What did famous cultural figures do during the war? Art during the Great Patriotic War. By the end of the war the process had become widespread

We do not know which modern war the author of this article experienced. But he tried to give useful practical advice on the life of a civilian in military conditions, and many of them may be useful. The text is published in abbreviation.

Panic

Immediately after the bombing, first quiet and then complete panic began. Everyone who could rushed out of the city. Even those who seemed to be prepared still gave in to Her Highness’s panic. Entire blocks left. Throwing everything along the way. Just to have time to leave. Those who could not leave remained in the surrounded city to die. But they also sought refuge in basements and cellars. Needless to say, the panic, which lasted relatively short, brought disorder and chaos into the lives of the residents. Instead of leaving the city much earlier, trying to pick up and transport much more, people, who until recently lived in the illusions of peace, succumbed to panic and simply fled. Without anything. Instead of figuring out WHERE to run in advance, then they simply ran to “nowhere.”

From this there is a general conclusion: do not try to hide the truth from yourself, do not try to live the realities of the world until the last moment. No matter how much you prepare for a cataclysm, panic and confusion will still push you to rash decisions and actions. It is these first friends of yours that will turn out to be the most destructive for you, but don’t try to sit around for a long time either. Long “thinking” is the path to inaction.

At the same time, do not try to cover the entire expected list of disasters when preparing. This will lead to the fact that, with a reasonable probability, you will not prepare for any. Don’t waste your energy and resources on discussing and preparing for multiple arctic foxes; prepare for a universal scenario. Both in terms of means and possibilities, it is much easier. You basically have to survive in your home, so use your knowledge of your yard to adapt to the conditions that arise.

First: don't try to collect a bunch of things. There are things that are necessary, and there are things that just get in the way.

A very necessary thing, but not when you have a dozen knives and they all need something. When traveling, you don’t need special knives to cut anything and everything. So put them off until calmer times. Stash it with extra dishes and things in the shed, and use one or two. It seems that this is not an important point, but practice has shown that in the event of an attack by marauders, the abundance of cutting and piercing weapons at hand does not help, and often hinders the defense. In addition, the abundance of knives in the house can lead to the fact that during a fight the enemy will grab your own knife lying on the table and use it against you. So let there be only one knife, and it will be in your hands.

Axe

Often, the average person, in the event of a threat of attack on his home, hopes most of all for the presence of an ax in the house. It would seem that there are only advantages. It’s heavy, and sharp, and you can hit it with a butt, but, time-tested, an ax in the house is the weapon of a person who knows how to use it in a limited space. In the case of the average person, an ax is often useless and sometimes dangerous. Because it gives excessive confidence, but does not give skill.

Question: how will you use it in the event of an attack? Most of the neighbors I interviewed stated that they would wave in front of them in order to not let the enemy get close. But the request to demonstrate this process to me led, at best, to damage to furniture and walls in the house, and at worst, to minor injuries, such as bumps, bruises, cuts. Therefore, a person who picks up an ax must at least learn to wield it. At the same time, it is important to learn to wield an ax within the intended place of use. Simply put, what’s stopping you from taking a small hatchet and walking through the rooms in advance, waving it? He himself will “tell” you where and how to act, where to swing and hit with full force, and where it is better to poke at the enemy without any swing in the chest or face. All you have to do is remember the order of movements in certain places in the apartment, this will not only give you the opportunity not to get confused, but will also help prevent the criminal from imposing his will on you.

In general, any item in your home can serve as a strong argument in your hands. Especially if your life and that of your relatives is at stake. So feel free to walk through the rooms with different household items. Let your wife laugh at the fact that you are walking around the rooms with an extension cord, a fork or a rolling pin, give her such pleasure. As you walk around the house, try to touch various objects, as if you were grabbing a chair or a clothes hanger with your hand. After a short tour, you will realize that you do not know your place of residence very well. There are some things you just never knew you could use defensively.

Example: one of my acquaintances, a man of about fifty, quite plump and, in ordinary life, suffering from shortness of breath, was able to perfectly resist the pressure of two young looters in their attempt to profit from his own apartment. Despite the fact that one of the attackers was armed with a gun, although, as it turned out later, it was not loaded, and the other was holding a knife in his hand. The man successfully used a hanger standing in the corridor, knocked out the eye of one of the attackers and bloodied the face of the second. When he pushed them out of the apartment onto the landing, the neighbors intervened. It was possible not only to prevent the robbery, but also to stop the criminal subsequent actions of these people.

Gun

I don’t argue that the presence of a gun in the house is a positive factor for the defender. Especially if it is a multi-charged Saiga. But even having a gun at home does not completely save you, but only increases the defender’s chance of success. The main thing is to walk through the rooms with a gun in advance and find the most favorable places for defense.

It’s also a good idea to take note of the attacking sectors from the windows and think through options that would interfere with return fire. Example: your humble servant, long before the war, this had to happen, went around all the rooms with his father and “shot” all the sectors of fire for himself. During the war, thank God, this experience was really useful only once. At the same time, the armament was an old 12-gauge single-barreled gun, but even this “karamultuk” was enough. When shots began to be heard from the outer window towards the attackers, there were three of them, and the return fire did not bring harm to the defending person, the marauders, first bypassing the house, climbed over the fence, and after I continued shelling from another window facing the yard , simply retreated. In the morning I found an empty barn opened, but it was empty even before they arrived. But in the house itself, according to the advice of an experienced person, I would be afraid to fire. Because there is an option to hit your relatives. At the same time, reloading a single-shot gun in a short fight is not realistic.

Marauders

Now I want to touch on the topic of looters. At first there are few looters. Before the war and at the very beginning, the authorities still pay attention to them, catch them and shoot them, but as the conflict drags on, the number of looters grows. Most looters are loners, driven to plunder by hunger. They mainly look for empty houses and take food and water. These people are basically either unarmed or their weapons are faulty. They are very afraid of security forces and do not poke their noses into places inhabited by people. They usually take away food, and even then only what they can carry in their hands. But as the conflict grows, with the weakening of the attention of the authorities, with a decrease in the amount of food left behind during the flight, and most importantly, with an increase in the number of looters themselves and with the appearance of captured weapons, loners, timid and not arrogant, begin to gather in groups of five to ten people, and attack residential buildings. Such groups are no longer afraid of the authorities, because there is no authority, they are not afraid of the average person, because there are many of them, they usually come during the day, masquerading as army soldiers and police. These groups are much more dangerous.

It is practically useless for one family to fight such a group. It helps to create a self-defense group from residents of a block, in the private sector, or one multi-story building. At the same time, the population also begins to have weapons, and even a large group of marauders, in the event of a collision, becomes difficult to fight. We must not forget that the majority of looters are the same peaceful people who went out to rob, first out of hunger, and later for profit. Imagine, transport is checked by troops and police, the military will still react to prolonged shooting in the aisles of one district, if only because there is a possibility of a breakthrough behind enemy lines, residents do not give up their goods for free. The work of a looter is hard and unrewarding. His constant tactics: a quick “attack”, and an equally quick “rollback”, and with a profit or with a bullet in the head, it depends on your luck. Therefore, usually during the day, children or women are sent for reconnaissance. And only after receiving complete information about the presence of weapons and the number of people, the gang decides whether to carry out a raid or not.

Residents can be advised to immediately create a self-defense detachment, arm themselves and think about fortifications blocking the entrance to the territory of the yard or the territory of the block. Typically, both the military and the police are quite favorable towards this method of law enforcement. There are several reasons for this favor. Firstly: the military and police are partially relieved of their responsibilities for maintaining law and order. Secondly: they receive a detachment capable of detaining both a criminal and an infiltrator, and under certain circumstances, also signaling a breakthrough in their sector by the enemy. Thirdly, the barricades of self-defense units are excellent for emergency defense in the event of an enemy breakthrough.

Therefore, both the military and the police, in such cases, turn a blind eye to the presence of unregistered weapons, and sometimes they themselves bring outdated and broken ones for sale to the detachment. In addition, the self-defense detachment is usually entrusted with the functions of housing arriving units, as well as providing provisions. In addition to the above, the creation of a detachment serves to bind the front and rear with mutual responsibility.

Barriers

Installation of barriers to prevent looters from entering the private sector. At the beginning and end of the block, barricades are built from scrap materials. This takes into account the factor of using the road for transporting parts or ammunition. In the corner houses there are resting places for squad members, as well as a place for cooking and performing natural needs. Two to four people are on duty at the entrances, the rest are located at home. After a certain time, the guards are replaced. There were cases when a detachment of ten people was armed with only three guns and one revolver, but, seeing the sentries with weapons, even large gangs of marauders did not dare to attack the block.

The construction of barriers to make it difficult for looters to enter the courtyard of a multi-story building is almost the same as the above. The only difference is the material. In the fencing of multi-storey buildings, more furniture is used than boards, logs, and sandbags.

The question is often asked, why a gun if there are a lot of ownerless weapons all around? I’ll answer the question with a question: “Have you often come across an ownerless weapon in working condition, and even with cartridges and in your name?” After the Russian units entered the city, they took the gun, scolded it a little and released it, but the guys who were found with machine guns or cartridges for them ended up in a filtration camp for a long time. After this, many either did not return, or returned, but as disabled people.

Shelters

I probably won’t tell you a secret if I say that proximity to warring opponents is detrimental for the peaceful average person. All “gifts” that go to the wrong address go to the civilian population. If we add to this the fact that an ordinary person is not familiar with the sound of a mine, cannot hear a bullet flying past, does not know where the fire is coming from and with what weapon, then the picture turns out to be simply deplorable. For every soldier killed, five to six civilians are killed. And sometimes the right shelter saved the lives of more than one or two people. Not many can boast that they either already have a shelter or have the funds for the emergency construction of one, so I propose for your consideration the construction of shelters in outbuildings.

Cellar

The cellar is located in a private house, and this makes it the first refuge for the family in case of war. It would seem easy, I just opened the lid, brought my family in, brought in the groceries, closed the lid and order. But more than once I observed the picture: people in the cellar died from suffocation, from an explosion, the collapse of a house, from the penetration of carbon monoxide. There are many reasons for death. Therefore, let's look at ways to prepare a cellar into a simple, but quite durable and comfortable shelter.

First, the walls of the cellar must be made of brick. And the thicker the wall, the greater the chances of salvation. Under no circumstances should the roof of the cellar serve as the floor in the room. Conclusion, the roof of the cellar should be strengthened as much as possible. As an example, we lay pipes on brick walls, attach formwork from below, and fill them with concrete half a meter thick. After the concrete has hardened, soil at least half a meter thick is poured on top.

It follows from this that the cellar must initially be deep. And even such strengthening of the cellar does not provide a complete guarantee of salvation. There must be an emergency exit from the cellar to the street. In the case of my house, it was an iron pipe with a diameter of half a meter. I don’t know who dug it in and why, but this “emergency exit” allowed me to live to write this book.

The shelves in the cellar should be located taking into account the fact that during the bombing they turn into places for people. When building a cellar, be sure to consider a small niche for the toilet and water. The function of the toilet in the cellar was performed by a bucket with a lid. After the bombing, it was emptied into a street toilet. A forty-liter flask was equipped to store water.

The cellar must also be ventilated in advance. In the case of my house, the ventilation was a pipe with a diameter of one hundred and fifty, coming out of the cellar at a distance of half a meter from the walls of the house. The floor of the cellar, originally earthen, was covered with boards for warmth. There was a small stove-stove in the corner. The chimney was previously routed outside the house. I covered a piece of the floor under the stove with bricks to eliminate the possibility of the floor catching fire during the fire. These are the measures I took in advance that helped me significantly strengthen and equip the cellar.

Basement

Since the basement, as a rule, is fortified, we will pay attention to its interior decoration. The shelves of the basement, in contrast to the shelves of the cellar, are initially wider and deeper, since in peacetime the basement is the main place for storing household food supplies. So they don't require any modifications. All that remains is to prepare a place for the stove, insulate the basement walls, for example, with plywood, place a primitive bathroom and a place for storing water, install furniture, and insulate the doors with heat-insulating, non-combustible material.

It's good when a person has his own home! What should a person living in a high-rise building do? Basements are usually flooded with water, they are inhabited by all kinds of living creatures, cockroaches, fleas, mice, rats. And is there enough space in the common basement for all the residents of the house? There are many questions, but there is only one answer: if you have time to prepare, then even in cramped conditions, you can survive. I’m telling you as a person who has seen with my own eyes residents of multi-story buildings who survived in the basement. I went down to these basements more than once, and despite the fact that they were not prepared, hundreds of people calmly survived in them. Imagine if these people chipped in in advance and together prepared their basement for subsequent living.

Let me make a reservation right away, I did not live in a multi-story building, I don’t have my own experience, and of all the basements under multi-story buildings, I saw only one, more or less equipped, but even this, a rather primitive arrangement, allowed the residents of the house to live with sufficient comfort for wartime. Judge for yourself. Example: a nine-story house with eight entrances, naturally, there are eight exits, all exits are open, openings are made in the basement walls between the entrances. According to residents, this was done so that if one of the sections was destroyed, people could get into the other and escape.

Heating such a basement is not easy, so heating was out of the question, but the residents cooked food on the rims of a truck. These makeshift stoves were located in several places in the basement near the windows. That is, they drowned themselves “on black”. The same stoves served to illuminate the basement.

Residents' mattresses, folding beds and mesh beds lined the walls. Naturally, privacy was out of the question; too many people sought salvation in this basement. The outside windows were covered with sandbags. In response to my question about lighting and natural ventilation, I was told that lighting and ventilation had to be sacrificed due to constantly flying shrapnel and bullets. After several people died under constant fire, the remaining residents covered the windows with sandbags and threw garbage on top. Only those windows that were located on the side opposite to the shelling let in light and smoke from the fires.

Food was also shared; the residents simply allocated one room for food and instructed the old people to guard it. The water was drained from the pipes into a handy container. And they replenished it, if possible, with melted snow and extracted from the broken houses of the private sector located behind the house. There, in rare moments of calm, they collected food together. The food was provided by the whole world. Cooking was entrusted to several women.

Thus, the community was able to survive, despite the fact that the house was under constant fire; part of the house was destroyed by a falling air bomb; it did not reach the basement and exploded on the upper floors. Lucky. I counted seventeen graves in the yard. These were the graves of residents who died during the first bombings.

Water

Water, how much we had to endure due to its absence! Although the events I took for analysis took place in winter, the lack of water was felt everywhere.

First: during a disaster, remember that the water is never clean. All those places from which you are accustomed to getting water may either be in the sphere of influence of one of the warring parties, which means access to the source will be extremely difficult, or located in the immediate combat zone, which means a trip for water can cost your life, or The water at the source may not be suitable for consumption at all.

The first thing you should pay attention to is the separation of water dishes. Select containers for drinking water and containers for technical water. It is most convenient to keep drinking water in metal forty-liter flasks. The lid of such a flask closes tightly, and debris does not get inside, the same factor affects the avoidance of water loss.

Already during the first bombings, the water supply stopped supplying water, and subsequently completely froze. Therefore, we had to look for sources of water, as well as ways to transport it.

Any vehicle driving through enemy-occupied territory automatically becomes an enemy vehicle. No matter what signs you put on it, no matter how you try to pass unnoticed, sooner or later either it will be requisitioned from you, for the needs of the front, or you will come under fire, sometimes arranged only in your honor. Therefore, a bicycle and a car are your reliable allies and helpers. Having a car in a house, apartment, or car is in itself luck. This simple vehicle will help you in many of your affairs, such as obtaining water and food, transporting things, transporting the wounded, transporting the heating material you have extracted.

But from the laudatory ode to the wheelbarrow, let's move on to places where water is stored. In any city there are several such places: fire stations, hospitals, sanitary and epidemiological stations, technical wells, military units, city reservoirs. Any fire station or hospital has special water storage facilities and underground reservoirs. The water in them is usually disinfected. It is constantly updated and at the time of an emergency it is usually intended for distribution to the population, but distribution usually does not occur due to the fact that these places are the first to be captured by the military and access to water is blocked. The same embarrassment awaits water seekers in military units. What remains, as a rule, is a sanitary and epidemiological station, a school fire reserve (not all schools have one), and natural sources of drinking and industrial water.

Sanitary and epidemiological station. Usually people do not take this very important and serious institution seriously, but in vain. It was the city’s sanitary and epidemiological station, located in the area where I lived, that became, if not the only, but reliable source of drinking water. Although the stock available in the sanitary and epidemiological station is less than the stock of underground tanks of fire departments, this organization takes disinfection and subsequent storage more seriously than even the Ministry of Health, because the fight against the emergence and spread of epidemics is the direct responsibility of the sanitary and epidemiological service (SES).

Example: when drinking water brought from fire reservoirs, even after boiling, some discomfort was felt in the stomach and intestines, diarrhea, flatulence, constipation, pain, but when drinking water brought from the SES, even without boiling, nothing like that was felt.

The next source of water during the war was wells, wells, and springs. Water from these natural sources is divided into: suitable for consumption and technical. Unfortunately, in the area where I lived there was only a well with technical water. Under normal conditions, this water is not very suitable for consumption, since it is mineral, but given the general shortage, this water was perfectly consumed.

We must not forget that a fair amount of water remains in the water pipes after the pumps are turned off. This is especially noticeable if a person lives in a lowland. This water is also usable, and it is important to know how to get to it. I managed it like this. After the life-giving stream stopped flowing from the tap, I climbed into the well for supplying water from the yard to the house and, unscrewing the inlet into the house from the tap, drew water directly from the pipe for some time. Since my house was not in the lowest part, the water pressure was enough for me for two weeks.

For technical needs, such as laundry, mopping floors, flushing the toilet, bathing, I collected rainwater and snow. For these purposes, I had barrels around the house under the gutters. By using this, albeit not particularly clean, water, I was able to maintain order in the house and save such precious clean water.

Nutrition

No matter how much food supplies you accumulated before the war, sooner or later, the supplies will be depleted. Let's look at ways to replenish supplies. The first way is to go to the store. No, don’t think, during the war the shops are closed, but this does not mean that there are no products in them. Nobody advises you to break into shops in the area on the very first day of the war. It’s just that during a war, it’s not uncommon for aerial bombs and shells to hit the buildings themselves, and a destroyed building is no longer a store, but it’s not just ruins either. So, your humble servant, being an avid smoker and especially suffering from a lack of tobacco, became the happy owner of two full boxes of Belomor, simply by visiting a stall destroyed by a shell.

Since you are not one of those who had the happy idea of ​​visiting a store at such an inopportune time, you risk, at best, simply finding yourself in front of empty shelves and utility rooms. But even if so, do not despair. Walk around the store again, and fortune may reward you for your attentiveness. For example, in a completely empty room of a former store, I managed to find a box of matches, a box of candles, three packs of salt, several packs of washing powder, albeit wet, but completely preserved, and, as if in mockery, left to me, unarmed, a sawn-off shotgun of a sixteenth-grade double-barreled shotgun caliber. This outing substantially supplemented my depleted supplies.

But you should always take into account that in such premises all sorts of “surprises” are possible, left for you by past visitors to the store. So in one store, after a careful inspection, I removed three tripwires and one grenade launcher shot. In case of haste and inattention, the fate of, at best, a cripple would have awaited me.

In addition to stores to replenish your grocery and household baskets, various bases are of interest. But you need to take into account the fact that the idea of ​​looting does not only occur to you, and people will rush to steal food and household goods much earlier than you, while despising the danger of being killed.

Basically, bases and storage facilities are looted directly during hostilities or immediately after they cease. Residents of nearby streets, who have suffered more from shelling and bombing than you, and who have completely depleted their reserves, will attack the “ownerless oasis” faster than you. Sometimes, having paid a very high price, they will take away all the most valuable things from this “oasis,” but even after such a quick and greedy robbery, much remains either unnoticed or left as second-rate. Example: after the base was repeatedly raided by looters, I managed to get a bag of flour and a bag of peas, and on a second visit, another box of caramel candies and two boxes of bottled kerosene. Which also significantly replenished my reserves. A significant addition to the diet is the meat of slaughtered farm animals obtained from minefields. animals.

So, for helping the owner pull a wounded cow out of a minefield (the animal, frightened by explosions and gunfire, broke through the barn door and ran away, but on the way ended up in a minefield), after jointly cutting up the carcass, I received a leg and ribs. And after shells and bombs began to reach the streets of the “upper suburb,” a herd of goats and sheep came to me at night to “ask for political asylum.” Naturally, their urgent request was satisfied by me. Since there weren’t many people left on the street, mostly old people and women, all these “gifts of nature” were divided among everyone.

Fishing. Many people imagine her on the shore with a fishing rod in her hands, but wartime fishing is strikingly different from peacetime fishing. The first difficulty is that bodies of water suitable for fishing are often on the other side of the front from the fisherman. But, even if the body of water is right next door, it is likely that it will be under fire. If this is not the case, then you should be afraid of “fishermen” in uniform. Many units standing on the banks of reservoirs did not disdain to diversify their diet with fish. But there was no question of fishing rods. The lack of fishing rods was compensated for by the presence of grenades and grenade launchers.

The whole process happened like this: a truck or armored personnel carrier drove right up to the water. The fishing participants came out. Grenades were thrown into the water. Young guys scooped up caught fish near the shore, usually two or three bags, a group of fishermen got into a car and drove off to the location of the unit or checkpoint. The whole process took no more than half an hour. That's all military fishing is all about.

“Where is the romance, where is the soup and everything that comes with it?” - the reader will ask, but the romance went to the locals. Burying himself in the high reeds, the local fisherman waits for the departure of the military fishermen and, making sure that his presence has not been detected and that the military have moved far enough, sets off from the shore on a hastily assembled raft or a leaky boat in search of fish. He risks getting shot or shrapnel, he risks drowning or catching a cold, but the desire to somehow replenish his depleted reserves pushes him to search for fish. After the explosion of three to five grenades, there are a lot of stunned fish. The soldiers take only the largest one, and all the little things, the middle ones, are usually ignored. It is for this little thing that a desperate fisherman swims.

Since there were many desperate fishermen, and during the assault the soldiers perceived any civilian as an enemy, there were many corpses in the reeds and on the shore. But for a bag of fish, a hungry man is willing to take risks. So I, having succumbed to the persuasion of a neighbor’s boy and his description of the ease and effectiveness of the outing, saddled my bike in the company of three neighbors, and went on such a fishing trip. I won’t describe how we got around the rubble and checkpoints; we’ll talk about them separately. Arriving at the shore of the pond and sitting in the reeds, we waited for the military. We didn't have to wait long. About half an hour later an armored personnel carrier rolled up to the shore. After shooting at the reeds with a machine gun to be sure, five people came out.

After the armored personnel carrier left, we pushed the boat into the water and swam to collect fish. While fishing like this, no one noticed the arrival of the next batch of fishermen. Imagine a picture of a boat in the middle of the lake. There are four people on the boat. Fog is a mandatory attribute of a reservoir in February in those parts. And on the shore there are wary soldiers who have come for fish. Hearing the splash of oars and not figuring out what was what, these militant fishermen began to concentratedly water the lake with machine guns. We froze. Automatic bursts rushed past, some five meters away. But after the soldiers began to fire at the sound from a grenade launcher, as best they could, all four of them rowed to the opposite bank. Still, I brought two bags of fish home, but after such a shock I never went fishing again.

After the bases are devastated, and the war does not end, you have to go door to door in search of food. Naturally, you first pay attention to the destroyed houses. It’s not difficult to get into such a house, it’s difficult to find food, since besides you, at least fifty people have already climbed into this house. Therefore, gradually you either stop looking and are content with what you brought in advance, or you begin to think about what you could exchange from the military for food.

After this, looting takes on a different direction. Someone breaks into houses in search of treasures, and someone, like your humble servant, begins to approach the winery. By this time, one of the warring parties had left the plant, but, as usual, did not inform the enemy about its departure. And here is the situation, between two opponents, in no-man’s land there is the coveted alcohol. Hundreds of people are trying to get to him. Dozens succeed in this. So at my house I got two flasks of alcohol and several boxes of cognac and wine. Alcohol is a blessing in war! After drinking a glass of alcohol in the evening, you can finally fall asleep. And you won’t be woken up by gunfire outside your windows, or looters wandering around the yard, or even a mine or shell hitting your house.

Moreover, alcohol is currency! At the same time, the currency is hard! You can exchange everything for alcohol, from dry rations to captured weapons. I wasn’t interested in weapons, but I was very interested in diesel fuel for lamps, food, and cigarettes. At the same time, I managed to exchange alcohol for free passage through the checkpoint without a pass. So, the power of alcohol during war is great!

Workwear

When it comes to all kinds of overalls, protective jackets, pants, high-top boots, I give just one argument. If you were a sniper, how would you feel about a person in protective gear in your crosshairs? Would you have the time and desire to consider a stranger as a peaceful person? Most likely, you would shoot first, and only then would you figure out whether the person was peaceful or not. For the same reason, I always caution against putting any identifying mark on clothing. Anything that catches your eye will most likely cause your death. My clothes were simple, an old winter jacket, old pants, a sweater and a hat. The more natural you look, the more likely you are to avoid becoming a target.

People often ask why, given the abundance of weapons lying right on the ground, I didn’t get a machine gun or at least a pistol. I will answer, firstly, the abundance of weapons lying on the ground is a myth. Of course, broken and unusable weapons were found, but everything that was suitable for battle was picked up. At the same time, risking your life because of a broken trunk is an unforgivable luxury. In front of me, a man was killed for raising the empty casing of a grenade launcher. He wanted to show off in front of his wife, but forgot to warn the snipers about this. Secondly, an unusable weapon will not help you in any way in case of an attack on your home, but during a clean-up operation, the military has many questions.

Stripping

After the capture (liberation) of the area, the unit conducts a cleanup of the area so as not to have the enemy in its rear. Cleaning usually begins in the morning. A group of soldiers led by an officer blocks the street and begins checking every house. Houses whose residents do not arouse suspicion are checked superficially. Only documents and the presence of unregistered citizens in the house, but the houses of a potential enemy are checked with special care.

The house, attic, yard, and all utility rooms are inspected. The registration of the residents of the house is checked, and they are required to remove outer clothing in order to check for the presence of characteristic marks from the use of weapons. The presence of bruises on the shoulders from the use of weapons, abrasions from carrying weapons on a belt, abrasions on the elbows and knees from constant movement with their use.

Houses whose residents have been denounced about their participation in resistance are also subject to special searches. Yes, yes, yes, any of your neighbors, with whom you shared all the hardships of life at the front, with whom you sheltered from bombing, with whom you ate your last piece of bread, can easily, remembering an old grievance, denounce you. A family of neighbors who lived behind a common fence and were hiding in my cellar from the bombings reported on me. According to their denunciation, the inspection of my house lasted from morning until curfew. And only the intercession of the other neighbors, ready to escalate into an open clash between soldiers and grandmothers, kept the officer from taking me to the commandant’s office for a full check.

There are a lot of cleanups. Each unit, replacing the departed one, carries out its own cleansing, but the cleansing carried out by internal troops and riot police is worse than an army cleansing. It’s worse because the army units, having checked for the presence or absence of weapons and for the absence of those not registered in the house, lose interest in the street, but during the clean-up carried out by the explosives or riot police, citizens who are disloyal to the authorities are also identified. Usually all remaining townspeople fell into this category.

Therefore, riot police checks occur with particular cynicism and cruelty. The first weapon when clearing is goodwill. If you respect the soldiers and officers conducting the search, if you yourself are confident that there is nothing prohibited in the house and yard, if you calmly, holding out documents, stand under the gunpoint of a soldier, move only when asked to open this or that door, then It can be assumed that the cleanup will be carried out without quibbles and unnecessary nervousness. When checking, you should not take your eyes off your interlocutor; you should also not “eat him with your eyes.” Nervous behavior, shifting eyes, prolonged silence or inappropriate talkativeness, reluctance to open doors or excessive obsequiousness - all this can lead to increased attention, and sometimes to nagging.

Just treat stripping as a necessary nuisance. The military also don’t want to hold it for too long, because there are a lot of houses on the street. Stand where you were ordered, calmly submit the required documents, open the doors of the house and utility rooms. The less nervous you are, the faster this procedure will end. After searching the house, you can invite the officer into the house, and having invited him, offer him tea or compote. I myself did not suggest it, for the reason described above, but I heard several times from other residents that this method led to a faster search.

Getting around the city

Tip one: moving around the city is carried out only in daylight. Any movement after dark increases the chances of death. How many people move on the street at night? The military usually conducts redeployment of troops, delivery of ammunition, and reconnaissance. But the military has radio communications; they warn each other in advance when they are approaching a place of hostilities. A peaceful person does not have radio communications, and therefore any soldier, machine gunner, or sniper immediately opens fire at the sight of him. And he's right. He is not obliged to find out what kind of recklessness drove you out of the house in such darkness. In the dark, the likelihood of an attack on him is much higher than during the day, and therefore the use of weapons is not an unnecessary precaution. Moving during the day, you are visible and if you do not look like the enemy, then there is no point in the military shooting at you.

Another question, how to move around the area under artillery fire? I’ll answer in one word, no way. If when shooting from hand-held automatic weapons there is still a chance to crawl, run across, etc., then during artillery shelling, especially mortar shelling, the best way is to simply wait out the shelling in a shelter. Well, what if the shelling caught you on the street? Don't panic, look for a basement, a crevice, or an entrance to the house. Any building, at the very least, can protect you from shell fragments and crumbling construction debris. From a direct hit - unlikely, but will it be a direct hit? In my practice, it was the panic caused by the shelling that was the most difficult factor. And it was usually the rushing and panicking people who died. The calmly hidden person usually survived, but the one running and screaming died in the first minutes from shrapnel.

Most people during the war preferred to move on sidewalks along fences and houses. At the same time, almost the main streets of the city were chosen. Naturally, they died under bullets and shells from the warring parties, but all they had to do was walk about two hundred meters to the next parallel street. Yes, it’s scary, yes they are shooting, but the likelihood that the neighboring street is also being shelled is small. Especially if the neighboring street is a narrow alley. All main combat operations are conducted along the central streets. Equipment can pass over them; the most beautiful multi-story buildings stand on them. There is where to build a defense, there is room to maneuver to break this defense. And literally nearby there are streets in which it is simply not convenient to conduct combat operations, except for outflanking the enemy from the rear. Yes, they are usually also under fire, but no matter how many attackers and defenders there are, it is still not realistic to block all the streets with a sufficiently large number of troops.

The main fighting takes place on the industrial outskirts and closer to the city center. Why? Because the city center is made up of government buildings. Capturing the city center deprives the defenders of overall control and also demoralizes them. Industrial areas can be involved in the production and repair of equipment. Therefore, the capture of these areas means depriving the defenders of their production base. Therefore, where should a peaceful person move in a war-torn city? There is only one way out - to residential areas and the private sector. Unfortunately, in our country the location of residential areas alternates with the location of industrial facilities. Therefore, even in residential areas, military clashes between opposing armies can occur. But, if in the center these hostilities take place with all the cruelty and intensity, then the closer to the outskirts, the battles develop into separate, short-lived skirmishes. Consequently, a resident of the outskirts is in a much more advantageous position than a resident of the city center. And in cases of forced movement of a person around the city, this factor must be taken into account.

To obtain more complete information about the state of affairs, you should find the nearest high point in the city. Observing from above the movement of troops, both defending and attacking, can give the average person much more information than questioning refugees or listening to radio and television broadcasts.

Refugees

Refugees spend the night along the route wherever necessary, eating what they have stored or what compassionate residents have brought to them. Many people ask to stay. I myself have had refugees spend the night with me more than once. But often those who would like to appropriate your property disguise themselves as refugees. Thus, a seemingly harmless mother with a child may well turn out to be the spotter of a gang of marauders. And you will only find out about this when you have to beg for it yourself due to excessive kindness. Sometimes a group of people asking for an overnight stay may turn out to be a gang of well-prepared criminals.

How can you separate a real refugee from a person who is preparing an unexpected “surprise” for you? First rule: question. Usually a person who has come out of the inferno, when asked where he is from, will answer with the peaceful name of the street on which he lived, or simply tell you the area. A prepared person will answer in detail, and will also tell you the story of how he risked his life when he left his home, and along the way he will try to partially assign the solution to his problem to you. There is an immediate feeling that the speech has been prepared. Take note of this immediately and proceed to the next thing: inspection.

What does a person wear when there is trouble? That's right, at home. That is, what he was wearing, outerwear at most, was dirty, torn, but normal clothing. I had to see either skillfully torn rags, or good quality things, not stained or torn. In the first case, this is a woman dressed in a coat, but holding the hand of an almost naked child. In the second, a gentleman in a leather coat, military boots, a chic sweater, and a nutria hat. In both the first and second cases, I was given a short but succinct story about how many hardships the person had endured and while I was “fat” here normally, he had to get out of this... Wouldn’t I accept him for the night? After my refusal, so many reproaches were poured out on me that a person after this cannot help but accept. You can accuse me of being heartless, after this I simply closed the door and went into the house. And the person reproaching me, apparently, was not hungry, and his sleep was fine, judging by the way he looked.

But a third person confirmed that I was even more right in choosing refugees. He was a guy dressed in rags, with a haggard face, nervous and loud. He simply demanded that I let him in, since I am warm here, and he has to wander due to the loss of housing. Having looked closely, I suddenly recognize him as a man who lives three blocks from my house, in peacetime - a drunkard and a petty thief. But, without showing it, I begin to ask him about where he lived, how did it happen that I had to run away? In response, they told me about a non-existent street, about a non-existent address, and after learning that I was not Russian, and about how the brutal Russian troops, having killed everyone, but for some reason leaving him alive, destroyed his home. All this was said with such anguish and nervousness that if I had not recognized him, I would have shed tears. Yes, I heard about similar antics of the military on both sides against civilians. But not in this case. When I reminded him that in peacetime we often crossed paths because we lived in the same area, the stream of reproaches sharply escalated into threats and insults. I had to not only close the door right in front of my nose, but also give it a good hit in the nose itself.

So, if you are not sure that a guest will not kill you at night because of a pair of gold earrings of your wife or a sack of potatoes, it is better not to risk it. Let this become your worst sin. Usually disasters such as wars, fires and floods reveal the most hidden vices in people's characters. It seems that you have known this person for several days, it seems that you have even been friends, but you meet him in an unusual environment and, instead of supporting him, he is ready to kill you. Any person who takes the path of looting, first of all, goes to rob those who have more than once been at home, where everything is familiar to him, where he knows for sure that there are no owners and there is no one to fight back. Therefore, first of all, be wary of people who were on friendly terms with you in peacetime.

Buddies

Nobody knows how war will change a person. If you look closely at yourself, you may notice that you are no longer the person you imagined yourself to be. Much of human character, good and bad, will be mercilessly shuffled and exposed by war.

Therefore, do not try to treat your old friends the same way as in peacetime; most likely, you will not succeed. It is simply impossible for a person to survive in isolation during war. Communication is necessary and important, but first try to understand what is behind this communication. May God grant that a person comes to you with good intentions. After all, it may well happen that, having opened the door for a friend, you will receive a bullet in the forehead. Think about it carefully!

Women

The woman is the mother. She always takes care of you. Of course, she knows everything much better and therefore has the right to impose her decision. She is afraid for you and it is easier for her to sit without food and water than to let you take risks. Every scratch on your body will be perceived by her as a huge wound, once again proving that it was not in vain that she was against unnecessary risks. War is a common reason for many mothers to take their child with a tight rein. So, the best way out is to hastily evacuate the mother away from explosions and shooting. If it is not possible to evacuate, then use a trick, assign her the “most important task” and constantly remind her that this “task” is the most important and dangerous. I managed to send my parents to another republic to stay with relatives out of harm’s way, but my neighbor did not. And the adult man, giving in to his mother’s persuasion, spent the entire war in the basement and starved. He remained alive, but I also remained alive.

A woman is a wife. This category of women always has special rights over men. Therefore, the constant worry about the life and health of the husband is mixed with concern about the life and health of the children. As a result of this constant worry, the wife either tries to keep her husband close, or drives him to do everything in order to feed the children. However, both options are constantly changing.

The worst thing for a man is an authoritarian wife. Confused, she herself will easily drive the whole family into panic, and instead of trying to establish a more bearable life, the man makes titanic efforts to establish order. Immediately, at the first salvos, take the reins of control into your own hands and divide the responsibilities of each family member. Give each person his own area of ​​responsibility, and put your wife in charge of this entire complex mechanism, stipulating for herself a “secondary role” in providing food and water. Then no one will stop you from making the most risky and most productive forays; moreover, your wife, commanding the family, will relieve you of the obligation to do it yourself.

The woman is a daughter. The younger the daughter, the easier it is to persuade her not to play pranks and obey her mother, but an adult daughter is a huge risk for the survival of the whole family! Since the fighters of any army in the world are primarily men, and a woman in war is a rare phenomenon, you are guaranteed frequent visits to your home and constant harassment by right of the stronger. Conclusion, evacuate with your mother! If that doesn’t work out, the strictest order is to stay out of the house and show less glimpses in the windows.

The worst option is a woman - a friend. Forget about your romantic nonsense, about how you save her from the attacks of thousands of men, how you go for water and forays together, it’s better to leave her at home! It is advisable to make sure that at home, this is exactly at home, and not in the yard or on the street nearby. Not only will there be many contenders for the possession of your friend, but she herself may push you to commit a rash act or commit a crime. At the same time, she herself calmly remains on the sidelines, looking at the “heroic efforts of her knight”

Neighbours

Sooner or later, one army leaves the city, while the second enters it. By that time the supplies were depleted and there was nowhere to get them. The clearing of houses by front-line units and riot police has already ended. The time has come to establish a peaceful life. The laws of the previous government are no longer in effect, the laws of the current government are not yet in effect. The city is overflowing with troops, equipment, journalists, and charitable organizations. Suddenly you learn about the appearance of the city administration. Often, these are the same people who stood at the helm under the previous government. It seems like it’s time to breathe a sigh of relief, the war is over, you are alive, your family has not suffered. A person relaxes and immediately, as punishment, gets new, very unpleasant problems. The first of them is neighbors.

So, neighbors. No, not those who sat under explosions in basements, not those who looked at you with hungry eyes, but those who managed to leave before the complete blockade of the city. They return to their homes. And the houses were opened, and things were stolen, and there was also shit in the rooms. Naturally, it is these neighbors who are the most offended. They don’t really care about the fact that you, while in the city, risking your life, saved their shelter and a small part of their property; they ask the question, why didn’t you save everything. There is no end to their indignation, and the fact that if it weren’t for you, they would have nowhere to return does not bother them at all. There is someone to ask, there is someone to blame. Stayed and stole. The logic is ironclad!

On the head of a person who has gone through the seven circles of hell, not gratitude, but accusations are poured down. A flask taken during a war can escalate into accusing you of completely plundering their home. There will be threats, attempts to search for your things, demands to return everything that was missing in their house. Your argument that the house stood without owners, that clean-ups and robberies took place, that looters of all colors and stripes visited their house as a club of interests, are immediately rejected by the neighbors - you stayed, you stole. They cannot make a claim to anyone else; they were not there during the robbery, so all the curses and all the mistrust are directed at their “beloved” neighbor.

Therefore, take my advice: don’t take a single gram of flour, a sip of water, or a clove from your neighbor’s house! No matter how close you were to him before the war. And never take responsibility for the safety of his home. They steal, let them steal, break, and to hell with it! The war will still draw a line between those who left and those who stayed. Those who were lucky enough to leave, returning and seeing what was left of their home, will never understand who remained and through whose efforts at least something was preserved.

Water again

New power - new orders. When you come again for water, you will suddenly find closed tanks and guards near them. A crowd will gather around you, eager to receive moisture, and they will explain to this crowd that drinking this water turns out to be dangerous, that in order to improve the water supply to the population, the administration and philanthropists have allocated funds to repair the water supply system, and until it is repaired, water will be delivered to you by road. True, there is little transport left, so water delivery will be limited. In the school yard they will install a plastic tank with taps for drawing water and will bring this water by the hour. Imagine a crowd of people who came to the watering hole at the appointed time, a limited number of taps, stampede, shouting, tears, fights for queues and other entertainment, romance!

Humanitarian assistance

Another romantic event is the distribution of humanitarian aid. This is where the strongest shock is for your already crippled psyche. A room will be allocated in one of the houses in the block for storing and distributing humanitarian aid.

You don't know what humanitarian aid is? I'll explain. This is what appears first of all in bazaars during war in cities close to the source of the conflict. At the same time, in the bazaars there is a lot of “humanitarian aid”, but for money, but in places where it is directly applied, there is usually little of it, but for free. So little that a box of food per person for three to five days is given out for three or even five people. The small amount of humanitarian aid is compensated by the supply of food from other cities not affected by the war. These products are also given away for free. The difference between “humanitarian aid” and these products is only one thing: if “humanitarian aid” can be eaten, albeit with difficulty, then these products are often not suitable for food. So in our neighborhood they gave out black flour with worms, sunflower oil that was unfit for use, canned food that exploded when opened, and wormy beans.

And now, the biggest curiosity. The distribution of humanitarian aid begins not in wartime, when people commit crimes for the sake of food, but after, when residents who left the city during the war arrive. And they get the lion's share of the products. Since they had more strength, there was less hassle. A person who has been through a war usually simply gives up and goes to get food in the old, proven way.

Treatment

Usually people rarely get sick in war, but if they do get sick, they either quickly recover or die just as quickly. But after the war, all the stress that a once peaceful person received instantly turns into a whole bunch of suddenly emerging sores. Instantly, teeth “fall out”, a stomach ulcer appears, and headaches begin to torment. A person cannot sleep, and if he does sleep, it is poorly and does not get enough sleep.

This is just a modest list of my own illnesses. I've seen lists five times longer. Treatment costs money and time, and a person who survives such a “meat grinder” usually appreciates both. Therefore, it simply cannot be treated or heals quickly. I would not advise you to treat your body so carelessly, unless, of course, in the process of survival you are tired of living.

Humiliation

There are many more types of “folk entertainment” designed to make life easier for a person after serious trials he has endured. Issuing compensation for destroyed housing, issuing clothing, collecting lost documents, this is not a complete list. But, as was noted not by me, basically all these activities, instead of helping a person, lead to his complete humiliation, and if we add to this list the search for missing relatives, the identification of loved ones in corpses that have lain for a long time in the “fraternal” burial grounds, then the situation generally becomes simply terrifying. A person, even after a long time after the war, continues to bear his cross. He is stunned, confused, often does not know the laws, you can “foist” any lie on him and he will believe it. In addition, the time for pity and sympathy for this person from other people who have not been through and do not know what war is, is replaced by irritation. And you often begin to hear a stingy response to a request for help: “There was no point in sitting there. Everyone has their own problems"

Job

Another problem that arises immediately after the war is work. More precisely, its absence. Your former place of work has been destroyed. Funding for these organizations has not yet begun. Work becomes free fun. There is, of course, a way out, go to a construction site, fortunately there is a lot to build and restore after the war, but, taking advantage of people’s complete lack of money, you will be paid pennies for the work.

Another way out is the bazaar. In the complete absence of shops, the bazaar becomes both the only place to buy something and almost the only place to work. But the bazaar is good for those who exhibit their goods. Therefore, during a war, take care of choosing goods, storing them, and as soon as the guns stop firing, feel free to start trading. Your first buyers will be the military, and then the local population will follow. And the sooner you start the sales season, the more successful your business will be.

Another opportunity to make money in a post-war city is to open your own business. Of all the above vacancies, this is perhaps the most lucrative. So one of my relatives, who worked as a baker for a long time before the war, opened his own bakery after the war, and a woman I know, who has extensive experience in dental treatment, opened a dental office. At the same time, many organizations that have the right to ban your small business are either absent due to the war, or have not yet been formed, or turn a blind eye to the lack of necessary documents and required conditions for clients. After all, those who work in these organizations also sat in basements and also suffered from hunger, bombings and other hardships. These people perfectly understand a person who opened, for example, a cafe, but did not provide water supply and sewerage. Such people themselves visit such establishments, eat, have their teeth treated, and get their hair cut. The “island of peaceful life” you created allows them, at least for a while, to forget that the whole city is in ruins, that the war is still going on, at least for a while, to get into this very, so long forgotten, peaceful life.

Post-war syndrome

Gradually there is a division among people who went through the war. Many flaunt the very fact of living in the city during the war. They begin to look down on their neighbors who left on time. This bravado grows out of the inability to switch to peaceful tracks in time. The resulting social isolation, caused by complete mental devastation. A person withdraws within the confines of his yard and within the confines of his experiences. Every day he “replays” in his memories the horror that he had to endure. Such people simply need the help of a psychologist, but they do not know how and where to get it. Post-war syndrome can last for years, completely draining all mental strength from a person.

Another group of people is trying to quickly forget about what they had to endure. Usually, such people leave their place of residence and move further away. This gives them a ghostly hope, without seeing the city of their life, mixing with people who have not experienced this, to forget what happened. But, as practice shows, nothing can be forgotten. A person constantly imposes on himself and others the traditions and principles of his usual life, or completely rejects in himself what at least somehow reminds him of the past. Example: a person who does not drink, finding himself in an unfamiliar atmosphere after the war, easily becomes an alcoholic. A group of such people, living, by the will of fate, in another city, at first they strive to isolate themselves in their familiar area, but subsequently the group breaks up. Each of the former group members distances themselves from the others. Stops maintaining contact, and over time, gets lost.

A large number of people are trying to compensate for their suffering by acquiring financial and material benefits. By constant speculation on the fact of the risk of destruction they have experienced, these people seek to improve their material and living conditions. Typically, such a group consists of members of the same family who lost relatives, housing, and property in the war. Having moved to another city, or being in a city that has gone through a war, they constantly demand attention to their problems, reminding them that these problems arose not through their fault. This line of behavior usually helps them get settled in a new place, but the services provided to them are constantly not enough, and therefore the complaints continue, leading to the formation of a negative opinion about such a person. Which, in turn, leads not to adaptation to a new place of residence, but to complete isolation. The illness of such a contingent of people is the absence of their usual way of life, a constant reminder to themselves of what they have lived through.

And the last category is people who are ashamed of what they had to endure. A person of this category usually does not talk about his life. He creates the appearance of harmonious adaptation in an unusual place, but, alas, this is only an appearance. Such people are most susceptible to mental illness and early death. The whole problem of such a person is the inability to express what torments him.

The problem of all the groups I have listed is a constant readiness for the possibility of a repetition of what was previously experienced. We must not forget that people who have gone through hell once are ready for its return. Their moral and spiritual attitudes have undergone changes. The worldview of such a person differs significantly from the worldview of a peaceful citizen. If we add to this an improved sense of the emergence of a threat, constant mental readiness, and an altered logic of behavior, then in the event of a threat of a repetition of the past situation, this person has a much greater chance of survival. Simply put, in such a situation, he knows what to do, where to run, where to hide, what to take with him, and what to get “in the field.” The “husk” of civilization and moral principles of peacetime instantly flies away from him.