“In the life of every person there are special, as if key dates, which illuminate with a special light both the path traveled and the one yet to come. Such a date in the life of Colonel General of the Police Ivan Ivanovich Mateichenkov was the day of October fourteenth, 2000. He walked towards this date for a long time, one might say, his entire adult life. He went on, starting from his very first independent work, when, as a novice opera, he entered into a mortal battle with a bandit. How many times later Mateichenkov was exposed to mortal danger! How many times did bandit bullets whistle at his temple, how many times did life hang by a thread! But he never for one minute forgot about his official, military, and civic duty...”