Chechen war stories of soldiers. The truth of war - the story of a participant in the Chechen campaign

War in Chechnya Stories of participants in the Chechen war

Interview with Alexander Gradulenko, participant in the storming of Grozny 1995

He didn't come back yesterday

Alexander Gradulenko is 30 years old. Blooming male age. Retired captain, awarded with medals "For Courage" and "For Distinction in Military Service" II degree. Deputy Chairman of the public organization "Contingent". Veteran of the first and second Chechen wars. Wars of modern peaceful Russia.

In 1995, contract sergeant Alexander Gradulenko participated in the storming of Grozny as part of the 165th Marine Regiment of the Pacific Fleet.

Sasha, what makes a person who saw the death of his friends with his own eyes still go on the attack the next day?

Honor, duty and courage. These are not beautiful words, in combat conditions the husk flies off them, you understand their meaning. These bricks make up a real warrior. And they are the ones who go into battle. One more thing. Revenge. I want to avenge the guys. And end the war as soon as possible.

Questions come to mind later, already at home, when the euphoria “I’m alive” passes. Especially when you meet the parents of those guys… Why did they become a “load of 200”, and I didn’t? These questions are difficult, almost impossible, to answer.

Did you personally, Sasha, understand where you were flying?

Did you imagine what war is? It's vague, very vague. What did we know then? What is bad in Chechnya - after all, the first assault bogged down, how many guys died. And they understood that if the Marines were collected from all fleets, and the Marine Corps had not been used in hostilities for a long time, then things were bad.

From our native Pacific Fleet, the 165th Marine Regiment was being prepared for dispatch. Where can you find 2,500 trained people if there is an understaffing in the Armed Forces? The command of the Pacific Fleet makes a decision on staffing the regiment with personnel serving on ships and submarines. And the guys kept the machine gun only on the oath. The boys are not shot ... Yes, and we, too, in fact.

We were assembled, I remember, they gave us 10 days to prepare. What can be prepared during this time? Funny. And now we are standing at the airfield, winter, night, the planes are ready to be sent. A high military rank comes out, talking about patriotism and about “forward, guys!” Our battalion commander, Major Zhovtoripenko, comes out and reports: “The personnel are not ready for military operations!”. Officers and company commanders followed: “The personnel is not ready, we will not be able to lead people to the slaughter.” The high rank in the person changes, the officers are immediately taken under arrest, we are sent back to the barracks, and in the morning we fly to Chechnya. with other leaders...

By the way, those who then told the truth at the airfield slowly “left” the army. My friends and I respect these people very much. They essentially saved our lives, defended at the cost of their careers. Otherwise, the Baltics would have perished, like the guys from the Northern Fleet, after all, they were withdrawn from Chechnya already in February - there were so many wounded and killed.

Bricks of victory over fear

Remember your first fight? What does the person feel about this?

It's impossible to explain. Animal instincts kick in. Anyone who says it's not scary is lying. Fear is such that you freeze. But if you defeat him, you will survive. By the way. Here's a detail for you: exactly 10 years have passed since the first Chechen war, and we, gathering with friends, recall the battles - and it turns out that everyone saw different things! They ran in the same chain, and everyone saw his own ...

The second Chechen Alexander Gradulenko was already an officer, a platoon commander. After a severe concussion, after a long treatment in the hospital, he graduated from the Faculty of Coastal Troops of the Makarov TOVMI and returned to his native regiment. And even a platoon in command received the same one in which he fought as a sergeant.

The second time we were sent to war under the heading "secret". There was talk of a peacekeeping operation, we were already mentally trying on blue helmets. But when the train stopped in Kaspiysk, our peacekeeping ended here. They guarded the Uytash airport, participated in military clashes.

Who is more difficult to fight - a soldier or an officer?

Officer. More responsibility, this time. The officer is constantly in sight, and even more so in battle. And whatever the relationship between the officer and the soldiers in the platoon, when the battle begins, they look only at the commander, they see in him both protection, and the Lord God, and anyone. And you can't hide from those eyes. The second difficulty is that it is difficult to manage people with weapons, you have to be a psychologist. The rules in battle become much simpler: I did not find a common language with the soldiers, you are engaged in massacre - well, beware of a bullet in the back. That's when you understand the meaning of the words "the authority of the commander."

Alexander takes out the "Book of Memory", issued by "B", and points to one of the first photographs, from which carefree boys in uniform are smiling.

- This is Volodya Zaguzov ... He died in battle. During the first battle, my friends died ... But these are my friends, those who survived, we are now working together, we are still friends.

You and your friends, it can be said, with honor passed not only the test of war, but also a much more difficult test - the test of the world. Tell me, why is it so difficult for warriors from "hot spots" to fit into peaceful life?

War breaks a person both spiritually and physically. Each of us has crossed the line, violated the commandment, the very one - do not kill. Go back after this, stand on your square, like a chess piece? It's impossible.

Can you imagine what awaits, for example, a scout who went to the rear of the enemy when he arrives home. Community appreciation? How. The indifference of officials awaits him.

After demobilization, after the war, my parents helped me. Friends - those same, fighting. I think this friendship saved us all.

Proud memory

You are from a military family. Why broke with tradition and resigned so early?

Disappointment came gradually. I saw a lot in military life, without boasting I will say that another general would have had enough. And every year it was more and more difficult to serve the Motherland, seeing the attitude towards the army, towards veterans.

Do you know how many questions I had that I had no one to ask? .. They are with me now. Why are military schools being reduced and civilians who have graduated from high school being called up for two years as officers? Is there a person who knows for sure that he is here for only two years, what will happen next? Let him not grow grass! Our lower officer ranks have been exterminated - why? I didn't find any answers. That's how slowly the decision came to leave the army. Get down to business. After all, you can bring benefits to the homeland in civilian life, right?

We - me and my friends in the Contingent organization - still live in the interests of the army, we care. When they show Iraq or the same Chechnya, the soul hurts. That is why we began to work actively in the Contingent. We found contact with the administration of the region and the city, participated in the development of a program for the protection, rehabilitation of veterans of "hot spots", a program to help the parents of dead children. We do not ask for money, we just want understanding.

This article was automatically added from the community

In 1995 - the first Chechen war. I am Lieutenant Colonel Antony Manshin, I was the commander of the assault group, and the neighboring, second assault group was named after the hero of Russia Artur, my friend, who died in the battles of Grozny, covering a wounded soldier with himself: the soldier survived, and he died from 25 bullet wounds. In March 1995, Arthur's assault group of 30 fighters on three BRDMs carried out a headquarters raid to block groups of militants in the Vvedensky Gorge. There is such a place Khanchelak, which is translated from Chechen as a dead gorge, there an ambush awaited our group.

An ambush is certain death: the lead and rear cars are knocked out, and you are methodically shot from high-rise buildings. An ambushed group lives for a maximum of 20-25 minutes - then a mass grave remains. The radio station requested air assistance from fire support helicopters, raised my assault group, we arrived at the scene in 15 minutes. Air-to-ground guided missiles destroyed the firing positions on the high-rises, to our surprise the group survived, only Sasha Vorontsov was missing. He was a sniper and was sitting on the lead car, on the BRDM, and the blast wave threw him into a gorge 40-50 meters deep. They began to look for him, they did not find him. It's already dark. They found blood on the rocks, but he wasn't there. The worst happened, he was shell-shocked and captured by the Chechens. In hot pursuit, we created a search and rescue group, climbed the mountains for three days, even entered the controlled settlements of the militants at night, but they never found Sasha. Written off as missing, then presented to the Order of Courage. And you, imagine, 5 years pass. The beginning of 2000, the assault on Shatoi, in the Arthur Gorge in the Shatoi region there is a settlement called Itum-Kale, when blocking it, civilians told us that our commando had been sitting in their zindan (in the pit) for 5 years.

I must say that 1 day in captivity by Chechen bandits is hell. And here - 5 years. We run there, it was already getting dark. The headlights from the BMP illuminated the area. We see a hole 3 by 3 and 7 meters deep. We lowered the ladder, we raise it, and there are living relics. The man staggers, falls to his knees, and I recognized Sasha Vorontsov by his eyes, I had not seen him for 5 years and recognized him. He was all in a beard, the camouflage on him decomposed, he was in burlap, he gnawed a hole for his hands, and so he warmed himself in it. In this pit he defecated and lived there, slept, he was dragged out every two or three days to work, he equipped firing positions for the Chechens. Chechens trained live on it, tested it - hand-to-hand combat techniques, that is, with a knife - they beat you in the heart, and you have to repel the blow. In our special forces, the guys have good training, but he is exhausted, he had no strength, he, of course, missed - all his hands were cut up. He falls on his knees in front of us, and cannot speak, cries and laughs. Then he says: “Guys, I have been waiting for you for 5 years, my dear ones.” We bundled him up, heated a bathhouse for him, dressed him. And so he told us what happened to him during these 5 years.

Here we sat for a week with him, we will gather for a meal, the provision was good, and he procrastinates a piece of bread for hours and eats quietly. All taste qualities have atrophied in him for 5 years. He said that he was not fed at all for 2 years.

I ask: "How did you live?" And he: “Can you imagine, commander, the Cross kissed, was baptized, prayed, took clay, rolled it into pellets, baptized it, and ate. In winter, snow - ate. “So how?” I ask. And he says: “You know, these clay pellets were tastier for me than a homemade pie. The blessed pellets of snow were sweeter than honey.”

He was shot 5 times on Easter. So that he would not run away, they cut the tendons on his legs, he could not stand. Here they put him to the rocks, he is on his knees, and 15-20 meters from him, several people with machine guns, who are supposed to shoot him.

They say: "Pray to your God, if there is a God, then let Him save you." And he prayed like that, I always have his prayer in my ears, like a simple Russian soul: “Lord Jesus, my Sweetest, my Precious Christ, if it pleases You today, I will live a little longer.” He closes his eyes and crosses himself. They remove the trigger - a misfire. And so twice - the shot DOES NOT HAPPEN. Move the bolt carrier - NO shot. They change the sparks of magazines, the shot - again does not happen, the machine guns - CHANGE, the shot still - DOES NOT HAPPEN.

They come up and say: “Take off the cross.” They CANNOT shoot him, because the Cross hangs on him. And he says: “I didn’t put on this Cross, but the priest in the sacrament of Baptism. I won't take it off." Their hands reach out - to rip off the Cross, and half a meter from it - their bodies are TWISTED by the Grace of the Holy Spirit and they are crouched - FALL to the ground. They beat him with rifle butts and throw him into a pit. So two times the bullets did not fly out of the bore, but the rest flew out and that's it - they flew past him. Almost point-blank - they COULD not shoot, it only cuts with pebbles from the ricochet and that's it.

And so it happens in life. My last commander, the hero of Russia Shadrin said: "Life is a strange, beautiful and amazing thing."

A Chechen girl fell in love with Sasha, she is much younger than him, she was 16 years old, then the secret of the soul. For the third year, she brought him goat's milk into the pit at night, lowered it onto strings, and so she went out. At night, her parents caught her at the scene, flogged her to death, and locked her in a closet. Her name was Assel. I was in that closet, it is terribly cold there, even in summer, there is a tiny window and a door with a barn lock. They tied her up. She managed to gnaw through the ropes during the night, dismantled the window, climbed out, milked the goat and brought him milk.

He took Assel with him. She was baptized with the name Anna, they got married, they had two children, Cyril and Mashenka. The family is wonderful. Here we met with him in Pskov - the Caves Monastery. We hugged, we both cried. He tells me everything. I took him to Elder Adrian, but the people there wouldn't let him in. I tell them: “Brothers and sisters, my soldier, he spent 5 years in a pit in Chechnya. Let go for Christ's sake." They all got on their knees, saying: "Go, son." 40 minutes passed. Sasha comes out with a smile from the elder Adrian and says: “I don’t remember anything, as if I was talking with the Sun!”. And in the palm of his hand are the keys to the house. Batiushka gave them a house, which had gone from one old nun to the monastery.

And most importantly, when parting, Sasha told me when I asked him how he survived all this: “For two years while I was sitting in a pit, I cried so that all the clay under me was wet with tears. I looked at the starry Chechen sky through the funnel of the zindan and LOOKED for my Savior. I sobbed like a baby, SEARCHING for my God.” “And then?” I asked. “And then I bathe in His arms,” Sasha replied.

I express my deep gratitude to the Russian officer Vladimir Dobkin, one of the few who did not betray and did not forget ... Only thanks to his courage this book was born.

Sergey German (Sergej Hermann)

Aty - bahts
... to soldiers and officers of the 205th Budyonovskaya motorized rifle brigade, alive and dead ...

The first snow fell in early November. White flakes fell on the icy tents, covering the field, trampled by soldiers' boots and disfigured by the wheels of army tractors, with a snow-white blanket. Despite the late hour, the tent city did not sleep. Motors roared in the fleet, blue smoke billowed from the tin pipes of bourgeois houses. The gray canopy of the tent leaned back and, wrapped in a spotted pea coat, a man crawled out of a hot, smoky belly. Dancing as he went and not noticing anything around him, he relieved himself of a small need, then, shivering from the cold, he wrapped the hem of his pea jacket more tightly and gasped:
- Lord ... Tra-ta-ta, your mother, how good!
Distant stars twinkled mysteriously, the moon, bitten along the edges, illuminated the earth with a yellowish light. Frozen, the man yawned and, no longer paying attention to anything, darted into the tent. The sentry watched him with an envious look, there was still more than an hour before the changing of the guard, all the vodka in the tent should have been drunk during this time. The scouts were walking, the foreman of the contract service Romka Gizatulin turned thirty years old.
A red-hot potbelly stove was raging in the tent, vodka stood on zinc with cartridges, covered with newspaper, sliced ​​​​bread, bacon, sausage lay in large shreds. Excited scouts in vests and T-shirts, embracing and bumping their foreheads, sang soulfully to the guitar:
“Russia does not favor us with either glory or the ruble. But we are her last soldiers, and therefore we must stand until we die. Aty-baty, aty-baty.
An overweight man of about forty-five, with a gray head and a drooping Cossack mustache, rummaged under the bunk, took out another bottle, deftly opened the lid, singing to himself,
“He served not for titles and not for orders. I don’t like stars for bla-a-at, but I served the captain’s stars in full, aty-baty, aty-baty. Then he poured vodka into mugs and glasses, waited for silence:
- Come on, lads, let's drink for military happiness and for simple soldier luck. I remember that during the first campaign I met a conscript boy in the hospital. For a year of fighting, all sorts
troops changed. He entered Grozny as a tanker, the tank was burned, and ended up in the hospital. After the hospital, he became a marine, then, again, he fell into a meat grinder, miraculously survived and served up to the Yurga communications brigade. So he quit as a signalman.
The scouts clinked glasses of assorted dishes and drank together.
- But I remember a case, also in the first war, we entered the Vedensky district, intelligence reported that there were militants in the village, we were on a tank, two self-propelled guns, infantry - on armor. - The speaker was lying under the covers, not taking part in the feast, the glare from the burning logs ran across his face. memories. - I was young, I thought I would come home with a medal or an order, but there would be talk in the village. We enter the village from three sides and straight to Basayev's house, while everyone is sleeping, the moon is the same as it shone today. Receiving insolently - without reconnaissance, without support, without military guards, we take out the gates of the house. I'm barreling a tank right into the windows. And there was silence in the house, everyone left, even the dog was released from the leash.
We walked around the rooms and looked. Then let's load all kinds of equipment into the cars, TV, "videos". The "Czechs" fled, did not even have time to collect anything, probably, someone warned. Or maybe they listened to our wave. We go down with a platoon to the basement, and a diplomat lies on the table. We examined it, the wires are not visible, opened it, and there are dollars, half of the diplomat is full of money. Our old lady got a little sick. I say, maybe we’ll divide it among everyone, but he, in all seriousness, takes out a gun and says, now we’ll calculate everything, rewrite it, seal it up and hand it over to the command. I suspect that he wanted to accomplish a feat, he always dreamed of entering the Academy, becoming a general.
From the stove came a voice:
- With that kind of money, he would have become a general even without the Academy.
- While we were counting and sealing these fucking grandmothers, it was already dawning. We would rather, rather, I would like to report to the lieutenant, by cars and forward. Just at the exit from the village, they slammed us, the command vehicle was blown up by a landmine, the second one flew into the same funnel, while we turned around, the tracks were broken. Somehow they took up defense, began to shoot back. When the ammunition began to burst in the first car, the "Czechs" left. Our lieutenant was wounded in the stomach, he is crawling, behind him the intestines are dragging along the ground, and in the hands of a suitcase with money. At first I thought that the lieutenant's head went crazy, and then I looked closely, it turns out that he fastened the diplomat to his hand with handcuffs.
Grey-whiskered drawled:
- Yes, your lieutenant, probably, wanted to get into the Academy, or maybe he was just a principled one, there are also such people. I remember a case...
They didn’t let him finish the sentence, the ice-covered canopy of the tent rattled, mud-stained boots, the political officer’s face red from frost, appeared in the opening. He was not surprised, no one
began to hide the glasses:
- Sit down with us, commissar, have a drink with the scouts.
The captain looked into the transparent abyss of the glass, touched the grey-moustached man by the sleeve of his vest:
- You, Stepanych, are a shot hare, so hold your horses for now. Don't let me drink anymore, but don't put me to bed either, otherwise they'll be like boiled ones. We leave in three hours. We must hold on until we get to the commandant's office.
The political officer knocked over his glass and, eating as he walked, climbed out of the tent like a spotted bear. Stepanych gathered the dishes, put them in one bag:
- Sha! Brothers, let's slowly get together, we'll be performing soon.
The rise was announced an hour earlier. We assembled tents, loaded the remaining firewood and things into the Urals, attached field kitchens to tractors. The abandoned camp looked like a torn anthill: on the snow trampled by boots, thawed patches from tents blackened, hungry dogs licking tin cans immediately prowled. A dirty gray crow sat thoughtfully on a pile of abandoned car tires, carefully watching the people scurrying back and forth. One reconnaissance and patrol vehicle stood at the beginning of the column, the other closed it. Crimson with anger, Stepanych leaned out of the hatch of the lead car and, shouting over the roar of the engines, began to yell something, hitting himself on the head and poking his finger at the command car. The political officer pushed the slumbering ensign, armament technician, in the side:
- Did you put machine guns on the BRDM?
The technician began to make excuses:
- Machine guns received late at night, and even in grease, did not have time to deliver.
Not listening to him, the political officer muttered:
“I didn’t make it, so. It was necessary to raise the scouts at night, they would have set everything themselves. Now pray that they get there safely, if a mess starts, either the “Czechs” will shoot you, or Stepanych will personally put you against the wall.
Spitting in the direction of the command vehicle, Stepanych climbed inside the BRDM. Flicking the toggle switch of the radio station, he announced:
- Well, lads, if we get there alive, I will put the thickest candle for the Lord.
The radio didn't work either. In front of the column stood the UAZ of the military traffic police, the company commander gave the go-ahead, the column started off. Stepanych pushed the zinc with cartridges towards him and began to fill the magazines. Andrey Sharapov, the same intelligence officer who didn’t drink at night, concentratedly turned the steering wheel, purring under his breath: “Afghanistan, Moldova and now Chechnya, left the pain of the morning-and-you in my heart.” Sashka Besedin, who was sitting behind the machine gun, nicknamed Bes, suddenly asked:
- Andryukha, didn’t you tell yesterday what happened with your dollars?
Sharapov paused, then reluctantly answered:
“The dollars turned out to be counterfeit, or so we were told. I thought a lot about
With this, we were either “Czechs” bred, leaving a bait so that we would linger, or ... or we were simply thrown by ours.
They drove on in silence. Stepanych, groaning, pulled on his flak jacket, pulled the mask over his face, and climbed onto the armor. The column writhed like a grey-green snake, the engines roared, the barrels of machine-guns looked rapaciously and warily along the sides of the road. Without stopping at the checkpoint, they crossed the administrative border with Chechnya, the Minvod policemen, who were on duty and inspecting all transport, saluted the column with their arms bent at the elbow.
Gizatullin leaned out of the open hatch, exposed his sleepy, suffering face to the cold breeze, then handed Stepanych an aluminum flask. He shook his head negatively. The column passed through a village. Behind was a wooden pole with a shot tablet....-yurt.”
A few minutes later, the BRDM engine sneezed and fell silent, the column stood up. The company commander ran to the car, cursing. Seeing Stepanych, he fell silent. Sharapov was already digging into the engine.
- Commander! - Turning to Stepanych, Andrey shouted, - the fuel pump has screwed up, I'll try to repair it, but it's an hour's work, no less!
- That's what you are, comrade major, ”said Stepanych,“ let's put the second mess in front and take the column away. And leave us VAIshny UAZ, in an hour we will catch up with you. He muttered a little audibly: - If we stay alive. I don't like it all, oh, I don't like it.
He took off the machine gun from his shoulder, pulled the bolt, driving the cartridge into the chamber. The column passed by, the scouts in the departed car got out onto the armor, waved their arms and machine guns. Stepanych ordered:
- So, guardsmen, the relaxation is over. Load weapons for everyone, do not go into the forest, do not stick out from under the cover of armor, no one has yet canceled snipers and stretch marks in this war.
Ten minutes passed. The gasket on the fuel pump cover was torn and fuel did not enter the carburetor. Frozen fingers did not obey, and Sharapov cursed in an undertone.
The ensign-traffic inspector was dozing in the cab of the UAZ, the scouts, habitually dispersed, kept the surrounding area under the guns of their machine guns. Gizatullin stopped the red Zhiguli. The driver, a young Chechen, promised to bring a fuel pump from Gaz-53. Stepanych did not hear the negotiations, he dug into the engine together with Sharapov. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, a Zhiguli appeared. Gizatullin rubbed his palms with delight:
- Let's go now.
Stepanych did not like something in the approaching car, he jumped off the armor, moving the machine gun from his shoulder to his stomach. Almost simultaneously with it, before reaching the scouts 50-70 meters, the car skidded on a slippery road, and it stood sideways. The windows rolled down, and fiery jets from machine guns hit the scouts' car one after another. Small stinging bullets shredded the icy crust of the road, pierced the tin of the UAZ, ricocheted off the armor enveloped in flames. Andrei Sharapov, half hanging from the hatch, was lying on the armor, a pea coat was burning on his back. Gizatullin was cut off half of his skull in a burst. Already a dead body agonized on the white snow, a yellowish brain with red, bloody streaks throbbed in the open cranium. Besedin's body, pierced by automatic fire, flew towards the ground, and he slowly knelt down, trying to raise the weapon with his exhausted hands. Stepanych's left arm was broken and his face was cut. With a growl, he rolled into the road ditch. Blood flooded his face, red dots stood and moved in his eyes. The departing car was one of them, and he fired his grenade launcher almost at random. Then, no longer hearing the shots, he kept pressing and pulling the trigger, not noticing that the magazine had run out of cartridges, that the car was on fire, throwing out sharp tongues of flame. Two more explosions sounded one after the other. The doors of the red Zhiguli were torn off, they flew off several meters and burned out, emitting black smoke. The snow under the burned-out car melted, revealing thawed patches of black earth. It was quiet. The white sun shone dimly through the veil of clouds. At the horizon line, a veil of smoke hung over Grozny, the city was on fire. The silence of the morning was broken by the sound of wings and the cawing of crows - the birds hurried after their prey. The door of the UAZ slammed, a traffic inspector crawled out of the car, looked around with mad eyes at the scattered bodies, fuming cars, and crawled towards the forest, scooping up snow with the pockets of his pea jacket. Kneeling before the dead Besedin, Stepanych tore the wrapper of the bandage with his teeth, not noticing that the blood had already stopped bubbling on his lips, freezing in the cold and turning into a bloody crust.
Rocking his whole body, Stepanych howled. Falling snowflakes covered motionless bodies, bloody pools, spent cartridges with a white fluffy blanket. Gray crows walked warily, painting the white earth with their footprints.

soldier mother

Dedicated to mothers whose sons will never return home.

Modern Golgotha

In the summer of 2000 from the Nativity of Christ, along a dusty and rocky road leading to the village of Tengi-Chu, five armed horsemen drove three captives. The merciless sun forced all living things to hide, insects and creatures took refuge under stones and in crevices, waiting for the onset of the saving evening coolness. In the sultry and viscous silence, only the clatter of hooves and horse snoring could be heard. The red-bearded Akhmet, pulling a wide army panama over his nose and leaning back in the saddle, purred softly:
From wine, from naga
Mastagi of Egen
High cont osal ma hate.
My birth mother
The enemies were defeated
And your son is worthy of you.
The slaves, barely moving their wadded legs, trailed behind the horses, carried away by a stretched rope tied to the saddle. At some distance from them, a leisurely donkey, wagging its tail in displeasure, pulled a wagon behind him, on a rubber track. The wagon jumped, falling on the stones, and then there was a dull thud, as if someone was hitting the coffin lid - bang, bang.
The wagon was driven by a freckled boy of about twelve years old, in his hands was a single-barreled hunting rifle. The boy pointed it at the captives, then laughed loudly, clicking the trigger. The prisoners are exhausted, their boyish thin necks sticking out of the collars of dirty shirts, their legs smashed into the blood are bleeding. Salty caustic sweat flows down the cheeks, corroding the dried-up crust of abrasions and leaving crooked tracks of traces on the skin gray from dust and dirt.
Roofs of houses appeared from behind the ledge of the mountain. Startled, Akhmet stopped the column, standing up on his stirrups, peered at the sleepy, deserted streets for a long time. Inflating the nostrils of a thin predatory nose, he inhaled the smell of his native village, the smoke of fires, fresh milk, freshly baked bread. Dogs barked in the village, smelling the smell of strangers.
Ahmet shouted something in his guttural language. Two riders dismounted and untied the hands of the captives. Three soldiers sank exhausted onto the road, right into the hot, gray dust.

From the bottomless depths of the Galaxy, the Father Creator extended his hands to the small blue planet, carefully feeling his creation, dispersing the veils of evil and pain swirling over the Earth.

From behind the stone fences, people silently looked at the rumbling wagon, silent horsemen with weapons, captured soldiers carrying a huge five-meter cross on their bent backs. Roughly planed pine beams pin their bodies to the ground. Frozen droplets of resin solidify like beads of blood on a freshly planed tree. It seems that a dead tree is crying for people who are still alive. Old men, women and children came out of their homes, silently following the marching procession.
Soldiers-conscripts and an ensign were taken prisoner near Urus-Martan a week ago when they erected a cross at the place of death of their political officer. On the square in front of the building of the former village council; the soldiers put the cross on the ground, indifferently knocking their shoulders, dug a hole, strengthened the cross in the ground. People looked at what was happening with a mixture of fear and curiosity. The boys threw stones at the soldiers, the old men, separating themselves from the crowd, leaned on their sticks, poking at the prisoners with their hardened, dry fingers. In appearance, the two soldiers were no more than 18-20 years old, frightened boyish faces turned white with notebook sheets in the approaching twilight. The ensign, a little older in age, non-stop swallowing viscous sticky saliva, struggling with an attack of mortal fear. The cloudless sky began to drag on with gray clouds, a light breeze blew.
Ahmet shouted something, bearded people began to drive the soldiers with sticks, forcing them to work faster. The preparations were completed. Boys-conscripts were placed along the edges of the cross, the ensign was tied with wire to the crossbar. Ahmed was reading a long piece of paper. "For the crimes committed on the Chechen territory, murders of people... rapes... robberies... the Sharia court... sentenced...".
The rising wind carries his words aside, ruffles a sheet of paper, clogs his mouth, making it difficult to speak “... sentenced, taking into account circumstances extenuating guilt ... the youth and repentance of conscripts Andrei Makarov and Sergei Zvyagintsev to one hundred blows with sticks. Ensign ... of the Russian army ... for the genocide and destruction of the Chechen people, the destruction of mosques and the desecration of the sacred Muslim land and faith ... to death ... "One of the escorts, acting as an executioner, climbed onto a stool, beat thick long nails in the wrists. Rusty pliers bit through the wire. The man hanging on the nails groaned and exhaled painfully: “Father.”
The soldiers were immediately laid out on the ground in the square. Long knotty sticks tore the skin, instantly turning it into bloody tatters. The man on the cross was breathing hoarsely and heavily, a transparent tear was trembling on his fair eyelashes.
People dispersed to their homes, spread-eagled bodies lay on the square, the crooked cross gleamed terribly white. Dogs howled in the neighboring houses, the man on the cross was still alive, the perspiring body was breathing, the blood-bitten lips were whispering and calling someone...
Only Akhmet was left on the deserted square. Swinging from toes to heels, he stood for a long time in front of a hoarse man, helplessly trying to raise his head and say something.
Akhmet, pulled out a knife from his belt, stood on tiptoe from top to bottom, cut his shirt, grinned, noticing a whitening aluminum cross on his sunken boyish chest:
- Well, soldier, your faith does not save you, where is your god?
- My God - Love, it is eternal - blackened lips barely whispered.
Baring his strong yellow teeth, briefly swinging, Akhmet struck with a knife. The sky was torn apart with a terrible roar, thunder struck, and darkness fell to the ground. Raindrops washed over the dead bodies, washing away blood and pain. The sky was crying, bringing back to earth the tears of mothers mourning their children.

A small fair-headed boy who looked like his father like two peas in a pod held his hand:
“Daddy, what is God?” he asked.
“God is love, son. If you believe in the Lord and love all living things, then you will live forever, because love does not die.
Long eyelashes quivered, the boy asked:
- Dad, does this mean that I will never die?
Father and son walked along an alley littered with yellow leaves, listening to the chime of bells. Life went on as it had two thousand years ago. The little blue planet moved in its orbit, repeating and repeating its path again and again.

Since the war of return tickets, no

The railway station of a small southern town is packed to overflowing with people. The velvet season has begun, the first sign of which is the absence of railway tickets.
There are two waiting rooms at the station, one is commercial, the second is general. In the commercial, people pass the time and wait for the train, striving for the warm sea, the still hot gentle sun, and cheap fruits.
These people expect comfort and peace. Entrance to the hall is paid and there are no annoying gypsy beggars, refugees from Chechnya, homeless vagrants seeking to spend the night, and soldiers returning from the war.
There are several TVs, a clean toilet with paper and towels, a buffet counter serving chickens on duty, soft buns, beer, coffee. The entrance to this oasis of well-being is guarded by a policeman with a rubber truncheon and a short-barreled machine gun. Next to him sits a controller girl in a brand new railway uniform and a flirty beret. She accepts payment for entry and makes eyes at the policeman.
In the common room, right on the floor, there are conscripts, unshaven contractors returning home. There are no tickets, the soldiers cannot take the train for 3-4 days. They sleep right on the floor, spreading dirty pea coats under them and putting duffel bags under their heads. Having escaped from where they killed yesterday and tried to kill them, many begin to drink right there at the station, some people rent prostitutes or simply wander the streets lost.
The police and officers pay no attention to them. Officers keep to themselves, trying to go to hotels or private apartments.
A small non-Russian boy walks around the waiting room. He approaches the passengers and holds out his unwashed hand. His face is dirty, his clothes need washing and repair. Some compassionate old woman comes up to him and holds out a homemade pie. The boy takes the gift, turns it in his hands and puts it in the trash can. He needs money. Now a special business has appeared in Russia: children beg for alms, then they give it to adults. If the child does not bring money, he will be punished.
A red-haired contract sergeant with a scar on his face kicked the duffel bag and went to the railway ticket office. The glass windows are covered with a sign “No tickets”, a cashier with a broad, masculine face shifts bills, paying no attention to the uncomplaining passengers. The sergeant pushes through the queue and knocks on the cloudy glass:
- Girl, I really need a ticket to Novosibirsk.
The cashier, without raising her eyes, answers with an indifferent, on-duty phrase:
- There are no tickets.
The sergeant tries to make a pleading face:
- Girl, I really need to leave, my mother is dying, - and as the last argument,
- Girl, I'm going from the war, because I won't find my mother.
The cashier finally raises her head.
- We have the same rules for everyone, I can’t help your mother in any way.
The sergeant punched the plexiglass window, pulled a hand grenade out of his pocket, looked around at the terrified people. He put it back in his pocket, pulled out the knife hanging from his belt, rolled up his left sleeve and hit the vein with the blade. A jet of blood hit the glass, right on the screaming painted mouth. Some woman screamed loudly, the contractor turned white, knelt down and quietly fell to the floor, face forward. Two policemen with machine guns ran up to the shout, leaned over to the lying man, one of them began to pull the tourniquet on his arm, the other, throwing the knife aside with his foot, quickly and habitually searched his pockets. Having pulled out a grenade, he whistled and began to communicate with the duty unit on the radio.
At this time, a beggar boy approached the soldiers lying on the floor, habitually extended his hand for money.
“Who did you approach, non-Russian muzzle, damned chock, from whom you ask for money. Go to your Wahhabis, they will give it to you,” shouted a blond soldier who came up with bottles of wine. When the boy darted to the side, he squatted down. “There, one of our veins opened his own veins, blood, as in a slaughterhouse! God rest his soul if he doesn't survive."
While the soldiers drank wine from the neck, the passengers shyly hid their eyes to the side.
A contract soldier lying in a pool of blood, accompanied by a fat policeman on duty at the station, was approached by two orderlies with a stretcher.
They put the body on a stretcher and walked indifferently to the car.
The next morning, this case was told in the Vremya program. Some of the passengers managed to film a grimy child begging for alms, soldiers sleeping on a dirty floor, a stretcher with a bloody contractor, a station cleaner wiping human blood with a dirty rag. A few hours after that, tickets appeared. Boy soldiers, like little ones, jumped on the soft compartment shelves, licked ice cream and looked like children left unattended by their parents.

Last abrek

The lion is stronger than all animals,
Eagles are stronger than all birds.
Who, having overcome the weakest,
Wouldn't you find prey in them?
A weak wolf is coming for those
Who is sometimes stronger than him,
And his victory awaits
If death - then meeting with
her,
The wolf will die without a murmur!
The hunters said that in the mountains, near the village, a huge gray wolf appeared. Old Akhmet, having met him once on a mountain path, later claimed that the wolf had human eyes. Man and beast stood for a long time, not moving, silently looking into each other's eyes. Then the wolf lowered its muzzle down and trotted down the path. The old man, as if spellbound, looked after him for a long time, forgetting about the gun hanging behind his back.
Sometimes strange things happen in the mountains. A year ago, the first secretary of the district committee, Narisov, fell into the abyss, having come with his retinue for a picnic. The next night, the people in the valley heard the wolf howling all night in the mountains. The crimson disk of the moon, covered with clouds, seemed like a huge bloody stain, ready to fall to the ground. Ahmet could not sleep all night, tossing and turning in his bed.
Exactly thirty years ago, on a February night in 1944, the moon shone in the same way. Then, too, the dogs howled, the buffaloes and cows mooed. It was the year when Stalin evicted all the Vainakhs in one night to the cold Kazakh steppes. Ahmet then lost his youngest son. Seventeen-year-old Shamil went hunting, and in the early morning the village was surrounded by "Studebakers" with soldiers. Since then, Shamil has not heard anything about his son. The eldest, Musa, was killed in the war, the daughter-in-law died on the road, when they were transported for several weeks in cattle cars. For two days she "burned out" from the temperature. The five-year-old Isa, the son of Musa and Aishat, remained in his arms. Now a fourteen-year-old great-grandson, also Shamil, came to visit for the summer.
Six months ago police chief Isa Gelayev was shot dead in the mountains. No one saw how it happened, but people said that Gelayev was shot right in the heart. The killers did not touch his expensive gun, with which he went hunting. He was found by a shepherd from a neighboring village. Then he said that horror froze in the eyes of the dead Gelaev, as if before his death he saw
the devil himself. Another shepherd said that prints of huge wolf paws were visible next to the body. That night, it seems, this wolf also howled.
In the morning Shamil was going to go hunting. Ahmed didn't mind. The great-grandson was supposed to grow up to be a real man, like everyone else in the Magomayev family. Old people say that a Chechen is already born with a dagger. Ahmet disapproved of urban life and urban education. Moscow, where the great-grandson lived, is a product of the devil. City men are similar to women, they are just as weak, they also love to sleep on soft featherbeds and sofas, they also love to eat and drink sweetly.
Shamil got up at dawn. In the morning I cleaned the double-barreled shotgun, loaded the cartridges. When Akhmet went out into the yard, the boy was playing with his puppy Jali, the old man's heart ached - the great-grandson looked like two drops of water like his missing son: the same hair, the same dimple on
cheek, the same crescent-shaped mole near the left eye. Shamil wanted to take his grandfather's cloak with him, but then he changed his mind - it's hard to carry. He rolled up the blanket, put it in his bag, took a soldier's bowler hat, an old dagger. Said:
- Grandpa, I'll be back from hunting in the morning, don't worry. I will spend the night in the mountains.
The old man just nodded his head - a man shouldn't talk much.
All day the young hunter climbed the mountains. Jali followed him. By evening, Shamil shot a kid, skinned him, lit a fire. Meat baked on coals. A contented dog, sticking out its pink tongue, lay beside him. The stars hung right overhead. Wrapped up in a blanket, the boy dozed off by the fire. Suddenly the wind blew, a sharp thunder struck. The downpour poured down. The burned-out coals of the fire hissed under the streams of rain, the boy was surrounded by pitch darkness. Grabbing a gun and a blanket, Shamil rushed to a niche under a rock, but slipped on a wet stone and rolled down the slope, dropping his gun. He tried to get up, but felt a sharp pain in his leg. Crying in pain, he crawled upstairs. Having reached the rock, he pressed his back against its cooled side, trying to hide from the jets of water.
Tears streamed down his cheeks, mixed with raindrops. The frightened puppy huddled next to me. The gun and the blanket were left on the slope. The boy started to freeze. His clothes, soaked through, did not warm, his thin body shook with a large shiver. The twisted ankle was swollen, causing excruciating pain. He snuggled up to the puppy, trying to keep warm. The temperature rose, oblivion interspersed with reality. Suddenly, Jali, pricking up his ears, growled, then squealed plaintively, trying to hide behind Shamil. The boy raised his head and saw a huge wolf standing next to him. His eyes burned with yellow fire, the boy thought that steam was coming from his sides. The wolf ran for a long time, hot breath escaped from the open mouth.
The little hunter held his breath, the wolf growled and, coming closer, lay down next to him, covering him from the rain with his body. Having warmed up, the boy and the puppy dozed off, not noticing how the rain ended and the morning came. The wolf was also dozing, resting his head on his front paws, and he seemed to be thinking about something, trying to make some kind of decision. Suddenly he got up, licked
the boy's face with a hot tongue and trotted along the path.
A few minutes later people appeared. Ahmet was holding a gun in his hands. Seeing the old man, Jali barked, squealed with joy, as if trying to say “We are here, we are here! Don't pass by!" The blacksmith Magomed took the boy in his arms and wrapped him in an old cloak he had taken with him. The boy's body was on fire, he was constantly delirious and whispered: “Grandfather, grandfather, I saw a wolf, he came to me and warmed me. Grandpa, he is not a beast, he is good, he is like a man.
The frustrated old man whispered: "He's delusional, he didn't save the boy." Hurried Magomed:
- Hurry, hurry!
While the boy was sick, lying at home, Ahmet once again went to the place where the boy was caught by a thunderstorm. Huge paw prints were visible on the dried earth, in a niche under a rock between
tufts of gray wool stuck out like stones. The old man's heart was restless, his soul could not find a place. Having sent his recovered grandson to Moscow, he hardly lived at home, went to the mountains for a week, looking for traces of a strange wolf. Meanwhile, in the villages they began to talk about an unusual beast. People's rumor attributed to him what was not. People believed and did not believe, the old people shook their heads - a werewolf, they say, the soul of a man, an abrek, who went to the mountains, so as not to surrender to the authorities, moved into the body of this wolf.
One day, the district committee Volga stopped at the house where Akhmet lived, the instructor of the district committee Makhashev and an unfamiliar elderly man in a strict suit and a bar of orders on his jacket got out of the car. The man was in his 60s or something, gray head, attentive gaze. Something in his figure reminded Akhmet, there was a feeling that they had met somewhere. After greeting, Makhashev introduced the guest:
- Lieutenant General Semyonov, from Moscow, fought in our area. I came to hunt, to remember my youth. He needs a guide in the mountains.
The old man did not hear him; in his eyes was a picture of the past: a column of trucks smelling of gasoline burning, slowly rising uphill, green figurines of soldiers with machine guns in their hands, angrily barking shepherd dogs and above all this, a military man, tied with belts, giving orders. The same imperious, attentive look, gray temples, confident movements.
The old man stood hunched over, then said with dry lips: "Kanvella epsar" and, dragging his feet, went into the house. The door slammed loudly, the puppy squealed. The instructor wanted to translate the old man's phrase, but, looking at Semyonov, he stopped short. The general stood pale, his lips compressed into a narrow thin strip. Slashing Makhashev with a glance, Semyonov turned and walked to the car, the instructor trailed after him.
The old man continued to go to the mountains, and Semyonov hunted somewhere in the same places. They both scoured the mountains, but their paths did not cross and they did not meet again. There was a rumor that the general had wounded a wolf while hunting. But he failed to take the skin to Moscow. The wounded beast is gone
to the mountains to lick the wound and gain strength.
One morning, hunting in the mountains, the old man saw an unfamiliar bearded man who was climbing a mountain path. Despite the chill of the morning, he was stripped to the waist. On the powerful back, covered with hair, one could see a fresh, pale pink scar from a bullet. On his shoulders he carried a dead goat. The figure of the stranger floated out of the mist and, after a few moments, disappeared. The man moved absolutely silently, and the old man could swear that he had never seen him in any of the nearby villages.
Once in the morning, something seemed to push him. The damned moon again peered through the windows, preventing sleep. A shot rang out in the mountains. Djali, growling, began to scratch the door. The old man dressed hastily and, seizing his gun, hurried after the dog. The dog ran ahead, lowering its muzzle to the ground and howling in a muffled voice. Ahmet, stumbling and falling, hurried after him, his legs trembling.
At the rock where he had found his grandson earlier, General Semyonov was lying on his back. The blood from the throat torn by sharp teeth was caked on the face and chest. Not far from him lay a completely naked bearded man with a buckshot-torn chest.
On a bearded face, next to a mole in the form of a crescent, a single tear froze like a drop of dew ...

Kanvella epsar (Chechen) - an aged officer.

Vera

Despite the summer month, the weather in recent days was not at all pleasing. From the very morning the sky was covered with gray clouds, which poured down on the ground in a cold, somehow joyless rain. As if on purpose, I forgot my umbrella at home and, having soaked to the skin, was no longer in a hurry to hide from the cold jets, but doomedly walked along the pavement, indifferently examining the shop windows.
The mood matched the weather. A few months ago, like a grain of sand in a storm, I was picked up by the wind of immigration and lowered into a beautiful, rich, but terribly distant and alien Germany. Suddenly, problems arose that I didn’t even suspect about: domestic troubles, a language barrier, a vacuum of communication. And the worst thing: I felt superfluous at this celebration of life. The phone did not ring, I did not need to rush anywhere, no one was waiting for me and no one was looking for meetings with me.
A few passers-by threw indifferent glances in my direction and silently hurried about their business. I was a stranger here. My heart was bitter. It was a shame to realize their uselessness at the age of forty.
Immersed in my bleak thoughts, I did not notice anything around me at all, and when I suddenly looked up, something seemed to push me in the chest. It seemed to me that from behind the glass a ray of sunlight was hitting my face. I stepped closer. Through the glass one could see a small room filled with easels and canvases.
On the wall, next to the window, hung an already finished painting, which made me stop. It depicted some dilapidated rural church, reflected in a river flowing by. The sun slowly rolled out from behind the church domes, illuminating the earth, strewn with withering leaves, with some unearthly light. It seemed that just one more moment and the twilight would melt, the rain would stop and the soul would feel lighter. I covered my face with my hand: an inexorable memory carried me into the recent past.
...In the winter of 2000, Russian troops entered Grozny. Staff officers took into account the experience of the first
Chechen war, when two days of the new 1995 were almost completely
the 131st Maykop "brigade, the 81st Samara motorized rifle regiment, and a significant part of the 8th Volgograd corps, which was going to the aid of the dying Russian battalions, were destroyed.
Preparations for the assault on the rebellious Chechen capital were carried out seriously and lasted several months. All this time, day and night, aviation of the federal forces hung over the burned city. Rockets and shells did their job - the city practically ceased to exist. All high-rise buildings were destroyed, wooden buildings were burned, and dead houses silently looked at people with empty eye sockets of windows.
At the same time, people continued to live under the rubble. These were residents of Grozny, mostly old people, women, children who had lost relatives, housing, property during the war years and did not want to leave the city, because in Russia THEY NEEDED NO ONE.
The defense of the city was entrusted to Shamil Basayev and his "Abkhazian" battalion. Federal troops were supposed to surround the city and destroy all the militants, but Basayev outwitted the Russian generals, and on the last night before the assault, he took some of his militants into the mountains.
The other part, under the guise of civilians, settled in the city and nearby villages.
In early February, intelligence reported that the "Czechs" on the eve of the next anniversary
The deportations of 1944 are preparing a series of terrorist attacks for February 23. Suddenly, many young men appeared in the city.
The command of the group of Russian troops ordered to strengthen the garrison of Grozny
consolidated detachments, consisting of fighters of the commandant's companies, OMON and SOBR.
So I ended up in Grozny. My contract by that time was already coming to an end, and I really hoped that I would stay alive and return home.
Despite the cheerful assurances of politicians that the war in Chechnya was about to end, in Grozny, as before, snipers were being fired from under the rubble, people and cars were blown up on land mines. Our task was simple: to accompany the columns, to guard buildings and institutions. If there is a need to take part in cleansing.
On that February day, the sun shone in the morning. The fallen snow lightly powdered the piles of broken bricks and pieces of rusty tin with which the ground was strewn. They say that in the last war, local residents covered the bodies of dead soldiers with these pieces so that they would not be devoured by rats and dogs.
Soldiers free from service side by side sleep on plank beds. Sergeant Major Igor Perepelitsin sits by a red-hot potbelly stove and cleans his machine gun. Igor was born in Grozny, where he served in the police, rose to the rank of officer. Then, when they began to kill Russians in Chechnya, he left for Russia, but there was no place for him in the “organs”. Then, together with the Cossacks, Perepelitsin went to fight in Yugoslavia, then in Transnistria. Well, when the mess began in Chechnya, he was right there. His militia rank is not considered here, and Igor pulls the soldier's strap with us. He knows everything about Chechnya and the Chechens. I ask him:
- Igorek, have you met Basaev?
- Well, Shamil is a dark horse, he studied in Moscow, they say that he even defended the White House during the putsch. I know one thing, that before he appeared in Abkhazia, his battalion was trained at the training base of either the KGB or the GRU. They trained him especially for Chechnya, you understand?
The foreman clicks the shutter, pulls the trigger.
But Ruslan Lobazanov, Lobzik, a former athlete, I knew personally, in one school
studied. He was a strong man, strong-willed, although he was a complete scumbag. His childhood best friend, Isa Kopeyka, was set on fire along with his car. He also played some tricks with the committee. After his bodyguard shot him, a committee ID was found in his pocket.
Igor spits on the floor:
- Take my word for it, they are all tied with one rope here. I only fight because
I can't stop, war is like a drug, it's addictive.
- Well, when this mess is over, what will you do?
- I'm going to Moscow. I will gather desperate guys and rush to the Kremlin. Then the whole country will breathe a sigh of relief.
We were not allowed to agree. SOBR officer comes running, shouting:
- Boys! Climb! "Czechs" fired at the market from a grenade launcher.
We're going to clean up. The people in the market immediately fled. On the dirty snow lie several dead soldiers, in bloody dirty pea coats, and several civilians. Women are already howling above them. We are blocking the streets leading to the market with armored personnel carriers, a major from SOBR is in command. We go down to the basement, riot policemen are with us, Igor Perepelitsyn insures the entrance. People live in the basement - Russian old people, children. They are pressed against the wall in a frightened flock. On the bed standing in the middle of the basement, a girl of 15-16 years old remains sitting, goggles in frightened eyes and hides something under the pillow. The riot policeman points a machine gun at her:
- Do you, beauty, do you need a special invitation or are your legs paralyzed from fear?
The girl suddenly throws back the covers with a challenge.
- Imagine, we're gone!
Instead of legs, she has stumps sticking out. Some old man shouts:
- Relatives, but we are our own, which we have been hanging around here for a year. Vera has been an orphan since the last war, and her legs were blown off by a bomb.
I go over and carefully cover her legs with a gray soldier's blanket, take out a hidden package from under the pillow. I'm a demining specialist, but this doesn't look like a landmine. It turned out - paints, ordinary watercolor paints. The girl looks down:
If you want to take it, I won't give it back.
The riot policeman sighs like a peasant:
The Lord is with you, daughter. We are people too.
In the evening we return to the base. Found some shells. This goodness is here in bulk. Several Chechen men were detained. Igor knows one of them. He asks something in Chechen. He doesn't answer. The foreman explains:
- This is Shirvani Askhabov. Their six brothers are all militants. Three of the bombings in the city were killed, the rest went to the mountains.
The detainees were taken to the temporary police department. Igor explained something to the duty officer for a long time. The next day I begged the foreman for two dry rations. For a box of sweets, I took bandages and medicines in the medical unit. Came to yesterday's basement. Nobody was surprised at my arrival. People went about their business. The girl was drawing while sitting on the bed. An old church looked at me from a white sheet, its reflection in the autumn water. I slid the duffel bag under the bed and sit down on its edge.
How are you, artist?
The girl smiled with bloodless lips.
- Good or almost good. It's just that my legs hurt. Imagine, they are no longer there, but they hurt.
We sat for two hours. The girl drew and talked about herself. The story is the most ordinary, and from this it seems even more terrible. Mother - Chechen, father - German, Rudolf Kern. Before the war, they taught at the Grozny Oil Institute, they were going to leave for Russia, but did not have time. My father worked as a cab driver and one evening he did not return home. Someone coveted his old Zhiguli. At that time, unidentified corpses were often found in the city. Upon learning of her father's death, her mother fell ill. She did not get out of bed and, once returning home, the girl did not find either an apartment or a mother. The city was bombed by Russian planes almost every day, and only ruins remained instead of the house.
And then Vera stepped on a mine forgotten by someone. It's good that people took her to the hospital in time, where the militants were operated on. Mina is Russian, but the Chechens saved her life.
We are silent for a long time. I smoke, then I ask if she has any relatives in Russia. She replies that her father's brother lives in Nalchik, but it seems that he has been planning to leave for Germany for a long time. I say goodbye and get ready to leave. The girl hands me a drawing and says:
- I want to paint such a picture that, looking at it, each person believes in himself, that everything will be fine with him. One cannot live without faith.
The girl looks at me with her big eyes, and it seems to me that she knows much more about life than I do.
I was going to visit Vera the next day, but in war you can't think of anything. Our armored personnel carrier was blown up by a landmine. The driver and gunner were killed, while Perepelitsyn and I escaped with shell shock and a few shrapnel. From the Budenovsky hospital, I called NTV correspondent Olga Kiriy and told her a story about a girl who lost her legs in the war. Olga agreed to help find her relatives and launched this story into the next report. Then she sent a letter in which she said that Vera had been taken away from Grozny by her uncle...
I stand at a dark display case and try to see the signature on the painting. Vera?..
How do I need you now, VERA?

CHECHEN NOVEL

The commandant's company stood in the village for the third month. Contract soldiers guarded the school, kindergarten, office buildings. They went out to destroy mini-oil refineries, escorted convoys with cargo and humanitarian aid around Chechnya. It was quiet in the village during the day, snipers fired at night, signal mines exploded, several times a military enlistment office and a school were fired from a grenade launcher. Roman Belov returned to the company from the hospital. After lying in a hospital bed with pneumonia and emaciated in order on a meager hospital ration, Belov rushed into the company, as if home. A former history teacher, tired of the constant lack of money, he signed a contract and went to war to earn at least a little for a living. Many friends went into business, some into bandits. Many, like him, eked out a miserable existence, borrowing and reborrowing money from more fortunate neighbors, friends, and relatives.
In the war, of course, they killed, military columns fell into ambushes, people were blown up by mines, but everyone drove these thoughts away from themselves. Today he is alive and well.
Having reported the arrival to the company commander and having received his machine gun, Belov went to the military registration and enlistment office. His platoon was stationed there, occupying the ground floor. Over the past month, the contingent has changed a lot, someone was expelled, someone was sent to the hospital, someone voluntarily broke the contract. Over the past time, the soldiers have established a life, they no longer slept on the floor, but on the beds. The bedroom was warm from home-made heaters, food was cooked not in the soldiers' field kitchens, but in a small room right there, in the military registration and enlistment office.
The food was served by a tall woman in her thirties, wearing a long black dress and a scarf of the same kind. Roman drew attention to her beautiful fingers, she did not look like a simple resident of the village. Thanking for the food, Roman tried to help her clean the dishes and heard in response:
- No, you don't have to do that! A woman must feed a man and clean up after him.
Belov was embarrassed and, it seems, blushed:
- But you were waiting for me to eat, you didn't go home.
The woman smiled slightly.
- Waiting for a man is also the duty and destiny of a woman.
Her voice was like the rustle of autumn leaves, it fascinated and attracted, as it attracts the eye, the sight of running water or a burning fire. An unfamiliar soldier entered, fastening his automatic horn, and said:
- Let's go, Aishat, today I will be your gentleman.
They left, and Belov for a long time kept in his memory her voice, thin pale face, long eyelashes. In the sleeping quarters, a neighbor down the aisle took out a flask of vodka from the bedside table:
- Come on, fifty grams for an acquaintance. In war, vodka is the best remedy for stress. Vodka and work - the best cure for all this vomit has not yet been invented.
After drinking, a neighbor who called himself Nikolai himself began to talk about Aishat, as if he had guessed that Roman was catching every word about her:
- Chechen, a refugee from Grozny. Pianist, have you seen what her fingers are like? The whole family: mother, child died, filled up with bricks during the bombing. My husband was taken away by militants. So she was left alone - no home, no family. As they say, no homeland, no flag. He crunched on a pickled cucumber. - After I escaped from Grozny, I came here to visit relatives. The deputy commissar - after all, he is also a "Czech", however, half - attached her to us. Everything is in business, some kind of salary is coming, and even with products all the time. In this situation, this is also important.
Roman lit a cigarette and listened attentively.
- She is a good woman. Ours tried to roll up to her, but she quickly showed everyone from the gate the turn. Specialists also checked it, but lagged behind. Not every man will be able to survive this, in general, you will see everything yourself.
Roman thought that Nikolai would pour a second, even came up with a reason to refuse, but Nikolai brushed the flask off the table and put it in the nightstand:
- Well, bro, that's enough for today. Everything is good in moderation, with the next glass the violation of the oath and military duty already begins.
In the morning, the military commissar wandered around the district. Belov and two machine gunners accompanied him. By evening, the legs were buzzing, they were late for dinner. However, Aishat had not left yet, there was a saucepan with hot porridge wrapped in a blanket on the table, and a frying pan with meat on the stove. Belov joked:
- Well, Aishat, today you have three men.
The wings of her nose twitched as he spoke her name, and she replied:
- In the life of every woman there is only one man, all the rest are only similar or unlike him.
They carried on their conversation, understandable only to the two of them. Tired soldiers finished eating porridge, not paying attention to them. Nikolai entered with a machine gun, but Roman stood up to meet him:
- I'm seeing Aishat, you rest.
Nicholas advised:
- Don't stay long, curfew is in half an hour. Do not go through the yards and take a couple of grenades with you just in case.
They walked along the deserted streets of the village, in some places street lamps flickered, and under their feet the ice of frozen puddles crunched. They were silent. Roman caught himself thinking that he wanted to snuggle up to this woman. She asked:
- Why did you go to see me off, because today is not your turn?
He knew what she would ask him, most women always ask the same question. He answered quite unexpectedly:
“Maybe you want to go back in time. I saw off my first girlfriend in the same way in the winter. Only it was not in Chechnya, but in Russia. Snow crunched under our feet, and the same snow fell from the chimneys.
slow smoke. That was twenty years ago, and I had a feeling that happiness lay ahead of me. I still remember how I wanted to kiss my girlfriend. Strange, I forgot her name, but I remember what her lips smelled like. Aishat shrugged her shoulders.
- You are not like other soldiers. What brought you here?
He answered sincerely:
I probably don't know myself. I used to think to earn money, but now I realized that I don’t need this money. It is impossible to amass a fortune by seeing others suffer. In addition, money is needed only in a world where the lights of big cities, where self-respecting men drive luxury cars and give their women flowers, gold, fur coats. You just don't want to be left behind by everyone else. Everything is different here. When you do not know if you will live to see tomorrow, thoughts about the eternal come to you, and you begin to appreciate every breath of air, a sip of water, the joy of human communication.
He still took her by the arm, holding her so as not to slip.
- I'm a former teacher, I'm used to explaining everything to children. Now I need to explain everything to myself. First of all, why do I live in the world.
They came to a small adobe house with dark windows. Leaving Aishat on the street, Belov entered the yard, making sure that there was no danger. Then he called her over. Aishat opened the door with the key and warming her frozen palms with her breath, she said:
- You have to go, you have only ten minutes left, - she paused and added. - Thank you for tonight, I never thought that I would ever feel so good.
The next day, he kept looking at his watch, afraid of not being able to get to the company before curfew. Somehow it just so happened that he alone began to accompany Aishat home, it became his duty and privilege. If Aishat was released earlier, and he was somewhere on the road, she patiently waited for him, reading in the kitchen. Or thoughtfully looked out the window, out of habit wrapping her shoulders in a black scarf. They did not advertise or hide their relationship. Everyone thought they were having an affair, but they didn't think about it. They were good together. Adults, they did not rush things, knowing that if something is easy to get, then it is easy to forget. And, perhaps, having been burned in a former life, having lost loved ones one way or another, they were afraid to believe that it was possible to meet happiness so casually and casually. Well, just like going out to the bakery for a minute, finding a bar of gold on the road ...
Federal troops were waiting for the order to advance on Grozny. A cloud of smoke from fires constantly hung over the city. Columns of military equipment walked along the roads every day. The militants intensified the mine-sabotage war, every day landmines exploded on the roads, every day they shelled and burned columns, they killed officers, policemen and employees of the Chechen administration. Near Nozhai-Yurt, they shot and burned the Ministry of Emergency Situations column with humanitarian aid. The column was accompanied by two armored personnel carriers of riot police and a BRDM with contractors. The head of intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Smirnov, left for the scene of the tragedy. Belov, with the intelligence department, was ordered to accompany him. For two weeks in a row they dangled between Nozhai-Yurt and the headquarters of the group in Khankala. Roman counted the days when he would see Aishat.
Returning to the commandant's office, he saw that another woman was busy in the kitchen instead of Aishat. She replied to his question:
- Aishat fell ill, she has pneumonia. Lies at home.
Not finding a company commander, Roman went up to the second floor to Major Arzhanov and asked permission to leave for the village. The major, already aware of the relationship between his relative and Belov, just waved his hand. Grabbing a machine gun, Roman jumped into the market, then almost ran to the familiar adobe house.
Aishat, wrapped in a scarf, was lying on the sofa. When she saw Roman, she became embarrassed and tried to get up. Almost by force laying her on the pillows, he began to unload food and fruit. For the first time since they met, they switched to you. Belov gave her tea from a spoon and kissed her chapped lips. She said:
- I always thought that the most pleasant thing in the world is to take care of your man, and I never thought that it was so nice when your beloved man was looking after you. Extinguishing jealousy in his soul, Roman asked:
- And who is your favorite man?
She laughed and, kissing him on the lips, answered:
- Stupid, well, of course you are. Everyone else I knew or know just looks like you.
In the evening, Nikolai came to them, refused tea, warned:
- We will solve the issue with the authorities, but in the morning after the commandant's tea, be in the company. You know, work is work. And the guys will be worried. You don’t relax here, keep the machine gun at hand and so that the cartridge is always in the barrel. - Stomping his boots and coughing into his fist, he left.
It was getting dark. They lit the stove, sat by the open hearth, without turning on the light. Tongues of flame licked the logs, fiery reflections reflected on their faces. Roman stirred the coals with a poker. They crackled, throwing out burning sparks from the firebox. Aishat mostly spoke, Roman only listened:
- When this war started, I didn't think it would be so scary. I have never been interested in politics, I have not gone to demonstrations or read newspapers. I was all about music and my family. It didn't matter to me who Dudayev, Zavgaev, or anyone else would be president.
Aishat removed his hand from her shoulder, simultaneously pressing her cheek against his palm, and began to collect on the table:
- I studied for five years in Moscow, at the conservatory, and never divided people by nationality. Therefore, when Russians began to be expelled from Chechnya, their houses and apartments were taken away, and in Russia at that time they told you right in the eyes that you were black-assed, and the police checked your passport, just because you were from the Caucasus, I became scared. Then, in our streets, right in broad daylight, they began to kill people, to kill just like that, by right of the strong, because you have a machine gun in your hands, but your victim does not. Chechens began to kill non-Chechens. Our neighbors, the Dolinskys, were killed only because they had a nice big apartment, which they did not want to sell for next to nothing. My husband Ramzan was taken out of the house the same night and I still don't even know who? People say that Labazanov bandits, but maybe it's not. I can not understand one thing, where did we get so many scum? I know only one thing. Ramadan is no more
in the world, otherwise he would have found me.
She pressed her face against him.
Are you tired of listening to me yet, dear? Maybe I didn’t have to tell you this, but I have been waiting for you for so many years, I knew that you would come to me anyway and I would tell you about everything that I lived for these years.
She breathed a little, coughing, clutching her hands to her chest guiltily:
- Let's put the table closer to the stove, and then we will have dinner by the fire, like primitive people. So, I won’t say that I really loved Ramadan, but he was my man. I was devoted and faithful to him, well, probably, like a dog. You know, for a Vainakh woman, her man is the Universe. Then these terrible bombings and shelling of residential areas began. I went for food, and when I returned home, neither my mother nor my daughter was there anymore. I wanted to die, I thought I was going crazy. This went on for several years, then I met you. I don't know what happened to me, but when I saw you, I had a feeling that I was waiting for you all my life. I don't care how you lived all this time, and who was with you all these years. The only thing that matters to me is that you are by my side right now.
They were already in bed, and she kept telling and telling. Roman stroked her body with his palms, kissed her trembling eyelashes, neck, chest, warming her with his breath. Then she warmly leaned towards him, giving all her unspent love, all the tenderness of her body. Every evening, Roman hurried to the company to see Aishat, at least half an hour to be with her. He was already seriously thinking about terminating the contract, taking Aishat and leaving with her for Russia, away from the war. On Friday, Aishat worked her last day. She received the payment and two days later had to leave for Roman's mother. She did not leave the military enlistment office, according to established habit, she waited for him to return from security. Everyone already knew that she was leaving, that Roman was finishing his last month of service and was also leaving after Aishat. Belov was given three days of vacation so that he could spend the last days with Aishat before parting. He came running, as always, half an hour before curfew. Out of habit, he slipped a grenade into the pocket of his jacket. Happy and joyful, we went home. The military commissar looked after them through the window. Life is a strange thing, someone dies in the war, someone comes to life.
Leaving Aishat outside the gates of the house, Roman entered the courtyard, went around the house from all sides. Strangely, a feeling of anxiety was born in the soul, familiar to all people who often come into contact with danger. He examined the door lock. Roman could have sworn that in the morning Aishat hung him a little differently. Without saying a word, Belov took out a grenade, opened the lock, then pressing the pin, pulled out the ring and stepped over the threshold. He immediately realized that he was not mistaken, someone was in the room. Simultaneously with understanding this, he heard the sharp pop of a pistol shot and felt a sharp, tearing pain in his stomach. Already ready to unclench his fingers and roll the grenade under the feet of the shooter, he heard a shout behind him:
- Roma, Romochka, my beloved! .. Falling back, he lay down with his chest on the hand with a grenade, not allowing his fingers to unclench and let death out of his hand. The man sitting at the window did not move, lowering his gun, he looked at Roman with interest. Aishat ran into the room, fell on him, covering him with her body. Behind her came a man in a leather jacket, with a machine gun in his hands. Picking up the machine gun Belov had dropped, he said:
- Ramzan, you should finish your business as soon as possible, you have to leave.
He boiled, in a sharp guttural voice said:
- Well, shut your mouth and stand where I put you!
At the sound of his voice, Aishat raised her head and met the eyes of the grin of the man they called Ramzan.
“You-s-s?” she breathed.
"Yes, it's me," he agreed curtly. - Get ready, you're leaving with me.
- No, - answered Aishat. - You can kill me with him, but I won't leave him.
- You! - boiled Ramzan. - Stupid woman, you forgot everything! I forgot who your husband is! What have they done to your family! Why do you need this Russian man?
- My husband died six years ago. At the same time, I did not have a family, and I will mourn it forever. This man replaced everything for me - both my husband and my child. Do you understand that I love him? I love you like I have never loved anyone before. Ramzan pointed a gun at her:
"I'm sorry, but I'll have to kill you." You said yourself that a woman can only have one man.
- You didn't understand anything, Ramzan, my man is he. You just looked like him, - Aishat said in a tired voice, covering Roman with her body, warming him with her breath.
The door slammed, Ramzan left. Aishat spread like a black bird on a lying person, making his heart beat in the same rhythm with her own, absorbing his pain into her body.
Soldiers were running along the street, twitching the shutters of their machine guns as they ran. From the gaps in the dark windows, tired old women looked at them listlessly.

Stranger…

Closer to midnight, life in the three-story squat building of the former village council finally calmed down. The military commandant of the Northern Security Zone, Major General Kuznetsov, grunting and shuffling with his boots, descended the stairs; slamming the door, he went out into the yard. A huge puddle spilled from the plank toilet, painted with lime, to the very porch. The horned winter month, surrounded by cold stars, was reflected in the puddle at his feet. Cursing in an undertone, the general relieved himself of a small need right on the yellow horns. Kuznetsov had chronic prostatitis, and for a long time he stood in front of a puddle in a stupid pose with his fly unbuttoned.
In the dormer window adjoining the building's commandant's office, a painted face appeared. Sitting in the "secret" sniper, having frozen, decided to move a little. Seeing the general, squatting over a puddle, he jumped into his fist and hid in the darkness. Grunting and grimacing, Kuznetsov buttoned up his trousers and dragged himself into the overheated warmth of the study, where he had a sofa. The riot policeman sitting at the door stood up, but the general, not paying attention to him and muttering something under his breath, went to his place. Muffled music was heard from the basement floor, where the sleeping quarters of conscripts, contractors and a platoon of riot police were located. Last night, scouts brought an old dagger to the policemen for exchange. "Chench" turned into a friendly dinner, which could easily develop into a smooth friendly breakfast. When all the wine was drunk, the stash, alcohol "NZ", was used.
The subject of celebration, stuck in the center of the table, silently listened to the conversation of a tall red-haired riot policeman and a contract sergeant. The rest of the alcohol was poured into mugs. The riot policeman needed to get out into the air. Swaying and touching the walls with his broad shoulders, he went out into the street. The contractor turned the ancient blade in his hands, frowning in concentration, cut the fat. Marina Khlebnikova's voice was heard from an old tape recorder tied with electrical tape: “... My general... the last hero. My general..."
The returning riot policeman noticed a sleeping guard soldier under the stairs. By order of the commandant, a police post was set up on the ground floor. In the basement, where there were living quarters, the army.
A conscript boy in a dirty pea coat was sleeping curled up in an old tattered armchair, the machine gun stood nearby on the concrete floor. The riot policeman tiptoed up to the sleeping soldier, stood nearby, thinking about what to do, yelling “Wake up!” or just give a greenhorn in the ear, for having lost his vigilance, put his comrades in mortal danger. Having come up with an idea, the riot policeman unfastened the magazine from the machine gun and returned to the cockpit. The contractor was already asleep, his head on the table. The riot policeman finished his alcohol, then pushed the sergeant in the shoulder, shoved a machine gun horn into him.
- On the! Give it to the company commander in the morning. The rookie fell asleep at the post, let him punish him as he should, so that others would be discouraged, otherwise they will soon slaughter us like sheep.
After wiping the dagger with a rag, he admired the gleam of steel for a few moments, then thrust it into the silver-encrusted scabbard and wandered into the neighboring cockpit. It was three hours before we got up.
Zhenya Naydenov dreamed of a sea he had never seen before. In their village, from the reservoirs there was only a foundation pit, from which clay was previously taken for bricks. The pit was filled with rainwater and was the place where the local punks gathered to rest. Here they drank wine, played cards, swam and sunbathed.
Zhenya dreamed that he was walking on hot yellow sand, and the oncoming waves softly hit his feet. A white steamer appeared in the distance, it was heading straight for Zhenya, cutting the sea wave with its nose. The captain stood on the deck and waved his fist, opening his mouth in a scream. Zhenya listened: "...your mother, tra-ta-ta-ta-ta ... newbie," the captain shouted in the voice of Sergeant Zykov.
Zhenya jumped up in fright, the squad leader hung over him like a green spotted block:
- You that, goldfinch, fell asleep? We have been looking for you for half an hour, they thought that the “Czechs” had dragged you away.
- No, Yura, I just closed my eyes for a minute, anyway, the rise is already, no “Czechs”. The sergeant raised his fist, but changed his mind, relented:
- All right, slut, I'm sorry. Go to breakfast, as a punishment you will go for firewood.
“Comrade sergeant, I didn’t sleep,” the soldier mumbled.
- After the victory you will sleep off, and now the war. And don't forget that you're punished for sleeping on duty. You can even complain about me to the company commander, he will put you in a zindan alive, he has been dreaming for a long time
try out your creation.
The sergeant added a few more words about Major Muratov and his pit, which he had prepared for captured militants and undisciplined subordinates.
Naydenov did not go to breakfast. Throwing off his boots, he fell right into the trestle bed right in his pea coat. It seemed to him that he had only closed his eyes, when Zykov's hoarse voice rang out again:
- Where is this damn salabon again, uroy bastard.
Still half asleep, Zhenya fumbled for his hat in the dark, grabbed the machine gun by the barrel and ran out into the yard like a bullet. Several soldiers, on the orders of the company commander, poured rubble from the onboard Ural into a spilled puddle. The foreman of the company, ensign Morozov, having barely cooled down from the morning dressing of the general, furtively looked around and, hiding behind the cabin door, hastily knocked half a glass of vodka into himself. As soon as he had time to put a cigarette in his mouth, Kuznetsov appeared with his retinue. The ensign choked, rolling the whites of his eyes, yelled:
- Sergeant Zykov, fuck your leg. Where are the people with the tool?
At that moment, a sergeant and four soldiers appeared. Zykov muttered gloomily:
- Here I am, why are you yelling?
They threw axes and saws into the back of the tarpaulin "Ural" and climbed in on their own. Zykov ordered to fasten magazines and load weapons. The sergeant sat down on the edge of the side, put out the barrel of the machine gun. The ensign got into the cab with the driver. Zhenya just now noticed the absence of the store, having gone cold, he rummaged in the pockets of his pea coat, still not believing himself, began to feel the floor, hoping that the store had fallen out of his pocket and was lying somewhere nearby. I decided to cheat, if I told the sergeant that I had lost the magazine with cartridges, he would return the car and then I definitely couldn’t avoid the pit. Naydenov fastened an empty magazine and pressed his back against the side of the car.
Zykov was smoking, turning up the collar of his pea jacket and exhaling cigarette smoke into the frosty air. It was not good at heart, there were still three months left before the demobilization, two months in Chechnya passed more or less calmly, but there was a feeling of something disturbing. If the sergeant had more combat experience, he would understand that this is a premonition of trouble. Fate warns that soon a catastrophe awaits a person. The cow and the horse are also crying, anticipating the imminent death from the knife.
Zykov did not know this, so he thought that his nerves were to blame. Then his thoughts switched to something else: that it would be nice to blow a Chechen teacher, who this morning came to the military commandant to ask him to give her some building materials to repair the school, and also, you need to quickly fuse a box of grenades that he prepared for Umar. An old Chechen found a stocked pond somewhere and killed fish there. As he said, "features of the Chechen national fishing."
In war, everyone trades, without this it is impossible. Only now, General Kuznetsov is taking out tanks of gasoline from Chechnya, and the foreman of the company is selling canned food and cereals. Accordingly, they live - the general drinks cognac and eats caviar, and the ensign eats vodka and sniffs it with pickles.
Flapping its sides, the tractor got out of the village. Powerfully roaring the engine, rolled towards the forest. After several bombs were dropped there, there were many fallen dry trees in the forest. Acacia and elm burned well, so for the last month we went there to harvest firewood. An old shabby "Zhigulenok" appeared on the road. He slowly moved forward. The ensign put his hand to his forehead, closing his eyes from the sun and trying to see who was sitting in the car. Having caught up with the military, the "Zhigulenok" beeped a greeting and, picking up speed, rushed towards the village.
- Who is it? - the ensign asked anxiously.
- Yes, hell knows, the car seems to be a local district police officer, - the driver threw, not taking his eyes off the road. From the body there was a pounding on the cab roof. Zykov jumped out of the truck and went to the door:
- Hey, foreman, in the "Zhiguli" there are three "Czechs" with machine guns, maybe we'll catch up?
The lieutenant scratched his head.
- Yes, these are local cops, we will still run into an international scandal, we will be late. The general will plan again, let's go.
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders, silently climbed into the back. Ensign Morozov had six months left before the end of his contract and retirement, he did not want any complications.
It was good in the forest. Some bird was blooming. From under the melted snow, green leaves preserved from autumn looked out. The soldiers, throwing off their jackets, took up axes and saws. Even the foreman, getting excited in the fresh, intoxicating air, grabbed an ax and hecking like a peasant, skillfully chopped branches. Seeing the wrinkled, sleepy Naydenov, the sergeant put him on guard. Zhenya clicked the safety catch, praying to God that the sergeant would not suspect anything. Looks like it worked out.
Excited, Zykov threw off his undershirt and, together with the foreman, sawed the crooked trunk of an acacia. Tight muscles bulged on his back, it was clear that peasant physical labor gave him pleasure.
Zhenya was sitting at a distance, watching the road out of the corner of his eye and nibbling on a withered blade of grass. A gentle breeze fluttered the miraculously surviving leaves of the trees. A steamy, smiling Zykov approached, wiping his sweaty face with a handkerchief and putting on a pea coat, said:
- I respect men's work, you feel like a man, not a weakling. A real man must either break, or build, select, or protect. Come to the car, help load, otherwise you will fall asleep at the combat post.
The sergeant deftly picked up the machine gun and, hanging it around his neck, moved into the depths of the forest. Already approaching the car, Zhenya heard a shout:
- Hey! Well, stand!
Turning back, he saw the sergeant furiously pulling the trigger of his machine gun, twitching the bolt over and over again. The silence of the forest was torn apart by automatic bursts. As if in slow motion, Zhenya saw the bullets tearing pieces of cotton from Zykov's back. Startled, he rushed to the car and, stumbling on a root sticking out of the ground, fell to the ground, noticing how fiery jets knock down soldiers, tear their bodies, forcing them to writhe in mortal pain.
When he opened his eyes, the first thought was that he was in a grave. All around was darkness, crooked legs numb. His hands were tied behind his back, for some reason he stank of gasoline, and nausea rose in his throat. Zhenya wanted to scream, but only a stifled moan escaped from his throat. The mouth was sealed with duct tape. He closed his eyes and began to pray. Zhenya had never been to church, he did not know how to pray, but in early childhood he saw how grandmother Galya tied a scarf, put a candle in front of the icon of the Mother of God. In a chest of drawers smelling of mothballs, she constantly kept a supply of yellow candles the size of a little finger. Grandmother renounced everything that was happening, slowly and thoughtfully put her fingers folded into a pinch on her forehead, stomach, shoulders, whispering: “To You, the Most Pure Mother of God, I fall down and pray, if the Queen constantly sin and anger your Son and my God ... I repent trembling, will the Lord really strike me ... My mistress Mother of God, have mercy and strengthen. Grandmother Galya bowed earnestly, the flame of the candle was reflected in her pupils.
Little Zhenya tried not to make noise at such moments, his mother explained to him that his grandmother was talking to God, asking him for protection. Sometimes the boy peeped through the door crack: the uneven flame of the candle revived the woman's face on the darkened icon, it seemed that the Mother of God was listening to her grandmother, listening to her prayers and promising with a look: "Everything will be fine, everything will be fine."
Choking and choking with tears, Zhenya groaned, mumbled: “Most Holy Theotokos, Most Pure Mother of God, have mercy, save and save.”
The floor underfoot stopped trembling, the trunk hood opened, and daylight hit my face. A man in a police uniform poked him painfully in the chest with a machine gun barrel:
- Why are you howling, damn it, scary? You should have stayed at home, and you came to kill children. If you keep mooing, I'll cut your tongue out.
The man with the machine gun hit him in the chest again and slammed the trunk. Darkness fell again, Zhenya silently wept, tears flowed down his cheeks. The car drove for several hours, sometimes branches whipped on the roof of the car, scratching sounds were heard, and Zhenya guessed that he was being driven through the forest. The engine roared strainedly, and he knew that the car was moving into the mountains. Finally, the noise of the engine stopped, the iron of the gate rattled, the car drove a few more meters and stood up. There was an unfamiliar guttural speech, male laughter, the trunk opened again. An unfamiliar bearded man tore the tape from his lips and, grabbing the collar of his pea jacket, pulled it out of the trunk like a kitten. Stiff and stiff legs could not hold, Zhenya knelt down, right into the snowy porridge. Laughed all around.
- What, warrior, do not hold your legs from fear?
An old man in a furry hat and with a stick in his hands came close to him, looked into his face. With hardened yellow fingers he lifted his eyelids, examined his teeth, clicked his tongue accusingly, and muttered something displeased. Other men pulled machine guns out of the car, Zhenya recognized his own, with a scratched butt, his heart ached. One of the men, hearing the old man's voice, answered something and, lifting Zhenya from the ground, dragged him into some shed.
- The father is dissatisfied, he says, they dragged some dead Russian, they say, you will work badly. If you become lazy, we will feed you to the dogs, and we will bring another to your place. So look, the duration of your life depends only on yourself, - he said, locking the door with a large barn lock.
The barn turned out to be inhabited, several goats lay on the floor against the wall. When they saw Zhenya, they timidly jumped up from their seats, then, with a frightened mek several times, again lay down in their place and began to chew their gum.
Naydenov examined his prison. Stone walls, loophole windows through which even his head could not climb, thatched floor. Most of the night he sat on his haunches. Toward morning, when fatigue overcame fear and anxiety, he dozed off, nestling against the warm goat side. Early in the morning the door creaked, an unfamiliar man beckoned him with his finger:
- Follow me, soldier.
We went up the stairs to the house and into the room. An old man was sitting in an armchair, twisting a green rosary in his hands. At his feet, on a fluffy carpet, sat a boy of about ten, looking askance. Against the far wall, four bearded men in camouflage were seated on a couch.
- Tell me, who is this? demanded the old man. - Do not try to lie - it is a sin, Allah will punish.
Stuttering and choking on words, Zhenya began to tell how he was drafted into the army, brought to the Budyonnovskaya 205th brigade, then Mozdok, Chechnya. How I fell asleep with a machine gun at the post, how the magazine with cartridges disappeared, how I was captured. They listened to him in silence, the old man twisted the rosary in his hands. The youngest could not stand it:
Did you take part in the purges? Shot at the Chechens?
Zhenya shook his head negatively.
- I'm only the third week in Chechnya, I haven't shot yet, the old men didn't take them to combat. I only worked, well, I stood on guard.
The men started talking, talking in their own way. The old man looked at them with a hard look, the noise died down.
- Mother, father? From where, from what places?
Realizing that nothing threatened him yet, Zhenya answered more boldly:
- He lived in Siberia, his mother works as a nurse in a hospital, his father is a driver.
The old man clicked his tongue.
- What can you do? Do you lay bricks, can you repair a radio, a TV set?
- I can do everything around the house, hammer in a nail, nail a board. After all, I grew up in the village, I can milk a cow. I don’t know about the TV, but if there is some simple breakdown in the receiver, the wiring
solder, replace the plug - I can do it.
The old man closed his eyes.
- My name is grandfather Ahmet, Haji Ahmet. These are my sons, they are all fighting, there is no time to do housework. You will live with us, you will work, you will receive food. Now they will let you change clothes, I have another worker, his name is Andrei, he has been living with me for ten years. He will show you everything and tell you, he will give you work and food. Now your sons will talk to you again, and remember, you have only one way out of here. No, not in the cemetery, where we bury Muslims, the faithful. We throw people like you into the ravine. There they are eaten by animals.
The old man finished speaking and waved his hand. The men got up. Realizing that the conversation was over and he also had to leave, Zhenya headed for the exit.
It so happened that after leaving the house, Zhenya found himself surrounded by the sons of Akhmet. He was pushed around the corner of the house. Falling, he ran his face into someone's knee, felt the salty taste of blood in his mouth. Then strong hands lifted him up. While Zhenya was trying to keep the remnants of consciousness, someone hit him with an elbow in the solar plexus. Gasping for breath, he began to kneel, but he was not allowed to fall. Strong blows threw him in different directions. Zhenya was afraid that if he fell, they would beat him, trample him to death. Spitting blood, he got up and rose to his feet, afraid of losing consciousness. Finally, the older bearded man, with a short heck, jumped up and hit him in the face with his heel. Zhenya threw up his hands and rolled over on his back. The light dimmed in his eyes, and he no longer felt how someone's hands dragged him into the summer kitchen.
An old man with a piebald, tousled beard was sitting in the room, drinking tea from a large china mug with broken edges. The men said something in Chechen. The old man jumped to his feet and helped put Zhenya against the wall. Then he brought water and, having wetted a towel, began to wipe his bloody face. Senior said:
“Change him, he’ll get better by the evening and let him clean the cattle pen.” Tell him how he wakes up that these are flowers. If anyone complains about his behavior, or if he decides to run away, I will hang him on his own guts.
The old man threw up his hands.
- Shamil, where should he go, you see for yourself, he is barely alive, in whom the soul is kept.
Having trampled on the spot, the men left, after a while the younger Idris came, brought a bag of clothes. Zhenya had already come to his senses by this time, he was squatting, leaning his back against the wall. The old man gave him a mug of water, the soldier's hands were trembling. Splashing water on the floor, he got drunk. Idris bared his white teeth in a smile.
- Nu, that, revived, soldier? Nothing, for one beaten - two unbeaten give. Looking around, he handed him a long cigarette.
- On, smoke in the evening, it's a buzz, shaitan-grass. Just don’t tell your father, our old man is strict, he will swear.
Groaning and muttering something all the time, an old man with a beard, his name was Andrei, helped Zhenya take off his clothes and change clothes. Military camouflage, boots, belt rolled up in a pile and carried off somewhere. Zhenya pulled on old sports trousers, a shirt, a sweater. The whole body ached, the head was spinning, the eyes swam and turned into narrow slits. Andrei returned from the street, looked at his swollen face, clicked his tongue sympathetically:
- Well, nitso, nitso, before the wedding will heal.
He had no front teeth, his speech was slurred, lisping.
- It is they who have gone berserk. The eldest, Musa, was killed by the feds. You probably saw his son Uze, his name is Alik, a sincere boy. I have known this family for ten years, it was a good family, prosperous, hard-working, but the damned war broke everything. She makes animals out of people.
By evening the brothers left. Zhenya and Andrei drove the goats out into the street, cleaned and removed the manure. His head was spinning and hurting, Zhenya felt an approaching nausea. But he was alive, the events of the last day completely exhausted him, and he did not know whether it was good or bad that fate had spared him. In the evening he gave Andrei a cigarette with marijuana, he himself refused to smoke. In his village they drank vodka, but the majority of their peers had a negative attitude towards “poison”. In the company, most of the soldiers were ready to give cartridges or dry rations for marijuana, Zhenya himself tried smoking a couple of times, but he didn’t like it, he didn’t get used to it.
Little Alik brought a jar of milk and bread. Having smoked, Andrey became talkative, smiled happily, showing toothless gums., laughed. Zhenya noticed that the lightning on the boy's boot was broken. I asked him to take off his shoes, put a thick thread into the needle and carefully sewed up the torn seam. The boy stamped his foot and ran away.
Eugene slept badly, waking up, he saw through the window the orange moon and the stars jumping around it. Andrey was snoring on the sagging sofa, but as soon as Zhenya went to the door to go out into the yard out of need, the snoring stopped and a voice rang out:
- Where are you going?
Zhenya answered, the snoring resumed. It was cold outside and the dogs barked occasionally. Zhenya closed his eyes and imagined his native village. The dogs barked in the same way, the stars shine in the same way, only there is no snow, but not such a thick silence. Here it is viscous, disturbing, as in a dark basement, you don’t know where and what you will stumble on.
The door creaked, whitening underwear, Andrey appeared, yawned, urinated in the snow. Immediately, with the toes of his boots, he threw snow, a yellow puddle.
- You, the guy, do not call, the most important thing is that he remained alive. There is no way out of the grave, but there is always a way out of prison. God willing, everything will work out. Drive harmful thoughts away from yourself, it is useless to run away from here, mountains are all around. They will catch up with the dogs, they will torture you, so be patient. The Lord will show the way out, let's go to sleep better.
So for Zhenya Naydenov, life began in the Usmanov family.
Early in the morning, he and Andrei woke up, drank tea with bread, fed the cattle, carried water, and chopped wood.
Zhenya cleaned the house, washed the floors, did all the work in the house. He hardly spoke to Akhmed and the women, he avoided them. In the middle of the day or in the evening, Alik would run into the room where they lived with Andrey, bringing broken toys. Zhenya repaired them, talked to the boy, told him all sorts of stories from his childhood, thawing his soul, laughed. Somehow we went to the forest for firewood. Zhenya looked for a suitable branch, cut it down, and took it with him. Neighbor Yunus, who was escorting them into the forest with a machine gun, squinted and asked:
Why do you need this stick?
Zhenya replied that he would cut wooden spoons. Returning home, he cut the knots, pulled the bowstring, wrapped it with electrical tape. Alik, when he saw it, was stunned:
- You did it to me, Zhenya?
He nodded his head affirmatively. The boy disappeared all day on the street, shooting from a bow at birds, lying banks. In the evening he brought milk, homemade cakes. He sat quietly, not in a hurry to go anywhere. Zhenya was sitting at the table, repairing the old shoes that Andrey brought, the old shoes were completely leaky.
The sun was going down. The room was getting dark. The generator engine started. Zhenya recalled how he was fond of adventures as a child, began to talk about Robinson, how he ended up on a desert island, how he met Friday. He no longer remembered much of what he read, he had to strain his imagination, invent. The boy listened with bated breath, his eyes shining. Having told the story of the famous wanderer, Zhenya, seeing the boy's genuine interest, began to talk about the three musketeers. As soon as he reached the moment of the duel of D'Artagnan with the musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis, Maryam, Alik's mother, came. Zhenya was confused at first, then he recovered from his embarrassment and continued his story. Carried away, he even jumped up from the table and with an awl, as with a sword, inflicted several injections on the imaginary guards of the cardinal. Alik laughed, Maryam also smiled, then took her son by the hand and said:
- It's late already, grandfather is waiting for you, you should read the Koran.
Two weeks later, the body of the youngest son of the Usmanovs, Idris, was brought to the village. During an attack on a police checkpoint, a machine-gun burst tore apart his chest and stomach. Torn, bloody intestines fell out on the ground, and Idris, trying to somehow reduce the pain tearing his body, pulled everything up and pulled his knees to his stomach. He was already unconscious, but his body still reacted to pain and wanted to live. They brought him home like that, in a bloodied, torn camouflage and with stiff knees pulled up to his stomach. He was wrapped in a gray checkered blanket, the kind they gave out in a refugee camp in Ingushetia. In the village there was a woman's crying and howling. Alik ran into the closet, out of breath, said something in Chechen to Andrey, then turned to Zhenya and said:
- Come with me, my mother sent me, I need to hide you.
They made their way through the vegetable gardens into the neighboring yard. Alik pulled a key out of his pocket, removed the lock from the cellar lid, and waved his hand:
- Climb up there and sit quietly, otherwise they will kill you. Mom said she would talk to Grandpa. I'll bring you food tonight.
The funeral of Idris Usmanov was held in accordance with the traditions. The men dug out a grave, laid him facing Mecca. According to Muslim custom, the body was not washed or changed. The bloody clothes were supposed to serve as proof before Allah that he died in the struggle for the faith. A long metal pipe was installed over the grave. They slaughtered a bull, distributed saag, funeral meat, alms to neighboring yards. For three days, while the memorial dhikr lasted, Zhenya sat in the cellar. Alik came running several times, threw down his quilted jacket, gave a bundle of food - meat, milk, cakes. To be honest, all these days Zhenya had no time for food, time stopped. Lying in the dark, he thought about the same thing: “Will they kill, will they not kill? Will they kill or won't they? You could, of course, try to break the lock, but what's the point? Where to go? Catch up, then certainly death. Three days later Andrei came, threw back the lid, and shouted:
- Get out, prisoner, freedom.
Zhenya returned to the Usmanovs' house, life went on as before. Ahmed still did not talk to him, turned away at the meeting, knitting his eyebrows. Zhenya got used to it, began to feel freer. So that bad thoughts would not enter his head and not devour melancholy, he tried to occupy himself with work: he mowed the grass, hauled hay, repaired the fence, repaired the roof on the barn, looked after the cattle. Life in the open air, hearty food and physical work strengthened his body, he even seemed to become taller. Several times he caught the eye of Maryam, Alik's mother. The look of the young woman was embarrassing and disturbing. When Maryam came into their room, he wanted to talk to her, to touch her skin. He never had intimacy with a woman, and he kissed only twice in his life, at a school evening with a girl from a neighboring class, Sokolova Larisa, and on his own wires to the army with a neighbor Tomka. Andrey, probably, felt something, once he grunted after Maryam left and said:
- Look, soldier, you have only one head. If Ahmed notices your shura-mura or suspects something, then he will cut off your head himself. This is not Russia for you, this is the Caucasus, it has its own laws. With Maryam you are more careful, a young woman, twenty-eight in total, blood and milk, and without a man for the fourth year.
Four months have passed, spring has come. Shamil Usmanov left his detachment and came home for a few days. He stared at Zhenya for a long time, then he dropped:
- Well, you bit your face, soldier, maybe you will go to my detachment? I just need an orderly. I’ll teach you how to shoot, you’ll get even with the offenders, and I’ll also pay in dollars. You will accept Islam, we will marry a Chechen woman, you will not find women like ours anywhere, think about it.
On the last day, Shamil decided to go down to the valley. He talked about something with his father for a long time, then he took a machine gun, several magazines with cartridges and called Zhenya:
Come with me, stop messing around.
Alik begged me to take him with me. "Niva" for a long time meandered along some paths, roaring the engine, went down and up along the serpentine. Alik happily jumped in the front seat, begging his uncle to let him steer or shoot from a machine gun. Shamil laughed and promised that as soon as Alik grew up a little, he would take him into his squad to beat the infidels.
Zhenya was dozing in the back seat, occasionally glancing out the window, remembering the way just in case.
They did not stay long in the village of Yarash-Mardy. The owner of the house exchanged a few phrases in Chechen with Shamil, had a quick bite to eat, and drank tea. Shamil drank a bottle of vodka with the owner Umar. At home he never drank, he was afraid of his father. Then they loaded meat, smoked fat tail, medicines, bandages, ampoules into the trunk.
By the time we started back, it was already evening. Alik was dozing in the front seat, curled up. Shamil pulled the shutter of the machine gun, put it next to the seat, turned on the headlights. Decided to take the short cut back. Drinking vodka dulled the sense of danger. Headlights snatched out of the darkness gray boulders of stones, islands of grass yellowed from the heat, dark silhouettes of trees. Suddenly, a shadow darted in a beam of light, hit the radiator grill, choked with a short cry of pain, fell off to the side, Shamil sharply hit the brakes, grabbing the machine gun, and fell sideways onto the side of the road. There was a booming, ringing silence, cicadas crackled. Alik woke up and asked in a whisper:
- Shamil, what was that?
Shamil got up from the ground, kicked a large gray bird, which hissed, stretched out its neck, crawled to the side, dragging a broken wing behind it.
- Hya doa walla khakhitsa, - Shamil swore, - there will be no luck.
He got behind the wheel gloomy, put Alik in the back seat with Zhenya, turned off the headlights, the car made its way forward by touch. The impending danger had wiped the hops out of his head. Shamil sat tense, leaning forward, vigilantly peering into the road, at any moment ready to grab the machine gun. Zhenya, just in case, opened the door slightly, pressed the boy to him in order to jump out of the car with him at any moment. A strong beam of a searchlight hit the windshield, and immediately a voice amplified by a megaphone was heard:
- To stand! In case of disobedience, we open fire to kill!
Shamil gritted his teeth.
- Ai ustaz! - hit the brakes, switched gears.
The blinding beam of the spotlight twitched, moved behind the car. Shamil stepped on the gas, the engine roared, the car, wobbling and clinging sideways to the boulders, rushed back. Immediately, several bursts of machine-gun fire rang out. Throwing the boy on the floor of the car, Zhenya managed to see how a line of bullet holes pierced the glass, turning it into a mosaic of fragments. Shamil twitched, lumps and splashes flew from his head. As in a dream, Zhenya was looking at some bloody stalk sticking out in the place of his neck. A fountain of blood spouted from her. Then he grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck, hooked the belt of the machine gun and fell out of the car. He fell very unsuccessfully, closing the child, furrowed several meters on the ground. But all the same, Alik screamed and groaned:
- Zhenya, I have a leg.
There was no time to understand and inspect the wound. Overcoming the pain in his side, Zhenya put the boy on his shoulders, grabbed the machine gun and, limping, ran along the barely visible path into the mountains. Hiding behind a boulder, he heard the cries of the soldiers, the sharp beam of the searchlight searched the ground, the boulders, the road. In the place where the overturned car was left, an explosion was heard, a column of flame rose from behind the bushes. The searchlight continued to slide over the stones, preventing it from rising. Zhenya jerked his machine gun towards him, took aim at the blinding circle, exhaled:
- Lord, bless!
The machine gun in his hands twitched with a nervous, angry tremor. From the second or third turn, the searchlight went out, darkness fell. Zhenya darted to the side like an inaudible shadow. He lay down behind a boulder, waited until the reciprocal bursts began to shred a stone, behind which lay a wounded boy. Sparing no cartridges, he fired the remnants of the store in flashes in front of him. Pressing his back against the boulder, he quickly changed stores, listened. In the ringing silence, the clatter of boots and the clang of metal could be heard. Someone cursed loudly, commanded:
- Ivantsov, call the carnation!
Zhenya rushed back to the stone, where he left the boy, whispered to him:
- Be patient!
He put him on his back, and, bending down, rushed higher into the mountains. Automatic bursts rumbled, and a thin boyish voice rang out: “Carnation, carnation, I am the seventh. Spirits attacked, up to five people, we have one three hundredth. Carnation, carnation, I am the seventh.
Then Zhenya himself was surprised for a long time how, in pitch darkness, jumping from stone to stone, he managed not to break his neck. Probably, the genes woke up, the ancestors of the taiga, hunting animals in the taiga, living by hunting. Or maybe the danger sharpened all the senses, forced him to turn into a wild animal, the salvation of which depends only on the speed and dexterity of the legs, visual acuity and hearing. Or maybe the Mother of God, whose face he saw in early childhood, spread her hand over him, protecting him from death. Only an hour later he decided to make a short halt. Alik no longer groaned or cried, he was unconscious. Zhenya carefully laid him on the ground, carefully took off his bloody trousers. The bullet pierced his left leg. The wound was bleeding and oozing blood. Zhenya remembered with anguish the medicines left in the car. He took off his T-shirt, glad to himself that it was made of cotton. He tore it into ribbons, urinated on the remaining piece of rag. Then he pulled out a cartridge from the automatic horn, shook it with his teeth and pulled out a bullet. He poured gunpowder on the edges of the wound, crossed himself and brought a lit match. Immediately, the flaming gunpowder slammed with a wet chopper. The boy screamed in pain. Zhenya covered his mouth with his palm, feeling sharp teeth digging into his fingers. Hurrying and looking around, he bandaged the wound and, hoisting the boy on his shoulders, rushed into the darkness. He fell and rose, thorns tore at his body. With each step, the burden became heavier and heavier. Realizing that he would not inform the boy, he threw the machine gun. Several times Zhenya put his ear to his chest, listening to whether his heart was beating.
Bumping into a stream, he fell to his knees and drank ice-cold water for a long time. Then, having wet his palm, he wiped the boy's face, tried to pour a few drops into his mouth through clenched teeth.
The sky began to turn gray when he went to the village. He himself did not understand what helped him get to the house, not get lost and not fall into the abyss - chance, luck, or the instinct of a hunted animal, on the trail of which hunting dogs follow. Zhenya carried the boy into his closet, put him on the bed. Andrei twitched, jumped up from the sofa:
- What, what happened, what happened to the kid, where is Shamil?
Without answering, Zhenya grabbed a loaf of bread, several onions, and matches from the table. Andrei, with trembling hands, undressed Alik, felt his body, and lamented:
- Ahmed, he will kill you!
Zhenya shouted:
- Shut up! - Then he added. - Everything is all right with the kid, he will live, I have prodenzified the wound. Shamil is no more. They were ambushed. He was blown off half a head. Already at the threshold he threw to the old man: - Tell me, let him not look for me, this is not my fault. Let the boy take better care of it. Because of him, I have no way back to my own.
I jumped out into the gray dawn and rushed to the mountains. The disturbed dogs accompanied him with loud barks. Until late in the evening, Zhenya sat in a crevice of a rock, next to the Usmanovs' house. From above, he could clearly see the women scurrying around the yard. Maryam was shouting something to Ahmed, pressing her hands to her chest. A few minutes after he lay down in his shelter, Andrei, supporting by the arm, brought the old Zura. She was known for curing diseases, talking about toothache, and adjusting dislocations. So far, no one was going to look for him, but, just in case, he took out an unfinished pack of cigarettes from his pocket, gutted the tobacco and, rising higher, covered his traces. Zhenya, of course, understood that this was all nonsense. People who have lived all their lives in the mountains, if they want, will immediately find it. With the greatest regret, he recalled the abandoned machine gun. Weapons at all times gave a person a sense of confidence and security.
Toward evening, when twilight had already fallen, he set off. Where and why he was going, he did not know. You just had to go out to people, try to get some documents, and then get out of Chechnya. It was impossible to return to the unit. How to explain to special officers why there were no cartridges in your machine gun? Why didn't he resist? Why didn't you try to escape for six months? Yes, and in yesterday's shootout, after all, he shot at his own people, wounded someone, rode in the same car with the bandit, in fact, helped him and carried out his orders. Whatever one may say, faithful tribunal, how many years will they give him - five, ten, fifteen?
He tried to walk, choosing the most remote places, paths already overgrown with grass. He rested during the day, hiding from prying eyes, walked at night, guided by the stars. On the third day he went out to the road. I wanted to eat and drink. The loaf of bread and the onion had been eaten long ago. He decided to spit on everything and go out to the people. Ten or fifteen minutes later he was overtaken by an army "Ural" with a tarpaulin body and the BB emblem on the cab door. The car skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust. A young lieutenant in a spotted uniform jumped out of the cockpit. The barrel of a submachine gun rested on Zhenya's back, looking back, he saw two contractors behind him.
They didn't take him long. After 20-30 minutes the road turned to the side, we passed one checkpoint, then another. The car was not checked. The lieutenant from the window showed some paper to the indifferent soldiers and drove on. At the last block, pulling himself up on his hands, some military man in dirty camouflage and a black scarf on his head looked into the body. Zhenya knew that contract servicemen who had already been in more than the first war wore such. The contractor carefully looked at Zhenya, who was huddled on the dirty floor, and stretching over the side, lifted his head by the hair. “And what kind of animal is this?”
"Yes, probably a wolf, others are not found here."
The contractor once again looked Zhenya in the face, let go of his hair and jumped to the ground.
“Lieutenant,” he shouted, squeamishly wiping his hand on his own jacket. Your darling in the evening to Major Selyukov, for a conversation. When I get back from my trip, I'll take care of it personally.
A few minutes later there was a whiff of smoke, the smell of burnt porridge. "Ural" entered the territory of the military unit. According to the soldiers' remarks, Zhenya understood that it was OPON, a separate special-purpose regiment.
When he obeyed the command, he jumped to the ground, he was once again searched, burying his face in the wooden side of the truck.
Then they ordered me to strip down to my shorts, turned out my pockets, took away my laces and my trouser belt. The lieutenant handed him over to some warrant officer, who silently and quickly examined his arms and shoulders for bruises from the butt of a machine gun, bullet or shrapnel scars. Then he looked at his palms for a long time, even sniffed them. He waved his hand, said something in an undertone to a soldier who jumped up to him, and he led Zhenya away from the tents and buildings, where a sign “Stop! Dangerous area. The sentry fires without warning."
On his haunches sat a sentry with a broad, high-cheeked face. He was stripped to his waist, a spotted jacket was lying on the ground, a machine gun with double magazines lay next to him. On a canvas belt with a wide soldier's buckle, instead of a bayonet-knife, a wide knife of frightening dimensions dangled. The sentry, about the same age as Zhenya, was slowly smoking, as if reluctantly letting out streams of smoke from his mouth and nose. The escort stopped nearby, took out a cigarette, and gestured for it to be lit. I exchanged a couple of phrases with the sentry, calling him Ildar. All this time Zhenya stood by his side, with his hands behind his back. Finishing his cigarette, the contractor pushed Zhenya in the back, towards the sheets of rusty tin, lying a little to the side. Ordered to the sentry:
“This one in the pit, until further notice. In the evening to Selyukov for tea.
“To the pit, to the pit, to Selyukov, to Selyukov, we Tatars don’t care,” Ildar grumbled, pulling aside a sheet of rusty tin and lowering a thick rope into the pit that appeared. From the dark womb, similar to a grave, the smell of sewage and human excrement was drawn. Pushed Zhenya to the pit: “I count to three, who didn’t hide, it’s not my fault”
Scraping his palms on the hard surface of the rope, Zhenya slid down. My feet were covered in something thick and sticky. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he sat down on a piece of cardboard lying in the corner of the pit. The hand found several cigarette butts, boxes of matches. He put the bull in his mouth, struck a match several times. The damp sulfur crumbled, then flared up with a dim, somehow painful flame. While the match was burning down, Zhenya looked around. The pit was about three meters by four, four or five meters deep. In one corner stood a battered, rusty bucket.
"Hey Ildar! How long do I have to sit here?
The tin moved aside, the face of the sentry appeared in the opening.
- It's called zindan, and you'll be sitting here for a long time. We ship to Chernokozovo once a month. Unless, of course, Major Selyukov sends you to freedom earlier. Yesterday, he freed one like you... from earthly hardships. A heavy bitch was caught, while he dragged him to the car, he was all wet.
Listen, do you have anyone here? If there is, let me inform my relatives, let them collect money for bail, or at least bring grub. If you get to Chernokozov alive and survive there, you will go to the Pyatigorsk SIZO, or Rostov. You will not return from there soon, your brother is a militant, the courts are not very fond of, they give terms of 10-15 years. And you also need to live them, otherwise you can beat the convoy somewhere at the stage with boots, or put the lads on a pike.
- Yes, what kind of fighter am I!? Three years ago he came to work, and the owner hid his passport, and disappeared somewhere. Maybe they killed him, or maybe he left or went to the mountains.
Ildar said:
- Well, see for yourself, my business is side. Although, if desired, he could drink vodka and have a bite to eat with homemade pies.
The soldier mumbled something for a long time about relatives who should bring food for the detainees and money for the soldiers, about the need to drag the service, and someone is now having fun with the girls in civilian life, about the fact that he will return from this fucking Chechnya and then ...
Zhenya did not listen, some thought was spinning in his head.
- Ildar, who is Selyukov?
- Selyukov, this is the head of intelligence of the regiment, the third war is already pulling. The Czechs promise a hundred thousand greenery for his head. He personally talks with all the prisoners. No one plays Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya with him, it's useless. Everyone wants to live and everyone understands that if you lie, then he himself will pass the sentence and execute it himself. Why do we have minimal losses in the regiment? Yes, because the head of blood intelligence is not afraid and personally teaches young people to kill. It doesn't matter than with a knife, a stick, a nail, a piece of wire. When the Maikop brigade was killed in Grozny, many did not even fire a single shot, because they were not ready to kill. There would be more officers like Selyukov, and then all the militants would have been sitting in the pits for a long time.
Zhenya sat silently. The talkative Ildar was replaced, the soldier who replaced him was silent. Zhenya also did not really want to talk. He was waiting to be taken in for questioning. Time passed, but he was not called anywhere. It got dark. Zhenya silently looked at the starry sky, then dozed off, curled up on a piece of cardboard.
He woke up from the cold and from the fact that earth was pouring into the pit from the lowered rope. The unfamiliar soldier bared his teeth merrily in a smile. From hunger and motionless sitting in the pit, Zhenya swayed slightly. Only here in the fresh air did he feel that the body and clothes were saturated with the smell of urine and excrement. With his hands clasped behind his back, he walked down the path. Despite the late hour, the regiment resembled an anthill. Car engines were running, people were scurrying around non-stop, shouts of commands and loud obscenities were heard.
He was led into a room, seated on a stool in the corner. The escort stood nearby. A loud voice was heard from the next room:
- Yes, how can I know this informant. Selyukov did not report to me, he has his own people in all the villages. I took scouts and rushed to the meeting on two armored personnel carriers. He promised to bring information about the gang of Abu Tumgaev, but he was ambushed in front of the village. When I was informed that a battle was going on, I sent reinforcements, called the turntables. No. So far, nothing is known. Selyukov was killed, with him eight more two-hundredths. Finished bitches, three were missing. We clean up the village.
There was silence for some time, the man in the next room listened attentively to someone, then repeated the “end of communication” after him, hung up and burst into a loud obscene tirade. Just at that time, Zhenya's escort, coughing softly, looked in at the slightly ajar door:
- Allow me, comrade lieutenant colonel?
An overweight military man of forty or forty-five years old, with red, inflamed eyes, snarled at him in annoyance:
- Drag back this carrion, not up to it now.
Zhenya was again taken to the pit. From snippets of conversations, he already understood that there would be no interrogations for the time being. The regiment lost the chief of intelligence and eleven fighters with him. The personnel were put on alert to search for the gang that had set up the ambush.
It rained all the next night. Rusty sheets of iron and pieces of roofing material almost did not save from the flow of water. Zhenya pulled a piece of blanket over his head, lying in the corner of the pit. He pressed his shoulders against the wet earthen walls, trying to find at least some protection from the cold and dampness.
Suddenly, a rope fell next to him.
- Well, you cho, darling, sleep. Come on out, you're being called in for questioning. And let's move the rolls, otherwise we don't like it when they are late.
The sleepless and also wet soldier was angry, he had to stand on guard already in the morning, in the sleepiest hours. And then you still have to drag yourself in the rain to the headquarters, to escort this unfinished animal. The sentry did not even think about why he ranked the man sitting in the pit as a militant. It does not matter that he is of Slavic appearance. Last week, a special officer from the group came and said that Shamil Basayev had a lot of mercenaries from Ukraine and the Baltic states in his gang. There are even Russian officers who were captured and now serve as instructors. Or they dress up in Russian uniforms and under the guise of federals commit murders, rob, rape. Therefore, the Chechen women do not give to the soldiers, they despise. Previously, before Chechnya, the regiment was stationed in Astrakhan, so in the evenings there was no end to local prostitutes. And here you have to refrain, there is nowhere to go, and it’s scary. A month ago, two contractors went to look for women at night, they never returned, they disappeared.
The soldier shivered from the cold, mother in an undertone Chechnya, in which there are not even whores, Shamil Basayev, together with Khattab, who started this war, the regiment commander Colonel Mironov, who is now sleeping with the contract woman Marinka, and this freak who needs to be dragged for interrogation.
Lights were on in the headquarters. The sentry on the porch looked at Zhenya without any interest, and, without taking a cigarette out of his mouth, muttered:
-First door to the right, to Captain Sazonov.
An officer was sitting at a table in the office. He sorted through the papers lying on the table, completely ignoring the people who entered him. Zhenya leaned sideways against the wall, enjoying the warmth. Behind him stood a sentry.
The officer at the table looked up.
- Why are you standing here? He asked - Let's sit down, there is no truth at the feet. He waved his hand to the escort with a machine gun - Come out, wait outside the door. I'll call when you need me.
Avoiding a trick, Zhenya carefully sat down on the edge of the stool.
The captain lit a cigarette.
- You were detained in the war zone, without documents. We don't know who you are. Gunpowder particles were found on your clothes, characteristic calluses on your hands and traces of gun grease. An ambush was set up a few kilometers from where you were detained. All this is enough to put you against the wall in combat conditions without trial or investigation. Therefore, if you want to live, tell everything in order - first name, last name, how you ended up in Chechnya, who fought in the detachment, where you hide weapons, what operations you took part in, how many people you personally killed, and so on, in detail. Our conversation with you today is the first, and it may well be the last. So let's go without formalities. I'm making a deal with you. You tell me everything honestly and without concealment, and without any harm to your health I send you first to the temporary police department, and then to the pre-trial detention center in Rostov, Pyatigorsk or Stavropol. This is how lucky. In the pre-trial detention center you will find a cell with a bed and a white sheet, three meals a day, a bathhouse and other delights of civilization. But most importantly, as soon as you leave Chechnya, you will have hope that you will live, and possibly for a very long time. In five years you will be released, you will receive a passport and you will go to all four directions, even to America, even to China.
Otherwise, if you start pretending to be an underground hero in front of me, and keep silent, or try to tell some terrible tale about your life, then your chances of surviving will automatically drop to zero. In this case, you can only count on the fact that, at best, your corpse will be buried somewhere near the road. At worst, stray dogs will eat you. A minute to think. Agree?
Zhenya nodded his head affirmatively. The captain put a pile of yellowish rough paper in front of him, pushed his ballpoint pen.
- So, let's begin. Who are you? Last name, first name?
- Private Yevgeny Naydenov, 205 motorized rifle brigade, military unit No. 13764, drafted in May 1999.
- The rank and surname of the brigade commander?
- Colonel Nazarov.
- How did you end up outside the location of the unit, deserted?
- Not at all. I was sent with a group of soldiers to the forest for firewood. Attacked by armed Czechs. During the fight I was shell-shocked, I lost consciousness. I woke up already in the trunk of the car, without a weapon and bound.
- Which of the soldiers was with you in the group?
- Ensign Morozov, Sergeant Zykov and four privates. They are not from our platoon. I've only been two weeks since I arrived from training, and I still didn't know everyone in the company by their last names.
- When did it happen?
- In the beginning of December last year, I don't remember the exact day.
- What did the Chechens do? Why didn't you run?
- He lived in the Usmanov family, worked at home, helped with the housework. There was nowhere to run, mountains all around. Would still be caught with dogs. Then he would have lost his head. Waited a moment, ran. Now I'm sitting in your hole.
- What is the fate of the rest of the group?
- I don't know, I'm telling you, I was unconscious. They didn't bring anyone else but me. Maybe someone wounded in the forest remained. The Czechs didn't say anything about it. But they collected all the weapons and took them with them.
- Who committed the attack?
- The Usmanov brothers - Shamil, Idris, Aslan, Rizvan. Elder Musa was killed earlier. I lived with their father Akhmed Usmanov, he calls himself Akhmed-Khadzhi.
- Where are the Usmanovs now?
- The old man lives in the village without getting out, with his daughter-in-law and grandson. The younger Idris was killed about two months ago, Shamil last week. Aslan and Rizvan are still alive, but they are now in the forest, they almost never appear at their father's. In winter, when there is no greenery and it gets cold in the mountains, then they will go down to rest.
- Did you personally take part in operations against Russian troops?
- No never. I was kind of like a farmhand, I worked for grub. True, Shamil wanted to take him to his detachment, but I think that he offered more for laughter. The joker was big until they killed him. Yes, and I did not express a desire.
Why do you have gun grease on your hands?
- It's not gun oil, it's car oil. I repaired Akhmed's equipment, well, there is a diesel generator, a tractor, a car engine. So the hands were always in solid oil, but in the car.
- In addition to the Usmanovs, who else is fighting against us? Who are the militants familiar with, names, surnames, call signs?
- We once visited Yarash-Mardy with Shamil. There, the owner, his name is Umar, was taken away medicines and food for the militants.
- Umar's address?
- I do not remember, and it was at night. If I find myself in the village, I will probably find it. He has an interesting fence around his house, made of white silicate brick.
- Who organized the ambush on Major Selyukov, you know?
- Yes, how should I know, I was sitting in the pit when Selyukov died.
Sazonov got up from the table and walked around the office. Despite the night and the impenetrable dirt on the street, the captain was clean-shaven, looked cheerful and rested. He was smoking, standing at the window, and thinking about something intently, putting together in his mind a mosaic known to him alone.
- What is your relationship with old Akhmet? asked Sazonov suddenly.
- What kind of relationship can we have, he is the owner, and I am a thing that he can donate, sell or throw away as unnecessary. I am a Russian soldier, taken prisoner, and the Russians killed his three sons. Although there is probably some kind of disposition on his part, I somehow saved his grandson.
- Under what circumstances did this happen?
- Well, when Shamil and I went to Umar for medicine, the kid was with us then. On some block we were fired upon, the boy was wounded and I dragged him home.
- What happened next?
- He took advantage of the commotion and fled the village. For several days I wandered through the mountains, then went down to the plain and fell into your hole.
- So you, it turns out, regret that you left the Czechs. Maybe they were better for you? By the way, you were a soldier taking an oath of allegiance to the Motherland. And he himself, instead of fighting with weapons in his hands, served the enemy. In combat conditions, you yourself know what this is fraught with. I'll just give you to my fighters, and I'll say that you are a mercenary, a sniper. They will cut you into straps in a minute - Sazonov spoke quietly, looking intently into Naydenov's face.
Zhenya was despondently silent, there was nothing to object to. The captain only voiced the thoughts that were spinning in Zhenya's head every day.
- All right, soldier, go. Think about your fate and how you can make your fate easier. In the meantime, I’ll think about your story, check everything, and if I didn’t lie, I’ll try to help. The Russian officer keeps his word. Come on go. Convoy! he shouted softly.
The sentry waiting outside the door stepped through the door.
- Feed the detainee, keep on a common basis.
Zhenya was again taken to the pit. He never closed his eyes until early morning. It was very cold. Wet clothes did not warm, and Zhenya curled up like an embryo, trying to get warm at least a little and fall asleep. In the morning, a pot of millet porridge, a piece of bread wrapped in newspaper, was lowered into the pit on a rope. Cold porridge did not go down his throat, but Zhenya stuffed it into his mouth, convincing himself that he had to eat, that he had to survive.
The thought slipped away, he could not concentrate and think out to the end why he should live. It seemed that everything was already over, there would never be a way out of this hole. The past life was seen as something surreal, like a dream. There was no longer any fear, there was indifference to one's own life, and to the fate of others. Zhenya asked himself why he was so afraid of dying, because it's not scary at all?
By the evening of the next day, the rope fell to the bottom of the pit again. He was led along the already familiar path. But this time the office was empty, Sazonov was not there. Following the escort, two soldiers in spotted camouflage coats entered. Without saying a word, one of them hit Zhenya in the face. With some animal sense of touch, he felt that there would be a blow, and ducked under his fist. His hands clung to the collar of someone else's camouflage suit with a death grip. He struck a knee in the groin and, falling on a limp body, grabbed his fingers into someone else's throat. The soldier wheezed.
One of the soldiers hit Zhenya in the back of the head with a rifle butt. And when he fell off to the side, trying to hide his head and close it from blows, they began to kick him, not allowing him to get up. Blows with tarpaulin boots fell on the face and stomach. Already losing consciousness, he heard a knock on the door and a familiar voice:
- Leave the scuffle! Ivantsov, Karamyshev, what did I order you? Deliver the detainee to me. What did you do? Under the tribunal wanted? I'll arrange it for you quickly. March to the guardroom and in the morning so that the explanatory notes are already on my table.
- Comrade captain, he himself rushed to Ivantsov, he wanted to snatch the machine gun, he almost strangled him. Healthy darling, barely calmed down. After all, we only slightly relaxed him, we didn’t even break anything.
- Whom did I say march to? One more word and you yourself will sit in the pit.
Zhenya heard the creak of the door being closed, the sound of heels in the corridor. Overcoming the pain, he squatted down, leaning his back against the wall.
- Well, Naydenov, how do you feel? Can you talk? Then listen and remember.
I checked everything you told me. Most of your information is confirmed, but it gives you absolutely nothing. Yes, you are a member of the Russian army. Yes, I was captured. These facts are established, and do not cause any doubts.
Another question, under what circumstances were you captured? Why are all your colleagues killed, and you are alive? What did you do with the Chechens for several months? Why did he end up in the same car with field commander Shamil Usmanov, and most importantly. Why didn't you kill Usmanov when you were fired upon at the checkpoint, or didn't you raise your hands and yell "Guys, I'm mine"? After all, you were a prisoner of the militants, and according to logic, you had to wait for release like manna from heaven. Instead, you again ended up with the Wahhabis, and then, for some unknown reason, at the location of the united group of Russian troops. I'll tell you this, the special department and the military prosecutor's office will have many questions. We have people with even fewer sins forever remain in the pit. I will say more, it would be even better for you if you were a Chechen fighter, and not a Russian soldier. Those at least periodically fall under amnesty, or their relatives redeem them for money. And no one will pay money for you, because for everyone you are a traitor, and the amnesty does not apply to traitors. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Zhenya silently nodded his head.
-Then you should also understand that your deeds are bad. Survive now, then you will ask for death. In Russia, with the stigma of a traitor, life is not at all sweet.
The captain fell silent, watching Zhenya's reaction. Naydenov swallowed sticky saliva and croaked in a choked voice.
- What is my way out? You don't just have soul-saving conversations with me.
- You see, I was not mistaken in you, you are not a fool. This makes me happy. War is a vile and cruel thing. She breaks human destinies and turns them into minced meat. I want to help you because I believe you are not the enemy. But you must help me too.
Zhenya listened silently.
-One of the Usmanov brothers, Aslan, is a confidant of Khattab. In 1996, he completed training at a special training camp near Kabul. He was taught tactics by a certain Beslaudin Rzaev, a Pakistani intelligence officer working under the guise of humanitarian organizations.
Aslan Usmanov is the link between Khattab and terrorist organizations in Pakistan that finance Chechen fighters. Usmanov is currently in Georgia, but any day we expect him to appear in Chechnya. It was for his arrival that an operation was prepared to destroy the reconnaissance group of Major Selyukov. The bandits had to provide evidence of their success in the fight against the infidels. It is the results of Aslan Usmanov's inspection that determine how much money will be sent to the militants.
We will make sure that you are with the Usmanovs again. Sooner or later Aslan will come to his father. You will give us a signal and with that your task will be considered completed. Agree?
Zhenya answered with a question.
- Do I have a choice?
Sazonov considered.
-I think not. Therefore, you will now sign the documents and give a subscription. Your operational pseudonym will be, well, for example, your own, or your brother-in-law.
Zhenya smiled mirthlessly, then it would be better - a stranger. And also explain how you are going to destroy Aslan Usmanov, because I need to tell you first, and for this you still need to get out of there somehow.
- In half an hour, an airborne assault will be thrown to the place of the signal. The commander of the landing group will be warned about you. You will leave with the paratroopers. The criminal case against you will be terminated under an amnesty. You will no longer serve, you will lie down in the hospital for a couple of weeks, you will undergo an examination as a civilian, to your parents.
For several days you will have to sit in the pit, we must prepare a legend for your return to the Usmanovs. And believe that today's incident is just part of a plan to destroy the bandits, and your rehabilitation. In a few days, you will understand everything yourself. Sign here and here. Zhenya, without looking, signed on the sheets laid out in front of him.
The captain pressed a button under the table. The sentry came in and Zhenya, as usual, folding his hands behind his back, stepped over the threshold.
The next day, towards evening, a young Chechen was lowered into the pit. His name was Umar. According to Umar, he was detained during the cleansing of the village. He was not in gangs, he never held a weapon in his hands, and he hoped that soon his relatives would collect money and ransom him. Umar swaggered and pretended that he was not at all afraid.
The next night, drunken contractors dragged them out of the pit and kicked them for a long time. Umar's arm was broken, and Zhenya dodged the blows for a long time, habitually hiding his face in his knees, covering his groin and stomach. The contractors abandoned Umar and switched to Zhenya.
Already in the morning they were thrown into the pit. Umar groaned, clutching his broken arm to his chest. Zhenya got up with the last of his strength. I folded a piece of cardboard several times, made a tire. Then he tore his shirt into ribbons and bandaged the cardboard to Umar's arm.
Last night brought the young people together. They were no longer beaten. Umar lost all his ambition and now did not leave Zhenya. He asked.
- Jen, if you want, I'll tell your mother that you're here.
Zhenya answered indifferently,
- What can my mother do? Come to Chechnya and pick me up? But who will give me to her? Now I am a militant, even if I don’t die in the pit by the time she arrives, I’m still finished. Yes, and I'm not the last bastard to drag my own mother here. What if something happens to her? How can I live in the world then? If you get out of here, better tell Usmanov Akhmet about me, he is from the village of Galashki. Say, so they say and so, Zhenya disappears. Not today, so tomorrow the devils will beat to death.
If he wants to help, let him get me out of here.
One morning, the rope was thrown into the pit again, and Umar was pulled out of the pit. Zhenya helped him out, whispered:
- If you succeed, don't forget about me.
Umar nodded his head.
Three days later Zhenya was again brought to Sazonov. The captain was in a good mood. He pulled up a chair for Zhenya and poured out some tea.
- Well, soldier, our plan is working, you will soon be free. A man from Usmanov already came and offered money for you. We agreed on four hundred dollars. By the way, you cost more than Umar, who was sold for only two hundred bucks. You are valued more, probably, the militants have more serious plans for you.
Okay, drink tea and listen carefully. We have warned your master that you will be here for two more days. If the money isn't delivered by tomorrow evening, we'll send you to Rostov. It will be more expensive and more difficult to redeem you from there. I think they will come for you tomorrow.
There is an old fortress not far from your village. You should know, you've probably been there yourself.
Sazonov laid out photographs on the table.
Here in this wall, you can easily recognize it, two of the lowest bricks are taken out. Inside the niche you will find everything you need for the first time, a pistol, a couple of grenades, a satellite phone, a radio beacon. As soon as Aslan Usmanov appears in his father's house, you activate the beacon. You press this button. In the meantime, under some pretext, you leave the house and wait in the ruins of the fortress. Twenty to thirty minutes after the signal was given, the paratroopers would already be with you. As I told you, the paratroopers will be warned about you.
The password is someone else's. Review - strangers do not go here.
After completing the task, turntables will pick you up, deliver you to the base in Khankala, and there those who need it will take care of you. Well, the soldier, did not change his mind? Let's not drift, everything should end well.
As Captain Sazonov said, the next morning they pulled Zhenya out of the pit again, but they took her not to the headquarters, but to the checkpoint. About a hundred meters from the concrete blocks stood an old Zhiguli. An unfamiliar, unshaven middle-aged man was sitting behind the wheel. Next to the car, leaning on a cane, stood old Akhmet. On his head was an astrakhan hat, and several medals on his chest. The old man stared unblinkingly into the distance, pretending or really not noticing the soldiers staring at him. Zhenya stopped nearby and said:
- Marshall Khulda Huna, ah, hello.
Umar taught him this word
Ahmed-hadji lowered his eyes to him:
-Alive? Then let's go home.
They drove in silence. Zhenya was sitting in the back, the car was shaking in the pits and bumps, his battered body ached. He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. The driver watched him warily, glancing in the rearview mirror. Then the driver said something in Chechen, the old man nodded his head in response. It seemed to Zhenya that they had been driving for a very long time. On the way, we stopped at roadblocks several times. The driver got out of the car, shook hands with a soldier or a policeman, and then drove on. Zhenya asked:
Do you know everyone, are they all your friends?
Ahmed and the driver laughed.
-Of course not. It's just that when a soldier or a traffic cop greets me, fifty rubles are folded in my palm. I hand over the money and move on. As they say, to whom is the war, and to whom the mother is dear. Good business, isn't it Ahmed Haji? But tell me, father, was it like that before too? When you were at war, was it possible to pass through German or Soviet posts for money? Imagine, he gave the SS man fifty Deutschmarks and on a tank straight to Berlin, to Hitler's bunker.
Old Ahmed turned to the driver, gloomily said:
-Don't talk nonsense. Previously, this simply could not be. Neither the Germans nor the Russians took bribes.
In June 1941, when the war began, I served in Belarus. And of course, there were a lot of German saboteurs, everyone’s documents are better than real ones, you can’t dig under them.
We somehow stopped a black emka, and in it was an NKVD officer with the rank of senior major and his wife, a state security lieutenant with a five-year-old son. They go to the rear, on the instructions of the NKVD they save secret documents. And senior major, this rank seems to correspond to an army general.
With me is the senior officer, foreman Viktor Kovtun, a border guard. And now it seemed suspicious to the foreman why the index and middle fingers of the Chekist major were yellow from nicotine. Like he smokes homemade or cigarettes. The entire command staff then smoked cigarettes, and Comrade Senior Major, what happens, shag? Out of order. Cigarettes? Then only the Germans had them.
Kovtun then poked a box with documents with a bayonet. And there is iron, a walkie-talkie. This lieutenant, despite the fact that a woman, immediately grabs a revolver and Victor right in the heart. Here I put them all in one line, and the boy too. Then it was a pity for the child, but you can’t change anything, the war.
And tell me, now what traffic cop will stop the car with the general, and even check the documents? There are no more brave men in the Russian army like Sergeant Major Kovtun. That is why Shamil reached Budyonnovsk. It’s a pity that he didn’t take much money with him, otherwise he would have reached Moscow. Yeltsin would have been taken hostage, or deputies, and then the war would have ended immediately.
Zhenya again raised his voice:
- How long did you fight?
-Count the entire war, from the forty-first to February forty-four. I just returned with a reconnaissance group from the German side, they dragged the officer's language. A serious German was caught, with important documents. I reported to the commander of the regiment and just lay down to sleep, they lift me up to the headquarters. And there the head of the special department, Major Garbuzov, rips off my shoulder straps, I held the pistol, but I didn’t have time to shoot. Twisted, tied, awards were taken away and to Northern Kazakhstan, into exile. And there already all of ours, who managed to get there, did not die on the way. My brother Ilyas was hunting when the Chechens were evicted. So with a gun in the mountains and remained. Here he fought for almost ten years. In the fifty-third year, when Stalin died, he came to our house. Ossetians lived there then. They stabbed him with a pitchfork. My brother got very cold in the mountains, fell ill, warmed himself by the stove and dozed off. The Ossetians were promised a reward for him, he caused a lot of grief to the Soviet authorities. He killed the chief of police, the secretary of the district committee, the soldiers caught him, the police, but it was all to no avail. He knew such paths and holes in the mountains that no dog could find him. When I returned from exile, I was looking for this Ossetian Marat Koliev, but he seemed to have fallen through the ground. If I still meet his son or grandson someday, I will kill without hesitation. Blood feud has no statute of limitations.
-Yes-ah-ah, drawled the driver, I have also been waiting for my bloodline for five years. Contract worker, shot my father. In the winter of 1995, my father left the house, he was already over seventy years old. I went to the pump in the morning to get some water, and the sniper sat in ambush, he got bored, and decided to have fun out of boredom. The bullet hit my father right in the head. To justify the contractor, the old man, then they put a grenade in his hand, like a militant. There was no trial, the case was closed, and I did not want him to be given a term. They would have given ten years for the murder, where I would have looked for him later, I myself would have had to sit down to get a blood bug in the zone. The contractor quit and went to his home in the Kemerovo region, the city of Yurga. I found his address, bought a train ticket and went to Siberia. While getting there, a former contract soldier killed someone while drinking. But Allah is merciful, they gave me only five years, probably, they did indulgence for past exploits. I counted every day for five years when it would come out. Before being released, he waited at the gate for a week, he was afraid to miss everything or not to know. As soon as he left, I followed him a little from the camp and stabbed him in the throat like a ram. I only regret about one thing, I had to remind him about my father, so that before death he would become scared. Although, perhaps, the contractor did not remember his father already, that winter, corpses were found on the streets every day, soldiers shot out of fear, and someone for fun, so as not to get bored.
Zhenya asked:
- Grandfather Ahmed, how did you find me?
-Umar said, said that you were beaten very hard, showed the hand that you bandaged him. They collected money from relatives and I went. You saved my grandson, now I am in your debt. Don't be afraid, we say that you are my guest for three days, then a relative.
Zhenya finally managed to sit comfortably, the fatigue of the last days had an effect, he dozed off. I woke up from the creaking of the iron gates, the car drove into the yard.

... After the death of the prophet, troubled times began when the Muslims entered into battle with people who apostatized from the faith, and Khalid ibn Walid was one of the amirs of the troops, defeating the troops of the false prophet. The amirs began to follow the rest, in one place Khalid ibn Walid overtook a man respected in his people, who had previously been a Muslim. Amir ordered him to be killed and beheaded, this news reached Abu Bakr from Umar, who was very offended by Khalid for such an act. Umar demanded that Abu Bakr release Khalid from his position as Amir of the troops, to which Abu Bakr answered with a prayer to Allah - "Allah with the price of vukh otsu khalids dinchukh" and left him ... and he left him because Islam benefited from him more than from the harm caused, since he bears individual responsibility for the murder, and the benefits of winnings are returned to everyone ...

Continued next

August 31 marks the 20th anniversary of the Khasavyurt truce, which ended the first Chechen war, another stage of the great North Caucasian tragedy. Pre-perestroika Grozny, the campaigns of 1995-1996 and the fate of the famous human rights activist and journalist Natalya Estemirova, to one degree or another, turned out to be facts of the biography of a resident of an old town in the Middle Urals.

morning dog barking

The board from the cartridge box, thrown into the early morning fire, flaring up, took the form of a bony bear paw drying out in the fire, and I remembered an elderly militant detained by our fighters. Handcuffed, sitting by the fire, swaying slightly, he whispered almost soundlessly: "I told them - do not wake the Russian bear. Let him sleep. No, they kicked him out of the den." The Chechen looked longingly at his corpses. His entire reconnaissance group was destroyed, falling into an ambush, which the special forces of the internal troops competently prepared for them. The same thing, only in other words, was said by Professor Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, who declared gazavat to Dudayev. "Protect Checheno-Ingushetia from a new tragedy. Resolve the crisis of power within the framework of the Constitution," he said in 1991. But Dzhokhar still called tens of thousands of people under arms. Many of these Chechen "wolves" and "wolf cubs" were torn by "bear paws".

Avtorkhanov, a long-suffering historian who knows Russia and his people, offered to adopt Eastern wisdom and diplomacy. But the leadership of the militants overestimated itself. They named Lenin Avenue after Avtorkhanov. At that time, Grozny had not yet been destroyed. Now, in the receding darkness and fog, hiding from our eyes Sunzha and the ruins of houses along its banks, the city shook with restlessness, defenselessness before the power of the two sides.

Stories and articles

Chechen War. There will be no peace

Vedeno

The doctor died last night. I just fell asleep and didn't wake up. He was lying on his bunk young, strong, handsome, and we silently stood around him. Consciousness refused to perceive this death. Not from a bullet, not from a fragment, not from an enemy shot, but because deep in this strong young body, the heart suddenly got tired of this war, of its dirt and pain. Tired and stopped.

The mood was off the charts! A long, tedious rain poured down, turning the camp of the detachment into a swamp. The low, deadly gray sky bled down to the ground in icy, prickly jets, with which the insane mountain wind continually whipped across the face. The distance of a couple of tens of meters between the tents turned into an obstacle course, and each step on the slippery steep slope required skill and balance.

Indeed, rain in the mountains is a special cataclysm. Barely damp chocks smoldered in the potbelly stove, tightening the tent with acrid smoke and not giving heat. Everything was damp and soaked with water. Mud was champing underfoot, cold, damp camouflage was disgustingly sticky to the back. Rain drummed heavily on the tarpaulin. And the doc is dead...

We stormed ancient Ichkeria, the very heart of Chechnya - the Vedeno region. Although what does stormed mean? The motorized rifle division, having knocked down Dudayev's blocks and ambushes, climbed into this mountain valley and stopped. There was no war.

"Chechi" valued and loved this "ancient Ichkeria" too much. Walkers-messengers from the surrounding villages reached out to the divisional commander, slyly assuring them of peacefulness and loyalty, but in fact, they were ready to sign anything, even an agreement with Iblis - the Muslim devil, just to survive, to squeeze the army out of here. Don't let her fire a single shot here.

It was there, in the valley, in foreign villages, that they easily and ruthlessly set up other people's houses under Russian shells and bombs. It was the valley Chechens who had to experience the full horror of this war: the ruins of destroyed villages, the ashes of their homes, death and fear. Here they pressed their claws in front of the Russian military power, froze. This is their nest, this is their domain. They wanted to keep it at all costs.

And the division was involuntarily drawn into this game. Accustomed to war, to wipe out enemy strongholds, to break his resistance with fire and iron, she was now clumsily and discontentedly engaged in "peacekeeping" - negotiations with "bearded men", with some nimble "administrators", "delegates", "ambassadors" , who, as if by choice, had a smile glued to their lips, and their eyes fumbled lasciviously around, either counting the technique, or simply hiding from our eyes.

Both the divisional commander and the "ambassadors" perfectly understood all the deceit and insincerity of the signed papers and the promises made, because the negotiations were not shaky or rolled. Somehow by inertia, without interest, sluggishly.
The army people - soldiers, platoons, company - gloomy swearing at the "negotiators".

- Sweep everything here to such and such a mother. Burn this snake's nest, throw mines, so that for another five years they were afraid to return here. Here grandfather Stalin was wise. Knew how to deal with them. No bombings or casualties. A humanist, not like Yeltsin.

…Whether talks will give a horse-radish! They have a lair here. We'll leave - they'll drag everything here again. Both weapons and equipment. Bases deployed. Slaves are picked up in Russia. Burn everything down here!

But they didn't let me burn. The war froze in the foothills of Vedeno.

Who on this earth immediately and unconditionally accepted the Russians are animals. In almost every crew, in every platoon, someone lives. Where is the dog, where is the cat, where is the rooster. Once, a BTEer met on the road, on his armor among the soldiers there was ... a bear cub, on whose head a military cap deftly sat.

The dogs have nicknames like for selection - Dzhokhar, Nokhcha, Shamil.

In general, the impression was that everyone who was not tied around the neck with a rope to Chechen houses and fences went over to the Russians: cats, dogs, birds. Apparently, the peculiarities of the Chechen character were known in abundance. The sheep are just unlucky. Their fate is the same - under any power.

Vedeno in Chechen - "flat place". The untouchedness of the land and the neglect of the villages are immediately striking. Nowhere is a patch of plowed land, nowhere is there a vine, or a garden. Dirty, rickety fences, wattle fences. Work here is clearly not in tradition and not held in high esteem. “Russians, we need your women, we… will have them, and your hands so that you work for us,” a Chechen radio operator once philosophized on the air. In this formula - all their morality. The radio operator was impudent, he liked to climb into our frequencies and talk about "Russian pigs" and "Chechen heroes." This brought him down. Gereushny special forces spotted the place from where he was broadcasting. Together with the "philosopher" they covered a whole radio center here. They flunked a dozen "Chechs" and a local commander. And the radio operator was convinced from his own experience that the Russian hand can not only plow.

But here, in Vedeno, they don't let you fight. In the villages, shaved-headed bearded men of about thirty years of age walk openly, spitting after the BTEers through their teeth, in whose eyes a wolf longing for someone else's blood froze. They are now “peaceful”, a “treaty” has been signed with them. The division will leave, and after it these will go into the valley. They will leave to kill, rob, take revenge. But now you can't touch them - peacekeeping. They would, peacekeepers, here - under the bullets.

restless

The “spirits” called the 19th motorized rifle division Restless, because for the past year and a half it has been wandering around Chechnya from one end to the other, chasing gangs and detachments, taking cities and villages, knocking down ambushes and strongholds. She took Grozny, fought in the Northern group, then she took Argun and Gudermes, fought near Vedeno and Bamut. Now she is here again. But not for long. Soon, its regiments will leave for Shali, where, according to intelligence, up to 1,500 militants have accumulated, then, most likely, they will move to the northeast. That's for sure - a restless division ...

But war is not a holiday. The division pays dearly for restlessness. In a year and a half, she lost three hundred people killed and about one and a half thousand wounded. With a staff of seven to eight thousand people, this is almost a quarter of the staff. There is no company or platoon here that would not have its mournful list of losses ...

But if only it were a matter of combat losses, other losses are much more painful, harder to experience. In the division, with bitterness and pain, they talk about the former commander of one of the regiments, Colonel Sokolov, and the head of intelligence of this regiment, Captain Avdzhyan. Both were sort of divisional legends. One can talk about their exploits during the storming of Grozny for a very long time. Both were presented to the title of Hero and both were ... expelled from the division and from the army. Their "guilt" was that in the heat of battle, having captured three "spirits", the soldiers simply did not take them to headquarters. The colonel and the captain were removed from their posts and put on trial "for lynching." This blew up the division so much that a little more - and the battalions would have gone to smash the prosecutor's office. The authorities have changed their minds. They did not try the officers, but they kicked them out anyway. Undeserved and shameful. And this pain is still not forgotten ...

Restless fights with some special passion. With your unique handwriting. The chief of artillery, a short, stocky colonel with attentive, tenacious eyes, said:

- A month ago, mine worked - yes! One battery stood in Ingushetia, another - under Vedeno, and self-propelled guns - under Khasavyurt. So the shells were laid on targets just a hundred meters from our front line. And not a single one - on their own. Everything is on target. The infantry then thanked ...

Even to me, a person far from artillery, the artilleryman's pride was understandable. This work is truly top notch!

We leave at dawn...

“The wind blows over the mountains. Lifting our thoughts to the skies. Only dust under boots. God is with us and with us the banner and the heavy AKS at the ready ... ”-“ compote ”from Kipling and everyday life of Chechnya sings to the guitar a reconnaissance officer of the special forces special forces. He is the leader of the group. Ordinary Russian young man. Nothing Rambo or Schwarzenegger, but behind the soul - a year and a half of war. Do not count how many raids in the rear of the "Czechs". On account of more than a dozen "spirits". In general, only an experienced person can determine the real "specialists". There are as many as you like, hung with weapons to the eyebrows in camouflage and fashionable "unloadings". But to the “specialists” they are like heaven! A real scout, on the other hand, is usually wearing a worn-out "gornik" - an ordinary student canvas windbreaker - and the same pants. And there are exactly as many weapons on it as needed - without surpluses. No cool camouflages, no fingerless gloves and all that bells and whistles.

"Specialist" can be recognized by the face, tanned by the winds, bad weather, sun and cold, which has become somehow especially swarthy-tanned.

All life is on the street. Like wolves, - the commander of the "specialists" laughs. “I’ve even begun to grow undercoat and claws ...” the major scratches at the dense vegetation on his chest.
In the morning the camp of "specialists" was empty. The groups went to the mountains. The guitar remained in the sleeping bag to wait for the owner.

Replacement

- Plafond requested a turntable. She will be in half an hour,” the commander announced. "Plafon" is the call sign of the aircraft controller assigned to the detachment. The callsign smoothly turned into a nickname. Plafond - lean blond - in the world, i.e. outside the war, pilot on the An-12. Now he is wrapping himself in a raincoat at the landing site, and in the disassembly headquarters tent:

— I myself want to stay, — for the umpteenth time, the short, strong fellow, the group commander, pulled his own. — I know people. They are used to me. I understand the situation. I will change in a month.

- Commander, well, the man himself wants. Why not leave? Let's replace the signalman, he will also soon expire, - he supported the refusenik of another command group.
The commander of the detachment, a lieutenant colonel, a former paratrooper, summarized briefly:

- You're flying! Get ready, soon "turntable". Wants, does not want ... Not children! Expired time to go home. If something happens, I will never forgive myself. Fatigue is fatigue. Take a break and come back...

They are replaced differently. Someone defiantly crossing out day after day on the calendar, counting down their time, getting ready to fly away a week in advance. Someone only has time to hastily grab a backpack with clothes, returning from the mountains and being late for the "turntable". It seems, perhaps, there is always one thing - it is sadness at parting. It's hard to leave friends here, cats scratch my soul. And very often when parting you hear:

- Wait, brothers! I won't delay...

Here come back here really cool. With bags of gifts, gifts, letters, vodka. They return cheerfully, with some strange feeling of ease of release. And, falling into the strong arms of friends, you suddenly catch yourself thinking that you were languishing without them. I yearned there, in peaceful Moscow, for these people, for this case ...

Guardsmen and Musketeers

As in any war, glory is poorly shared here. Everyone strives to pinch off a bigger piece and prove that it was he (his regiment, his branch of service) who “made” the war. And at the same time, behind the eyes, "break away" to the neighbors.

The army men are snarling at the address of the internal troops, the VVs pay the same coin to the "advice" - that is how the army men are called. Both of them scold the paratroopers and special forces, and those, in turn, are not averse to riding on the infantry and tankers. The pilots get it from everyone at once.

Everyone is jealously counting who fought more where, who took what cities, who filled up the most “Chechs”.

And watching this skirmish, you suddenly catch yourself thinking that all this is very reminiscent of the plot of Dumas - about the endless hostility of the cardinal's guards and the king's musketeers.

But the order comes, and all jealousy is on the side. The infantry storms Dudayev's fortified areas, surrounds the villages. Internal troops and employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are going to "cleanse" inside these snakes. Somewhere in the mountains, "Chech" "specialists" are wooling.

Everyone has their own business in this war.

Then we will consider glory ...

In general, everyone is very tired. People are tired, technology is tired, weapons are tired. The special forces detachment, which took me in, has not got out of this war for a year and a half. Once brand new BTEers now resemble sick old people, when, sniffling and coughing like asthmatics, they barely climb mountains at the limit of their worn-out engines. Pockmarked, with paint burnt out from endless shooting, the barrels of machine guns. Mended, over-darned camouflage, weathered, tattered tents. One and a half years of war! The last three months in the mountains without getting out. Hundreds of kilometers of roads. Dozens of villages. Losses. Fights.

People are on the uttermost limit of exhaustion, fatigue. And yet it's a team! This is a strange Russian mentality, when no one complains, does not curse fate, and returning from the mountains at night and having received a new task, resignedly begins to prepare for the raid. Refuel, hurriedly clean their worn-out armored personnel carriers that went out of their entire conceivable resource. Stuff tapes and magazines with cartridges, charge the batteries of radio stations, patch windbreakers and pants crawling from dilapidation. And only in the morning to forget for a couple of hours in a dream. Black, deep, dreamless.

And then, having hastily swallowed porridge with canned fish - the stew ended long ago, as bread and butter ran out, sit down on the armor - and go! "We leave at dawn..."

... There will be no peace. No matter how Moscow politicians talk about it, there will be no peace here for a very long time ...

I saw a Russian slave who worked for four years in Dargo. His eyes are unforgettable.
I saw a Russian old woman - she is forty-two years old. In Grozny, her husband and son were killed; she knows nothing about the fate of her thirteen-year-old daughter...

I saw something here that, probably, my eyes should have turned black with horror and hatred a long time ago. As, however, with any soldier in this war ...

No, there will be no peace. Nobody will give it to us.

Moscow — Khankala — Shali — Vedeno — Moscow

Armament