It is incorrect to call the night October, 3-4 a tragic date.
For some reason it is common practice in this or that way to consider the House of Soviet defenders’ death, their wounds, their defeat in the unequal battle the “end of the Soviet epoch”. This psychological item has been stuck in the subconscious mind of modern youth. Shouting “Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten” at meetings devoted to the events of the Black October is one thing. It is more and more difficult to believe such speeches. The shooting of the House of Soviets is something like the “last battle of old honest communists”, the last desperate splash of the going into the past USSR for left youth, even the most notorious extremists, even those for whom 1993 has become a symbol of struggle.
Besides, not less than a half of the White House defenders in those days were youth and middle-aged people who came by appeal of their conscience. They came as volunteers to make war as well as to save lives of the combatants of this frontier.
It is time to give up presentation of these events as a defeat in historical aspect. They should be marked as a starting point in a new war, a new revolutions. In new methods of struggle when that belongs by right should be defended with arms in hands. When you give up your nasty fear of those who are stronger physically, armed better and backed by prevailing authorities.
Different sides of the same coin
The officer of a military base in Moscow region Igor Ostapenko has fallen at the night of October, 3-4 at the age of 27. Little is known about his personality because the young officer’s life did not differ much from lives of other men-at-arms before the marked events. He has grown up in Kazakhstan, studied in Kiev, has married there and has been transfered for duration to the city of Schelkovo, Moscow region. Igor has never been a party militant. But he was a communist by belief.
From the very beginning of the rebellion of 1993 many officers, even with rather significant regalias, arrived to the House of Soviets and asked the officership (Rutskoy, hum!) for an order to enter Moscow. Here is one of the reasons of the Great Country downfall – the tacky latent cowardice, eternal expectation for an order – no matter whose order but “from the top”. Ostapenko didn’t wait for orders and didn’t ask. Having gathered sympathizers (amphibious riflemen) and taken arms arbitrarily he moved towards Moscow by Schelkovskoe highway. Numerous attempts of policemen to stop the men-at-arms failed. Then OMON [the Special Police Force] was driven to the 30th kilometre of the highway. The barricades with sand were made. The revolted military unit failed to penetrate to the White House. Igor Ostapenko was shot by OMON policemen directly at the 30th kilometre. The fate of other riflemen is unknown. By hearsay the military unit was disbanded and the servicemen were sent to different remote areas of Russia.
In 1995 a memorial was raised at Igor’s place of death by the initiative of the Russian Party of Communists (now it is an integral unit with the PKRP [the Russian Communist Workers’ Party]) many members of which, including its leader Kruchkov, were the House of Soviets defenders themselves. It is amazing that even dead Ostapenko keeps Moscow regional pen-pushers on the alert till now. OMON or policemen regularly arrive to the monument and try to destroy it according to bureaucrats’ orders. That’s how the authorities are afraid of the dead! It is time to begin shooting – for it was ten-fold afraid of the alive!
The House of Soviets defenders would sustain much greater losses but for numerous enthusiasts (most of them youth) who carried a great amount of wounded outwards the battlefield under fire of snipers, special forces and other scums. One of such “people’s ambulance” brigades in the days of the Black October was a group of students speleologists headed by Alexey Shumsky.
Lesha Shumsky, 26 years old, and a girl from this group Natasha Petukhova, 19 years, have fallen on October, 3, 1993. It is difficult to say anything about Natasha’s political beliefs. She was a kind, soft-hearted girl but at the same time selfless, brave – she had been in the films as a stunt player, she studied in a school of survival in extreme conditions.
She brought medicine and did dressing to the wounded at the White House and Ostankino. Natasha Petukhova is considered to be alive but wounded herself during the storm of Ostankino by special forces. She was taken to police department No.111. Natasha’s corpse was given out to relatives without any clothes, with her teeth knocked out, with multiple blood boils, a bullet in her nape and four gunshot wounds in her chest (by shell bullets).
Shumsky was carried out from the fire zone by the American fellow Duncan but his wounds appeared to be fatal. Alexey died under an operation in the Sklifosovsky Institute.
Duncan was killed by a sniper on the same day while carrying the next wounded outwards the firing line.
The students speleologists’ deed became famous due to the commune “PORTOS” as soon as many “PORTOS” members had been among the House of Soviets defenders. Later they collected Natalia Petukhova’s poems about Motherland, about pride, human dignity written by her during her short but not empty or philistine life.
Those killed in 1993 should be not only remembered or talked about and held up as an example. For those killed in those days it is necessary to torture and hang, hang and torture today and tomorrow!
