20.05.2009 15:05 | The war in August, 2008. The feats of medics

Alla Gabaraeva, the resuscitation specialist

On August, 5 I left my house for the last time (the house was burned down later) and I’ve been in the hospital till the 15-th of August. We had the reinforcement of brigades. We were notified about such a hard situation.

At night of August, 7 nobody expected such heavy bombardment would begin. We were asked to go down in a cellar so that to take cover. We had to take there our patients who were in the hospital at that moment. We got down the beds and the patients from all the floors. One of the patients was very bad and died right at that moment. We could not put his body with the others and during the war it had been on the third floor.

We had no the unique solution to equip the basement for the operating rooms, but later Vadik Medoev, Kostya Chibirov, Kostya Servetnik, Azamat Tedeev, the young doctors who arrived to the city, decided that we had to get down the surgical tables, surgical armaments, anesthesia apparatus and the medicines to the cellar, where we could render aid. We had to do it until the wounded people begin to enter the hospital. Besides the cellar where were also the surgical tables on the ground floor so that we could give first aid. In case the patient was in need of the surgery we got him down to the cellar. This way we organized our work and we worked very well. The other services` work was going well too. But we had difficulties with the roentgen because our generator did not cope with it, though it worked all that time continuously. Our surgeons had to work as the roentgen by themselves.

09.05.2009 16:41 | “The Russian Army Came!”

It’s a story of Irina Grigorievna Kudzieva, the teacher of Ossetian language and literature.

That terrible day, on August, 8 I was at home in

Of course, my husband wasn’t at home. Taking cover from the bombardment the neighbors got together at my place. When we were together we could feel our feet. Suddenly we heard the roar and somebody’s shrieks coming from outside in the street. We exchanged glances anxiously, we wanted to run out to the balcony, but it was too late - the Georgian soldiers invaded our home.

I tried to calm down and came to the anteroom, where they immediately aimed nearly ten sub-machine guns at me. One of the invaders asked me in Georgian:

- Are there the men in the house?

- No! – I gave a short answer in Russian (I understand Georgian language, but don’t speak in it).

- Have you got a red lipstick?

09.05.2009 16:38 | The war in August, 2008. The survivors tell as it was.

Tshovrebova Vera Mihailovna, born in 1927, the resident of Tskhinval, the refugee from Gorijski area of Georgia

I live in old people’s home. During those terrible bombardments in August, 2008 all of us assembled in the hall. There is no basement in our building, so we sat on the floor in the hall. The old people’s home is situated in the surburb of the city and we saw how Georgians entered, saw their tanks shooting at the houses. We are already old people, what’s the use of fear of death if the remaining sands of our life are few.

But even in my old age they don’t give me a moment’s peace. Everything in my life has gone wrong because of them and now I lost my home and my relatives. During the first war they killed my husband and my daughter. They tried to kill me too. They kicked me out into the street.

I was married to Georgian. We lived in Gori. When all this just began, Gamsahurdia came down on me to change my surname to Tshovrebashvili. When I refused they began to abuse us. They humbled me. Once, my husband broke down and stood up for me. Then they caught him and eighteen more Ossetians and killed them. Mydaughter’smindreeledwhensheheardaboutit…

In a few days I found her in a ditch, her skull was fractured. When they killed my husband, there was nobody to protect me and they began to persecute me again because I was Ossetian. The Georgian extremists caught me… They beat me up…

09.05.2009 16:37 | The war in August, 2008. The survivors tell as it was.

Siukaeva Maguli Omarovna, born in 1970, the resident of settlement Znaur, Znaurski area of RSO.

On August, 7, when Georgians began to shoot, we took cover in a basement with the children. We spent there all night and in the morning of August, 8 we ran to the local hospital. On the way we came under fire. The hospital was under heavy bombardment.It was too dangerous to be there and we decided to flee.

We drove along Zar`s road. This highway was under heavy shelling and our bus turned over. Many people were wounded in result of it – somebody broke his arm, somebody broke his leg. The driver broke the windshield and we climbed out through the window. Thechildrenwerecoveredwithblood.

One boy got his arm broken, and the girl cut her hip. The women and children stayed in the middle of the road. All the others have gone ahead. Russian soldiers drove by, we had 2-month-old daughter and I cried to them: “Help us!” They said us not to be afraid.

09.05.2009 16:32 | Oleg Galavanov died showing his personal courage and heroism on the post

32-year-old Galavanov Oleg Ilich served in the Ministry of Defence. He was an army brat and therefore it was easy for him to make that choice in 2004, though he graduated from EconomicalCollege in Kursk. Well, and just one year ago he became the special-service agent of the Battery of management and artillery investigation MD and ES RSO. Soon he became the platoon commander. The Specific character of the department, where he used to work, demanded good knowledge and therefore he singly studied a science of artillery fire correcting and arrived at the utmost perfection in this business.

 “On August, 7 the lieutenant O. Galavanov executed military order of aims detection and artillery fire correcting” – his direct commander informed us, though Oleg, certainly, realized without any order that nobody would cope with that task in such difficult situation better than he would.

His look-out station located on the roof of the Russian peace-making battalion building at the southern outskirt of the town. At that moment, at night from the 7^th to the 8^th of August, it was the most dangerous place in the city, because Georgian army, first of all, aimed to destroy the peacemakers.

Oleg did not leave his post and corrected fire of our gunners despite of the fact that roof was under heavy fire. But, eventually, the enemy calculated his location and started to shoot at his look-out station.

Oleg received severe wounds. Russian peacemakers managed to drag him to the medical unit, but they continued to fire at this direction too. Everything around was in fire, there were a lot of wounded and killed persons among the peacemakers. The medical unit was located in the tent, it lighted up too. They could not take seriously wounded Oleg out of there. There was no place, and there was already nobody there. Oleg Galavanov died, showing his personal courage and heroism on the post.

09.05.2009 16:29 | The war in August, 2008. The survivors tell as it was

Tomaeva Mary Davidovna, born in 1953, the resident of village Bekmar, Znaurski area of RSO.

When the war began we didn’t sleep all night. One night I spent at my neighbors, all of us were lying on the floor, in case the things go wrong we could flee. You should have seen our house was shaking. And it’s a concrete. We already thought that Tskhinval and nearby villages don’t exist any more.

It’s happened at night from the 7^th to the 8^th of August. The shelling was earlier too, but never so heavy. It was terrible. I don’t know what happened to me, but I stood up and went out. I sat down on the bench near the extreme house on the hill, where the whole Tskhinval was visible and I looked. It was a night and of course I saw nothing especial, there were onlyflashes of fire and the bouncing.

And in the morning there was a black-black smoke above the city.

09.05.2009 16:24 | The Sniper Cut Short His Life

The bloody August days took away the lives of many wonderful sons of Ossetia. On August, 9 the heart of Inal Gazzaev gave out. The defender of republic was killed by Georgian sniper. On December, 6 he would be 28. Inal was married, his sick 6-year-old daughter (the child has a congenital cerebral palsy) and two-year-old son stayed fatherless. Inal was the only son of his parents.

During the last two years Inal Gazzaev worked in law machinery. Earlier, in 2003, he joined the civil guard. He took active part in the repulsing of Georgian August aggression.

As Inal`s sister Diana Gazzaeva tells, the attack of armed Georgian forces on South Ossetia caught my brother on his post, where he had been since the August, 6. In the evening of August, 8 he came to visit his parents, who lived at Geroev Street.

That day he sent his wife and children, who had been in village Hvetse, Dzausky area, to North Ossetia. Inal`s sister and the parents took cover from noninterruptible bombardments in the basement of five-storey building. Three their grandchildren (two of them came from St.-Petersburg to Tskhinval for the holidays) were together with them too.

"In the afternoon of August, 8 the Georgian military hardware entered the city, - Diana tells. – Several armored personnel carriers drove along the street near to our house. All of us hid in a cellar expecting the worst. Georgian invaders fired at the apartment houses and at the people who came in their way. Our flat nearly lighted up in result of bombardments. Near to us Georgians hit and burnt the car with the family inside. They tried to flee from the city under siege. The father with the children died in this car.

09.05.2009 16:15 | The victims of Georgian aggression: Kachmazova Diana Grigorievna and Kachmazova Zaira Grigorievna

Alan Sipols, 38 years old, London resident, tells:

Kachmazova Diana Grigorievna (my mother) and Kachmazova Zaira Grigorievna (my aunt) lived in Tskhinval, at Dzhioev Pr., 7. Zaira worked as a neuropathologist. This profession was in great demand in Tskhinval after the events of the Nineties. A lot of people, who went through the horrors of war, wanted for the qualified medical aid.

Actually, one of the most common reasons my relatives, rather old people, stayed in Tskhinval during the years of the “first war”, notwithstanding the bad living conditions and depressing mood in a conflict zone, was because of responsibility for sick and disabled people.

In the beginning of August, 2008 when the tension was growing, several people were killed by sniper’s bombardments from the direction of Georgia. I insisted on my mum and aunt should leave to Russia for a while, but they hoped, that it would not be the war and stayed in Tskhinval.

09.05.2009 16:09 | The war in August, 2008. The survivors tell as it was.

Dzhidzhoeva Yulya Georgievna, born in 1944, the resident of Tskhinval, RSO

In the night of August, 7, when the explosions occurred from the direction of Georgia, we couldn’t imagine such large-scale hostility would begin. It was 11.30 p.m. and we were going to bed when the neighbors began to shout in the hall: “Run to the basement, quick!” On the way to the basement I thought: “God be thanked, the children are in Vladikavkaz”

In was dark and very damp in the basement. We brought the blankets and mattresses. We spread them on the wet boards. We were in the basement with our neighbors till the August, 11. We felt sorry for the children, who stayed with us in the basement. Sometimes we managed to cook hot food by help of the oil stove. Our soldiers often ran in the basement and told about what was happening in the city. When we learnt that the Georgian soldiers were killing the civilians in the city, it seemed to us they would kill all of us too.

28.04.2009 20:16 | The Meeting at Rokskiy Tunnel

Since the beginning of August the fights in the villages around Tskhinval did not stop. Every day we were informed about the victims from Ossetian side. At that time I was in Dzhava`s camp together with my brother. Tskhinval`s students lived there the usual camp life – they played football, went to a forest, competed in running, nothing especial, in general. On August, 7 we were tired of competitions and went to bed early at 10 o'clock.

But me and my friend George woke up at once with the first shot, which, as it seemed, sounded somewhere close to us. The settlement Dzhava is located above Tskhinval and it instinctively occurred to us to look from the height at that direction, as if we could see what was up there. We rushed to a window. There was red reflection in the south, where, as we thought, the city had been located. It looked like a sunrise in deep clouds and we heard a continuous roar, which we didn’t hear at any bombardments before.

George wanted to wake the others, but I stopped him, I did not want anybody see that. George agreed, especially we didn’t want Igor to wake up. His two brothers went to war and every hour he got in touch with them by phone. But the roar and howl of “Grad’s” shooting were so loud that Igor woke up and immediately took the phone. Fortunately, it was a contact. The brother reassured Igor, he said everything was ok, the bombardment would stop soon and asked us to go to sleep.