“Over there”, the man said, pointing his calloused hand toward the undergrowth. It is obvious that he rarely has the opportunity to leave his house. He lives at the end of the world. In a dead end. With his wife, his four children, a farmyard of around twenty chickens run by a single bristling rooster, four sows and a terribly adorable puppy.
The Russians are 250 meters away.
“Non”, he replies when asked if he ever risks going to the river which separates him from the Russian occupation troops. When we ask him if he has a reason, his response is equally terse: “Oui.” He’s not very talkative.
However, the Russians are observing it. Sometimes they are so close that they could exchange a few words. But they don’t talk to each other. Never. The Georgian, however, speaks Russian well. But few. Stingy with words, he is also so in Georgian.
The most developed answer I managed to get from him was finally the one where I asked him if he was in favor of joining the European Union or if he would prefer to stay away. At the same time, in Tbilisi, just a few dozen kilometers away, thousands of young students speaking fluent English run around the capital with EU flags and chantOde to Joy with European politicians.
Our host passes the small piece of wood which obviously serves as a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other, without getting his fingers dirty, and then pronounces what is perhaps his longest sentence. since weeks : “The EU no longer has a place here, there are already the Russians.”
This is the moment the puppy chooses to bite into my pants and not let go. The man smiled for the first time. Maybe he’s testing his grip on me. It is the only weapon he has to resist the invaders, he explains.
“No one will ever drive out the Russians”
His name is Zenar. Until a few years ago, the children used to bathe in the Ksani River, whose waters flow not far from his home. The occupants observed them from the other bank. Silently. Then one day they decided the river belonged to them. There’s no point arguing with men who point machine guns at you, Zenar thought, and he forbade the children from going near the river.
No, why would he be angry with Putin? He is stronger, Russia has always been stronger, so it imposes its law. Like America, he adds, sharing with me a geopolitical analysis.
Zenar and his family were also at home on August 12, 2008, when the Russians crossed the valley towards the village of Odzisi. They sat in the kitchen with his wife and waited. No, they weren’t afraid. The Russians stopped within sight but did not come to his house.
Why didn’t they run away?
“This is where I was born and this is where I live, whether the Russians or others do what they want,” he replies in a resolute tone. “Today, we are the ones who are here”, he adds, and it is obvious that this situation suits him better than any other. He says he won’t vote in the fall [des élections législatives sont prévues en octobre]. Why would he go, nothing will change anyway. It doesn’t matter who is in power. “No one will ever drive out the Russians”, he judges.
“When you live at the end of the world…”
The question of whether he expected a new war was the first one that amused him. “And how would I know?” he said, shaking his head, before walking us away with a burst of laughter.
Zenar was a good farmer, his neighbors tell us. Together, they used to go to the markets “the other side”, to sell and buy. The eggs and apples were better here, the meat there. From now on, barbed wire prevents them from doing so.
Only one Ossetian family and one lonely old Russian remained in Odzisi. He drinks the same wine as the others and he doesn’t bother anyone, it seems. However, when residents recently gathered to write a petition because a young man had been captured by Russian soldiers in the pastures outside the village and taken to prison in Tskhinvali, [la capitale de l’]South Ossetia, the Russian did not come. But no one blamed him.
“The kid wasn’t paying attention, and the soldiers immediately arrested him. In some places you don’t even know you’ve crossed the line. Sometimes there is a wire, sometimes a fence. It’s easy to get lost. But three months later, they brought the kid back. It’s good”, explains Zenar’s neighbor, farmer, wine grower and village elder. He likes to tell his memories. He doesn’t often get the chance.
Fifteen years ago, Zenar’s house didn’t look like it does today. It wasn’t in such a bad state, as sad, needing a new roof, new windows, a henhouse and a pigsty. “But when you live at the end of the world, you live at the end of the world”,the peasant wisely closes, without there being anything to add.
Officially, Odzisi today has 300 inhabitants. Some families. In reality, only around fifty originals live here permanently. Before the war, in 2008, there were 700.
Sometimes, foreign politicians are brought there so that they can see through binoculars the Russian soldiers in the occupied territories. But you just have to open your eyes for that, since they are there, a few hundred meters away. And they too, of course, see us with the naked eye. The foreign ministers of Austria, Romania and Lithuania have come here. Marek Szczygiel, head of the EU observation mission, drew the attention of the guests to the difficult life of the villagers and the attempts of the Russians to ren
