Afgantsy

37 W. Olney, ‘Shiloh’ as Seen by a Private Soldier: A Paper Read before California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, May 31, 1889 (Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish, Mont., 2007), p. 17.

38 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 24 June 2009.

39 Alexander Kartsev, email to author, 22 June 2009.

40 Andrei Ponomarev, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

41 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 23 September 2008.

42 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), pp. 50–59 and 89.

43 A. Kartsev, Shelkovy put (privately published, 2004), Chapter 13; interview, Moscow, 3 March 2010.

44 Valeri Shiryaev, email to author, 16 March 2010, containing an eyewitness description of the incident by a Soviet interpreter who was present.

45 The main sources for the description of Masud and the Pandsher Valley are A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 24 et seq.: Ter-Grigoriants’s remarks are on pp. 40–43; P. Clammer, Afghanistan: Lonely Planet Guide (London, 2007); E. Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (London, 1974); ‘The Pandsher Valley, the Emerald Mines and the Blue Mountain’ (http://www.travelafghanistan.co.uk/pages/panj.htm l); Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, p. 10; and a visit which the author made there in September 2008.

46 A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London, 2009), pp. 282 and 287.

47 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 73 et seq.

48 Dmitri Fedorov, email to author, 25 July 2007.

49 Alexander Golts, interview, Moscow, 6 December 2006.

50 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 24 July 2007: this was his father’s salary at the time.

51 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 282 et seq.

52 V. Snegirev in A. Belofastov and A. Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery (Moscow, 2005), p. 25.

53 Aleksievich, Zinky Boys, p. 18.

54 This is confirmed by Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 16 February 2009.

55 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 352.

56 Masha Slonim, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

57 V. Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda (Moscow, 2000), p. 45.

58 Ibid., p. 7.

59 Interviews with Yuri Kirsanov (http://torrents.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t322885); Komsomolskaya Pravda Ukrainy, 25 December 2008 (http://kp.ua/daily/251208/67416/); extract from ‘Afganski dnevnik’ by Viktor Verstakov (http://kaskad- 4.narod.ru/Dnevnik_Verst.html); Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

60 Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda, p. 23.

61 Ibid., p. 147; Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

62 Dyshev, PPZh, p. 379. Valeri Shiryaev said that he felt exactly the same way when he left Afghanistan.

9: Fighting

1 F. Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune (London, 2000), p. 5; S. Junger, War, Book Three: Love (London, 2010), p. 2. I learned a bit about soldiering and comradeship during my military service, but I never saw any fighting. There are, however, convincing accounts by people who did: Frederick Manning fought on the Somme in 1916; Vasil Bykov (Ego batalion, Moscow, 2000) was on the Eastern Front in the Second World War; Nathaniel Fick (One Bullet Away, London, 2006) was in Iraq in 2003; Bernard Fall (Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina, Barnesley, 2005) was in Indo- China; Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (Lieutenant en Algerie, Paris, 1957) was in a ‘hearts and minds’ unit in Algeria; Sebastian Junger was an embedded journalist in Afghanistan in 2007–8. There is a very large literature about the American experience in Vietnam.

2 M. Nawroz and L. Grau, The Soviet War in Afghanistan: History and Harbinger of Future War? Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, June 1996.

3 Personal information. Information on Vertical-T (http://vertical- t.biz/).

4 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), p. 81.

5 A. Smolina, ‘Desantnik, ili pervoe znakomstvo s Dzhelalbadom’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0110.shtml).

6 A. Kartsev, Voenny razvedchik (Moscow, 2007).

7 A. Kartsev, Shelkovy put (privately published, 2004), Chapter 17.

8 Andrei Ponomarev, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

9 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

10 Colonel Antonenko and Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007. Antonenko maintained that one of the reasons why the guerrillas fought better than the Russians was that they travelled light. Gergel said later that Antonenko was right only in part.

11 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 439.

12 Ibid.

13 M. Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, 1990), Appendix IV, p. 332; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, p. 441.

14 Ibid., p. 370.

15 M. Bearden and J. Risen, The Main Enemy (New York, 2003), pp. 227 and 333–6; M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 155 and 220.

16 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_c om/index.shtml).

17 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 154; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, pp. 383–432; V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, p. 85; Boris Zhelezin, interview, Moscow, 19 February 2007.

18 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM- 92_Stinger.

19 D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), pp. 194– 7.

20 This is the date given by S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 149. G. Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York, 2003) gives the date as 25 September.

21 A. Smolina, ‘Vsem devushkam, letavshim v afganskom nebe’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0080.shtml).

22 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 196–7.