Arkady Babchenko about himself, the country and emigration

The New Times, April 2014

Chechnya, Alkhan-Yurt, 2nd Chechen war, senior sergeant Babchenko (Foreman on the right) with colleagues,
February 23, 2000 Photo: From the personal archive of Arkady Babchenko

My name is Arkady Arkadievich Babchenko. I am thirty -seven years old, higher education, married, raising my daughter.

When I was nineteen, my homeland shod me in Kirzachi, put a machine gun in my hands, put it on the armor and said: “Go.” And I went. “Restoration of the constitutional system” - so this war was called then.

When I was twenty -two, I came to the military registration and enlistment office and already, voluntarily, enrolled in the army and went to war for the second time. “Counter-terrorist operation”-so it began to be called in the 99th. “At the same time, within one hundred two days he took a direct part in the hostilities” - as written in my military man.

For these two wars, the Motherland wrote me free travel and two thousand rubles in the form of monetized benefits. Thank you and that.

My cousin, Sergey Babchenko, died in Tajikistan. On the border. Already after the demobilization. They drove young animals for a replacement. And right away - an exit to the raid. He volunteered to go instead of the young. We ran into a gang that crossed heroin. He was a machine gunner. He was killed by a shot in the head. The only one in that battle. Sniper. Now the brother’s name is knocked out on the monument to the fallen soldiers in Bashkiria, where he comes from.

My father, Arkady Lavrentievich Babchenko, launched ships into space. He was an engineer-designer, worked in the “box”-the Central Design Bureau of TM (Central Design Bureau of heavy engineering). I made a cable-utensh for missiles. His last work was a cable material for Buran. On business trips, the father disappeared six months. He lived in Baikonur in a hostel. In Moscow - in the passing "kopeckoy" with his wife, son, mother, father, brother and his family. This "kopecks" is the only inheritance. We had nothing more. No car, no garage, no cottage.

At the turn of the 80-90s, when Buran flew into space once, and then everything fell apart, his father did not go either trade or steal. He was not adapted to this at all. He was born in order to launch ships into space. And until his death, he drew his cable masts that became unnecessary to anyone. Almost in complete poverty.

He died of a stroke. In 1996. I was then in the war. We didn’t even say goodbye.

The person, for the sake of erecting to the throne of which the second Chechen was started, from the rostrum tells me that I am a traitor, an enemy agent and a second variety

My grandfather, Lavrenty Petrovich Babchenko, a 100 % Zaporizhzhya Cossack, was a tankman. He fought on Khalkhin-Gol. Three times shell -shocked. It is hard once. These shells had finished him-he died in the 80th, when I was three years old.

His wife, Elena Petrovna Kuptsova (I don’t know her real husband, her real name, because her grandmother carefully hid her - Jewish, yes), on the war was on duty on the roofs and extinguished incendiary bombs. When the opportunity appeared, I did not leave anywhere from Russia. I worked all my life, until my death. In the boiler room. In our house, in the basement. Day, three.

Two months after her son died. I was still in war then. How she was buried, I don't even know.

My great-grandmother named Bakhtiyarova (partially Tatar, Yeah) arrived in Moscow in the 30s. She lived with two children in the back room at school. Then she worked all her life in her.

Her daughter, my grandmother, did iodoform iodofals - crystals of iodine from fourteen years old, to cure the torn limbs. And then along the Labor Front line she went to unload wagons with coal. Or bring down the forest.

Her brother, my cousin, in the first months of the war at the age of fifteen, ran to the front and returned only in 1950-from the Far East.

Her granddaughter, my mother, went to Chechnya for me. I saw everything with my own eyes. Then she adopted six children.

The first child who appeared in our family was adopted. The second too. And only the third daughter was born her own.

Now mom has a family orphanage. All children are from Lipetsk. From dysfunctional families. Alcoholism, yes.

My wife’s grandfather, Peter Gorkanov, a purebred Mordvin, fought in the Great Patriotic War in Khimvoyska, where he lost his vision. Until his death, he lived in the village. In a house with wood heating. He did not conduct gas, a veteran, a disabled person during his lifetime.

My father -in -law, warrant officer, purebred Mordvin, served in Germany. When everything fell apart, together with two children and his wife, Bomzhazha in the barracks and generals.

For all these nineteen years of my adult life-and even earlier, from the 93rd-all g *** oh I went with my country. I have always been where my country was bad. At the White House, it means at the White House. In Chechnya, it means in Chechnya. In South Ossetia, it means in South Ossetia. In Krymsk, it means in Krymsk.

All this time I, my family, my ancestors and my relatives were quite Russian for my country.

When it was necessary to burn on Khalkhin-Gol, for a beggarly salary to pull space, starve on basements, make iodoforms for the front, bum with children in the barracks, die in Tajikistan, and adopt abandoned children-we were Russian.

In Chechnya, no one has ever offered me to put a machine gun, dump in my Khokhlanda and burst there along the seam. When you need to die for the Russian homeland, the Russian homeland does not care - you are a Jew or not.

There, the Motherland knows only one nationality - cannon meat.

They began to offer me to blame Khokhland after the war.

I have never heard such a amount of shit to myself and my loved ones, as in the last few months.

On the "Jews of the Nazi" Maidan, no one, never, nowhere, under any circumstances asked me about my nationality. The “right sector”, who was fighting on the barricades shoulder to shoulder with Russians, Jews, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, did not care. Just do not care. They are not about that.

In homeland ...

The person, for the sake of erection to the throne of which the Second Chechen and who himself had never fought for his homeland, happily avoiding Afghanistan, and then, having already reached the authorities, sending the Georgia and Crimea, who has already been hung up by him, from the rostrum, from the rostrum, tells me, which went to his war, which I have volunte The traitor, the enemy agent and the second variety.

Now I have become a Jew, Khokhl, Bandera, the fifth column and the national prescription for the homeland.

Your deeds are wonderful, Lord.