“My story in Chechnya is about what can’t be,” Anna jokes when she meets us in the classroom. Outside the windows, the air is hot from the heat, the military in full uniform, vaporized by the heat, are running an obstacle course. In fact, it is difficult to combine a fragile woman and intense charges in camouflage. Professional passion has its roots in childhood.
– I was born in Kazakhstan, and for a girl who spent time surrounded by her older brother’s friends, playing children’s games with them, shooting became a natural choice, – says Anna Yants. – As an employee of a paintball club, I was asked to help organize the first Kazakhstan practical shooting championship. It was there that I first tried to work with Chizet-75 firearms (still my favorite pistol in the sport). I met the officers of the Alfa special forces unit invited to the Moscow competition, who taught me a lot.
amazing history
And one day there was a call that changed the life of an athlete. As we already wrote, when we met Anna, it was Daniil Martynov, the creator of RUS. It later turned out that the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, wanted his daughters to learn how to use firearms. But he put a strict condition: the instructor must be a woman.
– I remember that little by little I found out from my friends that they were involved in preparing the security forces for tournaments about working conditions in the region. His reaction was unequivocal: “You understand that given your specialty and Caucasian mentality, a woman will never find her calling!” But everything turned out the other way around: it was thanks to my specialty and the specifics of the region that I was invited here, – says the girl.
Anna was invited for a short period of time for a specific task. But, seeing her talent and her love for the job, she offered to stay. agreed. In that 2017, the University of Special Forces was intensively getting on its feet: there was not a sufficient number of specialists and infrastructure. Thus, the instructor played the role of a one-man band: he not only conducted classes, but also formed various training programs, answered customer calls. Now the girl teaches only to shoot from civilian firearms: a pistol, a rifle, a carbine. The word “civilian” should not be misleading at all. Such a weapon is also loaded with lead cartridges, but, for example, unlike a combat machine, it does not “spit out” a burst.
A strong character
The basic shooting training course is eight hours (the cost is 25-30 thousand rubles, depending on the number of students in the group), after completing it, the beginner has an idea about the basic manipulations with weapons, he can hit the target at certain distances, determine the type of delay, eliminate it.
Over the years, the customer base has formed so much that people do not come to Anna at random. The same Chechen girls come consciously.
– Yes, they are being prepared for family duties from childhood, but the very head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has not only daughters involved in shooting, but also the entire female half of the house, right down to assistants. And he supports it, says the instructor.
She remembers in her practice only one case when a young woman ended up in a training camp against her will – her husband forced her. The weapon instilled in the student an unconscious fear, as if the cold piece of metal was itself an insidious adversary. The psychological barrier was overcome with the help of a detailed story about safety rules. As a result, after praying internally, the client fired ten shots and hurried home with relief.
– And so, I train a Chechen woman, a professional photographer, mother of many children, – adds Anna Yants. She is a war girl. When she was a child, she picked up a mine, her activated device ripping her hand off with an explosive wave and slashing her face. She wrote to me that she really wants to shoot, but there is such a function, so she doubted whether it would work. At one point they taught me to work with weapons on the condition that they hurt my limbs, so I replied: “Come, we’ll see.” She now competes in women’s shooting competitions in the “Lady” category, ranks second after Khutmat Kadyrova (but she is a true professional and has been doing it for many years) and honestly creates significant competition. She and I only thought about how to reload weapons, the nuances of equipment, items to eliminate lag. A very strong willed girl, I admire her, she does with one hand what they can’t with two hands.
The magic of classes
Anna teaches me a short shooting course on the basis of the Saiga-9 carbine. On our way to the shooting gallery we meet a group of men in clothes drenched in pink paint. It turns out that they just held a tactical medicine lesson, where they use the following entourage to enhance the effect of reality: until you correctly apply a tourniquet to a friend, he conditionally continues to bleed.
– This is especially unpleasant in winter, – adds the commander of the “wounded”.
The gallery area, surrounded by a high fence, is littered with golden shell fragments. We put on protective glasses. They protect the shooter from powder gases from the receiver, the audience, from the ricochet of bullet fragments. Also, the targets are made of armored steel. Does visual acuity affect the result? it turns out not. The silhouette of the design from a distance of ten meters can hit everyone without much strain, at long distances, the optics are already adjusted to the characteristics of vision.
– In the first lesson, I tell you: in order to hit the target, it is important how you stand, how you hold the weapon, look at the aiming device, how you breathe and press the trigger, that is, a frontal turn. the target is already aiming. And if I want to go into a specific area, then I look, – Anna explains the intricacies of the work.
Next, we proceed to equipping the cartridges in the store. The older generation mistakenly calls it a clip, and schoolchildren usually mistake it for a horn. Only he’s far from being an ice cream cone. With clumsy movements, I push the cartridges in a checkerboard pattern inside.
– Does the age of the student play a role? – I ask again, slightly numb in front of the tight cartridges.
“Shooting is primarily motor skills, so no one has canceled age-related physiology,” the instructor replies. – Young people are less afraid, in shooting exercises their style is energetic. Where an adult will show caution (what if I fail?), the youth will show insolence. Personally, I love individual lessons, a kind of magic begins in them. The group averages everything, and in joint work no one is distracted, you can fully adapt to the characteristics of a person.
I confess that shooting requires an impressive concentration of forces. Over the next ten minutes, I learned to hold the carbine correctly, and when I stood for a long time, my outstretched left hand slowly ached, and the laser sight tried to escape me, so the first shots were blind. Well it happens. In such cases, magic really helps…
The benefits of stress
According to experts, practical shooting means training a confident and skillful shooter who can quickly and accurately hit targets of varying complexity. Sports do not teach how to fight. Therefore, the shooter is unlikely to gain an advantage in combat conditions.
– At the same time, in extreme situations, shooting skills help you quickly analyze the situation, make decisions and keep a calm mind. The same competitions – constantly being in a state of stress. And the ability to think clearly, without panicking, can save your life, Anna Yants is sure.
By the way
This summer, military-patriotic shifts were held at the Russian University of Special Forces for the first time for schoolchildren on the basis of the Voin training center. Young people from 14 to 18 years old from different regions of Chechnya participate in them. For 21 days, the teens receive training in fire, tactics and engineering, tactical medicine, and UAV control. In total, branches of the Center for Military Sports Training and Patriotic Education “Warrior” were opened in 12 regions of Russia.
