16.03.2009 22:44 | Muldarova Marina Georgievna, 42 years old

Muldarova Marina Georgievna, 42 years old, Tskhinval resident:

In the childhood, when I read the books about Great Patriotic war, about the brutality of fascists, I was glad to live in a peacetime. I couldn`t imagine even in the nightmare that I`ll be an eyewitness of three wars: 1989-1991, 2004 and 2008.

But the military aggression of 2008 year has eclipsed all the others in its cruelty. That night – from the 7^th to the 8^th of August - became a sorrowful date of a history of Ossetian people, when the disloyal, inherently monstrous military aggression against Ossetian people, peacefully sleeping Tskhinval occurred.

That night Saakashvili announced for “The News” that Georgia was not going to attack South Ossetia, he also declared about the truce. Everybody went to bed early so that to have a rest after the last sleepless nights.

At about 12 a.m. we woke up from the deafening explosions. We together with my mother ran to the neighbours because we had no a basement. We spent three days and nights in this basement. The inhabitants of the nearby streets - October St. and Pushkin St.

13.03.2009 18:50 | The Victims of Georgian Aggression: Azamat Gagloev

Azamat Gagloev was differed from other pupils of a youth camp. Always smiling, reserved boy didn’t try to be in the limelight. But all the same, he attracted attention, not because the other 40 pupils of the camp were worse, simply he was better.

As in the Ministry of Youth affairs of South Ossetia say, they are working with the new generation and used to have a psychological portrait of each of the pupils, no matter the number of them. Azamat's portrait was marvelously similar at all the leaders and employees of a scout camp; it was extremely positive, unusually light and native, close to everybody.

Everybody in the camp: children and organizers - lived as a one close-knit family and as if the camp was in mountains, it was necessary to prepare constantly fire wood, to carry water, to help cooks in the kitchen. The pupils tried to help, as they could, they organized the watches, the guys were responsible for fire wood and water, and the girls helped in the kitchen, tidied up in tents and took care of the cleanliness in the territory of the camp. In a word, in was necessary to live, to work and to have a rest together in the camp. But as it used to be in any human society, one acted their responsibilities more honesty, others -less.

Azamat, no matter he was on duty or not, always was ready to help the leaders and to bring water, to pin fire wood or to kindle a fire, he always silently and easy was engaged in any useful business.

Being modest, laconic he was very charming. The secret of this charm, probably, was simply in that he loved people, the life and had very good upbringing.

In one evenings Azamat began to read the fragments from a poem “Evgenie Onegin” for the people, gathered near a fire, everybody was inexpressibly surprised. Later many of the children followed Azamat and the ordinary evening has turned into creative one. It was in 2006 on the coast of the river Chimas, where Azamat had a rest, being still the schoolboy.

24.02.2009 11:08 | Tragedy of South Ossetia

Tragedy of South Ossetia. Testimony of Witnesses:

Valieva Valentine Parmenovna, born in 1952, school teacher

Hetagurovo Village, Ostaeva Street, 12

There were three of us in the house – me, my son and my sister-in-law, Mamieva Tamara Nikolaevna.

At that night, on August, 7-8, the shell exploded with such a force, that the wall was punched by it and the house lighted up at once. In the horror we rushed to the different sides, we did not know where to go and my sister-in-law ran out to the street. She remained there.

The ladder lighted up and has fallen off and she left under its fragments, we couldn’t pull her out - we could not even reach a threshold of the house, such was a shooting there. In the past, on Soviet time Tamara worked as a school teacher of Russian in the Georgian village for a long time.

We ran inside, rushed from a corner to a corner. Here the second shell hit the house with such a noise that we were simply dumbfounded in horror. We ran in the most distant room, have thrown the TV out of a corner and hided there and only then we felt a smell of a smoke and realized that the house was burning. At that time the third shell has flown above the house, hit the grapes and destroyed everything, the huge craters just remained. We already had no place to disappear, so we have broken out a window and jumped out through it and barefoot ran to the basement of our neighbors. My son had a phone in his hand, but he has dropped it in a hurry. His passport burned down too with money together and my sister-in-law documents too... It left nothing at all; we had no time even to take out the needles.

20.02.2009 11:58 | She Became the Victim of the Terrible Shelling

There are many sick old people, which had no time or were not in condition to cover in the shelters, among thousands of peaceful citizens, who became the victims of the terrible shelling of Tskhinval on August, 2008.   

Kumaritova Tamara Tugievna, Tskhinval resident, was 85 years old when she died a dreadful death.

Tamara Kumaritova was born in Kohat village, area Tskhinval. For a long time she worked as a teacher in the secondary schools of the Republic. She lived in

, 183 in the nine-floor house with her son and his family.

As her son Hamlet Khubezhov tells, he and his mother had been in their flat on the seventh floor, when the night storm of Tskhinval began on August, 8^th. Hamlet’s wife with two children came to her mother’s house in the other end of the city, so-called BAM district, after the night bombardment on August, 5^th.of Tskhinval city from the site of the Georgian villages Nikozi and Ergnety, where the Georgian army’s firing positions had been located.

At night of August, 8^{th ,}  when the massive shelling of the city from “Grad” rocket systems and heavy weaponry began, many people took cover in the basements, but my mother had got the sore legs and it was hard for her to go downstairs from the seventh floor - Hamlet says, - Our flat’s  windows were aside Nikozy village, from where the Georgian soldiers opened heavy fire on the city. We moved to an empty neighbor’s apartment, its owners left me the keys before their departure. I thought we would be safe there”.

19.02.2009 19:19 | Margiev Ruslan Fedorovich, age 68, Tskhinval

I live alone. My spouse has died 6 years ago. My only son studies in Vladikavkaz, Northern Ossetia. I used to the bombardmentand explosions from the Georgian side for a long time. This year an August was very restless. In the evenings, when the shelling of the city usually began, I used to switch off light in the entire house and go to bed. It had been disturbing, but it was possible to sleep. On August 7, at the afternoon I sat as usual in a courtyard with my neighbors. The remote shots and explosions were audible. The neighbor’s fellow told that Georgians have attacked Tsunar village, and the war there has practically begun. All my neighbors went home to prepare basements for the shelter in case of the shelling of the city. I also went home, prepared the candles, and took a mattress down in a basement. But when I’ve listened to Saakashvili`s speech on TV, when he said that there would be no shooting, I have a little calmed down and have gone to sleep in my room. In the middle of the night I’ve heard the first explosion, then the second one.

I’ve never heard such powerful explosions. There was such a feeling that they had been broken off absolutely closed to me. I jumped, quickly put on and ran downwards to the basement. When I reached a cellar, there was pitch-black there. I do not have mobile phone and I could call to nobody. The bombardment and explosions went on and on. I don’t remember such a bombardment from the very first Georgian-Ossetian war. I had very capitally made house, but it was shaking as an autumn leaf. I do not remember how much time I had been in a basement, but sudden blow at my house frightened me outright. I’ve heard an explosion, and the wall of my house failed. I did not know what to do, whether run to my neighbors or to remain there. After the second explosion my house lighted up. I realized it on a smell of a smoke. Then I’ve heard that somebody bangs an entrance door. But I simply could not move from a place, I guess, I was in a panic. My neighbors shouted me: “Ruslan, get away quickly, the house is burning!”