I think we would have understood our president if, at the time when Russian military towns in Grozny were being devastated, when officers of the Russian army were being taken hostage, when, finally, Chechnya refused to hand over its terrorists responsible for plane hijackings, Russia had intervened, carried out a military expedition, spoken the language of force.

Yes, I think we would have understood...

But the discussion then was precisely about a drop in the human sea. And why notice it, if we have already, in a Bolshevik manner, become accustomed to measuring everything in tens, hundreds of thousands, in millions...

Remember, of course you remember, when at the funeral of three young men who died near the White House, Boris Yeltsin said: "Forgive me, your president." What a lump rose in my throat then. But also—pride in my heart: here it is. Finally, a president worthy of his people.

Where is that Yeltsin?

He will say: "Forgive me, your Supreme Commander-in-Chief, for sending untrained boys to their deaths, while elite units, including my guard, which reached forty thousand men, protected me and my entourage..."

He will say: "Forgive me, the leader of the country, for having such an incompetent Minister of Defense, and his failures cannot be justified by the fact that he is a good tennis partner and my neighbor in the new house in Krylatskoye..."

He will say: "Forgive me, the Chairman of the Security Council, for ignoring the opinions of my advisors and experts, and trusting someone I no longer even know..."

He will say: "Forgive me, your elected president, for entrusting the power given to me by you to valets and watchmen?.."

I'm afraid he will remain silent now.

If I'm not mistaken, the newspaper with this, I repeat, nervous and angry commentary came out at the beginning of the week I flew to my first Chechen assignment.

Now, why I flew after all...

Firstly, already in early November '94, events in Chechnya began to unfold so rapidly that a sense of some horror, into which we were all plunged, became clearer and clearer, and that's why Chechnya attracted me, just as in early youth on Kara-Dag I was drawn to look into the abyss.

But there was another completely prosaic reason, which only someone involved in journalism can understand — the current issue. To make it, to make it, not to be late...

I worked then as the investigations editor for "Litgazeta." In our aging and, alas, then fading newspaper, only our department had young journalists. And although the specificity of the department was far from military reporting, I couldn't ask Anatoly Rubinov or Arkady Vaksberg to go under fire, could I?

Kirill B. was the second from the department to volunteer to go—even before "LG," while working at "Komsomolka," he had traveled to many hot spots. Especially since he had the opportunity to go there as either a translator or an escort for some American delegation. That is, at their expense. (And the money of the impoverished "LG" is a special swan song. And that's why joint projects with wealthy Western colleagues often rescued us, when their money and our informational capabilities allowed us—most often on the same day as them—to print sensational materials.)

How worried I was when he flew away! I called Nazran, asked Boris Agapov, the vice-president of Ingushetia, to cover our guy. Although, how can one be covered in a war...

We held an entire newspaper page for his report. Until it became impossible to hold an empty, unfilled page.

But he had already returned home... Without a report.

"You let the editorial board down! You let me down!" I remember shouting into the phone.

And he, in response, uttered words that I still take offense at:

"But you weren't the one who gave me money for this trip!"

"But we're a team..." I weakly retorted.

Yes, and then I needed to rehabilitate my department.

That, perhaps, was another reason for that trip to Chechnya, where, to be honest, I really didn't want to go.

I wouldn't be interested in writing about the retreats of some and the advances of others. Just as bullets fly across the steppes. Or rather, across the mountains. Or — between the mountains.

But one thing did interest me: what could guys from the MVD's main directorate for organized crime and from RUOPs be doing in Chechnya, where a war was raging?