Red Moscow

Chapter 2522

 When Sokov returned to the box, he saw Agelina sitting on the bed eating.

Seeing Sokov enter the door, Agelina raised her head and glanced at him: "Misha, thank you!"

 “Is this food delicious?”

"Well, it's not bad." Agelina said inarticulately as she ate, "The food on the train tastes just like that, and it can't be compared with the taste in a restaurant."

Sokov laughed after hearing this: "It is not impossible to make the food on the train taste the same as in the hotel. As long as you prepare good ingredients and hire two chefs from the hotel, it will be easy." It can make meals that taste the same as those in restaurants. However, if this happens, the operating costs of the railway department will increase significantly. At that time, I am afraid they will have to increase the ticket price, otherwise it will not be worthy of the interstellar enjoyment on the scale of a large hotel. "

Hearing what Sokov said, Agelina couldn't help but want to laugh, but she accidentally choked and coughed violently. Sokov hurried forward, sat next to her, and gently patted her back, hoping that she would feel better soon.

Agelina covered her throat with her hands, coughed violently, and pointed to the side with her fingers, as if she wanted Sokov to get something for her.

Sokov looked in the direction of her finger and saw a teapot and several teacups placed on the cabinet against the wall. He understood what the other party meant. He stood up and poured a cup of tea, taking a sip first. , felt that the water temperature was more suitable, so he came over and handed it to Agelina.

As soon as she took the tea cup from Sokov's hand, Agelina immediately took a swig, regardless of whether the water temperature would burn her mouth. After drinking a cup of tea, her coughing basically stopped. When she handed the tea cup back to Sokov, she said with lingering fear: "In the future, you must not tell jokes when I eat, otherwise you will be responsible for whatever happens to me."

“Hey, what a pity.” Agelina sighed and said, “If he could survive until the end of the war, tell me, what military rank would he have?”

Unexpectedly, after hearing Sokov’s question, Agelina looked out the window and changed the subject: “Where are we?”

Adelina glanced at Sokov's epaulettes and said with a half-smile: "Misha, others were generals when the war broke out, but you were probably an ordinary soldier at that time. Now you have become a general, and others He must be a general after all."

"Yes." Regarding the Major General Romanov mentioned by Adelina, Sokov had seen him in the movie "The Battle of Moscow" and knew a little about his history: "After the fall of Mogilev, General Romanov was wounded and captured by the Germans when he broke through the encirclement. He later escaped from the prison camp and became a guerrilla leader, commanding troops to fight in Belarus. After being captured again, he was hanged by the Germans."

When Sokov tasted the temperature of the tea, his back was to Agelina, and she was coughing badly at the time. He didn't expect that she could observe such details. It seems that she is indeed a natural agent, otherwise she wouldn't be able to After staying inside the enemy's interior for several years, I was able to escape safely every time I encountered danger.

 After the train stopped at the platform, the doors opened, people got on and others got off.

Sokov looked through the car window at the city getting closer and closer, thinking about what topics to talk to Agelina.

"When the war broke out, he had the rank of major general, the same as Marshal Rokossovsky." Sokov said thoughtfully: "If he did not become a guerrilla leader, but continued to fight in the army, maybe After the war, he will be promoted to general."

Sokov didn't want to argue with Agelina on this matter, so he smiled and said: "Agelina, we seem to be nostalgic on the battlefield all the time. Everywhere we go, we have to talk about the battles that happened here. "

"Misha, don't forget, I am an agent. If I didn't know how to observe some details, I would have been lying in a cold cemetery." Agelina said with a smile: "When you poured the tea, I I saw you tasted the temperature of the tea, and you must have thought it wasn’t hot to your mouth, so you gave it to me to drink.”

"That's true." Sokov agreed with Agelina's statement. After all, many agents who sneaked into the enemy did not know how to use firearms at all, but the intelligence they obtained far exceeded those of those who did not know how to use firearms. The agent who only knows how to dance with guns and sticks: "Agelina, there are only two of us here. Can you tell me what kind of job the Intelligence Agency asked you to go to Berlin for?"

Unexpectedly, when Agelina heard Sokov's question, she shook her head, tapped her forehead with her finger, and replied: "Not every agent needs to be killed. More agents , relying on your own wisdom to deal with the enemy to obtain the information you want. "

"Oh, Mogilev!" Adelina suddenly became excited when she heard this place name: "I remember that shortly after the outbreak of the Patriotic War, Major General Romanov, commander of the 172nd Infantry Division, commanded the troops in Mogilev. Lov fought fiercely with the German army for 23 days and successfully slowed down the German army's advance. "

Sokov put the teacup back on the table and said with a smile: "Agelina, when you drink tea, you don't taste the temperature first. If I pour you boiling water, drink it directly. Are you burning your tongue?"

Sokov looked in the direction of Agelina's finger and saw a group of young men and women carrying suitcases, walking along the platform talking and laughing. Sokov didn't know what Agelina was doing to let him see these young people, so he asked curiously: "Agelina, is there anyone you know in that group of people?"

“Agelina, I want to ask you a question.” Sokov looked at Agelina and asked: “As an agent, what weapon are you best at using?”

"We have to take a train for more than thirty hours. It would be too boring if we don't find something to talk about." Agelina said: "If you don't want to talk about the war anymore, we might as well change the topic."

 “Misha, look over there quickly.”

“According to time, we have entered Belarus, and the next stop is Mogilev.”

 “No, not one.”

Sokov said sincerely that you don’t know any of them. What do you want me to see them do?

Before Sokov could ask the questions in his mind, Adelina took the initiative to explain: "They should be students who report to Mogilev State Institute of Education. In a few years, they will become glorious teachers. . I really envy them and really want to go back to the classroom and listen to the teacher.”

"Adelina, if I remember correctly, when the war broke out, you were a student at Voloklamsk Academy of Literature, right?" Seeing Sokov mentioning the school where he once studied without thinking, Adelina A sweet smile appeared on Na's face: "It's been so many years, I didn't expect you to still remember."

“Of course, I remember everything you said.” Sokov said half-seriously.

But Agelina took Sokov's words seriously. After all, she just mentioned it casually. If she was not interested in her, she would have forgotten it long ago, let alone casually mentioned it. Tell me the name of the school where you studied.

 “Misha, thank you! Thank you for remembering what I said.”

“Agelina, do you want to go back to class and study?”

"Yes, of course I do." Agelina replied with a regretful tone: "If the war hadn't broken out, my studies would not have been interrupted. Maybe I would be working as a secretary in a certain bureau now. Unfortunately, I will never be able to do that again." I can’t go back. Even if I want to go back to study, conditions don’t allow it.”

Seeing that he accidentally brought up Agelina's sad past, Sokov couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. Agelina's purpose of going to Berlin this time cannot be told even to people she has such a close relationship with, which means that she has a secret mission on her shoulders. She may have to live in anonymity for several years to come, let alone go back to class. Reading.

 In order to resolve the embarrassment, Sokov began to work hard to find new topics. He vaguely remembered that Mogilev State University was ranked 80th among global universities and one of the two schools in Belarus ranked among the 100th. Thinking of this, he asked Agelina tentatively: "Those students just now, why do you think they will be students of Mogilev State Institute of Education instead of students of Mogilev State University?"

Unexpectedly, as soon as he finished speaking, Agelina looked at him in surprise. After staring at him for a while, he said quietly: "Misha, there is only one National Institute of Education in Mogilev, and there is no national university at all."

Sokov couldn’t help but be startled after hearing this, wondering if he had remembered it wrong? But then I thought about it, no. I remember that those study abroad agencies in later generations recommended Mogilev State University to domestic students who wanted to go abroad, saying that it was a good school ranked 80th in the world, but why did Adjeli Na said there is no such school? With this question, he said in an uncertain tone: "Agelina, is there really no national university?"

“Really not.” Adelina looked at Sokov and said: “Let me give you a brief introduction to the Mogilev State Institute of Education.

The college was established in 1913, but it was initially just a special teaching institution for training teachers. In 1918, it was restructured into a four-year College of Education. In the first half of 1923, the College of Education was renamed again as the College of Public Education, and it was temporarily closed in the second half of the year.

In 1930, the Mogilev State Pedagogical Institute was reopened with two departments: History and Economics and Literature and Languages. The school was located on Leninskaya Street.

  In 1934, the college established three branches: history, geography, language and literature.

  As of 1941, the college had trained more than 2,000 students. Due to the Great Patriotic War, the academy was closed from 1941 to 1944.

 It was not until 1944, after our army liberated the city, that Mogilev State Educational Institute resumed enrollment.

 What we have just seen is the second batch of students after the liberation of Mogilev. "

 “There are really no national universities?” Sokov asked reluctantly.

 “Yes, there is no national university, only a national institute of education.”

Although Agelina swore that there was only one National Institute of Education in the city and no national university, Sokov knew very well in his heart that he had not remembered wrong at all. I am afraid that he would have to wait decades more for this national university to be established. The College of Education will be officially renamed the National University.

When the train started again, Agelina asked casually: "Misha, it happened to be night when we entered Poland, will anything happen?"

"No, nothing will happen." Sokov remembered what Sergeant Torba said to him in the dining car, and comforted Agelina and said, "I just met someone on the train when I was dining in the dining car. Sergeant Torba, the squad leader of the garrison, told me that he had been walking on this line for two months, but he had never encountered the legendary gang, so you can just keep it in your stomach, even if it is true If you encounter bandits, the soldiers from the garrison squad will eliminate them."

Although she said this, Agelina still felt a little uneasy. There were more than a dozen carriages on the train, and how many people could be in the guard squad. I'm afraid there wouldn't even be one person in each carriage, in case they were really attacked by gangs. , I'm afraid it will be a disaster.

After Sokov finished speaking, he saw that Agelina still looked uneasy. Guessing that she was doubtful about the combat effectiveness of the garrison squad, he quickly added: "Agelina, don't worry. If you If you don’t trust the garrison, don’t you still have me by your side to protect you?” He pointed to the ammunition box on the ground and said with a smile, “Look at the ammunition I prepared, even if it’s true. There are gangs coming to attack, and the firepower I have is enough to beat them to pieces."

After listening to Sokov's words and looking at the wooden box full of magazines, Agelina suddenly felt safe in her heart. She felt that as long as Sokov was by her side, even if she was really on the road. When gangsters attack a train, Sokov can make sure he is safe.

As the train continued to move forward, Sokov noticed that except for people when passing through towns, there was almost no human habitation in other places. But he is very clear about this situation. Belarus's population base is already small, and nearly one-third of its population was lost during the Great Patriotic War. Therefore, it is logical that areas outside of towns are deserted.

Even in the 21st century, this country with a land area of ​​200,000 square kilometers has a total population of only more than nine million after decades of recuperation. Coupled with the fact that there are more women than men, it is difficult for Belarusian women to find their right husbands, so many women choose to marry foreigners, which has also led to a population outflow from Belarus.

 In response to the phenomenon of population exodus from Belarus, some good people on the Internet made up a joke, saying that Belarusian women are not allowed to leave the country without special permission. They are worried that if they marry outside the country, the population will decrease and the country's population will experience negative growth. A joke that was originally made up has become so popular on the Internet that people who have never been to Belarus are convinced of the content of this joke.

 (End of this chapter)