In the village of Satino-Russkoe there is a cross on the grave of a soldier who died at the hands of Chechen thugs. The inscription is engraved on the cross: “Here lies the Russian soldier Yevgeny Rodionov, who defended the Fatherland and did not renounce Christ, executed near Bamut on May 23, 1996.” The death of the 19-year-old boy was a strong blow for his parents. The death of Alexander Konstantinovich’s father, who was unable to survive the blow, took him four years after the death of his son. The death of dear people also destroyed the life of the mother.
Lyubov Vasilievna Rodionova, who had been searching for a long time for her son, who was initially declared a deserter, paid the killers of her boy only to be shown the burial place. Having lost her health because she was severely beaten, the mother nevertheless found and dug up Eugene’s headless body in order to bury him in his homeland according to Christian customs. Then she returned again and searched for a long time for her son’s skull, which the bandits split into pieces, fearing the persecution of the soul of the murdered man. Zhenya was torn to pieces on his birthday for refusing to take off his pectoral cross and accept the faith of Islam.
Evgeny Rodionov was born on May 23, 1977 in the family of a simple carpenter. Woodworking was a common profession in the area. Evgenia's mother Lyubov Vasilievna also worked at a furniture factory as a technologist. According to her stories, on her son’s birthday, a star fell from the sky, and her heart sank in anticipation of trouble. Perhaps this was only the result of the exhausting process of childbirth, but Lyubov Rodionova herself connects the feeling with the tragic fate of the boy. In his adolescence, Evgeniy loved to go to the forest and enjoy the beauty of living nature; he was interested in the laws of this world, its harmony. The boy did not walk for a long time, and he was baptized, after which his legs became stronger, and Evgeniy took his first steps. Nine years of secondary school, then work at the same furniture factory and driver courses - this is the short biography of the martyr warrior. Rodionov joined the army at the age of 18, he was ready to fulfill his duty with honor.
Rodionov was sent to the Nazran detachment in the second motorized maneuver group of the 479th special purpose detachment of the Red Banner Border Directorate of the FSB of the Russian Federation. It was one of the hottest spots on the border of the Chechen Republic and Ingushetia. Rodionov was enlisted in the detachment as a grenade launcher.
Having arrived at the border post, Andrei Trusov, Igor Yakovlev, Evgeniy Rodionov and Alexander Zheleznov had no idea what awaited them in the near future. How the storming of the checkpoint took place is unknown, but bloody traces found at the battle site indicate that the guys resisted. One hundred days of terrible captivity, inhuman torture and humiliation became the last days of the Russian border guards. Rodionov turned out to be the youngest of them. According to some reports, an ambulance arrived at the checkpoint, and cries for help were even heard, but no one raised the alarm and four border guards disappeared without a trace. Today it is known that field commander Ruslan Khaikhoroev was in the car with bandits.
No search was carried out for the prisoners. Many articles have already been written about this dishonest behavior of the Russian command. Today, shocking data is known about how defenseless mothers tried to find their sons, and the Russian authorities hushed up the facts of criminal abuse of them. A huge number of grief-stricken women never returned home, torn to pieces by bandits.
The task of our army, voiced by Lieutenant General Tikhomirov, was to restore full control of Russian troops over a large number of Chechen settlements and the final destruction of armed gangs. However, the war tactics of the mountaineers were very different from the usual. There were no open battles of large forces here; the militants skillfully hid among the civilian population and systematically carried out forays. Russian troops were forced to split into many small checkpoints, consisting of several people each, and maintain a 24-hour guard to avoid attack. The militants themselves called themselves wolves, and preferred to act under the cover of darkness.
The unfortunate people were kept in an unheated, dilapidated house, deprived of water and food, and regularly beaten and humiliated. The practice of the militants included training abuses of young Chechen boys over captured Russians. Rodionov and his comrades were forced to write letters asking for ransom to their homeland, but none of them could pay the large sums that were required. All the prisoners were from low-income families. The torture ended on Rodionov’s birthday, he turned 19 years old. Khaikhoroev invited the exhausted boys to convert to Islam and continue to fight on the side of the militants. All the prisoners refused. Evgeniy did not remove his pectoral cross, as the killers demanded, and as a result he was beaten and then his head was cut off. Mockery of the corpses of young Russian fighters was widespread in the Chechen camp, so the mother was able to identify her son only by the cross.
At first, Evgeniy was declared a deserter, but then they still recognized his being in captivity. The guys waited until the last day for help, but no one was going to look for them. There was no system for searching for prisoners and dead; the state did not take care of this even after the end of hostilities. The mother went in search of her son, since the father would have been immediately killed in the Chechen villages. However, Lyubov Vasilievna also survived terrible bullying. Once she was beaten so severely that her spine was broken; only incredible fortitude allowed her to survive and find Rodionov’s remains.
The victim of the four young guys was avenged, the place where they were tortured and killed was wiped off the face of the earth by the Russian troops who came here again, not a single one of the thugs escaped from retribution. Lyubov Vasilievna annually comes to the unit where her son began his service and addresses the recruits. She wishes them responsible commanders, not the ones who betrayed Rodionov.
An icon depicting Yevgeny Rodionov during a religious procession at the White House in October 2003
Today we honor the memory of the fallen border guards Andrei Trusov, Igor Yakovlev, Evgeniy Rodionov and Alexander Zheleznov.
Evgeniy was awarded the Orders of Glory and Courage, the Orthodox Church canonized Rodionov as a martyr warrior. According to the stories of the clergy, the image of Eugene flows myrrh, believers turn to him, for which Archpriest Sidorov compiled the texts of prayers. Three churches were founded in honor of the martyr. The school where Zhenya Rodionov studied was named after him in 2009. The following year, a monument “Candle of Memory” was erected in the courtyard of this school. Documentary films and plays have been written about Evgeniy and his comrades. The memory of ordinary Russian children who accepted martyrdom for the Orthodox Faith will forever remain in our hearts.
Material overview
I'm a Russian soldier!
And I will not remove the cross...
And don't give me the Koran!
I won't take it...
There's no point in living after that
If you sell your faith...
It's obvious to me
To die for Christ...
Introduction
Just recently I was driving in the car with my dad, and he turned on a music CD by Alexander Marshall on the radio. He, my dad, generally really loves the work of this musician, so I went and listened to the songs with him.
At some point, the composition “The Ballad of Evgeniy Rodionov” began to play, and after listening to the whole song, I asked my father: “What is the song about? Who is he, Holy Warrior Eugene? To this, my dad told me a short story about Evgeny Rodionov. I was so shocked and surprised that I decided to find out more about this man.
At school, I asked my classmates: “What do you know about Evgeniy Rodionov?”, but the guys themselves did not know anything about this man.
Then I decided to independently find material about this hero, so that I could later talk about the feat of the Russian soldier.
The object of the study is information about the heroic act of Evgeniy Rodionov.
The subject of the research is the biography of Evgeniy Rodionov
Hypothesis - Evgeny Rodionov’s act can be considered heroic
I set myself a goal - to show, using the example of the personality of Yevgeny Rodionov, what it means to be a true Son of the Fatherland, a patriot, a hero.
To achieve this goal, I set the following tasks:
Studying the biography of Evgeny Rodionov
Showing an example of the heroic deed of a contemporary;
Research methods:
1. Literature analysis
2. Survey
3. Generalization of the material
The theoretical significance of my work lies in the fact that many schoolchildren will probably pay attention to my research and draw certain conclusions.
The practical significance of my research work lies in the fact that it can be used for conversations with students in classes and events dedicated to defenders of the Fatherland.
1. Biography of Evgeny Rodionov
Evgeny Rodionov was born on May 23, 1977 in the village of Chibirley, Kuznetsk district, Penza region.
For more than a year, Evgeniy wasHe was baptized, but did not wear a cross, and only in 1988 did his grandmother take Evgeniy to church, where he was given a cross. Although Evgeniy’s mother had a negative attitude towards her son wearing a cross, he did not even think about taking it off; Only over time I changed the chain to a thick rope.
He grew up as an ordinary – strong and healthy child. At the school in the village of KurilovoPodolsk district, Moscow regionI studied well, but when I finished ninth grade, I went to work at a furniture factory.
Working as a furniture maker, he mastered the skills of an assembler, an upholsterer and a cutter. He liked this work, and the earnings were decent.
In the cityOzerskKaliningrad region served in the training unit of military training unit No. 2631 of the Russian Border Troops.
After the training unit on June 25In 1995, Evgeniy was drafted into the army and served as a grenade launcher at the 3rd border outpost of the modern Red Banner Border Directorate of the FSB of Russia for the Kaliningrad region on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya. He took the military oath on July 10, 1995.
January 131996Evgeniy was sent on a six-month business trip under the command of the Nazran border detachment, where, after serving for one month, he was captured.
February 13In 1996, together with privates Andrei Trusov, Igor Yakovlev and Alexander Zheleznov, he took up the post. While on duty, they stopped an ambulance driven by Brigadier General of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ruslan Khaikhoroev, which was carrying weapons. During an attempt to search, the soldiers were captured. After discovering their disappearance from the post, the soldiers were initially declared deserters. Police officers came to Rodionov’s mother’s house to look for her son after his disappearance. The version that the soldiers were captured was accepted after a detailed examination of the scene and the discovery of traces of blood and struggle.
Yevgeny Rodionov was killed in captivity on May 23, 1996. Confessed to the murderRuslan Khaikhoroev. In the presence of a foreign OSCE representativehe said: “...He had a choice to stay alive. He could have changed his faith, but he did not want to take off the cross. I tried to run..."
From the first day of the 100-day captivity, when they saw the Cross on Evgeniy’s neck, the bandits tried to “break” him and force him to accept their faith. They wanted to force him to torture and kill boys just like him, a fighter. Evgeny categorically refused. He was beaten. They kept saying: “Take off the Cross and you will exist!!!” And these are not empty words. The gang leaders themselves later assured Evgeniy’s mother, Lyubov Vasilievna: “If your heir were to become one of us, we would not offend him.” We can only imagine what Evgeniy was thinking about when he was not quite nineteen years old during these terrible days of captivity. He probably adamantly believed that he and the other guys would be found and saved. It is hard for us, who did not experience that same hell, to understand what was in his soul when he made his choice, refusing to take off the Cross and become the “brother” of a Chechen militant. But we know that the Lord does not abandon his own. And perhaps the Guardian Angel strengthened him in the fetid darkness of the basement, as was the case with the martyrs of the first Christians, because every day, confessing Christ, he rose upward in his spirit - not to the end, but into existence.
The denouement occurred on Evgeniy’s birthday. On May 23, 1996, Evgeniy just turned 19. He, along with the rest of the soldiers, was taken to a village near Bamut. First they killed his friends, those with whom he was on his last border duty. Then, for the final time, they suggested: “Take off the Cross! We swear by Allah, you will exist!!!” Evgeniy didn’t take it off. And then he was executed in cold blood. It’s scary, like in an ancient pagan sacrificial ritual - they cut off the head of a living person...
But they did not dare to remove the Cross.
Soon after the capture, Evgeniy’s mother, Lyubov Vasilyevna, came to Chechnya in search of her son, who was believed to be a deserter. His commander informed her that he was a prisoner of war, but showed no concern for his fate. She contacted Basayev, who promised her to find her son in front of everyone, but when she left the village, Basayev’s brother caught up with her and brutally beat her half to death, breaking her spine. In the end, she was forced to pay the militants money to find out the burial place of her son. Evgeniy’s mother identified Evgeniy’s body by his pectoral cross. Later, the identification results were confirmed by an examination. Lyubov Vasilievna herself was invisibly present at the death of her son. The bandits gave her a videotape of the execution.
Evgeny Rodionov was buried near the village of Satino-Russkoye, Podolsk district, Moscow region, near the Church of the Ascension of Christ.
2. "Divine Warrior in a Cloak of Fire"
In order to buy out Evgeniy’s camp, his mother Lyubov Vasilievna sold everything. Things, an apartment, a share of clothes. I transported my son home on November 20, 1996. Buried. And that's it... She was left alone. Almost without housing, without funds, without basic moral support. People shied away from the unfortunate woman as if from a leper - “their troubles were in abundance.” They even awarded her the Order of Courage quietly.
But at this very time, incredible things began to happen in various parts of Russia. In many churches there were stories about a certain “Divine warrior in a fiery cloak”, helping captured soldiers in Chechnya to dig the path to freedom, showing them mines and tripwires... They spoke about him in the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers in May 1999: “There is a kind of Saint fighter Evgeniy is a martyr. They say he helps the guys in captivity. We have great hope in him, in his prayers before the Lord.”
In the Burdenko hospital, wounded soldiers claimed that they knew a certain soldier Eugene, the one who helps them, “especially when pain sets in”... Many swear that they saw him on the icon when they were on an excursion to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Moreover, the inmates also know the “warrior in the red cape.” "He helps the weakest, lifts up the broken..."
In 1997, by order of the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II, the book “New Martyr for Christ, Fighter Eugene” was published. And this very minute a report came from priest Vadim Shklyarenko from Dnepropetrovsk that “the photograph on the cover of the book IS MYRRHUSING... Myrrh is light in color, with a slight smell of pine needles” (2).
In a wondrous way, people reached out to the mother of the soldier killed for the Faith. “It’s She, His Mom,” they say all around. “She’s a saint!” “What kind of saint am I?!” - Lyubov Vasilievna is surprised from the bottom of her heart. - I'm still on the path to God. And I need my son to be active and healthy. And so that the building is full of grandchildren. And everyone gives me icons. I already have more than 90 of them. They say, thank you, your Evgeniy helped me. They show how his faces stream myrrh... And I, I don’t find it difficult to help people in any way I can. Now, by the will of my son (not myself, but precisely by HIS WILL!!!), just as he would have done, I collect parcels and myself bring them to our soldiers in Chechnya. Alone, I walk through checkpoints, military units, hospitals... My pass is my prayer. But you know what amazing guys we have serving in Chechnya! In almost every soldier's tent there are icons of Zhenya. And not only in tents. They make these little wearable images there..."
Hundreds of people gather at the grave of Yevgeny Rodionov, especially on his birthday (and martyrdom) on May 23. Lyubov Vasilievna recalls: “And what miracles happened to us then! Every year there is a rainbow. We already wait, we know. And last year there were 4 white crosses of clouds. There are no end of priests coming. Some don’t hold a memorial service for Zhenya, as if for a dead person, but prayer services They are serving. Orthodox people from all over Rus' are coming. They helped me as best they could. They allowed me to buy the apartment where my son grew up. The tallest wooden cross was made in our entire village cemetery. Here lies the Russian fighter Yevgeny Rodionov, who defended the Fatherland and did not renounce the Cross." Notes are slipped between the stones near the grave... Mothers who lost their children in Chechnya write, parents who are afraid to release their sons into the army, girls who dream of meeting a real, kind , a believer... One of them traveled from Saratov for three years, and now she’s married to my father. Although, frankly speaking, I haven’t been reading these notes for a long time. After all, it’s not all written to me. To the boy. They believe in him. They love. They hope. Recently at church they handed me a piece of paper with a prayer. From whom - it is not known. And there: “...Hear us, weak and infirm, who worship your most luminous image with faith and love...”
And because all this is said about my child. So I think, maybe that doctor was right who told me back in the maternity hospital that my son’s life would be as bright as a star.”
3. After the death of Evgeny Rodionov...
At the end of 2003, it was proposed to canonize Yevgeny Rodionov. Mother Evgenia was invited to the synodal commission for canonization, where she was heard. The commission made the following conclusions about the death of Evgeniy and his possible canonization: reports of the martyrdom of Evgeniy Rodionov were recorded only from the words of the mother, who did not see her son’s death itself. She also cannot confirm with certainty that her son was forced to renounce Christ. The mother saw Evgeniy’s alleged killer, Ruslan Khaikhoroev, only once in her life, for 7 minutes; during this meeting, Ruslan Khaikhoroev, according to the mother’s own testimony, did not say anything about the circumstances of Evgeniy Rodionov’s death. There are no witnesses or evidence of martyrdom, except for Rodionov’s mother.
At the beginning of 2004, the Synodal Commission for Canonization refused canonization due to the lack of reliable information about his death as a martyr in the church sense and that Rodionov led a conscious church life.
However, despite this, icons with Yevgeny Rodionov began to appear spontaneously in Russian churches. Including those that are very far from Chechnya and the Caucasus. One of the first icons was installed in a church in the village of Znamenki, near St. Petersburg, in the spring of 2003. Private Rodionov, “killed in Chechnya,” was depicted in full growth, in military uniform and with a machine gun over his shoulders. Then they began to display icons with him in other St. Petersburg churches. In the end, on October 21, 2008, the warrior Yevgeny Rodionov was glorified among the martyrs as a locally revered saint of the Astrakhan-Enotaevsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
4. We remember the feat of the Russian soldier
Probably no one remains indifferent to the feat of Evgeniy Rodionov. So, in 2009, school No. 4 in Kuznetsk, Penza region, was named after him. On September 25, 2010, in the school yard, a monument to Rodionov was unveiled in the form of a bronze candle, the flame of which embraces a warrior holding a cross. A sculpture of the warrior Eugene “Candle of Memory” was created (author - artist-sculptor Sergei Georgievich Mardar).
In memory of Evgeny Rodionov in Altai, on August 10, 2002, a temple was consecrated in the name of the holy martyr Eugene. The Chapel of St. Eugene was opened in Kharkov. A temple was founded in Khankala in honor of the martyr Evgeniy Rodionov.
Conclusion
I was shocked when I reviewed the material for my research paper. I felt feelings of pain and regret for his mother, for the torture he experienced. I came to the conclusion that the heroism of Yevgeny Rodionov for the Orthodox faith is a manifestation of the values of a real Russian man, the Son of the Fatherland. I realized the meaning of the concept of “patriotism”. It seems to me that every Russian person is ready to make serious decisions and bear responsibility for them.
The hypothesis posed was completely confirmed. Here he is - a real Russian soldier, a true patriot of Russia!
While completing their research work on this topic, my classmates became interested in the personality of Evgeniy Rodionov. And my history teacher, Olga Vladimirovna Ivanova, invited me to present my work at school on December 9, when our country celebrates the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland.
Download materialOn June 25, 1995, 18-year-old Rodionov was drafted into the army. First, he ended up in the training unit of military training unit No. 2631 of the Russian Border Troops near Kaliningrad. After that, he served as a grenade launcher at the 3rd border outpost of the 3rd motorized maneuver group of the 479th special purpose border detachment on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
On January 13, 1996, Evgeniy was sent for combat training to the Nazran border detachment. On February 4, 1996, he was on duty together with privates Andrei Trusov, Igor Yakovlev and Alexander Zheleznov. The military stopped a minibus with the sign “Ambulance”, in which Brigadier General of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ruslan Khaikhoroev was traveling with his militants. It turned out that weapons were transported in the car. During an attempt to inspect the border guards, they were captured.
At first, the missing soldiers were declared deserters. The police were looking for Rodionov at his parents’ home. And only after a detailed examination of the scene, when traces of blood and struggle were discovered, was the version of captivity accepted.
Evgenia's mother Lyubov Vasilievna went to Chechnya to search for her son. She managed to reach Shamil Basayev, but after trying to negotiate, she was severely beaten and held hostage for three days. Only when Lyubov Rodionova paid the militants a large sum of money - about 4 thousand dollars (for this she had to sell her apartment and all valuables) - was she told about the fate of her son and indicated the place of his burial.
As it turned out, Yevgeny Rodionov was executed by Chechen militants. He and his comrades were brutally tortured for a hundred days, demanding to convert to Islam. However, Zhenya refused to remove the Orthodox cross. On May 23, 1996, his own birthday, he was beheaded.
The corpse of Yevgeny Rodionov, found in a grave without a head, was identified by his mother by his body cross. An examination later confirmed the identification results.
(from the author of the site: while collecting information about Evgeniy, it was very difficult to keep thoughts and emotions in concentration. I, a 30-year-old mentally healthy man, was constantly “overcome with emotions.” Sorry, but that’s why I’m posting the material in episodes - in pieces). Evgeniy Rodionov is a private in the Russian Border Troops. He died during the first Chechen campaign. After 100 days of captivity, he was beheaded (alive, with a knife) by militants on May 23, 1996 (on his birthday) for refusing to remove his pectoral cross and convert to Islam….
Where was Evgeniy Rodionov born?
...Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Rodionov was born on May 23, 1977 in the village of Chibirley, Kuznetsk district of the Penza region. In more than a year, Evgeniy was baptized, but did not wear a cross, and only in 1988 (or 1989) did his grandmother take Evgeniy to church, where he was given a cross. Evgeny Rodionov began to wear the cross without taking it off. I threaded a thick, strong rope - “it’s more reliable this way.”
Mom was embarrassed: “They will laugh at you at school.” “Let it be, I decided so, and so it will be.”
Evgeniy Rodionov military service
...After the training unit, on June 25, 1995, he was drafted into the army and served as a grenade launcher at the 3rd border outpost of the 3rd motorized maneuver group 479 of the Special Purpose Border Detachment (military unit 3807, disbanded in 1998) of the modern Red Banner Border Directorate of the FSB of Russia for the Kaliningrad Region on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya. He took the military oath on July 10, 1995. On January 13, 1996, he was sent on a six-month business trip under the command of the Nazran border detachment (military unit No. 2094), where, after serving for one month, he was captured.
Zhenya was very proud that he was a border guard, that he was busy with real work that the Motherland needed. At that last meeting, Zhenya told his mother: “Everyone from our unit is sent to hot spots, and I have already written a report...” Seeing how pale his mother turned, he tried to calm her down: “No one has ever escaped fate. I can go out onto the road and a car will kill me... But captivity... Captivity - it depends on your luck.”
How did Yevgeny Rodionov get captured?
...On February 13, 1996, together with privates Andrei Trusov, Igor Yakovlev and Alexander Zheleznov, he took up a post on the Chechnya-Ingushetia section of the road. At night, a minibus with the sign “ambulance” drove up to their post. From there, fifteen healthy strongmen, armed to the teeth, jumped out under the control of the brigadier general of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Ruslan Khaikhoroev. The boys did not give up without a fight. There were traces of blood on the asphalt. Evgeniy’s colleagues, who were literally 200 meters from the road, clearly heard the cry: “HELP!!!” But for some reason all this did not make any impression on them. Many were asleep! After discovering their disappearance from the post, the soldiers were initially declared deserters. Police officers came to Rodionov’s mother’s house to look for her son after his disappearance. The version that the soldiers were captured was accepted after a detailed examination of the scene and the discovery of traces of blood and struggle.
Evgeniy Rodionov did not film.
...From the first day of the 100-day captivity, when they saw the Cross on Zhenya’s neck, the bandits tried to “break” him and force him to accept their faith. They wanted to force him to torture and kill soldiers like him - boys. Evgeny categorically refused.
He was beaten. They kept saying: “Take off the Cross and you will live!!!” And these are not empty words. The gang leaders themselves later assured Lyubov Vasilyevna (Evgeniy’s mother, who traveled throughout Chechnya during the war in search of her son after his disappearance): “If your son had become one of us, we would not have offended him.” Khaikhoroev invited the exhausted boys to convert to Islam and continue to fight on the side of the militants. All the prisoners refused. Evgeniy did not remove his pectoral cross, which was what the killers demanded.
Execution of Yevgeny Rodionov
…. near the village of Bamut, Chechnya. On May 23, 1996, Evgeniy just turned 19. He, along with the rest of the soldiers, was taken to the forest near Bamut. First they killed his friends, those with whom he was on his last border duty. Then for the last time they suggested: “Take off the Cross! We swear by Allah, you will live!!!” Evgeniy didn’t take it off. And then he was executed in cold blood - his head was cut off while he was alive - but they did not dare remove the Cross. Ruslan Khaikhoroev confessed to the murder.
In the presence of a foreign OSCE representative, he said: “...He had a choice to stay alive. He could have changed his faith, but he did not want to take off the cross. I tried to escape...”... Soon after the capture, Evgeniy’s mother,
Mother of Evgeniy Rodionov
Lyubov Vasilyevna came to Chechnya in search of her son, who was believed to be a deserter. His commander informed her that he was a prisoner of war, but showed no concern for his fate. She contacted Basayev, who promised her to find her son in front of everyone, but when she left the village, Basayev’s brother caught up with her and brutally beat her half to death, breaking her spine. In the end, she was forced to pay the militants money to find out the burial place of her son. Evgeniy’s mother identified Evgeniy’s body by his cross. Later, the identification results were confirmed by an examination. Eugene's cross was found in the grave on his headless body, and later Eugene's mother gave it to the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi, where it was kept in the altar for several years.
Where is Evgeniy Rodionov buried?
... Evgeny Rodionov was buried near the village of Satino-Russkoye, Podolsk district, Moscow region, near the Church of the Ascension of Christ. However, the soldier's mother will again go to her son's killer and say: "Bring back your son's head." He will laugh and leave, and after a while he will bring her several pieces of the skull. The superstitious mountaineer was afraid of him and the dead man and therefore smashed his severed head with the butt of a machine gun so that he would not be pursued in the next world... Incredible things began to happen in various parts of Russia. Back in 1997, I visited the then new rehabilitation Orthodox orphanage. There, one of the tramp girls told me about a certain soldier - “so tall, in a red cloak-tent”, who “called himself Eugene, took me by the hand and led me to church.” I was still surprised, there don’t seem to be red cloaks, then I gasped: “Yes, this is a martyr’s cloak!” 
….More to come. In many churches there were stories about the “Divine warrior in a fiery cloak”, helping captured soldiers in Chechnya find the path to freedom, showing them mines and tripwires... In the Burdenko hospital, wounded soldiers claimed that they knew a certain soldier Evgeniy, who helps them, “especially when pain sets in”... Many swear that they saw it on the icon when they were on an excursion to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Moreover, the prisoners also know the “warrior in the red cape.” "He helps the weak, lifts up the broken..." 
...In 1997, by order of the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi, with the blessing of His Holiness Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', the book “New Martyr for Christ, Warrior Eugene” was published. And immediately a report came from priest Vadim Shklyarenko from Dnepropetrovsk that
“the photograph on the cover of the book MYRRHINGS...
Miro is light in color, with a slight pine scent.” I myself felt the same unique tart aroma when, in the house of Lyubov Vasilievna, I venerated the icon of her son, Saint Warrior Eugene...
...They put a cross on the grave. The wooden one is the tallest in our entire village cemetery. The inscription was made: “Here lies the Russian soldier Yevgeny Rodionov, who defended the Fatherland and did not renounce the Cross.” People slip notes between the stones near the grave...
….Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic: “My opinion about the death of soldier Rodionov, who was killed by bandits demanding to change his faith, is the heroic act of one person and the vile abomination of those who killed him.”
!For many, Eugene has become a symbol of courage, honor and loyalty.!
Prayer to the martyr Eugene (Archpriest Valentin Sidorov composed a service to the martyr warrior Eugene):
Passion-bearing Russian, warrior Eugene!
Graciously accept our prayers offered to you with love and gratitude before your holy icon.
Hear us, the weak and infirm, who worship your most luminous image with faith and love.
Your fiery love for the Lord, loyalty to Him alone, your fearlessness in the face of torment gave you eternal life.
You did not take the Cross off your chest for the sake of sowing temporary life.
Your cross shone for all of us as a guiding star on the path of salvation.
Do not leave us on this path, holy martyr Eugene, who pray to you with tears.
Prayer to the martyr Evgeniy Rodionov, compiled by Hieromonk Varlaam (Yakunin) from the Altai Republic. Kontakion, tone 4:
You appeared to the astonishment of strength, imitating Christ’s patience even to death, you were not afraid of the Agarian torment, and you did not deny the Cross of the Lord, taking death from the tormentors like the cup of Christ; For this reason, we cry out to you: Holy Martyr Eugene, pray ever for us, O sufferer.
In dozens of churches there are portraits of Eugene (the portrait-icon on the altar door in the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in the Znamenka estate near Peterhof was located around 2000 and was removed for an unknown reason around 2010-11; in Altai - in Aktash, Novoaltaisk , Zarinsk, etc.). Icons of the warrior Eugene the Russian are also painted in Serbia. In Ukraine, the priest Vadim Shklyarenko from Dnepropetrovsk had the image of Yevgeny Rodionov streaming myrrh.
bratkov 01/07/2003 at 20:15
“Zhenya was born at half past one on the night of May 23, 1977. The birth was not difficult. Zhenya was a strong, healthy child, height 52 cm, weight 3900. When I heard his first cry, a cry that “I came into this world, meet me, love me,” such a sigh of relief escaped, and my gaze quite accidentally fell on the window. It was deep night, a dark sky with bright large stars, and at that moment a star suddenly began to fall across the sky. I turned pale, my heart became small , a cold and for some reason shaggy lump. Doctors and nurses began to convince me that this was a good sign, that it meant the child would have a good fate, and so did I. But the feeling of danger, fear, and tense expectation of something did not leave me. me for a very long time. Then somehow everything was forgotten, and I remembered nineteen years later..."
The patriotic press has already written about the feat of the 19-year-old Russian soldier Yevgeny Rodionov, who in 1996 found himself in Chechen captivity and, at the time of the most sophisticated torture, did not betray the Fatherland and Faith, and did not remove his pectoral cross. The state awarded Evgeniy the Order of Courage. Now, thanks to donations, a two-meter cross has been installed on his grave, a lamp is burning, and people are coming here, and people are coming. They come specially from the most remote corners of Russia, from other countries, to worship "to my unknown, quiet son". Mother, Lyubov Vasilievna Rodionova says that this is the attitude of people "turned my whole consciousness upside down in life..." And one day one of the veterans of the Great Patriotic War came to his son’s grave in Kurilovo (near Podolsk). He took off his front-line award - the medal "For Courage" - and put it on the gravestone...
The biography of Evgeny Rodionov, recorded from the words of his mother, was published in the first book dedicated to the soldier, published in 2002 - "New martyr for Christ warrior Eugene" /Moscow, "Chronos-Press"/. This, more precisely, is still a small brochure compiled by the rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi, Archpriest Alexander Shargunov. Yet we still know very little about Evgeniy’s life - his innermost thoughts, feelings, experiences, about what he experienced during more than three months of captivity among Chechen bandits. Much here is shrouded in secrecy.
Priest Alexander Shargunov and rector of the Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands in the village of Prokhorovo near Moscow, Father Vladimir Pereslegin, reflect on the feat of Evgeniy Rodionov on the pages of the publication. Lyubov Vasilyevna shares her memories - how she raised her son, what he was interested in and what he aspired to in life, how he worked and studied, how he felt about serving in the army and how he voluntarily went to serve... And then, already terrible memories, - about the news that came home about the alleged “desertion”, about the circles of hell that followed. About what I had to endure in hostile and mined Chechnya in order to find my son. Son's body...
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...18-year-old Evgeniy Rodionov, along with three other soldiers, was captured on the night of February 13-14 near the village of Galashki. The guys, who had arrived at the unit’s location from the Kaliningrad region just a month earlier, were on guard duty on the Chechen-Ingush border. The open KRP (checkpoint) was located about two hundred meters from the outpost. A small booth - without communications and light, without any fire support - on the only “road of life” in the mountains, along which weapons, ammunition, prisoners, drugs were transported... From an ambulance that arrived, which the border guards stopped for inspection , suddenly “orderlies” in camouflage jumped out - more than a dozen Chechens armed to the teeth. It was not difficult for these thugs to deal with the youths who had not yet been shot at. Although, Lyubov Vasilievna recalls, “even two weeks after this incident, the blood stain on the road was not completely covered with snow. Traces of a struggle were visible there - that they weren’t thrown into the car like chickens...”. The mother believes that the boys suffered largely due to the negligence of the officers.
And then the captivity began. “Captivity from time immemorial has been considered the most terrible thing that can happen to a person. Captivity is captivity, it is abuse. Life has shown that Chechen captivity is the most terrible, most inhuman, savage thing that can ever happen in the world...” says Lyubov Rodionova.
“Mom, no one has ever escaped fate. I can go out onto the road and a car will run over me. Will that make it easier for you? But captivity... captivity - it depends on your luck...” the son said before saying goodbye mother.
And as soon as she found out, she searched for Zhenya all over Chechnya for ten months. “I had to go through all the torment, all the circles of hell that exist on earth, that man could imagine. Apparently, the Lord led me along those roads where I walked and didn’t get blown up, although there were more mines there than stones. Apparently, He protected me from the bombings, did not give me the opportunity to die, considered that it was my duty, the duty of the mother, to find my son, to bury him in his native land; to bury him the way our grandfathers and great-grandfathers buried him, according to Christian custom, with the burial of the earth. Only now I understood everything, and then, when I walked along military roads, I just silently prayed to the Lord..."
Chechen thugs killed Yevgeny Rodionov May 23, 1996- on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in the Chechen village of Bamut. On the day of his death, it was Evgeniy’s birthday - he had just turned 19 years old. The mother did not have time - then she was some seven kilometers from the place of execution. And Bamut was taken by Russian troops the next day.
The mother was able to find out about her son’s death only in September. In order to find Evgeniy’s body and then take him, along with other dead comrades, to their homeland, she had to mortgage her own apartment. Lyubov Vasilyevna distributed many photographs of her son to Chechen intermediaries, hoping to learn at least something. For a lot of money, one of the Chechens agreed to indicate the burial place.
“When I arrived at the end of February, an ordinary soldier, alive, was worth 10 million. In August, an ordinary soldier, alive, was worth 50 million, when they were already in the role of winner. Melikhova was asked for 250 million for her son, because he is an officer. It was already night when I, with the sappers, secretly, in the light of the headlights, dug out the hole into which the bodies of the four guys were thrown. I stood there and just prayed that Zhenya would not be among them. I couldn’t, I didn’t want to believe that they had killed him. one, then the other. I already recognized his boots, worn out in the way only he wore, but I kept saying: “I won’t believe it if you don’t find my wife’s cross.” And when someone shouted: “Cross, cross!” I lost consciousness."
The killer of Yevgeny Rodionov turned out to be Ruslan Khaikhoroev. In the end, he himself admitted this - his mother literally extracted this confession from him, in the presence of the foreign OSCE representative Lenard: "The son had a choice to stay alive,- said Khaikhoroev. - He could have changed his faith, but he did not want to take off the cross. I tried to run..." (Khaikhoroev, along with his bodyguards, was killed in an intra-Chechen gang war on August 23, 1999 - exactly three years and three months after the death of Yevgeny Rodionov.)
Upon Lyubov Vasilievna’s return home, on the 5th day after the funeral, Evgeniy’s father, who did not leave his son’s grave, died - his heart could not stand it. And Eugene himself that same night, after the funeral service, dreamed of his mother. According to her, already “joyful and radiant.”
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Acting Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces, Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, says that “the issue of canonization of private Yevgeny Rodionov will be resolved positively - it’s a matter of time.” A request about this to the Synodal Commission for Canonization has already been made, however, additional information is required about the fate of the courageous border guard. According to Father Dmitry, as soon as they are received, canonization will take place.
Now, at the entrance to the school where Evgeniy studied, there is a memorial plaque of the hero-border guard. A documentary film dedicated to him was released. Evgeniy Rodionov’s pectoral cross was given by his mother to the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi and is kept in the Altar. And on the cross installed over the grave there is an inscription: “Here lies the Russian soldier Yevgeny Rodionov, who defended the Fatherland and did not renounce Christ, executed near Bamut on May 23, 1996.” .
People come here and people come.
“We know that these were long, terrible sufferings, which can probably only be compared with the sufferings of the great martyrs that happened in the most ancient times, when they were dismembered, beheaded, subjected to the most sophisticated tortures, but they testified to the world that the soul, and the body are involved in the Cross of Christ, the victory of God, His Resurrection" (Fr. Alexander Shargunov, from a sermon at a memorial service on the day of memory of Evgeniy Rodionov).
From the editor:
Publications in “Orthodox Moscow”, “Russian House”, “Zavtra”, “Parliamentary Newspaper”, Rus-Sky.com, Voskres.Ru were also used in preparing the material.
Fully mother's story Read Evgeniy Rodionov in the section "PRAVDA.Ru" - Faith .
