There's a semi-diplomatic formula: "His answers left a mixed impression."

Yes, when Pavel Grachev was in the Duma, I spoke at a State Duma session for the first time.

I asked him: "Aren't you ashamed of what you've done? If I were in your place, I would resign."

He replied: "If you think so, I will resign."

Our strange dialogue was shown, I think, on all news channels. A few weeks later, Yeltsin removed Grachev from his ministerial post, but I don't consider his resignation my achievement. Moreover! I think Boris Nikolaevich simply needed to tell people: I'm good, but my ministers are bad. Finding scapegoats—that's becoming our Russian trend.

Pavel Grachev left...

Pavel Grachev remained...

His current position is an advisor on African markets at "Rosvooruzhenie." The money he receives there (much more than as a minister), I hope, will help him brighten his old age, so as not to wake up at night in terror from a nightmare: the corpses of soldiers and officers that littered the streets of Grozny.

Over the years, dozens of soldiers, officers, and even generals—real, combat-hardened ones—have become my close comrades.

They were the ones who told me the whole truth about this war: about mortars from 1939, where out of three shells (1938 model), only one was fit for firing; about "combat pay" rotated through Voenbank that never reached those it was intended for; about modern sniper rifles that, for some reason, only militants had; and about bribes to Moscow superiors for medals and Hero Stars.

And about much, much more...

Once, when a joint trip to Chechnya by representatives of two Duma committees—security and defense—was planned, the General Staff for some reason decided to invite us so that the generals could report on how they were managing military operations in Chechnya.

That was the first time I found myself at the General Staff and was stunned by the number of generals I saw there (there wouldn't be enough rams for papakhas for all of them!).

We sat at a long table, listening to the speaking military commanders. Everything was solemn, official, and boring.

During the break, someone coughed politely behind me.

I turned around—and saw a Lieutenant General with a small notebook and pen in his hands.

"Your shoe size? Head size?" he asked.

"What?" I didn't understand.

"Well, your sizes, to get camouflage in Mozdok..."

What do my sizes have to do with anything? Why is a lieutenant general dealing with this? What, aren't there enough sergeants in the army anymore?

I opened my 1998 notebook with a meeting with Vakha Arsanov, who presented his concept of why the Russian army lost to the Soviet. Jumping ahead a bit, I want to continue this theme with a story about the guys I met there, in Chechnya, a year later, in the tragic and anxious year of 1999. Here's what I wrote then under the impression of that meeting:

"How old was I? Twenty? Twenty-one?

I don't remember.

I remember being given Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" at sixteen. I still feel like a boy when I read "Master" over and over again.

With Bulgakov's "White Guard" — it's worse. I became more than an adult. Yes, I was twenty-one already.

"Great was the year and terrible was the year after the Nativity..."

Remember?

"But days, in peaceful and bloody years, fly like an arrow, and the young Turbins did not notice how, in the bitter frost, white, shaggy December arrived."

Well?

..."On Nikolka's shoulders are sergeant's epaulets with white stripes, and on his left sleeve a sharp-angled tricolor chevron..." And then: "Nikolka's eyes grow dim."

Bulgakov. "The White Guard."

I met the guys at Vnukovo airport. Thanks to the girls from the parliamentary lounge (how many times they helped us, picking up soldiers from the gangway who Slava Izmailov had rescued from Chechen captivity)—they helped this time too. Only this time, the guys had arrived from the front.

Their commander, Sasha, was the last to exit the plane.

He and three of his soldiers flew to Moscow at the invitation of Sergey Govorukhin and Yura Pavlenkov for an evening commemorating those who died in the six years of the Chechen war.

"How's the arm? Still alive?" I asked Sasha.

"Stop it... These are my guys. Meet them."