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A Reservist Story of Survival in South Ossetia

September 12, 2008

“If I had implemented at least the one-third of the orders commanders gave us, we would not have had this conversation…”

Nona Suvariani, Tbilisi

It was night of August 8 and the war had just started. The streets of Gori were dark and reservists were sitting on the pavement in the street. They still tell stories how commanders left them without attention; how they had been provided with inferior weapons. They were now hungry and did not know what to expect in the nearest future. Here we represent the story of one twenty-three-year-old Gurami, a reservist in the Georgian army.

Guram was in reserve army training army twice in summer of 2007 and once in the spring of 2008. As he said, it wasn’t enough training in order to be ready to participate in the war. “During the war I received much more experience than during all my service as a reservist. The situation shows and teaches you everything in short fashion. You start acting yourself and during that time I never recalled anything of what I had been taught.”

He came to Lokomotive stadium in Tbilisi according to his own wish, and nobody had called him officially from the military commissariat.

“We arrived at the stadium at 5:30 or 6:00 AM. From there we were taken to Vaziani base. My friend suggested me to participate in the war. The recruiting of reservists was especially disorganized. Only 6 out of our battalion of 600 reservists actually showed up at the stadium. Buses were waiting for us at the stadium. I could not see anyone dressed in uniforms there; they were only representatives from the commissariat. The registration process was also unorganized. They did not demand IDs or other documents either. I even personally told them my battalion and unit. Even if I had told them different data they would not have cared. One man was standing and recording names, phone-numbers and addresses in a note-book. We were taken to Vaziani base where they gave uniforms and weapons to us. Then we directly were transported to the village of Artsevi. We did not stop in Gori. As far as I guessed that village was 7-8 kilometers away from Tskhinvali in the east. Nearly 250 soldiers were deployed in the village. We arrived at 2:00 PM and departed at 3-4:00 PM the next day.

Initially we all gathered in the HQ that was opened in the police station of the village. From there we were taken to the forest in teams of six at a time. As we were explained the situation was the following. Georgian army entered that village; Ossetian population left the village without resistance at the sight of Georgian soldiers. As the commander told us they expected that armed population would return to fight back. However, nothing happened at that night but we were on our guard and were constantly waiting for something to happen.  We had a commander but in fact he was not to be seen. We had no food and we ate what we had taken from home. We gathered some fruit in the forest and spent that night in the same situation. In the morning they distributed dry food products.

The bombing started at 7-8:00 AM; though they did not bomb the village where we were deployed. We were watching the whole Shida Kartli region from the high ground; we could see everything. Planes were flying over the region at intervals of 30 minutes and dropped their payloads. Then, one sergeant came to our village at 2-3:00 PM and said to pack bags and get ready to depart. When we started to pack bags, shooting started in the forest. People started to get lost and go in all directions. There wasn’t anyone who could provide proper us with directions.
We did not have a commander either who could control the movement of the troops. In short, we were facing a situation of complete chaos. The only good thing was the fact that soldiers did not panic and remained calm.  Everybody started to act as proper soldiers and we try to take one place and were moving forward and firing our weapons.  The enemy had found cover in the center of the forest. However, nearly 150 people were protecting that forest. Evidently, local people also were there and knew the tracks in the forest very well. Finally we reached the center of the safe territory. Luckily, nobody died among us. But reservists died on the position close to us and others who were moving forward in the direction of Tskhinvali.

We knew the way back but could not make a strategic withdraw because of the intensive shooting. Finally, we reached the central road and then all of us, total 150 people, gathered at the HQ. We were waiting for the commander; we had nothing more to do…I could fire but at whom did I have to? Our commander and some other officers arrived 5-10 minutes later in a military vehicle. We packed some stuff in the car. We run across one village where yellow buses were waiting for us which took us to Gori.

In the evening of August 9 we left Gori; however most part of reservists stayed there. One part of them was sent to the forest. I do not know why but the commander took them. As people claimed, the commander did not have right to have made this decision.

All and all there was terrible disorder. Luckily the boys were conscious enough to guess that nobody had cared about their safety.  If we had done at lease one/third of the directions that our so-called commanders had taught us during our reserve-training, we would not been alive today to share this story with you.”

Many questions regarding reservists’ participation in this war are still unanswered. Why did authority decide to send green reservists to battle field? Why everything was so disorganized? And who should be held responsible for that… We called the press service center at the Ministry of Defense and asked to help us to get in touch with the person responsible for recruiting reservists. They asked to send official written request on information. We sent it and then we called them periodically; they were explaining that one of the officials from the ministry was discussing our letter and that they were expected his answer. Finally, they answered that General Davit Aptsiauri, the head of the Guardia Department was coordinating the process. Anyway, they refused to give an interview to us… though promised to provide one some time later.

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