THE RUSSIAN soldiers at the first of three checkpoints between Tbilisi and Gori demanded Russian press accreditation.
"So we're in Russia now?" I asked snidely. My Georgian interpreter was able to speak a little Russian, but refused to translate. "Don't provoke them," he pleaded.
The soldier studied my French press card and snarled: "Nyet."
We waited for a few minutes in the sun. The Russians opened the boot and bonnet - to make sure we were not car bombers - and waved us through. The same ritual was repeated twice before we entered Gori.
The Georgian army was scattered up and down this highway when I last travelled it on Thursday. After a weekend during which the Russians popped up and down like jack-in-the-boxes, the Georgians had vanished.
On Saturday, the Russian "peacekeepers" blew up the Grakali railway bridge over the Mtkvari river, paralysing all railway traffic in Georgia.
And they engaged in an orgy of arson, scorching fields and pine groves along the highway by dropping flares from helicopters.
The Georgians say they begged Russia for permission to use Azeri, Ukranian or Turkish civil aviation to extinguish the forest fires the Russians lit in the Borjomi Gorge, a favourite holiday resort. "Nyet" came the answer.
We were told the Russians would withdraw from Georgia on Saturday, once all the parties to the conflict had signed President Nicolas Sarkozy's peace plan. We were told the Russians would leave yesterday.
As we drove alongside a long Russian convoy just outside Gori yesterday, I almost believed they were going. It turned out to be the queue to enter the former Soviet base in this central Georgian town.
On Gori's main square, one could not escape the unmistakable sound of men shovelling broken glass from the windows shattered in the August 12th bombardment.
Maya (42), a psychologist, wore an icon of the Virgin around her neck and carried her meagre provisions in a plastic bag. "Our government has abandoned us," she said. "Everyone has abandoned us but God . . . Someone had to stay here. Did we hurt anybody? We were here in our homes and we did nothing wrong. There are too many refugees in this country already . . . One hopes, every morning. But it's going to take a long time."
Unknown to us on the central square in Gori, President Dmitry Medvedev was on the telephone with Mr Sarkozy, promising that the Russians would start pulling out of Georgia at noon today.
"Russia will begin the withdrawal of the military contingent," said the Kremlin statement. Nobody's guessing how long it will take to complete the withdrawal. As Maya said: one hopes, every morning.