The fate of the general
Father of a Soldier
Nikolai Dmitrievich Turapin was born in 1956, in the middle of nowhere in the Morshansky district of the Tambov region. His father broke his back in childhood and remained with a hump for the rest of his life. He worked as an accountant on the collective farm, his mother - a laborer. The powerful hands of the father slammed into the son's memory: in order to raise three children, he worked as an ox and in his yard. And the desire to straighten the clan ridge, to raise the honor of the surname — not by the father who had not given up and did not surrender to fate, lay in the soul.
Become a military Nikolai Turapin decided early:
- I watched the movie “Father of the Soldier” - and immediately understood who I would be. His uncle went to war as a private, then rose to lieutenant colonel. I used to climb to him all the time: tell me about the war, how our Germans were beaten ...
And after school, Nikolai went to enter the Omsk Higher tank technical school:
- They ask me there: “Why did you come here?” - “I love equipment, I worked on the collective farm as a trailer.” - “And what will you do if you do not enter?” - “I will come to another year”. - "And if not then?" - "I will come to the third." He was terribly afraid of failing - but he was accepted, for the 4 of the year, he never even drank beer, did not run off AWOL. Suddenly they deduct, how then to look into the eyes of their native village? .. The teachers were right. A teacher of materiel brought a player to class, put it on a tank engine, started a record with classical music: “Hear how the violin plays smoothly? That's the way the valve should work! .. ”
Equity group
After the school of Lieutenant Turapin, as one of the best graduates, they sent a group of Soviet troops in Germany to command a platoon: 4 tank, 15 fighters.
- Tank - collective weapon. One for all and all for one. And I have soldiers - almost from all the republics of the former Soviet Union. Russian, Georgian, Tajik - dispersed after the service as relatives. Corresponded then, went to visit each other. How it was necessary to try to destroy all this! ..
He received his first day off after taking office only six months later. From morning to evening - preparation of abstracts, classes in theory and practice, looking after everything in your unit. But on the first pay, which seemed huge, I bought the first suit, shirt and shoes. How fortunate it is to earn by your direct, and not by some leftists, as later the officers had to, with humiliating work! ..
In the 1984 year, Turapin, who already had the Medal “For Military Merit”, was sent to study at the Moscow Academy of Armored Forces.
- I first saw Moscow at the age of eight. The impression is indelible. I was trembling with the happiness that I was standing on Red Square, where all the parades were taking place - then in my thoughts it was not that I myself would march on it once. The Academy was shocked by the samples of the newest weapons - pride in the Motherland, for our designers. Wonderful people taught: Marshal of the armored forces Losik, a participant in the Patriotic War, became a colonel in 27 years. Colonel-General Hudz, in the war personally destroyed 7 enemy tanks, his arm was torn off, dangling on a piece of leather, he cut it off himself, pulled the stump - and continued the battle. Whoever to take - a hero, a living legend!
- After the Academy I was supposed to be sent to Tiraspol. But then a commission came from the very top, it was called the “justice group”. We looked: all the "thieves" sons were distributed abroad, the rest - in the Union. Give the command:
do the opposite - and they send me to Czechoslovakia by the commander of a tank battalion ...
There, Turapin reached the post of regimental chief of staff for a year.
- My principle was always a personal example. I spend the first shooting, I had to walk 6 kilometers to the test site on foot. The platoon commanders are building soldiers, they themselves sit in cars. Young officers, and already hanging over the belt. Command: all officers get out of the cars - and march to the landfill! Himself - next to them; Well, I was the Academy champion in running, it's easy for me, and they are already choking. I also took a sledgehammer from one fighter, I’m already ashamed of running with her - my subordinates. But only when you yourself have experienced army work, can you set real tasks for others, and not demand unrealizable and do not scream afterwards.
Bialowieza trap
In 1990, the regiment commanded by Turapin reassigned the KGB and transferred to Ukraine. In the country, the forces of national discord came out ever more, a certain hour “F” was fatally approaching - the hour of the clash between the guardians of the old regime and its subverters. This hour struck 91 in August, when the still unclear story with the State Emergency Committee - and in part of Turapin came the order to bring it to combat readiness. Day stood in readiness, waited for the order to be nominated, but he never came. And then - a wild spectacle for the military: the commander of the KGB troops, Kryuchkov, in front of the whole country, is being dragged to the prison like a criminal.
- The state was hell knows what. We are far from Moscow, no one really says anything; the one to whom we submitted was arrested; mind for intelligence ...
Then a new blow: the collapse of the country, to which the army swore allegiance. The military unit of Turapina is transferred to the land forces of Ukraine, then to its national guard. All paperwork is translated into Ukrainian, and Russian officers who find themselves on the territory of a different state are in a terrible turn. During tactical exercises on the maps, the Belgorod region of Russia is outlined in blue by the potential enemy. How, even on a conventional scheme, can this fit in the brain? Or the lieutenant inspector asks the colonel: “And if the war is with Russia, are you ready to fight with the Muscovites?”
- It all seemed to me that it was temporary, some eclipse found - and is about to disappear. But time passes, and nothing changes. I understood that I must somehow return to Russia. I got in touch with our command, got a welcome on arrival. He took his personal business under his arm, left the family - and to Moscow. I was offered a position much lower than the previous one, but I agreed to any. As soon as I could, I immediately brought my family here.
Fire - battery, fire - battalion!
In 1995, Turapin was appointed commander of a brigade of internal troops in Chechnya. A brigade under his command conducted more than 60 combat operations, storming Grozny, Argun, Bamut. And at the same time lost only one fighter.
- It was in August 96 th when storming the Terrible. The task was to take the Factory District. I made a decision: do not stay in Grozny for the night. He removed the fighters for the night in the field, set security, discussed tasks for tomorrow. It was impossible to enter the city on armored vehicles. Militants were beaten with grenade launchers, used oil tanks: a sniper climbs inside, cuts a hole and shoots from it. It is not visible, the flash from the shot is not visible, do nothing. I moved the forward detachment three hundred meters forward, the next one - another three hundred meters, and so on. The fighters took up positions, fought with them, a whole battalion could be deployed deep into the city in a day.
And on that day the detachment crept up to the gate of the courtyard surrounded by a fence, a soldier struck out with a flamethrower, and he himself was struck with a flame. A battle ensued, reinforcements approached the enemy, I gave the command to retreat. A few more times he ordered a roll call: "Is everything here?" - "Everything". And moved away - no one. We received his corpse later - with traces of terrible torture before dying ...
- And how did you manage to manage with such a little blood - in comparison with others?
- First, the tactic was worked out. For example, they rolled out on armored personnel carriers to a halt, the order to all was to get out of the cars and immediately dig in. At first they grumbled from tiredness - but then they realized that it saves lives. And another thing: I always tried to be near the fighters, in any operation I transferred my command post as close as possible to the battle. The soldiers knew that I was there, that I would not abandon them; in difficult situations, it took a panic.
- Why didn't we win in the first campaign in Chechnya?
- Our soldiers fought well, there were no cowards or indifferent. But we had mortars of the model 1937 of the year, mines - of the same time: one shoots, two throws out ... Then these mortars went out of order - when they fired with a reinforced charge. With a single operation, there was not enough artillery support, I call the sub-artillerymen on the radio: give fire! And to me: Nikolay, don't you understand anything? Here, oil, here someone's interests, suspend! .. I then told my subordinates: we will not take Berlin here, it is not here. All combat orders must be carried out, but the main thing is to take care of the soldiers ... And then Lebed arrived, signed a peace with the militants, which made all our victories and losses senseless. In fact, it was not the world - but the same bandits were allowed to steal people into slavery, blow up houses, steal cattle and attack neighbors ...
In December, Turapin was transferred to 1996, the chief of staff of the operational division in Novocherkassk. And then appointed commander of the division in Vladikavkaz. There it smells of gunpowder again: the division is scattered along the border with Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, Turapin teaches personnel to repel gangster shelling, to fight against mines and other sabotage. There he gets the rank of general.
Worst Chechnya
In the year of 1999, Turapin, a master of military training who knows the most important thing: to save the lives of soldiers, is appointed as commander of the Dzerzhinsky division. Its main purpose is to support the state of emergency in hot spots. But in the famous Moscow region, Turapin encountered a real game:
“Here, more than half of the buildings were built by 40-50's, everything was rotten in them, we had to be repaired right away. There was not enough money for elementary needs, it was necessary to beg for help from businessmen, most often former officers of the unit. They, as a rule, do not refuse, but every time you go to ask, something goes through the chest, intolerable shame ... Of all the media, dirt is poured on us, young guys are told that serving in the army is a shame! A split is being made on the “white” and “black” ones: the “white” will be otmazhutsya from the army, they will sit out from Chechnya, give abundant offspring of self-similar drones. And the “blacks”, on whose labor everything rests, will die in the war, wallow in poverty. The personnel officer, the colonel, who only studied his case for ten years, has such a salary that it is embarrassing to call! Any shopkeeper, the head of security in the wholesale market gets more!
Turapin, becoming the commander of ODON, began to bring a huge divisional economy, the whole city, 10 thousand people, into the divine form as much as he could. Immediately he took out a few hundred cars of garbage from the territory: “A recruit must see order in parts from the first step - this will determine the whole course of his service.” And pulled the discipline of officers - and began to beat out housing for them.
- I came to the soldiers' canteen, healthy guys put 30 grams of butter per day: this is the shaybochka in 15 grams in the morning and the same in the evening. It does not even weigh - I took ten of these shaybochek, put it on the scales, they showed: 130 grams. He washed his neck to someone, and even though these grams began to be issued in full ...
- So, these economic trivialities, boring, of course, like bedbugs, turned out to be more terrible for you, a combat general, than Chechnya? Did they make you file a report?
- No, these bugs are everywhere, I got used to them for a long time ... I was not used to another. The inspector arrives, I take him to headquarters, the duty officer greets him in all his form, and he to me: “Why not according to the charter? Where is the command “quietly!”? ”I say:“ In this case, this command is not given. ” - “You still don’t know the charter!” We come to me, showing the charter, he: “Well, I didn’t know what we had already redone!” And I, because he didn’t know, grabbed a blow on his officers. We are going to the parade ground, he: “Make everyone disassemble the weapon, mark the time!” There is no such standard, there is only a training weapon, and everyone is fighting, but they have to obey a petty tyrant! Let's continue to climb things to women, to demonstrate their power. What should I do? It would be desirable to fall through the earth with shame - and I am obliged to strengthen respect for my superiors in subordinates! ..
- Or another. We are a special purpose division, first of all we must be engaged in combat training. And they demand from me: to allocate soldiers for patrolling Moscow. When to train fighters, if I have taken thousands of man-days on 250 patrol over the past year? And on duty at the stadiums, sweeping the streets, cleaning the snow and so on. What should I do about it? I report to the authorities - zero reaction. Someone showed courtesy to someone, threw free power - and my entire curriculum collapsed. In the hot spot went to fight and die dropouts, capable only of a broom of revenge. How can I explain this to my soldiers and officers? How do they look in their eyes? ..
“And such things that make sense of service, darkness.” I had a choice: either to become a rag, on which these parquet sharkuns would wipe their feet - or leave. Therefore, he sat down himself, nobody forced me, and wrote a resignation report.
One can imagine what cost this military step to the military general Turapin - crossing out all his life devoted to the army. He passed decades of wandering in strange corners, looked death in the face, kept, like God, his fighters. When he commanded a brigade fighting in Chechnya, he came down with a severe form of hepatitis — but he did not let him send himself to a good hospital and held operational meetings with officers right under a drip. He didn’t build himself a house or a dacha, for his whole life he allowed himself the only luxury - he bought the Volga for his “combat”. Although, as the officers in love with him, who had fought with him in Chechnya, would have just blinked an eye, and everyone would have brought him on a silver platter.
But he, a born warrior, who chose the love of a fighter from all the awards, spat on this saucer. One could not be torn down - the habits of these sharcuns that prevailed on the state floor are incompatible with the holy service for him.
But even worse than his personal drama - the drama of the whole country, where the same attack struck all our law enforcement agencies. The best investigators, prosecutors, opera went the same way from their profession - because of some common curvature prevailing in the state, which repels the most honest and direct workers.
General Turapin himself after his resignation only won in personal wealth, becoming the deputy head of the Moscow region Reutov. But all of us, our state, at the same time lost - and we will only lose, throwing out our most golden human reserve to the mercy of fate.
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