Survivor Builds Memorial to 152 Fallen Afghan War Comrades

Not far from the forest village of Kustarevka in the Sasovo district (Ryazan region, Russia) stands the Voskreseniye (Resurrection) memorial. It is dedicated to the memory of 152 Afghan War soldiers who served in the 201st Gatchina twice Red Banner Motor Rifle Division. Vladimir Kuznetsov, a resident of the Ryazan region, carried the idea of creating it for many years. On the day his fellow soldiers were ambushed by mujahideen in the maze of one of Afghanistan«s gorges, he was celebrating his birthday. It fell on Paratroopers» Day, 2 August. By Afghan tradition, men celebrating birthdays were not sent on dangerous missions.

Vladimir Kuznetsov survived, but pain and a sense of guilt never left him for a minute, and he did everything in his power to perpetuate the memory of his fallen comrades. That is how the idea of the memorial was born. In 2021, Vladimir Kuznetsov died of complications from COVID-19, but the memorial has become a place of pilgrimage for Afghan War veterans. On 2 August they come here from every corner of the country, read prayers, sing songs, bathe in the font and remember the fallen. On Paratroopers« Day, a YA62.RU correspondent visited the site and spoke with participants in those tragic events.

Alexander Bulatov, a resident of Kustarevka who helped bring Vladimir Kuznetsov«s idea to life, said it all began with paratroopers meeting at a forest spring and a stone with a commemorative plaque donated by foresters. But gradually, step by step, they managed to build a chapel named after the Prophet Elijah — the patron saint of paratroopers.

They built a baptismal font and a bell tower, erected a Sorrowing Mother monument with an Eternal Flame, and installed memorial plaques for each of the 150 fallen reconnaissance soldiers. The plaques stand along alleys laid out in the shape of a cross. That idea belonged to Vladimir Kuznetsov. To make the memorial easier to maintain, it was decided to create a fund for the Voskreseniye memorial and patriotic complex.

“Vovka was originally from Kustarevka. He served in the 783rd Separate Reconnaissance Battalion within the motor rifle division. His birthday was 2 August. They were raised on alert on the second, and he wasn«t taken along because it was his birthday. Many of his friends died there. And that thought got stuck in his head. I talked with him, he said he couldn»t sleep and agonized at night. And we decided that at least we had to somehow perpetuate their memory,” Bulatov says. “The spring had been here since time immemorial, it was revered by the locals, and we decided this was the most suitable place,” Bulatov says.

People helped with the whole world. For example, the stones for the floor of the baptismal font and the chapel were given to Vladimir Kuznetsov by an ethnic Afghan who had fought alongside our soldiers in those years, defending the legitimate Afghan government. It was expensive, first-class stone brought from Pakistan.

Later, the chapel was built with Vladimir Kuznetsov«s own funds.

“Plus Volodya Mayer sponsored it. He sold his business. His wife said: ‘Here«s the money, you don»t need it, give it to the boys.’ He was the one who built that bell tower,” Bulatov says. Later local authorities joined in, allocating funds under a program to support local initiatives. There was an idea to bring military equipment there, but Vladimir Kuznetsov did not manage to realize it during his lifetime. And so far the plan has stalled.

Veterans used to come here from all corners of Russia, but now many of them are in poor health, so the number of visitors shrinks year by year. This time only two men came who had served in the very same unit as Vladimir Kuznetsov. They wore no uniform and carried no flags, saying the memories are hard for them. They were asked to speak at the memorial rally, but they refused.

Vladimir Mayer came from Voronezh; in those years he served in signals intelligence. He recalls that our reconnaissance troops were lured into a real trap in that gorge.

“It had been prepared there, they already knew who was coming. The boys were going to the rescue of a motor rifle battalion. They went by the shortest route through the gorge. Though that was already a mistake. And they were already waiting for those boys there; it turned out they were cut off unit by unit in the maze of the gorge,” he says.

It is hard for him to recall Afghanistan; he barely holds back tears and says he lost many friends there and continues to lose them in the Special Military Operation [SMO]. For several years now the Afghan War veteran has regularly been bringing humanitarian aid there. His most vivid personal memory of the Afghan War was how our reconnaissance troops checked caravans by helicopter — searching for weapons with which the Americans had then begun actively supplying the mujahideen.

Afghan War veteran Boris Lavrentyev came to reinforce the battalion after it had already been ambushed:

“On 3 August 1980 there was a very large number of dead. There were 39 killed and 49 wounded in one area. The reconnaissance battalion, the forward unit of the motor rifle division, suffered such heavy losses, and the division command issued an order to gather reconnaissance men from all the reconnaissance companies to bring the reconnaissance battalion, which had suffered heavy losses, back up to strength. I served in the reconnaissance company of the 282nd Tank Regiment. So eight of us from our reconnaissance company were sent as reinforcements. We arrived there around 25 August.”

He recalls that it was hard to look at the soldiers; everyone took the tragedy painfully.

“We walked into a tent, into the place of a new deployment after our own units. We went up to a bed, and one wounded guy was lying there. You start putting your things on the bed, and he says: ‘This is where Sergei was killed, this was Alexander«s spot.’ A terrible impression, of course. We got our weapons in the armory, the magazine pouches — everything was covered in blood, the butts smashed by those bullets. It was hard to pull yourself together and fight with weapons that had been in the gorge, to put on blood-soaked magazine pouches. Well, time heals little by little, we became friends with the guys, relations settled down,” the veteran recalls.

He says the fallen soldiers were going to help a motor rifle battalion that had been ambushed, moving down along the gorge rather than up over the mountains.

“When they were entering the gorge, the guys told how a local shepherd had said to them: ‘Don«t go in there, they»ve prepared an ambush for you.’ Well, they didn«t listen to that shepherd, they went into the gorge. The first company — 19 men were killed right away. The second company — about half its personnel were killed or wounded. And the third company, in which I served, there too about 50–60 percent of its personnel were wounded or killed,” he says.

There were some curious incidents too. The men had a heavy radio set, which was loaded onto a donkey. And it turned out that during the fighting they somehow lost sight of that radio set, and the donkey went off into the mountains with it. It provided the link between the men in the gorge and the aircraft and helicopters.

“The guys killed the donkey, and under bullets one man performed a feat of the greatest heroism, Sergei Podshivalov, from Volgograd. He acted heroically, but he was never recognized for it. Bullets and explosions all around, the guys are dying, and he climbed up somewhere onto a height, some twenty or thirty meters up the rocks, took that radio set, dragged it down, and there the forward air controller already gave the command, made contact with the helicopters, and thanks to that the entire remaining personnel of the battalion were saved,” Boris says.

On 2 August the Afghan War veterans celebrated Paratroopers« Day, and on 3 August there will be a day of remembrance for those who died in that very battle. The plaques bear the names of all of Vladimir Kuznetsov»s fallen comrades. Mostly Afghanistan, but there are also those who survived the war with the mujahideen and died in Chechnya. Soldiers do not divide armed conflicts into their own and others«, remembering all their comrades, including those who are dying now on the fronts of the SMO.

Earlier we interviewed a paratrooper lieutenant colonel from Ryazan who told how he fought in Afghanistan and made peace between Serbs and Muslims in the territory of the former Yugoslavia as part of a peacekeeping mission. And also about how the Americans did harm to our people in both places.