Pen Mates

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Hello Volodya,

My name is Sasha Skvortsov, I am studying in 5 "b" form in school #44 at town Zelenograd in Moscow territory.

Just as you are, I am a fan of model aircraft building. I have seen your design of an interceptor jet model which you invented in the Young Mechanic magazine which I found in our school's library. I like it very much because it can be assembled with little effort and flies very well.

We flight tested it together with guys from a modeling club and decided that it could have been made with a heavier front end. So I have used some epoxy glue to cover the model's nose cone. After that, I have got the model's center of gravity located at 120 mm from the front tip, while in the magazine you had this figure as 125 mm. This created better aerodynamics.

Soon I will take this interceptor to a competition for best range and spot landing precision. If you are interested in how we have done, I write you afterwards.

Thank you for your model's design. Maybe you will want to improve it as I did.

Sasha Skvortsov.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

Hi Sasha!

I surely will try out your advice on the model's improvement and then send a final design to the magazine. There are few more things which yet can be improved. For example, I have made lighter wing slats and changed the shape of ailerons for better stream flow. Few of the possibilities to improve I found myself while testing the model plane, on others I was advices by Nikolay Petrovich, our club teacher. Get in mind, he is a real pilot in retirement. Please write me how did your model perform at the competition.

I'm also interested, for how long are you taking up aircraft modeling, what classes of models you are specializing at, what models do you already have?

Volodya Alexeyenko.

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Hi Volodya!

I did not really expect an answer from you; thank you!

You should surely send your modified designs to the Young Mechanic' you are doing them perfectly! I am looking forward to seeing them there!

Your design has performed very well at the competition. I took the second place at the range flights and shared the third place with one boy from a 7th form in the spot landing for the free flying models. I think this is a great result for a beginner. I hope the model will fly especially good after you make the final changes!

I do not take up aircraft modeling for too long; I started just half a year ago, since the past autumn. I am yet in learning how to make free flying models. By now I made two gliders myself. But really the first one I was making together with my friend. Next step, we are going to make twisted rubber band powered flyers!

But your interceptor jet I like most.

It is very interesting to have an exchange with you. You must have other things you take interest in; not only aircraft models. Please tell me something about your hobbies. Could we exchange our phone numbers and email addresses, so we could communicate faster? These paper letters take very long to be delivered.

Sasha.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

Hello Sasha!

I too have five free-flying models in my collection, one control line model for air combat, and twenty-six more plastic aircraft scale copy models which are sold in a shop as a kit, parts of which you just glue together.

I have little to tell about my other hobbies, I'm an ordinary schoolboy, I study in 6 "A" form in our school number 3. Frankly speaking, I am not a very high grade student, I have got "3" marks in History, Biology and Music. The rest of subjects, I usually get fours, and my favorites are Calculus, Geometry and Physics, I have firm fives in those. I've taken up aircraft modeling since when I was in 4th form; it's for over two years by now. I began with free flyers and scale copies, just like you, and now we have progressed to making control line models with the guys from the club.

For two years I went to volleyball club in our community center. I played volleyball not so bad. But I don't play it right now because of my trauma - I broke my left arm when playing hockey last winter. It has recovered finely already and in one month they allow me to rejoin the team. I'm also a fan of chess. I play chess since when I was in the third form, I participate in our town's and the district's chess contests for juniors and even got the 1st place few times. If you like chess too, we can try to play a game over mail.

By the way, I cannot tell you my phone number, because we have got no telephone yet. Our application is queued, and we may get one installed next spring. What kind of thing was an email address you mentioned? I didn't understand.

I also train in a swimming pool twice a week. My mom says that swimming is necessary for bringing harmony in my body's development. She is a doctor, a specialist in physiotherapy, so she certainly knows better. But I like swimming anyway, and especially because we have a great coach. The swimming pool is almost the next building to our block, and the community center is also not too far away.

Our school is very usual, so there isn't an interesting thing to tell about it. I think you have all the same - we study, we gather at the detachment's council, we draw wall newspapers, we collect wastepaper for recycling, we prepare sketch scenes for holidays, and we play the Club of Merry and Quick-Witted on different subjects. Instead, I am eager to get to knowing: what interesting things do you have? To think of it, you live almost in Moscow, so it has to be something interesting where you are. What your school is like? Where do your parents work? Who you are going

to become when you grow up?

Bye, till the next letter!

Volodya.

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Hi Volodya!

Your last letter was so interesting that I couldn't interrupt until I had read everything to the bottom line, and it only took me five minutes! What a coincidence is there, I too have threes in History and Music! But haven't began Biology course yet; we are still studying Nature-Study in our form.

I asked my parents what Calculus and Geometry were, and they told me that since 7th form, I would have Math called like these. So, if this is another name for Math, I've got to love it, because I love Math most, too! Just one thing I don't understand is why do you have those subjects in your 6th form; it's got to be too early. My parents must have been confusing something, because they have left the school very long ago!

I can't play chess. Come on, let's play battleships instead!

And how could you be unaware what is an electronic mail? Do you have no computer? And I personally don't take up any sport clubs training. This is because my parents say I already suffer from a counter-inhibition. And we don't have a swimming pool in our city, and that's a shame. Because it must be great to be able to swim there as much as you like while it's still snowing outside! And how do you play ice hockey? Do you do everything for real, wearing real skates and playing with real sticks? Our guys don't play hockey, we have only one rink in the city, and using it costs a charge. But I actually like playing Counter-strike and Quake, and my favorite game is NFS racing. My parents are good, they understand me almost at all things. My father is an engineer at our turbine plant, and also he conducts some lectures for students. And my mother doesn't have a job, she is a housewife.

When I grow up, I want to be a Director of some firm. But I am not yet too sure about this, because being a pilot is

very interesting too. And who do you want to be? Maybe an aircraft designer, because you are so serious about aircraft modeling now?

Our school is usual, too, so I also have little to tell you about. But the other school, #48, is so great; it is a Gymnasium with extended English and Economy programs and everybody dreams of entering there. But my parents say it's too expensive to study there. Of course, we prepare sketch scenes for holidays too, and we play the Club of

Merry and Quick-Witted just as you do. But I don't know what does it mean to collect wastepaper and to gather on detachment council. I didn't ask my parents about that, because I hope, you can explain these things for me yourself.

I'm looking forward to your reply!

Sasha.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

Hello Sasha!

Now, you have surprised me! I never thought that Moscow territory was so different! And you are saying that your school is a usual one and you don't want to write about it. We begin Calculus and Geometry since 6th form, and Biology since the 5th.

What is a computer? My dad says it's a word for a calculating device. If that's so, I don't have one. I dream very strongly that I had such a machine, a programmable calculator, as my birthday gift. There are many excellent programs for it published in the Science and Life magazine, I would love to play all these things for real. But it is too expensive, they will hardly buy me one. Only few elder guys have such in our school.

Also, I barely understood a word from what you said about that Gymnasium. How come it might be too expensive to study in a school? I thought one had to pay for an elementary education only in capitalist countries. And why is it called so strange, a Gymnasium? All those Gymnasiums were only before the Revolution, weren't they!?

It's also so weird that you guys don't play ice hockey. This is a usual winter game here, just like football in the summer. And it doesn't take having a rink to play. Skates are also optional. All you must have are sticks and a puck. Surely, it's hard to get the best GRP sticks here. In our shops we only have ordinary plywood sticks, but they can be improved quite well. I know how to make a custom stick with which you can hit the puck stronger and with better precision. First you heat it up over boiling water, then you stick the blade's end between a heat radiator sections and bend it gently, and after that you coil the stick's blade with electric insulation tape. I tried it out - one gets the high-end stick such way!

I also didn't understand anything about your favorite games. It sounds like they have English names, but I study German, sorry... Wastepaper is a paper that no one needs anymore. It can be recycled and used again for printing newspapers or books on it. Aren't you told that in your school? Look, when we don't throw away used paper into garbage and collect it for recycling, we are saving live trees through doing that. We are made collect that wastepaper and also metal junk all the time. They've really pestered my life out over it! We do even have a competition, whose detachment collects more stuff. Some guys soak their wastepaper with water so it would pull bigger weight; and sometimes they get to winning through this. But that's not honest.

On the detachment's council - weird, I can't see why you don't have it in your form. As you have a form, you then have a detachment, and the detachment is supposed to discuss the everyday's business somehow... It is such gathering of all the kids from your form in a class, where we discuss and decide upon different important things.

You must be joking; it's impossible that you guys could get away without it. I am not exactly certain about my future occupation. But, most probably, I will be not an aircraft designer, but instead an engineer at a nuclear power plant, like my dad. Our town is still very small, and total most of the inhabitants work at the power plant. It is very close to the town. However, my mom works in the town itself, at the medical unit. But I don't want to become a doctor; I prefer meddling with technology more.

Bye.

Volodya.

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Hello Volodya!

I really think that it's your school that is weird, not my school. All things are different in mine.

Yes, some schools that we have are called gymnasiums, lyceums, colleges, and sometimes they are not free of charge to study. You have to look hard to find someone who hasn't got a computer here. It is very inconvenient to write with your hand, and we are allowed to type many works on a computer. Now I see why you don't know my favorite games, it's because they all are computer games. We don't collect any wastepaper, neither do we collect metal junk. However, we sometimes go collecting empty tin cans from beer and sell them at collector's booth, but that is not an assignment from school, we just earn some money this way. One tin can is worthy of 1.5 roubles, so if you find four cans, you've got enough funds to buy yourself an ice-cream.

Do you call forms in the school detachments? Of all things! I understood what you meant by the council. It's such a meeting, but here kids don't gather any meetings, only teachers can do that. I think it's a bad idea for you to working to a power plant. My dad says it's a job which doesn't pay good. Better become an aircraft designer! Or like me, a director in a firm.

Sasha.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

Hello Sasha!

This time you puzzled me completely. I have never seen non-free schools or beer in tin cans. And I fail to understand why an ice-cream is so expensive at where you are! We have different sorts of ice cream, the fruit ice costs 5 kopeikas, for 10 you buy milk cream, 15 kopeikas is for toppings cream, chocolate-coated eskimo on the stick is 18 kopeikas, and the very best sort, "Leningradskoye" glazed and with hazelnuts is just 22 kopeikas.

Actually, there are also huge ice-cream bricks which cost 48 kopeikas, but if you manage it eat it whole alone, a week after you look at any ice-cream in disgust. So for your six roubles you could have bought ice-cream

for our entire class.

What an odd city you live in, is! When I told my mom your story, she got surprised too. She said such incredible prices can only be in the Sub-Arctics. But you are not there, just near Moscow.

I will think more about becoming an aircraft designer as you suggested.

Take care, keep writing.

Volodya.

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Hi Volodya!

I too told the ice-cream story you described to my mom, she was contracting her brows for a long time, as if trying to recall something, but apparently never did, and finally said that you were from Ukraine, and your price tags are ought to be very different.

I said her that you had same roubles and kopeikas as we did, but my mom said I was wrong, and that your kopeika value is greater than our kopeika's, and you don't have any roubles at all, and your money are called hryvnias. From all that I only figured out that I wanted to go to where you are and stuff myself with your cheap ice-cream!

And if you, in turn, could come on a visit to me during the summer holidays, I would have shown you our schools, and taught you to play on my computer, so you would stop being so astonished. And you in exchange could teach me to play ice hockey and make control line plane models! I'm asking because I cannot make even a good twisted rubber-powered model yet.

Bye.

Sasha.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

Hello Sasha!

You suggested a really great idea! But let us do the other way round. I spoke to my parents, they know we are having an exchange for a long time, I told them about your business often. So we have decided together to invite you to come on a visit to us during the holidays. It is very good here, a countryside: a river flowing nearby; woods, gardens. It is better than any summer camp. Compared to Moscow, we are in the warm South. And Kyiv is not far away; I may show you both cities: Pripyat' and Kyiv. Have you never been to Kyiv before?

Our town is beautiful, although it's very young yet. It may be hard to surprise someone from Moscow, but I'm sure you will like staying here.

Certainly, I will teach you how to build control line models, and you will have as much ice-cream as you like. Bring your programmable calculator with you, we will code in the programs from the Science and Life magazine - just imagine, they even had a space combat game routine there!

Please ask your parents, will they allow you to stop with us for just a week or two?

Please come, you won't be sorry!

Volodya.

* * *

"Mom, my comrade has invited me to pay them a visit on the holidays," said Sasha. "Look, what he wrote: a river nearby, woods, gardens, it's better than any camp. May I go on stay at his home this summer?"

"Boy oh boy!" The mother tapped buttons on the TV remote control, trying to find a channel with no ads spinning at the moment. "Is that that Volodya from Ukraine, who is a great aircraft modelist?"

"Yes, it's that Volodya. So what, mum?"

"My son, who is going to get a trimester's "three" in History again, will you tell me?" Sasha's mother reminded him, shooking her head.

"Mom, I will improve the grade, I'll do my best."

"First improve, then we'll see."

"Mo-o-o-mmy, but I must give him an answer now!"

"Whoo, what shall I do with you?" The mother took the envelope from Sasha and regarded the return address. "Ukraine, Pripyat', Pripyat', sounds a bit familiar... Nikolai!" she called out in top of her voice to Sasha's father who was in another room.

"What kind of place Pripyat' is? A friend invites Sashka to go there on the summer holidays."

"This is not far away from Kyiv," Sasha hinted quietly, but his mother ignored him; awaiting until an authority opinion sounded.

The father arrived in the kitchen with an expression of total shock at his face. "Where again did you say he was invited to?" he asked, folding a newspaper he was holding.

"To Pripyat', for some time during the holidays. How do you look at it? It's a South, after all..."

"Lyusia, I am not too sure what is there now, I am not an expert in such things, after all," the father stared at the mother like she were raving terribly. "Maybe somebody lives there again. Who knows what do these Ukrainians have on their minds now. Everything is possible. But I am strongly against the idea to send our child to the Chernobyl accident area on the holidays!"

Now it was the mom's turn to get surprised.

"What? Is that Chernobyl?", she sputtered, shocked.

"My son, how did you get to know your comrade?" demanded the father harshly.

"In a magazine... Found his address... Then wrote a letter to him..." muttered Sasha, stumbling at every word.

"Did you keep the magazine? Bring it here now!" the dad demanded, setting his glasses straight nervously.

"Nope... I returned it to the library."

"What magazine was that?"

"The Young Mechanic"

"The Young Mechanic? Is it still published at all? I don’t remember seeing fresh issues in the last twenty years!" said the dad in irritated tone. "And what year’s issue did you keep - do you remember that?"

"Nikolai, stop yelling at your child! He is not guilty of anything!" the mother intervened.

"I’m not yelling," the father quieted down at once, "So, what year it was from?"

"I didn’t look," admitted Sasha.

Only now he realized that perhaps the magazine was old… Probably rather old… And the librarian was saying that the school wasn’t subscribed to the Young Mechanic for a long time…

* * *

To Vladimir Alexeyenko,
Sportivnaya st., 6/19
Pripyat', Ukraine

Volodya, how are you doing?

I am very upset: my parents did not allow me to go on a visit to you.

I don’t know what else to do; I promised them all things, to improve my grade in History, and said I didn’t need roller-skates for my birthday, nothing helped. They are saying you’ve got radiation everywhere because there was a kind of explosion on your nuclear plant, and now nobody lives where you are.

But how can that be true? What radiation may be there when you just live there and know nothing of sorts?

Please write me as soon as possible, because I don’t understand this nonsense! Maybe my parents are confusing something and you can convince them that everything is all right.

I’m hoping to hear from you soon.

Sasha.

To Alexander Skvortsov,
Dzerzhinskogo st, 11/36
Zelenograd, Moscow Territory, Russia

The address does not exist. Returned to sender.