Nodar Dumbadze in his immortal film "I, Grandma, Iliko and Illarion" has an episode that is difficult to read without tears. An elderly woman living in a God-forsaken mountain village knits warm wool socks all night long. She takes her wool from an old feather bed - there's nowhere else to go. And in the morning, socks will be a gift to a Red Army soldier: a load of goodies is collected from the village for the front... How can we not remember this in Chechnya today? The citizens of our country have not demonstrated such mass patriotism and unanimous support for the Armed Forces as during the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus for a long time. Probably since the Great Patriotic War. In 1999, Dagestani residents were the first to show examples of mercy and generosity to their armed defenders. Especially in those areas where there were battles with Chechen extremists and their local Wahhabi henchmen. Sometimes here the women quietly pushed the soldiers 'cooks away from the field kitchens, took their places and significantly improved the soldiers' diet at the expense of their own products: young mutton is much tastier than even the best canned army food... There were cases when commanders literally begged local residents not to interfere with the progress of the columns, but the obstacle was not concrete barricades, as in Ingushetia in 1994, but crowds of people greeting the soldiers with flowers and fruit. About a year ago, one of us happened to witness such a scene. Together with the military commissar of Dagestan, Major General M. Tinamagomedov (now a lieutenant general), we were returning from the village of Ansalti to the helipad. At one of the corners, the UAZ truck passed a group of girls hurrying somewhere with huge armfuls of flowers. Where-it became clear when they drove up to the tail of the BMP column that stopped at the roadside. Local residents distributed apples, cookies, and cigarettes to the motorized riflemen... The example of Dages ... Читать далее