RUSSIAN BORDER CLOSURE HITS PASSENGERS
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Sept 29 2004
Armenians are the main victims of the shutting of the chief
Georgian-Russian border crossing point
By Eteri Mamulashvili in the Daryal Gorge
For almost a month now 45 Armenian bus passengers have been waking
up every morning under the open skies of the Daryal Gorge in the
Georgian mountains, hoping that this will be their last day in this
beautiful spot.
The busload of passengers from Armenia had the misfortune to try
to cross this mountainous border into Russia just as the Russian
authorities closed it on September 3, the day the bloody Beslan tragedy
unfolded. Since then every day they have pestered the Georgian border
guards to relay back to them any news from their Russian colleagues.
“The Georgians told us that because of the Beslan tragedy the Russian
authorities are closing the border with Georgia for several days,”
said Viktoria Piroyeva, one of the passengers, in a despairing voice.
“We have been here since September 3 and every night we go to sleep
hoping that they will open the border on the next day.”
The bus, which was supposed to take them to the Northern Ossetian
capital Vladikavkaz, is uncomfortable even for sitting, but has now
become their sleeping quarters. The passengers manage to buy food
with the little money they still have with them. Fortunately, the
border checkpoint has a canteen where the passengers take turns to
eat. The nearby river Terghi has become their bathroom.
The Armenian bus is one of the few survivors of what three weeks ago
was a mass of vehicles trying to get into Russia.
“There were a lot of people during the first week after the border
closed, but then the numbers went down,” Georgi Kulumbegov deputy head
of the checkpoint, told IWPR. “Three buses with Armenian citizens,
most of whom were going to Russia to work, turned back a few days
ago. All those who could go back left Daryal a long time ago.”
The Georgian foreign ministry says it is in daily touch with its
Russian counterpart, seeking the opening of the frontier. All the
border guards can do is refer to a statement issued by the Russian
foreign ministry which says, “Because of the sharp deterioration of
the situation in the North Caucasus, the Russian side is temporarily
suspending international vehicle traffic on the Kazbegi-Verkhny Lars
section of the state frontier.”
Many of those stuck in the gorge have burned their bridges with home
and have nothing to go back to. Russian language teacher Susanna
Peranian sold her house in Yerevan two months ago and was moving to
live with her son in Moscow. Now her main concern is getting a daily
meal. “We barely manage to eat once a day, soon we probably won’t
have even that,” she said unable to hold back tears. “We are all
like prisoners, but even they live better than we do – prison cells,
at least, have beds.”
The Georgian government gave the trapped passengers a one-off gift
of humanitarian aid in the form of food, warm blankets, medicine and
first aid kits. But some of them are in failing health.
Elizaveta Abramovna, who worked as a doctor herself for 40 years,
was travelling to Russia to have an urgent operation on a tumour. For
the last week, she has been in acute pain.
“Would anyone care to explain to us why and for how long we are
going to be in this situation?” the 68-year-old Armenian asked aloud.
“Those who are doing this, they are the enemies of any people. Three
years ago a tragedy worse than in Beslan happened in New York, but
there the borders were not closed and people could freely move from
one country to another.”
As well as worsening the health of passengers, the long wait is
inflicting material damage.
Zia Bogirzade is an Azerbaijani citizen, who was transporting ten
tons of tomatoes to Moscow with her business partner and has spent
over three weeks at the closed border. Every morning Bogirzade throws
away several dozens of kilos of rotten tomatoes. “More than half the
cargo has gone bad,” she said. “A bit longer like this, and I will
probably leave my last tomato here.”.
Bogirzade said she had lost 10,000 US dollars already, and the losses
were growing by 50 dollars each day.
Russia’s land border with Azerbaijan has also been closed since the
crisis, with devastating results for the traders who usually shuttle
back and forth between the two countries.
This reporter managed to approach the Russian-controlled checkpoint
at Lars for twenty minutes and talk to the Russian border guards,
but they gave only one answer to all our questions, “We know nothing.”
An even more dramatic scene has formed on the Russian side of the
border, with the authorities there refusing to let through a huge
column of lorries and cars and thousands of passengers. About twenty
hauling trucks loaded with sugar and meat are standing in the neutral
zone. Georgian border guards say about 300 vehicles of various kinds,
mostly transit, are waiting on the other side of the frontier.
Although this is the Georgian-Russian border, check point officials
believe that Armenia is suffering the most.
“For them, Daryal is effectively the only road that links them with
Russia – practically, the ‘road of life’ because many Armenian citizens
work in Russia as seasonal labourers and travel by this road year in
year out,” said Kulumbegov.
And one other thing is now on everyone’s minds: the approach of
winter. The first snow fell in the gorge this year on September 12
and the longer the standoff continues, the greater the risk that the
weather will shut down the crossing point altogether.
“Now is not the time to ask who is right, who is to blame,” said
Kulumbegov. “Our main job is to help these people to get out of here
as soon as possible.”
Eteri Mamulashvili is a correspondent with the Georgian newspaper
24 Hours.