The Cuban Missile Crisis (Part 5)

The Cuban army, like all other state bodies, was in a nascent state. Cuban soldiers began to arrive at our divisions. Of course, we, the officers of the divisions and the regiment, did not really believe that Cuban soldiers, with their level of general education, could master our combat equipment, but an order is an order, and we began to train them.

Indeed, the Cuban army hardly corresponded to our understanding of an army. There were not enough barracks for all personnel, and 30% of the army slept in hammocks. I once visited the barracks of the Cubans. There was no military order. The place was dirty, the beds were of different calibers, the bedding was poor and not made up, the bedside tables had barn locks, in short, it was not a barracks but a flophouse for the homeless. The soldiers who came to us for training had nothing to sleep on, nothing to eat, no personal hygiene items. All these issues had to be resolved by our division commanders, and soon they were howling, especially about feeding.

According to the norms of sustenance in the Cuban army, soldiers were fed twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. The food was mainly vegetables and fruits. Alternatively, with Soviet money. For comparison, the lowest salary… Of course, such a level of soldiers’ nutrition was not normal for us, and practically we had to feed them. I don’t even know how the regiment’s food service managed to cope with such a task. The Cubans had a rule that a conscript soldier had to be released on leave for one day every four days. Cubans believe that a man, as a rule, should satisfy his male needs every three days. Of course, we agreed with this 100%, but alas, we did not have such opportunities. Our wives were 10,000 km away, and we were not allowed to visit prostitutes for fear of provocation. However, some still managed to “have a fling.” Especially since such an opportunity was widely available. Opposite the seaport, there was an entire block where women of the oldest profession lived, about 2,000 individuals. All this “pleasure” cost 3 pesos. Enjoy if you want. True, I was also encouraged to make such a “feat,” but my “moral face,” as the secretary of the primary party organization of the regiment’s management, did not allow me to take such a step. And, of course, the possibility of various unpleasant consequences.

As long as the situation was extremely tense, everything was in order in terms of military discipline among the personnel. With the easing of the crisis situation between the USSR and the USA, issues of military discipline among the personnel, and especially among the officer corps, came to the fore. To some extent, the officer corps could be understood. Separation from wives, children, prolonged stay in an unfamiliar and tense state, lack of a specific combat mission, and an unclear future, a constant sense of danger that counterrevolutionaries could attack us at any time, all this created a not very healthy moral and psychological climate. What does our person do when she has no specific task but has money? That’s right, she drinks. And there was money. Junior officers received 100 pesos, senior officers 150 pesos. And there was plenty of alcohol in Cuba, including medical alcohol, a liter for 2 pesos. Comments are superfluous.

In our part, I suppose in all parts located in Cuba, an interesting situation has developed. Disciplinary punishment by commanders lost its force. There is no guardhouse, you can’t send an officer to the union, what to do with the offending officer? How to maintain discipline among the officers? And they began to drink, wander around the hot spots of Santiago! And here the punishing hand of the primary party organization comes to the forefront. It must be said that in these conditions, they became the support for the commanders in maintaining discipline among the officer corps. An officer feared party discipline more than anything, especially if it was recorded in his personal file. Such a reprimand was a serious obstacle to further promotion or receiving the next military rank. And I, as the secretary of the party organization, often had to invite certain comrades who respected “Bacardi” \Cuban rum\ too much, and have heart-to-heart conversations with them. Understanding the nervous state we were all in, I tried not to resort to disciplinary actions. But there were various incidents. Once, late at night, the duty officer called me to the command post. Major Sin’ko, completely drunk, with a pistol in his hand, was yelling and screaming that he wanted to shoot the regiment commander. The duty officer and his assistant tried to persuade him to put down the pistol and calm down. He yelled even louder. The main thing was that the pistol in his hand was loaded. In Cuba, we all, the officers, carried personal weapons with us. How to take away the pistol? It was dangerous to approach him. The duty officer did not report to the head of the political department because it would have ended badly for the major. He asked me, as the secretary of the party organization, to influence the communist Sin’ko. I didn’t know what to do. He refused to put down the pistol and continued to scream that he would shoot the regiment commander. Then I decided to go straight to him and take the weapon away. Of course, I was afraid, but I assumed he wouldn’t dare shoot me. I pushed his hand with the pistol aside and took the weapon away. Only after that did I start to shake nervously all over my body and couldn’t calm down for some time. We did not report this to the authorities because the head of the political department would have ordered me to call him to the party bureau and expel him from the party. And that would have threatened the officer with early discharge and no pension.

The reasons for such a nervous breakdown were understandable. People were thrown 10,000 km away from their home, and no one could really say when this nerve-wracking ordeal would end. And the climatic conditions in Cuba are sharply different from those in Russia. In Cuba, there are only two seasons, winter and summer. Winter differs from summer in that there is no rain in winter, while there is rain in summer. Winter is just as hot as summer. Here I saw what a tropical rain is. It’s indescribable. Rain clouds almost hang over your head. And then it’s not just rain. It’s a river pouring from the heavens. And the thunder! It’s like hundreds of cannons firing simultaneously. The climate is very humid for us, residents of the middle, continental belt, and it was somewhat difficult to endure such a climate.

To improve the moral and psychological state, they began to send us distinguished people. Yuri Vlasov, the world champion in weightlifting in the heavyweight category, cosmonaut Popovich, Marshal of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ivanovich Krylov, and others came to us. But the most memorable for me was the visit to our regiment by the artists of the Kiev Grand Theater, including Yuri Gulyaev, Larisa Rudenko, Ogneva, a trio of bandura players, and several other singers. My memory has not preserved… The commander of the unit turned to us. The commander flew with them from Havana. They performed a small concert for us, rested a bit, and then went to Santiago to give a concert. They gave the concert in the city’s largest cinema, “Oriente.” Naturally, they invited us. I could not miss such an opportunity to listen to the singers of the Kiev Grand Theater and went to the concert. The hall was packed to capacity. Cubans, being at any performance or in the cinema, smoke. But here no one smoked. They were asked, and they did not smoke. The success of our singers and artists was dizzying. The hall gave a standing ovation when Gulyaev sang “Preserve Peace” in Spanish. After the concert, we took the artists to our unit and organized a friendly dinner, of course with “Bacardi.” I really liked Larisa Rudenko, the trio of bandura players, and I was simply crazy about Gulyaev. He was not only an incomparable singer but also a very simple, soulful, and charming person. I was very sorry to learn about his death. We lost a wonderful singer and a remarkable person.

Life went on. I traveled to Havana several times on business. In my free time, I walked the streets of Havana. It’s a beautiful city with incomparable architecture. Some buildings are so captivating that it’s impossible to look away. I visited the zoo and was struck by the stillness of the crocodiles. They lay on the shore of the lake without any movement. I was in the center of Havana, where there is a large square where Fidel Castro usually addressed the Cubans. My stay in Havana coincided with a party activity for the group of forces in Cuba. I also participated in this activity. The Chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy, General A.A. Yepyishev, gave a report. He spoke about the successes of the socialist camp and how the Party and Government care for the Armed Forces in general and particularly about us in Cuba. The speakers sharply criticized the supply organizations of the Soviet Army. It got to the point where there was a shortage of toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet soap, and more. It may seem trivial, but in the end, our daily life consists of these little things.

While on a business trip in Havana, I met my fellow countryman from South Ossetia, Akhmet Gassiev. Returning from Havana to Santiago, Akhmet invited me and my comrades to his division. He was the division commander. He treated us with Ossetian generosity. I don’t know where he found it in Cuba, but he slaughtered a kid goat for us. Of course, we had a lot to talk about. Akhmet showed me some very interesting photographs where he is pictured with Gagarin near Akhmet’s house in the Saratov region. In another photo, Gagarin is holding Akhmet’s little son. It turns out Gagarin landed in the area where Akhmet’s division was located. No one was there to meet him. Apparently, they did not expect him to land there. After all, until Gagarin’s successful landing, it was not reported anywhere that our man was flying in space. Gagarin emerged from his spacecraft and headed to the nearest houses. And there lived the Gassiev family. Needless to say, the Gassiev family welcomed Gagarin with great warmth. By the way, Gagarin was without a cap, and Akhmet put his own cap on him. Thus, the first person who met the first man to have been in space was the Ossetian Akhmet. Later, a photograph of Yuri Gagarin with Akhmet’s son in his arms appeared in the magazine “Ogonyok.” Akhmet told a rather amusing story about this event. The story of Gagarin’s meeting with Gassiev soon became known throughout South Ossetia. South Ossetian newspapers printed a photograph of Gagarin with Gassiev. Gassiev came to Tskhinvali on leave. Of course, there was a tumultuous meeting with relatives, half of Tskhinvali being his relatives. He felt that there was some particularly solemn attitude towards him and did not understand why. The reason was that the newspapers had printed his photograph with Gagarin. Hence the conclusion, Akhmet was also an astronaut, but it could not be talked about because it was a state secret. And there was a special attitude towards state secrets in Soviet times. That is, everyone knows, but it cannot be talked about. Everyone in Ossetia knows that Akhmet is an astronaut, but it cannot be talked about. The only one who didn’t know he was an astronaut was Gassiev himself. As the leave was coming to an end, Akhmet bought a plane ticket and was supposed to fly to his duty station in Saratov the next day. In the evening, they sat drinking tea with relatives, a whole bunch of them. Akhmet, in all his naivety, says that he is flying out tomorrow. But he does not understand the reaction of the relatives to his desire to “fly out tomorrow.” He doesn’t know that he is an astronaut. Everyone is shocked. One of the godmothers dares to ask in a plaintive voice: “Akhmet ma atyeh ma atyeh.” “Akhmet, don’t fly away, don’t fly away.” Akhmet is puzzled as to why he should not fly away and asks in surprise how he should not fly away and says that he has already taken a ticket. The relatives understood that he wanted to joke. They knew that astronauts fly without tickets. And so, one of the aunts said: “Akhmet, don’t joke.” Everyone understood it as Akhmet flying off to space, but he was hiding it. The truth was, Akhmet himself didn’t know that. When Akhmet told this story, I was dying of laughter, as they say. Such a scene is familiar to me. Ossetians are very proud of their fellow countrymen who defend the homeland.

Probably every person, having reached a certain milestone in life and reflecting on the past, identifies the most significant events. Such a significant event in my life was the “Caribbean Crisis.” The mere fact that I participated in the defense of the Cuban people against American aggression gives me the right to say that I have not lived in vain. I must say that Cuba has left an indelible impression in my memory. And not only because of its amazingly beautiful nature and the wonderful people of the island of freedom. But also because working in extreme conditions shows who a person really is. I want to say that our people are wonderful. Being in a difficult situation in Cuba, it somehow became clearer to me why we defeated Germany. To accomplish the combat mission, our soldiers and officers are ready to overcome any difficulties. There, I befriended many commanders and political workers. But there were also those with whom my views on the behavior of our officers in a rather complex situation diametrically opposed theirs. It was because of such differences in views that I had a conflict with my immediate superior, Gevorkyan.

To be continued…