By Olga Allenova, Special correspondent of "Komersant" newspaper who has been at war considers that South Ossetia these days a little differed from Chechnya in 1999.
"I thought that even weapons were not required here."
First things that reminded me about Chechnya were wounded Russian soldiers at a hospital of the Ministry of Emergency. They told me how military operations were organized and I understood that nothing had changed since 1999. On 11 August, a military column was sent from Tskhinvali to village Nikozi. Nobody told soldiers that Nikozi was a Georgian village and it was going to be stormed. These were 18-year old young men who have just arrived to Vladikavkaz to serve in the 58-th army. They have gone on operation without a dry ration, water and medicines. They did not have a map of locations and the column used to stop and retreat all the time because they were going the wrong way. The ambulance had broken down and had lagged behind for several kilometers from Nikozi. When fighting began, wounded men could not be dragged back.
"We were told that it was a peacekeeping operation," - said wounded soldier Misha. "I thought that even weapons were not required here."
The story of this guy shook me. I thought that army had changed and the Chechen war era had ended. I thought that only contracted soldiers were sent to conflict zones as it was officially declared by the Ministry of Defense. I was mistaken as well as millions of Russian citizens who are sending their children to serve in the army.
Unlike soldier Misha, Beslan Sanakoev from North Ossetia has come to fight by
his own will. He said:
"While there was a bombardment of the city and we were bombed, I stayed in a cellar with local inhabitants. There were 10 adults and one child in this cellar. The building shook all the time. Adults closed the child's ears, but the cellar was shaking and he heard everything."
Beslan talked a lot about this child. Beslan holds a machine-gun in his one hand and a car wheel in his other. We drive in the city. Passing by killed Georgian soldiers he stops the car and forces us to take photos of bodies: "Show this to the world, let them see it. So, that nobody could get here any more".
We stand for a long time around these bodies and I feel bad. Beslan, with a rigid voice says: "Are you sorry for them? Don't be. They came here with weapons in their hands".
"Perhaps, they did not wish to come here as the Russians, but had to fulfill orders", - I said.
But it is not an argument for Beslan.
Beslan has arrived to Tskhinvali from the first day. He has taken a compensatory holiday on work and has gone to South Ossetia.
"How did you pass with your weapon?" - I asked.
"And whom I asked?" – answers Beslan. "Nobody dared to stop volunteers. We went to protect the Ossetians."
One can write a book about how the volunteers came to South Ossetia. Russian citizens, who could die or kill innocent people in the zone of military operations were permitted to pass through the state border in Zaramag. Volunteers went everywhere with machine-guns.
They steadfastly stared at persons passing by and even Ossetian and Russian regular military forces were afraid of them. They solved everything here. I saw how four volunteers stopped a Russian colonel with whom I was going to the peacekeeping forces staff. The colonel obediently answered to all their questions and explained to me: " They are serious guys, it's better not to quarrel with them".
Beslan has left Tskhinvali in his old car, having left to his friends machine-guns and dry ration which he received from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Unlike him, many volunteers have left South Ossetia noticeably in a gloomy mood. The volunteers who have arrived to South Ossetia were accused of mass cases of marauding after the third or fourth days of war.
I saw how people in a camouflage bore from shops boxes with cigarettes and products. "There is a war, everything is for common use", - they said. When we tried to take photos the militants who were taking TV from a house shouted at us: "Get lost!" And the Russian colonel ascertained: "For such a snapshot you can get killed". Fear of marauding has forced many inhabitants of South Ossetia to return to their homes after the fourth day of war.
Staff on fighting marauding was created only on 13 August. Anatoly Barankevich, secretary of Security Council of South Ossetia has entered a curfew and has forbidden to people with machine-guns to appear in the streets. But by this time, many houses which have remained without owners have noticeably become empty.
"One more war is behind"
In village Khetagurovo, I did not see marauding. It is not that simple to reach this village.
Everybody in Tskhinvali told me that Khetagurovo is destroyed. They said it was impossible to restore it. Khetagurovo is a strategic village, it is located in the beginning of Zar road through which Russian army went to Tskhinvali in the first days of war.
If Zar road had been blocked, Tskhinvali would have been surrounded by a dense ring. Georgian tank columns went into Tskhinvali through Khetagurovo. For me, to see this village meant to understand a true picture of this war.
In order to get to Khetagurovo I had to bypass all Tskhinvali. There were no cars in the city. The volunteers who were driving around the city refused to take me to Khetagurovo: "It's very far" – they said. Actually, it's only 30 kilometers from Tskhinvali.
It's not about its' far location. The matter is that there are no Russian forces in Khetagurovo. They have passed far deep into the Georgian enclaves located behind this area. It is very dangerous in places where there is no army. I was lucky. There were some "UAZ" cars near the Republic's Prosecutors' building.
People there, were waiting for an investigatory group of 150 persons from Moscow. Local inhabitants were waiting for them. They were telling stories of what they had seen and heard and also different gossips. The wounded men who were in different hospitals of the region were also waiting for the same group.
Not only alive people were waiting for the arrival of that group: the corpses of Georgian armed forces, scattered all over the town and swelling from heat. They had to be put into the refrigerator and sent for the identification. They probably could be given to the Georgian side, but neither refrigerator nor investigative groups had not appeared for long. It was too late for the deceased that is why they were burnt. Nobody knew, who is doing that, but on the fifth day of war the corpses have turned into the mortal remains.
And while all waited for a public prosecutor's landing forces from Moscow, which obviously was not hurrying here, we managed to persuade employees of South Ossetia Public Prosecutor 's Office to go to Khetagurovo.
Empty road, along which, the cars riddled with bullets are scattered. There are the markings of blood in the cars. At the entrance to the village at a fence of a broken house a man and a woman with crutches are sitting on a log. Having seen our "UAZ", the old man sharply raises. His legs are trembling. "Don't be afraid, father, - says our driver. – we are not strangers". Edward is 80 years old, his sister Zula- 90, a week before the war Zula visited her brother Edward from the region of Leningrad. At that time there had been 700 persons In Khetagurovo.
Some days prior to war through a hearsay they heard that it is necessary to leave, that there will be a war, - Edward recollects, some were saying that Georgians were worming us, but not everybody believed, some has gone others have stayed, we are living like that so many years, that is why we are get used to that.
First, the column entered the village, Edward and Zula did not know whose tanks were those, when a missile fell into their house, they hid in the corner of the kitchen and spent there two days. "Bombing lasted two days – says Zula, - Something was falling into the garden and the house shattered. The heart ached but I did not die."
Sitting at an empty road, Zula is waiting for a passing car, to go back to the region of Leningrad; here there is neither TV nor radio and telephone connection, and Zula does not know yet that nothing is left from her village.
We are going further in a large dead village, and we met a cow on the road, followed by a woman in an old coat. In spite of hot weather, 70 year old Olga Tuaeva is shrinking and hides her hands into the pockets. "" all my neighbors had escaped, -she says,- they were looking for me, but there were shootings and I hid in the garden, they could not find me and said: "Olja died" I was left alone, five tanks were driving around the village and shooting the houses. I heard how somebody was speaking Georgian. I have been lying just on the ground, like in a grave. I do not have a cellar, and I was afraid to stay home - if the house crash, nobody would drag me out of there.
Olga pulled out hands from the pocket. There was a soil underneath her nails. She wiped the tears with her black fingers. "Everybody left, and I have to flee also, I have been forgotten here. I am alone 5 days already, there are so many killed here, they smell bad. I cannot bury them, I have to leave."
Olga points to two two-storey houses and says that many people died from that house. We are trying to enter it but the porches are blocked with bricks and girders, and the walls are broken by missiles. Here in fact are deceased – the whole village smells dead under the heat.
After two streets – there is life again. Three men are sitting under the tree of cherry-plum near a tumbled fence. Nearby – a tinned can with tomatoes and a bottle of home-made vodka.
We've survived plus one war - the men are smiling, - we've just buried five, and now we commemorate them.
Amiran Kabanov retells in deep details what occurred. At first infantry entered. Georgian soldiers were entering the houses; they were searching for weapons and camouflage, asking if there live any "militants" in the houses. "They were telling us: Don't be afraid, we will not harm you, - recollects Amiran – then came tanks. All that happened at night. As the tanks came, then artillery shootings began, the Georgians were shooting at us two days, when I asked one of their militaries why they are destroying our houses, he answered: " your militants are shooting our villages, The State will build new houses for you." I told him: "Which state? Saakashvili has not built anything at his side". He did not answer and went silently.
I am asking Amiran, how many killed are in the village, he says that during last two days we buried 9 persons and it is impossible to reach some houses, special equipment is needed, to shovel the blockage, under which there are people left.
A group of young people has passed us with guns and white armlets, they are looking at us attentively and asking Amiran something in Ossetian language, he answers.
There are ten natives left here, in that village, - says Amiran after they left- these militants came at night, they are not natives, they are from the city.
- Why have they come?
-I do not know, maybe they are instead of police for the time being?
One more inhabitant of Khetagurovo Nikolai Djusoev was left alone in the whole building, he is 54 years old, but he looks as a 70 years old. He moves with difficulty, leaning on the stick. The question why he did not flee with others she showed to his crutch: I could not run that far" Nikolai is sitting near the cellar of his house on the chair.
On the breast he has a medal of Hero "Geroi Truda" "I was invested with that in Tbilisi, - says NIkolai, that man put that medal with the hope to be saved from Georgian soldiers, although soldiers did not harm him. They lodged the headquarter in the house where he lived, and somehow, when the shooting ceased, Nikolai went out of the cellar to take cigarettes from his flat.
Just as I entered the porch, they saw me, seized my hands - recollects Nikolai - then they saw the crutches and let me go. I went back to the door, and meanwhile our home-guard ran to the yard, he did not know whether his family left or not and ran to see them. Georgians saw him, got angry and shot him. From the very beginning they were afraid of those who are in camouflage. I thought that I myself will also be killed, but they told me: "Go away from here".
Nikolai is smiling with his toothless mouth: "Only God knows what I have endured" Three days Nikolai did not eat. Now he found bread, sugar and water in his house." I am drinking water and sugar with bread, - he is explaining. – This is how I will hold out". I asked him, whether he wants to go with us to the camp of refugees. He does not want. "I was born here, and will die here" – says Nikolai.
I go down to the cellar to see where he spent three days. It's dark, moist and muddy. Rising upward, at last I understand why Nikolai cries all the time.
After the village Khetagurovo I saw a village Tbet and Tsunar. There is a small difference between Khetagurovo, Tsunari and Tbet. Three inhabitants were left in Tbet and two in Tsunari. They almost told nothing, besides that in cellars was cold. They looked at me and did not understand, about what I ask. In Tsunari the elderly woman has told me: "I have no idea. What do you want? ". And she has gone further along the street.
I already have seen such kind of women going along the street in destroyed Chechnya.
'It's safer here for them"
We have returned to Tskhinvali. These days authority represented only military in the city. Nobody knew where there were ministers and the president of republic. It has officially been declared, that the government is in evacuation in Djava, but I did not see any minister there. They told us, how ministers demanded the evacuation machine from peacemakers in the first days of war, how ministers put their wives in "UAZ" and were leaving the city. There was only a secretary of Security Council Anatoly Barankevich, Minister of Internal Affairs Michael Mindzaev, , the chapter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia Murat Djioev and minister of the information Irina Gagloeva together with inhabitants sitting in cellars in Tskhinvali. The fact that these people remained in the city gave confidence to all other inhabitants.
During five days in Tskhinvali I constantly saw these officials, but never president Kokoyti. I heard how people asked the same question: "Where is Djabaevich? Why he is in Djava? In fact we remained here!" Nobody wished to believe that president has left the city.
In fact many knew that last months president Kokoyti actively responded to shots from Georgian side. Some opponents of the president in North Ossetia even approved that Georgian side provoked frequently enough Kokoyti Special Forces- to launch war, put amend to the long-term Georgian-Ossetian conflict, meanwhile playing up to Vladimir Putin, who is longing to show Mikhail Saakashvili and NATO who is the owner of Caucasus. From the point of view Kokoyti, who is provoking Georgians, and Saakashvili who decided to enter an army to South Ossetia for punishing "ossetian militants" and joining NATO as soon as possible, are equally guilty in burning and destroying South Ossetia.
Probably this war has resolved many political problems. But president Kokoyti began lose the former popularity in republic. It's hard to explane people in Caucasus why brave young president is in peaceful Djava, when his citizens – mainly old men, women and children – are sitting in cellars under bombs. Probably, that's why last Tuesday two Russian citizens _brothers Vadim and Vladislav Kozaev – arrived to Djava from Vladikavkaz "to beat the face" of president of South Ossetia. Reaching the purpose was impossible – they were detained by employees of a state security of South Ossetia and despite of requirements of relatives from Northen Ossetia they denied to release.
Last night we spent at the house of the local resident Oleg. Apartments and houses are destroyed or burnt and there are big problems with overnight stop in Tskhinvali. Except of ceiling and walls there were beds and blankets at Oleg's place. There were no glasses in the windows, no water, light and gas.
While tea was warming up on oil-stove, Oleg's neighbors Irbek and Tamaz told us how the local men are going to go to burn houses of Georgian villages next morning.
* It's right - said Tamaz – I'll go too.
* What is the use of burning them? – I ask. – There lived civilians who had been bombed too. Now they have no place to live.
* That's why we have to burn – says Irbek – so that they could not return. Abkhazians burnt all their houses in Ochamchira after the war and now Ochamchira is empty.
Before departure I went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of South Ossetia. It has already started functioning with all the might. From the window of the garden of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I saw a strange sight. Basically elderly men and women stood and sat down on the ground in the sector of behind a barbed wire.
* What for they are detained?- I asked
* Are they look like the arrested persons? - asked me again officer of Ministry of Internal Affairs. They are the inhabitants of Georgian enclaves. Those who could not escape to Georgia, or did not want to.
* Why are they here? Behind barbed wire?
* Because it is safety for them here now.
I am coming back from Tskhinvali by Transkam. Now when it is declared that all Georgian enclaves are controlled bu the Russian army and authorities of South Ossetia, the road through Transkam is opened. However for an hour before our departure Transkam has been again closed under the pretext of cleaning. Russian armored vehicle stood across road. We could assure military with difficulty to pass us. Driving in Tamarasheni I understood why the road was closed. Along the road houses were blazing.
The dead cows lay on the road. Tamarasheni, Achabeti, Kekhvi. The roken new cinema and shopping center in style hi-tech were built here by Georgian authorities. Any alive soul - only a black smoke above houses.
Towards us the column of the Ministry of Emergency Measures goes with fire-engine. The Ministry of Emergency Measures will extinguish fires in Georgian viliages, and military will clean up the village.
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