PIONEER OF THE WESTERN FRONTIERS

In October 2001, Yermek Dossayev was appointed Head of the new Boghet border outpost of the 2018 military unit of the Batys Regional Directorate. Then his famous pioneer saga began.

People like Lieutenant Colonel Ermek Dossayev are called the salt of the earth. This phraseological unit is deciphered as «the best», the most fertile layer of the earth. Of course, the character in our story did not think about it when, having landed in the winter of 2001 in a deserted place among the naked dunes, he took up the arrangement of the simplest life for his subordinates. It was necessary to immediately start guarding the border, organize the service, and tune the personnel for a good result. Standing in the middle of the silent steppe, he did not feel lonely and abandoned - there was a huge country behind him.

 

 

That period of the life of Lieutenant Colonel Yermek Dossaev is more like a well-known Soviet western with chases and smugglers, in the confrontation with which one could rely only on himself. In a desert area, where you will not find human habitation for hundreds of kilometers, «green caps» were the only barrier for uninvited guests. Meanwhile, violators are accustomed to the fact that they can cross the state border without any risk to themselves. With the emergence of a frontier post in these desolate places, a lucrative but illegal business was severely damaged. The watchmen of the Motherland stood  in the way of enterprising and unceremonious businessmen.

Three officers, two contract servicemen and 20 conscripts - that’s all the personnel that were taken from Zhanaozen by helicopter to the area called Өnere, where they were met by the commander of the unit, Lieutenant Colonel D. Ozeryanik. Until it got dark, they began to set up the tents. Experienced border guards dug their temporary, as the new settlers hoped, housing into the ground so as not to be annoyed by the piercing winter winds.

Later, the border guards will build a bathhouse, storage for vegetables, IES and OVS warehouses and a concrete pit for storing water on their own. The lack of building materials was compensated by local resources - the border guards were rescued by the shepherds who spent the winter 30-50 kilometers from the outpost, who helped to collect stones and bricks in abandoned buildings, of which there were many on the site. Water and food were brought from the «mainland». When the water ran out, the rains gave life-giving moisture, and in the winter the snow was melted.

Nearby, three kilometers away, a spring gushed, which gave the name to this area, but the water from it was impossible to drink. The water that gushed out of this land soaked in the sweat of the ancestors who had been wandering in these parts for thousands of years could not have been drinkable; a lot of salt had accumulated in it.

 

 

The state border between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan at the Boghet frontier post stretches for 195 kilometers. The service is organized by border detachments at the commanding heights, as well as by patrol - by car. The border line from the frontier post is about 90 kilometers, and at the disposal of the «Boghettsev» there is only one car - «ZIL-131» with a Kung. The first outfit was displayed as part of a reconnaissance and search group.

The smugglers mostly came across with gasoline, which they illegally tried to smuggle further north from Turkmenistan. They transported cheap fuel on KamAZ trucks, in tanks with a capacity of 10 to 30 tons, in the fall they transported vegetables, cattle and small cattle. It was not easy to control a long section of the border, but the tireless «green caps» were in time everywhere, «grew» in front of the violators, as if out of the ground. Sometimes, in order to detain a stranger, they chased him for a long time through the desert.

Once the «reconnaissance and search group», who interceded with the senior border detachment, Yermek Dossayev and his subordinates, detained three KamAZ trucks with AI-95 gasoline. When escorted to the outpost, before reaching its destination about 50 kilometers, one car caught fire, the fire engulfed the entire KamAZ at once. The escorts managed to drive off to a safe distance; the people who were in the burning vehicle managed to jump out and run away from the car engulfed in flames, literally a minute later the tank exploded.

In those remote places to the nearest settlement - the city of Zhanaozen 230 kilometers. The terrain on the trusted section of the border is completely deserted, in places small hills rise, and among the sand dunes, shrubs and saxaul are occasionally found. The sands are called «Karynzharyk-kum».

Yermek Dossayev, his deputy Senior Lieutenant Shukhrat Sakhratov and foreman Ensign Tursynbek Kozhaniyazov were married at the outpost. Before the onset of severe cold weather, the families lived at the outpost, later the border guards took the households «to the mainland», to their parents.

Border guards lived in tents - officers in a 20-seater, in which one half was occupied by a communications officer and a border guard duty officer, in the second half there was an office, where there were beds for commanders, and conscripts were housed in a 40-seater tent.

In winter, stoves were drowned. The outpost did not even have a diesel unit necessary for generating electricity, during the day the battery radio stations were charged from solar panels, communication with border detachments and the detachment was maintained every two hours, then the radio stations were turned off in order to save batteries.

The climate in Manghistau region, as you know, is sharply continental, it is very hot in summer, winds blow constantly in winter, little snow falls, and if it does, it melts quickly. With the onset of heat, the border guards began building a bathhouse, warehouses for storing food, property and other outbuildings, including a concrete tank for storing water.

 

 

Together with the warmer weather, families of border guards reappeared at the outpost, defusing the situation, bringing comfort to the officer’s life. Life was getting better, only the basketball did not want to bounce off the sand, so it was not possible to play with the children.

Today, Lieutenant Colonel Yermek Dossayev is the Head of the border guard department of the KNB PS Department for the Kyzylorda region. The officer was born into a family of ordinary workers. There were no military men in their family, but in the fifth grade he was impressed by the books of Bauyrzhan Momyshuly, and since then he began to prepare for the military profession. And after talking with his father, having learned that he has a cousin, a border guard, he decided to enter the border school.

It was the summer of 1993, when three best friends, classmates and neighbors from the Zhalagash village of the Zhalagash district of the Kyzylorda region went to Almaty to enter the F. Dzerzhinsky Higher Border Command school.They drove towards their dream, young, and therefore cheerful and self-confident. But luck smiled only at Yermek. And soon, in his native village, his father proudly talked about his son, a cadet, and his mother was looking forward to letters from him.

A year later, the military school was renamed the Military Institute of the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The cadet’s studies were not easy, the aul guy Yermek Dossayev almost did not speak Russian, only “hello” and other words from the everyday vocabulary, and this was his knowledge. With enviable persistence, he took up the study of the «great and mighty.» Within a couple of months, the student read fluently and confidently, albeit with an accent, answered at the seminars.

The cadet years flew by quickly and, after graduating from the border school in 1997, Yermek Dossayev was appointed to the post of deputy Head of the Usekskaya border outpost in the Zharkent detachment.

 

 

For the successful fulfillment of the assigned tasks in 2002, Yermek Dossayev was awarded a state award - the medal «Zhauyngerlik erligi ushin». Nothing was left without the attention of the command - he was awarded for conscientious service and invaluable contribution to the arrangement of the border. After that, Yermek Dossayev was appointed to a higher position in the Kyzylorda border detachment.

Over the years of impeccable service, the officer was awarded the medal «Shekaran uzdik kuzetkeni ushin», «Minsiz qyzmeti ushin» I, II, III degrees, Shekara skerinin zdigi ”II-nd degree, was repeatedly encouraged by the rights of the Chairman of the National Security Committee and the Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Director of the Border Service.