Decades later: Afghanistan is not needed?
Mother's letter
I have known Nina Pavlovna Buravtseva for a long time, the mother of the border guard Pavel Buravtsev, who died in a battle near the Afghan village of Afridzh. There, when it was already getting dark in the mountains, 23 border fighters, together with two officers, took the battle.
They, surrounded by hundreds of Mujahideen from almost nearby villages, did not flinch, did not retreat. 19 fighters of the border were killed that evening on the mountain terraces. Nobody came to their aid. Two nights and one day later, only the bodies of the dead were collected. This happened on November 22-24, 1985.
Mother felt the death of her son Pavel on that tragic day at once. Thousands of kilometers separating them were not a hindrance. This is not mysticism, everyone who lost their children in the war knows about it. God forbid anyone to experience this!
Just the other day I received a letter from Nina Pavlovna. She can be understood, she is the mother of the deceased son-border guard, and even after decades the pain from this does not subside.
“February 15, 2021,” writes Buravtseva, “marks 32 years since the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. This is the Day of Remembrance of our soldiers who performed their official duty outside the Fatherland.
Who in Russia remembers this? Ask any schoolboy, student what they know about this date? I'm sure no one will answer this question for you. The war took place under the heading "secret", zinc coffins with "Cargo-200" covered Soviet cities, towns and villages. They try to keep silent about many other events “beyond the river”.
If in the first years after the end of the Afghan war, at least some commemorative events were held in the country, at present only short messages on federal TV channels remind us of those tragic events. Russia is trying with all its might to forget about this, to erase from our memory the officers and soldiers who, on the orders of the Motherland, shed blood in a foreign land.
The celebration of the very date of memory of the victims, as they already say, in the colonial wars, somehow imperceptibly moved from the federal level to the regional one. In Stavropol, where I live, this day was always greeted solemnly. A rally was opened near the monument to the Red Guard soldier, which was attended by veterans of not only Afghanistan, but also the Chechen events, mothers of dead soldiers, schoolchildren, representatives of the city administration.
The rally ended with commemorative tables placed in tents, with the obligatory treat of buckwheat soldier's porridge and the required combat 100 grams. This year, due to the pandemic, the rally was canceled, although wreaths and flowers were laid at the monument. "
Who in Russia remembers this? Ask any schoolboy, student what they know about this date? I'm sure no one will answer this question for you. The war took place under the heading "secret", zinc coffins with "Cargo-200" covered Soviet cities, towns and villages. They try to keep silent about many other events “beyond the river”.
If in the first years after the end of the Afghan war, at least some commemorative events were held in the country, at present only short messages on federal TV channels remind us of those tragic events. Russia is trying with all its might to forget about this, to erase from our memory the officers and soldiers who, on the orders of the Motherland, shed blood in a foreign land.
The celebration of the very date of memory of the victims, as they already say, in the colonial wars, somehow imperceptibly moved from the federal level to the regional one. In Stavropol, where I live, this day was always greeted solemnly. A rally was opened near the monument to the Red Guard soldier, which was attended by veterans of not only Afghanistan, but also the Chechen events, mothers of dead soldiers, schoolchildren, representatives of the city administration.
The rally ended with commemorative tables placed in tents, with the obligatory treat of buckwheat soldier's porridge and the required combat 100 grams. This year, due to the pandemic, the rally was canceled, although wreaths and flowers were laid at the monument. "
In my story, I will return to this mother's letter.
In the meantime, I will turn over the pages of the list of irrecoverable losses of servicemen of the Red Banner Eastern Border District of the KGB of the USSR. The soldiers of this section of the border, as well as the soldiers of the Red Banner Central Asian Border District, bore the brunt of the Afghan trials. That voluminous obituary dates from July 1991.
The district lost the first seven border guards in October 1981, the last in the afterlife mention is private Eugene Kachalko, called up from the city of Frunze (now Bishkek - Auth.). He died on December 10, 1988 and is buried in his hometown.
You will have to start from the churchyard
Once upon a time in the editorial office of the district newspaper KVPO "Sentinel Motherland", where I served, the idea was born to write a large material about each of those who died in the Afghan crucible of war. But the Union collapsed, and all ideas turned to dust. All this can be restored now, but it is already very difficult.
But there is something to start with - the list contains the places where the guys are called up, and there is another column - opposite each surname - “The body was handed over to the parents for burial”. This indicates that it is necessary to begin, sadly to realize, with the churchyard.
The multi-page list lists 87 dead. Of these - 9 officers, the remaining 78 - warrant officers, sergeants, corporals and privates. Why do I make such a division? A bullet or a splinter in battle does not choose which epaulettes you wear. But it was on the shoulders of the latter that the brunt of the hostilities "beyond the river" fell.
It was they who suffered the main losses in the Afghan mountains. As well as on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. Many are still lying unidentified and unburied with honors.
But just as after that popular and merciless Soviet people learned the whole truth about the wartime hard times, with few exceptions, only from the memoirs of marshals, commanders and generals, so after the Afghan epic, most of them appeared only solid volumes of memoirs of representatives of the general and officer corps.
Six withdrew from the battle
Yes, only six got out of the fight. And four more were forgotten and were not even awarded with awards. I do not undertake to investigate all the military memoirs that have been published over the years; I will dwell a little on the three-volume edition of "Border Guards in the Fire of Afghanistan."
Solid folios of landscape format, coated paper, exceptional design, a rich selection of photo illustrations. And the articles themselves. There are a lot of them, but mainly from generals or generals, then senior officers, officers, and about all the other border fighters, survivors and dead, only a little bit, separate scanty blotches.
There is almost nothing about those who directly carried out the order. The first volume has 12 more pages of memory. They list everyone who died in Afghanistan. Surnames, first names, patronymics, dates of birth and death, titles and positions are indicated in full.
And what was the border guard awarded? Where is buried? The compilers of the memoirs considered it inappropriate to indicate this. Why so, I do not know. I turned to the representatives of the editorial board, the leadership of the group of authors, why is the information about the border guards who died so scanty?
In my opinion, a whole volume could be devoted to this. Necessarily with a photograph of the deceased border guard and a short narration with the obligatory indication of the place of his final resting place. But for this it is necessary to carry out a gigantic and complex work. The country lost 518 border guards in the Afghan war crucible.
I was asked to write about the tragic battle in the Zardev Valley on November 22, 1985. They gave very little time for this, the layout of the third volume was already coming to an end. I had to work hard at the computer, but I did it, as it seemed to me, on time, sent it away.
Stingy lines, nothing else ...
The next volume "Border Guards on Fire of Afghanistan" has been released. My sketch was not there. Nobody was going to explain to me why this happened. What for…
After a certain time, veteran border guards said that the compilers preferred the memoirs of the legendary commander of the Eastern DShMG Colonel Pavel Dementyevich Ushkalov to my essay. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us, and eternal memory to this legendary officer.
In his memoirs, he wrote about that tragedy in his own way. He and his subordinates got the hardest thing in that harsh stories: find and collect all the bodies of 19 dead border guards. There was still no information about who was lying and where, and it was not ruled out that some of them were taken to Pakistan. And until everyone was found, this version pulsed.
Pavel Dementyevich spoke most fully about two seriously wounded border guards and how they got out of the battle. But without surnames. And I think that the creative staff of the publication, working on the materials of Ushkalov's memoirs, made an unforgivable mistake.
They should and were obliged to make additions to Pavel Dementyevich's true memoirs: there were two seriously wounded in that November battle - private Vyacheslav Deriglazov and junior sergeant Vladimir Gavrilyuk.
And it was Deriglazov who, overcoming the terrible pain in his body, dragged Gavrilyuk on himself, saving him from the inevitable reprisals of the Mujahideen. Somewhere in a squalid shed, he left Vladimir and wandered on to the location of the outpost. Fortunately, the border fighters, having received a message from Vyacheslav, went into the night, found Gavrilyuk and brought him to a safe place.
They both survived, the Motherland marked them with the Orders of the Red Banner. Although, I think that the border guards nominating for awards, obviously stingy. Deriglazov could well have been marked for his feat in battle and for saving his dying comrade with the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. But that did not happen…
In war as in war?
In Ushkalov's memoirs, there is also a mention of four other servicemen who arrived after that November battle at the location of the outpost unharmed. They are also not listed by surname. I restore this gap. These are privates Sergei Borozdin, Oleg Vasilyuk, Vitaly Lazarev and Sergei Korsakov.
They were then questioned for a long time, forced to write explanatory notes, and then sent to serve. In war as in war, anything happens. But usually those who miraculously survived and survived after a fire grinder are somehow celebrated. Four border guards, who went through the battle with everyone, were not even honored with awards.
They live like this for 35 years, rejoicing that they were still alive, experiencing all in their own way the Afghan tragedy and remember all who died. And what are the rewards, but God is with them, they say. Stingy, oh and stingy is our Fatherland, albeit the former Soviet Union!
Currently, work is underway on the fourth volume of memoirs of border guards who have passed through Afghanistan. Whether it will contain memoirs from sergeants and privates, I don't know. I don't think so. I would like to be wrong about that ...
Maybe it will seem to someone that my personal resentment is evident in this, they say, they did not publish, he now reveals already tragic facts. No, not at all: it's just that we are all endowed with surnames and first names by our parents from birth. So let's get to the bottom of just such a layer of attitude towards a person who is wounded or died, and not write or talk about him other than "sergeant" and "private".
And again the mother's pain
I again return to the letter of Nina Pavlovna Buravtseva.
“It's nice,” she writes, “that my son and 18 border guards who died with him in the battle on November 22, 1985, were recently remembered and honored at a meeting of students at the Stavropol State Pedagogical Institute. The initiators of this conversation were the Deputy Chairman of the DOSAAF of the Stavropol Territory Yu. A. Kotov and Associate Professor of the Department of Russian and World Literature Bella Mkhtse.
First of all, the students were introduced to the history of the Afghan war. The teacher bitterly told how Pasha Buravtsev and his comrades were ambushed, how they accepted the battle, fought fiercely and died.
Then a simple heart-to-heart conversation began. The guys were interested in everything related to Pavlik: how he grew up, studied, prepared for service in the border troops, went on mountain hikes, was friends and loved. "
First of all, the students were introduced to the history of the Afghan war. The teacher bitterly told how Pasha Buravtsev and his comrades were ambushed, how they accepted the battle, fought fiercely and died.
Then a simple heart-to-heart conversation began. The guys were interested in everything related to Pavlik: how he grew up, studied, prepared for service in the border troops, went on mountain hikes, was friends and loved. "
A veteran of the Afghan war A. Yu. Sukhomlinov also spoke to the students. The teacher Bella Zaurovna paid special attention to Pavlik's letters to his beloved girlfriend Galina, published back in 1989.
In her opinion, as a specialist in philology, they contain not only historical, but also literary value. She simply read selected excerpts from Paul's letters. And it immediately became clear - this is a real example of the feelings of a border fighter who have suffered through heart and soul, who found himself in an extreme situation.
Then the dean of the pedagogical faculty N.A.Leonova made a proposal to organize a patriotic club at the institute. Among the students, those who wanted to become members of this association immediately appeared. First of all, the club members decided to republish Pavel Buravtsev's letters "But we won't forget each other." Hope the students can handle it.
More years will pass, and will the memory remain?
Years will pass. It is not at all excluded that the memory of that war in Russia may completely disappear, but the letters of a simple border guard from distant Afghanistan to his beloved girl will remain. In the soul of every person reading these letters, questions will certainly arise - and when there was this war, why do we know nothing about it, do not remember the heroes of those battles at all?
I don’t undertake to predict anything, but the mother of Pavel Buravtsev’s son, who died in Afghanistan, is painfully right. You can't deceive a mother's heart. She understands that Russia wants to forget this damn Afghanistan as soon as possible. It does not fit into modern reality in any way.
Even in the discussion of Afghan problems, which generally still concern us, official Russia now prefers not to participate. Isn't that why we all, except those who were there, are silent on this day, February 15?
This is not an accusation, not a reproach, this is a harsh chronicle of the past. At least the last two years. You just remember them and immediately understand everything.
But how simple it would be. Start talking at the federal level in the morning about this difficult and difficult event in our history, remember everyone who did not return from there, apologize to the mothers who lost their sons, say kind words to the survivors.
You look, and it would be a little easier for the mothers to whom the sons from Afghanistan once returned only in zinc coffins. And some wrinkles on their faces would be smoothed out. They are still just silent, looking in vain on this day at the screen of working TVs: what if they say something about that long-term tragedy at least once a year. But it's all in vain ...
So it turns out that the poet Viktor Verstakov, who was more than once in that Afghan war, is right, a thousand times right.
Sometimes you get to the TV box -
oh, what the hell is he blue!
Nothing about the present
not a damn thing about you and me.
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