NATO is invited to leave
Story never told before
Kindle edition is out today
NATO is invited to leave Crimea: An Incident On Simonka book by R H Auslander
A short story involving Sevastopol in February 2014. NATO had arrived in Sevastopol in 2010, just a small cadre at first. With time their numbers grew but the cadre was never large, at best around forty US Marines with a few Navy officers at times.
As Kiev exploded in violence in January and February in 2014 the result was a coup d’etat in Kiev where the elected government was ousted and new functionaries were installed in their place. Their pronunciations to Sevastopol in particular and Crimea in general were distinctly threatening. As a result of these threats which included violence to the citizens of Sevastopol and Crimea local coup d’état were performed in Sevastopol and Crimea wherein the Ukrainian government was removed and replaced with a government of local Sevastopol and Crimea citizens. The new ‘government’ in Kiev was not amused and replied to the local events with ever increasing vitriol and threats of violence.
The new citizens government in Sevastopol gave NATO a choice, leave peacefully or be put out. NATO refused to leave, therefore the Government of Sevastopol ordered the NATO cadre to be removed. Starshi Sarjant Roman Ivan’vich and his group of aging and retired Spetznaz were ready when the order was given to take NATO down.
See Jack Ryan’s: Shadow Recruit: The theme is described there as a thriller. Clancy died in 2013!
Auslander, is this a factual report or short fiction?
Officially short fiction. The prisoner repatriation is pure fiction. The USS Klakring was retired from service in early 2013, hence the use of him in the story. All characters are fictional although some are based to an extent on people I know, served with or met. I am very careful to make sure no one can be identified as a real character in my writings.
That being said, any good fiction has nuggets of truth in it. There is more than one absolute truth in this short story.
First and foremost I wish to thank Saker and Scott for putting my newest writings on blog, it is most kind and generous of them to do so.
I started writing what is in essence the sequel to my first effort late last fall. My first book, Never The Last One, A Novel of Spetznaz, took a bit over three years to write although I did take off all of 2014 to address events in Sevastopol and Krim.
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Last-One-Novel-Spetznaz-ebook/dp/B00ZGCY8KK?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
What started as some random thoughts typed out on a cold winter’s morn in early 2012 eventually turned in to a full blown novel. For the success of what we now call NTLO I must thank my charming and endlessly supporting bride of ten years for keeping me in food and wine whilst I wrote in my tiny office and three supporters of Saker’s blog for assisting me in turning a mish-mash of scribblings in to a readable novel.
This newly published short story is in reality a chapter of the coming sequel. A good and supporting friend read it a while ago and urged me to publish it as a short story so for once I took good advice and did so. The full book, which will not be as long as NTLO, will be published in midsummer this year. I will not reveal the name of the new book yet but the name, like the name of the new short story, will tell all about the book. Whilst my writings are categorized as fiction any good fiction will have some hard facts in the writings and there are some in An Incident On Simonka. Simonka Street is real as is the Baptist Church in Radio Gorka Region on harbor northside and some of the events in this short story are real.
If any readers of blog or the books have questions please feel free to ask, since we are now home again I will have the time to reply. There are certain subjects I can not answer in detail but I will attempt to reply to all.
Kindest regards
Auslander
Thank you Auslander. I’ve always admired you here. And your writing skills. I think that there is a endless number of great,semi-fictional or semi-historical,depending on how we’d phrase it.As well as full historical stories, that could be written about Crimea,Donbass,all Novorossia,the Maidan coup. And also even the Great Patriotic War. Done in the manner of a “Clancy” book. But telling the truth as it really was.The number of heroes (and villains) for those stories would be endless. And they could open to the Western reader a World they only hear about through the MSM propaganda.I regret I have no talent in that regard. And wish you good luck with your books.
There are endless story possibilities in the constant turmoil and conflict on this peninsula. We were privy to a great deal more than I have written since 2014. While we are more free to speak and write here than most of the rest of the world one should still use common sense when writing. For this short story we had some conversations with people we are acquainted with concerning some events during our revolution in early ’14 that are not public knowledge. Two of the four requests were granted and one is in this short story. I did get chastised for one thought concerning this book and the one in process. I had planned to use 30th Battery Museum close to us in Lubimovka as the base of operations for some events, this to deflect any adverse publicity for 35th Battery in City proper. I was pointedly told to use 35th whenever I wanted so that museum will figure prominently in the book in process. I also have to speak to Father at St. Nikolas in regards to what is in Church basement and if he complies with my request what is there will also figure prominently in the longer book.
Well done Auslander. Reading your book reduced me to shivers of goosebumps and tears of joy and fear.
My very best wishes.
I thank you sincerely for your compliments, Babushka. I am very pleased you enjoyed this little story and if you have the time I would respectfully request that you write a short review of the tome.
Auslander,
Congratulations on your continuing career. The subject matter is compelling and your talent is well-suited to the material.
Even in short form, you deliver drama, emotion and history in a style that takes us away into the currents of life and death, passion and humanity.
Regards to the dogs! A surprising element in the fight for Crimea.
Thank you, Larchmonter, you compliments mean a great deal to me.
With the tumultuous events of early ’14 no one who was here has forgotten. What can be told of the events must be told so no one ever forgets. It was a very near thing those first few days and on many occasions rather emotional.
The dogs say hello to you! All five girls who can are in their times so we will introduce Eloise to her suitor early next week when her cycle is at it’s prime. He is an outsider but has excellent heritage and almost perfect form.
Great story. I liked it a lot.
I am pleased that you liked the story, it makes my writing worthwhile for all of you who enjoy this story and the novel.
Auslander
Does anybody know, what this was all about? I heard, that it was not the first building to undergo
“renovation” by the US-Navy
Who on the Ukrainian side was behind this deal?
What did they believe to achieve?
The Baptist church was constructed directly across Simonka from a good sized Russian Navy base and close to the side entrance to the base, said entrance not used after the church was constructed. Interesting choice of sight as the two Baptists in this city were on southside and left long before that building was constructed. From upper levels of the church one can see the entire base.
Two schools were to be renovated in the Radio Ghorka region and contracts were let for one and canceled after the local ousting of the orcs. The roof of the school nearest the church was renovated and paid for by US. The nearby high school, two student’s toilet rooms had renovations started but this was halted hours after the Kiev coup d’etat.
The dacha filled area behind the base and going all the way down to the finest beach on northside was planned for total clearing of the dachi and a piece of Suburban USA was to be built there for the families of US troops to be stationed in Sevastopol. The two schools were to be used for the children of the US troops. No schedule of compensation of the confiscated dacha lands was ever mentioned in any of the documents extant.
I do not know who was behind all this but these plans were started over eight years ago. You can do the numbers as to who was in power at that time. The plans of US for Sevastopol are well known, Sevastopol was to become a US Navy base with the entire peninsula being occupied by US forces to effectively cut Russia off from Black Sea access with Gruzya welcomed as a US ally and their navy base occupied by US Navy to finish bottling up the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Novorossysk.
“No schedule of compensation of the confiscated dacha lands was ever mentioned in any of the documents extant.”
Are any of these extant documents publicly available? EG: Are any documents regarding dacha confiscation extant?
I did find the USN tender for the school renovation on the USG’s business site, but have never managed to find anything else. I would be much obliged to learn where one could access them, if they’re available.
Otherwise, very much enjoy your writings and I appreciate your taking the time to put your observations to the page for us. Thanks.
The short answer to your question, Erebus, is no, they are not public record and the reality is ‘public record’ in this AO is an unknown concept. The documents alluded to were captured during the revolution and were all in ‘US Governmenteese’, ergo virtually incomprehensible to anyone who is not either a native English speaker who understands that dialect or a world class English translator.
If you wish to understand Russia and in particular the Russian penchant for secrecy you must study Byzantium and that culture’s obsession for secrecy. Mother Russia is the heir to that culture in total.
FWIW, “US Governmentese” is really pretty simple once the TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) are correlated to their full names. There’s little mystery in it, and that certainly can’t be the reason to withhold them. I read the school tender in toto, and it would present no challenge to anyone familiar with public documents.
If the dacha confiscation and any other documents remain hidden, one again wonders why the Russians seem unaware of the strategic benefits of the propaganda coup that would result from their release. Their non-action is, well, Byzantine. The more “mysterious” Russia is in the eyes of the world, the less say it has in events as the Western propaganda machine finds little trouble making headway with domestic and foreign publics against a silent, brooding Kremlin.
OTOH, the Kremlin had no obvious qualms about putting their MH17 evidence on the table, and apparently presented an open & shut case against Turkish complicity in ISIS’ oil operations, albeit behind closed doors. The leaks of telephone conversations between Nuland her minions, as well as Ashton’s were thought to be of Russian origin as well. These releases revealed a lot more about Russian intelligence gathering capabilities than would leaking documents found during a abrupt change of government. So, the “obsession with secrecy” seems rather selective, indeed arbitrary, and one wonders why that is so. My only guess is that the secrecy obsession is endemic to some departments, and not so much with others. Byzantine indeed.
I have always said that if you want to understand Russia you must start with deep study of Byzantium for Russia is the heir to that culture completely including it’s penchant for secrecy for the sake of secrecy and a large and creaking bureaucracy.
There is no ‘freedom of information’ act in Russia nor in most other countries in the world. While I am more free than most in EU and US I on the other hand understand completely the restraints that are on that freedom.
In a nutshell, to explain the release of some documents and not others one must understand that while we may know of a few documents ‘they’ know all. As explained to our favorite Starshi Sarjant by a Polkovnik new to him:
“Starshi Sarjant, you have your opinion, I have my opinion and those far above both of us have their opinion. It is their opinion that matters, not ours, ………”
Dear Ausländer,I didn’t read yet the story,but just find out on the comments that you have dogs.That is a very good thing,the love of the dogs cannot be compared with anything else and those who love them have a special place in my heart.
We have eight, two boys and six girls. We raise old style collies, not the current fashion of divan pillows so popular of the moment. We are keeping the old blood lines going and we breed rarely and very selectively.
Collies were bred to protect the flocks of sheep in Scotland and true collies are not small and quite brave as they had to fight the wolves who preyed on the sheep. Our boys, old Melik of 14 years and his son Aleksandr at 5, are huge, way above the allowed standards for shows. Even the girls are at or larger than show standards including the three 9 year old yellow girls who just barely make it under the shoulder height limits. The black girl, Ekatarina, is right at standard and my blue girl Sophia is half a centimeter above the standard. Eloise, Aleksandr’s sister, is far above the height limit and she is larger than any male collie we’ve seen on the show circuit in eleven years.
All eight have different personalities but all of them are very loving and affectionate to us. The boys are trained to guard the compound and young Aleksandr is the alpha after fighting with his father and his uncle two years ago. They are all like children who never grow up but at least we don’t have to put them through Institute.
I found I could not work with collies as they needed to be worked with a whistle and I could not whistle. A few collies that I tried, I had no luck with but on giving them to somebody else that could whistle they become excellent working dogs.
I worked with the Australian Kelpie. They were better to work on command, though my top dog I found I rarely had to say anything.
In the country we were working the dogs had to be lead dogs. That means they would go straight to the lead of a mob and hold them to a walk. Some dogs were trained to do this, but I always looked for dogs that did that purely on instinct. They also had to instinctively put animals into a mob rather than splitting them.
My other good dog,Tommy whistle or voice didn’t matter. He just did his own thing and I had to work to him. If I got angry and yelled at him too much he would just disappear and let me work the mob on my own for a bit, after awhile when he reckoned things had calmed down a bit he would come back and start doing things his own way.
It was much easier when I started flying and my son started working on the ground. In the scrub I could tell my son what the dog was doing and all he had to do was keep pushing the mob onto Tommy and Tommy would take them to the yards.
A lot of stories from those days.
Ladies and gentlemen, An Incident On Simonka is at this moment #22 on Kindle/Amazon Action-Adventure Short Stories and this with no reviews yet. I wish to thank all of you for your support!
I mean I loves dogs ok? But why do you have to cover that other beautiful thing behind them? An SVD is ALMOST as a beaut as a dva pups.
https://www.google.hu/search?client=tablet-unknown&hl=en-HU&oe=utf-8&safe=images&q=svd&source=browser-type&qsubts=1461935746534#imgrc=VOhHTi_7bqlT9M%3A
There, You have been properly chastised.
I humbly accept my chastisement but I must protest that I am at least partly innocent. The other beautiful thing can be seen here:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Last-One-Novel-Spetznaz-ebook/dp/B00ZGCY8KK?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Auslander,
Will your books be made available in print?? I hope this will be the case soon! And keep writing!
I have a Boston Terrier, named T-Bone. Next to my spouse he is the joy and love of my life…..
Regards.
Yes, eventually they will be in print starting with this short story. I want to have them translated to Russian, too, but with the complicated plots and stories plus the emotion in some scenes it will take a master translator to do so. Never The Last One is 650 pages in print form and I shudder to think how long a translation will take.
My personal dog in our herd is Sophia, a stunning blue merle who came to us by accident. We love them all and give all of them lots of affection but Sophia is my shadow and has been since her owner brought her to us for a visit. The Soph came through the gate, took one look at me, she was a clumsy young puppy at the time, wrapped herself around my leg and announced “Daddy, I’m home.”
Auslander
First reviews have come in, both very good and rated five star, both from fellow sakers. I have also received several private messages about the little book, all very complimentary. It pleases me that readers find my books enjoyable.
I write every day on the second long book. It will not be as long as Never The Last One but it won’t be short, either.
Auslander
1. Auslander has skilfully woven the facts of recent events in Crimea and Sevastopol (following the coup in Kiev) into a fast paced fiction. In Soviet times listeners of the news became very adept at reading between the lines and sifting out the hidden nuggets of truth. The same craft is required in reading Auslander’s short story. I was engaged and enthralled and with family living in Sevastopol, the story was particularly relevant. I look forward to more revealing ‘incidents’. I love the characters – they are ‘so Russian’.
2. An Incident at Simonka
What a pleasure to be back with these characters we first met in “Never the Last One”. That being a full length book, the characters had plenty of space to develop and many of them were indelibly drawn: very unique, unfailingly interesting, and some seemingly bigger than life. Readers who have not read the first book will still enjoy a good read, but will not have the back story on the characters. The characters who are new with this book are very real. The ones who are arrayed against the Russians are not depicted as evil or nasty, but rather as people who are on the opposing side. They are treated with a soldier’s respect for his opponents, who are simply following their orders, too. But they are each distinct personalities. I felt glad to meet them and hear what they had to say.
Well, for readers of the first book, our old friends are back, all summoned to respond to a crisis in their shared and beloved city of Sevastopol. This being a very short book, they each get less exposure, but all my favorites take part in the action.
And action we get into right away. With only a day’s notice they must plan, practice, and execute a very dangerous mission to save their home city, and maybe a big chunk of Russia, from falling into enemy hands.
The author is a skilled story teller with a sure hand in directing action scenes, and plotting a very plausible story. Very plausible and quite relevant. This reviewer believes that something along the lines of this story actually happened – or maybe almost happened.
The story line is well structured, with roughly a chapter each presenting (1) the assault and capture operation itself, (2) the careful business of returning captured soldiers to a US Navy ship standing offshore, (3) the after the event analysis on-board the Navy ship – which reveals to the reader many interesting things, and (4) various personal impacts, mainly centering on a young, pretty, and foolish Russian girl who was living with one of the coup plotters, and also managed to fall in love with a handsome young Russian naval officer. Action, romance, individual people participating in large scale historical events. You are not missing anything, except the rest of the book.
Auslander: quick! Write the rest of the book. Don’t leave us hanging!
The request that NATO leave Crimea and it’s refusal is very intriguing but not fleshed out at all. Instead we are told where to buy the two books that describe this global incident.Real slap in the curiosity, how come?