The last flight of Nikolai Maidanova
29 January 2000 was fatally injured by the Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Nikolai Maidanov during a military operation in the Argun Gorge. Newspapers then wrote that the pilot completed his combat mission one hundred percent and died in the cockpit of a helicopter. In the same 2000 year, Nikolai Maidanov was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation.
Fifteen years later in St. Petersburg in Moscow Victory Park opened a monument to the hero. People who knew Nikolai Maidan personally say that he is very similar to the living Sainich (so, by patronymic, the commander was called among themselves comrades). The monument was opened on the Day of Popular Unity, November 4, and friends and relatives of the hero from all over Russia came to the ceremony.
29 of January of this year, on the day of Nikolai Sainovich, in his house again, the apple has nowhere to fall. A typical two-room apartment in addition to the family and relatives accommodated six guests from other cities.
“We are sleeping in turns,” Tatyana Pavlovna, the widow of Nikolai Maidanova, tells me. - But this is nothing. Garrison life taught us a lot - and did not live in such conditions. But all these days we remember Kolya. Either one case will be recalled, another. Everyone has it stories their own, but it turns out that they are all about one thing - the husband was an amazing person. And his main advantage is that he knew how to feel, understand his neighbor, and always tried to help. He didn’t lose this quality when he became a commander - he was even scolded for being a member of the team, not as a boss, but as a father ...
"It's a pity to throw a guy into the thick - I will go myself."
Nikolay was born on February 7 of the year 1956 in the tiny Kazakh village of Taskuduk. Mother is a purebred German, father is a Kazakh. The family was large and one rule always reigned in it - the eldest helps the younger, the younger helps the neighbor. Probably, this increased responsibility half a step away from his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. Kohl entered the flight school of the Kazakh city of Aktobe together with a friend. And when the medical commission did not allow his comrade to take the exams, Nikolay decided to support a friend - refused to enroll.
He went into the army and served. And after, as the pilots say, he went to the second round - he submitted documents to Saratov aviation school. This time everything turned out successfully - the study was easy, and the teachers noted that the cadet Maydanov has a special innate feeling that only aerobatics have. He was like a bird in the sky - if someone after the flight needed time to recover, then Nikolai, only after landing, was ready to sit down again at the helm.
From 1984 to 1985, Captain Maydanov served in Afghanistan. One can only guess what his wife Tatiana experienced during that year.
- He is back. I exhaled. Life is getting better, sons are growing. We have two of them. And in December 1986, he came from the service. We sat down to dinner. And he is so casual, as if by the way, he says: "You know, they can send me to Afghanistan a second time ...". And did not even ask how I look at it. Notify. And I understood - Kolya decided so, to say something against it, I have no right. In our family was so instituted. So just listened. And he continues: “Another pilot could have gone instead of me, but he had never been there. Young, still inexperienced. It’s a pity to leave the guy in hell. Suddenly what happens, I will not forgive myself. And I was there, I know everything. I will fly ... "On that trip, he not only saved the pilot, but also the 46 guys. Probably, this choice was sent to him from above, - considers Tatyana Pavlovna.
It is dryly written in official reports that Captain Maydanov participated in the largest amphibious operations. And over the year, from March 1987-th to May 1988-th, as a senior pilot of a special helicopter squadron, landed more 200 reconnaissance groups. Then just numbers. On the account of Nikolay Maidanova: 1250 sorties with a touch of 1100 hours; he liquidated ten caravans with weapons, brought about a hundred wounded from the battlefield, transported a thousand paratroopers and more than a hundred tons of cargo.
Nikolay Maidanov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal for having rescued the crews of two wounded helicopters during one flight and pulled a group of special forces from an ambush.
Home School of Life - Afgan
- I flew with him already during the Chechen war. I was still young then, only after college. But with Maidanov, there was an understanding that everything was under control. And I do not remember that he was afraid of something, - says the pilot Andrey Mikhalevich. - Always calm, collected. According to his stories, we knew that Afgan became his main school - and his flying skills, and the school of life, too ... Everybody loved Sainich because he was a rare commander. The commander is not obliged to lead a column of helicopters during combat operations. But he always went first. And in battle, and in life. I remember that in 90, when we were not paid salaries for a long time, he brought cars with fish and meat to the military camp. Where did he get them? He was able to find, to negotiate. Game shot himself. We knew that if Sainich went hunting, in the evening the whole town would be filled with meat. The authorities scolded him for being too human. But we appreciated it and never let him down for the whole time of service ...
Another comrades remember that he was very fond of music. Then in the Caucasus they sold tape recorders with built-in lanterns, they were charged from a battery and could be taken on the road with them. So on board his helicopter has always been such a tape recorder. And tapes. Vysotsky - necessarily.
At forty, Nikolai Maidanov was baptized. The reason for such a decision, the widow Tatyana, explains simply: “I am a believer. And on Sundays I always went to church. Kolya had to get up early to take me to the service. And then wait for it to end. His mother is a Catholic, his father is a Muslim. And he did not choose faith. And when we moved to Agalatovo, near St. Petersburg, Kolya wanted to build a temple next to the house, so as not to carry me for a few kilometers. But no matter how much and wherever I wrote with a request to help in this matter, everywhere refusals. I then assumed (nothing in my words, however, is not putting it to him that he cannot do this because he didn’t decide on faith. And in the morning of February 1, 1998, Kohl informs me that he decided to be baptized today. We arrived, Father confessed him and said that he needed to find a godfather And if we find now we can’t bring a good godfather, we can contact him by phone. So, in a telephone mode, General Anatoly Mikhailovich Filipenok became the godfather of Nikolai. He then said that it’s an honor to be the godfather of a man like Maydanov. "
He kept the helm to the last second
And after a month and a half Maydanov papers came - the question of the construction of the temple was decided positively. A little later, during one of the conversations with his wife, Nikolay added: “It's good that I was baptized. Now, if something happens to me, you will know for sure that you need to bury me here at the Orthodox cemetery .. . " Tatiana froze, but then she withdrew heavy thoughts. After the second Afghan business trip of her husband, it seemed that the worst that exists in this world is already behind.
... Shards from the blister hit the heart and neck. He did not let go of the control stick. He held until the last breath - it was necessary to land a helicopter, on board of which there were people. But still did not have time, the co-pilot finished this, the last flight for Nikolai Maidan.
- We keep Kolya’s clock at home. Time stopped on them in 11 hours 18 minutes. And every year on January 29 at this time I stand at the grave of my husband. I never invite anyone, I do not call me around. But always on this day his friends come to the cemetery. This year there were 43 people, ”explains Tatiana Pavlovna Maidanova and adds,“ Kolya was always very worried that he had a quiet voice. The commander should speak loudly, assertively, somewhere even aggressively. But Nick did not know how. And I reassured him: "The main thing is not the volume with which you speak, but what do you put into words, the ability to reach people, to convey the essence." And, as time showed, he was an excellent orator - his voice passed through time, remained in the memory of his friends, in their hearts and souls.
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