18-year-old Yakut Volodya from a distant deer camp was a sable hunter. It had to happen that I came to Yakutsk for salt and ammunition, and accidentally saw in the dining room on TV piles of corpses of Russian soldiers on the streets of Grozny, smoking tanks and some words about “Dudaev’s snipers.” This got into Volodya’s head, so much so that the hunter returned to the camp, took his earned money, and sold the little gold he had found. He took his grandfather’s rifle and all the cartridges, put the icon of St. Nicholas the Saint in his bosom and went to fight.
It’s better not to remember how I was driving, how I sat in the bullpen, how many times my rifle was taken away. But, nevertheless, a month later the Yakut Volodya arrived in Grozny.
Volodya had only heard about one general who was regularly fighting in Chechnya, and he began to look for him in the February mudslide. Finally, the Yakut was lucky and reached the headquarters of General Rokhlin.
The only document besides his passport was a handwritten certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir Kolotov, a hunter by profession, was heading to war, signed by the military commissar. The piece of paper, which had become frayed on the road, had saved his life more than once.
Rokhlin, surprised that someone had arrived at the war at will, ordered the Yakut to come to him.
- Excuse me, please, are you that General Rokhlya? – Volodya asked respectfully.
“Yes, I’m Rokhlin,” answered the tired general, peering inquisitively at the man. vertically challenged, dressed in a frayed padded jacket, with a backpack and a rifle on his back.
– I was told that you arrived at the war on your own. For what purpose, Kolotov?
“I saw on TV how the Chechens were killing our people with snipers. I can't stand this, Comrade General. It's a shame, though. So I came to bring them down. You don't need money, you don't need anything. I, Comrade General Rokhlya, will go hunting at night myself. Let them show me the place where they will put the cartridges and food, and I will do the rest myself. If I get tired, I’ll come back in a week, sleep in the warmth for a day, and go again. You don't need a walkie-talkie or anything like that... it's hard.
Surprised, Rokhlin nodded his head.
- Take, Volodya, at least a new SVDashka. Give him a rifle!
“No need, Comrade General, I’m going out into the field with my scythe.” Just give me some ammo, I only have 30 left now...
So Volodya began his war, the sniper war.
He slept for a day in the headquarters cabins, despite the mine shelling and terrible artillery fire. I took ammunition, food, water and went on my first “hunt”. They forgot about him at headquarters. Only reconnaissance regularly brought cartridges, food and, most importantly, water to the appointed place every three days. Each time I was convinced that the parcel had disappeared.
The first person to remember Volodya at the headquarters meeting was the “interceptor” radio operator.
– Lev Yakovlevich, the “Czechs” are in panic on the radio. They say that the Russians, that is, we, have a certain black sniper who works at night, boldly walks through their territory and shamelessly cuts down their personnel. Maskhadov even put a price of 30 thousand dollars on his head. His handwriting is like this – this fellow hits Chechens right in the eye. Why only by sight - the dog knows him...
And then the staff remembered about the Yakut Volodya.
“He regularly takes food and ammunition from the cache,” the intelligence chief reported.
“And so we didn’t exchange a word with him, we didn’t even see him even once.” Well, how did he leave you on the other side...
One way or another, the report noted that our snipers also give their snipers a light. Because Volodin’s work gave such results - from 16 to 30 people were killed by the fisherman with a shot in the eye.
The Chechens figured out that the federals had a commercial hunter on Minutka Square. And just like on this square the main events of those terrible days, then a whole detachment of Chechen volunteers came out to catch the sniper.
Then, in February 1995, at Minutka, thanks to Rokhlin’s cunning plan, our troops had already reduced almost three-quarters of the personnel of the so-called “Abkhaz” battalion of Shamil Basayev. Volodya’s Yakut carbine also played a significant role here. Basayev promised a golden Chechen star to anyone who would bring the body of a Russian sniper. But the nights passed in unsuccessful searches. Five volunteers walked along the front line in search of Volodya’s “beds”, placing tripwires wherever he could appear in the direct line of sight of their positions. However, this was a time when groups from both sides broke through the enemy’s defenses and penetrated deeply into its territory. Sometimes it was so deep that there was no longer any chance to break out to our own people. But Volodya slept during the day under the roofs and in the basements of houses. The corpses of the Chechens - the night "work" of a sniper - were buried the next day.
Then, tired of losing 20 people every night, Basayev called from the reserves in the mountains a master of his craft, a teacher from a camp for training young shooters, the Arab sniper Abubakar. Volodya and Abubakar could not help but meet in a night battle, such are the laws of sniper warfare.
And they met two weeks later. More precisely, Abubakar hit Volodya with a drill rifle. A powerful bullet, which once killed Soviet paratroopers right through in Afghanistan at a distance of one and a half kilometers, pierced the padded jacket and slightly caught the arm, just below the shoulder. Volodya, feeling the rush of a hot wave of oozing blood, realized that the hunt had finally begun for him.
Buildings on opposite side The squares, or rather their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya’s optics. “What flashed, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight flashing in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building. Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it.
Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is American camouflage, which was often worn by Chechens, soaked special composition, in it the uniform was indistinctly visible in night vision devices, and the domestic uniform shone with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.
One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.
- Well, that means a duel, yes, sir. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.
Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.” The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” on the eye stopped. “Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.
All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.
Two days later, already in the afternoon, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught a light bluish haze through his optics, rising above the roofing sheet and immediately being carried away by the wind.
“So I found you, abrek! You can’t live without drugs! Good...” the Yakut hunter thought triumphantly; he did not know that he was dealing with an Arab sniper who had passed through both Abkhazia and Karabakh. But Volodya did not want to kill him just like that, by shooting through the roofing sheet. This was not the case with snipers, and even less so with fur hunters.
“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait.
Only three days later did he figure out that Abubakar was crawling out from under a leaf in right side, and not to the left, quickly gets the job done and returns to the “bed”. To “get” the enemy, Volodya had to change his position at night. He couldn't do anything anew, because any new roofing sheet would immediately give away his new location. But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about fifty meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up.” Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target. Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of Dudayev’s palace, where an Arab sniper was killed on the spot by one hunter’s bullet.
“Well, I got you,” Volodya thought without any enthusiasm or joy. He realized that he had to continue his fight, showing his characteristic style. To prove that he is alive and that the enemy did not kill him a few days ago.
Volodya peered through his optics at the motionless body of the slain enemy. Nearby he saw a “Bur”, which he did not recognize, since he had never seen such rifles before. In a word, a hunter from the deep taiga!
And then he was surprised: the Chechens began to crawl out into the open to take the sniper’s body. Volodya took aim. Three people came out and bent over the body.
“Let them pick you up and carry you, then I’ll start shooting!” - Volodya triumphed.
The three of the Chechens actually lifted the body. Three shots were fired. Three bodies fell on top of the dead Abubakar.
Four more Chechen volunteers jumped out of the ruins and, throwing away the bodies of their comrades, tried to pull out the sniper. A Russian machine gun started working from the side, but the bursts fell a little higher, without causing harm to the hunched Chechens.
Four more shots rang out, almost merging into one. Four more corpses had already formed a pile.
Volodya killed 16 militants that morning. He did not know that Basayev had given the order to get the Arab’s body at all costs before it began to get dark. He had to be sent to the mountains to be buried there before sunrise, as an important and respectable Mujahid.
A day later, Volodya returned to Rokhlin’s headquarters. The general immediately received him as a dear guest. The news of the duel between two snipers had already spread throughout the army.
- Well, how are you, Volodya, tired? Do you want to go home?
Volodya warmed his hands at the stove.
“That’s it, Comrade General, I’ve done my job, it’s time to go home.” Spring work at the camp begins. The military commissar only released me for two months. My two worked for me all this time younger brother. It's time to know...
Rokhlin nodded his head in understanding.
- Take a good rifle, my chief of staff will draw up the documents...
- Why, I have my grandfather’s. – Volodya lovingly hugged the old carbine.
The general did not dare to ask the question for a long time. But curiosity got the better of me.
– How many enemies did you defeat, did you count? They say that more than a hundred... Chechens were talking to each other.
Volodya lowered his eyes.
– 362 militants, Comrade General.
- Well, go home, now we can handle it ourselves...
- Comrade General, if anything happens, call me again, I’ll sort out the work and come a second time!
On Volodya’s face one could read frank concern for everything. Russian Army.
- By God, I’ll come!
The Order of Courage found Volodya Kolotov six months later. On this occasion, the entire collective farm celebrated, and the military commissar allowed the sniper to go to Yakutsk to buy new boots - the old ones had become worn out in Chechnya. A hunter stepped on some pieces of iron.
On the day when the whole country learned about the death of General Lev Rokhlin, Volodya also heard about what happened on the radio. He drank alcohol on the premises for three days. He was found drunk in a temporary hut by other hunters returning from hunting. Volodya kept repeating drunk:
- It’s okay, Comrade General Rokhlya, if necessary we will come, just tell me...
After Vladimir Kolotov left for his homeland, scum in officer uniform sold his information to Chechen terrorists, who he was, where he came from, where he went, etc. The Yakut Sniper inflicted too many losses on the evil spirits.
Vladimir was killed by a shot from 9 mm. pistol in his yard while he was chopping wood. The criminal case was never solved.
For the first time I heard the legend of Volodya the sniper, or as he was also called - Yakut (and the nickname is so textured that it even migrated to the famous television series about those days). They told it in different ways, along with legends about the Eternal Tank, the Death Girl and other army folklore. Moreover, the most amazing thing is that in the story about Volodya the sniper amazingly There was an almost letter-by-word similarity with the story of the great Zaitsev, who killed Hans, a major, and the head of the Berlin sniper school in Stalingrad. To be honest, I then perceived it as... well, let's say, like folklore - at a rest stop - and it was believed and not believed. Then there was a lot of things, as, indeed, in any war, which you won’t believe, but turns out to be TRUE. Life is generally more complex and unexpected than any fiction.
Later, in 2003-2004, one of my friends and comrades told me that he personally knew this guy, and that indeed HE WAS. Whether there was that same duel with Abubakar, and whether the Czechs actually had such a super sniper, to be honest, I don’t know, they had enough serious snipers, and especially during the Air Campaign. And there were serious weapons, including South African SSVs, and porridge (including prototypes of the B-94, which were just entering pre-series, the spirits already had, and with numbers in the first hundred - Pakhomych will not let you lie.
How they ended up with them is a separate story, but nevertheless, the Czechs had such trunks. And they themselves made semi-handicraft SCVs near Grozny.)
Volodya the Yakut really worked alone, he worked exactly as described - by eye. And the rifle he had was exactly the one described - an old Mosin three-line rifle of pre-revolutionary production, with a faceted breech and a long barrel - an infantry model of 1891.
The real name of Volodya-Yakut is Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, originally from the village of Iengra in Yakutia. However, he himself is not a Yakut, but an Evenk.
At the end of the First Campaign, he was patched up in the hospital, and since he was officially a nobody and there was no way to call him, he simply went home.
By the way, his combat score is most likely not exaggerated, but understated... Moreover, no one kept an accurate account, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about it.
Rokhlin, Lev Yakovlevich
From December 1, 1994 to February 1995, he headed the 8th Guards Army Corps in Chechnya. Under his leadership, a number of areas of Grozny were captured, including the presidential palace. January 17, 1995 for contacts with Chechen field commanders In order to achieve a ceasefire, generals Lev Rokhlin and Ivan Babichev were appointed military command.
Murder of a General
On the night of July 2-3, 1998, he was found murdered on own dacha in the village of Klokovo, Naro-Fominsk district, Moscow region. According to the official version, his wife, Tamara Rokhlina, shot at the sleeping Rokhlin, the reason was given family quarrel.
In November 2000, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Tamara Rokhlina guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband. In 2005, Tamara Rokhlina appealed to the ECHR, complaining about the long period of pre-trial detention and the delay trial. The complaint was upheld, with an award monetary compensation(8000 euros). After a new consideration of the case, on November 29, 2005, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Rokhlina guilty of murdering her husband for the second time and sentenced her to four years of suspended imprisonment, also assigning her a probationary period of 2.5 years.
During the investigation of the murder, three charred corpses were found in a forested area near the crime scene. According to the official version, their death occurred shortly before the assassination of the general, and has nothing to do with him. However, many of Rokhlin’s associates believed that they were real murderers who were eliminated by the Kremlin’s special services, “covering their tracks”
For participation in Chechen campaign was presented to the highest honorary title Hero Russian Federation, but refused to accept this title, stating that he “has no moral right to receive this award for fighting on the territory of their own country"
And they met two weeks later. More precisely, Abubakar hit Volodya with a drill rifle. A powerful bullet, which once killed Soviet paratroopers right through in Afghanistan at a distance of one and a half kilometers, pierced the padded jacket and slightly caught the arm, just below the shoulder. Volodya, feeling the rush of a hot wave of oozing blood, realized that the hunt had finally begun for him.The buildings on the opposite side of the square, or rather their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya’s optics. “What sparkled, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight glinting in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building. Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it.
Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is an American camouflage worn by the Chechens, impregnated with a special composition, in which the uniform was invisible in night vision devices, and the domestic one glowed with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.
One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.
Well, that means a duel, yes, Mr. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.
Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.” The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” on the eye stopped. “Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.
All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.
Two days later, already during the day, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught in his optics a light bluish haze that rose above the roofing sheet and was immediately carried away by the wind.
“So I found you, abrek! You can’t live without drugs! Good...” the Yakut hunter thought triumphantly; he did not know that he was dealing with an Arab sniper who had passed through both Abkhazia and Karabakh. But Volodya did not want to kill him just like that, by shooting through the roofing sheet. This was not the case with snipers, and even less so with fur hunters.
“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait. Only three days later did he figure out that Abubakar was crawling out from under the leaf to the right side, and not to the left, quickly did the job and returned to the “bed”. To “get” the enemy, Volodya had to change the shooting point at night. He couldn't do anything anew; any new roofing sheet would immediately give away a new sniper position. But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about fifty meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up.” Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target. Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of Dudayev’s palace, where an Arab sniper was killed on the spot by one hunter’s bullet.
“Well, I got you,” Volodya thought without any enthusiasm or joy. He realized that he had to continue his fight, showing his characteristic style. To prove that he is alive and that the enemy did not kill him a few days ago.
Volodya peered through his optics at the motionless body of the slain enemy. Nearby he saw a “Bur”, which he did not recognize, since he had never seen such rifles before. In a word, a hunter from the deep taiga!
Text hidden18-year-old Yakut Volodya from a distant deer camp was a sable hunter. It had to happen that I came to Yakutsk for salt and ammunition, and accidentally saw in the dining room on TV piles of corpses of Russian soldiers on the streets of Grozny, smoking tanks and some words about “Dudaev’s snipers.” This got into Volodya’s head, so much so that the hunter returned to the camp, took his earned money, and sold the little gold he had found. He took his grandfather’s rifle and all the cartridges, put the icon of St. Nicholas the Saint in his bosom and went to fight.
It’s better not to remember how I was driving, how I sat in the bullpen, how many times my rifle was taken away. But, nevertheless, a month later the Yakut Volodya arrived in Grozny.
Volodya had only heard about one general who was regularly fighting in Chechnya, and he began to look for him in the February mudslide. Finally, the Yakut was lucky and reached the headquarters of General Rokhlin.
The only document besides his passport was a handwritten certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir Kolotov, a hunter by profession, was heading to war, signed by the military commissar. The piece of paper, which had become frayed on the road, had saved his life more than once.
Rokhlin, surprised that someone came to the war of his own free will, ordered the Yakut to be allowed to come to him.
- Excuse me, please, are you that General Rokhlya? – Volodya asked respectfully.
“Yes, I’m Rokhlin,” answered the tired general, who peered inquisitively at the short man, dressed in a frayed padded jacket, with a backpack and a rifle on his back.
– I was told that you arrived at the war on your own. For what purpose, Kolotov?
“I saw on TV how the Chechens were killing our people with snipers. I can't stand this, Comrade General. It's a shame, though. So I came to bring them down. You don't need money, you don't need anything. I, Comrade General Rokhlya, will go hunting at night myself. Let them show me the place where they will put the cartridges and food, and I will do the rest myself. If I get tired, I’ll come back in a week, sleep in the warmth for a day, and go again. You don't need a walkie-talkie or anything like that... it's hard.
Surprised, Rokhlin nodded his head.
- Take, Volodya, at least a new SVDashka. Give him a rifle!
“No need, Comrade General, I’m going out into the field with my scythe.” Just give me some ammo, I only have 30 left now...
So Volodya began his war, the sniper war.
He slept for a day in the headquarters cabins, despite the mine shelling and terrible artillery fire. I took ammunition, food, water and went on my first “hunt”. They forgot about him at headquarters. Only reconnaissance regularly brought cartridges, food and, most importantly, water to the appointed place every three days. Each time I was convinced that the parcel had disappeared.
The first person to remember Volodya at the headquarters meeting was the “interceptor” radio operator.
– Lev Yakovlevich, the “Czechs” are in panic on the radio. They say that the Russians, that is, we, have a certain black sniper who works at night, boldly walks through their territory and shamelessly cuts down their personnel. Maskhadov even put a price of 30 thousand dollars on his head. His handwriting is like this – this fellow hits Chechens right in the eye. Why only by sight - the dog knows him...
And then the staff remembered about the Yakut Volodya.
“He regularly takes food and ammunition from the cache,” the intelligence chief reported.
“And so we didn’t exchange a word with him, we didn’t even see him even once.” Well, how did he leave you on the other side...
One way or another, the report noted that our snipers also give their snipers a light. Because Volodin’s work gave such results - from 16 to 30 people were killed by the fisherman with a shot in the eye.
The Chechens figured out that the federals had a commercial hunter on Minutka Square. And since the main events of those terrible days took place in this square, a whole detachment of Chechen volunteers came out to catch the sniper.
Then, in February 1995, at Minutka, thanks to Rokhlin’s cunning plan, our troops had already reduced almost three-quarters of the personnel of the so-called “Abkhaz” battalion of Shamil Basayev. Volodya’s Yakut carbine also played a significant role here. Basayev promised a golden Chechen star to anyone who would bring the body of a Russian sniper. But the nights passed in unsuccessful searches. Five volunteers walked along the front line in search of Volodya’s “beds”, placing tripwires wherever he could appear in the direct line of sight of their positions. However, this was a time when groups from both sides broke through the enemy’s defenses and penetrated deeply into its territory. Sometimes it was so deep that there was no longer any chance to break out to our own people. But Volodya slept during the day under the roofs and in the basements of houses. The corpses of the Chechens - the night "work" of a sniper - were buried the next day.
Then, tired of losing 20 people every night, Basayev called from the reserves in the mountains a master of his craft, a teacher from a camp for training young shooters, the Arab sniper Abubakar. Volodya and Abubakar could not help but meet in a night battle, such are the laws of sniper warfare.
And they met two weeks later. More precisely, Abubakar hit Volodya with a drill rifle. A powerful bullet, which once killed Soviet paratroopers right through in Afghanistan at a distance of one and a half kilometers, pierced the padded jacket and slightly caught the arm, just below the shoulder. Volodya, feeling the rush of a hot wave of oozing blood, realized that the hunt had finally begun for him.
The buildings on the opposite side of the square, or rather their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya's optics. “What flashed, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight flashing in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building. Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it.
Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is an American camouflage, which was often worn by Chechens, impregnated with a special composition, in which the uniform was indistinctly visible in night vision devices, and the domestic uniform glowed with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.
One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.
- Well, that means a duel, yes, Mr. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.
Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.” The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” on the eye stopped. “Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.
All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.
Two days later, already in the afternoon, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught a light bluish haze through his optics, rising above the roofing sheet and immediately being carried away by the wind.
“So I found you, abrek! You can’t live without drugs! Good...” the Yakut hunter thought triumphantly; he did not know that he was dealing with an Arab sniper who had passed through both Abkhazia and Karabakh. But Volodya did not want to kill him just like that, by shooting through the roofing sheet. This was not the case with snipers, and even less so with fur hunters.
“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait.
Only three days later did he figure out that Abubakar was crawling out from under the leaf to the right side, and not to the left, quickly did the job and returned to the “bed”. To “get” the enemy, Volodya had to change his position at night. He couldn't do anything anew, because any new roofing sheet would immediately give away his new location. But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about fifty meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up.” Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target. Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of Dudayev’s palace, where an Arab sniper was killed on the spot by one hunter’s bullet.
“Well, I got you,” Volodya thought without any enthusiasm or joy. He realized that he had to continue his fight, showing his characteristic style. To prove that he is alive and that the enemy did not kill him a few days ago.
Volodya peered through his optics at the motionless body of the slain enemy. Nearby he saw a “Bur”, which he did not recognize, since he had never seen such rifles before. In a word, a hunter from the deep taiga!
And then he was surprised: the Chechens began to crawl out into the open to take the sniper’s body. Volodya took aim. Three people came out and bent over the body.
“Let them pick you up and carry you, then I’ll start shooting!” - Volodya triumphed.
The three of the Chechens actually lifted the body. Three shots were fired. Three bodies fell on top of the dead Abubakar.
Four more Chechen volunteers jumped out of the ruins and, throwing away the bodies of their comrades, tried to pull out the sniper. A Russian machine gun started working from the side, but the bursts fell a little higher, without causing harm to the hunched Chechens.
Four more shots rang out, almost merging into one. Four more corpses had already formed a pile.
Volodya killed 16 militants that morning. He did not know that Basayev had given the order to get the Arab’s body at all costs before it began to get dark. He had to be sent to the mountains to be buried there before sunrise, as an important and respectable Mujahid.
A day later, Volodya returned to Rokhlin’s headquarters. The general immediately received him as a dear guest. The news of the duel between two snipers had already spread throughout the army.
- Well, how are you, Volodya, tired? Do you want to go home?
Volodya warmed his hands at the stove.
“That’s it, Comrade General, I’ve done my job, it’s time to go home.” Spring work at the camp begins. The military commissar only released me for two months. My two younger brothers worked for me all this time. It's time to know...
Rokhlin nodded his head in understanding.
- Take a good rifle, my chief of staff will draw up the documents...
- Why, I have my grandfather’s. – Volodya lovingly hugged the old carbine.
The general did not dare to ask the question for a long time. But curiosity got the better of me.
– How many enemies did you defeat, did you count? They say that more than a hundred... Chechens were talking to each other.
Volodya lowered his eyes.
– 362 militants, Comrade General.
- Well, go home, now we can handle it ourselves...
- Comrade General, if anything happens, call me again, I’ll sort out the work and come a second time!
Volodya’s face showed frank concern for the entire Russian Army.
- By God, I’ll come!
The Order of Courage found Volodya Kolotov six months later. On this occasion, the entire collective farm celebrated, and the military commissar allowed the sniper to go to Yakutsk to buy new boots - the old ones had become worn out in Chechnya. A hunter stepped on some pieces of iron.
On the day when the whole country learned about the death of General Lev Rokhlin, Volodya also heard about what happened on the radio. He drank alcohol on the premises for three days. He was found drunk in a temporary hut by other hunters returning from hunting. Volodya kept repeating drunk:
- It’s okay, Comrade General Rokhlya, if necessary we will come, just tell me...
After Vladimir Kolotov left for his homeland, scum in officer uniform sold his information to Chechen terrorists, who he was, where he came from, where he went, etc. The Yakut Sniper inflicted too many losses on the evil spirits.
Vladimir was killed by a shot from 9 mm. pistol in his yard while he was chopping wood. The criminal case was never solved.
The first Chechen war. How it all started.
For the first time I heard the legend of Volodya the sniper, or as he was also called - Yakut (and the nickname is so textured that it even migrated to the famous television series about those days). They told it in different ways, along with legends about the Eternal Tank, the Death Girl and other army folklore. Moreover, the most amazing thing is that in the story about Volodya the sniper, an almost letter-by-word similarity was surprisingly traced with the story of the great Zaitsev, who killed Hans, a major, the head of the Berlin sniper school in Stalingrad. To be honest, I then perceived it as... well, let's say, like folklore - at a rest stop - and it was believed and not believed. Then there was a lot of things, as, indeed, in any war, which you won’t believe, but turns out to be TRUE. Life is generally more complex and unexpected than any fiction.
Later, in 2003-2004, one of my friends and comrades told me that he personally knew this guy, and that indeed HE WAS. Whether there was that same duel with Abubakar, and whether the Czechs actually had such a super sniper, to be honest, I don’t know, they had enough serious snipers, and especially during the Air Campaign. And there were serious weapons, including South African SSVs, and porridge (including prototypes of the B-94, which were just entering pre-series, the spirits already had, and with numbers in the first hundred - Pakhomych will not let you lie.
How they ended up with them is a separate story, but nevertheless, the Czechs had such trunks. And they themselves made semi-handicraft SCVs near Grozny.)
Volodya the Yakut really worked alone, he worked exactly as described - by eye. And the rifle he had was exactly the one described - an old Mosin three-line rifle of pre-revolutionary production, with a faceted breech and a long barrel - an infantry model of 1891.
The real name of Volodya-Yakut is Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, originally from the village of Iengra in Yakutia. However, he himself is not a Yakut, but an Evenk.
At the end of the First Campaign, he was patched up in the hospital, and since he was officially a nobody and there was no way to call him, he simply went home.
By the way, his combat score is most likely not exaggerated, but understated... Moreover, no one kept an accurate account, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about it.
Rokhlin, Lev Yakovlevich
From December 1, 1994 to February 1995, he headed the 8th Guards Army Corps in Chechnya. Under his leadership, a number of areas of Grozny were captured, including the presidential palace. On January 17, 1995, generals Lev Rokhlin and Ivan Babichev were appointed by the military command to contact the Chechen field commanders with the aim of a ceasefire.
Murder of a General
On the night of July 2-3, 1998, he was found murdered at his own dacha in the village of Klokovo, Naro-Fominsk district, Moscow region. According to the official version, his wife, Tamara Rokhlina, shot at the sleeping Rokhlin; the reason was given as a family quarrel.
In November 2000, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Tamara Rokhlina guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband. In 2005, Tamara Rokhlina appealed to the ECHR, complaining about the long period of pre-trial detention and the delay in the trial. The complaint was upheld and monetary compensation was awarded (EUR 8,000). After a new consideration of the case, on November 29, 2005, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Rokhlina guilty of murdering her husband for the second time and sentenced her to four years of suspended imprisonment, also assigning her a probationary period of 2.5 years.
During the investigation of the murder, three charred corpses were found in a forested area near the crime scene. According to the official version, their death occurred shortly before the assassination of the general, and has nothing to do with him. However, many of Rokhlin’s associates believed that they were real murderers who were eliminated by the Kremlin’s special services, “covering their tracks”
For his participation in the Chechen campaign, he was nominated for the highest honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation, but refused to accept this title, stating that he “has no moral right to receive this award for military operations on the territory of his own country.”
Volodya-Yakut is a fictional Russian military hero who was a sniper during the First Chechen War. He is Evenk by nationality. The guy was only eighteen years old when he signed up as a volunteer in the Russian army. The real possible name of the legendary character is Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov. He is remembered as a great sniper who showed high results.
About whether it is a myth, legend or real real story, no one can say with certainty. Many say that there really was such a hero, but after the war he became a hermit (according to one version). Others provide evidence that this story- this is nothing more than a fictional legend to raise the morale of the Russian military. If you think rationally, and also study the entire history associated with the sniper Vladimir Kolotov and the events taking place in Chechnya at that time, then many facts indicate that the story is far-fetched. Legend has it that Yakut was a professional hunter (sable hunter).
Sniper Kolotov Vladimir Maksimovich: biography
Volodya Kolotov lived near the city of Yakutsk, in the village of Iengra. From childhood, the boy became involved in hunting and knew how to shoot very accurately, as his father taught him. Everyone in the Kolotov family were hunters, mainly hunting deer and sable. This is the only occupation of the inhabitants of the tundra, besides mining gold and other precious metals.
One day Volodya arrived in Yakutsk to buy the necessary foodstuffs. Walking into a local canteen, Vladimir Kolotov saw a report on TV about how Russian soldiers were fighting in Grozny. Tons of spilled blood and piles of dead soldiers were shown on television from the battlefields. It was precisely this picture that etched itself into the heart of the young hunter, who subsequently decided that he should help the Russian troops and volunteer for the war.
Returning home, Vladimir Kolotov collected all the necessary things, took with him his grandfather’s old Mosin carbine, part of his accumulated savings and several nuggets of unwashed gold. The last thing that the desperate volunteer stuffed into his bag was the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Kolotov decided to go to his compatriots in the city of Grozny to suppress the dominant military force enemy.
You can write a whole story about how Yakut got to Grozny: the guy was detained more than once by law enforcement officials and tormented with questions, he sat in temporary detention centers, his hunting rifle was often taken away from him, because there were no documents allowing him to carry it . Nevertheless, the guy knew that he had no right to step back from his ultimate goal and endured all the difficulties that stood in his way. As a result, he arrived in Grozny and headed to the local military registration and enlistment office.
Meeting with General Rokhlin
Vladimir Kolotov heard stories about the honest and brave General Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin, who at that time headed the Eighth Guards Army Corps in Chechnya. It was to him that he wanted to go to tell his life story and sign up as a volunteer for the war.
Arriving at the military registration and enlistment office, Volodya provided a passport and a document from the military commissar, where it was written that the guy was sent to Grozny as a volunteer. It was this paper that repeatedly saved Yakut’s life when he reached his destination. When Kolotov said that he wanted to see Lieutenant General Rokhlin himself, many did not take his words seriously and ignored the young soldier’s request in every possible way. However, his persistence and tenacity could not be broken. In addition, Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin himself soon learned about the arrival of volunteer Vladimir Kolotov and expressed a desire to see him in person, giving appropriate instructions to the executive officers.
As a result, Kolotov was informed that the general was waiting for him at his temporary headquarters. Squinting from the flashing light generators in his eyes, Volodya headed along the corridor to the indicated door. Entering the office, Yakut looked around a little and asked in broken Russian whether this man was really the same Lieutenant General Rokhlya. To which the general, exhausted from work, nodded his head. He peered inquisitively at a short Evenk in a frayed padded jacket with a duffel bag on his shoulder, behind whose back hung an old rifle with optical sight times of the Great Patriotic War.
Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin immediately guessed that this was exactly the guy about whom the authorities had reported to him. Having thought a little about where to start the conversation, the general offered the soldier hot tea, which he could not refuse, because for the third day he had not drunk hot tea or eaten normal food. Volodya took a metal mug out of his bag and handed it to the general. Rokhlin poured him delicious aromatic tea to the brim and began asking questions. He wondered why the guy came here. Kolotov replied that he saw killed soldiers on TV, he could not stand that Chechens were killing people, he felt ashamed that he did not take part in the extermination of militants, so he wanted to go to the front. He doesn’t need money, he will do everything himself: fight during the day, and go hunting in the forest in the evening. All he needs is ammo and drinking water. Volodya also refused the walkie-talkie and grenades, because, according to him, they were difficult to carry. And when he gets tired, he will return to headquarters to sleep and gain strength, and then he will go into battle again.
Rokhlin shook his head, amazed at the courage and boldness of the young fighter who asks to go to war. The general suggested that he change his rifle, but Yakut refused the new weapon and again reminded him about the cartridges, because he did not have any of his own. Volodya said that he shoots well with his rifle, but it will take a long time to get used to the new weapon. Rokhlin, meanwhile, read in an expensively shabby order from the military commissar of Yakutia that Vladimir Kolotov was a commercial hunter by profession. If a guy voluntarily wanted to go to war, then no one could stop him from doing so. Rokhlin gave appropriate instructions on the deployment of a new fighter.
The beginning of the military hunt
After a conversation with the general, Kolotov began his own war - a sniper war. The guy was given a bed in the headquarters kung, and he immediately fell asleep, despite the noise of artillery fire and mine shelling. The next morning, he packed his things, took food and drink for the first time, and also grabbed the promised cartridges for his old carbine and set off to the war, as if on another hunt. Time passed, and the staff officers completely forgot about the desperate boy who had just recently asked to go into battle. Intelligence alone regularly supplied the necessary ammunition and food to the specified cache every third day. It is worth noting that all the parcels disappeared, thereby making it clear that Yakut was still in business.
The Forgotten Black Sniper
The first person who remembered the sniper Volodya-Yakut was the interceptor radio operator, who was invited to report on the military situation at a meeting at headquarters. He said that the Chechens were in complete turmoil on the radio. They are broadcasting over all radio lines that the Russian troops now have a masterful sniper who walks around enemy territory at night and kills everyone in stacks. Chechen soldiers. Rumor has it that Aslan Alievich Maskhadov (military sovereign of the unrecognized Chechen Republic Ichkeria) placed a reward on the head of a Russian fighter in the amount of 30 thousand dollars. The Russian sniper works clearly and harmoniously. He kills the enemy accurately in the eye from any distance.
After this news, the headquarters command remembered the sniper Volodya with the call sign Yakut, who several weeks ago asked to go to war, taking with him a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition.
As a result, the headquarters learned that Vladimir Yakut Kolotov was working within Minutka Square in Grozny. The 18-year-old sniper killed between 18 and 30 Chechens a day. Each time Kolotov left his handwriting, because the fatal hit was always aimed at the enemy’s eye. In addition, it became known that the Chechen terrorist Shamil Salmanovich Basayev ordered that the Order of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria ("Golden Chechen Star") be awarded to the one who finishes off the Russian black sniper (black because he acted at night). Among the military of Chechnya there were many volunteers who went to hunt Yakut for the sake of the promised reward from Basayev and a cash bonus from Maskhadov, but their attempts only ended in a fatal defeat from well-aimed shots frail Evenk.
It is worth noting that ordinary Russian snipers worked much more efficiently than Chechen ones. In the winter of 1995, on Minutka Square, thanks to the sophisticated military plan of General Rokhlin, federal troops killed more than 75 percent of the Abkhaz military battalion of Sh. S. Basayev. Important role here, of course, the forgotten sniper Volodya-Yakut played, who accounted for several detachments of Chechen troops.
Duel between Kolotov and Abubakar
After a series of complete fiascoes, terrorist group activist Shamil Salmanovich Basayev turned for help to the training camp of the Arab mercenary Osama Abubakar (participant in the Karabakh military conflict) so that he could teach his fighters how to shoot with a sniper rifle in order to challenge the Russians. After several camp training sessions, Abubakar went hunting with his charges. He was armed with a British sniper rifle called the Lee-Enfield.
Once, during a night skirmish, Abubakar noticed Yakut using a night vision device (they say that the Russian combat camouflage could be tracked through NVGs, but the Chechen one could not, because they used some kind of secret substance to impregnate their uniforms). It turned out that Abubakar wounded Volodya in the arm, and he decided to deceive. Yakut stopped shooting, and the Chechens thought that the black sniper had finally been defeated. Volodya set himself a goal - to find Abubakar and personally shoot him. After a week of quiet searching, the wounded Kolotov finally reached his target and finished off the terrorist. Vladimir accurately shot his enemy in the eye near the presidential town hall in Grozny. Here he also put about 16 more Chechens, who quickly tried to hide Abubakar’s body and have time to bury him before sunset, as required by the Koran.
Yakut's work was done perfectly. The next morning, the 18-year-old sniper returned to headquarters and informed General Rokhlin that it was time for him to return home, as originally agreed. Lev Yakovlevich, of course, sent the fighter home, but only for a couple of months. Yakut also reported to the commander-in-chief that he had killed 362 enemy fighters. After this, the story of the sniper Yakut spread across all divisions. The young boy became a real hero and an example for Russian soldiers. Upon returning to the tundra, to Yakutia, Kolotov was awarded the honorary Order of Courage.
Several versions of the ending of the legend of the black sniper
There are several official versions of how the legend of the black sniper ends. One of them mentions the murder of Lieutenant General Rokhlin, in connection with which Volodya Kolotov went on an alcoholic binge for several weeks, from where he was hardly pulled out. After this, the talented sniper renounced his Order of Courage.
The official version says that on the night of June 2-3, 1998, Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin was found dead at his own dacha in the village of Klokovo, Naro-Fominsk district, Moscow region. The document states that the general died instantly after his wife Tamara Rokhlina shot her sleeping husband. The reason for such a drastic action was a family quarrel. The general was buried at Troekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow on July 7, 1998. In 2000, the court found Tamara Rokhlina guilty of committing a crime. In 2005, the case was reviewed, the woman was sentenced to 4 years probation with probationary period for 2.5 years.
The second version says that Yakut was shot dead in 2000 in his yard by a former Chechen terrorist fighter who bought his personal information from unknown persons.
The third version says that the guy returned to his homeland and continued to work as a sable hunter. There is also an opinion that Kolotov was awarded a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev in 2009. No one can answer the question whether the sniper Volodya-Yakut is alive at the present time, because there is one hundred percent confirmation of whether it is a myth or real story, does not exist.
Popularity of the legend
A fictional narrative entitled “Volodya the Sniper” was published in the collection of short stories “I am a Russian Warrior!” author Alexei Voronin in the spring of 1995. In 2011, the story appeared in a magazine called " Orthodox cross" This legend was popular during the 1990s. The story was especially famous among Russian military personnel, for whom it occupied the first step of the pedestal among the list of horror stories and other works of soldier's folklore. Since 2011, the legend of Volodya-Yakut has been popularized on the Internet. This story is still published by various online publications, and it often pops up in major in social networks, and some users enthusiastically believe in this sweet heroic legend.
Evidence for fiction
The existence of a sniper like Vladimir Kolotov is as difficult to believe as the military mercenary Abubakar. There is no documentary evidence of the existence of these heroes. The legend says that the sniper Volodya-Yakut was honored to receive the Order of Courage, but there is no such name in the official archives. Stories about a brave black sniper are often published on the Internet, reinforcing all the supposed real photos. But in fact, the photos show completely different people, they just chose the right appearance.
Answering the question whether Vladimir Kolotov was, some will begin to prove that this man was awarded a meeting with Russian President Medvedev in 2009, however, this is not true either. The Russian guarantor presented honorary awards to resident of Yakutia Vladimir Maksimov (order " Parental glory") and a Siberian military man under the name Batokha (Order of Courage), who served in the 21st Sofrinsky Special Purpose Brigade.
The urban legend has been refuted more than once by bloggers and journalists. This story did not specifically indicate who Vladimir was: a fisher, hunter or prospector. In addition to these, many more questions arise, for example:
- How did Kolotov, with just an order from the Yakut military registration and enlistment office, end up at the headquarters of General Rokhlin?
- How did an eighteen-year-old boy achieve such shooting skills (362 defeated enemies with a precise hit to the eye)?
- Why did a hunter from Yakutia refuse newer weapons? As a rule, any hunter, including northern peoples Russia never neglects modern weapons.
- The confrontation between Abubakar and Kolotov is reminiscent of the story of the duel of the Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev against Heinz Thorwald, who is known as Major Koenig.
- How can an eighteen-year-old guy walk around enemy territory with a Mosin carbine (an old and loud weapon) and be undetected, given that he is also a sniper?
- What is the secret composition with which the Chechens impregnated military uniform so as not to be visible through night vision devices? This simply doesn't exist in real life.
Yakut sniper prototypes
The story about the black sniper is truly fictional, but the hero Kolotov himself is the personification of honor, bravery and courage. That is, this legend about a glorious fighter serves as a collective image of a valiant and brave Russian soldier who took part in the Chechen military conflict. Such legends are born in every war. The most famous prototypes of Kolotov are such snipers of the Great Patriotic War as Fedor Okhlopkov, Ivan Kulbetritnov, Semyon Nomokonov and Vasily Zaitsev.
A film about the sniper Volodya-Yakut in Chechnya
There are many experimental films about legendary sniper times of the First Chechen war. All of them, as a rule, are documentaries, where various eyewitnesses talk about the hero. The legend is so ingrained in the hearts of people that no one thinks about whether it is a lie or true. Sniper Volodya-Yakut is the image of a Russian soldier as others want him to be. Feature film about Vladimir Kolotov, who fought in Chechnya, does not exist, but there is a very similar film called “Sniper Yakut” (released in 2016), the events of which unfold during the Great Patriotic War.
The main character, as you might guess, has the nickname Yakut and is himself from the Evenks. In 1945, a sniper took aim at a German boy, a student of the Hitler Youth unit (youth organization under 16 years old). Yakut, realizing that the enemy was standing in front of him, did not kill the boy and let him go.
Throughout his life, the German boy grew up and remembered the gift of life from the Russian soldier. Being already an old man, he decides to go to Yakutia to find the merciful Russian sniper and ask why he let him go alive.
Volodya did not have a walkie-talkie, there were no new “bells and whistles” in the form of dry alcohol, drinking straws and other junk. There was not even unloading; he did not take the bulletproof vest himself. Volodya only had his old grandfather's hunting rifle with captured German optics, 30 rounds of ammunition, a flask of water and cookies in the pocket of his quilted jacket. Yes, there was a hat with ear flaps - it was shabby. The boots, however, were good; after last year’s fishing, he bought them at a fair in Yakutsk, right on the rafting trip to Lena from some visiting traders.
This is how he fought for the third day. A sable hunter, an 18-year-old Yakut from a distant reindeer camp. It had to happen that I came to Yakutsk for salt and ammunition, and accidentally saw piles of corpses in the dining room on TV Russian soldiers on the streets of Grozny, smoking tanks and heard some words about “Dudaev’s snipers.” This got into Volodya’s head, so much so that the hunter returned to the camp, took his earned money, and sold the little gold he had found. He took his grandfather’s rifle and all the cartridges, put the icon of St. Nicholas the Saint in his bosom and went to fight the Yakuts for the Russian cause.
It’s better not to remember how I was driving – about how I sat in the bullpen three times, how many times my rifle was taken away. But still, a month later, the Yakut Volodya arrived in Grozny.
Finally, the Yakut was lucky and got to the general headquarters.
The only document he had, besides his passport, was a handwritten certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir Kolotov, a hunter by profession, was going to war, signed by the military commissar. The piece of paper, which had become frayed on the road, had saved his life more than once.
General Rokhlin, surprised that someone came to the war of his own free will, ordered the Yakut to be allowed to join him.
Volodya, squinting at the dim lights blinking from the generator, causing his slanted eyes to blur even more, like a bear, walked sideways into the basement of the old building, which temporarily housed the general’s headquarters.
- Excuse me, please, are you that General Rokhlya? – Volodya asked respectfully.
“Yes, I’m Rokhlin,” answered the tired general, who peered inquisitively at the short man, dressed in a frayed padded jacket, with a backpack and a rifle on his back.
- Would you like some tea, hunter?
- Thank you, Comrade General. I haven't had a hot drink for three days. I won't refuse.
Volodya took his iron mug out of his backpack and handed it to the general. Rokhlin poured him tea to the brim.
– I was told that you came to the war on your own. For what purpose, Kolotov?
“I saw on TV how the Chechens were killing our people with snipers. I can't stand this, Comrade General. It's a shame, though. So I came to bring them down. You don't need money, you don't need anything. I, Comrade General Rokhlya, will go hunting at night myself. Let them show me the place where they will put the cartridges and food, and I will do the rest myself. If I get tired, I’ll come back in a week, sleep in a warm place for a day, and go again. You don't need a walkie-talkie or anything like that... it's hard.
Surprised, Rokhlin nodded his head.
- Take, Volodya, at least a new SVDashka. Give him a rifle!
“No need, Comrade General, I’m going out into the field with my scythe.” Just give me some ammo, I only have 30 left now...
So Volodya began his war, the sniper war.
He slept for a day in the headquarters cabins, despite the mine shelling and terrible artillery fire. I took ammunition, food, water and went on my first hunt. They forgot about him at headquarters. Only reconnaissance regularly brought cartridges, food and, most importantly, water to the appointed place every three days. Each time I was convinced that the parcel had disappeared.
The first person to remember Volodya at the headquarters meeting was the “interceptor” radio operator.
– Lev Yakovlevich, the “Czechs” are in panic on the radio. They say that the Russians, that is, we, have a certain black sniper who works at night, boldly walks through their territory and shamelessly cuts down their personnel. Maskhadov even put a price of 30 thousand dollars on his head. His handwriting is like this - this fellow hits Chechens right in the eye. Why only in the eye - who knows...
And then the staff remembered about the Yakut Volodya.
“He regularly takes food and ammunition from the cache,” the intelligence chief reported.
“And so we didn’t exchange a word with him, we didn’t even see him even once.” Well, how did he leave you on the other side...
One way or another, the report noted that our snipers also give their snipers a light. Because Volodin’s work gave such results - from 16 to 30 people were killed by the fisherman with a shot in the eye.
The Chechens realized that a Russian fisherman had appeared on Minutka Square. And since all the events of those terrible days took place in this square, a whole detachment of Chechen volunteers came out to catch the sniper.
Then, in February 1995, at Minutka, the “federals,” thanks to Rokhlin’s cunning plan, had already crushed Shamil Basayev’s “Abkhaz” battalion by almost three-quarters of its personnel. Volodya’s Yakut carbine also played a significant role here. Basayev promised a golden Chechen star to anyone who would bring the body of a Russian sniper. But the nights passed in unsuccessful searches. Five volunteers walked along the front line in search of Volodya’s “beds” and placed tripwires wherever he could appear in direct view of their positions. However, this was a time when groups from both sides broke through the enemy’s defenses and penetrated deeply into their territory. Sometimes it was so deep that there was no longer any chance to break out to our own people. But Volodya slept during the day under the roofs and in the basements of houses. The corpses of Chechens – the night “work” of a sniper – were buried the next day.
Then, tired of losing 20 people every night, Basayev called from the reserves in the mountains a master of his craft, a teacher from the camp for training young shooters, the Arab sniper Abubakar. Volodya and Abubakar could not help but meet in a night battle, such are the laws of sniper warfare.
And they met two weeks later. More precisely, Abubakar hit Volodya with a drill rifle. A powerful bullet, which once killed Soviet paratroopers right through in Afghanistan at a distance of one and a half kilometers, pierced the padded jacket and slightly caught the arm, just below the shoulder. Volodya, feeling the rush of a hot wave of oozing blood, realized that the hunt had finally begun for him.
The buildings on the opposite side of the square, or more precisely, their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya's optics. “What sparkled, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight glinting in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building. Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, he was not wet by the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping.
Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is an American camouflage worn by the Chechens, impregnated with a special composition, in which the uniform was invisible in night vision devices, and the domestic one glowed with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.
One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.
- Well, that means a duel. Yes, Mr. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.
Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.” The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” was cut short. “Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.
All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.
Two days later, already in the afternoon, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught a light bluish haze through his optics, rising above the roofing sheet and immediately being carried away by the wind.
“So I found you, abrek! You can't live without drugs! Good...,” the Yakut hunter thought triumphantly. He did not know that he was dealing with an Arab sniper who had passed through both Abkhazia and Karabakh. But Volodya did not want to kill him just like that, by shooting through the roofing sheet. This was not the case with snipers, and even less so with fur hunters.
“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait.
Only three days later did he figure out that Abubakar was crawling out from under the leaf to the right side, and not to the left, quickly did the job and returned to the “bed”. To “get” the enemy, Volodya had to change the shooting point at night. He couldn't do anything anew; any new roofing sheet would immediately give away the sniper's position. But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about 50 meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up.” Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target. Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of the Dudayev Palace.
“Well, I got you,” Volodya thought without any enthusiasm or joy. He realized that he had to continue his fight, showing his characteristic style. To prove that he is alive and that the enemy did not kill him a few days ago.
Volodya peered through his optics at the motionless body of the slain enemy. Nearby he saw a “Bur”, which he did not recognize, since he had never seen such rifles before. In a word, a hunter from the deep taiga!
And then he was surprised: the Chechens began to crawl out into the open to take the sniper’s body. Volodya took aim. Three people came out and bent over the body.
“Let them pick you up and carry you, then I’ll start shooting!” - Volodya triumphed.
The three of the Chechens actually lifted the body. Three shots were fired. Three bodies fell on top of the dead Abubakar.
Four more Chechen volunteers jumped out of the ruins and, throwing away the bodies of their comrades, tried to pull out the sniper. Earned from the outside Russian machine gun, but the queues lay a little higher, without causing harm to the hunched Chechens.
“Oh, mabuta infantry! You’re just wasting cartridges...” thought Volodya.
Four more shots rang out, almost merging into one. Four more corpses had already formed a pile.
Volodya killed 16 militants that morning. He did not know that Basayev had given the order to get the Arab’s body at all costs before it began to get dark. He had to be sent to the mountains to be buried there before sunrise, as an important and respectable Mujahid.
A day later, Volodya returned to Rokhlin’s headquarters. The general immediately received him as a dear guest. The news of the duel between two snipers had already spread throughout the army.
- Well, how are you, Volodya, tired? Do you want to go home?
Volodya warmed his hands at the stove.
“That’s it, Comrade General, I’ve done my job, it’s time to go home.” Spring work at the camp begins. The military commissar only released me for two months. My two younger brothers worked for me all this time. It's time to know...
Rokhlin nodded his head in understanding.
- Take a good rifle, my chief of staff will draw up the documents...
- For what? I have my grandfather’s... - Volodya lovingly hugged the old carbine.
The general did not dare to ask the question for a long time. But curiosity got the better of me.
– How many enemies did you defeat, did you count? They say that more than a hundred... Chechens were talking to each other.
Volodya lowered his eyes.
– 362 people, Comrade General.
Rokhlin silently patted the Yakut on the shoulder.
- Go home, we can handle it ourselves now...
- Comrade General, if anything happens, call me again, I’ll sort out the work and come a second time!
Volodya’s face showed frank concern for the entire Russian Army.
- By God, I’ll come! The Order of Courage found Volodya Kolotov six months later. On this occasion, the entire collective farm celebrated, and the military commissar allowed the sniper to go to Yakutsk to buy new boots - the old ones had worn out in Chechnya. A hunter stepped on some pieces of iron. On the day when the whole country learned about the death of General Lev Rokhlin, Volodya also heard about what happened on the radio. He drank alcohol on the premises for three days. He was found drunk in a temporary hut by other hunters returning from hunting. Volodya kept repeating drunk: “Nothing, Comrade General Rokhlya, if necessary we will come, just tell me...
After Vladimir Kolotov left for his homeland, scum in officer uniform sold his information to Chechen terrorists, who he was, where he came from, where he went, etc. The Yakut Sniper inflicted too many losses on the evil spirits. Vladimir was killed by a shot from 9 mm. pistol in his yard while he was chopping wood. The criminal case was never solved...
This is how the story of this young boy ended...BUT A HERO!!!
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