In January 1996 we were told that the Chechens would never take Pervomayskoe in neighbouring Daghestan.12 When they captured the town, we were told they would never get out alive. When they left, the then Head of the FSB, Barsukov, convincingly explained how they got away: early one frosty morning they crossed the ploughed fields very quietly in bare feet.
This time no one has offered any explanations. We were simply and triumphantly told that "the territory is being cleansed". Our information is that the Chechen guerrillas were not barefoot as they left Daghestan, but drove out, unimpeded, in a motorised column led by Shamil Basayev's jeep. Furthermore, we have good reason to suppose that someone paid a very large sum of money to ensure that things ended this way.
Novaya gazeta, 6 September 1999
6 September 1999
On the evening of 28 August, Akhmet Omarov suddenly arrived at the Pearl Hotel, formerly a holiday resort for the rail-workers' union. Twenty-two women from his village, with their 30 children, were waiting for the news he brought and, at the same time, afraid to hear what he had to say. In August everything they had thought eternal, unchanging and resistant to any natural catastrophe – their large families in their sturdy massive-walled houses – were not simply shaken, but rapidly ceased to exist.
Now one of 30 newly created refugee centres is located in this beautiful hotel in the foothills, away from the mountains, and away from the refugees' village of Ansalta, just across the border with Chechnya. Akhmet's own family took refuge in the hotel: his wife, little daughter, six-year-old twin girls and his 14-year-old son. After embracing them all, Akhmet finally went to director Mahomed-Ali Abdurakhmanov's office to talk to all the other women. There was a fierce downpour on the street but Akhmet did not shake the rain from his jacket or even notice the water streaming down his chest and back.
"It's no good," the farmer told his fellow villagers. "Our homes are gone. They've been destroyed or burnt, or only the cracked walls are left standing. It will be impossible to rebuild. My home is also gone. The homes of my brothers and parents no longer exist. There are piles of rubble on all sides. There is no electricity or gas in Ansalta, and our cattle and orchards have been destroyed. We couldn't survive there this winter. Yesterday there was a meeting of the villagers. The men decided that we would move to another place and build there. We can't remain where we are any longer. We must wait for the prefabricated houses that Putin promised. The old Ansalta is gone for ever."
This was the worst news anyone could have expected. In the southern mountainous area of Daghestan a family home is a potent symbol and someone without their own house is the most wretched of all human beings. A man who cannot put a roof over the heads of his wife and children is no longer a man. Until the last minute the women of Ansalta just like their sisters from the other villages obliterated in the August fighting (Rakhata, Tando and Shadroda) – could not believe their men would take this decision. Too many generations had toiled to build the massive houses now bombed out of existence. Too many tears and too much sweat had been mixed with the foundations of these fortified buildings that, it seemed, would last for ever. And now they had just got up and left, carrying only their children.
None of the women shed a tear on hearing Akhmet's harsh verdict. They are strong-spirited women who are used to surviving in the most severe climatic conditions. They merely shook their heads, "Even this rain is not doing any good." After the stifling heat that accompanied all the fighting for these mountain villages, Daghestan was subjected to thunderstorms interrupted by a low-lying fog. News that arrives with the rain is by local tradition always considered good and a herald of hope. Alas, the torrential rain that met Akhmet on his return to the camp was contemptuous of such ancient beliefs.
Wisdom beyond Moscow's Capacity
The refugees have spent days now discussing why this all happened, and who is to blame for their misery. The question they most often ask a visiting stranger is: "But why did you Russians forgive Basayev for what he did in Budyonnovsk13 and everything else he's done?"
It was something that people in the camps now scattered in the Buinaksk, Sergokalinsk and Karabudakhkent districts could not understand. In the answer to this question they see the cause of their own present misfortunes. The problem is not some "wretched" (as they themselves describe it) Wahhabite doctrine, but the customs and ethics of those ruling the State within which they want to live. Hundreds of perplexed women asked: "Why didn't your Russian men avenge themselves on Basayev for the blood he shed in Budyonnovsk? What words did they use to justify themselves in the eyes of their womenfolk? And what will your mothers in Siberia say now, when their sons are dying in our mountains and all for that same Basayev?"
That was what I heard from Rakhimat Yusupova, a mother of five from the no longer extant village of Rakhata, as she wrapped a borrowed dressing gown about her; an Ansalta mother of four, Sukainat Abdulmultalipova, supported her words. They were both now temporarily housed at the "Oil-worker" holiday camp. I was told the same by Asma Umakhanova, a widow with ten children at the Cosmos camp, and by Patimat Khan-Magomedova, a pensioner in the Danko camp. They are very simple and naive women. The majority of them had never left their mountain villages before the August fighting. Hundreds of them had never seen the sea and, incidentally, did not enjoy their first sight of the Caspian. At the "Oil-worker" camp, for instance, 70 kilometres from the capital, Makhachkala, Zalina Iduyeva told me, in all seriousness, that she did not want to send her child to boarding-school No 2 in the town of Kaspiisk because it was next to the sea, and that was dangerous.
"Why is it dangerous?"
"Because the sea is there."
But it's best to let them describe in their own words their recent encounters with the Chechen fighters.
"I went out to do the morning's milking. An enormous monster, covered in weapons, was walking past the house. I took fright, ran away and began to hide the children. Then they told me this was a Negro woman who was fighting with the Wahhabites."
Zarina Tadueva from Rakhata had seen her first ever black person.
Many of the refugees do not speak Russian. With the help of a translator they tell me:
"When Basayev arrived he told us that this was a commercial war."
"And did you believe him?"
"To begin with, no. Now 1 do. Because the Russian soldiers let Basayev leave Ansalta and only then bombed our houses. But we'd told them: You can knock down the houses, but make sure you kill them all [i.e. the Wahhabites]."
Finally, the mountain women speak words of condemnation and judgement:
"Our menfolk will never forgive Basayev for what he did to us."
"Did he threaten you?"
"No. He insulted us."
"In what way?"
"He wanted to make us do his bidding."
"But some of the villagers were on his side. He didn't force everyone, some went of their own accord. . ."
The women fall silent. It is left to Akhmet Omarov to tell us the first thing the Ansalta villagers did when, after the fighting was over, they were allowed back to their village. They found and dug up the graves of two villagers who had helped Basayev, but had been killed in the fighting and buried by Basayev's men. The returning villagers carried the two corpses out into the mountains so that they did not lie near their ancestors, who had never brought such dishonour in their lifetime.
"But Akhmet, we know that some of your fellow villagers left with the Chechen fighters."
"One man. But that won't help him. He'll run around for a while, then we'll track him down and that'll be the end of him. That's our custom. His time will certainly come." As Akhmet answers, he gazes at the women and it is as if he is taking a vow before them. A look of pride in their men appears on the women's faces.
"You did well," says Kalimat Ibragimova, an elderly woman from Ansalta, to the approving tongue-clicking of her companions. "If you hadn't dug them up, I would have done so myself. They cannot lie there next to my mother. On 7 August when those bandits came it was exactly 52 days since her death. I had made all the preparations to perform the prayer for her, and then they drove me out. 'You're no Muslim,' I told Basayev, 'if you don't let me commemorate the 52nd day.' He answered me in Russian: 'We're driving out the Russians, Mother, because they don't want Islam.' I spat at him and said: 'Yours is a dirty war, it's not a Muslim war! There aren't any Russians here, but you'll drive us out all the same.' I'll never forgive him."
They are, as you see, very simple people. Some might even call them primitive. However, they can see to the very heart of the matter, while we remain blinkered and confused by our complexes and sophistication. These women speak with a decisiveness and clarity that we have long forgotten: "Basayev is a bloodthirsty bandit and traitor and he has no place among normal people." Their questions and answers expose Russia's ill-defined policies in the North Caucasus. Our own answers hint at some involved game we are playing, and it is never clear to whose advantage: "Things aren't that simple," we say. "It makes sense to negotiate with Basayev . . ."
Meanwhile in Moscow various media commentators again hold forth about all these savages from the hills, and how we should be much tougher on them. With increasing frequency it is suggested that the Daghestanis be kept out of the struggle with the Chechens: let them stand by while we defend their freedom. Unbelievable stupidity, and yet just another of the thousand foolish judgements uttered over the last few years. Such arrogance on the part of the Moscow elite in its dealings with Daghestan is both unacceptable and dangerous. That becomes quite clear if you travel to the remote mountain areas of the republic, talk face to face with the people, listen to what they say and see with your own eyes the results of their struggle in August to defend their freedom. These direct and unsophisticated villagers are infinitely wiser and more principled than all of our Moscow politicians put together, no matter how many advisers crowd round them. Listen to the Daghestani hillsmen, and open your eyes.
"Your Russian men must be braver and take a hard decision," says Zeinab Baisarova, a music teacher from Rakhata village, now in the Swallow camp. "Let your men decide what Chechnya means for Russia. And when they've decided, let them act. As long as they do nothing we shall be forced to fight and flee. Our men will die because yours weren't worthy of the name."
Did You, By Any Chance, See Some Aid?
Several years ago Termenlik was a flourishing tourist centre, one of the most popular not just in Daghestan, but in the whole country. Now it houses a refugee camp. The director, Kerim Murtazaliev, is bitter: "Do you remember how, not long ago, we used to joke about the old Soviet toast? 'Peace to the World'? Well, it's been given new meaning now, hasn't it?"
For the first time in his long life Kerim is taking in refugees and he does not hide his deep sorrow at the fact:
"I have 237 people here. They came with only the clothes they stood up in. The children were in pants and barefoot. The women wore slippers. No money or belongings. Nursing mothers' milk dried up . . . You don't know where the aid has got to, do you? The television said it was on its way."
Every time we finish discussing the main subject with the refugees – Who is to blame for the present war? – they ask about humanitarian aid. Regrettably, we were unable to detect the faintest trace of any such help in a single one of the camps. Someone was certainly unloading boxes at Makhachkala airport in front of the TV cameras. Everyone saw that. But not one of the mountain women has yet been able to feed her child with the baby food from those boxes.
The only Russian woman living in Rakhata village is Irina Gasanova. From Tyumen in West Siberia, she married a local man 16 years ago and now she and her three sons are in the Pearl Hotel camp. She tells the following story:
"After watching that programme several of us women asked the director to lend us a car. We drove down to Makhachkala ourselves to the command centre for allocating refugees on Chemyshevsky Street. 'Where's our share of the aid?' we firmly demanded. 'There's nothing for you lot,' they said."
The director of the Pearl Hotel, Mahomed-Ali, comforted Irina. "We'll survive without them. I'll do everything to make sure you don't starve or freeze. And we'll organise classes for the children – I used to be a schoolteacher myself."
Which sums up how the refugees are coping in Daghestan today. Once again the State is nowhere to be seen. That the refugees are fed and have somewhere to sleep is only thanks to the kindness of others. While Moscow is hyping up reports of "humanitarian aid" it is others who bring food and clothes to the camps because they consider it a matter of honour. On 20 August, Dalgat Mirzabekov, general director of the "Electrosignal" factory in Derbent, transferred half the month's salary for the entire workforce to the refugees. He did not wait to be asked and, naturally, he had the full agreement of his employees. They spent 150,000 roubles buying bowls and powder for washing clothes, and baby food for the young. Mirzabekov's business, incidentally, is not very wealthy, although well known in Daghestan. When asked why he helped the refugees, however, he replied: "We had to help. That was how our forbears behaved."
On 28 August the head of the local administration in Ametirk (they are Lakks there, a different ethnic group) brought 5,000 roubles to the "Oil-worker" camp from his fellow villagers. By local standards that is a considerable sum for a poor place like Ametirk. He told the women: "Take it and spend it as you wish. You must be able to dress your children for school." To the same camp came the most fearsome Daghestani of the present day, the head of the Avar community, Hadji Makhachev, who is, at one and the same time, a deputy premier in the republic's government and general director of Daghestan Oil. As everyone knows he is a wealthy man and he gave every refugee, man, woman and child, 250 roubles. He gave a further thousand roubles to each family.
There are hundreds of similar stories. Fresh milk is brought each day for the children at the Swallow camp from the village of Ullubui-aul. Why? "After I saw a woman with a small baby get out of the bus, scared, weeping, and without even the simplest knapsack, I went and organised our lads the very next morning so they should have milk," Mejid Mejidov, who is farm manager here, tells me. When I ask if he expects anyone to pay him someday for all this milk, he does not reply. He is offended.
The present catastrophe in Daghestan has once again shown that ordinary people are a hundred times better and purer than our authorities. At best our clumsy and unresponsive regime thinks only of itself and does nothing. One other sad observation. Unlike the Chechen war in 1994–6 not a single Moscow human rights organisation has done anything to aid these hapless people – and yet several of those organisations are specifically for refugees and not lacking in resources. Only the Daghestanis today are helping the people of their republic and this does not bode well. Moscow is thereby sowing the seeds of separatism. When they take root and begin to grow, the federal authorities will complain that you can do nothing with these people.
And it's high time to return to the questions the mountain women asked most often. Of course, they're naive people. They simply cannot understand that Russian men are going to say nothing to Siberian mothers to explain how they are dealing with Shamil Basayev. They'll keep quiet as usual. Yet again they'll do nothing about Basayev and swallow this disgrace. Then they'll shield themselves behind clever words: discussion of the status of Chechnya has been "postponed", we must not increase tension by arresting Basayev. Madness. The women are right. As long as our men behave in this way, their war will never end.
MAKHACHKALA–BUINAKSK–KARABUDAKHKENT