Now (that is, when a strong hindsight has received its word) it is clear that the general set himself up incorrectly from the very beginning. Deciding that Monomakh's hat was in his pocket, Lebed behaved like the heir to the throne. On the day of his appointment, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev was removed from his post. And in the evening, the brutal general announced that he had prevented an attempt by “circles close to the former Minister of Defense” to organize “GKChP number three.” Knitting his eyebrows, he growled that “any attempt at a coup will be stopped.”

It is known that conversations about the “impending coup” and “saving the Fatherland” usually end with the savior carrying out the coup himself - without waiting for the bad guys to do it. To do this, it is enough to recall the history of Rome or, if you like, any other state with a long history: such episodes are rather the rule.

However, Lebed was in a hurry. Yeltsin, observing the agility of his successor, decided that the general needed a counterweight. In parallel with the Security Council, the Defense Council of the Russian Federation was created (Kremlin wits immediately added “... defense against Lebed”), the secretary of which was Lebed’s predecessor as Assistant to the President for National Security, Baturin.

On the night of June 20, a well-known incident occurred with the removal of green cash in a copier box. The next morning, A.V. Korzhakov, M.I. Barsukov and O.N. Soskovets were removed from their positions. A witch hunt immediately began. Chubais said at a press conference that “if one of the dismissed people gets a crazy idea to use force, it will be suppressed with one movement of General Lebed’s little finger.” Subsequently, Alexander Ivanovich in every possible way denied his role in these events, calling everything that happened a “farce,” and was friends and collaborated with Korzhakov.

Subsequently, the spirit of emergency and “saving the Fatherland” hovered over the Security Council. The swan was always quarreling with someone, accusing someone of something, threatening someone. Some Mormons once fell under the general’s hot paw—a sect that is not widespread in Russia, but is permitted in America. The Americans were excited. The general had to apologize.

But Lebed’s most memorable act as chairman of the Security Council was, of course, the famous agreement with Chechen separatists, signed in the little-known Dagestan village of Khasavyurt.

BREST PEACE

The general’s opinion about the Chechen war was quite clear. Back in shaggy ninety-four, he called the introduction of troops into the republic “stupidity and stupidity” and stated that servicemen of the 14th Army “under no circumstances” would participate in military operations in Chechnya. When asked about the possibility of moving to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and leading the operation in the North Caucasus, Lebed replied that “if the conversation is about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, then I am ready to lead this operation.”

The general invariably admired the courage and resilience of the Vainakh people, “fighting for their independence.” At the same time, he spoke with equally constant disgust towards the Moscow patrons of the Chechens - for example, Berezovsky, whom Lebed poetically called “the apotheosis of abomination” and constantly accused of starting and financing the war. He, however, was not offended. Subsequently, Alexander Ivanovich was repeatedly accused of collaborating with Bereza.

He was also noticed in harsher statements. So, on April 3, 1996, Lebed appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta with an article “Games on Blood,” condemning the policy of the authorities in Chechnya. Lebed, as usual, called the start of the war a mistake, but at the same time condemned negotiations with the “bandit and terrorist Dudayev” as capitulation.

“Of course, it is necessary to eliminate the instigators and organizers of terrorism and personally - Dudayev, Basayev, Maskhadov. If for a Muslim death at the hands of infidels is happiness, he immediately goes to Allah in Paradise, and if you give Dudayev a gift, then only this one,” the general wrote. Nevertheless, he always had good relations with the Chechens.

The strange state of “half-victory,” when federal troops controlled most of the Chechen territory, but there was no end to the war in sight, seemed to everyone to be temporary. Shortly before Khasavyurt, Lebed spoke out like this: “The existence of an enclave, the population of which hates their so-called own country with all their hearts, despises its laws and does not pay taxes, is madness.”

At the same time, the general soberly assessed the prospects for “pacification,” which boils down to a flow of cash handouts: “7 trillion rubles have already disappeared in Chechnya, another 16 should be “invested” in the same way... Chechnya must be independent. From the Russian budget." (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to remember this maxim more often even now.)

But he considered a purely military solution to the issue impossible - from Tbilisi and Tiraspol he brought a firm conviction that “the people cannot be defeated,” even if the people are wrong all around.

In an interview with the French newspaper Figaro, Lebed spoke on this topic as follows: “Any people who have been declared war rises up to fight and is ready to fight 24 hours a day. Napoleon’s army was defeated by Russian peasants, Hitler’s army also lost the total war, the Americans lost it in Vietnam and we lost it in Afghanistan.”

So the successful assault on Grozny by separatist troops was perceived by Lebed without much surprise: what was happening fit well into his ideas.

Before proceeding further, a few more words should be said “about the organizational moment.” Appointed under pressure from Lebed, the new Minister of Defense, General Igor Rodionov, an experienced military man with a brilliant reputation, was completely dependent on the Secretary of the Security Council, who took control of all issues, including personnel issues. On July 15, he was appointed chairman of the commission on highest military positions and highest special ranks.

Therefore, Lebed could rightfully say in a television interview the famous phrase: “I don’t need the position of Minister of Defense. I’ve already outgrown it.” At the same time, Alexander Ivanovich himself did not indulge the army with attention, including the Chechen OGV. Not because he didn’t respect him, but rather because he thought that it was something, but here he knew everything.

On August 10, 1996, this was the fourth day of the large-scale presence of separatists in Grozny, General Lebed was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Chechnya.

On August 14, another decree (unpublished) was issued giving the Presidential Representative in Chechnya additional powers, including the right to give instructions to federal executive authorities on issues of the Chechen settlement, as well as some administrative rights in relation to officials up to the level of deputy minister.

On the same day, Alexander Ivanovich agreed with Maskhadov on a ceasefire. And then an ultimatum was announced from the commander of the group of Russian troops, General Konstantin Pulikovsky, who demanded that the separatists clear the city within two days, threatening bombing and assault.

The threat was not empty: the separatists were confident that Pulikovsky would raise troops and, most likely, achieve his goal. The entire Chechen claque in Moscow and the West howled in unison. A second agreement with Lebed quickly followed, on the disengagement of troops and the transfer of control over Grozny to certain “joint patrols” - and, most importantly, that there would be no assault. The military victory of the Chechens became a fact recognized de jure.

Now everything depended on the President's reaction. Whatever instructions Yeltsin gave to Lebed, he could always disown them, shifting responsibility to the executor. The general knew this very well, but, as was his custom, he took everything upon himself - either his chest in the crosses, or his head in the bushes. There was no shout from Moscow, and the Swan fluffed its feathers.

At an open press conference dedicated to the results of his trip to Chechnya, Alexander Ivanovich demanded that Yeltsin remove Anatoly Kulikov from his post as Minister of Internal Affairs and transfer command of the group of federal troops in Chechnya to him, Lebed. Yeltsin, true to his system of “checks and balances,” decided that the general had gone too far and left Kulikov in place.

On August 31, 1996, Lebed signed an agreement with Maskhadov in the village of Khasavyurt to cease hostilities in Chechnya. It is interesting that the head of the OSCE Assistance Group in the Chechen Republic, Guldimann, was present at this (and, apparently, keeping an eye on the process).

PRINCIPLES
defining the basis of relationships
between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic

1. An agreement on the fundamentals of relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic, determined in accordance with generally accepted principles and norms of international law, must be reached before December 31, 2001.

2. No later than October 1, 1996, a Joint Commission is formed from representatives of government bodies of the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic, the tasks of which are:

— monitoring the implementation of Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of June 25, 1996 N985 and preparing proposals for completing the withdrawal of troops;

— preparation of coordinated measures to combat crime, terrorism and manifestations of national and religious hatred and monitoring their implementation;

— preparation of proposals for the restoration of monetary, financial and budgetary relations;

— preparation and submission to the government of the Russian Federation of programs for the restoration of the socio-economic complex of the Chechen Republic;

— control over the coordinated interaction of government authorities and other interested organizations in providing the population with food and medicine.

3. The legislation of the Chechen Republic is based on respect for human and civil rights, the right of peoples to self-determination, the principles of equal rights of peoples, ensuring civil peace, interethnic harmony and the safety of citizens living on the territory of the Chechen Republic, regardless of nationality, religion and other differences.

4. The Joint Commission completes its work by mutual agreement.

Translated from diplomatic language into human language, Khasavyurt meant the actual recognition of Chechnya as a “subject of international law” (read: an independent state). This meant Russia's capitulation to Chechnya.

Recognition of this fact de jure was postponed until December 31, 2001, apparently to sweeten the pill. Then there was talk about the withdrawal of troops and the payment of indemnity in money (this was called “reconstruction programs”) and things (“food and medicine”, which the Chechens intended to provide at the expense of the vanquished).

The third point was needed to excuse the OSCE: the Chechens never hid their creative attitude to the “principles of equal rights of peoples” and did not even try to conclude that they consider Russians to be people. However, for the enlightened European public, a polite gesture towards the “equality of peoples” was enough to ignore everything else.

Did Lebed understand what he was doing? Of course yes. He also realized that he had forever lost the sympathy of the environment from which he came - the military. Subsequently, General Gennady Troshev in his memoirs summarized these sentiments as follows: “Now not only me, but also the absolute majority of army officers are ashamed that this general is our former colleague. No one has harmed the Armed Forces more than Swan."

Patriotic forces, who until the last believed that Lebed would come to his senses and lead the “last campaign against Moscow,” turned away from the traitor general. He didn’t have any new friends: everything in the demolition camp was occupied, there was no place for the general...

So Lebed knew what he was getting into. And subsequently he never recognized Khasavyurt as a mistake. Lebed, however, sincerely believed that by formalizing Russia’s capitulation to the thugs, he was saving the state and giving it the necessary respite - like Lenin, who signed the “obscene” Brest Peace.

The general was convinced (and not without reason) that the masses were corrupt and demoralized. At the same time, the anti-state propaganda machine worked at such speed and intimidated the population so much that the slogan “peace at any cost” could at some point be in demand.

This is partly what happened: the first major success of the separatists caused real mass hysteria. The question was how demoralized the army was. Lebed decided that the troops needed to be withdrawn urgently, before the front collapsed. That is, Khasavyurt was a typical “field surgeon’s decision” - to saw the leg to save a life. The general did not admit that he could make a mistake in the diagnosis.

The operation, however, did not bring relief, including to the military. In winter, troops began to be withdrawn literally into an open field, into December snow and drifting snow, into unheated rooms - without water, without heat, without hot food. It was better not to talk about the morale of the units at all: the Russian army was humiliated and disgraced as never before in Russian history.

At that moment it seemed like it would be forever. Alfred Koch had every reason to be sarcastic about the fact that Russian missiles and planes are absolutely not scary for anyone: “if something happens,” one NATO platoon will fly in and simply take away all the dangerous toys from the Russians...

Subsequently, Alexander Ivanovich will try to do something constructive in the Chechen direction. In June 1998, using his connections in Ichkeria, he organized a peacekeeping mission in the North Caucasus, mainly engaged in the rescue of Russian soldiers from captivity. By the beginning of 2001, the mission had 168 released. This was the general's only Chechen initiative that did not attract any criticism.

"RUSSIAN LEGION"

After Khasavyurt, Lebed's situation worsened. Having made an enemy in the person of Anatoly Kulikov, Lebed also quarreled with “his” Rodionov. The general tried to compensate for this by actively working for the public: he went to Minsk to see Lukashenko, and refused a trip to Strasbourg (where they were going to once again drag Russia through the grater for Chechnya).

On September 25, Lebed vacated his seat in the Duma - “in connection with entering the civil service,” after which he took part in the election campaign of General Korzhakov, who had his sights set on this place. On September 26, he said at a press conference: “Korzhakov is a patriot of his country, and I do not rule out an alliance with him. There are no criminal cases against him.”

The end, however, was approaching. On October 15, 1996, at a hearing in the State Duma on the Chechen issue, Lebed publicly named Kulikov as responsible for the surrender of Grozny. On the same day, at the military council of the Airborne Forces, he spoke out against the initiative of Defense Minister Rodionov to reassign units of the “winged infantry” to the commanders of military districts, saying that this “borders on a crime.” This overwhelmed Kulikov’s patience, and he decided to play the same game as Lebed at the beginning of his career - namely, accuse him of “preparing a coup.”

On October 16, Anatoly Sergeevich publicly accused Lebed of seeking to seize power by armed means. It turns out that back in August, Lebed sent a proposal to the security ministers for discussion to create a kind of “Russian Legion” of 50 thousand people, with direct subordination to the Secretary of the Security Council.

The notorious “Legion” was supposed to engage in secret operations, commit political assassinations and generally create bloody horror. These plans were allegedly opposed by Defense Minister Rodionov and Kulikov himself. Among the accusations was that “the Chechens promised Lebed one and a half thousand militants to come to power in Moscow.”

Of course, few people believed this. But the calculation of the wise Kulikov was accurate: it was no longer possible to hush up a scandal of this level. Yeltsin had to react somehow. There were only two options: either dismiss all of Lebed’s enemies (that is, expose the entire top of the government), or still get rid of the too quick “prince.”

By that time, the Guarantor had become burdened with Lebed: the violent successor clearly irritated him. On October 17, Alexander Ivanovich was removed from the posts of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and National Security Assistant under the President of the Russian Federation.

Boris Nikolaevich voiced and signed the decree on the withdrawal live. He motivated his decision by the fact that Lebed had not learned to work without quarrels with other leaders, was engaged in the “election race” four years before the elections, and also participated in the election campaign for the Duma of the retired General Korzhakov (the famous phrase was uttered on this topic - “How that one, you know, is the same, so is this one. Two generals").

Lebed, leaving, promised to get even with Kulikov “for slander.” In 1997, three defamation trials took place over mutual accusations. In all three trials, the rumors spread by Lebed and Kulikov about each other were found to be untrue.

As a result, Lebed lost a ruble, won the same amount, and also lost 5 million rubles.

Ending in the next issue.

Photo by Alexander Nemenov.

(except Brussels)

...He could have died in the mountains from a dushman’s bullet or been blown up by a landmine while leading a column to Barikot. But instead, he slyly evaded the routes assigned to him, sat out in garrisons, and was sent ahead of schedule, out of sight, to the academy.

He could have been torn to pieces by a drunken crowd of “democrats” at the “White House” in August 1991; he could have become the savior of the USSR if he had carried out the order to disperse this crowd. But he again slyly evaded the assigned task, betrayed his oath and received a medal for defending the “White House” from the putschists.

He could have lost everything and died if in October 1993 he had responded to the call for help from his friend and patron Rutskoi and came out in support of the Constitution and the Supreme Council, but he betrayed Rutskoi, clicked his heels in front of Yeltsin and once again survived.

...Then General Lebed made betrayal a universal tool of his career.

He betrayed Skokov, who pulled the retired general out of political oblivion. He betrayed the communist Ryzhkov, who gave him shelter in his faction. He betrayed his own army, which gave him everything, by signing peace with Basayev and Maskhadov behind its back, throwing the army out of Chechnya, leaving hundreds of prisoners and thousands of Russians there.

Already casually, he playfully betrayed his friend and patron Grachev, accusing him of preparing a coup d’etat, which turned out to be an ordinary officer’s party.

He betrayed Yeltsin, who dragged him to the Kremlin Olympus. As soon as he suffered another heart attack, Lebed immediately growled that he was ready to replace the old man...

He also betrayed Berezovsky, who took pity on the general thrown out of the Kremlin and took upon himself the costs of pushing the ex-Security Council member into Krasnoyarsk governors.

And now death has overtaken the ex-general, ex-Kremlin official, ex-leader and ex-presidential candidate. Overtook in the most evil and incomprehensible way. His helicopter crashed, caught on high-voltage wires in the foothills of Abakan.

Fate, as if smiling at the former airborne general, gave him a death worthy of a soldier. And it would be worthy if it were not for the purpose of this flight - the opening of another ski resort.

After all, Lebed himself was never famous for his love of skiing, but the new owner of the Kremlin loves to pose against the backdrop of mountain peaks and ski lifts. And having visited Krasnoyarsk, he defiantly went skiing, leaving the puffing governor, in an absurd leather jacket, powerless to watch the pirouettes of the light-footed president. That’s why the governor went to personally open the new route, demonstrate to Putin the similarity of tastes, and prove loyalty. An ambitious general, destroyer of thrones and “father”, he came to terms with his own defeat for the first time. He humiliatedly asked the quiet, bureaucratic Lieutenant Colonel Putin for money to pay salaries to state employees, whom he turned into beggars with his “reforms.” As a politician, he was predeceased.

Who was Swan for us? What remains in your memory?

The commanding roar, the brutal face of the ushkuynik, as if carved out of a piece of concrete, the cunning of a gypsy, the ambitions of a dictator and the posturing of a county actor. He was a typical hero of his time - a cocktail of betrayal, promises, poses and unfulfilled hopes. Troubled times always give birth to such heroes.

He went ahead, destroyed, broke careers and ridges. He lived with a sense of his exclusivity, his special role in the fate of Russia. And it seemed that this was really the case. How many times during this decade did fate take him to the very top, to the very edge of Russian life. And always, in the most incomprehensible way, he lost, missed the goal. It seemed that he was always missing just one step, just one day. But people endowed with heavenly vision said that Fate was testing this man and that he could not stand these tests.

He could have become the savior of Russia, but he became one of its destroyers. He was born for the feat, but never accomplished it. He was talented, but he turned his talent only to personal ambitions. And without fulfilling what was destined, he evaded, went to the side, and exhausted himself. Fate always severely punishes those who do not fulfill what they were born for.

With what do we accompany him into that darkness from which no one has returned?
With a feeling of bitterness that there is less of one more bright person in Russia, and a sad feeling of the meaninglessness of the life he lived.

It is unlikely that we will be able to understand him, but we will at least try to forgive him. Now he needs it more...

10 years ago, Alexander Lebed, who could have become president of Russia, died. Or its dictator

On February 21, 2012, during a meeting with representatives of unregistered parties, Dmitry Medvedev suddenly said that “hardly anyone has any doubts about who won the presidential elections in 1996. It was not Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.” But the debate over whether Zyuganov bypassed Yeltsin is of little interest: the main event then was the truly brilliant success of General Alexander Lebed, who immediately took the third “prize”: 14.5% of voters – almost 11 million people – voted for him. Before the second round of the presidential elections, Yeltsin appointed the “bronze winner” as Secretary of the Russian Security Council. They then prophesied a great future for the general, calling him either the president and Yeltsin’s most likely successor, or the future “Russian Pinochet.”

But Lebed never made it to Pinochet, becoming governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory in 1998. True, a few years later they began to say that the “Swan Project” could be pulled out from under the cloth again. But on April 28, 2002, the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, General Alexander Lebed, died in a plane crash. Thus ended the path of a man who left a noticeable mark on the newest Russian history. Then they even said that the paratrooper general died as he lived, almost in a combat mission, and this, they say, is a glorious death for a real military man - not in bed from senile infirmity, not in complete oblivion - still on the crest of glory and fame ...

In the summer of 2002, while preparing material about aviation accidents, I had the opportunity to visit the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) and talk with specialists. “We had only just begun to study the Lebed case,” the then chairman of the scientific and technical commission of the MAK Viktor Trusov was indignant, “and everywhere it was already being broadcast: it was all Lebed’s fault, who allegedly ordered the pilots to fly, and on the film of the “black box”, they say , his voice is clearly recorded. Nonsense, we don’t have any Swan’s voice, and there couldn’t be one. Whoever came up with this nonsense doesn't even have a basic understanding of how a helicopter recorder works. And it doesn’t even have film, it’s recorded on a wire.” When I asked what was recorded on that wire, I received the answer: “Do you want to listen? Take him to an acoustician, let him listen all day long!”

It would have been a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity, especially since I didn’t have to listen to it all day long – the whole recording lasted about an hour and a half. Vladimir Poperechny, an expert in the acoustic information research department, clicked his computer mouse, and the sounds of the general’s last flight poured out of the speakers. He took out a voice recorder, but immediately received a negative gesture from the acousticians: “No, just without this. Listen, take notes in a notebook, but without a voice recorder. We do not have the right to transmit these recordings for publication. After the trial, if they are in the materials of the open trial, please publish them, but with reference not to us, but to court documents...”

I listened and took notes: indeed, there was no voice of Lebed, and there was not the slightest mention of him at all - the governor did not appear in the cockpit and did not communicate with the pilots after takeoff. Crackling sounds, on-air interference, calm voices of the crew - ordinary negotiations with dispatchers, short remarks, long stretches of complete silence. They explained to me the specifics of the helicopter voice recorder: unlike the airplane voice recorder, it is single-channel and does not record absolutely everything that is said in the cockpit. With a slight delay, it turns on only during negotiations between the crew and the ground. So, in principle, Lebed’s voice could not have been in that “black box”.

I asked a question: maybe he gave some instructions on earth? They answered: this is already the competence of the investigation, and not of the MAK. And legally it has no significance at all: on board, the commander of the ship, not the governor, is responsible for everything. I continue to listen to the recording: “Here, you hear, they have now moved into the coverage area of ​​the Abakan dispatcher, soon everything will happen. ...We barely jumped over one hill. But they couldn’t do this one...” The end of the recording was played several times for me, I’ll risk quoting it from old notebook notes: “Up! Power lines! Down! No! No!!! F... in the mouth! The last remark, surprisingly, sounds completely sluggish and slow and doomed. Then I hear the howl of the engine, a distinct crackling sound and silence - the end of the recording.
“...Listen, it’s winding wires around the screw,” the acoustician continues to comment. – In general, Lebed was simply unlucky; he died purely by accident, since he was sitting on the starboard side. When it falls, the helicopter spins to the right and is literally crushed by the one and a half ton rotor. If he had been sitting on the left, he would have survived, escaping with bruises or fractures, because even the pilots survived. Although, of course, it’s already a miracle that the helicopter didn’t catch fire or explode when it fell; usually they flare up like matches...

We also talked about the weather. On departure, they say, the weather was not great, but quite suitable for flying, so the helicopter made two intermediate landings along the way without any problems. But at the third and final stage of the flight, MAK experts argued, the conditions really changed dramatically: fog, low clouds. And so the pilots had to either return to the site from which they had just taken off, or choose a place for an unscheduled landing and abort the flight. But they continued it, and, as MAK members emphasized, there is no evidence that this was done under pressure from the governor. And about the bad maps, according to them, they are also pure tales - everything on those maps, they say, is marked, the pilots simply had to prepare for the flight ahead of time, having studied the upcoming route and working it out on the map. Which, according to my interlocutors, they apparently did not do. That’s why the power line marked on the map came as a surprise to them. “They were walking at a height of 25 meters,” the then deputy chairman of the IAC, Ivan Mulkidzhanov, categorically slashed. “So they had neither time nor headroom: they jumped once, twice - and jumped onto the power line...”
True, the helicopter pilot Takhir Akhmerov testified: “The height of the power line support is 37 meters, we started falling from about 45 meters. At this height, destruction began, and the car went down.”

“Like peace, so are sons of bitches, and like war, so are brothers.”

General Lebed flew into big politics quickly and sharply, rattling his landing boots and commanding voice, to the sound of caterpillar clanging and shots, to the rich crunch of unique soldier’s aphorisms - in this he had no equal. In principle, his path is quite typical: in a similar way, many military men entered the political arena of Russia. Only none of them managed to cling to the peaks of Olympus. Lebed was the last to leave, and with him ended the era of politicized generals of Soviet training, who gave way and chairs to the Lubyanka generals and colonels.

Alexander Lebed's military career was quite ordinary: airborne school, airborne forces, battalion commander in Afghanistan. Without skipping a single step, he went through the normal path from platoon lieutenant to division general. Four orders, two of them military - the Red Banner and the Red Star. Two more - “For service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR” II and III degrees. The iconostasis was very decent for that time. He was considered an excellent soldier, although he did not shine with any special military leadership talents - as, indeed, all paratroopers. For the uniqueness of service in the Airborne Forces does not contribute to either a brilliant career or the identification of any leadership abilities. In Soviet times, a paratrooper, no matter how big the stars on his shoulder straps, he was simply doomed to stew in the own juice of the airborne units - romantic and heroic, but closed in on themselves. Due to the specific nature of his service, a native of the Airborne Forces did not have the slightest chance of advancement, for example, through the General Staff or the Ministry of Defense. The airborne division was considered the airborne ceiling, and even after the Academy of the General Staff, the paratrooper general could not receive either a corps, an army, or a district.

And Lebed, who rose to the rank of commander of the Guards Tula Airborne Division, the most he could count on was only the position of one of the deputy commanders of the Airborne Forces. And even then only after graduating from the General Staff Academy, where, by the way, he was never allowed in - although he was eager to go there. By the way, formally there were no prospects for his senior comrade and colleague, General Pavel Grachev, who by 1991 also reached his upper limit, becoming commander of the Airborne Forces. People from the landing force never rose above this position in the Soviet army hierarchy.
But by 1991, the situation in the country had already become different: since 1988, paratroopers began to be more and more actively involved in solving punitive tasks. As Lebed himself wrote, “forcing the army to perform functions that are not typical for it in Transcaucasia, Central Asia...”.

On April 9-10, 1989, Lebed’s paratroopers took part in the dispersal of a rally in Tbilisi, resulting in the death of 18 people. Lebed himself cannot be blamed for that blood: he was only carrying out the order of his Minister of Defense, and the landing force simply did not know how to act otherwise. And try to be “politically correct” when rebar shivs are flying at you and a rockfall is falling! As Lebed himself later wrote in his book “It’s a shame for the state...”, the 345th Parachute Regiment, which was blocking the approaches to the Tbilisi Government House, had almost just (February 15, 1989) been withdrawn from Afghanistan, “and here you have this nice little police-gendarmerie task.” Regarding the accusations that his paratrooper soldier chased a 71-year-old old woman for three kilometers and hacked her to death with a shovel, Lebed expressed himself briefly and succinctly much later: “The first question: what kind of old woman was she who ran three kilometers from the soldier? Question two: what kind of soldier was it that could not catch up with the old woman at three kilometers? And the third question, the most interesting: were they running around the stadium? For three kilometers there wasn’t a single Georgian man to stand in the way of this scoundrel?”

Further, everywhere, including the bloody events in Baku in January 1990. As the paratroopers themselves bitterly joked, the formula worked: Airborne Forces + VTA (military transport aviation) = Soviet power in Transcaucasia. “The task has always been the same - to separate the fools fighting to the death and prevent mass bloodshed and unrest.” So the elite of the army was literally dragged into a big political game without rules, which did not cause any delight among the paratroopers themselves: “Hanging around fully armed in the capitals of the allied states with police functions is, frankly speaking, a dubious pleasure,” Lebed later recalled. Although this experience will come in handy for Lebed later, allowing him to see the dirty belly of the kitchen of political decision-making. And from this “kitchen” the young general brought out the iron conviction that politicians do not know how to make the right decisions, nor make them on time, and in general they are setting up the army, trying to shift responsibility for their own miscalculations, blood and sacrifices onto the military. “He, being a career officer who went through all the blood of the 80s and 90s,” Dmitry Rogozin already recalls, “deep down in his soul he hated and despised all politicians, regardless of the color of their skin. Having decided to become one of them, he felt his enormous advantage – in experience, natural ingenuity, knowledge of life and death.”

Little is known about the character of Lebed himself in those days: he hardly drinks, he is strict and demanding with his subordinates, but they respect him, he does not flirt with his superiors, and does not grovel before high ranks. In a word, a servant. He also madly loves his wife, Inna Aleksandrovna Chirkova, but he has no real friends - he is especially close to anyone, he mentally tries not to get along with people, he breaks up with people easily...

“It’s a shame for the state...”

By the beginning of 1991, Lebed reached the peak of his military career, having been appointed deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training and universities. The general’s new star lit up during the days of the August 1991 putsch, when Lebed received the task of moving units of the 106th Tula Airborne Division to Moscow. At the same time, a legend was born that the general went over to the side of Yeltsin, who was besieged in the White House. By the way, Lebed himself did not like that legend: “I didn’t go anywhere! There was an order - it stood, if another order had come, it would have taken the White House by storm.” And I would take it! As an experienced warrior, Lebed understood perfectly well that this was not the most difficult task for his paratroopers: “2-3 dozen ATGMs are driven in from two directions without much damage to the crowd surrounding him. When all this beauty starts to burn, or worse, smoke, and varnishes, paints, polishes, wool, synthetics merge in this smoke, pull up the machine gunners and wait for the inhabitants of the building to start jumping out of the windows. Those who are lucky will jump from the second floor, and those who are unlucky will jump from the 14th...” Boris Yeltsin later described the same thing in his “Presidential Marathon”: “I still remember his powerful voice in August 1991 , when he told me in the White House office: one salvo from armored personnel carriers - and the entire filling of the building will burst into flames, all your heroes will jump from the windows.” But he never received a direct order to storm, and he demonstratively did not react to vague hints: we know these tricks of yours, we were already in the skin of a scapegoat, that’s enough! A similar cunning game was then played by his direct superior, Airborne Forces commander General Pavel Grachev. However, most of the high ranks of the Ministry of Defense played that game. Its rules were simple: do not make unnecessary movements in order to jump into the last carriage at the right moment, taking the side of the winner. And political views, if the military had them, did not matter at all. It is clear that ideologically the generals, including Lebed, were closer to the GKChPists, but they were too disgusting types to recklessly follow them: if they win, we followed the order, if they lose, we did everything to prevent bloodshed. Win-win position.
General Lebed was noticed. Moreover, acquaintance with Yeltsin and the then Vice-President Rutskoy did not matter much, the main thing was that the press started talking about him, excitedly describing the mythical exploits of the tough warrior. But he didn’t really fit into the army court, finding himself superfluous in that cabinet-backroom division of posts, portfolios and money. And he was passed over in ranks and awards, and was never allowed to study at the Academy of the General Staff, where Lebed was literally eager: “What can I teach you - and so scientists!” - the authorities were feignedly indignant. True, without this academic badge one could not count on much: it was a pass to the circle of the elite.

But another pass was the fame of his determination, coupled with his bestial appearance and aphoristic speech. The general was sent to Transnistria when the fire of the military conflict there reached its peak. On June 23, 1992, “named Colonel Gusev, having with me a battalion of airborne special forces for respectability, I took off to Tiraspol.” Lebed was sent as commander of the now non-existent 14th Army, which had collapsed and was being pulled away left and right. He was sent not to put out the fire or to reason, much less to separate the combatants, but solely to remove the remnants of the army and, most importantly, its weapons and huge ammunition depots with the least losses. The task is obviously impossible. From the order of Defense Minister Grachev to the commander of the 14th Guards Army: “Your task is to successfully lead 14A in preventing attacks on all military installations and preserving the lives of military personnel.”

And then the general showed what is called a healthy initiative. Having gotten into the swing of things and understanding Moscow’s position of doing nothing, I realized that I could go all-in. If he loses, he will be punished, but the winner, as we know, is not judged. And after appropriate preparation, he gave the order: open fire!
Before that, Russian units had not openly taken any side, and the military superiority of the Moldovans was so obvious that the outcome of the war seemed a foregone conclusion. But Lebed’s artillery literally swept away the positions of the Moldavian army and its crossings across the Dniester. When politicians and diplomats tried to blather something, it sounded clear to the whole world in a military way: if you blather, my squadrons will sweep away Chisinau, over the ruins of which paratroopers will march. Thus ended one of the bloodiest wars in the post-Soviet space.

It is clear on whose side the sympathies of Russian society were then; the official Kremlin got off with a slight rumbling. But they did not punish the hero, although he did not receive a clear order to open fire. However, Lebed had to give up his future career. Grachev tried to send him to Tajikistan, but failed: “I told Grachev that I don’t understand why I should beat up one half of the Tajiks at the request of the other, they didn’t do anything bad to me. He calmed down." Lebed managed to stay away from the slippery events of the fall of 1993, although he made a number of sharp attacks against the White House inmates.

“Horses are not changed at the crossing, but donkeys can and should be changed”

The year 1993, 1994 - the general’s name was always heard, interviewers flocked to him in Transnistria like moths to a flame, the brutal warrior, not afraid of his superiors and cutting the truth in the eyes, impressed many. And not only “patriots” said then that they would like to see him as president. I remember very well how the “golden feathers” and “talking heads” of Gusinsky’s media concern suddenly turned to Lebed in unison, starting the campaign “give us our dear Pinochet!”
The political views of the general, who was turning into a politician, could hardly be clearly defined and sorted into categories. Rather, it was a banal set of thoughts and emotions, rather than a clearly defined position: the country and the army are collapsing, corruption and crime are flourishing, it’s a shame for the state... Dashing phrases were easily remembered, aphorisms became popular: “I fell - I did a push-up,” “ I hit him twice, the first on the forehead, the second on the lid of the coffin”, “he walks like a goat after a carrot”, “what kind of concussion can Grachev have - there’s a bone there.” And in the eyes of PR people, Lebed slowly but surely began to squeeze out all kinds of “patriots”, taking away the nuclear electorate even from Zhirinovsky. Lebed's points were also added to by his caustic attacks against the “best minister of defense” Pasha-Mercedes, whose popularity was confidently sliding to zero.
Who at that time did not try to bet on a rising star in camouflage! Most of the people who hung around him were “patriots” of the Rogozin type. But, graciously accepting the advances, the general did not give out specific obligations to anyone, did not take on too much, and did not react at all to the constant pleas to “raise the 14th Army and move it to Moscow.” To put it mildly, I met the war in Chechnya with disapproval. True, I spent more time not on the political, but on the military component of the failed campaign: storming a city with tanks, they say, is nonsense, and throwing untrained soldiers into battle is a crime. Lebed, of course, was removed from the purely formal command of the 14th Army by that time: he was given an apartment in Moscow, shoulder straps of a lieutenant general, but not a position. Which, undoubtedly, finally pushed him to the decision to go into politics.

“When I purposefully walk toward a goal, I look like a flying crowbar.”

This is what the general plunged headlong into at the end of 1995. “Russia has long been waiting for a rider on a white horse who would restore order in the country,” wrote publicist Paul Klebnikov, who was shot dead in Moscow in July 2004, in his book about Berezovsky, “and for many this man was Lebed.” At the same time, the promotion of a new image of Lebed began: not as a banal general in uniform, but as a wise guardian of the urgent needs of the state, a man of strong will. Since the electorate craves a strong hand (the idea of ​​which was also actively promoted everywhere) - here it is for you! We can say that it was on Lebed that the technologies that later gave us Putin were first developed. Moreover, the material - in the person of Lebed - went to the political strategists, as it seemed to them at first, malleable and manageable: no ideas of their own, no team, but what color, what charisma is all over the place! Lebed, of course, had the latter in abundance, as even people who did not sympathize with him admitted. In general, the material for promotion was good, all that remained was to determine its place.

“All of January, February and the first half of March 1996, our candidate sat alone in the next office,” Dmitry Rogozin sarcastically recalls, “smoking nervously, looking at the silent phone and saying: “Nothing. They will call. They're not going anywhere." And really, don’t share it: they called from Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, inviting him to a meeting: “... from the expression on his face I immediately realized that he had been waiting for this particular call for three months.” Berezovsky of 1996 is a man from Yeltsin’s “family” circle. So the proposal came straight from the Kremlin. Its essence, says Rogozin, is to steal votes from Gennady Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky in exchange for a cool position. The main bait is the promise that the sick Yeltsin will soon give up his throne to him, Lebed. The decisive role in the “taming” of the general was allegedly played by the head of the Presidential Security Service, Alexander Korzhakov.

At the very beginning of May 1996, a secret meeting between the two contenders took place. On May 8, Lebed met behind closed doors with Berezovsky and other members of the so-called “Group of Thirteen,” which included the heads of the largest Russian companies and banks. Everything went so wonderfully that I can’t resist quoting from the Strugatskys: “Everything was clear. The spiders agreed." They shook hands, and Lebed's election campaign spun to its fullest: it turned out to be almost better organized than everyone else's. TV screens were filled with the clip “There is such a person, and you know him!” (Denis Evstigneev is said to be its manufacturer), and the speechwriters hired for Lebed (for example, Leonid Radzikhovsky) brought down on readers a wave of such interviews with the general and articles about him that many people’s jaws dropped from amazement to the plinth: the general is so smart! Not only Radzikhovsky and Evstigneev, but also economists Vitaly Naishul and Sergei Glazyev worked gloriously on servicing Lebed’s campaign; Sergei Kurginyan also noted in his writings about Lebed; in addition to Berezovsky and Gusinsky, other participants in the “seven bankers” also provided their share of finance and information support. The threads of the campaign, apparently, were held in the hands of Berezovsky and Anatoly Chubais.

As is known, Lebed converted the votes of his voters into the post of Secretary of the Security Council and a completely meaningless appendage to it - the post of Assistant to the President for National Security. Then there was participation (together with Chubais) in the overthrow of Korzhakov and FSB director Mikhail Barsukov, as well as the vindictive dismissal of Defense Minister Pavel Grachev - under the pretext of the hastily invented State Emergency Committee-2. Although, of course, all this intrigue of throwing out former favorites from the Kremlin court, hiding behind the formidable figure of Lebed, was, of course, really carried out by Chubais’s guys.

“If there are no culprits, they are appointed”

After the triumph, everyday life set in, showing that the comrades who had rented Swan had no intention of sharing power with him. The Moor had done his job, but it was too early to write him off to the archives: it was necessary to maintain decency, and entrust him with some disastrous case. And Chechnya conveniently turned up: on August 6, 1996, militants launched an assault on Grozny, blocking federal checkpoints and garrisons.

Just don’t classify Lebed as a great humanist peacemaker or, on the contrary, throw around useless phrases like “Khasavyurt’s betrayal.” He always remained a professional military man to the core and, having the bloody experience of real wars behind him, he perfectly understood the futility of the then Chechen campaign. Let us not forget how ineptly the commanders of that time conducted it, how unpopular that war was in society. Such wars are not won, and glory is not gained in them.

Later they will say that Lebed did not have any sanctions for negotiating and concluding agreements with field commanders. Here is a remarkable quote from Yeltsin: “The trouble was that no one knew how to end the war. ...And Lebed knew. In complete secrecy, he flew to Chechnya, where at night he met with Maskhadov and Udugov. Effective. Like a general...” But Lebed’s actions cannot be called amateurish: in July-August 1996, the Kremlin was simply paralyzed. In the literal sense - on the eve of the second round of the presidential election, Yeltsin suffered a severe heart attack, and he was incapacitated in every sense. It turns out that everyone’s hands were untied? The calculation of the Kremlin officials, who shied away from giving Lebed clear instructions and clear powers, was simple: let him try, it will work out - good, if it doesn’t work out - he will be to blame!

The paratrooper himself then acted, rather, not according to political calculations, but at the call and command of his heart. Or conscience. A strange combination for a politician, but he was still not a shameless cynic. But the cold sobriety of the military man was also present. After all, for Lebed, Yeltsin’s condition was no secret, and it seemed that his days were numbered. But when concluding the pre-election alliance, Lebed was given absolutely unambiguous advances: Lebed will be Boris Nikolaevich’s successor, only he and no one else, and he won’t have to wait for the next elections. Simply put, the general was bought with the promise that very soon “Grandfather” would leave the Kremlin, handing it over to Lebed... Very tempting and promising. There was something to take risks for. And the general was never afraid of risk, as anyone can confirm. And he risked his life to the fullest when negotiating with the militants.

The vicissitudes of the events that led to the conclusion of the Khasavyurt agreements are sufficiently covered. And there is no reason to accuse the general of treason or to label them as “surrender”, “Peace of Brest-Litovsk”, etc. In those conditions, this was perhaps the only way out of the bloody impasse, and no one offered a better one. Later they will say that Lebed did not allow the already exhausted militants to be completely defeated, that they could have been covered with one blow, that they fell into a trap, that their ammunition was running out... Perhaps this was so - both ammunition was running out, and this and that. They just forget the main thing: the morale and fighting spirit of the soldiers fighting in Chechnya was running out, and all their thoughts were then aimed at survival. Well, they would fuck you up again, they would drive you into the mountains, so what? But still the same, hopeless dead end. Based on the experience of his business trips to the Chechen war from 1994 to 1996. I can confidently say: there was definitely no smell of victory there. And Lebed understood this no worse than anyone else.

Another thing is that he can be blamed for some naivety, improvidence, and imprudentness: the agreements were far from ideal. But neither the Kremlin, nor the military department, nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs, nor the FSB did anything to help him in terms of prudence, leaving him alone in an open Chechen field.

“Two birds cannot live in the same den”
One way or another, the general stopped the massacre. How he ruined his relationship with the Minister of Internal Affairs, who was gaining strength and weight in the apparatus. For General Anatoly Kulikov then firmly stood his ground: to fight to the bitter end. And the entire autumn of 1996 passed under the sign of the confrontation between the two generals, which culminated in the detention by Lebed’s guards of the “outdoor surveillance” employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who were “keeping an eye” on the Secretary of the Security Council.
Kulikov described how one of Lebed’s projects was discussed in the prime minister’s office: “Lebed lit a cigarette in Chernomyrdin’s office, which no one has ever allowed himself to do: the prime minister cannot stand tobacco smoke.” When the general’s project was wrapped up at that meeting, it started: “Swan’s face is purple. He’s already hanging over the table, growling loudly: “What do you think I am, a fucking dog?” Everyone, of course, is in a trance: no one has ever spoken to the mighty “Stepanich” like that before. The Minister of Internal Affairs is trying to put his colleague in his place and also runs into trouble: “Swan, in the spirit of a scandal, shouts at me across the table and splashes saliva: “Yes, I’m a boor!” I'm a boor! And what?!"

Meanwhile, this confrontation between the “two birds” was watched with interest from the Kremlin hills, gently inciting both sides to escalate the confrontation. Naturally, the series “Highlander”: “Only one can remain”! At the same time, Lebed was constantly fed information about Yeltsin’s deteriorating health. Which was the straw that broke the camel’s hump: the general, deciding that Yeltsin’s days were numbered, bit the bit. “Ostap was carried away,” and now Lebed often said that the old man had become fried, had become insane, and it was time for him to leave. The relevant services, collecting these statements, not without pleasure, placed selections of swan pearls on the table of the enraged president. “It was not by chance that the Swan rumbled so noisily in the corridors of power,” Yeltsin later wrote with undisguised irritation. “He showed with all his appearance: the president is bad, and I, the general politician, am ready to take his place.” There are no worthy people here except me. Only I will be able to speak to the people at this difficult moment.”

Lebed’s demonstrative support for Yeltsin’s disgraced bodyguard Korzhakov added kerosene to the fire. Lebed personally went to Tula to support Korzhakov in the Duma elections. This was already too much: the concept of loyalty of officials and military personnel to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief has not yet been canceled. In addition, Lebed forgot that the service he provided to Yeltsin is already in the past and he received the position from the hands of the president, and did not win it in the elections. But it was already difficult to slow down the paratrooper, who seriously believed that he was destined to become the “Russian de Gaulle.” The natural ending was resignation from the post of Secretary of the Security Council. Boris Yeltsin admitted that it was not so easy to “equally remove” the general: “Lebed’s authority in the armed forces and in other power structures was enormous. The trust rating among the population was close to thirty percent. The highest rating among politicians. But most importantly, Lebed... had an almost pocket Ministry of Defense, headed by his protege Igor Rodionov...” Is it any wonder that Yeltsin had such a shocking confession: “In my administration, by the way, they absolutely seriously discussed the worst-case scenario: a landing in Moscow paratroopers, seizure of buildings of power ministries, etc. The paratroopers... Swan was generally idolized. They said that he could still fulfill all the landing standards - run, pull himself up, jump with a parachute, shoot at a target in short bursts and hit.” And then he still had to undergo heart bypass surgery, and Yeltsin was horrified that “he didn’t want Lebed to be in the Kremlin at the time of the operation. ...This man should not get even a tiny chance to govern the country.” They were really afraid. Therefore, when sending Lebed into retirement, just in case, they kept the loyal units in full combat readiness.

“There are no sinless airborne generals”

Lebed owes his further rise to the Krasnoyarsk heights both to his charisma and to the money... of Berezovsky. But this became clear later, when clods of dirt from the Krasnoyarsk election campaign of 1998 began to float to the surface. And along the way, some people who were aware of Lebed’s “black cash” disappeared. So, in October 1999, Andrei Cherkashin, deputy head of the Krasnoyarsk State Property Committee, disappeared without a trace: he left a banquet, and no one saw him again, only an abandoned jeep was found. It was Cherkashin who brought Lebed millions of “black” dollars for the elections. According to the law, Lebed had the right to spend no more than 417 thousand 450 rubles (about 67 thousand dollars at that exchange rate) on the elections, but in reality 33 times more was spent - over 2 million 300 thousand dollars - this was confirmed by Yuri Bybin, who performed the duties Deputy Head of Lebed's election headquarters for finance. Disclosure of this fraud inevitably threatened Governor Lebed with impeachment. So, when it became known about Cherkashin’s disappearance, Bybin (along with his documents) immediately went on the run, rightly fearing for his life. Nowadays it is no longer a big secret that the financing came from Berezovsky.

The latter, investing funds, as always, hoped to kill several birds with one stone: if he did not take over the entire richest region, then he would definitely squeeze out his business competitors there. The most tasty morsel was, of course, the Krasnoyarsk aluminum giant, on which, in addition to Berezovsky, both the Cherny brothers and the gang of the “authoritative entrepreneur” Anatoly Bykov rolled their lips. The latter, by the way, first also bet on Swan. Then their paths diverged, and the general, answering unpleasant questions about an alliance with authority, answered without any fuss: yes, this is a military trick, “I had to penetrate the region.” And the war of the airborne general against the criminal began. As a result, Bykov fled to Hungary, but was detained there and extradited to Russia. However, he did not stay on the bunk for long. Of course, another major task of the “Krasnoyarsk sitting” was an attempt to create a springboard for the general from which, under a convenient set of circumstances, he could again begin a campaign against the Kremlin.

Only Lebed turned out to be nothing like a governor. Lebed's former press secretary Alexander Barkhatov, in his book about the general, in my opinion, tenaciously captured his essence: he has neither ideas nor people, but only an increasing desire to rule. He has no friends because he is indifferent to people, and the whirlwind of the army did not contribute to strong human connections. There are no administrative and economic skills, but there is the ability to use the energy and talent of devoted people for the time being. Then pitting them against each other. It is also a fact that over the years the general’s taste for the sweet life intensified, and it was already difficult to call him a beggar, although his official earnings were small...

Lebed's reign did not bring anything good to the Krasnoyarsk people: a new team arrived, property redistribution and bloody showdowns broke out again. Moreover, there is constant personnel reshuffle: Lebed “combed” even his own administration incessantly, shaking it up from top to bottom several times a year.
For the time being, the Kremlin looked condescendingly at Lebed’s pranks – until 2000, before Putin. In which they took on the Swan thoroughly. Moreover, the paratrooper general himself immediately treated the “upstart lieutenant colonel” from the KGB without respect and condemned the second Chechen campaign...

In the last six months of his life, Swan the Governor was literally surrounded from all sides. Attack after attack followed continuously, in modern terms, these were attacks and roll-ups. Officials from the Prosecutor General's Office became more frequent with constant checks, and from behind the Kremlin walls remarks began to leak out, vague in form but quite clear in content, from which it was clear that Lebed was in disgrace; The thesis about the “Khasavyurt betrayal” instantly surfaced, the story of the dirty financing of the gubernatorial elections also surfaced, and rumors about an imminent resignation began to circulate. The Kremlin began to hint that the Krasnoyarsk region is ungovernable and it is necessary to either isolate several regions from it, or, on the contrary, merge the region with others - without Lebed, of course. In general, the Kremlin in every possible way demonstrated its displeasure with the very fact that a certain citizen Lebed was in the post of governor of one of the richest regions of Russia.

"He who shoots first laughs last"

On the morning of April 28, 2002, the governor was heading to a presentation of a ski slope in the area of ​​Lake Oysk; besides him, there were 19 more people on board: crew, security, officials, and journalists. After the presentation, a fishing trip was planned. At 10:15 a.m. local time, the Mi-8 helicopter crashed from a height of 40-45 meters and fell into pieces. This happened in the Ermakovsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory near the Buibinsky mountain pass. When Alexander Lebed was pulled out of the wreckage, he was still alive. He died soon after. Besides him, seven more people became victims of the disaster; all the helicopter pilots survived, having received severe injuries. Pilots Takhir Akhmerov and Alexey Kurilovich were later put on trial; flight engineer Pavel Evseevsky, who was involved in the case as a witness, did not live to see the trial, dying either from a stroke or a heart attack. Later, Lebed’s guard also died, having fallen into a hole from a 23-meter height - after hitting a power line, the tail of the helicopter broke off...

Despite the fact that the helicopter recorders (“black boxes”) were found the next day and the number of witnesses was through the roof, the official investigation into the disaster immediately began to resemble a dashingly twisted detective story. Just listing the versions could confuse any Sherlock Holmes: the weather is to blame; the flight maps are to blame, on which the ill-fated power line was allegedly not marked; Lebed himself is to blame for ordering the pilots to fly despite the bad weather; the pilots are to blame for flying when they should not have flown... And, as usual, leaks and washes of “genuine” transcripts of the “black box” recordings immediately appeared in the media. And the people in charge, irresponsibly, without even waiting for the investigation to begin, hastily issued one version after another. One of the security ministers already on April 30, 2002, categorically said: “The transcript (of the recorders - V.V.) confirms: difficult weather conditions, very poor visibility. The crew flew focusing on the road, that is, not using instruments, but visually.” “Yes, I’ve already told you a thousand times that Lebed and I crashed in amazing weather,” helicopter pilot Takhir Akhmerov almost shouted in an interview with Vecherniy Krasnoyarsk. This is unanimously confirmed by eyewitnesses of the tragedy.

The technical condition of the helicopter, according to the minister, “was impeccable.” He rejected the version of the terrorist attack immediately and categorically. But what conclusions could be drawn at all, what kind of high-quality decoding could one talk about if the notorious “black boxes” were found on April 29, the day after the disaster?!

In January 2004, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court found the helicopter pilots guilty under Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Violation of traffic safety rules and operation of railway, air or water transport.” The crew commander, Takhir Akhmerov, was sentenced to four years in prison, and the pilot, Alexey Kurilovich, to a three-year suspended sentence with a probationary period of two years. In February 2006, pilot Tahir Akhmerov was released on parole.

The pilots themselves categorically deny their guilt to this day. After his release, Akhmerov told Vecherniy Krasnoyarsk: “We began to collapse above the power line, fell, and one blade that remained caught the lightning rod. But this happened already when the helicopter was falling. ...The height of the power line support is 37 meters, we started falling from about 45 meters. At this height, destruction began, and the car went down. ...Yes, politics is all this. I have said more than once that I do not consider Lebed’s death to be either an accident or an accident. There are many technical tricks that can only later be attributed to an accident or the unprofessionalism of the crew. ...The version of a terrorist attack was not even considered.”

By the way, several years ago, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Igor Zakharov, also claimed that General Lebed fell victim to a special operation: GRU officers who conducted an independent investigation allegedly came to this conclusion. And they are sure that several grams of explosives were attached to the helicopter's propeller blades and the charge was activated from the ground when the car flew over power lines.

After my visit to the MAK, the sabotage version seemed doubtful to me for a long time. The fact that Lebed was in the Kremlin’s sights does not speak in favor of this version: for the physical elimination of the general there must be very compelling reasons, and such were not directly visible. And the method itself is somewhat dubious: it is unrealistic to arrange a plane crash so that it is the general who dies. And who needed the death of a general who was no longer on horseback? The fact that Lebed could be promoted, for example, for the 2004 elections, then, in 2002, seemed almost unrealistic.

However, who could then say how the chip would fall by the election year? After all, the famous charisma of Lebed’s personal charm has not gone away, and one that Putin’s was not even close to. And it is possible that in other heads the idea of ​​Lebed’s return to big politics could have arisen: good image makers, a good cash injection, good PR on key TV channels - after all, they were brought under the Kremlin later, after “Nord-Ost”... So a triumphant return did not seem so impossible. But who could place the bet by investing the appropriate money? Rhetorical question: no other names come to mind except one - Boris Berezovsky. The consequences of such an already tested alliance in the new conditions could be promising. And it doesn’t matter that the thought of such a “binary bomb” could only excite empirically: somewhere, somewhere, and on the Kremlin hill, they know very well that from the most fantastic idea to its implementation, sometimes there is only one step. Why not take the lead before the governor is once again inflated into a national figure? The bird must be beaten into the nesting area before it spreads its wings.

All these, of course, are theories, but by the spring of 2002 the general was squeezed tightly, this is a fact. And he went into eternity. We are interested in Swan not only as a person, certainly gifted, extraordinary and charismatic, but also as a phenomenon. The general was not the first to try to realize the dream of a strong hand. But it was he who became the first on whom political strategists in civilian clothes practically tested the technology of promoting such a figure. And after all, in fact, the experiment turned out to be successful, only others skimmed the cream, and the paratrooper general only got the role of an accommodating experimental subject, who in 1996 contributed to the fermentation of the wort, from which the “Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin” project was subsequently brewed.