Russia (bbabo.net), - At the All-Russian scientific conference "The Afghan War 1979-1989. Historical experience for Russia and the global world", which is held in Moscow by the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), a new book by Doctor of Historical Sciences was presented , military historian Vladimir Pryamitsyn "Problem number one. The Salang Pass in the history of the Afghan war."

Recall that the Salang pass was the key infrastructure artery of Afghanistan, linking together the north and south of the country, separated by the Hindu Kush mountain system. In 1950-60, Soviet engineers built a highway and a tunnel, which during the Afghan war became the most important line of communication for Soviet troops. Based on archival documents and memoirs of the participants, the author tells in detail the history of two feats: labor and combat.

According to Konstantin Pakhalyuk, Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Education of the RVIO, the topic of the armed conflict in Afghanistan is underestimated by historians and publishers. "At best, at the booth of some of the regional publishing houses you can find a lonely book that has absorbed the memories of local soldiers-internationalists," he said, presenting Pryamitsyn's work. Meanwhile, 600,000 Soviet citizens took part in the civil war on the territory of a neighboring country. Don't they really deserve to be written about professionally and with high quality? Military historian Vladimir Pryamitsyn answered this question with his research, in which for the first time in domestic and foreign historiography an attempt was made to comprehensively consider the history of the Salang Pass.

“In some cases, even separate chapters are devoted to the events that took place on the pass. But for all the significance of this area, there are no works devoted exclusively to it. For the first time, all facets of the history of Salang were published under one cover,” emphasizes Pakhalyuk. the events of 1979-1989, when the alignment of forces and the course of the armed struggle largely depended on the state of affairs in the crossing area. Actually, the authorship of the phrase "problem number one", which became the title of the book, belongs to the last commander of the 40th Army, General Boris Gromov.

The author conducted a series of interviews with direct participants in the events, including motorized riflemen, drivers, helicopter pilots, paratroopers, mountain shooters, translators and diplomats.

The book also contains a lot about how the withdrawal of Soviet troops through the pass took place: the historian described in detail how the hostilities and negotiations were conducted, as well as the events that took place in the area of ​​the high mountain pass after 1989.

An excerpt from Vladimir Pryamitsyn's book "Problem number one. The Salang Pass in the history of the Afghan war":

“Until the middle of the 20th century, there were no roads here, only narrow seasonal caravan trails passed through the pass. The measured pulse of Afghanistan beat in unison with the archaic way of its medieval life. beat more energetically, in time with large-scale reforms and construction projects that marked industrialization.

From 1979 to 1989, fighting between the armed opposition, Soviet and Afghan troops did not subside on Salanga. Here, multi-kilometer convoys with cargoes passed along the serpentine road, gigantic amounts of fuel were pumped through the pipes, people died in skirmishes and mines, suffocated in deadly traffic jams in the tunnel. The pulse of the country, torn apart by the contradictions of the civil war, pounded furiously. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the start of the "all against all" war, columns of refugees flooded the road, and the tunnel was blown up. The pulse of Afghanistan has become weak and rare, like that of a person suffering from a deep illness...

The pulse of Afghanistan is still beating on the mountain pass. The tunnel, which is collapsing from time, the constant threat of terrorist attacks, the flow of refugees, the transportation of narcotic drugs and the columns of uninvited foreign military personnel, indicate that the country has not fully recovered from the crisis phenomena of recent decades. Undoubtedly, Afghanistan with its wise people, deep history, vibrant culture and strong traditions deserves a steady healthy pulse, which will be observed in Salanga years later."

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