Key words: Soviet military translators, Angola

Andrey Polyakov, a third-year student at the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages (MGPIII), and several of his groupmates, where they studied Portuguese and English, were sent to Angola in August 1983 as military interpreters on the recommendation of the Institute's military department. They had to work for a year in a country where there was a civil war.

Here is his story.

We expected humid heat and stuffiness, but Luanda greeted us with the chill of a pre-dawn morning. The capital's airport, where the plane landed, was a strange sight. In the dim light, I could see some dilapidated or unfinished concrete structures, protruding rebar, and in the waiting room, a huge puddle leaking out of the toilet... It was the last day of the summer of 1983 , and it was still winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Soon we were on the territory of the Soviet military mission. There were two tall palm trees near the entrance. Their powerful, gray trunks at the base seemed to be concreted. Probably to prevent enemy tanks from breaking into the territory, we decided. We, new to Africa, did not know that these giant trees were created by nature. Shots were fired from time to time, and machine-gun fire could be heard in the distance.

We were met by the chief reference officer of the military mission - it was he who "commanded" the translators. His name was Boris Kononov. In the narrow circles of "Portuguese studies" he was a legendary figure. The fact is that Kononov wrote a textbook on military translation of the Portuguese language, which most students studied. Not only in the Military Institute, but also in civilian schools, including in INYAz. In general, we all had heard about him. To us, 20-year-olds, Bob, as the chief assistant was called behind his back, seemed already an elderly man, although at that time he was probably barely in his forties.

Seeing the confused guys, Kononov was amused and began to frighten. An artistic man by nature, he masterfully played out a scene in front of us-just a one-man theater. "Boys," he began in a conspiratorial half - whisper, " you've come to Angola. There is a war going on here."

Then his voice grew stronger, and there was a dramatic note in it: "The enemy is rushing to Luanda!" Bob exclaimed. Then suddenly he froze and listened. "Do you hear those shots?" "just like that, without any transition," he continued pathetically.

A translator, dressed in the camouflage uniform of the FAPLA, the Angolan armed forces, which, as we later learned, was made in Cuba, was passing by, just in time. Bob opened his arms in a melodramatic gesture, hung on to the young man, kissed him hard on both cheeks, and as soon as he was gone, he turned to us. "Yes," he drawled, " the boy is going to the front. Will it come back? I don't know... Sighing like a true tragedian, he wiped away an imaginary stingy male tear with his palm.

We stood petrified and stern, dejected and serious, as novices should be, listening to the farce that had been played out. And they thought about the same thing: "My God, we've still got a whole year to roll around here! What if the enemy does take Luanda? What will happen to us? Why did we come here?!"

Bob obviously realized that he had gone a little overboard and tried to cheer us up. In your own way, of course. "Nothing," he cooed heartily. "Guys, Angola is a song, Angola is a fairy tale. We have such a combat chief military adviser here - Konstantin Yakovlevich Kurochkin. He's been at war for a long time. In Finland - davil. In the Great Patriotic War - pressed. In Korea, he used to push. I think that here too dodavit"*.

But everyone went to Angola for their own hunting and with a great desire. For students who learned Portuguese, this was the only chance to complete an internship in the country of the language they were learning. At first, they were sent from INYAZ to Portugal, where the "carnation revolution" took place in 1974, but then the right-wingers came to power there, and they stopped sending people to Lisbon. Of the Portuguese-speaking countries, only the former African colonies remained. First of all-Angola, although there was a war in it...

"LUANDA! I READ YOU FIVE"**

For several days we were kept in the military prison as if in purgatory

Ending. For the beginning, see: Asia and Africa today. 2013, N 2, 3.

* K. Y. Kurochkin-Colonel-General, Chief Military Adviser in Angola from 1982 to 1985. ed.).

** "...I hear you perfectly " (English) is a phrase in professional slang that pilots and air traffic controllers use in radio communication.

missions, and then distributed to the provinces. Me and another guy from our group got into the squad of An-12 military transport aircraft. There were exactly a dozen winged vehicles. Each plane equipped with four engines (pilots never say "motor") could take 10-12 tons of cargo, and if necessary, even more. The cars were painted white and blue, and the Aeroflot logo was emblazoned on the side.

All the pilots were military, but they wore civilian clothes. We met people who flew planes in the skies of Angola. They were masters of their craft, high-class specialists, for whom breaking the rules and sacrificing safety seemed something unthinkable, akin to sacrilege. Some of them had a bad temper, but on the whole, they were friendly to us, and we tried not to break the chain of command.

Cargo "AN-12" carried different. By the way, it is mostly not ammunition, weapons or Angolan soldiers, but food-canned food, powdered milk and household goods-washing powder, soap, toothpaste. And, not so much for the troops, but for civilians. It's understandable. In wartime conditions, most of the population suffered from hunger and lack of basic necessities, and it was dangerous to transport even peaceful goods on the roads: there were ambushes and minefields everywhere. So we played the role of a kind of "good Samaritan", as Westerners would say.

Each time we took off and landed, making a helical maneuver. The plane, making circles in a spiral, gained a certain height. Usually they climbed to the 150th or 170th echelon, i.e. about 5 thousand meters, so that they would not reach the "Arrow" from the ground - a portable anti-aircraft missile system (MANPADS). Such missiles can be launched directly from the shoulder. We knew that UNITA rebels had captured several MANPADS from the Angolan army, so the danger was not theoretical, but real. "Arrows" can hit aerial targets at an altitude of up to 1.5-2 thousand meters, and in the center of Angola, the height of mountain ranges exceeds 2 thousand meters. It would be possible to climb even higher, but we often carried people, and at an altitude of more than 5 thousand meters it is very difficult to breathe. The AN-12 is not a passenger airliner, and its cargo compartment is not sealed.

However, I have never had a single tragic incident. We flew for 6-7 days in a row, then a day off followed, and long working days began again. It happened to work for 11-12 days in a row. The fact is that we, the onboard translators, were only 8 - one and a half times less than the aircraft.

Each flight interpreter was assigned a "different" crew. Basically, we flew with him, and when the pilots were resting or routine maintenance was carried out, we changed to another plane. So it turned out that "our" crew flew four days a week, and we-as long as necessary. We made two flights every day: before lunch and after. The longest flights - from Luanda to Saurimo and from Luanda to Luena-took an hour and forty. In this super-dense mode, I flew 530 hours in five months. This is quite a lot.

Breaks for routine work were strictly observed. In general, in the air squad, everything was done in accordance with the instructions. As a result, the planes worked like clockwork. For the whole year - not a single serious technical failure. Not like later, after the collapse of the USSR, when news of the disasters of our "Ans" began to come from Africa one after another. The reasons lay on the surface: the planes were not serviced, were not repaired, and often were completely decommissioned junk, which is only one road-to the landfill. In such conditions, sooner or later, any, the most tested and unpretentious technique begins to "fall down".

Every incident, every tragedy was thoroughly relished by the media in such a way that the conclusion suggested itself, and the Africans had no doubts-Soviet aircraft are no good, you should buy only products of Western airlines. Meanwhile, the same

In Angola, the AN-12s were quite competitive with the American Hercules, their peers who still fly around the world, and whose reliability no one even dares to question.

All the translators were attached to military advisers. I must say right away: when I was in Angola, our people did not directly participate in combat operations. At the first installation briefing in the military mission, we were clearly told: "We should not fight here and we have no right to shoot only in self-defense, when there is no other way out."

For the freedom of Angola, Cubans fought with the FAPLA fighters. We constantly ran into each other at work. On the eve of the declaration of independence of Angola in November 1975, when the army of South Africa, where the apartheid regime ruled, broke through the defenses and was already approaching Luanda, it was the Cubans who stopped the enemy column in a fierce battle.

In Angola, Cuban pilots also served-they flew MiGs. And if the Angolans were for us "camarados", i.e. comrades, then the Cubans were "hermanos", brothers. The relationship was just wonderful. The only problem was that all you had to do was mention to the Cubans, without any second thought, that you needed something, and they'd be all over the place to get it for you. So we tried not to ask for anything from these open, courageous, good-looking guys.

We, the flight translators, had to memorize and learn how to use only fifty of the most popular, necessary words to the place. It seems to be nonsense. Indeed, it was not difficult to learn them. Let's say " Luanda control, over. Aeroflot 115 requests permission to launch engines." And so on. But the air is one for everyone, the audibility is poor, and you must clearly distinguish and understand exactly what is intended for you, because not only your own life depends on it, but also the life of the crew, passengers, and the safety of a multi-ton car.

...The idiosyncrasy of the vocabulary used in radio communication created a lot of funny situations. Here, for example, the designation of "sides", i.e. aircraft. If, in addition to numbers, there were also letters in their names, then they were pronounced in words for better understanding. Let's say A, R, C sounded like Alpha, Romeo, Charlie. I remember standing on the platform of Luanda airport, a single-engine airplane with the letters P and W on its side. According to the accepted rules, he introduced himself on the air as "Papa Whiskey".

Once, when approaching Luanda, Tiny's low-power radio could not "finish" to the control tower. Meanwhile, it was time to descend and approach. The broadcast was filled with panicked falsetto exclamations: "Luanda Control, Luanda control! Daddy Whiskey is calling you! Daddy Whiskey is calling you! Welcome!"

After another nervous sob of "daddy", which was clearly audible to us, hanging high in the sky, but did not reach the air traffic controller, the calm, ironic, deep bass of the pilot of a large liner, also flying up to Luanda, came through the headphones: "Hey, Daddy Whiskey, why do you yell like that? Tell me your coordinates and I'll send them to the control tower." A few seconds later, "Papa" was already receiving instructions from the air traffic controller to descend to a certain level.

In English, radio traffic was conducted only at Luanda International Airport, where sometimes a dozen planes were suspended in the air on approach. All of them, before landing, were gradually reduced, transferring from train to train. Each plane had to confirm receipt of the command. In the hottest moments, moments counted. In other Angolan cities, one or a maximum of two planes were in the air at a time. There, communication went on in Portuguese, and you could not strain yourself.

I also had to conduct radio exchanges in Spanish. In some provincial airports, Cuban military personnel worked as air traffic controllers. I especially remember the cheerful guy from the airport. Yuri Gagarin in the southern city of Namib, which in colonial times was called Mosamedesh. When he heard the Soviet plane on the air, he said:-

dostno screamed and pressed the " r " so fiercely that his rolling, almost for a full minute, "Air-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-roflot" literally blew up the headphones, and made them rattle nervously.

Only one translator had comfortable headphones with a microphone, and even then "their own", blood-based ones, which he bought in Moscow when he was on vacation. We, of course, did not manage to show such reserve. Who knew that you would have to deal with such a specific case? The others communicated on the air using laryngae, two small devices that transmitted your speech if they were tightly attached to your vocal cords. The laryngae were attached to the throat with a collar, which was inconvenient.

In the African humidity and heat, the skin was very sweaty and irritated. At the first opportunity, we unzipped the collar and disconnected the laryngae. They hung loosely on their chests, and when they were about to go on the air, they simply picked them up and pressed them to their throats with their thumbs and forefingers.

In theory, there was a lot to go through to take on the duties of a flight interpreter. We went through only one procedure: they measured our blood pressure and said: "Guys, go ahead!" Before allowing us to join the flights, the pilots sat us down in front of black boxes with records of negotiations, and so we gradually, not immediately, after a few weeks, learned to isolate what was needed from the etheric chaos. The first flights were made under the supervision of other translators who had already gained the necessary experience, and only then, when everyone "gave the go-ahead", you flew alone.

What a terrible experience it was to be without a backup driver, always ready to come to the rescue, request permission to take off and conduct radio exchange during landing, knowing that you were responsible for human lives and a multi - ton machine dangling in the air. In addition, all the time we were in the squadron, we continued to be registered with the military mission, so officially we allegedly did not fly on any planes.

For the whole year, none of the crews were killed, no one was injured. I was told that then one crew crashed (the plane was shot down. - Editor's note), but this seems to be the only case in more than a decade. If it had happened to us, it is unlikely that we would have survived. I had a parachute, of course, but I didn't know how to use it, and I never jumped.

Two unpleasant episodes, in my memory, still happened. A friend from our institute language group, also a flight interpreter, was flying to Cabinda. The landing was unsuccessful, and the plane's landing gear broke. "An-12" turned right in the middle of the runway, but, fortunately, the plane did not roll over and did not catch fire. The crew was evacuated by the other side, and the broken one remained standing in the Cabin.

The second incident happened to me when we were flying to Kuita. The town is located in the most unitarian places, in the mountainous center of Angola. This was the second afternoon flight. We fly up, and then we are informed from the ground about an impending thunderstorm. Decide for yourself, they say, what to do.

Landing, as you know, is much more difficult than taking off. By the way the plane lands, you can accurately judge the skill of the pilot. Landing in a thunderstorm is a separate song. On that day, it was possible to finish it to the end only thanks to the skill of the crew and a successful combination of circumstances.

As I listened to the anxious conversations of the crew members in my earphones, I peeked through the door that led to the cockpit. The AN-12 was approaching the runway, but a black cloud and a wall of heavy rain were rapidly approaching us from the other end. Half of the concrete walkway was already splashing in the water, and the other, nearer one, was still completely dry. The commander, just in case, went to the second round. And then it turned out that it was no less dangerous to return to Luanda. Kuita was heavily encircled by storm clouds.

Dusk was falling all around us, lightning was flashing, and we had no choice but to go to the landing site. It was necessary to hurry, and the An-12 touched down on the lanes at a noticeably higher speed than it should be. The terminal building whizzed by, and we rolled on and on as fast as we had at the beginning. The runway was about to end, and the plane still couldn't stop. &

only at the very edge, almost breaking through the barbed-wire fence, did the car stop.

The headphones went silent. The crew was silent. No one rose from their chairs. After a long pause, the pilots, as if reluctantly, moved, moved, then got out, depressurized the cabin, opened the hatch. Outside, the rain was pouring down like a brandsboit. I looked down. The tires on the chassis looked like ragged floor rags, and the wheel bushings had worn off and gone from round to square. Then we were told that when we braked, sparks flew in sheaves.

We were sheltered in the barracks by Cubans from the local military garrison. They were fed a hearty meal of rice and chicken fried in olive oil, and taken to the bedroom. After so much excitement, I didn't feel like sleeping right away. We sat on the first "floors" of the three-tiered beds, having a friendly conversation in Portuguese-a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. And then - a new incident.

Two sweaty Cubans, barely alive from fatigue, rushed into the garrison territory. It turned out that they ran more than two dozen kilometers over rough terrain until they were picked up by their comrades. They were the pilots of the Mi-25 military helicopter that the rebels had shot down that day near Andulu, the home of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. The rotorcraft fell into a swamp, caught fire and exploded, but the pilots managed to jump out, get out of the quagmire and break away from the chase. We looked at the survivors with a sense of genuine admiration. It was a long, eventful day like this...

As for Jonas Savimbi himself, he turned out to be a man who was maniacally eager for power. Nothing else interested him. Already as an ITAR-TASS correspondent in Zambia, I saw him and even talked to him in Lusaka in May 1995. He came there to meet with Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, where he declared his commitment to the Lusaka agreements, i.e., in fact, the treaty on a peaceful settlement in Angola. However, in the autumn of 1994, when the Lusaka Protocol was signed, Savimbi did not attend the ceremony, citing the fact that he was unable to reach Zambia due to government shelling. At least, that's what the UNITA headquarters told a Portuguese journalist who managed to get through there on a satellite phone while I was there.

The protocol, which established, inter alia, the conditions for the demobilization of UNITA armed formations with the subsequent inclusion of some fighters in the national armed forces, was signed on behalf of the rebels by their Secretary-General, Eugenio Manuvacola.

I remember this smiling, sociable, bespectacled man sporting a colorful tunic-like Nigerian boubou suit in Lusaka. "Here comes the marabou! The marabou has come! Marabou!" "What is it?" he shouted loudly as soon as he saw the reporters. Thus, the Secretary General hinted at an external resemblance to scholars of the Koran, Muslim spiritual mentors, who in West Africa are called by a name that sounds funny and bird-like to a European. Alas, the hand of the "marabou teacher" was unlucky.

In a very short time, Savimbi will easily reject the Lusaka Protocol, just as he had previously rejected the results of the multi-party elections he lost in 1992. He will not disband the rebel formations and will resume military operations.

In conversation, Savimbi switched freely from English to Portuguese and back again, eloquently proving his peaceful disposition. But he was animated only when it came to power. If you asked him anything else, his eyes would instantly fade. He wanted to be the number one person in Angola, but nothing else suited him. For the sake of power, the UNITA leader readily went to any tests. For example, I spent a whole year wandering through the malarial jungle.

Savimbi was not averse to endlessly continuing the war, which began back in the 60s. He didn't care about his own or anyone else's lives, and hundreds of thousands of Angolans had died in the long conflict. It is significant that when the Angolan armed forces managed to encircle and destroy Savimbi in April 2002, the war immediately ended, and UNITA quickly transformed into a peaceful political party. By that time, no one, with the exception of the maniac leader himself, wanted to fight...

But back to our incident in the city of Cuito. On the following page:-

the following morning, after a thunderstorm and an unsuccessful landing, another An-12 arrived with a huge jack, which hooked our plane under the planes, or, as people who are not involved in the flight business will say, under the wings, and lifted the colossus off the ground. We took another plane back to Luanda. Our " An " was safely repaired, it flew under its own power to Luanda and then worked until the end of the allotted time.

There were other dangerous alterations. Say, a couple of times we were shot at with automatic weapons at the moment when we landed. However, this now sounds threatening, and then I almost did not pay attention to such trifles. Just think, a couple of holes in the fuselage... you can't hear or see anything in the air. You notice the holes only after landing, when it's clear that nothing terrible has happened, and it's too late and stupid to be scared. Angola was then literally bursting with abandoned weapons. Makarov's pistol could be bought for a bottle of vodka. I remember walking along the runway of the airfield in Saurimo and collecting cartridges that were lying in the dust, and then giving them to the Angolan military. Collected just like that, with nothing to do, whiling away the time until takeoff.

We didn't have any weapons on board, and we didn't need any ammunition either - we're civil aviation! Aeroflot, so to speak. True, each " Ahn " had a radio operator's booth in the back, and he himself was always included in the crew. Where should I put it, since it's supposed to be in the state? But there was no machine gun in the booth. In reality, the shooter had nothing to do. During flights, he usually sat in his tail and read books, and on the ground he helped to turn over, i.e. fix the cargo, in order to do at least something and bring at least some benefit.

One of the radio gunners turned out to be an excellent wood carver, and he spent his time flying with a knife, saws, and skins. He quickly adopted the manner in which wooden figures are created by craftsmen from the Angolan Chokwe nation, and soon there was no end of orders.

All the pilots wanted to take home his expertly stylized," typically African " works of ebony, preferring them to garish local handicrafts. They were set up for white foreigners on their way to Luanda beaches, where the flight crew was taken out on weekends to swim and sunbathe. The beaches were located along a long spit, or, as the Angolans called it, "ilya" (island). From here, the impressive waterfront with its rows of high - rise buildings and elegant old Portuguese buildings-the hallmark of the Angolan capital-looked great.

...Almost three decades have passed since then. Angola is still headed by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The permanent ruling MPLA party retained power despite everything, even after we left this country and virtually abandoned our allies and friends to their fate.

The MPLA managed to win the civil war and three multi-party elections held in 1992, 2008 and 2012.

I will never forget Angola. Then there were other foreign trips, many new interesting meetings. But until now, I try to follow the events in this country and worry about its fate.

* * *

After graduating from the Institute, Andrey Polyakov entered ITAR-TASS. He worked as a correspondent for the oldest Russian news agency in Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya, and Portugal. Published in many newspapers and magazines, twice recognized as the best author of the year by the weekly ITAR-TASS "Echo of the planet".

Concluding the publication of memoirs of Soviet military translators, the editorial board expresses its gratitude to Vladimir Fedorov. It was he, a graduate of the Moscow State University Institute of International Relations, an African historian, and an expert in Swahili (he worked as an editor at the APN Bureau in Tanzania in the early 1980s) who came up with the idea to publish a selection of eyewitness accounts of dramatic events that have already become history.

His energy, perseverance, and ability to organize and conduct interviews tactfully allowed our magazine to cover some details of Soviet foreign policy activities, which, we hope, will be received with interest by readers.

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