The “Shuravis” differed from the indigenous Afghans only in their slightly lighter skin color, as well as in the wealth of knowledge acquired in educational institutions of the USSR

A few days ago, the Russian information space was blown up by the news that members of the search group managed to find a man in Afghanistan who, with a high degree of probability, is a Soviet pilot shot down back in 1987.

According to the head of the Union of Russian Paratroopers, Colonel General Valery Vostrotin, this became known during the annual Battle Brotherhood award ceremony held in the Moscow region - Battle Sisterhood.

Lost in time and space

War in Afghanistan. Namaz PHOTO: Vladimir Gurin/TASS

During the 10 years of the Afghan war, under various circumstances, 417 Soviet soldiers were captured by the Mujahideen. Most of them were returned home through prisoner exchanges, and many died under torture or were killed while resisting their torturers.

Some of the soldiers went over to the enemy’s side, and some, after several years of captivity and indoctrination, converted to Islam, becoming full-fledged residents of a mysterious mountainous country called Afghanistan.

Today, at least seven Soviet prisoners of war are known to have converted to Islam and fought on the side of the enemy. Three of them returned to Russia, and four assimilated in Afghanistan, considering this country their new homeland.

We will tell you about the fates of only two Soviet prisoners of war, who after many years could return home. But each of them took advantage of this opportunity in different ways.

Russian “mujahideen” Nikolai (Islamuddin) Bystrov

Russian “mujahideen” Nikolai (Islamuddin) Bystrov PHOTO: frame from video

Nikolai Bystrov, drafted into the Soviet army in 1984, after short training, together with his comrades, was sent to Afghanistan, where he was supposed to guard the airfield in Bagram.

The hazing that existed in the unit and was supported by the command played a cruel joke on the guy and two other young soldiers of his conscription. One day, three young soldiers, on the orders of their “grandfathers,” went to the nearest village, from where they were supposed to bring tea, cigarettes and... drugs.

By an absurd coincidence, a group of Afghan Mujahideen passed along the same road and easily captured Soviet soldiers.

Nikolai, who tried to resist, was shot in the leg, after which he was separated from his comrades and sent to the mountains.

In Nikolai’s native part, as was customary then, the soldiers were declared deserters, who left the unit without permission with weapons and an inevitable tribunal awaited them.

It was with the tribunal that the detachment commander Akhmad Shah Masud frightened Nikolai Bystrov, who convinced the guy to convert to Islam and go over to the side of the Mujahideen. It turned out that the former Soviet loser, compared to the fighters of his squad, has extensive knowledge, is very attentive to detail and is well trained in close combat strategy.

After just a few years of learning to speak Dari, Islamuddin (this is the name given to Nicholas when he converted to Islam) became one of the bodyguards of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and a very respected man in the detachment.

He understood that he would hardly be able to return to his homeland and see his relatives. Therefore, in the early 1990s, he married a distant relative of Shah Massoud.

Everything changed in 1992, when the Russian Federation adopted a law on amnesty for Soviet citizens who fought on the side of the Afghan opposition. It is unknown who brought this news to Islamuddin's house, but he decided that he had to return home and see his family members.

Returning to his native Ust-Alabinsk in the Krasnodar Territory in 1995 was difficult and expensive. Nicholas took advantage of the help of the Russian diplomatic mission, which declared its readiness to help return home every former prisoner of war.

His mother had died by that time, without waiting for the return of her son, whom she considered missing. But Nikolai transported his pregnant wife to Ust-Alabinsk, who already gave birth to a daughter and two sons in Russia.

Today he works as a simple loader in a warehouse. He thanks fate that, thanks to the efforts of many people completely strangers to him, he was able to return home, and is not still wandering in a foreign land.

Voluntary defector Sergei (Nurmomad) Krasnoperov

War in Afghanistan PHOTO: Viktor Drachev/TASS

Called into the Soviet army in 1983, Kurgan native Sergei Krasnoperov was considered an experienced soldier, having served in Afghanistan for just over a year. However, while gaining experience, Sergei lost his usual soldier discipline.

Having become a “grandfather” and feeling a certain freedom, he established connections with local residents - he began to exchange army property for alcohol and drugs, and when the command discovered a shortage, he deserted with arms in hand, trying to avoid deserved punishment.

In Afghanistan, masters in any craft are highly valued, and the guy who received the name Nurmomad upon converting to Islam turned out to have “golden” hands. He easily repaired any type of small arms and artillery weapons, and the commanders of several Afghan gangs turned to him for help.

One of the leaders of the Afghan opposition, Abdul-Rashid Dostum, made the former Soviet soldier his personal bodyguard, trusting him even more than himself.

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Sergei Krasnoperov married a local resident and settled in the city of Chagcharan in the province of Ghor.

In 1994, through diplomatic channels, it was possible to secure a meeting with his mother, for which the woman was specially brought to Afghanistan. But Sergei-Nurmomad never believed anyone, believing that a trap was being prepared for him in Russia. He categorically refused to return home, about which he wrote an official letter to the governments of the Russian Federation and Afghanistan.

Today Nurmomad Krasnoperov works as a foreman for a team engaged in the extraction of crushed stone, and also performs the duties of an electromechanic at a local hydroelectric power station. He enjoys authority among devout Muslims and has six children.

In 2013, he was again offered to return to Russia. Sergei Krasnoperov honestly admitted that he made a mistake in 1994, but it is not possible to return the past. All of his closest relatives who lived in Kurgan have died, and his full-fledged family lives in one of the adobe huts in the Afghan town of Chagcharan.

Judge not and you will not be judged

Veterans of the Afghan war PHOTO: Nozim Kalandarov/TASS

The Afghan war crippled and broke the lives of thousands of Soviet citizens. Someone became a hero, someone was a criminal, and someone remained an ordinary person who wanted to save his life in any way.

Today we need to respect the choice of people who, through no fault of their own, are lost in a foreign land. As they say, judge not, lest you be judged. But each of our compatriots should have the right and opportunity to make this decision, and not feel abandoned by their home country in such a distant and controversial Afghanistan.

Based on materials from the website "Proza RU"

From the memoirs of N. Bystrov: “In subsequent years, Masud and I went through many tests. During several military operations in Panjshir, we had a hard time. Being with Masood, I became more and more convinced that Ahmad Shah could be the salvation for Afghanistan. I tried to protect him from any possible surprises and troubles. When I directly guarded Masud, there were no authorities for me; I always resolutely demanded that all people who came to him hand over their weapons, including his closest friends, ministers, members of foreign delegations, as well as journalists. I subjected almost all of them to personal searches. They were offended, threatened me and complained to Masud, but I stood my ground, because ensuring the safety of Ahmad Shah was above all else for me. Every time Masud complained about me for being too strict, he smiled and said that at night he could only rely on one person, Islamuddin, who would never fall asleep at his post”...

The fate of those prisoners who decided to go from Panjshir to Pakistan was tragic. For several months they were stuck in Nuristan, where most of them died, and only 8-9 of them, with the help of a journalist from France, were able to get out to Pakistan and ended up in France, Canada and the USA.

One can have different attitudes towards these people who actually betrayed the Motherland and violated the oath, but it should also be noted that the Soviet authorities took practically no measures to free the prisoners. In fact, this work was transferred to the shoulders of the mothers of those servicemen who went missing or were captured by the Mujahideen. Indicative in this regard is the response of M.S. Gorbachev at a press conference organized by a number of international human rights organizations that approached him with an offer to help get Soviet boys out of captivity: “Our state is not at war with anyone. And we have no prisoners of war.” The opinion was formed in society that the Soviet military personnel who were captured by the dushmans were all traitors, and there was no point in straining to rescue them from there. Of course, this is far from the case. For example, Vladimir Kashirov, having been captured in an unconscious state, refused to convert to Islam to the last, although he perfectly understood that those who did not accept Islam did not survive in captivity. He was beaten, put in a pit, shackled, but Kashirov held firm. Once, during a visit to the camp of Ahmad Shah, Kashirov managed to break free and rushed at him. The prisoner was immediately executed...

True, there were others... So, in the 40th Army, the legend of Kostya “The Bearded” either died out or was revived again. The paratroopers of the 103rd Airborne Division said that this guy escaped from the unit in 1983 and ended up with Ahmad Shah. They said that he was superior to the Mujahideen in physical strength, endurance, and fighting qualities. And Ahmad Shah Massoud personally entrusted him with the most complex and responsible tasks.

In July 1985, during an operation in Panjshir, 12 km north of Rukh, Kostya “Bearded” went on air on our wavelength and warned that he would shoot anyone who moved beyond the stone placed on the side of the road. They sent the BMR (barrage fighting vehicle) forward. But as soon as she passed the mark set by Kostya, there was a powerful explosion. The BMR weighing 30 tons was thrown fifteen meters away, like a feather. When the tanks arrived, Kostya began hitting the observation devices, “blinding” the crews. Deputy Army Commander Colonel S.A. Mayev recalled that because of this sniper fire, the convoy was stuck on a mountain road for several days.

The identity and further fate of Kostya “Bearded” remained unknown...

Although Ahmad Shah himself spoke in an interview with journalists only about Islamuddin, who wished to return to Russia, and Masud did not interfere with him. He didn’t say a word about Kostya.

When Nikolai Bystrov (Islamuddin) was asked about Kostya’s identity, he also did not tell anything about this person. But he is very sad about the death of his idol. From the memoirs of Nikolai Bystrov: “In 1995, my family and I returned home to Kuban and again became Nikolai Bystrov. I now have a house, a wife, three children, sons Akbar and Akhmad, daughter Katya...
...It’s a pity that I left Ahmad Shah so early and did not shield him during the terrorist attack. I am still sure that if I had been next to Masood in September 2001, he would have remained alive. I, without a doubt, would have examined those Arab terrorists and would probably have discovered a prepared charge, as has happened more than once before”...

Currently, Bystrov travels to Afghanistan almost every year for several months on behalf of the Committee for the Affairs of Internationalist Soldiers and searches for burial sites of the remains of missing Soviet soldiers, helping to return them to their homeland. By 2007, he had brought back more than ten people from oblivion...

A story about the fate of Kuban citizen Nikolai Bystrov, a former Soviet prisoner of war in Afghanistan and a former bodyguard of Shah Massoud, the leader of the Mujahideen.

Nikolai Bystrov spent his childhood and youth in the Kuban, and his youth in the mountains of Afghanistan. For 18 years now he has been back in his homeland - if you consider the place where you were born to be your homeland. And if your homeland is where you became yourself, then Islamuddin Bystrov lost it irrevocably - just as millions of Russians lost their Russia in 1917. There is no longer the Afghanistan in which the soldier Nikolai Bystrov became the Mujahideen Islamuddin, where he found faith and comrades, where he married a beautiful woman, where he had a powerful patron who trusted him with his life, and where his own life had meaning - in faithfulness and service.

“You probably want to look at your wife? - asks Bystrov on the phone. “She’s my Afghan.” The Afghan wife, whom people usually come to “look at,” appears to be a quiet and timid woman in trousers and a headscarf, serving tea to guests and quickly disappearing into the kitchen. But Odylya is least like the women we are used to seeing in reports from Afghanistan. In an apartment on Rabochaya Street in Ust-Labinsk, I am greeted by a cheerful and confident beauty in a red satin blouse and tight trousers, with makeup and jewelry. Two sons are playing a computer shooting game - I see the outlines of wounded soldiers in camouflage flashing on the screen. My daughter goes to the kitchen to make tea, and we sit on the sofa covered with white leopard plush.

“We also managed to kill two of them,” Bystrov begins the story of his Afghan captivity: the army “grandfathers” sent him AWOL to the nearest village for food, and the Mujahideen ambushed him. “But I was lucky that I ended up with Ahmad Shah Massoud, in the Jamet-Islami party.” Another party, Hezb-Islami, wanted to take me away, there was a shootout, seven people died between them.” Odylya crosses her legs, revealing a shiny pendant on her ankle, and with polite indifference prepares to listen to her husband’s war stories. “I didn’t even know who Shah Massoud was,” says Bystrov. “I come, and they are sitting there in their Afghan trousers, turbans, eating pilaf on the floor. I come in wounded, dirty, scared. I chose him, I cross the crowd right across the table (and this is a sin!), I say hello, and they immediately grab me by the hand. "How do you know him?" - they ask. I say, I don’t know him, I just saw a person who stands out among others.” Ahmad Shah Massoud, nicknamed the “lion of Panjshir,” the leader of the most influential group of Mujahideen and the de facto ruler of the northern territories of Afghanistan, differed from other Mujahideen in some oddities. For example, he loved to read books and preferred not to kill again. Gathering prisoners from different regions, he invited them to return to their homeland or move to the West through Pakistan. Almost everyone decided to go to Pakistan, where they soon died. Bystrov declared that he wanted to stay with Masud, converted to Islam and soon became his personal guard.

The boys were driven out of the room - only the youngest sometimes raids for candy. Daughter Katya returned from the kitchen with a cup of green tea. Odylya throws dry ginger into the tea and gives it to me. I wonder if she reads what they write about her husband. “Politics doesn’t interest me,” Odylya says in good Russian, but with a noticeable accent. - I have children! I’m interested in how to cook delicious food, raise children and do renovations.” Bystrov continues: “Masud is not an ordinary person: he was a leader. I am Russian, and he trusted me. I was with him all the time, slept in the same room, ate from the same plate. They asked me: maybe you received his trust for some merit? What stupidity. I noticed that Masud did not like those who were six-wheelers. And he never killed prisoners.” Having heard the judgment about the noble Masud, Odylya stops being bored and enters into a conversation: “Masud had reasons not to kill. I worked as an officer and exchanged prisoners.”

Odylya is a Tajik from Kabul. At the age of 18, she went to work - she was, as she says, “both a parachutist and a machinist,” and joined the Ministry of Security. “This is what Masoud did wrong: we gave him four people, and he gave us only one,” she says. “Other opposition leaders also changed things, which is why they didn’t kill prisoners to save their own.” And if, for example, some general, a big man, was captured, then we gave ten prisoners for him.” Nikolai confirms her words: “They asked for an exchange with the Mujahideen and for one of their own they gave four of ours.” I begin to get confused as to how many “ours” there were, one or four, and Odylya explains: “I am an Afghan, I was on the side of the government, and he, a Russian, was on the side of the Mujahideen. We are communists, and they are Muslims."

When Odylya organized the exchange of prisoners, and Nikolai, who became Islamuddin, walked with Shah Massoud through the Panjshir Gorge, the Bystrovs did not yet know each other. In 1992, the Mujahideen captured Kabul, Burhanuddin Rabbani became president, and Shah Massoud became minister of defense. Odylya tells how a certain mujahideen, bursting into the ministry with others, demanded that she immediately change clothes: “I lived freely. I had neither a burqa nor a headscarf. Short skirt, sleeveless clothing. The Mujahideen came and said: “Put on your pants.” I say: “Where did I get my pants from?!” And he takes off his own and gives it away - he had others underneath, like leggings. And he says, put on your scarf quickly. But I didn’t have a scarf, so they gave me a scarf that they themselves wear around their necks. Then I walk through the city, and bullets rain down from all sides, landing right next to my feet...”

After the power changed, Odylya continued to work at the ministry, but one day a man accosted her and she stabbed him. “The boss said he would send me to Russia so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Like, there is a good law there, you won’t be able to kill anyone. I say no, I love Afghanistan and my people. He grabbed me by the hand, I had to go with him?!” “I always carried a knife with me,” Bystrov proudly comments, but, seeing my bewilderment, he explains: he took me by the hand, which means he wanted to take me away. Odylya continues: “The boss says to me: “Let’s get married then.” I say I'll go out if I find a good person. He asks: “What kind of person do you want?” - “Someone who will never beat me and will do everything I want.” Nikolai interrupts Odylya: “Wow! You didn’t set such conditions for me!” Odylya calmly retorts: “I just told you what my dream was. And the boss said that he had such a person. “He watches you every day, so act normal. Cover your legs and neck, because he believes very strongly, he goes to pray five times a day.” I break away from the older Bystrovs for a moment. Daughter Katya sits next to her father, motionless: she is hearing the story of how her parents met for the first time.

Mujahid Islamuddin, too pious by the standards of the Kabulites, at the very first meeting frightened Odylya so much that they could not agree: “He looked at me like a lion, it killed me.” Bystrov recalls: “I haven’t seen women for so many years; in villages they wear burqas and hide all the time. And she’s so tall, wearing heels, beautiful... She came, I sat opposite her, and her legs were shaking. And then I started bringing her gifts! I just showered her with gifts.” Odylya is almost indignant: “When a person wants to get married, he is obliged to shower him with gifts!” Nikolai quickly agrees, and Odylya continues: “It’s my day off, I go out onto the roof, look, and in our yard there is a cool car, and its windows are black. I go to work and there she stands. I was told that this was Ahmad Shah Masood's car. My God, who is Shah Massoud and who am I? I was very afraid." “It was a Ministry of Defense vehicle. Armored,” explains Nikolai. “I sat in it while she climbed the roofs.” “It’s fate that connects us like that,” concludes Odylya.

Masud himself found a bride for his Islamuddin. Odylya turned out to be his distant relative on his father’s side. We will never know the details of their family ties; it is enough that Odyli’s father was from the Pandshir region, and therefore from the same tribe as Masud, and, therefore, his relative. Odylya did not immediately realize that Mujahideen Islamuddin, who was pursuing her in an armored car of the Ministry of Defense, was once the Russian Nikolai. He learned well not only Farsi, which he switches to every now and then in conversation with his wife, but also the habits of the Mujahideen. I only had to dye my hair so that the locals wouldn’t figure out his origins and kill him. “The eyes remained blue,” says Odylya. “Yes, I'm blond. “And there I was among strangers,” Bystrov agrees. - Do you know who did my teeth? Arabs! If they knew that I was Russian, they would have killed me right away.”

The communist married a Mujahid, and the civil war in one family ended. Massoud forgot about the communists and began to fight the Taliban. He became a national hero of Afghanistan and a real TV star, a favorite of foreign politicians and journalists. The more people sought to communicate with Masud, the more work Islamuddin had: he was responsible for personal security, inspected all guests regardless of rank, took away weapons and often caused their dissatisfaction with his meticulousness. Masud chuckled, but did not allow anyone to violate the order established by the faithful Islamuddin.

The rumor that Masuda was being guarded by a Russian reached Russian diplomats and journalists. They kept asking Bystrov if he wanted to return home. Masud was ready to let him go, but Islamuddin, who had just received a beautiful wife and the status of the personal security guard of the Minister of Defense, had no intention of returning. “If I hadn’t gotten married, I wouldn’t have returned,” says Odylya. “Exactly,” Bystrov nods. As I sip my third cup of green tea with ginger, they tell me how they moved to Russia. Odylya became pregnant, but one day she found herself next to a five-story building at the moment when it was blown up. She fell on her back, the unborn child died from the fall, and Odylya was taken to the hospital with severe injuries and blood loss. “Do you know how I looked for her blood? Her blood is of a rare type. Kabul is being bombed, there is no one, but I need blood. I’m just going from work to the hospital with a machine gun, she’s lying there, and I say: “Hey, if she dies, I’ll shoot you all!” I had a machine gun on my shoulder.” Odylya is again dissatisfied: “Well, you had to do this, I’m your wife!” Nikolai agrees again. After the injury, doctors forbade his wife to become pregnant in the next five years. Her mother, who was only fourteen years older than Odyla, took this news the hardest of all. Her mother told her that she didn’t need to listen to the doctors, saying that everything would be fine. And Odyla became pregnant again. Considering the military situation and the lack of conditions, the doctors did not guarantee a good outcome and issued a referral to India, where the patient had a chance to carry and give birth to a child - their eldest daughter Katya. She is still here and listens to our conversation without saying a word. Odylya points to Bystrov: “It was 1995, at that time his mother died, but we didn’t know about it then. I came home with this direction, and we began to think about where to go.” Nikolai was ready to move to India, but Odylya decided that it was time for him to see his relatives and offered to return to Russia. “He swore an oath at the wedding that he would not take me away. This is the law,” says Odylya. “But this is fate.” She thought that she would give birth to a child in Russia and come back. Soon after their departure, the Taliban seized power, and Odyla's relatives who remained in Kabul asked her not to return.

“Afghanistan is the heart of the world. Capture the heart and you will capture the whole world,” Odylya turns into a real speaker as soon as the conversation turns to the Taliban. “But anyone who comes to our land will wet his pants and leave.” Well, did you win when the Russians were kicked out? Did the Russians win when they came to Afghanistan? What about the Americans? Listening to Odyla’s list, Nikolai stumbles over the Russians and begins to argue: “Tell me honestly, the Soviet Union would have won if it had stayed. The mujahideen who fought against the government and the Soviet Union are now regretting it because no one is helping them anymore.” Odylya shrugs it off and continues his fiery course on the history of Afghanistan: “Then the Taliban came, but they didn’t win either. And they will never win. Because they are fighting against the people, and they have an unclean soul. They painted the windows black, went from house to house and broke children's toys as if it were a sin. If a child could not pray, they shot him in the head right in front of his parents. I look on the Internet to see what cruel people they are. I understand: faith. I am also a believer. But why show it? Prove that you are a Muslim!” Odylya distorts some Russian words, and her Muslim becomes a “Muslim”, and Krasnodar becomes “Krasnodor”.

Odylya knew nothing about Russia when the Bystrovs decided to leave Afghanistan. “I once saw a letter to my husband from Russia and was surprised how someone could read something like that. It’s like ants were dipped in ink and forced to run across the paper,” she says. Having suddenly changed Kabul for Kuban, pregnant Odylya ended up in the village of Nekrasovskaya near Ust-Labinsk. She talks about a passport officer who was annoyed by a foreigner who did not speak Russian. According to her Russian passport, Odyla’s age is five years older than her biological age: she agreed to any number in order to quickly leave the passport office. And about how difficult it was to adapt to the climate, nature or food. “We had a zoo in Kabul where there was one pig,” she says, pronouncing “zoo” as “zoopork.” “It was the only pig in all of Afghanistan, and I considered it a wild animal, exotic, like a tiger or a lion. And so we moved to Nekrasovskaya, I was pregnant, I got up at night to go to the toilet, and there was a pig grunting in the yard. I run home scared, the Russians ask Islam: “What did she see there?” And I grunt in response! It was very scary."

When the everyday shock passed, it was the turn of the cultural shock. “Everything irritated me,” says Odylya. — At home you wake up to “Allahu Akbar”; you don’t even need an alarm clock. Everyone lives in harmony, and you don’t feel like there are strangers nearby. No one ever locks the doors, and if a person falls on the street, everyone runs to save him - this is a completely different relationship. How do Russians sit at the table? They pour, pour, pour, then get drunk and start singing songs. We sing songs, but only at weddings and other holidays - not at the table! Well, I understand, another culture. It’s not easy until you learn all this.”

“I’m from the capital, and you’re from the village!” - Odylya says to Nikolai every now and then. He grins. For Bystrov, adaptation also turned out to be a difficult task: during the 13 years of absence, he became so firmly rooted in Afghanistan, and his homeland changed so much that instead of returning, he received, on the contrary, emigration. Of the relatives in Kuban, only my sister remained. The Bystrovs could not immediately find either work or money. Ruslan Aushev and the Committee for the Affairs of Soldiers-Internationalists helped: they were given an apartment, then they were offered a part-time job. Nikolai again turned into Islamuddin for six months in order to, by order of the Committee, search for the remains of missing former “Afghans”, as well as living ones, those who, like himself, had turned into real Afghans over the years. Today, seven such people are known. They have an established life, wives, children and a household; none of them is going to return to their homeland, and “they have nothing to do in Russia,” says Bystrov. However, he immediately comes to his senses and sets out the mission of the Committee: “But, of course, our task is to bring everyone back.”

Six months in Afghanistan were ending, and months without money or work began. It is impossible to get a new job every six months and then quit again and go on business trips, which is why Bystrov has not been traveling to Afghanistan for the last four years. He works for one of the most prominent Afghan communities in Russia - Krasnodar. Unloads trucks with toys that they sell. The work is hard and “beyond my age,” but I have no plans to look for another one yet. He dreams of working for the Committee becoming permanent, but the Committee does not yet have such an opportunity - there was a time when it did not have any money at all for expeditions to Afghanistan. And while no one has made him a worthy offer, Bystrov, who speaks Farsi and Pashto, is familiar with all the field commanders of the Northern Alliance and has walked all of Afghanistan on foot for Massoud, prefers to load toys. It seems that, in addition to the salary, the Krasnodar Afghans give him a feeling of connection with a second, more significant homeland. “I am connected with Afghanistan,” he says simply.

While Nikolai went on business trips on behalf of the Committee, Odylya stayed at home with three children, sold jewelry at the market, worked as a hairdresser and manicurist. During this time, she made friends with all the neighbors, but never became part of the community. “I don’t go to Russia. “I go to the hospital, to school and home,” she says. — One of my fellow countrymen asks me: “How are you doing in Russia, did you learn the language, do you travel everywhere?” What are you saying, I don’t go anywhere at all and I haven’t seen anything.”

Last year, a computer with the Internet appeared in their house, and Odylya restored constant contact with her family and Afghanistan. She constantly communicates on Skype and on social networks, goes to forums where she publishes her thoughts using Google Translator. Odylya friended me on Facebook, and my feed was immediately covered with poetic quotes in Farsi, photo collages with roses and hearts, and images of Afghan dishes. Sometimes photo reports about poor Afghan children or portraits of Masood appear there. But the Afghanistan of the “golden age” to which the Bystrovs would like to return no longer exists. One in which a woman can understand politics, but prefer housekeeping, be a Muslim, but wear short skirts, renovate her apartment and post poetry in Farsi online. They put together this Afghanistan from pieces of memories, home-made Afghan cuisine, pictures with quotes from the Koran, hung on the walls of their Ust-Labino apartment.

Living in a closed world between school, clinic and market and in the virtual world of social networks, Odylya does not know the Russian word for “migrant” and does not feel any threats against her Muslim family. “On the contrary, everyone should love Muslims. We don’t offend anyone,” she says. “If someone said a bad word, we shouldn’t repeat it.” Well, if they raise a hand against you, you, of course, must defend yourself.” From the very beginning, children were raised to fit into the local culture without losing their parents' religion and to speak without an accent. Their youngest son Akhmad dances in a children's Cossack ensemble, their middle son Akbar just graduated from music school, and Katya is studying at a medical college. Odylya is going to grant them Afghan citizenship, but does not want to teach them her language ahead of time. But recently, children began learning Arabic via Skype with a teacher from Pakistan. “Because if you don’t know how to read the Koran, then there’s no point in learning it at all,” says Odylya. “We must understand what the phrase “La lahi ila llahi wa-Muhammadu rasuulu llahi” means” (“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet”).

Eighteen years have passed since their move to Russia. Two years ago, Odyla’s mother died. Soon after this, her own health began to deteriorate: she was plagued by headaches and frequent fainting. There are no good doctors for whom they once left their homeland in Ust-Labinsk, and the Bystrovs cannot afford paid appointments in Krasnodar. Last year, with the help of the Committee, Odylya went to Moscow for examination. Doctors, among other ailments, diagnosed depression and recommended that she go home, but Bystrov does not yet dare to let her go. This year, the whole family is going to go to the sea for the first time - a journey of about 160 kilometers.

On September 9, 2001, two days before the terrorist attack in New York, more people with television cameras came to Masud. Islamuddin had already been living in Russia for six years by that time. The journalists turned out to be suicide bombers, and Massoud exploded. For Bystrov, his death turned out to be the main tragedy in his life. He often tells reporters that if he had not left, he could have prevented Masood's death. However, if not for Masud, Nikolai would not have married Odyla and would not have left. He would probably have been killed altogether soon after his capture. It turns out that the national hero of Afghanistan, with his humanism, uncharacteristic of the Mujahideen, personally deprived the story of a happy ending. Not only his own, but also the history of the country, which is now almost completely under the control of the Taliban.

The day after our first meeting, Krasnodar employers urgently called Bystrov to unload the truck, and he lost his only day off of the week. It was time for me to fly out, so we spent the rest of the conversation on Skype. I ask who killed Masood. He shakes his head and makes signs with his hands: they say, I know, but I won’t tell. Finally, I ask Odylya to take a photograph of her husband and send him the photos. “She’s better at computers than I am,” Bystrov looks into his wife’s Skype again. “I only know how to kill.”

In early March, Russian and world media actively retold the story of a former Soviet soldier discovered in Afghanistan, who was declared missing more than 30 years ago. Meanwhile, the story of Bakhretdin Khakimov, who over the years has managed to become a real Afghan, is not unique. Since the mid-2000s, journalists have counted at least four such cases, and according to The Times, there may be about a hundred such “Afghans.”

Former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev spoke about the discovery of Bakhretdin Khakimov, a native of the Uzbek city of Samarkand, on March 4. Now he heads the Committee for Internationalist Soldiers, an organization that, among other things, searches for military personnel who went missing during the Afghan War of 1979-1989. Committee employees had known for quite a long time that the Uzbek lived in the province of Herat, but they were able to meet with him only on February 23.

Khakimov, who served in the 101st motorized rifle regiment in the same Herat, disappeared in September 1980. Having been seriously wounded, he was unable to reach his unit, and local residents picked him up and got out. As a result, Khakimov became a member of the local semi-nomadic community, whose elder, who practiced herbal healing, took him under his wing. The Uzbek himself, whose name is now Sheikh Abdullah and who has almost completely forgotten the Russian language, is also engaged in witchcraft. He received the offer to meet his relatives with great enthusiasm, but whether this means that he is ready to return to his homeland is unknown.

The story, which aroused keen interest among journalists from all over the world, is not the only one of its kind. Despite the sworn assurance of the commander of the Soviet contingent in Afghanistan, Boris Gromov, that every single one of his compatriots would be withdrawn from the country, in fact, in 1989, more than 400 Soviet soldiers remained behind the Amu Darya. Some of them were captured, some went over to the enemy’s side voluntarily, and some, like Khakimov, remained due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Now this list has been reduced to 264 names (half of them are Russians): some of the missing were found alive and returned home, the fate of others became known after their death. But there are also those who, of their own free will, chose to live in Afghanistan - despite the opportunity to return to their homeland.

One of the most famous Soviet defectors was the Ukrainian Gennady Tsevma. It was discovered in 1991, two years after the end of hostilities, by British journalist Peter Juvenal, who worked for the BBC. A native of the city of Torez, Donetsk region, he came to the Afghan province of Kunduz in 1983 at the age of 18. After ten months of service, Tsevma, according to him, became bored, and one day, out of curiosity, he decided to go and look at the muezzin from a nearby village, who called the residents to prayer every morning. On the way to the mosque he was surrounded and he was forced to surrender. Faced with a choice between accepting Islam and death, the Ukrainian chose the first. So he became an Afghan.

Tsevma, whose name is now Nek Mohammad, claims that, despite going over to the side of the dushmans, he never shot at his former compatriots. “Six years under surveillance, and they were also forced to shoot at our people. They were sick in the head and did not understand what was good and what was bad. I say: “Fuck you, I won’t kill my own people,” the Belarusian channel “Capital Television” quotes Tsevma.

In the end, the Ukrainian received freedom, but was afraid to return to his homeland: in those days, all missing people were considered traitors who were awaiting a tribunal. In 1992, Russian authorities arranged a meeting between Tsevma and his father, who had been specially brought to Afghanistan, but the former Soviet soldier was so frightened by the prospect of trial that he flatly refused to return, even despite a general amnesty held in the late 1980s. In 2002, the Ukrainian authorities tried to return Nek Mohammad home, but their efforts were not crowned with success.

Tsevma still lives in Kunduz, he has a wife and several children. As of 2006, Nek Mohammad worked as a driver for a local jeweler, earning one hundred dollars a month. True, even then he had difficulty moving due to an old wound in his leg. And already in 2010, the media wrote that Tsevma almost stopped walking altogether - the eldest son was forced to take care of the housework.

Tsevma’s fellow countryman Alexander Levenets, born in the village of Melovadka in the Luhansk region, and now known as Akhmad, spent approximately the same amount of time in Afghanistan. Unlike Nek Mohammad, Levenets, who worked in Kunduz as a fuel truck driver, went to the Mujahideen of his own free will in 1984 - he could not stand the hazing (according to other sources, he fled from punishment for trading with local residents). He left the unit together with his colleague Valery Kuskov. Both immediately went to the local field commander Amirkhalam, who, according to the Ukrainian, received them with open arms. Both fugitives converted to Islam without question and immediately joined the battle group fighting the Soviet troops. Kuskov soon died, but Levenets fought until the end of the conflict.

Subsequently, according to Akhmad, the Soviet special services tried to find him, but Amirkhalam, who considered the Ukrainian his relative, refused to extradite him. Levenets decided not to return home - instead he started a family and began working as a taxi driver.

In a similar way, a native of Kurgan, Sergei Krasnoperov, now Nur Mohammad, fell among the dushmans. In 1984, the command caught him selling army property to Afghans. Krasnoperov turned out to be a valuable acquisition for the Mujahideen: he repaired periodically jammed machine guns and artillery pieces. Ultimately, Nur Mohammad's authority was so high that he became the personal bodyguard of one of the leaders of the Afghan resistance, General Abdul-Rashid Dostum.

After the end of the war, Krasnoperov also refused to return home. Even a meeting with his mother in 1994 did not help. He settled in the city of Chagcharan in the province of Ghor (it was there that the military base to which he was assigned was located), got married and had at least six children. Noor Mohammad works at the local office of the Ministry of Energy and repairs trucks. The only thing that worries him now is the departure of American troops. Without them, the former Russian is sure, the country will experience complete lawlessness and chaos.

Frame: Channel One

Quite little is known about Nikolai Vyrodov, another Ukrainian who went over to the side of the dushmans. In 1981, he volunteered for the war in Afghanistan, but deserted just three months later. According to Vyrodov, he was influenced by the shooting of 70 people in an Afghan village, including civilians. Like the rest of the “Soviet mujahideen,” he converted to Islam and took the local name - Nasratullah Mohamadullah. Soon, the influential field commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar drew attention to the demolition specialist, who made him his bodyguard (Hekmatyar later twice headed the government of Afghanistan).

In 1996, Vyrodov returned to Kharkov, however, unable to adapt to his old life, he again left for Afghanistan. As of 2005, he lived with his family in Baghlan province, where he served in the police.

The stories of three more Soviet soldiers developed in a similar way, however, unlike their colleagues, all three returned to their homeland. The very first among them (in 1981) was a resident of the Samara region, Alexey Olenin, later Rakhmatullah, who came to Afghanistan. He was captured the next year, on the day of the death of Leonid Brezhnev (November 10, 1982). A few years later in captivity, he met Yuri Stepanov (Mahibullah), a native of the Bashkir village of Priyutovo, who was captured by the same group of Mujahideen. It is not known exactly when this happened - either in 1986 or 1988.

After the war, Afghan authorities handed over the former captives to Pakistan. As Olenin recalls, they were met there by the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who gave them both three thousand dollars. Around 1994, Olenin and Stepanov returned to their homeland, but both soon went back to Afghanistan: the first decided to take the bride he had left there, the second simply could not stand the change of situation. Both finally returned to Russia. True, Olenin managed to do this only in 2004 - the Taliban who came to power prevented him. It is noteworthy that in Afghanistan he met Gennady Tsevma, whom he tried to persuade to go home, but in vain. Stepanov returned even later, in 2006, and for a long time he could not decide whether to go to his homeland or not. Both are married to Afghan women.

The third Soviet soldier who was captured by the dushmans and then managed to return home is Nikolai Bystrov, aka Islamuddin. A native of the Krasnodar region left to serve in Afghanistan in 1982; militants caught him six months later. According to the Russian, this happened during a trip to a local village, where old-timers sent him to buy drugs. Like Krasnoperov and Vyrodov, he happened to become the bodyguard of one of the most influential field commanders - Akhmad Shah Massoud, known by the nickname The Lion of Panjshir, entrusted his safety to Bystrov. After the war, Masud, already being the Minister of Defense, married his distant relative to a Russian.

According to media reports, Bystrov left with his family in the late 1990s, allegedly at the insistence of the same Masud. Now he is one of the most active participants in search operations, which are carried out under the auspices of the Committee for Internationalist Soldiers.

On February 15, 1989, standing on the bridge over the Amu Darya River on the Afghan-Uzbek border, Soviet General Boris Gromov said that behind him, on Afghan soil, there was not a single soldier left. The general lied; several hundred captured soldiers remained in Afghanistan and many more rested in his land.

On the eve of the next anniversary of the end of the Afghan war, former soldiers of the Soviet army told the Voice of Russia about their time in captivity, the difficult history of returning to Russia and the unfinished war.

Nikolai Bystrov was captured because of hazing. The old soldiers sent the young soldier and his two comrades to the nearest village to buy drugs for them. On the way back, the fighters were ambushed. Nikolai Bystrov was wounded and captured by the soldiers of Ahmad Shah Massoud. Thanks to the fact that the Mujahideen had a hospital of French doctors at their disposal, the wound was cured. But soon another test awaited Nicholas and the other prisoners:

“Masud gathered us all together, seven people. And he said: “So, guys, who wants to go abroad? Who wants to go back to the Soviet Union? To the Soviet Union or to America, or to England, or to Pakistan, or to Iran? Which countries do you want to go to? But at that time everyone was afraid to return to their homeland. Everyone raised their hands and said: “We want to go to America.” One said: “I want to go to France.” He said: “Why don’t you raise your hand?” ? I say: “I don’t want to go anywhere, not to America, nowhere.”

The desperation of the captured soldier, who no longer wanted anything, saved Nikolai’s life. He later learned that everyone who raised their hand was taken to Pakistan, to the Badaber camp, where they were later exterminated. After some time, the leader of the Mujahideen, Masud, brought Nicholas closer to him. The captured Russian warrior became one of his guards. As Bystrov recalls, one day he was tempted to shoot an Afghan militant, but his conscience did not allow him to do so:

"We climbed the pass, went to the north of Afghanistan. I was the very first to climb. Masud and three or four others climbed very slowly. There was snow, snowfall, passes in the snow. I sat down to wait for them, I looked, I think I could easily manage four or five Then I think, I’ll look, he gave me the machine gun, he opened it, the ammunition load was full, 30 rounds, the spare four clips were also full, I looked, nothing was pulled out, and you know, I thought, since he trusted me, let’s not do it.” .

Ten years later, when Nikolai had already converted to Islam and started a family in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud released him to his homeland. Returning to Russia with the help of a committee of internationalist soldiers, Nikolai began to work closely with them. He threw all his experience of living in Afghanistan, all his knowledge and connections into searching for and returning to their homeland former Soviet soldiers - both living and dead:

“I want to find everyone. Find all the guys. Because I returned alive. And I want to return the remains to my parents. So that the parents have peace of mind that their son has returned, even if not alive, and can be buried. I understand Afghan people, I know their psychology , customs. As long as they cooperate with me, I will do this. They don’t refuse, no, they don’t say. You know, until the last soldier is buried, the war is not over.”

Bystrov is responsible for more than half of all the found remains of Russian soldiers and three living prisoners, whom he, together with a committee of internationalist soldiers, helped return to Russia. The first of them was Yuri Stepanov. Finding himself captured by the Mujahideen, he lost contact with the outside world for almost twenty years; even when he was released to Russia, he was not immediately able to return there. But thanks to the help of Nikolai Bystrov, Stepanov returned home, where his mother had been waiting for him all these years. Later he joined the work of the committee of internationalist soldiers:

“Kolina’s help was that later, when we got Afghan passports, got to Kabul, met with him, he explained to us what and how it is in Russia. That Russia is already different, we need to help the committee in the search group, the committee of Ruslan Sultanovich Aushev help. We also helped at that time. We returned back and stayed for about two more months. Kolya began looking for the guys from the side of Kandahar, and we from the side that we knew."

But soon financial problems forced Stepanov to interrupt his search work. In the family he brought from Afghanistan, Yuri is the only breadwinner. They say the war is over when the last soldier is buried. I would like to believe that the Afghan war in the hearts of Nikolai Bystrov, Yuri Stepanov, and everyone who is still looking for the surviving and dead prisoners of Afghanistan will soon end.