The name of the correspondent of the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" Dmitry Kholodov thundered all over the country in 1994. With her creativity, the young specialist demonstrated the strength of the journalistic profession. His work from beginning to end was akin to military service, even the famous journalist died "in the line of duty."
Childhood and youth
The future journalist was born on June 21, 1967 in Zagorsk near Moscow. The boy's parents were engineers by profession, worked at the Scientific Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Dima spent his childhood in the town of Klimovsk. He grew up as an ordinary child, calm, not standing out in the team. The first teacher remembers him as a very persistent boy, this character trait helped in his studies. In order to achieve beautiful handwriting in elementary school, he sat for hours with a fountain pen and improved his calligraphy.
Kholodov studied well and got along well with his classmates. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a janitor, considered this profession the best. A man with a broom, picking up a heap of colorful leaves, delighted him and at the same time aroused a desire to help. Dima was drawn to beauty, and at the age of nine he tried to compose fairy tales. His weekly newspaper became the subject of special parental pride. The handwritten edition contained charades, riddles, reports and took pride of place on the wall.
After graduating from school, Dmitry decided to continue the family dynasty and entered MEPhI. The former teachers were surprised by the choice of the graduate, because he always had good humanitarian abilities. His studies were interrupted by service in the army, the young man passed it in the marines. When he returned, he continued his studies. Many did not realize that in the third year, the student decided to simultaneously get a second journalism education. But the plans remained just dreams. An engineer with honors began his career at the same enterprise with his parents.
Journalism
Kholodov began his career in journalism by working as a correspondent for a local radio. An ad that he accidentally saw in the newspaper about the recruitment of new specialists to the studio was the beginning of his career and changed his entire biography. Already in 1992 he was enrolled in the staff of the daily "Moskovsky Komsomolets". The journalist Kholodov had an absolutely extraordinary smile. As soon as she appeared on her face, this immediately disposed the interlocutor to an open conversation. He did not study music and did not attend sports clubs. His main hobbies were history and travel. As a child, Kholodov traveled around the country with his family, as a student he began to travel independently. In total, Dmitry visited about sixty cities. He was especially interested in ancient temples - the vanishing splendor of Russia.
Most of the correspondent's articles were devoted to the state of affairs in the modern Russian army. The journalist believed that the strong Armed Forces of the state can only be built on a contract basis. To know the question "from the inside", Dmitry personally visited "hot spots" more than once: Abkhazia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Azerbaijan, was on the border with Afghanistan. He wrote not only about the everyday life of ordinary soldiers, but also raised questions of corruption in the troops. More than once, Pavel Grachev, who served as Minister of Defense in those years, became the hero of his critical reports. Dmitry paid special attention to the investigation of the corruption scandal in the Western Group of Forces. By the personal order of the minister, the correspondent was deprived of the opportunity to attend press conferences and briefings, in one of the programs Grachev called Kholodov "an internal enemy." To stop negative publications on the topic of the army, the military leadership prepared materials for the press that would convict the journalist of lying.
Death and memory
Dmitry Kholodov's life ended on October 17, 1994, he was only 27 years old. A homemade mine exploded in the journalist's diplomat right at his workplace. The explosion was very strong: windows and doors flew out on the floor, the ceiling collapsed and a fire started. The correspondent died of shock and severe blood loss. The day before, Dima received a briefcase with a built-in explosive device in the storage room of the Kazan station. According to colleagues, he assumed that there were materials on the illegal arms trade inside.
Many associated Dmitry's unexpected death with his upcoming speech at parliamentary hearings, where he was going to reveal the illegal actions taking place in the troops. Colleagues and friends assumed that the army leadership could not allow the disclosure of these facts. Defense Minister Grachev has repeatedly said that the military commander of Moskovsky Komsomolets defames the Russian army with his reports, and after the incident he said that his words were probably perceived by the officers as "a guide to action." The chief editor of "MK" later said that Dmitry had received threats and warnings more than once. The case reached a critical point when the correspondent got closer to the topic of training crime bosses in the airborne troops.
The next day, the Prosecutor General's Office launched an investigation. Six former and active servicemen of the Airborne Forces were under suspicion; Colonel Pavel Popovskikh was named the leader of the group. The materials of the case were collected for several months, but none of the detainees was proven guilty. After the first court session, a second, then a third, followed a few years later. The case was conducted with gross violations, to which the parents of the deceased journalist filed a cassation appeal, and then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
Many years have passed since the moment when the heart of Dima Kholodov stopped beating. Minister Grachev and the alleged organizer of the terrorist act Popovskikh are no longer alive, but to this day the murder remains unsolved.
Over the past ten years, more than two hundred journalists have died in Russia. And although this happened in peacetime, in most cases the names of the killers were not named. Every year on December 15, colleagues of the deceased comrades gather in the capital's House of Journalists to honor the memory and remember their contribution to the profession.
