For a long time I asked myself the question: "Do I have the right to write instructions on the practice of survival in the event of the arrival of the northern animal?" After all, I didn’t survive a nuclear strike, I don’t know much about survival in forests, steppes, seas and other places. By and large, I have only experience of survival in a war. Little experience. Very modest, but this experience was collected by me bit by bit, not on bookshelves, but in real danger.
I do not pretend to be a messiah or a harsh, experienced survivalist, just as what I can share with you cannot be called the only survival guide. As you know, my dear readers, at this time I am writing a story on a topic that is close to all of us. And so, now I decided, in parallel with the story, to start writing a small survival guide.
This prompted me to communicate with Chester, Zhivchik, Orgy, Doctor, March cat, Alchemist and other comrades on the site https://www.crashplanet.ru. I wish my comrades good health and will try to convey my humble experience to them. If in the process of war and other "minor" inconveniences this experience helps them to survive, I will be incredibly happy !!!! So let's get started.
Part One - "The Psychology of Survival"
Any cataclysm does not start spontaneously. His arrival is accompanied by all sorts of signs by which, in fact, one can determine the arrival of this cataclysm. But basically, a person is a lazy creature, doubting, and most importantly, subject to panic and rumors. Example: everybody in Grozny talked about the war in Chechnya for a long time and persistently, but only a few prepared for it as a cataclysm. The rest, including your humble servant, did not go further than chatter.
It was then those who were able to survive, talked about what was not communicated, it was not known where to run, there were no funds, etc. But that later, and at that moment there were many prerequisites for understanding that war was inevitable. This is the non-payment of salaries for several years, and the deterioration of the situation in the city and the republic itself, this is a constant hint of war on TV, in short, there were more than enough “bells”, but the people preferred not to see or hear about a possible war.
And even the fact that just before the start of the war patriotic films and programs began to be shown on television, was perceived only as another whim of the government. Even when planes began to fly over the city, people still did not believe that there would be a war, and only the first bombings made them believe in the fact of war.
Conclusion: until they began to specifically bomb, until bricks and fragments began to fall on their heads, until the first killed and wounded appeared, people did not believe that there would be a war, or rather, did not want to believe. For, believing, you need to prepare, but there is no money for preparation, everything goes to food. Isn't the same thing happening now?
Panic
Immediately after the bombing, at first a quiet, and then a complete panic began. All who could rushed out of the city. Even those who seemed to be prepared, still succumbed to Her Highness's panic. They left whole blocks away. Throwing everything along the way. Just to have time to leave. Those who could not leave remained in the surrounded city to die. But they also sought refuge in basements and cellars. Needless to say, the panic, which lasted for a relatively short time, brought disorder and chaos into the lives of residents who could have left the city much earlier.
Try to pick up and transport much more. People who until recently lived in the illusions of the world, succumbing to panic, simply fled. Without anything. Instead of figuring out WHERE to run in advance, then they simply fled to "nowhere."
From this, the general conclusion: do not try to hide the truth from yourself, do not try to live with the realities of the world to the last. No matter how much you prepare for a cataclysm, panic and confusion will push you to rash decisions and actions. It is these first friends of yours that will turn out to be the most destructive for you, but do not try to sit for a long time either. Long "thinking" is a path to inaction.
At the same time, do not try to cover the entire alleged list of disasters when preparing. This will lead to the fact that, with sufficient probability, you will not prepare for either. Do not waste energy and resources on discussions and preparation for multiple options, prepare for a universal scenario. Both in terms of means and opportunities, it is much easier.
Basically, you have to survive in your home, so use the knowledge of your yard in order to adapt to the conditions that have arisen.
First, don't try to collect a bunch of things. There are necessary things, and there are things that simply interfere. So, a knife is a very necessary thing, but not when you have a dozen knives and everything is needed for something. In field conditions, and survival in the city, even in your home during a disaster, is fraught with the fact that you may find yourself on the street, and then you will not need special knives to cut everything and everyone. Therefore, postpone them until quieter times.
Hide them along with excess dishes and things in the barn, and use one or two. It seems that this is not such an important point, but practice has shown, in the event of an attack by marauders, the abundance of cutting and stabbing at hand does not help, and sometimes interferes with the defense. In addition, the abundance of knives in the house can lead to the fact that during the fight the enemy will grab your own knife lying on the table and use it against you. So it is better to let the knife be alone and in your hands.
Axe
Often, the man in the street, in the event of a threat of an attack on a home, places high hopes on the presence of an ax in the house. It would seem that this object has a lot of advantages - both heavy, and sharp, and you can hit with a butt, but, time-tested, an ax in a house is a weapon of a person who knows how to use it in a limited space. For the layman, the ax is usually useless, and sometimes dangerous, because it gives too much confidence, but does not give skill. The question is: how will you use it in the event of an attack?
Most of the neighbors I interviewed stated that they would swing in front of them in order not to let the enemy get close. But the request to demonstrate this process to me led, at best, to damage to furniture and walls in the house, and at worst, to minor injuries, for example, to bumps, bruises, cuts. Consequently, a person who has taken an ax in his hands must at least learn how to use it. At the same time, it is important to learn how to wield an ax within the intended place of use. Simply put, what prevents you from taking a small hatchet and walking in advance, waving it around the rooms?
He himself will "tell" you where and how you will need to act, where to swing and hit in full force, and where it is better to poke at the enemy without any swing in the chest or face. It remains only to remember the order of movements in certain places of the apartment, this will not only give you the opportunity not to get confused, but also help prevent the criminal from imposing his will on you.
In general, any item in your home can serve as a compelling argument in your hands. Especially if the life is at stake, yours and yours. So feel free to walk through the rooms with various household items. Let your wife laugh at the fact that you are walking around the rooms with an extension cord, a fork or a rolling pin, give her such pleasure. When walking around the house, try to touch various objects as if you were grabbing a chair or a clothes hanger.
After a short excursion, you will realize that you do not know your place of residence well, and you simply did not know about the use of some things in defense. Example: one of my acquaintances, a man of about fifty, a fairly fat man who suffers from shortness of breath in ordinary life, was able to perfectly resist the pressure of two young marauders in their attempt to profit from his own apartment. Moreover, one of the attackers was armed with a gun, however, as it turned out later, not loaded, and the other was holding a knife in his hand.
The man successfully used a hanger standing in the corridor, knocked out the eye of one of the attackers and smashed the face of the second with blood. When he pushed them out of the apartment onto the landing, neighbors intervened. The robbery was not only prevented, but also to stop the criminal subsequent actions of these people.
Gun
I do not argue that the presence of a gun in the house is a positive factor for the defender. Especially if it is a multi-charge "Saiga". But even the presence of a gun at home does not completely save, but only increases the defender's chance of success. The main thing is to walk around the rooms with a gun in advance and find the most successful places for defense. It still does not hurt to note for yourself the attacking sectors from the windows and think over options that interfere with retaliatory firing.
Example: your humble servant long before the war, it should have happened, walked around all the rooms with his father and "shot" himself all the sectors of fire. During the war, thank God only once, this experience really came in handy. At the same time, the armament was an old 12-gauge single-barreled gun, but even this "karamultuk" was enough with the head.
When there were three of them from the outer window towards the attackers, shots began to be heard, and the return fire did not bring harm to the defender, the looters, first bypassing the house, climbed over the fence, and after I continued shelling from another window overlooking the courtyard, just retreated. In the morning I found an empty shed opened, but it was empty even before they arrived. But in the house itself, on the advice of an experienced man, I would be afraid to fire. Because there is an option to get into your relatives. At the same time, reloading a single-barreled gun in a short fight is not realistic.
Now I want to touch on the topic of marauders.
At first, there are few marauders. Before the war and at the very beginning, the authorities still pay attention to them, catch them and shoot them, but as the conflict drags on, the number of looters grows. Most marauders are loners driven by hunger to plunder. They mainly look for empty houses, take food and water.
These people, basically, are either not armed, or their weapons are not working properly. They are very afraid of law enforcement agencies and do not go to places inhabited by people. Usually they take away food, and even then only that which can be carried away in the hands. But as the conflict grows and the attention of the authorities decreases, the amount of food left when fleeing decreases, and most importantly, with an increase in the number of looters themselves and with the appearance of trophy weapons from them, loners, fearful and not arrogant, begin to gather in groups of five to ten people and attack residential buildings. Such groups are no longer afraid of the authorities, because there is no power, they are not afraid of the layman, because there are many of them, they usually come during the day, disguise themselves as soldiers of the army and the police.
These groups are much more dangerous. It is practically useless for one family to fight with such a group. It helps to create a self-defense group from the residents of the quarter, in the private sector, or one multi-storey building. At the same time, the population also has weapons, and even a large group of marauders in a collision becomes difficult to fight. Do not forget that the marauders are basically the same peaceful people who went out to robbery, first from hunger, and then for the sake of profit.
Imagine, the transport is checked by the troops and the police, the military will still react to long-term shooting within the same area, if only because there is a possibility of a breakthrough into the enemy's rear, the residents do not give away their goods for free. The work of a marauder is hard and thankless. His constant tactics: a quick "hitting" and no less quick "rollback", and with a profit or with a bullet in his head, that's how lucky. Therefore, children or women are usually sent out for exploration during the day. And only after receiving complete data on the availability of weapons and the number of people, the gang decides whether they will carry out a raid or not.
Residents can be advised to immediately create a self-defense squad, arm themselves and think over fortifications blocking the entrance to the courtyard or to the quarter. Usually, both the military and the police are quite supportive of this method of law enforcement. There are several reasons for this benevolence, firstly: duties on the protection of law and order are partially removed from the military and militia; secondly: they receive a detachment capable of arresting both a criminal and a spy, and under certain circumstances also signal a breakthrough in their sector of the enemy; thirdly, the barricades of self-defense units are excellent for emergency defense in the event of an enemy breakthrough.
Therefore, both the military and the police in such cases "turn a blind eye" at the presence of unregistered weapons, and sometimes they themselves bring outdated and broken for sale to the detachment. In addition, the self-defense detachment is usually entrusted with the functions of placing the arriving units to the post, as well as providing food. In addition to the above, the creation of a detachment serves to bind the front and rear with mutual responsibility.
Arrangement of barriers that prevent looters from entering the territory of the private sector: at the beginning and at the end of the quarter, barricades are built from scrap materials. This takes into account the factor of using the road for the delivery of parts or ammunition. In the corner houses there are places for the members of the detachment to rest, as well as a place for cooking and correcting natural needs. Two or four people are on duty at the entrances, the rest are located at home. After a certain time, the sentries are replaced. There were cases when a detachment of ten was armed with only three guns and one revolver, but seeing the sentries with weapons, even large gangs of marauders did not dare to attack the quarter.
The device of barriers to hinder the penetration of looters into the territory of the courtyard of a multi-storey building is practically the same as above. The only difference is in the material. More furniture is used in the fence of multi-storey buildings than boards, logs, sandbags.
The question is often asked, why a gun, if there is a shaft of ownerless weapons all around? I will answer the question with a question: have you often come across abandoned weapons in working order, and even with cartridges in your name? After entering the city of the Russian units, the gun was taken away, a little scolded and released, but the guys who found machine guns or cartridges for them ended up in a filtration camp for a long time. Many after that either did not return, or returned, but disabled people.
Another frequently asked question concerns whether I myself have participated in marauding raids? My answer is straightforward - if you want to eat, you will go. I always took only food, water, medicine. I went through several checks for the presence of stolen goods, but I was never afraid, because I knew there was nothing but food.
Everything would be fine, but besides the marauders, there is a threat of being bombed or shelled. To reduce the likelihood of death from bombs and shells, you need to prepare a shelter. So, the next topic of our conversation.
Refuge
Probably, I will not tell you a secret if I say that the neighborhood with the warring opponents is destructive for a peaceful man in the street. All the "gifts" that have fallen to the wrong address go to the civilian population. If we add to this the fact that an ordinary person is not familiar with the sound of a mine, does not hear a bullet flying past by ear, does not know where and with what weapon the fire is being fired, then the picture is simply deplorable. For every soldier killed, five to six civilians are killed.
And sometimes a properly chosen shelter saved the lives of more than one or two people. Not many can boast that they either already have a shelter, or they have funds for the emergency construction of one, so I propose for your consideration the device of shelters in outbuildings. The first is, of course, the cellar.
The cellar is located in the house, and this makes it the first refuge for the family in case of war. It would seem that it is easier than lightweight, just opened the lid, started a family, brought in food, closed the lid and order. But more than once I watched the picture: people in the cellar died from suffocation, from an explosion, a collapse of a house, from the penetration of carbon monoxide. There are many reasons for death. Therefore, let's look at ways to prepare a cellar in the simplest, but fairly durable and comfortable shelter. So, first: the walls of the cellar should be made of bricks. And the thicker the wall, the more chances of salvation. The roof of the cellar should in no case serve as the floor in the room.
Conclusion: the roof of the cellar should be strengthened as much as possible. As an example, we lay pipes on the brick walls, fasten the formwork from below, fill it with concrete half a meter thick, after the concrete has hardened, the earth is poured on top with a thickness of at least half a meter. From this it follows that the cellar must be initially deep. And even such strengthening of the cellar does not give a full guarantee of salvation. There must be an emergency exit from the cellar to the street.
In the case of my house, it was an iron pipe with a diameter of half a meter. I don’t know who dug it in or why, but this “emergency exit allowed me to live to see the writing of this book. The shelves in the cellar should be located taking into account the fact that during the bombing they turn into places for people. When building a cellar, be sure to think over a small niche for a toilet and water. The toilet function in my cellar was a bucket with a lid. After the bombing, it was emptied into a street toilet.
A forty-liter flask was adapted for storing water. Also, the cellar must be previously ventilated. In the cases of my house, a pipe with a diameter of one hundred and fifty served as ventilation, coming out of the cellar at a distance of half a meter from the walls of the house. The cellar floor, originally earthen, was covered with boards for warmth. There was a small stove in the corner. The chimney was installed outside the house in advance. I covered a piece of the floor under the stove with a brick to eliminate the possibility of the floor catching fire during the firebox. These are the measures taken by me in advance, helped me to significantly strengthen and equip the cellar.
In many southern regions, cellars are not built, but in the yard, usually under a barn, you can always find a basement. And so, the next topic: the basement.
The basement is usually already lined with brick during construction, since its walls also serve as the foundation of the building, under which it is located. The basement ceiling is also usually reinforced in advance; ventilation is also provided in advance during construction. Usually basements are used as a natural refrigerator, so the depth of the basement is quite large. The entrance to the basement is located near the entrance to the building; a brick or wooden staircase leads down.
Since the basement is mostly fortified, we will pay attention to its interior decoration. The basement shelves, in contrast to the cellar shelves, are initially wider and deeper, since in peacetime the basement is the main storage place for home stocks of food. So they do not require alterations. All that remains is to prepare a place for a stove, insulate the walls of the basement, for example, with plywood, place a primitive bathroom and storage space for water, install furniture, insulate doors with a heat-insulating, non-combustible material.
It's good when a person has his own house! What should a person living in a high-rise building do? Basements are usually flooded with water, they are home to all kinds of animals, cockroaches, fleas, mice, rats. And is there enough space in the general basement for all the residents of the house? There are many questions, but there is only one answer: if you have time to prepare, then even in cramped conditions, you can survive. I tell you as a person who saw with his own eyes the inhabitants of multi-storey buildings who survived in the basement, more than once descended into these basements and, despite the fact that they were not prepared, hundreds of people calmly survived in them. Imagine if these people chipped in in advance and together prepared their basement for subsequent living. So, the next topic: a basement in a multi-storey building.
I'll make a reservation right away, I didn't live in a multi-storey building, I don't have my own experience, just out of all the basements under multi-storey buildings, I saw only one, more or less equipped, but even this rather primitive arrangement, for several months allowed the residents of the house to live with sufficient, for wartime, comfort. Judge for yourself. Example: a nine-storey house with eight entrances, of course there are eight exits, all exits are open, openings have been made in the walls of the basement between the entrances. According to residents, this is done so that people, when one of the sections is destroyed, can get into the other and escape.
It is not easy to heat such a basement, so there was no question of heating, but the residents cooked food on the rims of a truck. These makeshift stoves were located in several places in the basement near the windows. That is, they were drowning "in black". The same stoves were used to illuminate the basement. The walls were lined with mattresses, folding and mesh beds of residents. Naturally, solitude was out of the question, too many people were looking for salvation in this basement.
The windows outside were covered with sandbags. When I asked about lighting and natural ventilation, I was told that lighting and ventilation had to be sacrificed due to constantly flying fragments and bullets. After the death of several people, under constant fire, the remaining residents sealed the windows with sandbags, and threw garbage on top. Only those windows that were on the side opposite to the shelling let in light and smoke from the hearths. Food was also shared, residents simply allocated one room for food and instructed the elderly to guard it. The water was poured from the pipes into an improvised dish.
And they replenished, if possible, with melted snow and mined from broken houses in the private sector located behind the house. There, in rare moments of calm, food was obtained together. Food was provided by the whole world. The cooking was assigned to several women. Thus, the community was able to survive, despite the fact that the house was under constant fire, part of the house was destroyed by a falling aerial bomb, it did not reach the basement, it exploded on the upper floors. Lucky. In the courtyard, I counted seventeen graves. These were the graves of residents who died during the first bombing.
Two more enemies of a resident of a peaceful city during the war. This is hunger and lack of water. The second, perhaps much more important, since there is still food in the city, even during a siege. Let it be a little, let it be mined at the risk of life, but still, the lack of water is much more difficult for a person to endure. Next topic: water.
Water
Although the events I have taken for analysis took place in winter, the lack of water was felt everywhere. Therefore, dear reader, I ask you to take some advice from me on the detection of life-giving moisture, storage, collection and purification.
First: during a disaster, remember that water is never clean. All those places from where you are used to taking water may be either in the sphere of influence of one of the belligerent parties, which means that access to the source will be extremely difficult, or located in the immediate zone of hostilities, which means that a hike for water can cost life, or the water in the source may not be usable at all. The first thing to look out for is the separation of the water dishes.
Select utensils for drinking water and utensils for industrial water. It is most convenient to keep drinking water in metal forty-liter flasks. The lid of such a flask closes tightly, and debris does not get inside, the same factor affects the avoidance of water loss. Already during the first bombings, the water supply system stopped giving water, and later it froze altogether. Therefore, it was necessary to look for sources of water, as well as ways of transporting it.
Any car passing through the territory occupied by the enemy automatically goes into the category of the enemy. Whatever signs you put on it, no matter how you try to pass unnoticed, but sooner or later either it will be requisitioned for the needs of the front, or you will come under fire, sometimes arranged only in your honor. Therefore, the bike and the car are your reliable allies and assistants.
The presence of a wheelbarrow in a house or apartment in general is already luck in itself. This simple vehicle will help you in many of your affairs, such as: obtaining water and food, transporting things, transporting the wounded, transporting your finished off heating material. But from a laudatory ode to a wheelbarrow, let's move on to places where water is stored. There are several such places in any city: fire departments, hospitals, sanitary and epidemiological stations, technical wells, military units, city reservoirs.
In any fire department, hospital there are special water storage facilities, underground reservoirs. The water in them is usually disinfected. It is constantly updated and at the time of the emergency, it is usually intended for distribution to the population, but distribution usually does not occur due to the fact that these places are the first to be captured by the military, and access to water is blocked. The same embarrassment awaits a water seeker in military units. What remains, as a rule, is the sanitary and epidemiological station, the fire reserve of schools, not all schools have it, and natural sources of drinking and industrial water.
Sanitary Epidemiological Station
Usually people do not take this very important and serious institution seriously, but in vain. It was the city's sanitary and epidemiological station located in the area of my residence that became, if not the only, but a reliable source of drinking water. Although the stock available in the sanitary and epidemiological station is less than the stock of underground tanks of fire departments, this organization is more serious about disinfection and subsequent storage than even the Ministry of Health, because the fight against the emergence and spread of epidemics is the direct responsibility of the sanitary and epidemiological service.
Example: when drinking water brought from fire tanks, even after boiling, there was some discomfort in the stomach and intestines, diarrhea, flatulence, constipation, pain, but when drinking water brought from the SES, even without boiling, nothing like this was felt.
The next source of water during the war is wells, wells, springs. Water from these natural sources is divided into: usable and technical.
Unfortunately, in the area of my residence there was only a well with technical water. Under normal conditions, this water is not suitable for consumption, since it is mineral, but with a general shortage, this water was also well used. Do not forget that in the water pipes, after turning off the pumps, a fair amount of water remains. This is especially noticeable in the case of a person living in a lowland. This water is also usable and it is important to be able to get to it.
I managed it this way. After the life-giving trickle stopped flowing from the tap, I climbed into the well for supplying water from the yard to the house and, unscrewing the input to the house from the tap, for some time I took water directly from the pipe. Since my house was not at the very bottom, the water pressure was enough for me for two weeks. For technical needs such as washing, mopping, flushing the toilet, bathing, I collected rainwater and snow. For these purposes, I had barrels around the house under the gutters. By using this, albeit not very clean, water, I managed to maintain order in the house and save such precious clean water.
Nutrition
No matter how much you accumulate food supplies before the war, sooner or later, the supplies are depleted. Consider ways to replenish supplies. The first way is to go to the store. No, don’t think that during the war the shops are closed, but this does not mean at all that there are no products in it. Nobody advises you to break into shops in the vicinity on the very first day of the war. It's just that during the war, aerial bombs and shells often hit the buildings themselves, and the destroyed structure is no longer a store, but not just ruins.
So, your humble servant, being an inveterate smoker and especially suffering from lack of tobacco, became the happy owner of two full boxes of "Belomor", just by visiting a stall smashed by a shell. Since you are not one of those who have the happy idea of shopping at such an inopportune time, you risk, at best, just being in front of empty shelves and utility rooms. But even so, don't despair.
Walk through the store again, and fortune may reward you for your attentiveness. For example, in a completely empty room of a former store, I managed to find a box of matches, a box of candles, three packs of salt, several packs, albeit damp, but completely preserved washing powder and, as if in mockery, left to me, unarmed, a sawn-off shotgun of a double-barreled gun sixteenth caliber. This sortie substantially added to my depleted supplies.
But you should always take into account the fact that in such premises all sorts of "surprises" left to you by past visitors of the store are possible. So, in one store, after a careful examination, I removed three stretch marks and one grenade launcher. In case of haste and carelessness, the fate of a cripple, at best, would await me. In addition to stores, various databases are of interest to replenish the grocery and household basket.
But you need to take into account the factor that the idea of looting comes to mind not only to you, and the people will rush to take away food and household goods much earlier than you, while at the same time, considering the danger of being killed. Basically, bases and storage facilities are being looted right during hostilities or immediately after the termination thereof.
Residents of nearby streets, who have suffered more from shelling and bombing than you, who have finally raised their reserves, will attack the "ownerless oasis" faster than you. Sometimes, having paid a very “dear price”, they will take out all the most valuable from this “oasis”, but even after such a quick and greedy robbery, much remains either unnoticed or left as second-rate. Example: after the base was repeatedly raided by looters, I managed to get a sack of flour and a sack of peas, and on a second visit, another box of caramel sweets and two boxes of bottled kerosene. Which also decently replenished my stocks. An essential addition to the diet is the meat of slaughtered farm animals obtained from minefields.
So, for helping the owner in pulling out the wounded cow from the minefield, the animal frightened by the explosions and shooting broke through the barn door and ran away, but on the way I got into a minefield, after joint cutting of the carcass I got a leg and ribs. And after the shells and bombs began to reach the streets of the "upper suburb" at night a herd of goats and sheep came to me to "ask for political asylum". Naturally, their urgent request was granted by me. Since there were very few people on the street, mainly old people and women, all these "gifts of nature" were shared among all.
Fishing
Many people imagine her on the shore with a fishing rod in her hands, but wartime fishing is strikingly different from peacetime fishing. The first difficulty is that reservoirs suitable for fishing are often on the other side of the front from the fisherman. But even if the reservoir is right next to it, then it is likely that it will be under fire. If this is not the case, then you should be afraid of "fishermen" in uniform.
Many units on the banks of the reservoirs did not hesitate to diversify their diet with fish. But there could be no talk of fishing rods. The lack of fishing rods was compensated by the presence of grenades and grenade launchers. The whole process went like this: a truck or an armored personnel carrier drove right up to the water. The fishing participants came out. Grenades were thrown into the water. Young guys raked jammed fish near the shore, usually two or three sacks, a group of fishermen got into the car and drove off to the location of the unit or checkpoint. The whole process took no more than half an hour.
That's all military fishing. "And where is the romance, where is the ear and everything that goes with it?" - the reader will ask, and the romance went to the locals. Burying in high reeds, the local fisherman waits for the departure of the military fishermen and, making sure that his presence has not been detected and that the military has retired far enough, sets off on a hastily assembled raft or on a leaky boat, in search of fish, from the shore.
He risks getting a bullet or a splinter, he risks drowning or catching a cold, but the desire to somehow replenish his depleted reserves pushes him in search of fish. After the explosion of three or five grenades, there are a lot of stunned fish. The soldiers, however, take only the largest, and all the little things, the middle peasant, are usually ignored. It is for this trifle that a desperate fisherman is sailing. For a sack of fish, a hungry person is willing to take risks.
So I, yielding to the persuasion of a neighbor boy, his description of the ease and effectiveness of the outing, saddled my bike in the company of three neighbors, went on such a fishing trip. I will not describe how we went around the rubble and checkpoints, they will be discussed separately. Arriving at the shore of the pond and sowing in the reeds, we waited for the military.
We didn't have to wait long. About half an hour later, an armored personnel carrier drove up to the shore. After firing at the reeds from a machine gun for fidelity, five people got out of it. After the departure of the APC, we pushed the boat into the water and sailed to collect fish. During such fishing, no one noticed the arrival of the next batch of fishermen. Imagine a picture of a boat in the middle of the lake. There are four people on the boat. Fog is an obligatory attribute of the reservoir in February in those parts. And on the shore there are alert soldiers who have come for the fish.
Hearing the splash of oars and not understanding what was what, these militant fishermen began to concentrate on watering the lake with machine guns. We froze. Automatic bursts swept by in some five meters. But after the soldiers began to shoot at the sound from a grenade launcher, who as best they could, all four were buried to the opposite bank. Still, I brought two bags of fish home, but after such a shake-up I didn't go fishing anymore.
After the bases are devastated, and the war will not end in any way, you have to go home in search of food. Naturally, first you pay attention to the destroyed houses. It’s not difficult to get into such a house, it’s hard to find something edible, since besides you, at least fifty people have already climbed into this house. Therefore, gradually, either you stop looking and are content with what you brought in advance, or you start thinking in order to change from the military for food.
After that, looting takes on a different direction. Someone climbs into houses in search of treasures, and someone, as your humble servant, begins to get close to the winery. By this time, one of the opposing sides had left the plant, but as usual, she did not inform the enemy about her departure. And so, in no man's land is the coveted alcohol. Hundreds of people are trying to get to it. Dozens do it. So, I got two jars of alcohol at home and several boxes of brandy and wine.
Alcohol in war is a blessing! After drinking a glass of alcohol in the evening, you can finally fall asleep. And you will not be woken up by a shootout under the windows, or roaming around the yard of marauders, or even a mine or a shell hitting a house. Besides, alcohol is currency! At the same time, the currency is solid! You can exchange everything for alcohol, from dry rations to captured weapons. I was not interested in weapons, but diesel fuel for lamps, food, and cigarettes is very much even. At the same time, I managed to change to alcohol and free passage through several checkpoints. So the power of alcohol during the war is great.
clothing
In many survival forums, the topic of workwear is touched upon. Therefore, the next topic of my story is clothing. So, when it comes to all kinds of overalls, protective jackets, pants, high-top boots, I give just one argument. If you were a sniper, how would you treat a person in protective uniform at the crosshairs of your scope? Would you have the time and desire to consider a peaceful person in a stranger?
Most likely, you would first shoot, and only then you would figure out whether he is a peaceful person or not. For the same reason, I always warn against putting any identification mark on clothes. Anything that catches your eye is likely to cause your death. My clothes were simple: an old winter jacket, old pants, a sweater and a hat. The more natural you look, the more chances you have of not being targeted.
More than once I have found corpses stripped naked. Usually marauders and the military simply pulled the thing they liked from the dead …
