Kurta

Interview location, date:Tbilisi
Respondent: 25-year Man
Story code:0016
On August 8th at about 7-8 o'clock I left for a post next to the monastery. There were Georgian soldiers in total 17 men, 10 of which wounded. I wanted to see the wounded men. I went into a room and saw the terrible picture – the dead man lying on the floor, with cut heads, limbs..
I left the post. Walked 500 meters and the helicopter showed up. As I was wearing a uniform the helicopter shoot at me from a mortar gun. I immediately jumped into a mud pond that turned out to be nearby and smeared the dirt on my uniform so that the helicopter crew could not see me.
At about 10 o'clock the enemy rushed into our houses. One was Cossack and the other two Chechens, who waited downstairs. One of the intruders walked up the stairs, pushed the door by leg and later by machine gun. At that time I already was close to the door (just about meter and half away). As soon as he came in he pointed the machine gun on my stomach and I realized right away that he was not a Georgian soldier. He looked dark on his face and told me in Russian not to move. Off course I froze, or otherwise how would I have moved I had a gun pointed at me.
My father was in the corner and he pointed to him to move to the corner and asked whether I was a military and whether I participated in the combats. I responded that I was a peaceful citizen on which he started to offend me by indicating that I was lying. Then he asked whether I had money on which got a negative answer. He did not believe me. I really had a saving of 800-900 Lari that I wanted to use for the repair works. My dad took this money and gave him. Then the looter demanded the gold. He got it as well (for a total value of around GEL 800). He kept money for himself and threw that gold to those two individuals (that is why I found out that there were two men outside) who waited outside.
At the same time he continued asking questions sitting on the small chair. I noticed that he was completing his interrogation and at the same time pointing a gun towards us (on my father and on me). I was already thinking that he was to leave, when he stood up and pointed a gun on the forehead. I closed eyes and thought that everything was over. I overheard vaguely that my dead was begging him not to shoot his son and to shoot him instead of me. The Cossack responded that my dad would have the same fate as I after he would finish with me – "First him, and then you!" – was the answer.
Out of sudden my mother showed up. She is a Kist (a nationality closely related to Chechens and living on the Georgian territory). She asked two Chechens whether they were ours. Then they exchanged couple of words in Kist (which is very similar to Chechen) language. She begged the Chechens not to kill me and at the moment when the Cossack was ready to pull the trigger, one of the Chechens rushed in and demanded us not to be killed under a pretext that we were from the same family. Then my mother came in followed by the second Chechen.



They took everything and before leaving the intruders told us not to be here by 5-6 o'clock in the morning otherwise we would get killed. We still stayed.
At 5 o'clock they returned but only Chechens without that Cossack. When they saw us they got surprised and demanded to leave. We took with us whatever was possible and with the help of those Chechens crossed the gardens and left our village.