AEROBATICS OF CONTROLLER SALMENOVA
Despite the deep night, the passengers of the train did not sleep. The train had just crossed the Russian checkpoint, and now they had to go through passport control at the Kazakh border guards.
A citizen of Tajikistan is on the bottom shelf of one of the carriages. With her compatriots she went to her homeland.
Taking the passport in hand, the woman sat down by the window. Her heart was beating wildly. She tried to calm down, mentally assuring herself that this time, like the previous seventeen, she would safely pass the passport check. No wonder she had to spend so much on forging a document ...
On September 30, 2018, a passenger train between Moscow and Andijan stopped at the platform, creaking with brakes.
Clanging the bolts, the doors of the vestibule opened.
A fragile, graceful girl in border uniform entered the car. In her right hand she held a small suitcase.
It was corporal Olesya Salmenova.
She glanced at the overflowing with people reserved seat carriage and, having opened the MARM, proceeded to check the documents.
- Hello. Please, show your passports, she said politely but efficiently to the passengers.
The time was approaching four in the morning. But all the tension of the past day, all the fatigue, the controller skillfully hid behind a polite, charming smile.
Passengers gave her their documents one by one.
From the outside, it seemed that the controller was mechanically driving the data of citizens crossing the border into a computer. Only for a second her gaze rested on the face of the person being checked when checking the photo. But only the border guards know that during this time she has time to carefully study the document, make sure of its authenticity, and verify it with the “closed loop” database.
The shift methodically and thoroughly checks car after car. A dog handler with a service dog examines the luggage for illegal substances. Controllers with special technical means investigate secret places.
But now the last passenger presented his passport for verification. Lance corporal O. Salmenova, smiling, looked at the woman. The citizen looked about 37 years old. Her movements were confident; her face seemed to express calmness. But for some reason she stubbornly averted her gaze.
Olesya intuitively understood that the passenger was hiding something. And she carefully focused on studying her document. At first glance, everything was in order. The passport, although a little shabby, but all the records and date-stamps were clearly visible. The image in the document corresponded to the bearer.
“What makes me so alarmed?! Really intuition deceived me this time, - Salmenova thought intently studying the passport. - Here the mole on the right is the same. And the wrinkles in the eyes are the same as those of the passenger. Stop. What are the wrinkles? Judging by the date, she received her passport ten years ago. What could this mean?! Exactly! The photo was taken quite recently. And the passport is old ... Well, yes. This is true. Fake. So the print line is shifted in one place. Although, we must pay tribute, everything was done professionally».
After asking the woman a couple of leading questions, the controller noticed the passenger’s obvious excitement, and her breathing became more frequent.
The corporal was inwardly triumphant. But she didn’t show it. Only again, with a polite smile on her face, asked the woman to go with her into a separate compartment and called the senior shift.
During the filtration measures, the citizen of Tajikistan admitted that the presented document belongs to her sister. And later it turned out that the detainee was also on the federal wanted list in Russia. But for her this was not an obstacle, and she managed to cross the state border seventeen times, flying and traveling by train to different countries.
By the way, the examination showed that the passport turned out to be a complete forgery with high-level seals and watermarks. It is not surprising that for several years the border guards of the neighboring side did not manage to identify the criminal.
But Corporal O. Salmenova, who showed vigilance, managed to put an end to the illegal travels of a citizen.
Olessya’s high professionalism was also recognized by her Russian colleagues. At the border representative meeting, the Head of the FSB Border Directorate for the Orenburg Region congratulated the Head of the Zhaisan checkpoint, Major Yerlan Nassynov, on the successful arrest of the elusive intruder and gave Olessya a valuable gift.
***
In 2019, intuition, experience and attentiveness again helped to distinguish herself in the service of the controller O. Salmenova. She managed to identify the offender, whose passport was genuine, and the photograph did not differ from the bearer. And this is aerobatics!
On that day, at about 20 pm at the Zhaisan automobile checkpoint, a young man named Nurbek approached the passport office at which Olessya was sitting. He smiled sweetly and naturally answered all her questions.
- Where are you going? - asked the controller.
- To the salt lakes of Sol-Iletsk. I want to spend a few days with a girl there, ”the guy replied.
Salmenova, glancing into Nurbek’s passport, determined with a trained eye that the photograph on the document did not correspond to the bearer.
Before her there stood a young man with an open, kind gaze. And from the photograph in the document, the young man looked at her, like two drops similar to him, but his eyes were different, serious, even a little prickly
Corporal O. Salmenova reported her suspicions to the senior of the shift.
A long conversation of the officer during the filtration measures did not give any result. The young man claimed that the document belonged to him.
The controller decided to get to the bottom of the truth herself.
Having scored the passport data into the system, she found out that the guy has a twin brother named Aibek, who is not allowed to leave the country due to civil proceedings.
This fact explained a lot. However, the young man stubbornly stood his ground. Then the controller called the driver of the car for a conversation, in which the detainee arrived at the checkpoint as a passenger.
At first, the taxi driver also fiercely argued that the young man’s name was Nurbek and the border guards were wrong. But, after one question clearly asked by Olesya, the driver gave up (I would not want to go into all the details of the conversation, since this will reveal the professional secrets of the controllers).
As a result, Nurbek admitted that he had used his brother’s passport and in fact his name was Aibek.
***
But all this happened much later.
And in September 2018, when the border guards finished carrying out passport control, the night silence was broken by a shrill whistle and the passenger train, which had been at the platform for a good hour, finally started slowly. Wheels tapped him, and numerous carriages, swaying from side to side, carried their passengers to the distant Tajik city of Andijan.
A border guard was walking along the platform. They were servicemen of the Zhaisan railway checkpoint. Excellent bearing, confident gait, ironed and well-seated borderline form sharply distinguished them from the woman walking next to them, removed from the train. Her gaze was lost and sad.
She took a deep breath, then looked back for the last time at the departing train, which was supposed to take her to her native land, and, submitting to fate, under the escort of border guards entered the headquarters building.
Among the controllers, her dejected appearance did not evoke compassion in any way. The woman was a violator of the state border. And with such citizens, the border guards are always strict and principled.
The train passenger was on the federal wanted list for financial scams. Until that day, she managed to avoid criminal punishment, and the forgery of the document gave her the opportunity to fly freely to different countries.
But this time the fortune turned away from her…