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‘Tskhinvali full of Broken Glass and Dead Bodies”….

October 7, 2008

“Ordeal of an Ossetian Woman” who left Tskhinvali 5 days ago

Eka Kevanishvili, Tbilisi

“By August 7th there were hardly any civilians left in Tskhinvali. Everyone knew that the war would soon start. I met Valia Jioeva, my acquaintance and the cook from the prison in the street. She told me that she was leaving Tskhinvali and this was three days before the war actually started. When I asked her where she was going she said that the prison administration freed those who were good at shooting and the prison staff received their salaries in advance. They were then told to escape in order to save their lives. I immediately called my son who lives in the Georgian village of Disevi following this conversation. He was building a house at that time. I told him the evacuation process had started in Tskhinvali and warned him to evacuate the family from the village as soon as possible.

He said calmly that nothing important was happening in Disevi. He still did not know anything about the situation. I heard my children’s voices through the phone. They were playing in the yard as if nothing was going on….”- recalls Zamira Tedeeva, an Ossetian grandmother who left Tskhinvali 5 days ago through Java and Sachkhere. She took the first opportunity to leave the conflict zone and she seized the chance five days ago.

Zamira Tedeeva is married to a Georgian man with the family name of Okropiridze. She had been living in Tskhinvali all her life. She was born and brought up in Tskhinvali. She is a teacher at an elementary school. She had been teaching in the village of Kvaisa for the last two years. Her son escaped to Tbilisi during the war. Zamira contacted her son by telephone. Despite the fact that she is in safe now Zamira can not yet recover from the shock of the war. Zamira’s whole body was shaking during the interview and she even requested to be given a tranquilizer. Despite this she said she remembered every detail of what she personally saw and experienced. 

Buses Free of Charge

Tadeeva says that panic started in Tskhinvali long before August 7th. Everyone without being critical needed for security purposes, medial care, and soldiers. Others were paid their salaries and advised to immediately leave the town. Children were evacuated two weeks before on the 7th of August. Free buses were standing on the mains square of the city to pick up those to be evacuated.  The television was constantly announcing that the people could be provided free resort tickets. Women and children left Tskhinvali for an alleged holiday.

Everyone in Tskhinvali knew that a war would start sometime soon. 

“Ossetians used to say with satisfaction that Russians would come in Tskhinvali and teach the Georgians a good lesson,” recalls Tedeeva. She found shelter in her friend’s apartment. It was impossible to stay alone in her house.

People were transported in Kabardo, Vladikavkaz. TV stations were announcing time and date of bus departures. Zamira Tedeeva states that Kokoiti, de facto South Ossetian president made a statement on TV and told people that they would leave Tskhinvali by Zara side road (the Samachablo main road had been closed for the last year) but he promised the Ossetians would return to Tskhinvali with Samachablo main road and he kept his promise.

Seeking Protecting in a Trench

 Zamira took out a sheet of paper of drew the road and explained:

“See this is Tskhinvali and then comes next the village of Tamarasheni. There is 2-3 km. distance between the two of them. Next come the villages of Achabeti and Kurta … Samachablo’s main road crosses through these villages. Russian and Ossetian de facto police representatives had been patrolling in the town of Tskhinvali. Georgian police had been deployed in the Georgian village of Tamarasheni.

After the village of Kurta come the village of Kekhvi and then the village of Java. The road had been closed near these villages since last year. The living conditions and accommodation was rather bad in Tskhinvali. Starting with the first Georgian-Ossetian war in 1990-1992 and up to the recent conflict, not even one road was reconstructed in Tskhinvali town.  The Zara side road was destroyed. It was so dusty that when one car went on the road, the next one had to wait a while so that the dust sat on the road again. The pension in Tskhinvali is a mere 200 Rubles- approximately 10 GEL, which reflects just how people have been living there.”

The sound of shooting had been heard in the conflict zone even before August 7, 2008. However, the shooting that started on the night of August 7 was different. It was non-stop.
“We could not even understand where the bullets were coming from. However, the town was still being supplied with electricity. I was reading the novel “Taras Bubla”. I had high temperature. I had just asked my friend who was the traitor, Antrey or Ostap, in the novel. Then the shooting started and I could think about nothing else. I left the book open in the house and hid in a trench with my associates.”

They could hear only endless shooting from where they were seeking protection from the shooting.  Zamira and her associates managed to come out of their hiding place only when the bombing had stopped for a while. They then went into the house. However, something hit the house at 5 a.m. and the house started to burn.  It was impossible to stay there anymore.

“I grabbed a clock and when back to hide in the hole again. The time passed very slowly. I wished the night would soon end. The house could be seen burning. One part had already been completely burned-up. We tried to put out the fire but our attempt was unsuccessful. Kokoiti’s parents living in front of our house were standing outside and watching how we fought with the fire. We saw that a white Niva car came, they sat in it at dawn and left.

Then we found a place to hidd in a neighbor’s basement. A sniper was hiding just next to my neighbor’s house. The opposite side responded to his shots and bombs exploded just above the basement where we had taken refuge.  We even suggested beating or kicking him out so that the shooting would stop. We lost the sense of time. On August 8, a total of 4 houses had been burned on Lenin Street.

No one could be seen in the streets. People were saying that Russian planes from Mozdok were now bombing Tskhinvali. No one was answering either in fire engine department or in ER. So there we sat helpless not knowing where to call, whom to ask for help. There was one Georgian girl name Datashvili who lived in Samachablo (part of Tskhinvali region).  She was now married to an Ossetian and lived in the town of Tskhinvali. We especially took care of her during this time.  Ossetians are still protecting Georgians, even now. Our associates called us several times from Moscow and told us that the Russians were coming to help us.”

They were still in the basement and had candles as the electricity had been cut off by that time. In total 38 people were all crammed together, including women and men, they were sleeping on cardboard boxes in the basement and did not even take off their clothes off. Zamira recalls that someone brought them pie and they all ate this pie. They also drank some vodka, so not to become ill; the group did not even have a toilet to use.

Tskhinvali Full of Broken Glass

When Zamira Tedeeva finally crawled out of the basement she saw Tskhinvali covered with broken glass. The houses had been looted and burned. Hens, livestock were all abandoned. There were dead bodies in the streets. Pigs and hens were eating half decayed dead bodies. Tedeeva stated that no one ate chickens and pigs in Tskhinvali after this event.

“We went to the railway station as soon as the shooting stopped. We were told that there were cars which could take us from the town. Three Ossetians including Tskhinvali de facto Mayor came to the station with guns. They shot in the air aimlessly. We escaped and the journalists were on hand to film it. Then they performed our escape as if Georgians were shooting and we Ossetians were escaping the mayhem; it was all a staged performance.

We were transported to Java.

I will never forget the trip as the road full of Russian tanks. I was amazed how the ground could hold up to such heavy equipment and did not collapse. I went to Orjonikidze for a day and then returned by the Samachablo main road….”

This was the road that Kokoiti said Ossetians would return to Tskhinvali after the war on. The road passes through Georgian villages. Tedeeva states that the Russians did practically what Nazis were doing during WW2. The Russian soldiers took everything out of the houses. They went about looting and burning houses. Some soldiers broke canned fruit and tinned vegetables in the streets and some became drunk. The Georgians in the village of Kekhvi pulled down the Georgian flag. They did not leave the village till the last minute. Now the houses of both Georgians and Ossetians are completely destroyed in this village.

Samachablo Road

“One Russian tank crew member asked me where we were at that moment. They did not even know where they were and where they were going. Tskhinvali and those villages nearby were full of journalists and doctors after August 12th.

Zamira Tedeeva states that the Ossetian population was encouraged to loot Georgian houses. The roads from Georgian villages were full of cars with looted items. Tedeeva states she pretended she wanted to loot a house and went to her son’s house in a Georgian village of Disevi. “I wanted to see my son’s house. I went into his yard and dug some potatoes from the ground as if I was looting.”

This Osseitan woman states that there are some districts in Tskhinvali that are neither bombed nor destroyed. “A bomb hit the Tskhinvali State Institute. However, a newly constructed house near the Institute remained untouched. Ossetians themselves know that the town was bombed by Russians and Russians knew what to bomb and what not to bomb.

There is a Jewish quarter in Tskhinvali. The Jews left this block long time ago. Russians bombed this block and then took journalists there to show them. The journalists filmed destroyed houses and showed it on TV stating that the place was bombed by Georgians. However, it was a lie! It was a mere performance. Panicked people ran all different directions as journalists filmed the ordeal. It was as if we were just simply news pieces for those journalists and they presented everything in a misleading manner.”

The road from Tskhinvali to Java and then Sachkhere and to Tbilisi was a long and difficult one. Zamira Tedeeva states that Russian tanks were hidden in the vicinity of Ertso and are still concealed till now. 

“I have seen this in so many different places. I think you know and you have seen it yourselves. I think you saw the houses of me and my son. I think they will level everything to the ground and build a new town. Who knows when we will return in the conflict zone?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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