It was a place where you could meet representatives of practically any kind and service arms available in the USSR Armed Forces. It was probably just sailors and paratroopers that Andrey did not meet there… but probably they were there but just he did not encounter them? And access was given not everywhere on the launch site, but only to those related to direct duties.
And very often, based on the specific character of a regular program or project, officers wore shoulder straps and collar patches of the service arms they were not connected with in any way. Only a few people knew what exactly they were doing at the launch site, and curiosity was not welcomed there.
It was Andrey’s colleagues, KGB officers, who “loved” and probably just had to change their uniforms. These were the representatives of the Special Department of the launch site. There were a lot of units, so the staff was just as diverse in quantity: there were small units of communications men that contained several dozens of people and separate battalions, regiments and brigades which contained thousands of soldiers and officers.
Practically nobody wore the uniform of a KGB officer: if you are posted to rocket engineers, wear the same uniform, any uniform except for the real one.
Somehow Andrey liked visiting the airfield most of all. It was located a little aside from most other military units of the launch site and lived its own independent life, and a part of it was surely subjected to the launch site as a whole.
The checkpoint was located just near the wing, the staff office of the barracks, the club and the dining hall were lost among birch trees… There were surely a lot of evergreens in the taiga, a lot of mixed vegetation, and birch thickets were not that frequent. Maybe that was the reason why the wing seemed so homely and comfortable and people were attracted here?
The pilots were not the most secret part of the launch site, that’s why there was no fence around the unit. The pilots themselves lived in the cosmodrome’s main camp. The wing and its barracks accommodated soldiers from two assigned separate support battalions, as well as the soldiers included directly in the separate wing.
There was quite a comfortable club with a large audience hall and quite a big screen where movies were shown at weekends. In the other part of the club there was a good gym where soldiers from the regiment and battalions sometimes played volleyball.