Age — 39; Russia, Tula.

Dmitry, Dima, Dimulya…   
One can write and say a lot, but there are no words that could ever describe such a kind, humble, gentle, and remarkable person who was such a lover of life.  My loving husband!  Like every girl, since childhood I had dreamed of my prince, and of a happy family life that would last many, many years all the way unto death.  It all came true, except for the long period of happiness: apparently we were too happy…

Dima was born on March 28th, 1963, in the city of Mtsensk in the Orlovsk district.  We met in 9th grade.  After finishing school with honors in 1980, Dima left for Tula where he had been accepted into the polytechnic institute there, while I went to the Moscow Technological Institute.  We wrote to each other, and got together during school holidays.  Little by little our school-time friendship blossomed into love.  After our fourth year of institute we married, and after graduation we were both assigned to Tula, where we continued to live.  

 We started our own family, not allowing our relatives to meddle in our relationship.  There was a lot of various frictions at the beginning, the kind where each partner tries to force their point of view on the other, but, thanks to love and trust, we learned in time to feel each other at a distance, and to speak with only our glances.

In 1986 I gave birth to our son Andrey, who was the greatest joy and pride of my husband.  Dima was very gentle and loving, but he could also be a demanding father at times.  All that was missing from his parents’ family, he tried to do for his own son.  Dima always wished for Andrey to be strong and healthy and that his life would be happy.  Our son knew that, if papa promised something, then papa would definitely keep his word.  I know firsthand what it meant to lose a loving father at 16; I lost my father in an automobile accident in 9th grade, and it was Dima who helped me make it through this terrible loss back then when we first became friends.  

From early childhood to even today, our son has strived to be like Dima in every way.  For him, his father’s authority is unshakeable, and he often asks himself in one or another situation: “How would papa handle this?”

Dima was a very sociable and charming person, and it was always interesting to be with him.  He was a holiday person who loved to give presents more than he liked receiving them.  People grew so used to his kind smile that, if they ran into him and he was not smiling, right away they would ask if something had happened.  

 I was delighted by his constant thirst for knowledge.  Every day he would read several books at a time, books from completely different genera.  He always wanted to learn something new and had mastered many specialties.  He was like a ‘walking encyclopedia’, and used every free minute for his own self-development.  You could come to him with any question and get an exhaustive answer.

Lately Dima had taken courses in psychological training, called ‘Simoron’, in which people gain peace and self-assurance, and try to solve their problems, with only a smile and benevolent conversation.  I attended some classes with him, and saw how the people there were sincerely happy when my husband entered the hall and charged them up with his smile.

Dima attended M. Norbekov’s psychological courses in the self-help center.  He dreamed of starting a psychological school in Tula, and with this aim in mind he traveled to Moscow several times for consultations at the Institute of Man, which is a separate wing of the Ball-bearing plant’s theatrical center at Dubrovka.  

 On October 23rd, Dima went on a business trip with a colleague to an exhibition in Moscow.  That evening he went to a seminar at the Institute of Man, though he had not previously planned to go there before.  After classes the participants in the seminar headed towards the exit, but the door turned out to be locked.  While most remained standing by the door, Dima and his friends went looking for the keys.  They ended up in the hands of the terrorists, while OMON police commandos broke into the theater to rescue the others who stayed behind.

Not wishing to worry me, but knowing that I would be looking for him, Dima called my aunt in Moscow several times, in hopes that she would contact me in Tula.  But she did not do this, and waited until I called her first.  

 All during those awful days I never left the television.  I worried terribly for the people who had become hostages, but I could not even imagine that my dearest husband, due to a twist of fate, could have also ended up there…

Written by his wife Marina Chernykh, and their son, Andrey Chernykh.

How best to tell about Dmitry?  That the main thing is that he was, and I am not afraid to use the word, an extraordinary person.

Dima was a true friend.  When I remember him, I always see the scene in that Nikita Mihalkov film, ‘His own among strangers, and a stranger among his own’, in which the remarkable actor Yuri Bogatyrev plays Egor Shilov.  Whenever certain harsh and austere men thought about Egor, smiles would break out upon their faces.  They recalled something very dear, and remembered a Friend, and would say: “Egor is a man you can count on.  I’ll vouch for him.”  Dima was a true Friend…

Tell me, cross your heart, do you have any such friends?  Dima was one.  He was a person whose word was law, a person about whom you were not afraid to say: “I’ll vouch for him!”  He was a person who was unconditionally honest and decent, and he was not physically able of doing anything underhanded to anyone.  You are truly lucky if you have such friends!

There is this understanding of what a bright person is.  This is Dima.  It was very amusing for me to observe inside this more than 100-kilo giant the heart of a 7 year-old boy, a boy who viewed the world through wide-open eyes, and never lost in his almost 40 years the ability to be amazed, never lost the feeling of compassion, never became hardened by his years as a businessman, nor became coarsened by the scars of a multitude of blows from Fate.  This is what it means to be a bright person…

Dima was in a hurry to live.  He wanted to seize what could not be seized.  Business was what he engaged in to feed his family, but he lived with completely different interests: books, travel, and his attempt to understand what it meant to be a person.  He studied dianetics and psychology, learned about different religions, and simply talked with people.  In so doing he lived a remarkably full spiritual life.  He did not accumulate a lot, but he never intended to.  He had an apartment full of books and all sorts of things that he brought home from traveling, along with stories about how interesting and diverse the world was.  Stories about how different the people were in various countries, and yet how similar.  His attitude was: Lord, so much is interesting in the world, and it is so interesting to live like that!  How much more I have yet to see, how much more I have yet to find out!  Dima was in a hurry to live…

 Dima loved people a lot.  He was interested in talking with both young and old, and he found common ground with everyone.  He could speak peacefully with evil people, that is, those who are carrying evil inside.  He let it all in, and carried it close to his own heart.  He shared joy, and tried to alleviate whatever pain it was that bothered another, at times even forgetting that he too needed help.  He loved people a lot…

 Everyone loved him.  If some problems occurred during production, it would be Dima who went to straighten them out.  The overheated passions would cool down, and unneeded shouts would become quiet.  Calmly, and with iron logic, he answered the hard questions using Leopold the Cat’s maxim: “Boys, let’s live as friends!”  Women could come cry on his waistcoat, knowing that he would not trumpet their problems to the world.  Men could come to him for advise on complex work of life episodes, knowing that he never advised anything stupid.  But with children — with children he was a big, funny kid with a thunderous laugh and a smile ‘on all 32 teeth’.  Everyone loved him…

 You say that there is no one like this?  That Dima is too much like a fairy tale prince from some long-forgotten story?  I would also think this, but what can I do if I KNEW this ‘prince’ and was his friend?  I did not invent anything, and what’s more, there is a very lot that I have not told about this, and I am not afraid to use the word, extraordinary person.  There is always a place for miracles in life, the miracle of being a GOOD PERSON.  Each day you paint with all the colors of the rainbow, and you understand that life is not just beautiful, but it has a point, because you leave your mark on it, and this mark can be bright and pure, or perhaps smeared with mud – it is your choice.  Dima chose his own bright road, and traveled it, with honor, to the end.  You say that there is no one like this…

Written by Alexey Pershin, his friend

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