One day, on one of the hottest July days, we met on the Fedorov reservoir my classmate from 47 schools of Sergei Novikov, who was resting on the local beach with his father and elder sister Natasha. With Sergei at school, I almost did not communicate, since he seemed to me a very arrogant little man, to which he could not be approached. And then to say, he had something to be proud of and rise above all the guys. The fact is, in this same school his mother Tamara Semenovna worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature, which provided Serezha with a special position among classmates and teachers. The special status of Sergei was also promoted by his living natural mind, developed by years of rather strong intellect and an extraordinary sense of humor. Contrary to expectations, on the beach, finally, "this deity descended from heaven" - the good thing that we are all naked - and I had a pretty nice talk with Novikov in a very relaxed and conducive environment. As it turned out, this became the pledge of our future friendship, which we will carry through many years.
The Novikov family lived next door to us in a two-story brick house built in the 50's on Poletaeva Street. From the same street, a very impressive microdistrict of two-story buildings began, which, on the one hand, rested directly in the territory of our secondary school №47, and on the other - in the grocery store "Ayman". First of all, this grocery store was remarkable because it acted as a kind of "state" border for two boyish rival factions: the so-called "Aiman" or railway stations, and the "flying" or "green transit" groups. The groupings were in a state of permanent war: the wall to the wall was periodically converging on the Stony River, a city sewage channel crossing across the vast area of the "greentrust" - the urban park zone; Arranged forays into the enemy's camp at the station square and retaliatory actions of intimidation on the territory of our 47th school. I never took part in these mass fights for two reasons.
Firstly, our house in Yerzhanova Street stood apart from all the other yards, therefore, formally, all the children living in the house did not join any permanently operating group at the time.
Secondly, in adolescence and adolescence, I was a cowardly and incredibly frail boy, so I was never considered by the organizers of brawls as a serious fighting unit. However, there was also a third, very formidable force, in the face of which the "Aimanovs" and "Flying Men" forgot all their past grievances and, if possible, united in one grouping to give a worthy rebuff to the enemy. They were Chechens from the Old City, a small suburb of Karaganda, in which the Chechen diaspora was then compactly residing. These victims of the Stalinist national resettlement policy from the North Caucasus have always differed in Kazakhstan with an incredibly malicious disposition, cunning and cruelty. In addition, they did not disdain to use cold steel, which made skirmishes with them deadly. The acts of intimidation organized and conducted by the Chechens were distinguished by an excellent organization and were conducted according to all the rules of military tactics. In my memory, one such action, held by Chechens in Karaganda on May 9, 1977.
This festive day began, as usual, lightly and joyfully, not foretelling any cataclysms. A military parade and a parade of veterans of the Great Patriotic War were still running along the main street of Karaganda, and a group of radical Chechen youth from the Old City was already preparing to arrange an "enchanting" show - an act of retribution for the mistakes of our ancestors. The matter is that on May 9, 1944 - a special day in the Chechen calendar. This is the day of the end of the special operation under the code name "Lentil" by the NKVD troops for the resettlement of Chechens to remote areas of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. And the Soviet government had more than enough reasons for that. The fact is, the Chechens during the war actively cooperated with the fascists in the fight against the Soviet Army.
For example, there were such connections of the Abwehr as Sonderkommand "Bergman", which in German means "Highlander", manned exclusively by Chechens. The tasks of the "Bergman" included sabotage and terrorist operations against our troops, coverup of the Wehrmacht troops, struggle with the Soviet partisans. The North Caucasian legion of the Wehrmacht was quite a serious force: the number of Bergman alone consisted of about 1,200 spetsnaz people, that is, it consisted of serious, skilful and hardened fighters.
So the operation "Lentil" under those conditions was historically absolutely justified and, of course, necessary action, and, moreover, hand on heart, quite humane in the conditions of wartime. It is clear that the Chechens evaluate the historical events that have taken place from their "bell tower", forgot nothing and never missed the opportunity to painfully bite the authorities, demonstrating their independence and the "famous" Caucasian pride. Only for all the global historical decisions taken by the authorities, for some reason, it is necessary to be puffed up by a simple Russian person. So
