Viktor Dragunsky has wonderful stories about the boy Deniska, which are called “Deniska’s stories.” Many children read these funny stories. We can say that a huge number of people grew up on these stories; “Deniska’s stories” are incredibly similar to our society, both in its aesthetic aspects and in its factuality. The phenomenon of universal love for the stories of Viktor Dragunsky is explained quite simply.

By reading small but quite meaningful stories about Deniska, children learn to compare and contrast, fantasize and dream, analyze their actions with funny laughter and enthusiasm. Dragunsky's stories are distinguished by his love for children, knowledge of their behavior, and emotional responsiveness. Deniska’s prototype is the author’s son, and the father in these stories is the author himself. V. Dragunsky wrote not only funny stories, many of which most likely happened to his son, but also a little instructive. Good and good impressions remain after thoughtfully reading Deniska’s stories, many of which were later filmed. Children and adults reread them many times with great pleasure. In our collection you can read an online list of Deniska’s stories and enjoy their world in any free minute.

“Tomorrow is the first of September,” said my mother. - And now autumn has come, and you will go to second grade. Oh, how time flies!.. “And on this occasion,” dad picked up, “we are now going to “slaughter” a watermelon!” And he took a knife and cut the watermelon. When he cut, such a full, pleasant, green crack was heard that my back went cold with anticipation of how I would eat this...

When Maria Petrovna ran into our room, she simply could not be recognized. She was all red, like Signor Tomato. She was out of breath. She looked as if she was boiling all over, like soup in a saucepan. When she rushed towards us, she immediately shouted: “Gee!” - And she fell onto the ottoman. I said: - Hello, Maria...

If you think about it, this is just some kind of horror: I have never flown on an airplane before. True, once I almost flew, but that was not the case. It broke. It's just a disaster. And this happened not so long ago. I was no longer small, although I couldn’t say I was big either. At that time, my mother was on vacation, and we were visiting her relatives, on a large collective farm. There was...

After lessons, Mishka and I collected our belongings and went home. It was wet, dirty and fun outside. It had just rained heavily, and the asphalt was shining like new, the air smelled of something fresh and clean, the houses and the sky were reflected in the puddles, and if you walked from the mountain, then from the side, near the sidewalk, a stormy stream was rushing, like a mountain river, a beautiful stream ...

As soon as we found out that our unprecedented heroes in space call each other Falcon and Berkut, we immediately decided that I would now be Berkut, and Mishka would be Falcon. Because we will still study to be cosmonauts, and Sokol and Berkut are such beautiful names! And Mishka and I also decided that as long as we were accepted into the cosmonaut school, we would be with him...

It so happened that I had several days off a week in a row, and I could do nothing for a whole week. The teachers in our class fell ill as one. Some have appendicitis, some have a sore throat, some have the flu. There is absolutely no one to do. And then Uncle Misha turned up. When he heard that I could rest for a whole week, he immediately jumped to the ceiling...

Suddenly our door swung open, and Alenka shouted from the corridor: “There’s a spring market in the big store!” She screamed terribly loudly, and her eyes were round, like buttons, and desperate. At first I thought someone had been stabbed. And she took a breath again and come on: - Let's run, Deniska! Quicker! There's fizzy kvass there! Music plays, and different dolls! Let's run! Screams as if there was a fire. And I'm from...

“Deniska’s Stories” are stories by the Soviet writer Viktor Dragunsky, dedicated to incidents from the life of a preschooler, and then a junior school student, Denis Korablev. Appearing in print since 1959, the stories became classics of Soviet children's literature, were republished many times and were filmed several times. They were included in the list of “100 books for schoolchildren” compiled in 2012. The prototype of the main character of the stories was the writer’s son Denis, and one of the stories mentions the birth of Denis’s younger sister Ksenia.

V. Dragunsky did not combine his stories into a cycle, but unity is created by: plot and thematic connections; the image of the central character - Deniski Korableva and secondary characters - Deniski's father and mother, his friends, acquaintances, teachers, also move from story to story.

In the stories of Viktor Yuzefovich, the main character, Deniska, tells various incidents from his life, shares with us his thoughts and observations. The boy constantly finds himself in funny situations. It’s especially funny when the hero and the reader have different assessments of what Deniska tells. Deniska, for example, talks about something as if it were a drama, and the reader laughs, and the more serious the narrator’s tone, the funnier it is for us. However, the writer included not only funny stories in the collection. There are also works in it that are sad in intonation. Such, for example, is the wonderful lyrical story “The Girl on the Ball,” which tells the story of first love. But the story “Childhood Friend” is especially touching. Here the author talks about gratitude and true love. Deniska decided to become a boxer, and his mother gave him an old bear as a punching bag. And then the hero remembered how he loved this toy when he was little. The boy, hiding his tears from his mother, said: “I will never be a boxer.”

In his stories, Dragunsky wittily recreates the characteristic features of children's speech, its emotionality and unique logic, “general children's” gullibility and spontaneity, which set the tone for the entire narrative. “What I love” and “...And what I don’t like!” ‒ two famous stories by Dragunsky, in the title of which the child’s own opinion is put in first place. This is stated in the enumeration of what Deniska likes and dislikes. “I really like to lie on my stomach on my dad’s knee, lower my arms and legs and hang on my knee like laundry on a fence. I also really like to play checkers, chess and dominoes, just to be sure to win. If you don’t win, then don’t.” Deniskin’s “I love” - “I don’t like” are often polemical in relation to the instructions of adults (“When I run along the corridor, I like to stomp my feet with all my might”). In the image of Deniska there is a lot that is typically childish: naivety, a penchant for invention and fantasy, and sometimes simple-minded egoism. The “mistakes” characteristic of childhood turn out to be the subject of humor and jokes, as always happens in a humorous story. On the other hand, Dragunsky’s hero has traits that indicate a fully developed personality: Deniska is resolutely opposed to any falsehood, he is receptive to beauty, and values ​​kindness. This gave critics the right to see in the image of the main character the autobiographical features of Dragunsky himself. The combination of the lyrical and comic is the main feature of V. Dragunsky’s stories about Denis.

The content of “Deniska’s Stories” is related to incidents from the ordinary life of a child - these are incidents in class, household chores, games with friends in the yard, trips to the theater and circus. But their commonness is only apparent - comic exaggeration is necessarily present in the story. Dragunsky is a master of creating the most incredible situations using everyday, even ordinary, material. The basis for them is the often paradoxical logic of children and their inexhaustible imagination. Deniska and Mishka, being late for class, attribute incredible feats to themselves (“Fire in the outbuilding, or feat in the ice”), but because everyone fantasizes in their own way, inevitable exposure follows. The boys are enthusiastically building a rocket in the yard, when launched, Deniska flies not into space, but through the window of the house management in the work “Amazing Day”. And in the story “Top down, diagonally! the children, in the absence of painters, decide to help them paint, but in the midst of the game they pour paint on the house manager. And what an incredible story is described in the children's work “Mishkina Porridge”, when Deniska does not want to eat semolina porridge and throws it out the window, which ends up on the hat of a random passerby. All these unthinkable coincidences and incidents are sometimes simply funny, sometimes they imply a moral assessment, sometimes they are designed for emotional empathy. The paradoxical logic that guides Dragunsky's heroes is the path to understanding the child. In the story “Green Leopards,” children comically talk about all kinds of diseases, finding in each of them advantages and benefits “it’s good to be sick,” says one of the heroes of the work, “when you’re sick, they always give you something.” Behind the seemingly absurd arguments of children about illnesses there is a touching request for love: “when you are sick, everyone loves you more.” For the sake of such love, a child is even ready to get sick. The children's hierarchy of values ​​seems deeply human to the writer. In the story “He is alive and glowing...” Dragunsky, in the words of a child, affirms an important truth: spiritual values ​​are higher than material ones. The objective embodiment of these concepts in the story is an iron toy that has material value and a firefly that can emit light. Deniska made an unequal exchange from an adult point of view: he exchanged a large dump truck for a small firefly. The story about this is preceded by a description of a long evening, during which Deniska is waiting for her mother. It was then that the boy fully felt the darkness of loneliness, from which he was saved by the “pale green star” in a matchbox. Therefore, when asked by her mother, “how did you decide to give up such a valuable thing as a dump truck for this worm,” Deniska replies: “How come you don’t understand? ! After all, he is alive! And it glows!..”

A very significant character in Deniska’s Stories is a father, a close and faithful friend of his son, an intelligent teacher. In the story “Watermelon Lane,” a boy is capricious at the table, refusing to eat. And then the father tells his son one episode from his military childhood. This restrained but very tragic story turns the boy’s soul upside down. The life situations and human characters described by Dragunsky are sometimes very difficult. Since the child is talking about them, individual details help to understand the meaning of everything that happens, and they are very important in Deniska’s Stories. In the story “Workers Crushing Stone,” Deniska boasts that she can jump from a water tower. From below it seems to him that doing this is “easy.” But at the very top, the boy is breathless with fear, and he begins to look for excuses for his cowardice. The fight against fear takes place against the background of the incessant sound of a jackhammer - down there, workers are crushing stone while building a road. It would seem that this detail has little to do with what is happening, but in fact it convinces of the need for perseverance, before which even a stone retreats. Cowardice also receded before Deniska’s firm decision to make the jump. In all his stories, even where we are talking about dramatic situations, Dragunsky remains faithful to his humorous manner. Many of Deniska’s statements seem funny and amusing. In the story “Motorcycle Racing on a Sheer Wall” he says the following phrase: “Fedka came to us on business - to drink tea,” and in the work “The Blue Dagger” Deniska says: “In the morning I couldn’t eat anything. I just drank two cups of tea with bread and butter, potatoes and sausage.”

But often a child’s speech (with the reservations characteristic of it) sounds very touching: “I love horses very much, they have beautiful and kind faces” (“What I love”) or “I lifted my head to the ceiling so that the tears would roll back...”(“ childhood friend). The combination of sad and comical in Dragunsky's prose reminds us of clownery, when behind the funny and absurd appearance of a clown his good heart is hidden.

On October 4, at the Yasnaya Polyana cultural center, a creative meeting of Tula residents was held with Denis Dragunsky, a writer, the prototype of the famous “Deniska's stories” by Viktor Dragunsky.

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the wonderful children's writer Viktor Dragunsky, author of Deniska's Stories. These stories were written half a century ago. Now the third generation is reading them.

Victor Dragunsky

A lot has changed during this time, he says. Denis Viktorovich Dragunsky.- When Deniska Korablev went to school, life was completely different: different streets, different cars, different yard, different houses and apartments, different shops and even food. Several families lived in a communal apartment - one room for each family. Mom and dad, two children and a grandmother used to live in one small room. Schoolchildren wrote with iron feathers, dipping them into inkwells. The boys went to school in gray uniforms that looked like soldiers' uniforms. And the girls wore brown dresses and black aprons. But on the street you could put a three-kopeck coin into the machine, and it would pour you a glass of soda with syrup. Or take two empty milk bottles to the store and get one full one in return. In general, no matter where you look, everything was completely different from what it is now.

Victor Dragunsky was often asked: “Did all this really happen? Do you know Deniska?” He answered: “Of course I know! This is my son!

At a creative meeting, Denis Viktorovich was asked questions, and he answered them frankly and with humor. And before the meeting, journalists managed to ask Dragunsky a few more questions.

- How did your peers treat you?

Absolutely wonderful. They didn’t see me as Deniska from the stories, although my dad was a few, and everyone laughed and clapped. But not a single person told me that this was about me. This is because we were taught literature very well at school, and the children understood the difference between a hero and a prototype. The questions started later. When I already became a student and the children grew up, their mothers and fathers read Deniska’s Stories to them. It was then - that is, about ten years after the first appearance of "Denis's Stories" - that the name Denis became quite popular. And when I was born, it was a very rare name. First of all, it's ancient. And secondly, some kind of folk, as if even rustic.

Friends said: “How strange Vitya Dragunsky named his son - either Denis or Gerasim!” And at school, teachers mistakenly called me Maxim, Trofim, or even Kuzma.

But now, I say, the first generation of readers of Deniska’s Stories has grown up. And they started asking me: “Is this about you? Did you come home from school or run from the yard and tell your dad, and he wrote everything down? Or did he just look at you and describe your adventures? And in general, was it all true?” There are two answers. "Of course not!" and “Of course, yes!” Both answers are correct. Of course, Viktor Dragunsky composed his “Deniska’s Stories” completely independently, without any prompting from a ten-year-old boy. And anyway, what kind of nonsense is this? It turns out that any literate person can become a children's writer in no time. Ask your child what happened at school today, write it down and run to the office! Moreover, I am sure that many children at school or in the yard had adventures a hundred times more interesting than Deniska’s. But the writer must compose himself. So all “Deniska’s stories” were invented by my dad. Perhaps, except for the story “Third Place in Butterfly Style” and a few pieces from the stories “What I Love”, “...And What I Don’t Like”. It actually happened. People especially often ask me if I poured semolina from the window onto a passerby’s hat. I declare - no, I didn’t pour it out!

Victor Dragunsky with his son Deniska

- Are the people described in the stories real?

Yes! Deniska's mom is my mom. She was a very beautiful woman with stunning green eyes. “The most beautiful mother in the whole class,” as Mishka Slonov admitted. What can we say if it was she who won a huge competition and became the host of the concert of the legendary ensemble “Berezka” in the USSR. Our teacher was Raisa Ivanovna.

Mishka and Alyonka are real people, I am still friends with Mishka. But Mishka and I couldn’t find Alenka, they say she went abroad.

There was also a dacha neighbor, Boris Klimentievich, with his dog Chapka, and Vanka Dykhov (the famous director Ivan Dykhovichny). And Alexey Akimych was the house manager.

How interested will today's children be in these stories? After all, they simply do not know many of the things that are written there.

These stories continue to be republished, which means there is a demand for them. Probably because it’s not about adventures related to things, but about the experiences, feelings of the guys, the relationship between them. About envy, lies, truth, courage... All this exists even now and it is interesting to read about it.

- Which childhood, in your opinion, is more interesting - this one or the modern one?

I was more interested in my childhood. Nowadays, it seems to me that guys spend more time on some technological things, on moving their fingers across the screen. I once calculated that I spent two weeks riding an elevator in my entire life. Can you imagine this skyscraper? Remember how Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy considered that he had been sitting in the saddle for seven years (smiles). All these endless games, gadgets, contacts are wonderful, I myself am a member of social networks and as a writer I started on LiveJournal. But this wastes time.

- How do you feel about modern children’s literature and what do you recommend children read now?

I don't really like modern children's literature.

Good children's books will appear only when they are written by those who were born in the 90s.

Previously, adults and children belonged to the same civilization; they understood each other. Now if I write a story in which the hero stands under the clock and has been waiting for his friend Mishka for half an hour, but he still doesn’t come, any child will immediately tell me: “What nonsense! What about a cell phone?” Read to your children “The Adventures of Dunno,” three absolutely wonderful volumes for young children. And, of course, “Deniska’s Stories” by Viktor Dragunsky.

“It’s alive and glowing...”

One evening I sat in the yard, near the sand, and waited for my mother. She probably stayed late at the institute, or at the store, or maybe stood at the bus stop for a long time. Don't know. Only all the parents in our yard had already arrived, and all the kids went home with them and were probably already drinking tea with bagels and cheese, but my mother was still not there...

And now the lights began to light up in the windows, and the radio began to play music, and dark clouds moved in the sky - they looked like bearded old men...

And I wanted to eat, but my mother was still not there, and I thought that if I knew that my mother was hungry and was waiting for me somewhere at the end of the world, I would immediately run to her, and would not be late and not made her sit on the sand and get bored.

And at that time Mishka came out into the yard. He said:

Great!

And I said:

Great!

Mishka sat down with me and picked up the dump truck.

Wow! - said Mishka. - Where did you get it? Does he pick up sand himself? Not yourself? And he leaves on his own? Yes? What about the pen? What is it for? Can it be rotated? Yes? A? Wow! Will you give it to me at home?

I said:

No I will not give. Present. Dad gave it to me before he left.

The bear pouted and moved away from me. It became even darker outside.

I looked at the gate so as not to miss when my mother came. But she still didn’t go. Apparently, I met Aunt Rosa, and they stand and talk and don’t even think about me. I lay down on the sand.

Here Mishka says:

Can you give me a dump truck?

Get off it, Mishka.

Then Mishka says:

I can give you one Guatemala and two Barbados for it!

I speak:

Compared Barbados to a dump truck...

Well, do you want me to give you a swimming ring?

I speak:

Yours is broken.

You'll seal it!

I even got angry:

Where to swim? In the bathroom? On Tuesdays?

And Mishka pouted again. And then he says:

Well, it was not! Know my kindness! On the!

And he handed me a box of matches. I took it in my hands.

“Open it,” said Mishka, “then you will see!”

I opened the box and at first I didn’t see anything, and then I saw a small light green light, as if somewhere far, far away from me a tiny star was burning, and at the same time I myself was holding it in my hands.

“What is this, Mishka,” I said in a whisper, “what is this?”

“This is a firefly,” said Mishka. - What, good? He's alive, don't think about it.

Bear,” I said, “take my dump truck, would you like it?” Take it forever, forever! Give me this star, I’ll take it home...

And Mishka grabbed my dump truck and ran home. And I stayed with my firefly, looked at it, looked and couldn’t get enough of it: how green it is, as if in a fairy tale, and how close it is, in the palm of your hand, but it shines as if from afar... And I couldn’t breathe evenly, and I heard my heart beating and there was a slight tingling in my nose, as if I wanted to cry.

And I sat like that for a long time, a very long time. And there was no one around. And I forgot about everyone in this world.

But then my mother came, and I was very happy, and we went home. And when they started drinking tea with bagels and feta cheese, my mother asked:

Well, how's your dump truck?

And I said:

I, mom, exchanged it.

Mom said:

Interesting! And for what?

I answered:

To the firefly! Here he is, living in a box. Turn out the light!

And mom turned off the light, and the room became dark, and the two of us began to look at the pale green star.

Then mom turned on the light.

Yes, she said, it’s magic! But still, how did you decide to give such a valuable thing as a dump truck for this worm?

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long,” I said, “and I was so bored, but this firefly, it turned out to be better than any dump truck in the world.”

Mom looked at me intently and asked:

But why, why exactly is it better?

I said:

How come you don’t understand?! After all, he is alive! And it glows!..

The secret becomes clear

I heard my mother say to someone in the hallway:

-... The secret always becomes clear.

And when she entered the room, I asked:

What does this mean, mom: “The secret becomes clear”?

“And this means that if someone acts dishonestly, they will still find out about him, and he will be ashamed, and he will be punished,” said my mother. - Got it?.. Go to bed!

I brushed my teeth, went to bed, but did not sleep, but kept thinking: how is it possible that the secret becomes apparent? And I didn’t sleep for a long time, and when I woke up, it was morning, dad was already at work, and mom and I were alone. I brushed my teeth again and started eating breakfast.

First I ate the egg. This is still tolerable, because I ate one yolk, and chopped the white with the shell so that it was not visible. But then mom brought a whole plate of semolina porridge.

Eat! - Mom said. - Without any talking!

I said:

I can’t see the semolina porridge!

But mom screamed:

Look who you look like! Looks like Koschey! Eat. You must get better.

I said:

I'm choking on her!..

Then my mother sat down next to me, hugged me by the shoulders and asked tenderly:

Do you want us to go with you to the Kremlin?

Well, of course... I don’t know anything more beautiful than the Kremlin. I was there in the Chamber of Facets and in the Armory, I stood near the Tsar Cannon and I know where Ivan the Terrible was sitting. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff there too. So I quickly answered my mother:

Of course, I want to go to the Kremlin! Even more!

Then mom smiled:

Well, eat all the porridge and let's go. In the meantime, I'll wash the dishes. Just remember - you have to eat every last bit!

And mom went into the kitchen.

And I was left alone with the porridge. I spanked her with a spoon. Then I added salt. I tried it - well, it’s impossible to eat! Then I thought that maybe there was not enough sugar? I sprinkled it with sand and tried it... It got even worse. I don't like porridge, I tell you.

And it was also very thick. If it were liquid, then it would be a different matter; I would close my eyes and drink it. Then I took it and added boiling water to the porridge. It was still slippery, sticky and disgusting. The main thing is that when I swallow, my throat itself contracts and pushes this mess back out. It's a shame! After all, I want to go to the Kremlin! And then I remembered that we have horseradish. It seems you can eat almost anything with horseradish! I took the whole jar and poured it into the porridge, and when I tried a little, my eyes immediately popped out of my head and my breathing stopped, and I probably lost consciousness, because I took the plate, quickly ran to the window and threw the porridge out onto the street. Then he immediately returned and sat down at the table.

At this time my mother entered. She looked at the plate and was delighted:

What a guy Deniska is! I ate all the porridge to the bottom! Well, get up, get dressed, working people, let's go for a walk to the Kremlin! - And she kissed me.

One evening I sat in the yard, near the sand, and waited for my mother. She probably stayed late at the institute, or at the store, or maybe stood at the bus stop for a long time. Don't know. Only all the parents in our yard had already arrived, and all the kids went home with them and were probably already drinking tea with bagels and cheese, but my mother was still not there...

And now the lights began to light up in the windows, and the radio began to play music, and dark clouds moved in the sky - they looked like bearded old men...

And I wanted to eat, but my mother was still not there, and I thought that if I knew that my mother was hungry and was waiting for me somewhere at the end of the world, I would immediately run to her, and would not be late and not made her sit on the sand and get bored.

And at that time Mishka came out into the yard. He said:

- Great!

And I said:

- Great!

Mishka sat down with me and picked up the dump truck.

- Wow! - said Mishka. - Where did you get it? Does he pick up sand himself? Not yourself? And he leaves on his own? Yes? What about the pen? What is it for? Can it be rotated? Yes? A? Wow! Will you give it to me at home?

I said:

- No I will not give. Present. Dad gave it to me before he left.

The bear pouted and moved away from me. It became even darker outside.

I looked at the gate so as not to miss when my mother came. But she still didn’t go. Apparently, I met Aunt Rosa, and they stand and talk and don’t even think about me. I lay down on the sand.

Here Mishka says:

- Can you give me a dump truck?

- Get off it, Mishka.

Then Mishka says:

– I can give you one Guatemala and two Barbados for it!

I speak:

– Compared Barbados to a dump truck...

- Well, do you want me to give you a swimming ring?

I speak:

- It's broken.

- You will seal it!

I even got angry:

- Where to swim? In the bathroom? On Tuesdays?

And Mishka pouted again. And then he says:

- Well, it wasn’t! Know my kindness! On the!

And he handed me a box of matches. I took it in my hands.

“You open it,” said Mishka, “then you will see!”

I opened the box and at first I didn’t see anything, and then I saw a small light green light, as if somewhere far, far away from me a tiny star was burning, and at the same time I was holding it in my hands.

“What is this, Mishka,” I said in a whisper, “what is this?”

“This is a firefly,” said Mishka. - What, good? He's alive, don't think about it.

“Bear,” I said, “take my dump truck, would you like it?” Take it forever, forever! Give me this star, I’ll take it home...

And Mishka grabbed my dump truck and ran home. And I stayed with my firefly, looked at it, looked and couldn’t get enough of it: how green it was, as if in a fairy tale, and how close it was, in the palm of my hand, but shining as if from afar... And I couldn’t breathe evenly, and I heard my heart beating and there was a slight tingling in my nose, as if I wanted to cry.

And I sat like that for a long time, a very long time. And there was no one around. And I forgot about everyone in this world.

But then my mother came, and I was very happy, and we went home. And when they started drinking tea with bagels and feta cheese, my mother asked:

- Well, how is your dump truck?

And I said:

- I, mom, exchanged it.

Mom said:

- Interesting! And for what?

I answered:

- To the firefly! Here he is, living in a box. Turn out the light!

And mom turned off the light, and the room became dark, and the two of us began to look at the pale green star.

Then mom turned on the light.

“Yes,” she said, “it’s magic!” But still, how did you decide to give such a valuable thing as a dump truck for this worm?

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long,” I said, “and I was so bored, but this firefly, it turned out to be better than any dump truck in the world.”

Mom looked at me intently and asked:

- And in what way, in what way is it better?

I said:

- How come you don’t understand?! After all, he is alive! And it glows!..

I only have A's on my report card. Only in penmanship is a B. Because of the blots. I really don't know what to do! Blots always jump off my pen. I only dip the very tip of the pen into ink, but the blots still jump off. Just some miracles! Once I wrote a whole page that was pure, pure, and delightful to look at—a real A page. In the morning I showed it to Raisa Ivanovna, and there was a blot in the very middle! Where did she come from? She wasn't there yesterday! Maybe it was leaked from some other page? Don't know…

And so I have only A's. Only a C in singing. This is how it happened. We had a singing lesson. At first we all sang in chorus “There was a birch tree in the field.” It turned out very beautifully, but Boris Sergeevich kept wincing and shouting:

– Pull out your vowels, friends, pull out your vowels!..

Then we began to draw out the vowels, but Boris Sergeevich clapped his hands and said:

– A real cat concert! Let's deal with each one individually.

This means with each individual separately.

And Boris Sergeevich called Mishka.

Mishka went up to the piano and whispered something to Boris Sergeevich.

Then Boris Sergeevich began to play, and Mishka quietly sang:

Like on thin ice

A little white snow fell...

Well, Mishka squeaked funny! This is how our kitten Murzik squeaks. Is that really how they sing? Almost nothing can be heard. I just couldn't stand it and started laughing.

Then Boris Sergeevich gave Mishka a high five and looked at me.

He said:

- Come on, laugher, come out!

I quickly ran to the piano.

- Well, what will you perform? – Boris Sergeevich asked politely.

I said:

– Song of the Civil War “Lead us, Budyonny, boldly into battle.”

Boris Sergeevich shook his head and began to play, but I immediately stopped him.