In those years, Chimkent was rightfully called the "state of Texas of the Soviet Union" - lawlessness and arbitrariness on the part of local authorities and law enforcement agencies. There was a terrible criminal situation in the city: a huge number of "chemists" and "household workers", the majority of the city lived not according to laws, but according to "concepts." The village guys, having got a job at factories and construction sites, working shoulder to shoulder with former prisoners, immediately recruited criminal habits. The city was divided by youth gangs into districts. Chimkent is fighting street to street, district to district, but everyone hates the Zabadam village.
On June 11, 1967, a young guy-driver died in a city sobering-up station. His death was reported the next morning to the convoy where he worked. A rumor immediately spread that he was beaten to death by traffic cops, extorting money. Drivers reacted actively to the news of the death of a comrade. A group of several workers of the convoy immediately gathered and went to the city police department to seek a meeting with the leadership of the Internal Affairs Directorate. However, none of the high officials came to the meeting.
In Chimkent, three motor depots were located nearby - a freight convoy, taxi drivers and bus drivers. As soon as the news of what had happened spread throughout the city, an angry chauffeur with mounts sprang up from everywhere. The crowd rushed to the Department of Internal Affairs to sort it out. Oncoming cars stopped and their drivers joined their comrades. Factories were also feverish, but the bulk of the workers did not join the march. The siege of the ATC began. The number of people besieging the building increased. They climbed trees and threw bottles of gasoline and kerosene into the windows. The demands of the rebels were heard through the megaphone, mixed with obscenities: "Surrender! Come out and take out our weapons. We all know you, we know your homes and relatives! If you do not obey, we will bring your relatives here and we will torture!"
The chiefs of the Internal Affairs Directorate were confused and fled first, having previously given the order: all police officers to hand over their weapons to the arsenal. It is difficult to judge whether this was the right decision. Perhaps this was true: if several hundred barrels had fallen into the hands of angry rioters, there would have been many more casualties. But the fact that firearms were used during the assault on the Ozero ATC remains an indisputable fact. Policemen who did not have time to surrender their weapons were shooting at the crowd; they were shooting at the police from the crowd.
Having burst into the building, the drivers began to smash and set fire to it. Frightened policemen tried to escape by jumping out of the windows of the second floor, since the windows on the first floor were covered with bars. The rioters did not touch those who were in civilian clothes, but those who were in uniform were simply trampled and torn to pieces. A witness of those events, a war veteran, honored veteran of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Hero of the Soviet Union Karabay Kaltaev recalls:
- I went through the whole war, received all three Orders of Glory. However, I did not have to endure such horror and despair either before or after those terrible days. There was a feeling of a real war, but it was not the Nazis who were going against you, but our Soviet people.
When the rioters occupied the city police building, they had the idea to break into the city prison and free the prisoners. Moreover, the prison building was adjacent to the territory of the city police with one wall. The crowd rushed to the prison walls. From the windows of the cells the convicts shouted to the rebels: "Free us! We will help you!" The building of the city police was already burning with might and main, but not a single fire brigade could get here. One of the fire trucks was seized, one of the drivers got behind the wheel of a powerful ZIL and rammed the prison gates at speed. Armed with metal fittings, sticks, stones and pistols, people rushed into the opening. Panic broke out among the employees of the pre-trial detention center, several posts were abandoned. This is where the first wave of rebels reached, which penetrated the corridors of the prison. The convicts, seeing the imminent release, themselves opened their cells and went out into the corridors.
The situation was saved by one of the SIZO controllers: grabbing a submachine gun, she opened heavy fire in both directions, forcing the drivers to retreat and forcing the prisoners back into their cells. Then the guards came to her aid, who had already come to their senses after the first shock. Opening fire, they cleared the prison of the rioters. The surname of that female controller remained unknown. Apparently fearing revenge, she subsequently transferred to the other end of the Union. The only thing I managed to find out was that her name was Marina, and for the decisive actions shown on June 12, she was awarded the medal "For Courage".
For several hours the center of the city remained at the mercy of the rioters. The transport did not go. The drivers erected barricades from overturned cars, set fire to police "funnels". But there were no pogroms and robberies, most of the shops continued to work.
The best sergeant Saidakbar Satybaldiev, the pride of the entire Soviet traffic police, whom everyone called simply Uncle Seryozha, showed himself best during the Chimkent riot. In the midst of the riot, at the central intersection of Kommunistichesky Avenue and Sovetskaya Street, he continued to stand and regulate the stopped traffic. In full police uniform! And this while other militiamen were hastily changed their clothes and hid. On that day, standing, as usual, at his post, the drivers and taxi drivers themselves warned him more than once: "The mess has begun, you had better leave." But he remained on duty in the very center of the city. And although he was a few meters from the center of the riot, none of the rioters thought of offending the traffic controller. There was an unspoken command: "Don't touch Uncle Seryozha!"
In the second half of the day, a platoon of armored forces of the Turkestan military district entered Chimkent - armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and tanks. A couple of hours later, a regiment of soldiers arrived. The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR Tumarbekov flew to Chimkent, who was specially extended a separate direct line of communication with the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Shchelokov.
Tumarbekov was a real professional. Under his leadership, the riot of drivers was suppressed quickly, harshly, competently and without bloodshed. The military equipment was simply brought up to the crowd and warned that they would start shooting to kill. By that time, the fervor of the rebels, many of whom were drunk, had already cooled down. Therefore, when the rioters saw the muzzles of guns of armored vehicles and tanks aimed at them, the crowd around the prison dissipated literally within a few minutes.
The only one who was seriously injured by the army during the dispersal of the riot was the KGB secretary. State security officers watched what was happening from the very beginning and "from the inside", being among the rioters, but preferred not to interfere. The KGB sexists had only one task - to photograph all the participants in the riot, without interfering with what was happening. So, when the soldiers noticed one of the KGB officers, secretly taking pictures, they took him for a rebel and broke his jaw.
The very next day, the situation in the city returned to normal: traffic resumed on schedule, the work of all other institutions. The Chimkent riot ended in one day. The only reminder of recent events was the funeral of the drivers killed in the riot. Three days after the terrible events, the funeral procession of the victims was held in Chimkent. The KGB and the police in those days specifically warned the drivers of taxi fleets and convoys not to arrange escorts for their dead colleagues. Moreover, following the investigation that began, many taxi, bus and truck drivers were arrested. Nevertheless, despite the bans, the drivers showed solidarity with the dead comrades. Dozens of cars joined the line of hearses - trucks with coffins of the dead - along the road, which followed with continuous beeps and lighted headlights all the way to the cemetery.
The massacre came later. Tried in Central Park in an open court. Whom? Whoever got it. Most of the defendants were innocent: someone was knocked on, someone was walking nearby, someone was photographed by the sexton. But they did not give the "tower" to anyone, they reduced everything to a "hooligan". It was not profitable for the authorities to exaggerate this case and attract attention. The family of the murdered driver, because of whom the riot began, was promised an apartment in any region of the USSR.
The exact number of victims and wounded on either side has never been officially announced. The number of people who were charged and convicted of participating in the June riot was also never reported. In general, a strict ban was imposed on any mention of the Chimkent events. At the beginning of 1988, Gorbachev ordered that a certificate be prepared for him about the riots that had taken place in the country since 1957. According to this certificate, more than 1000 people took part in the Chimkent events, 7 were killed, 50 were wounded. 43 residents of the city went to trial. However, in the archives of the city and regional courts of South Kazakhstan in those years, there is a sharp surge of cases considered under the articles "malicious hooliganism" and "resistance to the authorities." Moreover, most of this "hooligan" is classified as "secret", without specifying the statute of limitations. The only thing that we managed to find out is that there are more than a thousand such cases in the archives of the South Kazakhstani courts for the period from June to October 1967.
The authorities drew the necessary conclusions. Almost the entire leadership of the Chimkent Department of Internal Affairs was removed and dismissed from their posts under the most impartial articles. Many of the traffic cops and policemen ended up in the dock on charges of crimes committed by them long before June 67th. A huge number of Chekists were transferred to the Chimkent militia.
