Adzvi

Interview place, time and date: #155 Public School, Tbilisi. 16.08.08
Interviewer organization: Association of School Directors
Respondent: Man, 70 years
Story code: 0002
We were thrown out as a result of a clash between Georgians and Ossetians provoked by Russians. We, Georgians and Ossetia's lived in peace with each other, we have intermarriages, but interference of big Russia provoked a conflict.
On May 3, 1996 my family was asleep when 4 men in masks broke in, they were armed with automatic guns and knives. They threw us from the beds, tied our hands and placed us on one bed.
They were beating us up. They were kicking us, hitting with feasts and automatic guns, asking for money, golden items, arms. They took everything valuable, took our cow. They tortured us with light, shooting in the air. We had to give them everything, we were afraid they would rape the mother in the presence of her children. They warned us not to say anything about this event, otherwise they would come back and shoot us. We left our house and all our belongings and run to take a refuge with relatives.
Last summer my son was on his way to our relatives, when he was attacked, they took his car and asked for 10 000 USD as a ransom. They were wondering around the village threatening us: wait a bit and you'll see what's going to happen to you all. And they kept their word.
They threw hand grenade in our house twice, I was wounded in the chest. I saw bombs flying down on us from air jets. We escaped; I don't want to imagine what happened to our houses.