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The British newspaper The Sunday Times published excerpts from the personal diary of a high-ranking Russian special forces officer who participated in the second Chechen war. Columnist Mark Franchetti, who independently translated the text from Russian into English, writes in his commentary that nothing like this has ever been published.
“The text does not pretend to be a historical overview of the war. This is the author's story. A testimony that was written over 10 years, a chilling chronicle of executions, torture, revenge and despair during 20 business trips to Chechnya,” this is how he characterizes this publication in the article “War in Chechnya: Diary of a Killer,” which InoPressa refers to.
Excerpts from the diary contain descriptions of military operations, treatment of prisoners and the death of comrades in battle, and unflattering statements about the command. “To protect the author from punishment, his identity, names of people and place names are omitted,” notes Franchetti.
The author of the notes calls Chechnya “cursed” and “bloody.” The conditions in which they had to live and fight drove even such strong and “trained” men as special forces soldiers crazy. He describes cases when their nerves gave way and they began to rush at each other, starting fights, or tormented the corpses of militants, cutting off their ears and noses.
At the beginning of the above notes, apparently dating back to one of his first business trips, the author writes that he felt sorry for the Chechen women whose husbands, sons and brothers joined the militants. So, in one of the villages where the Russian unit entered and where wounded militants remained, two women turned to him with a plea to release one of them. He heeded their request.
“I could have executed him on the spot at that moment. But I felt sorry for the women,” writes the special forces soldier. “The women didn’t know how to thank me, they shoved money into my hands. I took the money, but it settled on my soul like a heavy burden. I felt guilty before our dead guys.”
According to the diary, the rest of the wounded Chechens were treated completely differently. “They were dragged outside, stripped naked and stuffed into a truck. Some walked on their own, others were beaten and pushed. One Chechen, who lost both feet, climbed out on his own, walking on his stumps. After a few steps, he lost consciousness and sank to the ground. The soldiers beat him, stripped him naked and threw him into a truck. I didn't feel sorry for the prisoners. It was just an unpleasant sight,” writes the soldier.
According to him, the local population looked at the Russians with hatred, and the wounded militants - with such hatred and contempt that their hand involuntarily reached for weapons. He says that the departing Chechens left a wounded Russian prisoner in that village. His arms and legs were broken so that he could not escape.
In another case, the author describes a fierce battle during which special forces drove militants out of a house where they were holed up. After the battle, the soldiers searched the building and found several mercenaries in the basement who were fighting on the side of the Chechens. “They all turned out to be Russians and fought for money,” he writes. “They started screaming, begging us not to kill them, because they have families and children. Well, so what? We ourselves also did not end up in this hole straight from an orphanage. We executed everyone."
“The truth is that the bravery of the people fighting in Chechnya is not appreciated,” the special forces soldier says in his diary. As an example, he cites an incident that he was told about by soldiers of another detachment, with whom they whiled away one of the nights. In front of one of their guys, his twin brother was killed, but he not only was not demoralized, but desperately continued to fight.
"This is how people go missing"
Quite often in the records there are descriptions of how the military destroyed traces of their activities related to the use of torture or executions of captured Chechens. In one place, the author writes that one of the dead militants was wrapped in plastic, shoved into a well filled with liquid mud, covered with TNT and blown up. “This is how people go missing,” he adds.
They did the same with a group of Chechen suicide bombers who were captured on a tip from their hideout. One of them was over 40, the other was barely 15. “They were high and smiled at us all the time. At the base, all three were interrogated. At first, the eldest, the female suicide bomber recruiter, refused to talk. But this changed after beatings and electric shock,” the author writes.
As a result, the suicide bombers were executed and their bodies were blown up to hide the evidence. “So, in the end, they got what they dreamed of,” the soldier says.
“The highest echelons of the army are full of assholes”
Many passages in the diary contain sharp criticism of the command, as well as politicians who send others to death, while they themselves remain completely safe and with impunity.
“Once I was struck by the words of an idiot general: he was asked why the families of the sailors who died on the Kursk nuclear submarine were paid large compensation, while the soldiers killed in Chechnya were still waiting for theirs. “Because the losses at Kursk were unforeseen, but in Chechnya they are predicted,” he said. So we are cannon fodder. The higher echelons of the army are full of assholes like him,” the text says.
On another occasion, he tells how his squad was ambushed because they were deceived by their own commander. “The Chechen, who promised him several AK-47s, persuaded him to help him commit blood feud. There were no rebels in the house that he sent us to clear,” writes the special forces soldier.
“When we returned to the base, the dead guys were lying in bags on the runway. I opened one of the bags, took my friend’s hand and said, “I’m sorry.” Our commander didn’t even take the trouble to say goodbye to the guys. He was completely drunk. At that moment I hated him. He always didn’t care about the guys, he just used them to make a career. Later he even tried to blame me for the failed cleanup. Asshole. Sooner or later he will pay for his sins,” the author curses him.
“It’s a pity that you can’t go back and fix something”
The notes also talk about how the war affected the soldier’s personal life - in Chechnya he constantly missed home, his wife and children, and when returning, he constantly quarreled with his wife, often got drunk with his colleagues and often did not spend the night at home. Going on one of his long business trips, from which he might never return alive, he did not even say goodbye to his wife, who had slapped him the day before.
“I often think about the future. How much more suffering awaits us? How much longer can we hold out? For what?" - writes the special forces soldier. “I have a lot of good memories, but only about the guys who really risked their lives for the part. It's a pity that you can't go back and fix something. All I can do is try to avoid the same mistakes and try my best to live a normal life.”
“I gave 14 years of my life to special forces, lost many, many close friends; for what? “In the depths of my soul, I am left with pain and the feeling that I was treated unfairly,” he continues. And the final phrase of the publication is this: “I regret only one thing - that maybe if I had behaved differently in battle, some of the guys would still be alive.”
Three comrades served in Chechnya
Scientific supervisor: O. G. Efimova
According to the Uglich military registration and enlistment office, where I applied, 196 Uglich men were drafted to Chechnya. Two of them - Dmitry Muravyov and Andrei Kharlamov - did not return. They were awarded the Order of Courage posthumously and buried at the Churyakovsky cemetery. There is another one not far from their graves. On a marble pedestal is the handsome smiling face of a young man. Under the photograph there is a name – Ryzhov Igor Leonidovich and two dates: 07/3/1976 – 12/26/1998.
Igor also served in military service in Chechnya and returned from there alive. What could happen in the life of a young guy if, after surviving the Chechen hell, he still died? Tragic accident or consequences of war? This is what I wanted to find out.
At the request of my supervisor Olga Glebovna Efimova, I met with Igor’s mother Elena Alexandrovna.
Igor joined the army of his own free will. He had the opportunity, as young people say now, to “slop down.” At the age of 14, during one of the hockey matches, a game goal fell on Igor, which led to a serious traumatic brain injury. But he sincerely believed that it was in the army that boys become real men and going through the army is a matter of honor for every young man. I believe that an important role here was played by the fact that his two grandfathers were participants in the Great Patriotic War and the Ryzhov family often recalled their glorious military past.
Igor was drafted into the army on November 15, 1994. He ended up in the ODON (separate special purpose division) named after Dzerzhinsky. On May 6, 1995, with the rank of junior sergeant, he was transferred to Chechnya.
Judging by the time period, Igor was in Chechnya for a short time - a little less than 4 months from May 6 to September 1, but the impressions were enough for the rest of his short life. He didn’t like to remember the truth about the small part of the war that befell him and didn’t tell anyone about it. Even his best friend Igor Soloviev, who also went through Chechnya, knows almost nothing about that period of his friend’s life.
But the diary that junior sergeant Ryzhov kept in Chechnya has survived. Elena Alexandrovna did not allow me to make a photocopy of it, since the diary contains a lot of profanity, but I was still able to rewrite some of the entries. Igor described the events every day, although very briefly and laconically (maybe there wasn’t always time). Here are some excerpts from his diary:
“31.05. Let's go to the "front line". It's dangerous there. They shoot constantly. We are sitting in an armored personnel carrier, we can’t lean out.
1.06. Hooray! We moved 4 km forward. At least some new sensations, a change in the landscape, although it is the same almost everywhere here.
4.06. Let's go on the offensive. They occupied a height of 762 m. They destroyed the main Dudayev television and radio station.
13.06. We fortified ourselves at a height and stood in a clearing. Constant tension takes its toll, you need to be on guard.
15.06. We were sitting in position, drinking in the evening.
16.06. I have a hangover. We sleep and sunbathe all day.
25.06. We went on the offensive and gained a foothold at the top.
27.06. We went on reconnaissance trips to the villages, brought some munchies, the locals give them, not all of them, though, but some take pity on us.
30.06. We received gratitude from the battalion commander for the operation. We arrived at the camp to rest and during the general formation I was awarded the rank of “sergeant”. We are preparing to take Vedeno.
2.07. We secured a foothold in Vedeno, received a slight wound in the leg, it was painful, I took out the shrapnel myself with pliers.
3.07. Birthday!! (already 19 years!).”
“Already 19 years!” – Igor writes in his diary. Of course, he seems to be quite an adult - he is a soldier, and even in a war. And he writes with pride about his injury, not knowing then that he would soon receive another one.
This is what his mother Elena Aleksandrovna said: “On July 9, 1995, at 5 o’clock in the morning in the village of Belta, a battle began between Chechen militants and Russian military personnel. The armored personnel carrier on which Igor was located was shot from a grenade launcher. The son received a shrapnel wound in the back (the shrapnel stopped 7 cm from the heart), was sent by helicopter to a hospital in Vladikavkaz, where he was given first aid, and the next day he was flown to Orenburg. As soon as I found out that my boy was wounded and where he was, I immediately went to him.”
Igor spent only a short time in the hospital, only two weeks. The wound was not considered serious, and Igor’s body was young and, as he thought then, healthy.
And Igor was awarded the order after demobilization. At the end of July 1997, he was summoned to the Uglich military registration and enlistment office, congratulated and, without any celebration, given a box with the Order of Courage.
I tried to find out more precisely why Igor Ryzhov received the award and contacted the military registration and enlistment office. The response from the military registration and enlistment office staff surprised me greatly. They told me that they do not send any wording with orders, they awarded me and awarded me. How so? Even during the Great Patriotic War, soldiers were given orders and medals “for courage and heroism shown in battle”, “for the destruction of enemy personnel”, “for saving comrades”, etc. So why are military officials and commanders in modern Russia they don’t consider it necessary to send a covering letter to the military registration and enlistment office with a couple of phrases, why was the soldier awarded an order or medal? Personally, I don't understand this.
After the hospital, Igor was not even allowed to go on vacation, but was sent to serve in Reutovo, Moscow region. But, on his way to his unit to a new duty station, Igor, along with his colleague Sergei, was passing through and was able to stop home for 2 days in Uglich. There were no signs of trouble then...
After Igor Ryzhov was demobilized from the army, his health deteriorated sharply. One day, while working on his home plot, Igor became ill, his heart began to pound, it became difficult to breathe, and it was impossible to raise his left arm. He was admitted to the Uglich district hospital, but he did not get better. Then he was sent for examination to the Yaroslavl regional hospital. There they determined that the young man had a heart defect.
And, most likely, Igor joined the army when he was already a sick man, and he also took part in combat operations and was in constant tension. It’s strange, of course, but it’s a fact that before being drafted into the army, Igor, like other conscripts, did not have his heart examined or had a cardiogram. The medical documents say: “Healthy. Fit for service in the ranks of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.” The military registration and enlistment office began taking cardiograph readings from conscripts only after Igor’s death, and even then not for long.
A year ago, my older brother Vladimir returned from the army. I asked him how he passed the medical examination before the draft and whether he had a cardiogram of his heart. He replied no. He said that they simply measured the blood pressure and pulse and listened to the heart with a phonendoscope.
I believe that one of the most serious problems of our army is the formal attitude towards the health of conscripts. The military registration and enlistment office needs to recruit the required number of young people - and it is recruiting. At any cost. This issue is especially acute in the Russian outback. I am convinced that very few young people from villages and villages or from very small towns go to regional centers to examine their health. When you’re young you don’t think about it, nothing hurts – and that’s fine. This means that doctors working at recruiting stations need to be more careful during examinations so as not to miss the disease.
And Igor’s illness continued to progress.
After an examination at the regional hospital, it became clear that only a heart transplant could help Igor survive. We contacted Moscow, where all the tests were urgently sent. Igor was put on a waiting list for surgery and was given Group 1 disability. The operation then cost 60 thousand rubles, but it was performed free of charge for disabled people of the 1st group.
Igor was getting worse. He almost never left the house, as he could hardly even climb to the 2nd floor. He slept almost sitting up, with pillows under his back, otherwise he would begin to suffocate. Igor’s heart increased in size so much that his chest simply bulged out. This phenomenon is called "bull's heart".
On December 24, 1998, Igor went to the stadium with his own feet to cheer for his hockey team. Sitting motionless on the podium, Igor caught a cold. His temperature rose again and he began to choke. They had to call an ambulance, which took him to the hospital. A day later, in the early morning of December 26, Igor Ryzhov passed away.
If he had had time to undergo surgery, he would still be alive today. There are a great many of these “ifs”: if a full examination had been carried out at the military registration and enlistment office before conscription, then perhaps the disease could have been identified at the very beginning; if Igor had not ended up in Chechnya, but had gone to serve, for example, in the Moscow region, then there would not have been a sudden change in climate and constant stress from the consciousness of constant danger; if there had been no wound, if not for the shrapnel, not far from the heart; if after service the soldiers, whose souls and bodies were tormented by Chechnya, were sent for a full qualified examination; if…
Talking with Igor Ryzhov’s friend Igor Solovyov, I learned that he also served in Chechnya for a year. He was called up six months later than Ryzhov - on March 3, 1995. He was sent to Chechnya with the Kantemirovskaya division.
His story simply shocked me.
“None of us who went through it like to talk about Chechnya, because there was nothing good there, and sometimes it was just lousy. It's very difficult to remember. I was a participant in many combat operations. We were stationed at different bases: Shali, Kurchaloy, Vedeno, Agishty. At the bases they lived in blocks of 10–15 people. The assaults on the city of Grozny (January 1, 1995, March 5, 1995, August 6, 1996) were considered the most difficult, since the militants fought to the death for their capital, and were much better trained. We mostly had conscripts; there were few contract soldiers, but they had a lot of professional soldiers. Although in the 166th mountain assault brigade, where I served, I was the only conscript, the rest were contract soldiers, but this was very rare.
We went out to operations in a convoy (about 100 vehicles). Reconnaissance usually comes first, reporting where the militants are based, and only then the infantry comes out. In points where there were many civilians, we tried to do without heavy equipment or bypassed these settlements. They constantly moved from one place to another. It was dangerous to stand in one place for a long time. You will return to the base and again for 30-35 days in the field. The uniform was not enough, it quickly became unusable. We had to get it ourselves. For example, I bought sneakers for myself at the market after winter, because it was very hot in the boots, my feet sweated and began to irritate, and ulcers could appear. I also had a T-shirt from the market, and on top was a vest and jacket. They wore scarves on their heads (they don’t fall off): one protects your face from dust when you walk in a column, the other on your head.”
The fact of independently obtaining clothes while serving in the army also surprised me. Couldn't the country they defend really provide the soldiers with normal uniforms for the season? In my opinion, there is no such thing in any army in the world.
“Everyone really missed home, they were waiting for letters. For many kids, the mountains put pressure on their psyches,” says Igor Solovyov. – The food at the bases was good. But when we were at posts, for example, closing the gorges for a week, we were given dry rations only for 3 days, and then we got food ourselves. Sometimes they exchanged uniforms of local residents for meat. There were cases of looting. It was difficult to deliver food to the fighting soldiers. In high-rise buildings they cooked their own food. The stew was heated directly on the hot engines of the armored personnel carrier. We took turns at the post - you sleep for 2 hours, you stand for 2 hours. It was impossible to stand alone at the post, just as the equipment was not released one unit at a time, only in a column, it was dangerous.
The local population treated us differently. They communicated well with some residents; they exchanged medicines, stewed meat, and sunflower oil in the villages for sheep. But they were afraid of unexpected actions on the part of the children. They could, for example, throw a grenade at any moment. Therefore, they tried to keep them away from posts and bases.
I took part in the assault on Grozny on August 6, 1996. First, they immediately took the city hospital, then the bridge over the Sunzha River and the Dynamo stadium, where A. Kadyrov was subsequently killed. I received a shrapnel wound to the head, one fragment was pulled out, but the second remained. He spent several days in the hospital. And the assault on Grozny continued until August 26th. The guys said that the corpses were then taken away by dump trucks. All those killed and seriously wounded were given the Order of Courage.
I asked Igor about the approximate number of deaths in his unit. This is what he replied: “During the year that I served, approximately 150 people died in the unit, and approximately 500-600 people from the brigade, I can’t say more precisely. At all bases there was a large tent - a morgue. But not all soldiers died in battle. Some drunkenly fell from the armor, they were not visible in the dust and they fell under the wheels of cars following. And there was a lot of vodka there. Without vodka you could go crazy there; it helped you forget. There was no entertainment, no books, no movies. The soldiers drank together with the officers, everyone was equal there. It happened that drunken soldiers quarreled and killed each other, because everyone there had military weapons, but there was no order and discipline.
But what tormented me the most was the dirt. In the field, we lived in dugouts covered with tarpaulins, 6–10 people each. They rarely washed, since there was very little water; it was brought only for drinking and cooking. About once every month and a half, a special machine called a steaming machine arrived, in which we washed. The soldiers got lice from the dirt, and we caught them from each other in the morning, 200 of them. Often it was possible to wash only at the bases, and in the Argun River, although the water in it is very dirty and the current is strong. But we still washed ourselves in the river from the end of March.”
After talking with Igor Solovyov, I identified two more big problems of the Chechen war. The first is the lack of discipline in the army, hence drunkenness, fights and cases of senseless death of military personnel. The second is an unsettled life, which also had a negative impact on the soldiers’ psyche. How can a hungry, limp soldier with worn out legs fulfill his military duty? He then doesn’t think about service, but about what to eat, how to wash himself and where to get uniforms.
In parting, Igor said that he considered the war in Chechnya absolutely senseless and ridiculous.
I was able to talk with another veteran of the Chechen war, Roman Gaverdovsky, only 3 years after our first meeting with him. Roman refused to talk about his past for a long time. He can be understood. War is always tragedy and pain. But when I began to collect material about Igor Ryzhov, Roman became more open and talked about his life in general and his service in Chechnya.
Roman graduated from the ninth grade of secondary school No. 5 in the city of Uglich in 1992. Until 1994, he studied at vocational school No. 35 as an electrician and was drafted into the army on May 30, 1994. Roman says with resentment that he was not allowed to complete his studies for only one year; a deferment at that time could be obtained with great difficulty, and they had neither rich relatives nor influential acquaintances. Although Roman still managed to receive the second category of electrician.
The recruits were brought to Yaroslavl to a distribution point and on the evening of May 30 they were sent by train to Moscow, and then they were put on cars and sent 12 km from Moscow to the division named after. Dzerzhinsky or, as the soldiers called it for hazing, the “wild division.”
For a month and a half, Roman completed the young fighter course. The division had a presidential guard regiment, which was used to protect the White House during the coup in 1991, as well as to guard stadiums during football games and concert venues. One day, Russian President Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin came to the division, but young soldiers dressed in uniform were not allowed to meet him. It turns out that in order to just see the president, you need to be “at the parade.” All conscript soldiers were paid 40 rubles a month. The soldiers called this benefit among themselves “Yeltsin’s” and with it one could buy only a block of inexpensive cigarettes.
“On January 1, 1995, we had a gathering, and everyone was sent to Chechnya. It was at that time that large-scale hostilities began there. It took three days to get there by train. Near Mozdok, everyone was placed in tents of 30 people. The soldiers were mostly Russian, as well as Yakuts and Ukrainians. Climate change had a detrimental effect on many; some, especially the northerners, rotted and ulcers appeared on their bodies. They saved themselves with ointments.”
During the conversation, the former soldier often fell silent, sometimes finding words with difficulty. It was clear that this conversation was not easy for him.
“We served in the RMO - a material support company. The militants understood that the success of military operations largely depended on providing the soldiers with food, so we were sometimes fired upon. One day, two tanks fired at us almost point-blank, riddling all our tents and stoves, but fortunately, that time there were no casualties. Our “vertushki” (helicopters) immediately took to the sky and the tanks retreated.”
Roman said that the fighting was frequent, and the shelling was almost daily. He also had to participate in hostilities in Grozny. We went to Grozny from Mozdok in January 1995.
In total, Roman took part in more than 10 combat operations. Friends said he was lucky because he had never been wounded.
“One day they put me in jail,” Roman recalls. – Zindan is a deep earthen pit. They went down there by stairs, then the stairs were removed, and the pit was covered with a grate. Twice a day, food and water were lowered into the pit, which quickly heated up and became rotten. Besides me, there were black crickets in this hole, which bit painfully and did not allow me to sit still. We had to move from corner to corner all the time.”
When asked why he ended up in prison, Roman replied that he was drunk and did not serve the battalion commander (battalion commander) breakfast on time. He began to shout at the soldier, and then ordered him to be put in an earthen pit.
The word “zindan” has been familiar to me since childhood from oriental fairy tales. In these fairy tales, the beauties of Gurias - peri (sorceresses) rescued their lovers from dark earthen zindans, where they were placed by evil devas (fairy-tale monsters). But that was so long ago, several centuries ago, and even in fairy tales. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that in our time, in a civilized country, a young guy for committing an offense (no matter what) can be put in a hole for several days, like in the Middle Ages. I dread to think what could have happened if fighting had broken out in the area at this time. I very much doubt that the soldier Roman Gaverdovsky would have been remembered in the turmoil. And then he would simply die from a bullet, a bomb, a shell explosion, or would be captured. And in this case, they would write to the parents: “Your son, like a real Russian warrior, died a heroic death,” or what else is supposed to be written in such cases? And maybe they would have awarded him the Order of Courage. Posthumously... And whose body would rest in the Uglich cemetery under the name of Roman Gaverdovsky is unknown.
When I was looking through the selection of the Izvestia newspaper with materials about the Chechen war for 1994-1996, I came across a series of articles about mass graves and unclaimed corpses of soldiers who cannot be identified, since they are mutilated, and their identification at the level of genetic examination Russian authorities have no money. Isn't this a problem?! In Russia there is money for a lot of things, for example, for organizing various competitions and festivals, for holding show programs, but for some reason there is not enough money for the mother, who gave the state the most dear, dear thing she had in her life - her child (sometimes the only one), could at least bury him, mourn and know for certain that this is the grave of her son.
What about the problem of hazing in the army? Almost everyone who served in the armed forces had to experience it themselves. Hazing, unfortunately, also happened in Chechnya.
From Roman’s story: “We had an ensign named Kolobok. He loved to mock the soldiers, especially the young ones: he beat them, insulted them, forced them to stand motionless for hours and carry out ridiculous orders. Not everyone could stand it. Once, an emergency occurred in the unit: five young soldiers, unable to withstand the bullying, went to the Chechens at night. Nothing was heard of them for several days. And one night Kolobok disappeared and no one heard from him again. There were rumors that the Chechens were coming for him. Soon the two escaped soldiers returned. I don’t know what happened to them next, I only know that they were arrested as deserters, taken to Moscow and tried there.”
I really want to believe that the soldiers who escaped and returned were not judged too harshly. It is not at all easy for “house” boys to find themselves in war, and to endure bullying from their own boys, especially from those of higher rank, from those who are supposed to teach and protect, is sometimes simply unbearable.
During our conversation, Roman said that during his service, only 20 people died in their unit. By the standards of multimillion-dollar Russia and the war in Chechnya, this figure may be small, but behind this figure there are 20 unfortunate families who have lost their relatives.
During the conversation, Roman more than once uttered the phrase: “The Chechens themselves, that is, the civilian population, did not want war, after all, they all have children and families, but some of them eventually became embittered, although at first they treated us very kindly.”
When asked what he thinks about the Chechen war, Roman replied: “I sincerely think this war is senseless and stupid. Here is my grandfather, who fought in the Great Patriotic War, at least he knew why he was shedding blood. But we didn’t know what we were fighting for. And for whom? I think there was a lot of money floating around there. And our officers sometimes sold weapons to Chechen militants. This happened in our unit too. And for this, the soldiers died and were left crippled. And not only the body was wounded, but also the soul. I didn’t tell anyone about that war for many years. I especially remember one incident when, due to the fact that someone fired a signal flare at the wrong time, the Russians fired at the Russians in the dark. There were both killed and wounded. The incident was hushed up, but the nasty aftertaste still remains in my soul. Surely this has happened more than once.”
Roman’s words that Chechnya destroys souls and affects the psyche were confirmed by the story of Gaverdovsky’s classmate Nadezhda Gavrilova. This is what she said: “I was walking down the street one day, and my classmate Roma Gaverdovsky met me, he recently returned from the army. He looks at me, but his eyes are empty. I came up and said hello, and instead of greeting he said: “Nadya, I’m from Chechnya!” and moved on. I realized that he had not yet recovered from his experience, he was still there, fighting in Chechnya.”
Yes, what he experienced in Chechnya was not in vain for Roman. The abundance of vodka during the service (Roman confirmed the words of Igor Solovyov that they drank often, fear and stress were relieved) led to the fact that, having returned to Uglich and not finding a decent job, Roman began to drink and once, while intoxicated, started a fight, for which he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
One of the most important problems of our army, in my opinion, is that a soldier returning from a so-called “hot spot” is left alone with his problems and difficulties. He is no longer needed by the state on whose orders he fought. All over the world, in any country, there are rehabilitation centers for such soldiers, where they receive medical and psychological assistance for several months.
Nowadays they talk a lot about patriotism, about love for their Motherland, their state. I just want to ask the question: “Why should I love a state that doesn’t love its citizens?”
While looking through material about the Chechen war on the Internet, I found another quatrain that is riddled with pain. Unfortunately, the author is not indicated there; perhaps he is a former soldier who served in Chechnya.
We don’t expect compassion from rulers, parties and judges,
But I would like to know who, where and why will send us?
It is not fitting for us to be in the roles of dumb instruments,
Carrying out orders that the people did not give.
War always smells the same - diesel fuel, dust and a little melancholy. This smell begins already in Mozdok. The first seconds when you get off the plane, you stand dumbfounded, only your nostrils flare like a horse’s, absorbing the steppe... The last time I was here was in 2000. It was under this poplar tree, where the special forces are now sleeping, that I was waiting for a fair flight to Moscow. And in that stoker, behind the highway, they sold local bottled vodka, with an incredible amount of fusel. It seems that everything has remained the same since then.
And the smell is still the same. What it was like two, three, and seven years ago.
Diesel fuel, dust and melancholy...
I first found myself on this field seven years ago, as a conscript soldier. We were then brought in a train from the Urals - one and a half thousand soldiers. They didn’t manage to accommodate the carriages, and they packed us in as hard as they could, cramming us into thirteen people per compartment, with overcoats and duffel bags. We were hungry on the train. The bread was transported in a separate carriage, and there was simply no time to distribute it at short stops, when we let ambulances pass on sidings, away from human eyes. If we succeeded, we exchanged the soldiers’ boots given to us for food.
In Mozdok we were shaken out of the carriages, and the senior crew chief, a curly-haired hysterical major, whose squeal resembled a village woman about to give birth, lined us up in a column of five and led us to take off. As we passed the last carriage, bags of moldy bread were thrown out of it. Those who had time managed to grab the loaf.
When recruiting us into the team, the curly-haired major swore that no one would end up in Chechnya, everyone would remain to serve in Ossetia. He shouted something about the principle of voluntary service in hot spots. He called us one by one and asked: “Do you want to serve in the Caucasus? Go, what are you doing... It’s warm there, there are apples.” I answered “yes,” and Andryukha Kiselev from Yaroslavl, who was standing next to me, sent him to hell with the entire Caucasus to boot. Kisel and I traveled to Mozdok in the same compartment.
Everything here was the same then as it is now. Exactly, nothing has changed. The same tents, the same tower, the same water fountain. Only there were more people then, much more. There was constant movement. Some flew in, some flew away, the wounded were waiting for a passing flight, the soldiers were stealing humanitarian aid... Every ten minutes, attack aircraft packed to capacity left for Chechnya and returned empty. The helicopters were heating up their engines, the hot air was driving dust along the takeoff, and it was scary.
Kisel and I lay on the grass and waited to see what would happen to us next. Kisel dictated to me the chords of “The Old Hotel” by Aguzarova, and I wrote them down in a notebook cut out of a thick notebook. I've always liked this song. And then me and seven other people were separated from the rest and taken in the Ural to the 429th motorized rifle regiment named after the Kuban Cossacks, Orders of Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky, located right there, half a kilometer from the takeoff. The major was lying. Out of one and a half thousand people in Ossetia, only eight of us remained to serve. The rest were sent straight to Chechnya. After the war, through third parties, I learned that Kisel had died.
In the regiment we were beaten ungodly. It couldn’t be called hazing, it was complete chaos. During the raising of the flag, soldiers with broken jaws flew out of the windows onto the parade ground and, to the sounds of the anthem, fell right at the feet of the regiment commander.
Everyone beat me, from a private to a lieutenant colonel and chief of staff. The lieutenant colonel's name was Pilipchuk, or simply Chuck. He was a continuation of the hysterical major, only bigger, more masculine, and his fists were the size of a loaf of bread. And he never screamed, he only beat. Everyone - young, demobilized, ensigns, captains, majors. Indiscriminately. He pinned his big belly in the corner and started using his hands, saying: “You bitches, you don’t know how to drink.”
Chuck himself knew how to drink. One day, the deputy army commander, General Shamanov, arrived at the regiment. Check discipline. Shamanov approached the headquarters, put his foot on the first step and opened the door. The next second, a body fell straight onto him, burning into firewood. It was Chuck.
Chuck still doesn't know he was shot. And I know: I was standing next to you then. It was night, the reconnaissance platoon was drinking vodka in the barracks. They were disturbed by the lantern on the parade ground: the bright light through the windows hit their eyes. One of the reconnaissance officers took a machine gun with a silencer, walked up to the window and aimed at the lantern. I stood near the window, smoking. And Chuck was walking along the parade ground... Thank God, both were drunk - one didn’t get hit, the other didn’t notice anything. The bullet struck the asphalt and went into the sky. Chuck disappeared into the headquarters, the scout turned off the lantern and went to finish his vodka. And I threw out the bull and began to wash the corridor - I was an orderly.
The young fled in hundreds, went into the steppe barefoot, out of bed, unable to endure the nightly abuse any longer. Vacations were banned: no one returned. In our company of fifty people, ten were available according to the list. Ten more were in Chechnya. The remaining thirty are in Sochi. SOCH - unauthorized abandonment of a unit. Even the lieutenant, the platoon commander, who was called up for two years after college, escaped.
They got money to escape as best they could. We went to Mozdok and robbed cars. They removed the fuel pumps from the infantry fighting vehicles and brought them to the farmers - their KamAZ trucks had the same ones. Cartridges were taken out in bags and sold to locals, grenade launchers were exchanged for heroin.
A month later, my company was gone: six more escaped, and the four of us who didn’t make it in time were taken to Chechnya.
On the twelfth of August ninety-six, I, as part of the combined battalion of our regiment, was waiting to be sent to Grozny. August ninety-six... It was hell. The militants occupied the city and cut out checkpoints in the encirclement. Losses numbered in the hundreds. Death walked over the sultry city as he pleased, and no one could say a word to her. Ninety-six people scraped together the bottom of the regiment - we were formed into a battalion and thrown into the city. We were sitting on our duffel bags and waiting for the delivery, when a postman ran out of the headquarters and rushed towards us, holding something in his hand raised above his head. From the headquarters to the takeoff, about five hundred meters, we sat and watched him run and shout something. And everyone thought - to whom? It turned out - to me. “Babchenko... Na... Your father died...” - and he thrust a telegram into my hands. And then the board was brought forward, and the battalion began to load. The soldiers walked past me, patted me on the shoulder and said: “Lucky.” Instead of Grozny, I went to Moscow for the funeral.
My father gave me life twice. If he had died in twenty minutes, I would have died in half an hour: in Khankala, the helicopter was shot during landing. The battalion returned a month later. Of the ninety-six people, forty-two remained.
This is how the war was then.
It was all here, on this field.
I arrived in Khankala already in the Millennium. Also a soldier, but only under a contract. It was raining, and we slept by the fires under the railway embankment, sheltered from the wind by the doors taken off their hinges. They didn’t rise to their full height, they didn’t stick out from behind the embankment: they were shooting at a sniper from Grozny.
And then the sun appeared, and the sniper killed Mukhtarov. Unlike all of us, frivolous ones, Mukha never took off his bulletproof vest. I believed that he would save me, if anything happened. Didn't save. The bullet hit him from the side and went right through. “I bandaged him,” Slavka later said. “There was such a small hole on the left side. And I started bandaging him on the right, but there was nothing there, my arm had already fallen through...” The fly lived for some time. But while they were looking for smoke bombs, while they pulled him out from under the fire, while they bandaged him, he died.
That day, taking advantage of excellent visibility, a sniper killed two of us and wounded six more people. We hated the sun.
These two wars convinced me of the inviolability of Chechnya. No matter what happens in the world, no matter what kind of humanism is born, it will always be the same here.
There will always be war here.
Now I'm a journalist, and here I am again. And I don’t recognize Chechnya.
Now everything is different here. Khankala has grown to incredible sizes. This is no longer a base, it is a city with a population of several thousand (if not tens of thousands) people. There are countless parts, each separated by its own fence; if you’re not used to it, you can get lost. Canteens, clubs, toilets, and baths were built. Concrete slabs are laid in neat, even paths, everything is swept, sprinkled with sand, posters are hung here and there, and portraits of the president are found at almost every step.
Silence, like on a collective farm. The soldiers here walk without weapons, at full height, without crouching. We've lost the habit. Or maybe they never heard a shot. There is no tension or fear in the eyes. They are probably not lousy at all and not hungry...
The rear has long been deep here.
In general, Chechnya is very surprising. The republic was filled with people, the broken clay huts were replaced by new brick cottages, richly built, three floors high. Not only armored personnel carriers, but also Zhiguli cars now drive on the roads, and regular buses stop near the cafe. In the evenings, Starye Atagi, Bamut and Samashki glow no worse than Beskudniki.
The most striking thing is Severny Airport. The 46th brigade of internal troops is stationed here. A cozy little world surrounded by a concrete fence from the war. The army as it should be. Ideal. The order is amazing. Straight paved paths, green grass, white curbs. The new one-story barracks are lined up, the blocky Western-style mess hall gleaming with corrugated iron. Very similar to American military bases as they are shown in the movies.
There is a shooting range on the airfield field. In accordance with the regulations, red flags are raised during shooting: do not enter, it is dangerous. When they are not shooting, white flags flutter in the wind: go, now you can.
The new shooting range was built in order to learn how to destroy the old city, which is two steps away.
In the evenings, officers walk along the paths under the light of lanterns. Seriously, there are streetlights here. And there is an officers' dormitory. Quite a few officers come here to serve with their wives. “Darling, I’m going to work, please give me the bayonet.” And in the evening: “Darling, did you have a good day today?” - “Yes, dear, good. I killed two.” Some already have children. They grow here, in Grozny.
Next to the officers' mess is a hotel for high-ranking guests. Double glazing, hot water, shower. Television - five channels... Hotel in Grozny! I can't wrap my head around it.
And the Minute is just a stone's throw away. And to the cruciform hospital, where Russian lives are laid to rest, as on the Kulikovo field, too: here it is, behind the fence.
The feeling of duality is now the strongest feeling in Chechnya. It seems to be peace, but it seems not. The war is somewhere nearby: in Starye Atagi, where four FSB men were killed, in Grozny, where land mines are constantly exploding, or in Urus-Martan, where she sits with a machine gun in ambushes - there is a war, it is somewhere nearby, somewhere there, but not here... It's quiet here. They shoot here only when the red flag is raised.
The army in Chechnya is now in a stalemate. There are no big gangs left for a long time. There is no front, no partisan detachments, no commanders.
Basayev and Khattab have not been on air for three months,” says the commander of the explosive group in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Abrashin. - Perhaps they are no longer in Chechnya. It is not necessary that they are in Georgia. In Ingushetia, we have our own Dzherak Gorge, which is unafraid...
By and large, there is no more war in the republic. At least in her usual understanding. There's just crazy crime in Chechnya. And gangs are organized on the principle of punks. A militant who has fought a war, an “authority,” gathers around himself a gang, usually young people, three to five people. This is his gang. With her he goes to showdowns and earns money. He is fighting not only with the feds. If there is a paid order, the gang goes to place a landmine. No - he goes to rob local residents or fight with a neighboring gang for oil. Money is everything.
At the same time, stabbing a “cop” to death is a matter of honor for them. Just casually.
My husband worked in the riot police,” says Khava, a trader. - Over the summer, 39 people in their detachment died. They are killed right on the street, shot in the back of the head. A week ago a neighbor was killed, and yesterday his son. Both worked in the police...
The army cannot fight crime: catching bandits is not the prerogative of a regiment or division. Imagine this situation: Moscow is tired of theft and robbery in the gateways. And so a regiment is stationed on Red Square to maintain order. With tanks, anti-aircraft guns and snipers. During the day, the military lines the Kremlin paving stones with smooth sandy paths and installs portraits of the president. And at night they lock themselves in their camp, shoot at any sound and never go beyond the checkpoint. Will this stop the robbery in Tushino? And if the Tushino district police officer and prefect are also completely on the side of the local “authority”, Shamil the Chechen, and in the last shootout they were with him against the cops?..
But it is also impossible to withdraw troops: in this case, everything that happened after Khasavyurt will be repeated.
We now live only in mop-up operations,” says special forces commander Fidel. - If we clean the village constantly, it’s relatively calm there. For a month or two there have been no clean-ups - that’s it, it’s better not to interfere. Did you want to go to Grozny? My advice to you: don't. It hasn't been cleaned for two months now. For example, I don’t go, I’m afraid. And don’t meddle in Shali: the village is completely shabby...
On March 1, 2000, the sixth company of the Pskov Airborne Division died in the Argun Gorge. How the “six” died is a separate matter. I was then in the gorge, twenty kilometers from them. My battalion was stationed near Shatoi. At night we heard their fight, heard them die. We could not help them: there was no order to move forward, although we were waiting for this order, we were ready. Twenty kilometers is three minutes on a turntable. On an armored personnel carrier - three to five hours. In five hours we could be there. But there was no order.
The battle went on for more than a day. During this time, help could be transferred from Cuba. Someone turned them in, the paratroopers.
At dusk we land in Kurchaloy. It is considered to be one of the most dangerous areas, although it is flat. However, here too the war slowed down greatly. The last sabotage took place in these places two and a half months ago. On December 23, an infantry fighting vehicle of the 33rd St. Petersburg brigade was blown up by a landmine. The shell was placed directly on the road surface and exploded under the car itself.
Now it’s tolerable,” says the acting director. brigade commander Colonel Mikhail Pedora. - There have been no shellings for a long time. And land mines are not planted so often anymore: engineering reconnaissance cleans the roads every morning. But we still rent about three a month. As a rule, in the morning: put at night. Who? And the devil knows. Locals, probably...
A dead "beha", covered with a tarpaulin, stands on the edge of the helipad. The turret is torn off, the bottom is turned inside the hull like a rose. Sharp strips of torn metal bend into the sky exactly in the place where the operator-gunner's legs were.
Next to her stands another one, also dead, burned down a week earlier. Also covered with a tarpaulin. Very similar to corpses. At the height of the fighting, they were also stacked at the edge of the takeoff and covered with a tarpaulin. Only there were dozens of times more of them.
At the brigade checkpoint in front of the exit there are two posters: “Soldier! Don’t talk to strangers, it’s dangerous!” - and “Soldier! Don’t pick up anything from the ground, it’s dangerous!”
It happens that explosives are hidden very skillfully,” says Pedora. - A fighter is walking down the street and looks to see a box lying around or a child’s ball. He brushes her foot - and there is a light-sensitive sensor. And there is no half-stop. Experts are already establishing such surprises...
In general, no one knows how to come up with slogans and posters better than the military. In Khankala, fighters leaving for cleansing operations are greeted with a fatherly farewell by a poster “Bon voyage!”
I drive and drive around Chechnya... No, it’s not the same. Perhaps the war really is ending. Probably my soldier's instinct for dark places deceived me. Maybe it’s really time to open a sanatorium here? There are also unique sulfur springs here - almost all the diseases of the world can be cured in the geysers of lowland Chechnya. As a soldier, I was cured in Grozny from ulcers that spread across my skin from dirt, cold and nerves. Only then could one get to the source only by crawling. And then they shot. And now car washes have been built on the geysers; locals run their own small businesses using the free hot water.
Probably, there really will be peace soon.
At the headquarters of the 33rd brigade there is a post of Private Roman Lenudkin from St. Petersburg. Lenudkin is not a sniper, not a machine gunner, and not a driver. Lenudkin is a computer scientist. His Pentium - "weaving" is in a "butterfly" - a special headquarters vehicle - and is powered by a gas generator.
When we take off, I lean against the window glass. The feeling of duality takes over again. There, in Chechnya at night, there is now a dead infantry fighting vehicle. The blood that had flowed from the gunner's severed legs had not yet been washed off the armor. And nearby, literally a hundred meters away, in the headquarters “butterfly” sits the programmer Lenudkin and hammers on the keys of his computer.
The helicopter hovers over a small area on a flat bald hill. For a second or two the car stays in the thin air, then one and a half tons of humanitarian aid take over the three thousand horsepower engine. The fuselage begins to shake violently, the pistons in the cylinders work with noticeable tension. Almost without slowing down, the car hits the ground heavily. Something is cracking in the landing gear, a shock wave is running through the blades - they are about to fall off.
We sat down, - the pilot opened the door and put up the ladder. - Did you see it? And you ask why they fall... There are few serviceable cars, each one is filled to capacity. The flight weight is maximum, the engine constantly operates at maximum speed. There is no longer enough strength to hover: the heavy car cannot stay in the air. We do it like this every time: if we don’t sit down, we fall. What can I say, the cars are worn out to the limit. We do thirty flights a day...
In Grozny I go to see intelligence officers I know from previous business trips. The reconnaissance battalion lives separately from everyone else, in a tent camp. Compared to Khankala, these are khrushchevs. There is no time to make money: intelligence, special forces and the FSB are overwhelmed with work. But still, life here is slowly getting better: refrigerators, TVs, tables and chairs have appeared.
The scouts are sitting, drinking vodka. For the first few minutes we are happy to meet you. But everyone is waiting for me to ask. And I ask: “Well, how is it here?..” And now the glances become heavier, the eyes are filled with hatred, pain and enduring depression. In a minute they already hate everything, including me. With every word they plunge deeper into madness, the speech turns into a feverish patter: you write, correspondent, write...
Tell me, why don’t you write anything about losses? In our battalion alone there are already 7 killed and 16 wounded!
The war continues - we are not getting out of the raids. We have now spent 22 days in the mountains. Well, we just arrived. We rest here for the night - and tomorrow we go back to the mountains for twenty days...
And they don’t pay a damn thing here! Look, 22 days multiplied by 300 people equals six hundred and sixty man-days. This is only for this raid. In reality, a brigade receives three thousand combat days per month. And the headquarters has its own limit: close a maximum of seven hundred. I went to find out...
The hardest thing will be returning home. What should I do there, in the division? Write outlines?.. Nobody needs us there, you understand! Oh, I don’t care: just finish your service, get an apartment and to hell with everything!..
And now I recognize myself in them. And again the field, the same field appears before my eyes. And somewhere outside the city, a lonely SAU truck is hammering so familiarly into the mountains. And the topics of conversation did not change one word: hunger, cold and death. Yes, NOTHING has changed here! I was not deceived.
The whirlpool of carnage will be covered with a thin crust of ostentatious ice of the world. The President is depicted on it from different angles, and smooth concrete paths are laid for ease of walking. The ice is still holding, but it could crack at any moment.
And under the ice, for the second year in a row, reconnaissance, distraught from raids and blood, is drinking itself to death. And he pokes at the edge, and wants to break the ice and get out of here, take his wives, children and go to hell, start life anew, without war, without killing strangers and without burying his own. And he can’t. It is firmly attached to Chechnya.
And the hazing in this tent labyrinth is simply terry: no one can keep track of what is happening in the tarpaulin nooks and crannies. Yes, no one is watching. For what? They will all die anyway. And the cartridges are also sent in bags to Grozny, and the constant gnashing of teeth is filled with decalitres of vodka. And funerals from here also fly all over Russia, and the hospital is just as regularly supplied with torn human meat. And fear and hatred still rule this land.
And it still smells like diesel fuel and dust.
And here I am again in Mozdok, again standing on this field.
Seven years. Almost a third of my life, a little less. A person spends a third of his life sleeping. And I'm at war.
And nothing has changed on this takeoff in seven years. And nothing will change. Another seven years will pass, and another seven, and the same tents will stand here, in this very place, all the same tents, and people will still crowd around the water fountain, and the screws of the turntables will spin without stopping.
I close my eyes and feel like an ant. There are hundreds of thousands of us standing on this field. Hundreds of thousands of lives, so different and so similar, pass before my eyes. We were here, lived and died, and our funerals flew to all corners of Russia. I am one with them all. And we are all one with this field. In every city where the funeral came, a part of me died. In each pair of eyes, bottomless young eyes scorched by the war, a piece of this field remained.
Sometimes I catch those eyes and come over. Infrequently. In summer. When a truck drives along a stuffy street and the smell of diesel fuel mixes with the dust. And it will become a little sad.
“Brother, let me light a cigarette... Where did you fight?..”
When I was in Chechnya for the first time, seeing a conscript soldier at a checkpoint, I could not believe that he was really a soldier taking part in a counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.
A steel helmet, practically unchanged since the last world war, a greasy, greasy, darned peacoat, which was once camouflage, but has now become a single-color, gray-brown color, “battered,” trousers that are in even heavier condition condition than a pea coat. On his feet are knocked down, worn “Kirzachs”, which have not changed anything since the days of “King Pea”. The body armor mandatory for soldiers, in which they cannot be worn for more than 2 hours, and in which they walk around for days, was “camouflaged” under a pea coat, and on top of it there was an incomprehensible sewing-darned, pocket-button “design.”
What it was, I was told a few hours later, when I, together with one soldier, took over to guard the perimeter of our deployment site. It turned out that it was a homemade loading vest. It was “assembled” from different parts of a military uniform. The basis is a torn camouflage jacket, which was supposed to be used as rags, and the pockets for machine gun or machine gun magazines were made from various fragments of either trousers from this jacket, or simply from improvised rags. They even had a unique fashion here - who could sew the “unloading” more stylishly. It’s a shame for these boys who, risking their lives, defend what we want to call the STATE.
At least those who still believe in it.
An 18-year-old boy who was caught for military service and put in Chechnya to “plug imperial holes” hardly understands what he is doing there. He hardly understands what is happening around him at all. We just have to survive.
Not to mention the constant danger, sometimes from their “fathers-commanders” they had to experience treatment similar to the “Caucasian captivity” described by Lermontov.
Secret pit
Autumn business trip to Chechnya. Although the weather in Ryazan had already begun to deteriorate, there were still warm days here. But it was “days”, since the nights, at this altitude of almost two kilometers above sea level, were quite cold. Such a contrast is like in the desert - it’s hot during the day and cold at night.
Not far from the location, soldiers of the internal troops, who had fortified themselves at this height along with us, began to dig a hole. The fact that this was not a human or technical trench could already be guessed after a few hours, when the contours of this “engineering structure” began to appear. The pit had a roughly square shape, about 2x2 meters, but its depth gradually increased. My first guess was that this was some kind of extension to the toilet. This is roughly how the soldiers themselves explained the occurrence of this “failure,” but the increasing depth, already reaching five meters, raised doubts about the veracity of their explanations. Then we realized why they didn’t tell us the truth - it was a shame.
In captivity at home
When did the midnight light
He rises, he is near the fence
Lies in the village - quiet sleep
Only rarely closes his eyes.
With friends - remembers
About that dear native country;
Sad; but more than them...
Leaving there a lovely pledge,
Freedom, happiness, that I loved,
He set off into an unknown land,
And...he destroyed everything in that region.
M.Yu. Lermontov "Prisoner of the Caucasus"
Walking through the territory of our deployment site at night, when there was no moon, and the air even seemed somehow viscous-black, I was always afraid of falling into this huge hole, since you can’t really get enough light here with a flashlight, maybe something will “fly to the light” . It would be a shame to break a bone, or even worse, break a neck, in such “non-combat conditions.” All the time I thought: “Why did they give up this huge hole, because someone will fall?!” However, we managed to find out about the real purpose of this “supertrench” the very next night after the end of the “excavations”.
At first I thought that something was wrong with my head when I heard a voice, literally near my feet, coming, as it seemed, from underground. However, then he realized that the call was apparently coming from this very huge pit, and he approached, sure enough, there were two soldiers sitting at the bottom. I shined a flashlight on them - they had been sitting there for a long time, one was curled up in a ball and trying to sleep.
Excuse me, do you have a cigarette?
Yes, I didn’t take it with me, just this one (I smoke), but how did you two fall here? Why don't you call anyone? They're probably looking for you with all their might?
No, they’re not looking, the colonel put us here on purpose, shall we have a smoke?
How special? Didn't understand? Grab a cigarette.
I fell asleep at my post, and Sanya bought cigarettes from the locals - they “lit it up”, so we sat there.
Frankly, their calm explanations took me by surprise. Well, the militants put prisoners in pits, but that’s in captivity. And so that the commander of his subordinates, to the zindan!
He returned back to the cockpit to our guys and told everything. Then more guys began to approach, also talking about seeing soldiers sitting in a hole where the commander had put them.
The worst thing was the weather and climatic conditions in which we were in this highland. It was clear to everyone that if a person sat in this pit for even a few hours, then he could forget about his kidneys, if not now, then a little later. Moreover, in addition to the kidneys, severe harm will be caused not only to physical, but also mental health. And these young boys here are getting enough! Every other day - sweeps, checkpoints, every other night - shelling, plus round-the-clock guard.
The decision was made instantly.
Everyone who was in the cockpit at that time rushed to the commander of the warriors. As it turned out later, he had the rank of major, but for some reason everyone around him called him colonel, perhaps because he himself wanted it so much.
Our “delegation” pulled the “regimental major” out of his room, the guys pressed him against the wall:
What are you doing? Why are your soldiers sitting in a hole?
This is my outpost, I am in command here!
Listen, you, the boys’ kidneys will fall off, they’ll come home disabled, and they haven’t lived at all yet! Why are you disfiguring the guys? When the shelling starts, you’re not sitting in the trenches with them, you’re not shooting back, tell them thank you that you’re still alive! They're saving you here!
This is my outpost...
You're a fool, Colonel! Well, they “flew” into you, let them dig trenches, let them do push-ups, but don’t take away their health! If you don’t get the boys out of prison now, we’ll get them out and put you there!
You have no right! I am higher in rank than you, and I am the commander of this outpost!
Right now! Give the command to get the guys out!
The “Colonel” said something incomprehensible to the Dagestani contract soldiers who came running to his rescue. Then, in front of all the riot police, he said that the soldier had already been pulled out of the pit. One of our guys went to check, five minutes later he flew into the location where we were still standing, pulled the commander of the warriors out of his “nook”, and began methodically smearing him against the wall, shouting: “But I believed you, you bastard.” ! And they are sitting in a hole!
The next few seconds almost resulted in a major battle between our riot police and contract soldiers. The riot police officers managed to break up the fight that had begun, although someone still managed to snipe the “colonel” with a sniper, after which he shamefully locked himself in his room, where he heard the last loud “speech” of the riot police: “Schuck, he is SCHMUCK! Why talk to him!”
A minute later the soldiers were no longer in the pit, as in all subsequent days. The pit was empty. And the promise made by the riot police that if there were soldiers there, they would be immediately replaced by their commander remained in force.
Single revenge
We never received such extensive troubles as were promised by the “majoropolkan”. Although he was not even ashamed to write any complaints. Nothing worked out - different departments. But he began to order his guards, in case of the slightest violation or mistake, to shoot to kill, even if it was clear that he was a Ryazan riot policeman.
I climb onto the roof of the bombed building, which became our base for these months. From there there is a very beautiful view of the mountains, you can sit, smoke (during the day), think about home, about the deadlock and stupidity of this war. The soldiers have a post there.
I climb the rickety stairs.
What are you doing? Even here they started asking for the password? Hey, sorry, I don’t know the password, it’s from the riot police, you’ve never asked here before, have you?
Sorry, but it’s better not to come in, the colonel forbade us to let you in, he said, if they don’t know the password, shoot, if they still get in, even if they know, don’t let them in, shoot.
What have you got, has he moved or something? With your help, you decided to take revenge on us? Seriously, did you say shoot?!
The entrance to the roof was internal. Accordingly, if “not our own” climb into it, it means that there is no one alive in the building. This order could only be directed against riot police.
Within a few minutes, the “initiative group” of our police detachment was talking with the commander of the outpost, explaining to him the inappropriateness of issuing such orders. They explained it very clearly, in riot police style - the order was immediately canceled.
Whenever possible, the riot police fed the conscripts,
They always gave us cigarettes and just had a heart-to-heart talk. In the riot policemen's quarters, a soldier could sit quietly, eat, rest a little, without fear that the commander would come in and organize a “duty crackdown”, forcing him to do some other stupid thing, just so that the soldiers would not just sit there.
When the mortar soldiers covered their own outpost at night - they found a soldier crying on the stairs - his friend died during the shelling. We went to this soldier's sergeant and asked him to take a day off - anyway, he was of no use in this state.
“They gave me something to drink” and fed me. They calmed us down as best we could. Maybe even saved. Hope.
Dmitry FLORIN, berkut77 especially for Pravda Khakassia.
About the Russian army
As we proceed, I would like to immediately note the situation of conscripts in those conditions.
In my opinion, it was much easier for them to be among the mass of contract soldiers in Chechnya than among the mass of conscripts in Russia. Since they were contract soldiers, they were already quite old people, 25-35 years old, who did not need acts of self-affirmation. For the most part, they treated the conscripts like a father, loading them with everyday chores: putting things in order in the tents, theirs and the officers’, going for food, washing the dishes. Since young people need to get accustomed to work, they were naturally included in the outfits as often as possible. But I didn’t notice or hear about any kind of mass bullying of contract soldiers against conscripts in the brigade.
Although... I remember. In October, conscript S. shot himself in the 3rd battalion. Without drawing up a protocol for examining the scene of the incident, they rushed to take the body to the forensic examination in Severny. And a rumor spread that the poor guy had been shot. To dispel suspicions, I had to go to Grozny in a single armored personnel carrier, without a column, to examine the corpse in the morgue. I remember a thin, helpless body, naked to the waist, lying quietly on a stretcher... I admit that in that case the boy was overloaded; They plugged all the holes in them and seemed to even beat them. But on record, all his colleagues spoke of the absence of visible external reasons for suicide. For greater objectivity, it should be noted that our brigade was considered the most disciplined, in comparison with other units of the Russian Defense Ministry stationed in Chechnya. We were almost an exemplary unit in the group.
They told me about another case. I don’t remember in which unit, in the morning, they found a dead conscript with a broken neck. The death was reported as an accident - they say the soldier fell from the second tier of the bed in his sleep. In fact, it was pure murder. A few days before, the deceased conscript had an argument with a drunken contract soldier and punched the latter in the face. The contractor harbored a grudge. Choosing the moment, at night he crept up to the sleeping man and broke his neck.
Since I touched on the topic of relationships between soldiers in the army, I would like to develop it. Since I had the opportunity to serve in both the old - Soviet and new - Russian armies, I will take the liberty of analyzing the causes of the most vile and destructive phenomenon - hazing. Hazing is the main reason why today’s young people of military age are trying with all possible forces and means to avoid the fate of ending up in the army.
In 2002, I happened to spend several months in the Ryazan region, in an area where the population eked out a miserable existence, surviving by making sauerkraut and selling it wholesale to resellers in Moscow markets. To do this, people took the train at six o’clock in the evening, traveled three hours to Moscow, spent the night there near the fires (in winter and summer), handed over the goods in the morning and returned home. And so on all year.
Well, what kind of money can you earn from such trading? People were teetering on the brink of poverty. And yet, they managed to save money to buy medical reports for their sons about their unfitness for military service. At that time, in those parts this pleasure cost 1000 US dollars.
If there were a normal working environment in the army, and if the life, health and human dignity of soldiers were treated with respect, their parents would under no circumstances dissuade them from serving. Because young people, due to the inability to engage in creative work, essentially rotted alive - they drank themselves to death en masse. They started to be coded and treated for alcoholism at the age of 18!!!...
I remember in the training battalion, when I was just starting to serve in military service in 1984, in one of the classes the company’s political commander said that hazing appeared in the Soviet Army either in ’62 or ’65. The time has come to put on boots and overcoats for those who were born 20 years ago, that is, young people born in 1941-45. But for well-known reasons, a demographic hole was formed. And then people who had previously been convicted began to be drafted into the army. It was they who infected the previously healthy army body with cancer. Those who served in the SA until the 60s, all as one, said that there was no bullying of the old-timers against the young.
I had a chance to talk to guys who were imprisoned in the 80s - 2000s. From their stories, I made a paradoxical conclusion that today, the relationships between prisoners in camps and prisons are many times more humane than between soldiers in the army. Those who served time unanimously claim that in the penitentiary system the main evil is generated by the employees of this system in relation to their charges; the inmates, for the most part, communicate with each other quite correctly - “according to concepts” (which, unlike the Constitution and laws, do not change so often). If a person is “lowered”, then this happens within the framework of established procedures and certain rules. This creates an absurd situation in which it is safer for young people to serve time in the zone than to serve in the Russian army.
An attentive reader has probably noticed a certain absurdity: if the army was infected with hazing by former prisoners, then why is there chaos in the army, but there is order in the zones? The reason is due to age. Only young people serve in the army, in need of acts of self-affirmation, and in the zones there are people of various age categories who have gone through the stage of personality formation.
In my opinion, hazing could be eradicated by making some organizational changes to the army structure. It will soon be 20 years since the media started talking about the need to reform the Russian army. The proposals to increase wages and eliminate barracks living conditions are correct. It seems that wages have already become the same as those of workers in industry, and some timid progress is planned with regard to housing. But if today they offered me to serve under a contract, even with a good salary and a separate living space, I would refuse.
The reason is that in the army there is no separation between combat training and household functions. These two types of activities must be clearly and unambiguously distinguished. The same principle of service should apply in the army as in the police. After all, when a policeman comes to work, he does not sweep the area near his station, does not scrub toilets and offices, does not serve in the canteen, and does not wash the dishes. He receives a weapon and goes to perform functions of protecting public order for a strictly defined period of time. The duty is over - the policeman is resting for his allotted time. There are no marching drills, no drill reviews and other nonsense.
The army has a fundamentally different system. From morning until lunch, a serviceman can engage in combat training, and after lunch, take up his daily duty in the canteen - peeling potatoes, washing dishes, or go on duty for the company - scrub floors for a day and stand like an idol on the bedside table. Having been on duty for a day and a half, the serviceman has only one night to rest. And after this, this cycle can be repeated until demobilization. I spent most of my military service in this mode.
To better understand the problem, let’s imagine a civilian plant, the production process of which is built on an army model. The following funny picture emerges: I was hired at a factory, let’s say as a mechanic. My main job is to turn nuts for eight hours. If, after working for 4 hours, I throw down the tool and start washing the floors in the workshop, and stay overnight to guard the territory of the plant, what kind of products will this long-suffering enterprise ultimately produce?
The main reform of the army should consist precisely in the fact that economic and everyday functions would be performed by specialized units or civilian citizens. The soldier is obliged to engage only in combat training. The main point of hazing is precisely to shift all the housekeeping work onto the young people. But in peaceful life, the army actually does only this - it serves itself, there is no time left for the rest.
When I first arrived in the brigade, the units still included contract soldiers who participated in winter-spring offensive combat operations. As soon as active hostilities ceased after the terrorist attack in Budennovsk, processes of decomposition characteristic of peacetime began in the camp: formations, drill reviews; morning, afternoon, evening routines, household outfits, etc. In less than two months, all the veterans deserted from such service. It was just time for them to go on vacation. They did not return back - they terminated the contracts.
A tiny episode in the middle of the summer of 1995 from the life of the 166th motorized rifle brigade illustrates how dramatically the army changes when it stops fighting. Once I had the opportunity to read material collected to impose disciplinary punishment on a lieutenant. They planned to consider him at the officer's court of honor. The essence of this poor fellow's offense was that he caught the eye of brigade commander M and the latter asked him a stern question - why does he wear the distinctive emblems of the airborne troops, and not the motorized rifle troops? To this, the lieutenant reasonably noted that when the battles for Grozny were going on, no one paid attention to the buttonholes, but now, in the calm, for some reason they began to peer...
There is a popular saying: when a cat has nothing to do, he licks his own balls. The modern Russian army seems to me like such a healthy cat who, instead of catching mice, is engaged in licking his crotch and there is no end in sight to this activity.