Spitsyn Sergey Soloviev Alexander. In memory of Sergei Nikolaevich Spitsyn

This material stands out from a number of other materials in this section of our site. There is no detailed portrait of one person here. This is a collective portrait of the feat of 90 Russian soldiers and officers who simply fulfilled their military duty to their Motherland. And yet this feat shows an example of the strength of the human spirit and inspires. Especially against the backdrop of meanness and betrayal, which took place at the same time, in the same place, and became one of the causes of the tragedy.

Khattab paid 500 thousand dollars to escape the encirclement. But the 6th company of the 104th Guards Parachute Regiment stood in his way. 90 Pskov paratroopers were attacked by 2,500 Chechen militants.

This happened eleven years ago, on March 1, 2000. But for Sergei Sh., an officer of the special purpose unit (OSNAZ) of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff, everything remained not only in memory. As he put it, “for history,” he kept separate copies of documents with recordings of radio interceptions in the Argun Gorge. From conversations on air, the death of the 6th company appears completely different from what the generals have been saying all these years.

Paratroopers of the 6th company in the Argun Gorge. Photos and documentary video below.

That winter, the intelligence “listeners” from OSNAZ rejoiced. The “Shaitanov” were driven out of Grozny and surrounded near Shatoi. In the Argun Gorge, the Chechen militants were to have a “little Stalingrad”. About 10 thousand bandits were in the mountain “cauldron”. Sergei says that in those days it was impossible to sleep.

Everything was rumbling around. Day and night the terrorists were ironed out by our artillery. And on February 9, Su-24 front-line bombers, for the first time during the operation in Chechnya, dropped volumetric detonating aerial bombs weighing one and a half tons on militants in the Argun Gorge. The bandits suffered enormous losses from these "one and a half" ones. Out of fright, they screamed on the air, mixing Russian and Chechen words:

– Rusnya used a prohibited weapon. After the hellish explosions, not even ashes remain from the Nokhchi.

And then there were tearful requests for help. The leaders of the militants surrounded in the Argun Gorge, in the name of Allah, called on their “brothers” in Moscow and Grozny not to spare money. The first goal is to stop dropping “inhumane vacuum” bombs on Ichkeria. The second is to buy a corridor to reach Dagestan.

From the “aquarium” - the headquarters of the GRU - the OSNA members in the Caucasus received a particularly secret task: to record all negotiations around the clock not only of the militants, but also of our command. The agents reported on the impending conspiracy.

On the last day of February, Sergei recalls, we managed to intercept a radio conversation between Khattab and Basayev:

– If there are dogs ahead (as the militants called representatives of the internal troops), we can come to an agreement.

- No, these are goblins (that is, paratroopers, in the jargon of bandits).

Then Basayev advises the Black Arab, who led the breakthrough:

- Listen, maybe let's go around? They won’t let us in, we’ll only reveal ourselves...

“No,” Khattab answers, “we will cut them off.” I paid 500 thousand American dollars for passage. And the bosses set up these jackal-goblins to cover their tracks.

And yet, at the insistence of Shamil Basayev, we first went on the radio to the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Evtyukhin, who was in the 6th company, with a proposal to let their column through “in an amicable way.”

“There are a lot of us here, ten times more than you.” Why are you in trouble, commander? Night, fog - no one will notice, and we will pay very well,” Idris and Abu Walid, field commanders especially close to Khattab, exhorted in turn.

But in response there was such a masterly obscenity that the radio conversations quickly stopped. And away we go...

6th company, 90 against 2500 - they held out!

The attacks came in waves. And not mental, as in the film “Chapaev,” but Dushman. Using the mountainous terrain, the militants got close. And then the fight turned into hand-to-hand combat. They used bayonet knives, sapper blades, and metal butts of “knots” (an airborne version of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, shortened, with a folding butt).

The commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the guard, senior lieutenant Alexey Vorobyov, in a fierce battle personally destroyed the field commander Idris, beheading the gang. The commander of a self-propelled artillery battery of the guard, Captain Viktor Romanov, had both legs torn off by a mine explosion. But until the last minute of his life he adjusted artillery fire.

The company fought, holding the height, for 20 hours. Two battalions of the “White Angels” – Khattab and Basayev – joined the militants. 2500 versus 90.

Of the 90 company paratroopers, 84 died. Later, 22 were awarded the title of Hero of Russia (21 posthumously), and 63 were awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously). One of the streets of Grozny is named after 84 Pskov paratroopers.

The Khattabites lost 457 selected fighters, but were never able to break through to Selmentauzen and further to Vedeno. From there the road to Dagestan was already open. By high order, all checkpoints were removed from it. This means that Khattab did not lie. He actually bought the pass for half a million bucks.

Sergei takes out a spent cartridge case from the bookshelf. And it’s clear without words, from there. Then he dumps a pile of some papers on the table. Quotes the former commander of the group in Chechnya, General Gennady Troshev: “I often ask myself a painful question: was it possible to avoid such losses, did we do everything to save the paratroopers? After all, your duty, general, is first and foremost to take care of preserving life. As hard as it is to realize, we probably didn’t do everything then.”

It is not for us to judge the Hero of Russia. He died in a plane crash. But until the last moment he was apparently tormented by his conscience. After all, according to the intelligence officers, during their reports from February 29 to March 2, the commander did not understand anything. He was poisoned by burnt vodka of the Mozdok spill.

The “switchman” was then punished for the death of the heroic paratroopers: regiment commander Melentyev was transferred to Ulyanovsk as chief of staff of the brigade. The commander of the eastern group, General Makarov, remained on the sidelines (six times Melentyev asked him to give the company the opportunity to withdraw without killing the guys) and another general, Lentsov, who headed the airborne task force.

In those same March days, when they had not yet had time to bury the 6th company, Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, like other famous generals of the last Chechen war - Viktor Kazantsev, Gennady Troshev and Vladimir Shamanov, visited the capital of Dagestan. There they received from the hands of the local mayor Said Amirov silver Kubachi sabers and diplomas conferring upon them the title of “Honorary Citizen of the City of Makhachkala.” Against the backdrop of the huge losses suffered by Russian troops, this looked extremely inappropriate and tactless.

The scout takes another paper from the table. In the memorandum of the then commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Georgy Shpak, to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeev, the general’s excuses were again made: “Attempts by the command of the operational group of the Airborne Forces, PTG (regimental tactical group) of the 104th Guards PDP to release the encircled group due to heavy fire from gangs and difficult conditions the area did not bring success.”

What's behind this phrase? According to the OSNA member, this is the heroism of the soldiers and officers of the 6th company and the still incomprehensible inconsistencies in the top management. Why didn’t help come to the paratroopers on time? At 3 o'clock in the morning on March 1, a reinforcement platoon headed by Yevtyukhin's deputy guard, Major Alexander Dostavalov, was able to break through to the encirclement, who later died along with the 6th company. However, why only one platoon?

“It’s scary to talk about this,” Sergei picks up another document. “But two thirds of our paratroopers died from the fire of their artillery. I was at this altitude on March 6th. There the old beeches are beveled like an oblique. About 1,200 rounds of ammunition were fired at this location in the Argun Gorge by Nona mortars and regimental artillery. And it’s not true that Mark Evtyukhin allegedly said on the radio: “I’m calling fire on myself.” In fact, he shouted: “You are assholes, you betrayed us, bitches!”

mikle1.livejournal.com

By the age of 25, senior lieutenant Alexander Solovyov, who commanded 35-year-old contract soldiers in Chechnya, had more than 40 reconnaissance missions, a landmine explosion, 25 heavy operations, a year and a half in hospitals, and three nominations for the title of Hero of Russia.

Country in its own way, army in its own way

In the summer of 1997, the newly minted lieutenant Soloviev, after graduating from the military intelligence department of the Novosibirsk Military School, arrived at his permanent duty station in the reconnaissance battalion of the 3rd motorized rifle division. He was ready to endure any hardships of military service, because he had been preparing for it since childhood: he was fond of hand-to-hand combat and extreme sports. “Thank you for your love for the Motherland!” the head of the school admonished the young lieutenants.

But the Motherland, accustomed to market reforms, had no time for its own army in these years...

Introduced himself to the unit commander. The lieutenant was assigned to the officers' dormitory, a module with paper walls. Four rooms away you could hear what the couple was doing there.

In the morning a rat jumped on my face. When I opened the bag to take out the groceries, there was a gray mass of cockroaches. Wow, I think there are so many living creatures here! Alexander Solovyov recalls the first days in the army. I made tea, took a sip and spat it out on the floor cologne! It turned out that in the vicinity of the city of Dzerzhinsk there is water with such a specific smell.

Received the first platoon. In the reconnaissance battalion, instead of 350 people on staff, there were only 36. Soon the division commander ordered the battalion to be staffed with the best soldiers. But where could they get them, especially the best ones... You can’t take a simple tankman or infantryman into a reconnaissance company. Which commander will give up the best fighter! Soon the first batch of these “best” were sent to the battalion.

“When I saw this first game, tears came to my eyes,” Soloviev said. Criminal on criminal, such scumbags just terrible. It would probably be easier to recruit people from the nearest disbat than to bring them from all over the military district. They tore their vests and showed me bullet and knife wounds. They promised to kill me three times. It happened that their “brothers” called me to the checkpoint... These soldiers were constantly pulled out of prisons: fights with the police, robberies, robberies. They even attacked the officers with their fists.

Then several units from the disbanded GRU unit were sent to the reconnaissance battalion. Also a rabble: with pathologies, underweight, with an abnormal psyche, a criminal past. Lieutenant Soloviev took a breath six months later when he received several guys from the Kremlin regiment: ideal drill training, knowledge of weapons, sparkle in the eyes, intelligence.

And the Motherland, which was experiencing the shock of default, still had no time for its native army...

I lived in a barracks with soldiers, I had my own bed at the entrance. Alexander Solovyov recalls 1998. We weren’t paid our salaries for six months at that time. My diet was two bags of Chinese noodles a day. The soldiers slaughtered all the dogs in the vicinity for meat. “They bark... You just need to cook it skillfully... Meat and meat...” The soldier was surprised in response to my remark as to why he stabbed her. We didn't read newspapers, didn't watch TV. I only knew soldiers, shooting and driving equipment. And there was combat training! He ran with the soldiers through the surrounding forests, taught them the basics of reconnaissance. We didn’t ask what the state owed us, we didn’t know the laws, we knew that we couldn’t go on strike, go to demonstrations, we couldn’t do anything, combat training and nothing else. But they pay, they don’t pay wages, they somehow managed to get out of it. We lived in our own way, the country in its own way.

“I couldn’t help but go to war...”

In the summer of 1999, there were rumors that there would be a war. The battalion was moved closer to the loading station. Some of the officers quickly resigned. Of the seven classmate lieutenants who began serving together in this reconnaissance battalion, only two remained; the rest left the army.

I couldn’t help but go to war: it would be a betrayal I trained so many fighters, but I myself went into the bushes? says Alexander.

Senior Lieutenant Soloviev learned that the battalion was on alert while on vacation. I caught up with my own people with the echelon of the logistics battalion. On the way, this unit already had losses: one officer drank too much and shot himself, another, a fighter, reached for stew and fell under high voltage current.

The rear people didn’t understand that I was going to catch up with my own people: “It’s okay for us: we drink vodka and always with stew,” Solovyov recalls the way to the war. My fellow travelers treated me like I was an unhealthy person. The purpose of the operation was not understood. I heard about the first Chechen campaign that it was a massacre, corruption, fratricide, regiment against regiment, monstrous mistakes, political squabbles in which soldiers suffered. I was traveling and never saw Chechnya on the map. The soldiers knew nothing at all. War and war. The homeland is in danger, and if not us, then who. I arrived and my soldiers ran up: “Hurray! We are not alone now!” They thought that I wouldn’t come at all... The commander at the first formation said: “Your task in this war is to survive. Here is my entire order for you." Where the enemy was, what forces he had, what organization he had—they didn’t know any of this.

Soon after the start of the second Chechen campaign, at the request of the progressive public, young soldiers from the active army were returned to the barracks.

In return they sent contract soldiers homeless people, drunkards, criminals, murderers, some even came across with AIDS and syphilis. Of them, there were no more than a third of real, trained soldiers, the rest were trash and trash, - this is how Alexander Solovyov evaluates the replenishment sent by the Motherland to restore constitutional order in Chechnya. He will want to shoot at people, he will crawl into the village and fire from a machine gun at everyone. Such a “joker” will get drunk on drugs and let’s “work miracles.” One of them was caught stealing promedol (anesthetic drug) from soldiers and pumping water into empty tubes. The guys broke his ribs and threw him into a helicopter...

“When I grow up, I’ll go kill you...”

The very first meeting with the Chechen made me think about a lot...

The soldiers went to the village, and I stayed on the armor, keeping in touch. A boy the size of a machine gun approaches: “Listen, commander, this is the Stechkin you have in your bosom.” How did he find out that I was a commander? I didn’t have shoulder straps! How did he find out that I had a Stechkin pistol? Many officers didn’t know! This is a pistol for tank crews; it has been removed from service. It was not visible at all, under the arm, in a holster, and this boy identified it by its proportions, by its outline. “How do you know that this is Stechkin?” “My brother has one.” “Where is my brother?” “He is fighting in the mountains, against you.” “I hope you won’t fight?” “When I grow up, I’ll be able to hold a machine gun a little bit and I’ll also go kill you.” “Who teaches you that?” “Like who? Mother. All my brothers are in the mountains, and I will go there!”

One day the scouts took two boys, 13 and 15 years old. These “partisans” burned a group of GRU scouts who had fallen asleep at a rest stop with flamethrowers. Those killed had their genitals cut out and inserted into their mouths. Eyes were gouged out, scalps were removed, ears were cut off, and the dead were mocked.

For bandits in Chechnya, if a knife has not been in a human body, it means it is not a weapon, just a kitchen knife. told by Alexander Solovyov. The knife must be hardened in blood. The detainees were brothers, both were found with drugs. They worked for Basayev as intelligence officers. They knew the names of the officers of our entire battalion. That was the dossier! They kept everything in memory. “What did they promise you for this?” I ask one of the boys. “Dagger and machine gun, from Basayev.”

In the broken militant camps, the scouts found stewed meat with markings like theirs, ammunition of the same series, our new uniform, weapons manufactured in 1999, and new armored vehicles. “I had weapons from the warehouse after the campaign in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and they had brand new machine guns, still with factory lubricant,” Alexander Solovyov recalls with bitterness. The bandits have new, black overalls, convenient unloading for ammunition. My fighters have mended ones, donated by kind cops or exchanged with rear guards for a bottle of vodka. And we understood all this saving of the Motherland and the rear: “Why would I equip you, you’re going into battle, and they can kill you there! How to write off property later? Should we pay ourselves?” They will ask for lost equipment or equipment, but if they lost people they will send new ones. Like in that war: Russia is big, women are giving birth to new soldiers...”

You want to live remember everything

From the very first days after crossing the border of Chechnya, everyday fighting began. The reconnaissance groups, loaded with weapons and ammunition, went into the night, every second risking running into a tripwire with a grenade, a landmine, or being ambushed. Every step could be the last...

On me hung: Alexander began to list, machine gun, silencer, binoculars, night sight, grenade launcher, night glasses, two “Flies”, 12 magazines with cartridges, 20 hand grenades, 20 under-barrel grenades, a pair of magazines of 45 rounds each. Plus a scout knife with its own ammunition, plus a Stechkin pistol.. Food for a day - a pack of cookies and a can of canned food. There are cartridges there is food, there are no cartridges there is nothing. My machine gunner carried a thousand rounds of ammunition for his machine gun. Moreover, it is necessary to take a spare replacement barrel. With such a load you will fall, you will not get up on your own, and if you throw it, they will pick you up with their bare hands. In battle you fire only from the knee.

In the dead of night on the outskirts of Grozny, a reconnaissance group of 13 people under the command of Senior Lieutenant Solovyov was ambushed. Bandits shouting “Allahu Akbar!” attacked from three sides. In the very first seconds, one scout was killed and two more were seriously wounded.

I ended up with a machine gunner, a bullet hit him in the head, his brain was not affected, only his bones were twisted. He didn’t know what he was doing, Alexander Solovyov recalls that fight. In the dark, by touch, I determined that the machine gun was jammed, one bullet shot off the bipod, the second broke the sling swivel, the third hit the receiver and damaged the mechanism and the cartridge ejector. The choice was: either hand-to-hand combat, but then we would be crushed in five minutes, or we could repair the machine gun in one minute. And we “passed” the machine gun at the school at the end of the 1st year, 6 years have passed. I haven't held it in my hands since then. But you will want to live; you will remember everything. I remembered all the words of the teacher. He started shooting when the bandits were five meters away; it was also saved by the fact that the belt had 250 rounds of ammunition, it was full, and he inserted it quickly. If it weren’t for the machine gun, I wouldn’t have survived and I wouldn’t have saved the guys.

“I can’t leave you here alive...”

A reconnaissance group is a team where everyone’s life depends on everyone. Not everyone could fit into the group. It happened that the scouts themselves said to such a fighter: “Do you want to live? Go to the commander, tell him that you refuse to go to combat..."

In my group there was a “boy” two meters tall, said Alexander Solovyov. And in one search, in the mountains, he broke down: he could no longer walk. “Undress him,” he ordered. I took off my equipment, ammunition, machine gun and gave everything to the guys, they carried it. How many of my boys died, they gave away things, but no one ever gave up their weapons. And this one is easy - some with a machine gun, some with a pistol. He walks naked then sits down: “I won’t go any further!” But I couldn’t stop, I was taking a lot of risks, there were many signs that “spirits” were accompanying us along the ravine. I was on the verge of using a weapon. He drove the cartridge into the chamber. “I can’t leave you here alive,” I tell this “boy.” He knew the radio frequencies, call signs, and composition of the group. He sat there and no longer represented any value to me, either as a fighter or as a person. The guys looked at him like he was a dog. He realized that he had no choice: either move his legs or stay here forever.

I would have finished it. “Go to the head watch. If I catch up with you, you stay in the mountains, if you try to go left and right, then you stay here.” And he walked. And he got there. But he didn’t go on reconnaissance missions with us anymore.

“I was more afraid of my infantry...”

The scouts' task was usually standard: to find the location of the bandits and call in artillery fire there.

I always had one or two batteries of self-propelled guns working for me, a Grad battery, I could also call attack aircraft on the radio, recalls Alexander Solovyov. I discovered the militants’ base I give the coordinates on the radio. Three minutes and the shells are flying. Sometimes there was barely enough time to escape from the fire of their artillery. The shells were flying, knocking down branches, cutting the tops of trees, and sometimes landed a hundred meters away from us. If I go into battle, no one will help me. Twenty minutes and I'm gone. In the Samashkinsky forest, bandits chased our group on horses and dogs. They hooted like Indians... They followed in my footsteps, I laid mines, and not a single one worked. Let's just sit down; they're shooting. They hunted us like animals. We went out to a platoon of our infantry - conscript boys without a commander - sitting in the trenches and shooting anywhere. “They abandoned us, they say and cry from fear, we would run away, but we are afraid.” Not a single contract soldier was with them, the boys were simply thrown to the wolves. They had a lot of mines, but “We don’t know how to place them...” By the morning they would definitely have cut them all off, without firing shots. I took these boys with me...

What a joy it is to return from a mission to your own people, but...

I was more afraid of my infantry than of the “spirits”: one soldier would shoot, noticing us or by chance, and indiscriminate firing began along the entire front...

“Commander, don’t die!”

Sooner or later, such reconnaissance trips were bound to end in death or injury. The military intelligence officer had virtually no chance of returning home from Chechnya without a scratch.

I was psychologically prepared that they could hurt and kill me, Alexander said. But I didn’t realize that it could hurt like that... Well, they’ll hurt you, they’ll make a hole with a bullet or shrapnel, and the doctors will stitch it up. Well, he will tear off a piece of your meat, so what. Everything turned out to be much worse...

The reconnaissance group walked as usual that February day. Senior Lieutenant Soloviev did not even have time to understand what happened. It was an explosion of a powerful landmine... It should have been blown away by a close explosion right away to the next world.

“I had two rows of metal magazines on me, and they took the impact of the fragments, so much so that the cartridges came out,” Alexander recalls. The landmine was stuffed with nails, bearings, and nuts. I had grenades on my ribs that exploded on impact, and on my belt was a captured “spiritual” suicide belt; I don’t understand how they didn’t detonate. I don’t see or hear anything... I can’t feel my legs. Several times he mechanically wrapped his hand with the machine belt. I feel like I'm about to be captured. The scouts are not released alive, they are mocked. The machine gun doesn’t work, I let go of it, take out the pistol, and it’s automatic - a couple of bursts to the right, left. I hear: “Hold the gun, hold it!” Someone is screaming, but I don’t understand their speech. I drop the gun and look for a grenade. I completely lost my bearings on where my friends are and where the strangers are. They are fighting me, I don’t understand who, I think they are Chechens. They are trying to twist me, several hands are holding me. I hear: “Hold your hand, he has a grenade there!” I had one grenade hidden in my pocket in case of capture. “Ours, fool, ours, Sanya!” They scream in your ear. Someone grabbed me by the legs, I didn’t resist. Then I feel the needle go, the second one, right through the clothes. Then someone: “Commander, what should we do next, where should we go? Where are the "spirits"? “Stand still! Call in the artillery!” “There is no artillery, the radio operator is gone! How to call, where to call? I had difficulty naming the square and frequency from memory; the soldiers called in artillery fire. I hear: “Commander, don’t die, what should we do?” Then I began to lose consciousness. How the guys dragged me, I don’t know anything. I woke up on the armor of an infantry fighting vehicle - such wild pain!

We’re not driving, we’re flying, rushing about 80 kilometers through the snow. I was still afraid that the wind would blow me off the car. I didn't feel anything. I felt some kind of bolt on the armor of the BMP behind my back and held on to it. "Are you alive? Move your finger!” They tied me up with tourniquets, but they didn’t bandage my face; everything was covered in blood. Foam came out of the mouth, a mouth full of blood. I was afraid that I would choke on my own blood.

And then I fell into unconsciousness. Then the guys told me that sappers were called into the operating tent: I was wearing grenades that explode on impact, and grenade launchers. Everything needs to be removed, but how? I feel a cold knife running through me under my pants. He cursed: “Bitches, new vest, new unloading!” I felt so sorry for this vest. And the sapper is already cutting the belt - he’s been with me since college!

“I know my job...”

A year later, in the hospital, an unfamiliar doctor approached Alexander Solovyov, who was sitting in the corridor.

“You weren’t blown up at the beginning of February last year?” “Blown up.” “Come with me,” recalls Alexander.

In the office, the doctor put a stack of photographs on the table - torn bodies, without arms, without legs, intestines, only arms with a head. “Is this a corpse, or what?” “No, alive.” “Do you recognize this?” Was I really like that? “How did you recognize me today?” “I know my job...” answered the surgeon. He said that several teams of doctors operated on me in turns for 8 hours straight.

“And I can’t even moo...”

I remember myself on the operating table. When I came to consciousness, I had some hallucinations, visions that I had already died, Alexander recalls, Maybe I was really dying. I had a vision that I don’t have a body, I just understand that it’s me, but outside the body. Like in space, in emptiness, space. I is something brown, a shell, or a ball. There is no feeling of pain, a feeling of happiness. I don't feel pain, I don't want anything. I am the point of concentration of consciousness. And something huge, like a black hole, is approaching me in this emptiness. I understand that as soon as I touch this something huge, I will dissolve into it like a molecule. And this plunged me into such horror that I was only a molecule of this global everything. It became so scary to no longer feel myself, to lose myself. He began to back away from her, there was such animal horror. Even dying was not as scary as dissolving into this something global.

Then someone grabbed me from below and I fell down. I start screaming, everything hurts, as if someone grabbed me by the legs and threw me on this sinful earth. Then I woke up to someone yelling in my ear: “How are you feeling? Move your hand if it’s good!” And I can’t even moo.

There were operations that turned into one another. The bones are rotten, they are drilled, cleaned, plugged with something, and another hole is drilled nearby with a drill. They fed me through my nose: my teeth were knocked out, my tongue and palate were in fragments.

“Will you become a sniper?” “Of course!”

One of the few women in the battalion is radio operator Marina Lineva. When Alexander Solovyov’s group left for the next mission, she kept in touch with him by radio.

“I noticed that Marina was looking at me with concern,” Alexander said. I knew for sure: if I needed something she dropped everything, shook everyone, was ready to shoot from a machine gun. In one operation, my sniper was killed, and without him we can’t go on a search. "I'm a good shooter!" said Marina. After the war, she admitted that she was a biathlete. She was the best shot in the company. I placed all targets with single shots. She served in the special forces and jumped with a parachute. I taught her hand-to-hand combat. It's small, but it can knock out teeth. The task was trivial back then, but it was impossible without a sniper. “Will you come with me?” “Of course!” She lays out her equipment, laid out her knife, puts away ammunition, a machine gun, and grenades. “I’m ready!” I added it to the list. The battalion commander formed a group. He saw Marina in the ranks, turned purple and swore at me... He grabbed me by the breasts: “If something happens to her, will you forgive yourself?” “No, Comrade Colonel.” “And I won’t forgive myself. Lineva all around, run march!” She caught up with us, tears in her eyes. And it was so sickening...

“My heart stops looking at all this...”

Marina was in Nizhny Novgorod when a telegram arrived at the battalion’s permanent base: again, heavy losses. And among the seriously wounded was Senior Lieutenant Soloviev.

No one in the battalion knew what hospital he ended up in.

For three days Marina called all hospitals in Russia: “Do you have senior lieutenant Soloviev among the wounded? No?". Finally, I found it in Samara. I rushed to the hospital.

“Your sister has come to see you,” the nurse said to Solovyov. ?

"I have no sister"

The doctor told Marina: “You know that his arm was cut off, there are fragments in his legs, he doesn’t see anything. You are holding? You can’t scream or cry, sometimes people die here.”

She was registered as a part-time nurse at the hospital. She helped not only Alexander, but also other wounded people. Sometimes grandmothers came to the hospital to help the wounded, but they couldn’t stand it for more than a week: “My heart stops looking at all this...”. Marina endured everything.

“I will rise and live!”

Those wounded who began to sink were brought to Solovyov’s ward.

One day Marina came to the head doctor of the hospital:

“The nurse girls are asking to take Sasha to a major.” “What is it?” “He doesn’t want to live, he climbs out the window, he was caught by his pants twice.” And his heel was only torn off by a shrapnel.

My body was loaded, reclining, into a gurney, Alexander recalls this episode. Introduced. I told him like the truth: “Major, is this the worst thing for you here? Look at me." There were fragments sticking out of my face, under my skin. A day later they picked at me, pus was oozing from the wounds. “I had such plans...”, the major sighed. “Are there any children?” “Two, a boy and a girl.” “Did your wife leave you?” “No, I didn’t quit.” “Look at me: I’ll still get up, I’ll live and smile, but you’ve just lost your leg, and you’re already climbing out the window! Look at the other boys with no legs at all!” The major stopped fooling around.

A year later, Sasha and Marina got married here, in the hospital. Civilian clothes were collected for him to register by doctors and patients from several wards. He learned to live again.

Alexander Solovyov, after such difficult trials, returned to the army and served without an arm! several years. He finished his service as a major, as a senior assistant to the division intelligence chief.

“Order of Courage? Let me touch..."

The first award was presented to Alexander Solovyov at the hospital. He was lying there, the doctors had not yet restored his vision. There is only darkness in the eyes.

“What kind of reward? Order of Courage? What does he look like? Let me touch it,” Alexander recalls this moment. Then he was transferred to another hospital. Six months later, another delegation came to the chamber - the head of intelligence of the division, officers of the battalion. The award order was read out. And not one, but two and both about being awarded the Order of Courage!

Three Orders of Courage lay on the nightstand in the hospital room until he was discharged. Then Alexander Solovyov learned that the battalion command nominated him three times for the title of Hero of Russia. The Motherland decided that three orders would be enough for him - after all, the guy remained alive!

Evgeny Dmitrievich Veselovsky, employee of the Altai Biosphere Reserve. member of the Russian Geographical Society, expert of the UNESCO Information for All Program, member of the Russian Maritime Heritage Association.

“Ultimately, it’s not the years in your life that matter,

and life is in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln.

The gray January morning gradually floated into the house. Outside the window, the “nizovka” (northern Teletska wind) made a powerful noise, disturbing the coastal rocks with furious blows of waves, ringing copper bells suspended under the roof and throwing snow charges. I didn't want to get up. As always. However, responsibilities to loved ones, work and myself forced me to throw off the cozy duvet and shiver when I touched the cool floorboards.

Bring a bucket of well water for the now traditional morning “cryotherapeutic” exercise, light the stove, brew coffee - all this automatically, while still half asleep and in mental slumber. But now the stove is humming happily, the cats are fed, my teeth are brushed, and with one towel on my hips I go out into the cold and wind under the kitchen window, where the water in the bucket is already covered with a thin crust of ice.

Bare feet on the snowy path and the piercing chill instantly invigorate the body, mind and heart, and the scalding stream of Taurus living water pouring onto the shoulders, back and chest turns the mind behind the mind and everything in the head and body immediately becomes clear and cheerful. And having finally woken up and with a desire to work, I return to the house, where I am greeted by the warmth of a rustic Siberian stove and the welcome smell of freshly brewed coffee...

And memories come... Memories of hikes and partners. And I want to talk about what once happened and what remains forever in the memory of my heart.

Today this will be a story about Sergei Spitsyn, a leading researcher at the Altai Biosphere Reserve.

For the umpteenth time, the stormy Ongurazh blocked our path. Once again you have to stop, throw off your tired backpacks - “backbiters” and look for either a ford (which is very unlikely at the beginning of summer), or a natural bridge, or a suitable tree for building a bridge. Sometimes we are lucky, and on the way we encounter a blockage across the river and we cross to the other side without much difficulty. But more often you have to take out axes and build a crossing yourself.

This time the suitable tree was on the other side of the river. The stormy stream of Ongurazh in this place made a wide smooth bend, along which the presence of a long reach and pebble shallows was discovered, which made it possible to cross to the other side with some caution. Cross over to make a bridge. Someone alone had to expose himself “to nothing” and try to cross the stormy stream. Not even to cross, but to swim across, because the water in this place reached the waist, and its speed is such that it is impossible to resist - it immediately knocks you off your feet. They wanted to cast lots, but Sergei Spitsyn, as the head of our patrol group, took the initiative by a strong-willed decision.

For insurance, Igor Savinsky and I tied a lasso around him and Sergei rushed into the cold, stormy stream. Then he single-handedly felled with an ax, having previously cleared the branches of a small spruce growing on the shore, and we, having hung up the belay, crossed safely ourselves and carried our backpacks and carbines. They lit a fire, dried off, warmed up, cooked and drank tea with crackers. And we moved on. The third week of our patrol round along the route Dzhulukl - Yazula - Boshkon - Chulcha - Lake Teletskoe was ending. In addition to patrolling, our responsibilities included cleaning the trail and preparing the site and materials for the construction of a base for the patrol group of the Altai State Nature Reserve on Lake Yakhonsoru. It was 1989 and this was my first patrol.

Sergei Spitsyn came to work at the Altai Nature Reserve in 1983 immediately after demobilization from the Soviet Army, where he served in the strategic missile forces. In the army, he saw a film about the Altai Nature Reserve, was inspired by the beauty of the Altai Mountains and decided to devote his life to protecting the nature of this amazing region.

Like all newly hired employees at the reserve, he had to undergo a probationary period in the economic department. For accommodation, Sergei was given a room in a windswept hotel in the village of Yailyu. This was practically all that the reserve could offer to a young employee. However, military training and natural patience made it easy to endure everyday difficulties. After completing a three-month probationary period, Sergei Spitsyn was transferred to the security department.

From those distant times, his environmental epic began, which continues successfully to this day.

The ski trek from the Arkhary massif to Uzun-Oyuk has never inspired much optimism in anyone. From the very morning, when after breakfast you get on your skis and quickly descend into the Bogoyazh valley with your “backbreaker” backpack, the entire day’s path that lies ahead opens before your eyes: the Dzhulukul Basin, which in the December frosts makes you remember Jack London’s stories about spittle that froze in flight and those who died from the inability to light a fire with their frozen “chechako” hands. But the most disastrous thing about this transition is that from the very morning you see a large glacial mane and a hut standing on it, which you should come to late in the evening (if you have time...). And every time you look up from the ski track, you see the longed-for hut, where a stove, tea and relaxation await you, and which is not getting any closer...

Sergey and I left early to make it to Uzun-Oyuk by nightfall. We quickly went down to Bogoyazh and cheerfully rustled our skis on the hard crust. The cheerful morning sun inspired hope that by the end of the day we would be drinking tea by the roaring stove. However, upon reaching Chulyshman, the sun disappeared into a frosty haze, a headwind - “khius” - blew through, and the hard crust was replaced by deep frozen snow, into which we began to fall above our knees.

The speed of our transition dropped sharply. The desired hut with a stove and tea disappeared into the frosty darkness. There was a feeling that there was no one except us in this frozen snowy desert, and there would never be an end to our journey. By the evening, when the early December twilight hid the mountain tops and we lost our usual landmarks, the light “chius” first turned into fine drifting snow, and then into a blizzard. Occasionally the moon flashed through the ragged, rushing clouds. Its calm, hospital-like light had a hypnotic effect. It seemed to me that a little more and we would go to Lake Yankul, and there it would be a stone’s throw to the hut. However, Sergei, despite my offer to go to the hut, insisted on putting up a tent and spending the night. “A blizzard, night, lack of landmarks can take us very far from the hut,” he said. “We can just get lost and lose both energy and time,” added Sergei, which convinced me.

Spending the night in the mountain tundra without a fire and hot tea does not inspire optimism. But there was nothing to do, having pitched a tent, chewed candied fruits and “washed them down” with snow, we wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags and, accompanied by the singing of a blizzard and the rustling of snow on the walls of our “house,” plunged into an anxious, twitching sleep.

The sun broke through the fabric of the tent and played with cheerful bunnies on our overgrown and weather-beaten faces. I was the first to dare to jump out of the sleeping bag and, jumping on one leg, fell out of our house. The first thing I saw was part of our evening ski track, which for some unknown reason was not covered with snow. She was heading to Tastu-Oyuk. And if Sergei had not stopped us, we would now be in another part of the Dzhulukul Basin and in another transition from the goal of our yesterday’s journey….

Over the years of work in the Altai Biosphere Reserve, Sergei Spitsyn went from a forester to a deputy director for protection, received a higher education, and raised three children.

He stood at the origins of systematic work that has been going on for about thirty years to study and preserve the populations of the snow leopard and the Altai sheep “Argali”, caught poachers, built bridges and huts, introduced the first experience of ecological housing construction in Yailyu and was one of the initiators of the creation of the Public Council of our reserved village , which has now become the basis of the registered Territorial Public Council.

Now Sergey, having gained invaluable experience, has moved to work in the scientific department and has completely devoted himself to restoring the already mentioned populations of snow leopard and Argali in Altai. He can rarely be seen at home, the routes of his expeditions run in remote places of the Altai Nature Reserve, the Chikhachev and Saylyugem ridges, in the fabulous valleys of Argut and Shavla, where snow leopards are still found and which must be preserved.

The second week of our patrol of the high-mountain Dzhulukul basin and the Bogoyazha valley was coming to an end. During these ten frosty short December days, we examined almost all the secluded places where argali could still remain, squeezed out from their traditional pastures by herds of horses and herds of sarlyks driven into the reserve for the winter by Tuvan cattle breeders. We did not find the shepherds themselves, our attempts to drive out the frisky horses and stubborn sarlyks on our own were not successful - semi-wild domestic animals looked at us with great amazement when we tried to get ahead of them on the skis on the skis on the steep slopes of the Arkhariy mountain range. But the presence of violators of the reserve regime was recorded: they counted the horses, bulls and cows with calves, drew up protocols and reports and got ready to go home to Lake Teletskoye, to Yaylya, which was only a couple of hundred kilometers away...

The hut on the slope of Archaria, which sheltered us for these two weeks, sadly watched our careful preparations - she did not want to be left alone in the freezing December frosts opposite the Shapshalsky ridge until the next arrival of the patrol group. However, despite the comfort and warmth that she gave us all this time, we had to leave her to walk “through the valleys and over the hills” and see if everything was all right in other distant, protected corners. And now the backpacks are packed, weapons and binoculars are habitually perched behind and on the chest, the skis are already creaking impatiently with the freshly fallen snow - that’s it, go ahead!

We left early, around 7 am. In front of us lay Bogoyazh, behind it was the Chulyshman valley and there, far away, was visible the reserved hut Stremechko, perched on the top of a long glacial mane near a small lake in the shape of a horse's stirrup. It was visible almost from the very beginning of our trek, although the distance to it was at least 40 kilometers... We had lunch in Chulyshman, hiding from the rising snowstorm among its steep steep banks and washing down a couple of sandwiches with tea made from melted snow, which we had grown tired of during our stay in the mountains. and ice, into which no matter how much you pour infusions, no matter how many different herbs you add - but it is still empty, distilled...

Then there was a cold night in a tent weighed down by snow, a day of rest on Stremechka, and now, finally, we cross Topchikha and see the tops of cedar trees! Forest, taiga, spring water... Last rest under a mighty cedar before descending into the Sai-Khonysha valley, the last pot of tea from melted snow. And at the very bottom of the valley we heard the murmur of a stream coming from under a one and a half meter snowdrift, and could not help but stop.

Sergei Spitsyn, the leader of our “double” patrol group” (in those distant 90s, we more than once had to go on multi-day operational raids together - there was no other choice...), without taking off our backpack, with our long kayak (a kind of stick-staff for walking on kamus skis) I cleared up the snowdrift and with its end, cut in the shape of a bowl, scooped up living water and poured it into the mug I had already held out. And I drank... I've never drunk anything tastier. A hot wave passed through my entire body and hit my head. A feeling of intoxicated enthusiasm and cheerful, mischievous strength took possession of me. Sergei again scooped up water with his staff, filled the mug in my hand, and I handed him the life-giving moisture. He drank, and his stern, emaciated face blossomed into an uncontrollable smile...

Twenty years have passed, but it still seems to me that if we had not stood almost waist-deep in snow, we would have started a wild primitive dance from the feeling of strength and vigor that the spring water of Sai-Khonysh poured into us.

Good luck and health to you, Partner! Let your life be like the living water of Altai and everyone who sips it will feel Faith in their strength, Hope in the fulfillment of desires and Love of this world!

Photo - Alexander Lotov,

Altai Biosphere Reserve.

On March 25, 2014, at the age of 91, a wonderful Orthodox man, artist Sergei Nikolaevich Spitsyn, died.

He was born on July 8, 1923, in memory of St. Sergius of Radonezh, so there were no questions about what to name the baby. His father, Nikolai Vasilyevich Spitsyn (1883-1930), before the revolution worked as the manager of the office of the famous Prince Felix Yusupov - the real or imaginary murderer of Rasputin. But the revolution came, the prince fled abroad and Nikolai Vasilyevich began working as a teacher in an orphanage for street children on Kamenny Island. The Silver Age was a time of religious quest, which did not leave Nikolai Vasilyevich aside: from 1914 he was a member of the Petrograd Religious and Philosophical Society (abbreviated “Wolfila”). At the end of 1922, he joined the “Resurrection” circle of the famous religious philosopher A.A. Meyer. But the circle was destroyed, its members were arrested. By decree of August 22, 1929, Nikolai Vasilyevich Spitsyn was imprisoned in SLON - Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp - for a period of 5 years, where he died a year later - on September 9, 1930. Thanks to the efforts of his son Sergei, Nikolai Vasilyevich was rehabilitated in May 1967 .