24.09.2008 19:11 | «Children Were Fired at, as if at the Shooting Range»

The parks of Vladikavkaz, where not long ago every evening crowds of townspeople gathered, were in silence today. At the children's playgrounds kids were not visible. Some of the food stores are closed - owners of the shops are hurriedly sending the entire produce to the pre-frontline zone, in refugee camps. Lines of people formed at the blood donation stations. Citizens are collecting humanitarian aid for victims…

At the border of Vladikavkaz, there are two opposing streams of people.

The clothing of those who escaped the Tskhinval hell smells of char, in their hair – ashes. They walk, reeling: the elderly treaded down slippers, women with busted knees, teenage girls, suddenly grown up over the days of the war.

Towards the refugees stretches a line of peacekeepers; boys in bright shirts, gray-haired men in camouflage. In their hands - hunting rifles and machine guns. In a few hours, President Medvedev will announce the termination of the peace enforcement - the militia are, naturally, unaware of this.

-- We go to Tskhinval at the call of our heart - tells us sulky Soslan. – Where did we get weapons? – He is surprised at our question. – We opened the storage, remaining since the time of the hostilities in the 90-s.

Volunteer Soslan, who in his peaceful life works in commerce, is headed for Tskhinval second time this week.

-- The authorities of the republic are trying to convince us not to go South, not to interfere with the military trying to establish order - said 42 year old Dzhemsher who was walking along with us. -- But this is our land and we are the defenders. If we do not go - who will respect us? All it took was a cry, and all the men of our street rose for a "clean-up" of Tskhinval.

“I’m only marrying an Ossetian girl.”

Lovely Albina shows us her plastic slippers, in which she marched several dozen kilometers in dirt. Her legs up to her knees were completely covered with bruises.

She would not leave Tskhinval until the last minute because of her younger brother who joined the militia.

-- On the second day of the shootings we heard a rumble of motors, we all poured into the street, and thought - Russian tanks will rescue us, - says Albina. -- Old ladies were crying with joy, the children were exulted. And suddenly the tank tower turned around towards us, and Georgians fire… Several people remained lying on the ground, the rest ran into basements. The last day I stayed on my knees, held a cross in my hands and prayed.

My sister and I were rescued by my friend that lived on the outskirts of the city. On the third day of bombing, she called and said that a large convoy of armored vehicles with Georgian infantry is headed for our area. We only managed to pull on our jeans and raced toward the village of Kufeti, where there’s a grove. Peacekeepers were fleeing along with us. They did not have any ammunition left, but they did not abandon their weapons.

From the soldiers we learned that Georgians, posing as the local militia, tightened white bandages around their sleeves. And when they were taken as one of our own in the dark based on the identification marks - they opened fire in order to kill. You cannot call them men; they are not familiar with the code of honor of the mountaineer.

We avoided Georgian ambush sites only thanks to our guide, who knew the local terrain very well. But close by - below us, on the slopes of the forests, fighting went on. We were afraid to use our cell phones, so we turned them off. The soldiers said that Georgians are somehow able to detect us by the signals of the cell phones and set their targets into us and launch shells.

When we arranged a rest stop, women were placed in the middle by the peacekeepers; they themselves were located around the edges, covering us. The whole time, next to me was a 32-year-old Sasha, a peacekeeper from Tver. A captain, who was wounded himself, pulled me from clefts when my legs failed me, carried me across streams, helping me at the ascents, and did not release my hand from his.

The peacekeepers reported that they were shot at point-blank range. Sasha’s friend died in his arms from loss of blood.

We entered Dzhava around five in the morning, we returned to native Beslan on trucks. Upon arrival at my mom’s home, I literally collapsed at the steps. All the neighbors immediately gathered in our yard and kept repeating: "Albina and her sister were born the second time."

-- I am 36 years old - said Albina. -- I have already survived four wars: we were shot at in ‘89, ‘92, then in 2004 and 2008. How much more Ossetian blood must be spilled so that we do not have to hide in the cellars?

Above us a plane is taking off, and a woman covers her ears. She cannot bear the rumble of the motors; it is associated with the bombing for her.

Despite the endured, Albina considers herself the happiest person in the world: in the morning younger brother Sergey called and said that he is alive. And also she often recalls, how Sasha, captain of the peacekeepers Alexander Sergeevich, said, when everyone realized that were saved: "I will only marry an Ossetian girl, I have not met more courageous and patient women." They exchanged phone numbers. Albina – is a musician. She promised to sing her savior her favorite romance.

But to put together the previous band of musicians would be impossible. The violinist and cellist are dead, and nothing is known of the drummer who remained in Tskhinval.

“Mom was buried without a coffin"

Despite the late hour, the Republican Central Hospital is crowded. People sit on benches, at the steps of the admissions wing.

We are pushing through the crowd towards the lists of victims brought from combat zones.

The man in a felt hat is running his finger darkened from soot over one page, then the next and suddenly grabs his chest:

-- Tatiana is alive! In the trauma ward.

Leaning with his back towards the convoy, Teimuraz is smoking and retells:

-- We were running under the bombing through the forest. Shells were going off nearby. My wife has fallen: shrapnel cut up her head and legs. I carried her in my hands for three kilometers, then came out to a road, and there was a string of ambulance vehicles… The last car took her; there was only space on the floor.

Teimuraz with his wife managed to survive. And his neighbors Dzoevs remained in the old "moskvichonka" car by their burned home.

-- When we saw Georgian tanks on the streets, followed by infantry - we hid in the basement, and Aslan with his family ran to the car, resolved to escape - Teimuraz remembers. -- They were shot as partridges - from rifles at a point-blank range. The elderly grandmother tried to cover up the body three-year granddaughter in the back seat. The girl began to scream, and they killed her in cold blood…

-- These are people? These are barbarians! -- Entered into the conversation 40 year old Nelya standing next to us. -- We saw from the basement, as Georgian troops chased up the street, while laughing, three young boys ages 9 to 13 years. As if they were geese they chased them into a trap, shooting them in the legs. And then, when the boys had their backs to the wall of a house, they opened fire on them, as in the shooting range. All were shot.

We are going up to the fifth floor. On the bed sits with a bandaged head a 31-year-old Goya. As soon as he learned of the atrocities in Tskhinval, he got in his car, and went after his mother who remained in a dilapidated home. He merged to the tail of a military convoy of the ‘58th army in his "zhigulenka" car. And on the Zarskiy road they came under a gust of fire.

-- I jumped out of the car, and immediately it was shot from a tank. Then the tank shot at the Russian convoy with direct fire. It seems as though they were waiting for us. Snipers went to "work" at the scattered into the bushes soldiers. Purposefully they shot the guys in the groin. Near me the captain grabbed his stomach and sat down… Then we were explained to that there are many women-snipers in the Georgian army: Lithuanians, Ukrainians. They did not just kill, but shot in a very exact manner, knowing that most of the wounded will die in torment from loss of blood.

In that battle Goya lost a friend. Alan Aguzarov was only 26 years old. The boy died in a pit from shrapnel wound to the heart.

Stepan Itoev from the neighboring chamber also cannot forget this terrible night. The head of the operated-on 25-year-old man was covered in gauze bandages, and the hand was in plaster. On the road, he with his mother and father came across an ambush by Georgian troops. Men screamed: "Do not shoot, we are civilians, we have no weapons." The answer was a machine gun round. The woman managed to make a step forward, covering her son's body with hers, collapsed dead herself, and Stepan, deafened by the shots, fell into the bushes.

-- I listened as I was approached by two militants, one kicked me with his foot in my stomach, the second one gave a round from his machine gun, a bullet hit a rock and rebound half a meter from my face - remembers Stepan. -- I was taken for dead.

Georgian military tied a grenade to the foot of a young man. The charge was to explode as soon as someone decided to turn the young man from his stomach on his back.

-- Fortunately, I had a pocketknife, and I managed to cut the rope. I was wounded, trudged the woods as in delirium. I lagged along the side of the Zarskiy road. As I saw the enemy’s armored vehicles, I realized that I was surrounded. I leaned against a fallen tree and fell into unconsciousness. Only in 24 hrs was I found by Russian troops and was sent to the hospital.

Stepan’s father was wounded in the arm and leg; he wandered the ravines for two days. Just today, the young man learned that his father is lying in a hospital on the outskirts of the city.

The man’s relatives managed to find and bury his mother. They couldn’t get a coffin. The woman was lowered into the grave, wrapped in plastic bags. Stepan was lying on the operating table at that time.

-- I know that mother’s love saved me, did not let me die in the unconsciousness in the woods - the young man said quietly.

The young man turns over facing the wall, his shoulders shaking.

“Only five of us made it”

It is already clear that it wouldn’t be possible to identify many of fallen residents of Tskhinval and the surrounding area.

-- "Grad" beat down on us; only craters remained of the houses. The whole world should know about atrocities of the Georgian troops! -- Tells us a 53-year-old Ellina from the female wards, whose face is covered with bruises. -- These inhuman creatures knew that we are hiding in basements from bombings. So they specifically blew up pipes with their grenades, we stood three days in water up to our waist. And then, not to bother with trivial things, they blew up the dam near the village of Kehvi; entire areas were flooded. Old men came out on the streets due to the rising water, they were immediately killed.

-- We had children with us in the cellar, they all sat silently, being patient – was adding to the story of her neighbor a 32 year old Inga. -- Teenage boys feeling themselves to be adult men would run to the bakery two blocks away to bring old people some bread. In the midst of the shelling, bread was still being made. When bombs demolished their building, they put the dough out in the open air using a single remaining oven, baking in three shifts. And then the bakery was blocked off by Georgian militants. We didn’t eat for a few days. Pack of rice was shared amongst twenty people. We chewed on raw grain, and we survived off that.

Ellina remembers, as the Georgian military burned garages, cynically shot at the cemetery tombstones. They also destroyed a chapel and a memorial cemetery of the defenders of Tskhinval of 1992. The tank passed over their graves several times and razed them to the ground. Ellina along with her elderly sister decided get out of the city, when militants started to throw grenades into the basements of the neighboring houses.

-- One time the Georgians were very close, we could see their yellow NATO boots from the basement. They are swearing at us - Ossetians – using inappropriate words, that we seized their land. As soon as they left, we got out and rushed into the forest, where a neighbour had an old car hidden. We ran “on all fours”, only praying, that our cuttlebone does not brake. And then we came under fire. We have managed to break through as well but these inhumane creatures set up a metal cable across the road. We have not noticed it in the darkness and dust; the entire roof of the car was taken off.

Ellina lost consciousness, came to only in the ambulance car.

-- We were still fortunate - Valentina said quietly, lying on a nearby bed. – We were operated on and saved. My brother just came by, and told me that eighty people left from a neighboring village in that terrible night, only five made it to Dzhava. How long will we have to collect the remains of people throughout the forests?

Relatives who came to visit the wounded residents of South Ossetia told that there were villagers who said: "Let us surrender to Georgians." There are stories that in the village Dzhunari adult women with white tissues in their hands came out and were shot at close range. In Tsunari lot of young men were taken prisoners, nobody knows about their fate.

The door to the room swings open, in breaks in a three-year child; after seeing burnt, mutilated faces of the wounded women, he starts to bawl loudly.

-- My boy, grandson! You don’t recognize your own grandmother? – Extends her arms to him Valentina, all covered in green ointment.

The boy throws himself into the arms of his grandma; this time it is Valentina crying.

"Do I really have to shoot my own people?"

Inga, who was beaten with kicks by three militants, said that now she can not bear hearing Georgian speech, she starts to shake, her blood pressure rises. "If it were up to me, I would have annihilated them all" - shouts the woman in fury.

-- Come to your senses - said to her Vera from the neighboring bed. – In our crowd fled Georgian women that have been married to Ossetians, and Armenians -- Georgian militants were firing at all, they did not discern nationality…

After stepping out of the hospital, we go to the center of Vladikavkaz -- Shaldoni area. Historically, it came to be that Georgians settled in this is part of the city for many years.

-- Yesterday, there was a meeting among the Georgian population of North Ossetia, we signed a formal appeal to the Government of Georgia asking to cease hostilities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia - tells Naziko, the worker of a produce store. -- Here I have a home, kids, we run our own shop. My son works in the FSB. During the war in Chechnya, he fought on the side of the Ossetians…

Yesterday Naziko gave home to a refugee, an unknown grandmother from Tskhinval who was left without shelter. Today, the woman is about to go to the center where they are taking humanitarian aid for victims. She will take a bag of clothes, bread and cigarettes.

88-year Russudana Zaharovna – is Georgian. Since 1953, she and her husband lived in Vladikavkaz.

-- My husband and I get along very well, I have two sons in Tbilisi, but we are unable to reach them. I do not know what happened to them. My legs gave way due to stress – cries the old woman. -- I no longer turn on the TV. I am afraid. We were horrified when we learned that the Abkhazians bombed the mountains. We have relatives living in those villages. They are also no news from them! After all we are such mixed group of people that we have forgotten ourselves who are - Georgians, Ossetians…

Stepan Razin Street was once inhabited by Georgians. In the 90s many of them left. Today there are only five courtyards remaining, which house the people of this nationality.

-- I have a sister remaining in Georgia – an Ossetian, a heap nephews - tells one of the residents of the area. -- The other day we got in touch over the phone, she wept. She told me that in Tbilisi all young men were called to fight. They took her 24-year-old son. He left with tears: "Mama, do I really have to shoot at my own Ossetian people". All Ossetians who live in Georgia are being sent to the front…

Yesterday on all city posts in Vladikavkaz ads have appeared: "Dear drivers, residents of the republic! The leadership of UGIBDD Ministry of Internal Affairs of RIS - Calls you to feel a sense of compassion for people who are on the other side of the ridge, towards our brothers. We understand that weddings and feasts were planned in advance – and it was impossible to reschedule. Due to this fact, we ask you to behave with restraint – do not shoot, do not honk on the streets and roads of the republic."

None of the locals had to be asked twice…

Vladikavkaz-Beslan-Moscow

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