He did not want to adapt

Polina Eremenko - about the operator Kirill Radchenko, who was killed in the king

In his youth, Kirill Radchenko escaped from school lessons to watch films at the Museum of Cinema - and when he grew up, he threw the Institute of Steel and Always to become an operator. First, he shot weddings and Internet series-and then went to Syria to work in the war. In March 2018, he went to Chechnya to work as an observer in the presidential election, and a few months later he went to the Central African Republic to make a documentary about Russian military mercenaries. On the night of July 31, he was killed - along with colleagues on the project Orhan Jemal and Alexander Rastorguev . Polina Eremenko tells the story of Kirill Radchenko.

In identification of his younger brother, Radchenko Radchenko stood to the right of his body. The investigator stood on the left - he corrected the sheet so that she covered his neck. “The face was pale, thin,” Roman recalls. - The left cheek is pressed - as if his brother had damaged his jaw. The left side of the upper lip was lifted up. I was surprised that Cyril was very similar to himself. Almost the same as I saw him at home when he slept. He usually fell asleep in the headphones, depending on some American series-I went to the bed and turned off everything, because the light and sound interfered. "

A few days before, Roman returned to the apartment, where since the spring of 2010 he lived with his brother, while Cyril was in the tsar, Roman visited his grandfather in Astrakhan. There were almost no dishes in the kitchen in the sink: “Wow, I washed everything,” I thought. A plastic pocket appeared on the wall of the refrigerator, in which two pairs of scissors lay; Roman thought it was very similar to his brother-"to do such a trifle, to attach something somewhere." And then he opened the door to the bathroom - and found that the floor was flooded with water by three centimeters. “We agreed that before leaving for the tsa, he would block the water just in case. Cyril predictably forgot about this, ”Roman says and smiles:“ This was not the first time for us. ”

The apartment where the brothers lived was in Orekhovo-Borisovo-next to the district, where Kirill Radchenko grew up and where his parents live in a bright, spacious apartment. The living room windows overlook the apple garden; The room itself is forced by the flowers and photos of Cyril. “It was Cyril to the first grade that was born, was very smiling, joked that one optimist appeared in the family ... No, he was not redhead, these were photograph defects,” says his father Alexander Stepanovich, showing pictures. - How he holds the camera, presses - look: a hand - as if a continuation of the camera. How beautiful he is in a white shirt! "

“Interesting the father said goodbye,” recalls Alexander Radchenko. -He spoke for a long time in Old Slavonic, and then: “It happens that a person will live up to ninety years old. Well, what, a vegetable is a vegetable. And here so many young people have come to say goodbye, caring people. Probably something was.” It was probably. "

Chapter 1

Handsome

Kirill Radchenko was born in Moscow in 1985-and two years later his father was sent to work in a representative office of the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries in Sierra Leone, and the boy moved there with his family. Two years later they returned. Having studied, in 2002 he entered the Moscow Institute of Steel and Leaves. As Alexander Stepanovich says, at the insistence of parents. It was not interested in steel and its alloys - after the second year, having completed practice at the metallurgical plant in Lipetsk, Cyril abandoned his studies, telling his parents that "the steelway would not come out of it." “We worried, but understood that a person is looking for himself,” his father recalls. - Of course, we did not like it. We did not have a clarification of the relations of stormy, but we tried to influence the mind. I explained to him that in life, unfortunately, I have to do a lot of what you love. ”

Radchenko worked for the first time where he had to - at a construction site, a courier, a waiter, a loan manager - and at the same time tried to find an opportunity to do his favorite thing. Cyril fell in love with the movie as a teenager - Roman (he is seven years older than his brother) then worked as a movie mechanic at the Museum of Cinema and let his brother into sessions. Throwing the university, Kirill Radchenko followed in the footsteps of his brother - in 2008 he graduated from the college of art crafts with a degree in the Mechanics and began to work by profession: first in the “circular film panorama”, then in the journalist’s house and all in the same Museum of Cinema. In the film industry he had acquaintances who began to offer him to shoot something himself,-Radchenko worked as an operator at weddings and anniversaries of enterprises, shot advertisements, clips and photographs for film pools.

In 2015, Cyril got a job as an operator in the series “The District of Darkness”-the creators called him the first Russian web chief, clarifying that “cinema enthusiasts” were being removed. “We had a company of girls, everyone was in love with him, he is very beautiful [was],” recalls the executive producer of the series El River. “But he made us understand together that he was not going to build any relationship with anyone.” “There was absolutely a golden man, selfless, kind! We constantly joked that Kirill handsome! -Adds the artist-prospector of the “area of ​​darkness” Daria Maltseva. - I am still very sorry that it did not work out to meet him more high. Cyril was not particularly frank with us. ”

Soon, work on the set of TV shows and weddings Cyril became not enough. “He gradually grew out of a young man who is working on at weddings, on corporate parties,” his father says. - Even now I do not belong to this work dismissive, because it gives a livelihood. But this did not bring satisfaction. Cyril was drawn to engage in cinema. " “It was a guy who had a riot period. Maximalism is youthful: if not me, then who? - recalls El River. “Feeling, he was like a spring, squeezed straight, contracted, and somewhere it was supposed to fly out of it.”

By that time, Cyril had already moved to live with Roman. Their favorite joint occupation was to watch and discuss cinema. “They turned on some movie closer to the night. Then they went out with him to the stairwell after the film, continuing to argue or chat, ”Radchenko recalls. - Sometimes he shot a cigarette at him. Brother smoked a lot. ”

Having worked in the "Darkness of Darkness" year, in 2016, Radchenko sharply changed his life - and left for Syria by the operator. Radchenko wanted not only to work in the war, but also to escape from Moscow, to change the city: the girl he was in love with his youth and who finally decided to tell about his feelings, refused him. Now this girl works as a primary school teacher at the school where they studied with Cyril, and is going to make an exhibition of his work. She does not communicate with journalists.

Chapter 2

Creative person in Syria

The military correspondent Alexander Kharchenko Kirill Radchenko did not like it at first. “We met in 2016, in Aleppo,” the journalist recalls. - I was told that he is a very cool editor, a very cool operator and generally a very cool dude. It was amazing to me - why is he so advertised? Well, he arrived and arrived. ” Together Radchenko and Kharchenko had to obtain plots for the publication Anna News. “We, of course, are called a“ cotton agency, ”Kharchenko admits. “But, unfortunately, few people know our work.”

Anna News agency was created in 2011 by Russian financier Marat Musin to cover the war in Libya. The site is registered in Abkhazia; Its main specialization is wars: the phrase “Front news of Syria, the Middle East and Ukraine” was made in the heading of the site. Musin himself (he died in May 2018) said that his goal is to “withstand the information technologies that are used by Al-Keda in order to portray rebels in the Middle East as freedom fighters”; Some Anna News videos were shot from cameras that were installed on Russian -made tanks used by the Army of the Syria government. Kharchenko calls Anna News a “volunteer agency” and says that his employees are “not - we are actually compensated by the spent nerves.”

Radchenko got a job at Anna News, because as their employee he could go to work in Syria for several months without military experience. “Cyril did not need a welfare,” Kharchenko explains. - Whoever wants to take a mortgage or buy a car will not go to us. He just wanted to see the war. Not because he likes explosions and murders, but in order to isolate [her] driving forces. ” “It was important for Cyril to experience himself,” adds one of Radchenko’s friends. - He wanted to try himself as a military correspondent. He tried to feel everything, take part in order to have his own judgment [about what is happening]. ”

Having met Cyril closer, Kharchenko realized that his new partner was special: “He was different from most of our colleagues. We are not professionals [unlike Cyril]. I am a lawyer, my colleague is a technologist. We took the first time in the hands of cameras in Syria. And yet - a representative of the opposition, a creative person. ” Kharchenko (he himself from the military family, is fond of military archeology and says that he was “pulling” to the war) recalls how Cyril flew to Syria with philosophical books and retold his colleagues read, for example, Zizheka : “Cyril tried to explain to me what was there, but I was far from modern philosophy. I am an average person. My clothes are a regular, typical life line - you need to graduate from school, get a higher education, go to work, get married. ”

It didn’t work out with the books, but Radchenko and Kharchenko exchanged music: Alexander put Kirill unknown songs to Vysotsky, he-Oximiron and rap battles: “He was our guide to the world, about which we were not aware of.” Hip-hop the taste of Radchenko was not limited. Once they went on a working trip by car in the Syrian desert - and Cyril was asked to collect music on a flash drive. “He took, pumped up a whole USB flash drive,” Kharchenko recalls. - That's just Tsoi, and nothing more. We are: “Cyril! .. Maybe we’ll listen to something else?” “No, Tsoi is a classic, Tsoi must be loved.”

Alexander did not understand the motivation of a partner in the war. “Cyril came to comprehend something of his own. For him, this world was alien to him, all this militarism. Honestly, he did not understand where he was, - he argues. - I did not understand where the danger could come from. He controls Kopter, I tell him: “Lie down on the ground, a sniper can work on the other side.” “There are no snipers there, there is one kilometer between us.” And then the bullet flies. We almost quarreled. I say: “What a quadrocopter? They shoot at you! Leave from there, leave the line of fire. You have to hide.” - “No, no, no!” And then the second bullet, which he hears: Tsynnn! And he says: “Ah, yes, now I understand. Well, yes, thanks.”

From the war, Radchenko sent messages to friends. For example, such:

“Having gained photo and video material, we went back to catch up with the exchange of [captured militants for civilian]. There was no unimaginable-militants leaving our positions, I have not even seen because of dense curtains on the buses. The buses were in a hurry, since people already wanted to just shoot them as revenge. On the highway, which was blocked by the earthen parapet, raising dust, the militants left. Somewhere ahead, the night sky was cut through the lines with tracing bullets, when the next party of militants came to their own.

Then we drove buses with civilians from the other side. And through the broken or broken glasses, under the howl of the beeps, I saw joyful and tired people who look with interest at the crowd of meeting. The doors on the buses were open, people stood in the openings and waved those who met. The column did not stop. They immediately went to Jibrin to the refugee camp. We did not escape them. It was already late evening, and it was still necessary to mount a short material. ”

“As a colleague told me, a sniper hunted me the other day. I did not perceive this in the process, and now I am not very sure. But several times, when I protruded in different places on the front line, and in the distance from the accumulation of people, to better catch the copter signal, in our direction they shot rare single ones. That is, every time I heard a bullet flew flying. Well, the colonel alone somewhere in the same area caught a bullet, as they said-from a sniper. In fact, I do not really believe the story about the sniper, just a colleague paid attention to her several times. Well, fatigue relieves a sharp attitude to what is happening. ”

“All I want at the moment is to finish the installation, go to Deir for one interview and finally go home. Because I feel so tired that even, having pulled a plate of body armor somewhere a month ago, and after the end of the hottest season I am not going to insert them back due to fatigue. ”

In other letters, Cyril compared the war with a dark gateway and spoiled products, told how he had dined, returning with the front line, how, two hundred meters from the front of the family, they made a barbecue and smoked a hookah, as the children rushed after him and his quadrocopter with the cries of “Taer!” ("airplane"). “He described the life that took place against the backdrop of war, not military events,” explains one of Radchenko’s friends. “He looked deeper - how people live in a sense of war.”

The largest project in which Radchenko participated was a film about Aleppo - they shot it in 2017, immediately after the city was taken under control. According to Kharchenko, the editorial office sounded something like this: you need to make a film about Aleppo, how and what - decide for yourself. As a result, journalists decided to talk about how ordinary people lived in the territory occupied by the rebels - and gathered for 21 hours of interviews.

It was the fourth and last Syrian business trip Cyril. The day when the partner fell through the war, Kharchenko remembered well: then they stumbled upon a 15-year-old teenager, a supporter of IG, wounded in battle with the troops of the Syrian government. “They decided for a long time what to do with it. They wanted to be captured. But he was weak, the chances that he would survive, a little. And after an hour and a half he died, ”Kharchenko recalls. - It’s one thing when you see at a distance, how the tanks shoot, and then Cyril saw with his own eyes how a man dies. Something broke in it, and he said: “That's it, I'm tired. All this fighting was sick of me. I went home.”

Returning to Moscow, Radchenko sometimes wrote letters to his colleague to Syria - and these were sad letters. “He had health problems, he said that he was very old,” says Kharchenko. - He fundamentally did not want to shoot weddings, all this garbage, which could bring money. He seemed to have some kind of depression. "

Chapter 3

Civil debt

In March 2018, Kirill Radchenko went an observer to the presidential election to Chechnya: several dozen people trained by Alexei Navalny went from Moscow. The decision was spontaneous - what to expect from the trip did not know Radchenko himself. One evening, in Grozny, observers in the hotel had to fall asleep to the sounds of shots - in the park under the windows there was a shootout.

Among the other participants of the “Chechen” team of observers were director Alexander Rastorguev. Radchenko was very glad to meet a person who did a lot in a documentary, as his father recalls, a few years before his acquaintance, his sons told him about Rastorguev’s films and even showed his work (Roman Radchenko said that in 2011 he watched the film “I Love You”, after which he began to follow the director’s documentary series “STRO”. “According to Cyril, I realized that this is a simple, modest person - he did not attract attention with speeches,” says Alexander Radchenko. “But for Cyril, acquaintance with Rastorguev and the development of this acquaintance meant a new step in his height as a person and as an operator.”

Cyril told his father three weeks before leaving with Rastorguev and Orhan Jemal in the Central African Republic. “Cyril, it is dangerous,” said Alexander Stepanovich. “Not as dangerous as they say,” the son answered. He explained that he was going at the invitation of Rastorguev to make a film about PMCs and Russian mercenaries, who, apparently, are in the TsA, and that he himself does not yet know what the film will be. “It was not particularly important to go to Cyril [exactly] to Africa,” explains Alexander Radchenko. “It was important for him to go with Rastorguev, to whom he trusted and admired.”

After a conversation with his son, Alexander Stepanovich went to read about the Tsar on the Internet. “It became clear that the country is dysfunctional,” he says. - We began to worry about the diseases that were enough there: malaria could be thoroughly grabbed. Snakes too - in some cases, the bite almost brings to death. ” Despite the alarm, his father did not discourage Cyril from the trip - he knew that this would not lead to anything, because he had already tried to do this earlier. Когда четыре года назад Кирилла задержали на Тверской во время акции в поддержку арестованных по «Болотному делу», отец попросил его больше не появляться на митингах даже по работе, — но тот ответил: «Пап, не могу, это мой гражданский долг». Когда возникла Сирия, Александр Степанович просил Кирилла не ехать. «Пап, не могу уже свадьбы снимать, с этим по жизни идти невозможно», — ответил сын.

— Кирилл, моя язва — это отчасти заслуга твоя, по здоровью бьешь, — сказал Александр Степанович.

— Если ты так это воспринимаешь — значит, будешь меньше знать, — ответил Кирилл.

«Мы воспитаны в Советском Союзе, мы конформисты, — объясняет Александр Радченко. — А он — нет. Он не хотел приспосабливаться».

Chapter 4

Гусеницы — сезонный продукт

В командировку Радченко собирался суетливо — он сделал прививки, ходил сонный, и ему ни на что не хватало времени. Орхан Джемаль посоветовал ему до отъезда посмотреть фильмы итальянского документалиста Гуалтьеро Джакопетти — но на это почти не хватило времени. По рекомендации Джемаля Кирилл покупал одежду — ветровку, водоотталкивающие кроссовки с жесткой подошвой на случай, если наступишь на колючку.

Накануне отъезда Радченко ходил в суд по делу «Нового величия» и обсуждал с друзьями, что в сентябре снова поедет наблюдателем на выборы — на сей раз губернаторские в Кемерово. Вечером последнего московского дня Радченко поехал к родителям, чтобы с ними попрощаться. «Основное уже было сказано — что опасно, что не надо, — и вопрос уже так не стоял, уже было понятно, что он едет, — вспоминает Александр Степанович. — Жена его сфотографировала, я вышел к лифту проводить, простились. Через пять минут он вернулся и принес мне карточку постоянного клиента из аптеки. Я еще сказал — Кирилл, какие пустяки, не стоило из-за этого возвращаться».

Когда Кирилл вышел от родителей, он позвонил брату. «У него был спокойный голос. Он был собран; как мне показалось, в хорошем настроении», — вспоминает Роман. Он попросил Кирилла проверить почтовый ящик — старшему брату должны были прийти несколько заказных писем, но их не было. Потом Роман сказал, что собирается в честь поездки Кирилла посмотреть что-то тематическое — либо «Профессию: репортер» Антониони, либо фильм про наемников «Sicario». «Мне хотелось его задеть, когда я говорил это, — поясняет Роман. — Услышать, как он отшутится. Было тревожно, я был растерян».

Кирилл шутить в ответ не стал, а поделился своими планами — он надеялся успеть посмотреть «Прощай, Африка» все того же Джакопетти. «О Джакопетти он говорил с разочаровавшим меня воодушевлением, я его немного поотговаривал, — вспоминает Роман. — Потом мы еще что-то сказали друг другу и попрощались».

Утром 27 июля — в 9 часов 48 минут — Кирилл из аэропорта написал сообщение отцу: «Ждем посадки». «Удачи, ждем тебя, целую», — ответил Александр Степанович. Больше они не переписывались. «Вроде сейчас, говорят, полетим», — написал Кирилл брату прямо перед взлетом уже из салона самолета. «Хорошо, — ответил Роман. — Увидишь людей в черных масках, входящих в салон, — пиши».

За три дня, проведенных в Африке, Кирилл успел написать друзьям совсем немного. Он рассказывал про влажный воздух, про упадок и нищету кругом, про пленку, которая появляется на теле из-за жары, и повсеместный запах козьего сыра и немытых ног. В отличие от Сирии, люди реагировали на камеру настороженно: один из них, как писал Кирилл, прямо сказал оператору, что «мы не пигмеи». Еще Радченко писал, что гусеницы — сезонный продукт, а едят их сушеными или жареными.

С каждым днем напряжение нарастало. «Он писал, что узнает о том, что там происходит, только на месте, — вспоминает один из друзей Радченко. — Что охраняется только город, а за его пределами ничего, что кругом неувязочки, несостыковочки. Все было не совсем так, как планировалось, — он представлял себе эту поездку больше как туристическую».

«Насколько я знаю из моих источников, когда [Кирилл] туда приехал и увидел все это, он был в шоке, — говорит Александр Харченко из ANNA News. — Все крайне непродуманно, сплошные метания из стороны в сторону. У людей не было плана „Б“. Может быть, он сравнил с тем, как делали мы. Мы многих людей знаем, нас сирийцы любят. Если проблемы, у тебя есть пять телефонов, по которым ты можешь позвонить. Если ты сломался в пустыне, через два часа за тобой приедет машина. Видимо, там он не увидел такого уровня».

30 июля Кирилл написал маме и друзьям, что они садятся в машину и будут ехать 200 километров — на какое-то время связь с ним будет потеряна, но как только она восстановится, он обязательно напишет.

Chapter 5

Их расстреляли

Роман Радченко узнал о гибели брата из фейсбука и позвонил отцу. «Пап, мама дома?» He asked. Александр Степанович был занят на кухне и сразу передал трубку жене — но та вернула телефон мужу, сказав, что сын хочет поговорить именно с ним. «Папа, потребуется твоя помощь», — сказал Роман. "What's happened?" — спросил Александр Степанович. «Кирилл погиб. Их расстреляли». В этот момент мама Кирилла тоже все поняла. Она спросила, что произошло. Муж ответил, что случилось худшее из того, что могло произойти.

«На каком-то этапе я понял, что если испытываешь симпатию к человеку, а уж тем более любишь его, надо об этом человеку говорить, — рассказывает отец Кирилла. — Потому что можно не успеть. Я считаю, что с Кириллом мне это удалось. Года три назад я объяснился ему в любви, в чувствах. И я думаю, дальше это его поддерживало».

Когда в интернете появились первые фотографии убитых, на них было всего два тела. Роман не увидел на снимках брата — и подумал, что могла произойти какая-то ошибка. «Я стал думать, что он смог уйти, где-то скрывается или лежит, — вспоминает брат Кирилла. — Постоянно представлял себе, как он вместе со всеми выходит ночью из машины». Через несколько часов эта версия рассыпалась — стало окончательно ясно, что убиты все трое.

Сразу после убийства журналистов Роман обменивался с ближайшими друзьями брата той информацией, что появлялась в СМИ, — они пытались понять, что произошло, строили предположения и сопоставляли версии. Впрочем, сейчас в возможность провести расследование случившегося брат Радченко уже не верит. «Похоже, что все существующие расследования зашли в тупик, — говорит он. — К тому же из меня совсем никакой расследователь. Я совершенно раскис».

Polina Eremenko