Originally from captivity

Slaves with ten years of experience found in Chechnya

Russian special services carried out an unprecedented operation against slave traders in Chechnya. On Sunday, in the Urus-Martan region, they managed to recapture five hostages from one of the gangs, who had spent more than ten years in captivity. So far, the details of the misadventures of these people - four Russians and one Georgian - have not been fully clarified. At the time of liberation, they were extremely exhausted, and, most importantly, their psyche was seriously disturbed. Therefore, yesterday the investigators were not able to properly talk with the hostages, and primarily doctors and psychologists worked with them.

According to information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Directorate for the Southern District, who were on a business trip to Urus-Martan, were on the trail of the Caucasian captives. Through operational channels, they learned that bandits had taken several slaves to one of the houses in the village of Shalazhi in recent days. Considering that the prisoners were under armed guard, a special forces detachment from the district police department was called from Rostov-on-Don (local detectives were not involved for fear of information leakage), which at dawn on Sunday stormed the indicated house. It was captured only after a fierce firefight, as a result of which no one was injured, but the militants managed to hide in a nearby forest. Detectives found five emaciated men in the basement of the house. Only a few hours later, having come to their senses a little in the commandant’s office of Urus-Martan, they were able to describe in general terms who they were and how they ended up in that house.

According to preliminary data, natives of different Russian regions Grigory Semenov, Viktor Ivanov, Mikhail Maduga, Nikolai Karyukov and Georgian Katuani Tyazhashvili at one time worked as builders and ended up in Chechnya according to the same scenario. Exhausted from lack of money at the height of perestroika, they, on the advice of friends, set out to “go wild” - to build cowsheds, private houses, etc., fortunately, according to stories, there were plenty of rich people in the Caucasus at that time. Until 1992, according to the hostages, everything was more or less normal for them: there was a lot of work, they paid for it regularly, and no one robbed them. After Dudayev arrived, at first they began to be slowly pressed down - sometimes they were forced to work for free, although they were not deprived of their freedom. Actually, slavery began at the end of 1994, when the war began. Separately, but almost simultaneously, the builders came under the command of various field commanders, who took away their documents and sent them as slaves to the “labor front” - to dig fortifications, trenches, and build roads. All these years we usually “paid off” them with a piece of bread and a mug of water. After the end of the first Chechen campaign, the militants sold the captives to local families, where, under the same conditions, they were forced to herd livestock, mow hay, repair houses, etc. Almost everyone tried to escape several times, but each time it ended the same way - either they were caught by their previous owners, or by new ones, who immediately took them into slavery. However, so far it has not been possible to identify not only all the former, but even the last “owners” of the liberated builders - all the liberated ones communicate with difficulty, do not particularly believe that they are free, and they remember their owners only by names or nicknames.

For now, the released prisoners have been transported to the Grozny military hospital, where investigators from the FSB prosecutor’s office intend to work with them for several weeks, along with a rehabilitation course. And by the summer, it is planned to send the builders to Rostov-on-Don, where they will receive new documents and try to find their relatives.

Alexander RASKIN