Grozny, Chechnya - I like sleeping in the house on the wood floor with the rest of the Chechen mujahadin. I didn't want to stay in a basement. The basements are hot, damp, and foul, like a tomb. Like defeat. Like death. The house is clean, happy, a human place. A bright, victorious brave place; a place of warm humanity. I would rather die as an honored guest than a frightened rat.
I am staying as the guest of Commander Turpelovali in his newly built house in the southern suburbs of Grozny. His fighters talk and laugh in the main room where the heat is. RPK machine guns, ammo belts, spare magazines and AKM-74 "Automats" (as they call them here) are strewn around the house. The modern, airy house is always full of mujahadin. The bearded fighters wearing bulky cammo jackets, utility vests and waterproof pants come and go throughout the day and night.
When they enter from the cold the routine of the fighters inside is automatic: Stand up, hug, single buss and then stand with one arm on each other's shoulder as they warmly greet each other. They are like old friends. More importantly, they are still alive. There is an obligation to update one another on what is happening; to convince each other that they are winning; to remind each other of Russians lies and incompetence. Here the nighttime is the daytime; the working time; the time to kill Russians. Again.
It is time for war in Chechnya. Again. I have entered this war against all warnings. There are hundreds of journalists taking bus tours in the north, in Russian controlled Nazran. There, the media machine endlessly interviews refugees, stepping inside the border to dateline their stories "Chechnya." Here on the rebel side there are two Russian stringers inside and a Turkish TV crew and two journalists I am bringing in. To enter Chechnya we have had clandestine meetings in the side streets of London and Istanbul. We have met with the Chechen mafiya in the devastation of Turkish earthquakes and we have been inserted into the pipeline of fighters and supplies that enter Chechnya. We have spent a week in a smoke-filled hotel in Tbilisi listening to the tales of Chechens waiting to go in and the stories from escaping journalists. I say escaping because no one simply leaves Chechnya. They escape.
In the hotel we meet a photographer who was abandoned by his crew once they learned about the true conditions inside Chechnya and they left in a hurry, leaving him to walk out 40 kms. He spent five days hiking and pushing his car through the snow avoiding gunships. Now, he is glad to be alive. He confesses that he was so scared he forgot to take pictures.
The story here is that it is easy to get into Chechnya. It is getting out that is difficult.
Early one morning we are told it is time to go. We are driven over a snow covered mountain pass, walk through steep gorges littered with air-dropped mines and after a long day we are inside the most southerly edge of Chechnya.
We will need protection and transportation. A car is chosen. Two eager young fighters are pressed into service. A pair of furry-faced and, as to find out, completely insane mujahadin are recruited to drive us through the Argun Gorge continually shouting "alluaha akbar!" at each other and giggling uncontrollably. It will be a wild ride. They are foreign volunteers who have come to fight jihad: A holy war. They are here for a good time but not for a long time. A holy warrior is guaranteed a place in heaven so they are happy. They stop to blast away at a white rabbit. One muj shoots rapid fire directly at the other muj who is dashing and slipping through the sparking and ricocheting bullets on the icy road trying to catch the rabbit. The rabbit and the mujahadin survive. I am about to learn it takes a lot to kill people here.
After three hours of driving we stop to relieve ourselves and to stretch. I don't see the war, I feel it. There are no lights. There is no electricity here. I hear the sound that will be with me for the next week. The continual dramatic sound of bombardment. The pounding of subsonic kettle drums, pressure waves smacking on my face. Deep violent rythms shaking the ground. Karumps, Blams, Badoom's. There is no English word to describe the sound. I am entranced by the symphony of death.
"Grozny," says one of the mujahids in a rare, serious mood as he nods toward the city. We are still 40 kms from Grozny but the sound travels easily through the clear cold night. Finally I see it. Tall columns of dirty orange flames rise in slow motion. Scud missiles are landing on Grozny. A city where there are between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians still inside. Our destination.
Grozny is the epicenter of Russian rage. The stubborn center of Chechen hopes. But Chechnya is an evil place if you listen to the Russians. A land of bandits and terrorists. A people that must be erased from the earth.
To the outside world, Chechnya is a place where journalists are killed (18 so far), arrested (nine in a recent week), kidnapped (more than 1200 people have been abducted to date) and innocent aid workers and expatriates are executed without mercy, A place that few outsiders dare to witness the evil that is within.
I would have thought that anyone who would dare to explore this frightening place would have the support of the world's media. None hired me, none supported me, not one even encouraged me to go.
A typical e-mail:
"I'm a world assignments editor for BBC news and the line manager for _____ in Moscow. I understand you've been asking his advice on going to Chechnya. Our view, and that of the British Foreign Office and numerous experienced and expert people in Moscow, is that it's mad to contemplate a trip to Chechnya. Not only are there serious risks of the obvious kind attendant upon any battlefield situation, but the risk of kidnapping for ransom is extremely high, not only in Chechnya, but also in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan (Some British Telecom engineers working on a contract in Chechnya, and with the highest guarantees of official protection, were kidnapped and beheaded a few months ago). At the moment we only approve visits by our people under the most carefully researched and heavily guarded circumstances, and that means either the Russian army or absolutely top-level guarantees from the Chechen authorities. We regard Chechnya as the most dangerous place in the world for western journalists to work.
Our strong advice is - keep away."
But I am here. In Chechnya; the most dangerous place in the world. Where observers have counted 6000 impacts per hour, up to 200 airstrikes a day. Where over 100,000 Russian troops grind toward a tiny breakaway republic, destroying everything in its path. An already shattered land where napalm, phosphorus, cluster, shrapnel and high explosive bombs rain down on half-a-million civilians. Where Grad rockets, Scud missiles, and 9000-pound bombs thunder down on women and children creating massive craters and vaporizing unsuspecting citizens. A place that can be called without little fear of exaggeration, "Hell on earth."
- - -
There is no way to avoid Grozny. This war is focused on it. So it is not surprising that the total effort of my Chechen hosts is to get me inside Grozny before it is surrounded. I make it in but the journey is not easy. It is an act of pure faith on their and my part that I will, no I must, stay alive. Grozny is an eerie place. Other than the trapped people and the fighters, we are alone in this city.
One morning one of the fighters came in with an armful of bread. He has news for me, "They have just bombed the marketplace. There are many casualties. Quick. Come." The market is 500 meters away. When we arrive there is a white car burning and the topsy-turvy debris of an explosion. A tiny gray puppy staggers around the deserted market stalls not quite knowing what is going on. A few fighters stand around and some old men stare with their hands in their leather jackets. Rockets and bombs are not new experiences for them but having outsiders to witness it is. They have moved the three victims to a nearby building. A young man and two children. I watch the young man die as a female Chechen doctor labors in vain to put together his shattered face into a recognizable shape. The injured children have been taken to a nearby apartment building
I don't need directions. Around the corner from the burning car there is a large splatter of blood thickening on the ice. A trail of blood winds its way to a nearby apartment. At first I think they are in the basement but the Chechens are in the apartments and out on the street looking for me. They are not cowering, they are mad. I must come and see what has been done.
Inside the stairway it is dark and cold. Normally people light candles for us but the old people navigate perfectly in the dark. I use the railing to guide myself.
The unheated apartment is dark and the people urge us towards the light. There is a single window illuminating the bed. Inside is a young girl in silent pain with tears running down her face. Her thigh has been gashed by shrapnel. Her mother is angry and distraught, "Why are we being bombed? Are we terrorists? Is she a terrorist? She was just going out to get water. I knew this was going to happen." She breaks down sobbing. The girl just looks up silently. The golden light from the missing window catches a tear as it rolls down the eight-year old's face.
I am crowded in the small apartment by more elderly people. For some reason they do not care that there is no light in the stairwell or the apartment. Looking closely at one older woman I discover she is blind. They do not blink or shade their eyes when they enter the front room where the girl lies. They are all Russians. They are all old. They are all blind.
This is an apartment for the infirm and the blind.
- - -
The daytime is the time to relax, warm stiff bodies in the sun and talk with friends about surviving the night before. The daytime is when the Russians bomb. The fighters only look up when the jets are close. The kids don't even pay attention. I watch the skies with rapt attention.
I soon learn the routine: The Russian jets are guided by the constantly hovering spotter planes. The drone and glint of the four-engine spotter plane draws lazy circles in the pale blue sky. Two minutes later two jets streak in. Four bombs will strike the center of the wide arc. The Chechens tell me to watch ahead of the sound. Where the bright flash of silver reveals the dart-shaped jet bombers. Watch for the flares to divert SAMs to signal the release of the bombs and then watch the black bombs descend in a slow arc onto their targets. If they are oval you are OK, if they look round you are about to be hit. Will people die? Inshallah - "If God wills it." Some things are not in their hands.
During the day we are hunted. The Russians strike at anything that moves. At night the attacks are impersonal. When the rockets and missiles fall. Like now. The heaviest it's been in a long time.
In the unheated space off the main room in Commader Turpelovali's house I listen first to the conversation and then to the explosions outside. They said they would wake me if the city falls. But for now they advise me not to worry, "It's just the Russians calling us," they say. "Russian telephone calls" is how the Chechens refer to the rocket attacks. I am not worried, I am fascinated by the sounds of war.
After a week in rebel held Chechnya, I can identify the different munitions being dropped on me by their sound. The flat bubble burst of 500-pound bombs, the violent wham of 1000 pounders, the angry double whumps of the Grad rocket barrages, the freight-train screaming of artillery shells, the flat slam of the tanks and even the almost subsonic shudder of Scuds that shake the ground. Tonight they are using Grad or Hail rockets. Normally each barrage of 40 rockets is used to destroy a square kilometer of artillery or marching troops but here they annihilate houses, children, dogs, old people, trees and dirt. Tonight I lie and listen to the explosions move closer and further away as if they are looking for me. Like a confused giant's footsteps, crushing the land with each thunderous step.
They the dramatic soundtrack to the violent hell that is "Grozny." In English, "Grozny" means "The Terrible", "The Frightful", "The Fearsome". The name was taken from Ivan Grozni in 1818 when the Russians built their fort on the river in the spring to protect them from the Chechens. Now it is a prison for trapped civilians and a killing ground for exhausted Russian soldiers. Tonight I count an average of 18 barrages of 40 rockets every sixty seconds. I don't bother counting the artillery or tank shells. I am tired of counting the explosions and drift off to sleep.
- - -
When I awake in the morning my host tells me our neighborhood was hit pretty hard last night. It would have been difficult to miss but here discussing being bombed is like talking about the weather. The violent night was probably due to the sat-phone call we made about the kidnapped French journalist. They say that's how the Russian artillery knows where the commanders are. By the signals coming from their radios and sat phones. I didn't even notice. What woke me up was the dead silence. This morning is quiet. Too quiet. The commander says we are leaving the city this morning. He has been up all night. "You should have left last night but your guide said he was tired." I kick my perpetually slumbering and sometimes guide out of his bed and tell him to get ready. The Russians advanced last night to within two and a half kilometers of the house. Straight through the Chechen lines. The night before I had given a friend, an American volunteer, my video camera to shoot some combat footage and he promised to come back this morning. But now I must leave. The Russians overran his position during the night. He was part of twenty Chechens against 5000 Russians. Is he dead or alive? "Inshallah" is the only answer my host can give me: If Allah wills it.
Waiting for the Lada to be readied, I walk through the deserted streets of Grozny. There are no sounds except for the barking of dogs. My breath steams just like the urgent animals that skulk through the streets. The abandoned dogs are well-liked here because they bark at approaching Russians. I can see the dogs off in the haze as they nervously forage like apocalyptic commuters. They keep their distance as if embarrassed that they did not warn us. Up above the crows sit silently in the trees, waiting. Is this what it will look like at the end of the world? Nervous dogs watched by patient crows? In the summer the dogs eat the dead Russian soldiers, then the Chechens shoot the dogs. They go mad for human flesh they say.
I walk back to our house. Its easy to think when there is no noise of war. Why did I stay in a house instead of a bunker? Journalists who covered the last war bragged about their time in the bunker. To me it was an admission of defeat, of imminent death. Here above ground, in the sun I was immortal. For today at least. Others were not. Its better I don't think and concentrate on surviving.
Around our unscathed headquarters there is the evidence of last nights mayhme. Houses randomly broken and smashed like bad teeth. Am I trying to prove something? That I can not die because this is not my war? That I must survive to bring the truth out? Lost in my silent reverie I am surprised by two well-dressed, middle-aged Russian women walking by me. They are heading out to do their morning shopping like nothing is going on. It's important for the people trapped here to ignore the war. If they didn't they would go mad. The women stop and talk, not surprised in the least to see a foreigner just hanging around the deserted streets. It is the same story, "We live here, where should we go?" They have no money so they stay and wait. For what? They do not know.
The commander comes out and points at them: "Russians." This is not a war against just Chechens. The women feel comfortable around the commander. After all, he is their neighbor, their protector from the Russians. If the Russians come they will beg, steal, rape and loot and some say worse. For some reason I give one of the women a kiss on the cheek, she blushes deeply. Just a small act of warm humanity in this bleak monochrome hell.
The Commander laughs at the woman's embarrassment. He decides he wants to dance. His men start clapping as he flails his arms around and kicks out his feet. Slapping his heels with his hands, thrusting his arms into the air, he is energized. It is a happy, defiant, manly dance. His men accompany his shouting and clapping by firing their AK's. Not too many bullets are fired, they will need them. When he is done, Turpelovali tells me that he recommends his men dance everyday. He is worried that people here have not been dancing as much as they should.
I escape Grozny one hour before the Russians surround it.
- - -
Shali, Chechnya - I have made it to Shali a few kilometers south and east of the Russians surrounding Grozny. In the town center life seems to go on as if the Russians were a thousand miles away. Here in the main square the center of attraction is the arms market. A grandiose term for a loose cluster of about 100 men and fighters huddled around various lethal toys. The star of the show is a white hatchback Lada with a 50-caliber antitank gun sticking out of the back. A tall scarred man under a large white sheepskin fright wig glares at me as I take a picture. He wags his finger at me and disappears into the crowd. Plastic explosives foraged from T-90 explosive armor is sold by the slice like bread. Hand grenades are five dollars. AKM-74s are $500, AK 47s are a meager $250. As the Russians come closer the prices will drop. They tell me to buy the Automats with the pink tourniquet tubing on the stocks, the Aks taken from dead Russians.
The fighters don't want me taking pictures of the arms market. As if this was a dark secret they didn't want the outside world to know. The Russians are selling weapons to the Chechens. The local people don't like the arms market here either. They have asked the fighters to move but they refuse. They won't have to worry for long, the Russians are coming. No the fighters laugh, the Russians are here. I want to go to the front lines to see the Russians. They joke and tell me to wait, maybe the front lines will come to me.
There is much going on now. Everyone comes through the main square. There is Commander Basayev's Land Cruiser, Khattab, the head of the foreign mujahadin came through this morning, the head of parliament is in that bunker. Everyone comes to Shali.
As Russian tanks began their encirclement, we probe the edges of Shali to find the front lines. On one street the houses are smashed down as if by an angry fist. Women and old men dutifully pick through the rubble to rescue their possessions. We are warned to leave: Russians are coming down the road. We try to take another route to the edge of town but we are waved back. There are 40 tanks approaching. We are trapped.
We must now make our escape plans but we have to be off the streets. Even in these conditions our bodyguard is worried about us being kidnapped. It's not about money anymore. We could be traded for safe passage through the Russian lines. Those who have nothing, have nothing to lose. We have just come from a place where sixteen Spetznatz prisoners were executed because their Russian commanders refused to trade them for the safe passage of Chechen civilians. Everything has a value and a purpose here. And timing is everything.
- - -
To get us off the streets we are driven down the street to a quiet house on the edge of town. We are invited for tea and lunch by a Chechen family. The woman of the house wanted to make sure I had enough homemade jam and fresh bread to eat. "Would I like more tea?" she asked. "No, thank you," I said. I have to leave before the Russians arrive. Tank fire was exploding down the street. I asked the family what they would do. "What can we do?" they answered. An old man had learned there were foreigners in the house. He asked permission to come in and asked me to point my video camera at him. He took off his fur hat and asked very politely if America could help them. "We are weak, you are strong. Please protect us."
Before I left, the man of the house gave me a gift of a handkerchief. The Chechen family apologized for not having more to give me. When I tried to give them something they waved me away and said, "We are Chechens, this is our custom."
We retreat to the center of Shali. Somehow it seems normal here. I realize why. Other than the armed men and the Chechen flag this looks like the prototypical town square from a Universal Studios set. The local commander pulls up in a black Volga. He has had his lower lip shot away in the last war and a doctor has done a crude job of patching it together. He is surprised to see a foreigner as I muscle my way through the fighters to his presence. He laughs when he hears my request to go up to the fighting.
"You want to go to the front?"
"Why not?"
"Do you dare?" He asks.
- - -
We pile into the back of his black Volga, a lush battered car, complete with tinted windows. The fighter in the front seat radios the front line. The only word I recognize in Chechen is "normaal." Pronounced with that flat second syllable. However, his communication is uncomfortably phrased as a question not as a statement. I guess it's reassuring to know they don't want to get killed. The fighter's favorite expression has been, "If we die, we win." He pulls over and stops. There are casual and then more urgent exchanges on the radio.
Not once but many times I hear the question, "Normaal?" He waits, listening carefully to the Motorola radio. There is no answer. He asks again, "Normaal?"
It is now more urgent, as if saying it would make it so. There is a response from the other side and the fighter in the passenger seat signals to the driver. He flicks his head forward with grim resolution.
It appears that things are calm so we can go. Or are they? We leave the center of Shali, drive past the arms market, the food market, turn left, right and then out into an open field less than two kilometers from the center of town.
The sun blasts a deep yellow light through the cracked windows of the Volga. We skirt the tree line of the field. Twelve kilometers to the north is Grozny. It is marked as always by lazy black columns of smoke that rise up and flatten into dark bands when they hit 1000 feet.
We know the Russians aren't far away. We see them in the distance. We see them in the sky. All day long we keep running into Russian tanks and troops towards and around the city. Now I am heading to the front lines but there is something very wrong. I try to hold on to my sense of direction using the giant black pillars of smoke and the setting sun as indicators. I am having a hard time calculating or more accurately, believing my calculations. We are just ahead of the advancing Russians. The Russians are already surrounding us.
We slither through the edge of the stubble field. Our driver spins the wheel back and forth as he slides sideways on the gooey muck.
It had never dawned on me to ask just exactly what was happening on this front line. I was told there was shooting and Russians. The sun is setting highlighting a tall black cloud with a blazing red base less than two kilometers away. The oil refinery we drove by this morning has been hit by a Scud missile. Now it is in Russian hands.
Our driver listens, scans the sky for Hind 24 gunships and moves forward. He drives faster and faster. He is really staring at something and spending more time peering intently out the cracked window than on the road in front of him. Damn that makes me nervous. Gunship? Russians? False alarm? He doesn't answer.
As we turn left along the edge of the stubble field, I see a tiny head popping above the brush on the side of the road. Russians? Chechens? The driver slows down. Chechens. Relief. But wait, they are facing the direction we just came from. Why would fighters be facing towards the direction we just came from? What are they are defending?
The car edges against the trees that separate the fields. I don't know why but I am thankful for the row of trees. I still have no idea which way the enemy is. A nervous Chechen fighter is reason enough to be nervous.
I was told there is shooting here. But it's now deadly silent. The same silence I heard this morning. There are freshly dug positions to defend the city. A few hundred yards away I can see the wooden barns and the newly rebuilt brick houses are glowing red in the setting sun.
At either end of the trench are hills made from the piled up dirt. On these hills sit the machine gunners who have an excellent field of fire. A perfect spot for destroying Russian tanks and armored vehicles. The steep angle will expose the blind tanks and slow down the six-wheeled BMPs. There is also cover of the trees where the fighters can escape when things get too hot. The fighters only have a small black plastic bag with some fresh rolls bought in the market. They have dutifully set up in the slit trenches with their guns and they look fierce. Still, something is odd. They are here to defend Shali but they are staring at Shali. They pose for pictures and someone says, "Gunship." I hear a low deep mechanical noise. It isn't the sound of a Hind gunship. It is different. Above the low thrum is the metallic clanking and grinding sound of tanks.
The man in charge sends his second-in-command up to the top of the left ridge to get a better look. He looks, puts his binoculars down and looks again. He yells down, "Tanks." Lots of them it would appear by his gesticulations. Coming directly towards us on our left and right. When he comes down off the hill there is a hurried conference. I ask how many tanks. I hold my fingers up and ask, "One? Two?" He holds up both of his hands and I say, "Ten?" He shakes his head and smiles then flashes his outspread fingers three times. He means thirty. Now the slow steady rumble resembles the beat in a horror film. I look back at the line of defenders. Eight men, one RPG, two machine guns and the rest are armed with AKs. We have to go before we are cut off. The commander says, "We will not give Shali to the Russians." What else can they say? I know that their spirit may not be lagging but the sheer numbers of approaching Russians is going to make this a long night. I have a decision to make. Stay and be part of the battle first-hand or leave. The Commander makes the decision for me. They don't want dead journalists. It is time to go.
- - -
Back in Shali there is nothing to indicate that the town is being surrounded by Russians. But there is an odd transition from the clear sunshine of day to the darkness and cold of night that makes the possibility more ominous.
Daylight is dwindling and we must find a place to stay. I have learned by now, nighttime is the killing time. We stop to buy some food. Warm sausage-filled buns, bread and even Snickers bars-five for a dollar. We are taken to a house, not a safe house, just a house. But it is less than 500 yards away from the front line position we just left.
Ibrahim, the young man of the house, is happy to see us and opens the green metal gates as if we are entering a luxury resort. It is now 6:30 p.m. It is pitch black and the mud has turned to rock-hard ice. As if to signal the arrival of night, a thunderous volley begins. It is the Russians softening up the front lines a few hundred yards away.
Inside the dimly lit house the windows rattle and the yellow kerosene lantern flickers with each rocket and bomb blast. There is a simple metal stove to heat the room. I teach Ibrahim English and he delights in constructing simple sentences from the handful of words he learns-"wall," "window," "door," and "roof." Using his new words, he takes my flashlight and shows me the damage done to his house in the last war when a Russian gunship attacked a tank parked behind his front gate. The gate is still perforated with shrapnel marks. I ask him what he will do when the Russians come. "If my family needs me I will stay. If they do not, I will fight."
The tanks are now firing just a few streets behind the house. It sounds like the last stand for the fighters on the line. When I mention the futility of this kind of defense, our guide and driver tells us that it is normal for a handful of Chechens to take on a few thousand Russians. They don't really have a choice. It is hard to know whether the idea of eight lightly armed soldiers holding off a juggernaut of Russians is a fable or true. Here it is true.
In the next house a group of young women are scraping kernels off corn. This is part of the harvest dance to celebrate a good crop. They dance with just handclaps for accompaniment even though the Russians are battling furiously with the Chechens. The sound of light-arms fire resembles popcorn popping next to the massive concussion of the tank shells.
At midnight I am standing on the balcony with Ibrahim. He is 19 years old, studying Arabic. He says he likes to learn. His mother is frail and thin. I can see her through the diagonal metal bars. She is sitting inside by the stove. Lit by the yellow glow, she says nothing, just sadly stares into the flames holding the side of her face with her hand. Two wars in one lifetime are too many.
In the star-filled night a tiny streak of flame whizzes by. A cruise missile. It lands to the south. There is a dull white glow on the horizon and a deep delayed boom. Two more streak by as we stand outside. The time between the glow and the thunder is about 14 seconds. "Grozny," Ibrahim says. He tells me they are also using gas in Grozny and Argun. Our guide told me he overheard terrified requests for gas masks and saw two young victims who the doctors said have lost their sight. It probably doesn't matter. There is war here in Europe and there are no witnesses. An evil combination. I go to sleep and wait for the window of opportunity from 2:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. when the Russian soldiers sleep and the rocketing stops. That is when we must make our escape.
As the night goes on the bombardment gets uncomfortably erratic. Explosions are coming from every direction. Grad and Uragan rockets are flying over our house towards the town. Rockets coming from the town are softening up the lines. Tanks are firing in the fields behind us. The small-arms fire from the trenches has stopped. Something is happening. Then that deadly silence. Again. We should leave. Now. We pack quickly, exchange gifts with the family and leave. How can you say goodbye to friends who you share surviving with? They cannot flee with us, this is their home. So they stay and wish us good luck. But we cannot never completely leave them. They always remain with you. As strong as a wedding or first kiss. They are concerned that we have enough food so they give us more food as we leave. The Chechens ask for nothing and give all.
Outside the green gates the streets are empty. We look for cars that might signal an escape route. One jeep rushes towards us and slams on the brakes. The driver says he tried to leave but turned around because the bombardment was too much. The Russians are taking the city.
- - -
We carefully crawl through the streets of Shali looking for a way out. The town square is now empty. The commander's bunker no longer has mud splattered Land Cruisers parked outside. The kerosene lanterns that make the yellow squares in the windows are extinguished. There is not even the barking of dogs. We drive slowly towards the southern road, towards the mountains, towards Georgia and perhaps safety. We have driven well past where the tanks were today. We probe nervously for Russians. None are to be seen.
We begin to drive slowly and we reach the outskirts of town. We stop, turn the lights off and wait and listen at the start of the road out of town. There is no sound. Ahead is a straight section of road that crosses the plains and then winds along the gorge into the comparative safety of the mountains. The section ahead of us is very open and very exposed. The same place where we saw the Russians at dusk. We are at a dead stop in perfect blackness straining every receptor in our body.
Suddenly, off the right front corner of the car we are illuminated by a bright sparkling light that streaks toward the heavens. At the top of the arc the flare suddenly stops and seems fixed in place. We are uncomfortably illuminated. No, we are terrified. The light is bright, too bright, painfully bright, industrial bright, no military bright. Shit. Russians. Then another 50 meters down the road another sparkling brilliant arc of light ends up hanging in the sky. Then the same distance further down the road there is another and then another, until there is a long line of illumination flares 50 meters apart floating slowly to earth. Marking the Russian front lines. A festive line of lights that also marks our path to freedom. Off to the right across the river that separates us there are tanks and soldiers visible under the ghostly light. The Russians know something is out there but there is no moon and we are as still as death. The soldiers and tanks are advancing at a steady pace directly 300 meters from the road. There is a constant grumble of turbines and diesel engines. The Russian advance extends along the road for about three kilometers with illumination flares creating a string of brilliant pure white lights that extend into the distance.
We discuss our next move. Return, go forward or run to the side of the road. We are with Chechens so I know we will go forward. If they begin to rocket we must leave the car immediately. We decide who will get out which door. But there are tanks and APCs with 12.7mm heavy guns. There will be no time to get out of the car. I don't even bother to tell the driver that his seat doesn't go forward. My only hope will be to roll out the back. I hook my finger on the rear hatch release and wonder how quickly death will come.
I have never seen a scared Chechen but I can see the look in our guide's face. The driver says, "At this point only Allah will decide whether we will live or die." He starts the car and gently puts the car in gear and starts to move slowly forward. He covers the yellow choke light and we hold our breath. There is no moon and I cannot see the road. There is a river on our right and as we pick up speed we are getting closer to the front line. We are driving in a parallel path but moving closer to the Russian line. It is tense.
Off to the right are the sparks of a rocket motor being ignited. Shit! Duck! But the rockets are not for us. We are too close. I can't stand it. We are moving closer and closer to the front line. Why don't the Russians open fire? Why can't they see us? We are now only 100 meters from the Russians. More rockets ignite and howl overhead but we are spared again. And then mercifully the road turns eastward away from the front lines. We pick up speed. Are we safe? We are still in Chechnya, how could we be safe?
Then it sinks in. The Russians have now surrounded Shali and are focused on cutting off the only road out of Chechnya. The one we need to escape on. We must get to the border as quickly as possible before the Russians storm up the road or they land paratroopers in the mountains, cutting off our escape.
- - -
We try to escape to the Georgian border that night. Avoiding a blown out bridge, our car breaks down in a riverbed. The suspension strut has been sheared off by a rock. We walk back to the small village of Duba Yurt, where a friend of our driver will try to fix the car.
Walking in the frigid night is invigorating and crisp. Down below us on the plains we have just driven across there is now a battle going on. In older days correspondents would sit on a hill with binoculars and send dispatches of poetic prose about sacrifice, bravery and loss. There is no one to witness the fall of Shali except us. But this is just one of many Russian advances. At great cost. Down below there are the dirty boiling orange flames of eight burning armored vehicles. The sounds of firing and explosions seem very far away. I am watching a one-sided war where an angry drunken giant is using a club to kill a mosquito.
Up above us in the village ahead each house has one window dimly lit by a kerosene lamp. It seems normal here. The streets are icy and narrow as we climb the hill. Our guide calls out at a gate and an old lady answers and opens the gate. We are invited in. They light a fire in the stove and invite us to rest.
That night there are a number of rocket and missile attacks, some close, some far away. I am concerned that the strategic heights of Duba Yurt will be the Russians' next target. Our guide tells us to relax, the Russians will not make it up the hill tonight. He was in the Soviet military, he knows how slow they are. The owner of the house tells us that since the war began there have been 40 direct hits on this village of 35,000. Mostly bombs but also Scud missiles. Only two families have moved away. I am comforted despite the explosions outside and sleep the sleep of the dead.
The morning light reveals that we on a height that overlooks Grozny and the Argun Gorge. With the morning also come the jets. I time the air strikes. We are hit on average about every 15 minutes. Sometimes more, rarely less. Some say they are attacking the road. Others say they are attacking the hills behind us. Others say they are trying to kill the villagers. The truth is they are attacking anything. Cars on the road, groups of villagers gathering water, empty houses, packed houses, whatever the Russian pilots choose. Wherever their explosives land.
I go outside to get a better view from the top of the hill. They have cleaned our muddy boots as a sign of respect, a local Chechen custom. Somehow war does not affect this place. Behind the house, men are loading firewood onto a truck. The thin and pretty young wife feeds the chickens. The children slide on the ice and laugh when they fall. Here the bombing is new to the children. They pause to watch the Su-24 jets streak over. I climb the hill behind our house to take in the panorama of rural Chechnya. It is a peaceful scene. The blue sky, the forested hills, the cluttered rows of houses with smoke coming out of their chimneys, the tall spires of red brick mosques contrasting against the snow-capped mountains to the south. A beautiful place to fight a war. A place worth defending.
There are now artillery shells flying over my head. Angry, deep, howling buzz-saw sounds that streak overhead and explode in distant disconnected gray puffs. These shells come from behind me and are destined for the large cement factory over a mile in front of us. The Russians are making sure there will be nothing left no matter who wins. Nobody will win this war.
Then the ground shakes. A gray and white mushroom cloud rolls up to the heavens. Then another. The jets are bombing the hills around us. It is my turn to be the target. My guide pleads with me to go back inside the house.
Sitting inside, we are never without fresh tea, firewood and people watching us like we are aliens from space. The windows and teacups rattle as the village is bombed. I am worried that they are forming a crowd and we will get a direct hit.
It is Sunday in the village of Duba Yurt. Just like any other day, men are standing around talking, firewood is being cut, livestock fed. Women walk house-to-house to visit, children play with homemade toys: wooden wheels on the ends of sticks. Chickens stroll around the yard and young mothers play with babies dressed in those antique white bonnets.
They look up when they hear the sound of the jets. Teenagers time the space between the jets and the explosions. Some are close and some are distant. Today they have bombed the graveyard, some cars on the road and even the hills around the house.
- - -
Waiting in the only room heated by the stove, I hear what sounds like classical chorale. More of a dirge. It is a deep sad sound that rises slowly in arching harmonies. I am fascinated. The house next door is a new red brick compound with punched tin circles and wheels that decorate the gables of the house. My hosts don't want me to venture out but I am curious.
It cannot be a recording; there is no electricity. An older woman invites me to the house. In a covered area there are about a hundred men with heavy lambswool hats and black leather jackets walking slowly in a circle, singing. Some keep a basso profundo beat, others wail, others chant in a deep rhythmic guttural chant. All of the men shuffle and stamp their feet on the concrete floor until it vibrates. They change directions and move in a tight circle.
It is a funeral for an older woman. The men are asking Allah to forgive her sins. But it is more. It is a celebration of life, of sorrow and of death, uninterrupted by the bombs and rockets that fall outside. It is the inner strength of the people emanating from their voices and movements.
Young and old, in tall hats, high boots and cheap leather jackets they stamp their feet and sing with a deep force ignoring the bombing outside. Ignoring the Russians, ignoring the war. Outside the Russians are destroying their land, killing their people and virtually wiping out their existence. But this age-old ceremony tells me that the Chechens will endure against the godless, stateless Russians.
- - -
The sun is setting, the car is repaired and it is time to go. We pack our bags as the last rays of light disappear. The trip should take us five hours getting us to the southern border of Chechnya between eight and midnight. But the arrival of the Russians in the valley has changed things. The people want us to go and to reach the outside world with our tapes and stories. If the Russians capture us they will take all these things and call us spies. After all we are with the terrorists.
As we leave the village there is no bombing. Just silence. I am now connecting the lack of violence with the prelude to something awful. As we come to the main road there are more vehicles. Military vehicles driving southward towards the mountains in a hurry. They rush by us without even stopping. Back on the same blown out bridge where the car broke, there is a jam of trucks and cars trying to get across. There are men walking, directing traffic through the thick mud. Women with heavy bags make their way through the muck. The trucks slip and slide in the deep mud not yet frozen in the chilly night. Our guide does not know the way but he stops to ask people as we make a number of false starts. He has now adopted the phrase, "Robert, no problem."
We find the right road out of town. Our lights illuminate the destruction from today's bombing. The houses along the road are smashed into small pieces of wood and brick, the trees angrily scarred and knocked down by the blasts. We pass a bombed graveyard and destroyed car. The Russians making sure that even the deceased Chechens are dead.
We climb slowly as we wind along the Argun River. In Shatoi near the blasted bridge there is a row of candles like a religious service. It is the market. The people do not come out during the day for fear of being bombed so they are lined up in a row of tiny stalls lit by tiny votive candles. We buy supplies. This is the last stop before the mountains and the border.
The road beyond Shatoi is scarred with craters and the blasted hills spill rocks down to the road. It is quiet and cold and we are silent. The Russians are using their new helicopters with night vision here. Crocodiles they call them. There is tension even when there is nothing out there.
Now the river runs lower on the left and the hills are steeper on the right. I figure out how far we have to go until the border and then safety. Seventeen kilometers. We get out of the car to relieve ourselves. There is a great booming in the distance. It is not our concern anymore. We are leaving. The night is clear and it is so cold the stars blink. The mountains rise up around us. The war is a long way away now. We get back into the car and drive the twisted road until we are stopped dead in our tracks by an eerie sight. We have not left the bombing behind, the bombing is now ahead of us. There is still no escape from this war.
High above us is a glowing oval of flickering light floating in the sky. It is too big to be a flare, too high to be a bomb blast. We stop the car and stare. I strain from the back seat to see it better. I want to get out of the car to take a picture. The guide says, "No." The light moves and changes. From the back of the car the blue tint on the window makes the light appear to change color from blue to yellow. I force my way out of the car to get a better look. Our driver has never seen anything like this before. Outside it takes me a while to understand what I am looking at. The mountains are on fire. They are sending missiles ahead of us to seal off the road.
We are standing 2000 feet below the peaks of the steep pine- covered mountains. The Russians are trying to destroy the last lifeline to the outside world with Scud missiles. Missiles that explode and burn on impact. The ring of fire is the result of the trees being incinerated as the fiery impact spreads southward creating a jagged oval ring.
We get back into the car and start driving. There is nothing we can do now. Our future once again is in someone else's hands. We are now 12 kilometers from the border. The winding road has been blown into a narrow precipitous path. The impact craters are 20-feet deep in some spots. The hills above have been hit sending tons of rock down onto the road. Somehow there is just enough space to get by. The road narrows to being just the ridge between two giant craters at one point. The air is full of smoke from burning pine trees. The river rages in an icy torrent below us. As we round a bend six kilometers from the border there are two more mountains on fire. The flames climb up the steep side of the mountain and seem to drip into the valley below.
As the walls of the canyon rise up, the road is no longer a road but a thin ribbon of flat dirt cut through the side of avalanches. We see a truck coming in the opposite direction. Good news again. The road is open to the border. The smoke is blinding. We are getting closer. But to what? The war is here now. Twisted machinery pushed off to the side of the road floats by in our weak headlights. Not content with killing children, women and even the dead, the Russians are now attacking the mountains, as only fools would.
Suddenly the road disappears completely as the car slithers down into the icy river. There is no longer a road so we drive through the river. There is no concern about land mines now. Only the need to get into Georgia before the next missiles strike. The canyon is now a chasm and the tall cliffs above us provide some sense of protection. Or do they? If a missile did land in this narrow slot there would be no place to hide.
Finally, in the icy night we see a crudely made road that climbs out of the river. On either side the towering black cliffs block the stars. We have finally reached the camouflage bunker that serves as the Chechen border and the door to the outside world.
We have escaped Chechnya.
Note: One week later Russian paratroopers land to seal off the road to Georgia.
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