What is the fighting, the Serb Dejan Berich first learned from his experience in 1992 during the war in Yugoslavia. In 1999, he survived the bombing of the country by the armed forces of NATO states. After the war, he took up the construction business, and as a hobby - sport fishing. He ended up in Sochi at work: he installed windows and doors in the Olympic Village. There, comrades who volunteered for war in Yugoslavia contacted him. The next four years, Dejan, under the callsign Deck, spent in the DPR.
With the money earned in Sochi, he helped buy an armored personnel carrier, subsequently, while there were funds, he supplied equipment for other volunteers, carried out combat missions, for which he was presented for awards, and was once captured. He led an active social life, often gave interviews, wrote on social networks. An American director of Russian descent, Olga Shekhter, shot the documentary “The Sniper War” about him. In 2017, by order of the then head of the republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, Berich received a DNR passport.
In 2018, Deca was injured and shell shock. He could not return to Serbia and see his ex-wife and son, otherwise he would have been sentenced for mercenaries. Dejan decided to move to Russia and settle in a village near Moscow. He married a citizen of Belarus, built a house and is now engaged in agriculture. But the war sniper still recalls.
“Serbia is in my heart”
- How is it that you can no longer come to Serbia?
- In 2014, the Ministry of Defense of the DPR issued an order that I was presented for awards. After that, my friend, the politician Dragan Trifkovic, called me and told me that the NATO representative in Serbia saw this order and asked the president of my home country to pass a law prohibiting us volunteers from fighting for the people of Donbass.
Then I still had the opportunity to return home: in September, Alexander Zakharchenko let me go to Serbia for 10-12 days. This was the last time I was at home.
Then a law was passed, according to which the citizens of Serbia can fight with other states only if they were sent by the government itself. I, therefore, violate this law.
- How did you survive the break with your homeland?
- Very hard. Losing life is not scary, becoming an invalid is a little worse, but there is nothing worse than being left without a homeland. Many times they called me from the Serbian security service, offered to return, they said they would forgive me. Why forgive me? For the fact that I came to repay the debt to the Russian people, who in the same way came to help the Serbs in 1999? It is better to abandon the Motherland than from your ideas and from what you believe in. And I believe that Serbs do not have life without Russians. I hope that in 10-15 years this law will be changed and I can come there again.
I will always love Serbia, it is in my heart. I’m probably subjective since I was born there, but in Serbia the best water, food, my friends that I miss. Sometimes I pick up the smell of the river canal where I used to fish, or the smell of the field through which I often went.
They ask me if I have nightmares about the war? No, I have a waking nightmare - I can no longer see my homeland.
- © Photo from the personal archive
"I hate war"
- How did you have the strength to give up everything and leave your native country ?
- It seems to me that this is not connected with force at all, it is connected with conscience. When all of Serbia was abandoned, only the Russians remained with us. And how would I look at myself in the mirror, refuse and not go to the Crimea in 2014? Yes, then I had a good salary when I worked in Sochi, but I would be a coward if I refused.
- You were and probably remain a public person. Is this a conscious position?
- I did not want to be public, this is a necessary step. But this has its pros and cons. For example, the Serbian police constantly came to the house of my ex-wife and son - with weapons, as if to criminals! Despite the fact that I divorced my wife, the house was recorded on her and his son, in general, there was no reason to mock my family.
I was then captured, but when they bought me out, I made a statement to the Serbs through the media. He said that I was in the Donbass, and if they needed something from me, then let them come here and not interrogate my family. It worked - from the wife and son behind.
Another example: sometimes Ukrainian snipers contacted me through social networks and tried to provoke me so that I would go to the front lines nervous. They wrote, called for some duel. But I studied their behavior, and this helped me in my work. I shared this experience with my sniper guys, who are also fighting in the Donbass now.
- What should happen for you to go to fight again?
- This will happen in case of the attack of the Ukrainian army. Now, when heavy shelling began in Lugansk, I had already packed my things. If the aggravation is serious enough, I'll get in the car and drive. It may be amazing to hear, but I hate war.
“ When was the last time you held a weapon in your hands?”
- In September 2019, when I came to Donbass. I went with the young guys to the training ground and taught them, told and showed how to work.
- How did the war change you?
- When there was a civil war in 1999, I was young and did not understand many things. The war in Yugoslavia was much tougher than in the Donbass. But it was the last war that was emotionally more difficult for me. Then I already understood what was going on, what it was like to lose everything you have. I met a lot of smart people - military, correspondents - I learned a lot. I became better than I was before 2014.
House in the village
- Tell us, what did you do after your injury ?
- He moved to a village near Moscow, took a loan, built a large house. I have long wanted to do farming, and now my dream has come true. I have goats, chickens, and I also make cheese. But we are just learning, and in order to be able to sell it, you need to draw up documents.
Because of the situation with coronavirus, neither I nor my wife worked for three months. I’m a manager in an online fish bait shop, but due to quarantine sales have fallen. My wife is a manicure and pedicure master in the salon, I only went to work a few days ago. A small percentage came from the sale of my books, but for the last three months it has not been possible to send them from Moscow. I had to borrow from friends, thank them for their trust. Until the New Year, I hope we will repay all debts, we will work hard. Especially now the situation is improving.
“The sniper is in the past, now the farmer.” Is there any discord here?
“I'm just a man.” In the DPR, I did not come to build a military or political career. I am a military man, not by definition, but out of need, and I came to help the Russian people at a difficult moment. As once you helped us. I’m peace-loving, but if you want peace, sometimes you need to fight. So it just seems that there is a dissonance.
- Do you do journalism?
“Yes, but without fees.” It’s just my desire to try and the opportunity to express my opinion, talk about politics, about the future and about the past. I am more a public figure, not a journalist. I had my own program on PolitRussia, it will continue to continue, just as long as I don’t have time for it, since I was engaged in building a house and farming. In addition, I write in social networks about the Donbass, about Russia and politics, especially about what is happening in Serbia. On military platforms, I also write about the Russian and Serbian army, about NATO.
“ What about your books?” Are you writing anything now?
- I wrote a book about the Donbass, but I decided that it was not time to publish it. There are people whom I consider heroes, and there are those who have nothing to be proud of. The war is not over yet, and publishing this book would be a betrayal. As a result, I destroyed the materials of this book. My wife scolded me very much for this.
I also write two books. The first - about the Crimea, called "impolite people." It is about ordinary people, about the self-defense of Sevastopol. When I arrived there in 2014, I saw a lot of things from what no one had ever said.
The second book is a novel about the former Yugoslavia, about what brought it to war in 1991. About a family where three sons grew up, who were taught different stories. One was raised by a Croatian mother, the other by a Serb father, the third by a Muslim grandfather from Bosnia. The idea is that they were prompted to go to war in different countries and fight against each other. The book is hard, but I will try to finish it before the end of next year.
“ Son likes in Russia ”
- Tell us about your wife. How did you meet?
- My wife's name is Lena, she is a Belarusian. But for us in Serbia, the entire former USSR is Russian. We met her on a dating site, I saw her photo, I liked her. They began to correspond, and then they wounded me and I came to Moscow for treatment. There we met.
Lena is a very kind person, and I am rather mischievous, and she suffers me like that. I often can’t sleep at night because of pain in the joints, bones, and she is sitting next to me, trying to help me. The ability to take care of this is peculiar only to Russian women.
Previously, his wife worked in Moscow in a prestigious beauty salon and received a good salary. Once I told her about my desire to leave for the village, and Lena agreed. Willingness to go with me anywhere is proof of love. And so it happened, we live in a village.
- How was your wedding and honeymoon?
- Everything happened on the contrary with us: first a honeymoon, and then a wedding. The fact is that I was badly injured, plus I had a shell shock. My treatment lasted a month: surgery, then recovery. I was advised to go to the mountains to get some air. And Lena and I went to Abkhazia on our honeymoon.
- © Photo from the personal archive
Then we got married in Moscow. Submitting an application to the registry office is still a problem for us: I have a DNR passport, and Lena has Belarus. I can get simplified Russian citizenship only if I have a passport of the Donetsk or Lugansk People's Republics and a passport of Ukraine. But as soon as we solve the issue with the documents, we will immediately sign it.
- Are you planning children?
- We did not talk about it. If it happens, it’s good. Lena has a 16-year-old daughter, and my son is 21 years old - soon we will have to take care of our grandchildren!
I’m still worried about my state of health, sometimes the pains are just terrible, and I don’t want to shift all the worries to Lena. I have a bullet wound in the stomach, chest, shoulder, leg fragmentation grenade. Eight shell shocks, two of them heavy. The biggest problem is the back. Sometimes it’s enough that I can’t move. From a concussion, I constantly have tinnitus.
But I have no right to complain. Many of my friends after the war were left without arms or legs. That's hard for anyone.
“ What about your son Miki?” Miss him?
- Of course I miss. He studies at the faculty of IT technologies, comes to me in Russia, he really likes it here - especially Russian girls. We are constantly in touch with him, we talk a lot on Skype. He has a desire to come here after graduation and to serve in the Russian army. But while there is no way, I need to get citizenship.
- In Russia, do you feel at home?
- Absolutely. I fell in love with Russia, even when I had never been here. Firstly, I read a lot of Russian literature. And secondly, my grandfathers instilled in me a love of Russia. Both were partisans, one fought along with the Red Army and liberated Belgrade. They told me a lot about the war, about the Russian people. It often seems to me that I know the history of Russia even better than some Russian people.