THE LEGEND OF THE BEETLE AND OVID

Oh, this is a legendary legend! This legend has been retold for more than 20 years in all Siberian expeditions. And the hero of this legend is also a legendary person - Alexander Vladilenovich Zhuk, Omsk archaeologist, who has ever seen him - will not forget. And stories happened to him a lot, such a character, but the most famous legend sounds like this. In the 1983 expedition, in which Zhuk took part, a huge amount of anthropological material was accumulated-bones, skulls. Omsk does not have its own laboratory, so it was decided to send the material for examination to Tomsk. And they instructed Alexander Vladilenovich to deliver all this stuff. Zhuk, having put unique materials in a huge old fiber suitcase, without washing in the bath, without visiting the hairdresser, in a shirt that was fresh about three weeks ago, in a windbreaker and sweatpants, went. In this form, he appeared at the station in Novosibirsk and began to wait for the train. An important detail: our hero was enthusiastically reading a volume of Publius Ovid Nason - a terrible deficit for those times, which he grabbed on occasion in the Novosibirsk "Science". In the publishing house, no one paid any attention to him, but at the train station, this colorful figure instantly attracted the attention of law enforcement officers. First of all, as usual, they asked for documents. However, at that time, out of all the documents, Zhuk had a student ID card, and even that one remained in the tent. Then they asked me to open the suitcase. Our policemen can hardly be surprised by anything, but when they saw a suitcase full of skulls, they were very surprised, frankly-stunned. Our hero finished reading Ovid in the bullpen, in the company of station bums. Since the scientist had to sit there for three days (while the request was sent to Omsk, while the answer came), he learned many aphorisms by heart and quoted them later on any occasion. No one in Siberia knows Ovid better than the Beetle, or even in Russia, or in general.

PS Preparing for the publication of this legend, we were somewhat confused in the options, because, as mentioned above, it has been around for a long time and has become overgrown with contradictory details - Zhuk was sitting in the bullpen for a month, then Vladimir Ivanovich Matyushchenko personally rescued him from the dungeon, etc. university), we were shocked by its brevity and ordinariness. They just asked: "Sasha, what about the skulls?". "Leave it," said Beetle decisively, " about the skulls - it's beautiful." Finally, he quoted Ovid: "The event has passed, the monuments remain."

CLASSIC PLOT

Expedition to Gornaya Shoriya. But it doesn't matter. It is important that the expedition included a student named Sasha Dubrovsky and a student named Masha Besedina. They went to the informants together, and when they went into the house, Sasha said: "Hello, this is Masha, and I'm Dubrovsky."

Recorded by T. B. Smirnova

Omsk State University named after F. M. Dostoevsky, 55a Mira Ave., Omsk, 644077, Russia.

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