Red Moscow

Chapter 2501

Yakov chatted with Sokov downstairs for a while, then said goodbye and left. Sokov wanted to stay with him for dinner, but he also refused.

Sokov returned home and came to the kitchen, staring at the brand-new old-fashioned refrigerator in front of him, wondering in his mind that the Great Famine of 1946 was coming, but would this famine be limited to Ukraine or the entire Soviet Union? Can't remember clearly at all. Now that you have a refrigerator, you can buy more meat and put it in the freezer to avoid being short of supplies and not being able to buy what you want.

 He raised his hand and looked at the time and found that Asiya would be home from get off work in more than half an hour. As a "housewife", she should also prepare dinner.

 Speaking of cooking, Sokov couldn't help but complain that his cooking skills, which were comparable to those of a second-level chef, were of little use here. People in later generations will know that Chinese food is world-famous, but they can't make it here. There is no soy sauce or vinegar in the basic oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar. Let alone now, there will be no soy sauce even in a few decades. It was not until a large number of Chinese people came to Russia to do business that they brought all kinds of soy sauce. Seasonings; vinegar, only the transparent fruit vinegar, which is not used for cooking at all.

As for seasonings, in addition to pepper and cumin, other red peppers, ginger, onions, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, bay leaves, cloves, nutmeg, cumin, tangerine peel, turmeric powder, perilla, mint, Amomum villosum, strawberry, onion, safflower, cinnamon, etc. are not available. It will be until the early 1990s, with the arrival of the Chinese, that these spices will appear in Russian kitchens.

As soon as Sokov finished peeling the potatoes, he heard the door ringing, and then heard the sound of Asiya entering the door. He quickly stuck his head out and said to the outside: "Asiya, you are back!" After saying this As he spoke, Sokov suddenly felt a bit like the kind of housewife from an island country who stayed at home every day and would take the initiative to say hello when her husband came home.

"Well, I'm back!" Asiya took off her boots, put on a pair of light shoes, walked towards the kitchen, and asked casually: "Misha, what are you going to eat tonight?"

 “Mashed potatoes and fried onions!”

Asiya walked into the kitchen and immediately saw the refrigerator placed in the corner. She carefully looked at the rough-looking rectangular metal box with a handwheel on the door, and asked Sokov curiously: "Misha, what is this?"

“Fridge, this is the refrigerator.” Sokov quickly explained to her.

“Refrigerator?!” Asiya’s face was full of surprise: “I’ve heard of this thing before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. By the way, where did it come from?”

"Yasha sent it," Sokov said: "He told me that it was a prize awarded to me by Comrade Ustinov in recognition of my contribution to weapons development." He saw Asiya thinking. He opened the refrigerator and looked inside. He quickly moved the hand wheel on the door and opened the thick refrigerator door.

"Asia, look." After the refrigerator door opened, Sokov pointed to the top of the refrigerator and said to Asya: "The top is the freezer, where we can put meat or ice cream; the bottom is the freezer. Put the endless meals here to extend the shelf life..."

Asiya carefully looked at the structure in the refrigerator and said excitedly: "I never thought that our family could use such an advanced refrigerator. When I get to the work tomorrow, I must tell my colleagues about this so that they can all know it." Envy us."

Sokov heard what Asiya said, but he didn't take it seriously. He thought that if a refrigerator like this were in future generations, no one would pick it up even if it was thrown on the roadside. Later generations of refrigerators were based on the principles of gravity induction and magnetism. Through the specially designed door structure and magnet attraction, the refrigerator door could be closed automatically. Today's refrigerator door is just a thick iron door. You must turn the handwheel to let the lock tongue hidden in the door stick out to close the door.

While Asiya was looking at the refrigerator, the phone in the living room suddenly rang.

Sokov guessed that the call must be coming to him, or maybe it was Yakov calling him to ask about his experience of using the refrigerator, so he said to Asiya: "Take your time, I'll answer the phone."

 Coming to the living room, Sokov picked up the phone and said into the receiver: "I'm Sokov!"

There was silence in the receiver at first, and soon a stuttering voice came: "Hello! Please, please, is Asiya at home?"

"Yes! Wait a minute!" Sokov shouted toward the kitchen: "Asia, your phone!"

“My phone number?” Asiya asked in surprise when she walked out of the kitchen: “Who is looking for me?”

“I don’t know.” Sokov answered simply, then handed the microphone to Asiya and said at the same time: “I have never heard this sound before!”

Asiya took the phone and said into the receiver: "I'm Asiya, who are you?"

Sokov took advantage of Asiya's call and went back to the kitchen to make dinner. At the same time, he listened to the conversation outside, trying to figure out who was calling Asiya. Could it be a suitor? My wife is so beautiful, but even if she has such troubles, there will definitely be people who miss her.

He vaguely heard Asiya saying: "...This is not easy to handle. If something happens, I cannot bear the responsibility... Come to my clinic tomorrow. If you have any questions, we will talk about it then... Okay If nothing happens, I will die!"

 After Asiya finished making the phone call, she went straight to the kitchen.

Sokov pretended to be nonchalant and asked: "Asia, who called?"

"A colleague from the work unit." After Asiya said this, she suddenly realized that Sokov asked this question because he had doubts about the identity of the caller, so she took the initiative to speak before he asked again: " He wanted me to give him a certificate and he wanted to go to the pharmacy to buy some alcohol.”

Sokov has been in Russia for more than ten or twenty years and naturally understands that Russian hospitals only treat patients but do not sell medicines. If you want to buy medicines, you must go to a pharmacy. He asked with some confusion: "Alcohol is not a controlled substance. If he wants to buy it, he can just go to the pharmacy to buy it. What certificate do you want you to issue for him?"

Hearing what Sokov said, Asiya had a puzzled expression on her face: "Misha, haven't you ever gone to the pharmacy to buy medicine?"

To be honest, Sokov never bought any medicine in Russian pharmacies. All the medicines he used were brought from China. But when Asiya asked, he naturally had to bite the bullet and answer: "I bought it, of course I did. It's not like I don't get sick, so how could I not buy medicine at the drugstore."

"Since you have bought medicine, you should know that some alcoholics use alcohol instead because they cannot buy alcohol." Asiya explained to Sokov: "So if you want to buy medical alcohol in a drugstore, , you must provide a certificate or diagnosis issued by a doctor." ˆ ˆ ˆ "What does your colleague buy alcohol for?" Sokov asked tentatively: "Does he want to drink alcohol?"

Asiya nodded and said in a positive tone: "Yes, he just wanted to drink alcohol as wine, so I didn't agree to his request just now on the phone."

“Will something happen if you drink medical alcohol?” Sokov asked tentatively.

“Let alone drinking alcohol, even drinking alcohol is harmful to the body and may be life-threatening.”

Sokov has no doubts about Asiya's statement. He has seen many drunkards who drank to death in later generations. Even if there was a sufficient amount of vodka available, in this era, the amount of vodka Limited, alcoholics have to use alcohol or other things instead, such as antifreeze, kerosene, etc.

Sokov doesn’t know what antifreeze smells like. But the smell of kerosene was something he accidentally sucked into his mouth while sucking oil with a hose. The smell made him uncomfortable for several days. Thinking of the past, Sokov asked cautiously: "Asia, I heard that some people add sugar to kerosene and then drink it as wine. Is it true?"

Hearing Sokov's question, Asia laughed heartily: "Misha, you are so funny. Even if sugar is added to kerosene, it is still kerosene. How can it be drunk as wine?"

"But, I did hear people say that." Sokov said with some embarrassment. "He said that he saw with his own eyes that someone added sugar to kerosene and drank it as wine. He also took a sip and it did taste like alcohol. .”

 “Misha, do you want to know what’s going on?”

Seeing Sokov nodding, indicating that he wanted to find out what was going on, Asiya explained to him: "Misha, when I was a military doctor on the front line, a small unit once captured a weapon from the German position. They sent a portion of the alcohol to our field hospital, and the remaining alcohol was mixed with kerosene to prevent people from drinking it secretly, and this mixed fuel was added to the fuel tank of the truck.”

“Would anyone secretly drink this mixture of alcohol and kerosene?” Sokov asked.

Asiya did not answer the question immediately, but asked instead: "Misha, let me test you, how can you extract wine from a mixed fuel of kerosene and alcohol?"

“Although I am not a chemical expert,” Sokov replied hesitantly, “but I think that at least equipment such as distillers, centrifuges, and sedimentation tanks are needed...”

“Misha, you take the problem too seriously. Those soldiers who steal wine only need a nail!” Asiya said with a smile, “Add a hammer and you can do it!”

Sokov was confused after hearing this: "What, just a nail and a hammer, how did they do it?"

Seeing that Sokov was eager to know how these people drank alcohol secretly, Asya conducted a popular science guide to Sokov: "They poured half a bucket of alcohol and kerosene mixture, and then filled the bucket with water. As soon as the water and alcohol were mixed, It sank to the bottom, and the kerosene floated on top... It's easy to go down further: use nails and hammers to drill a hole from the side of the barrel, and pure spirits can flow out... Look, how many warriors these wine-stealing soldiers are. clever!"

“What about adding sugar to kerosene?” Sokov once again raised the question in his mind.

"The reason is very simple." Asiya said with a smile: "The wine separated from kerosene has some kerosene flavor. Adding sugar to the wine is to weaken the smell of kerosene. And I'm telling you this. That person probably only saw the soldiers pouring the mixture of alcohol and kerosene into the bucket, and then added sugar after a while, but missed the process of separating the alcohol and kerosene, so he mistakenly thought that the drunkard was greedy for drink. The soldiers just added sugar directly to the kerosene to make the kerosene taste like wine."

After Asiya’s explanation, Sokov finally realized that he seemed to have been misled by the posts of later generations. This is the case when you secretly drink kerosene. I'm afraid it's a similar situation when you secretly drink antifreeze.

"I just heard you say on the phone that you asked that person to come to the clinic to find you tomorrow." Sokov thought of the drunkard who called and asked Asiya tentatively: "Are you really planning to issue a certificate for him? Did he go to the drug store to buy alcohol?”

Asiya was silent for a moment, then said: "He has arthritis and needs to wipe his joints with alcohol. Although most of the alcohol bought from the drugstore was drunk by him, a small part was still used to wipe it. The joints are used.”

When Sokov heard what Asiya said, he understood that she was also in a dilemma. The other party only used a very small amount of alcohol to treat the disease, and Asiya could not refuse to issue a certificate of alcohol purchase for the other party. He sighed softly. He said in a tone of voice: "Asia, since this matter is so difficult for you, why don't you leave it to other doctors to handle it?"

After hearing this, Asiya said with some laughter and tears: "Misha, you don't know, he came to me specifically because he couldn't get a certificate from other doctors. I didn't expect that he even knew my home phone number. , if I don’t issue him a certificate tomorrow, I’m worried that he will keep calling and harassing you, which will affect your work.”

Sokov was still blaming Asiya in his heart. He should decisively reject such a drunkard. Once he makes the other party think that you are weak and can be bullied, they may come to haunt you in the future. But now after listening to Asiya's explanation, I learned that she was worried that the other party's constant harassment calls would affect her work, and she felt somewhat moved.

 But after a brief thought, Sokov said decisively to Asiya: "Asiya, I don't think you should issue this certificate to him."

Seeing that Asiya seemed to want to say something, Sokov raised his hand to stop him and continued: "Asiya, if you really issue him a certificate tomorrow, wait until he finishes drinking the wine he bought this time. , maybe I will come to you again to issue a certificate. After the first time, there will be a second, third, or even countless times... Do you understand? "

After Asiya finally waited for Sokov to finish speaking, she expressed her worries again: "Misha, if I don't agree to him, I'm worried that he will keep calling you to harass you, which will affect your life at home. creation."

If Sokov was an ordinary person and faced the harassment of a drunkard, maybe he would really be helpless. But now he is a general. Even if he does not hold a specific position, if the drunkard dares to keep calling and harassing him, he can use other means to control the drunkard and give him a chance to go to prison or Gula. opportunity to quit drinking. To do this, you only need to make a call to Lunev, who is once again the deputy minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the other party will take care of the matter.

Because of this confidence, Sokov said clearly: "Asia, you don't have to worry about me. He is just an alcoholic who drinks too much. He does not pose any threat to me. If he really dares Calling to harass, I think all it takes is one phone call to Lunev and this drunkard will be punished accordingly.”

 (End of this chapter)