In New Zealand, not far from the town of Greymouth, in a place where a Russian settlement was recently located, there is a rusty German tank "Tiger" T-U1 from the Second World War. Local rangers are wondering what history might precede this - how did he end up among the tree ferns?
The solution of such a riddle may be helped by the papers of the landowner, Count of Zhitomir Pavel Andreevich, found in Kaluga, his diary and the letters of Frederick Charles Thompson, an Englishman, enclosed in it.
This story began back in 1911. Events unfolded in the count's estate in the Kaluga region, where Pavel Andreevich was enthusiastically engaged in farming. But he, perhaps, was not going to sit in Ushatovo all his life. because he studied languages.
The year 1911 turned out to be very "fruitful" in terms of the number of thunderstorms around the world. Newspapers wrote that a considerable number of ball lightning was observed. Pavel Andreevich wrote in his diary about the "damage to the farm." A barn was recently built, and for a while a brand-new carriage, discharged from Berlin, worth 120 rubles was rolled into it. The fireball swung in front of him like a bat lantern. Then she swam into the half-open gate and - followed by a flash that highlighted the cracks between the boards, which, by the way, “only now became visible,” - Pavel Andreevich was upset. And he was completely upset in the morning; opened the gate and found no carriage; froze in bewilderment, and a Russian greyhound rushed ahead of him, "which also cost a lot of money," as it was written in the diary. And she, stopping at the place where the carriage stood, also disappeared. Shaken Pavel Andreevich locked, nevertheless,gate, so that no one else poked his head, and indulged in reflections on the pages of the diary, where he combined his surprise at the "unknown" with the pragmatism of a business executive.
“The culprit of the curiosity, I think, is ball lightning. It is a pity that the impact of such has not yet been studied. On the earthen floor, where a carriage (worth 120 rubles) was still in the evening, there was a circle of gray sand. On him and Lyuska, a good-blooded bitch, the unknown has disappeared."
Upon a very careful examination, it turned out: “This circle consists of the smallest sand and unprecedented color. The spare wheel from the carriage, which I had thrown in, also disappeared, now unnecessary. And each item disappears on this circle, as if melting like butter in a frying pan. but only instantly and as if over the sand. Therefore, it is not quick."
Pavel Andreevich carefully shoveled the strange sand from the very edge and risked picking up a handful, which immediately spilled over his fingers: the sand was incredibly fluid. Zhitomirsky blew on the trickles. They did not disperse, were not caught by the breath. This sand and in the palms: as if it represented one whole mass. It seemed that the separation of the unit could only be short-lived. Pavel Andreevich did not leave the feeling of the edge of an invisible abyss. He put the shovel on the edge of the sand circle and began to slowly push it inward. As soon as its most part, it went over the edge - it disappeared.
He noticed that the sand seemed to live its own life - sometimes it seemed like ripples slowly ran along it. In the center, quite slowly, sometimes a "whirlpool" seemed to be spinning.
Pavel Andreevich even stopped counting in his diary those objects that he, curious, without regret sent "into the unknown"; but regretted the dropped monogrammed watch, which carried away the gold chain. “Things, if, of course, do not dissolve like sugar in water, then very possibly even appear somewhere in their form. to the bewilderment of some, say, a Frenchman or an American."
Then Zhitomirsky takes a waxed envelope, writes a letter (in German, English and French), in which he outlines what is happening in the estate. He asks to unsubscribe in Ushatovo the one who will receive this message, and puts the envelope in a sand circle, as in a mailbox.
In 1911, Sir Frederick Charles Thompson directed topographic surveys on the shores of the Tasman Sea in New Zealand. After a thunderstorm, not far from the camp, he found a carriage who had come from nowhere: the carriage was standing on a strange sandy spot. No wheel marks were observed nearby. The next day, a Russian greyhound came running, whose trail began from the circle. And in the days that followed, Thompson found various things. His surprise was finally replaced by irritation. Since he had never observed the appearance of objects, he concluded that this was all an intricate joke. And when there was a letter on the sand in which the correspondent kindly asked him to contact Ushatovo, the Englishman replied: “I have never considered myself a funny person and I believe that no one will force me to consider myself such. No doubt,that no Mr. Zhytomyr exists, but nevertheless, I appeal to the indicated
in a letter to the address. For "Mr. Zhitomirsky" I suspect as an opponent not some "Russian", but colleagues from the Geographical Society, who, instead of engaging in expeditionary research, wipe their chairs in their offices. I must admit that I cannot figure out these tricks. Of course, I am not convinced by the tale, which is told, probably for persuasiveness, in four languages - about the county of Ushatovo. Having delivered me a carriage (by the way, not even a Russian, but a German one) and any rubbish, you, "Count Zhitomirsky", hope to convince me in a certain spatial corridor. hemisphere binder? This is a "miracle" that you invented, probably with a good portion of brandy, to which, by the way, many of you must be smoldering addiction out of armchair boredom. Although the delivered Russian greyhound, in fact,responds to the strange nickname "Liuska" - I ask you, "Mr. Zhitomirsky": on July 20, at 4 am your time, send a live pig to me - in a way known only to you. I agree to watch the sand patch to witness the "proof." Try again to "put a pig on me." If the experiment succeeds, I am ready to treat it as a unique phenomenon. Without the respect you don't deserve. Frederick Charles Thompson."
Pavel Andreevich examined the stamps and postmarks on the message. The sender was at the end of the world in New Zealand. Stamp with kiwi bird! The postmark showed that the letter was sent from Christchurch. Postmark of the Lyttelton Port. The mark made in Liverpool. Further the cities of Europe. Finally, Petersburg, and now - Ushatovo.
The boar Andron lived in the pigsty of Count Zhitomirsky. From time to time, wildly, he chased boys and women around the village until they brought him back with stakes. They wanted to let Andron eat meat, but did not know how to approach.
Early in the morning of July 20, while still sleepy, they took him to the barn, Pavel Andreevich writes: “In order to avoid an opportunity, I strictly forbade the peasants to enter, but myself. at exactly four o'clock, going from the back side and standing behind the sand circle, he began to tease him. He rushed like a boar, but as soon as he ran into the circle, in his place it became empty."
Frederick Charles Thompson was a man of his word, and on the appointed day and hour he expected evidence from “Mr. Zhitomirsky”. Pig Andron, having overcome the space in an unconventional way, materialized in front of the Englishman, continuing the
attack launched in Ushatovo.
The "proof" completely convinced the Englishman that he was dealing with Russia. Correspondence was established with Ushatovo. "Corridor" worked in one direction, the messages from the New Zealander took a long time, but Zhitomirsky received a package - a watch with a chain. And he himself sent a goose with apples in a goose to New Zealand for English Christmas.
Charles Thompson argues in one of his letters: “Published in 1905,“The private theory of relativity of Mr. Albert Einstein gives me the opportunity to assume the following: ball lightning, which happened simultaneously in different hemispheres, in a way unknown to science, curved space, connecting your county Ushatovo with New Zealand.
Thompson was surprised that this "corridor" still remained constant, albeit one-sided. Exploring the sand circle, he even wound up an expeditionary mule on the bliss.
“I filled a glass jar with sand. But these were not quartz grains, ground with silt particles and feldspar over time. And, after two hours, the substance disappears. Such matter does not obey the physical laws known to us. I am inclined to think that your observation, my Russian colleague, regarding its homogeneity and the impossibility of a long existence of a separate part without a common whole, seems to be accurate. In the case of curvature of space, it is possible that a certain "amortization zone" should have formed from a substance that defies analysis. However, if we return to the phenomenon itself, then is it necessary to be surprised at the substance that it, this phenomenon, perhaps realizes? However, I believe that if the mass of the object suddenly turns out to be excessive, then the corridor may close, because the greater the mass of the object,the slower it is formed. Greetings from Lewski!"
The Englishman also painted the area where he studied the portal. Zhitomirsky read about geysers and about wingless kiwi birds, and he saw it as paradise!
Meanwhile, the First World War began; it took more and more time to forward letters from New Zealand. And when the revolution broke out, the messages did not reach any more. Count Zhitomirsky, under the new order, turned out to be a caretaker in the former estate, where the
agricultural commune named after Thomas More was now located. Pavel Andreevich was now thinking more and more often, whether to transport the peasants away from the "utopians" to that "paradise" on the shores of the Tasman Sea and whether to establish a Russian settlement there?
It was on such reflections that Zhitomirsky's notes were interrupted. Probably, the diary was well hidden, and, perhaps, the author was not going to return to it.
But after more than twenty years, Pavel Andreevich still briefly outlined the events associated with the spatial corridor.
He mentions an already existing settlement in New Zealand, and that some of the peasants even took their cattle with them. Immigration (through the barn) began in 1929 - with dispossession. And at the end of the 30s, Zhitomirsky also rescued the "unreliable", who
would not have been saved with the order. With his help, it also happened that a zealous Chekist, inclined to see in Pavel Andreevich an enemy of the world proletariat, also moved.
The manager invited him to the barn "to see one strange thing."
The diary ends with the words: “The crew of one of the“Tigers”found entertainment - after the evening schnapps they drive around the village like Andron the boar, only shouting from the tower“Der Kreig muss im Raum verlegt warden”, that is:“War must be transferred to space!"
This prompted me to decide to lure this Tiger "to the barn. Why is a drunk fascist not a pig? And I am the same road that the carriage once opened … But the German cart will be different now."
The tank, as Thompson assumed, must have “overloaded” the spatial corridor. There was no new information about the portal in the village of Ushatovo. It is not known how the fate of Zhitomirsky in New Zealand developed. The Russian community on the shores of the Tasman Sea existed until the 70s. With the change of generations, as it happens, it disintegrated. And the local rangers are only wondering how a tank from the Second World War came to their coast? It is still located near the town of Greymouth in the tree ferns.