The Tragedy of South Ossetia. Gabaev Hariton Ilich
28.03.2009 // 00:58

Gabaev Hariton Ilich, born in 1936, resident of Satikar village (Tskhinvalsky District of RSO):

At Night of August, 7, at about 11-30 pm the shooting began. The shelling was heavy, and we ran to a wood. I felt very bad, my feet were sore. In the morning of August, 8 the shooting became calmer. I decided to go home. My house is in front of the Soviet of the village. I did not even know what was going on there. I wanted to let the hens out of a henhouse. About 50-60 persons sprang from the Soviet of the village. Some of them ran up to me and caught me.

They knocked me down. Then two of them caught my hands and dragged me to the Georgian village Ksuisi. The earth road is strewed with the pebbles. My clothes tore up to pieces, trousers have slipped, I have lost my shoes. So they dragged me to a center of Ksuisi. I had many wounds, all of them were bleeding. They did not let me dress the wounds, did not let me cover myself. They tore my last clothes. They called me “the Russian dog”. They humbled me. They did not let me go to a toilet. Then, at last, they led me there.

At seven o'clock in the morning they took us here. We walked the plank. I uplifted a bandage a little bit and could see. I saw their tanks and cars. There were Georgian inscriptions “Police” on many cars, the other cars were big, they were covered by a canvas and there were many soldiers in them. Maybe they were local, they were in masks.

We were here till 2.00 a.m. There were seven of us and times out of number of them. When they caught me, Tengiz Bolataev and Chele were already there, and then they brought two other persons. They had them tied up. We wallowed on the ground like the dogs. They put the submachine-gun to our foreheads and said they will shoot us soon.

There were the guys I knew among the Georgians. I asked them to set us free. They said that their senior was on mountain Snekvi and he had to make a decision. Georgians reached even the mountain Orbozala, it was very high. They were constantly shooting. They frightened us, whaled into us. (My back was black and blue. The doctors said that one kidney was torn, I spent thirteen days in reanimations).

I couldn’t stand it any more and asked them to kill me. They said: “Shut up, you, Russian bastard”.

I was alone and there were many of them. We were already on the wing. We walked the plank. They asked me if I had a gun. I am a teacher of the geography, the retiree, what a gun could I have? IfIwasyounger…

At night they woke us up and drove to village Meretvi. My feet were sore. I could not run, I fall down. They were pushing me by the submachine-gun. They told I pretended. I could not run. They took us to Meretvi, threw on the ground. We were dead to the world. I could see their tanks and the soldiers. They shouted: “Hurry up! Hurry up!” And they drove away. They moved from Meretvi to Gory and then to Tbilisi. They left us to die in the wood. But I survived all the same.

I was captured for the second time - in 1992 Georgians also attacked us. That time I lived in Ksuisi. When they entered our village, we escaped. When it became calmer I went there to look whether I could take my belongings away. They caught me and made to jump in ice water. I tried to resist but there were four of them and they had weapon.

Then they made me to undress and threw me in the water. There were any wire, splinters, I guess they threw it here specially so that to do more harm. So I spent one night in the water. I sat in the water and could hear their speech. One of them guarded me.

Probably, it looked like I was dead and he went to say about it to the others. Then I swam. I climb out on the bank in village Ksuis, then I crept and reached people. I swelled because I spent the whole night in ice water. But who could heal me here? There are no doctors here, the road to Tskhinval is closed. There was not opportunity to get out. Everybody was hiding wherever they could…  I was off my head. The local people filled a barrel with hot water and dipped me there. They did it several times. In three months I recovered somehow.

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva