Homeless Correspondent for the President
Burnt-out T-62 of internal troops after fighting in Grozny during the second Chechen campaign (two photographs of the same tank taken at different times). As you can see in the pictures, the tank turret was reinforced with tracks to enhance protection. Judging by the mangled fragments of the MTO roof, the tank's engine exploded
During the second Chechen campaign, a significant amount of armored vehicles was again sent to the rebellious republic. For example, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers - 2324 pieces. The tanks were represented by the T-72AV, T-72B and B1, T-72BM models. The 138th motorized rifle brigade of the Leningrad Military District included a certain number of T-80BVs. It is difficult to say how many of the 370 tanks in Chechnya were T-62s and T-62Ms, but old vehicles were used at all stages of the counterterrorist operation.
The most famous military unit armed with T-62 tanks (modifications "M"), in the second Chechen campaign was the tank regiment of Yuri Budanov, an officer who became a hostage of a dirty political game.
The 160th Guards Tank Regiment of the Siberian Military District traveled to the Caucasus by rail for more than a week. Leaving part of the forces for the protection of communications, they crossed the administrative border with the criminal-rebellious enclave one of the first. Following the motorized rifle units, they crushed the firing points of the militants. Kirovo, Komarovo, Goragorsk. When they crossed the Tersky Range, more serious battles began - the first ATGMs whistled near Kerlayurt. Further, in Achkhoy-Martan, the militants again snapped with guided missiles, as a result, one BMP-1 burned down, and a T-62 was shot down. The artillery of the regiment - self-propelled howitzers 2S1 made 8 volleys of Sh1 shells with arrow-shaped submunitions and after that the Chechens requested negotiations.
In Old Achkhoi, the militants, having driven out civilians, turned the houses into bunkers. I had to level the village. We didn’t have time to drive three kilometers to the settlement, when ATGMs began to fly, just catch it! And caught! By some miracle no one died. There is no active armor on the old sixty-twos, and the blocks of passive “Ilyich armor” that came from Afghanistan protect only the front of the tower.
But there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. In addition to active armor, the outdated T-62 does not have an automatic loader. Free space inside - a barn. And if the hatches are also open, there is no way to create excess pressure. In general, the ATGMs of the tower burned through, even the breech cumulative jets were pierced, and the tanks were ready. Crews jumped and let's shoot ourselves. We determined with the help of optics where the ATGMs are flying from. From the maximum range - somewhere from 3.900 meters the bastard hits. It stands on the Niva road, and fifty meters away is a tripod, on which the militants are just placing another ATGM.
- Will you get it, Vasilich? shouts Budanov to his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Bilenko. After all, it’s not easy to see the “ATGMs” through a tank sight. And he, already in the tower, covered the Niva with a rocket with a second shot. And three days later, radio interception: The captain was buried. This specialist had such a nickname since the last campaign, when he burned a lot of our armor. Then they stood under the old Achkhoy for another 10 days, but the ATGMs no longer flew.
Not without Siberians and under the old Alkhan-Yurt - in another sensational battle. 1000 shells were then fired by their tank company attached to the infantry storming the village in the area of the intersection with the bridge.
There, in the houses that became pillboxes, militants stood to death.
It was great in early December, they fought in the capital of Chechen Wahhabism - Urus-Martan. The regiment, probably for the first time, as they entered Chechnya, gathered under a single command. Prior to this, all the tanks and artillery were reinforced all the time. The city was surrounded by forces of two regiments and a brigade. The Trans-Baikal people were cut into a sector in the west. Come up. From Urus-Martan and ATGMs, flamethrowers, and ZUShki shoot. The tanks went on direct fire, fired a volley ... Then the infantry went on the attack, the tanks behind it. Only resistance again, stop the infantry, behind the houses, the tanks are leveling further and further. So in the evening, having reached the river, they occupied a third of Uras-Martan, only later learning that their attack was just a distraction planned.
Near Dubayurt, at the northern entrance to the Argun Gorge, the regiment "dug in" and went on the defensive. Most of the troops besieged Grozny, and the offensive into the mountains was postponed. The Transbaikalians, together with a dowry of a motorized rifle company, were supposed to lock the Wolf Gate, as they had called this place since that war, preventing the militants, leaving the gorge, from hitting the troops surrounding Grozny in the back.
Then, for half a year, the tank regiment, which had been continuously fighting in the most important areas, was withdrawn by Shamanov to the reserve of the Western Group. And then he was thrown into battle again. For three weeks, with a truly Siberian scope, the T-62 and Shilka of Colonel Budanov crushed Gelaev's bandits in Komsomolskoye. Dozens of "spirits" were buried under the rubble of buildings by Lieutenant Colonel Artur Arzumyan and Captain Sergei Khomutov before their T-62 tower was burned by a cumulative jet. In a week, both will recover from their wounds and will be back in the ranks. The tanks destroyed the militants, sometimes shooting point-blank at the front doors of the houses where the bandits were hiding.
In total, in Komsomolskoye, three “sixty-twos” were burned by militants from RPGs. But all the cars remained on the move. Many were wounded from sniper bullets and shrapnel. Fortunately no one died.
THE PRESIDENT'S HOMELESS CORRESPONDENTWhy does an Old Believer from Achkhoy-Martan send letters to Putin?
The most terrible stories in Chechnya happen to those who are not to blame for anything. Why? - ask, having doubts, of course ... Yes, simply because they were nearby - these are the rules in this war. And two years ago it was like that, and a year, and now even more so. Their stories are very easy to try on - you, too, will never know what comes into the mind of someone passing by. Especially when driving an armored personnel carrier ...
EXPLOSION OF A HOUSE. REGULAR
First, just the facts. On March 31, 2001, in the morning in the Chechen regional center of Achkhoy-Martan, on Shkolnaya Street, a passing military garbage truck was blown up. The Achkhoi-Martan commandant's company immediately arrived at the scene, cordoned off the neighborhood and informed the residents of the street about the upcoming punitive operation against them - wires for a directed explosion were pulled from house No. he has an order from the military commandant of Achkhoi-Martan to “blow up the entire quarter” so that it would be discourteous. And he showed the brought explosives.
The “shell” fell to the point: children screamed, women wailed, men tried to pay off ... But the soldiers began to shoot into the air and drove the crowd away. However, at the very last moment, the lieutenant colonel nevertheless agreed to a compromise: he would blow up only the "bad" house number 13. And the soldiers began to mine.
However, close to home
No. 13, only 70 centimeters away from him, was another - No. 11. If the 13th takes off, the 11th will also die - obviously ...
The Zavlievs, the hosts of the 11th, began to persuade the lieutenant colonel: “We won’t be able to build up more ... This one took 20 years ... We ask you.” But the lieutenant colonel was steadfast: the action of retaliation, as he told the people, was a mandatory condition for Chechnya, they should get "what they deserved", since they did not see behind the neighbor's house ... By the way, the Tsokaevs, neighbors, people who are wealthier than the Zavlievs, have long been empty, and other inhabitants of Shkolnaya Street in Achkhoy-Martan - so the Tsokaevs left at the beginning of the war away, away from her ...
The women howled again, the 13th was blown up, and the Zavlievs could observe how nothing was left of their own, the 11th, but a pile of bricks. All outbuildings and property perished, a cow went to the next world.
VADIK
That's exactly how he introduced himself: "Just Vadik."
Hat - in a dashing impulse on one side. Hands, of course, in trousers. Slightly undercoat. The eye plays, the tongue without brakes ... A huge gray-haired human being, powerful and stately, like an old walnut tree.
Only now he screamed painfully, waved his arms beyond measure, dispersed, made a noise, quarreled ... Proving his complete independence?
The longer this uninvited "sovereign" exaltation lasted, the more obvious completely different motives appeared - both infinitely humiliated pride, and groundlessly trampled pride, and the inability to find the guilty ...
Finally, the old man was exhausted and relented: "Vadik Ibragimovich Zavliev." And he added defiantly: "Know, I'm naked, like a falcon, in my seventy." And another one: “The military man thinks he is fighting terrorists when he blows up my house. And all he does is make us beggars ... "And further:" The fact that, by their grace, the people already hate Russia, they do not care.
At the last words, suddenly recollecting himself, waking up, in an instant throwing back his clownish tone and feigned manners and instantly turning into a beaten child with torn resentment in his eyes, Vadik Ibragimovich grabs at the last phrase, turning it into an interrogative option: “It turns out that according to them do people already hate Russia?..” And, holding his breath, very slowly, pronouncing each word as if at that very moment he was losing everything that was sacred to him: “... THEY MEAN IT DOES NOT WORRY ?. ."
"Them" is the military. Soldiers are just walking past us along Achkhoy-Martan, and Vadik Ibragimovich, defiantly brazenly stretching his hand forward, in “them” (although people in Chechnya have not behaved like this for a long time - it can cost their lives), points to where the tired ones move their feet, just like him, exhausted people, hung with all conceivable types of modern weapons.
SO "THEY DON'T CARE"?
Vadik and I met at the building of the Achkhoi-Martan district prosecutor's office, in a long and unpleasant - under the guns of security - waiting for the local prosecutor Sharpuddi Abdulkadyrov, a man elusive for the inhabitants of his entire district. Vadik Ibrahimovic and I also tried to catch him. Vadik Ibragimovich - for half a year now, I'm on the second day.
Sharpuddi Abdulkadyrov is famous for this: he does not like those who ask him direct questions about his immediate professional activities, and prefers to use the back door whenever he knows that someone has been waiting for him at the front door for a long time.
In fact, that is what happened on this day. What brought us closer to Vadik Ibrahimovic. He dreamed of meeting with Abdulkadyrov in order to get his explanations regarding compensation from the Ministry of Defense for his destroyed house No. 11 on Shkolnaya Street, I - so that the prosecutor would condescend to a few words about the prospects for those criminal cases that were opened in connection with the so-called "sulfuric cleansing" (beginning of July of this year).
Let me remind you what this is about, since it is directly related to the problems of an old man named Vadik. No even elementary legal methods of protecting the civilian population have been created in Chechnya, despite the crowd of prosecutors of various levels sent here from all over the country, courts that seem to have opened in some places, pre-trial detention centers under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice ...
Nevertheless, the norm of local life continues to be the same: if a demarche is made against you with the participation of federal military personnel, wipe yourself off. So, the "Sernovodsk cleansing", let me remind you, took place on July 2-3 in the village of Sernovodsk (as well as in the neighboring village of Assinovskaya, Achkhoy-Martanovsky district). This action went down in the history of the second Chechen war as one of the most massive and cruel, when the military drove almost the entire male population to the outskirts of the village, drove paddy wagons, converted inside into torture chambers, and let the majority pass through them. And one more thing: the "sulphurous cleansing" received wide public notoriety - the country's leadership reacted to it, and promises followed to do everything to punish the guilty military who had committed criminal offenses.
Vadik Ibragimovich, of course, could not count on such a public effect in relation to his modest rural person, but, based on personal experience, immediately then, in July, still standing in anticipation of Sharpuddi Abdulkadyrov, he predicted that nothing from punishing the military would not will come out and all the public ardor will go into the whistle. This is what he was saying to the crowd, who then came to the prosecutor's office in an impulse to find the truth.
It is no longer the original autumn in the yard - it is cool, the soldiers have warmed themselves with pea jackets. And we share the latest news. So, the district prosecutor Abdulkadyrov gathered his thoughts to take testimony from direct witnesses of the “sulphurous cleansing” only on September 11-12 - more than two months later (!) After the tragedy, and even after the corresponding material in Novaya Gazeta. Then there was a big uproar in the prosecutor's circles, initiated by the Prosecutor General's Office and flying in this way to the prosecutor of Chechnya, Vsevolod Chernov. Which, in fact, did everything so that the district prosecutor condescended to an official interrogation of witnesses, however, entrusting this matter to his young colleague Mikhail Chiridi, who, of course, had just arrived in Chechnya and was not here during the "Sernovodsk" events and shrugged his shoulders, knows nothing. But Chiridi, thanks to him, finally wrote on a paper filed with the file who exactly came to the houses of the Isigovs and Umkhanovs, took their men and took them away in an unknown direction, after which no one saw these men anywhere ...
Vadik Ibragimovich has a pile of papers in his hands, from which grows a similar, useless in terms of effectiveness, history of the “investigation” of the explosion of his house.
Papers are copies and notices. While Vadik Ibragimovich was waiting for prosecutor Abdulkadyrov, he had time - he had been waiting for a long time! - write everywhere. From the generals in Khankala, at the headquarters of the United Group, to President Putin. But! And please, do not fly indifferently past further words: not once in the past six months on Shkolnaya Street, in the shed where Vadik Ibragimovich sleeps, has not a single investigator set foot.
“I think you should send a normal-minded person to establish the truth and thus complete the forwarding of my statements to other departments and to each other. The rains will start soon, and I must prepare for the winter…”
These lines are from a letter from the homeless Zavliev to President Putin. Not the first letter, of course. However, not once a single intelligible word in response, except for official replies informing Vadik Ibragimovich that somewhere far away, in the high offices of Moscow and Rostov-on-Don (in the prosecutor's office of the North Caucasian Military District), they doubt that such could even happen with the participation of federal military personnel, which, they say, the old man was crazy ...
And he really went crazy, driven into a dead end. Chess is the only property not affected. Then he pulled them out from under the rubble of his house and now, on principle, he plays exactly in them, going out into the street and shouting all sorts of nonsense. Like a rural madman.
QUIET SECURITY WORKER
- Oh, I'll go and drink! I feel sorry for you… - shouts Vadik Ibragimovich. - It's a shame that you live in such a false time. I, too, of course, end my life path at this false time. But I'm still finishing...
And he leaves without listening to the answer, hastily stuffing a decent pinch of green tobacco into his nose, loudly, in front of the audience, sneezing and noisily assuring that it is marijuana ...
- No marijuana ... - This, finally, puts in his word Musid Elzhaev, another middle-aged Achkhoymartan, who stood nearby for a long time and listened to our conversation. - He was a completely normal person. Know it. All my life, as far as I can remember, Vadik quietly worked in our district social security. Like this.
Today there is a lot of talk about the lost generation. About those unfortunates who were born in the late 80s - early 90s, who grew up a little in the first war, who, already conscious, almost ten years old, dived to the bottom between the wars and who finally turned into teenagers and young men in the second . Some predict them eternal vengeance on the race. Others - eternal downtroddenness and depression ... But what about the old people? With those who have already lived most of their lives. And he absolutely cannot understand the conditions of the new game.
- I almost knelt before that lieutenant colonel! - the cry of Vadik Ibragimovich is heard. - I! I! How could I? And I broke.
Soon we meet again in the center of the village, at the main Achkhoy-Martan crossroads. Vadik Ibrahimovic calmed down somewhat. And he tells his last story. However, absolutely reliable.
- My father and mother were Old Believers. Although we are Chechens. They are buried in a nearby crypt - it was also blown up during this war. By faith, I am an Old Believer. However, more pagan. At dawn I pray to the sun - there is no one else. I’ll get up, stretch out my hands, turn to him and say: “Help me, sun.” And it helps: the harvest is harvested, the food will be ...
Who said that in the third year of the war in its very place - Achkhoy-Martan, where large-scale hostilities ended at the end of 1999, people are doomed to live like Vadik Ibragimovich Zavliev? Perhaps someone will finally explain?
Anna POLITKOVSKAYA, Achkhoy-Martan, Chechnya
Having not yet reached the military objectives of storming Grozny, Russian troops moved on to the next stage of the military operation - the establishment of military control over the entire territory of Chechnya. To this end, front-line aviation carried out massive bombardments of Chechen settlements - Shali, Bamut, Chechen-aul, Mekhli-Yurt and extended their bombardment to the villages of Ingushetia. After the fall of Grozny, the Russian army continued its offensive in all directions. On March 10, the siege of Bamut began, during which a small garrison of Chechen military (about 100 people) kept under siege for more than a year, inflicting significant losses (up to 1,000 people killed) on the Russians.
After the fall of Grozny, the main forces of the Chechen army were divided into two groups: the western one, which occupied the defense line that passed through Samashki - Bamut - Asinovsk, and the eastern one, which held the defense line Argun - Gudermes - Shali. The eastern group was considered the main one. Russian troops were formed into two groups: "North" and "South". The "South" grouping was opposed by the Western grouping of the Chechen armed forces. The "North" group under the command of I. Babichev opposed the eastern grouping of the Chechen troops.
On May 30, the Council of Field Commanders of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria put before Dzhokhar Dudayev a demand to make a decision on the transfer of hostilities to the territory of Russia. Instead, the headquarters of the Chechen command was evacuated from the surrounded Shali (during the assault on which the Russians used cluster bombs) to the city of Argun, and from there to Vedeno. Subsequently, the headquarters of the Chechen leadership was moved to the village of Dargo for a long time.
The 50th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II was approaching. The continuation of hostilities in Chechnya could seriously damage Russia's prestige in the international arena and prevent the leaders of leading countries from coming to Moscow for the holidays. In this regard, Boris Yeltsin signed a Decree on the normalization of the situation in the Chechen Republic, according to which he announced a moratorium on hostilities in Chechnya from April 28 to May 11, 1995.
After the end of the moratorium on May 12, 1995, the Russians launched a large-scale attack on the foothill villages of Bamut, Orekhovo in the west of Chechnya, as well as on Serzhen-Yurt and Chiri-Yurt in the south, with the aim of reaching the Vedensky and Shatoisky mountainous regions. The offensive of the Russian troops stopped, fierce and prolonged positional battles began. By the end of the second period of the campaign, the conflict moved into the stage of escalation of the armed struggle. From the second half of May to the first half of June, Russian troops constantly attacked the positions of Chechen armed detachments in the mountainous and foothill regions.
In mid-June, as a result of Shamil Basayev's attack on Budyonnovsk, another ceasefire agreement is concluded and negotiations begin between the Russian and Chechen leadership. An agreement in principle was reached on the exchange of all prisoners, the disarmament of the CRI armed forces, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the holding of free elections. The date of the elections in Chechnya was determined: November 5, 1995.
December 14, 1995 military units of the Chechen army occupied a number of large settlements of the Chechen Republic. In particular, Shatoi, Novogroznensk, Achkhoi-Martan, Urus-Martan and Gudermes were occupied. Only Urus-Martan was taken without a fight. Armed clashes took place in other settlements, and in Gudermes it escalated into heavy fighting, one and a half weeks of fighting ended only on December 25, when the Russians managed to oust the Chechen army from the city.
Fighting in 1996
The commander of the Russian joint forces in Chechnya, Lieutenant General V. Tikhomirov, said that the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE were a fatal mistake and that in the next Russian troops are planning to restore full control of the Russian troops over the vast majority of settlements in Chechnya, and the final destruction of the Chechen armed formations.
So on March 14, 1996, Russian troops blocked the village of Samashki, where there was an armed detachment of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the command of Kh. Khachukaev. During the negotiations, an agreement was reached on a peaceful resolution of the situation. But on the morning of March 15, the Russians began to storm the village using armored vehicles, artillery, combat helicopters and front-line aviation, while vacuum bombs were used. Russian troops advanced under the cover of a "human shield" from the villagers.
Throughout the year, active hostilities continued on the territory of Chechnya, which were especially fierce in the southern mountainous regions of Chechnya and in the west of the country in the Bamut region, which the Russian army could not take for more than a year. During the siege of Bamut, many military operations were initiated by both the Russian and Chechen sides. Particularly fierce battles were fought during the battle for Goysk, which was occupied by Chechen units under the command of Akhmed Zakayev. The Russians managed to capture Goysk only after its massive six-day bombing and shelling.
Boris Yeltsin was forced once again to start peace negotiations with the government of the Chechen state. On May 28, a ceasefire agreement was concluded from June 1. However, by mid-summer it became clear that no agreement would be found and new hostilities could not be avoided. While the main forces of the Russian army were in the south of Ichkeria, the Chechen command was preparing for an operation to liberate Grozny and other large cities of the Chechen Republic in the center of the country from the Russians.
The defeat of Russian troops during the operation "Jihad"
August 6, 1996 a small unit of the Chechen army, numbering about 1,000 soldiers, entered Grozny. At present, there were groups of Russian troops in the capital of Chechnya, numbering up to 20 thousand fighters, about 200 armored vehicles and many other heavy weapons. However, despite the numerical superiority of the Russians, the Chechens managed to capture almost the entire Grozny and all its key facilities within a few hours, blocking and encircling the Russian troops. Only on August 7, an attempt was made to break into Grozny by a Russian armored column, which, however, having suffered heavy losses (several hundred people), was forced to retreat.
On August 19, Russian General Konstantin Pulikovsky announced that if Chechen troops did not leave Grozny within 48 hours, the city would be razed to the ground with the help of strategic bombers (which had not been used in Chechnya before) and ballistic missiles. This statement caused panic in Grozny among local residents, who hurried to leave the city. However, the representative of the President of Russia in the Chechen Republic - Alexander Lebed, personally arrived in Chechnya, managed to stop the bloodshed and start a peaceful negotiation process.
On August 31, 1996, ceasefire agreements were signed in Khasavyurt, ending the first Chechen war.
The federal leadership tried to ensure the preservation of 2 Russian brigades in Chechnya, but after the obvious military defeat in Grozny, this was out of the question - the leadership of Ichkeria stated that it did not guarantee their safety. As a result, by the end of 1996, the federal group completely left Chechnya.
On May 12, 1997, the Treaty on Peace and Principles of Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was concluded.
The Chechen side, not observing the terms of the agreement, took a line towards the immediate withdrawal of the Chechen Republic from Russia. Terror against employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and representatives of local authorities intensified, attempts to rally around Chechnya on an anti-Russian basis the population of other North Caucasian republics intensified.
When Alexei, the signalman of the old shift, and I, the next day after our arrival, went around the posts, counting the TA-57 inductor telephones, I heard frequent and chaotic shooting. They fired from 7.62 caliber Kalashnikov assault rifles. I asked Alexei what kind of shooting. The answer was shocking. Aleksey, without attaching any importance to this shooting, replied: "A Chechen wedding." "And often do weddings take place?" I clarified.
- Yes, almost a day later.
- And who shoots? Why are they not taking action?
- So the Chechen cops accompanying the wedding and shoot. Imagine for a moment, you are going somewhere in Moscow or Kemerovo to work, and suddenly there is shooting, armed men accompany someone's wedding. The shock, take my word for it, passes in three days. You just get used to this shooting and don't notice it anymore.
You already know what my colleagues in the fire department had to do in Chechnya. I'll tell you about my duties and those of Sergei Doroganov. Communication, it is also in Africa, communication. Our task was precisely to ensure that this very connection was. We were responsible for two types of communication: radio and wired communication. Both did not cause any particular problems, but still, there were moments when it was necessary to resolve issues with its organization, as such, or with its restoration. I have already mentioned wedding corteges. So, every now and then after this kind of wedding ceremonies, for some reason the wired connection disappeared. Everything was explained quite simply, stray tracer bullets burned through the field cable, which we used as an "air". I had to take a coil, and, as during the First World War and the Civil War, go along the line in search of a cliff. True, a cover group was always sent to restore contact with us, the presence of which gave a sense of confidence and allowed us to calmly deal with our issues. Although, as soon as I climbed the pole to eliminate the cliff, I immediately understood that safety was relative. If a rather extensive panorama was opened to me from the pillar, then where is the guarantee that they could not notice me just as easily.
Not everything was cloudless in the use of radio communications. As a rule, autonomous subdivisions that were under operational control of the VOVD arrived in the Chechen Republic already with their own radio stations. On the one hand, this is good, there is no need to think about where to get radio stations to provide them, on the other hand, the effect of their use depended on the technical characteristics of these radio stations. If the radio stations worked in the same frequency range as those used in the VOVD, the problem was solved by reconfiguring them, if in a different range, you had to shrug. Of course, this begs another question. Why should the commanders of these units themselves decide on the issues of interaction between units that arrived from different regions of the country?
There was another, in my opinion, unresolved issue. Ensuring the secrecy of negotiations with the help of radio stations. Yes, of course, imported Motorolas could be programmed as you like, but on the same network, at the same radio stations, Chechen policemen also got in touch, and even their boss did not always trust them. As a result, for about three weeks, at night on our frequencies, militants or their close associates threatened us with violence and all that, trying to break our psyche. However, when the employees, at my insistent request, stopped responding to messages of this kind, the threats ceased.
In addition to the issues of maintaining communications in combat readiness, Sergei and I were involved in carrying out measures to check the passport regime (the so-called sweep), and of course, like everyone else, to carry out guard duty.
A little lyrical digression. Literally on the second day of my stay in Achkhoy-Martan, on the roof of the building where our cockpit was located, I saw an amateur radio antenna for HF communications. So here it turns out, radio amateurs lived, I thought. Indeed, on the wall to the right of our workplace, there was a sheet with a list of amateur radio call signs belonging to radio amateurs in the city of Voronezh (before the Kuzbass policemen, policemen from the Voronezh region served here). I remembered with annoyance that the transceiver that Selyunin had promised me had never been received. Selyunin himself was on vacation, but apparently he forgot to give instructions to his deputy. It's a pity of course, but service is service. In the same place, another sheet was also pasted. On this sheet, similar to the official form of Ichkeria, in green font, a text resembling an order was printed. Below is an excerpt from this text, something that especially caught my eye:
"For the destruction of the enemy, a Mujahideen or a sympathizer is entitled to:
for an ordinary conscript - $ 250.
for an riot policeman or a contract soldier - 500 dollars.
for an officer - 1000 dollars.
Installation of a landmine - $ 300.
Blown up armored personnel carrier - 3000 dollars.
Downed helicopter - $15,000.
Downed plane - $30,000.
According to the decision of the Supreme Military Majlis-Shura of Ichkeria, awards are announced for the capture and delivery of captured Russian officers to the command of the Mujahideen:
OMON, SOBR, Ministry of Internal Affairs and units of internal troops: militia - $ 100, private - 20 rams, lieutenant-captain - 50 rams, major - colonel - 100 rams, general - 40 bulls.
GRU and AFB: lieutenant-captain - 40 rams, major-colonel - 80 rams, general - 40 bulls.
Military personnel of combined arms units: private - 15 sheep, lieutenant - captain - 35 sheep, major - colonel - 60 sheep, general - 40 bulls.
At present, it is necessary to have more captured Russian officers to be exchanged for the Mujahideen who fell into the hands of the Russian occupiers."
You understand, such reading did not deliver pleasant emotions. Well, in order not to tease the snipers, we still removed the stars from shoulder straps. As they say, be careful and God protects.
In less than two weeks of our service, we witnessed a celebration at the traffic police of the Chelyabinsk region. It turns out that the guys celebrated the "Equator", in other words, half the time spent on a business trip. "Equator" is akin to the soldiers' holiday "One Hundred Days Before the Order". The most cheerful guys, like soldiers, even shave their heads to zero. Joy is understandable, half more and home. The hero of the evening, I think, was an excellent guitarist and performer, my namesake, sorry, forgot his last name. He sang songs, you will listen. He sang at the Philharmonic before the traffic police, but a small salary and ... By the way, the guys from the Chelyabinsk traffic police rewrote the verses of the famous song "Airport" in their own way. It turned out very badly. I rewrote the words, but I let someone rewrite them myself, and there was no trace of them.
A little about our smaller brothers. On the territory of the town, two or three dogs have taken root, outbred, in the language of cynologists or breeders, mestizos. Their ability to determine: their own - someone else's was amazing. There were many examples of this. So, dogs unmistakably among the general mass of people in camouflage, they singled out precisely the Chechens. These dogs let us pet them, although they had seen it for the first time, and immediately rushed barking at the Chechen policemen, although they were dressed in the same uniform as ours. The dogs also got it from civilian Chechen workers, who periodically performed some work in the town. Version one. A specific smell emanating from people of Chechen nationality or from the area where they live.
On the territory of the town, in addition to dogs, two more residents "registered" who have no direct relation to the VOVD, or rather, first one, and then another joined him. They were just another example of the horrors of war. These people were in slavery for ten years (the first in Chechnya, the second, already liberated by our detachment, in Ingushetia), and, living in bestial conditions, completely lost their human appearance. For a roof over their heads, a bed and bread, these people performed various chores (mainly cleaning the territory). The years spent in slavery, obviously, taught them to do without a roof over their heads and a bed, having treated themselves to alcohol, they could easily spend the night right on the ground, choosing some place. I don’t know who they were before slavery, but our commander’s offer to go to Siberia for free (liberated from Ingushetia, was from the Novosibirsk region), they flatly refused. Maybe there was, what a sin on their souls, they paid for it in full.
Day after day, week after week, the first month of the trip flew by. The situation in Achkhoy-Martan and the region was relatively calm, there were no large-scale actions of militants, and few people paid attention to local ones (two, three automatic bursts). We, Sergei, have already taken part in the events to check the passport regime more than once. In my opinion, they were most likely indicative, if you like, of a protocol character. Such events were held, most likely, for the press, rather than to identify militants. Maybe I'm wrong. But judge for yourself. All law enforcement agencies that take part in it, including Chechen policemen, know in advance about the next "cleansing operation" (and you already know how their commander treated them). At the appointed hour, a column is formed from representatives of almost all law enforcement agencies, and off we go. In motion, the column stretched for almost a kilometer. In this situation, I personally would not guarantee that those who should be afraid of the purges did not know about it. I remember one of these "cleansings". We held the official part, everything started to spin, and someone from the local leadership offered to go fishing. How fishing is carried out was excellently shown in the film "Deadly Force", I mean, the beginning of fishing. After fishing to no avail, on two small lakes, in the same way as in the film, we went to the river, where there was a mill and a small dam. The workers of the mill - two Chechens of a fairly respectable age - warned that the fish had long been knocked out, and there was nothing to do there. However, despite the warning, the guys went to try their luck, while I went with the Chechens to their lodge. We got acquainted, drank for acquaintance, began to talk. From the conversation, I realized that many Chechens regret the times of the Soviet Union, curse the war, and blame the Wahhabis for starting the war with Russia. Whether they were sincere at that moment, I don’t know, it seemed to me that they were. Of course, among the Chechens, as well as among others, there are different people. Below I will give an example. There were not rare cases when we drove to Khanaklu in the cars of the Administration of Achkhoy-Martan with Chechen drivers. So, on one of these trips, while waiting for the meeting to end at the command, we drove one of the cars to a residential town and bought various food there. Upon arrival, having laid out their food in the open luggage compartment of the Niva, they invited the Chechen drivers to treat themselves (and there was a Muslim post). Someone flatly refused, it’s impossible, and someone covered himself with the phrase that Allah does not see food from the sky in the Niva. As they say, draw your own conclusions.
There was also an example of Russian-Chechen "solidarity". Once, one policeman, sort of jokingly, in a conversation offered me to buy a Chechen girl for 500 rubles!!! Not for an hour or a night, as you may have thought. He offered to buy her as a slave, pay, they say, money, and take her away, only secretly, so that the locals do not know. Then, I did not betray the meaning of this proposal, then I already thought, but there is no smoke without fire. By the way, this policeman apparently got caught on something, they took away his machine gun and put him in a "zindan", a guardhouse in our opinion.
Although, in fairness, I note that there were other, real cleansing operations, with real results (the arrest of militants and the discovery of weapons caches). A very narrow circle of people knew about the time and place of such sweeps, and the direct participants learned about it 15 minutes before the start. I guessed this because he himself took part in the escort of militants to Khankala (as a social burden and assisting the escorts when he went to Khankala to resolve his official issues).
November 10 was approaching - Police Day, they were waiting for provocations from the militants, the commanders did not tire of reminding them of vigilance and discipline. Thank God, everything worked out.
In the morning, a solemn formation was announced, everyone who was supposed to speak, someone was encouraged, once again reminded of vigilance and discipline. We did not have time to disperse to our locations, they announced the next collection for building. It turns out that the military commandant of Achkhoi-Martan arrived with congratulations, made a congratulatory speech, then presented the personnel of the VOVD with a young boar with the inscription "Khattab" on the sides, after which he left. After this event, VOVD began to say that the commandant slipped a pig on the holiday to the cops. “Khattab” decided not to inject right away. They built a corral for him and fed him, almost until the New Year.
After dinner, Igor (guitarist) from the Chelyabinsk traffic police invited me and Igor (guitarist) to his place by the political officer of the VOVD. The political officer turned to us with a request to perform in honor of the holiday in front of the Chechen policemen, after which we went to the local school, where a solemn meeting took place, and then a concert. The first time I went out of town. armed not with a machine gun, but with a guitar, however, and the latter. I felt the adrenaline rush 100 percent.
Of course, other holidays were also celebrated, for example, the day of the motorist, the day of the investigator, etc. But these holidays were not common, and were celebrated by a narrow circle, directly by those who were related to them. True, because I have a guitar, I was also invited to events related to the celebration of professional holidays, sometimes even with my partner Sergey.
After November 10, the Chelyabinsk residents were going home. They came to Achkhoy-Martan on their own, i.e. in their patrol cars, they went home in the same way. No one came to replace the Chelyabinsk residents, so our town was a little empty, literally and figuratively. Firstly, the territory occupied by the cars of Chelyabinsk residents, as well as the room where they slept, was vacated, and secondly, there was no one else to perform the song composed by this detachment. Among our traffic cops, I don’t remember the performers, and the rest of the song did not fit because of a professional accent.
I was approached by policemen-drivers with a request to remake this song for them, but I didn’t like their idea, but I realized that I needed a song that would be a memory of a business trip in this republic. And she showed up the following week. It so happened that he woke up in the middle of the night, and the lines formed by themselves.
Achkhoy-Martan, you didn't call us,
And we did not rush to you,
And here we are all gathered.
But from above the order was given to us,
And here we are all gathered.
Achkhoy-Martan is a region of Chechnya.
Bamut, Katyr, Samashki.
Achkhoy-Martan, explosion all around,
Shooting and stretching.
Achkhoy - Martan, explosion all around,
Shooting and stretching.
Achkhoy-Martan is a piece of Chechnya.
Here life is like on a volcano.
And remember your name.
At any moment it can explode
And remember your name.
Achkhoy-Martan. God give us
Come home alive.
And if, what is not to shame,
The greatness of Russia
And if, what is not to shame,
The greatness of Russia
Achkhoy-Martan. Well, goodbye.
We have paid our military debt.
And now it's time for us to go home
Everyone was waiting for us at home.
And now it's time for us to go home
Everyone was waiting for us at home.
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