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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been written without the assistance of a great many people who shared their experiences in Afghanistan, put me in touch with knowledgeable friends, gave me books, and read the manuscript in whole or in part.

The late General Alexander Lyakhovski, Vyacheslav Nekrasov, and Alexander Gergel were particularly helpful over several years. Alexander Kartsev regularly commented by email and in our Moscow meetings. He, Alexander Gergel, Artemy Kalinovsky, Svetlana Savranskaya, and Peter Carson read and commented at length on the draft. Svetlana kindly gave permission to use the documents for which she was responsible. Artemy and Svetlana were assiduous in digging out useful documents and giving scholarly advice. Artemy Kalinovsky’s doctoral thesis, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, is a most distinguished and elegant work of scholarship, which is now being published by Harvard Press as a book. He and I both read Raymond Chandler, and agreed that neither could claim a monopoly of the title. Masha Slonim, Valeri and Galina Ivanov, Valeri Shiryaev, Vladimir Snegirev, Dmitri Ryurikov, and Alexander Gergel corrected passages relating to them.

Rory Stewart generously let me stay in his room in the Turquoise Mountain Foundation during my brief visit to Afghanistan in September 2008. I owe much thanks to him and his colleagues for enabling me to get an indispensable feeling for a remarkable country—especially Hedvig Alexander and Manja Burton, and to Aziz and Zia, who drove me up the Salang Pass and into the Pandsher Valley, where Aziz showed me his home and introduced me to his wife and family.

Many people gave me introductions, interviews, and useful titbits of information: General Viktor Antonenko, General Ruslan Aushev, Yefim Bashan and Natasha Golitsyna, Professor Oleg Bogomolov, Nikolai Bystrov, Anatoli Chernyaev, Marietta Chudakova, Sherard Cowper-Coles, Vladimir Dolgikh, Arkadi Dubnov, Andrei Dyshev, Dmitri Fedorov, Pavel Felgengauer, Pir Said Ahmad Gailani, Antonio Giustozzi, Captain Yuri Gladkevich, Alexander Golts, Mikhail Gorbachev, Andrei Greshnov, Meredith Hooper, Alexandra Ivanova, Major Vyacheslav Izmailov, Peter Joulwan, Ambassador Zamir Kabulov, Sultan Ali Keshtmand, Yevgeni Khrushchev, Yevgeni Kiselev, Frants Klintsevich, Nikolai Komissarov, Alexander Koniev, Viktor Korgun, General Vladimir Kosarev, Aleksei and Tatiana Krol, Colonel Oleg Kulakov, Colonel Ruslan Kyryliuk, Dr Lutfullah Latif, Colonel Mikhail Lavrenenko, Aleksei Makarkin, Rustem Makhmutov, Sher Ahmad Maladani, Jack Matlock, Omid Mojadedi, Igor Morozov, Sergei Morozov, Mohamed Naser Nahez, Boris Pastukhov, Andrei Ponomarev, John Prados, Professor Mikhail Reshetnikov, Natalia Ryurikova, Ismael Saadat, Valeri Shiryaev, Alexander Shkirando, Alla Smolina, Vladimir Snegirev, Thomas Tugendhat, Rustumkhodzha Tursunkulov, Alexander Umnov, the late General Valentin Varennikov, Alexander Vorontsov, Anatoli Yermolin, Boris Zhelezin.

As always, I have relied shamefully on the generous friendship and hospitality of Yuri Senokosov and Lena Nemirovskaya, and the unfailing help of Inna Berezkina.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Black and White

1.  (Top) Mikhail Gorbachev with Mohamed Najibullah (RIA Novosti) (Bottom) Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet Foreign Minister, signs the Geneva agreements (RIA Novosti)

2.  (Top) Nur Mohamed Taraki (Itar-TASS) (Bottom) Leonid Brezhnev greets Babrak Karmal (Itar-TASS)

3.  (Top) Communist Activists (photograph courtesy of A. Dyshev) (Bottom) Students at the Kabul Polytechnic (RIA Novosti)

4.  Clockwise from top left: Igor Morozov (Author photograph); Sergeant Alexander Gergel (photograph courtesy of A. Gergel); Nikolai Bystrov (Author photograph) and Lieutenant Alexander Kartsev (photograph courtesy of A. Kartsev)

5.  (Top) The elite troops—parachutists, reconnaissance units and special forces (photograph courtesy of A. Dyshev) (Bottom) Dembels (photograph courtesy of A. Dyshev)

6.  (Top) The 860th Regiment medical team (photograph courtesy of A. Smolina) (Bottom) Two weddings (photograph courtesy of A. Smolina)

7.  Action in the mountains (photographs courtesy of A. Dyshev)

8.  Summer 1988. Soviet troops withdraw from Jalalabad towards Kabul (photograph by Richard Ellis)

Colour

9.  Babur’s garden and tomb in 2008 (Author photograph)

10.  (Top) The Arg (RIA Novosti) (Bottom) The Taj Bek (Author photograph)

11.  (Top) Ahmad Shah Masud—the Lion of Pandsher (Sygmus collection, Corbis) (Bottom left) Sher Ahmad Maladani (Author photograph) (Bottom right) Unknown man by the Salang tunnel (Author photograph)

12.  (Top) Soldiers fighting off an ambush (RIA Novosti) (Bottom) Soldiers are relaxing on their BMP (RIA Novosti)

13.  (Top) Mi-24 battle helicopters, called Crocodiles (photograph courtesy of Yannick Fournier) (Bottom) Mi-8 helicopters, called Bees (RIA Novosti)