Argun Gorge - memory or oblivion?

Glory and bitterness ... How often do these words go together in the characteristics of wars, because war is death, the death of young people who could have done so much in their lives. But the bitterness becomes especially intolerable, when it was possible to avoid human casualties, but someone did not give the necessary order and forbade to go to the aid of his own.

The Argun gorge is the most beautiful place in the whole Caucasus. The long canyon plays a strategically important role in communication throughout the Chechen Republic: the forces controlling it have the opportunity to dominate the country.

Counter-terrorist operation - so officially called the fighting in Chechnya since September 1999, which today have subsided, but did not stop finally. And although the federal troops showed themselves on the best side, the Argun gorge is recorded in a tragic line in the annals of history. 2000 was marked by the capture of Shatoi and the announcement of the successful completion of the operation. Since 2001, the contingent of Russian troops in Chechnya has been decreasing.

The Russian group of forces in Shatoi district on February 29, 2000 numbered about one hundred thousand people. How did it happen that the Argun gorge became a grave for a company of Russian soldiers who were left alone with 2.5 thousand armed to the teeth of militants, with snipers who "shot" the soldiers so quickly that they could not make a shot? So, from the sniper's bullet, the company commander Sergei Molodov, whose place was occupied by Mark Evtyukhin, almost immediately died. Young and experienced fighters held on to the previously occupied height of 776, not retreating, not panicking, because they were waiting for help, support from their own, which never came. On the first day of the battle, 31 people were killed, but another day the height of a handful of Russian soldiers was kept. When it became clear that the aid would not be in time, the only surviving officer, although seriously wounded, diverted the fire to himself and ordered the escape of two young private soldiers who jumped off the cliff. The Argun gorge passed into the hands of the militants, but only for a day. On March 2, federal troops took up the height, and only a part of the militants managed to get out of the encirclement on secret trails.

Of the entire company of paratroopers defending the Argun gorge, 6 people remained alive. Some were wounded, someone lost consciousness and was regarded by the adversaries as dead; Private Andrei Porshnev and Alexander Suponinsky owe their lives to Captain Romanov, who sacrificed himself for their salvation. Major Alexander Dostovalov, not expecting an order, rushed with his small group of 15 men to the rescue of the paratroopers and died as a man of honor. That's what we call heroes. Why are these victims needed? Who ordered the neighboring locations not to engage in battle under the fear of the tribunal? What are not the mass media talking about? It seemed that the soldiers had not been considered generals for a long time as "cannon fodder", is it really not so?

And yet the battle in the Argun gorge testifies to the living military valor and honor, that there are those who are ready to be betrayed, but not to be traitors to either the Motherland or comrades. Without such courage, military glory is unthinkable, the upbringing of the future generation is inconceivable.