Hero of the Chechen war Alexey Klimov about life and military brotherhood. Alexey Klimov: alive in spite of everything Alexey Klimov is blind after the war in Chechnya

Last Stand.

March 1996. The 166th reconnaissance brigade went on a special operation. At night there was a radio interception of negotiations between Chechen militants. “We’re leaving, we’re leaving, the mad people are coming, black bandages!” - the militants shouted on the phone. Since then, the company began to be called “mad”. And the call sign of reconnaissance company foreman Alexei Klimov was “Shaman”. Even at school, he wore “boiled” pants with this inscription. Then this nickname became attached to him.
March 23, 1996. On this day, a large-scale operation was planned at the reconnaissance company headquarters to oust Chechen militants from the village of Shali. A few days before the operation, the guys carried out preliminary work - they set up roadblocks and observed the militants’ escape routes. A column of six armored personnel carriers passed Belorechye and Kurchaloy. In front of the village of Khidi Kutor they ran into an ambush. Having broken resistance, we entered the village. The militants fled through the lowlands to the neighboring Alkhanyurt district. The infantry settled down in destroyed houses for the night. Klimov and his partner remained on the outskirts of the village in the area of ​​the observation post.
“Jakhar, I’ll go see the movement of the militants, stay in touch,” Alexey turned to his comrade. “I’ll be going back, don’t set the stretcher.”
Klimov went down into the gorge. A hundred meters away I noticed Chechen militants.
“Jakhar, Jakhar, I’m the Shaman, at the reception,” Alexey whispered. - Found a gang. I want to smoke, but I can’t. Listen, smoke for me.
“I lit a Belomorina, I’m crazy,” they answered at the other end of the line.
Returning back, a few meters away from him, Alexey noticed two Chechens in camouflage.
“It’s good, I had a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a silent firing device, otherwise I would not have been able to escape,” Klimov later recalled. - In short, I applied that perfume. Then he removed the machine guns from them, took the grenade launcher and a bag of ammunition. I returned to the point late at night. Of course, the company commander scolded me for my unauthorized decision.

March 25, 1996. Nine in the morning. The guys were going to go out on reconnaissance. It was snowing wet in the morning. Due to the dense fog, nothing was visible within a radius of ten meters. Reconnaissance goes ahead, and the rest of the brigade moves about two kilometers behind. Our task is to cause fire on ourselves. We drove out on two infantry fighting vehicles, Alexander Kabanov and Alexey sat shoulder to shoulder on the tower, Alexey on the left, Alexander on the right. And suddenly, an explosion is heard from the left side - we ran into a “frog” mine. Kabanov says: "It lasted only a second, but it seemed to me an terribly long time. I still don’t understand how I survived - the mine exploded literally half a meter away, and its damage radius was a hundred meters. I was probably a little shell-shocked. The smoke cleared, then Lyokha turned to me - his eyes swelled and naturally popped out of their sockets. He was still conscious, but then his tongue fell out. And he stopped breathing completely. I'm afraid I damaged his jaw then - I had to open his teeth with a knife". As it turned out later, the BMP ran into an UZM anti-personnel mine (according to another version it was MON-50 on a tree ). It was developed by the Germans back in 1943. This is one of the most dangerous weapons. Alexey was told about its effect back at school. The mine jumps ninety centimeters up and only then explodes. The damage radius is five hundred meters. Two and a half thousand fragments. Fifty went to Alexey. One of them hit the sergeant's head. The shell exploded half a meter from Klimov’s head.

“If I were on earth, I would have figured out how to act,” Klimov analyzed much later. “I would have torn off the tripwire and fallen on it.” I would have gotten off lightly, with broken ribs. But in my situation, it was impossible to avoid stretching. I had absolutely no chance of salvation.
Everything that happened next was captured on camera by the guys from the squad.

“Get on the defensive!” - Klimov tried to command, falling face down on the armor.
At this time, explosions were heard all around, machine-gun shots drowned out the roar of the engines.
Klimov no longer heard, felt or saw anything...
One of the guys pulled Alexei off the armor, tore his peacoat, and injected him with promedol to “stop” the painful shock.
One of the fragments hit me under the knee. It was impossible to stop the bleeding. A few minutes later, the sergeant’s eyes began to pop out of their sockets...
“The guys later told me how they tried to put my eyes back in place,” says Klimov. “My tongue also fell through.” So the guys used a dirty knife to open my teeth and pull out my tongue with their hands. Until now, half of my teeth are broken, I sometimes jokingly ask my colleagues: “When will you give me new ones?”
Fifteen minutes later, Klimov’s heart began to stop. The shelling continued for about half an hour...

“We lifted the lid of the coffin, and there was a living person”

Soon reinforcements arrived.
“Three wounded, no killed,” the unit commander reported.
Young doctors put IVs on everyone and made bandages. The wounded were taken through the shelling zone on an armored personnel carrier. When they were loaded into the helicopter, one of the doctors nodded towards Klimov:
- This one is already dead, we won’t deliver him...
On this day, forty coffins were sent from Grozny to the Rostov district hospital. Sergeant Alexey Klimov was in one of them.
The orderlies wrapped the lifeless body in foil, then placed it in a black plastic bag and nailed it into a standard zinc coffin. But by some strange coincidence, the medallion was not put on Klimov’s neck. Either they didn’t have time, or they forgot in a hurry. That is why he was on the list of dead for a long time. Rostov doctors learned his name and address a month later, when the sergeant regained consciousness.
Klimov spent two and a half days in a cold refrigerator along with the “cargo-200”. It's a miracle I didn't get frostbite.
“Luckily for me, I don’t remember anything, otherwise I would have died of a broken heart,” says Alexey.
Cargo-200 was delivered to Rostov on March 28. Two old orderlies began unloading the coffins only at three o'clock in the afternoon. “The deceased” Alexey Klimov was numbered “37”.
“When they pulled back the lid and unwrapped the package, I broke out in a cold sweat. “A ghost, I thought,” recalls an employee of the Rostov morgue. - The body is warm, legs, arms bend. I felt my pulse. The heart is uneven, but still beats.
Alexey Klimov was immediately sent to the intensive care unit. An hour later, the doctors began the operation.
“This is not the first time that children are taken out of a coffin alive,” Oleg Panichev, a military surgeon at a Rostov hospital, shared with us. “In a combat area, where there is shooting all around, you don’t have time to understand whether a person is alive or dead. It would seem that the soldier received a fatal wound incompatible with life, his heart no longer beats, there is no chance of salvation. There is no need to think in war. This is how things like this happen...
...On April 15, the mother of Alexei Klimov received a funeral from Chechnya. The next day a letter arrived from the Rostov hospital. “They are writing to you from Rostov. Your son is feeling well and is joking. Health has been restored, only minor problems with vision.” On the same day, Klimov’s parents left for Rostov.
“When they told me what happened to me, I didn’t feel shocked. What happened, happened... This is war,” says Klimov. “And I don’t blame the doctors in any way.” In Grozny they are worth their weight in gold. All surgeons working in combat zones become gray-haired old men by the age of thirty.
And for a long time in the 166th company they did not know that their comrade had survived. They commemorated him with gun shots both on the ninth and fortieth days.
None of Klimov’s colleagues dared to call Alexei’s mother then.
“It’s understandable, not everyone will dare to bring such news into their home,” Klimov justifies them. “I remember how Ruslan died. We took his body to Voronezh ourselves. We arrive at the station, no one meets us. We spent the night right on the platform. Frozen. In the morning they began to look for the house of the dead boy. There was no one in the apartment. Then we went to the brick factory where his mother worked. The woman began to scream and become hysterical. The workers then beat us pretty well and accused us of being alive and him not...
...At the beginning of May, Klimov was transferred to Moscow, to the Burdenko hospital. Two months later, Sergei Kabanov, the same one who carried Klimov in his arms from under fire, came there to visit his friends.
“Guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t save Klimov,” was the first thing he said, opening the door of the room.
The guys looked at each other.
— Klimov? Lech? Yes, he’s here, alive,” they were surprised.
...In two months, Alexey Klimov recovered completely, but his vision could not be restored. Several expensive operations did not bring any results.
— People often ask me how I felt when I lost my sight. To be honest, I still haven’t realized that I’m blind. I remember this when I accidentally bump into a door frame. But I still shoot accurately and can drive a car... After all, I own all types of weapons. I know the flight path of a bullet or projectile, the firing range too, but I just need to be prompted - “to the right”, “to the left”.

Sergeant Klimov's beloved girlfriend married a Chechen

On May 25, 1996, Klimov returned to Kaluga to his girlfriend.
“I decided not to warn her about my arrival, bought flowers, called the guys to accompany me to her house,” Klimov recalls.
Then friends told Alexey that his bride had married... a Chechen.
The young man did not answer. There were no more tears. I cried all over during the war when I buried my friends. I also didn’t try to suppress my grief in a glass. He reached the house and locked himself in the room for three days.
“I was paralyzed for two days, I completely lost the ability to move, I couldn’t get out of bed. She visited me in the hospital, she was there all the time, she helped me survive. What happened next?
Alexey himself is unlikely to be able to answer this question. Evgenia, his ex-fiancee, refuses to make any comments. But her friends shared it with us.
“Leshka returned from the war as a completely different person,” says classmate Klimova. “He practically never came out of his depressive state and became embittered. To be honest, we were afraid to tell him something unnecessary, to ask him about something. He took every careless word with hostility. Many of our guys tried to stay away from him.
Zhenya couldn’t stand it either. In the hospital, Alexey talked all the time about the war, about the undead militants, about the dead comrades. And he really wanted to return back to Chechnya.
“When I was lying in Burdenko, I thought I was going crazy,” Alexey recalls. “I had no idea where I could find a use for myself now.” I was no longer there, both mentally and physically. Every hour my hands were taken away, I lost consciousness...
...And at this time...
“Zhenya continued to wait and hope that he would call, come to her, hug her and say: “I will never leave you, we will always be together,” continues Zhenya’s friend. “But Leshka persistently insisted: “I need to go to Chechnya to avenge the guys.”...
Several years ago, many refugees from Chechnya moved to Kaluga. Young guys opened real estate companies in this small town and built their own stores. Evgenia married one of these entrepreneurs when she realized that the old Alyosha could not be returned.
“When she was eight months pregnant, we agreed to meet,” says Alexey. “I specifically chose a place where there were no Chechens, so as not to discredit her. That day I gave her a huge stuffed bunny and a bouquet of roses. In parting, he kissed you on the cheek and said: “I still love you. Come back. I will forgive everything.”
Zhenya did not return.
Klimov doesn’t even think about his personal life now. “I have no time for this, there’s a lot to do,” he comments.

“Remember me young and beautiful”

The life of Alexei Klimov initially could have turned out completely differently if one day he had not met the guys who enthusiastically talked about their military achievements:
— Guys, why are you sitting here? Come to Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, put on maroon berets, join the special forces, you won’t regret it... - they said.
Klimov immediately forgot about his dream of entering the St. Petersburg Marine Corps School, and forgot about his career as a professional boxer.
Then a summons to the military registration and enlistment office arrived. Before leaving for the army, he kissed his mother and said: “Remember me young and beautiful.”
“I was assigned to the Kremlin regiment, a special-purpose company,” says Klimov. — He served in Moscow, guarding government officials. Boring... I had no opportunity to leave for Chechnya. This is not what we were trained for. “You are not combat soldiers, you are special forces, get ready to work with a special investigation department,” they drummed into us.
The prestigious job and officer rank did not warm the sergeant’s soul.
Alexey wrote daily reports about his dispatch to Chechnya. The company commander threw twenty-six statements from Klimov into the trash.
“I couldn’t sleep peacefully, all my thoughts were only about the war.” One night I climbed into the office and put my personal file in the “Grozny” folder,” he continues. — The next morning I packed my things and boarded a bus that went to the train station.
Before the bus had time to leave, company commander Dmitry Sablin ran into the cabin.
- Sergeant Klimov, what are you doing? - he shouted.
Alexey lowered his head.
- Okay, hold on, Lekha. Just don’t go into the thick of it...
Two days later, Klimov took command of a reconnaissance company of young soldiers. The former commander hanged himself a few days before his arrival. They say they lost their nerves. A month later, the company became a demonstration company in the 166th brigade.
— The most interesting thing is that nothing surprised me in that war. But my subordinates were not ready for Chechnya, either morally or physically. There were only eighteen-year-old yellowthroats gathered there; they were no more than 160 centimeters tall. None of them even knew how to clean boots, much less hold a weapon in their hands. Of course it's scary there. Many people shuddered from the loud scream, what can we say about the explosions? Someone sought solace in alcohol, someone went crazy and the guys committed illegal acts, and someone tried to commit suicide.
Alexei was considered one of the toughest sergeants in that war. His colleagues still remember with what indifference he shot people, how confidently he went against the enemy, how he remained hostage to Chechen militants.
“Only once did I feel uneasy,” says Klimov. — On March 9th we approached the checkpoint in front of Meskhetyurt. We drive up and look, but there is no checkpoint. And forty-two people are missing. And there are no two infantry fighting vehicles. Such a coma has arrived! The intelligence chief shouts: “Take a defensive position, there may be junctions there, let’s leave.” We jump onto the BMP, turn around on the spot... We barely got away. In theory, we should be corpses. Everything there was mined.
Alexey Klimov did not tell any of his relatives that he had gone to the combat area. I sent my mother weekly letters with approximately the following content: “Greetings from places where there are no brides/And life passes as if in a fog/Where guys march in drill/And trample youth with their boots. Greetings from the sunny Chechen republic. I'm fine. We are standing next to the ancient holy city of Shali, so there is no shooting here.” Attached to the letter was a photograph of Alexei sunbathing on a tank.
...Returning to Kaluga, Klimov and his friends created the country's first public organization of veterans of the Chechen war. They knocked out the office - a small wooden dilapidated house. On January 5, 2000, the office was bombed. The local prosecutor's office did not open a criminal case. All the blame was placed on Klimov. They say he set this up on purpose in order to extract extra benefits from the state.

“Welcome to Hell”

We talked with Alexey for more than four hours. Klimov showed me photographs taken in Chechnya. Many photographs show the bloody bodies of militants. “A good Chechen is a dead Chechen,” Alexey burst out.
He also gave me documentary films shot in 1996 during the fighting in Chechnya. When I watched these footage, I involuntarily forgot that everything I saw actually happened. The ruins of Grozny, the inscriptions on the walls “Death to the spirits”, “Welcome to hell”, “Red dogs - get out of our land!”, shell explosions, dozens of bloody bodies - all this looked more like a well-directed, very scary movie.
03/02/1996
Russian soldiers drove up to the forest in an armored personnel carrier. They brought a wooden cross.
“We’ll dig here,” one of them said.
After 15 minutes, a small mound appeared out of the blue. A grave cross is placed on it. The tombstone was replaced by an ordinary rusty sink. The names of the victims are written on it in paint.
“Let’s say goodbye to the boys...” one of the guys sighed.
They raised their machine guns and fired several shots into the air.
03/08/1996
Headquarters of Russian military personnel. At the table is the unit commander and several soldiers. The locals are here too. Among them there are many women and children.
- There will be no friendship between us! We will never make any compromises,” one of the women cries.
There are several armored personnel carriers near the tent. A gray-haired old man in a sheep's cap sits on a sun-scorched field. He looks towards Russian weapons technology and prays.
— Local residents treated us differently, of course, most of them were wary. Why do they love us? After all, many Chechen children saw their fathers being shot,” Klimov comments. “I remember a case when we went to the rescue of the guys in one village. Our people were then surrounded. So the civilian population blocked our way. “We must take revenge,” they shouted. We could not crush women and old people. They tried to somehow come to an agreement. Not at all. And then a stone flew at me. I grabbed the machine gun. A child stood nearby and was looking for a new cobblestone...
04/30/1996
“They tell you to hand over your weapons, so hand them over,” a man in camouflage shouts at three Chechens in civilian clothes.
- What are we, a factory to hand over weapons? - they are indignant.
“We’ve been talking about nothing for three days now,” the Russian commander replies. - The Chechen Republic has already understood everything, in Shali they don’t want to understand... Today is my birthday. My wife and daughter came to see me especially. I don't want to fight anymore, I'm tired of it! You don’t listen to us, but when yours attacked Shali with targeted weapons, who repaired your roofs and restored your houses?
“My life was divided into two parts - before the war and after,” Alexey Klimov summed up our conversation. — In general, I have positive memories from the war. The last time I was in Chechnya was in May of this year. I hitched a ride. Only there I find what I cannot find in civilian life. I rest during the war. There is clean mountain air, different people, completely different communication...
The first Chechen war turned out to be more destructive than the second. She mentally suppressed people greatly. Confusion and incompetent command led to the fact that soldiers were left without water and food for several days, and sometimes they were completely abandoned to their fate. The first Chechen campaign was extremely unpopular in society. The military personnel had the impression that their homeland had turned its back on them and that all their sacrifices were in vain. Now the situation has changed. The soldiers feel the support of their commanders and the support of the country. It is obvious that among the veterans of the second Chechen war there will be fewer people affected by the “Chechen syndrome”.
“You know, I wanted to say one more thing,” Alexey remembered already on the threshold of his apartment. — Everyone around says that there is an “Afghan syndrome”, there is a “Chechen syndrome”, but don’t believe it. There is a “civil syndrome”, guys break down here, not there. When you go to apply for a job, they seem to hire you, but your eyes stumble upon the line “combatant.” Yes, I killed people to stay alive myself. Shooting a person is hard, but there is no time to think. And also... war is like a litmus test, where all your negative qualities manifest themselves much faster than in civilian life...
But I really need to return to Chechnya. I still have a debt there...

Klimov on the program "Forgotten Regiment. Mad Company."

An excellent student in physical training and a master of sports in boxing, Klimov was taken into the elite 154th separate commandant regiment in Moscow. When a military conflict began in Chechnya in 1994, Alexey and his friends immediately wrote reports about being transferred to a hot spot. They were refused, and they wrote again. After another refusal, the guys simply replaced the lists with the names of those soldiers who went to Chechnya, adding their data to them. So, by deception, Alexey ended up in the war in 1995, which ultimately made him disabled.
In March 1996, an anti-personnel mine exploded two meters from the armored vehicle in which Sergeant Klimov and his fighters were, after which a protracted battle with the militants began.
Four crew members were injured from the powerful explosion, and Alexei had half his head torn apart. Doctors later counted 49 fragments in it. When Alexei was pulled off the armor, he was unconscious. Klimov’s close friend Sasha Kabanov gave him a painkiller injection and started his stopped heart.
Taking Klimov on board the helicopter, the doctors told his fellow soldiers that the wounded man would be taken to Grozny, but it was unlikely that he would pull through. The company held a wake for Klimov and vowed to avenge his death. From the capital of Chechnya, Alexei was sent as “cargo 200” into a refrigerator car along with the bodies of other dead guys. So, in the “team” of the dead, he arrived in Rostov.
Three days later, the orderlies, freeing the carriage from the terrible load, noticed that Klimov’s body had not ossified. Really alive?! He was placed on the operating table, and the surgeons, surprised by the unthinkable event, performed a craniotomy. When Alexey woke up after the operation, he did not immediately understandwhat happened to him - his head was tightly bandaged. His roommates wrote to Alexei’s mother in Kaluga that her son was alive. The woman received good news the day after the funeral from the unit, in which it was written that soldier Klimov died heroically in Chechnya.
Alexey was transferred from Rostov to Moscow, to the Burdenko Military Hospital.Alexey resigned from the army and returned to Kaluga to his parents - young, but already disabled, without a civil education and without money. Probably, someone else in his place would have drunk out of hopelessness and gone downhill, but Klimov was able to get a job as the head of the security service of one of the Kaluga enterprises.
Young guys like him, scorched by Chechnya, immediately began to gather around the brave and sociable guy. Together they organized a mutual aid fund, supported each other and helped parents whose sons died in the Chechen war, and later established the Kaluga regional public organization of combatants and the Rosich children's and youth patriotic club, headed by Alexey Klimov.
In 1999, three colonels appeared in Klimov’s office. They explained that they had come on the orders of the Minister of Defense - to find out what the blind hero needed.Alexey was sent to advanced training courses in the Siberian Military District.A year later he received a red diploma and the rank of lieutenant. Klimov was sent to the Kaluga military registration and enlistment office, where he so vigorously campaigned for tomorrow's conscripts that they forgot about the shortages.
In 2005, Klimov ran for the regional parliament and won the elections by a landslide. In the Legislative Assembly he worked on the economic policy committee. Three years ago, Alexey was invited to Voronezh to the All-Russian Conference of Veteran Organizations. While making a toast at the festive table, Alexey let slip that he dreams of rising to the rank of colonel general.
The words of the “impudent man” were heard at the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and soon a letter from Defense Minister Serdyukov arrived in Kaluga with the words: allow a blind officer to study at one of the most prestigious military universities - the Frunze Academy. This year, Alexey graduated brilliantly and continued to serve in his native 154th Separate Commandant Regiment in a leadership position.
Klimov sleeps four hours a day, the rest of the time he works - he still heads the patriotic club in Kaluga. But Klimov has not yet arranged his personal life.Alexey is sure that he will still meet his beloved, who will give him a beautiful daughter, the future Miss Russia, and four boys- Following their father, they will certainly follow the military path.

Miraculously surviving and losing his sight in battle, he remained in service. Our comrade Alexey Klimov gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Sergeant Klimov, aka Klim, died in battle. The frog mine exploded a meter away. “Two hundredth,” said the medical instructor. Two days in a refrigerator to Rostov-on-Don. Mom had a funeral.
- Alive! - they shouted in the Rostov laboratory when, when the “corpse” was overloaded, it turned out to be warm. Resuscitation. Burdenko. The first Chechen one was on.

When Lesha Klimov received the summons, he went to the military registration and enlistment office. He could have "slipped". Mother came to the collection point. She begged me to stay. Lesha wanted to become the director of a state farm. Since childhood, I have been digging on the site. And the war was raging in Chechnya.
- Will you stay?
- No, mom, I'll go...
From Kaluga directly to Moscow. Tall, strong guy. Physical training. Sent to the Preobrazhensky Regiment. The most elite. But he believed that the elite is born only in battle. 22 reports to Chechnya. He went to great lengths to find himself where it hurt more than Russia.
He arrived in Chechnya as part of the 166th separate motorized rifle brigade. Served under Shali. In March 1996, he was returning in armor from a special operation. They were ambushed. The anti-personnel mine that exploded near the head left no chance. A fragment pierced the skull from temple to temple. How the 19-year-old boy survived is still a mystery. After numerous operations, already in Moscow, Klimov was told that he would never see. Lesha was indignant:
- I want to serve!
- Thank God that you will walk...
- No, I will serve!

Text: Yuri Snegirev

Klimov lay all bandaged, in tubes. Where should he serve? I couldn’t even get up. But the colleagues decided to try shock therapy. They pulled out the tubes and barked:
- Sergeant Klimov, get up!
My legs found my pants on their own. The guys took Lesha to a cafe and gave him a spoon. Klimov began to eat on his own for the first time.
Two months later, Klimov was discharged. It is clear that the blind sergeant with a titanium skull could no longer return to his unit.
Klimov did not go downhill, did not drink, as happens with hundreds of disabled people returning from that war. He gave up his disability and organized the Rosich charity organization, which helped “Chechen” veterans and families of the victims. Anything has happened. Four attempts were made on Alexey's life. He doesn't like to talk about it. And then a reward found him. Order of Courage.
- Two colonels from the General Staff and one major came to see me in Kaluga. They said that they had instructions from the Minister of Defense. They offered help in getting an apartment, a car or money for treatment abroad,” says Klimov. - I say: I want to study, learn military science and become a colonel. They consulted and said that they would give me a junior lieutenant for my military services anyway. And I tell them: I want to study to become a colonel. They just threw up their hands. What should I tell the minister? That’s what you say: I want to serve in the Russian army. And then a summons came to go to the Siberian Military District for a junior lieutenant course. Thus began my service again.
- Alexey! How did you pass shooting without sight? Throwing grenades?
- The guys helped. I'll throw a snowball at the target. They say where it went. I calculate the trajectory and throw.
But the most incredible thing is that Alexey Klimov entered the Frunze Military Academy in 2008 and graduated from it! Without any concessions!
- It used to be that the teacher would call out to me during class: Klimov, where are you looking? Not everyone knew that I was blind. The hardest part was passing the special subjects. At the map with a pointer. Well, here the guys helped.

Alexey returned to Kaluga. He began to serve in the military registration and enlistment office. Became a deputy of the regional Legislative Assembly. Everyone probably has a person who can be called their teacher. For Klimov, this is Colonel Sablin from the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He was the first to visit Klimov when he was in the Burdenko hospital. He instilled in him that he should not give up, and led him through life by his example. And when Klimov found himself among the deputies, here too the advice of his senior comrade helped him establish himself.
- And you look at them and do as they do. Then they will begin to listen to you.
Klimov was noticed. Many of his legislative initiatives, including those to support military personnel who fought in “hot spots,” were adopted.
Last December, old wounds resurfaced. Klimov urgently flew to St. Petersburg. The doctors were horrified. The plates in the skull have shifted. And everything could have ended very sadly. But here, too, his good health did not fail. New titanium prostheses were installed. And by the New Year they were released to Moscow.
Alexey shows me the certificate that the attending physician issued at his request. "Physical and emotional stress without restrictions. Alcohol within reasonable limits. Practically healthy." And Alexey doesn’t use a white cane. I didn't learn Braille. Uses computer programs that read text. By the way, in addition to the school for junior lieutenants and the Frunze Academy, he graduated from the Moscow Humanitarian-Economic Institute and courses at the Academy of Civil Service under the President at the Faculty of Russian Parliamentarism.
- How do you move around without a cane and fly airplanes?
- I have friends everywhere. They see you off and meet you. When I was in St. Petersburg and walking along Dvortsovaya, I met my colleague. I recognized him first! It's a small world. I approached the monument to Peter the Great. I touched it with my hand. And it was as if I saw him. You're wrong to think that blind people don't see anything! I have a highly developed spatial imagination. Good hearing. All this helps a lot. Only one thing is bad - I call the control. It takes a long time to deal with the security service. These plates. And even fragments of that damned frog. Well, now have lunch. I won't let you go like that. I just need to change clothes.

Alexei himself changes into a civilian suit. He put on his military uniform for the photo. In May 2014, by personal order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Major Klimov was appointed to a position in the Kaluga garrison, where he is directly involved in the selection, training and deployment of citizens for military service under a contract in terms of constant combat readiness. Despite the fact that he graduated from the academy, he has no complaints about his service, and has held the rank of major for 10 years. Is anyone really playing it safe? And a civilian suit, because I’m on vacation.
Alexey walks quite confidently towards the exit. Gets into the car. Not behind the wheel, of course. We are driving through Kaluga. He takes on the role of a tour guide.
- Here is our administration on the left. And this is the bridge that was built for the arrival of Catherine the Great in Kaluga...
- But how??? - I'm very surprised.
- I know every pothole in my Kaluga. So there's nothing unusual. Do you want to listen to my songs? I recorded a disc here.
A pleasant voice sounds from the speakers. The songs, of course, are about military brotherhood and the past war. She will never let Klimov go.
- Alexey, what are your plans for life? What's next?
- I have a goal. I want to do everything to ensure that future generations live in a country of equal rights and opportunities and that this country of Russia is protected for centuries from internal and external enemies. To do this you need to meet your princess. Raise a family. I want to rise to the rank of colonel. I want to become a State Duma deputy. Again, not because it's cool. Blindness gives you a head start. I don’t particularly need anything like that from material wealth. I won't be distracted by anything. I'll work. Day and night. Serve Russia.
- And then?
- I will work hard. No other options are given. The main thing is that I know how and what to do. As my mentor Sablin said, if you don’t feel confident that you’re right, then you shouldn’t get down to business. I feel right. So this is my business.