We are at the beginning of the 90 years, the Berlin wall had fallen and the USSR was falling apart, the Russian armed forces were at their lowest end, without resources and with the soldiers who received the wages with large delays and backlog for months. The Russian barracks were without supplies and even without electricity.
To find something to feed the troops, the commanders sent the soldiers to collect potatoes and other vegetables for the fields.
In a cold November I was on a mission to Norway with a group of colleagues.
On Saturday we go to Oslo for a walk downtown, the cold cut the face and a light sleet fell silent.
Passing through the long harbor, almost near the building where the Nobel Prize ceremony is held, we see a group of street musicians playing classical music arias.
We approach and realize that they were soldiers in uniform who, playing, tried to collect a few crowns from the few brave passers-by who challenged the cold.
I put a few crowns in a violin case resting on the ground and I stop to listen to a symphonic piece of Swan Lake ...
The head of the group, he looked like an officer, gestured to me with his head and approached.
Just close asking me "american"?
No, I reply, "Italians".
In a broken English he tells me that they were soldiers of the Russian navy in free exit from the military ship at the bottom of the port.
He loved classical Italian music, Ponchielli, Verdi, Rossini, Bellini, Puccini ,,, he tells me all ...
I ask him why they were so on the streets to ask for money and he replies that they did not have a penny, not even for a beer (like all alcoholic notoriously very expensive in Oslo).
A nod to colleagues was enough, they all agreed: for the evening, everyone could afford to adopt a Russian colleague, offering him dinner at the restaurant. Solidarity between colleagues.
Made the proposal to the officer, the same turns it to his and everyone accepts with enthusiasm.
They close and collect the tools and all together we go to an Irish brewery, still present a few meters from the train station in Oslo, on the avenue to the royal palace in Oslo.
A memorable evening, between "my sun", songs and laughter, with the Russians improvising a concert in the pub and playing "Volare".
The Russian officer and I exchanged the respective badges for the envelope, I was the officer in the air force and he was the officer in the navy.
This badge from the Soviet navy officer's sachet is displayed along with my large collection of crests from around the world.
