Well, okay... About what I would like to add to that report from January '96.

There was no war,
Just people shooting
At each other.

Firstly, I was going to Chechnya for the first time as a deputy, a member of the State Duma's Security Committee, to meet with Maskhadov, with our military, and most importantly, to ascertain the fate of our prisoners.

On that trip, several journalists asked to come with me: Sasha Klimov from "Echo of Moscow," Yura Snegirev from "Izvestia," Sergey Keshishev from ATV with a cameraman, and two colleagues from "The New York Times."

Yes, and one more person tearfully begged to be taken along, to film these, as he considered them, "historic" adventures.

I'll call him - Konstantin D.

The story of how we met is very amusing.

In early spring of '91, shortly before the well-known events, he appeared at my home and for several hours dictated the story of his life into a dictaphone, starting from the mid-thirties, from his birth. The main thing in his biography was that practically from his youth, he was recruited by the KGB as an agent, and remained one at the time of our acquaintance. But the most piquant detail was something else: Konstantin D. was the personal driver of the British ambassador, and the current ambassador was already his seventh.

The story, as you can imagine, was fantastic for a journalist, and I told Konstantin that as soon as he said "go ahead," I would immediately publish the material in "LG."

It was precisely three cassette tapes with the recording of this conversation that I took with me on August 19, when at dawn I had to hastily leave home.

Two articles were published in "Litgazeta" in the autumn of '91.

When the first part of our dialogue came out, a colossal scandal erupted, primarily in England.

I felt it myself when, arriving at the editorial office, I found a whole crowd of English colleagues with microphones, notebooks, and television cameras at the door of my office. It was then, I remember, Peter Pringle from "The Independent" told me that a whole crowd of journalists—and not just English, Americans, Canadians—had come to the English embassy on Sofiyskaya Embankment hoping to meet Konstantin himself, but no one was allowed past the gates: the embassy had increased security.

I was worried: what about Konstantin himself, where was he? How? But there was no way to contact him that day.

He called me himself late that evening and said that he had been hidden from journalists all day in the distant rooms of the embassy.

"The Ambassador is very upset," Konstantin said. "He told me: 'Well, you were an agent, and you should have stayed one! Why raise a scandal about it!'"

Well, and then, when the second part came out... A big press conference, many interviews, etc., etc.

Naturally, Konstantin's fate also changed dramatically. He had to leave the embassy. He needed to earn money—he started filming weddings and other festive events with an amateur camera. But he was already swept up in various political events, and I remember him rushing to me with alarming proposals.

Why am I telling you this? You'll understand later. But for now, let's return to Chechnya, where I first went as a deputy, and with a whole journalistic crowd, so I constantly had to worry that nothing would happen to anyone.

I remember asking Viktor Ilyukhin (he was the chairman of the Security Committee) to give me something like credentials from the Duma, that is, to write some text on a piece of paper that would serve as our pass on the Chechen roads. Primarily for our own people—not for the Chechens. And I also decided to put on my deputy's badge: this was probably more of a childish than an adult political gesture.

In Makhachkala, we were accommodated in a KGB sanatorium, right on the Caspian Sea, and the agonizing days and hours of waiting began.

The thing is, Bagautdin Magomedov (at that time, a member of the Dagestan parliament and head of the regional "Yabloko") said:

"It's pointless to go without Nadyr, and he's not in the city. He's in the mountains now."

The next morning—"He's in Nalchik." Five hours later: "He'll be here tomorrow." Tomorrow: "He'll arrive in the middle of the day." I started to get a little angry, although after all my long years as a journalist, I should have gotten used to endless waiting and long, tedious journeys.