Almost no one in the company knew that Ivan played the guitar. And to be honest, he, a radio scout from the spetsnaz brigade, was not always up to the guitar. Ever since school, every day of service has been packed like a parachute pack, packed with the big and small events that make up army life. And yet, half-forgotten guitar and favorite songs sometimes, as on this October day, reminded of themselves. In the morning, lines from Vysotsky were spinning in my memory:"And the stars fell from the sky in a silent rain."

But they, these lines, were instantly forgotten as soon as a group of scouts led by Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Bezginov entered the area controlled by bandits. And even the temperature that had been feverish for Ivan since the evening was gone. He did not tell the commander about it, because there was no other radio operator in the squad. And it is not in the spirit of the special forces to talk about indisposition before the operation itself.

Song of the stars... And why did he suddenly remember her? After all, there really weren't any stars. Night gradually turned into morning. A thin mist drifted across the foothills. They were moving cautiously towards Sernovodsk. No one will ever know why the company commander, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Bezginov, was so focused on this tragic and terrible morning. Perhaps it was because a UAZ truck with "spirits" had passed by during the day, and now the commander was doubtful whether they had been noticed. His party of eleven men had only to go around a small mountain and then they would be in some relative safety, because there was an open space here, and they could see right through it. A convenient, oh, convenient ambush spot...

Everyone heard the screams of the sentries and immediately realized that they were in trouble. Then the mountain silence exploded. The Dukhs were firing such heavy machine-gun fire that Bezginov probably knew instantly that the ambush was serious. Don't break through, don't leave. We need to keep fighting and call for help. Then he looked for the radio operator, Private Anureev. Sibiryak was close by.

Later it will turn out that the watchers died immediately. All they had time to do was shout a warning. The detachment concentrated in a small trench left over from the first Chechen campaign. The sniper, Ensign Oleg Kuyanov, fought separately from everyone else. He immediately took up an advantageous position and now cut off the bandits ' advance to the trench. The company commander understood that much would depend on the radio operator. We need to have time to pass the coordinates of their location to our friends. Ivan also understood this, hastily deploying the radio station and looking for his own people on the air. He knew they were waiting for his call signs.

"I'm Illes, I'm Illes... Please respond...

Did Ivan Anureev, a red-haired boy from the Siberian hinterland, think that in a little over a year

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after finishing school, will he sit in a ditch in the mountains, not far from the Sunzhensky ridge, thousands of kilometers from his native home and, putting aside a red-hot machine gun, call his friends to help, calling himself a Chechen name? No, I didn't think so. He studied at SPTU, raced a motorcycle, picked up equipment, which was his unstoppable passion. Several half-disassembled motorcycles and cars were constantly parked in the courtyard, and Ivan's father Valery Alexandrovich, although he was not indifferent to technology, sometimes grumbled:

- You, Ivan, have set up MTS right here, soon it will be impossible to pass through the yard.

Ivan's second passion was the guitar. Under the cherry tree that looked in the windows of his native veranda, friends gathered, and Ivan sang. And all for some reason about distant Afghanistan, about Russian guys who fought there and died in the eighties. His repertoire was invariably military. The lines of Vladimir Vysotsky were exciting and exciting: "I already decided that the trouble was over, and I managed to get out of it. But a stray star fell from the sky right under my heart."

Then, much later, when Ivan will be treated, and the consequences of the concussion will not affect as much as it did right away, he, sitting in his native home, confesses to me:

"So don't be superstitious. I sang, sang military songs and got drunk...

However, not everything is probably so. Ivan wanted to serve in the army and was preparing for it. In the garden, I even made a crossbar and trained on it. One thing was a little confusing and bothering - my back ached. He doesn't know where he caught a cold. But even a hint of this was not said in the military enlistment office. However, when I got into the special forces, the sore made itself felt, especially in school. Sometimes he almost howled when the pain was unbearable - the loads in the special forces are still those. Skydiving, marching, and cross-country skiing. Half a day was spent training on various types of radio stations. And Ivan served, so lucky, in his native places, as the company's wits said, "behind the vegetable gardens." A little more than a hundred kilometers separated him from his parents ' home, but before leaving for the Caucasus, he had never been able to visit there.

On the day when they were sent to Dagestan, Elena Petrovna's mother decided to visit her son. I collected homemade gifts, arrived at the unit, and at the checkpoint she was stunned; "Your son left this morning as part of the company for his new duty station." "There?" She gasped. They did not hide anything from her: "There, to the North Caucasus."

From that day on, a new countdown began in the Anureev family. Messages from the North Caucasus on radio and television were passed through the soul. Somehow the younger ones, Leshka and Irinka, grew up at once. It was as if everything was the same, peaceful. The bitter smell of burning potato tops wafted from the vegetable gardens, and the forests burned unbearably bright with the autumn color. It wasn't far from pre-winter. And in the Anureevs ' house there was a war. And how many Russian homes does she still live in?

Did a mother's heart break that day, October 15, when her son screamed in a hoarse voice:

"I'm Illes... Please respond.

She didn't say anything about it. Only a bitter, barely perceptible smile. And there was always a motherly reproach in that smile: "Do you know how to wait for your son from the war? Especially when the war seems to be nonexistent. For others, no. And for us-here it is..."

And for them, for the group of Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Bezginov? They barely held back the onslaught of the terrorists. The Special forces died under heavy fire. After a few hours of fighting, there were only six of them left. Ivan constantly called his own people and could not get through to them. The bandits sat tightly on his wave, creating interference. Unfortunately, his radio station could not compare with modern "dukhovskie" radio stations with scanning devices. They very easily "read the wave" of our stations and interfered with them in every possible way. Therefore, Ivan used the call sign in the Chechen manner.

Meanwhile, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Bezginov continued to lead the battle. And it wasn't easy to do that. Only for a moment did he lean out of the trench to adjust the fire, and then this place is literally

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it was cut with bandit bullets. Finally Ivan heard his own people.

"I hear you, Comrade Senior Lieutenant! There is a connection!

"Send us our coordinates."..

Ivan began transmitting. At this time, Senior Lieutenant Mikhail Bezginov leaned out of the trench for a moment and suddenly shuddered, began to sink to the ground. The bullet hit him in the back. Ivan Anureev realized that they were surrounded. A second later, a grenade exploded nearby. Ivan was blinded, stunned, but he immediately woke up and rushed back to the radio station. She was silent. The broadcast was empty. Anureev sat down helplessly at the bottom of the trench and immediately felt a push in his back. I looked around. Ensign Mikhail Bakhnov was crouched at the bottom of the trench. Wounded, then... Ensign Sergei Elimzeev looked at him with red, inflamed eyes, pointed to Ivan's ears, and moved his lips soundlessly. Anureev put his hands to his head and felt sticky blood on his palms. He understood: it's a concussion. So the station is all right. And he started shouting again, not hearing himself:

"I'm Illes... Transmitting coordinates. I can't hear you - I'm shell-shocked. We're running out of ammo.

Sometimes his hearing returned, and he heard his own people, understood that help was coming, that "boxes" and "turntables"were on the way somewhere. And that it came, the survivors found out when the helicopters from the first approach crashed out of NURSov.

There were only five of them left alive. Five out of eleven. Anureev destroyed fifteen terrorists in this battle. Thanks to him, help was quickly able to approach, and a large gang was defeated.

Next to them, another tragedy was played out and a feat was accomplished. In the direction where the sniper ensign Oleg Kuyanov was fighting, our scouts counted forty-five bandit corpses. Kuyanov was not immediately found. Much later, the circumstances of his death will become clear. Oleg died in battle, but became hated by the bandits because he did not break down, that he inflicted deadly damage to them until the last round... They took the sniper's body with them and abused it. Ensign Oleg Kuyanov was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation...

Today it is not fashionable to talk about the origins of heroism, feats. And, perhaps, because some skorokhvat journalists consider such concepts as "national traditions", "collectivism", and "strong family foundations"to be too outdated and outdated. But, reflecting on the feat of Ivan Anureev and his colleagues, you realize that all this was the basis of the courage of Russian soldiers. Left without commanders, the scouts stood to the end. And they survived. Ask: what does this have to do with family principles? Judge for yourself. Ivan's younger brother, Leshka, who is now not distinguished by a heroic health, and could receive not only a reprieve, but also an exemption from conscription, said to his family:

- And do not dissuade me, I will definitely go to the army. I'll ask to join the special forces, where Vanya served.

And Ivan Anureev served in a brigade commanded by Colonel Yuri Mokrov. In a brigade where every boy dreams of serving. Incredibly, but a fact: in modern society, where the moral vacuum is often filled with soulless vulgarity, surrogate models of supermen, killers and rapists, Siberian boys dream of being like Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Konopelkin, who was terribly wounded in the first Chechen campaign and remained in the battle formation. The future Hero of Russia lost a foot on the battlefield, but he found the strength to overcome the disease and stay close to those to whom he owes his life. Or maybe in order to finish serving for the prematurely departed Captain Igor Lelyukh and Lieutenant Dmitry Yerofeyev, his friends who received the title of Hero of Russia posthumously?

It is an honor and responsibility to serve in this brigade, where courage, nobility and honor are not empty words, but traditional concepts embodied in army everyday life. I think that if we put together all the orders and medals that have recently been awarded to soldiers and officers of this brigade, then there is hardly another such military formation that has so many awards. And behind them, the hardest army labor, blood and sweat, wounds and injuries. Sometimes death...

Without falling into false pathos, I want to note one more important circumstance. Private Ivan Anureev-from the most remote part of Russia, with a native Russian name. So, the Ivans have not yet been transferred to Russia? No wonder the poet Valery Rzhannikov wrote:

Moms looking for prettier ones

Names for boys,

Well, and Mother Russia

Without Ivanov , what is she?

And really, what is it, Mother Russia, without Ivans, even if they are called Peters, Dmitriy and Alexanders? What is a Power without the feat of an ordinary soldier? It is not for nothing that the President of the Russian Federation, when presenting the Hero's Star to Ivan Anureev in the Kremlin, stressed: "I would especially like to note the feat of Private Ivan Anureev..."

Returning home, Ivan, of course, played the guitar under his favorite bird cherry tree. Again he sang lines from Vysotsky's song about the stars. And I was surprised: there, in Chechnya, I remembered the last two lines from the quatrain. The first ones fell out and were forgotten. And then I remembered: "I will never forget this fight. Death permeates the air. And the stars fell from the sky in a silent rain..."

One landed on his chest. But he knows for sure-this is not only his star, but also those guys who did not return from the fight.

Some surnames in the text have been changed.

Colonel Viktor SAIDAKOV, senior permanent correspondent of Orientir magazine for the Siberian Military District.

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