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.)

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 an accurate account, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about it.

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.
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.

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 had arrived at the war at will, ordered the Yakut 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?
“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!
“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.

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.
“But 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 the 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.

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 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, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it.

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, sir. 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.

“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.

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.

“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 of the 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.

Four more shots rang out, 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 worked for me all this time younger brother. 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.

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!

On Volodya’s face one could read frank concern for everything. 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...

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.

During the First Chechen War, they talk about Volodya Yakut, an Evenk sniper from the taiga who killed 362 militants in two months. Where has modern Vasily Zaitsev gone? [C-BLOCK]

Road to Grozny

At the height of the First Chechen war During the fierce battles for the city of Grozny, the commander of the 8th Guards Corps, General Lev Rokhlin, was informed that some strange guy was asking to come to his headquarters, and even with an old rifle. The strange guy turned out to be the Evenk Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov from the distant Yakut Iengra. He was wearing a hunting sheepskin coat, and with him a Mosin system carbine of the 1891 model, a German sniper scope from the Second World War, a passport and a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office. [C-BLOCK]

Vladimir said that he got to Grozny on his own. Once he saw on TV footage from Chechnya: a destroyed city, killed Russian soldiers. Then he took the Mosin carbine, with which his father and before that his grandfather had gone into the taiga to hunt fur-bearing animals, and went to the 8th Corps to “ good general" Evenk said that on the road he encountered considerable difficulties: they tried to detain him and return him home, but everywhere he was helped out by a certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir was going to war as a volunteer.

General Rokhlin was very surprised by Kolotov’s story: in 1995 it was not easy to find a person who, of his own free will, would go to the hell of Grozny. The shooter received the position of sniper and the standard Dragunov rifle, but the Evenk refused, saying that he would be more comfortable with his own Mosinka.

Minute Square

It is known that snipers in modern warfare do not act alone: ​​usually a whole group “works”, assisted by spotter-observers. This format was not suitable for Kolotov; he went specifically to hunt for militants. Evenk only asked that military scouts Once a day, food, water and rifle cartridges were left for him in the agreed hiding place, and he himself began to prepare ambushes “for the beast.”

Russian radio operators had the opportunity to regularly listen to militants' radio communications. From them, the command learned what a terrible force the eighteen-year-old hunter from Yakutia had become: on Minutka Square he “filmed” fifteen, twenty, or even thirty militants every day. The sniper had a characteristic “handwriting” - all the victims were killed with a precise hit in the eye, as if the hunter wanted to keep valuable animal fur unharmed. The successes of Volodya Yakut, as he was called in the federal troops, deprived the Chechen commanders of sleep, because the shooter hit his targets even at night. [C-BLOCK]

They say that valuable rewards were placed on Volodya’s head: Aslan Maskhadov promised the man who killed the Evenk thirty thousand dollars, and Shamil Basayev - the star of the Hero of Chechnya. A whole squad of militants was chasing the shooter, who were looking for the hunter’s “rookeries” and setting tripwires. Despite the promised generous prizes, Volodya Yakut invariably won the game, leaving all the hunters for his head with a neat bullet hole in his eye.

In order to destroy the successful Russian, the Arab master Abubakar was called from the rebel rifle training camp. He became famous as good sniper back in Afghanistan, where he ended up on instructions from Pakistani intelligence. Now Abubakar had to hunt for Volodya Yakut in the ruins of Grozny with a powerful rifle, custom-made back in the 1970s. Soon the Arab managed to track down the Russian shooter. Volodya was wounded, but not fatally: the bullet hit his arm. Evenk decided to temporarily stop his hunt for militants so that the rebel commanders would believe that he had been killed.

While Volodya’s “mosinka” was silent, he diligently tracked down Abubakar. Masters of disguise and street fight A small weakness let him down: back in the 1980s, the Arab shooter became addicted to light smoking drugs, and now, even in cold Grozny, he could not deny himself this pleasure. It was by the light haze of the rolled-up cigarette that Vladimir Kolotov determined where Abubakr’s “rookery” was located. When he had to leave his cover for a while, Kolotov, with constant accuracy, killed the enemy with a hit in the eye. [C-BLOCK]

To save the body of the mercenary, the rebel commanders sent several combat groups, but all sixteen militants were killed outright from the famous Kolotovo carbine. Thus ended the duel, which in its intensity and surroundings was reminiscent of the confrontation between Vasily Zaitsev and SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorwald in Stalingrad at the end of 1942.

Path of the Legend

The day after the duel with Abubakar, Volodya Yakut visited General Rokhlin. There he said that the two-month period for which the military commissar had released him had expired, and now he needed to return home. The general, who had already heard about Volodya’s victories, asked how many “animals” the hunter had destroyed. Evenk replied that in less than two months he managed to kill 362 militants.

This figure ends the main part of the legend about Volodya Yakut. Urban legends, as they are commonly called, had to appear during this difficult time, when it was difficult to figure out who was right and who was wrong. There is no evidence that the Evenki sniper Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov actually existed: the photographs show other people, and in reports and reports the sniper does not appear either under his real name or under his “code” name. The legend is also continued by the fact that Volodya Kolotov, who returned to his homeland, continued to engage in fur farming and had a hard time with the death of General Rokhlin, who was killed in July 1998, and refused to wear the Order of Courage. [C-BLOCK]

The story about Volodya Yakut usually ends in the early 2000s, when he was killed at his fishery by unknown persons who allegedly bought information about his whereabouts from the Russian special services. Others argue that Vladimir Kolotov did not become a victim of hired killers, but received a reception from President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009, presenting the head of state with gifts from his people. In support of this version, they even cite personnel from the delegation from Yakutia, however, this can hardly be considered reliable evidence.

Much in the legend about Volodya Yakut may raise doubts: for example, how did a man armed with a combat rifle get from Yakutia to Grozny, and then ask for leave from the active army and calmly return home? And the details of his confrontation with Abubakar are very reminiscent of the struggle between Zaitsev and Torvald in Stalingrad.

Whether Volodya Yakut really existed or not, where he disappeared to is difficult to say with certainty. One thing is certain: in 1994-1995 there were people who were ready to courageously defend the tranquility of their country. The legend Volodya Yakut tells about all of them.

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.

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.

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.

- 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?
“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!
“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.

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.
“But 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 the 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.

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 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, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it.

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.

“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.

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.

“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 of the 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.

Four more shots rang out, 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.

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...

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.

***
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 in the First 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.)

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 an accurate account, and the sniper himself did not particularly brag about it.

During the First Chechen War, they talk about Volodya Yakut, an Evenk sniper from the taiga who killed 362 militants in two months. Where has modern Vasily Zaitsev gone? [C-BLOCK]

Road to Grozny

At the height of the First Chechen War, during fierce battles for the city of Grozny, the commander of the 8th Guards Corps, General Lev Rokhlin, was informed that some strange guy was asking to come to his headquarters, and even with an old rifle. The strange guy turned out to be the Evenk Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov from the distant Yakut Iengra. He was wearing a hunting sheepskin coat, and with him a Mosin system carbine of the 1891 model, a German sniper scope from the Second World War, a passport and a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office. [C-BLOCK]

Vladimir said that he got to Grozny on his own. Once he saw on TV footage from Chechnya: a destroyed city, killed Russian soldiers. Then he took the Mosin carbine, with which his father, and before that his grandfather, went to the taiga to hunt fur-bearing animals, and went to the 8th Corps to the “good general.” Evenk said that on the road he encountered considerable difficulties: they tried to detain him and return him home, but everywhere he was helped out by a certificate from the military commissar stating that Vladimir was going to war as a volunteer.

General Rokhlin was very surprised by Kolotov’s story: in 1995 it was not easy to find a person who, of his own free will, would go to the hell of Grozny. The shooter received the position of sniper and the standard Dragunov rifle, but the Evenk refused, saying that he would be more comfortable with his own Mosinka.

Minute Square

It is known that snipers in modern warfare do not act alone: ​​usually a whole group “works”, assisted by spotter-observers. This format was not suitable for Kolotov; he went specifically to hunt for militants. Evenk only asked that military scouts leave food, water and rifle cartridges for him once a day in an agreed hiding place, and he himself began to prepare ambushes “for the beast.”

Russian radio operators had the opportunity to regularly listen to militants' radio communications. From them, the command learned what a terrible force the eighteen-year-old hunter from Yakutia had become: on Minutka Square he “filmed” fifteen, twenty, or even thirty militants every day. The sniper had a characteristic “handwriting” - all the victims were killed with a precise hit in the eye, as if the hunter wanted to keep valuable animal fur unharmed. The successes of Volodya Yakut, as he was called in the federal troops, deprived the Chechen commanders of sleep, because the shooter hit his targets even at night. [C-BLOCK]

They say that valuable rewards were placed on Volodya’s head: Aslan Maskhadov promised the man who killed the Evenk thirty thousand dollars, and Shamil Basayev - the star of the Hero of Chechnya. A whole squad of militants was chasing the shooter, who were looking for the hunter’s “rookeries” and setting tripwires. Despite the promised generous prizes, Volodya Yakut invariably won the game, leaving all the hunters for his head with a neat bullet hole in his eye.

In order to destroy the successful Russian, the Arab master Abubakar was called from the rebel rifle training camp. He became famous as a good sniper back in Afghanistan, where he ended up on instructions from Pakistani intelligence. Now Abubakar had to hunt for Volodya Yakut in the ruins of Grozny with a powerful rifle, custom-made back in the 1970s. Soon the Arab managed to track down the Russian shooter. Volodya was wounded, but not fatally: the bullet hit his arm. Evenk decided to temporarily stop his hunt for militants so that the rebel commanders would believe that he had been killed.

While Volodya’s “mosinka” was silent, he diligently tracked down Abubakar. The master of camouflage and street fighting was let down by a small weakness: back in the 1980s, the Arab shooter became addicted to light smoking drugs, and now, even in cold Grozny, he could not deny himself this pleasure. It was by the light haze of the rolled-up cigarette that Vladimir Kolotov determined where Abubakr’s “rookery” was located. When he had to leave his cover for a while, Kolotov, with constant accuracy, killed the enemy with a hit in the eye. [C-BLOCK]

To save the body of the mercenary, the rebel commanders sent several combat groups, but all sixteen militants were killed outright from the famous Kolotovo carbine. Thus ended the duel, which in its intensity and surroundings was reminiscent of the confrontation between Vasily Zaitsev and SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorwald in Stalingrad at the end of 1942.

Path of the Legend

The day after the duel with Abubakar, Volodya Yakut visited General Rokhlin. There he said that the two-month period for which the military commissar had released him had expired, and now he needed to return home. The general, who had already heard about Volodya’s victories, asked how many “animals” the hunter had destroyed. Evenk replied that in less than two months he managed to kill 362 militants.

This figure ends the main part of the legend about Volodya Yakut. Urban legends, as they are commonly called, had to appear during this difficult time, when it was difficult to figure out who was right and who was wrong. There is no evidence that the Evenki sniper Vladimir Maksimovich Kolotov actually existed: the photographs show other people, and in reports and reports the sniper does not appear either under his real name or under his “code” name. The legend is also continued by the fact that Volodya Kolotov, who returned to his homeland, continued to engage in fur farming and had a hard time with the death of General Rokhlin, who was killed in July 1998, and refused to wear the Order of Courage. [C-BLOCK]

The story about Volodya Yakut usually ends in the early 2000s, when he was killed at his fishery by unknown persons who allegedly bought information about his whereabouts from the Russian special services. Others argue that Vladimir Kolotov did not become a victim of hired killers, but received a reception from President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009, presenting the head of state with gifts from his people. In support of this version, they even cite personnel from the delegation from Yakutia, however, this can hardly be considered reliable evidence.

Much in the legend about Volodya Yakut may raise doubts: for example, how did a man armed with a combat rifle get from Yakutia to Grozny, and then ask for leave from the active army and calmly return home? And the details of his confrontation with Abubakar are very reminiscent of the struggle between Zaitsev and Torvald in Stalingrad.

Whether Volodya Yakut really existed or not, where he disappeared to is difficult to say with certainty. One thing is certain: in 1994-1995 there were people who were ready to courageously defend the tranquility of their country. The legend Volodya Yakut tells about all of them.

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.

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. 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. - 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 came to 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! - No need, Comrade General, I’m going out into the field with my scythe. Just give me some ammunition, 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 then... 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. 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, the wet snow rain, which kept coming and then stopping, did not wet it. 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 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. “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. 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. “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. 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 understandingly. - 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 after some time. 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: “Nothing, Comrade General Rokhlya, if necessary we will come, just tell me...

Here’s what else I found online about Volodya, the hero of the First Chechen War:
"...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 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.

“The Kolotov family from the Yakut reindeer herding village of Iengra made the President happy with valuable gifts. Medvedev presented them with the Order of Parental Glory and the Order of Courage, to which one of the Kolotovs, Vladimir Maksimovich, a former sniper, was nominated during the Chechen War, but the awards immediately after various reasons did not take place. The well-deserved reward finally found the hero and the grateful Yakuts decided not to remain in debt.

Immediately after the award, the family of the Evenk hunter-trader presented the President with a panel made by rural craftswomen and a symbol of power - paizu - an imperative plaque with a special inscription. But the attraction of reindeer herders’ generosity did not end there either. The Kolotovs also decided to give Medvedev a reindeer, which is considered a symbol of prosperity and prosperity among the Evenks. This information was accompanied by the following comment: “Medvedev’s deer will live in Iengra until his owner comes for him - this is what local custom requires.”
The President thanked the Kolotovs for their sincere gift, but did not yet take the deer to the Kremlin, expressing the hope that the animal would continue to live in its usual environment.
http://cyclowiki.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8F-%D0%AF%D0%BA%D1%83%D1% 82 more versions of the fate of the legendary sniper