Author of quotes: Vladimir Ilyich Saratov

Every year on 16 August, gather your friends and commemorate the day better than the day of birth. Precisely, now I have two. And so will the rest of your life...

Of course, it's an artistic movie, something the authors have changed. Instead of seven crew members in the film, five... Yes, two hours of screen time will not tell the story of a year and thirteen days. But not distorted - and thanks for that.

In Kazan, I met a legendary pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union Mikhail Devyataevym, who in February 1945 had fled from a German concentration camp in a stolen them bombers "Heinkel-111". I visited the home of Mikhail Petrovich, he told me what books do not. Turns out, years later, two of the prisoners, which Devyataev saved, planted in the plane, claimed that they staged an escape. I guess life always is. Victory has many parents...

Arrived in Moscow on August 18, exactly on the Day of air fleet. As they say, a celebration. On the way announced that tomorrow's planned meeting with Yeltsin. I told the crew. The men in one voice: he left us in captivity, are not going. Estimate: if you rudely refuse, Boris is probably enraged for evermore, and a cool guy. Went to Vitaly Ignatenko, the head of TASS, which flew over us in the Emirates. Explain: hunting hurry to get home, to the families - wives and children. Unbearable to endure, missed you! Everything was true, but deep down I was hoping the President would forget about some of the pilots. Immediately not was found - and okay. So, in principle, and left.

I had already decided for more stealth to escape to the West, to Iran, not North into Russia, and go on extremely low altitudes, below radar not detected. Did so. Flew 50-70 meters above the ground.

Present edifice, which is in turn at the speed of one hundred and thirty kilometers and flying at half-mast wheels? Could easily break the chassis! Thanks to the designers and engineers made a reliable aircraft. Survived!

Eminov, radio operator, contacted the tower, vigilance put to sleep. Like, I want to make a control circle on the strip. He did not respond, apparently, the Manager also Allah talked. Great! You pray, and off we went.

Even if you don't take off, it is better to break than in this hell to sit.

Go back to the platform, we saw that the tire blew out. Apparently, caught on a splinter of shell or bomb. Like a plane with us in collusion entered. We got a real opportunity again to ask the airport to put the spare on. Chance introduced on 16 August. It was Friday, the day Muslims when they, as we joked, only "I talibanise": ate, prayed, slept, Yes.

They rule on, past the Parking lot of fighters. Figured in mind: while the pilot runs from the barracks Yes to get the jet ready... We will go on a high-speed taxiing, and he needs a hook to make the runway. Ten or fifteen minutes the advantages we have. The MiG-21 speed of the order of hundred kilometers per hour. So, to catch up with the Il-76 it will twenty minutes after five, but the amount of fuel in the fighter - forty, not enough to return to base... So the Moment we are not afraid.

Who really tried to get us is the President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev. Sent different negotiators, once almost agreed on the release, but at the last minute everything fell through. Offered to swap us Trucks, helicopters, aircraft parts, even the ransom money collected - more than two million dollars in cash... But the Taliban have stuffed the price we for them were a trump card. Who of them knew before? And so the world heard that in Afghanistan there is a movement of former students, graduates of madrassas.

We went to look, as animals in a zoo. Gather mullahs who will sit and stare. Like we are not human. Sometimes the security provocations have been staged. Someone from the Taliban accidentally "forgot" a gun in a place where we could reach. But I ordered the men not to touch. With a "Kalash" this gang won't shoot, and we simply would put to the wall for attempted mutiny.

I remember sitting in the courtyard, a game play, a time to kill. The guard watches with a flat roof. Local suddenly saw someone a card with a lady. And the one with bare shoulders, in an open dress... the Taliban in the cry: "Arab! Bad! No!" We do not pay attention. You will not have the lady of the veil to paint!

Usually people learn geography from textbooks, Yes, and I was able the scale to assess the Motherland. Flying, for example, from Anadyr on the Northern route. A thousand kilometers passed, two, and at the bottom - endless spaces, where no foot of man... But at night Europe look like a carpet spread out electric. A bit crowded over there!