Red

Mikhail Sergeyevich Lucachevsky was born in Surgut in 1956 as the fourth child of an impoverished family proud of its military tradition. From a very young age, it was clear to him that he wanted to serve his country once day as a professional soldier. As a child, he was always close to his army officer father whenever he could. He finished school with poor results. We learned to read with great difficulty; he mostly liked to flip through the pages of books about the glorious past of the Red Army. At 16, he got a job as a cleaner at a trading company; however, he was let go within a year due to his tendency to daydream and sleep attacks. He then joined the army with the help of his father. He was most likely suffering from narcolepsy; he fell asleep at the most unexpected times. This posed a serious difficulty while serving as a soldier. He was assigned to an infantry regiment, where he often fell asleep and got lost during exercises. Subsequently, his father took him under his wings in the reconnaissance squadron he was leading. After ruining multiple pieces of equipment, not even his father was able to help him keep his post as a radio operator. He asked a high-ranking friend of his for assistance, so they boy was assigned to an armoured infantry regiment. His father was deployed in Hungary in 1977 and he took his then 19-year-old son with him. His father had to save his hide in many tight situations. He was said to have been found at the site of multiple strange incidents. In 1978, he stole a battle tank and broke out of his barracks in Bócsa, saying that he was going “home” to Mukachevo in the Soviet Union because his superiors allegedly refused to give him leave for his brother’s funeral. He ran over and killed or injured several people. He didn’t reach his goal; he was caught and arrested by the Soviet authorities well before he even reached the border. During all this, Mikhail was sleeping in the tank. In 1986, he was stationed in Hajmáskér. He was out drinking with his fellow soldiers in a pub in Gyulafirátót one night. There, an argument started between them and the Hungarian regulars about the result of an earlier Soviet-Hungarian football match. During the argument, one of his fellow soldiers left and came back with a tank, running over someone and killing them in front of the building. His father fell in love with a single German woman while stationed in Hungary and cut all contact with his family living in the Soviet Union. He died in 1988 after a few months of struggle with pancreatic cancer. He entrusted his friend, Lieutenant General Soliv, with looking after his son. The Soviet troops left Hungary in 1991. Lieutenant General Soliv sent Mikhail home with the last armoured infantry regiment. Soliv’s last words to him were the following: “Don’t worry, not all is lost; the red flag always shines brightly”. The last night before the march home, Mikhail dreamt that he was sitting on a beach and everything was blanketed in a red glow. He practically worshipped the colour red. He interpreted the words of his beloved Lieutenant General as confirmation that the troops will soon return. So during the loading of the tanks onto trains, he hid and fell asleep in a railcar of a train heading to Debrecen from Záhony. In the meantime, Lieutenant General Soliv, sat in his Volga and left Hungary as the last Soviet soldier, wearing civilian clothes. Mikhail woke up in Debrecen. This is where his new life started. He felt like the troops only left as a rouse and they would be back soon. He became obsessed with the colour red. He believed he discovered signs everywhere and he left his own signs too, all the while diligently exercising in hopes of the return of the troops. He often tried to call the Lieutenant General on the phone and even sent him a messenger pigeon. Generally, he didn’t move about much in the city or only at night, hiding from people. He later gradually gave up his incognito and both his closer and wider surroundings got used to his presence. He took on temporary jobs on the fields. In the summer, he lived in an abandoned weekend house on the banks of the Eastern Main Canal, while in the winter, he took shelter in a tower block in Csapó street, where a single elderly woman, whom he met at a flea market and who used to work as a Russian teacher, took him in. His only friends were animals. He never learned to speak Hungarian. He managed to evade the authorities all that time. In 2005, he went missing.