There are people who hold the world together. They do not seek loud fame, do not chase after ranks, but simply get up every morning before dawn and do their job - honestly, with conscience, year after year. One of these reliable and dedicated professionals is Vasily Bénykov, a driver of the Khotimsk separate structural unit of the Mstislavsky raypo (hereinafter referred to as Raypo).

Vasily Tikhonovich cannot remember a single morning in the last few decades when he overslept. Today, an alarm clock is practically unnecessary for him - at 4:00 am, his body works on its own, with the precision of an ideal clock mechanism. While Khotimsk is still asleep, covered in pre-dawn fog, in one of the houses on the outskirts of the district center, the light turns on and its owner is already on his feet. Ahead of him are the usual five kilometers to the Raypo base. This path, which he travels by personal car, and previously sometimes by bicycle, is his personal prelude to the working day, a time when he can tune in to the upcoming shift.

Young people were trusted, young people were helped

His romance with machinery began in his youth, within the walls of the Khotimsk SPTEU-215. It was there that the young Vasya received his first, most important documents - a tractor driver's certificate and a driver's license.

"I went through professional training in the 'III - International' collective farm," my interlocutor recalls. "Young people were thrown, to put it in military terms, into the fray. I was handed a tracked tractor T-74 and sent to cultivate the soil. For those who don't know, this means constant dust, from which there was no escape in the cab. I worked alongside experienced tractor drivers. After serving in the army, I returned to the collective farm."

At that time, there was a practice of allocating new equipment to such young people, which the farms were not deprived of. Bénykov began working on a T-150 tractor. He was able to get along with any machine: he confidently tamed diesel tractors, heavy wheeled tractors, and drove a GAZ-SAZ car, which he received at a factory in Saransk.

But the special pride of those years was the harvesting of grain and legumes. Season after season, he would bring the legendary "Niva" combine harvester into the golden field, producing 500-600 tons of grain with his partner. This was a good result. These figures are not just statistics, but sweat, sleepless nights, and genuine joy from the smell of fresh grain. And then there was the new "DON-1500". By the way, at the machine testing station in Minsk, he underwent training on courses for combine harvester operators. Apparently, such courses existed.

This year his tenure in the Raipo system reached 30 years, and Vasiliy Tikhonovich turned 60 (though looking at his energy and open smile, no one would dare call him old: in spirit he is always young, fit and friendly). For 25 years he has been delivering bread to retail outlets.

Morning, smelling of coziness

Exactly at 6:00 a.m., his truck is parked at the bakery. There are three such “bread” trucks. He is the driver, the loader, and the dispatcher. He loads trays of still hot, fragrant bread into the van, from which thick steam rises into the cold morning air. That scent – the smell of a home hearth, peace, and confidence in