From Company Commander to Legendary Brigade Commander: Remembering Vitaly Smyr

Aslan Kobakhia remembers Vitaly Smyr, who rose from company commander to brigade commander during the 1992–1993 Georgian–Abkhazian war. Through memories of battle and friendship, he recalls a demanding officer, a loyal comrade and a man whose humour stayed with those who knew him.

Translated from Russian by AbkhazWorld.

Vitaly Smyr had such energy, may God grant everyone as much! During the war, he rose from company commander to brigade commander. He set the highest standards for himself and, naturally, expected no less of those under his command.

Nobody doubted that Vitalik would enter the fighting from the very first moments of the war. The Georgian prosecutor’s office and Ministry of Internal Affairs had pursued him over the events of 1989. Back then, he had put aside concerns about his police career. Rather than protect his comfortable position, he stood up for his people, becoming one of the organisers of armed resistance to Georgian neo-fascists in the Gudauta district.

Vitalik was on the front line from the first days of the war and took part in every offensive. His company suffered heavy losses during the March offensive. They fought on until the order came to withdraw. He himself sustained a serious arm wound but remained in action until the end. By the summer offensive, he was deputy brigade commander; by the final assault on Sukhum, he had risen to command the brigade.

It was here that his qualities as a commander became even more apparent. From the opening moments, the First Brigade’s battalions came under a ferocious barrage of enemy fire. At one point, the situation became precarious. Of the brigade’s four battalions committed to the battle, three had all but stalled. Only the Afon–Eshera Battalion kept driving forward like a tank! Through immense effort, the brigade wrested positions from the enemy, step by step.

Vitaly directed the battle tirelessly. His orders were more colloquial than military, but everyone understood him immediately: “Аттаҳәа абна иагәыдшәҵа” — “Concentrate your fire on that target!”

He also had his own way of encouraging his battalion. Whenever they struck a successful blow against the enemy, he would respond enthusiastically over the radio, making sure the others could hear that things were going well and that they needed to keep advancing. And when necessary, he could let fly with some choice swear words.

The enemy resisted desperately, blocking our assault battalions as they tried to advance along the lighthouse road through the Uch­khoz area towards the high-rise buildings of the Gumista residential estate. After tremendous effort, and thanks to the persistence of the Afon–Eshera Battalion, we managed to gain a foothold around the high-rise blocks near the supermarket.

Having held out for days, the enemy realised that our troops were beginning to move behind their positions in both the Gumista estate and Uch­khoz. They had no choice but to retreat. They could no longer mount an organised response to our forces: the Second Brigade, commanded by Garik Samanba and led by the army’s Chief of the General Staff, General Dbar, had entered the city from the mountains.

Throughout those days, Vitalik skilfully commanded his brigade, swiftly adjusting his units’ tasks as the battle unfolded.

After the war, he served as deputy minister of internal affairs. He frequently had to lead special operations in the Gal district. Georgian “partisans” were terrified of the “Black Colonel”, as they called him. He was merciless towards them.

Yet those who knew Vitalik remember a deeply caring man, devoted to his comrades-in-arms. He was also a great joker.

Vladislav Ardzinba would occasionally chide him for remaining a bachelor, and each time Vitalik would ask for a little more time.

Once, he came to my workplace and asked me to drive him to see a young woman he hoped to marry. I was delighted. We bought flowers at the market and drove to her home. I stayed in the car while he went inside to propose. About an hour later, he emerged looking cheerful.

“Everything’s fine. It’s fifty per cent settled. I said yes; she said no…”

Tragedy struck in October 1997. The driver of the car in which Vitalik was travelling lost control, and the vehicle plunged from the Upper Gumista Bridge into the river. I arrived just as they brought Vitalik up onto the bridge. Looking at me, he said:

“The Georgians didn’t kill me — he has.”

Many people gathered at the hospital. They crowded the corridors, trying to encourage him. He said only:

“Let me die.”

Then he closed his eyes and passed away, without a single groan of pain.

How many of them we have lost, those wonderful friends! May their memory live for ever.

Aslan Kobakhia
Hero of Abkhazia and veteran of the Patriotic War of the People of Abkhazia, 1992–1993

Colonel Vitaly Khazaratovich Smyr, Hero of Abkhazia, was born on 21 May 1951 in the village of Aatsy, in the Gudauta district.

He attended Primorskoye Secondary School from 1958 to 1969 and subsequently worked in the Gudauta district fire service.

In 1978, he graduated with a qualification in law from the Tbilisi Specialised Secondary Police School of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. He later graduated from the Ministry’s Higher School. He held various posts in the internal affairs service, including deputy chief of police for the Gudauta district. While serving in that position, he took active steps to protect civilians during the tragic events of July 1989 in Sukhum, for which he was subsequently persecuted by the Georgian authorities.

From August 1992, he helped strengthen defensive positions along the River Gumista. In October 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Smyr was tasked with forming and commanding the 5th Coastal Defence Battalion. At the beginning of the war, the battalion comprised a group of police officers and was stationed near the mouth of the Gumista.

During the March operation of 1993, the 5th Battalion was ordered to cross the river near the cellophane workshop as part of the second echelon and advance to the Achadara railway halt. Despite fierce enemy resistance, it accomplished its mission. The battalion commander personally led his men into the attack, destroying two enemy timber-and-earth bunkers and sustaining a wound.

At 09.00 on 16 March 1993, Vitaly Smyr decided to take the Gumista railway bridge. The battalion suffered heavy losses in the unequal battle that followed, but the bridge was captured.

During the July operation of 1993, the First Brigade under his command pinned down the main enemy forces on the right flank of the Gumista Front, enabling Abkhazian troops to advance successfully on the left. During the operation, which began on 3 July, soldiers of the 3rd Battalion held a captured bridgehead on the left bank of the Gumista for 17 hours. Thirty-five men were killed while crossing the bridge.

In the September operation to liberate Sukhum, which began on 16 September 1993, the First Motor Rifle Brigade under Vitaly Smyr’s command seized bridgeheads in a surprise attack and secured passage for the assault groups. His skilful and decisive actions helped bring about the liberation of the Abkhazian capital on 27 September 1993, opening the way for the troops to advance towards the state border along the River Ingur.

After the war, Vitaly Smyr served as deputy minister of internal affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia and was one of the commanders of the counter-terrorist operation in the Gal district.

He died tragically in a car accident on 31 October 1997.

Vitaly Smyr held the title of Hero of Abkhazia and was a recipient of the Order of Leon.