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The Eastern Sayans are considered one of the most dangerous mountain regions of Buryatia. Hundreds of tourists come here every year. And almost every year, the journeys of some of them end tragically. Therefore, the Kyrensky search and rescue team, led by its chief, first-class rescuer Leonid Usoltsev, is never bored.

On that March day, six tourists from Udmurtia decided to traverse one of the Sayan passes. They did not expect any dangers on their way. The weather is good, the mood is great. The slope does not appear to be avalanche dangerous.

The March sun was hot and stirred the blood. Therefore, when the group leader Andrei Shuklin suddenly rode down on a snow board, they perceived it as a funny episode. He shouted cheerfully and waved his hand at them. Only when the board suddenly broke off… and after it the entire snowy slope collapsed, they saw with horror how their comrade was swallowed up by the whirlwind of snow.

The roar of the avalanche ceased, the snow dust settled — the guys saw a dazzling white surface. Andrei was not there. The tourists went down and, still not believing what had happened, began feverishly digging out the snow in the place where they had last seen it. Only after two days of hard and fruitless work did they turn to the Kyrensky search and rescue squad.

The head of the detachment, Leonid Usoltsev, reported what happened in Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk. On the same day, Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk rescue teams left to help the Udmurt tourists. The top of the avalanche was plowed up by Udmurt tourists. The most difficult and time-consuming section remained.

In some places the thickness of the avalanche here reached eight meters. The snow froze because at night the temperature went beyond minus 30. Rescuers had to dig holes and tunnels. Here, as, indeed, in all other cases, Leonid Usoltsev distinguished himself.

Those who were shorter and thinner in strength, and who also smoked, ran out of steam quickly. Leonid threw snow from an eight-meter depth, it seemed, without much stress or fatigue. No one could compare with him. Peasant hardening was taking its toll.

Born and raised in Kyren. Since childhood, he worked in mowing, in the garden, and in the forest. In the army he took up athletics. I reached the level of candidate master.

I would have become a master if my service life had not expired. I came home to Kyren. Got married. Graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in absentia.

He became an educated, intelligent man, and had a yard full of livestock: chickens, cows, pigs. This is so that his two children, and himself and his wife, do not look at someone else’s loaf, but create their own with their own hands. So that children grow up as workers. They didn’t complain about life.

They didn’t blame everyone and everything for their sins. In a word, they would live according to the good Christian customs of their ancestors and take the example of their father, who never hid behind other people’s backs. “This is not a person, an elk!” — the young rescuers spoke of Usoltsev with admiration. He climbs the ridge first, no, to rest, he leaves his backpack and goes down to help others.

And it’s the same here: the guys come after working on an avalanche and collapse from fatigue. And Leonid silently takes an ax and goes into the forest for firewood. He will chop it and bring it. The fire will blaze and pour heat over the people.

Look, there are conversations, jokes, laughter. And Leonid is already working on his ammunition or something else. It seems like he didn’t work harder than anyone else. Tell him that he is a hero, he will be offended.

“You know what I like most about him,” said the head of the Ulan-Ude detachment, Vladimir Zinov, who knew him for a long time, “this is absolute reliability, honesty and selflessness. You can entrust him with the most difficult, most complex task, and you can be sure that he will do it without any hackwork, one hundred percent. At the same time, not a shadow of self-praise or whining. More modest than modest.”

Without unnecessary noise, without fanfare, they built a house for the detachment with their own hands. They prepared the forest themselves, sawed it themselves, built it themselves. If someone else were in his place, he would have pierced his chest with his fist, but for him this is an ordinary, taken-for-granted thing. So he worked on this avalanche more than anyone else, and when they gave interviews to journalists, he remained in the shadows.

The search for the Udmurt tourist in the avalanche lasted two days. This is just one of many episodes from the rescue biography of Leonid Usoltsev. He also selected the members of the detachment to match himself. They are well known in the area, and they respond to almost all emergencies.

For example, they called at night from the Civil Defense headquarters: a forest fire had spread to the village of Ulbugai and the solar station. Urgent help is needed, there are casualties. For several days the guys fought against the natural disaster: they evacuated the residents of the solar station, saved the village of Yengorga from a forest fire, and searched for missing people. Recently, late at night, I called Leonid at home, his wife Nadezhda answered the phone.

I ask: “Where is the owner?” - “Lenya went into the forest to look for the missing tractor driver.” She was already accustomed to answering knocks on the door and seeing her husband off at any time of the day or night. And then wait for him for several days, worry. Well, that’s his job: saving people.

For his high professionalism and extraordinary dedication to his work, Leonid Usoltsev was awarded the title “Honored Rescuer of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia.”