“I am happy that I studied in the USSR”

“In 1992, the Mujahideen, who took power, quarreled and began to divide Kabul, then they smashed my house with shells,” Zarar Azhar recalls. “I later rebuilt the house, bought new furniture, but I am very sorry that the Diplomatic Dictionary edited by Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko burned down.”

The name, patronymic and surname of the head of the Foreign Ministry of the Soviet Union, the teacher of diplomatic and consular law of the law faculty of Kabul University, pronounces with respectful lowering of his voice, with sincere reverence.

“The remarkable was a three-volume book on the history of diplomacy and foreign policy, there was a lot of useful information about international congresses, meetings, treaties, declarations, and great diplomats from different countries,” continues Zarar Azhar. - The book would be very useful today for my students, because Western textbooks are just comic books. I am happy that Allah showed mercy and allowed me to get an education in Moscow. ”

“We’ve got a translator on the translator - everyone remembers Russian”

At the end of April 2019, a meeting of Afghan graduates of the Peoples Friendship University of Russia took place at the Russian Center for Science and Culture (RCSC) in Kabul.

People of different ages and social situations gathered: diplomats 'tuxedos coexisted with pyrohan-tumbons (Afghans' national dress) and turban of chiefs of Pashtun tribes, generals and businessmen, doctors and teachers, deputies of parliament and engineers were walking along the red carpet.

“The ceremonial speeches were made in Russian and duplicated in Farsi, but they interpreted the translator and silenced everyone gathered in the large hall of the RCSC well remember the language in which they received education,” says RT organizer, Chairman of the Association for the Promotion and Development of Young People of Afghanistan Tamim Ehlas.

  • Memorial sign in the RCSC
  • © RT / Alexander Khokhlov

PFUR graduates from different parts of the country came to Kabul - from Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Ghazni. In addition, residents of Pakistan, India and Iran arrived.

“Afghans remember the good,” said Vyacheslav Nekrasov, head of the Russian Center for Science and Culture. “In this they are close to us mentally.”

“My father was an officer of the KhAD (State Security Service in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. - RT) ,” says the young Afghan businessman Anil Peshrou. - After the Mujahideen overthrew the pro-Soviet regime of Najibullah, he did not want to leave his native country. Our family hid for a long time with relatives in Mazar-i-Sharif. Father friends offered to make a call to Canada or the UK. He refused - a real communist! When the Taliban * seized power after the Mujahideen, there was an immediate threat to life for all of us. We were able to go to Russia - the only country that my father trusted. ”

In Russia in the late 1990s, Afghan refugees were not expected - there were enough of their problems. But the natives of Afghanistan who have not been spoiled with luxury, where the war has been going on for a long time, take root on any soil. The very young Anil took up the trade in cigarettes and then in oil products.

“It was difficult, but it was understandable - in relationships with people, in business,” he says. - And then our family moved to Europe, Denmark. The younger sister went to kindergarten. In the mornings we had such a ritual with her: I woke up and asked my sister to bring me a glass of water. She brought, and I kissed her for it. One morning she did not respond to my voice. Look: looking out the door. I ask: “Why do not you go to me?” She replies that she does not have to obey anyone. "Parents too?" - I ask. “Yes,” says the sister. “Dad and mom, while making me, enjoyed myself, and I have no obligation to them.” Then I simply became brutalized by the “tolerance” that a four-year-old girl was taught in kindergarten! But he restrained himself and told his little sister that for such thoughts she would go to hell. She was no longer given to the kindergarten, and I returned to Russia. ”

  • PFUR Alumni Meeting in Kabul
  • © Rossotrudnichestvo

Anila's sister has already grown up, married, raises her children. She and her brother remember that situation with laughter. Peshrou himself received Russian citizenship, today he does business in two countries - Russia and Afghanistan.

“I am for traditional human values,” he says. - Our countries, my dear and my "reception", are in favor of their preservation. Easy life we ​​do not call, but it is not hell. Hell will soon come in the West. ”

The fate of the pechengoh

Abdul Abdullah was a peshengoh, an Afghan pioneer. In the 1980s, he and a large group of children from Afghanistan studied for several years in Soviet boarding schools.

“First in Volgograd, then in Voronezh,” he recalls. - We were well taught and fed, we went to theaters and cinema. Probably, of us they wanted to make the future leaders of Afghanistan, who would stand for the eternal friendship with your country. ”

Among the Afghan children were orphans and children of high-ranking military pro-Soviet regime. Abdul Abdullah’s father was an army colonel, commander of a unit that fought with the Mujahideen.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, we were not needed by anyone,” says an Afghan. - Besides, we grew up. We had good Russian teachers and educators, they felt sorry for us, but could not do anything. We all cried, parting - both we and them. ”

Abdul Abdullah went to Moscow. The Afghan community did not allow yesterday's Peshengoha to die of hunger, the young man worked on petty trade, took up any business. Then he was informed about the death of his father.

“He was hiding from enemies, with whom he had fought in open battle, even went under a false name to Pakistan,” said Abdul Abdullah. - But he was found and avenged. I am the eldest son in the family, I had to go back to my mother and sisters. ”

He was dissuaded, but he still went home. There was enough money to Dushanbe. I got to the border with Afghanistan on the bar, but it could not be crossed. At the border crossing I met a fellow Kabul, together we went to Turkmenistan. There, according to rumors, Afghans were allowed to cross the border.

And indeed, they managed to get to Afghanistan. They explained to them in their native land that the other day the northern areas of the country had been seized by the Taliban - and now they can easily cut off their heads for the very fact of studying in the USSR.

“We with the Kabul guy rushed back to the border, but the Turkmen border guards did not let us back, they even threw stones at them, driving us away,” recalls Abdullah. - And we went. On the way, I trained to do namaz. I grew up as a Soviet, Russian child, and I had not been taught this before. ”

  • Peshengoh Abdullah
  • © RT / Alexander Khokhlov

The path of the pechengoha to Kabul is a finished plot for the film. Abdul walked on foot, hungry. They parted ways with a friend, and he was all alone. The Taliban beat him with sticks for lack of a beard. Yet the young man was able to get to Kabul and find his family. Then there were many difficult years in the homeland, where the bloody war continues all this time.

“The best days of my life have passed in Russia,” sighs Abdul Abdullah. - Probably, there will be no more.

Abdul wonders why people from Central Asia can freely live and work in Russia, and people from Afghanistan, so loyal to Moscow, have no chance to move to Russia. According to him, it is extremely difficult for an Afghan to get a Russian passport.

“Take us, those who love your country, to yourself,” he says. - Let the Russian KhAD to the last cell of the body check us and our children, whom we also taught to love Russia. There is not a single gene for treason, enmity, radicalism. Russian or not - it is not determined by blood. Pushkin - he was not entirely Russian, but became the great poet of Russia. ”

"Russian Syndrome" Dr. Vardak

Most Afghans who studied in the Soviet Union are nostalgic for the times of the USSR. But even today, Afghans continue to receive education in Russia. Young people are more pragmatic - they value first-class knowledge that can be obtained in the Russian Federation.

One of the best medical institutions in Kabul and throughout Afghanistan is the private clinic of Dr. Wardak.

“People come to us from all over the country and even, despite the dangers, from abroad - from Pakistan, Iran, the countries of Southeast Asia,” says Ajmal Wardak. - I brought the most modern equipment to Kabul. MRI, CT - at the level of the best hospitals in the world. The first in the country, we began to install prostheses of the knee and hip joints, conduct high-tech operations of the most complex properties. My father would be pleased with the development of medical practice in the clinic. ”

Ajmal is the heir and successor of the life of Musa Vardak. In Afghanistan, the gold medalist of the Leningrad Military Medical Academy is considered the best doctor in the history of the country. He worked with all authorities, and none of them dared to interfere with him, because his skill in field surgery in a country where there is constant war, is necessary for all regimes.

“The father did not divide people into Communists, Taliban and Mujahideen, into Pashtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras, into rich and poor. He saved human lives and, operating until his last days, he saved thousands of people, says Ajmal. - And my older brother and he sent me to study in Russia. “There,” he said, “and only there you will be able to learn surgery and orthopedics.”

In 2010, Ajmal Wardak graduated from the Moscow University's Faculty of Medicine at the Medina Faculty of Medicine, residency at Novosibirsk Med, postgraduate studies at Tver State Medical University. Now on business he often happens in Moscow and other cities of Russia.

Three years ago, his father passed away, the management of the clinic passed to Ajmal. Before his death, his father bequeathed to his son: "Do not take money from Russian."

“People from the embassy and the Russian Center for Science and Culture who visit the clinic are surprised that it becomes inconvenient for them, but I firmly fulfill my father's testament,” says Ajmal. - Musa Wardak throughout his life felt gratitude to those who taught him at the Military Medical Academy. And I am grateful to my Russian mentors, especially to Professor Vladislav Yakovlevich Kiselyov from Tver. I, as I call it, have a persistent “Russian syndrome” and this is not treated. ”

* “Taliban” - an organization recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.