine” - a mass of hemp pollen. But the inflorescences of the plant also generated income. The most important among the guys was some Sam. He led the special mission, but always remained in the shadows, so Obadiah did not know him personally.

The more he delved into the details of this business, the more he became convinced of the existence of not only personal, but also social reasons that give rise to a craving for vice. He even wanted to write an entire work on this topic or open a social column in the newspaper in order to protect young people from this “modern disease.” On the way to the Moyunkumsky state farm, Avdiy met a girl who played an important role in his future life. He met her in a remote village called Uchkuduk, when he stopped with Petrukha and Lenka to rest and do a little extra work. While they were plastering some building, she rode up on a motorcycle and forever made an indelible impression on Avdija. She had brown eyes and blond hair, which gave the girl a special charm.

Continuing their journey, the “messengers” soon came across a hemp field, where they began to extract “plasticine”. Each of them had to make a “present” for themselves - to assemble a matchbox of such a substance. The matter was troublesome, exhausting, but not difficult. To do this, it was necessary to strip naked and run through the thickets so that the pollen from the inflorescences would stick to the body. Then this homogeneous mass was scraped off the body and the “plasticine” was ready. Obadiah was engaged in this “barbaric” trade only because of the prospect of meeting the mysterious “boss”.

Now came the most difficult part of the task. When they went back to Moscow with bags filled to capacity with marijuana, they had to pass police checkpoints at the stations. At the railway, where the “messengers” had to board a freight car, Avdiy finally saw the very leader of the operation. As it turned out, his real name was Grishan and he was, of course, far from the “divine” themes that Obadiah preached. As a result, a conflict broke out between them.

Part two

After talking a little with the “recruit”, Grishan realized that he went with them not for the sake of profit, but then to fool his “messengers” with all sorts of talk about repentance and the salvation of the soul. Then he decided to make fun of him and allowed the guys to smoke weed in the evening. Everyone seemed to enjoy this activity. Only Obadiah refused the offered rolled-up cigarette. For some time he endured this mockery, but then he finally snatched this rubbish from the hands of the smokers and threw it out of the carriage. Then he began to empty all the contents of the backpacks there. For this, the “messengers” almost killed the poor newspaperman.

Now he realized how angry and cruel drug addicts who were deprived of their dose could be. Grishan watched all this from the sidelines and didn’t even lift a finger to stop his brutal suppliers. In the end, Avdiy, badly beaten, was thrown out of a train moving at full speed. When he woke up it was already raining. His head began to regain consciousness little by little. It seemed to him that he existed in two dimensions: in the present and the past. Having waited out the night under the bridge, the next morning he discovered that there was almost no money left in his pocket, and his passport, soaked from the rain, began to resemble a tattered shred.

On a ride, Avdiy managed to get to the Zhalpak-Saz station, where he was immediately arrested and taken to the police station, he looked so pitiful and shabby. There he was surprised to discover that almost the entire group of “messengers” had been tied up, except for Grishan. Avdija was luckier than the rest. They simply took him for a madman and let him go. Meanwhile, he was getting worse, and when he finally fell ill, Avdiy was admitted to the hospital. There he again met a brown-eyed stranger from the village of Uchkuduk. Now he found out that her name was Inga. She was divorced and raising her son alone. Now the child was in Dzhambul with her parents, but soon she promised to introduce Avdiy to them.

Inga and Avdija were connected by an interest in Moyunkum hemp. The girl was studying this phenomenon and, having learned about the story of the sick newspaperman, came to ask if he needed scientific data. That's how they met. Soon Avdiy was discharged and he was able to return to his native Prioksk. But disappointment awaited him there. The editors did not want to publish his material, and his friends and colleagues avoided him. With the help of Inga, he was able to overcome this crisis, as he shared his problems with her. She, in turn, also told him about herself, about her divorce from her pilot husband. Soon, Inga had to leave for a long time, as her husband threatened to take the child away through the court, and she had no choice but to hide with her little son.

So, at the station, the newspaperman came across Ober (Kandalov), with whom he went to the Moyunkum Nature Reserve to hunt saigas. The entire well-known “junta” went with them. When the flayers began to kill poor animals en masse, Avdiah could not stand it and demanded to stop the massacre and immediately repent. This served as a pretext for him to be tied up and thrown into a military all-terrain vehicle, where he lay motionless among the cold corpses of saigas. But this was not enough. Ober held his own trial, as a result of which it was decided to beat Obadiah half to death and crucify him on a dry saxaul tree. And so the life of the poor newspaperman ended.

Before his death, he dreamed of a huge expanse of water, above which the figure of his father-deacon towered. And he heard his own childish voice reading a prayer. Somewhere not far from the reserve, Obadiah's killers were fast asleep. And at dawn his body was discovered by Akabara and Tashchainar. The wolves spent the entire next year in the Aldash reeds. They again had offspring. Those were five wolf cubs who, like the previous ones, died from rash human actions. The reeds were burned during the construction of another road, and the wolf cubs were burned along with them. But still, the most terrible was the last attempt of Akbara and Tashchainar to continue the family line.

Part three

The fate of the little wolf cubs was decided involuntarily by a completely innocent person who actually has a kind heart. Boston Urkunchiev was a leading collective farm worker, who had a job he loved, a beautiful wife, a nice son, a well-established farm, and he himself was a respectable man. The shepherd Bazarbai Noigutov envied him with black envy, who could not understand how this collective farmer’s life was so smooth.

One day, having received a salary and a bottle of vodka for working with geologists, Bazarbai was returning home. When he lay down by the stream to savor the long-awaited bottle, he almost heard a child’s cry. These were small wolf cubs in a den, which Bazarbai hastened to take with him in order to sell them at a high price. He hurriedly left with the four wolf cubs before their parents arrived. Having discovered the loss, the wolves followed Bazarbai’s trail and caught up in the hope of blocking his path.

But the scammer was lucky. Along the way there was a Boston sheepfold. Even though he hated him, there was no other choice but to come and visit. The owner was not at home, but only his wife Gulyumkan and one and a half year old son were there. Gulyumkan warmly received Bazarbay, and he, in turn, told about his unprecedented “feat”. When he took four wolf cubs out of the bag, the baby played with them a little, and then Bazarbai left. The parents of the wolf cubs were left wandering around the yard. Every night they howled protractedly, preventing their owners from sleeping.

Boston could not stand it and personally went to Bazarbai to redeem the wolf cubs, but in vain. Because of his greed and envy, Bazarbai did not want to sell the wolf cubs to the collective farmer, whom he hated so fiercely. Everything was too good in Boston: the expensive fur coat, the beautiful wife, the nice horse, and the cozy house. Everything about him irritated Bazarbai. So he just quarreled with him. The shepherd did not agree to return the wolf cubs to the den or sell them.

Akbar and Tashchainar completely lost peace and violated the ancient pact of non-aggression against people. They began to wander around and become aggressive. The wolf couple got a bad reputation, but no one knew why they did this. Meanwhile, the unfortunate shepherd sold the wolf cubs and quietly drank the money away. In between times, he boasted about how he had refused the hated Boston, which was now having a very hard time. The wolves kept returning to his yard and howling in the hope of finding their babies.

It is worth noting that Boston had a very difficult childhood. He was orphaned early and, being the youngest in the family, grew up independently. He lived without looking at others and always knew that the truth was on his side, with the exception of one case. In fact, Gulyumkan was the wife of his best friend Ernazar, who died in the mountains. All his life, Boston blamed himself for not being able to save his friend.

And when his first wife died, he married Gulyumkan. His wife herself asked not to leave the poor woman alone. Both already had adult children from their first marriages, and luckily they had a child together - baby Kenjesh. The wolves never left Boston's house and he saw no other choice but to shoot them. This decision was not easy for him. For the second time in his life he had to take a heavy sin upon his soul.

He was only able to kill Tashchainar, Akbar managed to escape. But since then the world has lost all meaning for her. She hid for a while, but still took revenge on the collective farmer. This happened in the summer, when the elders were drinking tea in the house, and the baby was playing in the yard. Akbar sneaked up and dragged the child on her back. Frightened, Boston grabbed the gun and began shooting after her, missing all the time so as not to hit his son. And the she-wolf walked further and further.

Another shot knocked down the she-wolf. When Boston ran up, he saw that the child was already dead, and Akbara was barely breathing. Mad with grief, he loaded the gun and went to kill Bazarbai. Having shot the scoundrel, he went to surrender to the authorities. Such was the fate of Boston Urkunchiev.