The soldiers stumbled. Products ceased to come from the Union. We only eat suckers. The water situation is difficult. I haven’t washed for twenty days, it turns out, and that’s enough to lose the human appearance. I started scratching. I don’t know what it was, whether it was lice, or bugs, or maybe fleas. All the clothes struck them. By the morning, the body became red from their bites. In front of them all were equal – soldiers and officers. These creatures are terrible. They push people to the limit.

On December 31, when it was twenty minutes until twelve Moscow time, we came out of the landscape, shooting in the air from machine guns, missiles.

Sergeant major and I looked at the traces of bullets in the night sky. Suddenly my legs were rejected. At first I didn’t even realize that one of them got into me. I have fallen. I cannot get up. Comrades raised me up and took me to the medical unit. I lost a lot of blood on the road. They burned me and sent me to Bagram. I thought I couldn’t get up anymore. I never had to meet the New Year with my comrades.

Ask about locals? Afghans especially dislike non-Muslim soldiers. I had a companion Muhammad from Samarkand, a Tajik nation. He was captured. A year later he was released. It was an interesting story. Many prisoners were slaughtered, their ears and noses cut off. Muhammad knew their language. He was asked the name. When they knew that his name was Muhammad, they looked over and asked again with amazement. When they were convinced that they had not heard, they took him to the chief. The chief with a long beard examiningly looked at him with his bloody eyes:

– Muhammad? – he said, and brought him to the prisoners, a senior and a soldier named Vasiliy.

– It was about noon, he said. They followed me. I did not understand what was happening. I was placed in a row with comrades. They cut clothes with a knife. Divide the second. Not wanting to see them mocking my comrades, I closed my eyes. Then someone, tightly pressing my hands, said:

– Open your eyes, Muhammad, or do you want to suffer like them?

– But I could not look anyway. I could never have imagined that there was such cruelty, such methods of bullying. My hands were bound, and my feet were dressed with candles. I look awkwardly. Suffering and smarting were on the faces of my comrades. The Afghans tortured them in turn. The place of one bandit was occupied by the other. And so on, more and more. The soldiers could not stand anymore. They lost consciousness. Then I closed my eyes and went. I saw them again when they exchanged us. It was terrible to look at both. I was finally told:

– You will regret not being with us. Go and say thank you to the one who called you Muhammad.

They have a very religious feeling. If a person of another faith is captured, they are very cruel.

In Thermez, I was wrongly operated, failed in the hospital for several months. My feet are still insensitive.

"THEY WERE ROBBED…"

Hasilhan Mamarasayev, born in 1968. From Syrdarya region, Uzbekistan.

– There were four days until I returned home. We stood in a wreck along the road as our troop left Kabul. We were five in one car. Not a hundred miles away – dugout, at night we rested in turn in it. I was the commander of the mine division. But our driver, a Russian guy, had something in his head. Once he broke into the commander of the regiment with a grenade in his hands, threatening to blow him up. He was then sent home and I was ordered to drive the car.

On the second day of our watch, an antitank mine exploded in front of us. Smoke and dust rose by 200 meters. Fortunately, we were in the car cabin. The glass broke, but it didn’t hit us.

The soldiers searched the nearby village. There was no soul in the houses. Everyone left home and fled. In fact, we were dealing with the robbers.

On February 10, one soldier was killed and another wounded. The next day at ten or eleven we went on our way. From Aybat came to Tashkurgan. There was an order to leave no one.

In the morning we went on the road again. 200 meters passed. How I was hurt, I didn’t even notice. I felt like my legs were rejected. The officer stopped the column. Something slipped into my boots. "There’s hot water" – I wondered. My legs crossed with rubber.

In medical unit I took the injection and was brought to Termez. They operated, but one bullet was left behind. Doctors are cruel. For a long time they stumbled in my wounds, pulling out the bullets, and yet shouting at me. It was especially painful when, finally, a bullet was touched, which struck into the bone, like a knife. My brother took it to himself as a bitter memory of the experience.

I saw an Afghan officer in the hospital. He was injured and laid three chambers away from me. At first I wanted to suffocate him. But gradually the anger passed, and I began to realize that he was also a victim. He was hit by a bullet, like me. I was from a stranger, but he was shot by his own. It is not easy for him. Obsessed by the idea of revolution, he wandered through foreign countries.

My father visited me. I cannot say a word of excitement, as if the tongue had gone away. My father also shakes his head. I was angry. This was our first meeting.

"FUZZI"

Safarmakhmud Babayev, born in 1963. From Tajikistan.

– From the regiment where I served as a driver, we headed to the thirty-eighth barrel. They left their food and went on. A tank was ahead. To catch him, I increased the speed. There were thirty meters between the tank and us. Something broke our car. When I woke up, I was lying far from it. I looked around. There were no front wheels in the car. The door collapsed and gasoline was poured out of the tank. I started looking for the senior lieutenant and senior officer who were with me in the car. The oldest officer was lying at ten meters and looked at me. His leg was broken, and his bone was torn out of his broken shoe. When I noticed that I was looking at his feet, he turned his eyes away. Then I lost consciousness. Then I heard the senior lieutenant’s voice: "Are you alive?" I lay down, turned to the side and looked where the voice came from.

The Lieutenant’s legs turned into a bloody messy. I tried to get up to help the wounded. But I didn’t have time to step, as the pain spread through the whole body. I lost consciousness and fell. I don’t know how long I was lying there, but when I woke up, I heard a lieutenant’s cry:

– Shoot, shoot, the IFV will lead! I did not find a machine next to me. I heard the sound of the engines. Both cars approached. I remember only the sleeve wet from the wound, blood. Then I lost consciousness again. I woke up when the nurses washed the wound. We all three stayed there for two days. On the third day I learned that the lieutenant's legs had been cut off and I cried. But what about me, where I was wounded, I still did not realize.

On January 17, we were brought to Tashkent. Two weeks later, my leg was operated. I woke up after the operation on the third day. In my eyes, everything was like a fog.

…I realized we got into the mine. I broke up not the first time. The first explosion occurred at the beginning of my Afghan service. The day before, I had a dream. I saw my father. He begged me with tears: "Son, don’t go with the officers, you are my beloved son". I was upset and promised not to go. I woke up. Everyone was dressed in a hurry. I also dressed. We went on the way. Almost immediately, we encountered a tank that exploded on a mine. He stood right by the road, the engine was dropped fifty meters away, and the tower lay far from the body. Then I thought, "If the mine has eroded the tank in this way, then the car, probably like a flashbox, will fade into small pieces". Not far we left this place, as happened what I thought. By chance I remained uninjured.