My name is Anna Bogatyryova. I’m a half-breed, and mixed-blood people always have a hard life. Russians are Russian, Chechens are Chechen, and people like me are neither. My mother is Russian and my father is Chechen.
It used to be not so striking before, but then this perestroika came along. It’s simply impossible to tell you what it was like: a nation rose against another nation. I’ll never be able to understand that.
I was born in 1956. Back then we worked and studied, we worked hard and there was no chaos. And then chaos started spreading all over the former Soviet Union. It all came to such a head… The only thing one could do was just take one’s kids and leave…
December 22, 1994… the bombing had just started and I was helpless like a two-year-old: we’d lost our documents… my daughter Alinochka had just turned six on December 16. A depth-charge attack started … and you didn’t know if you should take the child, or the stockings or the winter coat… and I did the usual thing when we go out: I took all the child’s stuff, her running shoes and her writing-books… well, at least she would have something… who needs a sick relative? We went to my brother’s place in a Moscow suburb, he received us with grace. But even though I’m his kin, my kids were still a burden. I got a job at the market and was working wherever I could. I had no husband; I was left alone with my children.
I came back afterwards to get papers. The passport girl looked at my last name: “Bo-ga-ty-ryo-va” and said that I’m not in need because I live in Moscow and my family must be well off. But not everybody has rich relatives! Me personally – I’m not rich! I could have been better off if I had sold the land I had back then – about nine hundred square meters, even more… but later everything decreased in values, you see?
Now I can’t understand how I managed to survive all that… I wasn’t a firm believer and couldn’t say if I was a Muslim or a Christian. But in November 1996 I consciously came to my faith, not just because of my father or mother or any particular kind of blood. There’re all kinds of blood: Muslim and Christian and whatnot. My subconscious brought me to the truth.
Of course, it will be hard for me to convert my son: he’s a Muslim. But then again, God is One. I have no right to tell him: “You must be a Christian!” I came to my faith at the age of forty.
Thank God, we are alive and well even though it left scars, for sure. A relative of mine came to visit. She said: “I got a disability status and all that.” And I asked how it was possible. I have a fear of God. She said: “Didn’t you wake up at night because of the bombings?” I said: “Yes, I did. I would have nightmares and wake up all wet, so that the only thing to do was to take everything off and run to the shower.” She said: “And yet you think you are not disabled?” I said: “Thank God, I’m not disabled! I don’t even want to hear this word. Thank God, I’m alive and well, I walk on my own legs; we run around like that, so thank God!”
I don’t work: my son and my daughter support me somehow. She works in Moscow. I have Catholic blood in me and Muslim blood, too. So what am I to do now? I mean, how can I prove that I’m God’s person? I don’t wish for death, I don’t wish for blood, I don’t wish for anything to happen to anybody. I am 54 years old and I only want peace and quiet, you see? I don’t have enemies, because my faith is like that, but their faith is different, it’s all really ridiculous, you see? I even know languages: Chechen and Ingush, I’m fluent in them. There used to be many ethnicities here: Armenians, Jews… there was an important oil institute here. You could find any type of person among the students!
There were even people coming from the North. The city of Sernovodsk – it’s a spa for people with joint problems. Every year they would come over. They would come with crutches and leave without crutches. They would come once, then the next year, then the next, and then they would become like relatives and they would become friends and people would stay in touch. I wish it could be like that again.
Why were there depth-charge bombings targeting us? There were specific people there. Sidorov is guilty? Or Ivanov? Or Makhmudov? Then punish them! But why throw bombs at us? You see, it’s wrong, but who’s been called to account for all that? Nobody has. And who’s been called to account for those Russian boys who were standing there, starving and lice-ridden, “Mommy, I want to go home”? Who took responsibility for those kids? And who threw our kids, Russian kids, into that slaughterhouse? We saw all that with our own eyes. It’s scary. We are the living dead.
Well, today is a holy day, a pure day. May our prayers and our tears… may the Blessed Virgin help us! I don’t have enemies, either Chechen or Russian. Maybe it’s a mafia. Who benefited from all that? May God be their judge! That’s all. All the best to you.
