There is a lot of absurdity in the memory of the perished. This is not the case. Part 1

“God take away the best”, “heroes don’t die, enemies die”, “for personal courage and heroism”, “for high patriotism and unprecedented loyalty to oath”…

It is nonsense. Absurd nonsense. Empty, absurd phrases without any soul. As if patriotism could be low, courage – public, and loyalty – mediocre.

All people die with time, heroes and non-heroes, and enemies, and friends. And they perish in, the war, representatives of all these categories, without exception.

Only God knows why it happens to some particular people. And even if God does it according to some principle, definitely, it is not as an encouragement.

It is a pity that our memory of perished guys consists of such absurd clichés.

Vitya Katanov was the first perished military of the 3d howitzer battery of the 55th artillery brigade. He perished in our first battle on August 25, 2014, early in the morning, after Independence Day.
Our battery stayed in the ATO zone for about a year. We were severely shelled by the enemy a lot of times. Fortunately, all the guys remained alive. Vitya was the first and the only one who died in the war in the East of Ukraine.

Does the very fact of death make people courageous patriots? Maybe, not.

Was Vitya Katanov a courageous patriot? Definitely, yes. Not because he perished in the first battle, but because he came and fought together with the battery.

To go to the army or not to go to the army if you have got the summons? To be more precise, do you want to go or do not want to go? In the beginning, Vitya did not know.


He was puny, thin, and shy. On the one hand, he wanted to escape from the life routine. He did not have a family; he did not have even real friends, only his work and the work of his mom.

By the way, it was his mom who found a job for him – gas welder at Zaporizhzhya Motor-Car Factory.
Vitya’s mom had worked there too. Then she worked as a yardwoman. Vitya was ashamed of his mom’s work, but he was never ashamed to help her. When at school, after lessons, then after work, he helped his mom to take dry leaves away in autumn, snow in winter, and dirt and garbage the whole year.

They lived together in a tiny room in a communal flat under the roof.

Vitya’s hobby was music and radio electronics. After two works he used to climb on the sofa and listened to music from a very old music center. Here he escaped from his problems. It was his world, without humiliating questions of his classmates, “That garbage pile do you take your clothes from?” There were no stinging ridicule and fleers of the neighbours and relatives here; only him, music, and his mom.

At the same time, he was not a mother’s darling.

Vitya wanted to prove that. Because of that he went to the compulsory service in the army. However, the other soldiers who served with him somehow understood that he was  hard-working, calm, and unquestioning. So, he was humiliated again, by veterans and even recruits.

That is why Vitya did not know whether to go to the army for the second time.

His mom joked, “Go; you will come back with orders and medals, and all girls will be yours!”

Maybe, this argument was the decisive one.

We saw him on a bed, in the barracks, on July 31, 2014. He had a pleasant open face with a modest smile. He looked at those who he was to serve and fight together with. What to expect?

The beds around him were occupied by volunteers. There were a lot of them in the 3d howitzer battery.

Almost all of them were older that Vitya who was 32 in March.

They were calm and reasonable. There were common topics and interests. At first, shyly, then with more confidence, Vitya joined them.

In some days the battery was sent to the firing field, where the militaries mastered the basics of artillery.

They thought that the main thing in artillery was the skill to set up tents as the improvement of the camp lasted non-stop for two weeks. Only once they were distracted from the work and had a chance to fire from automatic machine guns, and once they went to the artillery polygon. All in all, each serviceman fired 12 cartridges, and each gun-crew shot 5 shells before going to the ATO.

The shooting considerably distracted us from setting up tents which we were pros in. If separatists had wanted to compete in setting up tents, they would have definitely loose.

Hennadiy Kharchenko, artillerist of the 55th brigade, volunteer of Charity Fund “Sestry Pobedy” (“Victory Sisters”) UP

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