It's no big secret that non-MCLIO officers leave the army prematurely of their own accord at a critical time today. For good or bad reasons is another matter. But they leave on their own. Yes, probably, they do not make such a decision from a good life. The lack of money is pressing, the feeling of social and professional lack of demand is depressing. In general, there are many reasons. But here's what's interesting: among the volunteers, on the contrary, a very small percentage of officers are "Afghans". They hold fast to the army. It seems that there is no phenomenon in the special strength of the "Afghan umbilical cord". It's just that those who have passed the test of war, who know the true value of the military brotherhood, have a slightly different system of moral coordinates. It has its own concepts of duty, responsibility, and perception of military service as such. Service for them is not a job that you can hire and then easily change it. This is service: to the state, to the people, to the country. They don't leave it voluntarily. At least for most "Afghans", this is an axiom of life. Our hero is one of them.

The geography of any person's life itself can tell a lot. In relation to a serving brother, this is already a peculiar characteristic. The commander of a special purpose group, or according to the usual infantry "table of ranks" - platoon commander, Lieutenant Yuri Stoderevsky got to Afghanistan "under the patronage". A few years earlier, his older brother had graduated from the same Tashkent High School as him. He began his service in a special forces brigade in Chirchik, and" beyond the river", as soon as events began to unfold there, he commanded a combined detachment. This is the example of my younger brother. It is no wonder that, after taking the first lieutenant's leave off and having a little roughed up in the Chirchik brigade, the young officer Yu. After a short time, Stoderevsky received a raid unit and got acquainted with the situation far from school days.

"Afghans", like most military officers, do not like to describe the raids, operations, etc., in which they have participated. "We did our job conscientiously " - so briefly described his" Afghan " past Stoderevsky, in which, of course, was not very original.

True military people are also distinguished by the fact that they subconsciously perceive the installation "from above" as a guide to action.

Yuri Stoderevsky was spared by the frontline fate. Not to count the raids, ambushes, combs, and a host of other specific tasks that were assigned to his unit, and the annoying nuisance in the form of a wound happened contrary to what was expected in this kind of combat activity only once. Just once, an extract from the award decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet came to the brigade: "To award Lieutenant Stoderevsky Yu. Y. with the Order of the Red Star". But the documents for the brave officer were sent by personnel officers more than once or twice, including after that injury...

But he didn't go chasing medals and medals in Afghanistan. I did not do this later in other hot regions - Transnistria, South Ossetia, Chechnya. But it is fair to say: if, according to all the ideas sent to him from temporary garrisons with the return address "field mail...", award decrees were passed, we would write today not just about Colonel Stoderevsky, but the cavalier of at least a dozen military orders. About that conversation is separate.

...The pages of the biography of the current commander of the 81st Guards Motorized rifle Regiment PriVO, 38-year-old Colonel Yuri Yuryevich Stoderevsky, can be titled with geographical names according to their places of service: Afghanistan, Germany, Transnistria. One of these landmarks is South Ossetia. In Tskhinvali, a consolidated reinforced battalion under the command of Major Stoderevsky has set up outposts and temporary locations in as many as seven locations. A recent graduate of the Frunze Academy got a rather big farm. Suffice it to say that to ensure the activities of the Volga peacekeepers, they were even given a space communication field station. Ignorant wits then ironically: "Are you going to the wine-tangerine region? Well, well..." And the motorized riflemen changed two parachute regiments in this hot region. Who does not know, let me remind you: winged infantry just like that, for wine and fruit, usually do not send on business trips.

What is being a peacemaker? We don't talk about physical activity. It is clear that sleepless nights at the checkpoint in a multi-kilogram bulletproof vest do not add strength at all. But it was also hard mentally. Yuri Yuryevich still remembers those days without much joy today:

- Imagine, they mock and provoke the soldiers. People don't have much to do, especially young people. I don't have a job. So they're looking for adventure. Someone deliberately goes to provocations: they know that the peacekeepers will not shoot-diplomacy...

Stoderevsky's battalion returned from Transcaucasia without losses. Six months ' respite , and then we're on the road again. This time to the west, to the area of the recent Transnistrian-Moldovan conflict. The motorized riflemen only had a zone of responsibility defined under two hundred kilometers. Every day is tense. Well, the people in the region were calmer. The June ' 92 massacre was enough for both sides arguing over undivided power and territory.

At the end of 1994, Stoderevsky's peacekeepers were to travel to another" resort area " - Abkhazia. There were no mean jokes about tangerine paradise back then. After all, there were losses on business trips to hot spots. Those who distinguished themselves in the "warm places" were awarded military orders. However, sparingly. Among the few noted at that time was Stoderevsky. He was awarded the Order "For Personal Courage". Well, in Abkhazia, Battalion Commander Stoderevsky never visited. Although the date of loading at the station has already been determined-December 15. But at the last moment, the train's departure was delayed. Everything was clear: federal troops were entering Chechnya in those days. It was already known about the Grozny tragedy of the 81st regiment and the 131st brigade of the North Caucasus Military District, when the Totsk motorized rifle units arrived in the combat area. The peacemaking skills that had just been worked out at the autumn exercises together with the Americans turned out to be, to put it mildly, unclaimed here. In Chechnya, the "green wolves" had to be spoken to exclusively in the manner of wolves. And privolzhtsy talked. They broke into militant strongholds near Shali and Serzhen-Yurt with heavy fire, smashed homegrown redoubts near Hermenchuk, and pushed the militants all the way to Kharachoy. Lieutenant Colonel Stoderevsky's battalion did not lose a single man. There were wounded, and among them the battalion commander himself, who received two severe concussions during explosions. The list of officers prepared in those days in the regiment for presentation to the highest award was supplemented by the commander of a tank platoon, fearless minesweeper of minefields, Senior Lieutenant Andrey Ananyev, battalion commanders Lieutenant Colonels Yuri Rudov and Yuri Stoderevsky. There was something to be said for. But, apparently, the personnel officers lost in the Khankala front-line bustle award documents for Volga officers. In any case the head of the personnel department 27 med Lieutenant Colonel Igor Kopnin stated in our conversation: "Yes, I heard something, but such performances did not pass through the division."

Not the number of awards and titles is measured by the life path of a real officer. There are more important things than orders and medals. This is a conscientious attitude, a task completed, and people's lives saved. Here is Yuri Yuryevich Stoderevsky from such officers. For him, service and duty are concepts as close and proper as first and last names. What are his current concerns: to equip the regiment, where he is now the commander, to solve a lot of questions about the organization of service and everyday life. Good words in the address of the police department now almost does not hear: more and more comments and instructions. But here, too, he does not give up, with the persistence that was probably instilled in Afghanistan, he looks for a way out of difficult situations. It also sets people up for work. There are a lot of reasons to be angry with the servicemen of this formed unit - there is no housing, personnel and equipment are not attached. But no one blames their commander. They see how he supports the regiment, how he fights with other bosses, in whose vocabulary there are often phrases like " I don't know and I don't want to know, but I want everything to be ready by morning." Against such people, Yuri Yurievich has his own weapon-tact, politeness and integrity. This is the style of his daily communication with others. It's just a pity that, suppressing emotions in himself, he thinks less and less about health. So the doctors of the district hospital in Samara, where the "owner" of two concussions and wounds, the holder of several military orders, recently passed an annual medical examination, advise: "Let off steam more often, Comrade Colonel, don't keep it boiling."..

There are many things I didn't mention in my short story about the brave officer. About your family, for example. Yuri Yuryevich's daughters, he has two of them, are no less front-line soldiers than his father. Once the family had to evacuate from the area of armed clashes near the Sukhumi military sanatorium almost under fire. It was in ' 92, but even the years hadn't erased the eerie rumble of a helicopter gunship coming into a turn. Still tenaciously holds the children's consciousness of the terrible images of war. Of course, Stoderevsky blames himself for not being able to send his family to safety in a timely manner. But it wasn't up to that then. I also had to think about saving other people's children.

And isn't Colonel Stoderevsky thinking the same thing now, continuing his honest service in spite of everything?..

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