There was no wardrobe. Nails had been driven into the door, clothes hung on hangers. It was draped with a sheet. The electrical outlet couldn't be hidden. The Christmas tree was pressed into the wall. On the table, taking pride of place, was the era's chief emblem — a phonograph.
An hour of joy and the pain of parting.
The photograph is symbolic. The composition, angle, details, clothing, poses and faces of the people depicted — everything instantly transports us to the post-war era. Dad's tunic, mother's beads. The dashing case of the phonograph, the records. It seems as if Vadim Kozin's voice will start to play now: 'When with a simple and tender gaze...' Of course, it's a staged photo. But how much truth of life, sincere family atmosphere, and subdued yet emerging love it contains!
In this photograph — Stepan Yakovlevich and Anastasia Vasilievna Sukhitsky. They were born in the same village, married at twenty and lived together for half a century. He was a contemporary of the revolution. She was two years younger and outlived him by ten years. In December 1948 a friend — an avid amateur photographer — visited them and arranged an entire home photo session. Three shots survived. The first is this one, with the phonograph. The second is a portrait of the spouses against the same electrical outlet on the doorjamb. The third is a group photograph of the whole family: the younger daughter Svetochka, mother, father and the elder daughter Lusya.
Dad's tunic
Stepan Yakovlevich Sukhitsky was born on July 24, 1917 in the village of Irzhavets, Ivanitsky district, Chernihiv region, into a peasant family. After finishing seven-year school he studied at a workers' faculty (rabfak) in the town of Nezhin. In 1935 he entered the Kiev Industrial Institute in the mechanical and machine-building faculty. In 1938 Sukhitsky was transferred to the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy of the RKKA, and after graduating in 1941 he was assigned to the classified Shchurovsky research testing range of the Main Artillery Directorate near Moscow. Stepan Yakovlevich first came to Izhevsk with Kalashnikov for four months in 1948 to help create the first batch of AK-47s for troop trials. After the rifle was adopted, Plant No. 74 began organizing mass production. Sukhitsky was appointed senior military representative of the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense over all defense enterprises in the region. He served in this position until 1972. He was an excellent organizer, acted promptly, and thought strategically. Colonel Sukhitsky was a key figure in the production of all generations of weapons in the AK system. He sometimes worked around the clock. Once, after a difficult telephone conversation 'with Moscow,' Stepan Yakovlevich even fainted. The degree of responsibility for making personal decisions that rested on Sukhitsky was colossal. But he was not a dry man; he was highly educated, versatile, interesting and charming. He naturally had a beautiful, well-trained voice. He picked out melodies on the piano by ear and accompanied his wife on the guitar.
And Stepan Yakovlevich was also a polyglot. Ukrainian was his native language; his Russian was impeccable, and his Polish expressive. In his student years he mastered European languages. Sukhitsky communicated easily in Spanish and French, and he knew English well enough that at one time his candidacy was proposed for the post of military attaché in London. Having been for so many years the military representative at a defense plant, he was of course 'not allowed to travel abroad.' He also lacked contact with native speakers. But Stepan Yakovlevich had developed his own method of 'language training': at work he read newspapers and specialized industrial publications, and at home — literature in the originals. Recordings from the 'Foreign Language Lessons' series helped him maintain his pronunciation. A set of discs by the Melodiya company from 1965 with recordings of English and French lessons (together with other personal items belonging to Stepan Yakovlevich and his military uniform) was handed over by his children to the M.T. Kalashnikov Museum and Exhibition Complex of Small Arms.
Mother's beads
They married in 1939. A career military man could meet his bride anywhere in the country. But Stepan, in his early youth, found his intended in his native village. Anastasia (everyone close to her called her Asya) Grishchenko was a beautiful girl: stately, plump, melodious-voiced, cheerful. Her eyebrows arched wide, braids thick, eyes black. Asya's eyes were especially beautiful! Like in a romance — burning, passionate and lovely. She graduated from the Poltava Pedagogical Institute with a diploma as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature. But after marrying a military man she moved with him to places where her diploma was not in demand. Asya became a housewife, the 'rear' — a support for her husband in his official-nomadic life with irregular workloads and enormous responsibility.
In 1940 their daughter Lusya was born. Stepan Sukhitsky was then studying at the Military Artillery Academy. The young family lived in a rented apartment in a remote district of Moscow. Asya, expecting their second child, agreed to send 10-month-old Lusya to her parents in her native village — fresh air, vegetables from the garden, fruits from their orchard. This was in March 1941. They planned for the whole summer, but what happened was for the entire war. For two weeks Anastasia Vasilievna still hoped for a miracle. In a state of shock she kept vigil at the Kiev railway station: meeting trains with evacuees, questioning strangers. But in the scale of the common terrible misfortune it was impossible to learn anything about the fate of one girl left 'under the Germans.' Of course everyone suffered in the war, but what must it have been like for a mother and father to live with that pain for the child in their hearts?
For all four years of the war the Sukhitskys had no information about their relatives and their older daughter. Stepan Yakovlevich disappeared at the proving ground for days on end, traveled to the front to test prototype weapons. Officers' wives stuck together, endured hunger and grief, raised children, and waited for victory. How delighted were the proving-ground friends when in '45 Stepan Sukhitsky found and brought home the older daughter! Five-year-old Lusya, having survived the fascist occupation and not remembering her parents, was withdrawn and wary. And sister Sveta, seeing her, began to push her away: 'Go away, these are my papa and mama!' This wound did not heal quickly. In the 1948 photograph the girls still stand on opposite sides of their parents.
In 1955 a son, Volodya, was born into the Sukhitsky family. Stepan and Asya seemed to grow young again with their little son. They went into nature on weekends and regularly visited relatives in their homeland. The Sukhitskys' home remained hospitable and open to friends from the proving ground, colleagues from the plant, and their daughters' classmates. Guests were always welcome at the table. Anastasia Vasilievna cooked remarkably well. Stepan Yakovlevich gladly ate 'country' food: hearty borscht, juicy cutlets, thick sour milk (prostokvasha), pies, cottage-cheese pastries (vatrushki), dumplings with cherries — and always with sour cream. He even had the nickname 'Smetankin' (from 'smetana' — sour cream). The Sukhitskys also often held home concerts. No one sang folk songs and languid romances better than Asya. Her dresses were simple all her life, homemade. Of her jewelry — a coral necklace and a couple of glass brooches. The grown daughters were even embarrassed by how simply and 'plainly' their mother always dressed. But Stepan Yakovlevich adored his wife and himself took many photographs of her with his amateur camera.
Growing up in such an environment, seeing their father's example, it was impossible not to choose the profession of design engineer! The eldest daughter, Lyudmila, graduated from a math-oriented school, earned a diploma from the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute and was assigned to production in Tambov. She worked at a plant in Vyatskiye Polyany, and later returned to Izhevsk. For nearly twenty years L.S. Rabinovich (Sukhitskaya) worked as a senior process engineer, die designer, and lead engineer in the bureau of advanced technologies at the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant. At 55 Stepan Yakovlevich Sukhitsky retired and began a teaching career, heading the laboratory of automatic machines in the Small Arms department at the Mechanical Institute. Lyudmila Stepanovna laughs: 'I'm almost like my father: I too retired — and became a teacher!' For many years she has led classes on healthy living. She herself is the best illustration of her lectures — lively and energetic, witty and cheerful, determined and strong in spirit! These are her family traits...
