Life of Dega Dudayev in Vilnius. Caucasian white émigré - Salidarnasts

So, Alla Dudaeva(nee Alevtina Fedorovna Kulikova). Daughter of a Soviet officer, former commandant of Wrangel Island. She graduated from the art and graphic faculty of the Smolensk Pedagogical Institute. In 1967, she became the wife of Air Force officer Dzhokhar Dudayev. She gave birth to two sons and a daughter. She left Chechnya with her children in 1999. Lived in Baku, Istanbul. Now he lives with his family in Vilnius. By latest information, is preparing to obtain citizenship of Estonia - a country where Dzhokhar Dudayev is remembered from Soviet times, when he led the air division near Tartu.

The Sobesednik correspondent Rimma Akhmirova first asked Dudayeva a question about Litvinenko. Still, before his death, he closely communicated with the Chechens, called Akhmed Zakayev his friend. Here is what Alla Dudayeva answered: “I think that Alexander converted to Islam before his death in order to be close to his friends in the next world. In recent years, he walked along and managed to tell the world a lot of truth about the KGB, FSK, FSB. And we met like that. Dzhokhar had just been killed, and we were going to fly to Turkey with the whole family, but we were arrested in Nalchik. I was interrogated by a specially arrived young officer who introduced himself as "Colonel Alexander Volkov." He also joked that this was not an accidental surname "...

“After a while,” Dudayeva continues, “I saw him on TV next to Berezovsky, and recognized him real name- Litvinenko. And at that time, TV reporters did an interview with me, from which only a piece taken out of context "Yeltsin is our president" was aired, and they played it all election campaign. I wanted to make a refutation, but Volkov-Litvinenko then told me: "Think about it: anything can happen to your bodyguard, Musa Idigov." Musa was then kept in isolation. Litvinenko was interested in the truth about Dzhokhar's death. The secret services were afraid that he could survive and escape abroad."

The journalist also asked about what Alla Dudayeva thinks about the rumors and versions, according to which Dzhokhar Dudayev is alive. There are even those who claim that Dudayev had twins, and Alla Dudayeva married one of these twins. It is clear that the widow denies all these rumors. She spoke in some detail about how, in her opinion, the leader of the Chechen separatists was killed.

"The Turkish Prime Minister Arbakan presented Dzhokhar with a satellite telephone installation. The Turkish "leftists" associated with the Russian special services, through their spy, installed a special microsensor in it during the assembly of the phone in Turkey, which regularly monitors this device. In addition, at the Singnet Super Computer center located in the Maryland region, USA, a 24-hour surveillance system was installed to monitor the telephone of Dzhokhar Dudayev.The US National Securitu Agency transmitted to the CIA daily information about the whereabouts and telephone conversations of Dzhokhar Dudayev.These dossiers were received by Turkey.And the Turkish "leftist" officers passed this dossier to the Russian FSB. Dzhokhar knew that a hunt had begun for him. When the connection was interrupted for a minute, he always joked: “Well, are you already connected?” But he was still sure that his phone would not be detected.

Alla Dudayeva also reported that the place of Dudayev's burial is still kept secret. According to her, she believes that someday the former general and former leader of the anti-constitutional regime in Grozny will be buried in the ancestral valley of Yalhara. The widow accuses the Russian authorities that the war is still going on because of control over oil flows, since the Chechen land is very rich in non-oil reserves. Here is a very remarkable excerpt from her interview, which talks about how Dudayev offered the Americans the right to 50 years of Chechen oil production.

"... The Americans offered to take oil in concession for 50 years for $ 25 billion. Dzhokhar called the figure $ 50 billion and managed to insist on his own. For a small country, this was a huge amount. Then, in one of Dzhokhar's speeches on television, his famous phrase "about camel milk that will flow from golden taps in every Chechen house. "And then, according to Dudayeva, there was a leak of information, allegedly proteges of the Kremlin, former minister oil industry Salambek Khadzhiev and the head of the government of the Chechen Republic, Doku Zavgaev, themselves offered the Americans for the same fifty years, but only for $23 billion. Because of this, the widow of the former general declared, the first Chechen campaign began.

In the process of preparing the material for publication, the author turned to Utra's military observer Yuri Kotenok for a comment.

He noted, after reading the interview, that this is a classic female look at the political and military events of those years. And the first thing he drew attention to was who Dudaeva calls "her own". Especially in light of recent events with former FSB officer Litvinenko. "His friends", "in recent years he followed a straight path", etc. - even then Litvinenko was his own for the Chechen fighters.

It is also important to note that Alla Dudayeva again says that her husband is dead. As Yuri Kotenok said, many people in Chechnya believe that Dudayev has not been liquidated, that he is alive and hiding in a safe place. Actually, the same thing is now being written in the press, which cannot be convicted of love for Russia, they are also talking about Basayev. Say, Shamil did his job, he was undercover.

It's not, and here's why. Such eccentric and narcissistic people as Dudayev and Basaev were cannot lead a quiet secret life hiding in some quiet place. People who developed grandiose in concept (we are not talking about the possibility of implementation) military-terrorist operations against Russia, who claimed the role of the leaders of the nation, cannot vegetate in some Turkey, for them it is tantamount to physical death.

And one more remark was made by our military observer. We must never forget that Dudayev openly opposed Russia, it was with his knowledge that genocide was committed in Chechnya against the Russian, Armenian, Jewish and other peoples, it was under his leadership that the multinational Grozny turned into the capital of one nation. He placed himself outside the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in fact, outside the law. And Dudayev was going to hand over oil to the Americans not for the notorious "milk taps", in the head of the former general Soviet army grandiose military plans to combat Russian Federation. He is an enemy, and they treated him like an enemy.

We agreed that he would meet us at the airport, but there was no one in the meeting room. I go out into the street: Vilnius is covered either with fog or with a veil of snow, the square is deserted. Suddenly, a black Saab pulls up right at the steps. The Saab is not a Chechen people's car like a Porsche or a Land Cruiser 200, but the thin profile of the driver gives it away as a father, and I go downstairs.

He gets out of the car - tall, thin, in a fitted gray coat, black polo shirt and polished black shoes (no pointy noses!). He politely greets, extends his hand in a European way. Yes, this is him, Degi Dudayev, the son of the first Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev, persona non grata in today's Chechnya, where even talking about him can be worth a posthumous excursion to the Tsentoroyevsky zoo. “I am five centimeters taller than my father, but yes, yes, I look a lot like him. Imagine what it's like when everyone compares you to your father and measures you by your father, ”he smiles, and behind this polite smile is either bitterness or sarcasm.

Outside the window, a rather monotonous landscape of the outskirts of Vilnius flickers - gray panel high-rise buildings, dressed in dark people. Dudayev is 29 years old. Nine of them he lives here in overcast Lithuania, a transit zone through which thousands of Chechens fled to Europe during - and, most importantly, after - the war.

Musa Taipov, editor of the Ichkeria.info website (added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials and Websites in 2011), one of the supporters of Chechen statehood, a politician in exile and a typical "white émigré" of the new type, says that in France alone today there are more than 30,000 Chechens - including himself. In the capital of Austria, Vienna - about 13 thousand.

“The authorities of European countries are trying not to advertise the number of Chechen refugees, but at one time I dealt with this issue and contacted the authorities, so I can say that at least 200,000 Chechens live in Europe today.” The main countries are France, Austria, Belgium, Norway, Germany. The Chechens did not linger in the Baltics, they moved on. But Dudaev-son did not go anywhere and remained here, at the crossroads.

Some actions were expected from him in the style of his father, but nothing has been expected so far - he has not shown himself in Chechen politics in any way, he has not headed either any government in exile or a foundation named after his father, and all these three days I have tried to understand how the son of a man lives, in some way changed the course Russian history: two wars, the collapse of politicians and generals, perhaps future military tribunals.

Dudayev drives confidently, fastening his seat belt (in Chechnya, such obedience to the law is considered a sign of weakness). I ask if he is bored here, and in general - why Lithuania? Lithuania, he replies, because from 1987 to 1990 his father led a heavy bomber division in Estonia strategic purpose and just caught the birth political movement for the independence of the Baltics. He also had a very good reputation here: he was given a division in Tartu in a state of disrepair, and in a couple of years he made it an exemplary one - in general, such an anti-crisis manager.

General Dudayev was close friends with both Estonian and Lithuanian politicians. He was "one of the three", as he was called in the Lithuanian press, along with Gamsakhurdia and Lithuanian Landsbergis. Dudayev’s ties with the Baltics turned out to be strong: there is Dudaev Street in Riga, and in Vilnius there is a square named after him, with a signature Baltic irony located in such a way that it seems to precede the Russian Embassy in Lithuania if you enter it from the city center.

We dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and went to dinner. In Christmas Lithuania 10-15 degrees below zero. Dudayev parks his Saab, and we go into a small restaurant in the Old Town, with green walls and black and white photographs reminiscent of a Parisian cafe. A tall waiter, a typical Lithuanian, lights a candle, and in the twilight of snow-covered Vilnius we speak Russian about Chechnya and the war.

“During the life of our father, we moved a lot - we lived in Siberia, and in Poltava, and in Estonia, but if then there was a feeling that we were at home everywhere, now it’s the opposite: there is no father, no home, nowhere. I’m like an eternal wanderer and in fact I don’t really live anywhere: I go to my mother in Tbilisi, to my brother and sister in Sweden, I go skiing to Austria, to swim in Greece. For a long time I could move anywhere - to Sweden, Holland, Germany. I lived in Paris for several months, trying it on myself. No, this is not mine. What's keeping me here is...” he trails off, picking up Right words. - Here I can still hear Russian. In Europe, I have a feeling that I am on the edge of the earth, that I am getting farther and farther from my home. Panic sets in: that I will never return. It is because of the Russian language that I am stuck here.” And what does the Russian language mean to him in general? “Only one who has lost his homeland can understand this,” he sighs. - You will not understand. When you don’t hear your native language for a long time, it’s like you are hungry for it.” And where is she then, motherland? "Chechnya. Russia,” he wonders.

How amazing. Who would have heard now: the son of Dzhokhar Dudayev yearns for Russian speech and Russia. The father fought with Russia, and his son yearns for her and dreams of returning. Dudayev disagrees. “Father did not fight with Russia,” he tactfully corrects me. He says that Dzhokhar understood that Chechnya would be nowhere without Russia, respected Russian literature, served its own army.

By the way, Dudayev was the first Chechen general in the USSR army and one of the best military pilots in the country. “But he wanted partnership, he wanted the Chechens to be recognized for their right to live in their own state, as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and so on wanted it.” Everyone who wanted got their freedom. Except for the Chechens.

I recall the words of my Chechen friend, who, talking about Dudayev's rule, said that after Dudayev came to power, a terrible turmoil began, and he kept saying that "if the trams stop, then the troops will be brought in." And sure enough, at the end of 1994, the trams in Grozny stopped, the center disconnected the republic from its power line, and this was the last measure following the economic blockade. And once in the blockade, the republic began to marginalize, and the city's tram artery was literally pulled apart piece by piece, along wires and rails.

“In November or December 1994, I don’t remember exactly, the Chechens stood in a human chain, holding hands, from Dagestan to the border with Ingushetia - they wanted to draw the attention of the world community so that we would not be bombed, not touched,” says Taipov from France . “Father did not want war, but you see how it all turned out,” this is Dudayev.

I ask him: if my father were alive and saw all that his struggle turned into, would he not regret what he did? Degi is silent for a long time: a cigarette in his hand, a look into the distance. “Look, I can't judge my father. Everything then boiled and seethed, all the republics wanted freedom. It was like euphoria...

Father was supported in the Kremlin. Zhirinovsky came to him, he was received by high officials in Moscow and said: come on, well done, go ahead. This gave some illusion that victory is possible. At least in the form in which Tatarstan later received it, in the form of autonomy. But it turned out that Chechnya was dragged into the war. And Russia was dragged into the war. But they could, they could have agreed and made neighbors true friends, and not enemies, as happened later with many. And Russia itself would be stronger.”

Dudayev Jr. believes that for the leadership of Russia the Chechen issue lay in the field of geopolitics. “If you look at the map, Chechnya is located in such a way that you cannot cut it out separately, it is inextricably linked with the rest of the Caucasus and Russia itself. We will not be able to set borders and separate from Russia, being surrounded by Russia, being, in fact, part of it. Separate Chechnya - Dagestan, Ingushetia, Stavropol will fall. That is probably why the question was so acute for Russia: not “to lose Chechnya or not”, but “to lose the Caucasus or not”. And to conquer the Caucasus is an old fun Russian Empire. Therefore, perhaps, such a felling turned out. ”

We are finally getting meat. But it cools down: I ask question after question, and he, looking for answers, returns to the past, and this contrast of past and present is such that he literally becomes ill. Just imagine: the son of the president of a tiny country that is at war with the empire, the golden boy who has almost everything, who goes to school with security, his father is received by Saudi kings and Turkish politicians, the pro-Western Balts send money to help, the army is one of the largest countries of the world is temporarily powerless in front of a handful of desperate warriors, on the new coat of arms of which a wolf has sprawled.

(“I have this coat of arms on my shoulder, I tattooed it, knowing that we Muslims are not supposed to have tattoos, and they will definitely burn it from the body before the funeral, but I won’t care anymore,” he laughs, extinguishing a cigarette in an ashtray. ) This wolf, a symbol of that Ichkeria that existed for only a few years, driven into the skin with a needle, is a seal of loyalty to what his father served. “This flag and coat of arms hung for several years, they were removed, but they will remain on me until the end.”

To paraphrase Kharms, “you could have become a king, but you didn’t have anything to do with it.” He, as a son, got wandering, and the other son - the same (and the same) murdered father - that's it. “I remember Ramzan, by the way. He was such a silent kid, he ran on behalf of Ahmad, with daddy under his arm. - "Helped - in the sense of the father?" “I mean, yes, a family business,” he replies with a touch of irony.

Dudayev smokes cigarette after cigarette. With his twitchiness, profile, impeccable manners and hopeless longing, he begins to remind me of Adrian Brody. He remembers how he came to Chechnya as a first-grader, how he lived in Katayama ( cottage village along the Staropromyslovsky highway with lilac alleys), how happy he was, because he suddenly had so many brothers and sisters, and everyone speaks Chechen - the language of his father, and then the war began, and he lived in the presidential palace, he was guarded for days, and it seems and there was almost no childhood, but you are still happy, because among your own, at home.

And the last - the brightest - years of his life with his father, how they shot at the shooting range together, how his father taught him to use weapons, all this talk about life, and life itself - at the limit, at its peak, at the end. And as a result: “How many rich houses, expensive cars and European capitals I have seen, but nowhere and never will I be as happy as I was happy in Katayama.”

“Have you thought about such a paradox that Ramzan Kadyrov is the successor to the work of Dzhokhar Dudayev?” I ask. Dudayev almost choked. “Look,” I continue. - Your father played honestly, like a Soviet officer who knows what honor and dignity are. He said openly what he wanted. Ramzan does exactly the opposite: he says what Moscow wants to hear, assures her of loyalty, but the laws and power of the Russian Federation in Chechnya are no longer valid. There is no mountain democracy, no Russian state. Chechnya is a small sultanate.”

Dudayev laughs: “Sorry, I remembered how someone advised Dzhokhar to introduce sharia in Chechnya. And the father laughed: “If I cut off the hands of all Chechens, then where can I get new Chechens?” I know you want to know what I think of him. Now I will formulate, wait... When they ask me how I feel about Kadyrov, I answer: Kadyrov was able to do what others could never have done,” he says pointedly.

Then I ask him about who his father will remain in the history of Chechnya: a man who involved the people in the massacre, or an ideologue of independence? Dudayev is silent for a long time. Unpleasant questions, tormenting ones, over which, I am sure, he himself reflected more than once. "I think that no matter how times change, no matter how many years pass, my father will remain what he is - a symbol of freedom, for which there is a very high price."

The weight of the burden left by the father is not for everyone. Dudayev's eldest son Ovlur left with his family for Sweden, abandoning his birth name. Ovlur Dzhokharovich Dudayev became Oleg Zakharovich Davydov - it seems not to be funnier. “I will never be able to understand this,” Degi sums up briefly.

Dana's daughter got married, changed her surname and, as befits a Chechen woman, is raising children and taking care of her family. Degi, the youngest, stayed only son his father, and although the name Dudayev brings many problems to its owner, and his movements around the world are viewed by the special services through a magnifying glass, he carries it proudly, like a family banner.

The interview ends, we go out into the darkness of Vilnius, lit up by the lights of Christmas illumination. Dudayev behaves like a gentleman and sympathetically offers to take him by the elbow. “Listen, have we gone to Gamsa? Well, you asked someone from that time who knew his father, family, me, and no one knows better than Gamsa anyway. He arrived a few days ago, this is a sign of fate.

We get into the car and go to the hotel "behind Hamsa". I still don’t quite understand who it is, then I see a tall Caucasian who is impatiently waiting for us in the lobby and looking out the window with interest. He finally gets into the car and immediately begins to joke and joke with an inimitable Georgian accent. His face seems familiar to me, but from where - kill me, I don’t remember.

“Julia, you know, I am very drawn to the island of St. Helena - when I am there, I have the feeling that I have returned home. I must have died there in a past life!” - "I had the same feeling in Istanbul, when I looked out of the windows of the harem at the Bosphorus and sobbed because I would never see my father's house." Dudayev, turning around, in admiration: “Well, you have gathered here, eh!”

Squeaking in the snow, we walk from the car to the Radisson Hotel in order to go up to the 22nd floor, where we will look at Vilnius at night from the huge Skybar windows. There I find out that Gamsa is Giorgi, and only later that this is Giorgi Gamsakhurdia, the son of the first Georgian president who gave Georgia independence. As photographer Lesha Maishev sarcastically remarked: “Only Gaddafi’s son was missing at this table.”

Their fathers were friendly and dreamed of creating a united Caucasus. "The Caucasus is not Europe, not Asia, it is a separate unique civilization that we want to present to the world." Gamsakhurdia, in fact, helped Dudayev legally irreproachably hold a referendum on independence and secession from the USSR. Gamsakhurdia was killed in 1993, Dudayev - in 1996. A couple of weeks later, already in Moscow, I will receive an SMS from Gamsakhurdia Jr.: “Imagine, at a meeting of the security forces, Ramzik ​​said that he was giving a million dollars for my head. Am I worth so little, I don’t understand, huh? :))”

While Dudayev and I are talking about something, Gamsakhurdia's phone rings and he leaves. Returning shining. “Borya called, he says to me: well, did you come up with something? When are we going to stir something up, huh?” Borey turns out to be Boris Berezovsky. “Where does he get the strength and money for muddy? I ask. “On Channel One, they say that he is poor as a church mouse and lives on handouts.” A roar of laughter shakes the table so that the cups rattle. “Borya is poor?! And on Channel One they don’t say that a stork brings children, huh? Wait, I'll go and tell this to Bora!"

The next morning, Dudayev picks me up at the hotel, we have breakfast, the waitress asks in Russian: “What kind of coffee do you want?” “White,” Dudayev replies. I look at him questioningly. “Ahh,” he laughs, “white is with milk. Black - without milk. That's what the Lithuanians say. You know, I speak six languages, lived in different countries, in my head - like in a cauldron - traditions, cultures, expressions are mixed up, sometimes there is such confusion, you know, sometimes you wake up and do not immediately understand where you are and who you are. That's how it happens to me."

Living in Russia, he spoke Russian, then several years of his life in Chechnya - Chechen, then Georgia, therefore, he learned Georgian, then an English college in Istanbul (“I was silent for the first year, because all teaching is in English, and where did I get it English? How did he speak on the second one!"), then the Higher Diplomatic College in Baku ("Turkish and Azerbaijani are almost identical, they were the easiest to learn"), then Lithuanian ("this language is not for our ears, but I already like polyglot, where I live at least a little bit, I begin to speak the language”).

We pull into the empty office of his company VEO, which specializes in solar energy, installation and sale of solar generators and panels. “I used to work in logistics, then I decided to work in alternative energy, we are partners of the Germans, they are now ahead of everyone in sun energy.” Gray carpet on the floor, computers, office equipment - everything seems to be on purpose in northern gray tones. He rents an apartment nearby, in an unfinished mirror high-rise building, one wing is inhabited by tenants, the other two are empty, with gaping concrete eye sockets.

"Because of financial crisis they abandoned the construction site, this is such Baltic pragmatism, ”he laughs. Nearby is ice-covered, deserted, like a revived picture of the surface of the moon, windswept Constitution Avenue with a mirrored Swedbank skyscraper. The apartment is a high-tech studio with floor-to-ceiling windows - cold and uninhabited, the sun does not shine through the windows, because, apparently, it does not happen here at all. This is a transit point for things, sleep, but not "my house is my fortress." Here, it seems, there is not a single personal thing that speaks of the owner.

“No father, no home, nowhere,” I recall. In a silver "mackintosh" we look at a huge archive of photographs: Dzhokhar Dudayev after the first flight in a fighter, in the cockpit, in the ranks (everyone looks straight ahead, he is the only one turned with his body and looks to the side, and so on many pictures, as if Napoleonic "this is not me I go against the current, and the current is against me"), the presentation of the rank of general; then Grozny, politics, a smart suit, burning eyes and enthusiastic listeners...

In black and white photographs, little Degi in the general's cap of his father is in the arms of a Chechen publicist and associate of Dzhokhar Maryam Vakhidova, caption under the photo: Little general. The largest series of pictures is stored in the Daddy and me folder.

We leave, and I notice how Dudayev quickly, automatically opens and closes the door, turns off the lights on the landing, runs downstairs, drives fast, writes something on his smartphone all the time, as if he is afraid to stop. I tell him about it. “If you stop, you start to remember, think, reflect, because I am always on the move: business, friends, gym, airports. Chechnya is like a taboo. Yesterday I talked with you for several hours about Chechnya and got out of line. This is the pain, you know ... that will never go away.

We decide to spend this day on the road, we go to Trakai Castle. We leave on the track - on both sides there are snow-covered pines and spruces: old, centuries-old, under heavy caps and young growth, sprinkled with snow. “Tell me about Chechnya, how is it now?” he suddenly asks. I tell you - for a long time, in detail, he has not been there since 1999, since the beginning of the second war. He listens, is silent, then says thoughtfully: “You know, maybe it’s good that it’s like that now ...”

The wrapped Lithuanians are dancing from the cold, and Dudaev in a light knitted jacket with faux fur: “No, I don’t get cold, however, when we lived in Transbaikalia, my mother wrapped me in overalls and sent me to sleep on the balcony, in 40-degree frost. Well creative person What are you going to do?” he smiles.

There are trading tents near the lake near the Trakai fortress, I drop in to buy gifts for the children, and Dudayev, having learned that I have two sons, buys gifts from himself: a wooden pistol with a stretched rubber band that makes a completely plausible sound, a wooden knight's hatchet, a sword and a slingshot with which to shoot an elephant. I protest. "Don't argue, they're boys! They must get used to weapons from childhood and be with him on "you". Moreover, you know, such times, everything goes to big war I look at his suddenly serious face. “Men need to be educated from childhood.”

He says that in the third grade he had an old TT in his briefcase, and he himself dismantled and lubricated the pistols of the guards with oil. Dzhokhar Dudayev's love for weapons is well known: when he became president, he allowed all men from 15 (!) to 50 years old to own them. Leaving the Republic Soviet authority left behind military units and weapons depots, which the locals stole with great enthusiasm.

As Colonel Viktor Baranets writes in the book "The General Staff Without Secrets", the Kremlin tried to divide the weapons remaining in the republic on a 50-50 basis, and Yeltsin sent Defense Minister Grachev to negotiate with Dudayev, but he allegedly "did not have time", and by 1992 70 percent of the weapons were stolen. By the beginning of the war, the republic was fully armed, and during the second war, many Chechens "watered the gardens with oil" (a joke that every Chechen will understand). By the beginning of hostilities, Degi himself received an Astra A-100 pistol, made by order of the CIA in Spain, as a gift from his father: “For me, he is better than all the Stechkins and Glocks for hitting accuracy, laser sight sensor on the handle, the absence of a fuse and for the size.

The three of us meet in the evening. I take out my dictaphone, Gamsakhurdia for safety net second. “My father,” Dudayev begins, “was friends with Gamsakhurdia, and when a year after the referendum and Georgia’s exit from the USSR, Zviad clashed with the pro-Moscow Shevardnadze, his family was in danger. He asked for asylum in Azerbaijan, they did not give him.

In Armenia, the Gamsakhurdia family was accepted, but under pressure from Moscow, they had to hand him over. From day to day they were supposed to be sent by plane from Yerevan to Moscow and arrested. Or kill. Then the father sent his personal plane and security chief Movladi Dzhabrailov to Yerevan with the order "do not return without Gamsakhurdia." He burst into the office of the then President of Armenia Ter-Petrosyan, took out a grenade and took up the check.

“Yes, yes, it was,” continues Gamsakhurdia. - He said that he would release the check only when our whole family landed at the airport in Grozny, and so he sat in front of the President of Armenia for several hours, until they reported from Grozny that everyone was in place, they had landed. The guards wanted to arrest him or shoot him, but Ter-Petrosyan said: this is a man's act, let him return home. Wai, Julia, imagine what the times were like, huh? Times of men and real deeds!” So Gamsakhurdia escaped and lived for several years in the presidential palace of Dzhokhar.

Dudayev recalls the moment when the exile Gamsakhurdia's family landed in Grozny. “George descended from the plane and, raising his eyebrows, looked around: it was like a frame from the movie Home Alone, remember when the hero realizes that he will have Christmas in New York without his parents. Such a chubby boy was, calm in appearance, but as soon as I saw him, I immediately understood: this guy will light up!

Several years of friendship in bombed Grozny under the roar of military aircraft, a childhood spent within four walls and with eternal guards. “We didn’t have a childhood, we didn’t! Here, I remembered, I remembered an episode from my childhood! Then they say in unison: “Georgy stole a bottle of cognac, and we drank it for two: I was about 10, George was 13. And in order to escape from Alla (Dudaeva. - Approx. GQ), we climbed into my father's ZIL and fell asleep there in the back seat. Everyone was looking for us like that, they almost went crazy, they thought we were kidnapped, imagine! And we grunted until we lost our pulse and fell asleep. It was our kind of rebellion!”

After leaving for the Baltic States, Dudayev entered the IT faculty. “And where else, I was locked up all the time and talked to the computer.” To experience that keen sense of the closeness of death, which happens only in war, in ordinary life difficult, but possible: Dudayev is fond of snowboarding and racing motorcycles. On his Honda CBR 1000RR, he accelerates to almost 300 km/h. Gamsakhurdia somehow suddenly confesses: “When I feel completely bad, I come up (to the mountains. - Approx. GQ), to a deserted place, and throw grenades into the gorge, and this roar, explosions, they calm me down.”

Dudayev and Gamsakhurdia, the younger, recall how their fathers, sitting in the kitchen in the evenings, drew big plans on paper: the Confederation of Caucasian Peoples, new idea for the entire Caucasian civilization (the mountain code of honor, etiquette, the cult of elders, free possession of weapons), multiplied by the secularism of the state system, the Constitution and democracy (here the tone was set by Gamsakhurdia, a noble family, a white bone, nominated by the Helsinki Group for Nobel Prize peace in 1978).

In 1990, Dzhokhar Dudayev returned from the congress of unrepresented peoples, held in Holland, with a sketch of a new Chechen flag and coat of arms: 9 stars (teips) and a wolf lying against the backdrop of the sun. (“It’s no wonder that his chakra opened precisely in Holland,” Degi jokes about his father’s insight.) Alla Dudayeva (this is a little-known fact) took a sketch and drew a coat of arms in the form in which it is now known. "She looked up to Akela from Mowgli, made the wolf more formidable than her father." Crazy time, transcendental degree of feelings. "The fathers dreamed that they would create a completely new formation on the political map of the world." small but proud bird- as in that parable.

To some extent, we can say that Gamsakhurdia succeeded in this: Georgia was separated from Russia by the Great Caucasian Range, and the imperial hand, or rather a rocket, reached Chechnya without hindrance. And if Dudayev Jr. tried to escape from the past, doing business, wandering around the world, keeping memories in a silver "macintosh", then Gamsakhurdia really "lit up". Being an active member of Saakashvili's team, he was one of the initiators of the introduction of a visa-free regime, first for the inhabitants of the Caucasus, then in general. At one time, the Russian Federation was put on the worldwide wanted list through Interpol: Kadyrov's people accused him of supporting Chechen terrorists in Pankisi. He introduces himself as "the only Chechen-Georgian", that is, a person dealing with the Chechen issue in Georgia.

“You probably know that something supernatural had to happen for a Chechen to leave his homeland,” Taipov says via Skype from France, where he has lived since 2004. “So in 2004, when Akhmad Kadyrov was killed and his son was appointed, the following happened: everyone who in the 1990s were patriots and advocated independence - and this was for the most part the intelligentsia, everyone understood that there would be no mercy . We were free, but they weren't, you know? Because 2004 is the second wave of emigration, the most powerful in history Chechen people. The free fled.

Here again, involuntary parallels arise with the white emigration, which sold family jewels for pennies, just to have time to escape from those "who were nobody, they will become everything."

“A young state makes many mistakes,” says Gamsakhurdia. - Misha also made mistakes, of course, without them it doesn’t work, but still he managed to build constitutional state laid the foundation. Dzhokhar also made mistakes, but he was then able to lay the foundations of a democratic society, the foundations of morality, which then began to be violently destroyed.”

Dudayev, for example, categorically forbade the torture of prisoners. “He spoke like this: what is the fault of that soldier whom the Motherland sent here, by order, by order? He was thrown into a meat grinder, he is following orders - why commit atrocities and humiliate him? Once he hit Ruslan Khaikhoroev, a field commander from Bamut, in the hands with his butt, because he allowed himself to commit atrocities against Russian prisoners of war. If my father saw how today one Chechen can afford to abuse another...” - and a painful silence hangs over the table.

Russian propaganda fires at Saakashvili for supporting the separatists, the "terrorist nest" in the Pankisi Gorge, suspecting the intrigues of either the CIA or the devil, but everything is actually simple and sentimental: this is the gratitude of a boy with sad eyes, who got off the plane and holding his father's hand, who saved to the Chechens, when everyone around betrayed and turned away, but the Chechens did not. So when in 2010 Saakashvili won applause at a speech at the UN, voicing the "idea of ​​a United Caucasus", we now understand where it comes from, this idea. From the kitchen of the presidential palace in Grozny, from the distant 1990s.

We are sitting in the California bar, next to a noisy company of Lithuanian basketball players, drinking Irish coffee. (“The drink of the English scouts,” comments Gamsakhurdia.) They bring the bill, and Dudayev, like a hawk, intercepts the check so that, God forbid, Gamsakhurdia does not pay.

When he goes to the counter to pay, I hear George: “It's because he lives here, and I came to visit, and he welcomes me like this, Caucasian hospitality! Dzhokhar brought him up perfectly, he puts honor and decency in the first place, this is an officer's job, you understand? I think that's why he stays away from everything, because he sees the dirt from a distance and wants to get around it.

We return to the hotel after midnight, Vilnius shimmers with snow and lights, the Cathedral rises on the right as a white mountain, catholic crosses, snowdrifts, people go home. And at this moment I understand why Dudayev never became a real emigrant, did not go far and forever, did not devote himself to memoirs, opposition activities, did not begin to make capital in the name of his father. Why is he stuck in this sleepy Lithuania, on a snowy half-station, in this transit zone, longing for the Russian language, loving Russia and his little Chechnya disinterestedly and honestly, as only one who has lost his home can love.

Alla Dudaeva was born in 1947 in the Kolomensky district of the Moscow region. In 1970 she graduated from the art and graphics department of the Smolensk Pedagogical Institute. I met Air Force Lieutenant Dzhokhar Dudayev in the Kaluga region, in the military town of Shaikovka. In 1967 she became his wife. She gave birth to two sons - Avlur and Degi - and a daughter, Dana. After the murder of her husband, on May 25, 1996, she tried to leave Chechnya and fly to Turkey. In 1996-1999 she collaborated with the Ministry of Culture of the CRI. In October 1999, she left Chechnya with her children. She lived in Baku, since 2002 with her daughter in Istanbul, then in Vilnius (the son of Alla and Dzhokhar Dudayev - Avlur - received Lithuanian citizenship and a passport in the name of Oleg Davydov; Alla herself had only a residence permit). In 2003 and 2006 she tried to obtain Estonian citizenship (where she lived in 1987-1990 with her husband, who at that time commanded a heavy bomber division and was the head of the Tartu garrison), but both times she was refused. Alla Dudayeva is the author of memoirs about her husband and a number of books published in Lithuania, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and France. Currently works on the Georgian Russian-language TV channel "First Caucasian" (hosts the program "Caucasian Portrait"). 1989 Our city, behind a gray veil of rain, You, like a secret, excite and beckon me either with dreams of something beautiful in the distance, or with sadness about those who are gone forever. Who rubbed your cobblestone with the soles of your feet And lay down forever under the gray stones. But traces of these hands remained on the walls. Close, lead into a mysterious circle. I can't get away from these traces anywhere. It can be seen that the soul remained in the stone vaults. Sunzha, your waters are so dark in the depths, As if someone's face appeared in the mist, But the water, covering it, whirls, As if fate conjures in a cruel dance. Playing dice again, suddenly what will fall out? Maybe this earth will finally get lucky? Alla Dudayeva 1990 Human! At the turn of the centuries Look back at the centuries and years, New generations are coming, When ours is gone forever. Maybe someone will glance with irony, With anger, bitterness in young eyes. How many lives have disappeared in the darkness, Man's destinies are distorted Like a clanking machine Dragged along, shredding them. Take a closer look, maybe you will become smarter, Learn from the mistakes of others, Be more merciful and kinder, There will be fewer of your mistakes. 1990 Alla Dudaeva Cry of the ancestors We are the glory of your ancestors The descendants of these mountains Have not composed weapons Infamously for a long time! Lightnings are burning again In the snow-covered mountains, It's time to fight, Again we shout "Orst1akh" Freedom is all the way, It's your turn, The century-old Vainakh road, forward! Our ashes in every heart Let it beat in the chest, Who has the strength to fight, Come out to the battle! Three months of patience, Humility behind. If you don't want peace, taste war. For honor, for home, for family, For the glory of your ancestors, "Orstdakh" Arise people! November 1991 Alla Dudaeva Ichkeria Who was in the homeland of your fathers, I have never met a more beautiful place, Not a few brave men lay down in the mountains ... For what and how? You won't answer right away. Above the cone of the mountain the star trembles, Behind it the peaks of the mountains are hidden in the fog, A solid vault of trees, but the tower stands there, In the silence of centuries, it froze before us. In it, the stones are old from gunpowder black, A pile of bones whitening under the moonlight, The legends of antiquity are confused, But the highlanders remember to wait for trouble from where... Those who gave their lives lie here, For the honor and faith of a proud people Who, having died, became free again, But dear, it was freedom ... Russia - your name, hundreds of times, Accompanied by the curse of the Caucasus, From the weeping of women and from the groan of the mountains The air trembles again and fogs the eyes. Only the enemy is glad to the burnt land And every glance is full of hatred. No one will hint at rights There is a power on human bones. And not dew, but tears on the grass. Blood streams flow in your country. March 1996 Alla Dudaeva Confession When I stumble at the end of the day, The rise was difficult - do not judge me. When in deadly fight I will shed blood, Do not judge - I defended my honor. When deceived, betrayed by a friend was, Don't judge again - I believed and loved. When he did not distinguish the insidiousness of evil, Do not condemn - he was pure in heart to the bottom. When the earth closes my eyes with a cloak, Then judge - but God will judge you. 1994 Alla Dudaeva Prayer I am waiting for you, my love, day and night, Like hundreds of women, without closing my eyes, I whisper, once again saying goodbye to you, May this not be the last time. May not be the last time I see you, May I cling to your chest again, I pray in despair for a meeting, parting, You are leaving again for flights. You leave again, just as before, Space to compress and save eternity, And for me, moments are like centuries. How to live them, how can I kill time? How can I kill doubts in my soul, Why do I need this blue? In a steel shell, a living drop, You rush in it, my love and life, I pray with wings, tanks and engines, To fate itself, heed my prayers, Do not drop the one who is dear to the heart, Whom you carry beyond the sound there. He himself came up with this lot, Be merciful, kind, spare! Dispel fatigue, do not put pressure on your shoulders, Lift the veil of fog from your eyes. He must be calm, strong, vigilant, After all, the pilot is only mistaken once ... And at home I go through a hundred thousand options, without closing my eyes, Without cooling my eyelids with the cool of the night, Touching my forehead with a hot hand, I will run out again to meet you "I flew - like a bird!" say again jokingly. 1988 Alla Dudaeva Fable "The Lion and the Jackals" Through the jungle, a month, without sitting down, A tired lion walks, wanders. Behind him obligingly jackals In his saving shadow. And they declare their love ... Oh, how dare you, oh how straight you are! You are steeper, you are harder than rocks. We will all go to death with you. Just give a cry - we will go to battle! It's a pity that hunger let the belly down, It is deaf to the impulses of the soul, And there is no food all day ... Suddenly a shadow fell on the path. There ahead, there was a trap ... And with renewed vigor: “How straight you are! How strong you are! How powerful you are! You are higher than the mountains! You are above the clouds! What is this trap for you! You will dance the cancan on it! You will knock him down with your paw for a moment And you will pass right along the path! And proudly led the lion with a mane and ... He went straight along the path So this lion fell into a trap And there was a monstrous can-can - On the skin of a lion. The moral of this fable is this: If you are proud, strong and straight - Do not fall into such a trap. Do not believe those who swear in love, A straight man will not bend in a bow, Only a flatterer has a crooked backbone, And you will pay with your head! 1990 Alla Dudaeva Russia, 1996 Not faces, but faces of shadows and chimeras, Not the wind, but walls and truth in half measures, Half measures love and half measures the country, Sounding like a string with anguish, And life is like a dream, and I would be glad to wake up , Only death is true and friends are bitter mat Over your coffin, sleep peacefully soldier! You are betrayed from birth, by the impotence of your fathers You broke your heart on the inviolability of dreams, The silence of the grave is your breath, And the girl became a confused long ago. There is no color of embarrassment on a young face, A venal mask in the whole country, The bloody porridge of times and peoples, Killers, victims and judges, convenient laws, And the intoxicated cook, without waiting for the morning, Will burn the kitchen to the ground along with the porridge ... 1996. Alla Dudaeva

Evidence of the death of the first Chechen president is as small as in 1996

20 years ago, the twisted history of Chechnya took a new twist: the first president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aviation Major General Dzhokhar Dudayev, gave his last order on April 21, 1996 - to live long. In any case, that's how it's supposed to be. Those chroniclers who talk about the "official version" of Dudayev's death are either mistaken or disingenuous. For in fact there is no official version. Much more honest with readers are the compilers of the Bolshoi encyclopedic dictionary, which crowned the article on the rebellious general with an impeccable fact-checking phrase: “In April 1996, his death was announced under unclear circumstances.”

Exactly. The location of Dudayev's grave, if any, is still not known. The fact that the general lost his life on April 21, 1996 as a result of either a missile or a bomb attack, we know only from the words of representatives of his inner circle. Even less official are the sources of information about the operation of the Russian special services, which allegedly caused the death of the general. In favor of the reliability of this information, however, the fact that Dudayev has not been heard or heard about since then speaks. “If he were alive, wouldn’t he show up?!” - Opponents of alternative versions are boiling. The argument, to be sure, is weighty. But by no means closing the topic.

Dzhokhar Dudayev.

Version #1

The main witness in the case of the death of the President of Ichkeria is, of course, his wife Alla Dudayeva - nee Alevtina Fyodorovna Kulikova. According to Dudayeva's "testimonies", recorded in her memoirs, the commander-in-chief of the separatist army, constantly moving around Chechnya, on April 4, 1996, settled with his headquarters in Gekhi-Chu - a village in the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya, located about 40 kilometers to the southwest from Grozny. Dudayevs - Dzhokhar, Alla and them younger son Degi, who at that time was 12 years old, settled in the house of the younger brother of the Prosecutor General of Ichkeria, Magomet Zhaniev.

During the day, Dudayev was usually at home, and at night he was on the road. “Dzhokhar, as before, at night, went around our Southwestern Front, appearing here and there, constantly being close to those who held positions,” Alla recalls. In addition, Dudayev regularly traveled to the nearby forest for communication sessions with the outside world, carried out through the installation of the Immarsat-M satellite communication. The Ichkerian president avoided calling directly from home, fearing that the Russian special services could pinpoint his location from an intercepted signal. “In Shalazhi, two streets were completely destroyed because of our phone,” he once shared his anxiety with his wife.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to do without risky calls. Chechen War entered a new phase these days. On March 31, 1996, Yeltsin signed a decree "On the program for settling the crisis in the Chechen Republic." Its most important points are: the cessation of military operations on the territory of the Chechen Republic from 24:00 on March 31, 1996; phased withdrawal of federal forces to the administrative borders of Chechnya; negotiations about the peculiarities of the status of the republic between the bodies ... In general, Dudayev had something to chat about on the phone with his Russian and foreign friends, partners and informants.

From one of these communication sessions, which took place a few days before Dudayev's death, the general and his retinue returned earlier than usual. “Everyone was very excited,” recalls Alla. - Dzhokhar, on the contrary, was unusually silent and thoughtful. Musik (bodyguard Musa Idigov. - "MK") took me aside and, lowering his voice, whispered excitedly: "One hundred percent are hitting our phone."

However, in the presentation of the general’s widow, the picture of what happened looks, to put it mildly, fantastic: “The night starry sky opened up above them, suddenly they noticed that the satellites above their heads were like on a“ New Year tree ”. A beam stretched from one satellite to another, crossed with another beam, and fell along the trajectory to the ground. It was not clear where the plane emerged from and struck with a depth charge of such crushing force that trees began to break and fall around them. The first was followed by a second similar blow, very close.

Be that as it may, the incident described above did not make Dudayev behave more cautiously. On the evening of April 21, Dudayev, as usual, went to the forest for telephone conversations. This time he was accompanied by his wife. In addition to her, the retinue included the aforementioned Prosecutor General Zhaniev, Vakha Ibragimov, Dudayev's adviser, Khamad Kurbanov, "the representative of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Moscow," and three bodyguards. We drove in two cars - "Niva" and "UAZ". Upon arrival, Dudayev, as usual, placing a diplomat with satellite communications on the hood of the Niva, removed the antenna. First, Vakha Ibragimov used the phone - he made a statement for Radio Liberty. Then Dudayev dialed the number of Konstantin Borovoy, who at that time was a State Duma deputy and chairman of the Economic Freedom Party. Alla, according to her, was at that time 20 meters from the car, on the edge of a deep ravine.

She describes what happened next as follows: “Suddenly, a sharp whistle of a flying rocket was heard from the left side. An explosion behind me and a flashing yellow flame made me jump into the ravine... It became quiet again. What about ours? My heart was pounding, but I hoped that everything worked out ... But where did the car and everyone who stood around it go? Where is Dzhokhar?.. Suddenly I stumbled. Right at my feet, I saw Musa sitting. “God, look what they did to our president!” Dzhokhar was lying on his knees... Instantly I threw myself on my knees and felt all over his body. It was whole, there was no blood, but when I got to the head... my fingers got into the wound on the right side of the back of the head. My God, it is impossible to live with such a wound ... "

Zhaniev and Kurbanov, who were next to the general at the time of the explosion, allegedly died on the spot. Dudayev himself, according to his wife, died a few hours later in the house they then occupied.

Alla Dudaeva.

Strange woman

Konstantin Borovoy confirms that he spoke with Dudayev that day: “It was about eight in the evening. The conversation was interrupted. However, our conversations were interrupted very often ... He called me sometimes several times a day. I'm not one hundred percent sure that missile attack occurred during our last conversation with him. But he didn’t get in touch with me anymore (he always called, I didn’t have his number). According to Borovoy, he was a kind of political consultant to Dudayev and, moreover, acted as an intermediary: he tried to connect the Ichkerian leader with the Russian presidential administration. And some contacts, by the way, began, although not direct, "between Dudayev's entourage and Yeltsin's entourage."

Borovoy is firmly convinced that Dudayev was killed as a result of an operation by Russian special services that used unique, non-serial equipment: “As far as I know, specialist scientists took part in the operation, who, using several developments, were able to identify the coordinates of the source electromagnetic radiation. At the moment when Dudayev got in touch, the electricity was cut off in the area where he was located - in order to ensure the isolation of the radio signal.

The words of the irreconcilable critic of the Russian special services are practically one to one with the version that appeared several years ago in the Russian media with reference to retired GRU officers who allegedly directly participated in the operation. According to them, it was carried out jointly military intelligence and the FSB with the participation Air force. Actually, this version is considered official. But the sources of information themselves admit that all the materials of the operation are still classified. Yes, and they themselves, there is such a suspicion, are not completely “deciphered”: it is doubtful that the real participants in the liquidation of Dudayev would begin to cut the truth, the uterus, calling themselves by their names. Risk, of course, is a noble cause, but not to the same extent. Therefore, there is no certainty that what was told is true, and not disinformation.

Nikolai Kovalev, who in April 1996 held the post of deputy director of the FSB (two months later, in June 1996, he headed the service), in a conversation with an MK observer a few years after those events, completely denied the involvement of his department in the liquidation Dudayev: “Dudaev died in the combat zone. There was a fairly massive shelling. I think there is simply no reason to talk about some kind of special operation. Hundreds of people died in the same way." At that time, Kovalev was already retired, but, as you know, there are no former Chekists. Therefore, it is likely that Nikolai Dmitrievich spoke not from a pure heart, but what his official duty dictated.

However, on one point, Kovalev was in complete agreement with those who claim that Dudayev was liquidated by our special services: the ex-head of the FSB called the assumptions that the Ichkerian leader could survive completely frivolous. At the same time, he referred to the same Alla Dudayeva: “Is your wife an objective witness for you?” In general, the circle is closed.

The version presented by Alla, for all its outward smoothness, still contains one significant inconsistency. If Dudayev knew that the enemies were trying to find the direction of the phone signal, then why did he take his wife on that last trip to the forest, thereby exposing her to mortal danger? There was no need for her presence. In addition, many note the strangeness in the behavior of the widow: she did not seem at all heartbroken in those days. Well, or, at least, carefully concealed their experiences. But such composure is extremely unusual for a person of her psychological make-up. Alla is a very emotional woman, which is already clear from the memoirs dedicated to her husband: the lion's share of them is given prophetic dreams, visions, prophecies and all sorts of mystical signs.

She herself offers the following explanation for her reticence. “I officially, as a witness, stated the fact of the president’s death, without a single tear, remembering Amkhad’s request, old Leyla and hundreds, thousands of weak and sick old men and women in Chechnya like her,” Alla says about her speech at the press conference. conference held on April 24, three days after her husband's announced death. - My tears would have killed their last hope. Let them think that he is alive... And let those who greedily catch every word about the death of Dzhokhar be afraid.”

But what happened a few weeks later can already be explained by a desire to encourage friends and scare enemies: in May 1996, Alla suddenly appears in Moscow and calls on Russians to support Boris Yeltsin in the upcoming presidential elections. A man who, based on her own interpretation of events, authorized the murder of her beloved husband! Later, however, Dudayeva said that her words were taken out of context and distorted. But, firstly, even Alla herself admits that speeches “in defense of Yeltsin” did take place. The fact that the war brought nothing but shame to the president and that the cause of peace is hindered by the "war party" that substitutes it. And secondly, according to eyewitnesses - among them, for example, political emigrant Alexander Litvinenko, who in this case can be considered a completely objective source of information - there were no distortions. Dudayeva began her first Moscow meeting with journalists, which took place at the National Hotel, with a phrase that could not be interpreted in any other way: “I urge you to vote for Yeltsin!”

Nikolai Kovalev does not see anything strange in this fact: "Perhaps she thought that Boris Nikolayevich is an ideal candidate for solving the Chechen problem in a peaceful way." But such an explanation, with all desire, cannot be called exhaustive.

One of the main visual evidence that Dzhokhar Dudayev nevertheless passed away is photographic and video footage depicting Alla Dudayeva next to the body of her murdered husband. Skeptics, however, are not convinced at all: there is no independent evidence that the shooting was not staged.

Operation "Evacuation"

Even greater doubts about the generally accepted interpretation of the events that occurred on April 21, 1996, the MK observer left a conversation with the late president of the RSPP, Arkady Volsky. Arkady Ivanovich was the deputy head of the Russian delegation at the talks with the Ichkerian leadership, which took place in the summer of 1995, after Shamil Basayev's Budyonnovsk raid. Volsky repeatedly met with Dudayev and other separatist leaders and was considered one of the most informed representatives in Chechen affairs. Russian elite. “I immediately asked the experts then: is it possible to aim a half-ton missile at a target on a signal mobile phone? Volsky said. They told me it was absolutely impossible. If the rocket even felt such a subtle signal, it could turn to any mobile phone.”

But the main sensation is elsewhere. According to Volsky, in July 1995 the country's leadership entrusted him with a responsible and very delicate mission. “Before leaving for Grozny, with the consent of President Yeltsin, I was instructed to offer Dudayev a trip abroad with his family,” Arkady Ivanovich shared the details of this amazing story. - Consent to accept it was given by Jordan. An aircraft and the necessary cash". True, the Ichkerian leader then responded with a decisive refusal. "I was about you better opinion he said to Volsky. “I didn’t think that you would offer me to run away from here. I am a Soviet general. If I die, I will die here.”

However, this project was not closed, Volsky believed. In his opinion, later the separatist leader changed his mind and decided to evacuate. “But I do not rule out that people from his entourage could have killed Dudaev along the way,” added Arkady Ivanovich. “The way events unfolded after the announced death of Dudayev, in principle, fits into this version.” Nevertheless, Volsky did not rule out other, more exotic options: "When they ask me how likely it is that Dudayev is alive, I answer: 50 to 50."

A striking example not too clever fake. According to the American magazine that first published this photo, it is a video footage taken by a camera mounted on the rocket that killed Dudayev. According to the magazine, American intelligence agencies received a picture from Russian missile in real time.

Anatoly Kulikov, president of the Club of Military Leaders of the Russian Federation, who headed the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs at the time of the events described, is not one hundred percent sure of Dudayev’s death either: “You and I have not received evidence of his death. In 1996, we talked about this topic with Usman Imaev (Minister of Justice in Dudayev's administration, later dismissed. - "MK"). He expressed doubts that Dudayev was dead. Imaev said then that he was at that place and saw fragments of not one, but different cars. Rusty parts... He was talking about a simulated explosion.”

Kulikov himself tried to understand the situation. His employees also visited Gekhi-Chu, at the site of the explosion they discovered a funnel - one and a half meters in diameter and half a meter deep. Meanwhile, the missile that allegedly hit Dudayev carries 80 kilograms of explosives, Kulikov notes. “The rocket would have turned out a much larger amount of soil,” he says. - But there is no such funnel. What really happened in Gekhi-Chu is unknown.”

Like Volsky, the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not exclude that Dudayev could have been liquidated by his own people. But not on purpose, but by mistake. According to the version that Kulikov considers very likely and which was presented to him at the time by employees of the North Caucasian regional government in the fight against organized crime, Dudaev was blown up by the fighters of the "leader of one of the gangs." Actually, just this field commander was supposed to be in the place of the separatist leader. Allegedly, he was very dishonest in financial matters, deceived his subordinates, appropriated the money intended for them. And he waited until the offended nukers decided to send him to the forefathers.

A remote-controlled explosive device was installed in the commander's "Niva", which was set off when the avengers saw that the car had left the village. But as a sin, Dudayev took advantage of the Niva ... However, this is only one of the possible versions, and she explains, Kulikov admits, far from all: “Dudaev’s funeral was observed simultaneously in four settlements... One cannot be convinced of Dudayev's death until his corpse is identified.”

Well, some of the mysteries of history were solved after much more time than after 20 years. And some remained completely unsolved. And it seems that the question of what actually happened in the vicinity of Gekhi-Chu on April 21, 1996 will take its rightful place in the ranking of these puzzles.