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Update! Arkady Babchenko is alive. Read the details in our article:
On May 29, journalist and writer Arkady Babchenko was killed in his apartment in Kyiv. He is called the founder of Russian military prose. We remember his stories about the wars in Chechnya, which are worth reading.
Read more of our articles:
Ten episodes about the war
“And then corpses floated along the Argun River. Upstream from a cliff into the river, two cars with the militants who were leaving fell, the water washed them out of the bodies and carried them down. The first to swim was a captured paratrooper - against the background of muddy water, his white night camouflage pea jacket stood out distinctly. We caught him, the authorities came for him and took him away, putting him in the back of a truck.”
pink gingerbread
“I remember the first day well. We drove all day, from morning to night. At dawn we left Mozdok and went to Chechnya.
Alkhan-Yurt
"No, it's definitely a dream. This is a swamp, a river, reeds ... Everything is as clear as it happens only in a dream. And he himself - soft, vague, unreal ... He should not be here. All his life he was in a different place, all his life he had no idea that there was such a thing in the world - Chechnya.
War
“We were then lined up in one line, and the major asked everyone: “Do you want to serve in the Caucasus? Go, why are you. It’s warm there, there are apples.” But when he looked into his eyes, the soldiers recoiled from him. The major's pupils were terrified, and his uniform smelled of death. Death and fear.
Not a single monkey
“The first war, like the first woman. There may be many women and many wars in life, but the first one will never be forgotten. This is the boundary after which the world is divided in two - "before" and "after". You can’t wash away the war in a bath, like old flaky skin ... ”.
At night, everyone drags his own suitcase
“There were constant graters in the department at that time. It was not a single whole, it was not a single organism. Shishigin and I were kind of like the two of us. King with another double bass, Slavka, also together. Young doesn't count. Vasya the shoemaker generally seems to be on his own. In general, a shitty department, what can I say. Doomed. Department of assholes.
Fly
“War attracts by itself, by the mere fact of its existence. She wants to be involved. It is attractive, as any ugliness is attractive - yes, it’s scary, unpleasant, disgusting, but you want to look.
Arkady Babchenko
Project Manager A. Tarasova
Corrector E. Aksenova
Computer layout M. Potashkin
Cover design Y. Buga
All rights reserved. The work is intended solely for private use. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and in corporate networks, for public or collective use without the written permission of the copyright owner. For copyright infringement, the legislation provides for the payment of compensation to the copyright holder in the amount of up to 5 million rubles (Article 49 of the LOAP), as well as criminal liability in the form of imprisonment for up to 6 years (Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
© Babchenko A., 2014
© Alpina non-fiction LLC, 2015
* * *Introduction
Born March 18, 1977 in Moscow. Went to Kindergarten. Has grown up. Went to school. Has grown up. Listened to informal music long hair and a quilted jacket, drank beer, smoked quietly from his parents and skipped classes. Fought with dispatchers. More precisely, they beat me because I was frail, and most importantly, I could not stand violence at all.
After school, I decided to take up my mind and become a lawyer, but in the first year I realized that jurisprudence was not my vocation and, in general, mortal longing, and ... continued to study.
When the summons came from the military registration and enlistment office, I went to the military registration and enlistment office and said that I wanted to serve. There was a delay, but I didn't want to. There was an opportunity to “slop down” - at the medical examination, a pretty female psychiatrist, having learned that I was voluntarily going to the army from the second year of law school, asked, “Are you a fool?” and sent me for an examination in a psychiatric hospital - to find out if I was a fool.
It was an unforgettable three weeks… Drug addicts, gangsters, homeless people, alcoholics and just crazy people. The world through a barred window, broken bodies with chlorpromazine, delirium tremens and psychopathy. "Dachki" on strings through the bars, "button accordions" with heroin, "relashka" and galaperidol.
Three weeks later, the head physician called me and offered me a choice: a) for a very moderate amount of four million, permanently demobilize me from the Armed Forces under Article 5B “Drug Addiction” with the deprivation of parental, driver's, teacher's and other rights; b) for a smaller amount, stay to be examined for another five years, and c) go to twist footcloths.
Therefore, I completely left the psychiatric hospital a healthy person and directed his steps to the Moscow recruiting station.
It was autumn. Leaves were falling and it was raining. Eyes after the wires hurt. The high fence was depressing.
Our invincible, in the person of a hefty drunk foreman paratrooper, greeted me with promising words:
- Well, fainting, here you are in the army ... Who wants in the snout?
I didn't like the beginning.
... For the first six months he served in a training camp in the town of Yelan, near Sverdlovsk. There I learned the words much more squiggly than those that the paratrooper had spoken to us. A sense of tact, as well as censorship, do not allow me to bring here these masterpieces of the Russian language, but, believe me, they were worth these ascents in forty-five seconds, nightly forced marches, daily six hours of hammering dots-dashes into the head with a stool, lying down, “drying crocodiles ”, night “rocking”, “watching TV”, shooting from a machine gun on a snowy field at minus thirty-five, lights out through a “helicopter” and baths in a room that is frozen through.
For the first two weeks, I thought I was going to die.
Subsequently, I realized that by army standards it was paradise.
Five months later he was appointed head of a transportable simplex transceiver VHF radio station and left for Chechnya as part of a train of one and a half thousand bayonets.
But only 1,495 of us made it to Chechnya. The remaining five, including myself, stayed for two months in Mozdok, in the 429th, the orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Kutuzov motorized rifle regiment named after the Kuban Cossacks. The Kuban Cossacks were sitting on blankets behind the barracks, raising their cups and saying "Lubo ...".
In this regiment, the promising words of the paratrooper were justified in full. “Who flies faster than a fly? These are spirits, spirits, spirits…” Well, yes, they beat me. And where to go? Army!
In June 1996, he went on vacation for family reasons. Returned.
In August 1996, he left for the second time, fell ill at once with all possible diseases, ranging from pneumonia to dysentery (in Chechnya, at least once sneezed), as a result of which he ended up in an infectious diseases hospital.
It was an unforgettable five days. Jaundice, dysentery and other typhoid. Semolina porridge with herring for lunch and dinner, washings, tests and droppers.
Five days later, he ran away using someone else's pass and walked free for two weeks. He listened to informal music, shaved his bald head, smoked with his father, drank beer and beat depechists. Vacation, of course, overdue.
At the commandant's office, where I came to celebrate the end of my freedom, I said that I wanted to go back to Chechnya to my foreman. They looked at me, said, “What are you, a fool?” They took off my laces, belt, suicide bomber and put me in a cell. Then they took me to the lip.
It was an unforgettable ten days.
- Babchenko!
- Arkady Arkadyevich! Staff Sergeant! Deadline is ten days!
Rise at five in the morning, morning toilet - two minutes, breakfast - ten minutes, walk - half an hour, lunch - fifteen minutes, dinner - seven minutes, evening toilet - five minutes. “Long, run, bastard, I have thirty cameras for you ...” You can’t sleep. No smoking. You can't lie down. You can't go to the toilet. Just sit and think about your misdeed.
With me in the cell were two more "skiers" like me, one robber, one rapist and one thief.
Everything was discussed on the first day. On the second day, everything was discussed again. On the third day they quietly strangled each other.
Ten days, it turns out, can drag on unbearably long. So long that these one and a half weeks have become a separate part of my life, much more significant than ten years of school and five institutes combined.
After the lip, they transferred me to the so-called diesel unit and opened a criminal case under the article “Desertion”. I waited for three months, they would put me in jail or give me amnesty. All this time he was delivering zinc coffins with the dead. This outfit was called "special cargo". A lot of dead boys arrived in Moscow. Two or three people a day.
While waiting for the results of the investigation, the opportunity arose. The senior clerk, starting a questionnaire on me, asked if I had nightmares at night. I answered that no, my sleep is even and calm, and I am still ready to serve the Motherland at any point in it. The clerk asked if I was a fool and advised me to go to the medical board. Then I remembered that I really do have terrible headaches, accompanied by unbearable nightmares, and made an appointment.
Arkady Babchenko
Project Manager A. Tarasova
Corrector E. Aksenova
Computer layout M. Potashkin
Cover design Y. Buga
All rights reserved. The work is intended solely for private use. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and in corporate networks, for public or collective use without the written permission of the copyright owner. For copyright infringement, the legislation provides for the payment of compensation to the copyright holder in the amount of up to 5 million rubles (Article 49 of the LOAP), as well as criminal liability in the form of imprisonment for up to 6 years (Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
© Babchenko A., 2014
© Alpina non-fiction LLC, 2015
* * *Introduction
Born March 18, 1977 in Moscow. Went to kindergarten. Has grown up. Went to school. Has grown up. He listened to informal music, wore long hair and a padded jacket, drank beer, smoked quietly from his parents and skipped classes. Fought with dispatchers. More precisely, they beat me because I was frail, and most importantly, I could not stand violence at all.
After school, I decided to take up my mind and become a lawyer, but in the first year I realized that jurisprudence was not my vocation and, in general, mortal longing, and ... continued to study.
When the summons came from the military registration and enlistment office, I went to the military registration and enlistment office and said that I wanted to serve. There was a delay, but I didn't want to. There was an opportunity to “slop down” - at the medical examination, a pretty female psychiatrist, having learned that I was voluntarily going to the army from the second year of law school, asked, “Are you a fool?” and sent me for an examination in a psychiatric hospital - to find out if I was a fool.
It was an unforgettable three weeks… Drug addicts, gangsters, homeless people, alcoholics and just crazy people. The world through a barred window, broken bodies with chlorpromazine, delirium tremens and psychopathy. "Dachki" on strings through the bars, "button accordions" with heroin, "relashka" and galaperidol.
Three weeks later, the head physician called me and offered me a choice: a) for a very moderate amount of four million, permanently demobilize me from the Armed Forces under Article 5B “Drug Addiction” with the deprivation of parental, driver's, teacher's and other rights; b) for a smaller amount, stay to be examined for another five years, and c) go to twist footcloths.
Therefore, I left the psychiatric hospital as an absolutely healthy person and directed my steps to the Moscow recruiting station.
It was autumn. Leaves were falling and it was raining. Eyes after the wires hurt. The high fence was depressing.
Our invincible, in the person of a hefty drunk foreman paratrooper, greeted me with promising words:
- Well, fainting, here you are in the army ... Who wants in the snout?
I didn't like the beginning.
... For the first six months he served in a training camp in the town of Yelan, near Sverdlovsk. There I learned the words much more squiggly than those that the paratrooper had spoken to us. A sense of tact, as well as censorship, do not allow me to bring here these masterpieces of the Russian language, but, believe me, they were worth these ascents in forty-five seconds, nightly forced marches, daily six hours of hammering dots-dashes into the head with a stool, lying down, “drying crocodiles ”, night “rocking”, “watching TV”, shooting from a machine gun on a snowy field at minus thirty-five, lights out through a “helicopter” and baths in a room that is frozen through.
For the first two weeks, I thought I was going to die.
Subsequently, I realized that by army standards it was paradise.
Five months later he was appointed head of a transportable simplex transceiver VHF radio station and left for Chechnya as part of a train of one and a half thousand bayonets.
But only 1,495 of us made it to Chechnya. The remaining five, including me, stayed for two months in Mozdok, in the 429th, the orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Kutuzov, a motorized rifle regiment named after the Kuban Cossacks. The Kuban Cossacks were sitting on blankets behind the barracks, raising their cups and saying "Lubo ...".
In this regiment, the promising words of the paratrooper were justified in full. “Who flies faster than a fly? These are spirits, spirits, spirits…” Well, yes, they beat me. And where to go? Army!
In June 1996, he went on vacation for family reasons. Returned.
In August 1996, he left for the second time, fell ill with all possible diseases at once, ranging from pneumonia to dysentery (in Chechnya he sneezed at least once), as a result of which he ended up in an infectious diseases hospital.
War Arkady Babchenko
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Title: War
About the book "War" Arkady Babchenko
Before talking about the book "War", I would like to mention a few words about its author. Arkady Babchenko is a military journalist. He is considered one of the founders of modern Russian-language military prose. He knows firsthand about the Chechen war. He fought twice. The first time he was called at a very young age. The second time he went to war voluntarily - a contract soldier. According to him, he wrote this work in order to rehabilitate himself. After all, the most effective method to drive war out of your head is to talk about it. This is the only way to get rid of this burden.
The book "War" should not be read by very impressionable people. She is very heavy. Arkady Babchenko writes very honestly about how the everyday life of the Chechen war went. He shares his memories, talks about how the lives of some people were broken and dignity was manifested in others. Here you will not find military romanticism. In this work, heroism is days that have neither end nor edge, they are heavy from adhering clay, they smell of sweat and cheap booze, these days are saturated with pain, full of hatred and fear, they smell of rotting flesh.
Many events are taken from the life of the author. All of them had a strong influence on him. Some of the texts are the stories of other people, recorded during the war and after it. This collection is a work of art in which not a single line was invented.
Arkady Babchenko writes openly, there is a lot of sincere rage in his narrative. This style has given rise to both supporters of his work and haters.
The book "War" contains information that you are unlikely to hear on TV, it can shock. Reading this work of art is quite difficult. This is not the fault of the author's style, it is just distinguished by ease. Turning page after page, a terrible picture of beatings, humiliation, suffering from pain and hunger will unfold in front of you. Sometimes you have to fight nausea and wipe away tears.
The novel "War" is a real inoculation against violence. This is a piercing call to all the people of the world to stop the war. This is an attempt to reach out to the mighty of the world this, so that they stop breaking the fate of young eighteen-year-old guys who do not know how to shoot properly, sending them into the very heat of hostilities, stop earning millions on deaths. This is a terrible and incredibly important work.
Arkady Babchenko
War
Text provided by the copyright holder http://www.litres.ru/pages/biblio_book/?lfrom=329574480&art=9363282 War / Arkady Babchenko: Alpina non-fiction; Moscow; 2015
ISBN 978-5-9614-3911-3
Project Manager A. Tarasova
Corrector E. Aksenova
Computer layout M. Potashkin
Cover design Y. Buga
All rights reserved. The work is intended solely for private use. No part of the electronic copy of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and in corporate networks, for public or collective use without the written permission of the copyright owner. For copyright infringement, the legislation provides for the payment of compensation to the copyright holder in the amount of up to 5 million rubles (Article 49 of the LOAP), as well as criminal liability in the form of imprisonment for up to 6 years (Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
© A. Babchenko, 2014 © Alpina non-fiction LLC, 2015
Introduction
Born March 18, 1977 in Moscow. Went to kindergarten. Has grown up. Went to school. Has grown up. He listened to informal music, wore long hair and a padded jacket, drank beer, smoked quietly from his parents and skipped classes. Fought with dispatchers. More precisely, they beat me because I was frail, and most importantly, I could not stand violence at all.
After school, I decided to take up my mind and become a lawyer, but in the first year I realized that jurisprudence was not my vocation and, in general, mortal longing, and ... continued to study.
When the summons came from the military registration and enlistment office, I went to the military registration and enlistment office and said that I wanted to serve. There was a delay, but I didn't want to. There was an opportunity to “slop down” - at the medical examination, a pretty woman psychiatrist, having learned that I was voluntarily going to the army from the second year of law school, asked, “Are you a fool?” and sent me to an examination in a psychiatric hospital - to find out if I'm not a fool.
It was an unforgettable three weeks. Drug addicts, gangsters, homeless people, alcoholics and just crazy. The world through a barred window, broken bodies with chlorpromazine, delirium tremens and psychopathy. "Dachki" on strings through the bars, "button accordions" with heroin, "relashka" and galaperidol.
Three weeks later, the head physician called me and offered me a choice: a) for a very moderate amount of four million, permanently demobilize me from the Armed Forces under Article 5B “Drug Addiction” with the deprivation of parental, driver's, teacher's and other rights; b) for a smaller amount, stay to be examined for another five years, and c) go to twist footcloths.
Therefore, I left the psychiatric hospital as an absolutely healthy person and directed my steps to the Moscow recruiting station.
It was autumn. Leaves were falling and it was raining. Eyes after the wires hurt. The high fence was depressing.
Our invincible, in the face of a hefty drunken paratrooper, greeted me with promising words:
Well, fainting, here you are in the army. Who in the snout wants?
I didn't like the beginning.
For the first six months he served in a training camp in the town of Yelan, near Sverdlovsk. There I learned the words much more squiggly than those that the paratrooper had spoken to us. A sense of tact, as well as censorship, do not allow me to bring here these masterpieces of the Russian language, but, believe me, they were worth these ascents in forty-five seconds, night marches, daily six hours of hammering dots-dashes into the head with a stool, lying down, “drying crocodiles ”, night “rocking”, “watching TV”, shooting from a machine gun on a snowy field at minus thirty-five, lights out through a “helicopter” and baths in a room that is frozen through.
For the first two weeks, I thought I was going to die.
Subsequently, I realized that by army standards it was paradise.
Five months later he was appointed head of a transportable simplex transceiver VHF radio station and left for Chechnya as part of a train of one and a half thousand bayonets.
But only 1,495 of us made it to Chechnya. The remaining five, including myself, stayed for two months in Mozdok, in the 429th, the orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Kutuzov, a motorized rifle regiment named after the Kuban Cossacks. The Kuban Cossacks sat on blankets behind the barracks, raised their cups and said "Lubo."
In this regiment, the promising words of the paratrooper were justified in full. “Who flies faster than a fly? They are spirits, spirits, spirits." Well, yes, they did. And where to go? Army!
In June 1996, he went on leave for family reasons. Returned.
In August 1996, he left for the second time, fell ill immediately with all possible diseases, from pneumonia to dysentery (in Chechnya, he sneezed at least once), as a result of which he ended up in an infectious diseases hospital.
It was an unforgettable five days. Jaundice, dysentery and other typhoid. Semolina porridge with herring for lunch and dinner, washings, tests and droppers.
Five days later, he ran away using someone else's pass and walked free for two weeks. He listened to informal music, shaved his bald head, smoked with his father, drank beer and beat depechists. Vacation, of course, overdue.
At the commandant's office, where I came to celebrate the end of my freedom, I said that I wanted to go back to Chechnya to my foreman. They looked at me, said, “What are you, a fool?” They took off my laces, belt, suicide bomber and put me in a cell. Then they took me to the lip.
It was an unforgettable ten days.
Babchenko!
Arkady Arkadyevich! Staff Sergeant! Deadline - ten days!
Rise at five in the morning, morning toilet - two minutes, breakfast - ten minutes, walk - half an hour, lunch - fifteen minutes, dinner - seven minutes, evening toilet - five minutes. “Long, run, bastard, I have thirty cameras for you ...” You can’t sleep. No smoking. You can't lie down. You can't go to the toilet. Just sit and think about your misdeed.
With me in the cell were two more "skiers" like me, one robber, one rapist and one thief.
Everything was discussed on the first day. On the second day, everything was discussed again. On the third day they quietly strangled each other.
Ten days, it turns out, can drag on unbearably long. So long that these one and a half weeks have become a separate part of my life, much more significant than ten years of school and five institutes combined.
After the lip, they transferred me to the so-called diesel unit and opened a criminal case under the article “Desertion”. I waited for three months, they would put me in jail or give me amnesty. All this time he was delivering zinc coffins with the dead. This outfit was called "special cargo". A lot of dead boys arrived in Moscow. Two or three people a day.
While waiting for the results of the investigation, the opportunity arose. The senior clerk, starting a questionnaire on me, asked if I had nightmares at night. I answered that no, my sleep is even and calm, and I am still ready to serve the Motherland at any point in it. The clerk asked if I was a fool and advised me to go to the medical board. Then I remembered that I really do have terrible headaches, accompanied by unbearable nightmares, and made an appointment.
The doctor listened to me very carefully, for some reason said that because of the simulators the army would someday fall apart completely, and sent me to Kashchenko for examination.
This month was not. Well, you know. Helping cooks in the kitchen, extra food, city breaks, stolen alcohol, soothing outdoor lawn weeding, and gentle nurses.
My grandmother, meanwhile, threw a travel bag stuffed with chocolate over her shoulder and went to trade on electric trains. And she traded for two million rubles.
She put this money in a box of chocolates, sealed the box back with cellophane “anyhow no one did anything,” and went to bow to the head of the department to “ask for her grandson.” The doctor either did not like sweets, or was not sold for an unopened box of sweets (who would realize that there were two million in it!), But the bribe lay unopened for the whole month.
In general, I was not demobilized from the army.
The criminal case was closed by that time, two stolen “flies” hanging on me, a bag with cartridges and grenades, exchanged by Timokha for heroin in Mozdok, were written off as combat, in a psychiatric hospital, as I said, they didn’t leave, they didn’t demobilize either, the box sweets were taken back from the head of the department who went nuts ...
There was nothing left but to go to serve in the city of Tver, in the 166th motorized rifle brigade, anti-aircraft division, radar reconnaissance and control battery. Abbreviated as BRlRU, or "be-erel-era". As my battalion commander Major Gavryushchenko later said: “Babchenko! I come to pindendelnik and am surprised - everything is all right in beerelerelerulululuru!”
They didn’t let me accompany the officer on the road, saying: “And so it will do. And at least, if you run away, you will return to us anyway, where can you go, dear. Ride in peace."
