Editorial from Important Stories (IStories) dated March 19, 2022.
The editorial noted,
We are forced to change the names of the deceased and his relatives, as “Important Stories” is recognized as undesirable in Russia. We also withheld geographic data due to the law on responsibility for discrediting the Russian armed forces and the law prohibiting the collection of information about the army.
This week in the Far East [of Russia], funerals are being held for soldiers who died during a “military special operation” in Ukraine. Important Stories talked to a close relative of one of the dead servicemen about why he decided to connect his life with the Russian army and under what circumstances he died.
Gennady, a close relative of the deceased soldier:
Yesterday [March 13. – Ed.], Pasha’s wife received a telegram from the military registration and enlistment office that her husband had died. They asked to come to the military unit with relatives for “further briefing”. When Pasha’s mother and wife went there, they were not given any details. They said that Pasha died “during a special operation on the territory of Ukraine, while taking the airport,” but they did not say which one. Everything is very secret there. They brought condolences to them, they said: well, the war, who knew … But everything was in an everyday way, no one spoke about Pasha as a hero.
Now his body is undergoing a forensic medical examination in Rostov-on-Don, they said that the coffin would be taken to our city on Friday or Saturday. The army promised to pay for the funeral.
From the very first day of the war, I was subscribed in a telegram to the channel “Gruz 200” [meaning the Ukrainian channel “Look for your own”, where they posted photos of dead and captured Russian soldiers. – Approx.ed]. Every morning I began with the fact that I looked at these photographs and hoped to see Pasha among the living, among the prisoners. But I didn’t find it there. When Pasha’s dad called me to tell me about his death, the conversation lasted five minutes: he cursed, but I didn’t say a word. I cried.
Pasha was supposed to have turned 34 on April 24. He was born and raised in a small town in the Far East. He has a younger brother; they are five years apart. Their father is from Mariupol, their mother was born in the GDR, and then her family moved to Ukraine. But they met not there, but in Russia. In the Soviet Union they gave apartments and resettled people throughout the country. Pavel’s parents (they did not know each other then) were given housing in one city, where they met, where they gave birth to two sons.
Raised children in the nineties. How did you live? I can’t say it’s good. Sons, of course, loved. But it was a poor standard of living – survival. Parents constantly worked, they could not even get sick, they stole small things from factories. They took part-time jobs to support their families.
At school, Pasha was a C student, he was constantly distracted. But he was not a bully, because he was kind. His parents cannot be said to be some kind of intellectuals, they are from a working environment. Dad worked as a builder; mom worked as a painter. Now the mother is retired, the father works as a watchman on the railway.
Pasha and his younger brother Sergei had a good relationship, Pasha always defended his brother. But at the same time, sometimes he himself bludgeoned him – like an older brother. Pasha and Seryoga were very different in character and behavior. Pasha’s character was tight, I would say, stubborn. Pasha chose war, and Sergei went to the “free world”.
At the age of 18, Pasha was taken into the army. After the service, he decided to stay there: he became a contract soldier. He did not see prospects in his small town. And what are the prospects? The average salary is 15-20 thousand rubles, people mostly work for 15 thousand, all the guys sell scrap metal, take drugs, somehow try to survive. Pash, of course, did not like this. The army gave guarantees: an apartment, a salary of 60 thousand, which is a lot for our city.
Most of Pasha’s classmates drank themselves. There is nowhere to work in the city, nothing to do. Or you can get a part-time job as a loader and carry bags in the warehouse, drink in the evenings to forget, and wake up in the morning and go to work again. Russian outback! It’s probably like that everywhere. Nobody lives well.
When Pasha joined the army, he changed a lot. It’s like he’s been brainwashed. He “swayed”, became larger. In the army, he chose the path of a “real man” who protects and serves his homeland. There, he developed conservative views. At the same time, he did not support the president, did not consider him the best, but he had nothing against either – after all, this is the president who gave him work, housing, that very “stability”.
I remember we discussed the Navalny-related rallies that were all over Russia. Pasha was not on the side of the protesters, but he was not on the side of the state either. He then said: “If the president gives the army an order to shoot at civilians, this will never happen. The military will never attack civilians.” Apparently, this concerned only Russian citizens.
We strongly disagreed with him after he returned from the army. Pasha became difficult to understand. We had very few points of contact left, we could only discuss family matters. It’s the same with his younger brother: Pasha’s interests are the army and the war, Seryozha has cafes, restaurants, walks, he went to study in another city. Although before the army there were no spills: two brothers – two best friends. Pasha even accused his younger brother of leaving for St. Petersburg, living there quietly, studying, such a humanist and peacemaker, and he himself remained in his hometown to help his parents. That’s why he joined the army: he didn’t spend money on cars, not on his dreams, but on helping his mom and dad. Then he had his own family.
How he met his wife, I don’t know. I know that she is a teacher at the school. She, too, has always been conservative, watched TV and believed him. But now she is being forced to tell schoolchildren about Ukraine and the “special operation”; but she refuses: she says that parents should lie to their children themselves.
For ten years, Pasha traveled around Russia, he was transferred to different parts, he participated in the exercises. He praised the country, showed photographs of incredible beauty: some caves, taiga, steppes. It’s hard to get to where they were during the exercises – they flew there by helicopter, he photographed everything from a bird’s eye view. He was pleased with the country, was a patriot and really loved Russia.
Nine months of the year he was on exercises, and there it was forbidden to use telephones – only pushbuttons. And all this time I don’t know what the commanders told them – then I seemed to communicate with another person. Pasha said that NATO and the Americans are all against us. I did not believe that my own son could think so. As I understand it, for the duration of the exercises, the chiefs remained the only source of information for them.
Twice Pasha was at the exercises in Syria. And just a year ago he was there. He said that he did not shoot- something, it seems, was connected with intelligence. I laughed at how they tracked the Americans on iPhones. Had a lot of fun. But his parents and I were already afraid then: we knew that there was a war there and it was not very safe. And he was pleased – he was happy with the fruits, which are in abundance there.
Pasha has never been abroad – except for Syria. He did not see how the world happens. His wife really wanted to travel, but it turned out only in Russia. Once a year, the state gave them vacation tickets: to Moscow, Kaliningrad, Rostov. He was not allowed to go abroad, he is a military man, not allowed to travel abroad. As he entered this military vacuum, he decided to stay there. He felt comfortable there. This became his home.
True, after the second trip to Syria, Pasha began to become disillusioned with the state and believed less and less in what the commanders were saying. He got a knee injury there; he was supposed to be sent for an operation in Moscow. He even wanted to completely leave the army, but he was told that he had a contract – if he leaves, then immediately to prison for twenty years. So, when the “special operation” began, he was persuaded to go to the “exercises”, and after them to have an operation.
He continued to communicate with his family, even with those with whom he no longer had common topics. I know that he flew to his brother in Petersburg. He liked Petersburg very much. He wanted to come there this summer with his wife and son. In the fashionable places where Seryozha took him, he was uncomfortable. But in pubs with draft beer and “kirieshki” he was fine.
He was a good guy, a kind person, just some of his coordinates have shifted in the wrong direction. But he understood that he did not want such a life for his son. He, like any man of conservative views, was waiting for the “heir”. He sent us a video of his son growing up, walking, starting to talk. Now he is four years old. When we talked about the future of his son, Pasha thought that he could be sent to study in Moscow, St. Petersburg, perhaps even abroad. Pasha fought, saw the war – and did not want his child to see it.
The last time Pasha called his mother was February 18. He said that they were being taken to Belarus for exercises, saying: “Mom, we have so many weapons, we are now laying out weapons, so many! This has never happened; it seems that there will be a war.” Even then he suspected that there would be an attack on Ukraine. He never spoke to his parents again.
Pasha’s colleague also called his mother on February 24, said that her son was alive, that everything was fine … Well, everything is fine: their dry ration was overdue, one for two days, it’s not clear what to do, everyone was demotivated – but he couldn’t do anything else because you can’t. The only thing he mentioned was that at that moment they were near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – they were guarding.
And when Pavel called his wife for the last time, he sent her telegram channels with Ukrainian news and asked her to trust only them. He said that they are used there as cannon fodder, but according to Russian news, everyone is lying.
Pasha’s mother did not believe until the very end that these “teachings” were something serious. She always watches TV, believes everything there. And his father was in shock: he cursed, cursed Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Putin – he just understands what is happening and what all these events are leading to. In addition, Pasha’s father was in touch with his relatives from Mariupol, who constantly told him that the Russians were advancing, that Putin wanted something. When he found out that his son was in Ukraine, he was very angry and annoyed.
I also keep in touch with relatives in Ukraine [in Mariupol]. Before that, we talked once a year – congratulated each other on the holidays. When the invasion began, we became close. Probably, nothing united us as much as this war. We constantly corresponded: about how they spend the night in the basement, how bombs fall nearby. That there is nothing to eat and no water, no heating, no humanitarian corridors, and they cannot leave the city. About how they stand for five hours in line for humanitarian aid in order to get at least something. Since March 5, there has been almost no contact with relatives. A bomb fell on the house in the basement of which they were hiding, and two entrances were destroyed.
They already know that Pasha is dead. I am shocked that Pasha went to fight at all. But, of course, they want this war to end as soon as possible. They say that they do not know when they will be able to accept and realize all this.
Our relatives are all for Ukraine, they do not expect help from Russia at all. They want the Russian army to leave them alone. And their hearts break from the fact that Pasha went to war. There are some Ukrainians there who are waiting for Russian liberators, but “they are old and stupid” – that’s what our relatives tell us. And these Ukrainians are also bombed. Everyone says they don’t understand what he [Vladimir Putin] needs: when he takes Ukraine, what’s next? The whole world will not let Russia breathe freely. Everyone is afraid, but they cannot give up, this is their land.
It seems to me that they [soldiers] are being deceived in the army, they are hanging noodles on their ears about neo-Nazis, Bandera, fascists, Americans. They really think that people with machine guns who are fighting against them are not Ukrainians, but fascists. They don’t talk before they shoot. I think for some time Pasha could believe that he was freeing his father’s relatives, the Ukrainians, from fascism.
Not only our family received a telegram about the death of a relative in Ukraine: the neighbors also received a notice that their son had died. Many people from our region were sent there. And as if they all ended up in one place – a lot of local residents received such telegrams.
I think those who have been so affected by this war are opening their eyes. For now, we only plan to bury Pasha. His mother spends all the time with Pasha’s wife, babysitting her grandson, apparently trying to drown out the pain, being distracted.
I have no words for how this is possible. I was sure that there are seven commandments, one of them is “Thou shalt not kill”, and here brother kills brother. The Russians are going to Ukraine – the very fact of this is incomprehensible to me.
It is as if Putin has purposefully plundered the country for years, so that people in the regions become impoverished, so that it is easier to manage them, to fool their brains. It still does not fit in my head how Pasha could go to war when his relatives were sitting in the basement – and did not expect salvation from him.
Now they said that Pavel would be buried as a hero of Russia – solemnly and with honors. Already received an order. The family will be given about 12 million rubles, the wife will be given a pension and the mortgage will be closed.
At first, I thought that if Pasha’s bosses came to the funeral, I would spit in their faces. Or maybe he would have turned away, would not have given a hand. But I do not know for sure how I will behave at the funeral, whether I will be able to speak there. I didn’t have that experience. It rashly seemed to me that I would have spat in his face if he had remained alive. But now that I know how he changed shortly before his death, of course, I would not do that.
The coffin has not arrived yet. Now [from Ukraine] they bring two or three coffins a day. They are even going to make an alley of glory in our city – they are preparing that there will be many graves. And from here young guys are taken away. Tomorrow a new stream will be brought to Ukraine.
IStories
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