"Nothing good..." he replied and remained practically silent the whole way, answering my questions monosyllabically: "Yes," "No," "I don't know"...

Thus began my first Chechen assignment, the impressions of which I detailed in an article I titled: "For the Motherland? For the Mafia?"

About what was not included in the article.

The first evening in Mozdok, where the main federal military base was then located. A railway car, serving as the MVD headquarters. Meeting with the head of all police units, Yuri Proshchelygin, head of the West Siberian RUOP.

"Egorov told me not to let you into Grozny. We'll bring whoever needs to be brought here..."

"I'll go anyway..."

"Well, watch out... You know best..." he shrugged.

I remember what surprised me on the first evening.

Firstly, that everyone I met then used pseudonyms.

At night, we drank vodka with General Shirokov. But it turned out that this general was no Shirokov, but actually Anatoly Shkirko, Deputy Commander of the Internal Troops (and later, after the assassination attempt on Romanov, Commander). It turned out that he himself was from Grozny, where his parents had moved after the deportation of Chechens. What twists of fate happen!

Some everyday issues that everyone was concerned about. For example, a SOBR officer came from Grozny to get beds. Later, in Grozny itself, at the dairy factory, I saw what a celebration it was for the SOBR officers when those beds were finally delivered.

I remember the irritation caused by a man from the Main Directorate for Organized Crime (it turned out that about fifteen years ago, when he was still a lieutenant, we had even met), who was the commandant of a passenger carriage standing alone in a field: I spent the first night there and then again after returning from Grozny.

He was the first of those who hadn't been to Grozny himself but considered himself a man of war: he lectured a lot about military operations and commanded the carriage's occupants like a seasoned warrant officer. Later, when I returned from Grozny, he struck me with a question: why hadn't I taken a certificate proving I'd been under fire? "What do I need it for?" I asked, surprised. "What do you mean, what for? For your personal file," he said, surprised by my question.

(Later, I was told about an inspecting colonel from Moscow who received a medal just because he broke a finger while drunk in Mozdok, but for a bottle, he got a certificate stating the finger was broken in battle. "The further from the front, the more heroes there are..." as my friend San Sanych sings.)

I remember how I couldn't fall asleep for a long time on the first night. I stood, smoked, looked at the stars. From time to time, gunshots were heard: drunk soldiers were having fun...

Yes, I also remember the commander of the Tyumen SOBR, who was nervously weeping: that day he had lost half of his men.

I also remember how from time to time Chechens would approach the staff carriage, and then I would be asked to go outside for a smoke: as I understood it, these were police agents, or those whom they were taken for at the time.

As I wrote in the article, due to bad weather, I traveled in a convoy of KamAZ trucks. First in the back, with Yura Proshchelygin. Then, at Yura's suggestion: "Come on, so you can see better!", I moved into the cab of the last KamAZ. Already in the mountains, approaching Grozny, our KamAZ got stuck. The convoy went ahead. I remember how nervous the SOBR officer became. "You're only fit to herd reindeer!" he snapped at the driver-Yakut, who, it turned out, had only been behind the wheel for three months.

I pretended that, in principle, I wasn't afraid of anything, as the SOBR officer nervously scanned the frightening surroundings through his optical sight.

Then we finally started moving and caught up with the column already at the approach to Grozny, where the entire field was dotted with tanks, occasionally firing somewhere over the road.

That was the first time I heard gunshots. It was quite loud.

In Grozny itself, a very funny episode occurred—I was arrested.

"Go on, head to the dairy factory, the headquarters is there. And I'm going to 'Severny'," Yura Proshchelygin told me.

I ran (yes, that's exactly what happened, because there was gunfire all around) to another car — a repair van, in which I drove, unnoticed by the guards, onto the territory of the dairy factory.