Where is Dudayev's wife now. Life of Dega Dudayev in Vilnius

Chechnya is famous for its unique mountain landscapes, for which many brave heroes fought. The spirit of liberty flows in the veins of the dignified Chechen people. For a long time, Dzhokhar Dudayev was a model of the unique strong-willed character of this small country. The biography of the ruler, like the fate of Chechnya itself, is quite intense and tragic. The son of his proud nation defended the interests of his small republic until the end of his life. What was he like, General Dzhokhar Dudayev?

The biography of the highest elder of the first Chechen hostilities leads us back to 1944. It became very fateful for the Chechen population. It was then that Stalin gave the order to deport the Chechens from the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the Central Asian and Kazakh lands. This action of the central authorities was explained by the fact that the male population of the Chechen state was engaged in robberies and robberies. It was in this year that Dzhokhar Musaevich was born, who in the future will lead the process for the secession of Chechnya from the USSR.

Becoming a future commander

So, after the deportation, the Dudaev family ended up in Kazakhstan (in the Pavlodar region). How did Dudayev Dzhokhar Musaevich spend his youth? The biography of a Chechen celebrity leads to the village of Pervomayskoye, in the Galanchozhsky district of the Chechen-Ingush state. It was here that Dzhokhar was born. In some materials, the date of birth is February 15, but there is no exact confirmation of this. His father's name was Musa, and his mother's name was Rabiat. They raised 13 children, the youngest was Dzhokhar Dudayev. The family consisted of 7 children born in this marriage, and 6 children of the father from a previous marriage.

The boy's father died when he was only 6 years old. Dzhokhar was a diligent student, which cannot be said about his brothers and sisters. Once, for his leadership qualities, he was elected the leader of the class. Upon returning to their native places, in 1957, the Dudaev family, already without a father, stopped in Grozny.

After leaving school (in 1960), Dzhokhar became a student at the North Ossetian Pedagogical University. He chose the direction of physics and mathematics. But he studied there for only one year. Where does Dzhokhar Dudayev go next?

His biography continues at the Tambov Higher Military Aviation School, where he studied for 4 years. During these years, Dzhokhar had to carefully hide his Chechen origin, calling himself an Ossetian. Only after receiving a document on education, in 1966, he insists that his true origin be entered in personal documents.

Army and military career

In combat units of the Air Force began his military service Dzhokhar Dudayev. The photos perfectly demonstrate his military bearing. As soon as he graduated from a military school, he was sent as an assistant aircraft commander to the Shaikovka airfield in Kaluga region. After 2 years of service, he joined the ranks of the Communist Party.

Where does the biography of Dzhokhar Dudayev lead further? It is briefly worth mentioning his studies at the Air Force Academy. Yu. A. Gagarin (1971-1974). Dudayev's track record included many military duties: deputy commander of an air regiment, chief of staff, commander of a detachment. Colleagues remembered him as a highly moral person, sometimes a little temperamental and ardent.

The armed conflict in Afghanistan also affected part of the life of the future general. There he was the commander of the Tu-22MZ bomber and made combat sorties on it, although he later denied this fact. Then for three years he served in the Ternopil bomber brigade. After that, he became the commander of a military garrison in Estonia (Tartu), where he was awarded the rank of Major General of Aviation.

What kind of commander was Dzhokhar Dudayev? The biography says that he was a well-informed commander. After the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of War. Dudayev was distinguished by stubbornness, self-control, presence of mind and concern for his subordinates. In the unit entrusted to him, a strict regime and discipline always reigned, the life of his subordinates was always well equipped.

Immersion in political activity

In 1990, Dzhokhar Dudayev began to chair the Executive Committee at the Chechen National Forum, held in Grozny. A year later, he initiated the dissolution of the Supreme Council of the CRI and became the head of a public movement for distrust of the government. The general initiated the introduction of parallel administrative bodies, declaring the deputies of Chechnya incompetent.

After the August incidents in Moscow in 1991, the political climate in the Chechen Republic became aggravated. All-democratic organizations took power into their own hands. Dudayev's people captured the Grozny City Council, the airport and the city center.

President of the self-proclaimed republic

How did Dzhokhar Dudayev become president? The biography of the general in the political direction was very rich. In October 1991, he was elected and announced the secession of the republic from the RSFSR. Boris Yeltsin, in response to such actions, decided to declare a particularly dangerous situation in Chechnya. Dudayev, in turn, allowed the Chechens to acquire and store firearms.

Fight for an independent Chechnya

After the collapse of the USSR, Moscow no longer controlled the events in the Chechen Republic. Ammunition from military units was stolen by private individuals. In 1992 there was an unexpected change of power in neighboring Georgia. Together with the Georgian leaders, Dudayev undertook the formation of an armed organization in Transcaucasia. The purpose of such an association was the formation of republics separated from Russia.

Moscow tried in every possible way to seat Dudayev's government at the negotiating table, but he demanded recognition of the independence of the republic. In parallel, the same actions took place in neighboring Georgia, which demanded its independence. Unofficially, the rulers demonstrated their disposition towards independent Chechnya Saudi Arabia, but they were afraid to directly support Dudayev's power. As president, Dudayev makes a visit to Turkey, Cyprus, Bosnia, and the United States. The purpose of the American meeting was to sign agreements with the founders on oil production in the Chechen Republic.

Loss of trust and support

After a year of Dudayev's presidency, the situation in Chechnya begins to worsen, disagreements appear in the position of the parliament and the head of state. Dzhokhar Dudayev decides to dissolve parliament and impose a curfew. At that moment, opposition forces began to form, an attempt was made on the president, but he managed to escape. All these events led to armed clashes.

Combat clashes in Chechnya (1993-95)

The summer period of 1993 in Chechnya turned out to be hot, the opposition forces had to retreat to the north of the republic. There the opposition formed its governing bodies. Dudayev managed to ensure that Chechnya did not take part in the elections to the State Duma of Russia. But the contradictions within the reign of Dzhokhar Dudayev increasingly weakened his management. The opposition formed a Provisional Council headed by Umar Avturkhanov. Dudayev, on the other hand, began an active liquidation of the oppositionists, who were supported by Russia. After the National Congress, which was held by Dudayev, it was decided to declare a "holy war" against Russia. Thus began the first Ruthless struggle for the independence of Chechnya, the biography of Dzhokhar Dudayev is saturated. Briefly, it is necessary to mention the creation by him of camps for the detention of persons who disagree with his position.

In December 1994, with the help of helicopters, the special services managed to eliminate Dudayev's planes at the Grozny airport. Opposition forces broke into Grozny, but they could not gain a foothold there, they needed Moscow's support. The head of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, ordered the destruction of illegal gangs in Chechnya, led by Dzhokhar Dudayev. Such an order led to the tragic events in Budyonnovsk. This is a city in the Stavropol Territory, which was chosen by a detachment of militants under the command of Shamil Basayev to take hostages and present their demands to the central authorities. As a result of such actions, 100 civilians of Budyonnovsk were killed. The Russian authorities did not make any concessions to Basayev's detachment.

Liquidation of Dzhokhar Dudayev

From the first days of the Chechen war, the Russian intelligence department kept the Generalissimo of the Chechen Republic at gunpoint. There were 3 assassination attempts on him, and all were unsuccessful. The first ended with a sniper's miss, the second - with luck after the explosion of his car, the third - with a timely departure from the building, which was subject to air strikes.

In 1996, the sides of the confrontation briefly reconciled, Yeltsin was even going to recognize the independence of Chechnya. But soon the terrorists fired on the detachment Russian soldiers near the village of Yaryshmardy, and the president instructed his head of security and the head of the FSB to destroy Dzhokhar Dudayev. The operation was developed very carefully and thought through various methods. The "elusive leader" showed particular caution.

To carry out this operation, a special device was developed that can perceive waves mobile phone. This device transmitted the location of the subscriber to the military. The operation was carried out on April 21, 1996. The developed device caught the location of Dudayev, and 2 SU-24 bombers flew there. From the planes, several very powerful anti-radar missiles were fired at the car where the Chechen leader was. This is how Dzhokhar Dudayev died. Death came a few minutes after the shelling. Next to Dudayev was then his wife Alla, but she managed to escape in a ravine. Dzhokhar died in the arms of his wife. The media announced only the next day that Dzhokhar Dudayev had been liquidated (photo in the article).

Reaction to Dudayev's death

The world press informed in great detail about the elimination of the president of Chechnya. So Dudayev Dzhokhar Musaevich could not fulfill his dreams. The biography of a talented leader ended tragically. Many journalists said that this campaign was carried out precisely for the re-election of Yeltsin for a second term. Russia has since taken a tough stance and offered its terms to the militants. This led to the resumption of hostilities. Chechen fighters decided to avenge the death of their leader by attacking Grozny. For some time, the Chechens managed to keep the advantage of hostilities on their side.

At this time, rumors were spreading that the president of Ichkeria was still alive. But all of them were dispelled after a video with the burnt corpse of Dudayev was made public in 2002.

Battalion in memory of the Chechen leader

In 2014, with the advent of confrontation in the eastern part of Ukraine, a volunteer armed detachment was created - a battalion named after Dzhokhar Dudayev (to carry out an international peacekeeping mission). It was formed in Denmark from Chechens who emigrated from Chechnya after the end of hostilities there. The battalion of Dzhokhar Dudayev was organized by the socio-political association "Free Caucasus" specifically to protect the interests of Ukraine in the clash in the Donbass. The battalion assisted the Ukrainian army in the most fierce battles for liberation. The most famous members of this military formation are Isa Manuev, Sergey Melnikoff, Nureddin Ismailov, Adam Osmaev, Amina Okueva.

Family life after the death of Dudayev

The activities of Dzhokhar Dudayev, like his person, even 20 years after his death, are assessed ambiguously. For a long time, rumors spread that he managed to survive. Only 5 years ago, the secret services declassified the data on his liquidation. There is a version that among the commander's entourage was a traitor who gave him away for $1 million.

How did the further life of the Dudayev family develop? The most famous is younger son- Degi. One of the eldest sons, Ovlur, completely changed his first and last name and lived for some time in Lithuania under the name Davydov Oleg Zakharovich. Then he moved to Sweden. The daughter of Dzhokhar Dudayev - Dana - settled with her family in Turkey (Istanbul), does not communicate with journalists.

After Dudayev's death, Alla's wife immediately tried to leave the country and go to Turkey, but was detained by Yeltsin's order. She was soon released, and she spent three years with her children in Chechnya, contributing to the work of the Ministry of Culture of Chechnya. Then the widow spent some time in Baku, then with her daughter in Istanbul, then in Vilnius.

Alla Dudayeva is the author of a book about her husband "Dzhokhar Dudayev. The First Million". Dudayev's wife is a very talented and gifted person. She graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Smolensk, studied at the Faculty of Graphic Art. After the death of her husband, Alla regularly holds various exhibitions of her paintings and publications in Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Estonia, and France. Also special attention Alla Dudayeva's poems deserve, she often reads them at creative evenings. In Georgia (2012), she was offered to host the “Portrait of the Caucasus” program on television, with which she did an excellent job. Thanks to her husband's fame, Alla Dudayeva's paintings are exhibited in many cities around the world. In 2009, she was elected a member of the Presidium of the CRI Government. The last time the woman lives in Sweden.

In April 1996, almost 20 years ago, the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, was assassinated. In 1999, when the second Russian-Chechen war began, his widow Alla Dudayeva was forced to leave Chechnya and has since lived in exile in Georgia, Turkey, and now - in Sweden.

Alla Dudayeva was born in a Russian family, she is the daughter of an officer Soviet army but considers herself a Chechen. Alla Fedorovna published a book about her husband, "The First Million", writes poetry and paintings. The conversation, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Stalinist deportation of the Chechen-Ingush people, we began with memories of the times of perestroika, when Dzhokhar Dudayev led the movement for the independence of Chechen-Ingushetia from Russia.

- There were very bright hopes, there was a fresh wind of change that seemed to bring freedom to all peoples, including Russia. The future was seen only bright and joyful. But still, some doubt crept in at the time. I even wrote a poem dedicated to Gorbachev, which ended like this: "A democrat and a partocrat will not grow together. A step forward and two steps back are inevitable." Our hopes were shattered when 14 Georgian girls were killed with sapper shovels, and then Russian tanks approached the Lithuanian Seim, captured the tower, and there were also casualties. I think: why did our hope not come true, why did this happen? Because no one was punished for these war crimes, for the people killed. After all, they do not judge their own. This was the beginning of the end of democratic reforms.

- And who would you like to see in the dock? Hardly Gorbachev?

- Yes, I think, of course, not Gorbachev. It was a great courage on his part to speak out against the state apparatus. But it was necessary to conduct an investigation, start with the generals who gave orders for the killings, and then the strings would be pulled further.

- You then lived in Estonia ...

It is impossible to perceive the entire Chechen people as supporters of the current regime

- Until 1991, Dzhokhar was a division general in Tartu. The first popular fronts were created there: in Lithuania, then in Estonia. It was like a spring flood. We were just studying politics then. I worked in the library, next to me is a Ukrainian, he took part in Rukh, the Ukrainian Popular Front. In Checheno-Ingushetia, everything was a little later, there, too, the people perked up and believed that they would receive as much freedom as they could keep, as Yeltsin later said.

- Chechnya in the Yeltsin years was the center of resistance to the empire. The Chechens repulsed the aggression during the first war and defeated Russia. But now Chechnya has become a stronghold of Putinism. Kadyrov is omnipotent, and it seems that even Putin himself is afraid to pull him down. What are the reasons for this change, how do you explain it?

– It is impossible to perceive the entire Chechen people as supporters of the current regime, otherwise this people would not have resisted decades of Russian occupation. Five Chechen presidents were killed during the two Russian-Chechen wars, the best soldiers died, and the survivors were forced to leave their homeland due to persecution. And we should not forget about the monstrous torture, violence and murders, hundreds of concentration camps, not only in Ichkeria, but also in Mozdok, Kislovodsk, throughout Stavropol and the North Caucasus. The Chechen people are now intimidated, they are simply forced to survive on the principle of "even if you call it a pot, just don't put it in the stove." Nevertheless, not just a desire for freedom has always been alive inside the people, but the confidence that the Chechen people will be free. The Kadyrov regime now relies on the support of Putin, and the latter on Kadyrov. This symbiosis will exist as long as Putin remains in power. So it's not forever. Judging by the events that are now taking place in the world, this will not last long.

- Don't you think that Putin will be re-elected in 2018?

A lot will change before 2018. Judging by the impending crisis, the pressure of European sanctions, the general rejection of the vertical of power, the Putin regime and the constant wars in which he participates Russian people, I think that big changes in Russia will happen much faster.

- Now they even say that Kadyrov is the only politician who can become Putin's successor. Can you imagine such a scenario?

- I think this is done in order to intimidate those who do not support Putin: if you do not like Putin, Kadyrov will come. They just scare Kadyrov.

- There are reasons to be afraid of Kadyrov. The murder of Boris Nemtsov, threats to Kasyanov...

- I think it's no secret to anyone who ordered the murder of Boris Nemtsov, it's still the same struggle for unlimited power before the 2018 elections. How many of the best people in Russia have already been killed for it simply because they could become possible applicants, how many are now sitting in prisons and camps ...

- Aren't you afraid of Kadyrov? Kadyrov's people didn't try to threaten you or, on the contrary, somehow lure you over to their side? Are there any such signals from Grozny?

And how can I come when the best representatives of the Chechen people are being killed in the mountains?

- There was such interest in me 10 years ago or a little more, when Akhmat Kadyrov, Ramzan's father, was still at the head of Chechnya. Officially invited me to come through the media, promised that he would help solve economic problems, supposedly I will be the guarantee of peace in Ichkeria. Guaranteed my safety. But I told him that there was a war going on in Chechnya and he couldn't guarantee his own security. And how can I come when the best representatives of the Chechen people are being killed in the mountains, and they will receive me with honor? I will look like a traitor. The Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also offered me to come, he also guaranteed security. A year later, Akhmat Kadyrov was blown up at the stadium.

- Ramzan hasn't invited you yet?

- No, there was nothing. Probably, my answer was enough: he is in the know, knows how I answered.

- Is there a leader in Chechnya who, in your opinion, continues the work of Dzhokhar Dudayev?

It is necessary to abolish the post of president altogether, to introduce parliamentary government, as it has always been in Chechnya since ancient times

- For security reasons, I do not want to name the leaders, I would not want to substitute these people. Although all Chechens are generals, as Dzhokhar said, in the Chechen people, as in no other, there are a large number of passionaries, people capable of giving their lives for the idea of ​​freedom and independence of their homeland. Dzhokhar compared the Chechens to wild, unbroken horses, which, in times of danger, unite in a circle, protecting old people, women and children in the center and fighting off enemies with their hooves, and in Peaceful time from an excess of strength kick each other. Therefore, I am sure that for the Chechen people it is necessary to completely abolish the post of president, to introduce parliamentary government, as it has always been in Chechnya since ancient times. The imam appeared only during the hostilities, in peacetime there was another governing body - the mekhk-khel, the council of elders. It's no secret that the presidential form of government is always a struggle for power, even with one's former associates. This is always dangerous for the people, because this power can develop into an autocratic one, as it happened in Russia. It is impossible to trust the whole state to one person in full government. It may turn out that this person himself will become a puppet of those persons who paid for his elections, and then the whole people will become victims. I believe that it is necessary to fight not with the authorities, we must fight for its destruction. The less power the better.

- You began to adhere to anarchist views?

- No, not anarchist, but I think that parliamentary government is the most convenient for both the Chechen and Russian people. Because one head is good, but many heads are better. Firstly, it is impossible to blow up everyone, and this collegial body is simply much smarter and much more capable of solving difficult state problems. In addition, all people elected by the people can take part in the parliament.

- Russia is not accustomed to living without a tsar, under any regime the same scheme of autocracy is repeated.

Dzhokhar compared Chechens to wild unbroken horses

“Still, you can’t give so much power to one president. Now many people tell me, they lament that there is no Dzhokhar, there is no such strong leader who would lead the Chechen people. I tell them: "All together we are Dzhokhar, each individually will not pull, but all together - Dzhokhar." As Dzhokhar said, "everything is decided by the people." Those whom the Chechen people choose, they will rule together. Therefore, I believe that it is not necessary to focus on leaders: there are separate groups that begin to compete with each other, argue in the struggle for power, former comrades-in-arms can become enemies. This is fraught with dangerous consequences for the people and the state. Parliamentary government is the best. I have already discussed this topic with many of our people: perhaps in the future we will have to hold a referendum in order to change the presidential government to parliamentary. Many are supportive.

– You said that during perestroika you were friends with a member of the Ukrainian Narodny Rukh. And how did you perceive the latest events in Ukraine, the Maidan, the revolution? Are there parallels in what is happening between Russia and Chechnya and between Russia and Ukraine, or are they still different stories?

I have high hopes for the Ukrainian people, because their spirit reminds me of the Chechen people

​– I have not been to Ukraine for a long time, but I am closely following all the events. Because of Russia (as it used to be in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria), an internal struggle has to be waged with people who were imprisoned from the former government of the USSR. The poisonous teeth of the dragon sprouted, which had been sown by the partocrats. Then they took advantage of privatization, now they have become oligarchs, they buy the conscience and votes of poor people during elections, using political technologies, monstrous deceit and fraud. Universal actions in all captured, occupied republics. What concern is there for the life of the people and the right to self-determination! For example, a "referendum" was held in the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk republics, but I call it a "so-called referendum", just like those "referendums" held in the occupied republics, for example, in Ichkeria. At gunpoint, a referendum is not held, the will of the people is not asked without the participation of international observers. Moreover, regardless of the state's right to the integrity of its territory. I think that the parallels with the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria are also in the strength of the spirit of the Ukrainian people, volunteers and the leadership of the ATO, who took the burden of the war on their shoulders. And in his political deceit. A 300,000-strong army entered Ichkeria under the guise of protecting the Russian-speaking population and undertook to establish "constitutional order." And she entered Ukraine under the guise of protecting the Russian population of Lugansk and Donetsk. I have no doubt that Ukraine will become a truly independent European state, I have high hopes for the Ukrainian people, because they remind me of the Chechen people with their spirit. Besides, I really like Mikheil Saakashvili, I lived and worked in Georgia. I was invited to host the Russian-language TV channel PIK from 2009 to 2011. I am a witness to reforms young government Saakashvili.

– Why did you decide to leave Georgia?

– Because the pro-Russian government of Ivanishvili came to power. The channel on which I worked for three years was closed, and the persecution of Mikheil Saakashvili himself began. Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili was imprisoned for two years. Many were then forced to flee from Georgia. Now, I think things are changing for the better.

- It cannot be said that Georgia is now pursuing a pro-Russian policy. Foreign policy is rather the same as in Saakashvili's time, only without such harsh rhetoric.

​– Because now there is another president with whom Ivanishvili's people are not very happy. There are many attacks on Mikheil Saakashvili, but I would like to tell people what I witnessed. In 1999, at the beginning of the second Russian-Chechen war, I was forced to flee to Georgia. Those were Shevardnadze's times. At that time, Georgia was a dark kingdom, there was almost no electricity, broken roads, poor and unemployed people, with a tiny pension of 8 lari in Georgian villages, which could only buy a bottle of milk and bread. When I arrived 10 years later in 2009, I saw a completely different country, changed thanks to the investments made by other countries with the help of Mikheil Saakashvili, who created a fertile climate for investors. Power plants were built on mountain rivers. All Georgian villages and cities were brightly lit. Roads in accordance with European standards were built to the most remote corners of Georgia, up to Pankisi, and the pension was increased to 100 lari, everyone was paid the same pension. The system of bureaucracy and corruption was completely destroyed – this was done by the Saakashvili government. I was surprised by the cheapest taxis in the world. A taxi driver could simply buy a sign for 10 lari, hang it on his old car and start working, the state did not take any taxes from him. Usually pensioners went, I talked with them, they earned 500-600 GEL per month – was a great help to the families of their children and grandchildren. This work for the elderly was a joy, because they felt needed by the family and independent. Small private business in small shops and markets. I wondered why there are no modern supermarkets: it turns out that supermarkets were not built on purpose so that there would be no monopoly of trade. People came from the villages, brought food to these shops, sold vegetables, fruits, meat, milk, cottage cheese, cheese, wine, Borjomi, all this was very inexpensive. People dreamed about how to start trading in Russia, because Georgia – agricultural country. Mikheil Saakashvili opened the border with Georgia, visa-free travel for Russians. But Putin from that side did not let Georgian goods through. Ivanishvili promised to do this, but the promise was never fulfilled. And how beautiful Georgia has become! I have never seen such decorations anywhere, in the three darkest months – November, December and January – garlands of lights in the form of dripping drops, flying birds and water lilies hung in the streets. It was possible to walk along the streets of Georgian cities at night, as during the day, it was so beautiful. The trees stood doused with these lights, luminous figurines of animals between them. It was evident that Saakashvili loved Georgia very much. A blue bridge was built, very beautiful, for pedestrians. Glass police stations, transparent so that passers-by can see that the Georgian police do not beat those they arrest. To become a policeman, one had to pass a very difficult exam. The police were very polite, they received a thousand dollars each, in my opinion, a good salary was for Georgia at that time. In Tbilisi, the old streets were repaired, painted in different colors, and at the same time the historical appearance was preserved. Found underground on Rustaveli Avenue Old city medieval stone building. It was not buried, but thoroughly cleaned, and it was like a lower floor for tourists in the center of Tbilisi. Exhibitions, galleries, conferences, cultural figures and historians were invited from all the republics of the Caucasus. Our channel was engaged in this work, I was broadcasting with these guests from all over the Caucasus. Even from Moscow, they came to us by invitation, Valeria Novodvorskaya, for example, came, artists came, poets – it was broadcast all over Russia. Our programs were of a peaceful nature, we showed that, despite the five-day war, the Russians have nothing to fear, the borders of Georgia are open to everyone. Mikheil Saakashvili had such a very honest and kind policy.

– Now he is trying to carry out reforms in Odessa. Do you keep in touch with him?

– No, I do not support contact, but I am closely following everything that happens there.

– I see that you miss Tbilisi. Are you thinking of returning?

I lived the happiest and most difficult years with the Chechen people

​– I think that in the future I will come to Georgia and the Caucasus in general. I also like Europe, I am surprised at the kindness of Europeans, how they accept so many Muslim refugees, with what kindness they treat them. Actually, I traveled around many countries, after the first Russian-Chechen war I was in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Lithuania, Germany, France with an exhibition of my paintings and a book presentation. When I lived in Turkey, I was amazed at the kindness of Turkish women, who for half a year sewed, embroidered, knitted wonderful transparent tablecloths or silk towels, children's clothes, and Turkish sellers gave their goods to women for free at charity bazaars after their three-time markdown. Once every six months, in autumn and spring, they gathered at these bazaars, laid out in the very beautiful place Istanbul on the shelves of these goods, they sang beautiful songs. The mayor of Istanbul came, solemnly opened a charity fair, they bought these things, and it all went to pay for the apartments of refugees. There I sold my paintings and the book "One Million First" in Turkish, which was read by the Turks. And I was surprised that they perceive the book as children. Such a huge man could, with tears in his eyes, bring me a piece of paper on which he wrote a letter in Turkish after he had read my book, expressed his feelings for the Chechen people. In general, Turkish people are very sentimental. When my book was translated into Turkish, I asked the translator: "How did the poems turn out?" He says with such a smile: "Better than the original." I felt a little embarrassed. He explained that in the Turkic languages – this is the birthplace of poetry – the lyrics sound much better. In general, one can learn something good from all peoples. Among the European peoples – kindness and tolerance. They walk down the street, not even knowing the person, smiling towards him.

– Do you live in Stockholm?

– No, in one of the smaller towns. They don't know me, but it's just the way it is. People live modestly, there are no such palaces that appeared in Russia among the nouveau riche. They live modestly, but very clean apartments, beautiful houses, but without unnecessary decorations outside. Inside there is good plumbing, doors, windows, batteries under the windows, so that everything is clean, beautiful, at the highest level. People dress simply, not at all like in Russia or in the same Ichkeria, without unnecessary decorations. Probably, they are decorated with the kindness of the soul more than all these decorations. And a lot of people ride bikes. It is considered ugly to have an expensive car here. And somehow brag about their wealth. You will never tell the rich from the common man, he also works on his farm. Many have farms: three days on the farm, three days in the city, rich people live in harmony with nature and with all life.

– Do you also have a bicycle?

– Yes, I go in for sports, ride in the forest, through fields and meadows. It's very good, fresh air blows over my face, I admire the well-groomed fields: everywhere you can see the work of these kind hands, those who live here, there are no overgrown fields or broken roads with weeds. Great workers – get up early in the morning with the sunrise, catch the sun, as they say, go to bed very early, around 9-10 o'clock.

- Alla Fedorovna, you were born in the Moscow region. Do you have a desire to go there or do you want to have nothing to do with Russia?

The Russian people have been living in a state of war for 25 years, they only bury and send their sons to war

​– I have more friends and relatives in Ichkeria, because for the last 40 years I have lived among the Chechen people, my children and grandchildren – Chechens. I miss these friends more, there are very few left in Russia. Unfortunately, the mentality of the Russian people has changed a lot. I lived the happiest and most difficult years together with the Chechen people, we were like a single whole during the war, when we prayed together and asked Allah to send us victory, buried those who died together, cried together. The Russian people were on the opposite side. Many of its best representatives, who saw the injustice of the Russian-Chechen war, gave their lives to stop this war, spoke the truth about the Chechen people. The whole world knows the names of these people – this is Anna Politkovskaya and many others, I don't even want to list them all, because there are so many of them. What is in the Russian people, – people who are ready to give their life or freedom in the fight against an aggressive criminal government. The Russian people are not building new cities now, they are not planting gardens, there are no roads like in Georgia, health care and hospitals, education – this is all at the lowest level, all funds are invested only in the military industry. The Russian people have only been fighting for 25 years, the war was in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, then in Georgia, in Ukraine, now in Syria. The Russian people have been living in a state of war for 25 years, they only bury and send their sons to war. Therefore, the mentality has changed, I think, for the majority. As a result of this rule of the most cruel in the world, criminal and aggressive regime, Russia is gradually shrinking, the people are dying out at a pace that has never been dreamed of before, the number of homeless children is growing, people are in poverty. But advertising is completely different.

– Now many people in Russia are thinking about emigration. You have a lot of experience, you have lived in many countries, what advice would you give to those who do not dare to make a choice?

I read articles on the internet and am horrified at what the world has come to

​– If they are young, it is easier for young people to settle down abroad, to get an education abroad. change homeland – always very hard. We were forced to leave because we were threatened with destruction. And in Russia itself, such a war is not going on inside, although public figures threaten. I think that this is their personal matter, a matter of their conscience. If they leave, they will not come back, because their homeland will no longer exist. I would simply advise you to hide for a while, but not to leave your homeland, because the changes will be very soon, big changes. I can read my poem to you, it is about how I miss you.

Ichkeria, my love!
To where there is no return
My soul, fly...
Where every leaf, stone is holy
Bend your knees.
Correct thousands of deaths
You were coming out of the lights
Earthly hell... And they left.
And we're halfway there again...
Those mountains are cool in the night
Streams flickering I see...
And the sounds of hundreds of voices
Shells whistle
And clang of trunks
I hear again with a sensitive heart.
In the lezginka of young men flying,
Eagle arms swing, their eyes!
Masses of mountains
The pupil shifted,
And going out into the open
Freedom to infect slaves
And to frighten enemies with death!
Ichkeria, my love,
How I miss you!
What should I tell you?
I never lived in exile.
alive with your hope
I'm dying every moment
When you go to the slaughter...
Evil is not eternal, it will go away,
And with it all your suffering.
Take a deep breath, and then
Russian troops leave
All predictions will come true...
The snow will melt, spring will come,
Scattering thousands of signs,
happy life of generations,
taken from the fire by you,
Ichkeria, my love!

- Alla Fedorovna, do you consider yourself, first of all, a poet, an artist, or does politics occupy you most of all?

​– I never considered myself a politician. I had exhibitions, presentations of my book – it was my cultural and informational work in all countries, just to talk about what I witnessed. Involuntarily she was involved in politics. Because when my husband Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected president, we were asked questions about politics, we had to read and think a lot. I still read articles on the Internet and am horrified by what the world has come to. Back in 2007, I wanted to create a union of world cities, I wrote appeals, I received answers from different countries so that all wars on this earth would stop. It did not work out, now with one click of a button you can destroy an entire city. Huge steps are progress in the creation of weapons. It seems to me that it is necessary to change people morally, because their appearance does not correspond to this progress, modern technology. People must learn kindness, must learn to love each other and understand that every nation has its own heroes, that every nation wants to be free. For this, of course, there must be communication. The Chechen people never wanted harm to the Russian and other peoples. In the Caucasus, all peoples lived in peace and harmony, just as peoples live in Europe now, who do not even have strong armies, because they have lost the habit of fighting. Only Russia is fighting, its aggressive government, which sends Russian sons to war. So the government needs to change.

- February 23 - the day of the Defender of the Fatherland in Russia and the day of the deportation of the Chechen-Ingush people ...

- Dzhokhar, speaking on the 50th anniversary of the deportation in Ichkeria, delivered a wonderful speech. He said that he would stop grieving and crying, as the Chechen people got used to on this day, the day of remembrance for the victims of deportation. Then half of the Chechen people were killed in camps or burned in houses, as in the village of Khaibakh. He said: stop shedding tears for us, let's make this day the day of the revival of the Chechen nation. And I don't like that it's the Day of the Soviet Army either. Around the war, and then a military holiday, and in Chechnya it is a day of grief. Let's better make it a day of revival for all peoples, the revival of kindness, peace, the cessation of wars on our planet. Let this be a naive utopian dream, but if you really believe in it, maybe it will come true.

Widow of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Dzhokhar Dudayev.

Alla Dudayeva (nee Alevtina Fedorovna Kulikova) is the widow of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev.

Daughter of a Soviet officer, former commandant of Wrangel Island (not related to General Kulikov)).

Born in 1947 in the Kolomensky district of the Moscow region. She graduated from the art and graphic faculty of the Smolensk Pedagogical Institute. In 1967, she became the wife of Air Force officer Dzhokhar Dudayev. She gave birth to two sons - Avlur and Degi - and a daughter, Dana.

After the death of her husband, on May 25, 1996, she tried to leave Chechnya and fly to Turkey, but she was detained at the Nalchik airport. She was interrogated by “a specially arrived young officer who introduced himself as Colonel Alexander Volkov” and whom she later recognized when she saw Alexander Litvinenko on TV (according to the testimony of Akhmed Zakayev in the Litvinenko murder case, he also confirmed that he had interrogated Alla Dudayeva under the name of Volkov). On May 28, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, meeting in the Kremlin with the leaders of the Chechen separatists, promised them to release Alla Dudayeva. After her release, she returned to Chechnya and from 1996 to 1999 collaborated with the CRI Ministry of Culture.

In October 1999, she left Chechnya with her children (by that time already adults). She lived in Baku, since 2002 with her daughter in Istanbul, then in Vilnius (the son of Alla and Dzhokhar Dudayev, Avlur, received Lithuanian citizenship and a passport in the name of Oleg Davydov; Alla herself had only a residence permit). In 2003 and 2006 she tried to obtain Estonian citizenship, where in 1987-1990 she lived with her husband, who was a division commander heavy bombers and head of the garrison in Tartu, but both times she was refused.

In May, a trial began in Lithuania against the son of the first president of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev. He and three Lithuanians are accused of making forged documents.

Life after death

One of the most closed Chechen families found itself at the center of a major public scandal. The son of the first president of Ichkeria, Dega Dudayev, is in the dock.

To this day, 17 years after his death, the personality of Dzhokhar Dudayev is ambiguously assessed. Dudaev - the most famous name the first Chechen campaign, rumors that he survived the assassination attempt never stopped. Only on the 15th anniversary of Dudayev's death, representatives of the special services revealed some details of that operation to eliminate him: for example, they reported that there was a traitor in the general's entourage, who betrayed him. They also named the price paid then for Dudayev's head - $ 1 million.

Degi Dudayev is the youngest representative of the family, but today, probably, the most famous. The other two children of the deceased general eschew publicity as much as possible. Dudayev's eldest son, Ovlur, born in 1969, even completely changed his name: Ovlur Dzhokharovich Dudayev is now listed in the documents as Oleg Zakharovich Davydov. Lithuanian citizenship in a new name was issued to him in one day, which caused discontent in calm Lithuania - the citizens of the country then waited 2 weeks for paperwork. Most likely, Dudayev-Davydov had to change his name to a less odious one because of business: there are not many who want to do business with a representative of an odious surname. But they did not manage to keep incognito for long, and as a result, Dudayev-Davydov, according to some reports, moved to Sweden with his family.

The daughter of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Dana, lives with her family in Istanbul, also distancing herself as much as possible from any publicity.

Lie detector did not reveal

Thus, 29-year-old Dudayev Jr. is the only representative of the family (except for his mother Alla Dudayeva) who sometimes meets with journalists. Last year, he even appeared on the air of a Georgian TV channel in an unexpected capacity - the hero of the Lie Detector program. Most of the questions were about the father and attitude towards Russia.

– Do you hate the Russian people?

- If the opportunity presented itself, would you avenge your father?

– Were there people around him who turned out to be traitors?

- Is it true that Dudayev died?

- Did you participate in the blood feud?

Degi was the first in the history of the Georgian program who the detector could not catch in a lie, and won the main prize - 20 thousand lari (about 340 thousand rubles). True, Dudayev Jr. refused to answer the last one - a super question that would have increased the winnings five times. Perhaps he was confused by the penultimate question:

– Do you think that Chechen traditions restrict human freedom?

For the conservative Caucasian diaspora, this is a very risky answer.

Degi Dudayev is more willing to talk about his father than about his own life. In May, the trial against him began. He and three Lithuanians are accused of making false documents. The Baltics are a convenient transit to Europe, including for the huge Chechen diaspora, which settled here after Ramzan Kadyrov came to power in the republic. Dudayev was caught red-handed - in his car "Audi A6" he was carrying seven fake European passports for Chechens. According to investigators, not for the first time.

“This is a serious crime, according to our laws, it is punishable by a sentence of 6 years in prison,” Tomas Songaila, an investigator from the Lithuanian prosecutor's office, commented to the Interlocutor.

Later, Lithuanian investigators found a printing house near Kaunas, where the production of passports and even bank cards was put on stream.

- You can buy a package of documents for traveling to Europe in the Baltics, this black business exists, and it is quite developed. The minimum set of documents for legal border crossing costs from 10 thousand dollars, - said a businessman from Kaliningrad, who has business contacts with Lithuania.

Judge can't let go

“Only the first court session took place, but it was short, the continuation will follow in June, and then the consideration will most likely be transferred to Vilnius altogether,” Jomile Jushkaite-Vizbarienė, a representative of the Kaunas city court, told the Interlocutor.

The Dudayev family, although they left Russia immediately after the death of Dzhokhar, nevertheless remained in the spotlight. A few years ago, Alla Dudayeva gave an interview to Interlocutor. Most of the time the family lived in Lithuania, hoping to eventually move to Estonia, where Dzhokhar Dudayev served in his youth. But the Estonian government did not give shelter to the Dudayevs, fearing unnecessary problems.

Immediately after the arrest of Dega Dudayev, his mother called what was happening "a provocation of the Russian special services." True, sources unofficially close to the Dudayevs say that Degas actually "helped his relatives." Violating, however, a number of articles of the Lithuanian Criminal Code.

“Degi is already such a European Chechen and, one might say, a very prosperous representative of the younger generation,” said a family friend. – He graduated from the Diplomatic College in Istanbul, drove a modern and expensive Audi car model, and regularly traveled abroad. Recently, he began to glow more actively, perhaps he was thinking about politics, so they cut off his oxygen. Every step of a person with the surname Dudayev will always be known. He will always be "under the hood". By the way, he is very friendly with the son of the ex-president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who also died under strange circumstances.

Alla Dudayeva commented on the court story for "Interlocutor":

- I can tell you with confidence: I know that my son is innocent, and when there is a trial, he will confirm this! Degi turned out to be the most famous of the detainees, and a real pandemonium was staged from his name. And now they are ringing about the court in order to draw attention to Degi and again present him as some kind of criminal. A real persecution of our family is in full swing, because many in the Caucasus still pay tribute to Dzhokhar. The media is tasked with getting it dirty. I already have real armor against any attacks, but now we have taken on our children.
The trial was reported by Russian and Lithuanian media. The issue is very delicate for both countries. Vilnius, which willingly handed out citizenship to refugees from Russia and named one of the boulevards in the city center after Dzhokhar Dudayev, is extremely unprofitable for the hype around the process.

As we know, the wife of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Alla, has already moved to live from Lithuania to the most comfortable country for her - Georgia. Degi himself also applied for Georgian citizenship. This means that a third party, Tbilisi, has already been drawn into this already complicated story.

Volgina Alina

We agreed that he would meet us at the airport, but there was no one in the meeting room. I go out into the street: Vilnius is covered either with fog or with a veil of snow, the square is deserted. Suddenly, a black Saab pulls up right at the steps. The Saab is not a Chechen people's car like a Porsche or a Land Cruiser 200, but the thin profile of the driver gives it away as a father, and I go downstairs.

He gets out of the car - tall, thin, in a fitted gray coat, black polo shirt and polished black shoes (no pointy noses!). He politely greets, extends his hand in a European way. Yes, this is him, Degi Dudayev, the son of the first Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev, persona non grata in today's Chechnya, where even talking about him can be worth a posthumous excursion to the Tsentoroyevsky zoo. “I am five centimeters taller than my father, but yes, yes, I look a lot like him. Imagine what it's like when everyone compares you to your father and measures you by your father, ”he smiles, and behind this polite smile is either bitterness or sarcasm.

Outside the window, a rather monotonous landscape of the outskirts of Vilnius flickers - gray panel high-rise buildings, dressed in dark people. Dudayev is 29 years old. Nine of them he lives here in overcast Lithuania, a transit zone through which thousands of Chechens fled to Europe during - and, most importantly, after - the war.

Musa Taipov, editor of the Ichkeria.info website (added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials and Websites in 2011), one of the supporters of Chechen statehood, a politician in exile and a typical "white émigré" of the new type, says that in France alone today there are more than 30,000 Chechens - including himself. In the capital of Austria, Vienna - about 13 thousand.

"Authorities European countries they try not to advertise the number of Chechen refugees, but at one time I dealt with this issue and contacted the authorities, so I can say that at least 200,000 Chechens live in Europe today.” The main countries are France, Austria, Belgium, Norway, Germany. The Chechens did not linger in the Baltics, they moved on. But Dudaev-son did not go anywhere and remained here, at the crossroads.

Some actions were expected from him in the style of his father, but nothing has been expected so far - he has not shown himself in Chechen politics in any way, he has not headed either any government in exile or a foundation named after his father, and all these three days I have tried to understand how the son of a man who in some way changed the course of Russian history lives: two wars, the collapse of politicians and generals, perhaps future military tribunals.

Dudayev drives confidently, fastening his seat belt (in Chechnya, such obedience to the law is considered a sign of weakness). I ask if he is bored here, and in general - why Lithuania? Lithuania, he replies, because from 1987 to 1990 his father led a heavy bomber division in Estonia strategic purpose and just saw the birth of a political movement for the independence of the Baltic states. He also had a very good reputation here: he was given a division in Tartu in a state of disrepair, and in a couple of years he made it an exemplary one - in general, such an anti-crisis manager.

General Dudayev was close friends with both Estonian and Lithuanian politicians. He was "one of the three", as he was called in the Lithuanian press, along with Gamsakhurdia and Lithuanian Landsbergis. Dudayev’s ties with the Baltics turned out to be strong: there is Dudaev Street in Riga, and in Vilnius there is a square named after him, with a signature Baltic irony located in such a way that it seems to precede the Russian Embassy in Lithuania if you enter it from the city center.

We dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and went to dinner. In Christmas Lithuania 10-15 degrees below zero. Dudayev parks his Saab, and we enter a small restaurant in the Old Town, with green walls and black and white photographs reminiscent of a Parisian cafe. A tall waiter, a typical Lithuanian, lights a candle, and in the twilight of snow-covered Vilnius we speak Russian about Chechnya and the war.

“During the life of our father, we moved a lot - we lived in Siberia, and in Poltava, and in Estonia, but if then there was a feeling that we were at home everywhere, now it’s the opposite: there is no father, no home, nowhere. I’m like an eternal wanderer and in fact I don’t really live anywhere: I go to my mother in Tbilisi, to my brother and sister in Sweden, I go skiing to Austria, to swim in Greece. For a long time I could move anywhere - to Sweden, Holland, Germany. I lived in Paris for several months, trying it on myself. No, this is not mine. What's keeping me here is...” he trails off, picking up Right words. - Here I can still hear Russian. In Europe, I have a feeling that I am on the edge of the earth, that I am getting farther and farther from my home. Panic sets in: that I will never return. It is because of the Russian language that I am stuck here.” And what does the Russian language mean to him in general? “Only one who has lost his homeland can understand this,” he sighs. - You will not understand. When you don’t hear your native language for a long time, it’s like you are hungry for it.” And where is she then, motherland? "Chechnya. Russia,” he wonders.

How amazing. Who would have heard now: the son of Dzhokhar Dudayev yearns for Russian speech and Russia. The father fought with Russia, and his son yearns for her and dreams of returning. Dudayev disagrees. “Father did not fight with Russia,” he tactfully corrects me. He says that Dzhokhar understood that Chechnya would be nowhere without Russia, respected Russian literature, served its own army.

By the way, Dudayev was the first Chechen general in the USSR army and one of the best military pilots in the country. “But he wanted partnership, he wanted the Chechens to be recognized for their right to live in their own state, as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and so on wanted it.” Everyone who wanted got their freedom. Except for the Chechens.

I recall the words of my Chechen friend, who, talking about Dudayev's rule, said that after Dudayev came to power, a terrible turmoil began, and he kept saying that "if the trams stop, then the troops will be brought in." And sure enough, at the end of 1994, the trams in Grozny stopped, the center disconnected the republic from its power line, and this was the last measure following the economic blockade. And once in the blockade, the republic began to marginalize, and the city's tram artery was literally pulled apart piece by piece, along wires and rails.

“In November or December 1994, I don’t remember exactly, the Chechens stood in a human chain, holding hands, from Dagestan to the border with Ingushetia - they wanted to draw the attention of the world community so that we would not be bombed, not touched,” says Taipov from France . “Father did not want war, but you see how it all turned out,” this is Dudayev.

I ask him: if my father were alive and saw all that his struggle turned into, would he not regret what he did? Degi is silent for a long time: a cigarette in his hand, a look into the distance. “Look, I can't judge my father. Everything then boiled and seethed, all the republics wanted freedom. It was like euphoria...

Father was supported in the Kremlin. Zhirinovsky came to him, he was received by high officials in Moscow and said: come on, well done, go ahead. This gave some illusion that victory is possible. At least in the form in which Tatarstan later received it, in the form of autonomy. But it turned out that Chechnya was dragged into the war. And Russia was dragged into the war. But they could, they could have come to an agreement and made the neighbors true friends, and not enemies, as happened later with many. And Russia itself would be stronger.”

Dudayev Jr. believes that for the leadership of Russia the Chechen issue lay in the field of geopolitics. “If you look at the map, Chechnya is located in such a way that you cannot cut it out separately, it is inextricably linked with the rest of the Caucasus and Russia itself. We will not be able to set borders and separate from Russia, being surrounded by Russia, being, in fact, part of it. Separate Chechnya - Dagestan, Ingushetia, Stavropol will fall. That is probably why the question was so acute for Russia: not “to lose Chechnya or not”, but “to lose the Caucasus or not”. And conquering the Caucasus is an old pastime of the Russian Empire. Therefore, perhaps, such a felling turned out. ”

We are finally getting meat. But it cools down: I ask question after question, and he, looking for answers, returns to the past, and this contrast of past and present is such that he literally becomes ill. Just imagine: the son of the president of a tiny country that is at war with the empire, the golden boy who has almost everything, who goes to school with security, his father is received by Saudi kings and Turkish politicians, the pro-Western Balts send money to help, the army is one of the largest countries of the world is temporarily powerless in front of a handful of desperate warriors, on the new coat of arms of which a wolf has sprawled.

(“I have this coat of arms on my shoulder, I tattooed it, knowing that we Muslims are not supposed to have tattoos, and they will definitely burn it from the body before the funeral, but I won’t care anymore,” he laughs, extinguishing a cigarette in an ashtray. ) This wolf, a symbol of that Ichkeria that existed for only a few years, driven into the skin with a needle, is a seal of loyalty to what his father served. “This flag and coat of arms hung for several years, they were removed, but they will remain on me until the end.”

To paraphrase Kharms, “you could have become a king, but you didn’t have anything to do with it.” He, as a son, got wandering, and the other son - the same (and the same) murdered father - that's it. “I remember Ramzan, by the way. He was such a silent kid, he ran on behalf of Ahmad, with daddy under his arm. - "Helped - in the sense of the father?" “I mean, yes, a family business,” he replies with a touch of irony.

Dudayev smokes cigarette after cigarette. With his twitchiness, profile, impeccable manners and hopeless longing, he begins to remind me of Adrian Brody. He remembers how he came to Chechnya as a first-grader, how he lived in Katayam (a cottage village along the Staropromyslovsky highway with lilac alleys), how happy he was, because he suddenly had so many brothers and sisters, and everyone speaks Chechen, the language of his father, and then the war, and he lived in the presidential palace, he was guarded for days, and it seemed that there was almost no childhood, but you are still happy, because among your own, at home.

And the last - the brightest - years of his life with his father, how they shot at the shooting range together, how his father taught him to use weapons, all this talk about life, and life itself - at the limit, at its peak, at the end. And as a result: “How many rich houses, expensive cars and European capitals I have seen, but nowhere and never will I be as happy as I was happy in Katayama.”

“Have you thought about such a paradox that Ramzan Kadyrov is the successor to the work of Dzhokhar Dudayev?” I ask. Dudayev almost choked. “Look,” I continue. - Your father played honestly, like a Soviet officer who knows what honor and dignity are. He said openly what he wanted. Ramzan does exactly the opposite: he says what Moscow wants to hear, assures her of loyalty, but the laws and power of the Russian Federation in Chechnya are no longer valid. There is no mountain democracy, no Russian state. Chechnya is a small sultanate.”

Dudayev laughs: “Sorry, I remembered how someone advised Dzhokhar to introduce sharia in Chechnya. And the father laughed: “If I cut off the hands of all Chechens, then where can I get new Chechens?” I know you want to know what I think of him. Now I will formulate, wait... When they ask me how I feel about Kadyrov, I answer: Kadyrov was able to do what others could never have done,” he says pointedly.

Then I ask him about who his father will remain in the history of Chechnya: a man who involved the people in the massacre, or an ideologue of independence? Dudayev is silent for a long time. Unpleasant questions, tormenting ones, over which, I am sure, he himself reflected more than once. "I think that no matter how times change, no matter how many years pass, my father will remain what he is - a symbol of freedom, for which there is a very high price."

The weight of the burden left by the father is not for everyone. Dudayev's eldest son Ovlur left with his family for Sweden, abandoning his birth name. Ovlur Dzhokharovich Dudayev became Oleg Zakharovich Davydov - it seems not to be funnier. “I will never be able to understand this,” Degi sums up briefly.

Dana's daughter got married, changed her surname and, as befits a Chechen woman, is raising children and taking care of her family. Degi, the youngest, remained the only son of his father, and although the name Dudaev brings many problems to its owner, and his movements around the world are viewed by the special services through a magnifying glass, he carries it proudly, like a family banner.

The interview ends, we go out into the darkness of Vilnius, lit up by the lights of Christmas illumination. Dudayev behaves like a gentleman and sympathetically offers to take him by the elbow. “Listen, have we gone to Gamsa? Well, you asked someone from that time who knew his father, family, me, and no one knows better than Gamsa anyway. He arrived a few days ago, this is a sign of fate.

We get into the car and go to the hotel "behind Hamsa". I still don’t quite understand who it is, then I see a tall Caucasian who is impatiently waiting for us in the lobby and looking out the window with interest. He finally gets into the car and immediately begins to joke and joke with an inimitable Georgian accent. His face seems familiar to me, but from where - kill me, I don’t remember.

“Julia, you know, I am very drawn to the island of St. Helena - when I am there, I have the feeling that I have returned home. I must have died there in a past life!” - "I had the same feeling in Istanbul, when I looked out of the windows of the harem at the Bosphorus and sobbed because I would never see my father's house." Dudayev, turning around, in admiration: “Well, you have gathered here, eh!”

Squeaking in the snow, we walk from the car to the Radisson Hotel in order to go up to the 22nd floor, where we will look at Vilnius at night from the huge Skybar windows. There I find out that Gamsa is Giorgi, and only later that this is Giorgi Gamsakhurdia, the son of the first Georgian president who gave Georgia independence. As photographer Lesha Maishev sarcastically remarked: “Only Gaddafi’s son was missing at this table.”

Their fathers were friendly and dreamed of creating a united Caucasus. "The Caucasus is not Europe, not Asia, it is a separate unique civilization that we want to present to the world." Gamsakhurdia, in fact, helped Dudayev legally irreproachably hold a referendum on independence and secession from the USSR. Gamsakhurdia was killed in 1993, Dudayev - in 1996. A couple of weeks later, already in Moscow, I will receive an SMS from Gamsakhurdia Jr.: “Imagine, at a meeting of the security forces, Ramzik ​​said that he was giving a million dollars for my head. Am I worth so little, I don’t understand, huh? :))”

While Dudayev and I are talking about something, Gamsakhurdia's phone rings and he leaves. Returning shining. “Borya called, he says to me: well, did you come up with something? When are we going to stir something up, huh?” Borey turns out to be Boris Berezovsky. “Where does he get the strength and money for muddy? I ask. “On Channel One, they say that he is poor as a church mouse and lives on handouts.” A roar of laughter shakes the table so that the cups rattle. “Borya is poor?! And on Channel One they don’t say that a stork brings children, huh? Wait, I'll go and tell this to Bora!"

The next morning, Dudayev picks me up at the hotel, we have breakfast, the waitress asks in Russian: “What kind of coffee do you want?” “White,” Dudayev replies. I look at him questioningly. “Ahh,” he laughs, “white is with milk. Black - without milk. That's what the Lithuanians say. You know, I speak six languages, lived in different countries, in my head - like in a cauldron - traditions, cultures, expressions are mixed up, sometimes there is such confusion, you know, sometimes you wake up and do not immediately understand where you are and who you are. That's how it happens to me."

Living in Russia, he spoke Russian, then several years of his life in Chechnya - Chechen, then Georgia, therefore, he learned Georgian, then an English college in Istanbul (“I was silent for the first year, because all teaching is in English, and where did I get it English? How did he speak on the second one!"), then the Higher Diplomatic College in Baku ("Turkish and Azerbaijani are almost identical, they were the easiest to learn"), then Lithuanian ("this language is not for our ears, but I already like polyglot, where I live at least a little bit, I begin to speak the language”).

We pull into the empty office of his company VEO, which specializes in solar energy, installation and sale of solar generators and panels. “I used to work in logistics, then I decided to work alternative energy, we are partners of the Germans, they are now ahead of everyone in sun energy.” Gray carpet on the floor, computers, office equipment - everything seems to be on purpose in northern gray tones. He rents an apartment nearby, in an unfinished mirror high-rise building, one wing is inhabited by tenants, the other two are empty, with gaping concrete eye sockets.

“Because of the financial crisis, the construction site was abandoned, this is such pragmatism in the Baltics,” he laughs. Nearby is ice-covered, deserted, like a revived picture of the surface of the moon, windswept Constitution Avenue with a mirrored Swedbank skyscraper. The apartment is a high-tech studio with floor-to-ceiling windows - cold and uninhabited, the sun does not shine through the windows, because, apparently, it does not happen here at all. This is a transit point for things, sleep, but not "my house is my fortress." Here, it seems, there is not a single personal thing that speaks of the owner.

“No father, no home, nowhere,” I recall. In a silver "mackintosh" we look at a huge archive of photographs: Dzhokhar Dudayev after the first flight in a fighter, in the cockpit, in the ranks (everyone looks straight ahead, he is the only one turned with his body and looks to the side, and so on many pictures, as if Napoleonic "this is not me I go against the current, and the current is against me"), the presentation of the rank of general; then Grozny, politics, a smart suit, burning eyes and enthusiastic listeners...

In black and white photographs, little Degi in the general's cap of his father is in the arms of a Chechen publicist and associate of Dzhokhar Maryam Vakhidova, caption under the photo: Little general. The largest series of pictures is stored in the Daddy and me folder.

We leave, and I notice how Dudayev quickly, automatically opens and closes the door, turns off the lights on the landing, runs downstairs, drives fast, writes something on his smartphone all the time, as if he is afraid to stop. I tell him about it. “If you stop, you start to remember, think, reflect, because I am always on the move: business, friends, gym, airports. Chechnya is like a taboo. Yesterday I talked with you for several hours about Chechnya and got out of line. This is the pain, you know ... that will never go away.

We decide to spend this day on the road, we go to Trakai Castle. We leave on the track - on both sides there are snow-covered pines and spruces: old, centuries-old, under heavy caps and young growth, sprinkled with snow. “Tell me about Chechnya, how is it now?” he suddenly asks. I tell you - for a long time, in detail, he has not been there since 1999, since the beginning of the second war. He listens, is silent, then says thoughtfully: “You know, maybe it’s good that it’s like that now ...”

The wrapped Lithuanians are dancing from the cold, and Dudaev in a light knitted jacket with faux fur: “No, I don’t get cold, however, when we lived in Transbaikalia, my mother wrapped me in overalls and sent me to sleep on the balcony, in 40-degree frost. Well creative person What are you going to do?” he smiles.

There are trading tents near the lake near the Trakai fortress, I drop in to buy gifts for the children, and Dudayev, having learned that I have two sons, buys gifts from himself: a wooden pistol with a stretched rubber band that makes a completely plausible sound, a wooden knight's hatchet, a sword and a slingshot with which to shoot an elephant. I protest. "Don't argue, they're boys! They must get used to weapons from childhood and be with him on "you". Moreover, you know, these are the times, everything is heading for a big war, - I look at his suddenly serious face. “Men need to be educated from childhood.”

He says that in the third grade he had an old TT in his briefcase, and he himself dismantled and lubricated the pistols of the guards with oil. Dzhokhar Dudayev's love for weapons is well known: when he became president, he allowed all men from 15 (!) to 50 years old to own them. The Soviet government leaving the republic left behind military units and weapons depots, which were stolen by the locals with great enthusiasm.

As Colonel Viktor Baranets writes in the book "The General Staff Without Secrets", the Kremlin tried to divide the weapons remaining in the republic on a 50-50 basis, and Yeltsin sent Defense Minister Grachev to negotiate with Dudayev, but he allegedly "did not have time", and by 1992 70 percent of the weapons were stolen. By the beginning of the war, the republic was fully armed, and during the second war, many Chechens "watered the gardens with oil" (a joke that every Chechen will understand). By the beginning of hostilities, Degi himself received an Astra A-100 pistol as a gift from his father, made by order of the CIA in Spain: “For me, he is better than all Stechkins and Glocks for hit accuracy, the ability to install a laser sight with a sensor on the handle, the absence of a fuse and for size ".

The three of us meet in the evening. I take out my dictaphone, Gamsakhurdia for safety net second. “My father,” Dudayev begins, “was friends with Gamsakhurdia, and when a year after the referendum and Georgia’s exit from the USSR, Zviad clashed with the pro-Moscow Shevardnadze, his family was in danger. He asked for asylum in Azerbaijan, they did not give him.

In Armenia, the Gamsakhurdia family was accepted, but under pressure from Moscow, they had to hand him over. From day to day they were supposed to be sent by plane from Yerevan to Moscow and arrested. Or kill. Then the father sent his personal plane and security chief Movladi Dzhabrailov to Yerevan with the order "do not return without Gamsakhurdia." He burst into the office of the then President of Armenia Ter-Petrosyan, took out a grenade and took up the check.

“Yes, yes, it was,” continues Gamsakhurdia. - He said that he would release the check only when our whole family landed at the airport in Grozny, and so he sat in front of the President of Armenia for several hours, until they reported from Grozny that everyone was in place, they had landed. The guards wanted to arrest him or shoot him, but Ter-Petrosyan said: this is a man's act, let him return home. Wai, Julia, imagine what the times were like, huh? Times of men and real deeds!” So Gamsakhurdia escaped and lived for several years in the presidential palace of Dzhokhar.

Dudayev recalls the moment when the exile Gamsakhurdia's family landed in Grozny. “George descended from the plane and, raising his eyebrows, looked around: it was like a frame from the movie Home Alone, remember when the hero realizes that he will have Christmas in New York without his parents. Such a chubby boy was, calm in appearance, but as soon as I saw him, I immediately understood: this guy will light up!

Several years of friendship in bombed Grozny under the roar of military aircraft, a childhood spent within four walls and with eternal guards. “We didn’t have a childhood, we didn’t! Here, I remembered, I remembered an episode from my childhood! Then they say in unison: “Georgy stole a bottle of cognac, and we drank it for two: I was about 10, George was 13. And in order to escape from Alla (Dudaeva. - Approx. GQ), we climbed into my father's ZIL and fell asleep there in the back seat. Everyone was looking for us like that, they almost went crazy, they thought we were kidnapped, imagine! And we grunted until we lost our pulse and fell asleep. It was our kind of rebellion!”

After leaving for the Baltic States, Dudayev entered the IT department. “And where else, I was locked up all the time and talked to the computer.” It is difficult to survive that acute feeling of closeness of death, which happens only in war, in ordinary life, but it is possible: Dudayev is fond of snowboarding and racing motorcycles. On his Honda CBR 1000RR, he accelerates to almost 300 km/h. Gamsakhurdia somehow suddenly confesses: “When I feel completely bad, I come up (to the mountains. - Approx. GQ), to a deserted place, and throw grenades into the gorge, and this roar, explosions, they calm me down.”

Dudayev and Gamsakhurdia, the younger, recall how their fathers, sitting in the kitchen in the evenings, drew big plans on paper: the Confederation of Caucasian peoples, a new idea for the entire Caucasian civilization (mountain code of honor, etiquette, cult of elders, free possession of weapons), multiplied by the secularism of the state arrangements, the Constitution and democracy (here the tone was set by Gamsakhurdia, a noble family, a white bone, nominated by the Helsinki Group for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978).

In 1990, Dzhokhar Dudayev returned from the congress of unrepresented peoples, held in Holland, with a sketch of a new Chechen flag and coat of arms: 9 stars (teips) and a wolf lying against the backdrop of the sun. (“It’s no wonder that his chakra opened precisely in Holland,” Degi jokes about his father’s insight.) Alla Dudayeva (this is a little-known fact) took a sketch and drew a coat of arms in the form in which it is now known. "She looked up to Akela from Mowgli, made the wolf more formidable than her father." Crazy time, transcendental degree of feelings. "The fathers dreamed that they would create a completely new formation on the political map of the world." small but proud bird- as in that parable.

To some extent, we can say that Gamsakhurdia succeeded: Georgia was separated from Russia by the Greater Caucasus Range, and the imperial hand, or rather a rocket, reached Chechnya without hindrance. And if Dudayev Jr. tried to escape from the past, doing business, wandering around the world, keeping memories in a silver "macintosh", then Gamsakhurdia really "lit up". Being an active member of Saakashvili's team, he was one of the initiators of the introduction of a visa-free regime, first for the inhabitants of the Caucasus, then in general. At one time, the Russian Federation was put on the worldwide wanted list through Interpol: Kadyrov's people accused him of supporting Chechen terrorists in Pankisi. He introduces himself as "the only Chechen-Georgian", that is, a person dealing with the Chechen issue in Georgia.

“You probably know that something supernatural had to happen for a Chechen to leave his homeland,” Taipov says via Skype from France, where he has lived since 2004. “So in 2004, when Akhmad Kadyrov was killed and his son was appointed, the following happened: everyone who in the 1990s were patriots and advocated independence - and this was for the most part the intelligentsia, everyone understood that there would be no mercy . We were free, but they weren't, you know? Therefore, 2004 is the second wave of emigration, the most powerful in the history of the Chechen people. The free fled.

Here again, involuntary parallels arise with the white emigration, which sold family jewels for pennies, just to have time to escape from those "who were nobody, they will become everything."

“A young state makes many mistakes,” says Gamsakhurdia. - Misha also made mistakes, of course, without them it doesn’t work, but still he managed to build constitutional state laid the foundation. Dzhokhar also made mistakes, but he was then able to lay the foundations of a democratic society, the foundations of morality, which then began to be violently destroyed.”

Dudayev, for example, categorically forbade the torture of prisoners. “He spoke like this: what is the fault of that soldier whom the Motherland sent here, by order, by order? He was thrown into a meat grinder, he is following orders - why commit atrocities and humiliate him? Once he hit Ruslan Khaikhoroev, a field commander from Bamut, in the hands with his butt, because he allowed himself to commit atrocities against Russian prisoners of war. If my father saw how today one Chechen can afford to abuse another...” - and a painful silence hangs over the table.

Russian propaganda fires at Saakashvili for supporting the separatists, the "terrorist nest" in the Pankisi Gorge, suspecting the intrigues of either the CIA or the devil, but everything is actually simple and sentimental: this is the gratitude of a boy with sad eyes, who got off the plane and holding his father's hand, who saved to the Chechens, when everyone around betrayed and turned away, but the Chechens did not. So when in 2010 Saakashvili won applause at a speech at the UN, voicing the "idea of ​​a United Caucasus", we now understand where it comes from, this idea. From the kitchen of the presidential palace in Grozny, from the distant 1990s.

We are sitting in the California bar, next to a noisy company of Lithuanian basketball players, drinking Irish coffee. (“The drink of the English scouts,” comments Gamsakhurdia.) They bring the bill, and Dudayev, like a hawk, intercepts the check so that, God forbid, Gamsakhurdia does not pay.

When he goes to the counter to pay, I hear George: “It's because he lives here, and I came to visit, and he welcomes me like this, Caucasian hospitality! Dzhokhar brought him up perfectly, he puts honor and decency in the first place, this is an officer's job, you understand? I think that's why he stays away from everything, because he sees the dirt from a distance and wants to get around it.

We return to the hotel after midnight, Vilnius shimmers with snow and lights, the Cathedral rises like a white mountain on the right, Catholic crosses, snowdrifts, people go home. And at this moment I understand why Dudayev never became a real emigrant, did not go far and forever, did not devote himself to memoirs, opposition activities, did not begin to make capital in the name of his father. Why is he stuck in this sleepy Lithuania, on a snowy half-station, in this transit zone, longing for the Russian language, loving Russia and his little Chechnya disinterestedly and honestly, as only one who has lost his home can love.