Boots of Shukshin
Many years ago, known Turkmen film director Kakov Orazsahatov studied at the acting department of the Moscow All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography. As a guest in the capital, Kakov shared a room in the student dormitory with Vasily Shukshin.
Vasily Makarovich came to Moscow in soldiers’ tarpaulin boots, which have seen a lot and worn on the impassable roads of Altai. These boots were a kind of legend, and when, after several years at the institute, Shukshin, unexpectedly for himself, became a famous film director, the boots remained an integral part of his image.
“I have a bow tie, and Shukshin wears the boots, Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote. The poet even dedicated a poem to bulky shoes, a ballad titled “Shukshin’s boots”. The times were not easy, and the film director had not yet managed to save money for new shoes, and therefore wore tarpaulin boots. And Orazsahatov came to Russia from sunny Turkmenistan in light summer shoes, and the student felt especially hard during December frosts.
Once, on the New Year’s Eve, Kakov received a telegram from Ashgabat in which a friend was asking to meet him at the station. The countryman did not know Moscow at all and might get lost in the big city, Orazsahatov thought, but there were severe frosts outside the window, where the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius below zero, and snow was knee high. Then roommate Vasily Makarovich offered his legendary boots to him.
- What about you? – Kakov was amazed.
“I’ll stay at home tomorrow, I have to complete the course script”, Shukshin said.
Huge boots had to be pulled on woolen jorab socks, but they were a great help to the student then. Having met a friend, Kakov went with him to do some errands, and finally bought new boots. It so happened that on that day Orazsahatov stayed away until late at night, and, in the morning, he had again to urgently fulfill several requests of his friend.
Kakov got to the dormitory only on the third day, and was very worried that Vasily Makarovich would be angry with his irresponsible neighbor. Having found Shukshin at a typewriter, Orazsahatov awkwardly put two large winter melons “Garry-gyz” sent from warm Turkmenistan on the bed.
That evening Shukshin read to his friend student the stories that he could write during the “house arrest”, thanked Kakov for the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. And when they drank tea and enjoyed oriental treats, Vasily Makarovich, delighted with the flavor of the Turkmen melon, kept saying: “What a miracle can be grown in the land, huh?!”
Much later, the stories written by Shukshin in the days when he was without his boots were published in the Collection “Conversations in the clear moonlight”. And already at home, Kakov Orazsahatov re-read with pleasure these four stories from that memorable evening. And the boots of Vasily Makarovich, who starred in the film “They Fought for the Homeland”, are still stored in the Museum of History and Culture of Altai.
