BELLS TOLLED and bonfires burned across Georgia yesterday, on the first anniversary of its disastrous five-day war with Russia over the tiny breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The rebel region was to start its own commemoration events last night, and its leaders joined their political masters in Moscow by blaming Tbilisi for a conflict that killed almost 400, injured thousands and at its height displaced more than 190,000.
Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili laid a wreath and met relatives of victims of the war at a cemetery in Tbilisi.
The city’s main avenue was closed to traffic and hosted an exhibition highlighting “two centuries of Russian aggression” against Georgia, comprising photographs, Soviet tanks and flags, and mannequins in Russian uniform standing at a makeshift “checkpoint”.
At the cemetery, a two-year-old boy in a military uniform stood by the grave of his father, Emzar Tsilosani, who was killed in the war. “He will be a soldier, like his father,” said the boy’s mother, Teona Tsilosani. “But Emzar is not coming back – that’s what Russia brought upon us with this war they created.”
A huge bonfire burned in Gori, a town close to South Ossetia that was bombed and occupied by Russian forces whom Tbilisi accuses of launching a long-planned and unprovoked attack on the country. Beside Gori’s fortress, hundreds of locals braved a thunderstorm to form a red-and-white Georgian flag and a human chain.
Fires were lit above several other towns and a moment of silence was observed across a country now dotted with temporary housing for some 30,000 people who are still refugees.
“This feels like a protest, telling Russia that it has no right to interfere here. If we want to join Nato, that is not Russia’s business – that’s what the war was about,” said Salome Mamagulashvili, a teacher visiting the Tbilisi exhibition with her camouflage-clad two-year-old daughter.
“My father is from South Ossetia, and local people stole everything from our house there during the war. I hope someone, someday, will get South Ossetia back for us.”
David Sparstiashvili, who works for a Russian bank in Tbilisi, said the leaders of Russia and South Ossetia were to blame for the conflict. “Georgians don’t have a problem with ordinary Ossetians or Russians – politics is the problem. The whole country feels terrible about what happened, but it wasn’t Georgia’s or Saakashvili’s fault.”
On the other side of the de-facto border with South Ossetia, which is now guarded by some 3,700 Russian troops, emotions were running high in the still badly damaged capital, Tskhinvali.
“When you’re treating people in a basement because they’re bombing the hospital, it’s hard not to hate,” said local doctor Konstantin Chibirev. “We can live calmly as neighbours, but we’ll never be part of Georgia again.”
Tension around the disputed border flared ahead of the anniversary, with the sides accusing each other of firing guns and mortars across the dividing line. Georgian and Russian television have also bombarded their viewers with programmes lauding their own leaders and military men and demonising the enemy.
“Saakashvili’s regime ultimately made mistakes which led to crimes and caused losses, huge losses of human life,” Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said in a television interview yesterday.
“The Russian Federation had to respond quickly, thus saving hundreds and thousands of lives and restoring peace in the Caucasus, which was at serious risk.”
Mr Sparstiashvili, like most Georgians, sees things differently.
“Saakashvili defended his people,” he said. “If he hadn’t, the Russians would be occupying Tbilisi now.”