Chapter 10, Part 3: "Seryozha, he's gone..."

My wife, Lena, met me, holding our infant daughter, Polina, in her arms. We gave ourselves over to marital bliss and didn't even notice how a couple of days had flown by. We turn on the TV in the morning, and there it is... Swan Lake on every single channel... we turn on the radio – it's the exact same picture. Someone must have died, we thought... but who?... the President was in good health, vacationing in Foros, a fact we had been made aware of the day before by the TVs hanging in the airport. We dropped by the Lyskovskys' – they didn't understand what was going on either. Finally, the ballet broadcast was interrupted. A group of elderly people with stone faces and trembling hands appeared on the screen to announce that the country was in deep shit and in need of an immediate washing. Naturally, during the first hours of the GKChP, no one knew how this would end. We worried sick about our friends who had stayed behind in the capital with pockets full of money.