A RUSSIAN FIREMAN

When the bells go down in Izhevsk, Russia, Leading Fireman Sergey Pilin and his "troop"are one of the units to answer the alarm. Izhevsk, a city of 700,000 people located 600 miles southeast of Moscow has fifteen fire stations. Sergey's station is one that protects oilfields near the city.



The Russian Fire Service is a national fire service, (formerly part of the Army,) and fire trucks all over Russia have similar colors and markings because of this. Although some large cities buy some apparatus manufactured outside Russia, companies within the country produce excellent fire trucks. Many are rugged heavy-duty vehicles built on military truck chassis. The young kid next to the fire truck is Stas (Stanislaus), Sergey's son.



An interesting language sidelight -- In the United States, firemen and women are usually known as 'firefighters.' In Russia, the word 'firefighter' (поджигатель -- pod zhy' ga tel) refers to a criminal who sets fires or destroys property for money or false insurance claims.



Sergey is married to Marina, a Standardization Engineer, and has a married daughter Irina who lives in Austria. His oldest son Dimitry works at the Kalashnikov gun manufacturing plant and is married to Eugenia. Stanislaus ("Stas"), 17, lives at home and attends technical school for Insurance studies. Vasya, the Siberian cat and Layma the poodle fill out the household.



Sergey and his family are Orthodox Christians and there's a pic of his church somewhere in here.



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I wrote this story over a year ago. In the meantime, Sergey got promoted to a command position in Fire headquarters - later resigned from that job for another - and the new job became unavailable somehow. He gets Russian 'Unemployment Compensation'. Marina still works. He complains that the world money crisis makes it hard to find jobs, especially at his age (early 50's). That's all I know until I write him again, and I will share that with you. Ta!