I was surprised how tough the strength tests were and glad I had worked so hard at Spartak. Our upper-body strength was tested with spring apparatus similar to the ones I had used in my weight training. I passed easily, but many likely candidates failed. Our endurance was measured by a timed 3,000-yard run, repeated 100-yard sprints, and a 100-yard swimming test. Again, fellows who had scored high on the academic exams were cut after the endurance tests.
Our reflexes, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination were tested over a three-day period in a very simple cockpit simulator that combined a control stick and a crude “gunsight.” Sitting in a regular chair, you worked the stick to keep the gunsight ring aligned along a waving curve on a moving scroll. It was a tough challenge. We also had to follow rapid commands to write an endless series of O’s and X’s in random patterns. These tests broke us down into four aptitude groups. The lowest group were washed out; those in group three could continue only if they scored well in the academic tests; and the top two groups qualified in motor skills. I was in group one.
Many of the candidates were obviously not up to the tough academic and practical-skill tests. They came from Central Asian republics like Kazakhstan and Kirghizia. Some guys ridiculed these “national heroes,” because they had been selected as token candidates to demonstrate the fraternal Socialist bonds of the Union. In reality, there were almost no non-Russian or non-Slav pilots in either the PVO or the VVS.
And the demanding math, physics, and Russian language examinations weeded out some of the candidates from State farms whose rural schools had not prepared them well. The winnowing process continued through a series of personal interviews. Although all the officers on the panels wore the same uniforms, our Samarskiye mentors had warned us that there would always be a zampolit political officer present and sometimes a man from the KGB’s Osobii Otdel “Special Department.” Lucky for me, Lieutenant Colonel Gusev, my military instructor at School Number Two, had attached a glowing testimonial to the Kharacteristika “Personal Characteristics” record that accompanied my application forms.
The interviewers seemed satisfied that my family background did not include any “enemies of the people,” criminals, or psychopaths. And they seemed genuinely impressed with my mother’s academic and professional accomplishments. They verified that no one in my family was a member of a religious sect or ever traveled abroad or had been a prisoner of the Germans. Of course I did not reveal my father’s captivity during the war. Since he’d been a civilian child, there was no military record. And, fortunately, both Ivanov and Rema had done a masterful job of disguising my delinquent attitude and rebellious behavior.
After a hot, exhausting month of basic training, I found myself standing in Armavir’s Lenin Square with three hundred other successful candidates, taking the Soviet military’s Oath of Loyalty. We solemnly promised to be “honorable, brave, disciplined, and vigilant” soldiers who would defend the homeland, sparing neither blood nor life if necessary to achieve full victory over our enemies.
“And if I should break this solemn oath,” I recited in unison with the boys around me, “then let me suffer the severe penalties of Soviet law and the universal hatred and contempt of the Soviet people.”
A young senior lieutenant shouted an order and we marched off the square with the band playing the Air Force Anthem. Our polished boots sounded with the drumbeat.
“We were born to turn fantasy into fact,” we sang, referring to the miracle of flight. “Higher! Higher! Higher!” The brass instruments gleamed in the southern sun; the drums pounded. “Faster! Faster! Faster!” Our column marched down the broad avenue toward the walled Armavir Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots on the outskirts of the city. I was no longer a schoolboy. Now I was a Soviet soldier.
I was proud that my mother attended the ceremony. My selection for the academy was certainly proof that I was neither stupid nor lazy, as Rema had once scornfully suggested. My mother took me aside to explain that she hoped to marry again, to an engineer named Valentin. But she wanted my permission. My grandmother had already raised the subject with me. “Give her your blessing, Sasha,” she’d said. “Your mother should not have to grow old alone as I have.” Naturally I wished my mother happiness.
The academy was an attractive, well-shaded complex of dormitories, classroom blocks, and a military airfield that bore the call sign “Burav.” First-year cadets were assigned to a long three-floored dormitory facing the cement-block wall that enclosed the front of the academy.
The top of this wall was studded with broken wine bottles set in the cement, a crude but efficient deterrent to cadets tempted to slip into the city without leave. “Actually,” one of the older cadets joked, “the glass is there to keep all those horny, good-looking nurses from assaulting you handsome young fellows.”
Jokes aside, we learned on our first day that we were expected to act like soldiers, not simply privileged students at a State academy. On our familiarization tour of the campus, the escort officer pointed out the gaupvakhta, the guardhouse manned by tough conscripts of the school battalion who performed the manual labor and administrative duties at the academy.
“They don’t like you kursanty very much,” the captain warned us.
I don’t know who stared at my group with more menace, the guards or their German shepherds. Stealing State property, being absent without leave, or showing disrespect to a commissioned officer were all offenses punishable by time in the guardhouse.
The Armavir Academy, we learned, had an honored history. Founded in 1940, the academy had barely begun classes when it had to be evacuated as the Nazi armies advanced south toward the Caucasus. Once the Kuban Valley had been recaptured from the Nazis and the school reopened, cadets were pushed through accelerated training, and many flew their first combat sortie directly from the school’s airfield. Legendary Red Army aces like Alexander Pokryshkin and the Glinka brothers had flown Shturmoviks and American lend-lease P-39 “Kobras” from our Burav runway. Among the aviation academies of the PVO and VVS, Armavir was known as the “Kuznitsa,” the Forge of Pilots.
There were about eleven hundred cadets at Armavir divided into four classes. During any given academic year, two classes would be “in the South,” at air bases in Azerbaijan, receiving flight instruction on L-29 jet trainers, or in nearby Maikop, taking the advanced flight course on MiG-21 fighters. The other two classes remained at the school taking academic courses or practice flying at the Burav air base. We were expected to complete forty-three academic courses in eight semesters to graduate with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Simultaneously we would train as jet-fighter pilots and receive our wings with our commission on graduation.
I was appointed the cadet sergeant of the 112th Platoon. Even though the rank doubled the basic cadet pay from seven to fifteen rubles, I had not sought this position and found the extra responsibility annoying, considering the punishing work load that first year.
Six days a week we were rousted out of bed by the national anthem blaring on the loudspeakers at 0600 and had forty-five seconds to pull on our uniform. After a quick stop in the latrine, we fell in on the parade ground for running and calisthenics at 0610. At 0700 we were given half an hour to wash up and prepare the barracks for inspection. I had to verify that the cadets in my platoon all wore presentable uniforms and that the linen liners sewn into the collars of their blouses were changed at the regulation two-day intervals. Some guys were lucky; they had skinny necks and could keep a liner looking clean for a week.