Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25125
ESCAPE FROM SHAll The Russian tanks are now firing just a few streets behind the house. There has been no return fire for quite a while. It won't take long for the Russians to figure out that the city is being abandoned by the fighters. We carefully cruise the streets of Shali looking for a way out. The town square is empty. The commander's house no longer has jeeps outside. The kerosene lanterns in people's homes have been extinguished. Khampash drives slowly towards the southern road . We watch nervously for Russians. There are none to be seen. When we reach the outskirts of town, Khampash stops, turns the lights off and waits and listens. There's no sound. Then an object streaks toward the heavens and lights up the pitch-black night. At the top of the arc it stops and seems fixed in place. We are I it up. The light is bright, painfully bright- military bright. It falls 50 meters down, then another and another and another. A long line of flares outlines the Russian front line. The string of brilliant white lights extends for about two miles and tanks and soldiers are visible in the ghostly light. A steady foot pace advance towards the road. It is as if a time machine has taken me to the Battle of Stalingrad where a steel hammer is used to smash everything in its way to the steady drumbeat of turbines and diesel engines. As Khampash puts the car in gear and starts to move slowly forward , he says at this point only Allah will decide whether we will live or die. He covers the yellow choke light and we hold our breath. There is no moon and I cannot see the road. As we pick up speed we are getting closer to the front line. Off to the right we see the spark of a rocket motor being ignited. But the rockets are not for us. We are too close. I can't stand it as we move closer and closer to the front line. Why don't they open fire? Why can't they see us? We are now only 100 meters from the Russians. More rockets fire, but we are spared again. And then, mercifully, the road turns eastward away from the front lines. We pick up speed. Are we safe? Then it sinks in . The Russians are surrounding Shali and are now focused on cutting off the only road out of Chechnya-the one we need to escape on. We must get to the Georgian border as quickly as possible before the Russians storm up the road or land paratroopers to cut off our escape. DUBA YURT Avoiding a blown-out bridge, our car breaks down in a riverbed : the suspension strut has been sheared off by a rock. We walk back to the small village of Duba Yurt where we unload the car. In a worst-case scenario we could walk the 48 miles to the border, but we'd have to move by night because of the bombers and gunships. Walking in the frigid night is invigorating and crisp. Down below us the battle goes on. In older days, during the Crimean War, correspondents would sit on a hill with binoculars and send dispatches of poetic prose about sacrifice, bravery and loss. But there is no one to witness the fall of Shali except us, and this is just one of many Russian advances. There are the dirty orange flames of burning armored vehicles. The sounds of firing and explosions are very far away. I am watching a very one-sided war where a drunk angry giant is using a club to kill a mosquito. Up above in the village, kerosene lamps light a window in each house. The streets are icy and narrow as we climb the hill. Khampash calls out at a gate and an old woman answers and opens the gate. We are invited in. They light a fire and invite us to rest. In the first few weeks there have been 40 direct hits on this village of 35,000-mostly bombs, but also Scud missiles. Despite this, only two families have moved away. The morning light reveals that we are overlooking Grozny. They have cleaned our muddy boots as a sign of respect, a local Chechen custom. I go outside to get a better view from the top of the hill. It is Sunday in Duba Yurt, a day like any other day. Men are standing around and talking. They are cutting firewood, loading it onto trucks and feeding livestock. Women walk from house to house to visit, children play with homemade toys: wooden wheels on the ends of sticks. They pause to watch the jets streak over. Some of them time the space between the jets and the explosions. The artillery flying over our heads is destined for the large cement factory more than a mile in front of us, but the Russians are attacking anything: cars on the road, groups of villagers gathering water, empty houses, packed houses, the hills around us. THE ZIKR Hanging out in a small room heated by a stove, I hear what sounds like a classical chorale, or maybe more of a dirge, coming from nearby. It is a deep, sad sound that rises slowly in arcing harmonies. I am fascinated . The house next door is a new red-brick compound with punched tin circles and wheels that decorate the arch of the house. It cannot be a recording, there is no electricity. A woman invites me into the house. There are about a hundred men with heavy wool hats and leather 50