Hardly a happy life is possible if it's without difficult trials, without moments, when it seems that all is lost, all in vain and there is a very small chance to correct this, to find a way out, that now the failures will pursue till the declining years. Never believe in such ideas. Looking back, I don't remember even the only difficulty without enrichment my experience, without serving for some goal, without giving me some information. Looking back, one can come to a conclusion, if God allows something that we perceive as a negative thing, then He wants to teach us something. And then it becomes ridiculous, what terror and indignation we perceived the past difficulties and failures with. And then the next difficulties and failures will be perceived far easier. This story is not made up. Whatever I'm going to describe now, it took place with me in fact in that distant 1976. That time I was 26 years old. Being born in an atheistic family, by the time I became gradually an agnostic. To understand the cause of traveling such unusual route, one has to move into the time more distant, for the eight years else.
That time the Soviet power was interested in agitation all the people who would listen, to go to the building activity and other works in the unreclaimed and vast areas of the Siberia. The composers and poets had to flatter to the power. It could adversely affect their creative work, but some of them acted wisely, hymning not only the "happiness it the collective", but the beautiful nature of those areas, because the nature as a creation of God, is beautiful everywhere in its own way. I have begun to work since 16 years old, wanting to be independent and to have my own money and in the first time I had chosen my work very successfully: a worker in the field surveying. In the soviet world it was almost an ideal because we worked at the field condition, both or three together, we hadn't what to quarrel for, no dependence on the society, practically no tittle-tattle, no squabbles and troubles, and in the research department we came only for our wages. That time, for me personally, for the best career I preferred to get round all the soviet compulsions by hook or by crook, mainly without compulsory driving into the collective (naturally to make a fool and the for the ideological supervision).
By full age I have decided to begin making business trips, that is "for the fog and the smell of the taiga", how was sung in one of the soviet songs, but the first mission for an enough long time, it had disappointed me: where I was sent into the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, there was no taiga, only the steppes around and the real mountains were not seen too. But God knew better, where to send me and this is right! Hardly would be invented a more appropriate place for the seeking and perception of the truth and the goal of our life are the same seeking and perception. Before the mission I was told much scurrilous things about the indigenous population of the republic and first days I stayed cautious, but only during the first days. I discovered very quickly than the Chechen society differs from all rest Soviet one, which already was grown hateful, and it differs right so that is found closer spiritually personally to me in many of the aspects.
You would be wrong if you think that I was occupied of the investigation their society as soon as I had arrived there. Being 18 years old, in spite of my development and erudition, I was more occupied with my own problems what were left in Moscow as well as the different dreams and fantasies, which are peculiar to the given age. All the same, the information about the local social medium reached up to me, but if I occupied specially to study it, I would learnt much more of information. Even I didn't endeavor to learn the cause, because of which the local society differs from the rest so advantageously, seeing from my viewpoint. Certainly, the cause is in their religion, not in the climate or in the geographical situation, however I learnt it a lot later. But even I learnt it right that time, I doubt whether could I augment my horizons in the matter of faith, because it is necessary two things for this: the access to information and the serious willingness. About access, that time (in the USSR- note by the author) it was not possible to buy even the four Gospels, say nothing of the Koran or of other literature with theological disputes. And even literally there was no one would be possible with to speak about the serious and interesting topics. It is only now you can see in every subway the Jehovah's Witnesses and the believers of many others confessions who try to converse with you and spread their literature. But at that time you wouldn't find them in broad daylight with a lantern. All was suppressed, forbidden (in the USSR- note by the author) and nobody around, except the drunkards and the "normal" soviet persons. Certainly, if who looks for, he will find, but it was absent a serious desire to occupy with a similar seeking.
However after return from the mission my interest in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was not to be forgotten, but quite the contrary, it went, augmenting. There were the everyday collisions with the negative phenomena of the soviet life and reality what provoked this. The state power mistreated the people, the people mistreated each other. A bias to make mischief to one's neighbour without any profit to himself became almost a rule of etiquette at that time. The people behaved like dogs in the kennels, in which they are beaten and bad fed. A proverb "the world is a brothel and the people are whores" was incarnated into the life visually. It was impossible to go abroad not for love or money. Even when this dog's bickering of the soviet persons didn't concern for me personally, all the same, the feeling of abhorrence was provoked and the Chechen social medium was remembered like an alternative. It was shown up a regret that being at the mission, I didn't begin to learn the Chechen language, especially given the learning any language, even what will not be prove useful, however in itself it is interesting and useful for development.
In 1973 I got married. All went quite well. But someone of neighbours didn't like my family and myself especially. Of course, everyone has right for the sympathy or the antipathy to anyone else, but it is quite another thing if this antipathy breaks away, coming to light. Already it is not from law, and even is not "only humanly". Such a menace like "I'll jug you" if there is not what for "to jug", that is a violation of the law didn't take place, in any democratic land in the West would be estimated as a funny fool threat and hardly could be expected other reciprocal reaction , except the laugh. Including in our country now: if such a thing takes place now, only I would wish them to go, where it is a common practice in Russia to wish to go (a Russian round oath), but it was the Soviet Union of the 1976 and such a menace was enough real.
"Well,- I said to myself. - For a while I will refrain from aggressive measures, maybe everything will turn out all right. But if they too become too insolent, if they pass some limit, I'll carry out their wish: I'll be imprisoned, but not in vain". I was not afraid of the being in prison if it's not very long, using this line of reasoning: "a thing which doesn't kill us, it makes us stronger". As I was born and live in the hostile me social medium, I have understood this since the younger school age. If something terrible and irreparable befall, towards full age I had developed a plan in answer to this: to leave for a forest with a suitable equipment and to live there. Even I tried to build a bunker in the forest, but, testing a few days to live in a tent with passing the nights while the temperature was twenty degrees centigrade below zero, I had arrived to conclusion that the bunker is an excess. If the secret of the location of the bunker is disclosed - all the work will come to nothing. But in the tent, if outsides pass (hunters, mushroomers or some others) and my type of the tourism seems them suspicious, I would have the possibility always to change my location. I am not a pioneer who discovers this method, although that time I knew nothing about the Caucasian abreks and had enough vague notion about the "Forest brothers" in the Baltic States. Silly persons, when I shared such thoughts with them, sometimes said me: "What for to go into hiding? All the same you will be caught." But they could answer nothing to my counter argument: "What for to live? All the same you will die". Also such an event like "will be caught" by no means a reliable, but only a probabilistic one, and this probability is not in the hands of those who pursues, but it is in the hands of someone who is hiding, and it depend of his intellect, of his willpower, of his inspiration and of God.
Towards the 1976 my family has increased, there were two close in age children already. But the same existence of my sound united family gave no rest for some soviet people, to say exactly, for the scumbags, the drunkards and the degenerates. Although we lived only on the salary of technician surveyor, but even such life led them to the jaundice and provoked the hatred. They still didn't know that already I had left the service and now I earned money as much as formerly, but bringing the plush carpets from Baku and reselling them in the towns of the region of Vladimir, being more independent else from the soviet collectives and of their filth. Oh, how vastly they would like that I would find myself in jail or at least in the situation of a character in the Vysotsky's song "And in the cemetery all is calmly", where it is described a man alive who is choosing a cemetery to take a break from the neighbours and other soviet communities which committed outrages.
But still my calculations "at random" did not materialize. 22 April these neighbours organized a binge in view of that the anniversary of the birthday of Lenin, but, to say truth, they weren't so convinced Leninists, and executing the will of the soviet power in the persecution the otherwise-minded, it is unlikely they made aware of this in fact. Really just there was a cause to get drunk like pigs and when the drunkenness had rushed to the head, there appeared a desire to sneer at the family of "a rotten intellectual", but such a circumstance that this "gentle intellectual" is able to use a cold steel, it was beyond their comprehension. That evening we bathed our child three months old, these curs started to throw clods of ground into the window and I decided that it is a suitable moment to be "in the heat of passion provoked by the unlawful actions of the victim". If I was one of these psychopaths who attacks with fists or with knives because of anything, then I would spend in jail all my life and it can scarcely you would read this story. However, I spent all my life in the liberty to spite all the soviet world. In fact, then I was able to restrain myself, but what for? Even if I'm juged, all the same one would can appeal to the fact of the "unlawful actions of the victim" and don't get the longest term in jail from the gravest Article 102 of the Russian Criminal Code at that time. Till the last moment, that is till the incident I calculated that maybe all will be turned out all right, so instead to take the necessary things to live in the forest and go away quicker, but I had to prepare these things just after the incident. All my family diverted me actively in these moments, the emotions overfilled them and it was natural. It would be a sin to take umbrage at them, that they hampered my preparation because of this. My wife, already exchanging a few words with other neighbours, had begun to persuade me: "Maybe, will you stay? Whole the house is on your side."
It was a surprise for me and it's possible, not only for me but for the opposite side too. After all, the persecution in the "Soviet collectives" and in the "socialist conducts", it is calculated just to jump on someone alone, using all the crowd. Such cases are known me in the soviet communal flats, when the colluding scoundrels press for the resettlement someone who was persecuted by them, or jail him, or sneer at him all the way without taking the chance to run into the reciprocal actions, because the victim was broken already and knows that they are able to jail without guilt or to play another bad trick on him. An they accustom to this gradually: he yields to them in the first time for "don't get involved", yields in the second time - a habit of yielding is formed and the victim of the collective compromises now, although earlier would repulse against the same things, then his life gradually turns into hell. Don't to find himself as a victim of the Soviet collective, one had to conform to it entirely, to be identical to them without a deviation in any side. The least manifestation of the individualism was a cause for the assaulting. The people were frightened not only by the fate of those who was repressed by the State, but by the fate of those who has suffered from the collective persecution. So they lived without thinking that such a life is not better than the life those who was persecuted, but worse. There were a few of them who would understand that except these two evils, there is a third way else and although it is full of the privation, however it is more worthy of respect - this is the way of an abrek.
Abrek is a man who lives in the nature, at the hiding. His house are the forests on a plain or in the mountains. Such things as the sentence to death penalty in absentia, the police, the special services or the mafia - all of them are not more fearful for him, than an army of enemy for an officer, just for an officer who is a commander only for himself, but not for an ordinary soldier whom someone who is stronger than him, can use him not always with noble goals. But nobody would impose the penalty on an abrek, nobody will judge him by the court martial for doing mistakes, just for the mistakes and slovenliness he has a lot of chances to be taken prisoner by the enemy and he himself decides to keep the military discipline or to be slovenly.
So, this time again, it will serve me as a lesson, because I looked aside, didn't prepare the necessary things beforehand, the police arrived before I could go away, however my situation wasn't catastrophically to the extent that I would engage in the unequal battle with them or would run away, being seen. In the police I wasn't estimated as a thief or a hooligan, though I was detained before for the vagrancy, when I traveled in Siberia in the 1972 and yet several times for the long hairs, for the clothes of hippy, but still not near my residence, but at a long distance from it. Already the policemen had locked me in the cell and phoned in the hospital, seeing that the injuries what I had caused, aren't dangerous (but I supposed that I had killed), laughed a little and said that tomorrow I will be released. I had taken this as a joke, which was hard for me. Let they imprisoned me, but let it would be without teasing me, however to the glad surprise for me and my relatives, the next day I was released in fact, almost in the evening, only giving me a notice I would keep myself in the hands.
They had released me, but not at all were going to close down the criminal case because of the infliction the grievous bodily harm (the grievous harm took place not from consequence, but because of danger in the moment of the infliction): they took away my passport and sometimes summoned me to the investigator, the victims were summoned sometimes too. According to the judicial practice, I was menaced to be imprisoned in the camp of the intensive regime for five years. I was, it seems, in some suspended condition, that is, at the crossroads, where it would be a very unwanted thing to miscalculate: either to hope for own good luck and to continue to live at home like a law-abiding citizen, or to spit on everything and leave for the forest forever, barring the way to return to the customary life.
Towards the autumn this uncertainty began to bother already and not only me. The relations with my wife began to go down too. The victims didn't cause the troubles anymore: our family and they didn't dissemble each other, even looked away reciprocally, going by. But then another obstacle appeared, glory to God, it was not at the place of residence. One had to do something with all this. And here I recalled this Caucasian mission took place eight years before. I remembered that there was warmly and without rains in October and one could sleep under the stars without any equipment. This time I decided to go to the mountains where only Chechens live. I still wasn't in the mountain Chechnya. Examining the atlas of the highways of the USSR, I chose a place which would be far from the frontiers of Chechnya. "If I go to Vedeno, but it is not far from Daghestan and what if there are only the Daghestanis? - I conjectured mistakenly. - No, I will go in the middle, closer to the geometrical center of the mountain Chechnya, this is the Soviet village". (At present the historical name Shatoy was returned to this village). I know what the most of readers are going to think now, but they will be wrong: this travel is not thoughtless suicidal and not a heroic one. This idea as you arrive there and all the inhabitants of the local villages would pursue you in order to kill - this is a raving fable. Even at worst this is an exaggeration resembling a raving too. Especially, if to take into account that in their land the drunkenness is a disgrace, so there is a very little chance that beside themselves and aggressive ruffians would appear on the way. However any travel is connected with a little risk always, even one that passes ten miles from home.
The story began to look funnily like the story of Pushkin's Aleko: "The law pursues him. He wants to become as we are, a Gypsy". But as distinct from Aleko I ran away to the Chechens, not to the Gypsies. I had a plan to live at the nature, sometimes appearing in villages to buy the food. Some curiosity would appear with respect to me inevitably, someone will begin to speak with me. Gradually, while the repeated encounters, make friends with one or two of them, then to verify carefully, whether I may rely on them in some case, then in Moscow the devil himself will not be terrible towards me: anything you want, I'll do and after this I'll dig myself in the mountains so that no dog finds. I made attempts to communicate yet being in the mission. But even in spite of their affability and benevolence, some wall continued to stay, which separated me from their circle, even if their attitude to me was positive, all the same I still was a stranger. Now I know that the cause is in the religion, but that time this wall, which separated me from the Chechen's society, in was an enigma for me and I intended to solve it. Now the enigma is solved, but I'm not in need of any society, and my place is in the West, not in the East, not because the society is better there, but because there anyone wouldn't prevent me to be myself and to walk by myself - the laws are better there and these laws are kept. The society is not a necessary part of the human happiness, as the soviet propaganda asserted this. On the contrary: it is an obstacle on the way to the happiness and the perfection. The words: "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you..." were told by Jesus Christ Himself, although many people who name themselves Christians regard these words like an empty and high-flown phrase without being imbued with their profound sense.
In the 1976, maybe someone remembers, if summer in Moscow was not the coldest, but it was one of the coldest and the rainiest summers in the twentieth century. In October it was the frost nightly in Moscow, but I was sure, recollecting the 1968 year, that in the North Caucasus it cannot be cold during this season and I didn't bother to listen to the weather forecast. So I had got the strongest psychological blow during this travel at night on the train Moscow-Makhachkala, when I was awoken and had seen from the window... the snow was here and there in the ditches. Understanding the inanity of the journey in this weather, I still hoped for a miracle: there was a little chance, but the weather could change. So, getting off the train in Grozny in the morning, as it was planned by me I took a bus ticket and headed up the mountain road, which runs along the gorge of the river Argun, to the district center Shatoy. Now I'm not going to digress for describing the way, however if someone is interested, I'm referring to the chapter 12 "Ichkeria" of my novel "The teleportation". Just instead a grandfather Paul 94 years old, there was I personally, being 26 years, and naturally I brought no bitter news and hadn't capability of the teleportation. But similarly as the boys about ten years old who spoke Russian not enough correctly, they asked the grandfather Paul: "Have you going into montagne?" they asked me about it near the shop.
However, the most interesting that I saw on this journey, perhaps, this was what I'd seen on the counter of the shop. Coming out of the bus, I headed along the road to the East. About twenty kilometers from this stop there a tributary flows of the river Argun, it is named Sharo-Argun and there are villages on this way: the first of them is Aslanbek-Sheripovo about seven kilometers, the next one is Khal-Kiloy and there is a village on the same tributary, which bears the same name with the name of the tributary, that is Sharo-Argun. And no village was displayed in the atlas, which would be situated farther, than Sharo-Argun. And the shop (with such an interesting counter in the bad sense) was situated not in Shatoy, but in Aslanbek-Sheripovo already. The goods were proposed on the counter, they figured a remarkable boon for a spy who would get a task to find out what the Soviet power represents in fact. For this it would not be in need to live secretly for a long time, that is under the guise mythical, worming out warily all the details of the Soviet way of life, but it would be enough only to look at the shoplifter counter in the Chechen village Aslanbek-Sheripovo. There were only two goods on the counter: the vodka and the canned of stew pork. There was nothing but the two articles of trade in the Muslim remote, which are forbidden by Coran. It was a mockery of power over the two nations, over Russian nation as well as over the Chechen one. In the Central region as well as in the Siberia the canned meat was a terrible deficiency and if it offered for the sale in these regions, in would be clearly an enormous crazy line with scuffles and brawls. I had bought two tins of the stew pork and saw a young guy had bought a bottle of vodka to my chagrin. The Soviet power brought the satanic tradition into the pristine clean edge and the attributes of this Red Satanism in the form of vodka they penetrated gradually in the middle of the abstemious people. Nobody bought the pork, but I. These followers of the Coran are mistaken who think that vodka is better from two evils. Unlike the vodka, the pork doesn't trouble the mind and doesn't lead to the personal degradation.
Going out of the shop, I passed farther in the village, then I turned aside from the road and ascended on the grassy hill to examine the environs and to decide either to choose a place for the stop here if I see an appropriate forest or to move along the road farther, towards the villages Khal-Kiloy and Sharo-Argun to look for the place there. Just I had stopped I saw a man about thirty years old, he headed to my place. When he approached, it was his first question:
-Have you any document with?
-It so has happened that I've no documents with me, I can tell you why, but the story would be a very long one. Where I've arrived from, a difficult situation has been formed, I had enough and now I go to a forest to live alone in the nature, - about like this I answered the question of the stranger.
-Is it possible at such a weather to spend a night in the forest? There are nine degrees below zero at night!
-In Moscow, nights seventeen degrees below zero now, - I answered, - So I've arrived here, thinking it will be warm, but here is the same almost.
-Go to my home to sit, to warm yourself.
I acceded to go and, as it was found, he lives close enough from that place on the hill, where I stood, examining the environs. Entering into the house, he proposed me to sit on a sofa. I was in the depressed mood, mainly because of the weather, moreover my experience, being twenty six years old, was not as well as now and it all together contributed that while speaking, I had made a false step. Certainly, I knew that a baseness and an injustice are not liked in the Caucasus and an extremely aggressive reaction is possible, answering things like this, but if I describe the events in detail about my conflict with neighbours, then I'll tire the interlocutor with my long story, so I started my story not from the beginning, but from the end, supposing this is enough to find the mutual understanding. I didn't take into account that I could find the mutual understanding in fact if the stranger was told in detail about the reason, because of which I took the axe in my hand. Here is his first question:
-Probably, you drink a lot. Are you an alcoholic? Have you done it because of a binge?
-I don't drink almost and I've done it, being sober. Simply, they made me lose patience.
-Do such fits occur to you often?
-No fits occur to me. They themselves provoked this incident.
-It seems, you were going to go into the forest?
-Yes, I'm going there,- saying this, I stood up and headed to the door proudly. Right now an aged woman had rushed into the room, to all appearance she was his mother, and started to swear at him loudly. The stranger justified himself, spreading his hands. Although I knew no word in Chechen, it was not difficult to guess what the dispute took place about. She swore at her son, because treated a visitor not according their custom, sending packing him, though he still hasn't relaxed after the long way and he tried to make her understand that it is not known what may one expect from this visitor and all the common sense suggests to the rather this "guest" go away, the calmer will be.
Passing about a kilometer on the hills, I stopped, choosing a relatively appropriate place for the station in a lowland and started to make an attempt to kindle a campfire. As the intuition suggested me, the branches of bushes did not belong to a very combustible species and all wet because of the rain with snow which took place recently. I had with me an usual candle what would suffice for an hour, and I had a quite good experience to kindle campfire, but in spite of all this, except sad burning candle, even one a branch didn't ignite all the same. "Probably, I have better to get back, - I thought, -Not at all worse in the same way I can live in the forests near Moscow. Maybe it is real to find the people, with which it is possible the mutual understanding, but not in such weather".
As soon as I started to think so, the same stranger with a friend or with a relative, he had appeared and they both began to persuade me to come back.
-Don't you see what is the weather, but you are going to spend the night here? What will be if you freeze to death, and they will say again: "The Chechens have killed him"? It is unpleasant for us. If the weather is good, in summer climb in the mountains how much you want, but to spend the night now is a suicide.
I had a tent with me, but I didn't take presumptuously a sleeping-bag. Even they hadn't persuaded me, but confirmed my thought that I have to come back in Moscow. We separated not far from the road and I started to hitch a ride. Very soon the first driver who stopped, he agreed to take me by the way to Grozny, even he didn't demand the money, but as soon as I sat in the cab of his lorry and we started off, a police car blocked our way. Two policemen headed to the lorry, certainly because of me. The first question was: "Have you a weapon?" When they saw my small clasp-knife they gave up on this: "This is a rubbish, but not a weapon. You have to go with us". The troublesome dilemma fell out "to stay or to get back", evidently, because of this reason the mood improved at once, the depression vanished and I longed for the merriment and jokes. After all, the detention me threatened with nothing. Although, domiciliary my passport was withdrawn, but even the undertaking not to leave a place was not demanded. And it would be a great problem to pin accusations upon me; I just had arrived and it would be not difficult to prove that I was in Moscow till the last day.
-So, why have you arrived here? - One of those who sat in the car asked the question. Realizing quickly, this would threaten neither me, nor to someone else, I answered, smiling:
-To look for friends.
-You are late. Your friend was shot in the 28th of March.
So in the first time I had recognized about famous Khasukha Magomadov, whom the same Chechens named briefly: abrek Khaso.
At that time the car approached to the town Shatoy. When it stopped in the center of town, it was surrounded by the curious persons, mainly women. Every one of them tried to look inside although for a moment looked me up. It was nothing of evil in these looks, but only the pronounced curiosity. The reaction of the people was as well as the police would have detained an extraterrestrial. At the local police station I was treated not bad, even almost friendly. At the same time they were astonished that I had arrived in Aslanbek-Sheripovo of the Shatoy district, not in Vedeno or in Itum-Kale. The answer that in the local police of Vedeno they could ask me the same question, it hadn't seemed them a persuasive one to my surprise. They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders. All the atmosphere showed there was something mysterious in their district. They asked me once more: "What a village is situated beyond Sharo-Argun?" I answered that in the atlas is nothing there, so I am curious myself and I will go there to look without fail if I arrive again - this my answer was perceived with distrust, from the look on they.
At last they declared that are going to lead me into the cell:
-It's cold there, but don't take it amiss, nevertheless it's warmer, than in the mountains, where you were going to spend the night.
Except me, there was a bearded Chechen Khalid in the cell, I supposed he was forty years old, however then it was found he was only thirty two. He was imprisoned for the embezzlement: he had sold the state-owned sheep in the amount 7000 rubles, and who wants to convert the money from the Brezhnev's epoch into the present day, I'm suggesting to multiply by hundred without doubts. I started to tell my story. He listened to me, pricking up his ears and suddenly had begun to laugh loudly with his thunderous voice. It lasted relatively for a long while, I watched what would happen next. In the end the gift of speech returned to him gradually.
-Ha, ha, ha! It's marvelously! An abrek from Moscow!
When he finished to laugh finally, he explained:
-Excuse me, that I laughed so, but you have prepared to do all the things, which the abreks do usually.
After this he instructed me, how, being in the mountains of the Ichkeria, don't attract attention. He laughed a little at the fact, if I speak with cops with English or German accent, it is clearly they would think I am a spy. (The fact that in the Caucasus the spy mania takes place in the law enforcement agencies, I heard about this from different sourced, which weren't Caucasian.)
-And why they asked me, what a village is situated beyond Sharo-Argun?
-Oh! That's interesting! There is some connection to me.
Then he started to tell me about the aforesaid machination with the state-own sheep and I understood from this about a suspicion in the police, whether I'm some Khalid's messenger.
-And what they kept in mind, saying: "Your friend was shot in the 28th of March"?
-Here was an abrek in our area, his name was Khaso. If he was caught, he would be given the death by shooting. He killed officials of the Party, police chiefs, big local bureaucrats and he hated the power. Sometimes he appeared in front of a group of tourists and asked give him some food or some small thing of the tourist's equipment, because he had to live somehow. Usually they answered: "We have nothing". Then he took the gun with an indignant shout: "How it may be nothing?!" All of them ran away. He took only some necessary things and vanished from sight. He was seventy-odd years old, however it was impossible to capture him alive. Last time he was encircled and one type from KGB had shouted: "Khaso, surrender! You are encircled!" It was dark, he couldn't see anything and shot from the pistol at the voice. And now imagine how well he could shoot if shooting at the voice, he hit even to death. They shot him, because it was impossible to get him alive. He was an old man, all dried up already and was going to die all the same.
It may not deny the Khalid's talkativeness. Sometimes he started to laugh loudly, however his laugh was not an offensive one, rather an inflammatory one. As if he would set himself as an object to cheer up himself and those around him, to amuse, to inspire the optimism. He liked to boast, to exaggerate in his descriptions. Just from him I copied the character of Khalid in the 12th chapter "Ichkeria" of my novel "The teleportation". Same real Khalid as it was found, he had the criminal records two or three times. I asked him how he would rate if we feed up with the tinned stew. Like a lot of prisoners of Soviet jails he lost in fact the exactingness in eating, but when he asked the cops to give us a can-opener, they refused this, because they estimated as a dirty doing to open and eat the pork in their building. It was one interesting fact else: even the cops weren't atheists in this republic and they endeavored to keep the Islamic traditions.
The next morning Khalid learnt that he has to be conveyed into the prison of Grozny today. He left me his sleeveless fur, which he was wearing, pasturing the sheep, asserting he wasn't in need it anymore, that it would be not cold in the prison, but it would not be superfluously for me to get warm: even if these cells were heated up, then very weakly. Also he advised to be more cautious and to distrust unknown people, because the evil is everywhere. I thought I'm not risking anything and proposed to write down my home address.
-These chamber thoughts are forgotten quickly when you go out at will, - he answered me. - You are sitting here and dreaming and it seems all is simple, but after going out you would found all is more complicated, the daily cares appear, so it is unlikely we are in need of this: when I go out, I'll not find the time for such things.
The well-known scheme had worked once more: we talked heart to heart and almost made friend with each other, but making an attempt to become close friends, there was a wall again. However not often you can meet an ex-prisoner who would talk heart to heart with you, without putting any pressure on you and without inspiring his superiority for show, without a little attempt to prick you someway, to sting you, without flattering and ingratiating to learn something from you and after this to use this thing against you, but even he excused for his loud laugh, although it was not heard even a single insulting tone in this laugh, there was only a wish to stress the amusing situation and to raise the spirits. In the poisoned Soviet world if a man is not an enemy but a human being only, already you would experience good feelings for him and be grateful.
Khalid was conveyed into the prison. We separated, exchanging the best wishes. In the evening a drunken guy was added into the cell. He was less talkative, but if in his words some evil inflection was contained, however it took place because of he was detained and instead to spend the night at home, he had to be here. When I asked him about the abrek Khaso, he told me approximately the same story and added that there are eight sentenced to death else who are hiding in the mountains in present. On the morrow this guy was let go and about two days I spent the time alone, thinking about this and that.
At last a policeman called me into his room, he introduced himself as an employee of the local criminal investigator.
-We have contacted with Moscow, you have a problem there. If you wished here to rest in fact, to travel in the mountains and to find friends, we have nothing against it. But at first you have to solve your problem in Moscow. Probably, you are aware already, in the Caucasus we don't like the deception. We are going to convey you by car to the village Chishki, there a bus runs often. Go to Grozny and take a ticket to Moscow. When all will get settled with you, if you go into the mountains, I must alert you, the abreks are hiding there and your equipment may be useful for them, you may be robbed. Now go into the cell and when the car is ready, you will go out.
It all turned out as he said. I was conveyed in the police car till the village Chishki, further by bus I arrived toward the evening in Grozny. There was no ticket for any train, neither for reserved seats, nor for the compartment cars, even nor for the common places. I hoped at least in the morning I'll can leave in the post and baggage train, taking a ticket to travel in the common places, but at night I was detained again by the enough obvious reason: in the Soviet Union at the railway station and without having any passport in my pocket.
I hope I would put nobody in a spot if I'm going to confess something now. Those policemen where I spent the night, at present all of them have to be retired. After all 33 years passed since then. Either I appeared to them a curious extravagant person, or they didn't wish that I saw something and intended to divert my attention and anyway they stood me a glass of vodka as a food - neither before this, nor after this, such a thing didn't take place anymore while detaining by police. And I was detained dozens of times, but I'm not ashamed of this at all. A detention because of the long hairs or because I'm located very far from the place of my registration, probably, a European or an American wouldn't see such a thing even in a nightmarish dream. There are no any registrations in the countries, which weren't desecrated by the communists, who have brought from the Middle Ages these customs of the feudal slavery and the passports are necessary in the West only if you are going to travel abroad, that is in the foreigner countries. And in the this country to sing a song: "A man is passing as a master of his immense Motherland"?.. Oh no, truly: the communists will cease never to amaze with their meanness and with their hypocrisy.
That evening I accepted the cheer unhesitatingly, drinking the glass of vodka in one fell swoop. Firstly I didn't want to offend anyone because of my refusal, secondly I was exhausted psychologically and wished to relax. I remember, after the glass was drunk I joked all the way with one detained girl, repeating in French to her: "Mets tes pieds sur mes épaules" and at once I translated these words, which meant: "Raise your feet on my shoulders". The cops laughed and she threatened me with her fist either falsely, or sincerely. On the morrow I was conveyed in the special distributing shelter of Grozny for those who were detained for the vagrancy. This institution is found in the same place, that is near the railway station. Unlike the same shelter in Krasnoyarsk where I had the "honor" to stay during thirteen days in the 1972, still before the marriage, here were the double-level beds as in soldier's caserns with usual mattresses and pillows instead the plank beds. Whether do you think my positive attitude towards the Chechen people is only subjective? Maybe is this a look through a rosy spectacles? But the most of the detained exclaimed quite often: "What a humane treatment is here to us! However in Daghestan the cops beat the bums without ceremony."
Also there was a clear example, which verifies this, it had taken place one day. Among the detained there was a young guy, a student studying in some college. One day he had run away and I don't know how, but he was caught by the local police 40 kilometers from Grozny (25 miles), near Gudermes (a town) in a thicket of the maize. A Russian cop wanted to beat up him and when the guy said to him: "We both are Russians, that is countrymen, and we have to treat each other well", but the Russian cop smiled maliciously and answered: "Here I'm going to be done with you as a countryman!" However another cop who was a Chechen, he stood up for the guy and didn't let offend him, because either he had an influence, or his rank was a little higher. However even in the same special shelter of Grozny nobody from the employees of the police touched him with a finger for the escaping. As I know, if he runs away and is caught in Krasnoyarsk, he would be whole beaten black and blue. In my presence in Krasnoyarsk such a case had taken place one time: two detained ran away and were caught, in the morrow both being black and blue were settled back into the cell.
Simply to flatter I have no reason, nobody would pay me money for this, nobody would appoint me to high office and even if I seek the political asylum, then I would do it in America or in Europe, but not in Chechnya. Including to hide in the forest I would prefer now in the Central region because of the very simple reason: without knowing the local language I would be like a rara avis and soon I would attract attention of the competent authority.
In the final analysis this journey had served me as an interesting and cognitive trip. I lived in this special shelter about two weeks, it was bought for my money a ticket to move to Moscow by train Baku-Moscow and two policemen saw off on the train me, that is till boarding. On my return the relations with my wife started to go right, that obstacle what was far from home, it was removed itself and towards the spring of the 1977 year I made sure that I will not be jailed. I suppose, it was said to the complainants: "If you want so much, we will jail him, jailing you at one", but this is only my supposition. I didn't bribe to anyone and where from what source I would take the money for this, being a simple land-surveyor? If during all the past years a few times I went with my family to the resort Yalta, I guess, all of this money wouldn't be enough for the bribe to avoid five years of jail. Let be angry with me the enemies: in the restricted Soviet country I spent my life being an anti-Soviet man and I wasn't jailed for this. And when this totalitarian monster, that is Soviet Union, had been ruined, this was the greatest holyday in my life. One day in my youth it was said to me: "Five years else, and you will regret very much about your position of life". Since I heard these words, forty years passed but I don't regret at all.
And here is a thing the most interesting: evidently Khalid forgot to tell it me, what about I've learnt in the Internet recently: Khasukha Magomadov was shot on the territory of jurisdiction Aslanbek-Sheripovo village council. Here is why they were astonished in the police that I had arrived exactly in Aslanbek-Sheripovo! Maybe the wandering soul of the abrek, seeing in me a brother in mind, had invited it me to show something? Hardly I will learn it during this life, but as if something mystical takes place here. Verily, the ways of Allah are inscrutable. The coincidence not only that I had arrived almost in the same place, but I myself nearly became the same abrek, I kept in the depth of the core the same mood, and the only reason that I hadn't become an abrek, it is because the epoch was although a vile one, but not so cruel already. After all, not insults, not a feeling of inferiority, not a morbid vanity and even not a craving for revenge incited Khaso to this way. For sure he thought the same: "Maybe all will turn out well" and hoped till the 1939 when he found himself a prisoner in the jail of Grozny. It is not difficult to imagine the jails of that epoch of Stalin. I'm sure, he heard how Stalin's henchmen tortured people, the most of whom were innocent, I'm sure he realized that now he had nothing to lose. It may be in his place I could not get to kill the security guard and using his weapon to run away from the prison. But there are known cases in similar extreme situations, some people did things, which were estimated as beyond one's strength and impossible ones. I had planned this way of doing, kept it in my mind, that is in reserve, in case if it will occur something terrible, but nothing took place. The Satan only made faces at me. But some supernatural force had displayed me my own secret idea, which was embodied by another human, who became to me the hero number one.
The main Khaso's merit consists in that, he showed to the world: a strong personality who trusts in God, he cannot be broken by any satanic power, even by the Stalin's power. Saying about these who are imposed by the propaganda, at best they can provoke the compassion, but not at all an admiration. The compassion, that is a pity to the lost and deceived souls, all those who had sacrificed his life on the altar of the great governmental swindlers. To sacrifice himself don't to permit the scoundrel Hitler would come to power, but let instead him another scoundrel would govern, that is Stalin. Incomprehension of such a simple thing may be explained the state of zombie and only the state of zombi. Such a thing may take place only if a man ceases to think independently, because, it seems, as if he becomes infected by phobia of the public opinion and since this moment he puts in the forefront the endeavour to play up to this opinion of the public. And whatever efforts he would make now, whatever cross he would attempt to carry - all is doomed if the selected way is wrong. But if the selected way is correct, whatever cross would be heavy, all the same it will lead to the victory inevitably. Khasukha Magomadov who had declared his own jihad against the satanic Soviet world, he had come off it as a great winner.
That time the Soviet power was interested in agitation all the people who would listen, to go to the building activity and other works in the unreclaimed and vast areas of the Siberia. The composers and poets had to flatter to the power. It could adversely affect their creative work, but some of them acted wisely, hymning not only the "happiness it the collective", but the beautiful nature of those areas, because the nature as a creation of God, is beautiful everywhere in its own way. I have begun to work since 16 years old, wanting to be independent and to have my own money and in the first time I had chosen my work very successfully: a worker in the field surveying. In the soviet world it was almost an ideal because we worked at the field condition, both or three together, we hadn't what to quarrel for, no dependence on the society, practically no tittle-tattle, no squabbles and troubles, and in the research department we came only for our wages. That time, for me personally, for the best career I preferred to get round all the soviet compulsions by hook or by crook, mainly without compulsory driving into the collective (naturally to make a fool and the for the ideological supervision).
By full age I have decided to begin making business trips, that is "for the fog and the smell of the taiga", how was sung in one of the soviet songs, but the first mission for an enough long time, it had disappointed me: where I was sent into the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, there was no taiga, only the steppes around and the real mountains were not seen too. But God knew better, where to send me and this is right! Hardly would be invented a more appropriate place for the seeking and perception of the truth and the goal of our life are the same seeking and perception. Before the mission I was told much scurrilous things about the indigenous population of the republic and first days I stayed cautious, but only during the first days. I discovered very quickly than the Chechen society differs from all rest Soviet one, which already was grown hateful, and it differs right so that is found closer spiritually personally to me in many of the aspects.
You would be wrong if you think that I was occupied of the investigation their society as soon as I had arrived there. Being 18 years old, in spite of my development and erudition, I was more occupied with my own problems what were left in Moscow as well as the different dreams and fantasies, which are peculiar to the given age. All the same, the information about the local social medium reached up to me, but if I occupied specially to study it, I would learnt much more of information. Even I didn't endeavor to learn the cause, because of which the local society differs from the rest so advantageously, seeing from my viewpoint. Certainly, the cause is in their religion, not in the climate or in the geographical situation, however I learnt it a lot later. But even I learnt it right that time, I doubt whether could I augment my horizons in the matter of faith, because it is necessary two things for this: the access to information and the serious willingness. About access, that time (in the USSR- note by the author) it was not possible to buy even the four Gospels, say nothing of the Koran or of other literature with theological disputes. And even literally there was no one would be possible with to speak about the serious and interesting topics. It is only now you can see in every subway the Jehovah's Witnesses and the believers of many others confessions who try to converse with you and spread their literature. But at that time you wouldn't find them in broad daylight with a lantern. All was suppressed, forbidden (in the USSR- note by the author) and nobody around, except the drunkards and the "normal" soviet persons. Certainly, if who looks for, he will find, but it was absent a serious desire to occupy with a similar seeking.
However after return from the mission my interest in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was not to be forgotten, but quite the contrary, it went, augmenting. There were the everyday collisions with the negative phenomena of the soviet life and reality what provoked this. The state power mistreated the people, the people mistreated each other. A bias to make mischief to one's neighbour without any profit to himself became almost a rule of etiquette at that time. The people behaved like dogs in the kennels, in which they are beaten and bad fed. A proverb "the world is a brothel and the people are whores" was incarnated into the life visually. It was impossible to go abroad not for love or money. Even when this dog's bickering of the soviet persons didn't concern for me personally, all the same, the feeling of abhorrence was provoked and the Chechen social medium was remembered like an alternative. It was shown up a regret that being at the mission, I didn't begin to learn the Chechen language, especially given the learning any language, even what will not be prove useful, however in itself it is interesting and useful for development.
In 1973 I got married. All went quite well. But someone of neighbours didn't like my family and myself especially. Of course, everyone has right for the sympathy or the antipathy to anyone else, but it is quite another thing if this antipathy breaks away, coming to light. Already it is not from law, and even is not "only humanly". Such a menace like "I'll jug you" if there is not what for "to jug", that is a violation of the law didn't take place, in any democratic land in the West would be estimated as a funny fool threat and hardly could be expected other reciprocal reaction , except the laugh. Including in our country now: if such a thing takes place now, only I would wish them to go, where it is a common practice in Russia to wish to go (a Russian round oath), but it was the Soviet Union of the 1976 and such a menace was enough real.
"Well,- I said to myself. - For a while I will refrain from aggressive measures, maybe everything will turn out all right. But if they too become too insolent, if they pass some limit, I'll carry out their wish: I'll be imprisoned, but not in vain". I was not afraid of the being in prison if it's not very long, using this line of reasoning: "a thing which doesn't kill us, it makes us stronger". As I was born and live in the hostile me social medium, I have understood this since the younger school age. If something terrible and irreparable befall, towards full age I had developed a plan in answer to this: to leave for a forest with a suitable equipment and to live there. Even I tried to build a bunker in the forest, but, testing a few days to live in a tent with passing the nights while the temperature was twenty degrees centigrade below zero, I had arrived to conclusion that the bunker is an excess. If the secret of the location of the bunker is disclosed - all the work will come to nothing. But in the tent, if outsides pass (hunters, mushroomers or some others) and my type of the tourism seems them suspicious, I would have the possibility always to change my location. I am not a pioneer who discovers this method, although that time I knew nothing about the Caucasian abreks and had enough vague notion about the "Forest brothers" in the Baltic States. Silly persons, when I shared such thoughts with them, sometimes said me: "What for to go into hiding? All the same you will be caught." But they could answer nothing to my counter argument: "What for to live? All the same you will die". Also such an event like "will be caught" by no means a reliable, but only a probabilistic one, and this probability is not in the hands of those who pursues, but it is in the hands of someone who is hiding, and it depend of his intellect, of his willpower, of his inspiration and of God.
Towards the 1976 my family has increased, there were two close in age children already. But the same existence of my sound united family gave no rest for some soviet people, to say exactly, for the scumbags, the drunkards and the degenerates. Although we lived only on the salary of technician surveyor, but even such life led them to the jaundice and provoked the hatred. They still didn't know that already I had left the service and now I earned money as much as formerly, but bringing the plush carpets from Baku and reselling them in the towns of the region of Vladimir, being more independent else from the soviet collectives and of their filth. Oh, how vastly they would like that I would find myself in jail or at least in the situation of a character in the Vysotsky's song "And in the cemetery all is calmly", where it is described a man alive who is choosing a cemetery to take a break from the neighbours and other soviet communities which committed outrages.
But still my calculations "at random" did not materialize. 22 April these neighbours organized a binge in view of that the anniversary of the birthday of Lenin, but, to say truth, they weren't so convinced Leninists, and executing the will of the soviet power in the persecution the otherwise-minded, it is unlikely they made aware of this in fact. Really just there was a cause to get drunk like pigs and when the drunkenness had rushed to the head, there appeared a desire to sneer at the family of "a rotten intellectual", but such a circumstance that this "gentle intellectual" is able to use a cold steel, it was beyond their comprehension. That evening we bathed our child three months old, these curs started to throw clods of ground into the window and I decided that it is a suitable moment to be "in the heat of passion provoked by the unlawful actions of the victim". If I was one of these psychopaths who attacks with fists or with knives because of anything, then I would spend in jail all my life and it can scarcely you would read this story. However, I spent all my life in the liberty to spite all the soviet world. In fact, then I was able to restrain myself, but what for? Even if I'm juged, all the same one would can appeal to the fact of the "unlawful actions of the victim" and don't get the longest term in jail from the gravest Article 102 of the Russian Criminal Code at that time. Till the last moment, that is till the incident I calculated that maybe all will be turned out all right, so instead to take the necessary things to live in the forest and go away quicker, but I had to prepare these things just after the incident. All my family diverted me actively in these moments, the emotions overfilled them and it was natural. It would be a sin to take umbrage at them, that they hampered my preparation because of this. My wife, already exchanging a few words with other neighbours, had begun to persuade me: "Maybe, will you stay? Whole the house is on your side."
It was a surprise for me and it's possible, not only for me but for the opposite side too. After all, the persecution in the "Soviet collectives" and in the "socialist conducts", it is calculated just to jump on someone alone, using all the crowd. Such cases are known me in the soviet communal flats, when the colluding scoundrels press for the resettlement someone who was persecuted by them, or jail him, or sneer at him all the way without taking the chance to run into the reciprocal actions, because the victim was broken already and knows that they are able to jail without guilt or to play another bad trick on him. An they accustom to this gradually: he yields to them in the first time for "don't get involved", yields in the second time - a habit of yielding is formed and the victim of the collective compromises now, although earlier would repulse against the same things, then his life gradually turns into hell. Don't to find himself as a victim of the Soviet collective, one had to conform to it entirely, to be identical to them without a deviation in any side. The least manifestation of the individualism was a cause for the assaulting. The people were frightened not only by the fate of those who was repressed by the State, but by the fate of those who has suffered from the collective persecution. So they lived without thinking that such a life is not better than the life those who was persecuted, but worse. There were a few of them who would understand that except these two evils, there is a third way else and although it is full of the privation, however it is more worthy of respect - this is the way of an abrek.
Abrek is a man who lives in the nature, at the hiding. His house are the forests on a plain or in the mountains. Such things as the sentence to death penalty in absentia, the police, the special services or the mafia - all of them are not more fearful for him, than an army of enemy for an officer, just for an officer who is a commander only for himself, but not for an ordinary soldier whom someone who is stronger than him, can use him not always with noble goals. But nobody would impose the penalty on an abrek, nobody will judge him by the court martial for doing mistakes, just for the mistakes and slovenliness he has a lot of chances to be taken prisoner by the enemy and he himself decides to keep the military discipline or to be slovenly.
So, this time again, it will serve me as a lesson, because I looked aside, didn't prepare the necessary things beforehand, the police arrived before I could go away, however my situation wasn't catastrophically to the extent that I would engage in the unequal battle with them or would run away, being seen. In the police I wasn't estimated as a thief or a hooligan, though I was detained before for the vagrancy, when I traveled in Siberia in the 1972 and yet several times for the long hairs, for the clothes of hippy, but still not near my residence, but at a long distance from it. Already the policemen had locked me in the cell and phoned in the hospital, seeing that the injuries what I had caused, aren't dangerous (but I supposed that I had killed), laughed a little and said that tomorrow I will be released. I had taken this as a joke, which was hard for me. Let they imprisoned me, but let it would be without teasing me, however to the glad surprise for me and my relatives, the next day I was released in fact, almost in the evening, only giving me a notice I would keep myself in the hands.
They had released me, but not at all were going to close down the criminal case because of the infliction the grievous bodily harm (the grievous harm took place not from consequence, but because of danger in the moment of the infliction): they took away my passport and sometimes summoned me to the investigator, the victims were summoned sometimes too. According to the judicial practice, I was menaced to be imprisoned in the camp of the intensive regime for five years. I was, it seems, in some suspended condition, that is, at the crossroads, where it would be a very unwanted thing to miscalculate: either to hope for own good luck and to continue to live at home like a law-abiding citizen, or to spit on everything and leave for the forest forever, barring the way to return to the customary life.
Towards the autumn this uncertainty began to bother already and not only me. The relations with my wife began to go down too. The victims didn't cause the troubles anymore: our family and they didn't dissemble each other, even looked away reciprocally, going by. But then another obstacle appeared, glory to God, it was not at the place of residence. One had to do something with all this. And here I recalled this Caucasian mission took place eight years before. I remembered that there was warmly and without rains in October and one could sleep under the stars without any equipment. This time I decided to go to the mountains where only Chechens live. I still wasn't in the mountain Chechnya. Examining the atlas of the highways of the USSR, I chose a place which would be far from the frontiers of Chechnya. "If I go to Vedeno, but it is not far from Daghestan and what if there are only the Daghestanis? - I conjectured mistakenly. - No, I will go in the middle, closer to the geometrical center of the mountain Chechnya, this is the Soviet village". (At present the historical name Shatoy was returned to this village). I know what the most of readers are going to think now, but they will be wrong: this travel is not thoughtless suicidal and not a heroic one. This idea as you arrive there and all the inhabitants of the local villages would pursue you in order to kill - this is a raving fable. Even at worst this is an exaggeration resembling a raving too. Especially, if to take into account that in their land the drunkenness is a disgrace, so there is a very little chance that beside themselves and aggressive ruffians would appear on the way. However any travel is connected with a little risk always, even one that passes ten miles from home.
The story began to look funnily like the story of Pushkin's Aleko: "The law pursues him. He wants to become as we are, a Gypsy". But as distinct from Aleko I ran away to the Chechens, not to the Gypsies. I had a plan to live at the nature, sometimes appearing in villages to buy the food. Some curiosity would appear with respect to me inevitably, someone will begin to speak with me. Gradually, while the repeated encounters, make friends with one or two of them, then to verify carefully, whether I may rely on them in some case, then in Moscow the devil himself will not be terrible towards me: anything you want, I'll do and after this I'll dig myself in the mountains so that no dog finds. I made attempts to communicate yet being in the mission. But even in spite of their affability and benevolence, some wall continued to stay, which separated me from their circle, even if their attitude to me was positive, all the same I still was a stranger. Now I know that the cause is in the religion, but that time this wall, which separated me from the Chechen's society, in was an enigma for me and I intended to solve it. Now the enigma is solved, but I'm not in need of any society, and my place is in the West, not in the East, not because the society is better there, but because there anyone wouldn't prevent me to be myself and to walk by myself - the laws are better there and these laws are kept. The society is not a necessary part of the human happiness, as the soviet propaganda asserted this. On the contrary: it is an obstacle on the way to the happiness and the perfection. The words: "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you..." were told by Jesus Christ Himself, although many people who name themselves Christians regard these words like an empty and high-flown phrase without being imbued with their profound sense.
In the 1976, maybe someone remembers, if summer in Moscow was not the coldest, but it was one of the coldest and the rainiest summers in the twentieth century. In October it was the frost nightly in Moscow, but I was sure, recollecting the 1968 year, that in the North Caucasus it cannot be cold during this season and I didn't bother to listen to the weather forecast. So I had got the strongest psychological blow during this travel at night on the train Moscow-Makhachkala, when I was awoken and had seen from the window... the snow was here and there in the ditches. Understanding the inanity of the journey in this weather, I still hoped for a miracle: there was a little chance, but the weather could change. So, getting off the train in Grozny in the morning, as it was planned by me I took a bus ticket and headed up the mountain road, which runs along the gorge of the river Argun, to the district center Shatoy. Now I'm not going to digress for describing the way, however if someone is interested, I'm referring to the chapter 12 "Ichkeria" of my novel "The teleportation". Just instead a grandfather Paul 94 years old, there was I personally, being 26 years, and naturally I brought no bitter news and hadn't capability of the teleportation. But similarly as the boys about ten years old who spoke Russian not enough correctly, they asked the grandfather Paul: "Have you going into montagne?" they asked me about it near the shop.
However, the most interesting that I saw on this journey, perhaps, this was what I'd seen on the counter of the shop. Coming out of the bus, I headed along the road to the East. About twenty kilometers from this stop there a tributary flows of the river Argun, it is named Sharo-Argun and there are villages on this way: the first of them is Aslanbek-Sheripovo about seven kilometers, the next one is Khal-Kiloy and there is a village on the same tributary, which bears the same name with the name of the tributary, that is Sharo-Argun. And no village was displayed in the atlas, which would be situated farther, than Sharo-Argun. And the shop (with such an interesting counter in the bad sense) was situated not in Shatoy, but in Aslanbek-Sheripovo already. The goods were proposed on the counter, they figured a remarkable boon for a spy who would get a task to find out what the Soviet power represents in fact. For this it would not be in need to live secretly for a long time, that is under the guise mythical, worming out warily all the details of the Soviet way of life, but it would be enough only to look at the shoplifter counter in the Chechen village Aslanbek-Sheripovo. There were only two goods on the counter: the vodka and the canned of stew pork. There was nothing but the two articles of trade in the Muslim remote, which are forbidden by Coran. It was a mockery of power over the two nations, over Russian nation as well as over the Chechen one. In the Central region as well as in the Siberia the canned meat was a terrible deficiency and if it offered for the sale in these regions, in would be clearly an enormous crazy line with scuffles and brawls. I had bought two tins of the stew pork and saw a young guy had bought a bottle of vodka to my chagrin. The Soviet power brought the satanic tradition into the pristine clean edge and the attributes of this Red Satanism in the form of vodka they penetrated gradually in the middle of the abstemious people. Nobody bought the pork, but I. These followers of the Coran are mistaken who think that vodka is better from two evils. Unlike the vodka, the pork doesn't trouble the mind and doesn't lead to the personal degradation.
Going out of the shop, I passed farther in the village, then I turned aside from the road and ascended on the grassy hill to examine the environs and to decide either to choose a place for the stop here if I see an appropriate forest or to move along the road farther, towards the villages Khal-Kiloy and Sharo-Argun to look for the place there. Just I had stopped I saw a man about thirty years old, he headed to my place. When he approached, it was his first question:
-Have you any document with?
-It so has happened that I've no documents with me, I can tell you why, but the story would be a very long one. Where I've arrived from, a difficult situation has been formed, I had enough and now I go to a forest to live alone in the nature, - about like this I answered the question of the stranger.
-Is it possible at such a weather to spend a night in the forest? There are nine degrees below zero at night!
-In Moscow, nights seventeen degrees below zero now, - I answered, - So I've arrived here, thinking it will be warm, but here is the same almost.
-Go to my home to sit, to warm yourself.
I acceded to go and, as it was found, he lives close enough from that place on the hill, where I stood, examining the environs. Entering into the house, he proposed me to sit on a sofa. I was in the depressed mood, mainly because of the weather, moreover my experience, being twenty six years old, was not as well as now and it all together contributed that while speaking, I had made a false step. Certainly, I knew that a baseness and an injustice are not liked in the Caucasus and an extremely aggressive reaction is possible, answering things like this, but if I describe the events in detail about my conflict with neighbours, then I'll tire the interlocutor with my long story, so I started my story not from the beginning, but from the end, supposing this is enough to find the mutual understanding. I didn't take into account that I could find the mutual understanding in fact if the stranger was told in detail about the reason, because of which I took the axe in my hand. Here is his first question:
-Probably, you drink a lot. Are you an alcoholic? Have you done it because of a binge?
-I don't drink almost and I've done it, being sober. Simply, they made me lose patience.
-Do such fits occur to you often?
-No fits occur to me. They themselves provoked this incident.
-It seems, you were going to go into the forest?
-Yes, I'm going there,- saying this, I stood up and headed to the door proudly. Right now an aged woman had rushed into the room, to all appearance she was his mother, and started to swear at him loudly. The stranger justified himself, spreading his hands. Although I knew no word in Chechen, it was not difficult to guess what the dispute took place about. She swore at her son, because treated a visitor not according their custom, sending packing him, though he still hasn't relaxed after the long way and he tried to make her understand that it is not known what may one expect from this visitor and all the common sense suggests to the rather this "guest" go away, the calmer will be.
Passing about a kilometer on the hills, I stopped, choosing a relatively appropriate place for the station in a lowland and started to make an attempt to kindle a campfire. As the intuition suggested me, the branches of bushes did not belong to a very combustible species and all wet because of the rain with snow which took place recently. I had with me an usual candle what would suffice for an hour, and I had a quite good experience to kindle campfire, but in spite of all this, except sad burning candle, even one a branch didn't ignite all the same. "Probably, I have better to get back, - I thought, -Not at all worse in the same way I can live in the forests near Moscow. Maybe it is real to find the people, with which it is possible the mutual understanding, but not in such weather".
As soon as I started to think so, the same stranger with a friend or with a relative, he had appeared and they both began to persuade me to come back.
-Don't you see what is the weather, but you are going to spend the night here? What will be if you freeze to death, and they will say again: "The Chechens have killed him"? It is unpleasant for us. If the weather is good, in summer climb in the mountains how much you want, but to spend the night now is a suicide.
I had a tent with me, but I didn't take presumptuously a sleeping-bag. Even they hadn't persuaded me, but confirmed my thought that I have to come back in Moscow. We separated not far from the road and I started to hitch a ride. Very soon the first driver who stopped, he agreed to take me by the way to Grozny, even he didn't demand the money, but as soon as I sat in the cab of his lorry and we started off, a police car blocked our way. Two policemen headed to the lorry, certainly because of me. The first question was: "Have you a weapon?" When they saw my small clasp-knife they gave up on this: "This is a rubbish, but not a weapon. You have to go with us". The troublesome dilemma fell out "to stay or to get back", evidently, because of this reason the mood improved at once, the depression vanished and I longed for the merriment and jokes. After all, the detention me threatened with nothing. Although, domiciliary my passport was withdrawn, but even the undertaking not to leave a place was not demanded. And it would be a great problem to pin accusations upon me; I just had arrived and it would be not difficult to prove that I was in Moscow till the last day.
-So, why have you arrived here? - One of those who sat in the car asked the question. Realizing quickly, this would threaten neither me, nor to someone else, I answered, smiling:
-To look for friends.
-You are late. Your friend was shot in the 28th of March.
So in the first time I had recognized about famous Khasukha Magomadov, whom the same Chechens named briefly: abrek Khaso.
At that time the car approached to the town Shatoy. When it stopped in the center of town, it was surrounded by the curious persons, mainly women. Every one of them tried to look inside although for a moment looked me up. It was nothing of evil in these looks, but only the pronounced curiosity. The reaction of the people was as well as the police would have detained an extraterrestrial. At the local police station I was treated not bad, even almost friendly. At the same time they were astonished that I had arrived in Aslanbek-Sheripovo of the Shatoy district, not in Vedeno or in Itum-Kale. The answer that in the local police of Vedeno they could ask me the same question, it hadn't seemed them a persuasive one to my surprise. They looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders. All the atmosphere showed there was something mysterious in their district. They asked me once more: "What a village is situated beyond Sharo-Argun?" I answered that in the atlas is nothing there, so I am curious myself and I will go there to look without fail if I arrive again - this my answer was perceived with distrust, from the look on they.
At last they declared that are going to lead me into the cell:
-It's cold there, but don't take it amiss, nevertheless it's warmer, than in the mountains, where you were going to spend the night.
Except me, there was a bearded Chechen Khalid in the cell, I supposed he was forty years old, however then it was found he was only thirty two. He was imprisoned for the embezzlement: he had sold the state-owned sheep in the amount 7000 rubles, and who wants to convert the money from the Brezhnev's epoch into the present day, I'm suggesting to multiply by hundred without doubts. I started to tell my story. He listened to me, pricking up his ears and suddenly had begun to laugh loudly with his thunderous voice. It lasted relatively for a long while, I watched what would happen next. In the end the gift of speech returned to him gradually.
-Ha, ha, ha! It's marvelously! An abrek from Moscow!
When he finished to laugh finally, he explained:
-Excuse me, that I laughed so, but you have prepared to do all the things, which the abreks do usually.
After this he instructed me, how, being in the mountains of the Ichkeria, don't attract attention. He laughed a little at the fact, if I speak with cops with English or German accent, it is clearly they would think I am a spy. (The fact that in the Caucasus the spy mania takes place in the law enforcement agencies, I heard about this from different sourced, which weren't Caucasian.)
-And why they asked me, what a village is situated beyond Sharo-Argun?
-Oh! That's interesting! There is some connection to me.
Then he started to tell me about the aforesaid machination with the state-own sheep and I understood from this about a suspicion in the police, whether I'm some Khalid's messenger.
-And what they kept in mind, saying: "Your friend was shot in the 28th of March"?
-Here was an abrek in our area, his name was Khaso. If he was caught, he would be given the death by shooting. He killed officials of the Party, police chiefs, big local bureaucrats and he hated the power. Sometimes he appeared in front of a group of tourists and asked give him some food or some small thing of the tourist's equipment, because he had to live somehow. Usually they answered: "We have nothing". Then he took the gun with an indignant shout: "How it may be nothing?!" All of them ran away. He took only some necessary things and vanished from sight. He was seventy-odd years old, however it was impossible to capture him alive. Last time he was encircled and one type from KGB had shouted: "Khaso, surrender! You are encircled!" It was dark, he couldn't see anything and shot from the pistol at the voice. And now imagine how well he could shoot if shooting at the voice, he hit even to death. They shot him, because it was impossible to get him alive. He was an old man, all dried up already and was going to die all the same.
It may not deny the Khalid's talkativeness. Sometimes he started to laugh loudly, however his laugh was not an offensive one, rather an inflammatory one. As if he would set himself as an object to cheer up himself and those around him, to amuse, to inspire the optimism. He liked to boast, to exaggerate in his descriptions. Just from him I copied the character of Khalid in the 12th chapter "Ichkeria" of my novel "The teleportation". Same real Khalid as it was found, he had the criminal records two or three times. I asked him how he would rate if we feed up with the tinned stew. Like a lot of prisoners of Soviet jails he lost in fact the exactingness in eating, but when he asked the cops to give us a can-opener, they refused this, because they estimated as a dirty doing to open and eat the pork in their building. It was one interesting fact else: even the cops weren't atheists in this republic and they endeavored to keep the Islamic traditions.
The next morning Khalid learnt that he has to be conveyed into the prison of Grozny today. He left me his sleeveless fur, which he was wearing, pasturing the sheep, asserting he wasn't in need it anymore, that it would be not cold in the prison, but it would not be superfluously for me to get warm: even if these cells were heated up, then very weakly. Also he advised to be more cautious and to distrust unknown people, because the evil is everywhere. I thought I'm not risking anything and proposed to write down my home address.
-These chamber thoughts are forgotten quickly when you go out at will, - he answered me. - You are sitting here and dreaming and it seems all is simple, but after going out you would found all is more complicated, the daily cares appear, so it is unlikely we are in need of this: when I go out, I'll not find the time for such things.
The well-known scheme had worked once more: we talked heart to heart and almost made friend with each other, but making an attempt to become close friends, there was a wall again. However not often you can meet an ex-prisoner who would talk heart to heart with you, without putting any pressure on you and without inspiring his superiority for show, without a little attempt to prick you someway, to sting you, without flattering and ingratiating to learn something from you and after this to use this thing against you, but even he excused for his loud laugh, although it was not heard even a single insulting tone in this laugh, there was only a wish to stress the amusing situation and to raise the spirits. In the poisoned Soviet world if a man is not an enemy but a human being only, already you would experience good feelings for him and be grateful.
Khalid was conveyed into the prison. We separated, exchanging the best wishes. In the evening a drunken guy was added into the cell. He was less talkative, but if in his words some evil inflection was contained, however it took place because of he was detained and instead to spend the night at home, he had to be here. When I asked him about the abrek Khaso, he told me approximately the same story and added that there are eight sentenced to death else who are hiding in the mountains in present. On the morrow this guy was let go and about two days I spent the time alone, thinking about this and that.
At last a policeman called me into his room, he introduced himself as an employee of the local criminal investigator.
-We have contacted with Moscow, you have a problem there. If you wished here to rest in fact, to travel in the mountains and to find friends, we have nothing against it. But at first you have to solve your problem in Moscow. Probably, you are aware already, in the Caucasus we don't like the deception. We are going to convey you by car to the village Chishki, there a bus runs often. Go to Grozny and take a ticket to Moscow. When all will get settled with you, if you go into the mountains, I must alert you, the abreks are hiding there and your equipment may be useful for them, you may be robbed. Now go into the cell and when the car is ready, you will go out.
It all turned out as he said. I was conveyed in the police car till the village Chishki, further by bus I arrived toward the evening in Grozny. There was no ticket for any train, neither for reserved seats, nor for the compartment cars, even nor for the common places. I hoped at least in the morning I'll can leave in the post and baggage train, taking a ticket to travel in the common places, but at night I was detained again by the enough obvious reason: in the Soviet Union at the railway station and without having any passport in my pocket.
I hope I would put nobody in a spot if I'm going to confess something now. Those policemen where I spent the night, at present all of them have to be retired. After all 33 years passed since then. Either I appeared to them a curious extravagant person, or they didn't wish that I saw something and intended to divert my attention and anyway they stood me a glass of vodka as a food - neither before this, nor after this, such a thing didn't take place anymore while detaining by police. And I was detained dozens of times, but I'm not ashamed of this at all. A detention because of the long hairs or because I'm located very far from the place of my registration, probably, a European or an American wouldn't see such a thing even in a nightmarish dream. There are no any registrations in the countries, which weren't desecrated by the communists, who have brought from the Middle Ages these customs of the feudal slavery and the passports are necessary in the West only if you are going to travel abroad, that is in the foreigner countries. And in the this country to sing a song: "A man is passing as a master of his immense Motherland"?.. Oh no, truly: the communists will cease never to amaze with their meanness and with their hypocrisy.
That evening I accepted the cheer unhesitatingly, drinking the glass of vodka in one fell swoop. Firstly I didn't want to offend anyone because of my refusal, secondly I was exhausted psychologically and wished to relax. I remember, after the glass was drunk I joked all the way with one detained girl, repeating in French to her: "Mets tes pieds sur mes épaules" and at once I translated these words, which meant: "Raise your feet on my shoulders". The cops laughed and she threatened me with her fist either falsely, or sincerely. On the morrow I was conveyed in the special distributing shelter of Grozny for those who were detained for the vagrancy. This institution is found in the same place, that is near the railway station. Unlike the same shelter in Krasnoyarsk where I had the "honor" to stay during thirteen days in the 1972, still before the marriage, here were the double-level beds as in soldier's caserns with usual mattresses and pillows instead the plank beds. Whether do you think my positive attitude towards the Chechen people is only subjective? Maybe is this a look through a rosy spectacles? But the most of the detained exclaimed quite often: "What a humane treatment is here to us! However in Daghestan the cops beat the bums without ceremony."
Also there was a clear example, which verifies this, it had taken place one day. Among the detained there was a young guy, a student studying in some college. One day he had run away and I don't know how, but he was caught by the local police 40 kilometers from Grozny (25 miles), near Gudermes (a town) in a thicket of the maize. A Russian cop wanted to beat up him and when the guy said to him: "We both are Russians, that is countrymen, and we have to treat each other well", but the Russian cop smiled maliciously and answered: "Here I'm going to be done with you as a countryman!" However another cop who was a Chechen, he stood up for the guy and didn't let offend him, because either he had an influence, or his rank was a little higher. However even in the same special shelter of Grozny nobody from the employees of the police touched him with a finger for the escaping. As I know, if he runs away and is caught in Krasnoyarsk, he would be whole beaten black and blue. In my presence in Krasnoyarsk such a case had taken place one time: two detained ran away and were caught, in the morrow both being black and blue were settled back into the cell.
Simply to flatter I have no reason, nobody would pay me money for this, nobody would appoint me to high office and even if I seek the political asylum, then I would do it in America or in Europe, but not in Chechnya. Including to hide in the forest I would prefer now in the Central region because of the very simple reason: without knowing the local language I would be like a rara avis and soon I would attract attention of the competent authority.
In the final analysis this journey had served me as an interesting and cognitive trip. I lived in this special shelter about two weeks, it was bought for my money a ticket to move to Moscow by train Baku-Moscow and two policemen saw off on the train me, that is till boarding. On my return the relations with my wife started to go right, that obstacle what was far from home, it was removed itself and towards the spring of the 1977 year I made sure that I will not be jailed. I suppose, it was said to the complainants: "If you want so much, we will jail him, jailing you at one", but this is only my supposition. I didn't bribe to anyone and where from what source I would take the money for this, being a simple land-surveyor? If during all the past years a few times I went with my family to the resort Yalta, I guess, all of this money wouldn't be enough for the bribe to avoid five years of jail. Let be angry with me the enemies: in the restricted Soviet country I spent my life being an anti-Soviet man and I wasn't jailed for this. And when this totalitarian monster, that is Soviet Union, had been ruined, this was the greatest holyday in my life. One day in my youth it was said to me: "Five years else, and you will regret very much about your position of life". Since I heard these words, forty years passed but I don't regret at all.
And here is a thing the most interesting: evidently Khalid forgot to tell it me, what about I've learnt in the Internet recently: Khasukha Magomadov was shot on the territory of jurisdiction Aslanbek-Sheripovo village council. Here is why they were astonished in the police that I had arrived exactly in Aslanbek-Sheripovo! Maybe the wandering soul of the abrek, seeing in me a brother in mind, had invited it me to show something? Hardly I will learn it during this life, but as if something mystical takes place here. Verily, the ways of Allah are inscrutable. The coincidence not only that I had arrived almost in the same place, but I myself nearly became the same abrek, I kept in the depth of the core the same mood, and the only reason that I hadn't become an abrek, it is because the epoch was although a vile one, but not so cruel already. After all, not insults, not a feeling of inferiority, not a morbid vanity and even not a craving for revenge incited Khaso to this way. For sure he thought the same: "Maybe all will turn out well" and hoped till the 1939 when he found himself a prisoner in the jail of Grozny. It is not difficult to imagine the jails of that epoch of Stalin. I'm sure, he heard how Stalin's henchmen tortured people, the most of whom were innocent, I'm sure he realized that now he had nothing to lose. It may be in his place I could not get to kill the security guard and using his weapon to run away from the prison. But there are known cases in similar extreme situations, some people did things, which were estimated as beyond one's strength and impossible ones. I had planned this way of doing, kept it in my mind, that is in reserve, in case if it will occur something terrible, but nothing took place. The Satan only made faces at me. But some supernatural force had displayed me my own secret idea, which was embodied by another human, who became to me the hero number one.
The main Khaso's merit consists in that, he showed to the world: a strong personality who trusts in God, he cannot be broken by any satanic power, even by the Stalin's power. Saying about these who are imposed by the propaganda, at best they can provoke the compassion, but not at all an admiration. The compassion, that is a pity to the lost and deceived souls, all those who had sacrificed his life on the altar of the great governmental swindlers. To sacrifice himself don't to permit the scoundrel Hitler would come to power, but let instead him another scoundrel would govern, that is Stalin. Incomprehension of such a simple thing may be explained the state of zombie and only the state of zombi. Such a thing may take place only if a man ceases to think independently, because, it seems, as if he becomes infected by phobia of the public opinion and since this moment he puts in the forefront the endeavour to play up to this opinion of the public. And whatever efforts he would make now, whatever cross he would attempt to carry - all is doomed if the selected way is wrong. But if the selected way is correct, whatever cross would be heavy, all the same it will lead to the victory inevitably. Khasukha Magomadov who had declared his own jihad against the satanic Soviet world, he had come off it as a great winner.
