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“Trip To Paris Canceled, Go To Leningori Now!” – Simulated Destination of Russian Soldiers for Georgian Passengers

June 18, 2010
 Mari Otarashvili, Tbilisi-Akhalgori-Tbilisi

Russian soldiers on the background of green and yellow carriage at the Akhalgori district administrative border look nice. If we recall the days of the armed conflict of August of 2008, we will remember Tbilisi being afraid of Russian tanks to enter in the capital; after that you will expect cruel faces of Russian soldiers to stand at the checkpoint of the village of Mosabruni in Akhalgori district… But it is not so. Russian recruits of 18-20 stand there with the face as if they are holding toy-guns instead of real automatic weapons. They register the passengers traveling to Akhalgori and surrounding villages with smiling faces. They seem to have received a similar order.

Frontiers of the self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia speak with everybody very politely; they are particularly polite with elderly people. Every passenger, who reaches the so-called state border of SO, has to get off the transport and provide a copy of the ID (confirmed by notary). Elderly people can stay on the bus and hand in the documents to the soldiers from there.

Various notifications in Russian language are posted up on the top of the border carriage. They provide information about the documents necessary to crossing the border. There is only one Georgian notification there: “Do not pollute the area” which reminds the elderly people of the soviet period like the separatist name of the district – Leningori (instead of Akhalgori).

I saw that Russian soldiers were very close to local people. While the Russian frontier was registering the passengers, the driver of the mini-bus sat on their bench and asked smiling: “What will you serve us?”

“A truck is coming full of cakes; my wife has sent them to you and if you wait a bit, we will serve you,” said one of the frontiers with blue eyes smiling. He really expected something good.

I interviewed him. “How do you feel here? Is not it difficult for you to be here?”

“It was difficult to put up but some of us brought our families here. Besides that, they pay salaries very badly. It is difficult to stay in this carriage – in winter it is cold in it and in summer it is very hot. Otherwise, everything is ok,” he replied.

There is a queue of passengers at the military booth. People who are not registered in Akhalgori were asked about their destination. Some of them were going to visit their relatives. The queue was quite long and everybody tried to protect themselves from the sun by fans. Anyway, people prefer hot summer. “You should see us standing in the queues in the rain and snow. We have to stand like that before registration finishes,” said a woman.

A Russian soldier sat at the steering-wheel of the mini-bus before the registration finished and shouted smiling: “Who wants to go to Paris?! Your fat Saakashvili is there now.” People started laughing. An old woman said: “Not only Saakashvili is bad. Your Putin is also a bad person. Medvedev also is not perfect.”  People urged her to keep silent and not to annoy the Russian soldiers. The old woman did not calm down and started to abuse Putin and Medvedev. However the Russian soldiers did not say anything; they just smiled.

When the registration finished, the Russian soldier got off the bus and told everybody ironically: “Trip to Paris has cancelled! Now you should go to Leningori.”

As we later learned, the Russian soldier really expected a truck full of cakes and other products from his wife. The huge truck travelled across entire Russia and arrived in Akhalgori through Tskhinvali.

The Russian soldiers are not deployed in any organization in the center of Akhalgori. Only de-facto militia patrols in the town very intensively. The Russian soldiers arrive there only to buy products. They mostly like Georgian beer.

Locals say that the Russian soldiers deployed in Akhalgori initially had a hard life – they did not have food, clothes or good living conditions. Now everything has changed. They have everything because they get higher salaries. 50 000 rubles (3000 GEL) is quite a good salary for a soldier in Akhalgori. The only bank of the district has been opened for them; it was closed during the war in 2008. The salaries of the soldiers are transferred to that bank.

Besides conditions, one more factor hindered the Russian soldiers from staying in the district: the married soldiers missed their families. Most of them resolved this problem; their families came to Akhalgori.

If you pass by the artificially green park in Akhalgori in the afternoon or in the evening, you will see Russian women with their children. As I found out, they do not live in the houses abandoned by local Georgian residents, but in the building of former organizations.

Most of them have hired houses from the residents who fled from Akhalgori district and the soldiers honestly pay the rent; they even pay more than requested money.

“One Russian soldier asked the owner of the house how much to pay for the rent. The owner did not know the price and he could pay as much as they could. Consequently, the soldier pays so much for the rent that I also think to leave my house and rent it out,” said a local in his interview with us.

Locals say that Russian soldiers do not have bad relationship with them. Their wives also are close to the people and try to adapt to the district.

I reminded the locals of the information which was reported three weeks ago about the suicide of a Russian soldier. Everybody had one reply to my question –“We know nothing. We learned about it from TV; here we have not heard anything.”

However, they remember one incident – last year a girl – daughter of the Iluridzes – slipped on the bank of river and the water took her away. Russian soldiers ran to the bank hearing the screams of the mother. They swam into the river and saved the child.

It is clear that Russian soldiers try to destroy the reputation of occupant in the district and they think that with normal relationships with the locals they would succeed in their goals. Otherwise, they will turn up in hostile environment and will have to bother about security more. It is very difficult to make locals forget the nightmare of August of 2008. But the time apparently cures every wound. So, we should not be surprised to see a Georgian driver sitting next to the Russian soldiers and a Russian soldier sitting at the steering-wheel of the mini-bus who turns back from Europe and goes to the soviet past – in Leningori.

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