The mystery of the death of General Swan
10 years ago died Alexander Lebed, who could become president of Russia. Or her dictatorOn February 21, 2012, during a meeting with representatives of unregistered parties, Dmitry Medvedev suddenly said that “there is hardly any doubt who won the presidential election in 1996. It was not Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. ” But the dispute over whether Yeltsin Zyuganov bypassed then was of little interest: the main event then was the truly brilliant success of General Alexander Lebed, who took the third “prize” straight away: 14,5% of voters voted for him - almost 11 million people. Before the second round of the presidential election, Yeltsin appointed the “bronze medalist” secretary of the Russian Security Council. The general was then predicted a great future, calling it then without five minutes the president and the most likely successor of Yeltsin, then the future “Russian Pinochet”.
But the Swan did not break out into Pinochet, becoming in 1998 the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. True, after a few years they began to say that the “Swan project” could again be pulled out from under the cloth. But on April 28, 2002, the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, General Alexander Lebed, died in aviation disaster. Thus ended the path of a man who left a noticeable mark in the newest Russian stories. Then they even said that the paratrooper died as he lived, almost on a combat mission, and this supposedly glorious death for a real military man - not in bed from senility, not in complete oblivion - still on the crest of fame and glory ...
In the summer of 2002 of the year, while preparing material on aircraft accidents, I had the opportunity to visit the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), to communicate with experts. “We were just starting to study the case of Lebed,” the then chairman of the scientific-technical commission of the IAC, Viktor Trusov, was outraged, “and it was already heard everywhere: Lebed was guilty of everything, who allegedly ordered the pilots to fly, and on the tape of the black box, they say his voice is clearly recorded. Brad, we do not have any voice of Swan, and it could not be. The one who gave this nonsense does not even have an elementary concept of how the helicopter recorder works. And there is not even a tape in it, the recording is conducted on a wire. ” When he asked what was recorded on that wire, he received the answer: “Do you want to listen? Take him to the acoustics, let him listen all day long! ”
It was a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity, even more so it wasn’t necessary to listen to it all day long - the entire recording was about one and a half hours away. The expert of the acoustic information research department, Vladimir Poperechny, clicked a computer “mouse”, and the sound of a general's last flight spilled out of the speakers. I got a voice recorder, but then the acoustics negative gesture: “No, only without it. Listen, make notes in a notebook, but without a voice recorder. We may not submit these records for publication. After the trial, if they are in the materials of an open trial, please publish, but with a reference not to us, but to judicial documents ... ”.
I listened, took notes: Lebed’s voices, indeed, no, and in general there was not the slightest mention of him - the governor did not appear in the cockpit, did not communicate with the pilots after takeoff. Crash, radio interference, calm voices of the crew - the usual negotiations with the dispatchers, short replicas, long bands of complete silence. They explained to me the specifics of the helicopter voice recorder: in contrast to the aircraft, it is single-channel and does not write absolutely everything that is said in the cockpit. With a bit of lateness, it turns on only during crew talks with each other or with the ground. So the votes of Lebed in that “black box” in principle could not be.
He asked a question: maybe he gave some instructions on the ground? They answered: this is already the competence of the investigation, not the MAC. And legally it has no value at all: on board the commander of the ship is responsible for everything, and not the governor. I continue to listen to the recording: “Here, you hear, now they have moved into the zone of action of the Abakan dispatcher, soon everything will happen. ... It was hard to skip one slide. But this could not ... ". The end of the record for me was scrolled several times, I would venture to quote it on the old notepad notes: “Up! Power lines! Way down! Not! Not!!! E ... in your mouth! ”The last remark, surprisingly, sounds like something completely sluggish and slow-doomed. Then I hear the howl of the engine, the distinct crash of the blow and silence - the end of the recording.
- ... Hear, it reels up on a screw of a wire, - continues to comment acoustics. - In general, Lebed was just unlucky, he died purely by chance, because he was seated on the starboard side. When falling, the helicopter spins to the right and it was literally crushed by the one and a half ton rotor of the screw. If he had been left, he would have survived with bruises or fractures, because even the pilots survived. Although, of course, it is already a miracle that the helicopter did not catch fire or explode when it fell, they usually flash like matches ...
We talked about the weather. On the flight, they say, the weather was not honey, but quite flying, so the helicopter made two intermediate landings without any problems along the way. But at the third, last, stage of the flight, the experts of the MAC stated, the conditions really changed dramatically: fog, low clouds. And because the pilots had to either return to the site from which they had just taken off, or choose a place for an unplanned landing and interrupt the flight. But they continued it, and, as the MAK members stressed, there is no evidence that this was done under the pressure of the governor. And as for the bad maps, they said, they are also solid bikes - everything on those maps, they say, is marked, the pilots just had to prepare for the flight ahead of time, having studied the upcoming route and having worked it on the map. What, in the opinion of my interlocutors, they apparently did not. Therefore, the power lines, marked on the map, came as a surprise to them. “They walked at a height of 25 meters,” the then Deputy Chairman of the IAC Ivan Mulkidzhanov categorically slandered. “So they had neither the time nor the height reserve: once they slipped through, the second - and jumped out onto the power lines ...”
True, the pilot of the helicopter Tahir Akhmerov testified: “The height of the support of the power line of 37 meters, we began to fall somewhere from 45 meters. At this height, the destruction began, and the car went down. "
"As the world - so sons of bitches, and as war - so brothers"
General Lebed flew into big politics swiftly and sharply, roaring with amphibious assaults and a commanding voice, under a crawler clang and shots, under the mellow crunch of some kind of soldier aphorisms - in this he had no equal. In principle, his path is quite typical: in a similar way, many military men endured the political arena of Russia. Only now, none of them have managed to cling to the summits of Olympus. The last Lebed left, and with it ended the era of politicized generals of Soviet training, who gave way to the generals and colonels already Lubyansky.
The military career of Alexander Lebed was fairly common: the airborne school, the airborne troops, the battalion commander in Afghanistan. Without skipping a single position, he walked the normal path from lieutenant platoon to general-division division commander. Four orders, two of them fighting - the Red Banner and the Red Star. Two more - “For service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR” II and III degrees. For that time, the iconostasis is very decent. He was considered an excellent handmaid, although he didn’t shine with any special leadership talent — just like all paratroopers, by the way. For the peculiarity of the service in the Airborne Forces does not contribute to either a brilliant career or the identification of any leadership skills. In Soviet times, a paratrooper, no matter how big the stars on his epaulets, would have been doomed, was simply doomed to stew in the own juice of the amphibious units - romantic and heroic, but locked in themselves. Due to the specifics of the service, the native of the airborne troops did not have the slightest chance of advancement, for example, through the General Staff or the Ministry of Defense apparatus. The landing division was considered to be the landing ceiling, and even after the Academy of the General Staff, the landing force general could receive neither a corps, nor an army, nor a district.
And Lebed, who served as commander of the Tula airborne division, was the maximum that he could count on, only for the position of one of the deputies of the commander of the Airborne Forces. And even then, only after graduating from the General Staff Academy, where, by the way, he was never allowed in - although he was rushing there. By the way, formally there were no prospects for his senior comrade and colleague, General Pavel Grachev, who by the 1991 year had also reached its upper limit, becoming the commander of the Airborne Forces. Above this position, immigrants from the landing force in the Soviet army hierarchy never rose.
But by 1991, the situation in the country had already become different: from 1988, the paratroopers began to attract more and more punitive ones to solve problems. As Swan himself wrote, "forcing the army to perform functions not characteristic of it in the South Caucasus, Central Asia ...".
9-10 April 1989, the Swan paratroopers participated in the dispersal of the rally in Tbilisi, the result was the death of the 18 people. It is impossible to blame Lebed for the blood itself: he only carried out the order of his Minister of Defense, and the landing force simply did not know how to act otherwise. Yes, and try to be "politically correct" when sharpening reinforcement flies into you and rockfalls fall in! As Lebed himself later wrote in his book “For the Power Is Insulting ...”, blocking the approaches to the Tbilisi Government House, the 345 th parachute regiment almost not only (February 15 1989) removed from Afghanistan, “and here you are a nice little police gendarme task. ” As for the accusations that his paratrooper soldier three kilometers chased the 71-year-old old woman and hacked it with a shovel, Swan expressed himself briefly and succinctly much later: “Question one: what kind of woman was three kilometers from the soldier? The second question: what kind of soldier was he who could not catch up with the old woman for three kilometers? And the third question, the most interesting one: did they run through the stadium? At three kilometers there was not a single Georgian man to make way for this villain? ”
Then - everywhere, including the bloody events in Baku in January 1990. how the paratroopers themselves joked bitterly, the formula worked: Airborne Forces + VTA (military transport aviation) = Soviet power in Transcaucasia. "The task has always been one - to separate the fighting fools to death and prevent massive bloodshed and unrest." So the army’s elite was literally dragged into a big political game without rules that the paratroopers themselves didn’t cause any excitement: “Hanging fully armed in the capitals of the allied states with police functions is a pleasure, frankly, doubtful,” Lebed later recalled. Although this experience to Lebed later will come in handy, allowing you to see the dirty womb of the kitchen making political decisions. And from this “kitchen” the young general carried out an iron conviction that politicians are not able to make the right decisions or take them in time, and in general set up the army, trying to shift responsibility for their own mistakes, blood and victims to the military. “He, being a career officer, who had gone through all the blood of 80's and 90's,” Dmitry Rogozin already recalls, “deep down he hated and despised all politicians, regardless of the color of their skin. Having decided to become one of them, he felt his great advantage - in experience, natural wit, knowledge of life and death. "
At that time, Lebed knew very little about the character of his own: he barely drinks, he is strict, demanding with his subordinates, but they respect him, he does not flirt with his superiors, he does not kowtow before high ranks. In short, the campaigner. He is still madly in love with his wife, Inna Aleksandrovna Chirkova, only he has no real friends - he is not particularly close to anyone, sincerely tries not to get along with him, it’s easy to part with people ...
“It's a shame to the power ...”
By the beginning of 1991, Lebed reached the peak of his military career, having been appointed Deputy Commander of the Airborne Forces for Combat Training and Universities. A new general star lit up in the days of the August 1991 putsch, when Lebed received the task: to move units of the 106-th Tula Airborne Division to Moscow. At the same time a legend was born that the general went over to the side of Yeltsin besieged at the White House. That legend, by the way, Lebed himself did not like: “I did not go anywhere! There was an order — it was standing, another order would have come — it would have taken the White House by storm. ” And would take! As an experienced warrior, Lebed was well aware that for his paratroopers this was not the most difficult task: “The 2-3 has dozens of ATGMs from two directions without special damage to the crowd around it. When all this beauty begins to burn, worse, to smoke, and in this smoke varnishes, paints, polish, wool, synthetics, pull up machine gunners and wait for the inhabitants of the building to jump out of the windows. Those who are lucky will jump from the second floor, and who will not be lucky - from 14 ... "The same thing was later described in his" Presidential Marathon "Boris Yeltsin:" I still remember his powerful voice in August 91 when he told me in the White House office: one volley of armored personnel carriers — and the entire filling of the building flares up, all your heroes jump out of the windows. ” But he never received a direct order for the assault, but defiantly did not react to vague hints: we know these tricks of yours, were already in the shoes of a scapegoat, that's enough! Then his direct boss, General Pavel Grachev, Commander of the Airborne Forces, led a similar tricky game. However, most of the high ranks of the Ministry of Defense played that game. Its rules were simple: do not make unnecessary movements, so that at a convenient moment, jump into the last car, taking the side of the winner. And political views, if they were in the military, did not matter. It is clear that ideologically the generals, including Lebed, were closer to the GKChPisty, but they were really disgusting types to blindly follow them: if we won, we executed the order, we lost, we did everything to prevent blood. Win-win position.
General Lebed noticed. Moreover, acquaintance with Yeltsin and the then Vice-President Rutsky did not matter much, the main thing was that the press started talking about him, excitedly describing the mythical feats of tough warriors. But in fact, he came to the army yard not very much, being superfluous in the cabinet-room furniture, briefcases and money. And they went around him in ranks and awards, never letting him go to the Academy of the General Staff, where Lebed literally wanted to: “What did you learn - and so are the scientists!” - the authorities were indignant. True, without this academic badge, one could not count on much: it was a pass to the circle of the elect.
But another pass was the glory of his decisiveness, multiplied by the beast-like appearance and aphoristic speech. The general was sent to Transnistria when the fire of military conflict reached a peak there. 23 June 1992 of the year, “named by Colonel Gusev, having with me for solidity the battalion of the special forces of the Airborne Forces, I took off to Tiraspol”. Lebed was sent as commander of the already defunct, collapsed and taken apart 14 army left-to-right. It was sent not to extinguish the fire or to admonish, and even more so to breed the warring, but solely to bring out the remnants of the army and, most importantly, its armament, the largest ammunition depots with the least losses. The task is obviously impossible. From the order of the Minister of Defense Grachev to the commander of the 14 Guards Army: “Your task is to successfully lead 14 A to prevent attacks on all military targets and save the lives of servicemen.”
And then the general showed what is called a healthy initiative. Going into course and understanding the position of Moscow to do nothing, I realized that I could go for broke. Lose - punished, and the winner, as you know, is not judged. And after appropriate preparation, he gave the order: open fire!
Before that, the Russian units did not openly speak on anyone’s side, and the Moldavians ’military superiority was so obvious that the outcome of the war seemed predetermined. But Lebed’s artillery literally swept from the face of the earth the positions of the Moldavian army and its crossing through the Dniester. When politicians and diplomats tried to blather, the whole world clearly sounded like a military: you will blather, my squadrons will be swept away by Chisinau, on the ruins of which the paratroopers will march. So one of the bloodiest wars of the post-Soviet space choked.
It is clear on which side the sympathies of Russian society were then, the official Kremlin got off with a faint rumbling. But they did not punish the hero either, although he did not receive a clear order to open fire. However, in his future career, Lebed had to put up a cross. Grachev tried to fuse him into Tajikistan, but he ran: “I told Grachev that I didn’t understand why I should beat one half of the Tajiks at the request of the other, they didn’t do anything to me. He calmed down. Lebed managed to stay away from the slippery events of the autumn of 1993, although he did a number of sharp attacks on the White House residents.
“Horses at the crossing do not change, but donkeys can and should be changed.”
The year 1993, 1994, the name of the general, is always heard, the interviewers flocked to him in Transnistria, like moths on fire, a brutal warrior who is not afraid of the authorities and cutting the truth-womb in the eye, appealed to many. And not only the “patriots” spoke then that they would like to see him as president. I remember well how the “golden feathers” and “talking heads” of the Gusinsky Media Concern suddenly turned in unison to Lebed, launching the campaign “Give Our Native Pinochet!”
The political views of the general, who was turning into a politician, could hardly be clearly defined and decomposed. Rather, it was a trivial set of thoughts and emotions, rather than a clearly defined position: the collapse of the country and the army was going on, corruption and crime were rampant, it was a shame for the power ... Cast cast phrases were easily remembered, aphorisms became winged: “fell - squeezed”, “ I beat twice, the first - in the forehead, the second - on the lid of the coffin, "" walks like a goat for a carrot, "" what a concussion in Grachev can have - there is a bone in the same place. " And in the eyes of PR leaders, Lebed slowly but surely began to crowd out all sorts of “patriots”, taking away the nuclear electorate even from Zhirinovsky. Glasses Lebed added and his caustic attacks on the "best defense minister" Pasha-Mercedes, whose popularity has confidently rolled to the zero mark.
Who at that time just did not try to bet on a rising star in camouflage! The "patriots" of the Rogozin type hung out more than others near him. But, graciously accepting courtship, the general did not give out specific obligations to anyone, did not take anything superfluous on himself, and did not react to the constant pleas “to raise the 14th army and move it to Moscow”. He met the war in Chechnya, to put it mildly, disapprovingly. True, more went not on the political, but on the military component of the failed campaign: tankssupposedly, storming the city is nonsense, and throwing untrained soldiers into battle is a crime. Of course, by that time, the command of the 14th Army of the Cygnus was removed from the purely formal command: they gave an apartment in Moscow, shoulder straps of the lieutenant general, but not a post. Which, of course, finally pushed him to the decision to go into politics.
"When I deliberately go to the goal, I look like flying scrap"
In what the general and plunged headlong at the end of the year 1995. “Russia has long been waiting for a rider on a white horse to bring order to the country,” wrote the publicist Paul Khlebnikov in his book about Berezovsky, who was shot dead in Moscow on July 2004, “and for many it was Lebed.” At the same time, the promotion of the new image of Swan began: not as a banal general in uniform, but as a wise guardian about the urgent needs of the state, a man of strong will. Since the electorate is eager for a strong hand (the idea of which then was also actively promoting everywhere) - here it is for you! It can be said that it was at Lebed that the technology was first developed, which later gave us Putin. Especially since the material - in the person of Lebed - went to the political consultants, as it seemed to them at first, malleable and controlled: no ideas of their own, no team, but what a coloring, what charisma to the whole person! The latter, of course, Lebed was in abundance, which even non-sympathetic people admitted. In general, the material for promotion was good, it remained to determine his place.
“Throughout January, February and the first half of March 1996, our candidate was sitting alone in the next office,” Dmitry Rogozin quipped, “smoked nervously, looked at the silent phone and said,“ Nothing. Will call. Nowhere they not going anywhere. ” And the truth is, don't go away: they called Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, inviting him to the meeting: "... from the expression on his face, I immediately realized that for three months he had been waiting for this particular call." Berezovsky of the 1996 model of the year is a man from the circle of Yeltsin's "family". So the offer came straight from the Kremlin. Its essence, Rogozin says, is to pull the votes away from Gennady Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky in exchange for a cool position. As the main bait, a promise that soon the sick Yeltsin would cede his throne to him, Lebed. The decisive role in the "taming" of the general was played, according to the head of the Presidential Security Service, Alexander Korzhakov.
At the very beginning of May 1996, a secret meeting of two applicants took place. 8 May, behind closed doors, Swan met with Berezovsky and other members of the so-called “group of thirteen”, which included the heads of major Russian companies and banks. Everything went so wonderful that I could not refrain from quoting from the Strugatsky: “Everything was clear. Spiders agreed. They shook hands, and the election campaign of Swan began to spin to the full extent: it turned out to be put almost better than everyone. The TV screens flooded the clip “There is such a person, and you know him!” (Denis Evstigneev’s name is his manufacturer), and the speech writers hired for Lebed (for example, Leonid Radzikhovsky) showered readers with such interviews with the general and articles about him that many of the jawbone's amazement to the baseboard fell away: the general - and so clever! Not only not only Radzikhovsky and Yevstigneev, but also economists Vitaly Naishul, Sergey Glazyev, gloriously worked on the service of the Swan campaign, Sergey Kurginyan also noted in his works on Lebed, other members of the seven bankers provided their share of finance and informational support, in addition to Berezovsky and Gusinsky. The threads of the campaign, apparently, were in the hands of Berezovsky and Anatoly Chubais.
The voices of their voters, as is known, Lebed converted the post of Assistant to the President for National Security to the post of Secretary of the Security Council and a completely meaningless appendage to it. Then there was participation (along with Chubais) in the overthrow of Korzhakov and FSB director Mikhail Barsukov, as well as the vengeful dismissal of Defense Minister Pavel Grachev - under the pretext of a hastily made-up State Emergency Committee-2. Although, of course, all this intrigue in discarding former favorites from the Kremlin courtyard, hiding behind the formidable figure of Cygnus, was actually done, of course, by the guys of Chubais.
“If there are no guilty, they are appointed”
After the triumph, weekdays began, showing that the comrades who had hired Lebed were not going to share power with him at all. The moor did his job, but it was still too early to write it off to the archive: it is necessary to observe propriety as well, and entrust any disastrous work. And Chechnya turned up well: 6 August 1996, the militants launched an assault on Grozny, blocking federal roadblocks and garrisons.
Just do not write Lebed into the great humanist peacemakers, or, conversely, rush with useless phrases like "Khasavyurt treachery." He always remained a professional soldier to the bone marrow and, having the bloody experience of real wars behind his back, perfectly understood the futility of the Chechen campaign of that time. Do not forget how ineptly they were her then generals, how unpopular was the war in society. Such wars do not win, and they do not gain fame.
After that they will say that Lebed did not have any sanctions for negotiating and concluding agreements with field commanders. Here is a noteworthy quotation from Yeltsin: “The trouble was that no one knew how to end the war. ... And Lebed knew. In an atmosphere of complete secrecy, he flew to Chechnya, where he met with Maskhadov and Udugov at night. Effectively. Generally speaking ... ”But the swan’s amateur activities cannot be named: in July-August, the Kremlin was simply paralyzed on 1996. In the literal sense, on the eve of the second round of the presidential election, Yeltsin was struck down with a strong heart attack, and he was incapacitated in all senses. It turns out that all hands were untied? The calculation of the Kremlin, who had evaded clear instructions and clear powers to Lebed, was simple: let him try, succeed - well, fail, he will be guilty!
The paratrooper himself acted then, rather, not by political calculation, but by the call and dictates of the heart. Or conscience. A strange set for a politician, but he was not a shameless cynic. But the cold sobriety of the military was present. Indeed, for Lebed, Yeltsin’s condition was no secret, and it seemed that his days were numbered. But at the conclusion of the pre-election alliance, Lebed was given advances that were completely unequivocal: it would be Lebed who would succeed Boris Nikolayevich, only he and no one else, and he would not have to wait for the next election. Simply put, the general was bought with a promise that very soon “Grandfather” would leave the Kremlin, having surrendered it to Lebed ... Very tempting and promising. It was, for what risk. And the risk general was never afraid that any will confirm. And he risked going to negotiate with the militants, life to the fullest.
The ups and downs of the events that led to the conclusion of the Khasavyurt agreements are well covered. And there is no reason to accuse the general of treason or hang on them the labels “capitulation”, “Brest Peace”, etc. In those conditions, it was almost the only way out of the bloody impasse, and no one suggested a better one. Later they will say that Lebed did not finally crush the already exhausted militants, that they could be covered with one blow, that they fell into the trap, that their ammunition was at the end ... Perhaps it was so - and at the end the ammunition that, and that. They just forget the main thing: at the end there was also the morale and fighting spirit of the soldiers fighting in Chechnya, and all their thoughts were then aimed at survival. Well, they would have fired again, they would have driven them into the mountains, so what? And all the same, hopeless impasse. According to the experience of their business trips to the Chechen war 1994 - 1996. I can confidently say: the victory there did not exactly smell. And not worse than others Lebed understood it.
Another thing is, it can be blamed for some naivety, hindsight, lack of clarity: the agreements were far from ideal. But then, neither the Kremlin, nor the military department, nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs, nor the FSB could help him in terms of thriftiness, leaving one in the pure Chechen field.
“Two birds don't live in the same den”
One way or another, the general stopped the slaughter. He ruined his relations with the Minister of the Interior, who was gaining strength and weight in hardware. For General Anatoly Kulikov then stood on his own: to fight to the bitter end. And the whole autumn of 1996 of the year was marked by the confrontation of two generals, the culmination of which was the detention by the guards of the Swan of the employees of the “outdoor unit” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who “looked after” the Security Council secretary.
Kulikov described how a discussion on one of Lebed’s projects was held in the Prime Minister’s office: “Lebed lit a cigarette in Chernomyrdin’s office, which no one ever allowed himself: the Prime Minister doesn’t tolerate tobacco smoke”. When the project of the general was wrapped up at that meeting, it began: “The face of Cygnus is purple. Already hanging over the table, roaring loudly: “And what do you mean, x ... th dog?” Everything, of course, is in a trance: no one has ever spoken to the powerful “Stepanych” yet. The Minister of the Interior is trying to put a colleague in his place and he also runs up: “The swan, in the guilt of scandal, shouts to me across the table and splashes saliva:“ Yes, I am a ham! I'm a ham! And what? "
And at the same time, the confrontation between the “two birds” was gazed with interest from the Kremlin hills, unobtrusively urging both sides to exacerbate confrontation. Naturally, the series "Highlander": "There must be only one!" In this case, Lebed incessantly threw up information about the deteriorating health of Yeltsin. That was the straw that broke the camel's hump: the general, having decided that the days of Yeltsin were numbered, ate a bit. “Ostap was carrying”, and now Lebed often said that the old man had burst into bed, became insane and it was time for him to leave. Corresponding services, collecting these statements, were not without pleasure putting a selection of swan pearls on the table to the furious president. “It’s not by chance that Swan rumbled so loudly in the corridors of power,” Yeltsin then wrote with undisguised irritation. - With all his appearance he showed: the president is bad, and I, the general-politician, am ready to take his place. Besides me, there are no decent people here. Only I will be able to speak with the people at this difficult moment. ”
The demonstrative support by Lebedim of the disgraced Yeltsin's bodyguard Korzhakov added kerosene to the fire. Lebed himself went to Tula to support Korzhakov in the Duma elections. This has already been a bust: no one has yet abolished the notion of loyalty of an official and a military man to the Supreme Commander. In addition, Lebed forgot that the service rendered to him by Yeltsin was already in the past and he received the position from the hands of the president, and did not win the election. But it was already difficult to slow down the paratrooper, who seriously believed that he was destined to become a “Russian de Gaulle”. The natural ending was the resignation from the post of Secretary of the Security Council. Boris Yeltsin admitted that it was not so easy to “equitably remove” the general: “Lebed’s authority in the armed forces and in other power structures was enormous. The confidence rating among the population was approaching thirty percent. The highest rating among politicians. But most importantly, Lebed ... had an almost pocket-type Ministry of Defense headed by his protege Igor Rodionov ... "Is it any wonder, and such a shocking admission of Yeltsin:" In my administration, by the way, the worst scenario was seriously discussed: landing in Moscow paratroopers, the seizure of buildings of power ministries and so on. The paratroopers ... Swan was idolized altogether. They said that he could still fulfill all the landing standards — run, catch up, jump with a parachute, shoot at the target in short bursts and hit. ” And then there was the shunting of the heart, and horror as Yeltsin “didn’t want Lebed to be in the Kremlin at the time of the operation. ... This person should not get even a miserable chance to rule the country. ” They feared really. Therefore, sending Lebed to resign, just in case, they kept the loyal units on full alert.
"There are no sinless amphibious generals"
A further take-off to Krasnoyarsk heights, Swan owes both his charisma and money ... Berezovsky. But it turned out later, when lumps of dirt from the 1998 election campaign of the Krasnoyarsk election campaign began to float to the surface. And along the way, some people who are aware of the “black box office” Lebed disappear. So, in October 1999, the deputy head of the Krasnoyarsk Committee on State Property Andrei Cherkashin disappeared without a trace: he left the banquet, and no one else saw him, only an abandoned jeep was found. It was Cherkashin who brought Lebed millions of "black" dollars to the polls. By law, Lebed had the right to spend no more than 417 thousand 450 rubles (about 67 thousand dollars at that rate) on elections, but it was actually spent more times 33 - more than 2 million 300 thousand dollars - this was confirmed by Yuri Bybin, who performed the duties Deputy Chief of the Electoral Headquarters of Lebed for Finance. The disclosure of this fraud inevitably threatened Governor Lebed with impeachment. So, when it became known about the disappearance of Cherkashin, Bybin (along with the documents) immediately went on the run, fearing for his life. Now it is no longer a big secret that funding came from Berezovsky.
The latter, by investing, as always, hoped to kill several birds with one stone: if he didn’t take the richest land in his hands, then he must press his competitors in business there for sure. The most tasty morsel was, of course, the Krasnoyarsk aluminum giant, to which, besides Berezovsky, the Black Brothers and the “authoritative entrepreneur” Anatoly Bykov were banging their lips. The latter, by the way, first also made a bet on Cygni. Then their paths diverged, and the general, answering unpleasant questions about the alliance with authority, answered without a hitch: this is a military trick, "I had to get to the edge." And the war of the landing general against the criminal began. As a result, Bykov fled to Hungary, but was detained there and extradited to Russia. However, on the bench he did not stay long. Of course, another super-task of the “Krasnoyarsk seat” was an attempt to create a general bridgehead from which he, with a convenient combination of circumstances, could once again begin the campaign against the Kremlin.
Only now the governor Swan himself turned out to be nothing. Former spokesman for Lebed, Alexander Barkhatov, in his book about the general, in my opinion, tenaciously grasped his essence: he has no idea, no people, but only a growing desire to dominate. There are no friends because he is indifferent to people, and the army whirlwind did not contribute to strong human ties. There are no administrative skills, but there is a skill for the time being, for the time being to use the energy and talent of dedicated people. Bleed them then among themselves. It’s a fact and the fact that over the years the general’s taste for the sweet life has increased, and it’s already difficult to name the poor, although the official salary was not large ...
Lebed's rule did not bring anything good to the Krasnoyarsk people: a new team arrived, the redistribution of property and bloody disassemblies broke out again. Moreover, the unceasing cadre of personnel: even Lebed “scratched” his administration unceasingly, shaking it up and down several times a year.
For the time being on Lebed's pranks, the Kremlin looked condescendingly - until 2000, before Putin. Under which Lebed was taken thoroughly. Even more so, the paratrooper-general himself, a “lieutenant colonel-upstart” from the KGB, immediately reacted without reverence, condemned the second Chechen campaign ...
In the last six months, the life of the Cypriot Governor was literally besieged from all sides. The attack followed the attack continuously, to put it in modern terms, it was assaults and rolls. The ranks from the Prosecutor General’s Office were often made with constant checks, because of the Kremlin walls, they began to leak out of shape, but quite clear in content, replicas from which it was clear that Lebed was in disgrace; instantly the thesis of “Khasavyurt betrayal” also surfaced, the story of the dirty financing of gubernatorial elections emerged, and rumors about an early resignation began to spread. The Kremlin began to hint that the Krasnoyarsk Territory is uncontrollable and it is necessary either to isolate several areas from it, or, conversely, to merge the territory with others - without Lebed, certainly. In general, the Kremlin in every possible way demonstrated its displeasure with the very fact of finding a certain citizen Lebed as governor of one of the richest regions of Russia.
“The one who shoots first is the last to laugh”
On the morning of April 28, 2002, the governor was heading for a presentation of the ski slope in the Oyskoye Lake area, besides him, there were also 19 people on board: crew, guards, officials, and journalists. After the presentation, fishing was planned. In 10 hours of 15 minutes of local time, the Mi-8 helicopter crashed from a height of 40-45 meters and fell apart. It happened in the Ermakovsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory near the Buibinsky mountain pass. When Alexander Lebed was pulled out of the wreckage, he was still alive. He soon passed away. Besides him, seven more people became victims of the catastrophe, all the helicopter pilots survived, having received the most severe injuries. Pilots Takhir Akhmerov and Alexei Kurilovich were later brought to trial, flight engineer Pavel Yevseyevsky, who was in the case as a witness, did not live to see the court, either from a stroke or a heart attack. Later, the guard Lebed, who fell into a hole from the 23-meter height, also died - after hitting the power lines, the tail of the helicopter broke off ...
Despite the fact that the helicopter recorders (“black boxes”) were found the next day and the witnesses were above the roof, the official investigation of the disaster immediately began to resemble a smartly spun detective story. The mere enumeration of versions was capable of confusing any Sherlock Holmes: the weather was to blame; blame are flight cards on which the ill-fated power lines allegedly were not marked; blame himself Swan, who ordered the pilots to fly, despite the bad weather; the pilots who flew were to blame, although they were not supposed to fly ... And, as usual, the plums and flushes of “genuine” black box entries appeared in the media right away. And those responsible, irresponsibly without waiting for even the beginning of the investigation, hastily betrayed one version after another. One of the power ministers already 30 April 2002, categorically said: "Decoding (recorders. - VV) confirms: difficult weather conditions, very poor visibility. The crew flew, focusing on the road, that is, not by instruments, but visually. ” “Yes, I have already told a thousand times that Lebed and I crashed during amazing weather,” the pilot of the helicopter Tahir Akhmerov almost shouted in an interview with “Evening Krasnoyarsk”. This is unanimously confirmed by eyewitnesses to the tragedy.
The technical condition of the helicopter, according to the minister, "was immaculate." The version of the terrorist act he rejected immediately and categorically. But what conclusions could one make at all, what kind of high-quality decoding could be said if the notorious “black boxes” found 29 of April, the day after the disaster ?!
In January 2004, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court found the helicopter pilots guilty under Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Violation of the rules of traffic safety and operation of railway, air or water transport”. The crew commander Tahir Akhmerov was sentenced to four years in prison, the pilot Alexei Kurilovich - to three years of probation on probation with a probation period of two years. In February 2006, pilot Tahir Akhmerov was released on parole.
The pilots themselves categorically deny their guilt to this day. After his release, Akhmerov told “Evening Krasnoyarsk”: “We began to collapse over the power line, fell, and one blade that remained caught the lightning arrester wire. But this happened already when the helicopter fell. ... The height of the power line support 37 meters, we began to fall somewhere from 45 meters. At this height, the destruction began, and the car went down. ... Yes, politics is all that. I have repeatedly said that the death of Swan is not considered either an accident or an accident. There are many technical tricks that can later be attributed to an accident or a crew’s lack of professionalism. ... The version of the attack was not even considered.
By the way, several years ago, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Igor Zakharov, also assured that General Lebed fell victim to a special operation: this conclusion was supposedly reached by the officers of the GRU who conducted an independent investigation. And they are sure that a few grams of explosives were attached to the blades of the helicopter and the charge was activated from the ground when the car flew over power lines.
After a visit to the IAC, the sabotage version seemed to me dubious for a long time. The fact that Lebed was on the Kremlin sights does not say in favor of this version: for physical elimination of the general, there must be very good reasons, and those were not directly visible. And the method itself is somewhat dubious: it is unrealistic to adjust in a plane crash so that it is the general who died. And who needed the death of a general who was no longer on a horse? The fact that Lebed was able to unleash, for example, on the election of 2004 of the year, then, in 2002, seemed almost unreal.
However, who then could say how the chip will fall by the pre-election year? After all, the famous charisma of Lebed’s personal charm has not gone away, and this one, near which Putin’s hasn’t even been close. And it is possible that the idea of Lebed’s return to big politics could have originated in other heads: good image-makers, good cash injections, good PR on key TV channels - they were broken under the Kremlin later, after Nord-Ost ... So the triumphant return did not look so impossible. But who could make a bid by investing the appropriate money? The rhetorical question: no other names come to mind, except for one - Boris Berezovsky. The consequences of such an already tested alliance in the new conditions could be promising. It does not matter that the thought of such a “binary bomb” could only be empirically agitating: it was already somewhere, and on the Kremlin hill they know perfectly well that from the most fantastic idea to its realization sometimes just one step. Why not take the lead before the governor again inflated to the national figure? The bird must be beaten in the nesting place, until it spreads its wings.
All this, of course, the version, but that by the spring of the 2002 th general squeezed tightly, it is a fact. And he went to eternity. As for us, Swan is interesting not only as a person, of course, a gifted, extraordinary and charismatic, but also as a phenomenon. The general was not the first to try to realize the dream of a strong hand. But it was he who became the first on whom political technologists in civilian clothes almost tried the technology of promotion of such a figure. And in fact, the experiment turned out to be successful, except that others took off the cream, and the General-paratrooper got only the role of a compliant test subject who contributed to the leaven of the wort from 1996, from which the Vladimir Putin project was later cooked.
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