My husband was killed [in Gali]…he saw us off, the whole family, and he stayed… They killed him the following morning… He’d told me to take the children and go. “I’ll stay, everyone is here, so how can I be a чучело (coward; literally ‘scarecrow’ in Russian) and run away?’ he asked me. He was young, 52 years old. I’m not that old either, but I’ve grown old after what we’ve gone throughRead more

Roza, 65 years

They caused trouble. They pulled one woman’s teeth out. They set fire to the house. When the men came out and tried to put it out, another unit came and killed all eight of them. That happened in the evening. We put the coffins two at a time on the small carts [which we call “tachka”] and buried them at night as we were afraid they might have taken away the deceased by force. There were many such cases. A couple was hiding with me in the woods whose son’s body had been taken to the headquarters in Nabakevi9. The parents wished they’d been killed as well. Can you imagine a tragedy worse than that? As if it was not enough that they killed their son, they also took away his body

A neighbour got there and buried him. Only 10 centimetres of earth were dug out where he was buried. A pig dug him up and ate my man [tears well up in her eyes]. Only his trousers and belt were left. We made a coffin, put them inside and buried that. There’s nothing else in the earth - neither his head nor his skull… He was killed in my yard and I want to cry at the place where he was killed. I don’t want to cry when I go to the cemetery, because there’s nothing of him buried there, so what shall I cry about?… I know for sure that he was killed at home and that’s where I cry. Read more

Mzia, 53 years

When I first went there I knew that the house I had worked hard to build had been burnt down… But I was looking at the place where my husband had been buried… First I looked at that place and then I started screaming and crying…

I thought he had been buried. But when we dug out the coffin and opened it we saw…it was filled with sawdust. There were some bones wrapped in paper, torn parts of the body and torn trousers in the sawdust… I wanted neither the house nor anything else after seeing that.

I remember it all and that’s why I’ve lost so much weight. My health has completely collapsed… Everyone else sleeps at night but I still lie awake. I constantly think about what I have [in Gali] and whether I’ll ever go there, whether I’ll be buried there. Read more

Tamar, 88 years

Someone might make fun of the IDP for being an incurable optimist or say that he's not analysing things [rationally] and that he’s a fool. But there’s always hope. When my father was already dead I would sometimes slide my hand under his jacket to check whether he might have been alive. Even though he’d already been embalmed and it was in no way possible for him to be alive. Read more

Nona, 53 years

The enemy attacked the village in October 1993. There were masses of them in the Gali district, in Tagiloni village. They ravaged the village. A great tragedy took place in my family during the war. The Abkhazians took over my house during the war. They organised their so-called headquarters there. They ravaged everything in my family in the early days. On 5 October 1993, they killed my husband Vazha Ardashelia - an economist, the head of the family, who was not guilty of anything at all

My son was in Moscow at that time. He was studying economics. He was afraid because of the war and it was difficult for him to visit. The poor boy found his father had been killed and his house burnt down. He was left with his mother only. When my son learnt that his father had been killed, he took the risk [of travelling to the war zone] and came to look for his father and found him dead in our yard… My son, on his own, made a temporary grave for his father, because there was no one around. Everyone had left the village. He was also scared. He left in the morning and returned in the evening. He has had problems with his heart since then. He’s constantly ill. He had a heart attack…But tragedy didn't strike my family alone at that time… My husband’s cousins, the brothers Inveri and Ramaz Ardashelias, were also killed then. Read more

Raisa, 75 years

My husband was killed in 1992. He was killed here, at home. He was eating, when a small Abkhazian man riding a bike sneaked in and killed him here at the table. The poor man was killed in 1992. We returned here in 1994
He lay at the table for five days without anyone to take care of him. He lay at the table as he had been killed. No one could approach the house… My heart is broken [cries]. No one could come. There were Abkhazians everywhere. When the Abkhazians looked at him they said that he looked so strong that he must have been a soldier [cries]. Later I came here. I had gold fillings in my teeth and I had all of them removed, as it was dangerous. Some of them were stolen; I have some of them left, but what do I need them for now?

My husband was killed… Our neighbours came five days later. The Kvatanias lived nearby and they took the risk of coming [to the house]. The sister and brother were almost killed for that. [The soldiers] came every day and took everything from my house. I have nothing left now. They took everything.

Galya, a Russian woman, lived next door. She came every day to see that a dog or a cat didn’t eat my dead husband. When she first saw him, she screamed, "Why did you kill this innocent man?” But an Abkhazian man went after her, demanding that she shut up and threatening that they would [kill her and] place her beside the body of my husband. Then Galya went to the Kvatanias. They came and buried my husband in this yard, in my yard, after five days. That's when they caught Kvatania (the son) and made him kneel down. They also beat him. When they took him home the mother of the boy came out and pleaded with them not to kill her son.

You have to see all that [with your own eyes]. It’s difficult to describe it. I can’t describe all the things that were happening here. That man survived but they had beaten him so much that he was half- dead. You see what was happening. People say they had to tear down the wallpaper to make a fire…Read more

Taliko, 77 years

When we crossed the Enguri in 1993, we went to our relatives… Who else would put you up? We went through all that tragic life there. We returned here, came home, in 1995 because we had to make ends meet on our own, because we no longer had a father. We buried my father. It was extremely difficult to find his body. We could hardly identify him. He was killed by the Abkhazians. We had been looking for his body for some time. We buried him as it was necessary, although not everything was done according to the rules , as he deserved. But we did our best if we take into account the situation at that time. Then we returned to [the house] which our father had left to us and which had not been burnt down.Read more

Tarieli, 28 years

“Traditions won’t be lost”
We constantly remind our children and grandchildren about that place. It’s true, some of them have seen little of it. My grandchildren haven’t seen it at all and it’s difficult for them to perceive this but you have to keep the tradition and make it stronger. I’m more than sure that the traditions won’t be lost. We’ll take them there. When you and I go there, our return means taking all that back, because we had Ossetians next to us, just as they had us next to them. These traditions were with us whenever we went to church together, whenever we celebrated public or religious holidays together. We’ll take [those traditions] there and establish them for our children and grandchildren. There are no traditions without the place where you have your roots… Read more

Tamazi, 55 years