Hello my dear, beloved Natasha. I'm sending you big greetings, as it turns out I will be celebrating the 1995 New Year in unexpected circumstances. I have now been in the mountains 12 kilometers from Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, for three weeks already. As it turned out, I didn't have time to tell you or my family before I got here. In short, they only sent me and one other guy from the division where I was serving, and all the others stayed in Volgograd. That's the way it goes. When we got to the border of Chechnya, everything became suddenly clear. Everything they say on TV and write in the newpapers is all bullshit. There's a lot they don't know.

Vitya is somewhere here too, but I don't know where. The last time I saw him was when we left Volgograd. I'm not going to write to my parents, as I can only imagine what would happen if they knew. Don't pay any attention to my bad handwriting -- our conditions here are not exactly the best. We sleep on the ground, and there's no light, so I've got to write sitting up on the wood pile.

I've been through four battles, and the scene is terrible. We have had 16 wounded and 4 killed. One officer had his leg blown off. In short, life is not exactly calm here. We wear our bullet-proof jackets and keep our machine guns close even when we sleep, because at any moment there could be "jazz" -- an attack. I saw those two guys who served with Andrei Yakovlenkov, they got sent here too.

I'm not going to write to mother yet, and won't be able to send many letters in general. This letter is going with the first delivery out of here, and I don't know if it will get to you or not, since we have been surrounded for two days. The worst of all is when they start to shoot, they even shoot innocent people. The war here is taking its own course. The Chechens have hired Turkish fighters, who are professionals at this. We shot at them the night before last, there's about 40 of them hidden behind a ravine. Then they started to shoot at us, but we repelled the attack. They usually attack at night, which is convenient for them as they know the mountains well.

So that's the situation. Write for now to the old address, where I was serving. Happy New Year to you! And I wish you all the best. Goodbye. I will always love you!

Zhenek