Stories from different years. First thing. Fazil Iskander Iskander f evening road

My aunt told me:

You'll have to go to the mill - your uncle will go to the board and disappear for the whole day.

I had never gone to the mill alone before, so I was happy, but pretended that nothing special had happened.

Well, we can go,” I answered.

I had to catch the donkey. Taking a large red ear of corn from the pantry, I went looking for it. I found him in the field, where Arapka - that was the donkey's name - was nibbling the skinny pre-winter grass between the cornhusks.

Having noticed me from a distance, the donkey raised its head: what else is there? Just in case, he turned his back, but continued to watch my movements sideways. He and I spoke silently to each other:

Me: Oddball, why are you bristling?

Arapka. We know your tricks.

I. Honestly, I’ll pass, that’s all.

Arapka. Well, well, let's see. What's that in your hand?

ME: This? Yes, I want to feed the pig some corn, but somehow I can’t see it.

Arapka. You know, I liked this cob.

Me: No, no!

Arapka. I just wish I could try it!

Me: It’s somehow inconvenient.

Arapka. I'll just try...

ME: Okay. So be it

I was already standing three steps away from him, and he reached out to me with his shaggy muzzle, his dark sad eyes with long sparse eyelashes. He breathed warmly on my hand and nibbled a whole handful of grain from the cob with a crack. A minute later, I threw away the stalk like a gnawed bone, and, grabbing the short crew cut of the donkey’s mane, I jumped onto Arapka’s back.

At home I saddled him, pulled out a tail rope and attached it to the pommel of a wooden saddle. Then he began to tighten the rope girths, but the donkey decided to cheat and inflated his belly so that the girths would not press. However, I noticed this and slapped my belly several times with my palm, pressed on my belly with my knee and tightened the girth. I tied the donkey and went into the kitchen. I needed to have a snack. The aunt cut up cold mamalyga, fried some cheese and poured young, not yet fermented wine from the decanter. I tried to eat calmly and focused. This is how my uncle ate, preparing to leave for a long time. I drank two glasses of wine. It was sweet and cold, it made my teeth ache pleasantly.

Together with my aunt, I loaded two bags made of goatskin onto the donkey. In some places there were corn cobs sticking out of them, which are used to plug holes in bags if there is no time to repair them. My aunt warned me to be careful on the descents, and finally said:

Tell Gerago to grind the corn bigger, but not too big.

...For three kilometers we had to walk along a flat hollow, then the descent began.

The donkey walked briskly along the path, occasionally stopping to casually grab a bunch of dry grass or a fallen leaf. On both sides of the path lay heaps of very brown walnut and small hazelnut leaves. The donkey, with its soft lips, as if blowing it away, grabbed the leaves of a small walnut, because walnut leaves have a disgusting, bitter taste, even when they are dry.

Soon the trail reached a tobacco plantation. The tobacco had long been broken, and bare stems stuck out of the ground, looking like arrows stuck into the ground. At the top of each stem swayed the plumage of small, underdeveloped leaves. I began to pull stems out of the ground and throw them like spears. Having described an arc, they splashed somewhere ahead. When one of them fell near the donkey, it got scared and ran, wildly shaking its head and kicking its hind legs. I became alarmed. If the donkey's luggage were to slide off, then it would probably be impossible to handle it alone. I tried to catch up with him, run around, running along the path across the field. It was difficult to run, my feet sank into the loose soil, and the dry tobacco stalks painfully whipped my face. Finally, Arapka himself stopped. He looked at me conciliatoryly and allowed me to approach.

I approached carefully. This is true! One of the bags fell over his neck, the other slid to the very ground and was somehow held on by the rear fastening. The tail rope broke, the fragments hung on both sides of the saddle.

In order to properly secure the bags, it was necessary to lift them, tighten the loose ropes and re-attach the bags to the saddle. But I couldn’t lift them alone. I tried to seat the donkey. I bent his neck and tried to hit him, but the donkey became stubborn, and when I hit him, he just shifted from foot to foot and wiggled his ears in bewilderment. Then I crawled under the bag and, straining as hard as I could, rolled it onto the donkey’s back. Now the ropes were free of weight, and I reattached them to the saddle. Then he pulled the bag off his back, and it took the correct position. I did the same with the other bag. He untied the tail rope, tied the broken ends together in a knot and, stepping on one of them, pulled the rope with both hands as hard as he could so that the knot would not come undone. I slipped the rope under the very tip of the tail and attached it tightly to the saddle so that it would not slide forward. After all, the descent will soon begin.

I felt hot, and, having taken off my uncle’s padded jacket, I remained in a woolen sweater.

When we entered the chestnut grove, it became gloomy, our feet walked silently along the damp path. I stepped to the side and walked along the brown chestnut leaves, raking them with my foot to find the chestnuts.

Chestnuts soon began to appear. They were brown, large and pleasantly heavy. I started to nibble on them, but there were more chestnuts than could be eaten on the go, so I decided to fill my pockets first and eat them later, when I left the grove. Some chestnuts lay in needle-shaped boxes, looking like little red hedgehogs. I took such boxes into my hands carefully so as not to prick myself, put them on a stone and broke them. Almost always two large chestnuts and one small one jumped out of them. I put the big ones in my pockets and threw the small ones away.

The donkey didn't sleep either. He parted the leaves with his lips, found chestnuts and ate them, grinning his teeth funny. But when I was about to move on, Arapka suddenly lay down. This was not enough yet! I walked up to the donkey and hit him with a branch. Arapka shuddered, but did not get up. Not very confidently, I hit him a few more times. With each blow, the donkey shuddered pitifully, moving its ears, and pretended that it was trying to get up, but could not. I got angry and hit him with all my strength. The dry branch broke with a crash and one end flew to the side. Arapka continued to lie there. I threw a piece of a branch and tiredly sat down next to the donkey.

It was quiet. Somewhere far, far away behind the grove and behind a steep cliff, a river roared. Occasionally a breeze rustled dry leaves. I felt sad, then scared. I remembered the stories of hunters about encounters with bears and even began to look for a tree where I could climb if a beast suddenly appeared.

I tried to sing to dispel the fear, but it came out false and I fell silent. It became even more scary and I felt sorry for myself. I felt something tickle in my throat and I wanted to cry.

Maybe I would have cried, but Arapka suddenly jumped up, as if he remembered something, and quickly trotted along the path. I immediately calmed down and hurried after him.

The grove suddenly ended, we came to a cliff.

The roar of the river hit my face. From here the surrounding mountains were clearly visible, wooded at the tops and almost white with chalk deposits at the foot. The houses of a Greek village were dark along the slope.

Almost from a sheer cliff, clinging to every ledge, the path bravely crawled down. At each turn it expanded to the size of a small area. I stopped at one of them, carefully tested the ground with my foot and, grabbing a crooked tree with my hand, looked into the cliff. A flat wall, all made of layered white stone, went down almost half a kilometer. There, twisting like a silver twig, sparkled the river on which the mill stood. From above it seemed strange that, being so small, she made such a menacing noise.

Going down, like a donkey, I walked sideways, putting my right leg forward and braking with my left if my right one slipped. My legs quickly got tired and began to tremble. I wanted to give in to the force that was pulling me forward, but I knew that if I accelerated my pace, I wouldn’t stop and would fall down.

In dangerous places I held on to the tail of a donkey, who had long been accustomed to this and was not offended. He just began to step even more carefully, as if feeling that the man had entrusted his life to him.

We went down unnoticed. Now we were walking along a well-trodden path. Walking became easy and pleasant. All that remained was to cross the bridge over the river, and there was the mill. The donkey timidly stepped onto the uneven, here and there rotten logs of the bridge. I thought that all animals, except goats, and especially horses, do not like and are afraid to walk across the bridge.

Miller Gerago came out to meet me.

You want gyaldi! - I greeted him in Turkish, pretending not to notice his surprise.

Safa gyaldi! - the miller smiled.

Armenians, Georgians, Greeks and Abkhazians live in this part of Abkhazia. They speak Russian and Turkish among themselves.

Gerago tied the donkey at the door, took off both bags and easily carried them inside with bent arms. I wanted to take Arapka’s saddle off, but, thinking that the donkey’s back was wet and he might catch a cold, I only loosened the girths.

There was a fire burning on the earthen floor of the mill. Water was heated in a cast iron pot standing on the fire. Apparently, Gerago was going to cook hominy. Thinking about hominy, I felt hungry and remembered chestnuts. I gave Gerago a treat and began to gnaw on it myself. The miller did not chew the chestnuts with his teeth, but somehow pressed the peel with his fingers and put the already peeled kernel into his mouth. I also tried to discreetly crush the chestnut peel with my fingers, but I was unsuccessful.

Gerago was a man of few words. While we were sitting by the fire, he only asked how it was at home.

Having received the answer, he nodded and fell silent. He was considered deaf, so they talked to him little, and he himself did not get involved in conversation unnecessarily. I thought: “Maybe he’s not deaf at all, but it’s just always noisy at the mill and that’s why he has to shout?” I wanted to check my guess, and I quietly said:

Uncle Gerago...

The miller adjusted the fire and, frowning from the smoke, moved the wood.

Uncle Gerago! - I said louder. But the miller did not hear again.

Uncle Gerago!

The miller raised his head and looked at me sternly. I felt ashamed and scared. But Gerago suddenly smiled and lowered his head again. I looked at his face with a sloping forehead and large bull eyelids under fused eyebrows, I looked at his strong shoulders, at his huge knee, tightly covered with a soldier's riding breeches. Gerago squatted and fanned the fire. When he raised his head to take a breath, two small fires danced in his eyes.

We sat by the fire on heavy chestnut logs. Gerago filled his pipe, rolled out a coal from the fire and, rolling it in his palms, put it into the pipe. Then he began stirring hominy in a cast iron pot. The spatula with which he stirred seemed like a toy in his hand, although it was of normal size. When Gerago turned her, the sleeve of the shirt would ride up and expose her large wrist. I secretly compared it with my own; my own hand seemed shamefully thin and thin. I flexed my arm and felt the muscles. This reassured me a little: the muscles were not weaker.

They ate hot mamalyga with bekmez, washing it down with sour milk. Bekmez, made from apple juice, was thick and fragrant, like honey.

Having eaten my fill, I sat comfortably on the couch, leaning my back against the sacks of corn. For some reason, Gerago came out, and the millstone began to spin faster. Flour from under the stone now fell more often, and a trickle of it, falling into the glow of the fire, flared up like gold. I realized that the miller had released more water. To check if the corn was ground too coarsely, I reached into the drawer and scooped up a handful of flour. It was warm, almost hot, and ground just right. I poured it back out and quickly shook my hand off.

Gerago entered, easily and gracefully picked up the second bag and poured it into the bunker.

“Now soon,” I thought. Trick-track-track-track, trick-track-track-track... - the mill wheel made noise. It seemed to me that this noise resembled a familiar song. I started singing it and heard the wheel beating out the same tune. And no matter what song I remembered, each one could be sung to the sound of a mill wheel.

It was pleasant to sit by the fire, look at Gerago, at the fire, at the millstone, at the stream of flour flying from under it. A cozy warmth spread throughout my body and I thought about all the good things. I felt that I loved Gerago, my aunt, my donkey and everyone in the world, and they all loved me too. I also thought about what I would become when I grew up. At first I wanted to be as big and strong as Gerago, to lift any bags just as easily and beautifully, to run the mill faster and slower.

Then I thought it would be much better to become a driver. But in the end I settled on the fact that it is best to be a projectionist: you can watch the pictures yourself for free and show it to everyone.

I remembered the projectionist Valiko. He came to our village several times a year. Before showing the film, Valiko would go to someone’s house for “bread and salt,” get drunk on chacha, and release the film late. And sometimes he even went to bed, and the motor mechanic worked instead of him. And yet no one was offended by him, because cinema in the mountains is a rarity. We were happy about what we had. But Valiko became completely insolent. I recently arrived with a transfer. Everyone found out and went to the board. We gathered in the courtyard, hung two sheets on the wall, and brought out benches. They wait and wait, but still no sign of Valiko. And what? It turns out that he went to the very edge of the village, to a wedding. The owner of the house decided to show off an incredible feast where they would show movies. They spun the tape all night, and between parts they made toasts and blew wine from the horn. The places we liked were repeated several times. The wedding was a great success. But the collective farm chairman got angry and the next day did not give the filmmakers horses.

Carry your movie with you,” he said.

Valiko also got angry and replied:

I won't put my foot in this hole again! I'm carrying out the plan anyway.

Since then, not a single painting has been seen in the village.

...When all the corn was ground, Gerago grabbed both bags, now tightly filled with flour, and left the mill. He quickly tightened the girths and loaded Arapka. I noticed that the donkey did not try to inflate his belly when Gerago was tightening his girths. And when he was adjusting the bags, he even ducked down - apparently he was afraid of the huge miller.

“Hurry up,” Gerago said goodbye. - No matter how night comes on the way.

I quickly walked along the path, and the donkey walked ahead, carefully tapping its hooves and creaking its luggage. I planted my feet, using every rut, every stone. This makes the steep climb easier; it feels like climbing stairs. I was thinking about how tomorrow at school I would tell him that I went to the mill myself. Then I remembered that the holidays were coming soon and everyone would gather in the schoolyard. Adult children will wrestle, push stones and play football. I need to hurry my aunt to sew a new red shirt as soon as possible, otherwise she puts it off every day. It’s nice to put on a new shirt, but it’s somehow uncomfortable the first time. She is embarrassingly beautiful and completely pure, and everyone notices her.

But still nice.

When I climbed the steepest climb, the sun had already set behind the mountain, but still gilded the top of the most distant ridges.

There was a fresh, brooding breeze blowing up here.

We stopped to rest. Having rested, the donkey walked faster, and now I could barely keep up with him. Arapka knew: the sooner he came home, the sooner he would be free of his luggage. Besides, he was afraid of the dark. It was already completely dark in the grove where we had now entered. The path was barely white, the bushes rustled mysteriously, and at times it seemed as if someone was sneaking from behind. I quickly looked around, but the one who was sneaking always managed to jump behind a tree.

Not far from the house, a swinging lantern emerged from the darkness. It was my uncle who was coming towards me. When Arapka and I approached, he gave way and let us go ahead.

How is Gerago? - asked my uncle.

“Everything is fine,” I replied.

When we entered the yard, a dog rushed towards us barking, but, recognizing its own, it squealed joyfully and began jumping and circling around me and Arapka. I tied the donkey to the lattice of the veranda and entered the house. Auntie, standing at the door, kissed me and said:

And I was exhausted here, I thought something had happened to you.

What could have happened? - I said and pulled away from her caress.

I sat down by the fire and stretched my legs. They ached sweetly from fatigue, and it was wonderful to sit like that by the fire, not moving, and know that there was no need to go anywhere else. I heard my uncle enter the yard, slamming the gate. He walked up to the house, hung up the lantern, took off the bags and placed them on a bench on the veranda. Then he shouted at the donkey to stand still, pulled off his saddle and also threw it on the bench. Then he spent a long time wiping the sweat off his back with a rag, then pushed away the dog that was hovering around his feet. She howled, but immediately barked into the darkness to show that she was not offended. Creaking the door, my uncle went into the pantry and brought out several ears of corn. Then he went off somewhere, and the donkey gnawed at the corn for a long time, sniffling and chewing the grains juicily.

When, after dinner, I went to bed, I dreamed that I was a projectionist and was showing a new film at the village council club. But as soon as the first part ended, for some reason I found myself next to my school friend. More around the city. “I was watching the movie,” I told him. He smiled and shook his head: “Well, you’re lying!” To tell the truth, I myself was embarrassed by the fact that I was somehow divided. One I showed the picture, and the other watched. And in the whole club I was the only one who knew that the projectionist and I were one person. I approached the projectionist and, feeling in advance that he would not recognize me, said: “You are me.” The mechanic laughed on purpose so that no one would believe me. But then the collective farm chairman suddenly appeared and shouted at the mechanic: “Are you here again?” He turned pale and immediately looked like Valiko. “I won’t set foot here!” - he said and left the club...

This morning when I woke up, the first thing I saw was a new red shirt hanging on the headboard of my bed. Apparently my aunt sewed it at night while I was sleeping.

Iskander Fazil Abdulovich Russia, 03/06/1929 Born on March 6, 1929 in Sukhumi in the family of an artisan. He graduated from high school and received a library education. In the 1950s, Iskander came to Moscow, entered the Literary Institute, from which he graduated in 1954. Already in his student years he began to publish (first publications in 1952). Writes poems. Works as a journalist in Kursk, then in Bryansk. In 1959 - editor in the Abkhaz department of the State Publishing House. The first collections of poetry - Mountain Paths (1957), The Kindness of the Earth (1959), Green Rain (1960) and others - received good reviews from critics and recognition from readers. Since 1962, his stories began to be published in the magazine Yunost and Nedelya. In 1966, from these stories, the author collected the first book, Forbidden Fruit. However, his truly widespread fame comes from the publication in the New World of the Kozlotur Constellation (1966). The stories and stories were warmly received: On a Summer Day (1969), The Tree of Childhood (1970). Of particular interest in his work was the cycle of short stories by Sandro from Chegem (1973). In 1979, for Metropol, Iskander gave the satire The Little Giant of Big Sex. Iskander wrote children's stories - Chick's Day (1971) and Chick's Defense (1983), which formed the basis for the book of stories Chick's Childhood (1993). In 1982, the writer’s work, Rabbits and Boas, was published in the magazine Youth, which had extraordinary success. In 1987 he published a book of poems, The Path; in 1990 - the story The Station of Man; in 1991 – a book of journalism Poets and Tsars; in 1993 – Poems and the novel Man and His Surroundings. In 1995, the story Sofichka was published in the magazine Znamya. F.

...At the back of the kitchen hung wicker baskets in which chickens were laying. How they knew how to rush into these baskets remained a mystery to me. I stood on tiptoe and felt the egg. Feeling like both a Baghdad thief and a successful pearl diver, I sucked out my prey, immediately smashing it against the wall. Somewhere nearby, chickens clucked doomedly. Life seemed meaningful and beautiful. Healthy air, healthy food - and I was filled with juice, like a pumpkin in a well-manured garden.

In the house I found two books: Mayne Reid's "The Headless Horseman" and William Shakespeare's "Tragedies and Comedies." The first book shocked me. The names of the heroes sounded like sweet music: Maurice the Mustanger, Louise Poindexter, Captain Cassius Colhoun, El Coyote and, finally, in all the splendor of Spanish splendor, Isidora Covarubi de Los Llanos.

“Beg your pardon, captain,” said Maurice the mustanger and put the pistol to his head.

Oh God! He's headless!

It's a mirage! - exclaimed the captain."

I read the book from beginning to end, from end to beginning, and twice diagonally...

Let's just talk like that. Let's talk about things that are optional and therefore pleasant. Let's talk about the funny properties of human nature embodied in our friends. There is no greater pleasure than talking about some of the strange habits of our friends. After all, we talk about this as if listening to our own healthy normality, and at the same time we mean that we could allow ourselves such deviations, but we don’t want to, we don’t need it. Or maybe we still want to?

One of the funny properties of human nature is that every person strives to complete his own image, imposed on him by the people around him. Others squeak and play out.

If, say, those around you wanted to see you as a performance mule, no matter how much you resist, nothing will happen. By your resistance, on the contrary, you will gain a foothold in this title. Instead of being a simple dutiful mule, you will turn into a stubborn or even embittered mule.

True, in some cases a person manages to impose his desired image on others. Most often, people who drink a lot, but regularly, succeed in this.

What a good person they say he would be if he didn’t drink. They say this about one of my friends: they say, a talented engineer of human souls ruins his talent with wine. Try to say out loud that, firstly, he is not an engineer, but a technician of human souls, and secondly, who saw his talent? You can’t say it, because it sounds ignoble. The man already drinks, and you still complicate his life with all sorts of slander. If you can't help the drinker, then at least don't bother him.

But still, a person plays out the image that is imposed on him by the people around him. Here's an example.

Once, when I was at school, the whole class worked on a vacant lot at the seaside, trying to turn it into a place for cultural recreation. Oddly enough, they actually did.

We planted the vacant lot with eucalyptus seedlings, a method of nest planting that was advanced for that time. True, when there were few seedlings left, and there was still enough free space in the vacant lot, we began to plant one seedling per hole, thus giving the opportunity for the new, progressive method and the old one to express themselves in free competition.

A few years later, a beautiful eucalyptus grove grew in the wasteland, and it was no longer possible to distinguish between nesting plantings and single ones. Then they said that single seedlings in the immediate vicinity of the nesting ones, envying them with Good Envy, catch up and grow without falling behind.

One way or another, now, when I come to my hometown, sometimes in the heat I rest under our now huge trees and feel like an Excited Patriarch. In general, eucalyptus grows very quickly, and anyone who wants to feel like an Excited Patriarch can plant eucalyptus and wait for its tall crowns to jingle like Christmas tree decorations.

But it's not that. The fact is that on that long-ago day, when we were cultivating a vacant lot, one of the guys drew the attention of the others to how I was holding the stretcher on which we were dragging the earth. The military instructor who was looking after us also noticed how I was holding the stretcher. Everyone noticed how I held the stretcher. It was necessary to find a reason for fun, and a reason was found. It turned out that I was holding the stretcher like a Notorious Lazy Man.

This was the first crystal that fell out of the solution, and then the busy process of crystallization began, which I myself now helped in order to finally crystallize in the given direction.

Now everything worked for the image. If I sat on a math test, not bothering anyone, calmly waiting for my friend to solve the problem, then everyone attributed this to my laziness, not stupidity. Naturally, I did not try to dissuade anyone from this. When I wrote Russian writing directly from my head, without using textbooks and cheat sheets, this all the more served as proof of my incorrigible laziness.

To stay in character, I stopped performing duties as a duty officer. They got used to this so much that when one of the students forgot to perform duty duties, the teachers, amid the approving noise of the class, forced me to erase from the board or drag physical instruments into the classroom. However, there were no instruments then, but we had to carry some things.

The development of the image led to the fact that I was forced to stop doing homework. At the same time, in order to keep the situation sharp, I had to study well enough.

For this reason, every day, as soon as the explanation of the material in humanities subjects began, I lay down on my desk and pretended to be dozing. If the teachers were outraged by my posture, I would say that I was sick, but I didn’t want to miss class to keep up. Lying on my desk, I listened carefully to the teacher’s voice, without being distracted by the usual pranks, and tried to remember everything he said. After explaining the new material, if there was time left, I volunteered to answer for the future lesson.

This pleased the teachers because it flattered their pedagogical pride. It turned out that they conveyed their subject so well and clearly that the students, even without using textbooks, learned everything.

The teacher gave me a good grade in the journal, the bell rang, and everyone was happy. And no one except me knew that the knowledge I had just recorded was collapsing from my head, like a barbell collapsing from a weightlifter’s hands after the judge’s sound: “The weight is taken!”

To be completely accurate, it must be said that sometimes, when I was lying on my desk, pretending to be dozing, I actually fell into a doze, although I continued to hear the teacher’s voice. Much later I learned that this, or almost this, method is used to learn languages. I think it won’t look too immodest if I now say that its discovery belongs to me. I am not talking about cases of complete falling asleep, because they were rare.

After some time, rumors about the Notorious Lazy Person reached the school principal, and for some reason he decided that it was I who stole the telescope, which disappeared from the geography office six months ago. I don't know why he decided that. Perhaps the very idea of ​​at least a visual reduction in distance, he decided, could most seduce a lazy person. I don't find any other explanation. Fortunately, they found the telescope, but they continued to look closely at me, for some reason expecting that I was going to pull some kind of trick. It soon became clear that I was not going to pull any tricks, that, on the contrary, I was a very obedient and conscientious lazy person. Moreover, being lazy, I studied quite well.

Then they decided to apply the method of massive education to me, which was fashionable in those years. Its essence was that all the teachers suddenly piled on one careless student and, taking advantage of his confusion, brought his academic performance to exemplary brilliance.

The idea of ​​the method was that after this other careless students, envying him with Good Envy, would themselves catch up to his level, like single plantings of eucalyptus trees. The effect was achieved by the surprise of a massive attack. Otherwise, the student could slip away or spoil the method itself.

As a rule, the experiment was a success. Before the small heap formed by the massive attack had time to dissolve, the transformed student stood among the best, impudently smiling with the embarrassed smile of the dishonored.

In this case, the teachers, envying each other, perhaps not with a very Good Envy, jealously watched in the magazine how he was improving his performance, and, of course, everyone tried to ensure that the performance curve in the segment of his subject did not disturb the victorious steepness. Either they piled on me too much, or they forgot my own decent level, but when they began to sum up the results of the experience of working on me, it turned out that I had been brought to the level of a candidate for medalist.

You’ll get the silver one,” the class teacher once announced, looking anxiously into my eyes.

Iskander, Fazil Abdulovich(b. 1929), Russian writer. Born on March 6, 1929 in Sukhumi. The father, an Iranian by origin, was expelled from the USSR in 1938, the boy grew up with relatives on his mother’s (Abkhaz) side. He entered the Moscow Library Institute, in 1951 he transferred to the Literary Institute named after. A.M. Gorky (graduated in 1954). He was a literary employee of the newspapers “Bryansky Komsomolets” (1954–1955) and “Kurskaya Pravda” (1955–1956). He began publishing in 1952. From 1956 until the early 1990s, he lived in Sukhumi, worked at the Abkhaz State Publishing House, and regularly published poems in the magazine “Literary Abkhazia”; published books of poems Mountain Peaks (1957), The Kindness of the Earth (1959), Green Rain (1960), Children of the Black Sea (1961), Youth of the Sea (1964). Since the late 1950s, he has also been published in the magazines “Youth”, “Week” and “New World” along with V.P. Aksenov, O.G. Chukhontsev and others, having written the stories The Rooster, The Story of the Sea, Debtors, My uncle has the most honest rules (collections The Thirteenth Labor of Hercules, Forbidden Fruit, both 1966, etc.), in which he proved himself to be a master of colorful satirical sketches and ethnographic everyday life.

Instant and loud fame was brought to Iskander by the story Constellation of Kozlotur (1966) - a story full of humor and grotesquery about a typical phenomenon of the Soviet era, the next “initiation”. An Abkhazian village has been ordered to urgently start crossing a goat with a tour to breed some unusually productive breed. “It’s a good start, but not for our collective farm” - this formula for a cautious and firm rejection of an ignorant and ruinous “experiment” has become popular. The fusion of bright, with a precise sense of national character, literary ethnography, a rich comic palette (from gentle humor to merciless sarcasm), “chamber” lyricism and socio-political denunciation, the two-dimensionality of “Aesopian” language and the richness of lively colloquial speech, characteristic of Iskander, manifested in the story It is also distinguished by numerous works of memoirs by Iskander, written on behalf of (or through the introduction of this image) Sandro, a folk hero, an old man and a young man at the same time. The central one is the novel Sandro from Chegem (1973–1988, complete ed. 1989), consisting of separate fragments published since 1966 (the story of the same name, Uncle Sandro and the shepherd Kunta, Chegem gossip, Shepherd Mahaz, etc.), in which the main the hero claims a role akin to the images of Till Eulenspiegel or Khoja Nasreddin - a rogue and a sage, an exponent of the national character and popular “fronde”, and where the history of the country and, in it, the Abkhaz people is conveyed through the prism of his mocking and revealing perception (the chapter of Pira is especially noteworthy here Belshazzar, where, along with fictional characters, there are grotesque parodic images of Stalin, Kalinin, Beria, etc.). The problem of the catastrophic discrepancy between the patriarchal world of the national “outskirts” and the Soviet “metropolis” with its political and economic dictates is also highlighted in “children’s”, imbued, like all of Iskander’s work, with autobiographical-memoir motifs, novellas and stories about Chika (including . Defense of Chick, 1983), in the stories The Beginning, Trout Fishing in the Upper Kodor, which even caused accusations of nationalism among some critics, On a Summer Day, Letter, Meeting on the Train, Poor Demagogue (all 1969), etc., up to the nostalgic-sounding stories The light of gloomy youth (1990), the novel Man and His Surroundings (1992–1993), the story Sofichka (1995).

Metaphorical nudity, in the spirit and style of the world dystopia of the 20th century. (E.I. Zamyatin, O. Huxley, J. Orwell), the philosophical and political fairy tale by Iskander Rabbits and Boas (1982, USA; 1987, Moscow) stands out, in which the state, led by the dictator Great Python and consisting of on the one hand, from the snake-eaters, and on the other, from silently, with the blessing of their King, rabbits and dumb native workers coming to them for food, branded with stinging satire in all its layers, who agreed to such an unnatural and cannibalistic “social contract” . The writer offers a unique form of protest (freedom to commit suicide in response to death under duress).

The seriousness of specific psychological analysis in the context of the moral atmosphere of the entire society is marked by Iskander's story The Sea Scorpion (1977), as well as the story The Little Giant of Big Sex (1979, filmed). The criminalization and actual dehumanization of the society of “victorious socialism” is revealed by the writer in socio-psychological and morally descriptive stories, marked by the plot sharpness of a detective story, in the stories Barmen Adgur and Chegemskaya Carmen (both 1986; the film adaptation of the latter became widely known - the film Thieves in Law, 1989), and crisis consciousness and loss of illusions of the post-Soviet society - in the stories of Pshad (1993), Thinking about Russia and the American (1997).

Iskander has been awarded a number of prestigious domestic and foreign literary awards.