Batman-battalion - this is how his colleagues call Boris KERIMBAEV - the legendary Kara-Major, who commanded a special forces battalion of the 15th separate brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the USSR General Staff. For the head of the Kara-Major, the field commander of the dushmans, Ahmad SHAH MASUD, who controlled the Panjshir Gorge in Afghanistan, promised a million dollars!
Much more, the leader of the dushmans was ready to pay Kerimbayev personally - so that he would not put a barrier to his caravans with drugs and weapons. So Kara Major could become a dollar millionaire overnight. If not for his other values - honor, duty, Motherland …
… Recently Boris Tokenovich underwent a complex operation, and the doctors recommended him complete rest. Now retired colonel Kerimbayev lives with his wife Raisa on a modest military pension in an apartment with a poor environment. Due to his deteriorating health, 68-year-old Boris Tokenovich stopped going to meetings with cadets and colleagues. But combat friends often visit the battalion commander, support his family. Afghans say: such meetings allow the veteran to keep himself in good shape - in recent years, the wounds received in the war have bothered the Kara Major more and more often …
While he was in the hospital, veterans of the Afghan war, well-known politicians, businessmen and generals (both active and retired) came up with a proposal to confer the title of Khalyk Kakharmany on retired Colonel Kerimbayev.
“We have a lot of worthy Afghan veterans, but the best among us is Boris Tokenovich,” says Nikolai KREMENISH, First Deputy Chairman of the Association of Afghan War Veterans, Hero of the Soviet Union. - First of all, it will be a huge moral support for him. We fought, there were losses … Having survived in that hell, we returned home and … faced injustice. The country became independent, and in the first years it was a shame when they said to our faces: what such an international debt, we didn’t send you to this war … And if today we don’t write this history of the Afghan war, then tomorrow there will be no one to write it. I really want to be awarded - as long as the legendary Kara Major is alive …
… Once Major Kerimbayev was given a combat mission: he must take control of all 120 kilometers of the Panjshir Gorge in order to ensure the unhindered advance of Soviet troops deep into Afghanistan. The General Staff officers set a clear time limit - 30 days. Ordered and … forgotten!
And literally on the eve of the start of a special reconnaissance operation, Ahmad Shah Massoud swore on the Koran in front of his thugs: they say, in just a month he will fry the last soldier of the special forces battalion at the stake (more often this unit, headed by Boris Kerimbayev, was called a Muslim battalion). These words of the field commander spread throughout Afghanistan: the locals knew that he did not throw words to the wind. A special report fell on the desk of Marshal Sokolov, commander of a group of Soviet forces in Afghanistan. He summoned Kara-Major and ordered: to keep the gorge at any cost for 30 days!
- We were thrown into the gorge, they promised to take us out in a month, but they forgot. I had to run for eight whole months in Panjshir in the mountains and fight with Ahmad Shah Massoud. And all these months, while we were standing in Panjshir, on the road from the border of the Soviet Union to Kabul, which was controlled by Ahmad Shah, our columns passed calmly, - recalled this at a meeting with the cadets of the Kara-Major military school.
The battalion of Kerimbayev with a little more than 500 bayonets opposed the huge army of Masud's militants. The field commander wondered how a handful of Shuravi fighters had been keeping the gorge under control for almost a year ?! It was then that Ahmad Shah promised a millionth reward for the head of the Kara Major. But there were no traitors in the environment of the battalion commander Kerimbayev, and the spooks christened the Soviet Major King Panjshir. The battalion completed its combat mission, and the political officers sent a presentation to Boris Kerimbayev - to award the Order of Lenin and confer the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But the battalion commander never received a high award … Upstairs they decided: since he survived after a special operation - what to reward for? That would have died the death of the brave …
- Why posthumously ?! - Kremenish wonders today. - A person must be appreciated while he is alive! Of course, all Afghans are offended that the Soviet authorities did not appreciate the exploits of Boris Tokenovich, although the decision to appoint him as the commander of a special forces battalion in 1981 was made in the Kremlin.
According to Nikolai Kremenish, retired colonel Kerimbayev could have received general's shoulder straps even in Soviet times, if not for his character: Boris Kerimbayev was not just a brave commander, but also impudent. He, without hesitation, objected to any high-ranking officer of the General Staff, if he did not agree with the orders from the Moscow offices. But for his soldiers he was sick of his soul, he found the only necessary words for 18-year-old boys. He always told them: "Sons, you are not cannon fodder!"
- Recently, a veteran of the Afghan war, Bakhytbek SMAGUL, wrote the book “King of Panjshir”. This book contains the whole truth about the legendary battalion commander, about his life before and after that terrible war. I myself fought for two years, and rose to the rank of deputy platoon commander. Honestly, that war became a real hell for the boys who first took up military weapons at the age of 18. Many were killed in the first months, and if it were not for such commanders as Boris Tokenovich, believe me, there would have been many more victims, Nikolai Kremenish is sure.
… In an interview, the legendary battalion commander Kerimbayev said: “All the boys who died in the war are
heroes! What difference does it make under what circumstances a soldier or an officer died? He's a hero - that's all!”
In the mouth of a living hero - King Panjshir - these words take on a special meaning …
