After a long separation, one newly gets acquainted with native places. He admires it and discovers something new, because everything is of a great value for him.

My separation from Grozny was not very long, just one and a half months, but I didn't recognize it. They have changed my city. It was changed on behalf of military men and heartless politicians.

In place of usual busses and trucks and scurrying cars, armoured vehicles and tanks run the streets, or they stand in trenches beside roads or simply in the yards, and their black barrels gaze at people with menace.

Russian soldiers with their submachine and machine guns ready are looking vigilantly at walking people. There are less people than usually. Many city residents have left the city, just infirm old men and women live there now. They stump through the city with their poor belongings. You feel awfully sorry looking at them, dirty and exhausted. During the war they didn't think of washing their faces or clothes. Their first desire was to quench their thirst.

The outskirts of Grozny are not demolished very much. But the center of the city is a real terror. The city looks like Stalingrad after a hundred day fight. Living and administrative buildings, museum and many other ancient buildings were turned into ruins. They did not spare bombs and shells.

Defenders and conquerors fought in Stalingrad. The yesterdays compatriots fought here with no remorse and mercy. They were set at each other by politicians, who sat in warm offices at the very moment when wild dogs ate dead bodies of 18 year old soldiers, who were sent to fight, and when their mothers plied between all official channels hoping to learn something about their lost sons' fate.

War is a terrible word. More terrible are its consequences. Two years ago I was a witness of Osetin-Ingush conflict that lasted several days. The result was dozens of crippled bodies, more than a hundred of missing people, demolished villages and about 70 thousand refugees cooped in veneer cabins. Many of the refugees from Prigorodny region settled down in the capital of Chechnia. How could they foresee that they will bear far more terrible fate in Grozny?

The conflict in Chechnia lasts not few days or months: it has begun immediately after Dudayev came to power. General didn't want to leave the post of the president, while opposition, being supplied with money and military vehicles from Russia, declared that only they can lead the Republic out from crisis. After the failure of that try to overthrow Dudayev on November 26, 1994, the Russian government stopped declaring its nonintervention in interior affairs of Chechnia and remembered that Chechnia was an integral part of Russian Federation, and sent columns of soldiers and military vehicles to Chechnia to provide "constitutional order".

Local population was tired of arbitrariness of last three years and certainly wanted the order and perfect law. But not in a way Russia has chosen.

In spite of unprotected peaceful people was the majority of population, Russian army used all types of weapons, including "Grad" ['Hail' - rem. of A.P.], "Uragan" ["Hurricane" - rem. of A.P.], ball and spike bombs. Children and women and old men died. Innocent people were crippled. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes.

On February 13 of this year commanders in Chief of Russian and Chechen armies concluded a treaty on armistice. I pray the Lord to make it forever. It's a great pity that they could not conclude it before. Then my city would not be demolished, and bodies of Russian and Chechen soldiers would not lie on the streets, and alive would not have to hide in basements.

But that all was done. And that all exists now. I hope guilty of that conflict will bear the appropriate punishment. It should not be in the other way round, or the same distress will knock at your doors.

Narzanj, February 16, 1995

[Translated into English by A.Prishchenko, February 22, 1995]