Afgantsy

terms of imprisonment, though there is no record of any being shot, the punishment routinely predicted by Western propaganda. One soldier who went over to the mujahedin was exchanged for a prisoner in Soviet hands. He returned in local Afghan costume. He had not fought against his countrymen, but was sentenced to six years’ hard labour.¹⁸ Others who returned home suffered more lightly or not at all.

Aleksei Olenin, who was serving in a transport battalion, was kidnapped as he was relieving himself by the Salang Pass. He was beaten up, tried to escape, tried to hang himself, and was finally incorporated into a mujahedin detachment led by a greybeard called Sufi Puainda Mokhmad. After two months in the mountains, Olenin converted to Islam: ‘No one made me do it. I simply realised that since I was still alive I must have been preserved by some power… I would have adopted any faith that was available: after all, up to then I had been a Young Pioneer, a Komsomol, and was preparing to join the Party.’ He was given the Muslim name Rakhmatula.

In the course of the next six years four other Russian soldiers were brought into the detachment. One of them was Yuri Stepanov, who was renamed Mukhibullo. He too had been captured on the Salang Pass when his zastava was attacked.¹⁹

Then the news came through that the 40th Army was leaving Afghanistan. The members of the detachment returned to their farms, and Olenin went with them: ‘In those days we grew wheat. The poppies only came with the Taliban.’ Sufi Puainda, who still regarded the Russians as his property, decided that they should all take wives. The Afghan fathers were reluctant to surrender their daughters, because the Russians could not afford the bride price, and because they feared that the girls would be dishonoured when the Russians eventually abandoned them and went home. But one poor man was willing to give Olenin his daughter Nargez. By now Olenin thought that his chances of returning home were in any case at an end.

He was wrong. Before the marriage could take place, the Russian government had successfully negotiated for the return of prisoners. General Dostum (1954–), the Uzbek commander in the north of the country, was anxious to strengthen his relations with the Russians and arranged for Olenin and Stepanov to travel home. He first brought their mothers to meet them in his stronghold of Mazar-i Sharif. Olenin’s mother fainted when she saw him. The prisoners then left via Pakistan, where they were received by Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007): one story was that she had provided the money for their ransom. Olenin arrived back in Otradnoe in May 1994, to find a country transformed beyond his recognition by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His mother paraded the local girls before him in the hope that he would marry one of them and settle down. But his conscience weighed on him and after six months he went back to Afghanistan to find and marry Nargez. He intended to take her back to Russia. But the arrival of the Taliban in power meant that he was once again trapped in Afghanistan. His small business profited, his wife bore him a daughter, and it was not until 2004 that he finally returned again to Otradnoe, this time with his family. He remained a Muslim and the women of the village noticed that he worked harder and drank less than the other men in the village.²⁰Musulmanin (The Muslim), a film made in 1995, explores just such a theme: the contrast between the orderly piety of a Russian Muslim convert from Afghanistan and the disorderly and dysfunctional life of the family and village he left behind him.

Nikolai Bystrov also served with the mujahedin. He was called up in spring 1982 and posted to Bagram to patrol the airport. In the middle of 1983 he and two others went—contrary to the regulations—to a kishlak about a mile away to buy food. One of the villagers told them that their route home would be ambushed and advised them to go a different way. That was the trap: the ambush was waiting for them there. In the resulting firefight, one soldier was killed immediately. Bystrov and the other were wounded, the latter so severely that the Afghans finished him off. One or two of the Afghans were killed as well; the others took the bodies away.

At first Bystrov was put by his captors in a house in the kishlak where he had been captured. When he tried to escape by climbing through a window, he got as far only as the next courtyard before he was caught and beaten, some of his teeth were knocked out, and some ribs were broken. There were two different mujahedin groups involved in his capture and they fought over who should keep him. Several were killed in the process. He was then taken off and marched after dark for two or three days with a gun stuck in his back. When he made another attempt to escape, they threatened to hang him; they showed him an Afghan soldier they had already hanged as an example.

Bystrov was then taken to the small house at Badarak, in the Pandsher Valley, which was Masud’s headquarters. Everyone crowded round to look at him. Only one could speak Russian—an engineer. When Bystrov went up to greet him, Masud shook him by the hand, an unusual gesture. Masud, who knew a bit of Russian and could understand more, ate with his men and Bystrov joined them.

The next night Bystrov was taken deep into the Pandsher Valley. There were two or three Russian prisoners already there: one was called Samin and another Fedorov. They made a further attempt to escape, and were put in a cell for a month. They were properly fed and treated, and began to learn the local language. A Turkmen prisoner was brought in to join them. His name was Balashin Abdullah. There was something odd about him: they were not allowed cigarettes, but he smelled of tobacco. One day they woke up and he was no longer there. He was clearly a spy. Two or three more prisoners were brought in. Later the Russian prisoners were taken to Chayavu, where Masud’s own prison was. Apparently without his knowledge they were thrown into a pit, where they spent six months. One of the Russians escaped into the mountains and was rescued by a patrol of paratroopers. When Masud turned up later, the others were moved to more decent accommodation in a stone house.

Masud offered them a choice. They could be exchanged for mujahedin prisoners in the hands of the Russians; or they could go abroad to Pakistan and on to Switzerland, Canada, or America. Twelve prisoners left for Pakistan, but Bystrov and one other remained. All of them were afraid of what might await them if they returned to the Soviet Union; but Bystrov himself thought that going to Pakistan might be equally risky.

Bystrov therefore accompanied Masud and his men into the mountains. While they were resting near the top of one of the mountain passes, Bystrov was given a Chinese automatic rifle and a flak jacket, and told that henceforth he would be one of Masud’s bodyguards. Bystrov could not understand why he was being shown so much trust. He checked the weapon: it was in full working order, and there was a full supply of ammunition. He could have killed Masud and the rest of the bodyguard, and taken himself off. But he decided that, since Masud had trusted him, he should stick with him. Masud was a good judge of people.

In 1986 Bystrov married a woman from the same tribe as Masud. He remained in Masud’s bodyguard until 1995, when, on Masud’s advice, he returned to Russia with his wife to avoid the Taliban. Once the Taliban had been ejected, he began to visit Afghanistan again, to see his wife’s relatives and to search for the remains of Soviet soldiers. His method was simple: he would go to a village where there had been a fight and ask the inhabitants where they had buried the bodies. They would tell him, then he would exhume the remains and arrange for them to be returned to Russia. He became a minor celebrity in his own country, but remained a good if somewhat melancholy Muslim.²¹

The Mothers

Because no one else seemed willing to take much responsibility for the welfare of the conscript soldiers, the mothers of the soldiers in Afghanistan took matters into their own hands. Since comparatively few of the sons of the better-off and influential served there, it was the mothers of soldiers from poorer families in the towns and the country, with no experience of political life, who became an increasingly powerful force throughout the war.

These women had to contend with a sentimental image of the soldier’s mother which had an echo in the emotions of ordinary people, but was also cultivated by the authorities because it helped to minimise trouble. On the twentieth anniversary of the withdrawal from Afghanistan one semi-official organisation offered the mothers of soldiers the following advice: ‘What can a Mother do for her soldier son? What?… Only one thing—she must wait… It is You,’ the announcement continued, ‘who bear the lofty title of “Mother of the Defenders of the Motherland” and it is You who bear the responsibility of passing on to new generations the genetic code of love for the Fatherland… It is You who feel the bitter truth and the proud memory of your sons. We congratulate You, Mothers of this great country, who wait day and night for their sons to come home. They will come back!’²²

Many mothers had little choice but to heed such condescending stuff. But others were unwilling to remain passive. They badgered the bureaucrats, protested individually, and attempted—sometimes successfully—to get to Afghanistan to see for themselves what was going on. They had four main concerns. The first was to try to prevent