Was the tragedy inevitable? Late this summer there still was hope that it could be avoided. Joint Commission for the situation settlement of Abkhazia began its work. This commission, formed on the base of Sochi Agreement, sealed in July 27 by official representatives of Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia, placed its posts along the Gumista river, which separated the conflict sides. More than two hundred Georgian atrillery ordnances were transported to Poti by sea. Breech-blocks of the Abkhaz ones were locked at the Russian military unit.

At 5:40, on September 16, Abkhaz troops began the storm of Sukhumi.

Deputy Head of the Department of Extraordinary Reaction (State Committee for Extraordinary Situations) Colonel Jury Dyakov was dealing with the evacuation of peaceful residents from the town and its suburbs.

The picture was awful, he says. A screaming crowd, terrible panic in the sea port. Soldiers were firing above the heads to calm down the crazy with terror people. But even women and children, probably used to war, paid no attention to the shooting...

Dyakov says genocide reigns in the republic today. He saw dozens of corpses in the sea, women with cut bellies, cut off heads were lying on the beach among wooden couches.

A group of field engineers was sent to Sukhumi in the morning of October 2. The regiment commander ordered three landing soldiers to take complete battle sets and to wear armoured vests. They put forward their machine-guns and stood full height along the left side of the truck in their "blue rets", and the truck rushed forward along the wavy mountain road.

A long line of tractors with trailers, Kamaz and cars, filled with furniture, electronics, various domestic things were moving in the opposite direction. "Refugees?" I asked the soldier. "No, marauders..."

We entered the Bzuipi highway, one of the longest roads in the town. The windows of the residential houses were blown out by the blast, burst of the machine-guns turnd metallic gates into sieves, ashes every where. But there were less ruins than close to the frontier suburbs.

Green and red ribbons were hanging on the fences. "The colours of the Abkhaz Army", the service men explained. The gates have painted inscriptions, like "Hassan Chechenya occupied", or "Shamba occupied". "Occupied, occupied..." - almost every house had such an inscription, and Abkhaz or some other surnames close to it, any, but not a Georgian one. Soldiers said a lot of Georgian families lived in Bzuipi highway...It was clear that the occupants had already made themselves at home in Georgian houses. They dusted the former owners' pillows, washed in there throughs, and ate from their plates. Stolen 'Zhiguli" cars were nothing compared to the whole street with all its houses, which was in possession of the occupants.

The new region of Sukhumi with many-storey buildings was probably an excellent target for shelling. The top floors were ruined, everywhere were the traces of fire and ashes. The shells broke the concrete pannels. The sun was shining through the holes. "The district cannot be restored", - officers said, commenting on it.

In Peace Avenue I asked to stop at any house. A half a meter hole in the wall, made by a shell. The door is ajar.

Some things were lying in the doorway. "Who lived here?" asked an elderly woman who came out of the next-door house. "Georgians, wife and husband Tsitlidze", the woman looked at the landing soldiers with fear, they blocked the entrance into the yard. "And where are they now?" - "I don't know". - "May I come in?' Everything in the house was turned upside-down. Medicines scattered on he floor together with school textbooks. Blankets and pillows together with clothes. Those who lived here had no time to take even the most necessary things, if they were alive at all.

At the crossing near the bridge over the Kelasuri river we nearly ran into the body of a man. At the side of the road we saw severa more dead bodies. A mongrel was gnawing one half-burnt body. I counted eleven bodies dressed in half-military uniforms. Passports of the two of them were lying nearby in the grass: Valeri Kirtadze, 1952, and Nugzar Meskhi, 1958. Three women were speaking at a distance of about 10 meters from us, paying no attention to us "Who are these people? Why aren't they taken away from here?" -"They are body guards of Georgian General Adamia. Let them die:'dogs must die like dogs'.

The bodies of these people were placed for everybody's observation according to barbaric tradition. Others were buried. A common scene for the residents of Sukhumi: an old man was pulling a small cart with difficulty, and old woman was pushing it from the back. Three dead bodies wrapped in blankets were lying on one another on the cart. Sickening smell of decay was felt in the air everywhere in the town. But central streets were cleaned. But as Deputy Premier of the Abkhaz government Leonid Lakerbaya told me there are still a lot of killed people in the houses and parks. Massacres are on, new victims appear.

Close to Sukhumi street we stopped to ask the way. A drunk machine-gunner was toiling along, his eye was closed with a plaster.

Two women and a boy were following him. "Where are you leading these people?" - "One must find out who they are. And maybe I'll shoot them on the way. I'm sick and tired of this war". One soldier suggested to "take away the gun from this bastard". But the order "to keep neutrality" oppressed the emotions.

Cossacks were the shock force of those who were storming the town. Then followed the Abkhaz, Chechen, Ossetian, Aduigei battalions - they were 10 in number. The First Cossacks' Hundred took the centre and settled in the houses in Rustaveli street. At this area Cossack chieftain of the Kuban Cossack Troops Nikolai Putjko was commanding.

Putjko said Abkhaz government had promised the Cossacks houses in Sukhumi. But I understood that now the only dream of the cheiftain was to get out alive out of all this "mess", to return to Krasnodar region, where he had his own farm.

A man who had come to fight from Chechnya said that when the main forces moved further on to the boundary with Georgia, hordes of criminals and those who would like to enrich themselves at the expense of others, burst into the town. The majority of them were residents of suburbian villages and little towns. It is they who are killing, raping, robbing in the town, and rabid at the sight of blood and using the situation and anarchy here. On the day when I was leaving Sukhumi, the guards did not let me at the Commandant's Office: "Come the day after tomorrow, the commander is busy". An elderly man was sitting on the steps. "I'm Russian, but they chased me away from my flat, he said. The commandant gave me a paper, but it did not help". It was written on the piece of paper he showed me: "Install him in his flat, address..."

At this moment Abkhaz leader Vladislav Ardzinba, surrounded by his body-guards quickly came out of the Commandant's office. He cast an unseeing, cursory glance on me. I had the only question to ask, which should not be asked: "Look around: how will you, a scientist in the past, who was studying rather successfully human wisdom, how will you live with such a load in your soul?"