Book: Airborne Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

This book is a true story of a soldier of the 56th airborne assault brigade who fought in Afghanistan in 1984-1986. This is the trench truth of the last war of the USSR. The whole truth about life and death beyond the river. About the sound a bullet makes when it hits the sand or rock near your head. About what it's like to get up and run under a hail of spirit bullets for those fucking 10 steps. About how war pulls out all the brightest and stinkiest that is in each of us. About the fact that after Afghanistan we will never be the same again ... .

Publisher: "Eksmo" (2015)

Author	Book	Description	Year	Price	book type
Sheinin Artem Grigorievich		Epochal memoirs	2018	630	paper book
Sheinin A.	Air Assault Brigade. 171;Trench truth 187;Afghan war	This book is a true story of a soldier of the 56th Air Assault Brigade who fought in Afghanistan in 1984-1986. This is the trench truth of the last war of the USSR. The whole truth about life and death beyond the river. Oh ... - Yauza, Epochal memoirs	2018	495	paper book
Sheinin Artem Grigorievich	Air Assault Brigade. The trench truth of the Afghan war	This book is `realistic stories` of a soldier of the 56th Airborne Assault Brigade who fought in Afghanistan in 1984-1986. This is the `trench truth` of the last war of the USSR. The whole truth about life and death `beyond the river`. Oh ... - Yauza, Epochal memoirs	2018	329	paper book
Artem Sheinin		This book is the "uninvented stories" of a soldier of the 56th Airborne Assault Brigade who fought in Afghanistan in 1984-1986. This is the "trench truth" of the last war of the USSR. The whole truth about life and death "for ... - Yauza, undeclared wars electronic book	2015	159	electronic book
Artem Sheinin	Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan	This book is the "uninvented stories" of a soldier of the 56th Airborne Assault Brigade who fought in Afghanistan in 1984-1986. This is the "trench truth" of the last war of the USSR. The whole truth about life and death "for ... - LitRes: reader, undeclared wars audiobook can be downloaded		189	audiobook

Artem Sheinin
Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

Preface. I returned from the war

- What country is it? – then exclaimed the surprised Chief Bourgeois. “What kind of incomprehensible country is this, in which even such kids know the Military Secret and keep their firm word so tightly ...

And the broken Chief Bourgeois fled in fear, loudly cursing this country with its amazing people, with its invincible army and with its unsolved Military Secret.

A. Gaidar. "Malchish-Kibalchish"

The chief bourgeois still did not know much, otherwise he would have exclaimed much louder and with much greater surprise both about “this country” and about “boys”.

He could not imagine what this amazing country can and is doing with its faithful "boys". And it’s completely impossible for him to understand that, even despite this, these “boys” remain just as devoted and faithful, ready for anything for her ...

A “boy”, brought up in this country with its system in all its glory and grandeur, I slept from childhood and saw how it would be possible for me to show my “boyishism” for the benefit of my beloved country ...

So not only was I not afraid, but I wanted to join the army. Moreover, I didn’t just want to join the army, but dreamed of those troops where there is always “a place for heroism” - about the Airborne Forces. And having learned that there is an opportunity to get to the war, I couldn’t find a place for myself from the thought that I might NOT get there ...

It was precisely because of my readiness and desire to serve that I turned out to be less ready for that part of the “hardships and hardships of military service” that were a manifestation of this inexplicable, dark, transcendent, illogical and irrational, in a bad sense, paradoxical side of our beloved Motherland.

And the army as an integral part of it. And if I was somehow ready for all these “charms” in the army as such, then I was simply tragically not ready for the fact that all this would be present in the war. And not just to be present, but to flourish in a riotous color. Being especially noticeable against the backdrop of not invented by propagandists and directors, but quite real greatness of spirit, army, male friendship, military brotherhood ...

Probably, it was precisely because of this “unpreparedness” that when I got to Afghanistan, to the war, from the very beginning I asked myself a lot of questions. And he suffered, not finding answers to them. More precisely, from the very beginning I was simply tormented, without even really understanding why - I was then unable to formulate this.

So I formulated the QUESTIONS only now. Then they were never uttered or even thought by me. So all these “why” and “how is it so” are the questions I uttered today of myself then. They have been with me all these years. I had to answer them to that naive 18-year-old boy, but - probably, another 20 years after my war - I was not ready for this. Because even now, many of these questions and the answers to them are painful and insulting to pronounce ...

It hurts and hurts, primarily because, by and large, little has changed since then. Beloved Motherland invariably, in spite of everything, gives birth and gives birth, educates and educates devoted and faithful "boys". And with constant constancy he continues to break, mangle, substitute, abandon and forget ... And they - generation after generation - still continue to love her, fearlessly rush into battle for her and, without hesitation, give their lives for her. As if they don’t know and don’t see how it happened with other “boys”, before them ...

Less than 10 years after our Afghanistan, as another portion of the "boys" ended up in Chechnya ... Well, it would seem, okay, we are children of the late 70s - early 80s, who grew up behind the iron curtain and on the needle of brilliant Soviet propaganda ... But what kind of illusions could the guys who grew up in the late 80s - early 90s have? What made them "boys"?

And they threw them into a meat grinder cleaner than ours, and betrayed and framed them, as we never dreamed of ... But no - everything is the same. "When the country orders to be a hero..."

And not only that - after another five years, the new "boys", who already knew EVERYTHING without embellishment about the fate of the first "Chechens", all also waved their sabers and rushed at the next "evil bourgeois", who were pointed out by the "beloved Motherland" ....

Maybe that's why no one can truly defeat us? Maybe this is what makes our country like this? Maybe that's why nothing will ever change here? Or maybe not? And if so, how?

Actually, my book in many ways appeared as an attempt (sometimes painful) to understand what it was and why it happens ... That is why, formulating questions in this book on behalf of myself then, describing my life, experiences, illusions and parting with them, I , as it seems to me, I am trying to understand my country and this part of its social culture and its mentality.

Therefore, these stories are not about war as such. They are rather about what happened in the soul and in the brains of an 18-year-old boy, a romantic who ended up in the war. How the war he dreamed of getting into turned out to be not at all what he dreamed of ...

For hundreds and hundreds of years, the same thing has been happening to boys who dream of wars, high deeds and bright ideals. But it's also true that all these hundreds of years, getting into the war and parting with their illusions, these boys understand something new about life and their place in it.

Something that they, perhaps, would not have known and would not have understood if they had lived their lives differently ...

Those who love "war games" should probably not read these stories. Of course, it is there, but without descriptions of battle scenes, explosions, flying bullets, shelling, hand-to-hand combat. I would never write a book about war just for the sake of it. I bow to those who can "deliciously" describe a war, especially SUCH a war. I can't even find words to describe the sound a bullet makes when it hits the sand or rock near your head. I will never forget this sound, but the maximum that I can do is to try to convey my feelings at this moment and after ... and what else do I know for sure besides this? Who fired this bullet and why? How much do I understand about why and why at this time and in this place I and the one who shot at me ended up in this place? Nothing…

Everyone has their own war. One and the same battle is perceived absolutely differently by a young “cord”, who hid his head behind a stone and “poured” into the white light, as if for a pretty penny, putting out only a machine gun, and an experienced demobilization, busily “pulling out” among the duvals the heads of bearded men in turbans.

His young 22-year-old "flyer" - platoon commander, who spent less time in the war than his subordinates, and the "mature" 25-year-old "starley" - company commander, who already knows what it means to write funerals for mothers, see him completely differently ...

The battalion commander, who lost his voice to hoarseness in the heat, commanding his companies exhausted from the night march through the mountains, stuck under the fire of the spirits to the rocky slopes, and the sleek general, sweepingly drawing arrows on the map in the shadow of a camouflage net, will remember the same operation in completely different ways. sipping ice cold lemonade...

For me, war is what happens in our brains and souls. It was about this "my" war that I wrote. And all the "external" events occur in my descriptions only insofar as they have become part of my inner world, influenced me today, asking questions and looking for answers to them. That is why I did not adhere to any special “storyline”, in some stories I “returned” to myself today. Although the chronology of events in the book is still respected.

For me, the main thing is the war inside. A war is like hundreds of thousands, millions of individual small wars going on in the souls and heads of every fighter, whether he is the most desperate and reckless "sword" or a quiet and inconspicuous "middle peasant". And at the same time, according to the “big”, life account, it is not so important who exactly fought how: being an excellent warrior, you can eventually lose “your” war. The one that is "inside" you...

And another task, perhaps the most difficult - to return from the war ...

Chapter 1. Afghanistan as a presentiment

April 1984, Moscow

- Well, well, fair wind, Burdock. The country needs heroes!

Capa, my classmate, looks at me ironically from under a mop of wheat-coloured hair. Burdock is me, this is my nickname among my classmates. How it arose is a long, and pointless, explanation. After all, I have only two days left to be Burdock. Today is Saturday, April 21st. And on Monday I'm in the army.

I'm the first to leave class.

Kapa is the second. He already has the agenda for the 30th in his hands. Therefore, the conversation, of course, is about the army and about where they will be “sent”.

I dream of being sent to the Airborne Forces and to Afghanistan. And Capa, as usual, makes fun of my "hopeless romanticism."

- Burdock, the children should already be squeaking in their eggs, and you still have Pioneer Dawn playing in your ass! What the hell do you need all of this for?

Similar "dialogues" have recently arisen with many of my peers. And in general with surrounding "normal people".

Similarly, they were perplexed in February.

From the military registration and enlistment office I was sent for 10 days to parachute jump. Having jumped three times at the DOSAAF airfield in Volosovo, I returned beside myself with happiness, believing that this already completely guarantees me getting into the Airborne Forces.

- What the hell are you doing with the Airborne Forces? You are already completely fucked with your Afghan! Mother would be sorry...

Some say it openly. The same Zhenya, whom I consider my girlfriend, unlike herself. To her, I'm just a friend. With whom, it so happened, she lives, of course, in the same room with all the consequences, but this still does not mean anything. At least not for her.

Someone does not express himself so directly, but is also in no hurry to share my enthusiasm and my zeal. I suspect that for the time being, many perceived this as a kind of boyish bravado.

We all knew a little about Afghanistan. But enough to understand that "international duty" is not at all about building schools and planting trees, as newspapers write in infrequent articles about Afghanistan.

And it is not at all with joyful grateful schoolchildren and peasants that our soldiers have to deal with there, whom we see in even rarer reports on TV.

But now Capa understands that it's not about bravado.

Tomorrow is my farewell. And with a high probability I will fall into the landing force.

But with DRA 1
DRA - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Then this country was called that.

I have a problem". Actually, we are talking about it.

The problem is that I do not have a father and I am alone with my mother. And that's why I'm worried that they might not take me to the war. And that's why Capa wonders why I'm so eager to go there ...

I don’t know how to explain it to him - for some reason I’m just sure that this is mine.

Premonition, premonition...

Episode one. Grandfather

When Afghanistan appeared in my life, I know exactly to the day.

That is, before that, I also knew that there was such a country, but it became a part of MY life only on that day, although at that time I still could not understand it.

On the evening of December 5, 1979, my grandfather, as usual, turned the tuning knob of his VEF-202 transistor.

As usual, he fought with jammers that clogged "enemy voices."

And at some point, he outwitted them. And through the howling and wheezing, a voice spoke with a slight accent.

Grandfather was fluent in German, understood English quite well.

But sometimes, either for comparison, or out of passion, he listened to them, or rather tried to listen in Russian. It didn't always work out. The mufflers knew their stuff...

True, in these cases, he still always kicked me out of the room. In the late 70s, this could hardly have been a serious threat to me and him. But the instincts of that generation were developed in the late 30s ...

When for such "curiosity" it was possible to go very far and for a long time. And no guarantee of return.

So even now, in the "heyday of socialist democracy", my grandfather was insured and took care of me.

And I was offended. I was almost 14. My favorite book was the five-volume History of Diplomacy. I read the "international" pages of newspapers and watched the "International Panorama" regularly. He was the political informant of the class.

Unlike my classmates, to whom even the name Stalin, mentioned two or three times in our history books, said little, I knew who Trotsky, Bukharin and Beria were.

I knew from my grandfather.

In the 1920s, he graduated from the Faculty of International Relations of Moscow State University and even managed to work with Chicherin. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1937 ... He worked in the West, in Germany, in Italy ...

Then for many years he became “not allowed to travel abroad”, and after the war, even more so, he “left” for many years far to the east. And not a diplomat at all. Lumberjack...

My grandfather raised me instead of my father. I got my interest in politics from him.

It was all the more offensive when he did not let me listen to the “voices”.

But on this day, everything “coincided” - my grandfather listened to them in Russian, the jammers “didn’t notice”, I was nearby, but he didn’t drive me away.

And I heard an overly Russian-pronouncing voice telling me that there were good reasons to expect a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the near future.

The words "invasion" and "Soviet troops" nearby were perceived somehow strange. After all, we never invaded anywhere - we always only freed and protected everyone. And the imperialists and their accomplices invaded. To enslave and oppress.

I looked at my grandfather with surprise and bewilderment.

But he didn't seem to notice me. Or maybe it’s true - I didn’t notice ...

Grandfather shook his head sadly and thoughtfully, and then sat silently for a long time, clasping her in his arms. He used to sit like this...

Grandfather was generally laconic and thoughtful - four years of war and then seven years of camps under Article 58, apparently, did not dispose to talkativeness.

I did not understand this then, but instinctively at such moments I did not climb to him.

He didn't answer my silent question that day.

He never answered me at all.

I never found out what the main person in my life at that time thought about Afghanistan and our possible entry there.

I didn't understand why he was shaking his head so sadly...

After all, he could not have known that ...

Don't know…

But it was on that day that Afghanistan entered my life. As it turned out - forever.

For the first time I touched what would become the main “point” of my biography, which would “make” in many respects, shape me today. And almost at the same time, my grandfather, who “made” me for the first 13 years, left my life.

Probably, the two of them had no place in my destiny. If my grandfather had lived for another three years, I would hardly have rushed to Afghanistan. I would have dreamed about something else, admired something else, studied differently…

But apparently, this is exactly what was “written” for me.

And that is why, probably, simultaneously with the appearance of the “Afghan theme”, my upbringing at home also ended. Mom worked hard to feed the two of us, and I myself soon began to earn money on the sly and didn’t really listen to her anymore. He loved, respected, but did more in his own way.

What my grandfather did for 13 years was continued by the school, the street, and work.

And Soviet propaganda.

More precisely, what is now commonly called so, often with a negative connotation.

Although now I understand that many of us managed to get through what happened to us, thanks to the core that this very “propaganda” gave.

We were sincerely proud of our Motherland, sincerely believed that the USSR was the best country in the world. They sincerely loved her and sympathized with those who managed to be born in some America.

We had a lot to be proud of.

And among this much, VICTORY towered in an incomprehensible bulk.

Those who fought were still young people. There were many of them, and from this the feeling that ALL of us won it was quite real.

And films about the war gave rise to the effect of complicity and presence.

I loved them and watched them all over and over again.

Grandfather was still alive when the joint Soviet-American 20-episode documentary "The Great Patriotic War" was released. In the American version - "Unknown War".

Every week, my grandfather and I went to October to watch the next two episodes.

I don’t remember the content of individual episodes well, but I always remember how my grandfather watched this black-and-white chronicle. I could never understand why his lips and chin sometimes began to tremble, and a tear ran down his wrinkled cheek.

Why is he crying? After all, we won! We won the war!

I didn't ask - I understood that there must be a serious reason for this usually calm, experienced man to cry.

He had little time to tell me about the war - I was too small.

But thanks to him, the war became much more than just history for me. It was something personal, but I didn't know what.

And then I understood.

Somehow, once again, I watched “Belorussky Station”, where in the finale there are footage of the chronicle - at the Belorussky Station they meet front-line soldiers. I have always loved this moment: thanks to the song of Nina Urgant, this incredible jubilation of the winners was transmitted from the screen.

“One for all, we won’t stand up for the price ...”

And suddenly I caught myself thinking that I ENVY them. These mustachioed guys who throw children into the air and kiss the running women with relish.

I envy the fact that I was NEVER destined to return from the war like this.

Never experience THIS jubilation yourself ...

Perhaps that is also why I remember the phrase I heard in early December 1979 about the possible entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

War reeked of her.

The war, which I "have time for."

Episode two. Minzhin

However, at first I took the incomprehensible reaction of my grandfather rather as a doubt that what the “voices” said was even possible.

At the end of December, on the 28th, probably, my friends and I were visiting a classmate, the daughter of a Mongolian diplomat.

The Embassy of Mongolia was not far from our school, and the children of many diplomats studied there. Although the school was not even "special", but quite ordinary, "workers and peasants", as we joked.

The girl's name was Minzhin, and I was boyishly in love with her.

I didn't know how to get her attention.

And here we are having some fun there, some kind of “Boney M” is playing, dancing shmantsy ... And suddenly Minzhin enters and says that Soviet troops have entered Afghanistan.

So she said "come in" ...

Everyone was a little taken aback by this news. And then I decided that my hour had come, and very “authoritatively” declared that this was all garbage and that I had heard about this on “Western radio” even earlier. And what is it, they say, they are pumping everything up, bastards. However, my speech did not produce the expected effect, since Minjin calmly objected that she had learned about this not from “voices”, but from her father.

But when, after the winter holidays, we went out to study, the topic of my very first political information was already “the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into Afghanistan to provide fraternal assistance to the friendly Afghan people in repelling possible imperialist aggression.”

"My war" became more and more real...

Over the next two years, news from Afghanistan was rare, and increasingly in the form of articles about how internationalist warriors were building schools. Photos of our joyful soldiers and no less joyful Afghans were attached to the articles, and at the sight of these mutual smiles, the reality of “imperialist aggression” somehow could not be believed.

Nevertheless, the troops from Afghanistan for some reason did not leave.

And the more they built schools in Afghanistan and planted trees, the less it was believed that they were doing just that. Who cares, but these doubts only made me happy ...

At first, somehow he did not dare to touch his transistor. Then he could not cope with the tuning, and soon the old WEF completely fell silent. So the old faithful dog dies after the owner.

I had no sources of alternative information, and there was nothing to buy a new receiver. Yes, and the tape recorder has become a much more urgent dream for me.

So what is happening in Afghanistan actually remained incomprehensible.

But the conversations that crawled over time about “zinc coffins from Afghanistan” revealed this “misunderstanding” in a very definite way.

In January 1982, I celebrated my 16th birthday. Minzhin came to visit, who by that time had already studied at a special school. So we rarely saw each other, but we kept a warm relationship. Although purely friendly still.

And so, in a friendly banter with me, she remembered how two years ago we argued over Afghanistan:

“And now there has been a real war going on for two years now.

That's what she said - "war".

Maybe something was erased from my memory, but I don’t remember anyone before saying this word aloud when talking about Afghanistan.

Artem Sheinin

Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

Preface. I returned from the war

- What country is it? – then exclaimed the surprised Chief Bourgeois. “What kind of incomprehensible country is this, in which even such kids know the Military Secret and keep their firm word so tightly ...

And the broken Chief Bourgeois fled in fear, loudly cursing this country with its amazing people, with its invincible army and with its unsolved Military Secret.

A. Gaidar. "Malchish-Kibalchish"

The chief bourgeois still did not know much, otherwise he would have exclaimed much louder and with much greater surprise both about “this country” and about “boys”.

Artem Sheinin

Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

Preface. I returned from the war

And the broken Chief Bourgeois fled in fear, loudly cursing this country with its amazing people, with its invincible army and with its unsolved Military Secret.

A. Gaidar. "Malchish-Kibalchish"

The chief bourgeois still did not know much, otherwise he would have exclaimed much louder and with much greater surprise both about “this country” and about “boys”.

And they threw them into a meat grinder cleaner than ours, and betrayed and framed them, as we never dreamed of ... But no - everything is the same. "When the country orders to be a hero..."

Maybe that's why no one can truly defeat us? Maybe this is what makes our country like this? Maybe that's why nothing will ever change here? Or maybe not? And if so, how?

Something that they, perhaps, would not have known and would not have understood if they had lived their lives differently ...

And another task, perhaps the most difficult - to return from the war ...

Chapter 1. Afghanistan as a presentiment

April 1984, Moscow

- Well, well, fair wind, Burdock. The country needs heroes!

I'm the first to leave class.

Kapa is the second. He already has the agenda for the 30th in his hands. Therefore, the conversation, of course, is about the army and about where they will be “sent”.

I dream of being sent to the Airborne Forces and to Afghanistan. And Capa, as usual, makes fun of my "hopeless romanticism."

- Burdock, the children should already be squeaking in their eggs, and you still have Pioneer Dawn playing in your ass! What the hell do you need all of this for?

Similar "dialogues" have recently arisen with many of my peers. And in general with surrounding "normal people".

Similarly, they were perplexed in February.

- What the hell are you doing with the Airborne Forces? You are already completely fucked with your Afghan! Mother would be sorry...

Book: Airborne Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

Other books on similar topics:

Artem Sheinin Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan

Preface. I returned from the war

Chapter 1. Afghanistan as a presentiment

Episode one. Grandfather

Episode two. Minzhin

Artem Sheinin
Air Assault Brigade. Uninvented Afghan