"Here everything smelled of the dead"

How the military who died in Ukraine is buried in Buryatia

Buryatia ranks second in the number of dead military. The funeral passes almost every day. In Ulan-Ude, they are buried from the sports complex with a Lukodrom. In the second part of the building, children train in archery.

Lukodrom was built a year ago. The yellow roof and facade, lined with white-blue tiles, can be seen from afar-against the backdrop of rickety wooden barracks with street toilets. This is the main republican firing center from Luke - a national sport, very popular in Buryatia. Children are trained here, athletes from areas and other cities come to competitions here.

Since the beginning of March, the funeral of the military who died in Ukraine has been held in the main hall of the Lukodrom. Children's sections all this time did not stop work. Children train behind the wall, in the next part of the building. The door to the training rooms a few meters from the one from which the coffins are taken out.

“Parents do not like that the sports complex has turned into a funeral room,” says Tatyana, whose son is engaged in archery here. - Recently, where children train, a cadaveric smell also appeared. Then everything smelled of the dead.

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“Your whole came. And we only have a head and two brushes "

Lukodrom stands by the road, and traffic cops were blocked from the highway to it. There are no police officers at the entrance to the building, but two days later they will stand here too. People who have come to the funeral are met by the city hall: they are responsible for organizing the ceremony. They ask: "Who did you come to say goodbye to?"

Local media wrote that on Monday, March 28, a farewell with one military - Naydal Tsyrenov will be in Lukodrod. But at the indicated time in the sports complex, four coffins at once.

There are no signs or photos near the coffins. Who lies in which coffin is explained by employees of the city hall.

In the first-24-year-old found Tsyrenov, captain of the school team of KVN, "Pupil of the Year-2016". He served as a military paramedic. The hands of the dead found are folded on the chest, on top of the gray uniform jacket. One hand is bandaged.

In the second-35-year-old Bulat Odoev, he served in the fifth tank brigade, and he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. “Everyone said to him: why did you go? And he replied: “How will I throw the men?” “Says the wife of his cousin Olga.

In the third-38-year-old jarg dashiev. He has a pregnant wife and two daughters.

In the fourth-20-year-old Vladislav Kokorin, who grew up in an orphanage, then he was taken to a foster family.

Relatives stand near each coffin. Only the coffin of Vladislav has almost no one. During the ceremony, a woman from among the organizers approaches him, hastily harbors the deceased with a thin blue cloth, pulls it to the middle of the chest. Then he puts portraits in the framework of each coffin. The photos are also not signed: it is understood that everyone knows their dead man. There are no random people in the hall.

Coffins stand in that part of the hall where children usually compete in archery. On benches for the audience are people who came to say goodbye. Some people are in the aisles, there are not enough benches for everyone. The main hall of the sports complex is packed to capacity, at least 600 people gathered.

At the deceased, the military stands at the head of the head. The backs are straight, pressed machines on belts to the chest. The faces are young, they look like high school students in an honorary guard near the Eternal Flame. Some of the military are crying. You can’t wipe tears, and they flow down the cheeks.

Between the coffins and the people who came to say goodbye, there is a table. At the table are four lamas in traditional burgundy-red Layn Hubsahan-clothes of Buddhist lamas, similar to robes. Three dead are Buddhists, for them they conduct a Buddhist funeral rite. There is an Orthodox priest in the hall, but he does not sake Vladislav Kokorin, standing aside with officials.

In front of the lamas on the table-a feather peacock in a vessel decorated with a red-yellow fringe, and an open book lies on a piece of red fabric. According to the book, Lama sing memorial prayers in the Tibetan language. Next to the book is Zula, a Buddhist lamp in which fire burns. Incense smoke on a copper plate.

The suffocating aroma of incense mixes with a sickening cadaveric smell. The dead are taken for a long time, sometimes a month and even two passes from the day of death to the funeral. It is difficult to breathe in the hall.

The backs of the lam are swinging to the beat of the chants. Through the short brushes of black and gray hair, numerous scars on the skin are clearly visible.

Without stopping prayers, the llama get up and begin to walk around the coffins. The Buddhist funeral ceremony ends. Everyone who wants to say goodbye to the dead. They also bypass the coffins in a circle, touch the legs shown in boots or to the wall of the coffin for a second.

Crying is not heard. Buddhists can not cry at the funeral and greatly grieve along the deceased. After death, his soul should go in the sky and after 49 days to reborn in a new body, and tears close the road, do not allow the deceased to leave.

The next day, in Lukodrome , they will say goodbye to Amgalan Tudupov and Eduard Zhidyev. Two days later, two more will be buried-23-year-old Bator Dondokov and Anton Hatheev. “The parents of the deceased came to us, they say:“ How lucky you are! Your whole has come. And we have only a head and two brushes, ”says a relative of Bator Dondokova.

Another deceased, 22-year-old Zorigto Khotsayev, will be buried on March 28, in the village of Alla, where he was born. For a week they will bury ten.

After the funeral of the bator, three of his friends will go to Ukraine volunteers. At one of the ceremonies of the acting commander of the 36th Army, Colonel Sokol says: “On behalf of all military personnel, I want to say: we will take revenge, our right business. The victory will be behind us. ”

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“You know how much I organized these funerals. And I have a son there, in Ukraine "

After the rite, a mourning rally begins.

“They died not in vain,” says the deputy head of the republic, Bair Tsyrenov, first in Russian, then in a bunch. - They died for Russia to be great. So that blood ceases to pour in Ukraine.

“They died, defending the free future of our country,” says Igor Shutenkov, mayor of Ulan-Ude.

- Nobody ever won Russia. And they will not win! -says the vice speaker of the People's Khural Tsyren Dorzhiev.

- The paratroopers made their last jump into the sky. It hurts very much. Eternal memory, ”says Vitaly Laskov, acting commander of the 11th airborne assault brigade. He spoke exactly the same phrase about the last jump a month ago at the first rally.

Colonel Igor Sokol, acting commander of the 36th Army, speaks before Laskov. Almost all the military, acting at mourning rallies, now have such a prefix to their position.

There are about a dozen police officers in the hall. They make sure that no one takes pictures and does not shoot the funeral on the video.

About 15 minutes after the start of the ceremony, the policeman approaches reporters.

- Who are you?
- Media.
- Here, shooting is prohibited. You should have a resolution of the organizer.

Larisa Stepanova, deputy head of the Soviet district of Ulan-Ude, is responsible for organizing the funeral. She discusses something lively with the mayor of the city.

- No, you can’t shoot here. No, I will not comment on anything, ”she replies to the request to tell how often the funeral passes. Suddenly Stepanova sobs, eyes are filled with tears. - You know how much I have already organized these funerals ... And I have a son there, in Ukraine.

Stepanova’s page in “Odnoklassniki” photos of the flash mob, where the administration’s employees lined up by the letter Z. The last post is a portrait of Putin, under him Stepanova wrote: “... I pray for my president, pray for every fighter of our great country, pray for glorious and brave Chechens who did not betray my country and mourn the dead ...”

The mayor of Ulan-Ude Shutenkov and the vice speaker of the People’s Khural Dorzhiev refuse to comment.

The loved ones of all four dead refuse to communicate with reporters.

Police are asking to leave the hall. On the street they have a duty car, where they rewrite the personal data of journalists.

- You will also shoot - let's go to the department.

From a rickety wooden hut next to the Lukodrom, a man in a dirty jacket comes out with an unsteady gait, it smells of fumes.

- You do not know, often in the Lukodrome there are a funeral? - I ask him.
“Hey, don’t have to write me down,” he waves his hands, as if trying to drive the journalist. - I see you, spies, a mile away. He himself served in intelligence.

"You just don't have to write about it"

In early March, when the first coffins went to Buryatia, the head of the republic Alexei Tsydenov came to the funeral several times. He was accompanied by television cameras and journalists. Necrologists published on the main pages of regional media. Then the funeral began to take place almost every day, and Tsydenov stopped coming to them.

April 26 in the list of LB 102 dead soldiers from Buryatia. All of them served or were born in the republic, relatives or district authorities reported their deaths, or the journalists of the LB were present at their funeral.

The republic ranks second in terms of the number of losses. More dead only in Dagestan. According to Mediazons (recognized as a foreign agent and blocked in the Russian Federation), when there were 125 dead, in Buryatia, 85 residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg were reported in Buryatia, where almost 12% of the Russian population lives in the summons of the dead.

Since the beginning of the "special operation" of the Ministry of Defense, the amount of losses has been twice twice. The last time the figure was called 1351 people. Mediazon reports about 1744 dead, whose death is confirmed by the regional authorities. The US State Department estimates Russian losses of 10 thousand people at the end of March, without disclosing the calculation methodology.

Since March, the names of those who died in Buryatia have been published only in district newspapers or publics in social networks. Then the obituary reprint regional media. For example, about the death of 19-year-old Andrei Dulsky wrote the school administration on her VKontakte page. The funeral took place in the village of Ilyinka, where Dulsky lived.

Sometimes necrologues are exposed by relatives or friends. The death of Eduard Zhidyev and Anton Khatheev, whom they said goodbye to the Lukodrome in the last week of March, was not officially reported. The death of Vladislav Kokorin Pablik VKontakte “I-Ulan-Udan” reported a month after the funeral.

There is no information about the number of dead on the regional government’s website. The military commissar of the Irkutsk region Yevgeny Fuzhenko said that he would not be called the figure, "it is not so significant." The military commissar of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Andrei Lysenko replied that "it is indecent and dishonorable to ask statistics." In Buryatia, questions about the scale of losses were not publicly asked to anyone.

“They tell us: you just don’t have to write about it,” says the journalist of the publication controlled by the government of the republic. She asks not to name the last name. “Even if we write something about them, then this is literally through tears and scandals.”

The journalist of another publication tried to reach the relatives of the deceased military. They asked permission to talk to the military. In the evening, the editor -in -chief called the journalist and said that he was called from the government and explained: there is no need to talk with relatives. “There is such an unspoken ban on this topic,” adds our interlocutor.

Almost all relatives refuse to talk about the dead.

Zhambo Khotsaev, a doctor-therapist of the clinic of traditional oriental medicine in Ulan-Ude, on March 28 buries the nephew of Zorigto Khotsayev. He explains: the military warned everyone - do not take pictures at the funeral, tell anyone and answer phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. “Hackers from Ukraine steal information and make fakes. The military told us so, ”Khotsaev explains.

How “hackers from Ukraine” will use “data”, Khotsaev does not know for sure. A few days ago, his wife on Viber came a message from an unfamiliar number with condolences about the death of Zorigto. Zhambo and his wife did not like it. Often relatives come curses from Ukrainian numbers. They are written by Ukrainian users under almost every post about the death of the military in social networks.

On April 19, the Ministry of Defense proposed officially limiting access to the data of relatives of the dead. In the video from the return of the military from a business trip to Ukraine and the military and their relatives are shb the faces.

“Well, two or three military people will be buried in a day. So in the pandemic of 15 people a day was buried "

From Lukodrom found Tsyrenov, Bulat Odoev, Vladislav Kokorin, Zhargal Dashieva is taken to the southern cemetery, on the outskirts of Ulan-Ude. The funeral motorcycle is stretched per kilometer. At that moment, when the military pull out coffins from black minibuses with the inscription “ritual service” and raise them on the shoulders, begins to play the brass band.

Behind every coffin, women carry wreaths. Buryats do not go to the cemetery, according to tradition, they cannot be present at the burial. And there are many wreaths - from the government, from relatives, from the Ministry of Defense. They are carried by employees of the city hall.

- Take a wreath? - One of them turns to the journalists of the LB.
“But we are not relatives.”
“Me too, but it doesn’t matter,” the woman says and hands a wreath for Vladislav Kokorin.

The dead soldiers are buried either here, in the southern cemetery, or in those cities and villages from where they come from. Relatives decide it. On the edge of the Southern Cemetery, the Ministry of Defense has its own sector. Since the end of February, it has increased by 27 graves. Another 15 empty are dug from the edge, and the graves are preparing new ones.

“We were told two rows to the end today, today, they are waiting for the side with the dead,” explains Dmitry, a worker who digs the grave. Until the end of two rows, you need to dig six. “And not to say that they buried much more than usual,” adds Dmitry. -Well, two or three military for the day. So in the pandemic and 15 people a day were buried. That's where the work was. ”

At this time, small bonfires from Buryat graves are bred from the logs brought with them. Fires are thrown into the fire without wrappers, cookies - “feed” the spirits so that they take care of the deceased in the sky.

Most Buryats Buddhists. After the funeral, they no longer come to the cemetery. Monuments are not erected on the graves and do not make fences. The earth is tightly tamped over the grave, and at the legs of the deceased they put a honey - a high stick with a white or blue piece of fabric upstairs. The faster the grave relates to the ground, it will overgrow grass and trees, and the shaft will rot and fall - the better for the soul of the deceased. After 49 days, it should be reborn in a new body.

In the sector of the Ministry of Defense of the grave, everyone has the same: monuments and tombstones of black granite. Portraits, date of birth and death are engraved on the monuments. There are no fences or benches near fresh graves. Each has artificial flowers and wreaths. The difference between Russian graves and Buryat only in the fact that the latter flutters the Soembo. Right on the graves there are photos in the same framework.

When the graves are buried, Colonel Sokol gives the relatives of the dead Order of Courage, who the military received posthumously. Soldiers give farewell volleys over the graves.

"We are all Putin's Buryats"

Why it dies so much drill, in the republic they are discussing in every kitchen. Sometimes discontent breaks publicly.

At the end of March, the head of the republic, Alexei Tsydenov, gathered in the Buryat theater the opera and ballet of cultural figures and gave them a lecture on the “special operation”. After the lecture, the press secretary of the Buryat Theater of Drama Batodalay Baghdaev asked the head: “There is an honorary guard No. 1 on Red Square. Have you ever seen “narrow-eyed” there? There, a clear selection exists - blue -eyed, tall, Slavic appearance guys. And our fellow countrymen - crookedly, small, cheeky - the road to the honorary guard is closed. And how to die - so die. "

They screamed from the audience: "Score!" Tsydenov asked to turn off the microphone from Baghdaev, and the word of the Buryat Opera and Ballet Theater took the word. “I would like to answer this villain, who humiliates the Buryat people with me in my theater. We are all Putin's Buryats! We will not allow the country to ruin the country. If we now reproach the country's leadership that, yes, there are killed, there are wounded, there are victims - we will betray these killed and wounded. So they died in vain. Only victory! "

In April, the Square of Soviets in Ulan-Ude was decorated with stretching "Buryatia Za Pravda." Yellow letters on a blue background, z from the St. George ribbon, V - in the colors of the Russian tricolor. The letters stretch throughout the facade of the registry office. Opposite the building is the world's largest sculpture of Lenin’s head, its height is 7.7 meters.

The head of the head was also decorated with stretching in the colors of the Russian tricolor with the letter Z. After a week, someone cut off the lower part of the stretch with a knife. This was done at night, and in the morning the authorities promptly replaced the stretch with a new one, but with the letter V. they explained that they wanted to do it because the Buryat military wives asked Tsydenov to hang a V-play, because it was this letter that they are written on military equipment on which their husbands are fighting.

Of the 102 dead, 55 are Russians by nationality. According to the Demography telegram channel, only confirmed cases of the death of the military from Buryatia in Ukraine increased the mortality of Buryat men aged 18–45 by 70%, and the mortality rate of young men under 30 years (2.7 times). But at the same time, the Buryats make up only 30% of the population of the republic.

“Do you think so many military people from Buryatia died? - says the sister of the deceased Mikhail Garmaev, Catherine. “There is no work at all, so the guys go to contractors.” The same is repeated by the relatives of the dead. Mikhail Garmaev in his youth was fond of theater, drew. After the army, together with his brother, he got a job in a company that installed alarm. Received 15-20 thousand. He worked for about two years and went to contractors.

Brother Alexander still works in the same company. Now he has a "normal salary, 30-35 thousand. He works with shifts, there is almost no house at home.

Amgalalan Tudupov graduated from the sports faculty of the Buryat State University. He got a job as a physical education teacher. “Everywhere he drove the kids, then to skiing, then to basketball. He liked it, ”says his mother Tsyrem Tudupova. But the salary at the school was seven thousand rubles. Amgalan at that time had a first child, money was needed. He "lasted a year and got into the army." There immediately began to receive 40-50 thousand. “So contented, so joyful came,” Remember recalls. - “Mom, they took me!” Not everyone was taken before, but now everyone is being taken. ”

Amgalan liked the service, although he said that "the work is hard." Returned home late. Early in the morning at 3-4 hours I got up, left back. “I said: maybe you will leave? - tells Tsyrem. “But he answered: how to feed children?”

The military who got to Ukraine anonymously say that their salary is from 250 thousand a month.

In 2020, Buryatia ranked 81st in terms of quality of life from 85 subjects of Russia. The neighboring Irkutsk region was in 55th place. According to the Republican Statistics Service, 20% of residents in 2020 had income below the subsistence minimum. In 2013, such people were 17.5%. In 2019, Ulan-Ude took the last place in terms of quality of life among 78 cities with a population of 250 thousand people.

According to open data, 15 military units in the republic. The number of contractors is not known. In 2015, they announced a two -time increase in their number. Then in the Eastern Military District they planned to call for 26 thousand military personnel. In 2020, another 1.3 thousand people entered into contracts, in 2021 - 600 people.

"In the next life, they will be born a girl in a rich family, in a warm country, on the seashore"

On the same day, on March 28, when four are buried in the South Cemetery, in the village of Alla they say goodbye to the 22-year-old Zorigto Khotsayev. His family moved to Ulan-Ude back in 2014, but relatives decided to bury Zorigto in their native village. There, "the mountains are beautiful, the water is clean. There is the umbilical cord, through which he is connected with the ground, ”says the uncle of the deceased Zhambo Khotsaev.

Zorigto was the eldest of three children in the family. I learned in a technical school at the programmer, went to the army, then signed a contract. He served in the 11th assault brigade as a gunner. I managed to fight in Syria. He left his parents, brother and younger sister-second-grade.

He died on February 25, and was buried on March 28. “We were first invited to identification,” says Zhambo Khotsaev. - There were five urban and ten rustic in the morgue. Our most burned. I had to do a genetic examination, so they have not been buried for so long. ”

When the relatives were given the floor in the cemetery, Zhambo thanked the military. “I said: nephew, you were not abandoned. You died, but you were found and brought. 12 hours by plane to Ulan-Ude. 450 kilometers to Alla, they drove the bus all night. “We don’t throw our own” - not empty words, ”Jambo retells his farewell speech.

According to Zhambo, there are many guys from Alla now in Ukraine. From some families - two sons at once. In farewell to Zorigto, many cried - they thought about their sons. When Zhambo performed, the military stopped crying and thanked him for it.

When relatives learned about Zorigto's death, we went to Datsan, to Lama. He made up the Buddhist books that in the next life of Zorigto will be born a girl in a rich family, in a warm country on the seashore.

“It is believed what you think before death, it will come true in a future life,” says Zhambo. - Apparently, Merz, so it will be born in a warm country. There was no water, I wanted to drink, so it will be at sea. I thought about the family that they had prosperity, so in a rich family it would be born. And he thought about the younger sister, so he would be a girl. And this girl will graduate from a good university, and at about at his age he will come to us in Alla, and will fight for peace all over the world.

- Buddhism prohibits murder. And Buryat Buddhist soldiers kill. Can they count on good rebirth? - I ask Zhambo. At the end of April, the lamas of traditional Sanghas of Russia held a prayer for the military in the field camp in Ukraine.

Jamba is silent for a long time. Then, lowering his voice, adds:

- And who told you that they are Buddhists?
- No?
- No.

He says that even traditional shoes from Buddhists are boots with curved noses, so as not to accidentally damage the ground on which you are going, not to harm grass or insects.

“When you say“ against [the word prohibited RKN] ”is bad, this is a denial,” adds Jambo. - We must say "for the world." We are all for the world. I [a word prohibited RKN] do not justify. But this is like in the 41st year. Now the same, the same fascism. I do not own complete information. But I know.