"But still, Raduyev's statements..."
"After that, I called Salman and spoke with him very seriously... He apologized and said that there could be no talk of any campaigns into Russia, and he would only carry out the orders of the legally elected president..."
...More than once, I asked the leaders of the Chechen Republic, and field commanders, and simply Chechen soldiers, which of our Russian units were best prepared for battle: paratroopers? marines? internal troops? And I always heard in response: aviation and artillery.
Those who shot and bombed, without distinguishing between militants and children, old people, women...
Where the defense line was, and where a kindergarten or hospital.
...That morning, it unexpectedly snowed.
We drove to Orekhovo for the mournful and sorrowful Feast of Sacrifice in memory of almost a hundred villagers who had died exactly two years ago from Russian artillery, Russian aviation...
"I was shaving when my wife screamed: 'Tanks! Tanks!'—and fainted... I remember almost nothing of what happened next... Whoever managed to get out—got out..." recounts Lecha Idigov, Chechnya's representative in Ingushetia, my eternal companion in the search for captive boys.
The same familiar road... Before Grozny—turn right.
A forgotten Russian blockpost, a former filtration point with silage pits where people were dumped, a bullet-riddled "Urush-Martan" sign...
Further, further, further...
Sign for "Orekhovo".
"Why did they cut down all the poles! They had only just extended electricity right before the war..." Lecha sighs.
A destroyed APC...
Entrance to the village. Or rather, to what remains of the village.
Even now, a few days after my trip to Chechnya, I cannot recount what I had to see there.
It seemed that nothing could be more terrifying than what I had seen in Grozny. I was wrong.
Oh, I thought, to organize a tourist trip here for those who unleashed this war. Let one of them freeze beside the ruined mosque. Let another weep before what was once a home. Let a third bow at the feet of a Chechen old woman, somehow living among the ruins. Let a fourth explain why, just yesterday, a bull calf exploded on a butterfly mine, prohibited worldwide. Fifth, sixth, seventh... Let, finally, Boris Nikolaevich explain to the mother of an unknown soldier, whose corpse was found by Chechens only a week ago, what all this was for...
What else would I like to add to this strange conversation with a man who, throughout the first Chechen war, commanded a front where thousands of Russian boys laid down their lives? A conversation with an enemy—even if, at the time we met him in his vice-presidential house, surrounded by heavily armed guards, he already held a high civilian post in Chechnya? A conversation with a wolf in sheep's clothing?
I've heard similar accusations against myself far too often...
But I also heard from field commanders what our Russian generals didn't hear, and couldn't (or didn't want to hear): "What have we done to OUR army?" Or: "To what state have we brought OUR army!?.."
OUR, OUR, common, Soviet, through which everyone passed in that first Chechen war: both those who shouted "Hooray," and those who shouted "Allahu Akbar..."
Honestly, I don't remember the details of that trip to Grozny and the meeting with Vakha Arsanov very well (if not for that dialogue published in "Novaya," much of it would have faded from memory).
Most likely, like all trips in '98, it was connected with the search for our missing soldiers.
As in the other trips then, Lecha Idigov accompanied me from Nazran to Grozny. Our military observer Vyacheslav Izmailov was with me. I remember when we were brought to Arsanov, he recognized Slava: "Ah, the same bald major! Whenever I saw you, I always ordered: 'Don't shoot that bald one!'" (And Slava went without weapons and a head covering throughout the entire first Chechen campaign.)
Before the war, Vakha Arsanov, a traffic police captain, worked in Moscow. He and his brother had a small business, he said. "When the war started, I took the last thing I had and went to Dzhokhar's aid," I asked. "Vakha, how much was the 'last thing'?" He replied, "Two hundred thousand dollars." During our long conversation, his assistant came in and announced that it was time for prayer... "I'll be right there... Wait..." Vakha requested.