by one, they started to pull people from our unit, and my comrades disappeared into thin air. They asked one man to report to the colonel’s office and soon afterwards we were all told that he had been transferred to a fixed post, where he was to spend the rest of his military service.
After three months of field training, it was my turn.
That morning, they called me to the colonel’s office. There were two other guys from my unit with me, and we were all anxious. Where are they going to send us? our eyes asked one another.
The office was luxurious, full of valuable antique wooden furniture and leather sofas and armchairs. A lot of military stuff hung on the walls: flags, insignias, photographs, even some antique weapons. The colonel was a nasty, beefy man who was bursting out of his uniform and had a face the colour of beetroot. He was accompanied by three officers, two of whom had a very dodgy look about them – as my dearly departed uncle would have said, ‘they were born thugs’.
After the formal introductions, they invited us to sit down on the sofa, right in front of a big television. As we sat down, I searched the eyes of my comrades. Unlike me, they looked happy; maybe those idiots were expecting to see Cinderella. The colonel himself put on the video-cassette. The first image that appeared on the screen showed the flag of the Russian Federation, which waved proudly amidst smoke and fire, riddled with holes and torn in one corner as if mice had nibbled away at it. At that instant I felt panic rise within me. I couldn’t show my desperation, but my whole body screamed silently. I knew immediately, I was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt: they were sending us to Chechnya.
A male voice, strong and determined, and an equally determined female voice, spoke theatrically over images of war, their words snaking between the charred bodies of our soldiers, the children looking out from the rubble in the streets, the civilians marching off in rows, forced to abandon their homes . . . The shots documenting the chaos of battle were interspersed with clips taken by Chechens and Arabs as they decapitated one of our soldiers who’d been taken prisoner, while the tanks burned on the road in Grozny. Then Russian hostages who had been released showed the camera the stumps of their hands, fingers and ears, which had been cut off by their kidnappers in order to blackmail their families. The image of a Russian transport plane shot down by the Arabs at the base of the mountains and our soldiers’ bodies strewn all over the rocks was accompanied by the words: ‘The terrorists have no respect for the living or for the dead: an aeroplane carrying our soldiers fallen in battle was shot down by Chechen-Arab guerrillas, so our men were killed a second time.’
Sadness came over me. I was going to a place where every human value I had ever known would be meaningless. I couldn’t turn back; I would be forced to accept the rules of the game, of which I was now a part. I thought of the stories told by my grandfather Nikolay, who had travelled all over Europe during the Second World War. I remember vividly how this strong man – who, when I was little, had always seemed so real and pure – could handle the difficulties of everyday life without batting an eye, but when the word ‘war’ came out of his mouth, he would suddenly become sad and almost seem to wilt. I thought back on the war in Transnistria, when I was still a little boy, and the only thing that came to mind was the frightening number of bodies on the streets of Bender, my hometown.
Meanwhile, the voices on the film went on with their insane story, explaining, in the same flat tone they used in propaganda announcements for the masses, that the Chechens were the bad guys and the Russians the good guys; that truth, power and even God himself were on our side, and that the only good thing a Russian could do in this life was kill as many Chechens as possible, and exterminate all their allies, the Arab terrorists, fundamentalist Muslims and ‘all the weak elements under the influence of their propaganda’. There was no way I wanted to get into that mess, but the reality was clear. When the film concluded, with a shot of the same flag as the beginning, I had already lost all hope.
The three officers began to explain to us the reasons why we had to go and risk our lives, and my comrades seemed hypnotised: they were sitting on the sofa with foolish half-grins on their faces, and they punctuated the officers’ every statement with enthusiastic nods of affirmation.
‘So, boys,’ the portly colonel broke in, ‘the Nation is asking you to do your part! Are you ready?’
These words cut me like a knife. I couldn’t feel anything; my head was about to blow off and shoot ahead by itself, like an old locomotive speeding downhill, detached from the rest of the train.
All three of us leapt to our feet, and together, in perfectly idiotic unison, we yelled with all our might:
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel! We will serve and honour the Russian Federation!’
‘Good thing . . .’ he said ironically, switching off the television, his fat finger pushing so hard on the remote control that it went crack.
Once we were out of that office, they didn’t allow us to return to the barracks. They led us to a room where we waited to hear our fate.
After a few hours, Zabelin arrived. He was in good spirits, even whistling a little tune. My comrades asked him loads of questions: ‘What are they going to do with us?’ ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ He hated stupid questions, as I said, so he looked at them with a smile and said:
‘Did they have you watch that video? You’ll be in next year’s version . . .’ At which they stopped asking questions.
Zabelin took me aside and whispered to me. ‘Nicolay, I put in a word for you with someone I know; he’s called Captain Nosov,’ he said, looking at me sternly. ‘He’s an old friend of mine, an expert saboteur. You’ll be on his independent team. Do what he says, and if you’re lucky, you’ll go home alive and in one piece.’ Then he shook my hand. Before leaving, he told us all to go to hell, an old Russian saying for good luck.
Half an hour went by and then a soldier came in, with three new uniforms. They had the paratroopers’ insignia printed on them, and naturally they came with the blue beret so loved and sought after by every paratrooper. He brought army boots too, which weighed at least a kilo each. Another soldier set down three knapsacks identical to the ones in which they had brought our provisions, and said:
‘You have to wear uniforms because during the trip you’ll be with the paratroopers. Put your clothes in these backpacks, and when they leave you to your units you can put your civvies back on.’
I put on the uniform and looked at my reflection in the window. I didn’t like seeing the gear on me – it seemed unnatural. My comrades, however, were amused by the situation. They adjusted one another’s berets, struck model poses, as if they were getting ready for a party or an award ceremony.
We had a few hours’ flight to Chechnya. On the plane with us were soldiers who belonged to other units in the paratrooper force. They were joking, laughing, shouting, talking about the political situation and the war. To buck up their courage, they said the Chechens were ‘a bunch of fags – they can’t even keep their guns up’. Another threw out some serious insults towards the Arabs.
I would soon discover that in this war, for the sake of practicality – and thinking back on it now, it’s a very shameful thing – all our enemies were called ‘Arabs’, whether they were Chechens, Muslims, Afghans, Taliban, terrorists, or fighters who had sided with any political creed. The word ‘Arab’ was the way we indicated the enemy.
There were two lieutenants next to me who seemed not to give any weight to the ruckus. They let the soldiers talk, and the atmosphere was upbeat, almost party-like.
We landed at night. They separated me from my
