MEZUZA

            All events and characters are real.

            Some of the heroes, including the main one, are still alive today.

  The yard is in 1974 . The height of the Cold War. The economy of the USSR and the United States are working full-time, building, modernizing and creating new weapons, including nuclear ones. The political confrontation between the West and the East is sharpened to the limit. The world is on the verge of a new world war, although, in fact, nobody wants it. Just a situation can get out of hand.
  Leaders of all countries, even the most rabid, understand that we must take practical measures, take real steps to reduce the overall tension. After lengthy and difficult preliminary negotiations, US and Soviet leaders Gerald Ford and L = D0BEnid Brezhnev agreed to meet in person for the final discussion and signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). The meeting was planned for November 23-24, 1974, at Vladivostok. 
   At the top agreed. Now it was necessary to prepare everything for the implementation of the meeting in a specific place with all the generally accepted international service. 120 people (60 people on each side) were supposed to take part in the negotiations. Plus the media - 70 foreign and 40 Soviet correspondents. Plus staff, security, etc. All had to be placed, create conditions for work and rest. Moreover, all this had to be done at the highest level adopted in Western countries: air conditioning systems, fire-extinguishing systems, security alarm systems, modern noiseless high-speed elevators, etc. And, first of all, the buildings themselves, which in the required quantity simply do not It was. As a meeting place, the sanatorium of the Far Eastern Military District was chosen. The work was very responsible and complicated. Yes, in addition, and dangerous for a career. It was necessary to find a suitable performer - an experienced professional, who could be blamed for failure, and, if successful, cover up with a high-ranking breast for rewards. And, as they wrote in the attestations, to the cause of the Communist Party and the Soviet government of the devotee. 
  And they found such a performer. Head of the Department of Capital Construction (Division of Capital Construction), Lieutenant Colonel Kotlyar Daniil Veniaminovich. Practical = 81training of military construction for about 30 years. Supervised and carried out the construction of the most important military facilities - the command posts of the fronts, the storage bases for special types of weapons and military equipment and many others. The father is a medical man, during the war he is a surgeon of a military hospital. His uncle is the former commander (during the war) of engineer troops of the Red Army, Hero of the Soviet Union Colonel-General Kotlyar Leonty Zakharovich. The candidate is comprehensively suitable. The only drawback is a Jew. But also it is good: in which case there is someone to blame the blame. Well, the fact that, having already been a colonel for 5 years, has not received this title, it's also good: he will try even harder to do the work. 
    To accommodate the heads of delegations, several wings for the first persons were selected on the territory of the sanatorium, which were to be completely re-equipped and brought to the modern international standards of that time. In addition, it is necessary to build the entire infrastructure of the town, 3 new buildings to accommodate members of delegations, representatives of the media, security and maintenance personnel. Of course, also in accordance with international norms. In one of the buildings was to be a medical center with a 50-meter swimming pool. And also such "trifles" as roads, sidewalks, street lighting, etc. Prior to the appointment, only 5 months remained. Work boiled immediately and continued day and night. I had to learn new technologies and new equipment on the go, as much was completely unfamiliar and had not previously been used in the Union or almost not used. For example, fire extinguishing or air conditioning systems were at that time a rarity and too primitive. In short, as a result of the tremendous physical and psychological strain, as well as the active use of all the wealth of the Russian language, all difficulties were overcome, all necessary work was successfully accomplished. It was safe to breathe. And at that moment, when the builders just tried to relax, a scandal broke out that threatened to frustrate all plans, even the cancellation of the meeting that thousands of people had been preparing for a long time.
  The fact is that Gerald Ford's right hand was the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It was from the American side that he conducted preliminary talks and prepared this meeting, designed to stop the world's slipping to a new world war. The same Kissinger, about whom there was a joke in the Soviet Union: if he asked a Soviet correspondent Valentine Zorin, whether he was Jewish. And in response to the words "I'm Russian" he said: "Well, of course. And I'm American. " I did not accidentally mention this anecdote. Kissinger is a Jew. Not Orthodox, but observing traditions. And if so, then at the entrance to his apartment should be MEZOZA!And on the eve of the meeting, the representatives of the American side disclose the absence of a mezuzah on the door leading to the Kissinger outhouse and say that until it appears, its feet will not be here. But this is a scandal, the NEGOTIATION OF NEGOTIATIONS! A quiet panic begins. The Commander of the District of the Donor of the Army Petrov V.S. ..: 
-Cat, you heard? 
 -I heard. 
- What is a mezuza? 
In response, a puzzled silence. 
-I ask you - what is a mezuzah? You're a Jew! 
-I have no idea. I never heard that word. 
The fact is that Kotlyar, like most of the actually assimilated Jews (especially the military), did not know the Torah, and did not observe any traditions, since the they also did not know. 
- Do whatever you want, but by the morning this MESZA should be in place! 
Unfortunately, I can not cite even here some of the epithets that accompanied the dialogue. But anyone from the Soviet Union, I'm sure, will guess. 
Dumbfounded Kotlyar begins to look for people familiar with Jewish customs. Together with the deputy head of the political department of the district, he goes to the regional party committee to talk with a worker involved in religion. He suggests that there is a synagogue on the outskirts of Vladivostok. That is, there is officially no synagogue, but in fact ... Well, you know ... It's already night. At 2 o'clock they travel 20 kilometers to Vladivostok, they search for the required building. At the same time, the deputy head of the political administration, in any case, avoids further. "Go alone," he says to Kotlyar. Kotlyar knocks on the door, raises a frightened old man who can not understand what is required of him. Eventually, the meaning of what is happening reaches him, after which he asks a single question: "Are you an Hades?" An affirmative answer should be given and as a confirmation of this fact, Kotlyar points to his nose. The old man nods his head and disappears in the depths of the room. Then he appears with a box, inside which is a mezuzah, and puts there a note with a prayer. Everything, the task is completed. But what to do next? Rabbi (probably, it was a rabbi) brings Kotlyar to the door and patiently explains how and where the mezuzah is fixed. Thanking the old man, the expedition returns to the base. By 5 o'clock in the morning, the operation to equip the Kissinger sub-house with the mezuzah was successfully completed. Negotiations began at the set time and were successful. They really had tremendous significance for the destinies of the world. But this is the topic of another conversation. 
  That's how the mezuza influenced the fact that the fateful negotiations for the whole world took place. 
  These events had one more, not epochal, but important for the hero of this story. Lieutenant Colonel Kotlyar was finally awarded the long-deserved military title COLONEL.

P. S. The motherland "generously repaid" Colonel D. Kotlyar. Despite the fact that he gave the best 38 years of his life to the service of the Soviet Union (most of them in the Far East and the Urals, present-day Russia), he does not receive a pension from Russia, since by the end of the service (3 years) he was in Ukraine. I note that he finished military service in the USSR in 1986. All appeals to the Russian authorities on this issue, including an appeal to Defense Minister Shoigu, ended in failure.
 

 2016 Netanya. Israel.