Who provided first aid in Chechnya. The rule of the "golden hour" - from the observations of a military physician in Chechnya
I started this campaign as a company medical officer. My task was to ensure that my fighters did not get sick with "civilian" diseases, and if there were wounded who did not die immediately, then I tried to do everything so that they were taken to the right place and provided medical assistance. But more than once it happened to me that in the bag there was only a thermometer and scissors - that's all! The medicines are out. In general, in the war with medicines it is always difficult, they are constantly in short supply. But if there is a professional medical instructor in the company, then although it is difficult to be in time everywhere, but with experience you always have time. How many fights we had, but I always had time everywhere. This is not particularly difficult if you are a professional business owner. The most important thing is to have time to help. You go into battle with everyone, you look there - either they yell: "Doc, doc!", Or - a white rocket, if it's very far away. But, as far as I remember, a white rocket was never launched in this campaign at all, usually they called for help with a voice. Maybe it is not so good, because you do everything very quickly, because a company is a company, a hundred people. And when there is a general deadwood, then you just start to "sew up". You do everything automatically, and when they ask you later: “What did you inject him with?” It’s hard to say right away. He bandaged it, injected cordiamin, prednisolone there - when it was really bad, he put a dropper ... And for the rest - the most important thing is not to die before they are evacuated. A lot of people died there, because when medical assistance is provided in the field and you have something in your bag that you managed to snatch somewhere, then it’s hard. In principle, I quickly coped with "civilian" diseases in the company, and all other diseases somehow come very quickly, i.e. if you are wounded, then wounded. In principle, when there were such serious offensives, another car and a medical instructor with a driver who performed the duties of orderlies were given to the company for reinforcement from the medical platoon. In addition, fighters will help their friend in any battle, however, at first they start to panic, but in extreme cases they will always prick promedol. And this is already halfway to the rest of the recovery for some.
When we stood in the mountains, it was much worse. There is a car on the plain - you immediately take it away, but there are no cars in the mountains, put them side by side and run around them until the orderlies come and remove them from the mountain. If the orderlies do not come for a long time, then at night we ourselves lower the wounded down on our own - at night the "Czechs" do not fight in the mountains, I can say this absolutely seriously, except in cities or somewhere else ... And they attack the infantry at night they don't attack, because they know that the infantry are such people - disturb their sleep at night and ... They can come quietly, slaughter someone and immediately leave. And if they disturb anyone more, the infantry starts shooting in all directions, and so it will kill everyone, which is why the infantry is often called "turretless". The 138th brigade was very much feared here in Chechnya, it did a lot. The brigade was commanded by Major General Turchenyuk, and the medical service in the 697th battalion was first headed by Senior Lieutenant Kaushnyan, and then by Captain Medov.
Of course, I would like to improve a lot if there are more fighting. It is necessary that in the battalion, even if it is mobile, there should be at least some semblance of the same operating room, where there would be doctors: an anesthesiologist and surgeons (two at least), who could really provide such assistance to the wounded, so that he would later, during evacuation felt safe. Then (in battles) it was done like this: I provide first aid, they take him to the medical platoon - they provide first aid, then they take him to the medical clinic, where he is given second medical aid and sent to the hospital, and on the way he dies. It was quite a long time. For example, we had a case in the mountains (in the area of Starye Atagi): a fighter was torn off both legs, and he died. With that injury, I think the person should have lived, but the thing is that he lay on the mountain for a day, then, while he was brought to the medical platoon (there was mud, well, there was no way for a car to pass), then they brought him in medrota, in medrota they ordered a turntable, while the turntable took off and flew in, so much time passed that it became the "200th". In fact, you can do all this very quickly and efficiently.
If we were initially prepared in the same way as the same Chechen fighters, we would have given them a long time ago in the brain. After all, everything is so practical done by them, and they are really well prepared. Chechens often do not even have normal mortars, they make them from the rear axle of KamAZ, I saw it myself. In the same way, they make such a "shaitan-pipe", it shoots with NURS. I don't know how they came up with it, but it's awesome! It turns out that even the "Grad" shoots rockets from the slate roof: they put it on the roof, close it to electricity and ... everything is gone ...
And they also have medicine, in principle. It was easy to understand. We were not far from here in the village - there the border guards had a fight, and the next day we went to the "cleansing". We found a bunch of dugouts, and in one of them I found the most up-to-date medicines, mountains of dressings and many other foreign things, where it is not even written in Russian how and why to use it. That is, you can compare their provision and ours.
We had one fighter captured when the fighting had just begun in the mountains. Then our turntables began to fire at this Chechen camp, he ran away, came out to us and said: he dragged the corpses of these Chechens all last night (he dragged so many of them all that night that then he had "glitches" and he was fired from the army ), and they were sitting in a very cool dry and warm dugout, drinking coffee, eating bananas and oranges, while we...
Look at the situation: they raise, for example, two platoons up the mountain, they say: "You are here for three days." 7 days pass, and no one has come to you at all, then our artillerymen shoot at you, and then someone comes and says: "Oh! Are you still alive? We will replace you." They let us down and say: "That's it, men, wash, rest!" At six in the evening we went down the mountain, and at six in the morning the battalion commander lined us up: "Of course, I understand everything, but, excuse me, you need to go to the Vedeno Gorge - there is some kind of problem." The company gets on the MTLB and goes to the Vedeno Gorge, there it scares the "Czechs" for two days and comes back (then they say that the paratroopers did everything there). The battalion commander arrives, says: "Rest," and an hour later he builds everyone again: "Guys, you have to climb the mountain - there's trouble!" And we again go to the mountain again for seven days.
I remember how on December 30, 1999, we climbed here, in the Starye Atagi region, to the mountain, 922, I think, the height, I don’t remember exactly. We got up at 12 o'clock at night, quickly dug in, because we were looking: the Chechens were walking downstairs with flashlights in a straight line, there were so many flashlights! And we were shooting at these lanterns all night. And there, between the trees, it turns out, there was a roller, and lanterns hung on a rope. They pull the rope, we gouge at them, and they calculate our firing points, they are cunning - Chechens! Which was to be expected: in the morning there was fog - the cloud is very thick, I woke up at 5.15, and somewhere at 5.20 - here they are, about five meters! A grenade could be thrown into a trench. They approached us very harmoniously and simply “wetted” us, there is no other way to call it. They always competently attack the mountains. That is, there was something, just trouble! To be honest, I can't say how many "200s" and "300s" we had, because here he is still alive - and right there dead. Only somewhere around 12 noon it was all over. When we got up, there were 67 of us, after this battle there were 22 of us left.
And, you know, there were very, very many such battles... I can tell you that on average there were 5-6 "200s" and 15 "300s" per day. This, of course, does not correspond to official statistics at all.
Tuskhara-Moscow
Military doctors or, as they were also called, military doctors are military personnel with higher medical education and having the appropriate title. At one time, it was Russian military doctors who made a huge contribution to military medicine, so Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov became the founder of military field surgery, the founder of anesthesia. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, as well as during local conflicts of our time: the war in Afghanistan and the Chechen campaigns, Russian military doctors saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
On June 13, 2013, the next, 13th award ceremony for the best doctors in Russia called "Vocation" took place at the Central Academic Theater of the Russian Army. This ceremony was hosted by People's Artist of Russia Alexander Rosenbaum and well-known TV presenter Elena Malysheva. At the ceremony in the nomination “Military doctors. Special Prize for Doctors Providing Assistance to Victims During Wars, Terrorist Acts and Natural Disasters” the award went to a group of military doctors of the RF Ministry of Defense, who during the counter-terrorist operation of 1994-1995 on the territory of Chechnya provided the necessary medical assistance to the injured and wounded.
The award to military doctors was personally presented by the Minister of Defense of Russia, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu. In his welcoming speech, Shoigu noted the importance of the work of military doctors, and also expressed gratitude and gratitude to them for their selfless work, not only during the conduct of hostilities, but also in peacetime, Everyday life. On the stage, the nominees were thanked by Russian officers Alexei Buzdygar and Sergei Muzyakov, who in 1995 themselves went through the caring hands of decorated military doctors.
A group of military doctors consisting of the head of the hospital Oleg Popov, as well as surgeons Alexander Drakin, Mikhail Lysenko, therapist Alexander Kudryashov as part of the 696th Special Purpose Medical Detachment in December 1994 had to deploy their military field hospital near the city of Mozdok. In those days, military doctors worked 16-18 hours a day, operations went one after another without interruption. Every day personnel field hospital prepared for the evacuation and sending to the "mainland" hundreds of wounded Russian soldiers and officers. For the entire period of military operations in the Caucasus, military doctors have saved thousands of lives of Russian servicemen.
The fate of Dr. Oleg Popov and his colleagues is in many ways indicative and serves as an example of heroism and selflessness, devotion to duty. Oleg Alexandrovich Popov went through the entire first war in Chechnya, as they say, “from start to finish”, being appointed in 1993 as commander of the 696th special forces medical detachment. It was the doctors of this detachment who promptly deployed a hospital in Mozdok, where almost every third soldier wounded in Chechnya was able to receive timely treatment. For his excellent service in the North Caucasus, Oleg Aleksandrovich was awarded the Order of Military Merit. But these are not his only military awards, the military doctor received the previous 4 military orders while providing medical care. Soviet soldier and officers during Afghan war.
In March 1996, Oleg Popov was dismissed from the ranks of the Armed Forces: the severe shell shock that he received during the Afghan campaign worsened in Chechnya, and his state of health no longer allowed him to perform the duties of a military doctor in the same rhythm. After being fired from Russian army Oleg Popov, the only medical officer in all the Armed Forces who was awarded 5 military orders, was a simple military pensioner for 11 years. However, in 2007 Popov was invited to his current position. Oleg Popov became CEO of the Interregional public organization Association of Veterans of the Russian Military Medical Service. Since then, veterans of the Russian medical service have been under his direct, personal care. He tries to do everything possible and impossible in order to provide his colleagues with the necessary social, medical, and sometimes material assistance.
If we talk about the Chechen campaigns, then there are many soldiers and officers who will remember Russian military doctors with a kind word. One of these is Captain Alexander Krasko, who was "killed" 3 times in the Caucasus. Twice it was a sniper in the first Chechen campaign. For the third time, already as a colonel, he was blown up by militants on the road to Urus-Martan. He still can't forget his very first wound. Then a sniper's bullet entered his neck and threw him over the curb. This curb saved his life, the sniper could not finish him off. Later, a medic from their battalion pulled him across the street. During the rescue of the wounded, he himself was seriously injured, but was able to drag Krasko to MTLB. In just 15 minutes, the officer was already operated on in Khankala.
After that, Alexander Krasno is still enough for a long time treated in military hospitals. He returned to duty only a year later, and in August 1996 in Grozny he again received a bullet. This time, the officer was evacuated by helicopter under heavy fire from the militants. The medical pinwheel received 37 different holes. But the military pilots and the military doctors accompanying the wounded were able to deliver 5 seriously wounded servicemen to the military hospital in time. Since then, officer Alexander Krasko celebrates his birthday 4 times a year. And he always raises his glass and says a toast to the doctors in uniform. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such stories as with Colonel Alexander Krasko in Russian military medicine.
It was all the more offensive for many to look at what was happening with Russian military medicine in last years. Recently, the new Minister of Defense of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, noted that military hospitals are no longer going to be closed, according to him, the Russian Ministry of Defense has its own “road map” on this issue. “We don’t plan to close anything else,” said the general, who visited the State Flight Test Center. Chkalov, located in Akhtubinsk. At the same time, Shoigu later clarified that part of the military hospitals would be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA). In particular, we are talking about those military towns and garrisons in which there are few military personnel and it makes no sense to keep a large number of medical workers there.
“Still, in many places we have clinics that seem to be good, and the equipment is wonderful, but the specialists are worse. Therefore, we will prepare new medical personnel v Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg and send, including to Akhtubinsk,” Sergei Shoigu noted. Recall that the head of the Ministry of Defense decided to transfer military hospitals to the FMBA at the end of 2012. Then it was reported that all transmitted medical institutions will receive the status of “civilian”, and not only military personnel and members of their families, but also local residents will be able to seek medical help there.
The mass disbandment of military hospitals began at the initiative of the former Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov back in 2008 as part of the reform of the Russian military medicine system. By 2009, 22 hospitals and several dozen polyclinics had been disbanded in the country, and the number of military doctors had decreased from 15,000 to 5,800 people.
The level of medical care and its effectiveness in military hospitals in Russia and the USSR have been high since these institutions only began to appear in our cities. The quality of the medical services provided here by military specialists was not questioned even during the existence of Russian Empire, nor in the days of the USSR. It would seem that if the industry has a glorious and brings obvious benefits to citizens, then it must be supported and developed by all means. But in reality, things are different. Specialists do not get tired of saying that today military medicine is not in its best condition. As a result of the reform that has been carried out in recent years, a clear continuity has been broken from the construction of scientific, clinical, rehabilitation complexes to obtaining a healthy citizen at the exit after passing through this entire medical chain. And this is only a small part of the problems that military doctors face almost every day.
One of the main problems is the poor state of the material base of hospitals and hospitals. Many of them were built in the last century, and their wear is from 80% to 100%. It is clear that significant funds are required to restore them. According to Sergei Shoigu, today 72% of the buildings have been in operation for more than 40 years, most of them need reconstruction and overhaul, in addition to this, there is an urgent need for new premises. Not only dilapidated buildings, but also the quality of services provided today leaves much to be desired, the Minister of Defense stressed. The poor equipment of medical units with specialized equipment is alarming. This is a rather serious issue, since the lack of the necessary equipment means the impossibility of providing high-quality medical care in the field.
There are also problems with the provision of medicines. The need for military medicine in drug supply last year amounted to 10 billion rubles. But only 40% of the required amount was allocated. The lack of sufficient funds in the budget for this item, of course, did nothing to improve the situation. A similar situation is observed in financing the construction of new medical institutions. At present, the percentage of provision in construction and overhaul is no more than 30-40%. Hence the long-term chronic unfinished construction, and the depreciation of the material base. Some medical facilities have not been put into operation for more than 10 years, which does not allow the provision of medical care in full.
As you know, approximately 17 regions of Russia have completely lost the medical facilities of the Ministry of Defense. This has resulted in approximately 400,000 military personnel, as well as military pensioners, now being forced to seek medical care in already overcrowded civilian medical facilities. If in some regions Central Russia military pensioners, theoretically, without any problems, can afford to seek medical care in civilian hospitals and clinics, that is, there are quite a few corners of Russia, where from their place of residence to locality with a suitable hospital, one has to cover at least several hundred kilometers.
But the situation will still improve. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered to allocate 1.4 billion rubles for the purchase of new medical equipment, as well as the additional staffing of military hospitals with graduates medical schools. In addition, the issue of commissioning hospital ships should be resolved and made detailed analysis the need and expediency of reducing the number of military medical facilities in a number of regions of Russia. All this cannot but rejoice.
Sources of information:
-http://www.redstar.ru/index.php/component/k2/item/9639-lechit-po-prizvaniyu
-http://medportal.ru/mednovosti/news/2013/05/07/047mil
- http://newsland.com/news/detail/id/587854
-http://blog.kp.ru/users/2763549/post261039031
Dagestan
People and nations had to solve their own problems. First, from Chechnya, completely peacefully, they let all the military leave and even take out containers with personal belongings. Only military equipment and weapons were not allowed to be exported.
At the beginning of the 90s, they tried to pit the Chechens against each other, clumsily supporting them with weapons, our people and propaganda of the “good” ones. This resulted in a massive, total massacre of Russians. Then the mediocre “First Chechen campaign” and the Khasavyurt peace treaty allowed the terrorists to transfer military operations to the peaceful territory of Russia, and only such actions were carried out until August 1999, when the “Second Chechen campaign” was launched.
After serving for three years in the strict, sovereign north-west, he had just moved with his family here for one and a half thousand kilometers, to the glorified and mysterious northern Caucasus. Where other people, free morals, folded mountains, the Black Sea and fruits right on the street. What kind of wars? It's almost like paradise. But almost the first phrase I heard was: "You will go to Dagestan."
The "First Chechen" is already a thing of the past: a disgrace on the conscience of politicians of all kinds, public figures, outright traitors; and non-healing wounds on the hearts of those who have lost loved ones.
Chechnya actually became independent (but only from Russia), a state controlled by everyone who pumped it with money. It was possible to predict how all this would end, and for sure it was done by intelligent people of the new (de facto), then already, power. For, the first blow, which was the reason for the "Second Chechen Company", was delivered not on the densely populated areas bordering Chechnya and not on the painful points of the North Caucasus, but on several mountain villages of Dagestan, with a minimum (forgive me people for this word) number casualties among the population.
Yes, yes, first there was Dagestan ...
All kinds of military groupings of the RF Armed Forces were then located around Chechnya, and Wahhabism spread "peacefully", creating its enclaves saturated with the poison of hatred behind the backs of the "border" groups.
Our BTG (battalion tactical group) was stationed in Botlikh, soon it was transferred to Kaspiysk, where I ended up after some time. 1999 January - April was spent by me (and not only) in sunny (summer) Dagestan.
We were sent to Dagestan for six months. For me, then, it was a very long time.
Speaking of the meaning of the transfer of the group from the Botlikhov region, bordering Chechnya (which was later attacked by the militants), to the "center" of Dagestan - Kaspiysk, which borders nothing, I have a guess.
However, there will be no more guesses or analysis of global situations here. I will tell only about what I saw or know myself.
*
So. Something like a day trip to detour Chechnya, on a bus with exotic passengers, periodically getting off the bus “to check documents”, and late at night in Makhachkala. Somewhere in the distance a lantern or searchlight is burning - very far away. He is alone, so you can see. Not a soul. But I know where to go.
In the morning it's more fun: the sun and people are like people around.
Hey, taxi! The gray-haired, overweight taxi driver is talkative, looks appraisingly in an oriental way, but does not understand. Still: young, self-confident (in the daytime!), Strangely dressed, short-haired, obviously not a local.
- Sit down dear, we will agree.
Lively keeps the conversation going, a couple of questions (with his experience), a short sigh and a sudden change of topic:
- It will cost thirty rubles - the main thing he already knows about me.
The first checkpoint of the Marines.
- Where do I go?
- Won so, they say, and so.
Here are native vests and unfamiliar faces. Everyone is happy for me. Especially Sanya, he has been on this business trip for five and a half months - I am his shift.
Introduced to the commander.
Tour of the camp: “Two capital buildings: a kitchen and a warehouse, the rest are tents. Here is our "house", and here is your bed. Throw things, settle down, now we’ll go for vodka, it costs seven rubles here, ”Sanya thought deeply for a long time, looking into space under the next bed, then he whistled softly at him, got up and we went ...
Here I was to spend three months and sixteen days deducted from the best years of my worthless life.
Mom writes: “Well, how are the famous Caspian sands?”
And before coming here, I didn’t know that there were sands, and even famous ones.
They lived in tents together with the soldiers of their unit and the sick from the whole battalion. Usual CSS (universal sanitary barracks), two stoves, we have a first-aid post after all: there were beds; later they laid out the floor with bricks, and when he arrived, even in tents, they walked on the sand.
Sand, sand everywhere. In boots, in pockets, in things, in hair, in mouth, under feet, in front of eyes, near, far. Sand. And it's hard to walk on it. But, you get used to it.
A huge semicircle, mountains in the distance.
Fogs are very common. Night, morning, evening, day, round-the-clock.
Tents. The camp is surrounded by MZP * and barbed wire. Here she is 50 centimeters from my window. There are sentries around the perimeter. Zone.
Going beyond is an event.
* MZP - an inconspicuous obstacle - spirals of thin steel wire entangled and stretched in three dimensions.
Every morning exercises along the shore of the great Caspian Sea. From its depths the sun rises. And if it is true that the one who met the sunrise, the sin is forgiven, then there, to us, much is forgiven.
A few thousand meters from the shore, like a mirage, right out of the water (no land there) is a huge building with several floors. It has long been abandoned; gray walls, black window openings. This is a unique, uniquely built, one-of-a-kind, once terribly secret torpedo factory, and now a monument to its former power and caches of poachers ...
Here, in general, it is still peaceful. That's just the ensign on a land mine podtorvalsya. In the morning, while exercising along the shore of the ancient Caspian Sea, I deviated from the route.
From charging sometimes shirked, everything. In more or less degree. We are less, but it happened.
Wake up, sit in a tent. It's hard to run anywhere. We are talking, slowly waking up, suddenly there is an explosion somewhere. We paid attention to him - some unplanned.
And an ensign served with us, everyone wanted to transfer to some kind of special forces and doubled the exercises. On that day, the fenced territory of the OGV (operational group of troops) of the North Caucasian Military District seemed small to him, and he ran out for a run behind the checkpoint (which was strictly forbidden), in the direction of our shooting range.
Behind the nearest turn, a land mine set up overnight was waiting for him: a bag of saltpeter mixed with silver, a detonator, a battery, wires, and a contactor: two boards on the road, sprinkled with sand, foil on one nail on the other. Well, he had to get on the board ...
Several circumstances saved him then:
- saltpeter became damp during the night and not all of the charge exploded;
- the device was directed and installed on people in the back of the "Ural" or sitting on the armor, because the main impact force was higher;
- the ensign himself is very small in stature.
With a severe concussion with severe injuries to the entire right half of the body, bleeding unconscious, he was taken to the MOSN (Special Purpose Medical Unit) and then by turntable to the hospital.
They saved him. And with his indiscipline, he saved the boys, who, clinging to the armor, went to the shooting in an hour ...
This is how the war started.
After charging: breakfast, building, sick, building, ... shooting, bath, escort of the column, exercises, idleness ..., meeting, dinner, evening verification, lights out. And so every day. And around the clock, personnel, equipment, commanders, conflicts, vodka (there is no such tasty one anymore) and good Kizlyar cognac.
This is Dagestan for us.
And so the month, second, third, fourth. I knew three hundred soldiers by sight and 50 officers in the fog from the back.
We were wild there.
I am exactly.
Until now, the soul is in ulcers.
Nowhere was it as militarized as there. In my submission was an ensign and five soldiers. And the economy: two tents for personnel and patients, a dressing room (deployed right there), an ambulance bus, "Ural", and an infantry fighting vehicle. This is for seven people! And there were also machine guns, cartridges, a supply of promedol, bulletproof vests, NZ medicines, radio stations, and so on and so forth.
Endless shooting, driving, radio training, exercises, with the release of military equipment, a couple of times with landing from turntables and once from the sea, from huge military transport hovercraft, with the departure of this colossus ashore; like in the movies.
Here, for the second time in my life, I had a chance to shoot from everything in general that shoots, and we had it in service. In general, in my opinion, our weapons are good: reliable and the bullets fly where they want. With an SVD (sniper rifle), with the first shot, from a hundred meters, it hit a piece of slate the size of a half-hand. And at the same time I learned that the sniper was tasked personally by the commander of the unit and good sniper fires one shot per hour...
And I even practiced with the BMD-1 (before that I shot, only with the BMD-3, which the Airborne Forces have not yet been re-equipped with). What is it called there? You put the projectile, you send it manually, so that the cutter does not break your fingers. Aim at the scope and shoot...
I take a projectile, it is long as a stick, I put it, I send it, I aim. A fighter sits next to me and looks at me with genuine interest. I aim the cannon at the target ... Then the company commander, Sanya, took pity. He revealed one secret, before I knew it myself: first, you need to remove the eye from the sight, he walks with a cannon during recoil, otherwise: “You will get sixteen tons in the eye.”
- Sixteen?
- So they say.
Shot. Inside, only gunpowder smoke and the clang of iron, even strange. All other sounds are behind the armor.
And from the PKT (tank machine gun) when you shoot only the clang of the shutter and you can see in the sight how and where the bullets fly: in a smooth arc, where you are aiming. You have time to consider each ... how slowly ...
For us, Buynaksk is the center of world civilization there: warehouses, laundry, hospital, market, shops.
We are savages for him: dusty from the road, in worn camouflage, in bulletproof vests, hung with weapons (and where to put them?). We quickly solve official issues and a cohort in a cafe - to eat like a human: potatoes, manti, cognac, again, and everything there is very, very cheap.
Columns to Buynaksk, every week. Weapons, ammunition, bulletproof vests - for everyone, radio stations for the senior of each car, two escort turntables and along the way, in safe places, exercises to repel an attack on a convoy.
We were informed, instructed, frightened.
But I played an interesting game. I didn't believe there would be blood.
Dagestan can still serve as a model for conducting national politics.
More than thirty nationalities live in a relatively small area. People of the same nationality communicate here on mother tongue, different - in Russian. Therefore, Russian is most often heard in cities. This peaceful balance has been achieved for centuries. And in a reasonable national religious, and politics in general, everyone is interested without exception.
If, for example, in a village or district the majority are Laks, and then Avars in terms of numbers, then the head will be Lak, and the second person in the administration will be an Avar, and the third will be a representative of the third largest nationality, for example, Russian. If the majority is Russian, then the head is Russian, the second person is the next largest nationality, and so on. That is why the Dagestanis, when voting, any, are so unanimous. Even at the federal level: “Why do I need a different president than my neighbor? Let there be peace, and then we'll figure it out."
East is a delicate matter. The people here are different. I don't understand them yet.
Here is an elderly woman, for no apparent reason, puts, in her pocket, a dozen "for cigarettes."
Here comes out the gate little boy and clicks in the trail of the column with an uncharged PM.
Here is a gray-haired citizen showing us where to shoot "If something starts."
We are well treated here.
Sunny Dagestan needs peace. Almost everyone here understands this. Nearly. And that's why everything is in tension.
And trouble will come.
But still almost four months of measured oriental life. With its mosques, bazaars, holidays, worries, the singing of muezzins in the morning, and our service here.
We rise on the MI-8 over the concrete take-off, climb in a smooth turn and below us is the azure, bottomless sea, on the left is the embankment and the coastal quarters of Makhachkala. And then the plain, the boundless Dagestan - flat, flat. Occasionally cut by long, winding bodies of rivers. Bare groves and gray earth.
A hundred kilometers and we are in Terekli-Mekteb. We have a platoon here. A dug-out dugout, a window in the ceiling, ten people inside the bunk, an earthen table, recesses-shelves in the walls. "Kitchen", toilet and washbasin on the street, all below ground level. Simple life. Around, perimeter, trenches. Round the clock guard. Here in that direction four kilometers to the "independent" Chechnya.
Outpost.
And another impression: a market in Makhachkala. Everything is for sale, but in the open, among other things, various kinds of caviar, red fish in different types, cognac and telephone connection. Yes Yes. Many kennels with ordinary phones:
- Where to call? … Novorossiysk? Where is this?... Ah... two rubles a minute. Here is the clock on the wall. Spot. Speak.
Unusual.
Home in April. They put me in IL-76. Equipment, weapons, personal belongings and reserve parachutes on a harness, for everyone. We sit, head to head, do not take a deep breath, and fly. Home!
And then, at the very beginning of August, those who replaced us moved “back” to the Botlikhovsky district, along long, roundabout routes to the “Donkey's Ear”. On the way, avoiding many mortal dangers, to meet his fate.
It was there and then, having paid for the lessons with dozens of prisoners, hundreds of wounded, hundreds of lives, Russia learned to fight.
In November, I again visited Dagestan, but I entered from Chechnya ...
All parts:
Part 1 - http://website/2017/09/1.html
2
part - http://site/2017/09/2.html
3
part - http://site/2017/09/3.html
4
part - http://site/2017/09/4.html
Our special correspondent Yaroslava Tankova worked for three weeks in Khankala, in military hospital No. 22
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Chechen fighters are not liked. Even their
Dinner. Most of our wards are walking, albeit with cast limbs. Lying people remain in the empty wards. Many are waiting for our help. I quickly pour in milk soup and stuff porridge with bacon into one fighter. Next in line is a Chechen amputee fighter - without both legs. A very young boy from the Chechen special forces. In battle, an explosion tore off his legs up to the knee. If they operated immediately, it would be possible to save above the knee. But while they were getting out of the forest, the bone began to rot. I had to grab it "under the root." Can't even sit.
I start feeding. Milk soup is eaten. He flatly refuses the second one - a Muslim cannot be fat.
Well, at least eat some porridge!
Turns away. I begin to persuade: “You are a warrior. You can. You've lost a lot of blood." None. Damn!
An hour later I'm outside the hospital - in the military camp grocery store. There are always huge queues - there are only three stores. I pull out a pile of little notes with wrapped money out of my pocket - orders from the fighters, what to buy. In the end, I wonder if there is beef sausage. Unfortunately no. I run to search. And then my Muslims will die of hunger. While I find everything, an hour passes.
Where have you been for so long? - my partner Lena is interested.
Yes, while the "Czechs" found our beef sausage ...
And for me, so that they all die!
Well, Lenochka, they are not militants, they are fighting on our side. The FSB men shook them, when they entered, they found out everything. They liked it as well.
I can not. I still hate them all.
I do not argue. Lenka's husband, an officer, also lost his sister in a helicopter shot down over Khankala. She worked, like Lena, as a nurse. Now she has three children on her neck (one - her own, two - a sister who was not married) and an elderly mother. Lena earns a living for the whole crowd here, and her mother from last strength pulling kids. I can’t, I don’t have the right to blame this really kind and sincere nurse for not being able to forgive the Chechens for her broken life.
But I also feel sorry for this mangled boy. It is not his fault that his relatives sawed the throat of a Russian soldier with a blunt knife. This boy went to fight them on the side of all Russia. He paid with his blood. I cannot sympathize with his wounds less than with the wounds of the Russian soldier lying next to him.
Fighters in the hospital
Bruised testicles. It is necessary to apply a bandage, - the doctor commands, pointing to a Chechen guy with an amputated leg. He said and left. And the Chechen does not understand a word of Russian. And when the dressing nurse and I reached out with our hands to the innermost, he began to huddle and goggle in horror.
We vying tried to explain that it was necessary. The guy in response only clamped even more and almost kicked.
Rina! - I rushed into the corridor for a Chechen nurse. - Explain to this fool what a bruised testicles is and why bandaging is needed!
A modest virgin (like all unmarried Chechen women) Rina blushed, but courageously entered the ward. Together with her entered an inseparable couple of wounded, but walking Chechen special forces. Then the circus began. Apparently, in Chechen "bruised testicles" is a very long and ornate phrase. Changing her face, Rina spoke it for about five minutes. Or maybe she just started from afar, but the commandos just crawled on all fours with laughter.
Only after that the guy gave up and allowed to bandage his jewel.
And a minute had not passed, as a skirmish began at the nursing post. Our wounded Chechens soaped up smoking again after lights out. Irka sneeze them, and they snarl.
Don't poke me!
You are my age! And here, in the hospital, for the first time in my life, they demand that I call a woman “you”.
An unfortunate fighter, - the driven Irinka hisses.
As a rule, sisters have problems with Chechens. And there is no need to look for the guilty here. Different mentality, many have a subconscious dislike.
In addition, the Chechens feel that they are not singled out in better side and pre-configured for aggression. For example, they are all interrogated by the FSB officers. Wounded, amputees - all in a row. And until they thoroughly check, even the heaviest ones will not be evacuated. In a war, this is logical, but they are offended.
And the real militants - it was the case - also ended up in the hospital. All the girls remember how a wounded man was brought to the department with scotch tape over his eyes and in a separate ward they handcuffed him to the bed. Apparently, a serious bandit was. The sisters were forbidden to talk to him at all. Answer even the most innocent questions. The girls say that they can remember the voice, and then they will take revenge for the fact that they healed the wounds of Russian soldiers. Indeed, there were cases in Chechnya when militants killed girls just because they communicated with Russian fighters.
But with greater hostility, the nurses recall how a Chechen woman got into a “trauma”. Either Raya or Louise - every day she called new names. She herself said that she was among the militants. And that among the "shahids" in "Nord-Ost" were her sisters.
The sisters, of course, chased her. But the head of the department asked them to be more gentle with her. Like, what will you take with the poor? Darkness grew in the village.
Shard for memory
The scariest place on the floor is the dressing room. Passing by the door, you involuntarily listen. There are groans and screams ... And even if there is silence, you can imagine how the kid, who is now being shoved into living meat with napkins with peroxide, closed his eyes and counts pink elephants so as not to scream. Five minutes ago, you blew on every scratch so that it wouldn’t hurt, wrapped him in pajamas. And now the bandages with the skin that have stuck to the wound are being torn, because there is no time to babysit. The surgeon is not a nurse, he is supposed to be tough and hard, like his tools.
For the first time, I happened to be present at the bandaging of gunshot wounds. They brought two contractors who were injured in the collision. These are not boys. Already grown men, strong, self-confident look, perhaps even cruel. They came to the war from Rostov of their own free will - to earn money.
The first guy lies down on the couch, and the sister removes his temporary, blood-soaked bandage. The doctor at this time asks questions: when, under what circumstances, what exactly was injured?
The bandage has been removed. The brush is swollen. There is a black hole at the base of the thumb. The same, but smaller, on the wrist. The sister gives a wet napkin, and the doctor washes the wounds with it. The gauze, brown with blood, flies into a basin on the floor, followed by another, and so on, until the wounds turn pure red. Then - inspection with a knitting needle. This is when a thin, long instrument with a hook at the end is pierced in the very core of the wound. Nightmare sight. Another fragment is in the cheek, but it has already been pulled out. And one more behind the ear... Stop.
Did you get that piece right?
Like yes.
The doctor carefully examines the swollen wound behind the fighter's ear. Again a napkin with peroxide, again a knitting needle. And a torn piece of metal the size of a pea is extracted into the light. The shard for the head is quite large.
For you as a keepsake! - The doctor gives the shard to the fighter.
The nurse treats the wound on the head.
Next!
“We’ll have to extend the contract, otherwise they will decide - I was scared”
The second contract soldier's nose was broken by shrapnel and his arm was torn off.
Will you be Georgian? - the doctor jokes, examining and treating the wounded bridge of the nose, and commands the nurse: "Sling-like bandage."
This is when the nose is bandaged, the edges of the bandage are tied behind the ears, and the fighter between the sisters receives the comic nickname "piglet".
The wound on the hand is much worse. It is 10 centimeters long and fell apart like a tulip. The most nightmarish thing is that it is undesirable for a fighter to inject novocaine. After the battle, they got out of the forest for a long time and, apparently, the dose of painkiller he received was too high. So the doctor tells me to keep novocaine at the ready, but does not inject it yet.
Execution begins with gauze being inserted into the wound. There is a quiet crunch. In order not to yell, the fighter gnaws on the couch.
Quiet, or you'll break your teeth. Be patient, the doctor says calmly.
While the doctor is changing the napkin, I hear the fighter whisper: “I’ll find the spirit, I’ll cut it into small pieces,” and the couch crunches again. Finally, he can’t stand it: “I can’t take it anymore, let’s novocaine!”
Be patient, I'm already finishing, - the doctor is unperturbed.
I slowly take the fighter's good hand and squeeze it. He squeezes back. Stronger, even stronger... Each touch to the wound is given in this squeezing. My fingers are cracking, but I can stand it. If he's patient...
The contract ends in two weeks, - the fighter says thoughtfully.
Well, that's good, just get better, and go home, - sister smiles.
No. If I leave now, they will say I was scared. I will renew my contract.
And the wife, children? How are they? What difference does it make what they say! - I'm completely bewildered.
A man stares dreamily at the ceiling:
Yes, I missed my children and wife ... But I will continue anyway.
And after some time, a contract officer was brought to the department with a slight wound. As it turned out later, he was already in an "injury", and his foot was amputated. But with a prosthesis, he again went to fight. The sisters greeted the officer like an old acquaintance:
Dmitry Petrovich! What are you doing in the war? Enough of you! Let others fight.
Who else needs me? My wife left ... And I can’t do anything professionally anymore, only kill.
HOW MANY WOUNDED AND KILLED
The days when I worked in the Khankala hospital were relatively peaceful. That is, there were no special excesses. But even then, on average, we received at least one wounded per day. And about 20 corpses were brought to the morgue. But we must take into account that there is one more hospital in Chechnya - Severny. And it, too, is replenished daily with mutilated boys.
According to the helicopter pilots who constantly transport these wounded to hospitals, on average two people die and ten are wounded a day in Chechnya.
On the days when terrorist attacks occur, these numbers increase greatly. For example, from the last dates, with particular horror, nurses recall the election day - March 14, when, as a result of several explosions, 14 amputee fighters were admitted to the “injury” of Khankala.
WHAT EAT
The food in the hospital is decent. Soups are even delicious. But everything is on fat, which gets fed up very quickly.
Breakfast: semolina porridge (to taste - on the water), a piece of butter, bread, tea.
Lunch: rice soup with lard, pearl barley porridge with lard with boiled lard, sauerkraut, tea (judging by the greasy circles on the surface, also with lard).
Afternoon snack: cookies, tea.
Dinner: mashed potatoes, fried fish.
Several cons:
Anything with milk (such as milk soup) is highly diluted with water and tasteless.
The oil is very moldy.
It is not clear why there are almost no fruits and vegetables on the menu. Is it really impossible to get elementary apples and cucumbers on the fertile land of the Caucasus? After all, the wounded need vitamins. And orchards have been preserved even in war-torn Grozny.
We met with Colonel Vladimir Olegovich Sidelnikov in his office at the Military Medical Academy. Before this meeting, I had practically no idea about military doctors. I thought something like this: these are ordinary doctors who solemn occasions sometimes you have to wear a military uniform.
The completely academic setting and the appearance of the doctor of medical sciences, Professor Sidelnikov, with his dazzling white coat over green surgical clothes - all this fit perfectly into my idea of the expected meeting. I began the conversation by asking about his unique doctoral dissertation“Medical care for those burned in local wars and armed conflicts”, which Vladimir Olegovich defended, based on his own experience in treating more than two thousand burned soldiers and officers. I was also interested in another important problem that he managed to solve: the prevention of the negative consequences of hypothermia of soldiers of the army special forces during the conduct of hostilities in the winter in the mountainous area in Chechnya. It seems that everything was expected in our conversation. But after some time, I felt that the military doctors of the special forces (and Dr. Sidelnikov served in the army special forces) are a completely special breed of people. Further acquaintance with the doctor confirmed this impression.
Who are the military doctors at the front really? These are people who cannot relax even for a second. After all, everything must be done so that a person who has received a combat injury survives and, if there is even the slightest opportunity, returns to duty again. And often at the same time, the combat situation forces them to put aside medical instruments and take up arms.
During his service in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya, Dr. Sidelnikov has been at the forefront more than once. Twice he was seriously wounded. In Afghanistan, during a combat exit, the “spirits” took him prisoner, but our paratroopers quickly recaptured him. On another occasion, having been the only officer in the battle group during a military operation, he took command. And then, for almost a day, the group fought in complete encirclement in unthinkable conditions, when the enemy outnumbered was at a distance of a grenade throw. Dr. Sidelnikov was a direct participant in both the first, in 1994, and the second, in 1999, assault on Grozny ... In his memoirs, he again and again returns to the most tragic events of the Afghan and Chechen wars of which he was a direct participant. But I decided to tell about one of his fights separately (see).
Sergei Galitsky
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