Alexey Antonenko – Computer Vision/Deep Learning Engineer, team lead at ITS. He is also an officer of the Belarusian army and a former teacher at the Military Academy. He left the military in the rank of major five years ago to enter IT. Alexey told dev.by about the reasons and consequences of his decision.
“Since I cannot fly planes in the air, I will control drones from the ground.”
How did I become a military man? This is a sadly humorous story. I graduated from school in Hierviaty with a gold medal in 2000. I had an invitation from the Navapolack university to train to be an oil worker (I took part in the Olympiad). Moreover, at school, we had such a subject as “The Basics of Choosing a Profession” taught by the director. However, this subject must have been wrong because I had no conception of professions and therefore made such an incomprehensible step. The only one who expressed her bewilderment about the “military” was my teacher of the Belarusian language. “Why is he going there?” she asked my mother and answered herself: “Oh, they also need smart people.”
It happened that I watched the Hot Heads movie. Everything is cool and fun there, therefore and decided that I wanted to be a pilot and preferably on an aero carrier. My dad laughed: “Of course, we have sea all around in Belarus!” They don’t train pilots in civil institutions, therefore you have to go to the Military Academy. So I went. I passed a regional medical examination, then a specialized pilot examination in Hrodna. And then, in Minsk, a nurse looked at my medical record and said that I would not qualify as a pilot with my diagnosis (heart abnormality). By the way, now I am going to pilot training, and a week ago, I received a medical flight-expert сommission certificate that I am fit to fly.
However, back then, I believed the nurse, and I was not that physically fit, so I thought: Since I’m already here, at the 9th kilometer, why should I move somewhere else? Therefore, I rewrote the application for a radio engineer at the same aviation faculty. I decided that if I didn’t manage to fly the planes in the air, I would fly the drones from the ground. That is, I got to the Military Academy by chance. And then I was sucked down.
“They needed a patriot first, and then a specialist.”
The Military Academy has a rigid mechanism. In the second year, we received contracts that we would serve under a contract for five years after graduation. Those who do not sign the contract are sent to the army two days later, and the first year of study does not count. Everyone signed it because no one wanted to go to the military conscription.
In the past, it was possible to leave the academy in the first months, even in the first year of study. Now, as far as I know, cadets have to sign the contract in the first or second week. And even if they leave during the basic combat training, they will have to pay for it. If for some reason, a fifth-year student is expelled (for example, he drank beer and was caught drunk), the Ministry of Defense terminates the contract with him, and he pays compensation for all five years of study. The compensation is approximately equal to the cost of an apartment in Minsk.
There is also a retention mechanism for officers who have served under contract for the first five years. For extending your contract, you get a one-time bonus. After you sign a three-year-long contract, you get an amount of about 2,000 USD; for a three-year-long contract, you get a more impressive amount. But if you do not fulfill the promise and do not finish serving, you must return the money.
Did they teach me well? It is hard to say. Could I, with an engineering degree, solder some interesting piece? I doubt. Could I carry out my professional duties? Yes, I could. An aviation radio engineer is not required to disassemble the unit, calculate which board burned out, and repair it himself. The minimum required from him is to determine that the unit is faulty, and the maximum is to detect the possible malfunction cause. After that, the block is sent to the factory. The air defense engineers must be able to solder. I don’t know how they were taught. But on the whole, there was such a tendency that, first of all, they needed a patriot, and only then a specialist.
In 2005, I graduated from the Military Academy and, since I was an excellent student, I could choose my place of service myself. True, I didn’t get a red diploma because I got 3 on the grading test in physical education in the first year. We had a shuttle run 10 m x 10 in the street, on the ice. Then we were wisely asked: “Why didn’t you sprinkle sand on the ice the day before? Why didn’t you guess?” Then I didn’t know that all the army was that way, I didn’t get used to it in six months. The fact that I never got a red diploma played an essential role in my life: I finally realized that I don’t give a damn about all the papers and labels. The main thing is what you really know and how much you get paid for it.
“The first month and a half at the department of C4ISR system, I felt like a migrant worker”
Some of my coursemates left to serve at the Lida military base. I was also assigned there, but I chose a master course. The first year I looked at my comrades with slight envy: They were renting two-room apartments in Lida, and I was confined to a lousy Minsk hostel. It was a godforsaken hole. I nicknamed it “the factory for the destruction of dreams”. I think a rare person who lives there for years retains the ability to dream. I lived there for six years. I was already a major, candidate of sciences, assistant professor of the department, and still was confined to 16 square meters with a shared kitchen and toilet.
It was then that I clearly understood that “Major,” “Candidate of Sciences,” or “Associate Professor of the Department” are empty labels, which mean nothing in the army. And you must evaluate your rank and position according to a very simple indicator: how much you get paid.
A year of full-time master course has passed, then there were three years of full-time postgraduate studies. For four years I was left on my own: I was engaged in scientific work, wrote a dissertation on the topic of radar images, and the only reminder of military service was that I was on duty from time to time and once a year there was a parade. But postgraduate studies ended, I was assigned to the Military Academy, to the department of C4ISR system for the position of an engineer. And it was a fall from heaven to sinful earth.
After four years of service, I was put in the same place I could get immediately after graduation. After graduation, you come as a lieutenant and are mentally ready to do anything, to close any holes. I came as a captain and in the first week, I was in the “emergency” center. The head of the Academy, a general, came to the department, found a dirty auditorium, and put everyone on their toes, ordering that everything would be perfect in a week. This week lasted for a month and a half, and all this time, I felt like a migrant worker: together with other engineers, I had to work as a builder. But this gave me a powerful incentive to finish the dissertation as soon as possible.
In 2010, I was transferred to the position of teacher. The dissertation was almost ready by that time; six months later, I defended it, and my gradual growth began. Soon I was a senior teacher, then an associate professor, then the position of the head of the course, a professor, was vacated (it provides for the supervision of an entire specialization), and it was offered to me. The department trained cadets in two specializations: automated troop command and control systems and automated information processing systems. I worked in the second area.
I thought IT specialists studied at the automated information processing systems department when I was a cadet. When I came to teach, I realized how wrong I had been. At first, while the old guard teachers were above me, everything was fine. But when the head of the department, for political reasons, dismissed the old guard, it turned out that there was no one to teach serious things. One colleague from the department used to mock us: “No one graduated from the automated information processing systems department in the automated information processing systems department.” It was almost ten years ago. Maybe something has changed now, and there are well-trained people there. But I have my doubts.
In one word, I did not see any programmers at the automated information processing systems department. But I saw that it was complicated to become a programmer there. The Academy is a military establishment, and the Internet is strictly regulated there. You can’t even bring your laptop to the facility.
And those computers we had were in the local network, without Internet access. How can you learn advanced things if you don’t have an Internet connection?
As a rule, only young teachers were ready to look for something. Those older had enough other concerns: family, duty, meetings. Nobody appreciates if you pick up a topic from the Internet and rewrite the discipline.
I taught the Data Transmission Systems course. I read “Methods and means of ensuring the security of information systems” and automated information processing systems for fifth-year students during one year. I changed the content of this discipline and taught it in a new way. I learned to program teaching this discipline.
I was one of those teachers who were not afraid to give bad marks to students. I studied at the Department of Radiolocation, and there they always gave bad marks to those who didn’t know the subject. And in the department where I came, they were afraid to do this. They knew: they will be summoned to the board of the Academy and will have to report to the general, and, God forbid, one of the poor students turns out to have good connections.
Previously, the Academy had a clear rule: if a cadet received two unsatisfactory grades in a session, they had to be expelled. First, the faculty council voted, then the academy council, and the negligent cadet was expelled. And then the slogan changed: a patriot is needed. And now, on the academy council, they dress down the teacher and the head of the department who gave a bad mark, and the cadet is standing next to him. In the presence of a poor student, the officers are scolded and in conclusion, they are told: take the exam again. The cadet feels like a king, he understands that he doesn’t need to learn anything – all the same, he will get a satisfactory mark.
“The position at the academy was splendid, but there were no prospects.”
Why did I leave the army? I even had a file: “The reasons why I’m going to leave.” I started the file a few years before my dismissal so that my hand would not flinch at the crucial moment. There were many points, up to the fact that in the army it is imperative to shave (and I wanted a beard).
Actually, there were two reasons: the first one – no economic prospects, the second one – no scientific prospects.
In fact, my teaching position was splendid, especially compared to those coursemates who were captains and had a coefficient of 14-16. I was a major and had a position of a colonel, I had a coefficient of either 33 or 35. The salary, taking into account compensation for renting an apartment (the army covered 110-120 dollars), was about a thousand dollars a month. But even with such an income, I did not understand how to solve the housing problem.
I didn’t see the times of military-provided housing. Soft loans for military personnel remained in the 2000s. Some built two or three apartments for them, but I didn’t get anything of those social benefits. A year before my dismissal I saw that I was number 1200 in the housing queue, and before my dismissal, I was number 1,100.
After the first year of work at the department, I went to Norway at the invitation of my godmother. It was a turning point in my life. Communicating with the godmother’s husband and finding out about salaries and costs of housing there, I saw a prospect of economic growth for me in this country. It is realistic to earn money to buy your dwelling there. It was as if there was a veil before my eyes in Minsk: I did not understand how to get an apartment with such a salary. And I already had a family and a child. Having returned from Norway, I began to learn Norwegian: actively in the first year, from time to time in the second year. In the third year, I realized that abroad I would spend as much time as here to achieve a certain standard of living. After all, it would be necessary to start from scratch there too, and here I already have some level. Therefore, it is better to be here.
There were no prospects for scientific growth in the army either. They are constantly brainwashed in the department because of the cadets, lecture halls, competitions or commissions, and no one cares about your scientific work. You can do scientific work, solder something on your knee or program, but no one will praise you for it or motivate you in any way. And if by chance they notice you with your device at an exhibition, the attitude is changed abruptly. They will tell you: “Cool! You can do it! Let’s push it everywhere and say that we did it together.”
Instead of being encouraged, you are loaded with unnecessary work: meetings, combat training, duties, shifts, parades – everything that chews up time. I remember how I, already a candidate of technical sciences, was appointed to the commission, and I walked around the academy facilities and counted the dibbers (!) of the fifth category (those that it was time to write off). Then I realized that the reason for the lack of funds is not poverty, but the brainless disposal of resources. If you stop in this turnover and think about what you can do, it will become clear that, actually, nothing. You can do everything that the army needs, but nothing specific.
In brief, I reached a ceiling and realized that there was no way further, although I could move through my career. I would go to pairs with the same training manual, and in a couple of years, I would be a lieutenant colonel, then a colonel. And it would seem like I made a career. There was a colonel who said: “What difference does it make that I’m sitting at a meeting and I’m not interested? Once a month, I withdraw a thousand dollars from my card, so everything suits me.” Well, it didn’t suit me.
“In my reference letter, they wrote: has unhealthy careerism.”
I was waiting for my five-year contract to end. They told me: you already have thirteen years behind you, there are seven more to tolerate, there will be 20 years of service, which means early retirement. But I understood that if I didn’t leave now, nothing would change in my life. What was there to hope for? The department was tough, the chief was a petty tyrant. When I left there, he almost waged war against me.
They let me go with an “excellent” reference letter. Reading it makes you feel like crying: what kind of thug I turned out to be. “Has unhealthy careerism.” A year ago, when approved for the position of head of the course, I promised the boss to extend the contract, but instead, I did not do it – what unhealthy careerism! Then the reference letter was rewritten because the personnel department turned it down. The chief was told: “You understand what you will pay for it, don’t you?” How did you bring up such a person in your department and give him positions? As a result, the reference letter was moderated, although the “unhealthy careerism” was left there.
Usually, everyone who did not renew their contract was summoned to a talk with the head of the Academy. He told you to face that you are, say, a traitor because you are leaving. But the head of the department, realizing that I would speak up in response, could arrange so that I was not summoned. He called me once and said: “The general needs to meet with you. Do you want to talk to him?” I answered that I was rather reluctant. And he replied, “Good.”
Yes, a traitor is a clear-cut assessment of the actions of all those who leave the army at the end of their contract. And even if you ask to extend the contract not for five years properly, but for two or three years, they skew you: what are you up to?
I don’t feel like a traitor. The traitors were there. Looking at how they manage things, I understand that they were temporary workers. People who were rooting for white borders and having points-points-seconds in their reports, while the school was falling apart before our eyes.
But I also cannot say that I am an officer and a patriot. I think an officer is someone who can obey orders without a question, without reasoning. I cannot do that.
In this sense, a patriot is someone who is able to adhere to some line, governmental or, on the contrary, anti-governmental, all his life. I do not consider myself such a person. But it’s easier for me in this regard, because it is not clear who I am and where I am from. I was born in Vilnius, lived there until I was 14, all my relatives are there. But I’m not Lithuanian. The birth certificate says that my parents are Poles. My grandmothers are Poles, and my grandfathers are Ukrainians. They moved to Belarus after the collapse of the Soviet Union when conditions in Lithuania became very bad. We were Soviet people. I am a citizen of a country that no longer exists.
“I did three jobs and read about computer vision at parade rehearsals”
I was about to leave, but I didn’t want to duck out. I didn’t like this wording. “To duck out” means to go nowhere. And I have a wife and two children. I wanted to move to a new place of work. And the stars were aligned: a man showed up who opened a research and production company. He had money and needed people. Nine months before my dismissal, I unofficially got a job at his company called Aerosystem.
On the one hand, it was a side job, on the other hand, he took a promise from me that at the end of the contract, I would quit and come to him. I agreed. After all, I was scared, I never went outside the fence, we were always taught that no one needed us outside the fence, but here, it turned out, I already had a place provided. I was hired as a radarman to bring up the topic of radar facilities for drones. I was closer to working with radar images and I persuaded the manager to let me implement it.
I began to study computer vision in the army absolutely on my own. I remember getting inspired by one project, Open TLD (Tracking Learning Detection). It is an open-source program that can pick out and track objects. I wanted to repeat. The code was unclear but there was an article in English of 30 pages about it. I printed it out and during the parade rehearsals, during breaks, took it out of my pocket and read it. Some of the officers poked their noses, saw that it was written in English, and looked closely: “Are you reading this? You have nothing to do!” Thanks to this, I improved my knowledge of technical English, computer vision, and programming.
When did I start programming? Not when I was a cadet. In the Academy, we had the fundamentals of information technology, but they didn’t’ teach anything serious there. However, for my dissertation, I needed to simulate the processes, this is when I began to code according to the tutorial. But it was incompetently, I would not have been hired by an IT company with that knowledge.
“I got real programming skills in a startup shortly before leaving the Academy. To do this, I had to combine three jobs (in addition to the Academy and “Aerosystem”).”
The team was making mobile phone software, which browsed through the phone book and found the numbers of your friends’ contacts there. They needed a C ++ backend developer. The guys were aware that the project could collapse in a week and that not a single programmer would join them from their comfort zone. So they took me, who didn’t give a damn about the risks. There, in six months, I learned both the programming culture and the correct techniques. I continued to work with this startup for almost a year.
“Aerosystem” quickly went to the bottom. Our salary was reduced, and the director said that he would not be offended if we started to leave. I advertised and instantly found a job at ITS Partner.
Here I have everything I dreamed about. I dreamed that my salary would not come from Belarus, but from abroad, preferably from the USA. Then I would not depend on local crises. I dreamed that my job would involve professional growth, that managers would be happy with my growth, and that my salary would grow. And so it happened. Now I am engaged in computer vision, machine learning, deep learning – everything that is at the peak of demand and interest. When I came to ITS, I finally breathed out freely: I suddenly realized that I would always be in demand in the market for a certain minimum wage. Which one – I will not say. I have learned that friends fall off after voicing numbers.
What good things did I get from the army? Probably punctuality. I’m used to doing everything on time, as scheduled. True, working with the Americans has strengthened this feature – they are even more punctual.
It is difficult to answer this question. I judge these 13 years in the army as a loss rather than a gain. If I could replace this period of life with something else, I would do it: I would choose something practical. For example, my partner Dmitry deliberately studied at BSUIR, and his economic development took place much earlier than mine. Even though he is a few years younger than me, he already has an apartment, a car from the salon, and he doesn’t bother.
I still rent an apartment. If I continued to live like a military man, with the same level of expenses, then I would have already built a two-room apartment. But that doesn’t suit me.
The Belarusians have a fixed idea: an apartment, albeit small, simple, in Kamennaya Gorka, but their own. Why do I need this? I am renting a three-room apartment and would like to change it to a four-room duplex.
And not in Kamennaya Gorka, but next to a park, so that there is more greenery and the factories are away.
“If you are lucky, you will become a driver; if you are not lucky, you will serve in the utility section.”
Deferment from the draft law? Well, what is there to comment on? It was said in plain text: we have a shortage of military men – we need to get them. The interests of students were not taken into account at all, only the interests of the state: “We need it.”
IT troop is a clever way to get highly qualified specialists for free. The military will never have the money to pay for a good software product. Their own specialists who are able to write a good software product will leave the army very quickly, and they will not give a damn about compensation and persecution. There are serious software systems in the army, which have been made under the state order for a lot of money, perhaps not even by Belarusian, but by Russian companies. And suddenly, they realized – here it is, a freebie.
This was my first reaction to IT troop. A year later, when the soldiers themselves began to comment on the IT troop, I thought that maybe this is good for them. It’s worse when a young man who worked in an IT company and earned 1.5 thousand dollars comes from the office to a pigsty (after all, the army is not always the place where you are taught to shoot from a machine gun and jump with a parachute; if you are not lucky, then at best you will be a driver, at worst – you will go to the utility section) or to a troop where hazing takes place. You understand that it is better to join the IT troop in this case.
Many soldiers are needed not to sit in the trenches with machine guns but to clean the area from snow or at least drive a tractor. When I went on duty for the fleet, there was always a tractor driver on duty with me. This role was played by two soldiers who changed each other throughout their term of service. They had neither military training nor shooting – they changed each other their entire term of service. Looking at this, I realized that military conscription is legalized slavery. They told a person about high ideals, but they just use them for free.
The problem is that they try to cultivate patriotism in the army when it’s too late. Patriotism must be reinforced and enriched with practical skills to defend the Motherland in the army. A person should consciously strive to the army. Why it is different in our army is a separate question. I do not know the answer to it. Why do people in Europe or the United States hang out state flags on their houses, but we do not? And it’s not the municipality that does it – the owner of the house themself buys and installs a flagstaff, buys and hangs out a flag. In our country, some people sometimes walk the streets with a white-red-white flag. But the police detains them for this.
Source: dev.by