Volodya Yakut: Russian super-sniper against Chechen militants. Kolotov Vladimir Maksimovich, sniper: biography

I've been waiting for a long time - who will finally write about him...

Vova - Yakut.

The only photo from the album was taken on a point-and-shoot camera

who has it in good quality - please send it!

Volodya Kolosov.

Yakut sniper.

Call sign "Yakut".

Volodya did not have a walkie-talkie, there were no new “bells and whistles” in the form of dry alcohol, drinking straws and other junk. There was not even unloading; he did not take the bulletproof vest himself. Volodya had only his grandfather’s old hunting carbine with captured German optics, 30 rounds of ammunition, a flask of water and cookies in his quilted jacket pocket. Yes, the hat with ear flaps was shabby. The boots, however, were good; after last year’s fishing, he bought them at a fair in Yakutsk, right on the rafting trip to Lena from some visiting traders.

This is how he fought for the third day.

A sable hunter, an 18-year-old Yakut from a distant reindeer camp. It had to happen that I came to Yakutsk for salt and ammunition, and accidentally saw in the dining room on TV piles of corpses of Russian soldiers on the streets of Grozny, smoking tanks and some words about “Dudaev’s snipers.” This got into Volodya’s head, so much so that the hunter returned to the camp, took his earned money, and sold the little gold he had found. He took his grandfather’s rifle and all the cartridges, put the icon of St. Nicholas the Saint in his bosom and went to fight the Yakuts for the Russian cause.

in the photo he is no longer 18 :)

It’s better not to remember how I was driving, how I sat in the bullpen three times, how many times my rifle was taken away. But, nevertheless, a month later the Yakut Volodya arrived in Grozny.

Volodya had only heard about one general who was regularly fighting in Chechnya, and he began to look for him in the February mudslide. Finally, the Yakut was lucky and reached the headquarters of General Rokhlin.

Grozny. Before the assault.

The only document besides his passport was a handwritten certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir Kolotov, a hunter by profession, was heading to war, signed by the military commissar. The piece of paper, which had become frayed on the road, had saved his life more than once.

Rokhlin, surprised that someone came to the war of his own free will, ordered the Yakut to be allowed to come to him.

the photo is off topic - but the ceremonial portrait of the general is not ice at all

Volodya, squinting at the dim lights blinking from the generator, causing his slanted eyes to blur even more, like a bear, walked sideways into the basement of the old building, which temporarily housed the general’s headquarters.

- Excuse me, please, are you that General Rokhlya? – Volodya asked respectfully.

“Yes, I’m Rokhlin,” answered the tired general, who peered inquisitively at a short man dressed in a frayed padded jacket, with a backpack and a rifle on his back.

- Would you like some tea, hunter?

- Thank you, Comrade General. I haven't had a hot drink for three days. I won't refuse.

Volodya took his iron mug out of his backpack and handed it to the general. Rokhlin himself poured him tea to the brim.

– I was told that you arrived at the war on your own. For what purpose, Kolotov?

“I saw on TV how the Chechens were killing our people with snipers. I can't stand this, Comrade General. It's a shame, though. So I came to bring them down. You don't need money, you don't need anything. I, Comrade General Rokhlya, will go hunting at night myself. Let them show me the place where they will put the cartridges and food, and I will do the rest myself. If I get tired, I’ll come back in a week, sleep in the warmth for a day, and go again. You don't need a walkie-talkie or anything like that... it's hard.

Surprised, Rokhlin nodded his head.

- Take, Volodya, at least a new SVDashka. Give him a rifle!

Not a bad machine. only heavy. One word - paddle...

- No need, Comrade General, I go out into the field with my scythe. Just give me some ammo, I only have 30 left now...

So Volodya began his war, the sniper war.

He slept for a day in the headquarters cabins, despite the mine shelling and terrible artillery fire. I took ammunition, food, water and went on my first “hunt”. They forgot about him at headquarters. Only reconnaissance regularly brought cartridges, food and, most importantly, water to the appointed place every three days. Each time I was convinced that the parcel had disappeared.

The first person to remember Volodya at the headquarters meeting was the “interceptor” radio operator.

– Lev Yakovlevich, the “Czechs” are in panic on the radio. They say that the Russians, that is, we, have a certain black sniper who works at night, boldly walks through their territory and shamelessly cuts down their personnel. Maskhadov even put a price of 30 thousand dollars on his head. His handwriting is like this – this fellow hits Chechens right in the eye. Why only by sight - the dog knows him...

And then the staff remembered about the Yakut Volodya.

“He regularly takes food and ammunition from the cache,” the intelligence chief reported.

“And so we didn’t exchange a word with him, we didn’t even see him even once.” Well, how did he leave you on the other side...

One way or another, the report noted that our snipers also give their snipers a light. Because Volodin’s work gave such results - From 16 to 30 people per night were killed by a fisherman with a shot in the eye.

The Chechens realized that a Russian fisherman had appeared on Minutka Square. And since all the events of those terrible days took place in this square, a whole detachment of Chechen volunteers came out to catch the sniper.

Then, in February 1995, at Minutka, the “federals,” thanks to Rokhlin’s cunning plan, had already crushed Shamil Basayev’s “Abkhaz” battalion by almost three-quarters of its personnel. Volodya’s Yakut carbine also played a significant role here.

Basayev promised a golden Chechen star to the one who brought the corpse of the Russian sniper. But the nights passed in unsuccessful searches. Five volunteers walked along the front line in search of Volodya’s “beds”, placing tripwires wherever he could appear in the direct line of sight of their positions. However, this was a time when groups from both sides broke through the enemy’s defenses and penetrated deeply into its territory. Sometimes it was so deep that there was no longer any chance to break out to our own people. But Volodya slept during the day under the roofs and in the basements of houses. The corpses of Chechens - the night "work" of a sniper - were buried the next day.

Then, tired of losing 20 people every night, Basayev called from the reserves in the mountains a master of his craft, a teacher from the camp for training young shooters, the Arab sniper Abubakar. Volodya and Abubakar could not help but meet in a night battle, such are the laws of sniper warfare.

Basayev Shamil Kadyrov Ramzan

And they met two weeks later. More precisely, Abubakar hit Volodya with a drill rifle. A powerful bullet, which once killed Soviet paratroopers right through in Afghanistan at a distance of one and a half kilometers, pierced the padded jacket and slightly caught the arm, just below the shoulder. Volodya, feeling the rush of a hot wave of oozing blood, realized that the hunt had finally begun for him.

The buildings on the opposite side of the square, or rather their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya's optics.

“What sparkled, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight glinting in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building.

Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, he was not wet by the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping.

Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is an American camouflage worn by the Chechens, impregnated with a special composition, in which the uniform was invisible in night vision devices, and the domestic one glowed with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.

One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.

- Well, that means a duel, yes, Mr. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.

Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.”

The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” on the eye stopped.

“Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.

All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.

Two days later, already during the day, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught in his optics a light bluish haze that rose above the roofing sheet and was immediately carried away by the wind.

In the photo: Abubakar. Habib Abdul Rahman, aka Emir ibn Al-Khattab, aka Ahmed One-Armed and Black Arab.

(for illustration, I don’t have a photo of that Arab!)

“So I found you, abrek! You can’t live without drugs! Good...” the Yakut hunter thought triumphantly; he did not know that he was dealing with an Arab sniper who had passed through both Abkhazia and Karabakh. But Volodya did not want to kill him just like that, by shooting through the roofing sheet. This was not the case with snipers, and even less so with fur hunters.

“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait.

But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about fifty meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up”.

Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target.

Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of Dudayev’s palace, where an Arab sniper was killed on the spot by one hunter’s bullet.

“Well, I got you,” Volodya thought without any enthusiasm or joy. He realized that he had to continue his fight, showing his characteristic style. To prove that he is alive and that the enemy did not kill him a few days ago.

Volodya peered through his optics at the motionless body of the slain enemy. Nearby he saw a “Bur”, which he did not recognize, since he had never seen such rifles before. In a word, a hunter from the deep taiga!

And then he was surprised: the Chechens began to crawl out into the open to take the sniper’s body. Volodya took aim. Three people came out and bent over the body.

“Let them pick you up and carry you, then I’ll start shooting!” - Volodya triumphed.

The three Chechens actually lifted the body. Three shots were fired. Three bodies fell on top of the dead Abubakar.

Four more Chechen volunteers jumped out of the ruins and, throwing away the bodies of their comrades, tried to pull out the sniper. A Russian machine gun started working from the side, but the bursts fell a little higher, without causing harm to the hunched Chechens.

“Oh, mabuta infantry! You’re just wasting ammunition...” thought Volodya.

Four more shots sounded, almost merging into one. Four more corpses had already formed a pile.

Volodya killed 16 militants that morning. He did not know that Basayev had given the order to get the Arab’s body at all costs before it began to get dark. He had to be sent to the mountains to be buried there before sunrise, as an important and respectable Mujahid.

A day later, Volodya returned to Rokhlin’s headquarters. The general immediately received him as a dear guest. The news of the duel between two snipers had already spread throughout the army.

- Well, how are you, Volodya, tired? Do you want to go home?

Volodya warmed his hands at the stove.

“That’s it, Comrade General, I’ve done my job, it’s time to go home.” Spring work at the camp begins. The military commissar only released me for two months. My two younger brothers worked for me all this time. It's time to know...

Rokhlin nodded his head in understanding.

- Take a good rifle, my chief of staff will draw up the documents...

- Why, I have my grandfather’s. – Volodya lovingly hugged the old carbine.

* Volodya had an upper one - with an old-style faceted breech with a long barrel, an “infantry rifle” of 1891

The general did not dare to ask the question for a long time. But curiosity got the better of me.

– How many enemies did you defeat, did you count? They say that more than a hundred... Chechens were talking to each other.

Volodya lowered his eyes.

– 362 people, Comrade General. Rokhlin, silently, patted the Yakut on the shoulder.

- Go home, we can handle it ourselves now...

- Comrade General, if anything happens, call me again, I’ll sort out the work and come a second time!

Volodya’s face showed frank concern for the entire Russian Army.

- By God, I’ll come!

The Order of Courage found Volodya Kolotov six months later. On this occasion, the entire collective farm celebrated, and the military commissar allowed the sniper to go to Yakutsk to buy new boots - the old ones had worn out in Chechnya. A hunter stepped on some pieces of iron.

After Vladimir Kolotov left for his homeland, scum in officer uniform sold his information to Chechen terrorists, who he was, where he came from, where he went, etc. The Yakut Sniper inflicted too many losses on the evil spirits.

Vladimir was killed by a shot from 9 mm. pistol in his yard while he was chopping wood. The criminal case was never solved.

The first Chechen war. How it all started.

Moreover, the most amazing thing is that in the story about Volodya the sniper, an almost letter-by-word similarity was surprisingly traced with the story of the great Zaitsev, who killed Hans, a major, the head of the Berlin sniper school in Stalingrad. To be honest, I then perceived it as... well, let's say, like folklore - at a rest stop - and it was believed and not believed.

Then there was a lot of things, as, indeed, in any war, which you won’t believe, but turns out to be TRUE. Life is generally more complex and unexpected than any fiction.

Later, in 2003-2004, one of my friends and comrades told me that he personally knew this guy, and that indeed HE WAS. Whether there was that same duel with Abubakar, and whether the Czechs actually had such a super-sniper, to be honest, I don’t know, they had enough serious snipers, and especially in the First Campaign. And there were serious weapons, including South African SSVs, and cereals (including prototypes of the B-94, which were just entering pre-production; the spirits already had them, and with the numbers of the first hundreds- Pakhomych won’t let you lie.

How they ended up with them is a separate story, but nevertheless, the Czechs had such trunks. And they themselves made semi-handicraft SCVs near Grozny.)

Volodya the Yakut really worked alone, he worked exactly as described - by eye. And the rifle he had was exactly the one described - an old Mosin three-line rifle of pre-revolutionary production, with a faceted breech and a long barrel - an infantry model of 1891.

The real name of Volodya-Yakut is Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, originally from the village of Iengra in Yakutia. However, he himself is not a Yakut, but an Evenk.

At the end of the First Campaign, he was patched up in the hospital, and since he was officially a nobody and there was no way to call him, he simply went home.

By the way, his combat score is most likely not exaggerated, but understated...

Moreover, no one kept accurate records, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about them.

* I personally believe more in his “four hundred to one”...

also well written here:

Just one question:

Why isn't he a hero?

Why didn’t they find the killers - after all, it’s not easy to come to Yakutia - and it’s even harder to leave unnoticed!

Volodya-Yakut- a fictional Russian sniper, the hero of the urban legend of the same name about the First Chechen War, who became famous for his high performance. Estimated real name - Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, although in the legend it is called precisely Volodya. By profession, he is a commercial hunter from Yakutia (Yakut or Evenk by nationality, known under the call sign “Yakut”).

According to legend, 18-year-old Vladimir Kolotov arrived at the beginning of the war in Chechnya to meet General L.Ya. Rokhlin and expressed his desire to go to Chechnya as a volunteer, providing a passport and a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office. As a weapon, Vladimir chose an old Mosin hunting carbine with an optical sight from the German Mauser 98k, refusing the more powerful SVD and asking the soldiers to only regularly leave him cartridges, food supplies and water in a cache. From subsequent radio intercepts, Russian radio operators learned that Kolotov was operating in Grozny on Minutka Square, killing from 16 to 30 people per day, and all of the dead had fatal hits to the eye. Shamil Basayev promised to award the Order of the ChRI to the one who kills Kolotov, and Aslan Maskhadov also offered a monetary reward. However, the volunteers, despite searching for the sniper, died from his shots.

Soon, Basayev called for help from the training camp of the Arab mercenary Abubakar, a rifle instructor who participated in the Georgian-Abkhaz and Karabakh wars. During one of the night skirmishes, Abubakar, armed with a British Lee-Enfield rifle, wounded Kolotov in the arm, tracking him down in a night vision device (allegedly Russian camouflage was visible in night vision devices, but Chechen camouflage was not, since the Chechens impregnated it with some kind of secret composition) . The wounded Kolotov decided to mislead the Chechens about his death and stop shooting the militants, simultaneously starting a search for Abubakar. A week later, Vladimir destroyed Abubakar near the Presidential Palace of Grozny and then killed 16 more people who were trying to take away the Arab’s body and bury him before sunset. The next day he returned to headquarters and reported to Rokhlin that he had to return home on time (the military commissar only released him for two months). In a conversation with Rokhlin, Kolotov mentioned 362 militants he killed. Six months after returning to his homeland in Yakutia, Kolotov was awarded the Order of Courage.

According to the “official” version, the legend ends with a mention of the message about the murder of Rokhlin and Kolotov’s subsequent binge, from which he had difficulty emerging, even losing his mind for a while, but has since refused to wear the Order of Courage. There are also two other endings: according to one version, Kolotov was killed in 2000 by an unknown person (probably a former Chechen militant) to whom someone sold Kolotov's personal information; according to another, he remained to work as a hunter-commercial and allegedly received a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev in 2009.

Mentions

The story entitled “Volodya the Sniper” was published in the collection of stories “I am a Russian Warrior” by Alexei Voronin in March 1995, and in September 2011 it was published in the newspaper “Orthodox Cross”. The urban legend was popular in the 1990s among the military and took its place in the list of “horror stories” and other works of army folklore, but it began to actively spread on the Internet in 2011 and 2012, continuing to be published in subsequent years on various sites.

Facts favor fiction

The fact of the existence of Vladimir Kolotov, who actually fought in Chechnya (as well as the existence of the Arab mercenary Abubakar) is not confirmed by any sources (including photographs depicting completely different people), and no documents have been found on Kolotov’s awarding the Order of Courage. There are photographs on the Internet described as a fragment of a meeting between Vladimir Kolotov and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009, but such photographs depict a resident of Yakutia, Vladimir Maksimov; Another photograph shows a representative of one of the peoples of Siberia holding an SVD rifle, who turned out to be not Vladimir Kolotov, but a certain “Batokha from Buryatia, from the 21st Sofrino Brigade.” The story is considered fictional, but at the same time Kolotov personifies the collective image of real Russian soldiers who participated in the Chechen War. The supposed prototypes of Kolotov could be such snipers of the Great Patriotic War as Fyodor Okhlopkov, Ivan Kulbertinov, Semyon Nomokonov and even Vasily Zaitsev.

Bloggers and journalists found many inconsistencies in the urban legend: in particular, it was not shown who Kolotov really was (he is called both a reindeer herder, a commercial hunter, and a prospector), on what grounds Kolotov with only one official with paper from the military registration and enlistment office, managed to get to a meeting with Rokhlin, where did the 18-year-old soldier get such performance, what kind of composition was this that Chechen militants impregnated their camouflage with in order to prevent him from being seen in NVGs, and also why Kolotov abandoned a modern rifle in favor of an old one hunting carbine (hunters and soldiers from small nations of Russia in such situations have never abandoned modern equipment). Moreover, the “duel” between Kolotov and Abubakar is suspiciously similar to the duel between Vasily Zaitsev and Heinz Thorwald (the notorious “Major Koenig”).

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Notes

Excerpt characterizing Volodya-Yakut

Among the countless divisions that can be made in the phenomena of life, we can subdivide them all into those in which content predominates, others in which form predominates. Among these, in contrast to village, zemstvo, provincial, and even Moscow life, one can include St. Petersburg life, especially salon life. This life is unchanged.
Since 1805, we have made peace and quarreled with Bonaparte, we have made constitutions and divided them, and Anna Pavlovna’s salon and Helen’s salon were exactly the same as they were, one seven years, the other five years ago. In the same way, Anna Pavlovna spoke with bewilderment about Bonaparte’s successes and saw, both in his successes and in the indulgence of European sovereigns, a malicious conspiracy, with the sole purpose of causing trouble and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was a representative. In the same way, with Helen, whom Rumyantsev himself honored with his visit and considered a remarkably intelligent woman, in the same way, both in 1808 and in 1812, they spoke with delight about a great nation and a great man and looked with regret at the break with France, which, according to the people who gathered in Helen's salon, it should have ended peacefully.
Recently, after the arrival of the sovereign from the army, there was some unrest in these opposing circles in the salons and some demonstrations were made against each other, but the direction of the circles remained the same. Only inveterate legitimists were accepted into Anna Pavlovna’s circle from the French, and here the patriotic idea was expressed that there was no need to go to the French theater and that maintaining a troupe costs the same as maintaining an entire corps. Military events were followed greedily, and the most beneficial rumors for our army were spread. In Helen's circle, Rumyantsev's, French, rumors about the cruelty of the enemy and the war were refuted and all Napoleon's attempts at reconciliation were discussed. In this circle, they reproached those who advised too hasty orders to prepare for departure to Kazan to court and women's educational institutions under the patronage of the Empress Mother. In general, the whole matter of war was presented in Helen’s salon as empty demonstrations that would very soon end in peace, and the opinion of Bilibin, who was now in St. Petersburg and at Helen’s house (every intelligent person should have been with her), reigned that it was not gunpowder, but those who invented, they will solve the matter. In this circle, ironically and very cleverly, although very carefully, they ridiculed the Moscow delight, the news of which arrived with the sovereign in St. Petersburg.
In Anna Pavlovna's circle, on the contrary, they admired these delights and talked about them, as Plutarch says about the ancients. Prince Vasily, who occupied all the same important positions, formed the link between the two circles. He went to see ma bonne amie [his worthy friend] Anna Pavlovna and went dans le salon diplomatique de ma fille [to his daughter’s diplomatic salon] and often, during his constant transfers from one camp to another, he got confused and told Anna Pavlovna what it was necessary to talk to Helen, and vice versa.
Soon after the arrival of the sovereign, Prince Vasily talked with Anna Pavlovna about the affairs of the war, cruelly condemning Barclay de Tolly and being indecisive about who to appoint as commander-in-chief. One of the guests, known as un homme de beaucoup de merite [a man of great merit], having said that he had now seen Kutuzov, who had now been elected head of the St. Petersburg militia, sitting in the state chamber to receive warriors, allowed himself to cautiously express the assumption that that Kutuzov would be the person who would satisfy all the requirements.
Anna Pavlovna smiled sadly and noticed that Kutuzov, apart from troubles, gave nothing to the sovereign.
“I spoke and spoke in the Assembly of Nobles,” interrupted Prince Vasily, “but they did not listen to me.” I said that the sovereign would not like his election as commander of the militia. They didn't listen to me.
“Everyone is some kind of mania for confrontation,” he continued. - And in front of whom? And all because we want to ape the stupid Moscow delights,” said Prince Vasily, confused for a moment and forgetting that Helen should have made fun of the Moscow delights, and Anna Pavlovna should have admired them. But he immediately recovered. - Well, is it proper for Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, to sit in the chamber, et il en restera pour sa peine! [his troubles will be in vain!] Is it possible to appoint as commander-in-chief a man who cannot sit on horseback, falls asleep in council, a man of the worst morals! He proved himself well in Bucarest! I'm not even talking about his qualities as a general, but is it really possible at such a moment to appoint a decrepit and blind man, simply blind? A blind general will be good! He doesn't see anything. Playing blind man's buff... he sees absolutely nothing!
Nobody objected to this.
On July 24th this was absolutely true. But on July 29, Kutuzov was granted princely dignity. Princely dignity could also mean that they wanted to get rid of him - and therefore Prince Vasily’s judgment continued to be fair, although he was in no hurry to express it now. But on August 8, a committee was assembled from General Field Marshal Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin and Kochubey to discuss the affairs of the war. The committee decided that the failures were due to differences in command, and, despite the fact that the people who made up the committee knew the sovereign’s dislike for Kutuzov, the committee, after a short meeting, proposed appointing Kutuzov as commander-in-chief. And on the same day, Kutuzov was appointed plenipotentiary commander-in-chief of the armies and the entire region occupied by the troops.
On August 9, Prince Vasily met again at Anna Pavlovna's with l'homme de beaucoup de merite [a man with great merit]. L'homme de beaucoup de merite courted Anna Pavlovna on the occasion of her desire to be appointed trustee of the female educational institution of Empress Maria Feodorovna. Prince Vasily entered the room with the air of a happy winner, a man who had achieved the goal of his desires.
- Eh bien, vous savez la grande nouvelle? Le prince Koutouzoff est marechal. [Well, do you know the great news? Kutuzov - Field Marshal.] All disagreements are over. I'm so happy, so glad! - said Prince Vasily. “Enfin voila un homme, [Finally, this is a man.],” he said, looking significantly and sternly at everyone in the living room. L "homme de beaucoup de merite, despite his desire to get a place, could not resist reminding Prince Vasily of his previous judgment. (This was discourteous both in front of Prince Vasily in Anna Pavlovna’s living room, and in front of Anna Pavlovna, who was just as joyfully accepted this news; but he could not resist.)

Vladimir Kolotov is a unique person in his own way. A simple hunter, without any coercion, only at the call of his heart and sense of justice, he went to the combat zone in Chechnya, wanting to become a sniper. For a long time, his feat remained unknown, but this man from Yakutia was responsible for many killed militants and saved the lives of Russian soldiers.

Making a fateful decision

Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, whose biography is still shrouded in secrets, as an eighteen-year-old boy, hunted with his father in the Yakut village of Iengra. According to the calendar, it was 1995 - the height of the year. By necessity, the boy found himself in a local canteen, where he planned to get salt and ammunition. By chance, at that moment there was a news broadcast on TV showing Russian soldiers killed at the hands of Chechen militants. The footage he saw had a stunning effect on Volodya.

Finding himself back in the camp, for a long time he could not move away from what he saw in the episode, because the corpses of dead servicemen flashed before his eyes. The young hunter could no longer lead a normal life, remaining indifferent to the numerous deaths of Russian soldiers. He made a fateful decision, which was to contribute to a terrible war. Vladimir Kolotov collected all his few savings and went to the front lines in Chechnya. As a patron, he took with him a small icon of St. Nicholas.

Not an easy road

The eighteen-year-old boy failed to reach his final destination without incident. The police constantly tried to confiscate his grandfather's rifle, imposed fines, and threatened to take all his savings and send him back to the taiga. For several days the young hunter was even locked in the bullpen. However, Vladimir Kolotov showed persistence and managed to break through to the positions of the Russian military within one month. General Rokhlin, whom he sought to get to during his journey, was given a certificate from the military commissar. It was the rather tattered certificate that repeatedly saved Volodya from various troubles.

Enlistment in the army

After finding out all the circumstances why a young hunter from a Yakut village ended up here, the general was sincerely amazed by his heroism. At that time, people who could sacrifice their lives absolutely selflessly were rare.

The recruit was assigned to the role of sniper and given time to rest. During the day, Vladimir Kolotov slept in the cabin of a military truck, to the constant sounds of explosions. And then he took cartridges for his rifle and left for the position. They offered him a new one, but the young Evenk hunter decided not to change his grandfather’s weapon.

The main enemy for Chechen militants

Since leaving for the sniper position, no news has been received from Vladimir Kolotov to the location of the Russian army. Thanks to the efforts of the scouts, he was regularly replenished with food and ammunition, but no one caught sight of him. They even managed to forget about the strange guy from the Yakut village.

News about Volodya came not from himself, but from the enemy. Some time later, thanks to intercepted negotiations at the Russian headquarters, it became known that the militants were in commotion. For the Chechens in the Minutka Square area, their quiet life is over. Now the night time has turned into And after this, the Russian military remembered the Evenk hunter. It was Vladimir Kolotov who caused the panic of the Chechens. The sniper was distinguished by his special style - he shot in the eye. Reports of the deaths of militants were received on a constant basis; on average, about 15-30 people died every night at the hands of a young hunter from a Yakut village.

In an effort to eliminate the dangerous sniper, the leadership of the Chechen militants promised their fighters a lot of money and high rewards. So, at Maskhadov’s headquarters they gave 30,000 dollars for Volodya’s head. Shamil Basayev, in turn, promised to give a gold star to the one who was lucky enough to kill a marksman. This was due to the fact that the strength of the battalion of one of the leaders of the Chechen militants, Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, was significantly reduced. The sniper caused enormous damage to manpower every night. An entire detachment was sent to neutralize the Evenk hunter, but their efforts were ineffective.

Confrontation with Abubakar

Realizing that they could not cope with a well-aimed Russian sniper on their own, the Chechens decided to resort to the help of the Arab Abubakar, who lived in the mountains and had previously trained shooters for militants. It took him ten days to track down Vladimir Kolotov. And it was his own clothes that gave the young Evenk hunter away. An ordinary quilted jacket and quilted trousers are clearly visible at night if you use special equipment. With the help of night vision devices, Abubakar discovered Volodya by his luminous clothes and lightly wounded him in the arm, slightly below the shoulder.

As a result of being hit by the first sniper bullet, Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov fell from the position he occupied, but managed to escape from the second shot. After the fall, the Evenk hunter was glad that his rifle did not break. After his wound, the sniper realized that a real hunt had begun for him.

Revenge with the Arab sniper

He agreed to answer the challenge and left the militants alone for a certain period of time. Vladimir Kolotov acted as if he were hunting in his village, namely: he hid and waited for the enemy to give himself away. The Arab fighter's weakness gave him away. Abubakar's favorite pastime was smoking marijuana. However, killing the Arab turned out to be a difficult task. Volodya’s opponent had enormous combat experience and for three days did not stick his head out from his position. Hoping that Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov had gone home, the militant sniper decided to leave the shelter, for which he paid with a bullet in the eye. Subsequently, while trying to take the Arab’s corpse, three Chechen militants lost their lives. In total, 16 opponents were killed near the dead Abubakar.

End of participation in the war

After the end of hostilities, he thanked Volodya for the assistance provided. According to some reports, 362 militants were killed by the carbine of an Evenk hunter. However, the number of enemy losses could have been significantly higher, because no one was keeping an accurate count, and the sniper himself did not boast of his combat achievements. Since the Evenk hunter fought on a voluntary basis, he did not have any obligations to the Russian army. Therefore, after the service, Vladimir Kolotov ended up in the infirmary. The sniper, after regaining his health, returned to his native village.

Meeting with Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin

When Dmitry Medvedev was the President of the Russian Federation, the whole country again learned about the marksman sniper from a Yakut village. Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov received an invitation to visit the Kremlin to meet with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Vladimir Kolotov did not come empty-handed from a distant corner of Russia. Although his biography was shrouded in mystery, it was known that he was a real Evenk who honored the traditions of his people. As a gift from the northern inhabitants, he presented Dmitry Medvedev with a reindeer, symbolizing prosperity and prosperity. According to Evenki customs, the animal waited for the Russian president in Volodya’s native village until he arrived for him. However, he never took his deer, deciding that the animal would be more comfortable in its familiar environment. In addition to the deer, the family of Vladimir Kolotov presented the president with a paizu - a tablet with a special inscription.

For his heroism and services during the First Chechen War, Vladimir Kolotov, whose photo was later seen by the whole country, was awarded the Order of Courage. So, 10 years later, the award found its hero. The Russian President presented the Order of Parental Glory to the family of the outstanding sniper.

18-year-old Yakut Volodya from a distant deer camp was a sable hunter. It had to happen that I came to Yakutsk for salt and ammunition, and accidentally saw in the dining room on TV piles of corpses of Russian soldiers on the streets of Grozny, smoking tanks and some words about “Dudaev’s snipers.” This got into Volodya’s head, so much so that the hunter returned to the camp, took his earned money, and sold the little gold he had found. He took his grandfather’s rifle and all the cartridges, put the icon of St. Nicholas the Saint in his bosom and went to fight.

It’s better not to remember how I was driving, how I sat in the bullpen, how many times my rifle was taken away. But, nevertheless, a month later the Yakut Volodya arrived in Grozny.

Rokhlin, surprised that someone came to the war of his own free will, ordered the Yakut to be allowed to come to him.

- Excuse me, please, are you that General Rokhlya? – Volodya asked respectfully.

“Yes, I’m Rokhlin,” answered the tired general, who peered inquisitively at a short man dressed in a frayed padded jacket, with a backpack and a rifle on his back.

– I was told that you arrived at the war on your own. For what purpose, Kolotov?

Surprised, Rokhlin nodded his head.

- Take, Volodya, at least a new SVDashka. Give him a rifle!

“No need, Comrade General, I’m going out into the field with my scythe.” Just give me some ammo, I only have 30 left now...

So Volodya began his war, the sniper war.

The first person to remember Volodya at the headquarters meeting was the “interceptor” radio operator.

And then the staff remembered about the Yakut Volodya.

“He regularly takes food and ammunition from the cache,” the intelligence chief reported.

“And so we didn’t exchange a word with him, we didn’t even see him even once.” Well, how did he leave you on the other side...

One way or another, the report noted that our snipers also give their snipers a light. Because Volodin’s work gave such results - from 16 to 30 people were killed by the fisherman with a shot in the eye.

The Chechens figured out that the federals had a commercial hunter on Minutka Square. And since the main events of those terrible days took place in this square, a whole detachment of Chechen volunteers came out to catch the sniper.

Then, in February 1995, at Minutka, thanks to Rokhlin’s cunning plan, our troops had already reduced almost three-quarters of the personnel of the so-called “Abkhaz” battalion of Shamil Basayev. Volodya’s Yakut carbine also played a significant role here. Basayev promised a golden Chechen star to anyone who would bring the body of a Russian sniper. But the nights passed in unsuccessful searches. Five volunteers walked along the front line in search of Volodya’s “beds”, placing tripwires wherever he could appear in the direct line of sight of their positions. However, this was a time when groups from both sides broke through the enemy’s defenses and penetrated deeply into its territory. Sometimes it was so deep that there was no longer any chance to break out to our own people. But Volodya slept during the day under the roofs and in the basements of houses. The corpses of Chechens - the night "work" of a sniper - were buried the next day.

Then, tired of losing 20 people every night, Basayev called from the reserves in the mountains a master of his craft, a teacher from a camp for training young shooters, the Arab sniper Abubakar. Volodya and Abubakar could not help but meet in a night battle, such are the laws of sniper warfare.

The buildings on the opposite side of the square, or rather their ruins, merged into a single line in Volodya's optics. “What flashed, the optics?” thought the hunter, and he knew cases when a sable saw a sight flashing in the sun and went away. The place he chose was located under the roof of a five-story residential building. Snipers always like to be on top so they can see everything. And he lay under the roof - under a sheet of old tin, he was not wet by the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping.

Abubakar tracked down Volodya only on the fifth night - he tracked him down by his pants. The fact is that the Yakuts had ordinary, cotton pants. This is an American camouflage, which was often worn by Chechens, impregnated with a special composition, in which the uniform was indistinctly visible in night vision devices, and the domestic uniform glowed with a bright light green light. So Abubakar “identified” the Yakut into the powerful night optics of his “Bur”, custom-made by English gunsmiths back in the 70s.

One bullet was enough, Volodya rolled out from under the roof and fell painfully with his back on the steps of the stairs. “The main thing is that I didn’t break the rifle,” thought the sniper.

- Well, that means a duel, yes, Mr. Chechen sniper! - the Yakut said to himself mentally without emotion.

Volodya specifically stopped shredding the “Chechen order.” The neat row of 200s with his sniper “autograph” on the eye stopped. “Let them believe that I was killed,” Volodya decided.

All he did was look out for where the enemy sniper got to him from.
Two days later, already in the afternoon, he found Abubakar’s “bed”. He also lay under the roof, under a half-bent roofing sheet on the other side of the square. Volodya would not have noticed him if the Arab sniper had not been betrayed by a bad habit - he was smoking marijuana. Once every two hours, Volodya caught a light bluish haze through his optics, rising above the roofing sheet and immediately being carried away by the wind.

“Okay, you smoke while lying down, but you’ll have to get up to go to the toilet,” Volodya decided calmly and began to wait.

Only three days later did he figure out that Abubakar was crawling out from under the leaf to the right side, and not to the left, quickly did the job and returned to the “bed”. To “get” the enemy, Volodya had to change his position at night. He couldn't do anything anew, because any new roofing sheet would immediately give away his new location. But Volodya found two fallen logs from the rafters with a piece of tin a little to the right, about fifty meters from his point. The place was excellent for shooting, but very inconvenient for a “bed”. For two more days Volodya looked out for the sniper, but he did not show up. Volodya had already decided that the enemy had left for good, when the next morning he suddenly saw that he had “opened up.” Three seconds of aiming with a slight exhalation, and the bullet hit the target. Abubakar was struck on the spot in the right eye. For some reason, against the impact of the bullet, he fell flat from the roof onto the street. A large, greasy stain of blood spread across the mud in the square of Dudayev’s palace, where an Arab sniper was killed on the spot by one hunter’s bullet.

And then he was surprised: the Chechens began to crawl out into the open to take the sniper’s body. Volodya took aim. Three people came out and bent over the body.

“Let them pick you up and carry you, then I’ll start shooting!” - Volodya triumphed.

The three of the Chechens actually lifted the body. Three shots were fired. Three bodies fell on top of the dead Abubakar.

Four more shots rang out, almost merging into one. Four more corpses had already formed a pile.

A day later, Volodya returned to Rokhlin’s headquarters. The general immediately received him as a dear guest. The news of the duel between two snipers had already spread throughout the army.

- Well, how are you, Volodya, tired? Do you want to go home?

Volodya warmed his hands at the stove.

Rokhlin nodded his head in understanding.

- Take a good rifle, my chief of staff will draw up the documents...

- Why, I have my grandfather’s. – Volodya lovingly hugged the old carbine.

The general did not dare to ask the question for a long time. But curiosity got the better of me.

– How many enemies did you defeat, did you count? They say that more than a hundred... Chechens were talking to each other.

Volodya lowered his eyes.

– 362 militants, Comrade General.

- Well, go home, now we can handle it ourselves...

- Comrade General, if anything happens, call me again, I’ll sort out the work and come a second time!

Volodya’s face showed frank concern for the entire Russian Army.

- By God, I’ll come!

The Order of Courage found Volodya Kolotov six months later. On this occasion, the entire collective farm celebrated, and the military commissar allowed the sniper to go to Yakutsk to buy new boots - the old ones had become worn out in Chechnya. A hunter stepped on some pieces of iron.

On the day when the whole country learned about the death of General Lev Rokhlin, Volodya also heard about what happened on the radio. He drank alcohol on the premises for three days. He was found drunk in a temporary hut by other hunters returning from hunting. Volodya kept repeating drunk:
- It’s okay, Comrade General Rokhlya, if necessary we will come, just tell me...

Vladimir was killed by a shot from 9 mm. pistol in his yard while he was chopping wood. The criminal case was never solved.

For the first time I heard the legend of Volodya the sniper, or as he was also called - Yakut (and the nickname is so textured that it even migrated to the famous television series about those days). They told it in different ways, along with legends about the Eternal Tank, the Death Girl and other army folklore. Moreover, the most amazing thing is that in the story about Volodya the sniper, an almost letter-by-word similarity was surprisingly traced with the story of the great Zaitsev, who killed Hans, a major, the head of the Berlin sniper school in Stalingrad. To be honest, I then perceived it as... well, let's say, like folklore - at a rest stop - and it was believed and not believed. Then there was a lot of things, as, indeed, in any war, which you won’t believe, but turns out to be TRUE. Life is generally more complex and unexpected than any fiction.

Later, in 2003-2004, one of my friends and comrades told me that he personally knew this guy, and that indeed HE WAS. Whether there was that same duel with Abubakar, and whether the Czechs actually had such a super sniper, to be honest, I don’t know, they had enough serious snipers, and especially during the Air Campaign. And there were serious weapons, including South African SSVs, and porridge (including prototypes of the B-94, which were just entering pre-series, the spirits already had, and with numbers in the first hundred - Pakhomych will not let you lie.

How they ended up with them is a separate story, but nevertheless, the Czechs had such trunks. And they themselves made semi-handicraft SCVs near Grozny.)

The real name of Volodya-Yakut is Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov, originally from the village of Iengra in Yakutia. However, he himself is not a Yakut, but an Evenk.

At the end of the First Campaign, he was patched up in the hospital, and since he was officially a nobody and there was no way to call him, he simply went home.

By the way, his combat score is most likely not exaggerated, but understated... Moreover, no one kept an accurate account, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about it.

Rokhlin, Lev Yakovlevich

From December 1, 1994 to February 1995, he headed the 8th Guards Army Corps in Chechnya. Under his leadership, a number of areas of Grozny were captured, including the presidential palace. On January 17, 1995, generals Lev Rokhlin and Ivan Babichev were appointed by the military command to contact the Chechen field commanders with the aim of a ceasefire.

Murder of a General

On the night of July 2-3, 1998, he was found murdered at his own dacha in the village of Klokovo, Naro-Fominsk district, Moscow region. According to the official version, his wife, Tamara Rokhlina, shot at the sleeping Rokhlin; the reason was given as a family quarrel.

In November 2000, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Tamara Rokhlina guilty of the premeditated murder of her husband. In 2005, Tamara Rokhlina appealed to the ECHR, complaining about the long period of pre-trial detention and the delay in the trial. The complaint was upheld and monetary compensation was awarded (EUR 8,000). After a new consideration of the case, on November 29, 2005, the Naro-Fominsk City Court found Rokhlina guilty of murdering her husband for the second time and sentenced her to four years of suspended imprisonment, also assigning her a probationary period of 2.5 years.

During the investigation of the murder, three charred corpses were found in a forested area near the crime scene. According to the official version, their death occurred shortly before the assassination of the general, and has nothing to do with him. However, many of Rokhlin’s associates believed that they were real murderers who were eliminated by the Kremlin’s special services, “covering their tracks”

For his participation in the Chechen campaign, he was nominated for the highest honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation, but refused to accept this title, stating that he “has no moral right to receive this award for military operations on the territory of his own country.”

Many significant events in the life of the state are often shrouded in legends. There are mythical characters in the First Chechen War. Among them is the never-missing sniper Volodya Yakut.

There is a version that he was the real Russian shooter Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov. By nationality, he was allegedly Evenk or Yakut, and representatives of these nationalities are excellent hunters and shooters. Because of his origin, the sniper received the call sign “Yakut”.

Legend details

According to the legend spread among the personnel of the Russian army, Volodya Yakut was very young, only 18 years old. They say that he went to fight in Chechnya as a volunteer, and before that he allegedly asked for “permission” from General Lev Rokhlin. In the military unit, Volodya Yakut chose a Mosin carbine as his personal weapon, choosing for it an optical sight dating back to World War II - from the German Mauser 98k.

In general, Vladimir was distinguished by his amazing unpretentiousness and dedication. He literally plunged into the thick of things. The only request that Volodya Yakut made to the soldiers of his unit was to leave him food, water and ammunition in an appointed place. The sniper was famous for some kind of fantastic elusiveness. The Russian military learned about its location only from radio interceptions.

The first such place was a square in the city of Grozny called “Minutka”. There, a sniper shot at separatists with amazing efficiency - up to 30 people a day. At the same time, he left something like a “brand name” on the dead. Volodya Yakut hit the victim right in the eye, leaving him no chance of survival. Aslan Maskhadov promised a considerable reward for the murder of Kolotov, and Shamil Basayev - the Order of the ChRI.

There is also mention that the elusive Volodya Yakut was shot by Basayev’s mercenary Abubakar. The latter managed to wound the Russian sniper in the arm. Yakut stopped shooting at Chechens, misleading them about his death. A week later, Kolotov took revenge on Basayev’s mercenary for his injury. He was found dead in Grozny near the Presidential Palace. The Russian sniper did not calm down after destroying Abubakar. He continued to systematically shoot the Chechens, not allowing them to bury the mercenary according to Muslim tradition before sunset.

After this operation, Yakut reported to the command that he had killed 362 Chechen separatists, and then returned to the location of his unit. Six months later, the sniper left for his homeland. Was awarded the order. According to the main version of the legend, after the murder of General Rokhlin, Volodya went on a drinking binge and lost his mind. Alternative versions contain the story of the sniper's meeting with President Medvedev, as well as details of the murder of Yakut by an unknown Chechen militant.

Real facts

There is no documentary evidence that could confirm the existence of a real person with the first and last name Vladimir Kolotov. There is also no evidence that the said person was ever awarded the order for courage. On the Internet you can find photographs of Volodya Yakut’s meeting with Medvedev, but in fact it shows Siberian Vladimir Maksimov.

In view of all these facts, we have to admit that the story of Volodya Yakut is a completely fictitious legend. At the same time, it cannot be denied that in the Russian army there were - and are - similar snipers, and equally courageous people. Volodya Yakut embodies the collective image of all these fighters. Its prototypes are considered to be Vasily Zaitsev, Fyodor Okhlopkov and many other brave soldiers who fought in Chechnya.