Winds over Saur-Grave
Listen to the winds over Saur-Grave
And you will understand who saved this earth
Whose courage in battle freed
The enemy is not conquered Donbass.
Fedor Serebryansky
And you will understand who saved this earth
Whose courage in battle freed
The enemy is not conquered Donbass.
Fedor Serebryansky
The participants of the festival “Big Donbass” (about which I wrote in the previous article) were taken “to listen to the winds over Saur-Grave”. For this is the very place where the soul of a freedom-loving region is especially felt. Where, during the Great Patriotic War, as the song says, "The soldiers went into a raging flame - where they could not stand the metal." And now - not only in the Great Patriotic War. And in the New World.
Musicians, bards and poets from Russia stand at the foot of the monument. Natalia Pavlovna Zadorozhnyaya, a researcher at the Snezhnyansky Museum of Military Glory, talks about the battles against the Nazis on the Miussky front. And also - that in Ukraine the authorities tried in every way to diminish the role of the battles at Saur-Grave and to ensure that no celebrations were held at this place. But the residents of Donbass have always honored this holy place.
At the foot of the monument - armored vehicles of the Great Patriotic War. Some of these formidable machines, which fought back the Nazi fascists and those who survived those battles, caught their shard at the present time.
On the plates - many warriors names. People bring wreaths here. But the stone wreaths on the monument were damaged during the current battles.
And now Saur-Grave has a new cemetery. The guys who fell in battles last year were buried.
Folk trail does not grow here. Despite the fact that it is difficult to get here by transport, people go. Children are brought here. The defenders of Novorossia are coming to worship the graves of fallen friends.
Our delegation rises to the top. Along the way, pylons dedicated to infantry, tankmen, gunners ... Soldiers carved on them are wounded by shrapnel.
A huge stela is thrown to the ground, only a soldier's boot remained of the huge Warrior.
Festival participant poet Yuriy Yurchenko - the legendary personality. He volunteered to defend Novorossia. He came from France, where he lived before all these events. 20 August 2014 of the year in the battles of Ilovaisk was captured by the “national guard” of Ukraine. 8 September was released on the exchange of prisoners. He returned from a disabled person with severe fractures of the legs and ribs. I experienced a terrible. For six days, he and another volunteer, a Slovak, Miroslav Rogach, were kept locked in a large iron cabinet. In this case, the defenders of Novorossia fired on the positions of the punishers, and at any moment the projectile could get into this very closet. But at the time of the shooting the prisoners were even better, because the executioners were hiding in shelters. The rest of the time, Yuriy and Miroslav were beaten and constantly threatened with execution.
At the festival "Big Donbass" Yuri Yurchenko read a poem dedicated to those events and his fellow Slovakia.
... But - past plans, past schemes -
Slip the sole
And it will be very important - s to m
You will enter the cabinet ...
But I am - no matter how cool the blow -
Lucky, however:
This time the Lord is to me, as a gift,
Sent to Slovak.
Himself, all - one big bruise
("A trifle! Why are there ..."), -
I bothered, I nursed Slovak,
With me, the "three hundredth" ...
In this we are stuck with him "extreme"
In such a "mess"! ..
But - we found each other with him, -
Thank you closet.
And Muses we fed with hands:
In hellish space
I whispered poems in Russian,
He is in Slovak ...
We climb the Saur-Mogila, stand among the ruins of the memorial. Yuri was awarded two medals from Novorossia - "For the Defense of Slavyansk" and "For Military Merit." However, at Saur-Tomb he hid them, despite the request to put on a photo. “I can't wear them here because I'm alive and these guys died,” he says.
In his opinion, great wars always give rise to great poetry. So it was in the Civil and the Great Patriotic. As for the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, they, of course, did not nurture large-scale poets, because these were “other” wars; This is a separate topic for conversation. But already the war in Donbass, specifically 2014, a year, “rhymes” very strongly with the Great Patriotic War, and it gives rise to a new poetry. I ask Yuri:
- Tell me, please, is anything known about the further fate of that Slovak, the hero of your poem?
- Yes, he is alive. Now in Russia. We help him arrange all the necessary documents. He cannot return to his homeland - they will put him there.
- You are the person who paid the highest price of all those present for his poems. Tell us what your impressions of this trip.
- I will not speak about the whole trip - I have already traveled many times, - I will say specifically about Saur-Grave. I believe that we must be very careful in the restoration of this monument. Because now it is a “double memorial”: both to the soldiers who fell in that war, and a monument to those who fought here last year. It hurts to read the names of those who died here. There, on the ruins, it is written that a militiaman was killed with the call sign Fat, another young girl. We don't know anything about these guys, except the call signs. It may be an inaccurate word, but I am happy that I knew such people. One of my friends said that there were then the best people of Russia. If only all this was not in vain. If only their memory did not betray.
Yuri is far from accepting the current political realities in the Donbas. You can agree with him or not, but you can understand: poets look at the world differently than politicians. Especially - fighter poets. So, he does not accept the Minsk agreements and even compares them with the Khasavyurt ones.
- We were told that the agreements in Khasavyurt were necessary, but now they are called treacherous. Here and there - the same. There are some reasons for these agreements, but I do not understand them. I speak for those people - women, old people, children, who were sitting in basements in Shakhtersk, in Ilovaisk and in other cities. And many of my comrades have a similar opinion. I have been talking with the militia for two weeks now, and they say the same thing. But they still stand, they believe that there will be an order "Forward!". They have not lost faith that was born that spring. And I want my comrades not to have to hide their orders later.
Wars do not end in truce — they end in defeat or capitulation of one of the parties. With the Nazis can not negotiate. We know that Yanukovych signed agreements with them, but they existed for exactly one day. How can something be negotiated with people who are openly in Kiev - at the deputy level! - They say: "Promise them everything, go for everything, sign everything, everything - we will hang them later!". But the payment for these “arrangements” will not be those who negotiate, but the militia and their families, but also civilians who are tired of this war. I am now at Saur-Grave, and I cannot lie here, so I say what I think. Here you can not lie.
It is possible to argue how politically correct the words of Yuri are, but one thing is clear: they are paid for with too high a price.
According to the participants of the festival, who visited Saur-Grave, this place makes just as strong an impression as Stalingrad and the Brest Fortress.
I would say - now, perhaps, stronger. Because it is covered with glory already two wars.
And the winds above Saur-Grave continue to make noise. The audio recording of the conversation with Yuri Yurchenko was hard to decipher - these winds drowned the words. We left, and the winds remained. They sway ribbons tied on an old tree - in memory of the fallen. They sing ballads about the heroism of warriors in their language.
(Especially for the "Military Review")
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