Why have we forgotten the fallen defenders of the White House? Biography Ilya Krichevsky Dmitry Komar

Hot August 1991. "Swan Lake" on TV. Moscow. Putsch. Tanks. Dmitry Komar. Ilya Krichevsky. Vladimir Usov. Three young guys who died on the night of the 21st in a tunnel on the Garden Ring are the only sacred victims and posthumous heroes of the failed coup. Then they were 22, 28 and 37. Today - in another country and the new millennium - they would have turned 47, 53 and 62. A quarter of a century is still a lot...

Random heroes. That’s what they will be called later, after the final victory of democracy. Random victims... Anyone could have been in their place. Snatched from the crowd of thousands of defenders of the White House, nevertheless, only these three remained forever in the modern history of Russia.

Three monuments nearby on Vagankovo. On the morning of August 21, relatives come here and bring flowers. They met at a funeral and are still dating today. Less and less often, but definitely once a year - here, in the old cemetery. It's already twenty-four Augusts in a row.

Fathers Vladimir Usov and Dmitry Komar, mother Ilya Krichevsky, are no longer in this world. Time has dulled the pain. The memory remains...

Exhausted from melancholy,
I walked to the grave,
But behind the grave board
What I saw was not peace at all,
And the eternal battle,
Which in life you only dream about.
Ilya Krichevsky. Poet

First. Dmitry Komar

August 21, 1991. 0 hours 20 minutes. The center of Moscow in self-made barricades. A column of infantry fighting vehicles, on the orders of the putschists, is rushing from the White House towards the Garden Ring. A crowd of thousands, an uncontrollable sea of ​​people timidly surrounds the tanks... A young guy jumps onto the armor of an infantry fighting vehicle, throws a tarpaulin over the viewing slot to blind the crew... The attacker is thrown to the ground, a shot is heard. But he gets up and, wounded, nervously rushes at the iron colossus again. The landing hatch swings open from the impact, the driver suddenly accelerates, and the boy flies down. And he freezes on the ground covered in blood...

Dima really dreamed of flying. Become a pilot, recalls Lyubov Komar. - We have a military family, my husband is a major. But the medical commission rejected my son for health reasons and found heart problems. But he still continued to go to an airfield near Moscow and jump with a parachute. He was preparing himself to be a paratrooper, I knew about it, I was worried, of course, but what can you do, it was his choice. He joined the army at the age of 17. On November 6 he turned 18, but the conscription ended in October... And I begged the military commissar to take him earlier, they later said that I was crazy, but he too wanted to get into the Airborne Forces, and this could only be done in the autumn conscription.

The whole class accompanied him. Except for two friends who have already left to serve. “I can’t say that Dimka played favorites; there were times when he disrupted classes. The teachers complained that sometimes he would say something like that, the whole class would laugh and couldn’t stop... But for some reason I didn’t want to join the Komsomol. He said that they take both excellent students and poor students there, indiscriminately, but this is wrong, unfair.”

And it immediately became clear that Afghan was waiting for him. Mid-80s, the worst of it. Three companies were in training - one was sent to Central Asia, the second to criminal Czechoslovakia, the third to Kabul. “There was an opportunity to transfer him, but Dima refused... After his return, he spoke sparingly about that war: “Mom, you don’t need to know about this, it was too scary there.” My son just had pity on my heart.”

He was a very ordinary guy, his mother emphasizes. Only very fair. The day before he promised her that he would never go to the White House, near which, as it seemed in those days, the entire capital had gathered.

Dima really didn’t think about going anywhere,” continues Lyubov Komar. - Later his friends told me how it was. They shouted into the bullhorn that Rutskoi was calling on Afghans to defend democracy in Russia. And mine were already approaching the metro to go home from work. The son turned around and said to his comrades: that’s it, guys, I’m going, my name is called. He's an Afghan! But Dima was very worried that I would worry, we had an agreement since school - if you are delayed somewhere, be sure to call. We lived then in Istra, near Moscow. There was no telephone at home yet. So he called the deputy for the rear in our military town and asked him to tell my mother, that is, me, that everything was fine, that he was staying overnight in Moscow with his classmates... I didn’t seem to worry. After all, I warned you. But all evening I walked around as if in prostration, as if I had been pumped full of pills, this had never happened before... I went to bed at twenty minutes past twelve. It was as if something had suddenly let go... Just when he was killed.

Second. Ilya Krichevsky

The hatch of the BMP swings open from the impact, the driver sets off, the unfamiliar boy freezes abruptly on the ground... Under a hail of stones and bottles of gasoline, the crew of the torn apart BMP, fleeing, runs to neighboring cars. Covering their retreat, they fire wherever they hit. A stray random bullet - and another person falls... Fatal through and through to the head. 0 hours 30 minutes.

Recorded on an old reel. Amateur poetry evening. We gathered in someone's kitchen. Friends. Familiar. Neighbours.

"Good evening! We are very glad that you came here today. Take off your dark glasses, take the cotton wool out of your ears, open your souls,” a soft young voice. The speaker introduces himself: “Ilya Krichevsky, poet.” So far, little known. But this is temporary. He is 28. He survived Lermontov, but Pushkin’s thirty-seven is still almost ten years old, a whole century.

Real poets, as we know, die young. All Ilya’s poems are about that.

Thank you friend for talking to me
As if with a living person,
And I am deader than dead,
Although hearts are beating.
It's like we're just sleeping.

Our dad is an architect, quite successful, so the question was not asked where my brother and I would go - of course, into the architectural, well-trodden path, a worthy, real profession, not like some poetry or theater, which my brother simply raved about, - Marina Krichevskaya, Ilya’s sister, smiles sadly.

Intelligent family. So Moscow-Moscow. During vacation with parents by car to Crimea or Gagra. To the pioneer camp in the summer. We read smart books, watched good movies.

A black-haired guy with incredible eyes. It’s as if he’s looking not at the person, but into the very depths. This is Ilya in all photographs.

At night I read my poems to my mother. He was especially close to his mother. He told her that he was going to quit his design cooperative and still take the risk of going to the theater. Inessa Naumovna Krichevskaya then regularly went to the trial of the State Emergency Committee, did not miss a single meeting, until she realized: it was useless - the perpetrators would not be found.

They say these were political years, everyone around was just talking about politics, congresses were broadcast on television, the country was falling apart, there were some kind of disputes... You know, personally, I can’t remember anything like that. “All this was very far from us, from our family, from Ilyusha,” Marina assures.

Everything passed by the Krichevskys. If it weren't for August '91. “We searched in hospitals and morgues. He didn't have any documents with him. Then it was considered normal to go for a walk without a passport... Surprisingly, Ilyusha went to defend the White House precisely purposefully. Together with a friend. When confusion began in the tunnel, the comrade disappeared somewhere. Well, God be his judge... He didn’t answer calls afterwards either. It’s good that he at least mentioned our last name when Ilyusha was taken away dead. And on the morning of the 21st, my friend called and said: on the radio they are talking about some Krichevsky, that he died... We are two years apart. I was younger than him. Then, in '91. Now, of course, older. I remember how my brother kept looking for himself. Everything was rushing and rushing... But this is in creativity. But he was completely apolitical, and I still don’t have an answer to the question: why did he go there after all, to the White House, at what command of his soul?

Third. Vladimir Usov

A random bullet is fatal through and through to the head. Shouts: “Bastard! Scum! You killed him! The third man rushes to the aid of the guy who jumped onto the armor of the infantry fighting vehicle. He tries to take him away from under the tracks and falls under the tank himself, cut off by another shot... 0 hours 40 minutes. August 21, 1991.

Early 50s. On November 7, sailors from Leningrad visited the girls of the pedagogical institute, future teachers, at their Moscow alma mater. After the parade on Red Square. Fit, handsome men in uniform stayed for the gala evening. Then, of course, there was dancing. There they met. Future Rear Admiral Alexander Usov and his wife Sophia, teacher of Russian language and literature, parents of Vladimir Usov.

We traveled around the Union a lot. After all, I married a lieutenant. We were in Magadan, in the Baltic states, even in Belarus - a training detachment of our flotilla was stationed there. And Volodya was born in 1954 in the Latvian town of Ventspils, recalls Sofya Petrovna Usova.

He was the oldest of the dead - 37. Family, 15-year-old daughter. Now at that age they are still jumping around nightclubs, but then they were quite mature.

According to witnesses, Usov did not get under the bullets. He just tried to pull a complete stranger out from under the tank. The son of an officer - how could he have done otherwise?

Maybe it was just Dmitry Komar. Or Ilya Krichevsky...

The tank and the man underneath were tossed in different directions. The deceased Vladimir Usov was buried in a closed coffin. There was a question about burying all three on Red Square, among the revolutionaries and general secretaries, but here the families categorically opposed. We agreed on the famous Vagankovsky - especially since it is located not far from the site of the tragedy, you can walk there.

They did not know each other during their lifetime. Until my last few seconds. And they were forever connected after death - by one grave covered with granite. “When I think about this now, it seems to me that it was these three seemingly random victims that ultimately stopped the bloodshed, prevented even more bloodshed from happening, and horrified everyone,” says Sofya Petrovna Usova. She is 86, the entire history of the country has passed before her eyes.

The commander jumped out of the opened hatch into the darkness, grabbed a pistol from his holster and shouted: “I’m not a killer, but an officer, I don’t want any more victims, move away from the cars, the soldiers are following orders!” - rushed to a nearby infantry fighting vehicle, shooting into the air as he went. The crowd froze. The tanks stopped. (From the memories of eyewitnesses.)

“It’s hard for me to say, this was my only son... But I was able to survive his death. What was left to do? My husband and I lived for 57 years, we lived well, we managed to have a golden wedding. Now my great-granddaughter is growing up, Milena, she’s 12 - Volodin’s granddaughter.”

Requiem for three

As a schoolgirl, I remember those days very well: the windows in every apartment were wide open - it was August, it was hot, the antediluvian tube TVs were turned on at full volume. An endless human river spills out towards Vagankovo. And through the bitterness - some kind of aching bright feeling that we had won. And then everything will only be fine. “Sorry for not saving you,” Yeltsin booms, addressing the parents of the killed. And he promises to break, but not to let him down, to make sure that the memory of the martyrs lives forever.

But the Golden Stars of Heroes of the Soviet Union from Gorbachev were awarded to the families only six months later. When such a country - the USSR - no longer existed on the map. What then?

The trial of the State Emergency Committee, which did not end well, the accused were released. The criminal case against the crew of the ill-fated infantry fighting vehicle, which suppressed and shot people in a narrow tunnel, was also soon dropped due to the lack of evidence of a crime.

To be honest, I didn’t hate these soldiers. Why judge them, they were simply following orders,” Lyubov Komar throws up his hands.

The cause of death on Ilyusha’s death certificate is: a bullet wound to the head. But whose shot was and from which direction, we will probably never know, says Marina Krichevskaya.

The grateful authorities gave the heroes' parents an apartment each. In October 1993, Lyubov Komar watched the shooting of the White House from a balcony on Rublyovka. It was as if time had turned back, and she was reliving the death of her son. “Only it’s even scarier - because it’s right in front of my eyes.”

Dima had a fiancee. Masha,” continues Lyubov Akhtyamovna. - He was going to introduce us. We met at a funeral. Masha already has her own children who are adults. My grandson is growing up from my youngest son... Masha came to see me several times. One day we were drinking tea, and suddenly it turned out that her husband was freezing outside. He's embarrassed to come to us. Although I’m glad that everything turned out well for her, and Dima would be very happy about it. Because life goes on.

Then there were other wars, a great many funerals, the wheel turned: gangster chaos, zinc coffins from Chechnya, thousands of murdered boys returned to their mothers - against this background, the accidental death of three in August 1991 seems illusory, somehow unreal. Young people will probably not remember these names.

The only film captured the moment of their death. “Bastard! Scum! What are you doing - you killed him!”

Now this would be replicated on smartphones, liked on social networks, and played out in Internet memes.

We have become different. So is the country. And our whole world, which has stepped into the third millennium. Tougher, more ruthless, more indifferent. “This blood of Volodya, Dima and Ilya - it horrified everyone and... stopped them then. But would three dead now be enough? - Sofya Petrovna Usova asks a rhetorical question.

A quarter of a century has passed. What would you become, Dmitry Komar, Ilya Krichevsky, Vladimir Usov? Are they really like us? Or would this world change if you still remained alive...

Caterpillars after the heart

They became the main symbol of August 1991. Some considered them the last Heroes of the Soviet Union, others considered them the first Heroes of Russia.

Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky died 25 years ago, on the night of August 21, 1991, during the August putsch.

At the entrance to the tunnel under Kalinin Avenue (now Novy Arbat) on the Garden Ring, they tried to stop a column of armored vehicles of the Taman Division, which was following the instructions of the military commandant of Moscow, appointed by the State Emergency Committee.

On August 24, 1991, the whole country buried them. A funeral meeting took place, broadcast on all central channels. Years later, the anniversary of the August putsch is remembered without any pathos or officialdom. Moreover, there are more and more supporters of the State Emergency Committee, and there are even calls to erect a monument to the “putschists.”

On the eve of the anniversary, MK’s special correspondent found out how the families of “defenders of democracy” live and how they remember their loved ones.

By order of Defense Minister Yazov, KGB troops and special forces were brought into Moscow.

“All my son’s awards are gone”

Dmitry Komar was only 22 years old.

25 years have passed since the death of my son, but for me everything seems like it was yesterday,” says Lyubov Komar. - Dima was my first-born. Of the three children, he was the closest to me. My husband is a military man, he disappeared for days at a time in the service, and about all everyday matters I consulted with Dima. I remember when I became pregnant with my third child, I asked not my husband, but Dima: “Do you want a brother or sister?” He says: “Do you want it?” I answered: “I want to.” Will you help? Dimka burst into a smile: “I’ll help!” He then went on dates with girls, pushing the stroller with Alyosha with one hand, and holding Tanya tightly by the other with the other. I even ran to football games with the two of them. He became both a father and a nanny for them.

Dima Komar dreamed of becoming a pilot. I went to the airfield in Chekhov to jump with a parachute. He underwent three medical examinations, but at the last stage he was diagnosed with a disorder in the conduction system of the heart - thickening of the His bundle.

When Dima was little, we lived in a military town near Ruza in a Finnish house, which was built by captured Germans. While the stove was being lit, we had to wear fur coats. Dima suffered from pneumonia seven times in three years, which caused complications in his heart.

Dmitry did not pay attention to his illness, continued to train, and, surprisingly, he was recognized as fit for service in the Airborne Forces. In 1986, he went to study in Lithuania, in Gaižunai.

I went to his graduation from the training center. Through my channels I learned that one company was going to Tajikistan, the other to Czechoslovakia. And my son’s company went to Afghanistan, where there was a civil war then. I tried to persuade my son to transfer, but he said bluntly: “I won’t betray the guys.”

In Afghanistan, they accompanied convoys with fuel tankers. They were practically living targets. The dushmans shot them from an ambush at point-blank range. The son was shell-shocked twice and suffered from jaundice. Of the 120 people in their company, no more than 20 remained alive.

Dima Komar brought home three medals, including “For Military Merit” and a letter of gratitude from the Afghan government. Got a job as a forklift driver. And on August 19, 1991, the country saw “Swan Lake” on television screens and recognized the abbreviation GKChP. The self-proclaimed State Emergency Committee, opposing perestroika and ongoing reforms, attempted a coup. Troops and special forces of the KGB were brought into Moscow.

We lived then in a military town in Istra. Rallies and barricades were shown on TV. Dima was far from politics, I remember he told me: “I have nothing to do there. I fought in Afghanistan for the rest of my life.” But on Tuesday, while leaving work, the son heard Russian Vice President General Alexander Rutskoi calling on all “Afghan” soldiers to defend the “White House.” Appealed to their honor, mind and heart. And the “Afghans” are a special people, in fact, a brotherhood, they are ready to go through fire and water for each other. They got up and followed Rutskoi as if they were going to war. Then Gena Veretilny, who himself was wounded, told me how events unfolded on that terrible night.

Around midnight, military personnel in armored vehicles advanced towards the White House, the seat of the new Russian government. (According to investigators, the convoy, under curfew, was moving towards Smolenskaya Square in the direction from the White House.) Their path near the tunnel under Kalininsky Prospekt was blocked by displaced trolleybuses and trucks. Dmitry, who served in the Airborne Forces, jumped onto one of the infantry fighting vehicles with tail number 536 and tried to cover the driver's viewing slot with a tarpaulin so as not to let the car pass further.

Dmitry Komar.

The driver began to make sharp maneuvers. The side hit a column and the landing hatch opened. Dima poked his head in there, and at that time the officer shot at him. He wounded his son, Dima was still alive, his feet caught on the hatch. The car rushed back, dragging the helpless body of his son behind it. Volodya Usov rushed to his aid. The driver pulled the car, the BMP ran over both Volodya and Dima.

Ilya Krichevsky, standing nearby, began shouting: “What are you... doing? You’ve already killed two of them.” Then the officer shot him directly in the forehead. This happened within 20 minutes, from 0.20 to 0.40. Three dead. At first, the documents stated that the crews were given blank cartridges. Then they began to say that the guys died from unaimed warning shots up through the hatch and a ricochet...

For a long time Lyubov Komar could not realize that her son was no longer alive. Shock took its toll.

I came to work; we were supposed to go on a business trip to Gorky. But the car suddenly broke down, as if some force was trying to stop me. Then the head of the HR department, Nadya, comes running with her face upturned. I ask: “Mom?” She shakes her head. I couldn’t think that trouble had happened to my son. He called me the day before from Moscow and said that he would be staying with a classmate. I was calm for him. Then they called me to the phone, a man’s voice said: “Your son is dead.” I responded: “Like dead?” At the other end they answered irritably: “That's it. Lying on the floor." This was an employee of the Istra furniture factory, where Dima had previously worked. Then I talked to this man, he did not look up at me.

After the terrible message, I couldn’t cry. They brought me home, I calmly told my family about what had happened... But I myself never fully realized that my eldest son was no more. Only then did I start shaking and pounding...

They wanted to bury Dmitry Komar, Vladimir Usov and Ilya Krichevsky on Red Square.

I said: “No way! Only in the cemetery." They decided: since the guys died together, they should lie under the same slab. They found rest at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. I never saw Volodya Usov; he was buried in a closed coffin. An infantry fighting vehicle also drove through Dima. Specialists came from the morgue and took photographs of my son to “sculpt” (restore) his face. Dima was buried in a wig, it was not his hair.

Every three hours Lyubov Akhtyamovna was called an ambulance and given one injection after another.

They pricked me so that inflammation and infiltration began. On the 9th day after my son’s death I had to undergo surgery; 750 grams of pus were pumped out. But the physical pain somehow muffled the mental anguish. When Dima died, only Tanya and Alyosha kept me in this world.

Lyubov Komar admits that after the death of her son, her perception of reality changed.

For my anniversary I was given a beautiful wall clock. After Dima passed away, I couldn’t sleep while they were working. It seemed to me that they were ticking very loudly, their sound echoed in my head. Although before I was asleep and did not notice their progress. Now this clock sits unwinded and decorates my interior.

By his decree, the President posthumously awarded the “defenders of the White House” the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Their families received a gift from VAZ - a Zhiguli.

The Moscow government allocated Dmitry Komar's family a 3-room apartment in a prestigious area of ​​the capital. Parents began to receive a substantial pension for their deceased son.

- Are there any grudges left against the military?

They carried out the order. The “putschists” may have had good intentions; they sincerely wanted to improve life in the country. But they acted thoughtlessly. Their biggest mistake was that they brought armored vehicles into the capital. The army should not be the gendarme of its people, it should protect them.

Dima Komar's father, Alexey Alekseevich, being a military man, took the death of his son very hard. Personal tragedy superimposed on work troubles.

The husband served in the air defense forces, defended the skies of Moscow, and was chief of staff. And while he was on duty, a German amateur pilot, Matthias Rust, landed on Vasilyevsky Spusk in a light aircraft. And then the husband could not get through to any of the generals, some were in the bathhouse, some were fishing. They made him guilty. At the age of 47 he was sent into retirement. The husband believed that he was unfairly dismissed from the army. Relaxed. I never worked anywhere else for a day.

Lyubov Komar, of all the awards and award documents of her son, only had a certificate for the “Gold Star” and an order.

All of Dimina's awards are gone. On May 9, the husband went to show them to his friends, and he was robbed, says Lyubov Akhtyamovna.

Visiting the Vagankovskoye cemetery, at the grave of her son, Lyubov Komar remembers what Dima dreamed of.

He had a girlfriend, Masha, and he was going to get married. I wanted them to have a separate apartment. Mashenka and I are friends to this day, we meet her husband and children. We recently recalled how Dima, while vacationing in Lazarevskoye, saved people after a powerful mudflow. He gave the victims his number at the camp site and his food cards. He was hungry and slept on the floor. He always defended the disadvantaged. I'm like that myself. My grandfather, a full holder of the St. George Cross, told me: “Don’t pass by injustice.” And Dima was a copy of his grandfather. He was curly, and Dima, the only one of three children, had the wavy hair and character of his grandfathers.

The August putsch happened 25 years ago. Many things look different now. And more and more often you can hear the question: “Why did the “defenders of the White House” die?

The guys didn’t die in vain then,” says Lyubov Komar. - Someone should have stopped these tanks, this is madness. Their deaths sobered up many. When blood was shed, Defense Minister Marshal Yazov ordered the troops to stand still, and their withdrawal began in the morning. Then I heard: “We are so happy about the freedom we have gained, now we say whatever we want, wherever we want, we go there.” I thought: “Do I need this?” We have not adopted the best from the West. Take the same attitude of children towards their parents or the love of books...

Father Dmitry Komar is no longer alive. The ashes of Alexei Alekseevich were placed in a columbarium at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, next to his son’s grave. Lyubov Akhtyamovna is still active and active. Being a commodity expert by profession, after retiring, she works as a wardrobe maid in a fitness center. Her granddaughter Dasha is growing up.

Saying goodbye, she says:

They told me: let Dima go. I let him go. But he is still present, I dream about him. One dream has already repeated itself twice. Dima brings the horse, I put Tanya and Alyosha on it, the horse lengthens, more children appear on it. Dima says to me in a dream: “Mom, you lead her, I will protect you.” And he starts firing back with a machine gun. I shout to him: “Just save yourself, save yourself...” He reassures: “Go, mom, everything will be fine.” He's the one who won't let me go. I know that Dima is my guardian angel. I constantly feel his presence behind my left shoulder.

“For my son, the main thing was not democracy and Yeltsin, but defenseless people”

Vladimir Usov was 37. At the time of the August putsch, he worked as an economist at the Ikom joint venture.

The barricades turned out to be next to their office, which was located in the Belgrade Hotel, and, of course, the son could not stay away, says Vladimir’s mother Sofya Petrovna Usova. - It was a troubled time. Knowing Volodino’s keen sense of justice, his colleagues tried to stop him, repeating: “Don’t go there, there are tanks and soldiers there.” The son was adamant: “There are women and children there. Who will protect them? For him, the main thing was not democracy and Yeltsin, but defenseless people.

Volodya was a kind, even super kind person. He even climbed onto this BMP to pull out the young man. Apparently, it seemed to the son that the guy was wounded; he wanted to unhook him from the heavy machine.

Exactly at the moment Vladimir died, Sofya Petrovna woke up.

There was such a roar in my head, as if tanks were walking a meter away from me. Although I couldn’t hear the armored vehicles. We lived then in the VDNKh area. And the day before I had a prophetic dream. My husband and I stood at the window, and the waves from the sea carried black crosses towards us. One of them hit the corner of our house. I then said to my husband: “Wow, we’re hooked too...”

Vladimir promised to call Sofya Petrovna at 9 am. The phone was silent.

I turned on the radio, and there they were talking about the events of last night, about the three dead defenders of the White House. For some reason, I immediately realized that our Volodya was among them. I immediately called him at work, and the girl answered the phone. I say: “Where is Volodya?” She is silent. My worst fears were confirmed...

Vladimir Usov.

Vladimir was the only son of Sofia Petrovna and Admiral Alexander Arsentievich Usov. He served in the navy, in coastal units in the Kaliningrad region and in Belarus. Like his father, he did not become a military man. According to Sofia Petrovna, again through her modesty and kindness.

The caterpillars that crushed his son also walked over his father. Admiral Usov retired, was very ill, and died in 2010.

Sofya Petrovna now spends most of her time at the dacha, which her husband and son built with their own hands. She is often visited by her granddaughters and great-granddaughters. There are especially happy days in her life. When you dream about your son.

Recently he told me in a dream: “Mom, I’m alive!” I wake up in tears of happiness. And on the nightstand there is a portrait in a black frame... But I believe that Volodya is nearby, our soul is alive.

On all memorable dates and major church holidays, Sofya Petrovna comes to her son’s grave at the Vagankovskoye cemetery. She doesn't like to talk about politics. There is no sugarcoating life in the Soviet Union.

Life was hard and meager then. The shops were empty. I would like to believe that Dima, Volodya and Ilya turned the tide of events in August 1991, says Sofya Petrovna. - If the guys had not stopped the armored vehicles, there could have been a lot of victims.

Sofya Petrovna sent many of Volodya’s things to Magadan. At the school where he studied, a museum was created in his memory.

My son's books remain. I am now re-reading the science fiction that he loved so much through Volodya’s eyes.

“We spent two days looking for Ilyusha in all hospitals.”

About the architect Ilya Krichevsky, his sister Marina says:

It was, of course, no coincidence that it was no accident that my brother was at the barricades that night. He was generally a caring person, with what is called a raw nerve. This became clear when we began to study his poems. In 1991, Ilyusha was 28, I was 26. I was already married, but we all lived together in a 3-room apartment, in a five-story building. My brother relatively recently returned from the army. He served in military service after graduating from college, quite an adult. First there was tank training in Shali, then he served in Cossack camps near Novocherkassk. Judging by his few stories and letters, at first he had a hard time in the army. Because he is a Muscovite and also a Jew. Then my brother got involved and began writing poems to order for his colleagues’ girls’ birthdays. Gained respect.

Ilya Krichevsky was passionate about poetry and drama school. He drew beautifully. Upon returning from the army, I read Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago” and Shalamov’s stories. When the August putsch happened, having learned from the news what was happening, I got dressed and left home.

Ilya Krichevsky.

Then it turned out that Ilya Krichevsky was called to the barricades by a colleague from Zhukovsky. They were tank crews in the army, and then it turned out that the “putschists” had moved armored vehicles to the capital.

The army comrade then got lost in the crowd, and Ilyusha went to the tanks, to the very front line. He was there without documents. But when the ambulance arrived, a colleague named Ilyushin’s last name. And the next day in the morning, my classmate heard the name Krichevsky on Ekho Moskvy. We all studied together at the architectural institute. Calling us at home, she carefully asked: “Is Ilyusha at home?..” Then we looked for him in all the hospitals for two days. They didn't answer us very kindly. He died on Tuesday, and only on Thursday we found his brother in the morgue.

Then there was a funeral and a trial. A criminal case was opened against the military. The investigation lasted 4 months. The crew of BMP No. 536 was acquitted. They had orders to prevent the seizure of weapons, ammunition and military equipment. And they supposedly only shot upwards, for self-defense.

Only recently I came across Ilyushin’s death certificate. It says: bullet wound. During the court hearings, it was established that an order was given and the person defended himself. But the bullet was clearly not a stray one. We then looked at many frames of the chronicle of that night, where Ilyusha’s voice is clearly heard. He shouted: “What are you doing, you’re shooting at people.” The officer shot at the one who was indignant at the voice... And by that time two other guys had already died.

Ilyusha’s mother, Inessa Naumovna, died in 2002, 11 years after her son’s death.

Doctors said that her heart was all scarred, she suffered several micro-infarctions, says Marina. - They were very close to their brother. Ilyusha looked like his mother in appearance. It was to her that he read his poems at night.

Ilya’s father, Marat Efimovich, kept his son’s room as it was. My son’s things hang in the closet, and Ilya’s notebooks are on the shelves.

25 years have passed, but it is still very painful for us. Even when my daughters were growing up and events related to the State Emergency Committee were taught in history lessons, I was scared by the realization that Ilyusha had gone down in history.

- How do you perceive those events in relation to our reality?

This is a very painful question, because everything that is happening now is very ambiguous, difficult, offensive, sad, both deserved and undeserved... I now meet people I respect very much, and when asked which of the events in their lives they can call the most bright, they say: “Three days in August.” This touches me to the depths of my heart every time.

Dmitry Komar

Despite his young age, by August 1991, Dmitry Alekseevich Komar was no longer used to military action. At the age of 18, he served in Afghanistan, was shell-shocked twice and returned home with three medals. And this despite the fact that Dmitry had heart problems as a child - the young man had a thickened bundle of His. With such a diagnosis, he might not have been accepted into the Airborne Forces at all, but Dmitry trained hard and never focused on the illness.

“In Afghanistan, they accompanied convoys with fuel tankers. They were practically living targets. The dushmans shot them from an ambush at point-blank range.<…>Of the 120 people in their company, no more than 20 remained alive,” the mother of the deceased, Lyubov Komar, told Moskovsky Komsomolets in an interview.

Also, according to Dmitry’s mother, her son always rushed to help those who needed it. For example, he once protected a random passer-by from rapists, and shortly before the tragic events of August, he saved people caught in a landslide in the Krasnodar Territory.

White House Defenders Memorial Concert, 1991

Dmitry’s plans did not include participation in rallies, but his opinion changed after Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoi appealed to the “Afghans” with a request to defend the White House. This decision became fatal: on the night of August 21, Dmitry Komar was crushed by an infantry fighting vehicle. According to some reports, the deceased was intoxicated.

Ilya Krichevsky

Ilya Maratovich Krichevsky also served in the army, but this area did not particularly attract him. The man loved art more: he studied to be an architect and then enjoyed working in his profession, writing poems, drawing wonderfully and attending a theater studio.

The ability to write poetry helped Ilya even in the army: at the request of his colleagues, he composed rhymed congratulations for their brides, thanks to which he won the favor of the soldiers.

Also, Krichevsky, a Jew by nationality, was interested in religion. In 1991, he immersed himself in the study of the Torah, but further studies were not destined to take place.

“It was no coincidence, of course, that my brother was at the barricades that night. In general, he was a caring person, as they say, a raw nerve,” recalled Marina, Ilya’s sister. The woman noted that a colleague called Krichevsky to defend democracy. The acquaintance, however, soon disappeared into the crowd, and Ilya some time later was mortally wounded in the head.

Vladimir Usov

37-year-old Vladimir Aleksandrovich Usov, a native of the Latvian city of Ventspils, was engaged in economics - he was an employee of the Ikom enterprise. Not much information has been preserved about his biography. It is known that Vladimir served in military service in the Kaliningrad region and Belarus, but he did not devote the rest of his life to service - unlike, by the way, his own father. According to Vladimir’s mother, her son was too kind and modest for the army.

Parents of the victims

On the night of August 21, Vladimir Usov was crushed by the tracks of an infantry fighting vehicle. According to one version, he tried to get someone out from under the BMP, but as a result he himself died.

“I would like to believe that Dima, Volodya and Ilya turned the tide of events in August 1991. If the guys had not stopped the armored vehicles, there could have been a lot of victims,” says Sofya Usova, Vladimir’s mother.

According to my information, Krichevsky did not “throw himself under the tank, trying to stop it,” he did not “climb onto the armor, shouting and waving his arms, slipped and fell and was crushed,” and did not “throw a bottle (with a Molotov cocktail) into the BMP 536 and set it on fire.” car, but he himself died under it.” As far as I know, Ilya was an intelligent and modest guy, he was interested in books, music, and most of all - poetry, he was a poet. Out of overwhelming emotions, he simply shouted: “What are you doing? After all, people are dying! Two have already died!” He shouted without throwing bottles or stones, addressing, naturally, not to the soldiers, but to the commander with a pistol, for which he received a bullet in the head. Captain Surovikin did this, as our lawyer V.Y. Livshits told me about. So, all versions of the death of Ilya Krichevsky, as well as in the article “The Last Heroes”, are conjectures of journalists. Besides, there is a real witness.

According to eyewitness S. Bratchikov: “I...ran up to this infantry fighting vehicle, which crushed a man, and threw it (a bucket of gasoline) right under the gun, into the air intake. And then a match, right there. It flared - be healthy. The BMP immediately stopped, the hatches opened, and from there the soldiers began to run out into other vehicles. And only the commander did not run to hide, but went towards the chain of people. Major, it seems. The machine gun is on the shoulder. “Disperse!” - yells. Everyone is standing. He took out a pistol and shot at the first person he came across. He just collapsed. People rushed in all directions, and the major went somewhere, into the house...” The car that crushed the man was the killer BMP 536, it was not a major, but captain Surovikin, in camouflage uniform, it was difficult to determine the rank, so Bratchikov mixed up the insignia, but everything else was etched in his memory for the rest of his life, to be a witness cold-blooded murder..., that’s why he told reporters on the 20th anniversary, word for word, as if everything happened yesterday, and not 20 years ago. I asked if he knew that he witnessed the murder of Ilya Krichevsky. As it turned out, Bratchikov did not know this, they interviewed him about how he set fire to an armored car, and for one thing he talked about the murder. So I found an article with his truth on the Internet http://izvestia.ru/news/316440, and so, how. the pistol could only be in the possession of an officer, soldiers are issued only machine guns, it is not difficult to guess that it was Captain Surovikin. From the story of Sergei Bratchikov, it is obvious that there were a large number of people who witnessed the death of Krichevsky. But the case was still dropped due to lack of evidence - a bullet. At the General Prosecutor's Office, the investigator told me that the bullets were explosive, is that why they didn't find the bullet? Obviously, the investigative authorities knew everything perfectly well and had complete information. Lawyer V.I. Livshets was allowed to see the investigation materials, having studied them, he said that there were even witnesses to my injury and everything I said was confirmed by the testimony of witnesses. Apparently the intention was not to solve the crime, but in the completely opposite direction.

Born in Moscow in the family of an employee, a Jew. In 1980 he graduated from Moscow secondary school No. 744 and in 1986 from the Moscow Architectural Institute. He worked as an architect at State Design Institute No. 6. In 1986-88 he served in the ranks of the Soviet Army, junior sergeant. Then he worked as an architect at the Kommunar design and construction cooperative. Ilya Krichevsky wrote poetry; posthumously they were included in anthologies (“Strophes of the Century” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and others).

On August 19-21, 1991, during the period of activity in Moscow of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP), I. M. Krichevsky was among the citizens protesting against the entry of troops into Moscow and demanding democratic changes in the country. He died on the night of August 20-21, 1991 in the area of ​​an underground tunnel near Smolenskaya Square, where eight infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) of the Taman Motorized Rifle Division were blocked at the intersection of Tchaikovsky and Novy Arbat streets.

When citizens, trying to stop the movement of the BMP column towards Smolenskaya Square, poured gasoline (a fire mixture) on BMP No. 536, and the vehicle caught fire, the crew that left it began to move to neighboring BMPs under a hail of stones and metal rods. While boarding BMP No. 521, two of the crew members of the burning vehicle, covering the retreat of their comrades, fired warning shots into the air. At that moment, Krichevsky, calling on the soldiers to stop, took a step towards the BMP and received a through and fatal wound to the head.

By decree of the President of the USSR of August 24, 1991, “for courage and civic valor shown in defending democracy and the constitutional system of the USSR,” Krichevsky was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 11659).

He was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovskoye cemetery, where a monument was erected on his grave. A memorial sign in honor of I.M. Krichevsky was installed above the underground tunnel at the intersection of the Garden Ring with Novy Arbat Street in Moscow.

Awards

Hero of the Soviet Union

Awarded the Order of Lenin, Medal “Defender of Free Russia” No. 2.

One of the last Heroes of the Soviet Union.