18.09.2008 12:36 | Three Days of Lolita Kabisova`s Life

When she reached Russian border with eight kids on her hands, she realized that God exists.

During three nights she was running to the Russian border together with the eight small children; her husband and two elder sons have remained in South Ossetia so that to protect their Republic.

Lolita and Aslan lived with their ten children rather poor, but in a friendly manner. For fun people called the Tebet`s residents “the mountain dwellers”, but there were not any mountains there. Tebet is almost the suburb of Tskhinval. The house with four and a half rooms in it became small, and they began to build near a new house, which would be more open-hearted so that everybody could have enough places there.

But they had time only to construct a big but strong basement. This basement has rescued all the family when the storm of a city began.

Aslan Sagkaev worked in the Migratory service, but he never thought, that he could become the compelled migrant by himself. Lolita Kabisova, having married, didn’t change her surname, though there wasn’t other such a close-knit family in the district. Lolita did not work anywhere and it was easy to guess why she didn’t, when you see her native children: Peter of 21, Vadik of 20, Sarmat of 17, Amina of 16, Valery of 15, Ilona of 14, Aslan of 10, Boris of 7, Soslan of 5 and little Linda of 8 months. The family cultivated maize and beans, reared hens, and ate these foodstuffs.

The elder sons choose man's profession: one of them served in OMON, another in SOBR. Their father steeped in a civil guardsmen’s line. And that’s why Lolita with her younger children only had been at home when the Georgian armies entered the city.

– During the shelling, we took cover in the big basement, - Lolita says – Even now the children are afraid of the loud sounds... When they bombed us, Amina was crying terribly, and Soslan, who was five years old, was only mumbling and shaking; and now, as soon as he hears a sound of the flying plane, he starts to mumble and shake. At the first war I had only five children, and the elder children even used to the war. And the kids now were afraid awfully. There was a shooting at that day, and then we heard a sound of tanks, and the neighbors were delighted, they thought it was, probably, Russian army, and we began to get out of a cellar. And four fighters of OMON, which went past, have run to us and began to shout: “hide the children, these tanks are Georgian”! Then the shooting began and these four fighters fell over – they were dead. But they saved our lives, and we together with the children had time to return to a cellar. Till the night we took cover in a cellar and dreamed only about one thing - to get to Russia, - Lolita continues. – We hadn’t the relatives there, but we knew that our rescue was there. In the evening we released the hens so that the enemies couldn’t get them, and started a way. Three nights we were on our way to the north through the wood, I carried little Linda by myself.

Soslan could not go too, and the brothers carried him. We saw killed children, women, and elderly. But we had time to take cover by ourselves. When we crossed the Russian border, we understood that God exists. Today the big family, as well as many other refugees, took shelter in Alansky Female monastery, which is situated near the Nothen Ossetian town Alagir. Divinely beautiful places - the pond, wood and a small river - help to forget about the endured horrors.

- The main thing is, when we helped them to call to South Ossetia, it turned out that her husband and the elder sons are alive! – says Ekaterina Tsalieva, the deputy director of a monastery. The rehabilitation center of this monastery was built by the local Russian authorities for the children, who suffered in the tragedy of Beslan. We thought: “We’ll treat the kiddies and will use the center only for good affairs, and forget about the troubles here...” Today the convenient rooms are useful for the reception of refugees. The townspeople bring here meal, clothes – everything they have. Also we receive about a hundred free copies of "The Russian Newspaper"; the refugees daily learn from it the news about their native South Ossetia.

- Do you want to come back?

- I experienced such a fear, - Lolita says, - that I shall return home only if there will be a real border with Georgia and Russians return to South Ossetia.

"The Russian Newspaper"

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva.