Episodes from the life of paratroopers: From Exercises to Alarm
Summer 1979. The 7th Airborne Company of the 350th Guards Airborne Regiment. Photo after the oath of allegiance by the young recruits – the photo mainly shows the recruits who arrived from the division’s training center. In the center stands the company commander, Guards Senior Lieutenant Valery Evgenievich Evtukhovich; behind him is the company sergeant major, Guards Ensign Alexander Adamtsevich. Sitting: second from the left, Sergeant Vladimir Kuznetsov, second from the right, Sergeant Nikolai Sakovich, the rest in the row are young fighters
In the summer, before the Neman-79 exercises, the commander of the 7th parachute-landing company of the Poltinnik, Guards Senior Lieutenant V. E. Yevtukhovich, the future commander of the Russian Airborne Forces (2007-2009), carried out a small reorganization in connection with the arrival of young reinforcements from the Gaizhunay training school. This also affected our 572nd BMD. By this time, the numbers of the vehicles in the regiment were changed from 200 to 500. My friend Sergei Boykov was transferred to the third platoon, and Valery Akchurin, who served for a year and a half, became the driver-mechanic in his place. The gunner-operator on the vehicle also changed: instead of Volodya Krasavin, the company commander appointed Sergei Lebedev, who came from the training school.
The Kremlin Palace of Congresses. Early 2000s. With regiment commander Georgy Ivanovich Shpak. On the left is V. Kuznetsov, on the right is S. Lebedev.
The regiment was actively preparing for the exercises. Equipment was being prepared, tactical training was being held, and day and night shooting was taking place at the training ground. One day, the company commander announced that field training on defensive combat was being held. The company made a forced march into the forest and began to take up defensive positions. We were digging trenches in full profile, and the company commander, Valery Evgenievich Evtukhovich, was checking and making comments. At the same time, he was talking about the structure of the American army and, for some reason, about the armored cavalry divisions of the United States.
The trenches are almost ready, connected by trenches, and suddenly the duty UAZ arrives with a messenger and an order from the regiment commander, Guards Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Ivanovich Shpak: the commander of the 7th company must immediately arrive at the regiment's location. When Yevtukhovich asked what had happened, the messenger replied that he did not know.
What happened was this: While the company was digging trenches, the driver-mechanics, led by the company technician, Guards Ensign Vladimir Novitsky, were servicing the combat vehicles, since during the exercises the regiment had to cross the Neman River in BMDs immediately after landing.
My new driver-mechanic, Valera Akchurin, climbed into the turret of the combat vehicle in the gunner's seat and began training to load the 73-mm Grom 2A28 cannon. The cannon in the BMD is loaded semi-automatically: a rotating conveyor, which contains ammunition of 40 cumulative and fragmentation rounds, is fed to the loading line using an electric drive. The aiming drives are both electric and manual. Since the vehicle was not started, Akchurin trained in manual mode: he loaded the cannon, turned the drive manually - the cannon barrel turned right and left, up and down; he took out a round and loaded it again. There is an emergency electric drive on the side - with the engine turned off, you can fire the cannon with it, you just need to lower the emergency lever down.
Driver mechanic Valery Akchurin
It is unclear why Akchurin pulled this lever, but a shot rang out. The shell broke through the gate in the box, hit the metal park gate and exploded next to the smoking room located there. Fortunately, at that moment there was no one in it. Otherwise there would have been casualties. Why did not the explosion occur when it hit the box gate? To protect the fuse from accidental impacts, a safety cap with a pin is put on the head of the case. Before loading, the gunner-operator pulls out the pin and removes the cap. Akchurin did not do this, so the explosion occurred with some delay.
A very serious emergency. When the company returned to the regiment, Yevtukhovich met us near the barracks with a rather sad look. He ordered us to line up, briefly explained what had happened, and gave the order to start cleaning up weapons.
Quite recently, an event occurred in our battalion that almost ended in tragedy: during a parachute jump from an IL-76 aircraft, a young paratrooper from the 8th company flew into the canopy of Private Ivanov, a machine gunner in the second platoon of our company. As a result, the parachute canopy went out, and the soldier from the 8th company found himself entangled in it, as if in a cocoon.
Machine gunner of the 7th parachute landing company, Guards Private Ivanov
Nevertheless, Ivanov showed himself to be excellent: he did not lose his head and was able to open the reserve parachute. In the end, both paratroopers landed on one reserve, escaping with only bruises and a nervous breakdown.
Today's incident is different: the culprit was a soldier from our company. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but the incident requires a thorough investigation.
The next day, a major from the division's special department arrived. Akchurin explained that he had not loaded the gun and had no idea that there was a round in the barrel. He had accidentally stepped on the trigger with his foot while climbing out of the turret. Most likely, the battalion commander advised Akchurin to present this version of events in order to avoid serious consequences. We went to the park to conduct an investigative experiment. At the scene of the investigative experiment were battalion commander Vitaly Zababurin, company commander Valery Yevtukhovich, platoon commander Alexander Kuish, me as a squad commander, company technician warrant officer Vladimir Novitsky, Valera Akchurin, and a major from the division's special department.
Platoon Commander Alexander Kuish; Battalion Commander Vitaly Zababurin
Akchurin explained everything once again, Warrant Officer Novitsky added something, because everything happened before his eyes, and he was the senior in the team of driver-mechanics. The battalion commander spoke with the special officer, and it was noticeable that he was trying to smooth things over, somehow frame the mechanic's actions as careless, explain that he had unintentionally fired a shot. Zababurin himself climbed into the turret, and then, climbing out of the hatch, touched the trigger lever with his foot, telling the special officer major that this was indeed possible: the lever was located very inconveniently. As a result, the battalion commander managed to convince the special officer that he and the company commander would be able to punish the mechanic themselves. Battalion Commander Vitaly Zababurin was an excellent officer and a decent man. Unfortunately, he passed away early.
As for the punishment of driver-mechanic Akchurin, it was limited to a verbal reprimand. This happened because the battalion commander and the special officer resolved the issues peacefully, as a result of which there were no serious consequences for either the company commander or the battalion commander.
Soon after this emergency, a group from the Defense Ministry's film studio arrived at the regiment to film a training film about the airborne troops: about service, everyday life, and how airborne soldiers are trained. According to the script, the regiment runs out to do physical exercise in uniform No. 3 (bare torso) and runs laps around the parade ground to a song popular among the troops:
“We were just recently in tenth grade,
And the clock was checked by the school bells,
Now get used to the landing, guys,
"To the windswept troops."
We run, the cameraman works. Then they film classes on the sports ground and in the educational building. But everything is somehow artificial: on the director's command to do this, to do this, and here we will change.
I say to my platoon commander, Aleksandr Kuish: “They’re filming a fairy tale: a production, everything is smooth, beautiful, polished, polished, far from reality. In life, everything is different.” The platoon commander replies: “You see, they’re filming a training film. They need to show not what is, but how it should be. In the future, paratroopers should study according to this film. I don’t know where they’ll show it; maybe they’ll show it to future commanders at the Ryazan School, how they need to prepare soldiers.”
Neither the footage nor the film were shown to us in full, and we never saw it on screen later. Perhaps, the footage from it was used in some training films of the Ministry of Defense. These films are lying somewhere in the archives of the film studio, of no use to anyone. It would be interesting to look at us, eighteen-year-olds. But how to get into those archives?
Filming is over, the group has left.
November 1979. The 7th parachute company of the "Fifty" at the parade in Minsk. Second row: fifth from the left - Seryoga Shchulkin (died 14.04.1980), fifth from the right - Viktor Omelchenko (died 14.04.1980)
The regiment began preparing to participate in the November parade in honor of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Then the Airborne Forces Commander's assembly and the alarm were raised on the night of December 10-11, 1979, after which we were awaiting a flight to an exotic Asian country.
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