Collision over Lake Constance: how an Ossetian took revenge on a Swiss air traffic controller. Collision over Lake Constance: chronicle of the tragedy Monument to the Kaloevs

After the tragedy and reprisal against the Swiss dispatcher Peter Nielsen, because of which two planes collided in the sky, Kaloev said that he was “at odds with God.” But time passed, and Vitaly found the strength to build a new life.

In 2013, Vitaly started a family for the second time. His chosen one was Irina Dzarasova, who worked as an engineer at Sevkavkazenergo OJSC. She is 22 years younger than her husband.

Two years ago Vitaly retired. As the former head of North Ossetia, Teimuraz Mansurov, told local reporters, “he just lives normal life what a man of his age should live by. He didn’t bury himself anywhere, didn’t isolate himself from anything. He lives like a real Ossetian, a sage...”

And finally God gave him twins - a boy and a girl. The children were born healthy and feel well, just like their mother Irina.

“MK” got through to Vitaly Kaloev to congratulate him on this joyful event.

“The doctors say that the babies are fine,” Kaloev said. - They were born healthy, everything is normal. My wife also feels well, everything went without complications.”

We haven’t come up with names for the children yet, but we have time to think about what to call them. Life turned out in such a way that children appeared and I again had the meaning of life.”

A terrible tragedy over Lake Constance, which occurred in July 2002, shocked many. Due to pilot error big sky A DHL Boeing cargo plane and a Bashkir Airlines passenger airliner, on which Russian children were flying to Spain, collided head-on.

Of the 71 victims of the disaster, 52 were children. Among the passengers on the ill-fated flight were the entire family of the architect from North Ossetia Vitali Kaloev - his wife, 11-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter.

Kaloev was building houses in Spain, did not see his family for a long time, and finally they decided to get out to him... Vitaly was the only one of the parents of the victims of the tragedy who was allowed to the scene of the disaster, where he rushed the next day. Scattered beads from his daughter’s childhood necklace, which he felt with trembling hands in the grass, then became an element of the memorial at the site of the tragedy...

Having buried his family and erected a huge beautiful monument on their grave, he still waited for justice. However, the Swiss company Skyguide, which piloted planes in the night sky, was in no hurry to apologize. And dispatcher Peter Nielsen was not even fired. For two years, Kaloev, according to his stories, lived in a cemetery. And then he decided to seek justice himself. What happened next is well known and became the plot of two feature films- Hollywood with Schwarzenegger in leading role and Russian, where .

Twelve stab wounds inflicted by Kaloev on the Swiss dispatcher, who did not want to apologize for what he had done and chased the Russian out of the yard like a dog, resulted in 8 years in prison. But already in 2007, Kaloev was released for good behavior. He returned to his homeland.

The head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mansurov, appointed him Deputy Minister for the Construction of the Republic. Vitaly threw himself into work. To the empty beautiful house that was built for big family, he didn’t want to come.

Under the leadership of Kaloev, many new buildings were built in Vladikavkaz. A television tower was erected on the mountain, to which there is a cable car, a music and cultural center with an amphitheater and a school for talented children.

15 years ago, Vitaly Kaloev lost his entire family in a plane crash over Lake Constance. He subsequently killed the air traffic controller who was on duty at the time of the plane collision. Ksenia Kaspari, the author of a documentary novel dedicated to these tragic events, in her book talks about how the murder happened, and whether it was accidental or deliberate. You will learn more about the motives of a widower who has already served his sentence from an excerpt exclusively provided to our portal by the EKSMO publishing house.

May 3, 2017 · Text: Ksenia Kaspari, excerpt from the novel “Clash”, published with abbreviations

The documentary novel “Collision,” written with the direct participation of its protagonist Vitaly Kaloev, tells the story of a plane crash over Lake Constance, which is considered the most terrible page in the history of domestic aviation.

On July 2, 2002, a DHL Boeing cargo plane and a Bashkir Airlines passenger plane colliding in the sky over the German city of Uberlingen, operating a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona. Most of the passengers of the crashed TU-154 were children. Vitaly Kaloev lost his wife Svetlana and two children - 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana - in this disaster. He is the only one of all the relatives of the victims who will take part in the search operation at the crash site. And then, without waiting for the results of the investigation, he will kill the dispatcher who monitored the airspace during the tragedy.

On the 15th anniversary of the plane crash over Lake Constance, the Eksmo publishing house published a documentary novel dedicated to the tragedy

“Helmut Sontheimer was appointed as a police escort. In his car they quickly covered the road, passing all the checkpoints without stopping. The wreckage was seen from afar. The tail of the Tupolev, buried in fire foam, lay right on the country road. A few meters away are the chassis and turbines. Twisted, soot-covered metal. Someone's hand cleared the Russian flag on the fuselage. Dozens of police and experts in protective suits. Bodies were taken out of the wreckage.

Vitaly, I'm sorry, but this cannot be done. – Helmut (policeman - website note) stopped Kaloev, who tried to enter the plane after the experts.
- What if my son is there? Or daughter? - he shouted back. - I have the right! These are my children!
- Vitaly, we were allowed to be here only on the condition that we would not interfere with the work of the operational services! Please! I'll have to handcuff you!

Svetlana, wife of Vitaly Kaloev, with daughter Diana (spring 1999)

Vitaly stood at the wreckage until all the remains found there were removed. Every time policemen with a stretcher appeared from the darkness of the cabin, he shuddered, but forced himself to look. Some of the bodies were so disfigured that a simple glance was not enough, and he ran after the stretcher until he was completely sure that it was not his child. The bodies and their fragments were piled in a clearing, where other police officers put them in bags and carried them to a truck parked on the side of the road.

Vitaly, do you want me to say a prayer? “The pastor saw that Kaloev was shaking from barely restrained tears.
The priest wanted to come closer and hug Vitaly, but he felt that he was in complete confusion and did not at all crave this, but on the contrary.

Prayer?! – Kaloyev shouted back to him. “After all this,” he pointed to the bodies, “do you still believe in God?!” If he exists, your God, then why did he allow this to happen?! – Vitaly began to breathe heavily, holding back his anger and tears.

Six minutes to Earth

[…] The expert asked Vitaly the standard questions in this case: dates of birth, names, special signs, what they were wearing. A saliva sample was taken in case a DNA test was required.
“And yet,” the expert, clearly timid, lowered his eyes, “we have photographs of already discovered bodies.” If you're ready...
He handed Kaloyev a stack of photographs. Vitaly looked at the first two, and looking at the third, he suddenly shouted:
- Diana! My Diana!

He heard his voice as if from the outside. A terrible, hysterical cry of a stranger. Vitaly went blind from the tears that had welled up, the world swam before his eyes. He lost control of himself, his soul seemed to leave him, breaking his ribs, tearing his flesh. Pain permeated everything. Just continuous pain!

Maya (translator - website note) hugged Vitaly, trying to calm him down, to stop this cry, but he looked through her, not seeing or hearing anything, as if he was not here. Maya turned so pale that she seemed about to faint. Helmut with difficulty tore her away from Vitaly and took her to fresh air. There she was examined by ambulance doctors who were on duty at the headquarters. When they returned back, Kaloev had already pulled himself together.

Maya, tell them that I want to see my daughter!

Kostya and Diana at a newly planted cherry tree in the courtyard of the Kaloyevs’ house (spring 2001)

Helmut had anticipated this request and was afraid of it. The place where the bodies were kept was carefully hidden. In Überlingen and its surroundings there was no morgue capable of holding so many bodies. And the remains were temporarily taken to the Goldbach adits. They began to be built in the fall of 1944 after a series of intense bombings of Friedrichshafen. Especially for this purpose, a “branch” of Dachau was opened in the vicinity of Uberlingen, where more than 800 prisoners of war were transferred. These were mainly Poles and Russians. They worked around the clock. In less than seven months, a four-kilometer-long tunnel was dug inside the rock. This cost the lives of two hundred prisoners.

And now, half a century later, the bunker that Soviet prisoners of war had built for the Nazis suddenly became a temporary “shelter” for 52 dead Russian children. Understanding this terrible irony of fate, the Germans kept the strictest secret where they had to store the bodies.

Vitaly,” Helmut suddenly realized that he was speaking to this unfortunate Russian as if he were a child, “you know, this is forbidden...
- I don’t care about their prohibitions! - Kaloev immediately flushed. - Everyone already knows that bodies are taken to adits. You're the only one making a secret out of it! If I'm not allowed to see my daughter, I'll go there myself!
- I'll talk to management. Perhaps they will make an exception for you again. You've already identified her.

The headquarters took a break to coordinate this decision with the ministry. Helmut suggested that Vitaly go to the place where Diana was found. The girl’s body was discovered the morning after the disaster on a farm twenty kilometers from Ovingen. As Helmut said on the way, Diana was seen by the daughter of the farm owner while driving the cows out to pasture.

Experts inspect the wreckage of the Tu-154 in Owingen

I'm still trying to remember the acceleration due to gravity... 9.8? - Vitaly suddenly asked.
“Yes, 9.8 meters per second,” Helmut confirmed. - Why are you asking about this?
- I’m trying to calculate how long they flew to the ground before dying...
- Vitaly, they died at the moment of the collision! - Michael (psychologist - website note) intervened in the conversation. - The planes collided, there was an explosion, a fire!
- Then why is Diana intact? - Vitaly asked him. - She wasn’t even burned! What if she was simply thrown out of the plane at the moment of impact? And she was alive until she fell to the ground...
- Please don't think about it! - Maya begged.
- Vitaly! - Helmut only now became truly afraid for Kaloev.

Until now, it seemed to him that Vitaly was holding up well, but what was really going on in his head if he thought about this?

At this altitude there is low pressure. If depressurization occurs on an airplane and an oxygen mask is not put on within a few seconds, hypoxia develops and the person simply passes out. Those who did not die during the collision lost consciousness within seconds! - the policeman continued.
Maya saw Vitaly take his mobile phone out of his pocket, open a calculator in it and begin to count something.
“It turns out to be about six minutes,” he said, having finished counting.

They pulled onto a dirt road. To her left were apple and pear orchards, and to her right were green meadows, fenced by a low wooden fence, behind which two dozen black shaggy cows grazed.

The management of the Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide (which monitored the airspace in the collision zone) tried to evade responsibility by blaming Russian pilots for the incident. Official apologies were made to the relatives of the victims and the Russian authorities only in 2004 (pictured is Alain Rossier, who headed the company)

Torn beads

The owner of the farm led them to the place where Diana was found. The girl, she said, was lying under a tree. The branches of the mighty alder scratched his face, but softened the fall, and the child’s body was almost unharmed. Vitaly knelt down, lay down on the grass crushed by Diana’s body and began to cry. Maya, Michael and Helmut stepped aside, deciding that Vitaly needed to be alone. A few minutes later they heard him scream.

I found her beads! - shouted Kaloev.
Vitaly looked crazy. He cried and laughed at the same time, and then showed Maya three mother-of-pearl beads on his palm:
- I gave them to Diana last year.
Kaloev knelt down again and began to rummage through the grass with his hands.
- Do you want me to help you? - Maya asked.
- No need! Don't come near! Me myself.

The fate of Vitaly Kaloev was tragic. He lost his entire family in a plane crash. His wife and two children died. They flew by plane to Spain, where Vitaly Kaloev was working at that time. The architect himself blamed the Swiss dispatcher for the incident, whom he then killed. The story happened 16 years ago, and now Vitaly got married for the second time.

Vitaly Kaloev married for the second time: about the wedding

Vitaly Kaloev did not talk about his wife, but he did not hide anything. His new darling name is Irina, and the wedding took place according to Ossetian rites. Kaloev explained his choice not to go to the registry office by saying that at the registry office you only receive a piece of paper. She means nothing to him. And so relatives come, everyone knows. Vitaly said that he wanted to start a family and asked Irina for her consent.

Even before the ceremony itself, it is necessary to collect the bride price. And the Ossetian wedding itself takes place both in the house of the bride and in the house of the groom. Usually this is a mass celebration with the participation of more than 200 people, acquaintances, friends and relatives. At such a celebration, fun always reigns; any uninvited neighbor or acquaintance can come to it, and they have no right to refuse him. At a celebration you can always see a large table with food and sweets. It has also become a tradition to have a wild boar on festive table. But the most important component remains the three pies, which symbolize water, sun and sky.

Vitaly Kaloev married for the second time: a film is being made about Vitaly Kaloev

A film based on the events of that distant 2002 has already been released. It was called “Consequences” and was released in 2017. But he disappointed Vitaly Kaloev. There are too many inconsistencies and untruths. The film turned out to be absolutely uninteresting for Vitaly, and a coincidence of circumstances made the tragedy to blame.

Now, in the new film “Unforgiven,” they are going to show the story more realistically and listen to the hero’s comments. Let us remind you that he now lives in North Ossetia; he was released from prison in 2007, early. As he says, the pain from the tragedy has not gone away. It has only become duller and is not expressed so clearly. In order to reliably recreate the events shown in the film, the director personally met with Vitaly. And the main character was played by Dmitry Nagiyev.

Vitaly Kaloev married a second time: more about the tragedy and fate

Two planes crashed over Lake Constance. In 2004, Kaloev killed Skyguide airline dispatcher Peter Nielsen, considering him to be responsible for the tragedy. He himself confessed to the crime and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Vitaly himself was born on January 15, 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (Vladikavkaz).

And in 1991 he got married. Then his family died in a plane crash. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital for a year, where his condition was never analyzed. By the way, the common people were for Vitaly’s rightness. And his words at the present time prove that he is in full mental health. In 2014, he married for the second time, but has no children. The architect recently celebrated his anniversary; he turned 60 years old. On this day he received the award “For the Glory of Ossetia”. When asked why he killed the dispatcher, Vitaly replies that his children and grandchildren live happily, and I will no longer have grandchildren or children.

After the death of his family in 2002, Kaloev plunged into his grief and his relatives believed that he would never return to old life. But as it turned out, he was hatching a plan for revenge. On February 24, 2004, the man whose negligence caused the death of more than 70 passengers on a Russian airliner was killed. The criminal, Vitaly Kaloyev, was detained by Zurich police on the same day. How does the Ossetian avenger live today? Did the death of Peter Nielsen bring him relief?

“What would you do if you saw your children in a coffin?” - this question was once asked to journalists by the elder brother of Vitaly Kaloev, a man who became almost a folk hero of North Ossetia.

Plane crash over Lake Constance.

A person who avenged the death of loved ones is an extraordinary person. In the 90s, he headed the construction department in Vladikavkaz. Here, in his hometown, Kaloev on own funds built a temple - he believed: this must be done in order to protect children from harm. He got married in 1991. In the same year, a son, Konstantin, was born, and seven years later, a daughter, Diana, was born.

Kaloev became a father late - he took this issue very seriously. That’s why he first built a house, planted a tree, and then gave birth to a son. In July 2002, Vitaly Kaloev was in Spain. I completed a major construction project in Barcelona and was expecting a family. My wife Svetlana was unable to book tickets for a long time; she and her children spent three hours at the Moscow airport. And only in last minutes purchased last minute tickets for the ill-fated plane.

Kaloev was buying sweets for children in a supermarket at the moment when a Boeing cargo plane crashed into the fuselage of a Russian airliner. The plane, which was carrying 52 children, disintegrated in the air.

The crash site of the Tu-154M plane

Vitaly Kaloev speaks more modestly and harshly about personal achievements: “I think that I lived my life in vain: I could not save my family. What depended on me is the second question.”

Having learned about the plane crash, Kaloev bought a plane ticket to Uberlingen. The pain in the eyes of the strange Russian was so great that the German services allowed him to take part in the search work.

The first thing he found was his daughter's broken beads. Today, near the German town of Uberlingen, there stands a monument in the shape of a broken string of pearls. This is in memory of Diana Kaloeva and other passengers of the TU-154M.

“At ten in the morning I was at the scene of the tragedy,” Kaloev testifies. - I saw all these bodies - I froze in tetanus and could not move. A village near Uberlingen, the school had its headquarters there. And nearby, at an intersection, as it turned out later, my son fell. I still can’t forgive myself for driving nearby and not feeling anything, not recognizing him.”

“My instincts became sharper to the point that I began to understand what the Germans were talking about among themselves, without knowing the language. I wanted to participate in the search work - they tried to send me away, but it didn’t work. They gave us an area further away where there were no bodies. I found some things, plane wreckage. I understood then, and I understand now, that they were right. They really couldn’t gather the required number of policemen in time - who was there, they took away half of them: some fainted, some did something else.”

“I put my hands on the ground - I tried to understand where the soul remained: in this place, in the ground - or flew away to where. I moved my hands - some roughness. He began to take out the glass beads that were on her neck. I started collecting it and then showed it to people. Later, one architect made a common monument there - with a torn string of beads.”

Revenge

Vitaly Kaloev tried in vain to achieve justice. He repeatedly demanded explanations from employees of the Swiss company SkyGuide, but they only offered him financial compensation. With the help of private detectives, he found out the address of the person who was at the control panel that evening. Came to Zurich, found the right house, knocked on the door.

“I knocked. “Nilsen came out,” Kaloev told Komsomolskaya Pravda reporters in March 2005. “I first motioned for him to invite me into the house.” But he slammed the door. I called again and told him: Ich bin Russland. I remember these words from school. He said nothing. I took out photographs that showed the bodies of my children. I wanted him to look at them. But he pushed my hand away and sharply gestured for me to get out... Like a dog: get out. Well, I said nothing, I was offended. Even my eyes filled with tears. I extended my hand with the photographs to him for the second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped my hand and the photographs flew off. And it started from there.”

“He had more chances to survive than my children,” Kaloev later recalled. Perhaps everything would have been different if Nielsen had listened to him and asked for forgiveness... It was not difficult for the police to find the killer. Having inflicted 12 stab wounds on the Swiss, Kaloev returned to the hotel. He could have run away, but he didn't.

Later, Skyguide’s guilt in the plane crash was recognized by the court, and several of Nielsen’s colleagues received suspended sentences. Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years, but was released early in November 2008.

About Peter Nielsen’s family, where there are three children left, Vitaly said the following: “His children are growing up healthy, cheerful, his wife is happy with her children, his parents are happy with their grandchildren. Who should I be happy about?”

New life

In 2007, after a long trial and two years in prison, Vitaly Kaloev returned to North Ossetia, where he was greeted as a real hero. Soon he took the position of Deputy Minister of Architecture.

Now he will have more free time. He recently celebrated his sixtieth birthday and retired. For eight years he worked as Deputy Minister of Construction of North Ossetia. He was appointed to this post shortly after his early release from a Swiss prison.

During his administration, many beautiful buildings were erected in Vladikavkaz, for example, the TV tower on Lysaya Gora, with a cable car and an observation deck that rotates. The Caucasian Musical and Cultural Center includes an amphitheater and a school for talented children.

“Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev, whose fate is known on all continents globe, awarded the medal “For the Glory of Ossetia,” reports the website of the Ministry of Construction and Architecture of the republic. “On the day of his 60th birthday, he received this highest award from the hands of the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Boris Borisovich Dzhanaev.”

Now, most of all, Vitaly wants to be left alone: ​​“I want to live as a private person - that’s it, I don’t even go to work.” First, the heart: bypass surgery. Secondly, Vitaly got married in 2015, thirteen years after the tragedy.

His wife was Irina Dzarasova, who works as an engineer at Sevkavkazenergo OJSC. The wedding took place quietly and unnoticed in the circle of close people; according to Ossetian laws, the spouses did not go to the registry office.

The woman does not give interviews. But one of Vitaly Konstantinovich’s friends quoted Irina’s words: “Every day I love and respect Vitaly more and more.”

They live in a large and beautiful house, with stucco and architectural delights.

As for the tragedy that occurred in 2002, Kaloev did not forget about it. “Time does not heal. It is impossible to come to terms with the death of children,” says the Ossetian avenger.

"Unforgiven"

Not long ago, Sarik Andreasyan made a film based on the facts of the life of Vitaly Kaloev. The main role was played by the well-known Dmitry Nagiyev, who considers his work in this project to be the best in his creative career. In September 2018, this film opened a prestigious film festival in Germany.

Previously, there was an American version of “Consequences” with Arnold Schwarzenegger. After looking at this picture, Kaloev expressed his complaints about the hero’s actions. He didn’t like that he went everywhere and asked to be pitied. The man states that he did not ask, but demanded an investigation, a fair punishment and expected an apology.

Peace and happiness to him. He's a Man...

During the first weekend, the drama “Unforgiven” collected more than 150 million rubles and became the leader at the Russian box office. Sarik Andreasyan's film about the lynching of an architect North Caucasus with Dmitry Nagiyev in the title role, according to experts, won unprecedented sympathy from the viewer.

The film “Unforgiven” is intended to open up new facets of the talents of director Sarik Andreasyan and the leading actor Dmitry Nagiyev. However, such an image move turned out to be very dubious - the story on which the film was based is too complex and ambiguous. For Sarik Andreasyan, this is already the second (after “Earthquake” in 2016) drama about a real tragedy - an air accident over Lake Constance in 2002 and a simple architect Vitaly Kaloev, who lost his entire family in it.

The film shows the entire chain of events that led to the fatal ending: Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, due to negligence, missed the moment of dangerous approach of two planes, they collided, all passengers and crews died. Vitaly Kaloev, who was working under a contract in Spain at that time, was waiting for his family to visit, flying on one of these planes.

In 2004, Kaloev killed an air traffic controller, whom he considered the main culprit of the disaster - according to his admission, he just wanted to hear an apology from Nielsen, but was rudely ridiculed.

Kaloev was sentenced to 8 years in prison, but he was released early and returned to Russia in 2007, where he was greeted as a hero.

He was born on January 15, 1956 in the city of Vladikavkaz, formerly Ordzhonikidze. His father Konstantin Kambolatovich taught the Ossetian language at school, his mother Olga Gazbeevna worked as a teacher in kindergarten. Vitaly also had two brothers and three sisters, among them he is the youngest. At the same time, the parents were most proud of Vitaly, who adored reading since childhood. Already at the age of five, he read fluently and learned poetry by heart, and at school he got straight A's.

After graduating from school, Kaloev entered a construction technical school, then served in the army, entered the Institute of Architecture and Construction, then got a job in the construction department of Ossetia.

In 1991, he married Svetlana Gagievskaya, who worked as the director of the local branch of Sberbank.

Soon the couple had two children - son Kostya in 1991 and daughter Diana in 1998.

In a word, this was a friendly and very wealthy family by Ossetian standards: Vitaly headed the construction department of Vladikavkaz, Svetlana worked as deputy director for finance of the Daryal brewing plant, the son studied at the most prestigious school. Then the financial crisis of 1998 hit the country, and many local businesses declared bankruptcy. And then Vitaly Kaloev decided to find work abroad. In 1999, his construction department signed a contract with a Spanish company and he left to build residential buildings in Barcelona.

The family of Vitaly Kaloyev got on this flight by accident. In Moscow, Svetlana and her children had a transfer, but due to weather conditions they missed their flight and got stuck in Sheremetyevo. And after three hours of waiting, the dispatcher offered the Kaloyevs three free seats on board a Tu-154 charter flight of Bashkir Airlines, on which a group of teenagers flew to Spain - the best students of a UNESCO special school, winners of various Olympiads, who received free holiday packages on the coast Mediterranean Sea. There were several empty seats on board.

On the night of July 1, 2002, a Tu-154 collided in the air with a Boeing 747 aircraft of the international logistics company DHL, flying from Bahrain to Brussels - there were no passengers on board, only two experienced pilots. The disaster occurred near the small town of Iberlingen, near Lake Constance.

Colliding with a cargo plane, the Tu-154 broke into several parts in the air. They fell in the vicinity of the city of Uberlingen (federal state of Baden-Württemberg). The debris was scattered over a radius of 40 square kilometers. Rescuers searched for the bodies of the victims for a week, finding them in fields, next to buildings and on the side of roads.

The tragedy occurred a few minutes after German air traffic controllers transmitted the escort Russian plane colleagues from Switzerland, who were located at the SkyGuide air control center operating at Zurich-Kloten Airport.

One dispatcher, Pter Nelsen, was to blame for the tragedy, but the company was able to “excuse” its employee from punishment. Kaloev could not forgive - he came to Nilsen’s home and brutally stabbed him to death. He repeated at the trial that he just needed an apology...

Kaloyev was given 8 years in prison, but after two years he returned to his homeland, as he was released early for good behavior.

Kaloev returned to his homeland in North Ossetia, where he was appointed deputy minister of architecture and construction of the republic.

“Almost the whole prison knew me,” Vitaly Kaloev later recalled. - When I went for a walk, many people came up to me to say hello. But until I found out how and what, I didn’t shake hands with anyone: pedophiles and sexual rapists were sitting there too. I was afraid that I would shake hands with such a person, and then, I think, I wouldn’t wash my hand.”

It is Kaloev who has been overseeing all significant projects for the last 10 years, for example, the construction of a television tower on Lysaya Gora - with a rotating observation deck and a restaurant, just like in Moscow. Another project is the Caucasian Music and Cultural Center named after Valery Gergiev, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster.

In this post, he became a real people's intercessor - receptions on personal issues with Deputy Minister Kaloyev are scheduled for months in advance. They come to him with any questions: they need money for medicine, building materials for repairs, to arrange a high-tech operation for someone. They know that folk hero the republic will not refuse.

Kaloev’s phone is also ringing off the hook with calls from the colonies: prisoners all over the country believe that only an official who has served time will meet them halfway. Moreover, most often prisoners ask to resolve the issue of prison parcels or to open a prison kiosk where they can buy tea and cigarettes.

Two years ago, Kaloev retired. About 13 years after the plane crash, Vitaly Kaloev still decided to start a new family. His new wife's name is Irina. The wedding ceremony was exclusively Ossetian traditions. New family the architect does not hide it, but does not talk about it either, he protects it. The couple has no children.

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