Dzartsemi

Interview place, date:Aug 14, 2008 9:41 PM
Interviewer organization: vollunteer journalist
respondent:woman, 67 years
Story code:0102
They bombed. We thought we would not survive. There were constant shootings. The windows and the doors were shot. The houses were bombed. But I personally have not seen casualties. The school was heavily bombed. The neighboring house was completely destroyed. Three-Four houses were destroyed. People were escaping by large cars from the village. They all called us to be quick. And we listened. I did not take anything with me. We left in whatever was on us. No body managed to take anything from home. Every member of my family left. Some of them had left earlier taking children out of the hot spot. Only I and my husband stayed home. My son, living in Tbilisi, was calling and asking me to leave; he said he would commit a suicide if we don't leave.
We drove by a little car. We went to Tirdzini through Eredvi. We hardly managed to drive through the rock. We came across Chechens there. They were only two. The rest were hiding in the forest. They stopped us and asked whether we were armed. I replied "no, son, we have no weapon". We spoke in Russian. Then I talked with them as I would speak with a child and they let us go. I asked if they were Russians. They denied and said they were Chechens. I could tell they were Chechens by their appearance too. They looked good. Only after my pleas they let us go. I begged, I cried and finally they let us go. Apparently they were good people. We met no one further. We left the territory peacefully. We were escaping together with large number of people and obviously Chechens were spread in the forest. We left early in the morning and presumably many of them were in the forest at that time and therefore we met only two. We are aware that there are more of Chechens there.
I do not know what happened to my house. There were constant shootings in the village, large scale shootings. We arrived in Tbilisi on Sunday, the same day. The overall population has left the village. The village is empty.