No one now remembers that in 1995 the maritime tradition of the Great Patriotic War was revived - on the basis of more than twenty units of the Leningrad naval base, a marine corps company was formed. Moreover, this company had to be commanded not by an officer of the Marine Corps, but by a submariner … Just like in 1941, the sailors were sent to the front almost straight from the ships, although many of them were holding their submachine guns only on oath. And these yesterday's mechanics, signalmen, electricians in the mountains of Chechnya entered the battle with well-trained and armed militants to the teeth.
The Baltic sailors in the battalion of the Baltic Fleet marines fought back in Chechnya with honor. But out of ninety-nine fighters, only eighty-six returned home …
LIST
servicemen of the 8th Marine Corps Company of the Leningrad Naval Base, who died during the conduct of hostilities on the territory of the Chechen Republic from May 3 to June 30, 1995
1. Guard Major Yakunenkov
Igor Alexandrovich (04/23/63 - 05/30/95)
2. Guard Senior Lieutenant Stobetsky
Sergey Anatolyevich (24.02.72–30.05.95)
3. Guard sailor contract-based Egorov
Alexander Mikhailovich (14.03.57–30.05.95)
4. Guard sailor Kalugin
Dmitry Vladimirovich (11.06.76–08.05.95)
5. Guard sailor Kolesnikov
Stanislav Konstantinovich (05.04.76–30.05.95)
6. Guard sailor Koposov
Roman Vyacheslavovich (04.03.76–30.05.95)
7. Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Korablin
Vladimir Ilyich (09.24.75-30.05.95)
8. Guard Junior Sergeant Metlyakov
Dmitry Alexandrovich (04/09/71 - 05/30/95)
9. Guard senior sailor Romanov
Anatoly Vasilievich (04/27/76 - 05/29/95)
10. Guard senior sailor Cherevan
Vitaly Nikolaevich (01.04.75–30.05.95)
11. Guard sailor Cherkashin
Mikhail Alexandrovich (20.03.76–30.05.95)
12. Guard senior sailor Shpilko
Vladimir Ivanovich (04.21.76-29.05.95)
13. Guard Sergeant Yakovlev
Oleg Evgenievich (05.22.75-29.05.95)
Eternal memory to the lost, honor and glory to the living!
Captain 1st Rank V. (call sign "Vietnam") reports:
- I, a submariner, became the commander of a marine company by accident. In early January 1995, I was the commander of a diving company of the Baltic Fleet, at that time the only one in the entire Navy. And then suddenly an order came: from the personnel of the units of the Leningrad naval base to form a company of marines to be sent to Chechnya. And all the infantry officers of the Vyborg antiamphibious defense regiment, who were supposed to go to war, refused. I remember that the command of the Baltic Fleet then still threatened to put them in prison for this. So what? Have they planted at least someone?.. And they told me: “You have at least some combat experience. Take the company. You are responsible for it with your head."
On the night of January 11-12, 1995, I received this company in Vyborg. And in the morning we have to fly to Baltiysk.
As soon as I arrived at the barracks of the company of the Vyborg regiment, I lined up the sailors and asked them: "Do you know that we are going to war?" And then half a company faints: "Ka-a-ak?.. For some kind of war!..". Then they realized how they were all deceived! It turned out that some of them were offered to enter the flight school, someone was going to another place. But here's what is interesting: for such important and responsible cases, for some reason, the best sailors were selected, for example, with disciplinary “flights” or even former offenders in general.
I remember a local major running up: “Why did you tell them that? How are we going to keep them now? "I told him: “You shut your mouth … It is better we collect them here than I later have them there. By the way, if you disagree with my decision, I can switch with you. Any questions?". The major had no more questions …
Something unimaginable began to happen to the personnel: someone was crying, someone fell into a stupor … Of course, there were just complete cowards. Out of one hundred and fifty of them, fifteen people were accumulated. Two of them even jerked out of the unit. But I don’t need these either, I wouldn’t take these myself anyway. But most of the guys were ashamed in front of their comrades, and they went to fight. In the end, ninety-nine men went to war.
The next morning I built the company again. The commander of the Leningrad naval base, Vice Admiral Grishanov, asks me: "Do you have any wishes?" I answer: “Yes. All those present here are going to die. " He: “What are you ?! This is a reserve company!.. ". Me: “Comrade commander, I know everything, this is not the first time I have seen a marching company. Here, people stay with their families, but no one has apartments”. He: "We have not thought about it … I promise we will resolve this issue." And then he kept his word: all the families of the officers received apartments.
We arrive in Baltiysk, to the Baltic Fleet Marine Brigade. The brigade itself at that time was in a dilapidated state, so that the mess in the brigade multiplied by the mess in the company ended up being a mess in the square. Neither eat well nor sleep. And after all, it was only a minimal mobilization of one fleet!..
But, thank God, the old guard of Soviet officers still remained in the Navy by that time. It was they who started the war on themselves and pulled out. But in the second "walk" (as the marines call the period of hostilities in mountainous Chechnya from May to June 1995. - Ed.), Many officers from the "new" went to war for apartments and orders. (I remember how back in Baltiysk one officer asked to join my company. But I had nowhere to take him. I then asked him: “Why do you want to go?” He: “But I don't have an apartment …” Me: “Remember: They don't go to war for apartments.”Later, this officer was killed.)
The deputy commander of the brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Artamonov, told me: "Your company is leaving for the war in three days." And I even had to take the oath out of a hundred people twenty without a machine gun! But those who had this machine gun also left not far from them: almost no one knew how to shoot anyway.
Somehow we settled down, went to the landfill. And at the range of ten grenades, two do not explode, out of ten rifle cartridges, three do not fire, they simply rotted. All these, if I may say so, ammunition was produced in 1953. And cigarettes, by the way, too. It turns out that the most ancient NZ was dug for us. The story is the same with machine guns. In the company, they were still the newest - produced in 1976. By the way, the trophy submachine guns that we later took from the "spirits" were produced in 1994 …
But as a result of "intensive training", already on the third day, we conducted combat firing classes for the squad (under normal conditions, this should be done only after a year of study). This is a very difficult and serious exercise that ends with combat grenade throwing. After such a "study", all my hands were cut by splinters - this is because I had to pull down those who got to their feet at the wrong time.
But studying is still half the trouble … A company leaves for lunch. I'm doing a shmon. And I find under the beds … grenades, explosives. These are eighteen-year-old boys!.. They saw the weapon for the first time. But they did not think at all and did not understand that if it all exploded, the barracks would be blown to smithereens. Later, these soldiers told me: "Comrade commander, we do not envy you, as you had with us."
We arrive from the landfill at one o'clock in the morning. The fighters are not well fed, and no one in the brigade is going to feed them especially … Somehow they managed to get something edible. And so I fed the officers with my own money. I had two million rubles with me. This was a relatively large amount back then. For example, a pack of expensive imported cigarettes cost a thousand rubles … I can imagine what a sight it was when we, after a training ground with weapons and knives, burst into a cafe at night. Everyone is shocked: who are they?..
Representatives of different ethnic diasporas immediately began to frequent in order to ransom their fellow countrymen: give the boy back, he is a Muslim and should not go to war. I remember such people driving up in a Volkswagen Passat, calling at the checkpoint: "Commander, we need to talk to you." We came with them to a cafe. They ordered such a table there!.. They say: "We will give you money, give us the boy." I listened to them attentively and answered: “I don’t need money”. I call the waitress and pay for the whole table. And I say to them: “Your boy will not go to war. I don’t need such people there!” And then the guy felt uncomfortable, he already wanted to go with everyone. But then I clearly told him: “No, I certainly don’t need one like that. Free … ".
Then I saw how people are brought together by a common misfortune and common difficulties. Gradually, my motley company began to turn into a monolith. And then in the war I did not even command, but simply cast a glance - and everyone understood me perfectly.
In January 1995, at a military airfield in the Kaliningrad region, we were loaded onto the plane three times. Twice the Baltic states did not give permission for aircraft to fly over their territory. But for the third time, they still managed to send the "Ruyev" company (one of the companies of the Baltic Fleet Marine Brigade - Ed.), But again we were not. Our company was preparing until the end of April. In the first "trip" to the war, I was the only one from the whole company, I went to replace.
For the second "flight" we had to fly on April 28, 1995, but it turned out only on May 3 (again because of the Balts, which did not let the planes pass). Thus, the "TOFiki" (the marines of the Pacific Fleet. - Ed.) And the "northerners" (the marines of the Northern Fleet. - Ed.) Arrived before us.
When it became clear that we were facing a war not in the city, but in the mountains, for some reason the mood soared in the Baltic Brigade that there would be no more dead - they say, this is not Grozny in January 1995. There was some kind of false idea that a victorious walk in the mountains was ahead. But for me it was not the first war, and I had a presentiment of how everything would actually be. And then we really learned how many people in the mountains died during artillery shelling, how many - during the execution of the columns. I really hoped that no one would die. I thought: “Well, there will probably be wounded…”. And I firmly decided that before leaving, I would definitely take the company to the church.
And in the company, many were unbaptized. Among them is Seryoga Stobetsky. And remembering how my baptism changed my life, I really wanted him to be baptized. I myself was baptized late. Then I returned from a very terrible business trip. The country fell apart. My family fell apart. It was not clear what to do next. I found myself in a dead end in life … And I remember well how after baptism my soul calmed down, everything fell into place, and it became clear how I could live on. And when later I served in Kronstadt, several times I sent sailors to help the rector of the Kronstadt Cathedral of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God clear up the garbage. The cathedral at that time stood in ruins - after all, it was blown up twice. And then the sailors began to bring me the royal gold pieces, which they found under the ruins. They ask: "What to do with them?" Imagine: people find gold, a lot of gold … But no one even thought to take it for themselves. And I decided to give these gold pieces to the rector of the church. And it was to this church that I later came to baptize my son. At that time, Father Svyatoslav, a former "Afghan", was a priest there. I say: “I want to baptize my child. But I myself am a little believer, I don’t know prayers …”. And I remember his speech literally: “Seryoga, have you been under water? Have you been to the war? So you believe in God. Free! " And for me this moment became a turning point, I finally turned to the Church.
Therefore, before sending to the "second trip" I began to ask Seryoga Stobetsky to be baptized. And he firmly answered: "I will not be baptized."I had a premonition (and not only me) that he would not return. I didn't even want to take him to the war, but I was afraid to tell him about it - I knew that he would go anyway. Therefore, I was worried about him and really wanted him to be baptized. But nothing can be done here by force.
Through local priests, I turned to the then Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Kirill with a request to come to Baltiysk. And, what is most surprising, Vladyka Kirill left all his urgent matters and specially came to Baltiysk to bless us for the war.
Bright Week was just going on after Easter. When I was talking with Vladyka, he asked me: "When are you leaving?" I answer: “In a day or two. But there are unbaptized in the company. " And about twenty boys who were unbaptized and wanted to be Baptized, Vladyka Cyril baptized him personally. Moreover, the guys did not even have money for crosses, which I told Vladyka about. He replied: "Don't worry, everything here is free for you."
In the morning, almost the entire company (only those who were on guard duty and in outfits were not with us) stood at the liturgy in the cathedral in the center of Baltiysk. The Liturgy was led by Metropolitan Kirill. Then I built a company near the cathedral. Vladyka Kirill came out and sprinkled holy water on the soldiers. I also remember how I asked Metropolitan Kirill: “We are going to fight. Perhaps this is a sinful business? " And he replied: "If for the Motherland, then no."
In the church we were given icons of St. George the Victorious and the Mother of God and crosses, which were worn by almost everyone who did not have them. With these icons and crosses in a few days we went to war.
When we were seen off, the commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Yegorov, ordered to set the table. At the Chkalovsk airfield, the company lined up, the soldiers were given tokens. Lieutenant Colonel Artamonov, deputy brigade commander, took me aside and said: “Seryoga, come back, please. Would you like brandy? " Me: “No, don't. Better when I return. " And when I went to the plane, I felt rather than saw how Admiral Yegorov baptized me …
At night we flew to Mozdok (a military base in North Ossetia. - Ed.). There is complete confusion. I gave my team the command to put up security, just in case, get sleeping bags and go to bed right next to the takeoff. The guys managed to take a nap at least a little before the upcoming restless night already in positions.
On May 4 we were transferred to Khankala. There we sit down on the armor and go in a column to Germenchug near Shali, at the position of the TOFIK battalion.
We arrived at the place - there was no one … Our future positions more than a kilometer long are scattered along the Dzhalka River. And I only have a little more than twenty fighters. If then the "spirits" attacked immediately, then we would have had to be very hard. Therefore, we tried not to reveal ourselves (no shooting) and began to slowly settle down. But no one even thought of sleeping that first night.
And they did the right thing. That very night we were fired upon by a sniper for the first time. We covered the fires, but the soldiers decided to light a cigarette. The bullet passed only twenty centimeters from Stas Golubev: he stood there in a trance for some time, his ill-fated cigarette fell on the armor and was smoking …
In these positions, we were constantly fired upon from both the village and some unfinished factory. But then we removed the sniper at the plant from AGS (automatic easel grenade launcher. - Ed.).
The next day the entire battalion arrived. It became kind of more fun. We were engaged in additional equipment of positions. I immediately established the usual routine: getting up, exercising, divorcing, physical training. Many looked at me with great surprise: in the field, charging looked somehow, to put it mildly, exotic. But three weeks later, when we went to the mountains, everyone understood what, why and why: daily exercises gave results - I did not lose a single person on the march. But in other companies, the fighters, physically not ready for wild loads, simply fell off their feet, lagged behind and got lost …
In May 1995, a moratorium on the conduct of hostilities was declared. Everyone drew attention to the fact that these moratoriums were announced exactly when the "spirits" needed time to get ready. There were skirmishes anyway - if they shot at us, we would answer. But we did not go forward. But when this truce ended, we began to move in the direction of Shali-Agishty-Makhkety-Vedeno.
By that time, there were data from both aerial reconnaissance and close reconnaissance stations. Moreover, they turned out to be so accurate that with their help it was possible to find a shelter for a tank in the mountain. My scouts confirmed: indeed, at the entrance to the gorge in the mountain there is a shelter with a meter layer of concrete. The tank drives out of this concrete cave, shoots in the direction of the Group and drives back. It is useless to shoot artillery at such a structure. They got out of the situation like this: they called the aviation and dropped some very powerful aviation bomb on the tank.
On May 24, 1995, artillery preparation began, absolutely all the barrels woke up. And on the same day, as many as seven minutes flew to our location from our own "non" (self-propelled mortar. - Ed.). I can't say exactly for what reason, but some of the mines, instead of flying along the calculated trajectory, began to tumble. A trench was dug along the road on the site of the former drainage system. And the mine hits just this trench (Sasha Kondrashov is sitting there) and explodes!.. With horror I think: there must be a corpse … I run up - thank God, Sasha is sitting, holding on to his leg. The splinter beat off a piece of stone, and with this stone part of the muscle in his leg was ripped out. And this is on the eve of the battle. He doesn't want to go to the hospital … They sent me anyway. But he caught up with us near Duba-Yurt. It's good that nobody else was hooked.
On the same day, a "grad" approaches me. The captain of the Marine Corps, "TOFovets", runs out of it, asks: "Can I stand with you?" I answer: "Well, wait …". It never occurred to me that these guys would start shooting!.. And they drove off thirty meters to the side and fired a volley!.. It seems that they hit me in the ears with a hammer! I told him: "What are you doing!..". He: "So you allowed …". They covered their ears with cotton wool …
On May 25, almost all of our company was already at the TPU (rear command post - Ed.) Of the battalion south of Shali. Only the 1st platoon (reconnaissance) and the mortars were pushed forward close to the mountains. The mortars were put forward because the regimental "nones" and "acacias" (self-propelled howitzer. - Ed.) Could not shoot close. The "spirits" took advantage of this: they will hide behind a nearby mountain, where the artillery cannot reach them, and make sorties from there. This is where our mortars came in handy.
Early in the morning we heard a battle in the mountains. It was then that the "spirits" bypassed the 3rd airborne assault company "TOFIK" from the rear. We ourselves were afraid of such a detour. The next night I did not go to bed at all, but walked in circles in my positions. The day before, a fighter "Severyanin" came out on us, but mine did not notice him and let him pass. I remember that I got terribly angry - I thought that I would just kill everyone!.. After all, if the "northerner" calmly passed, then what can we say about the "spirits"?..
At night I sent sergeant Edik Musikayev's castle platoon with the guys forward to see where we were supposed to move. They saw two destroyed "spirit" tanks. The guys brought with them a couple of whole trophy submachine guns, although usually the "spirits" took away the weapon after the battle. But here, probably, the skirmish was so fierce that these submachine guns were either thrown or lost. In addition, we found grenades, mines, captured a "spirit" machine gun, a smooth-bore BMP gun mounted on a self-made chassis.
On May 26, 1995, the active phase of the offensive began: "TOFiki" and "northerners" fought forward along the Shali gorge. The "spirits" prepared very well for our meeting: they had echeloned positions equipped - dugout systems, trenches. (Later we even found old dugouts from the Patriotic War, which the "spirits" converted into firing points. And what else was especially bitter: the militants "magically" knew exactly the time of the start of the operation, the location of the troops and delivered preemptive artillery tank strikes.)
It was then that my soldiers first saw the returning MTLB (light armored multipurpose tractor - Ed.) With the wounded and dead (they were taken out directly through us). They matured in one day.
"TOFiki" and "northerners" rested … They did not even half of the task for this day. Therefore, on the morning of May 27, I received a new command: to move together with the battalion to the area of the cement plant near Duba-Yurt. The command decided not to send our Baltic battalion head-on through the gorge (I don’t even know how many of us would remain with such a development of events), but to send it bypassing in order to go to the “spirits” in the rear. The battalion was tasked with passing through the right flank through the mountains and taking first Agishty, and then Makhkety. And it was precisely for such actions of ours that the militants were completely unprepared! And the fact that a whole battalion would go in the mountains to the rear, they could not even dream of in a nightmare!..
By thirteen o'clock on May 28, we moved to the area of the cement plant. Paratroopers from the 7th Airborne Division also approached here. And then we hear the sound of a "turntable"! In the gap between the trees of the gorge, a helicopter appears, painted with some kind of dragons (it was clearly visible through binoculars). And all, without saying a word, open fire in that direction from grenade launchers! The helicopter was far away, about three kilometers, and we could not get it. But the pilot, it seems, saw this barrage and quickly flew away. We did not see any more "spiritual" helicopters.
According to the plan, the paratroopers' scouts were to go first. They are followed by the 9th company of our battalion and becomes a checkpoint. For the 9th - our 7th company and also becomes a checkpoint. And my 8th company must go through all the checkpoints and take Agishty. For reinforcement I was given a "mortar", a sapper platoon, an artillery spotter and an aircraft controller.
Seryoga Stobetsky, the commander of the 1st reconnaissance platoon, and I are beginning to think about how we will go. We began to prepare for the exit. We arranged additional physical lessons (although we already had them every day from the very beginning). We also decided to hold a competition to equip the store for speed. After all, each soldier has ten to fifteen stores with him. But one magazine, if you pull the trigger and hold it, takes off in about three seconds, and life literally depends on the speed of reloading in battle.
Everyone at that moment already well understood that ahead were not the skirmishes that we had the day before. Everything said about it: there were scorched skeletons of tanks around, dozens of wounded emerge through our positions, take out the dead … Therefore, before going to the starting point, I went up to each soldier to look him in the eye and wish him good luck. I saw how some of them had stomach twisting with fear, some even wet themselves … But I do not consider these manifestations to be something shameful. I just remember my fear of the first fight very well! In the area of the solar plexus, it hurts as if you were hit in the groin, but only ten times harder! It is both acute and aching and dull pain at the same time … And you cannot do anything about it: even if you walk, even sit, but it hurts so badly in your stomach!..
When we went to the mountains, I was wearing about sixty kilograms of equipment - a bulletproof vest, an assault rifle with a grenade launcher, two ammunition (ammunition - Ed.) Grenades, one and a half ammo cartridges, grenades for the grenade launcher, two knives. The fighters are loaded the same way. But the guys from the 4th grenade and machine gun platoon dragged their AGSs (automatic easel grenade launcher. - Ed.), "Cliffs" (NSV heavy machine gun of 12, 7 mm. - Ed.) And plus each two mortar mines - more ten kilograms!
I line up the company and determine the order of battle: first there is the 1st reconnaissance platoon, then the sappers and the "mortar", and the 4th platoon closes. We walk in complete darkness along the goat path, which was marked on the map. The path is narrow, only a cart could pass along it, and even then with great difficulty. I said to my friends: "If someone shouts, even a wounded one, then I myself will come and strangle with my own hands …". So we walked very quietly. Even if someone fell, the maximum that was heard was an indistinct hum.
On the way, we saw "spiritual" caches. Soldiers: "Comrade commander!..". Me: “Set aside, do not touch anything. Forward!". And it’s right that we didn’t go into these caches. Later we learned about the "two hundredth" (deceased. - Ed.) And "300th" (wounded. - Ed.) In our battalion. Soldiers of the 9th company climbed into the dugouts to rummage. And no, first to throw grenades at the dugout, but went stupidly, into the open … And here's the result - warrant officer from Vyborg Volodya Soldatenkov, a bullet hit below the bulletproof vest in the groin. He died of peritonitis, he was not even taken to the hospital.
Throughout the march, I ran between the vanguard (reconnaissance platoon) and the rearguard ("mortar"). And our column stretched for almost two kilometers. When I came back again, I met scout paratroopers who were walking, tied with ropes. I told them: "Cool going, guys!". After all, they were walking light! But it turned out that we were ahead of everyone, the 7th and 9th companies were left far behind.
I reported to the battalion commander. He says to me: "So go first to the end." And at five in the morning, I with my reconnaissance platoon occupied the high-rise 1000.6. This was the place where the 9th company was supposed to set up a checkpoint and deploy the battalion's TPU. At seven o'clock in the morning, my entire company approached, and at about half-past seven came the reconnaissance paratroopers. And only at ten in the morning the battalion commander came with part of another company.
We walked about twenty kilometers on the map alone. Exhausted to the limit. I remember well how the whole blue-green came Seryoga Starodubtsev from the 1st platoon. He fell to the ground and lay motionless for two hours. And this guy is young, twenty years old … What to say about those who are older.
All plans went wrong. The battalion commander says to me: "You go forward, in the evening you occupy a height in front of Agishty and report." Let's go ahead. The scouts-paratroopers passed and moved further along the road indicated on the map. But the maps were from the sixties, and this path was marked on it without a bend! As a result, we got lost and went along another, new road, which was not on the map at all.
The sun is still high. I see a huge village in front of me. I look at the map - this is definitely not Agishty. I say to the aircraft controller: “Igor, we are not where we should be. Let's figure it out. As a result, they figured out that they had come to the Makhkets. From us to the village a maximum of three kilometers. And this is the task of the second day of the offensive!..
I'm getting in touch with the battalion commander. I say: “Why do I need these Agishts? It's almost fifteen kilometers to go back to them! And I have a whole company, a "mortar", and even sappers, there are two hundred of us in total. I've never fought with such a crowd! Come on, I'll rest and take the Mahkety. " Indeed, the fighters by that time could no longer walk more than five hundred meters in a row. After all, on each - from sixty to eighty kilograms. A fighter will sit down, but he cannot get up himself …
Combat: "Back!" An order is an order - we turn around and go back. The reconnaissance platoon went first. And as it turned out later, we were right at the place where the "spirits" came out. "TOFiki" and "northerners" pressed on them in two directions at once, and the "spirits" retreated in two groups of several hundred people on both sides of the gorge …
We returned to the bend from which we took the wrong road. And then the battle begins behind us - our 4th grenade and machine gun platoon was ambushed! It all started with a direct collision. The soldiers, bending under the weight of everything that they were dragging on themselves, saw some kind of "bodies". Ours make two conventional shots into the air (in order to somehow distinguish ours from strangers, I ordered a piece of vest to be sewn on my arm and leg and agreed with ours about the signal "friend or foe": two shots into the air - two shots in response) … And in response, ours get two shots to kill! The bullet hits Sasha Ognev in the arm and breaks the nerve. He screams in pain. The physician Gleb Sokolov turned out to be a fine fellow: the "spirits" hit him, and he bandages the wounded at this time!..
Captain Oleg Kuznetsov rushed to the 4th platoon. I told him: “Where! There is a platoon commander, let him figure it out himself. You have a company, a mortar and sappers! "I set up a barrier of five or six fighters on a high-rise with the commander of the 1st platoon Seryoga Stobetsky, and I give the rest of the command: "Move back and dig in!"
And then the battle begins with us - it was from below we were fired upon from grenade launchers. We walked along the ridge. In the mountains it is like this: whoever is higher wins. But not at this time. The fact is that huge burdocks grew below. From above we see only green leaves, from which pomegranates fly out, and the "spirits" through the stems see us perfectly.
Just at that moment, the extreme fighters from the 4th platoon were retreating past me. I still remember how Edik Kolechkov walked. He walks along a narrow ledge of the slope and carries two PK (Kalashnikov machine gun. - Ed.). And then bullets start flying around him!.. I shout: "Go to the left!..". And he is so exhausted that he cannot even turn off this ledge, he just spread his legs to the sides so as not to fall, and therefore continues to walk straight …
There is nothing to do at the top, and I and the fighters go into these damned mugs. Volodya Shpilko and Oleg Yakovlev were the most extreme in the chain. And then I see: a grenade explodes next to Volodya, and he falls … Oleg immediately rushed to pull Volodya out and died immediately. Oleg and Volodya were friends …
The battle lasted five to ten minutes. We did not reach the initial one only three hundred meters and retreated to the position of the 3rd platoon, which had already dug in. The paratroopers stood nearby. And then Seryoga Stobetsky comes, he himself is blue-black, and says: "Spiers" and "There is no bull …".
I am creating four groups of four or five people, sniper Zhenya Metlikin (nicknamed "Uzbek") was planted in the bushes just in case and went to pull out the dead, although this, of course, was an obvious gamble. On the way to the battle site, we see a "body" that flickers in the forest. I look through binoculars - and this is a "spirit" in a homemade armor coat, all hung with body armor. It turns out that they are waiting for us. We come back.
I ask the commander of the 3rd platoon Gleb Degtyarev: "Are you all?" He: "There is no one … Metlikin …". How could you lose one in five people? This is not one of thirty!.. I come back, go out onto the path - and then they start shooting at me!.. That is, the "spirits" were really waiting for us. I'm back again. I shout: "Metlikin!" Silence: "Uzbek!" And then he just seemed to rise from under me. Me: "Why are you sitting, don't you come out?" He: “I thought it was the“spirits”who came. Maybe they know my last name. But they cannot know for sure about "Uzbek". So I went out."
The result of this day was as follows: after the first battle, I myself counted only sixteen corpses of the "spirits" that had not been carried away. We lost Tolik Romanov and Ognev was wounded in the arm. The second battle - seven corpses of the "spirits", we have two dead, no one is wounded. We were able to pick up the bodies of the two victims the next day, and Tolik Romanov - only two weeks later.
Dusk fell. I report to the battalion commander: "mortar" at a high-rise at the starting point, I'm three hundred meters above them. We decided to spend the night at the same site where we ended up after the battle. The place seemed convenient: on the right in the direction of our movement - a deep cliff, on the left - a smaller cliff. In the middle there is a hill and a tree in the center. I decided to settle there - from there, like Chapaev, everything around was clearly visible to me. We dug in, set up security. Everything seems to be quiet …
And then the reconnaissance major of the paratroopers began to make a fire. He wanted to warm up near the fire. Me: "What are you doing?" And when he went to bed later, he again warned the major: "Carcasses!" But it was on this fire that the mines flew in a few hours. And so it happened: some burned the fire, and others died …
At about three in the morning, Degtyarev woke up: “Your shift. I need to get some sleep. You stay for the elder. If the attack is from below, don't shoot, only grenades. I take off my bulletproof vest and RD (paratrooper backpack. - Ed.), Cover them up and lie down on a hill. In the RD I had twenty grenades. These grenades saved me later.
I woke up with a sharp sound and a flash of fire. It was very close to me that two mines exploded from the "cornflower" (Soviet automatic mortar of 82 mm caliber. The loading is cassette, four mines are placed in the cassette. - Ed.).(This mortar was installed on a UAZ, which we later found and blew up.)
I was immediately deaf in my right ear. I can't understand anything at the first moment. All around the wounded are groaning. Everyone is yelling, shooting … Almost simultaneously with the explosions, they began to fire at us from both sides, and also from above. Apparently, the "spirits" wanted to take us by surprise immediately after the shelling. But the fighters were ready and immediately repulsed this attack. The fight turned out to be fleeting, lasted only ten to fifteen minutes. When the "spirits" realized that they could not take us by hand, they just walked away.
If I had not gone to bed, then perhaps such a tragedy would not have happened. After all, before these two damned mines there were two sighting shots from a mortar. And if one mine arrives, that's bad. But if there are two, it means that they are taking the plug. For the third time, two mines in a row flew in and fell just five meters from the fire, which became a reference point for the "spirits".
And only after the shooting had stopped, I turned around and saw … At the site of the mine explosions lay a bunch of wounded and killed … Six people died at once, more than twenty were seriously wounded. I looked: Seryoga Stobetsky was lying dead, Igor Yakunenkov was dead. Of the officers, only Gleb Degtyarev and I survived, plus the aircraft controller. It was terrifying to look at the wounded: Seryoga Kulmin had a hole in his forehead and his eyes were flat, leaked out. Sashka Shibanov has a huge hole in his shoulder, Edik Kolechkov has a huge hole in his lung, a splinter flew there …
RD saved me myself. When I began to lift it, several fragments fell out of it, one of which hit directly into the grenade. But the grenades were, of course, without fuses …
I remember well the very first moment: I see Seryoga Stobetsky torn apart. And then from the inside everything starts to rise to my throat. But I say to myself: “Stop! You are the commander, take everything back! I don’t know by what effort of will, but it worked out … But I was able to approach him only at six o'clock in the evening, when I calmed down a little. And he ran all day: the wounded were moaning, the soldiers had to be fed, the shelling continued …
The seriously wounded began to die almost immediately. Vitalik Cherevan was dying especially terribly. A part of his body was torn off, but he lived for about half an hour. Glass eyes. Sometimes something human appears for a second, then they turn glass again … His first cry after the explosions was: "Vietnam", help!.. ". He turned to me for "you"! And then: "Vietnam", shoot … ". (I remember how later, at one of our meetings, his father grabbed me by the breasts, shook me and kept asking: “Why didn't you shoot him, why didn't you shoot him?..” But I couldn't do it, I couldn't could …)
But (what a miracle of God!) Many of the wounded, who should have died, survived. Seryozha Kulmin was lying next to me, head to head. He had such a hole in his forehead that he could see his brains!.. So he not only survived - his eyesight was even restored! True, he now walks with two titanium plates in his forehead. And Misha Blinov had a hole about ten centimeters in diameter above his heart. He also survived, he now has five sons. And Pasha Chukhnin from our company now has four sons.
We have zero water for ourselves, even for the wounded!.. I had pantacid tablets with me, and chlorine tubes (disinfectants for water. - Ed.). But there is nothing to decontaminate … Then they remembered that they had walked through the impassable mud the day before. The soldiers began to strain out this mud. It was very difficult to call what was obtained as water. A muddy goo with sand and tadpoles … But there was still no other.
The whole day they tried to somehow help the wounded. The day before, we had smashed the "spirit" dugout, which contained powdered milk. They made a fire, and this "water", extracted from the mud, began to stir with dry milk and give to the wounded. We ourselves drank the same water with sand and tadpoles to a sweet soul. I told the fighters in general that tadpoles are very useful - squirrels … No one even had disgust. At first, they threw pantacid into it for disinfection, and then they drank it just like that …
And the Group does not give the go-ahead for evacuation by "turntables". We are in a dense forest. There is nowhere for helicopters to land … During the next negotiations on the "turntables" I remembered: I have an aircraft controller! "Where is the pilot?" We are looking, we are looking, but we can not find it in our patch. And then I turn around and see that he has dug a full-length trench with a helmet and is sitting in it. I don’t understand how he got the earth out of the trench! I couldn't even get through there.
Although helicopters were forbidden to hover, one commander of the "turntable" still said: "I will hang." I gave the order to the sappers to clear the area. We had the explosives. We blew up trees, age-old trees, in three girths. They began to prepare three wounded for dispatch. One, Alexei Chacha, was hit by a splinter on his right leg. He has a huge hematoma and cannot walk. I prepare it for dispatch, and leave Seryozha Kulmin with a broken head. The medical instructor in horror asks me: "How?.. Comrade commander, why aren't you sending him?" I answer: “I will definitely save these three. But I don’t know the “heavy” ones …”. (For the fighters it was a shock that the war has its own terrible logic. They save here, first of all, those who can be saved.)
But our hopes were not destined to come true. We never evacuated anyone by helicopters. In the Grouping, the "turntables" were given the final retreat and instead of them two columns were sent to us. But our battalion drivers on armored personnel carriers never made it. And only in the end, by nightfall, five BMD paratroopers came to us.
With so many wounded and killed, we could not move a single step. And in the late afternoon, the second wave of retreating militants began to seep. From time to time they fired at us from grenade launchers, but we already knew how to act: they just threw grenades from top to bottom.
I got in touch with the battalion commander. While we were talking, some Mamed intervened in the conversation (the connection was open, and our radio stations were caught by any scanner!). Began some kind of nonsense to carry about ten thousand dollars, which he will give us. The conversation ended with the fact that he offered to go one-on-one. Me: “Not weak! I will come. The soldiers tried to dissuade me, but I came to the appointed place really alone. But no one showed up … Although now I well understand that on my part it was, to put it mildly, reckless.
I hear the rumble of the column. I'm going to go meet. Soldiers: "Comrade commander, just don't leave, don't leave …". It is clear what the matter is: Dad is leaving, they are scared. I understand that it seems impossible to go, because as soon as the commander left, the situation becomes uncontrollable, but there is no one else to send!.. And I still went and, as it turned out, I did well! The paratroopers got lost in the same place as we did when they almost reached the Makhkets. We did meet, albeit with very big adventures …
Our medic, Major Nitchik (call sign "Doza"), the battalion commander and his deputy, Seryoga Sheiko, came with the convoy. Somehow they drove the BMD onto our patch. And then the shelling begins again … Combat: "What's going on here?" After the shelling, the "spirits" themselves climbed. They probably decided to slip between us and our "mortar", which dug in three hundred meters at a high-rise. But we are already smart, we don't shoot from machine guns, we only throw grenades down. And then suddenly our machine gunner Sasha Kondrashov rises and gives an endless burst from the PC in the opposite direction!.. I run up: "What are you doing?" He: "Look, they have already reached us!..". And indeed, I see that the "spirits" are thirty meters away. There were many, several dozen. They wanted, most likely, to take and surround us unceremoniously. But we drove them away with grenades. They could not break through here either.
I walk with a limp all day, I hear poorly, although I do not stutter. (It seemed to me so. In fact, as the fighters told me later, he stuttered!) And at that moment I did not think at all that it was a shell shock. The whole day is running around: the wounded are dying, it is necessary to prepare an evacuation, it is necessary to feed the soldiers, the shelling is underway. Already in the evening I try to sit down for the first time - it hurts. I touched my back with my hand - blood. Paratrooper doctor: "Come on, bend over …". (This major has enormous combat experience. Before that, I saw with horror how he cut Edik Musikayev with a scalpel and said: “Don't be afraid, the meat will grow!”) And with his hand he pulled a splinter out of my back. Then such pain pierced me! For some reason, it hit my nose hardest of all!.. The major gives me a splinter: "Here, make a keychain." (The second splinter was found only recently during examination at the hospital. It is still sitting there, stuck in the spine and just barely reached the canal.)
The wounded were loaded onto the BMD, then the dead. I gave their weapons to the commander of the 3rd platoon, Gleb Degtyarev, and left him for the elder. And I myself went with the wounded and killed to the regiment's medical battalion.
We all looked terrible: we were all interrupted, bandaged, covered in blood. But … at the same time, everyone is in polished shoes and with cleaned weapons. (By the way, we did not lose a single barrel; we even found the submachine guns of all our killed.)
There were about twenty-five wounded, most of them were seriously wounded. They handed them over to doctors. The most difficult thing remained - sending the dead. The problem was that some of them did not have documents with them, so I ordered my soldiers to write their last name on each hand and put notes with the last name in their pants pocket. But when I started checking, it turned out that Stas Golubev had mixed up the notes! I immediately imagined what would happen when the body arrives at the hospital: one thing is written on the hand, and another is written in a piece of paper! I twitch the shutter and think: I will kill him now … I myself am amazed now at my rage at that moment … Apparently, such was the reaction to the tension, and the concussion also affected. (Now Stas does not hold any grudge against me for this. After all, they were all boys at all and were afraid to approach the corpses at all …)
And then the medical colonel gives me fifty grams of alcohol with ether. I drink this alcohol … and I hardly remember anything else … Then everything was like in a dream: either I washed myself, or they washed me … I only remembered: there was a warm shower.
I woke up: I was lying on a stretcher in front of the "turntable" in a clean blue RB (disposable linen - Ed.) Of a submariner and they load me into this "turntable". First thought: "What about the company?..". After all, the commanders of platoons, squads and zakomvplodov either died or were wounded. There were only fighters left … And as soon as I imagined what would happen in the company, the hospital immediately disappeared for me. I shout to Igor Meshkov: "Leave the hospital!" (It seemed to me then that I was shouting. In fact, he barely heard my whisper.) He: “I have to leave the hospital. Give back the commander! " And he begins to pull the stretcher back from the helicopter. The captain who received me in the helicopter does not give me the stretcher. The "bag" adjusts its armored personnel carrier, points at the "turntable" KPVT (heavy machine gun. - Ed.): "Give the commander …". Those freaked out: "Yes, take it!..". And it so happened that my documents without me flew to the MOSN (special purpose medical unit. - Ed.), Which later had very serious consequences …
As I later found out, it was like this. The "turntable" arrives at MOSN. It contains my documents, but the stretcher is empty, there is no body … And my torn clothes lie nearby. MOSN decided that since there was no body, I was burnt. As a result, St. Petersburg receives a telephone message addressed to the deputy commander of the Leningrad naval base, Captain I Rank Smuglin: "Lieutenant-Commander such and such died." But Smuglin knows me from the lieutenants! He began to think about what to do, how to bury me. In the morning I phoned the captain of the 1st rank Toporov, my immediate commander: “Prepare the load“two hundred”. Toporov told me later: “I come into the office, take out the cognac - my hands are shaking. I pour it into a glass - and then the bell rings. Fraction, set aside - he is alive! ". It turned out that when the body of Sergei Stobetsky came to the base, they began to look for mine. And my body, of course, does not exist! They called Major Rudenko: "Where is the body?" He replies: “What a body! I saw him myself, he is alive!"
And in fact, this is what happened to me. In my blue underwear of a submariner, I took a submachine gun, sat with the soldiers on an APC and drove to Agishty. The battalion commander has already been informed that I was sent to the hospital. When he saw me, he was delighted. Here also Yura Rudenko returned with humanitarian aid. His father died, and he left the war to bury him.
I come to my own. The company is a mess. There is no security, weapons are scattered, the soldiers have a "razulyevo" … I say to Gleb: "What a mess ?!" He: “Why, all around ours! That's all and relax … ". Me: "So relaxed for the fighters, not for you!" I started to put things in order, and everything quickly returned to its former course.
Just then the humanitarian aid arrived, which Yura Rudenko had brought: bottled water, food!.. The soldiers drank this soda water in packages - they washed their stomachs. This is after that water with sand and tadpoles! I myself drank six one and a half liter bottles of water at a time. I myself do not understand how all this water in my body found a place for itself.
And then they bring me a package that the young ladies have collected in the brigade in Baltiysk. And the parcel is addressed to me and Stobetsky. It contains my favorite coffee for me and chewing gum for him. And then such melancholy swept over me!.. I received this parcel, but Sergei - no longer …
We got up in the area of the village of Agishty. "TOFIKS" on the left, "northerners" on the right occupied the commanding heights on the approach to the Makhkets, and we stepped back - in the middle.
At that time, only thirteen people died in the company. But then, thank God, it was in my company that there were no more victims. Of those who remained with me, I began to reorganize the platoon.
On June 1, 1995, we replenish our ammunition and move to Kirov-Yurt. Ahead is a tank with a mine sweep, then "shilki" (self-propelled anti-aircraft installation. - Ed.) And a battalion column of armored personnel carriers, I - on the head. The task was set to me as follows: the column stops, the battalion turns around, and I storm the 737 skyscraper near the Makhkets.
Just before the skyscraper (about a hundred meters left) we were fired upon by a sniper. Three bullets whizzed past me. On the radio they shout: "It hits you, it hits you!..". But the sniper didn't hit me for another reason: usually the commander sits not in the commander's seat, but above the driver. And this time I deliberately sat down in the commander's place. And although we had an order to remove the stars from the epaulettes, I did not remove my stars. The battalion commander made comments to me, and I told him: "Fuck off … I'm an officer and I'm not going to shoot stars." (Indeed, in the Great Patriotic War, even on the forefront, officers with stars went.)
We go to Kirov-Yurt. And we see a completely unreal picture, as if from an old fairy tale: the water mill is working … I command - increase the speed! I looked - to the right about fifty meters below there was a ruined house, the second or third from the beginning of the street. Suddenly a boy of ten or eleven years old runs out of it. I give the command to the convoy: "Do not shoot!..". And then the boy throws a grenade at us! The pomegranate hits the poplar. (I remember well that it was double, it spread like a slingshot.) The grenade ricochets off, falls under the boy and tears him apart …
And the "dushars" were cunning! They come to the village, and there they are not given food! Then they fire a volley from this village in the direction of the Group. The group, of course, is responsible for this village. On this basis, one can determine: if a village is destroyed, it means that it is not “spiritual”, but if it is whole, then theirs. Agishty, for example, were almost completely destroyed.
"Turntables" are hovering over the Makhkets. Aviation passes from above. The battalion begins to deploy. Our company is marching forward. We assumed that we would most likely not meet organized resistance and that there could only be ambushes. We went to the high-rise. There were no "ghosts" on it. Stopped to determine where to stand.
From above it was clearly visible that the houses in Makheti were intact. Moreover, here and there there were real palaces with towers and columns. It was evident from everything that they were built recently. On the way, I remembered the following picture: a large rural house of good quality, near it stands a grandmother with a little white flag …
Soviet money was still in use in Makhkets. The locals told us: “Since 1991, our children have not gone to school, there are no kindergartens, and no one receives a pension. We are not against you. Thank you, of course, for ridding us of the militants. But you also have to go home. This is literal.
The locals immediately began to treat us with compotes, but we were wary. The aunt, the head of the administration, says: "Don't be afraid, you see - I drink." Me: "No, let the man drink." As I understand it, there was a triarchy in the village: the mullah, the elders and the head of the administration. Moreover, this aunt was the head of the administration (she graduated from a technical school in St. Petersburg at one time).
On June 2, this "chapter" comes running to me: "Yours are robbing ours!" Before that, of course, we walked through the courtyards: we looked at what kind of people they were, whether there was a weapon. We follow her and see an oil painting: representatives of our largest law enforcement structure take out carpets and all that jazz from the palaces with columns. Moreover, they arrived not in armored personnel carriers, which they usually drove, but in infantry fighting vehicles. Yes, and even changed into infantry … I so marked their senior - major! And he said: "Appear here again - I will kill!..". They did not even try to resist, they were instantly blown away like a wind … And to the locals I said: “Write on all houses -“Economy of Vietnam”. DKBF ". And the next day these words were written on every fence. The battalion commander even took offense at me about this …
At the same time, near Vedeno, our troops captured a convoy of armored vehicles, about a hundred units - infantry fighting vehicles, tanks and BTR-80. The most joke was that the armored personnel carrier with the inscription "Baltic Fleet", which we received from the Group in the first "trip", was in this column! under the Vietnamese hieroglyph … On the front on the dashboard it was written: "Freedom to the Chechen people!" and "God and the St. Andrew's flag are with us!"
We dug in thoroughly. And they started on June 2, and already finished on 3 in the morning. We appointed landmarks, sectors of fire, agreed with the mortars. And by the morning of the next day, the company was completely ready for battle. Then we only expanded and strengthened our positions. During the entire time of our stay here, my fighters never sat down. All day we settled down: we dug trenches, connected them with communication trenches, built dugouts. They made a real pyramid for weapons, surrounded everything around with boxes of sand. We continued to dig in until we left these positions. We lived according to the Charter: getting up, exercising, morning divorce, guards. The soldiers regularly cleaned their shoes …
Above me I hung the St. Andrew's flag and a home-made "Vietnamese" flag made from a Soviet pennant for the "Leader of Socialist Competition". We must remember what it was during the time: the collapse of the state, some bandit groups against others … Therefore, I did not see the Russian flag anywhere, but everywhere there was either the St. Andrew's flag, or the Soviet one. The infantry generally flew with red flags. And the most valuable thing in this war was - a friend and comrade are nearby, and nothing else.
The "spirits" were well aware of how many people I had. But apart from shelling, they no longer dared to do anything. After all, the “spirits” had a task not to die heroically for their Chechen homeland, but to account for the money received, so they simply did not meddle where they would most likely be killed.
And on the radio comes a message that near Selmenhausen, militants attacked an infantry regiment. Our losses are more than a hundred people. I was with the infantry and saw what kind of organization they had there, unfortunately. After all, every second soldier there was taken prisoner not in battle, but because they got into the habit of stealing chickens from local residents. Although the guys themselves were humanly quite understandable: there was nothing to eat … They were seized by these local residents in order to stop this theft. And then they called: "Take your own people, but only so that they no longer come to us."
Our team is not to go anywhere. And how not to go anywhere, when we are constantly fired upon, and various "shepherds" from the mountains come. We hear the neighing of horses. We walked around constantly, but I did not report anything to the battalion commander.
Local "walkers" began to come to me. I told them: we go here, but we don’t go there, we do this, but we don’t do this … After all, we were constantly fired upon from one of the palaces by a sniper. We, of course, fired back from everything that we had in that direction. Somehow Isa, a local "authority", comes: "I was asked to say …". I told him: "As long as they shoot at us from there, we will also hammer." (A little later we made a sortie in that direction, and the question of shelling from that direction was closed.)
Already on June 3, in the middle gorge, we find a field mined "spiritual" hospital. It was evident that the hospital had recently been operating - blood was visible all around. The “perfume” equipment and medicines were thrown away. I have never seen such a medical luxury at all … Four gasoline generators, water tanks, connected by pipelines … Shampoos, one-time shaving machines, blankets … And what medicines were there!.. Our doctors were just crying with envy. Blood substitutes - made in France, Holland, Germany. Dressings, surgical threads. And we really didn't have anything except promedol (an anesthetic - Ed.). The conclusion suggests itself - what forces are thrown against us, what finances!.. And what does the Chechen people have to do with it?..
I got there first, so I chose what was most valuable to me: bandages, disposable sheets, blankets, kerosene lamps. Then he called the colonel of the medical service and showed all this wealth. His reaction is the same as mine. He simply fell into a trance: stitching materials for the vessels of the heart, the most modern medicines … After that we were in direct contact with him: he asked me to let you know if I could find anything else. But I had to contact him for a completely different reason.
There was a tap near the Bas river, from where the locals took water, so we drank this water without fear. We drive up to the crane, and then one of the elders stops us: “Commander, help! We are in trouble - a woman gives birth to a sick woman. " The elder spoke with a heavy accent. A young guy was standing next to him as a translator, suddenly something would be incomprehensible. Nearby I see foreigners in jeeps from the Doctors Without Borders mission, like the Dutch in conversation. I go to them - help! They: "Nah … We only help the rebels." I was so taken aback by their answer that I didn't even know how to react. I called the medical colonel over the radio: "Come, we need help with childbirth." He immediately arrived on the "pill" with one of his own. Seeing the woman in labor, he said: "And I thought you were joking …".
They put the woman in a "pill". She looked scary: all yellow … She was not giving birth for the first time, but, probably, there were some complications due to hepatitis. The colonel took delivery himself, and gave the child to me and began to put some kind of droppers on the woman. Out of habit, it seemed to me that the child looked very creepy … I wrapped him in a towel and held him in my arms until the colonel was free. This is the story that happened to me. I didn’t think, I didn’t guess that I would participate in the birth of a new citizen of Chechnya.
Since the beginning of June, somewhere at TPU, a cooker worked, but hot food practically did not reach us - we had to eat dry rations and pasture. (I taught the fighters to diversify the ration of dry rations - stew for the first, second and third - at the expense of pasture. Tarragon herb was brewed like tea. You could cook soup from rhubarb. And if you add grasshoppers there, such a rich soup turns out, and protein again And before, when we were in Germenchug, we saw many hares around. You walk with a machine gun behind your back - then a hare jumps out from under your feet! I tried to shoot at least one for two days, but gave up this activity - it's useless … I taught the boys to eat lizards and snakes. Catching them turned out to be much easier than shooting rabbits. The pleasure of such food, of course, is not enough, but what to do - there is something necessary …) The water is also a problem: it was cloudy all around, and we drank it only through bactericidal sticks.
One morning, local residents came with a local district officer, a senior lieutenant. He even showed us some red crusts. They say: we know that you have nothing to eat. Here cows walk around. You can shoot a cow with painted horns - this is a collective farm. But do not touch unpainted - these are personal. It seemed they gave "good", but somehow it was difficult for us to step over ourselves. Then, nevertheless, near Bass, one cow was filled up. Kill something killed, and what to do with her?.. And then Dima Gorbatov comes (I put him to cook). He is a village guy and in front of the amazed audience he butchered a cow completely in a few minutes!..
We haven't seen fresh meat for a very long time. And here is a kebab! They also hung the clipping in the sun, wrapping it in bandages. And after three days it turned out jerky - no worse than in the store.
What was also worrisome was the constant nighttime shelling. Of course, we did not open return fire right away. Let's notice where the shooting is from, and slowly we go to this area. Here the esbaerka (SBR, short-range reconnaissance radar station. - Ed.) Helped us a lot.
One evening, with the scouts (there were seven of us), trying to walk unnoticed, we went towards the sanatorium, from where they had fired at us the day before. We came - we find four "beds", next to a small mined warehouse. We didn't remove anything - we just set up our traps. It worked at night. It turns out that we did not go in vain … But we did not check the results, for us the main thing was that there was no more shooting from this direction.
When we returned safely this time, for the first time in a long time, I felt satisfaction - after all, the work that I can do was beginning. In addition, now I did not have to do everything myself, but something could already be entrusted to someone else. It took only a week and a half, and people were changed. War teaches quickly. But it was then that I realized that if we had not pulled out the dead, but left them, then the next day no one would have gone into battle. This is the most important thing in a war. The guys saw that we were not abandoning anyone.
We had constant sorties. Once they left an armored personnel carrier below and climbed into the mountains. We saw an apiary and began to inspect it: it was converted into a mine class! Right there, in the apiary, we found the lists of the company of the Islamic battalion. I opened them and could not believe my eyes - everything is like ours: the 8th company. In the list of information: name, surname and where you come from. A very interesting squad composition: four grenade launchers, two snipers and two machine gunners. I ran with these lists for a whole week - where to give? Then I handed it over to the headquarters, but I'm not sure that I got this list where it should be. It was all cared for.
Not far from the apiary, they found a pit with an ammunition depot (one hundred and seventy boxes of sub-caliber and high-explosive tank shells). While we were examining all this, the battle began. A machine gun began to hit us. The fire is very dense. And Misha Mironov, a country boy, when he saw an apiary, became not himself. He lit up the smokes, he takes out the frames with honeycombs, he brushes off the bees with a twig. I told him: "Miron, they are shooting!" And he went into a rage, jumps, and does not throw the frame with honey! We have nothing special to answer - the distance is six hundred meters. We jumped on an APC and walked along the Bas. It became clear that the militants, although from afar, were grazing their mine class and ammunition (but then our sappers still detonated these shells).
We returned to our place and pounced on honey, and even with milk (the locals allowed us to milk one cow from time to time). And after snakes, after grasshoppers, after tadpoles, we experienced simply indescribable pleasure!.. It's a pity, only there was no bread.
After the apiary, I told Gleb, the commander of the reconnaissance platoon: "Go, look at everything further." The next day Gleb reports to me: "I sort of found a cache." Come on. We see in the mountain a cave with cement formwork, in depth it went about fifty meters. The entrance is masked very carefully. You will only see him if you come close.
The entire cave is filled with boxes of mines and explosives. I opened the drawer - there are brand new antipersonnel mines! In our battalion, we only had the same old machines as ours. There were so many boxes that it was impossible to count them. I counted thirteen tons of plastic alone. The total weight was easy to determine, since the plastic boxes were marked. There was also explosives for the "Serpent Gorynych" (a machine for demining by an explosion. - Ed.), And squibs for it.
And in my company the plastic was bad, old. To make something out of it, you had to soak it in gasoline. But, it is clear that if the soldiers begin to soak something, then some nonsense will surely happen … And then the fresh plastic is making. Judging by the packaging, 1994 release. Out of greed, I took myself four "sausages", about five meters each. I also collected electric detonators, which we also did not have. The sappers were summoned.
And then our regimental intelligence arrived. I told them that we had found the militants' base the day before. There were about fifty "spirits". Therefore, we did not contact them, we only marked the place on the map.
The scouts on three armored personnel carriers pass by our 213rd checkpoint, enter the gorge and start firing from the KPVT on the slopes! I still thought to myself: "Wow, the reconnaissance went … I immediately identified myself." It seemed wild to me then. And my worst forebodings came true: a few hours later they were covered just in the area of the point that I showed them on the map …
The sappers went about their business, preparing to blow up the explosives warehouse. Dima Karakulko, deputy commander of our battalion for armaments, was also here. I gave him a smooth-bore cannon found in the mountains. The "spirits", apparently, were removed from the damaged infantry fighting vehicle and placed on a makeshift platform with a battery. It looks ugly, but you can shoot from it, aiming at the barrel.
I got ready to go to my 212nd checkpoint. Then I saw that the sappers had brought firecrackers to detonate the electric detonators. These crackers work on the same principle as a piezo lighter: when the button is pressed mechanically, an impulse is generated that activates the electric detonator. Only the firecracker has one serious drawback - it works for about one hundred and fifty meters, then the impulse dies out. There is a "twist" - it acts on two hundred and fifty meters. I told Igor, the commander of a sapper platoon: "Did you go there yourself?" He: "No." Me: "So go and see …". He returned, I see - he is already unwinding the "vole". They seem to have unwound a full reel (this is more than a thousand meters). But when they blew up the warehouse, they were still covered with earth.
Soon we set the table. We are having a feast again - honey and milk … And then I turned around and could not understand anything: the mountain on the horizon begins to slowly rise upward along with the forest, with the trees … And this mountain is six hundred meters wide and about the same height. Then the fire appeared. And then I was thrown several meters away by a blast wave. (And this happens at a distance of five kilometers from the explosion site!) And when I fell, I saw a real mushroom, as in educational films about atomic explosions. And here's what: the sappers blew up the "spiritual" warehouse of explosives, which we discovered earlier. When we sat down at the table in our meadow again, I asked: "Where are the spices, pepper from here?" But it turned out that it was not pepper, but ash and earth, which were falling from the sky.
After some time, the air flashed: "The scouts were ambushed!" Dima Karakulko immediately took the sappers, who had previously been preparing the warehouse for the explosion, and went to pull out the scouts! But they also went to the APC! And also got into the same ambush! And what could the sappers do - they have four shops per person and that's it …
The battalion commander told me: "Seryoga, you are covering the exit, because it is not known where and how ours will come out!" I was standing right between the three gorges. Then the scouts and sappers in groups and one by one came out through me. In general, there was a big problem with the exit: the fog had set, it was necessary to make sure that their own did not shoot their own departing.
Gleb and I raised our 3rd platoon, which was stationed at the 213rd checkpoint, and what was left of the 2nd platoon. The ambush site was two or three kilometers from the checkpoint. But ours went on foot and not along the gorge, but along the mountains! Therefore, when the "spirits" saw that it would be impossible to deal with these just like that, they shot and walked away. Then ours did not have a single loss, either killed or wounded. We probably knew that former experienced Soviet officers were fighting on the side of the militants, because in the previous battle I clearly heard four single shots - this even from Afgan meant a signal to withdraw.
With intelligence it turned out something like this. "Spirits" saw the first group on three armored personnel carriers. Hit. Then they saw another, also on an APC. They hit again. Our guys, who drove away the "spirits" and were the first to be at the scene of the ambush, said that the sappers and Dima himself fired back to the last from under the armored personnel carriers.
The day before, when Igor Yakunenkov died from a mine explosion, Dima kept asking me to take him on some sortie, because he and Yakunenkov were godfathers. And I think that Dima wanted to take revenge on the "spirits" personally. But then I firmly told him: “Don't go anywhere. Mind your own business". I understood that Dima and the sappers had no chance of getting the scouts out. He himself was not prepared for such tasks, and neither were the sappers! They learned something else … Although, of course, well done, that they rushed to the rescue. And not cowards turned out to be …
Not all of the scouts were killed. Throughout the night, my soldiers took out the rest. The last of them came out only on the evening of June 7th. But of the sappers who went with Dima, only two or three people survived.
In the end, we pulled out absolutely everyone: the living, the wounded, and the dead. And this again had a very good effect on the mood of the fighters - once again they made sure that we were not abandoning anyone.
On June 9, information about the assignment of ranks came: Yakunenkov - major (it turned out posthumously), Stobetsky - senior lieutenant ahead of schedule (it also turned out posthumously). And here's what is interesting: the day before we went to the source for drinking water. We return - there is a very ancient old woman with lavash in her hands and Isa next to her. He says to me: “Happy holiday to you, commander! Just don't tell anyone. " And hands over the bag. And in the bag - a bottle of champagne and a bottle of vodka. Then I already knew that those Chechens who drink vodka are entitled to a hundred sticks on their heels, and those who sell - two hundred. And the next day after this congratulation, I was awarded the title, as my fighters joked, "Major of the third rank" ahead of schedule (exactly one week ahead of schedule). This again indirectly proved that the Chechens knew absolutely everything about us.
On June 10, we went on another sortie, to the high-rise 703. Of course, not directly. First, an APC went to fetch water. The soldiers slowly load water onto the armored personnel carrier: oh, they spilled it, then again it is necessary to smoke, then with the local potrendels … Meanwhile, the guys and I cautiously descended the river. First they found the trash. (He is always removed to the side of the parking lot, so that even if the enemy stumbled upon him, he would not be able to pinpoint the location of the parking lot.) Then we began to notice the recently trampled paths. It is clear that the militants are somewhere nearby.
We walked quietly. We see the "spiritual" security - two people. They sit, rumble about something of their own. It is clear that they must be filmed silently so that they cannot make a single sound. But I have no one to send to remove the sentries - they did not teach the sailors on ships this. And psychologically, especially for the first time, this is a very terrible thing. Therefore, I left two (a sniper and a fighter with a silent shooting machine) to cover me and went on my own …
Security was removed, let's move on. But the "spirits" nevertheless became wary (maybe a branch crunched or some other noise) and ran out of the caches. And this was a dugout, equipped according to all the rules of military science (the entrance was zigzag so that it was impossible to put everyone inside with one grenade). My left flank has almost come close to the cache, there are five meters left to the "spirits". In such a situation, the one who first pulls the shutter wins. We are in a better position: after all, they were not expecting us, but we were ready, so ours fired first and put everyone on the spot.
I showed Misha Mironov, our main honey beekeeper, and also a grenade launcher, at the window in the cache. And he managed to shoot from a grenade launcher from about eighty meters so that he hit exactly this window! So we overwhelmed the machine gunner, who was hiding in the cache.
The result of this fleeting battle: the "spirits" have seven corpses and I do not know how many wounded, since they left. We have not a single scratch.
And the next day, again, a man came out of the forest from the same direction. I fired a sniper rifle in that direction, but not specifically at him: what if it’s "peaceful". He turns and runs back into the forest. I saw through the scope - behind him was a submachine gun … So he was not at all peaceful. But it was not possible to remove it. Gone.
The locals sometimes asked us to sell them weapons. Once the grenade launchers ask: "We will give you vodka …". But I sent them very far. Unfortunately, the sale of weapons was not that uncommon. I remember, back in May I came to the market and saw how the soldiers of the Samara special forces sold grenade launchers!.. I - to their officer: "What's this going on?" And he: "Calm down …". It turns out that they took out the head of the grenade, and in its place they inserted an imitator with plastic. I even had a recording on my phone camera, how such a “charged” grenade launcher tore off the head of a “spirit”, and the “spirits” themselves were filming.
On June 11, Isa comes to me and says: “We have a mine. Help me to clear mines. " My checkpoint is very close, two hundred meters to the mountains. Let's go to his garden. I looked - nothing dangerous. But he still asked to pick it up. We stand talking. And with Isa were his grandchildren. He says: "Show the boy how the grenade launcher shoots." I fired, and the boy got scared, almost cried.
And at that moment, on a subconscious level, I felt rather than saw the flashes of shots. I was a kid instinctively in an armful grabbed and fell with him. At the same time I feel two stabs in the back, it was two bullets hit me … Isa does not understand what is the matter, rushes to me: "What happened?.." And then the sounds of shots come. And I had a spare titanium plate in my pocket on the back of my bulletproof vest (I still have it). So both bullets pierced the plate through and through, but did not go further. (After this incident, full respect began to us from the peaceful Chechens!..)
On June 16, the battle begins at my 213rd checkpoint! "Spirits" move to the checkpoint from two directions, there are twenty of them. But they do not see us, they look in the opposite direction, where they are attacking. And from this side, the "spiritual" sniper hits ours. And I can see the place where he works from! We go down the Bas and come across the first guard, about five people. They did not shoot, but simply covered the sniper. But we went to their rear, so we instantly shot all five point-blank. And then we notice the sniper himself. Next to him are two more submachine gunners. We flunked them too. I shout to Zhenya Metlikin: “Cover me!..”. It was necessary that he cut off the second part of the "spirits" that we saw on the other side of the sniper. And I rush after the sniper. He runs, turns, shoots at me with a rifle, runs again, turns again and shoots …
Dodging a bullet is completely unrealistic. It came in handy that I knew how to run after the shooter so as to create maximum difficulty for him in aiming. As a result, the sniper never hit me, although he was fully armed: in addition to the Belgian rifle, there was an AKSU submachine gun on my back, and a twenty-shot nine-millimeter Beretta on my side. This is not a gun, but just a song! Nickel-plated, two-handed!.. He grabbed the Beretta when I almost caught up with him. Here the knife came in handy. I took the sniper …
Take him back. He limped (I stabbed him in the thigh, as expected), but he walked. By this time, the battle had ceased everywhere. And from the front our "spirits" shuganuli, and from the rear we hit them. "Spirits" in such a situation almost always leave: they are not woodpeckers. I realized this even during the battles in January 1995 in Grozny. If during their attack you do not leave the position, but stand or, even better, go towards, they leave.
Everyone was in high spirits: the "spirits" were driven away, the sniper was taken, everyone was safe. And Zhenya Metlikin asks me: "Comrade commander, who in the war did you dream about the most?" I answer: "Daughter". He: “But think about it: this bastard could leave your daughter without a father! Can I cut off his head? " Me: "Zhenya, fuck off … We need him alive." And the sniper limps next to us, and listens to this conversation … I well understood that the "spirits" swagger only when they feel safe. And this one, as soon as we took it, became a mouse, no arrogance. And he has about thirty serifs on the rifle. I didn't even count them, there was no desire, because behind every serif - someone's life …
While we were leading the sniper, Zhenya all these forty minutes and with other proposals turned to me, for example: “If you can't have his head, then let's at least cut off his hands. Or I’ll put a grenade in his pants…”. Of course, we were not going to do anything like that. But the sniper was already psychologically ready for interrogation by the regimental special officer …
According to the plan, we were supposed to fight until September 1995. But then Basayev took hostages in Budyonnovsk and, among other conditions, demanded to withdraw paratroopers and marines from Chechnya. Or, as a last resort, withdraw at least the Marines. It became clear that we would be taken out.
By mid-June, only the body of the deceased Tolik Romanov remained in the mountains. True, for some time there was a ghostly hope that he was alive and went to the infantry. But then it turned out that the infantrymen had his namesake. It was necessary to go to the mountains, where the battle took place, and take Tolik.
Before that, for two weeks, I asked the battalion commander: “Come on, I'll go and pick him up. I don't need platoons. I'll take two, because it's a thousand times easier to walk through the forest than in a column. But until mid-June I did not receive a “go-ahead” from the battalion commander.
But now they were taking us out, and I finally got permission to go after Romanov. I build a checkpoint and say: "I need five volunteers, I am the sixth." And … not a single sailor takes a step forward. I came to my dugout and thought: "How so?" And only an hour and a half later it dawned on me. I take the connection and say to everyone: “You probably think that I'm not afraid? But I have something to lose, I have a little daughter. And I am afraid a thousand times more, because I am also afraid for all of you. " Five minutes pass and the first sailor approaches: "Comrade commander, I will go with you." Then the second, the third … Only a few years later the fighters told me that up to this moment they perceived me as some kind of combat robot, a superman who does not sleep, is not afraid of anything and acts like an automatic machine.
And on the eve of my left hand, a "bough udder" (hydradenitis, purulent inflammation of the sweat glands - Ed.) Popped out, a reaction to injury. It hurts unbearably, suffered all night. Then I felt on myself that for any gunshot wound, it is imperative to go to the hospital to cleanse the blood. And since I suffered a wound in my back on my feet, I started to get some kind of internal infection. Tomorrow in battle, and I have huge abscesses in my armpit, and boils in my nose. I recovered from this infection with burdock leaves. But for more than a week he suffered from this infection.
We were given MTLB, and at five twenty in the morning we went to the mountains. On the way we came across two patrols of militants. There were ten people in each. But the "spirits" did not enter the battle and left without even firing back. It was here that they threw the UAZ with that damned cornflower, from which so many people suffered in our country. "Cornflower" at that time was already broken.
When we arrived at the scene of the battle, we immediately realized that we had found the body of Romanov. We did not know if Tolik's body was mined. Therefore, two sappers first pulled him out of place with a "cat". We had doctors with us who collected what was left of him. We packed our things - a few photographs, a notebook, pens and an Orthodox cross. It was very hard to see all this, but what to do … It was our last duty.
I tried to reconstruct the course of those two battles. Here's what happened: when the first battle began and Ognev was wounded, our guys from the 4th platoon scattered in different directions and began to shoot back. They fired back for about five minutes, and then the platoon commander gave the command to retreat.
Gleb Sokolov, the company's medical officer, was bandaging Ognev's hand at this time. Our crowd with machine guns ran down, on the way they blew up the "cliff" (heavy machine gun NSV 12, 7 mm. - Ed.) And AGS (automatic heavy grenade launcher. - Ed.). But due to the fact that the commander of the 4th platoon, the commander of the 2nd platoon and his "deputy" fled in the forefront (they ran away so far that later they went out not even to ours, but to the infantry), Tolik Romanov had to cover the retreat of all and shoot back for about fifteen minutes …. I think that the moment he stood up, the sniper hit him in the head.
Tolik fell off a fifteen-meter cliff. There was a fallen tree below. He hung on it. When we went downstairs, his things were pierced through and through by bullets. We walked on the spent cartridges as if on a carpet. It seems that the "spirits" of his already dead riddled with anger.
When we took Tolik and left the mountains, the battalion commander told me: "Seryoga, you are the last to leave the mountains." And I pulled out all the remnants of the battalion. And when there was no one left in the mountains, I sat down, and I felt so sick … Everything seems to be over, and therefore the first psychological return, some kind of relaxation, or something, went. I sat for about half an hour and went out - my tongue was on my shoulder, and my shoulders were below the knees … The battalion commander shouted: “Are you all right?”. It turns out that in that half hour, when the last fighter came out, and I was gone, they almost turned gray. Chukalkin: "Well, Seryoga, you give …". And I didn’t think that they could worry about me like that.
I wrote awards for the Hero of Russia for Oleg Yakovlev and Anatoly Romanov. After all, Oleg until the last moment tried to pull out his friend Shpilko, although they were beaten with grenade launchers, and Tolik, at the cost of his life, covered the retreat of his comrades. But the battalion commander said: "The hero's fighters are not supposed to." Me: “How is it not supposed to be? Who said that? They both died saving their comrades!.. ". The battalion commander cut off: "The order is not allowed, the order is from the Group."
When Tolik's body was brought to the location of the company, the three of us in an APC drove for the UAZ, on which was that damned cornflower. For me it was a matter of principle: because of him, so many of our people died!
We found the "UAZ" without much difficulty, it contained about twenty cumulative anti-tank grenades. Here we see that the UAZ cannot go on its own. Something jammed him, so the "spirits" threw him away. While we were checking whether it was mined, while the cable was hooked, it seems that they made some noise, and the militants began to gather in response to this noise. But we somehow slipped through, although the last section was driving like this: I was driving a UAZ, and an APC was pushing me from behind.
When we left the danger zone, I could not spit out or swallow saliva - my whole mouth was tied up with worries. Now I understand that the UAZ was not worth the lives of the two boys who were with me. But, thank God, nothing happened …
When we had already gone down to ours, in addition to the UAZ, the armored personnel carrier had completely broken down. Doesn't go at all. Here we see the St. Petersburg RUBOP. We told them: "Help with the APC." They: “And what is this“UAZ”you have? We have explained. They are on the radio to someone: "UAZ" and "cornflower" from the marines! ". It turns out that two detachments of RUBOP have been hunting for the "cornflower" for a long time - after all, he was shooting not only at us. We began to negotiate how they would cover the clearing in St. Petersburg on this matter. They ask: "How many of you were there?" We answer: "Three …". They: "How are three?..". And they had two officers' groups of twenty-seven people in each engaged in this search …
Next to RUBOP we see the correspondents of the second TV channel, they arrived at the battalion's TPU. They ask: "What can we do for you?" I say, "Call my parents at home and tell them you saw me at sea."My parents later said to me: “They called us from TV! They said they saw you on a submarine! " And my second request was to call Kronstadt and tell the family that I am alive.
After these races through the mountains in an APC, the five of us went to the Bas for a dip after the UAZ. I have four magazines with me, the fifth in the submachine gun and one grenade in the grenade. In general, the fighters have only one store. We swim … And then the armored personnel carriers of our battalion commander are undermining!
The "Spirits" went along the Bas, mined the road and rushed in front of the armored personnel carrier. Then the scouts said that it was revenge for the nine shot at TPU. (We had one alcoholic logistician at TPU. Somehow they arrived peacefully, got out of the car-nine. And he's cool … He took it and shot the car from a machine gun for no reason).
A terrible confusion ensues: our guys and me are mistaken for "spirits" and start shooting. My fighters in shorts jump, barely dodge bullets.
I to Oleg Ermolaev, who was next to me, give the command to retreat - he does not leave. Again I shout: "Get away!" He steps back and stands. (The fighters only later told me that they had appointed Oleg my "bodyguard" and told me not to leave me a single step.)
I see the departing "spirits"!.. It turned out that we were in their rear. That was the task: to somehow hide from our own fire, and not to let go of the "spirits". But, unexpectedly for us, they began to go not into the mountains, but through the village.
In a war, the one who fights better wins. But the personal fate of a particular person is a mystery. No wonder they say that "the bullet is a fool." This time, a total of sixty people fired at us from four sides, of whom about thirty were their own, who mistook us for "spirits." On top of that, a mortar was hitting us. Bullets flew around like bumblebees! And nobody was even hooked!..
I reported to Major Sergei Sheiko, who remained in charge of the battalion commander, about the UAZ. At first they didn’t believe me at TPU, but then they examined me and confirmed: this is the one with the cornflower.
And on June 22, a lieutenant colonel came to me with Sheiko and said: “This UAZ is“peaceful”. They came from the Makhkets for him, he must be returned. " But the day before I felt how the matter could end, and ordered my guys to mine the UAZ. I to the lieutenant colonel: "We will definitely give it back!..". And I look at Seryoga Sheiko and say: "You yourself understood what you are asking me about?" He: "I have such an order." Then I give my soldiers the go-ahead, and the UAZ takes off in front of the astonished audience!..
Sheiko says: “I will punish you! I am dismissing the command of the checkpoint! " Me: "And the checkpoint is gone …". He: "Then you will be the operational duty officer at TPU today!" But, as they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped, and in fact that day I just slept for the first time - I slept from eleven in the evening until six in the morning. After all, all the days in the war before that there was not a single night when I would go to bed before six in the morning. Yes, and I usually slept only from six to eight in the morning - and that's it …
We begin to prepare for the march to Khankala. And we were one hundred and fifty kilometers from Grozny. Before the very beginning of the movement, we receive an order: surrender weapons and ammunition, leave one magazine and one underbarrel grenade at the officer, and the fighters should have nothing at all. Seryoga Sheiko gives me the order orally. I immediately take up a drill posture and report: “Comrade Guards Major! The 8th company handed over the ammunition. " He understood…". And then he himself reports upstairs: "Comrade Colonel, we have passed everything." Colonel: "Did you get it right?" Seryoga: "Exactly, passed!" But everyone understood everything. A sort of psychological study … Well, who would think, after what we did in the mountains with the militants, to march in a column of one hundred and fifty kilometers across Chechnya without weapons!.. We arrived without incident. But I am sure: only because we did not hand over our weapons and ammunition. After all, the Chechens knew everything about us.
On June 27, 1995, loading began in Khankala. The paratroopers came to hunt us - they were looking for weapons, ammunition … But we prudently got rid of all that was superfluous. I only felt sorry for the trophy Beretta, I had to leave …
When it became clear that the war was over for us, a fight for awards began in the rear. Already in Mozdok, I see a rear operator - he writes an award list for himself. I told him: "What are you doing?..". He: "If you perform here, I will not give you a certificate!" Me: “Yes, it was you who came here for help. And I pulled out all the boys: the living, the wounded, and the dead!.. ". I was so turned on that after this our "conversation" the personnel officer ended up in the hospital. But here's what is interesting: everything that he received from me, he formalized as a concussion and acquired additional benefits for it …
In Mozdok, we experienced more stress than at the beginning of the war! We go and are amazed - people walk ordinary, not military. Women, children … We have lost the habit of all this. Then I was taken to the market. There I bought a real barbecue. We also made kebabs in the mountains, but there was no proper salt or spices. And then meat with ketchup … A fairy tale!.. And in the evening the street lights came on! Wonderful, and only …
We come to a quarry filled with water. The water in it is blue, transparent!.. And on the other side the kids are running! And what we were in, we flopped into the water. Then we undressed and, like decent ones, in shorts, swam across to the other side, where people were swimming. On the edge of the family: Ossetian dad, child-girl and mother - Russian. And then the wife starts screaming loudly at her husband for not taking the child water to drink. But after Chechnya, it seemed to us complete savagery: how does a woman command a man? Nonsense!.. And I involuntarily say: “Woman, why are you shouting? See how much water is around. " She says to me: "Are you shell-shocked?" The answer is: "Yes." A pause … And then she sees a badge on my neck, and finally it comes to her, and she says: "Oh, I'm sorry …". It already dawns on me that I am drinking the water from this quarry and am glad that it is clean, but not them. They will not drink it, let alone water the child - for sure. I say: "You will excuse me." And we left …
I am grateful to fate that it brought me together with those with whom I found myself in the war. I am especially sorry for Sergei Stobetsky. Although I was already a captain and he was only a young lieutenant, I learned a lot from him. Plus, he behaved like a real officer. And sometimes I caught myself thinking: "Was I the same at his age?" I remember when the paratroopers came to us after the explosion of mines, their lieutenant came up to me and asked: "Where is Stobetsky?" It turns out that they were in the same platoon at the school. I showed him the body, and he said: "From our platoon of twenty-four people, only three are still alive today." It was the release of the Ryazan Airborne School in 1994 …
It was very difficult later to meet with the relatives of the victims. It was then that I realized how important it is for my family to get at least some thing as a keepsake. In Baltiysk, I came to the house of the wife and son of the deceased Igor Yakunenkov. And there the rear officials sit and talk so emotionally and vividly, as if they had seen everything with their own eyes. I broke down and said: “You know, don't believe what they say. They weren't there. Take it as a keepsake. And I give Igor's flashlight. You should have seen how they carefully picked up this scratched, broken, cheap flashlight! And then his son began to cry …
