Translated material
Phantom wars
Photo station Artyom Polard about how the military who has passed Afghanistan or Chechnya live
Post -traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, Afghan Syndrome, Chechen Syndrome) is a mental state that occurs as a result of participation in hostilities. PTSD is characterized by psychopathological experiences, memory loss and a high level of anxiety.
Since February of this year, photographer Artem Prikuyuk removed the former military who survived the post -traumatic disorder after the Afghan or Chechen wars. He asked everyone to show some thing related to military operations, and then tell about returning to a peaceful life. "Medusa" publishes a household photo station along with the monologues of the former military.
This document appeared on my birthday. We were on the fighting - the owner of this document shot me first, but fortunately, I shot better than him. When they returned back, they began to listen to the only program that the radio caught and it turned out that my mother ordered me a song in honor of the birthday “Earth in the Illuminator”. It was like a sickle in the heart.
After returning, I spent another five months in the hospital with a wound. After that, of course, there were moments "walking", what to argue. The main thing is not to expect anything from people, although sometimes I wanted sympathy. Memories, as a rule, come only in a dream - apparently this is a protective reaction of the body.
After the contusion, I stuttered, my eyes twitched, my ear did not hear. Of course, there was a strong decline and I did not know how to do it further. Fortunately, one of my good friend just came up to me and said: "Let's go." We gathered tents, took two young ladies, a dog and went for three weeks to deaf forests. They took a boat from the huntsman, bought paints. All this time I was surrounded only by girls, sketches and nature. I returned to a completely different person, began to restore the skills of an art school, then entered the school. In general, art rehabilitated me.
Once the senior comrades call me, at night already, they say: "Would you go, Dembel, for heroin." I realized that they still won’t let me live normally, we need to go. They told where the house is a gate, where to go. It turned out that I came in the end to the wrong place, but everything is trading there, so I just gave money, and I have a package with this rubbish. I go out and see - two armored personnel carriers are going. He ducked into the bushes, there was a bunch of dirt, I had to dive around the neck so that they would not see my own. I then go back, and then they begin to shoot at me from our posts-three bullets almost flew into my head, about 15 more. It seemed to me that I was running, and time just stopped - I am so young, but it's time to die. He returned, in general, and the elders also pressed me for not taking heroin, but some kind of powder.
When I returned home to Petersburg, I went outside and began to restore order. He beat Pankov on the Nevsky and Marse Field, even almost thundered to the police. In general, all summer was connected with any span - the city cleaned them. Then he came to the conclusion that I either further down and wave, really not proved anything, or begin to transfer my experience. Here my professional activity began. Now I am working in a public organization of assistance to veterans of Afghan and Chechen wars.
This is one of my sketches made during service, here death gives out leaflets with a load of 200, I drew this one at the post. There are always mines that explode before the posts if the enemy decides to get out at night. Straightly put on stretch marks special signaling missiles-if someone goes at night, they take off and illuminate the entire perimeter. There were a lot of them, because the detachments constantly changed and not everyone cleaned.
I stood at the post and decided to go out of need. I go, the grass is high around, the dew only fell out - everything is high. Suddenly I have a flash between my legs. In my head immediately the thought that I came across a mine. All moments of life flew in the eyes from the age of 19, at a speed of 24 frames per second. I understand that if I jump now, even a meter, my legs will still break off. We have to jump, I think that now it will be very painful, the condition is furious. And it turned out to be an ordinary signal rocket that just took off from my jump. But after that, I began to treat many things in a completely different way.
I was born in the village, so I did not have time to get bored upon return - work and life did not allow me to relax. Immediately opened the military-patriotic club, became its leader. A lot of guys from schools and colleges came, we decided to make a section on the Break Dance. In general, there was something to do in order not to sleep and not start using drugs. Although, of course, relatives and friends expected me to be frenzy that I would start screaming, shooting and killing. But I only had nightmares at night and that's it. Employment in such a life period decides a lot.
We moved a column of 42 trucks. We entered the green strip along the highway - bush on both sides, nothing is visible. Then they began to shell.
When you watch military films, it seems that shootings are very beautiful and courageous. In fact, it happens like this - they shoot at us, but we do not see anyone. The driver put the machine in the window with one hand, the second holds to the steering wheel. I also shoot for my part. You open the fire just in case, for good luck, because absolutely nothing is visible.
Suddenly the driver cried out, dropped the machine gun and grabbed his hand by the throat. I say: “Kolya, what's wrong with you!”, “Comrade Major, I was injured!” I say: “Can you lead the car?”, “I can!” He removed his hand, I squeezed his wound on his throat, and rode. And when the columns fell into such situations, there was an order - not to stop, but to leave the shelling as quickly as possible.
The adaptation process on the return was complex and long. When he flew, no one met me, because no one knew when I would fly. The meeting was already at home while the son was at school. Memories, of course, were constantly rolling. The war dreamed for a long time. But there was never a desire to return there. And regret on the lost time too - they told me to go and I went. Thank God that healthy and alive returned. The false patriotism and some kind of high self-esteem did not hook me either-I just conscientiously did my job. And now I work at the university, at the military department.
These are two cartridges that everyone carried with them constantly, one for a comrade, the second for himself. They are in order to accelerate the death of a friend or their own. If the cartridge is useful, it was updated. I came in handy.
Upon returning to your homeland, you feel wild-you are afraid of people and constantly stay in some kind of tension. You think where to make money, what to do if you do not know how to fight otherwise. Here, breaking begins-someone gets on a glass, someone in jail, and there are those who begin to use all kinds of drugs. All this emotional influx presses so much that if you can’t do it yourself, then everything: you start drinking, then you will hit your neighbor with a knife, you will be taken to the zone. We were not prepared for what will happen to us after the war. No one said anything.
When I returned, I got up the slightest rustle. Everything around seemed too bright, any movement and sound. The first six months is very difficult to get used to that people can just walk and drive cars. Each cotton forced to tremble and look around in search of danger. I walked around the city and noticed that this roof could be put on this roof, and a machine gun here.
Our military brotherhood helps a lot - in it we support each other, go to meetings, calling, help each other. Even just speak out more pleasant to the colleague than a psychologist. And I work as a guard.
I was already demobil, we climbed the mountains, and the higher, the colder it was. We, as the elders, are the first, we are still behind us 100 young and inexperienced people. On the night of October 16 to 17, at an altitude of 4,200 meters, the battalion commander is in touch with us and says that it is necessary from one ridge on which we are on, to go to another to another, and go 6-8 kilometers to a height of 4,600 meters. And here we are already 10 days on a three -day ration in the mountains without special equipment and warm clothes are trying to survive. Before that, there was still a shootout, after it they promised us that they would send a helicopter to pick up the wounded - in the end, we were warming the guys all night with their warmth so that they would not lose all the blood. As a result, in the morning we had 18 frozen and more than 60 people with frostbitten hands or legs.
We returned in a state of euphoria, but there was no normal adaptation, so this feeling quickly left. We returned in the late 1980s-we left one country, and returned to completely another. In the new country, nothing was ready for ordinary people, what to talk about the conditions for the disabled. Many guys went to the war with intact and healthy guys, and returned - disabled people who had to survive how they got. We just did not fit in the time we lived. I am struggling for the rights of disabled people, I am engaged in social activities.
There was a winter of 1995 - there was a strip of one of the regions of the Grozny. There we fell under “friendly fire” - this is when we shoot our own. The strip was unsuccessfully, but at least there were no killed and wounded on our part.
You go from the war, come to the city, and here is a peaceful life. Everyone is dancing and walking - they are all that happens there to the light bulb. Relatives alive waited and okay. But it was, of course, a little offensive.