27.03.09

The Russian Finance Ministry this week transferred 2.8 billion roubles to South Ossetia. The statement by this department says that the money allocated will go on paying for socially significant expenditure in the republic, amongst which it mentions the salaries of those working in the public sphere, child allowances, pensions, grants, foodstuffs, medicines, equipment, and the maintenance of the network of public sector establishments.

It would seem that this news should have instilled hope in the hearts of residents of the recently recognized republic. But the Gazeta correspondent could not see any particular joy on the faces of the people of Tskhinvali. People in the republic think that the city authorities will in any case not embark on restorative work in the immediate future, and this means they will have to see in next winter without roofs over their heads as well.Those who lost housing during the conflict are in a particularly gloomy mood. In October, the authorities paid them 50 thousand roubles each, gave them a bit of humanitarian aid, and promptly forgot about them.

Dzhava

The road from Vladikavkaz to Tskhinvali is completely cleared of snow. At the end of February and in March, it is dangerous to drive along it. Avalanches and mudslides descend, which the Emergencies Ministry and the road services immediately clear. The northern entrance is empty, a border guard lazily takes the pass issued at customs from my driver Robert. We drive through the tunnel, there are Russian servicemen at the southern entrance, a new armoured personnel carrier alongside.

In the central square in Dzhava, the first town on the road to Tskhinvali, a crowd has gathered. It becomes clear that this is not a rally but the funeral of a local woman. Several military vehicles depart in the direction of the mountains. A military unit has been stationed there of late. According to Robert, among the locals this has only been o fbenefit to the traders. The rest of the residents who were out of work are still without work.

At the site of the former Georgian villages along the road between Dzhava and Tskhinvali are loads of burnt out homes.Virtually their entire population fled to Georgia before and during the war. I ask Ossetians why they destroyed Georgian homes, they all give the same answer. All those we asked say something along the same lines, that this is revenge for the 19 years of humiliation, which they experienced travelling through these villages.

Desolate Capital

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Tskhinvali looks deserted. Since September, when I was here the last time, very little has changed in the town, signs of the fighting can be seen here and there. There is not a soul now on Teatralnaya Ploshchad, which was seething with jubilation when President Kokoyta read out the Russian president's decree recognizing South Ossetia's sovereignty. Rare passers-by lower their heads and watch their feet so as not to stumble on a pothole. Only a few traffic lights, installed using money from the Moscow Mayor's Office, are new here. Drivers willingly heed the instructions of the traffic lights, although in the republic, as a rule, it is one road hog against another.

Outside the central hotel Iriston, several men are discussing the forthcoming parliamentary elections on 31 March - the first since the recognition. "These will be the most serious elections. We hope that they will take place without any excesses," local resident Alan Kumaritov tells me. He intends to vote for one of the newly created parties - the People's Party, which in contrast to the old parties has not besmirched itself with anything. "The party of power, Unity, has not been able to organize either the acceptance or the distribution of aid properly! Housing restoration is being done extremely badly, so they should not count on a majority of the votes," Alan says. He is interrupted by Soslan who is standing next to him: "If they add ballot papers, they will win. You will not be able to prove anything later via the courts."

Fire Victims

A green shack stands on Ulitsa Osetinskaya opposite two collapsed houses. In it, 72-year-old Vera Dzhioyeva sells cigarettes, sunflower seeds and juice. One of the destroyed homes belongs to her. "On 7 August, the first shells launched by the Georgians fell on my home and the home of my neighbors," Vera points. "I, my daughter, and my 15-year-old grandson were in the same room. People did not sleep from 2 August to the seventh, when we heard Saakashvili's assurances that there would be no attack, we decided to go and have a little sleep and we lay down in our clothes. My grandson immediately fell asleep and my daughter and I started to talk. At around 11.30 at night, a shell hit the building, then a second one. Slabs started to collapse, like a house of cards. For a short time, I lost consciousness. I regained consciousness to the shouts of my grandson. He summoned our neighbors for help. Shells were bursting all around. My grandson dragged me and my daughter out of the wreckage and he cut himself seriously. At first we hid at our neighbor's then the neighbor took us to North Ossetia." The women talks through tears. In October, her family was allocated 50 thousand roubles and since then everyone has forgotten them. "What will happen to us? I cannot build a house on my own. I do not have the money, and I do not have the strength. When my husband and I were young, we built our home with our own hands, it was joyful and fun. But now?" Tears flow down her wrinkled cheeks.

The house of Georgian Neli Zoziashvili has been without a roof since August. Her endless visits to officials have been unproductive. "I still do not have either an Ossetian or a Russian passport. I am using a Soviet passport. Two years ago I submitted documents to get a passport but they will not give me one," she says. Neli has covered her roof with cellophane but the wind often tears it off. And recently her mother died.

On the corner of Ulitsa Isaaka and Ulitsa Geroyev is a four-floor building, full of shell holes. Throughout the autumn and winter, the residents have repeatedly asked the authorities for help. They have constantly been given promises but nothing has been done. "If they gave me construction materials, I would resolve everything myself," one of the residents says. She does not give her name - she fears Kokoyta's anger. "Someone recently wrote about the problems at the building on the Internet. The president and his bodyguards went from floor to floor trying to find out who had dared to criticize him. He does everything to make us turn our backs on him," the woman says. She thanks God that the winter was relatively warm: "Otherwise we would all have died of cold."

On Ulitsa Mamsurova, local residents who have gathered in a huddle are discussing the state of the roofs and calling the authorities every name under the sun. "They are doing major repairs to the homes which have suffered least. While no one has gone anywhere near the homes left without roofs and with shell holes," a young man, Inal Dzhioyev, says indignantly. His mother Venera joins the conversation. "Tell us, where is the money that has been transferred by Moscow?" she asks me. "To meet social needs, and, possibly, finds its way into construction from time to time". "I do not believe it! They have done nothing in seven months, just created the appearance of construction, but when they get the money they do nothing at all. The children are not going to kindergarten, there are no places. Before the war, there were 10 kindergartens in the town, and there were so many children that here were not enough places. People from Tyumen have repaired one kindergarten and that is it, and there are just four functioning establishments. The rest have been destroyed, burnt down, or have simply been closed. And our authorities are lying about 29 functioning kindergartens. There has never been that number in South Ossetia!"

During the past seven months, the joy of victory and at the international recognition, has gradually turned to disappointment among the people of Tskhinvali.

Kvaysa

We travel to the North-Western part of the republic, in the direction of the Russian border. The road to Kvaysa takes ninety minutes, although it is only 35 kilometres long. Holes and pits every metre, in one place the remains of a mudflow. A Japanese grader from the Emergencies Ministry stands at the roadside - it is obviously waiting for a mudflow to descend again. In the village of Ertso, several Russian servicemen are pulling a log along the road in the snow. An army tent is pitched there, with the chimney of a wood-burning stove sticking out of it. A little further afield a wooden hut containing a bathhouse. In answer to a question as to whether they are hungry, Sergeant Glukhov and contract serviceman Sergey from the Moscow region laugh: "Anyone might envy us - fresh meat every day. The Ossetians bring it," What are they guarding? God knows, Sergey's fellow servicemen shrugs his shoulders.

The Road

Local resident Artur, who heard our conversation, says that in August Georgian troops tore along this road: "We had to blow up the bridge. If it had not been for the Russians, they would have got through here. There were few of us, more or less unarmed. Only the special-purpose militia detachments had normal submachine guns, we were standing there with our grandfathers' Berdan rifles. You try and hold back 500 soldiers." Now, he said, his fellow villagers curse him for having blown up the bridge and are threatening him with prison.

Hardware growls along the road. Gazprom is laying down a gas pipeline. The people of Tskhinvali have been promised gas by summer if the contractor Albert Dzhusoyev does not let them down. The South Ossetian authorities have a lot of grievances against him, including for non-payment of taxes and violating ecological regulations.

Dzhusoyev himself maintains in conversation with me that none of the complaints against him are valid. "I have not started a single construction project without the appropriate documentation. And who would have allowed me to?" he says excitedly, gesticulating with his hands.

There are a lot of people in Kvaysa by comparison with Tskhinvali. People sit everywhere at the gates to private homes. Women in identical red down jackets walk along a five-floor building with the cracks from the earthquake in March 1991. They got these jackets from a batch of humanitarian aid which was distributed in September. They do not feel any feminine discomfort from having identical clothing, but, on the contrary, they parade it.

Leningori is Akhalgori

Akhalgori, the most remote corner of South Ossetia, was under the control of the Georgian authorities until August and this can be felt in conversations with the locals. Here people are not sure that the Tskhinvali authorities are there for the long term and are serious.

The difficult mountain road takes more than four hours from the South Ossetian capital. During rainy weather and in the winter, people travel in passing UAZ vehicles and in the summer there is a bus twice a week. A local, Otar, drives us in his old Niva. He left school at the start of the 1990s and left when the district fell under Tbilisi's control. His relatives stayed here and Otar was visiting them. When Saakashvili came along this became impossible and Otar only saw his relatives after the war. Despite the warm spring weather, the streets of small Akhalgori were deserted. We went to see Otar's relatives. The two-storey building has every convenience, there is a satellite dish on the roof, rose bushes right at the gates. The owner, Valera, says that when the war ended no one from the government in South Ossetia came here a single time, although the residents had got a lot of questions, mainly social ones. "People are leaving their homes and going to Georgia, moreover not only Georgians but also Ossetians. They are provided with everything there. While we have not got anything for six months," Valera says angrily. He has little faith in Kokoyta's promises to pay pensions and child allowances in the near future. Village people do not have any particular dealings with the servicemen who have been settling here since summer - they are afraid that the Russians will leave at any moment and they will have to answer to the Georgian authorities. "It is okay for those who have homes in North Ossetia or at least in the center of South Ossetia. Many of them have come here and looked at their homes but no one has stayed. But we have got nowhere to go to and no one to ask for protection," Valera says.

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Source: www.gzt.ru