The name of the correspondent of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets Dmitry Kholodov thundered throughout the country in 1994. With his work, the young specialist demonstrated the power of the journalistic profession. His work, from beginning to end, was akin to performing military service, even the famous journalist was killed "in the performance of professional duties."
Childhood and youth
The future journalist was born on June 21, 1967 in Zagorsk, Moscow Region. Parents of the boy were engineers by profession, they worked at the Scientific Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Dima spent his childhood in the town of Klimovsk. He grew up an ordinary child, calm, not standing out in the team. The first teacher remembers him as a very persistent boy, this character trait helped in his studies. In order to achieve a beautiful handwriting in elementary school, he sat for hours with a fountain pen and improved calligraphy.
Kholodov studied well and got along with classmates. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a janitor, he considered this profession the best. A man with a broom, raising a pile of colorful leaves, delighted him and at the same time aroused a desire to help. Dima was drawn to the beautiful, and at the age of nine he tried to compose fairy tales. The subject of special parental pride was his weekly newspaper. The manuscript edition contained charades, riddles, reports and took pride of place on the wall.
After graduating from school, Dmitry decided to continue the family dynasty and entered the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Former teachers were surprised by the choice of a graduate, because he was always distinguished by good humanitarian abilities. Service was interrupted by service in the army, the young man passed it in the Marine Corps. Having returned, he continued his studies. Many did not realize that in the third year a student decided to simultaneously receive a second journalistic education. But the plans remained only dreams. An engineer with a red diploma began his career biography at the same enterprise with his parents.
Journalism
Kholodov began his career in journalism by working as a correspondent on a local radio. Accidentally seen in the newspaper an announcement about the recruitment of new specialists to the studio, was the beginning of a career and changed his entire biography. Already in 1992, he was enrolled in the staff of the diary "Moskovsky Komsomolets". The journalist Kholodov had a very unusual smile. As soon as she appeared on her face, this immediately disposed the interlocutor to an open conversation. He did not make music and did not attend sports sections. His main hobbies were history and travel. As a child, Kholodov made trips around the country with his family, and began to travel independently as a student. In total, Dmitry visited about sixty cities. He was especially interested in ancient temples - the endangered splendor of Russia.
Most of the articles of the correspondent were devoted to the state of affairs in the modern Russian army. The journalist believed that strong Armed Forces of the state can only be built on a contract basis. To know the question “from the inside”, Dmitry often visited “hot spots”: Abkhazia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Azerbaijan, and was on the border with Afghanistan. He wrote not only about the everyday life of ordinary soldiers, but also raised questions of corruption in the troops. More than once, Pavel Grachev, who held the post of Minister of Defense in those years, became the hero of his critical reporting. Dmitry paid particular attention to the investigation of the corruption scandal in the Western Group of Forces. By personal order of the minister, the correspondent was deprived of the opportunity to attend press conferences and briefings, in one of the programs Grachev called Kholodov "an internal opponent." To stop negative publications on the army, the military leadership prepared materials for the press that would convict the journalist of a lie.
