29.04.2009 00:16 | 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.

“Please, not today”, - I told myself – “Today is a holiday – my brother’s birthday”.  - I did not realize yet that it was not the bombardment, but real war. The leaders came and took us to the ground floor, but some people stayed to watch TV so that to learn the news. Me, Marat, Alan and Zarina were among them. Zarina was the grammar-school girl and knew the necessary prays.

She brought the Bible and suggested us to read 90-th Psalm. Four of us read it and something unimaginable happened: the shelling stopped for nearly two hours. For this time the inhabitants of the camp calmed down and even went to bed, however, the security guard long time was making us sure that the shells would not reach Dzhava.

“Would the war run up to Dzhava? Is it really possible that our guys departed so far”, - I thought. Before down the vanity among the leaders and tutors began in the camp again. We sat quiet and exchanged words very silently so that not to irritate the nervous leaders, it was written all over their faces that they don`t know what to do with us.

Ahsar Tshurbati, the newspaper "SUADON"

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva