Sunday, 3 October 1993 was an ordinary, pleasant October day in Moscow. With the resident 成人快手 Bureau Producer, Kate Whyte, and the visiting 成人快手 Correspondent, Bill Turnbull, I drove to Oktyabrskaya (October Square) on the Garden Ring Road, south of the Moscow River.
A crowd of anti-Yeltsin supporters had gathered there to make emotional speeches denouncing Yeltsin’s government and its economic reforms. There were many huge banners and Soviet Union red flags under the largest statue in Russia of Vladimir Lenin. I got the generic shots of the gatherings and gave my tape to Kate. She shot off to the 成人快手 Bureau.
One of the demonstrators said there was another, larger crowd in the Ploshchad Gagarina (Gagarin Square). This place was better known to tourists for its huge, Soviet-era golden statue of astronaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space.
Bill and I drove down the Leninsky Prospect, where we saw a large, lively and loud march heading towards us. They were moving faster than normal for marches and headed towards Oktyabrskaya. We followed this marching group on foot, with me carrying a 12kg camera on my shoulder and a 5kg bum-bag. By the time we got to Oktyabrskaya, the large crowd of hundreds of anti-Yeltsin supporters had disappeared.
It was unbelievable that in such a short time, the people who were there had dispersed. I noticed the police lines were in disarray and disorganised. I admit it was a mistake to go down to Gagarin Square, but things like that do happen. We needed to catch up with the agitated crowd.
We walked down towards Krymsky Bridge, past the famous Gorky Park and over the Moscow River and reached the corner of the big Aeroflot building. There were no people on the streets. The cars and trolleybuses, too, had disappeared. It felt very spooky. There was a burnt-out blue lorry and car and a ransacked trolley-bus.
We walked towards the Comecon building (used by the Russian army as its operation base), where a couple of blue ZiL trucks were being driven as battering rams into its front glass entrance. Many Russian soldiers in their uniforms were escaping through a smashed glass window on the side of the building.
We approached the smashed entrance and saw many civilians with various types of firearms. There was lots of shouting in Russian and some gunfire. Then I recognised a face: Colonel General Albert Mikhailovich Makashov
Soviet-era general
I had filmed him many times before. This time, he was in his Soviet army uniform without his medals. He seemed in control of the situation and the ragtag group of armed men. He headed up the stairs, and I followed behind him and his armed men.
Bill Turnbull was right behind me, courageous enough to follow me. He whispered that this was madness and that he had a wife and children. So do I, I replied.
When I turned around, General Makashov was in front of me, asking who I was. I replied in Russian that I was an Indian, and he accepted my answer. To have said that I was the 成人快手 would have been unwise, as Makashov hated the capitalist West and their Western press. He continued up the stairs, followed by three or four men, opened a door and shouted military-style orders. With my camera recording, I saw Russian soldiers laying down their firearms and holding their arms up. The mighty Russian army surrendering to this ragtag army was, in itself, unbelievable. Not a shot was fired.
More armed men rushed up the stairs past me. We followed the armed rebels, room by room, and watched the ransacking of papers and files. We came to a room where the rebels were trying to open a large safe and they started firing at the dial of the safe.
We escaped the way we came in and Bill did a piece to camera (PTC) telling the viewers what he had witnessed. At street level, there was mayhem. We took a people鈥檚 taxi to the 成人快手 Moscow Bureau.
Lead story
We viewed the video tapes. Bill Turnbull spoke to the Foreign Duty Editor, Alan Roblou, in London about our coverage. Alan thanked me for my efforts; my coverage was the lead story that night on the Six and Nine O鈥機lock News.
Ben Brown, the resident Bureau Correspondent, said that the 鈥楥ommies were heading to Ostankino TV Station,鈥� and he needed a few pictures for his Nine O鈥機lock News package.
A 成人快手 driver drove me through the Moscow back streets to the Ostankino TV tower. The anti-Yeltsin banner and Soviet Union flag-waving rebels were heading towards the TV station. I took some generic shots and the driver took the tape to the Bureau. I then heard a couple of loud explosions, followed by a barrage of gunfire from the Ostankino TV Centre buildings. I realised the gunfire was from the tracer bullets.
The marching mob scattered. There were many volleys of fire from the TV Centre building throughout the night. Visually, the gunfire was not very visible on my camera viewfinder, but for the tracer bullets and the sound it made.
The army snipers had night sights and could pick out people in the dark. With my dark jacket, I kept low and a reasonably safe distance. I had not expected any live gunfire when I left the Bureau. I stayed flat on the ground trying to help their fallen comrade. That night, there was a lot of Russian blood splattered on the street of Moscow. Every so often, the ambulances would come from the right and cart away a few injured people.
The fire was billowing out of the ground-floor windows of the Radio building. The fire spread and lit the area, and allowed me to capture some arty shots of fire with crackling wood-burning sound and gunfire.
With enough dramatic coverage, I slowly crept on my belly. It was difficult but the path I took was much safer. I walked hunched back to a safe area past the TV tower. I stopped a car and persuaded the Russian driver to take me for a generous payment.
When I returned to the Bureau, it was too late for my pictures to be used. Moscow time was three hours ahead of London time. My Bureau correspondent used my video for his report the next day and told me well done and to get some sleep. My flat was on the same street as the Ostankino TV station. On my balcony, high on the 20th
floor, I noticed a large hole in the wall. It was from a bullet fired by the Russian army. My superstition told me that a bullet meant for me outside the Ostankino TV station had found the balcony of my flat instead. Was I lucky or what?
That night and in the darkness of the morning, Yeltsin鈥檚 army was outside the Kremlin and the White House. In the daylight, the tanks fired at the upper floors of the White House and by late afternoon, the rebels gave in and were imprisoned. The revolution was over, with Yeltsin still in charge.
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