I, Savva Kobchik, a student at the Timiryazev Academy, when I came into this world, I just had to survive. And I surrendered to the will of the flow of life. And she dragged me upstream. Into areas that I have never aspired to and that are often incomprehensible to me. “This must be absorbed with mother’s milk,” the adjutant general of the Olmütz king told me, and he turned out to be right. I constantly find myself in unpleasant situations precisely because I don’t even know local realities so much as I don’t sense them. And not only the notorious court society, but also the mountain customs of the people to which I officially belong here. Other reactions are brought up in me. I am a Russian peasant, a kulak, if you like. The easiest thing for me here is in the army, because the army is an army everywhere. I'm the boss - you're a fool, you're the boss - I'm a fool. But they don’t give me exactly the opportunity to serve in the army where I want - in an aeronautical detachment on airships. And in general, everything that I created for the imperial army was taken away from me. An armored train, an assault company... They gave me orders, even the Knight's Cross - the equivalent of a Hero of Russia here, but they didn't let me fight. The rulers need me more as a manufacturer than as an officer. They have many officers, but few manufacturers, especially those who produce machine guns.