"Trinity Option" in the days of the coup

In August 1991, the Troitsky Option newspaper already existed, from which, after many years, a shelter grew. And his editor -in -chief was the same, that is, your humble servant. In my dusty suitcase I found a newspaper’s number dedicated to the coup released in hot pursuit. A yellowed newspaper on loose paper of A3 format sheets, folded in half, then many newspapers established “from below” looked like.

The document is always alive than the memories, and it was terrible for me to read this issue, including my own article-half of what I wrote long ago I forgot. I hope these details of the chronicle of the three crucial days of our history are interesting not only to the author. The article is published with small abbreviations and modern comments.

Troitsk early 1990s was still a real scientific center (and not the sleeping area of ​​Moscow, as it is now). It functioned a democratically tuned council of people's deputies, for the most part of scientists. He combined the legislative and executive branch and became famous for radical steps - such as, for example, free and trouble -free registration of legal entities in the city. The office of the head of the city resembled a kind of hipster Smolny: people who lived and spun in it did not at all resemble officials. In those days I was a member of the Presidium of this Council.

Three crazy days

At the eighth in the morning I was woke up by a sign of a friend who was in a panic, but could really explain anything. It became clear to eight. Soon, the deputy chairman of the Trinity City Council, Vladimir Kirichenko, called and asked if I had information different from the official one. Where?

Almost the entire presidium gathered in the council by 10 o’clock. The head of the police came and tried to find out something from us, we with the same success-from him. We agreed that we will inform each other about everything.

Members of the Presidium began to call the Moscow City Council, the Moscow Council, to the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, I am in the editorial office of Moscow newspapers. In vain. Moreover, the phones in the councils simply did not answer - here for the first time it became a little scary.

I went to Moscow, it seemed that only there it was possible to find out something. On the way, he met a deputy O. Tznisco, who was heading for the Armed Forces of the RSFSR. He has a pass there. [ABOUT. Tznisco was an assistant to V.P. Lukin, the future of the Commissioner for Human Rights.]

We went to the arena (about 13 hours). Thousands of three people were already rallying there. Tverskaya and Okhotnoye row were blocked by protesters. Three on the site of a hydraulic lift, raised to the full height in the middle of the Okhotny series, were waving a three -color flag. They distributed leaflets with the appeal of Yeltsin, Silaev and Khasbulatov. They announced the call to go to the column on the Krasnopresnenskaya embankment to the White House.

The White House had almost no one. Oleg refused to take me from the venture, seeing the guards with machine guns (the machine guns were handed over to the initiative of Rutsky). I stayed at the White House, because it seemed that the most information I would get here. And it turned out.

I happened to catch the most alarming moment - when no one yet understood anything when there were very few people around the White House, and a motorized column was already standing on the bridge. People eagerly caught leaflets with the decrees of Yeltsin, which were thrown directly from the windows of the White House. The people, without understanding, did not let the squad of riot police into the White House, who arrived to defend the Supreme Council and the President of the RSFSR. [They have not trusted anyone yet, for whom the form is worn.]

Then the people began to arrive before our eyes, Hasbulatov and Silaev performed, the military column turned around and left, the first elements of organization appeared, voluntary detachments of defenders, groups of doctors began to form.

In the evening, I returned to the emergency meeting of the City Council in full confidence that the coup had not yet become a fact.

There was no quorum at the meeting, so instead of the decision of the session of the Council, he had to limit himself to a statement of deputies. It was very uncompromising: among the three dozen deputies there were not a single one who would have somehow played for the junta. Then the presidium gathered and made a decision (see scan on the site). (Subsequently, G. Lebedev, [ Chairman of the Council ] expressed regret that they made this decision not in the morning, but only by the evening of August 19. Instead of traveling in search of information, it was necessary to act right away.)

They decided to establish round -the -clock duty in the City Council, and, by the way, Troitsk received all the hot news around the clock directly from the White House, where Oleg Tznisco was located for three days [ who served our “informant” ].

On the first night, the dispatches were the same: calm. At four nights, I went to compose and print leaflets. They were displayed under the cap of the Trinity Option as an emergency release. Behind leaflets at night and day, volunteers came. In the region of six in the morning, very enthusiastic information began to act: the troops begin to go over to the side of Yeltsin. At seventh o’clock in the morning, young people came from the watch near the White House - my son with friends [at that time of seventeen]. They told a number of curious details that were immediately reflected in the next leaflet.

I replicated leaflets directly on a laser printer (our own is a barbaric method; the cost of one leaflet near the ruble [is now difficult to check it, but I don’t think that I was mistaken - cartridges were very expensive]), but there was no time for calculations - the rate in this struggle was immeasurably higher. At eighth o'clock, the whole portion of leaflets was ready and was already pasted with volunteers around the city. Each leaflet went under a hat of the Trinity Option - like an emergency release.

Someone carefully broke leaflets, but since people always crowded around, they hung for a long time.

In the afternoon, together with our young correspondent, Alexei Kudenko, we went to the White House for a rally. They returned in full confidence that the coup was coming to an end. So it was, but I also had to survive the most difficult hours.

Starting six in the evening, the news was the most alarming. I three times broke up to go to the White House, and each time they dissuaded me, arguing that I needed here. Remaining, I survived the vile clock in my life, but at five in the morning I already gained leaflets with new messages.

On this, second night, not only the duty officers were sitting in the City Council, but also more than a dozen deputies, including the chairman of the City Council and his deputies. The townspeople and deputies of Podolsky, Klimovsky and Shcherbin councils constantly called to the City Council - unlike ours, they did not have direct contacts with the White House. This time, colleagues themselves prepared for me a report of messages to which I added what I heard on the radio. At the sixth o'clock it became easier again. The Echo of Moscow worked, through the City Council it was handed over that a column of tanks was stopped on the Minsk highway, that the White House was calm.

There was time to calmly comprehend how ineptly we act, how slowly we swing, how much we are not ready for such events. Instead of driving one by one to rallies and barricades, it was necessary to whistle all volunteers with cars on Radio Troitsk (probably would be found), recruit state transport, establish regular flights to the White House, bring and replace people, collect food there, etc. What they understood and began to do. Fortunately, it was no longer needed. So, it took two days to recover and start doing meaningful things.

In the morning of the 21st, the situation began to change quickly for the better. About ten hours of the central radio have already begun to stutter and carry incoherent nonsense. Then a series of cautious renunciations - Ivashko and others followed. And when they announced that the junta was running, it was perceived for granted. I released the last leaflet with this news and went home in a naive hope to sleep. But they have already broadcast a meeting of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR ...

09/23/1991

The latest messages

According to eyewitnesses who returned from night duty from the Armed Forces of the RSFSR, and telephone calls from the Supreme Council, to the side of Yeltsin switched:

1. Kantemirovsky division;
2. Taman division;
3. Airborne troops;
4. Sakhalin Military District;
5. Ryazan landing regiment;
6. Leningrad and Moscow regional riot police.

In addition to tanks, along with the townspeople, the White House guarded the regional riot police, organized something like a militia from the Gorozhan volunteers who were subordinate to riot police.

A lot of bottles with incendiary mixture were brought, which riot police and militias confiscated. All drunken were expelled for the barricades.

At night, 30-50 thousand people were on duty at the White House. They distributed hot meals, there were buses with stoves turned on.

The nearby construction site was dismantled to the barricades: by morning there were only a lifting crane and a pit.

8 in the morning, August 20, 1991. "Trinity Option"

PS August 21, 1991 reigned real euphoria. It seemed that the country got out of a historical impasse: the ridge of the totalitarian monster is broken and ahead - a direct road to a normal universal future. Stupidity, of course. It is impossible to get out of such dead ends at one time. Already after a few weeks it became clear: something goes wrong. Then I wrote an article entitled “Supreme”: the new government received all the possibilities for transformations, it is necessary to urgently save the economy, convert the state apparatus, and they seemed to be visible in a binge - nothing can be seen. Although Nadezhda lived for another ten years, gradually becoming naught.

In 1994, I crossed with Vladimir Bukovsky in the States. We argued half an hour for easy drinking on Mount Flagstap over Bowlder. He was a pure pessimist, claimed that the same people remained in power, I warmly proved that the country has a future, that people enthusiastically create their own business, that the country has moved from a dead point. Both were right, but he was more.

After the failure of the putsch, I decided that the matter was done, was enough to engage in politics, came out of his own free will from the Presidium of the City Council, handed over the reins of the Board of the Trinity Option to others and went headlong into science, believing that there was more sense. Perhaps this was the right decision, but many people who, in principle, could significantly affect the collective portrait of the upcoming power, were “demobilized” about the same way. Meanwhile, the embryo of the new monster, albeit slightly caricatured, but equally dangerous, began to develop in a favorable environment.

Now many say that in 1991 the putschists won, that we came exactly to that (KGB dictatorship), which they achieved. This is a very superficial look. It was our victory, and it greatly changed the country-in some ways to the worst, but largely for the better. Compared even with the current time, the late USSR was a dull hopeless substance. We are moving there, but still far away. And we will not return there anymore. Just a hippo from a swamp in one appointment cannot be pulled out and the dragon cannot be destroyed in one fight.