Caucasian captives
Different things happen in war. You can die. Get injured. And you can still be in captivity. When the enemy is free to dispose of your life. Of course, there are various conventions and rules for the treatment of prisoners. But what if the enemy did not read them? It remains to rely on God and believe in their own strength. And try to stay human ...
For border guards of the Zheleznovodsk frontier detachment of special purpose, the 23 day of August 1995 began as the most common. On that day, the head of the detachment’s headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Novozhilov, the head of the detachment’s moto-maneuver group, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Zinkov, the head of counterintelligence, Major Alexander Dudin, a PMP doctor seconded from the Kingisepp Frontier Detachment, Major Sergey Savushkin went to an ordinary fleet squad driver Sergey Savushkin to an ordinary squadron to visit an ordinary fleet detachment, Sergey Savushkin. The border detachment covered the administrative border between Dagestan and Chechnya in the area of the high-mountain city of Botlikh.
In August, the Chechen rebel fighters tried to test the border for 95 by attacking one of the frontier posts. The border guards successfully repulsed the attack, and since then there has been intense silence on the border. It was necessary to constantly grope the frontier. For this, reconnaissance detachments of the detachment periodically went to Chechnya to clarify the situation. Novozhilov's group was to meet with one of such reconnaissance groups, Major Novikov. The group reached Vedeno and is now returning to Dagestan.
The meeting took place in the area of the mountain lake Kazenoyam. This beautiful mountain lake is also called Blue because of the incredibly saturated color of water. In Soviet times there was even a rest house. Now he was standing abandoned.
Having met the scouts and received information, Novozhilov ordered to return. The scouts went to the mountains on foot. A car with officers drove toward the lake, where the driver wanted to turn around.
No one suspected that it was there, at the site was the enemy. As it turned out later, the scouts brought a tail from Chechnya. A group of militants chased Novikov's group, but failed to catch up. The militants were about to return when they heard the noise of the approaching UAZ. They set up an ambush. When a car appeared on the road, the right rear wheel was shot first. Ten militants jumped onto the road, and
"UAZ" collapsed tight fire. The enemy clearly fired in such a way as to capture the border guards alive, but still Major Dudin was wounded in the leg, and driver Private Savushkin was in the arm.
Border guards jumped out of the car and dispersed. At the same time, Zinkov, who was sitting in the middle, was forced to lie down right on the road, by the car.
Victor Kachkovsky: - We were in full view. The fire from the side of the Chechens was very dense - they couldn’t lift their heads. When there was a pause for a moment, I shouted in Chechen: “Do not shoot, we have wounded!” I have known Chechen since childhood — I lived in Grozny. Militants ceased firing, suggested: "Come out, let's talk." Zinkov rose to meet them. They came and began to beat me on the move. I thought that I was a Chechen, looks appropriate. They kicked me with their butts. Smashed face. Only then, after looking at the documents and realizing that I was an officer, they fell behind.
First of all, the Chechens asked: "How many are you?" Novozhilov answered: four. He saw that the wounded Dudin managed to crawl over the rock and hoped that he would manage to escape captivity. But the Chechens found the wounded man and began to beat Novozhilov for deception.
Alexander Novozhilov: - I guess I should have shot myself, because never in stories the officer of this rank did not fall into a prisoner of frontier ... "The frontier guards do not surrender" - everything is correct ... But it was a different war.
The militants were led to the wounded in Chechnya, to their base - a well-fortified stronghold with caves, stone shelters, DShK. Militants were strong, well-equipped. All, as it was then said, the deaths, "gazavatchiki" - with black headbands. As it turned out later, this was one of the units of the Shamil Basayev detachment, whose militants had gained a lot of experience in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh by that time. Headed the militants Shirvani Basayev.
Alexander Novozhilov: - When we were brought to Shirvan, he firstly showed with a gesture that he would cut off our heads. But having learned that senior officers were in captivity, I ordered to ship us to another base. We were driven there for several hours, we got to the place after dark…
The search for the missing was started almost immediately after their disappearance. Hastily formed reconnaissance-search groups that went to the area Cazenoyama. Of course, the Chechens were ready for such a development of events and organized an ambush at the lake. One of the groups headed by the commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the detachment, Lieutenant Vyacheslav Sisenko, pleased her. A heavy battle ensued, during which one of the detachment’s armored personnel carriers was destroyed and several border guards, including Lieutenant Sisenko, were killed. Militants also suffered losses. After this battle, the situation of the prisoners was complicated, since the relatives of the dead Chechens wished to put their bestial anger on them. The prisoners were hastily transferred to the next point, where they transferred the so-called "special department of the southeastern front."
Alexander Novozhilov: - These “special men” blindfolded us and took us somewhere to the forest, where we were put in iron cages, closed with a tarpaulin, we were held in cells for several days, interrogations regularly took place ... In general, we were constantly transferred from place to place. In total, we changed about sixteen points.
Another such point was Old Achkhoy, where the prisoners were transferred to the field commander Rezvan. Prisoners learned about their whereabouts by chance. They were kept in the basement of the old school. The guards sometimes allowed to read battered books, on which stood a stamp of the Old Achkhoy school.
Prisoners were constantly interrogated and beaten. During interrogations, Chechens told the prisoners that no one needed them, that the Russians would shoot them as traitors. And, of course, inclined to convert to Islam. They were fed mostly with a similarity of paste made from flour diluted in warm water. Sometimes the doctor (Kachkovsky) was allowed to cook porridge for everyone.
Viktor Kachkovsky: - For some reason, as a doctor, I was trusted more by the Chechens than the others, sometimes I was able to overhear militant conversations in Chechen. It turned out that we were constantly looking for. The border guards even managed to reach Rezvan and begin negotiations on an exchange. Later I learned that the officers of the Caucasian Special Frontier District even raised money for the ransom. But Rezvan was too greedy.
Every day all new captives fell into the basement of the school. Who just was not here: the army team, veveshniki, fesbeshniki, builders and energy from Volgodonsk, Stavropol and Saratov. There were even two priests. One prisoner does not want to remember, because in captivity, he quickly fell down, losing the human form. Especially he could not forgive a loaf of bread. Her priest gave someone from the Chechens. So he didn’t even share with anyone ... But another priest, Father Sergius, deserved the respect of both prisoners and Chechens. In the world his name was Sergey Borisovich Zhigulin. He honestly carried his cross - how could he supported the captives, baptized someone, funeral someone ...
At the beginning of winter, federal forces approached Old Achkhoy. During the fighting, shells now and then flew into the village. And, unfortunately, often torn next to the school. After another such break the building was destroyed. Fortunately, the cellar in which the prisoners were held at that moment survived. After this incident, the militants took the prisoners to a mountain towering not far from the village, and forced them to dig holes. In these holes the captives lived another month. There were no stoves or fires - Chechens were forced to observe blackout.
Victor Kachkovsky: - Very soon, lice began to seize everyone. Oleg Zinkov pressed one hundred and twenty of these parasites for the evening under the light of the smoke. But then how - you crushed one, instead of it, a hundred started up. Then we thought up to conduct morning and evening examinations, otherwise we would have been completely devoured.
Chechens reacted in their style to the requests of prisoners to arrange a bath. In December, the prisoners were kicked out of the hole in the frost, ordered to undress and watered with warm water for fifteen minutes. The prisoners called the bath "Karbyshev's bath".
In the middle of winter, prisoners from Old Achkhoy were driven high into the mountains. On the way, the convoy was twice bombed by its own, Russian, attack aircraft. For the first time overshot. But during the second raid, the bombing turned out to be “successful”: six prisoners died on the spot, later another fourteen died from their wounds.
At the new site, it turned out that the Chechens organized a concentration camp here. It was a hefty pit flooded with clay slurry. One hundred and twenty people were driven into the pit. People were stuffed so tightly that it was impossible to even sit down. True, with time the place has become a lot ...
The concentration camp commanded Aman Dudayev, a relative of Johar. The security consisted of "advertisers".
Viktor Kachkovsky: - The Chechens among themselves called "militants" "militants" who avoided hostilities, but did boast of their militancy. This is hung with bandages, stripes and let's mock captives, they say, look what a "hero" I am!
Shortly after arriving at the concentration camp, six prisoners attempted to escape. They were caught that very day. Three were immediately beaten to death. The rest a week later were shot in front of the line, for edification. They also warned everyone: if someone else escapes, all the prisoners will be shot.
However, there was nowhere to run. Around mountains covered with snow. The prisoners are exhausted and are unlikely to be able to walk even a couple of kilometers. Hunger and disease literally mowed down their ranks. Every day someone was buried. Two months later, fifty-six prisoners remained. At the same time, they were constantly forced to work - to dig dugouts for security. From exhaustion, people barely rearranged their legs.
Alexander Novozhilov: - One log was dragging eighteen people, the Chechens were cheering us with whips ... There were guards with such good, strong whips ...
And the prisoners were literally seized by fleas and lice. Many have ceased to look after themselves, since there was no hope of leaving this hell alive. Dampness and slush caused pneumonia, which finished off completely weakened. Novozhilov found himself dying twice.
Alexander Novozhilov: - Both times our doctor saved me, it so happened that Vitya was the only doctor in those mountains. He very many pulled from the next world. Without drugs, without hospital. I remember, there was such a guy by the name of Shargin. He could not get away without help even for a small need. Kachkovsky pulled him out. Or another guy, Karapet, “left” twice, could not wake up in the morning. Everybody thought - rattle of bones. The doctor saved him too.
Chechens allowed Kachkovsky to equip something like a medical unit - a bunker with plank beds. There he nursed prisoners. At some point, Chechens also needed medical assistance. They turned for help to a Russian medic. He set a condition that they would allow the use of the rest of the treatment of Chechens drugs for nursing prisoners. Chechens agreed. True, there were few medications: paracetamol, dressing materials from “humanitarian aid”, some tools.
Victor Kachkovsky: - Somehow they brought me a wounded thriller. Next to him, a mortar bombshell. Fragment to the head and legs. I, while “stitching” him, asked: “Are you not afraid that I can“ make a mistake ”? So he says: “You, if you want to slaughter - you will kill. And ours, that they bought a diploma of a doctor, and they want to cure - they will still be slaughtered! ”
He also treated prisoners by talking as a psychotherapist. From the experience, many seemed to go crazy. Closed, stopped talking. Kachkovsky tried to stir up such people, to return to communication. Novozhilov rendered him a lot of help, who unexpectedly turned out to be a good psychologist. Many prisoners for this called him "father" ...
Gradually, a stratification began among the prisoners. The fact is that part of the construction prisoners were former cons. They did not hide this, kichitsya whole iconostasis of tattoos. At some point, the convicts tried to introduce their own, zonovye order, tried to select food from the weak. Novozhilov and Zinkov were able to reverse this situation, uniting most of the prisoners under their command and introducing almost army discipline.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We did not allow people to turn into a herd, explained that we can only survive all together, or - no way! Chechens also took our side, not the prisoner. When some products appeared, they gave them out to Oleg Zinkov so that he would distribute among all equally.
In April, a commission from the Dudayev State Security, led by a certain Abubakar, arrived at the concentration camp. What I saw outraged them, because for each prisoner you could get a ransom or exchange it for a captured bevik. Abubakar ordered the transfer of prisoners to another camp.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We were really transported on May 8 or 9. Fifty-six survivors were driven into the back of GAZ-66 with butts and whips. Imagine how cramped it was! We drove a few hours. On the way from a crush, three died. Upon arrival, we were dumped out of the body like firewood, no one had the strength to stand on their feet. In the following days, thirteen more people died. After such exhaustion and transportation, they could not be saved.
A new concentration camp commanded by someone Movladi. Here the prisoners were treated a little better. Not beaten, fed. There was a case when one of the guards by the name of Fadeev, one of the guards, hit with a dagger. The blow came in the neck, just below the neck. Fadeev survived, although he lay unconscious for several days. The militant who hit him was carved with sticks and sent home.
A relatively quiet life ended after the movement of the federal artillery fired upon the Movladi camp. Militants transported prisoners to the Roshni-Chu area. There the camp was located deep in the forest. Therefore, the supply went very badly. To supply the camp, Chechens had to carry bags of food under constant shelling. After one of the Chechens died, the supply stopped altogether. The prisoners began to starve again. To get out of the situation, Viktor Kachkovsky offered the Chechens a way out - the hunt for wild boars, of which there were many in the forest. He himself was a good hunter. In response, the Chechens gave him an assault rifle and ammunition and sent him into the forest.
Victor Kachkovsky: - I left for a day and even for a day. Brought the wounded boars. I could not escape for three reasons. First, there were hungry comrades in the camp. Secondly, in the case of my escape, they could be shot. Thirdly, the Chechens knew my home address. They threw notes into my mailbox addressed to my wife. One such note was even published in the middle of 96 in the newspaper “Arguments and Facts”.
Around June 12, several builders managed to escape from the camp. The next day, the camp was subjected to the most powerful shelling. Trees were breaking like matches, finger-sized fragments flew in the air. From fear many shook a small tremor. After that, the Chechens took the prisoners towards the Georgian border. However, there was no rest in federal aviationpatrolling the surroundings day and night. Then the head of the concentration camp led the prisoners towards Ingushetia, where it turned out to be much calmer.
The new camp was based on the very border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, in a deep gorge, where the helicopter could not fly. At that time, the prisoners remained a little more than thirty people. They were again forced to build dugouts. Siberian Zinkov managed to build a real bath on the bank of the stream. For the first time in a long time, the prisoners managed to wash and wash properly. In the bath, Oleg even managed to equip a steam room.
The relationship from the security here was acceptable. Over the prisoners no longer mocked, no one was beaten. But it was impossible to escape from the camp - there was only one way out of the gorge. Days lasted one after another. September 1996 of the year has gone unnoticed. Shameful Khasavyurt world ended the first Chechen. And all the prisoners were sitting in one of the gorges, without hope of release.
Salvation came in the form of a man in the form of a colonel-army soldier. He appeared at the camp in early September. One and without weapons.
Victor Kachkovsky: - At first we decided that this was another prisoner. His name was Colonel Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Pilipenko. We must pay tribute to this man - a real officer! With Pilipenko, two OSCE mediators arrived at the camp, but they were afraid to go to the gorge. And he came. He hugged each of us and said: “Now everything will be fine. You guys do not have long to wait. "
On the same day, Pilipenko, without any conditions, took away the first prisoner - Yevgeny Sidorchenko. On the eve, he badly burned his legs, dropping a kerosene lamp. Pilipenko took him to the hospital, and then another week every day he came to the hospital, brought prisoners to the prisoners.
It turned out that all this week negotiations were held on release. After long trades, Chechens handed over twenty-five prisoners to the federal forces, including captured border guards.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We were blindfolded, taken to the suburb of Grozny, in the Zavodskaya district. They settled in the trailers of power engineers, the very ones who were in captivity with us. On the way, we were met by journalists from NTV. We took an interview, and the next day we arrived without cameras, brought food. Great guys after all. It was the fifteenth of September ... In these trailers we tried to bring ourselves into a human form. Shaved, shorn, even somewhere found cologne. One high-ranking Chechen came to us in the trailer and snapped his tongue - it is immediately obvious, gentlemen officers.
They were traded 22 September. After the press conference for foreign journalists, the prisoners were taken to Khankala, where the federal forces were still stationed. Behind the border guards, the command sent three helicopters at once. They were first transported to Vladikavkaz, then to Moscow. On the way, in all the border units of the liberated, we were met as heroes. But they were heroes. To go through the most terrible ordeals and remain a man - is this not true heroism ?!
For border guards of the Zheleznovodsk frontier detachment of special purpose, the 23 day of August 1995 began as the most common. On that day, the head of the detachment’s headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Novozhilov, the head of the detachment’s moto-maneuver group, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Zinkov, the head of counterintelligence, Major Alexander Dudin, a PMP doctor seconded from the Kingisepp Frontier Detachment, Major Sergey Savushkin went to an ordinary fleet squad driver Sergey Savushkin to an ordinary squadron to visit an ordinary fleet detachment, Sergey Savushkin. The border detachment covered the administrative border between Dagestan and Chechnya in the area of the high-mountain city of Botlikh.In August, the Chechen rebel fighters tried to test the border for 95 by attacking one of the frontier posts. The border guards successfully repulsed the attack, and since then there has been intense silence on the border. It was necessary to constantly grope the frontier. For this, reconnaissance detachments of the detachment periodically went to Chechnya to clarify the situation. Novozhilov's group was to meet with one of such reconnaissance groups, Major Novikov. The group reached Vedeno and is now returning to Dagestan.
The meeting took place in the area of the mountain lake Kazenoyam. This beautiful mountain lake is also called Blue because of the incredibly saturated color of water. In Soviet times there was even a rest house. Now he was standing abandoned.
Having met the scouts and received information, Novozhilov ordered to return. The scouts went to the mountains on foot. A car with officers drove toward the lake, where the driver wanted to turn around.
No one suspected that it was there, at the site was the enemy. As it turned out later, the scouts brought a tail from Chechnya. A group of militants chased Novikov's group, but failed to catch up. The militants were about to return when they heard the noise of the approaching UAZ. They set up an ambush. When a car appeared on the road, the right rear wheel was shot first. Ten militants jumped onto the road, and
"UAZ" collapsed tight fire. The enemy clearly fired in such a way as to capture the border guards alive, but still Major Dudin was wounded in the leg, and driver Private Savushkin was in the arm.
Border guards jumped out of the car and dispersed. At the same time, Zinkov, who was sitting in the middle, was forced to lie down right on the road, by the car.
Victor Kachkovsky: - We were in full view. The fire from the side of the Chechens was very dense - they couldn’t lift their heads. When there was a pause for a moment, I shouted in Chechen: “Do not shoot, we have wounded!” I have known Chechen since childhood — I lived in Grozny. Militants ceased firing, suggested: "Come out, let's talk." Zinkov rose to meet them. They came and began to beat me on the move. I thought that I was a Chechen, looks appropriate. They kicked me with their butts. Smashed face. Only then, after looking at the documents and realizing that I was an officer, they fell behind.
First of all, the Chechens asked: "How many are you?" Novozhilov answered: four. He saw that the wounded Dudin managed to crawl over the rock and hoped that he would manage to escape captivity. But the Chechens found the wounded man and began to beat Novozhilov for deception.
Alexander Novozhilov: - I guess I should have shot myself, because never in stories the officer of this rank did not fall into a prisoner of frontier ... "The frontier guards do not surrender" - everything is correct ... But it was a different war.
The militants were led to the wounded in Chechnya, to their base - a well-fortified stronghold with caves, stone shelters, DShK. Militants were strong, well-equipped. All, as it was then said, the deaths, "gazavatchiki" - with black headbands. As it turned out later, this was one of the units of the Shamil Basayev detachment, whose militants had gained a lot of experience in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh by that time. Headed the militants Shirvani Basayev.
Alexander Novozhilov: - When we were brought to Shirvan, he firstly showed with a gesture that he would cut off our heads. But having learned that senior officers were in captivity, I ordered to ship us to another base. We were driven there for several hours, we got to the place after dark…
The search for the missing was started almost immediately after their disappearance. Hastily formed reconnaissance-search groups that went to the area Cazenoyama. Of course, the Chechens were ready for such a development of events and organized an ambush at the lake. One of the groups headed by the commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the detachment, Lieutenant Vyacheslav Sisenko, pleased her. A heavy battle ensued, during which one of the detachment’s armored personnel carriers was destroyed and several border guards, including Lieutenant Sisenko, were killed. Militants also suffered losses. After this battle, the situation of the prisoners was complicated, since the relatives of the dead Chechens wished to put their bestial anger on them. The prisoners were hastily transferred to the next point, where they transferred the so-called "special department of the southeastern front."Alexander Novozhilov: - These “special men” blindfolded us and took us somewhere to the forest, where we were put in iron cages, closed with a tarpaulin, we were held in cells for several days, interrogations regularly took place ... In general, we were constantly transferred from place to place. In total, we changed about sixteen points.
Another such point was Old Achkhoy, where the prisoners were transferred to the field commander Rezvan. Prisoners learned about their whereabouts by chance. They were kept in the basement of the old school. The guards sometimes allowed to read battered books, on which stood a stamp of the Old Achkhoy school.
Prisoners were constantly interrogated and beaten. During interrogations, Chechens told the prisoners that no one needed them, that the Russians would shoot them as traitors. And, of course, inclined to convert to Islam. They were fed mostly with a similarity of paste made from flour diluted in warm water. Sometimes the doctor (Kachkovsky) was allowed to cook porridge for everyone.
Viktor Kachkovsky: - For some reason, as a doctor, I was trusted more by the Chechens than the others, sometimes I was able to overhear militant conversations in Chechen. It turned out that we were constantly looking for. The border guards even managed to reach Rezvan and begin negotiations on an exchange. Later I learned that the officers of the Caucasian Special Frontier District even raised money for the ransom. But Rezvan was too greedy.
Every day all new captives fell into the basement of the school. Who just was not here: the army team, veveshniki, fesbeshniki, builders and energy from Volgodonsk, Stavropol and Saratov. There were even two priests. One prisoner does not want to remember, because in captivity, he quickly fell down, losing the human form. Especially he could not forgive a loaf of bread. Her priest gave someone from the Chechens. So he didn’t even share with anyone ... But another priest, Father Sergius, deserved the respect of both prisoners and Chechens. In the world his name was Sergey Borisovich Zhigulin. He honestly carried his cross - how could he supported the captives, baptized someone, funeral someone ...
At the beginning of winter, federal forces approached Old Achkhoy. During the fighting, shells now and then flew into the village. And, unfortunately, often torn next to the school. After another such break the building was destroyed. Fortunately, the cellar in which the prisoners were held at that moment survived. After this incident, the militants took the prisoners to a mountain towering not far from the village, and forced them to dig holes. In these holes the captives lived another month. There were no stoves or fires - Chechens were forced to observe blackout.
Victor Kachkovsky: - Very soon, lice began to seize everyone. Oleg Zinkov pressed one hundred and twenty of these parasites for the evening under the light of the smoke. But then how - you crushed one, instead of it, a hundred started up. Then we thought up to conduct morning and evening examinations, otherwise we would have been completely devoured.Chechens reacted in their style to the requests of prisoners to arrange a bath. In December, the prisoners were kicked out of the hole in the frost, ordered to undress and watered with warm water for fifteen minutes. The prisoners called the bath "Karbyshev's bath".
In the middle of winter, prisoners from Old Achkhoy were driven high into the mountains. On the way, the convoy was twice bombed by its own, Russian, attack aircraft. For the first time overshot. But during the second raid, the bombing turned out to be “successful”: six prisoners died on the spot, later another fourteen died from their wounds.
At the new site, it turned out that the Chechens organized a concentration camp here. It was a hefty pit flooded with clay slurry. One hundred and twenty people were driven into the pit. People were stuffed so tightly that it was impossible to even sit down. True, with time the place has become a lot ...
The concentration camp commanded Aman Dudayev, a relative of Johar. The security consisted of "advertisers".
Viktor Kachkovsky: - The Chechens among themselves called "militants" "militants" who avoided hostilities, but did boast of their militancy. This is hung with bandages, stripes and let's mock captives, they say, look what a "hero" I am!
Shortly after arriving at the concentration camp, six prisoners attempted to escape. They were caught that very day. Three were immediately beaten to death. The rest a week later were shot in front of the line, for edification. They also warned everyone: if someone else escapes, all the prisoners will be shot.
However, there was nowhere to run. Around mountains covered with snow. The prisoners are exhausted and are unlikely to be able to walk even a couple of kilometers. Hunger and disease literally mowed down their ranks. Every day someone was buried. Two months later, fifty-six prisoners remained. At the same time, they were constantly forced to work - to dig dugouts for security. From exhaustion, people barely rearranged their legs.
Alexander Novozhilov: - One log was dragging eighteen people, the Chechens were cheering us with whips ... There were guards with such good, strong whips ...
And the prisoners were literally seized by fleas and lice. Many have ceased to look after themselves, since there was no hope of leaving this hell alive. Dampness and slush caused pneumonia, which finished off completely weakened. Novozhilov found himself dying twice.
Alexander Novozhilov: - Both times our doctor saved me, it so happened that Vitya was the only doctor in those mountains. He very many pulled from the next world. Without drugs, without hospital. I remember, there was such a guy by the name of Shargin. He could not get away without help even for a small need. Kachkovsky pulled him out. Or another guy, Karapet, “left” twice, could not wake up in the morning. Everybody thought - rattle of bones. The doctor saved him too.
Chechens allowed Kachkovsky to equip something like a medical unit - a bunker with plank beds. There he nursed prisoners. At some point, Chechens also needed medical assistance. They turned for help to a Russian medic. He set a condition that they would allow the use of the rest of the treatment of Chechens drugs for nursing prisoners. Chechens agreed. True, there were few medications: paracetamol, dressing materials from “humanitarian aid”, some tools.
Victor Kachkovsky: - Somehow they brought me a wounded thriller. Next to him, a mortar bombshell. Fragment to the head and legs. I, while “stitching” him, asked: “Are you not afraid that I can“ make a mistake ”? So he says: “You, if you want to slaughter - you will kill. And ours, that they bought a diploma of a doctor, and they want to cure - they will still be slaughtered! ”
He also treated prisoners by talking as a psychotherapist. From the experience, many seemed to go crazy. Closed, stopped talking. Kachkovsky tried to stir up such people, to return to communication. Novozhilov rendered him a lot of help, who unexpectedly turned out to be a good psychologist. Many prisoners for this called him "father" ...
Gradually, a stratification began among the prisoners. The fact is that part of the construction prisoners were former cons. They did not hide this, kichitsya whole iconostasis of tattoos. At some point, the convicts tried to introduce their own, zonovye order, tried to select food from the weak. Novozhilov and Zinkov were able to reverse this situation, uniting most of the prisoners under their command and introducing almost army discipline.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We did not allow people to turn into a herd, explained that we can only survive all together, or - no way! Chechens also took our side, not the prisoner. When some products appeared, they gave them out to Oleg Zinkov so that he would distribute among all equally.
In April, a commission from the Dudayev State Security, led by a certain Abubakar, arrived at the concentration camp. What I saw outraged them, because for each prisoner you could get a ransom or exchange it for a captured bevik. Abubakar ordered the transfer of prisoners to another camp.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We were really transported on May 8 or 9. Fifty-six survivors were driven into the back of GAZ-66 with butts and whips. Imagine how cramped it was! We drove a few hours. On the way from a crush, three died. Upon arrival, we were dumped out of the body like firewood, no one had the strength to stand on their feet. In the following days, thirteen more people died. After such exhaustion and transportation, they could not be saved.
A new concentration camp commanded by someone Movladi. Here the prisoners were treated a little better. Not beaten, fed. There was a case when one of the guards by the name of Fadeev, one of the guards, hit with a dagger. The blow came in the neck, just below the neck. Fadeev survived, although he lay unconscious for several days. The militant who hit him was carved with sticks and sent home.
A relatively quiet life ended after the movement of the federal artillery fired upon the Movladi camp. Militants transported prisoners to the Roshni-Chu area. There the camp was located deep in the forest. Therefore, the supply went very badly. To supply the camp, Chechens had to carry bags of food under constant shelling. After one of the Chechens died, the supply stopped altogether. The prisoners began to starve again. To get out of the situation, Viktor Kachkovsky offered the Chechens a way out - the hunt for wild boars, of which there were many in the forest. He himself was a good hunter. In response, the Chechens gave him an assault rifle and ammunition and sent him into the forest.
Victor Kachkovsky: - I left for a day and even for a day. Brought the wounded boars. I could not escape for three reasons. First, there were hungry comrades in the camp. Secondly, in the case of my escape, they could be shot. Thirdly, the Chechens knew my home address. They threw notes into my mailbox addressed to my wife. One such note was even published in the middle of 96 in the newspaper “Arguments and Facts”.
Around June 12, several builders managed to escape from the camp. The next day, the camp was subjected to the most powerful shelling. Trees were breaking like matches, finger-sized fragments flew in the air. From fear many shook a small tremor. After that, the Chechens took the prisoners towards the Georgian border. However, there was no rest in federal aviationpatrolling the surroundings day and night. Then the head of the concentration camp led the prisoners towards Ingushetia, where it turned out to be much calmer.
The new camp was based on the very border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, in a deep gorge, where the helicopter could not fly. At that time, the prisoners remained a little more than thirty people. They were again forced to build dugouts. Siberian Zinkov managed to build a real bath on the bank of the stream. For the first time in a long time, the prisoners managed to wash and wash properly. In the bath, Oleg even managed to equip a steam room.
The relationship from the security here was acceptable. Over the prisoners no longer mocked, no one was beaten. But it was impossible to escape from the camp - there was only one way out of the gorge. Days lasted one after another. September 1996 of the year has gone unnoticed. Shameful Khasavyurt world ended the first Chechen. And all the prisoners were sitting in one of the gorges, without hope of release.
Salvation came in the form of a man in the form of a colonel-army soldier. He appeared at the camp in early September. One and without weapons.
Victor Kachkovsky: - At first we decided that this was another prisoner. His name was Colonel Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Pilipenko. We must pay tribute to this man - a real officer! With Pilipenko, two OSCE mediators arrived at the camp, but they were afraid to go to the gorge. And he came. He hugged each of us and said: “Now everything will be fine. You guys do not have long to wait. "
On the same day, Pilipenko, without any conditions, took away the first prisoner - Yevgeny Sidorchenko. On the eve, he badly burned his legs, dropping a kerosene lamp. Pilipenko took him to the hospital, and then another week every day he came to the hospital, brought prisoners to the prisoners.
It turned out that all this week negotiations were held on release. After long trades, Chechens handed over twenty-five prisoners to the federal forces, including captured border guards.
Alexander Novozhilov: - We were blindfolded, taken to the suburb of Grozny, in the Zavodskaya district. They settled in the trailers of power engineers, the very ones who were in captivity with us. On the way, we were met by journalists from NTV. We took an interview, and the next day we arrived without cameras, brought food. Great guys after all. It was the fifteenth of September ... In these trailers we tried to bring ourselves into a human form. Shaved, shorn, even somewhere found cologne. One high-ranking Chechen came to us in the trailer and snapped his tongue - it is immediately obvious, gentlemen officers.
They were traded 22 September. After the press conference for foreign journalists, the prisoners were taken to Khankala, where the federal forces were still stationed. Behind the border guards, the command sent three helicopters at once. They were first transported to Vladikavkaz, then to Moscow. On the way, in all the border units of the liberated, we were met as heroes. But they were heroes. To go through the most terrible ordeals and remain a man - is this not true heroism ?!
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