Afghanistan has always been an extremely important, but at the same time terribly problematic region. The Soviet authorities went into it, trying to make it their satellite, primarily by raising the standard of living of the local population: building modern infrastructure, electrifying the country, solving agricultural problems by creating a developed irrigation system. Despite all the efforts of the "red" aliens, contradictions were ripening inside the DRA, fueled from outside as well. In 1979, the 10-year war began. When our people left Afghanistan, almost all Soviet monuments and obelisks were demolished by the Mujahideen...
At the Salang pass, there is still an obelisk to the Soviet soldier Sergey Viktorovich Maltsyn, born in 1965-1985. This is one of the slightly "Russian" obelisks that the locals did not touch after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. Sergey was born in the family of a pharmacist and an electrician. He went to school number 6 and, according to the memoirs of the class teacher, the boy always differed from most children in some special perseverance. Maltsyn's school still has a small museum dedicated to him. After receiving secondary education, Sergey became a mechanic and worked at the Teplokhod plant. And in 1984 he was called to serve in the Soviet army.
A year after the "training" the guy got to serve in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. There he served as a driver, carried soldiers and cargo. He was ambushed several times, but he never gave up. On November 2, 1985, he was carrying cargo through the Salang-Hairaton pass. There is a very special place on this route - a mountain tunnel, which was once built by Soviet specialists. The tunnel has been operating since 1964. For a long time it remained the highest mountain tunnel in the world. With a width of 6 meters, its length is 2,676 meters.
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Before the demobilization, the guy had nothing left, but fate decreed otherwise. On that tragic day in the tunnel, a car of Afghan peasants overloaded with food jumped out to meet Sergei Viktorovich. On top of the load in the back sat a lot of children, old people and women. The car raced straight at the Soviet truck. And then Maltsyn made the only right decision - he turned sharply and sent his car away from the road, straight into the rock. The Kamaz of the Soviet soldier crashed, and Maltsyn himself could not be saved, but the Afghan citizens remained intact.
After the tragedy, another Soviet citizen Rafik Khachaturian, in the world a stonemason, and in the Afghan business trip driver, decided to perpetuate the memory of the guy and cut out a memorial stone. The monument to Maltsyn was erected 300 meters from the place of his death. As a result, the Soviet troops left. Afghanistan was in for hard and troubled times. During the civil war in 1997, the miracle of Soviet engineering - the Salang tunnel will be destroyed. However, for all these years, no one has touched the monument with a finger. Including because it is protected by local residents. In 2015, internationalist soldiers also visited the site of the tragedy.
If you want to know more interesting things, then you should read about Why did the Soviet military in Afghanistan, they disliked the GAZ-66 Shishiga.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/220322/62483/