Yuri Chekalin
Viktor Imantovich Alksnis has passed away…
Air Force Colonel, People’s Deputy of the USSR, Deputy of the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR (1990-1991), Deputy of the State Duma of Russia of the third and fourth convocations…
A man who cursed Mikhail Gorbachev’s “perestroika”, a man who defended the interests of the USSR. Fearlessly supported the State Emergency Committee in August 1991.
The doctor who treated Viktor Alksins recalls:
“I asked Viktor Imantovich what the hardest moment in his life he remembers. I still remember his answer: “The hardest moment was during the August events of 1991, when I was walking along Red Square and people were spitting at me. God forbid anyone should experience that. But life has proven that I was right.”
They called him the “Black Colonel” back then…
But he was a REAL Colonel, graduated from the Alksnis Riga Higher Military Aviation School, named after his grandfather, the Chief of the Red Army Air Forces, Army Commander Jekabs Alksnis.
He served honestly, he got the rank of colonel not for “parquet” curtseys, in 1981 he was awarded the medal “For Military Merit”, such medals are not given just to everyone…
He took part in the October events of 1993 on the side of the Congress of People’s Deputies. In 2000 and 2003 he was elected as a deputy of the State Duma.
I knew him, we talked, he was a strong and angry man. Angry – in the good sense of the word. He did not bend over for anyone…
Eternal memory to you, dear Viktor Imantovich…
Alexander Palladin
