Case studies
“I was born in Grozny, Chechnya. I graduated from Grozny University, Faculty of Economics. I worked in a shopping center as a manager. I had to leave work because the war had begun. We left Grozny.
I went to Moscow because I had to give birth to the second baby. My husband stayed home. That happened in 1995, just when the war started. I spent a year in Moscow. The child was born disabled and had to stay in hospital. After a year I returned to Chechnya. We used to have a house in Grozny. Now we didn’t had a house anymore - they set it on fire. In August 1996 the war began again. I had to leave with the whole family. We came to Moldova, because my husband decided to go to a relative there. One evening I asked him why we have to go to Moldova. He showed me Moldova on the map and said that it is quiet there. Elsewhere there was a high probability that we may have encounter problems with the law enforcement.
You can get used to explosions, but I still can’t get used to the sounds of the planes. The first five years I suffered from severe depression. After a while I resigned. But the feeling of losing my future is still present.”
“During the war my family lived in Sukhumi. When I was 9, in the fall of 1992, I was playing in the street with other kids of my age. We were playing in the sand with toy trucks. Suddenly nearby a gunfire fight started. I've seen people injured, screaming, moaning, some were dead. Someone shouted: "Here are children, women, don’t shoot!" But Abkhazians continued to shoot. Then Georgians soldiers got all the children in an open truck. There were a few cars there. In one of them an old woman died on the way, because of the fear and worries. Another woman lost her mind, she didn’t understand anything, she was always crying, she didn’t know who she was and what's going on, she “was seeing" things, she was afraid. I was very scared, crying, begging to take me home. I was frightened of the dead. A soldier caressed my head and told me not to worry, that everything will be okay. I was taken in Sukhumi in Tbilisi. There were two other children with whom I had played, I felt calmer around them, as if I was not so alone. In Tbilisi we were divided into different families. I got a fireplace in the family were kids my age were higher. I know that in Sukhumi district in which I lived was completely destroyed. I think my family (parents and brother two years older than me) were killed. After 5-6 years when I was in 9th grade, I visited some relatives of the mother, but they didn’t know anything about my mother. Or maybe they knew that she was no longer alive, but they wouldn’t tell me, to not deprive me of hope.
Even now every night before I go to bed I remember my parents and I beg God to return me my family. I'm pretty sure that they are no longer alive; otherwise I would have found them, but a little hope is everything I’ve got. I loved them and I was loved by them very much.”
“I was deported in 1949. It was past midnight. A few soldiers came and told us to get dressed. We were accused us because our grandfather worked at the City Hall. My grandfather had been arrested in 1947, so now the whole family had to be liquidated. We lived with the grandmother then. I was very young then and I do not remember the details of the event, but my mother told me that we were loaded into a large car and driven to the train station. They boarded us in a cattle train. The wagons were overcrowded. My brother was 9 months old and my mother was breastfeeding. Because of the heat and unhygienic conditions, my mother became ill. Thanks to God, there was nothing serious. When we arrived, we went to live in a camp. We built wooden barracks where several families were housed together. Soon an outbreak of lice started. There were bedbugs.
I was rehabilitated in 1955 and in the fall of 1957 we returned to Moldova. Then a very bad time of great sadness and poverty followed. When we returned we had no place to live. At first we stayed at my mother’s godmother, but after that our mother scattered us through the relatives. After a while my parents have earned some money and have bought a house in Chisinau. Our belongings were confiscated and weren’t returned to us, not even recompense. We have been proposed recompense in amount of 200 lei, my parents, however, refused. They regarded it as a mockery.
My memories are full of bitterness. I think my poor health today is due to several issues especially because of those times and the problems I have today, as well as my family members (and still many people who were deported) are consequences of those times.
Time has healed the wounds; however, marks remained deeply imprinted in my aching soul. With all the difficulties I managed to get higher education, to create a family, but the horror of that time remained. I've always been a strong person and I continuously developed myself. I love when despite difficulties people stay human.”
“My parents were teachers. In 1941, June 13, at around 2 a.m., an officer and two soldiers with a cart came, and we were commanded to go with them to the District Center. I was 13 and my brother 7. We spent three days in the wagon at the railway station. In the corner of the carriage was a small hole that served as a toilet. We travelled at night, standing on deserted railways during the day.
In two weeks we got to Omsc. During the trip a man died and his body remained in the wagon, because they had to take the corpse according to a list.
At Omsc I was embarked in a ship’s hold. I was fed with tainted fish. We went north on the Irtysh River to Bereozovo. We were brought ashore. We had slept under the stars until people dug huts. Everyone dug a long ditch and covered it with planks and soil. We were brought some metal barrels, of which we made stoves. There were about 200 people staying in three huts. Later we made thin walls to divide families. All worked to cut wood, including myself, even from the first day. There were two cases when trees fell on people and killed them. My dad has frozen his feet.
Twice a month the control would come and we had to subscribe that we were in the right place. My father sent through them a request to go to the hospital. They gave the permission on their next visit and took him to the hospital. There they operated his legs twice because of the gangrene, but he eventually died. After that I became "the head of the family", my brother also had to work.
I couldn’t study until 1953. After Stalin's death we were allowed to leave. Immediately I have enrolled into an evening school, then at the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering Institute. I got an apartment, I got married, had a baby, worked.
I cannot forgive what the Russians did to me during 12 years. There were 12 years of mockery, which continues today. We were not returned anything our house, the household, the new car. It was a society based on dictatorship and lies.”