Posted on 12/31/2005 9:52:27 PM PST by struwwelpeter
"The newspaper as television set." It is under this heading that we will give some well-known television journalists, who under various pretexts have been removed from the Russian ether, a chance to speak. Here are the tele-journalists whose programs we would like to see on the pages of ‘Novaya Gazeta’: Alexander Gerasim, Alexander Gurnov, Sergey Dorenko, Yevgeny Kiselev, Vladimir Karamurza, Stanislaw Kucher, Alexander Lyubimov, Nikolai Nikolayev, Andrei Norkin, Leonid Parfenonov, Igor Pototskiy, Yuri Rostov, Eduard Sagalayev, Svetlana Sorokina, Victor Shenderovich, and Savik Schuster.
Today - Nikolai Nikolayev, from 'Independent Investigation'.
My pager informed me of the seizure of a hostage at the Swedish embassy. As quickly as I could, I needed get to the scene with a film crew. They'd already sent a car with some spare cassettes, batteries, hand lights, and a mobile telephone so that we could 'go live.' Back then we didn't have minibuses with satellite dishes and generators and their own transmitters. The whole information service had only four mobile phones. Our government competitors didn't even have that. The novice cameraman grew quiet upon learning of our forthcoming, unplanned filming. Apparently he was immersed in unrealizable dreams of the big cinema. We only just made it to Mosfilm Street as police were blocking that section of the road.
Almost all of those who made it to the embassy, print and film reporters and photographers greeted each other, adding with a smile: "Happy State Security Agent Day!" The seizure of hostage actually interrupted the celebratory feast taking place after the official portion of the annual celebration of the founding of the VChK ('Cheka'), on December 20th.
The backs of un-celebrating special services leaders formed a wall in front of us, and stood darkly worrying behind the fence of the embassy. In Astrakhan or evening dress hats, fashionable caps, fine coiffures and bald spots, they were all turned away from us, and betrayed their stormy conversation. Judging from everything, the security chiefs in their holiday finery were giving birth to a hostage rescue plan at the very moment they were observing the proceedings just 70 meters from them, within the walls of Swedish embassy. Commercial representative Jan Ulof Nustrom had been taken hostage by a tall man in a ski mask. The aggressor was threatening the Swede with a grenade, and demanded first 10, then 30 million dollars and an aircraft ready to take him to a country which he would disclose only to the pilots.
We got into a good location, arranging the camera so that it was possible to view the rare, even by 1997 standards, two-door Volvo-343 automobile. The hostage sat at the wheel, and the terrorist was in the passenger seat.
From time to time minibuses drove up and stopped at the fence. Through the loose blinds of their side windows, one could see snipers concentrated within. Soldiers with rifles also lay on the roof of the embassy entrance. Among the freezing cameramen and the reporters strolled OMON (SWAT) policemen, loudly warning us that the terrorist was careless, and could at any moment go from words to deeds, and then grenade splinters would definitely find us. Black humor came to our aid. The cameraman stayed in his position. We were able to convince the OMON members that the security authorities would not allow us to be lost, since, in the literal sense, they had already risen to our defense. We succeeded. Whether from natural fearlessness, or from whatever remained from the celebrations, the security chiefs were somehow undisturbed by the fact that their line would be the first to receive fire Text was sent by telephone after regular period of thawing out in the automobile. I froze, out of foppishness, in my fall chamois boots. In the spirit of "I'll sing about what I saw," it was necessary to record two-three minutes of text each time. My recorded voice was reassembled at 'Ostankino' over pictures from the videocassettes which were being delivered from the scene by our backup car.
I had to go talk to the cameraman. I had no right to ask him to film when things got to exploding, or wild shooting began. But how could I hint that we came here not to escape from bullets and shrapnel, but to film as others were being rescued? Though he was dressed more warmly than I, the cameraman was no less frozen. It was the fellow's first big break as a news reporter, a real baptism by television. I didn’t waste time, I said some password, to which a sign was given in return, and we both understood that we would film until the end, not matter what happened.
"When they start shooting, I'll take the tripod, and you film from the shoulder. I'll take the spare battery and videocassettes in my bag."
That's it, now he knew the rules. His first day of work could become his last not just due to superfluous heroism, but due to the usual cowardice. He didn't say anything. It looked like he'd chosen a middle course. A silhouette separated itself from the Astrakhan hats. In the headlights stood a thickly set man in a short jacket. The sleeves of his dress-white shirt were unbuttoned. The man was wrapped in a short jacket, the open sleeves and collar of his white dress shirt visible. He man walked up to the car, stopping at driver's side door. While leaning against the roof, he began saying something to those sitting in the Volvo through the lowered window.
An ambulance with its siren blaring drove up to the embassy building, and stopped just behind the backs of Lyubyanka's key personnel.
Suddenly, the driver's side door of the hostage's automobile was thrown open. The Swede yielded his place to the man in the jacket, and in an instant, noticeably fussing, he was mincing his way along the glassy corridor of the embassy, hurrying to enter the safe territory of his sovereign government. Sovereign, though surrounded by Russian Alpha-team soldiers and snipers.
In 15 minutes the reporters found out that the authorities had succeeded in switching the hostage for a counter-espionage colonel by the name of Anatoly Savelyev, a man noted for his skill in convincing terrorists to give up. The ambulance nurse whispered: "The doctors are making up a sleeping potion, which they're going to put into a bottle of cognac." And here I'd trusted doctors since childhood. A rumor spread through the crowd, that the terrorist and negotiator had asked for coffee and cognac.
Sliding along the icy asphalt on the leather soles of his shoes, Savelyev's subordinate walked up with a packet in his hands. It was a good distance away, so we weren't successful in seeing everything that was happening inside the Volvo. Savelyev unbuttoned his jacket. The gloomy salon of automobile seemed illuminated by his white shirt. What looked to be a peaceful conversation with brandy suddenly was made alarming by some sort of strange embraces. Savelyev laid himself down on the chest of the man sitting alongside. Then, as if on command, the cameramen busied themselves with their in the cameras and began to tensely shoot the proceedings.
The terrorist gestured for help from the doctors. Savelyev lost consciousness. Attempting to ward off the snipers, the man who had seized the Volvo began to shout that he had already pulled the grenade pin and was holding onto the fuse retainer, and if the person who approached the car turned out not to be a physician, but a special services agent in plain clothes, he would blow himself up. A large doctor ran up to the car in a smooth gait unusual for his size, and he demonstratively carried in front of his a metallic case with the characteristic red cross emblem. The medic tried to do something, but the fellow who had lost consciousness never came to. The colonel, already lying alongside the car, needed to be transferred to the ambulance. The terrorist offered the following: he would help the medic place Savelyev on a stretcher, take his place behind the wheel, and then another doctor could approach to help with the stretcher.
Time passed. Savelyev lay unconscious as before. The security chiefs agreed with terrorist's proposal. The physician again broke into a run towards the car. The passenger door was opened and terrorist walked around the trunk of the Volvo. There could never have been a better target for the snipers.
No one gave the command, and no one took the shoot. The terrorist, already noticeably calmer, approached that figure lying on the ground. He bent down and held out his hands, and at that moment a group of Alpha-team members, who had been standing not far from the ambulance, let loose with a squall of very visible tracer fire. The terrorist fell immediately, but the bright orange aurora borealis still flickered awhile, alternately striking those lying on the ground. The blood-stained stretcher carrying Savelyev - without any signs of life - was loaded into the ambulance. Switching on the siren, the machine drove off, the cordon once again drew closed, and the new director of counter-espionage came out to meet the press. The operation was regarded as highly successful. Questions about the drugged cognac and its strange effects remained without comment. Not a word was spoken regarding Savelyev.
The whole next day, which was Saturday, the incident at the Swedish embassy was front-page news. I never had a chance to catch a nap, from 6 A.M. until that evening all the lead journalists wanted commentary from an eyewitness. I told what I saw. The scenes which the cameraman had shot left no doubt - some of the bullets, intended for the terrorist, hit the helplessly sleeping colonel of counter-espionage.
Towards evening, in the mixture of telephone conversations, tobacco smoke, and clattering computer keyboards that was the news appeared the editor of the news program 'Itogi'. Subtly stating: "Well, tomorrow you'll..." The rest she preferred to leave to my already clouded imagination.
Television journalists worked differently at 'Itogi'. Some liked to prepare their reports the day before, but many worked until the minute hand began to count down the approach of the inevitable broadcast. And then, at the very heat of the moment, from behind my back walked a reporter from network. Nowadays he works where it’s the most secure, i.e., a fully protected, self-censoring government-owned television channel. I won't state his name; I'll just say that when I look at him I think that you couldn't find a better stunt double for Attorney General Ustinov. Switch them around and no one would notice for at least a week. This correspondent began things his own way. First he introduced his friends - two well-tanned men about thirty years of age. How they had managed to get past security was made clear after they explained that they were from the Special Forces and that I must have seen them at the Swedish embassy. They had come to have a talk with me. The overall meaning of their requests could be reduced to: it was not necessary to write about how Savelyev had died, because no one knew the whole truth, and the official version made no mention of the sleep-inducing cognac or indiscriminate firing. They had already told colonel’s widow that he had died of a heart attack. “Be a good fellow,” the special services member pronounced like an incantation, trying to convince me not to say too much. There wasn't much time until broadcast. Not a single minute for diplomacy. Dryly taking my leave, I growled that everything that I wrote would be heard on the air. The Alfa-team members, accompanied by their chum the reporter who looked like an attorney general, went to another room and had a quick conference. Their assault was repeated, literally a few minutes later. In order to get rid of the swelling journalistic conflict, it was necessary to play the simpleton with a forced-labor scribbler. These 'seekers of truth' had merely been sent to the editor in chief to tell him that only management could change the factual text which would be broadcast. I don’t think that they got anywhere with that; the journalist assisting them understood it wouldn’t get them anything except irritation.
Their third assault was the decisive one. They began to threaten. I didn't take part in the skirmish; I still had to writing to finish. The thought that I could call security, which had let in those people with their omnipotent covers, was somehow a bit awkward. A row from me sat this apathetic tele-reviewer, whose surname often concluded the best news reports, and he rushed toward the pestering trinity, clearly with martial intent. He was short, puny, and nervously began to twist a cigarette in his hands. He looked like he was about to beat them. But the impact of a word can carry be a knock-out blow in any fight. After a tense pause he asked the Alpha-team members in a distinct voice: "You do understand that they killed their own comrade?" No, they weren't ready for this turn of events. They left the building through a different exit.
About two years later, during a broadcast of 'Independent Investigation', Colonel Savelyev's widow showed a document concerning the death of her husband. It was clear I wasn’t the only one who had received a visit from colleagues from the special services. On the form, the line indicating the cause of the colonel’s death was crossed out.
HOSTAGE ORDEAL IN MOSCOW ENDS WITH DEATH OF TERRORIST... A six-hour hostage ordeal in Moscow ended when a terrorist and was killed in the early morning of 20 December outside the Swedish Embassy. The terrorist, identified as 34-year-old Sergei Kobyakov from Chelyabinsk Oblast, took Swedish Embassy worker Jan Olaf Nystrom hostage on the evening of 19 December when Nystrom returned to his car, parked near the embassy. Kobyakov had a pistol and a grenade and demanded $3 million and a plane for the release of Nystrom. He later agreed to trade the Swede for a member of the Alpha force (antiterrorist unit). Kobyakov's behavior became erratic later and commandos decided to open fire. Kobyakov was killed in the exchange. BPCrappy ending to a good man. Only in Russia....AND SECURITY FORCE OFFICER. The terrorist Kobyakov swapped the Swede for Alpha unit's Colonel Anatoly Savelev. But when Kobyakov placed a noose around Savelev's neck the colonel appeared to suffer a heart seizure, the Alpha force commandos attacked. Kobyakov was killed outright. Savelev was wounded, according to some accounts several times. Savelev died at a hospital officially of a heart attack but footage of the action and accounts by some present at the scene raise the possibility the Colonel died of gunshot wounds. BP
I was breathless while reading this story.
All I could do was remember Svni's story.
I think that I would have wanted to meet Colonel Anatoly Savelev, he was a brave man.
Does Russia never care who or how many they kill?
May you enjoy a Happy New Year.......
Colonel Anatoly Savelev, a brave man, you will want to read this story.
Brave man indeed. Thanks for the ping.
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