Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Afganets (plural: Afgantsy): An inhabitant of Afghanistan; a hot sand-laden south-west wind; a veteran of the Soviet war.

It was the Soviet government which sent the soldiers into Afghanistan in 1979, but it was following in the tradition of the Russian governments which preceded it. Policy was directed from the Russian capital, Moscow. The majority of those who fought in Afghanistan were Russians. I have tried to use the words ‘Soviet’ and ‘Russian’ in a way that makes these subtle distinctions reasonably plain, and to ensure that the non-Russians in Afghanistan are given their historical due. But I have doubtless been inconsistent from time to time.

I have not adopted any of the standard scholarly systems of transliteration. My system attempts to be simple, phonetic, and as easy as may be for the non-Russian speaker (Russian speakers will be able to work out the original spelling for themselves). The sounds should be spoken as written. Some sounds which do not exist in English are represented thus:

‘kh’, as in Khrushchev, sounds like ‘ch’ in ‘loch’;

‘zh’, as in Zhukov, sounds like ‘ge’ in ‘rouge’.

An ‘e’ at the beginning of a Russian word is usually pronounced ‘ye’. Thus ‘Yeltsin’ not ‘Eltsin’; but ‘Mount Elbruz’ not ‘Mount Yelbruz’ (because in Russian the ‘E’ in this case is a different letter).

I have used the English versions of names where these are more familiar: ‘Moscow’ not ‘Moskva’; ‘Peter’ not ‘Pyotr’; ‘Alexander’ not ‘Aleksandr’. I have preferred to end Russian surnames in ‘-ski’. I prefer, inconsistently, ‘Mikhail’ to ‘Michael’.

I have used the names of cities, streets, and other places as they were known at the time of the action.

For Afghan names I have used whatever seemed to be both common usage in English and simple to pronounce.

The index contains short descriptions of people, and of foreign and technical words, in the hope that this will be of help to the reader.