Немцы прислали за ним лучшего снайпера рейха — и не нашли даже тело. История СТАРИКА с Кавказа
Ход Войны
144,119 views
An old hunter lies on a cliff above a mountain serpentine. Eight hundred meters to the road. For twenty days, he hasn't descended. During these twenty days, not a single German vehicle has reached the pass.
August 1942. The Caucasus. The route to Baku oil is at stake.
A story about a serpentine road over an abyss, about a rifle from the turn of the last century, and about a paradox that baffled the German headquarters for twenty days.
One hunter. An entire mountain army. That's how it was.
Nineteen forty-two. August 5th. The village of Verkhnyaya Tegen, the northern slope of the Main Caucasus Range.
Zakhar Ilyich Murashov cleans his Berdan rifle.
He is sixty-three years old. He sits on the threshold of a low stone house with a shingled roof. On his lap are a rag, some cleaning cloth, and a small tin can of gun oil. The can contains the remains. He's been saving the oil since winter.
The gun lies across his knees. The stock is dark, almost black wood, shiny from his hands. The barrel is stained with oil. The bolt is the only part he handles especially carefully, as if it were a living thing.
It's an old Berdanka. Single-shot. Made in 1878. It's sixty-four years old. A year older than Zakhar himself.
He's never traded it in. Not for the three-line rifle a visiting engineer offered him twenty years ago. Not for the carbine his younger brother brought him from the city before he died. He'd take the guns, thank them, put them in a corner, and still go into the mountains with his Berdanka.
Because the Berdanka knew the hand. The new gun didn't.
He never explained this to anyone. He just cleaned it and put it back in its place—above the stove, on two wooden pins driven into the wall.
Stones surrounded the house. A path down to the water. A path up to the pasture. Behind the house was a chicken coop and a corral, empty since last fall. The sheep were taken for the army in March.
Zakhar looked at the road.
The road—a narrow strip of gravel below, by the river—leaned into a gorge and disappeared around a bend. Troops moved along this road every day in July. Ours were heading south, toward the passes. The supply trains were heading north, toward the rear. The one-and-a-half-ton trucks kicked up dust; it could be heard even up here, half a kilometer away.
And on this day, the road was empty.
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Немцы прислали за ним лучшего снайпера рейха — и не нашли даже тело. История СТАРИКА с Кавказа
Ход Войны
144,119 views
An old hunter lies on a cliff above a mountain serpentine. Eight hundred meters to the road. For twenty days, he hasn't descended. During these twenty days, not a single German vehicle has reached the pass.
August 1942. The Caucasus. The route to Baku oil is at stake.
A story about a serpentine road over an abyss, about a rifle from the turn of the last century, and about a paradox that baffled the German headquarters for twenty days.
One hunter. An entire mountain army. That's how it was.
Nineteen forty-two. August 5th. The village of Verkhnyaya Tegen, the northern slope of the Main Caucasus Range.
Zakhar Ilyich Murashov cleans his Berdan rifle.
He is sixty-three years old. He sits on the threshold of a low stone house with a shingled roof. On his lap are a rag, some cleaning cloth, and a small tin can of gun oil. The can contains the remains. He's been saving the oil since winter.
The gun lies across his knees. The stock is dark, almost black wood, shiny from his hands. The barrel is stained with oil. The bolt is the only part he handles especially carefully, as if it were a living thing.
It's an old Berdanka. Single-shot. Made in 1878. It's sixty-four years old. A year older than Zakhar himself.
He's never traded it in. Not for the three-line rifle a visiting engineer offered him twenty years ago. Not for the carbine his younger brother brought him from the city before he died. He'd take the guns, thank them, put them in a corner, and still go into the mountains with his Berdanka.
Because the Berdanka knew the hand. The new gun didn't.
He never explained this to anyone. He just cleaned it and put it back in its place—above the stove, on two wooden pins driven into the wall.
Stones surrounded the house. A path down to the water. A path up to the pasture. Behind the house was a chicken coop and a corral, empty since last fall. The sheep were taken for the army in March.
Zakhar looked at the road.
The road—a narrow strip of gravel below, by the river—leaned into a gorge and disappeared around a bend. Troops moved along this road every day in July. Ours were heading south, toward the passes. The supply trains were heading north, toward the rear. The one-and-a-half-ton trucks kicked up dust; it could be heard even up here, half a kilometer away.
And on this day, the road was empty.