Bullet notes

Newsweek correspondents spent its worst night in Bishkek - along with the wounded, the dead, doctors, looters and opposition leaders

Wednesday, April 7

18.30

Moscow-Bishkek flight of Kyrgyz Airlines landed at Manas airport. This is the last plane to Bishkek. Aeroflot's night flight is said to have been cancelled. Neighbors in the cabin, the owners of a garment factory in Bishkek, learn by phone that the driver will not come for them: there is shooting in the city, there are dead, a curfew has been declared. There are a dozen and a half unarmed soldiers at passport control. The border guard recommends being more careful and breathes a sigh of relief - he will not be in the city soon.

Taxi drivers have raised prices by half. We take the car. The track is empty. Young people are sitting on the steps of the television building. The entrance will be covered with a blue ribbon - the oppositionists took TV in the early evening. Not a single patrol on the roads. We drive along Chuisky Prospekt to Ala-Too Square. On the shops there are inscriptions "BIZ ELMENEN" - "We are with the people." As in 2005, people hope to protect themselves from looters in this way. At the White House, the rally has been going on since noon, and from one o'clock in the afternoon - shooting. But it only pisses everyone off. Young people are drawn to the center in groups.

19.10

Chuisky avenue is blocked. Nearby, on Kievskaya Street, in front of the slot machine hall, there is a group of young people. The guys line up in front of the shop windows and, as if on command, fire a volley of stones. The crowd blocks all approaches to the White House and the square. But two blocks away is already quiet and calm. We unload at the Dostug hotel. On TV, footage of daytime clashes between demonstrators and police is played, which has already become history.

It is impossible to come close to the complex of government buildings - the White House. Once every half an hour there is a random shooting. Cars are on fire in front of the White House. The crowd is scattered over the square, not approaching the house closer than 500-600 meters. So there is a chance not to get hit by an aimed shot. Automatic bursts are also heard from the GOVD. The police are holding the line there. The security forces are still under President Bakiyev.

21.00

On Kievskaya Street, a quarter above, the Prosecutor General's Office is on fire. Around the fire of chairs and piles of prosecutor's papers. The street is littered with orders, interrogations and testimony. On the dirty pavement lies an English dictionary of idiomatic expressions. On the first document that came across, the signature stamp: “Secret: copy. No. 1". This is a certificate from 2007 on the supervision of the activities of the operational-search agencies, in other words, about the lawlessness of the security forces. Inside, the shadows of the rioters flicker. People walk along the corridors, not paying attention to the fire. Beat the furniture and the remains of windows.

21.30

Panfilov Street goes straight to the main gate of the White House. At the intersection with Kievskaya there is a medical and health department of the presidential administration, this first-aid post is closest to the shooting. The whole block around the dead zone - because of the snipers. But a little further down the street a crowd had gathered. People huddled around a large yellow Chinese truck riddled with bullets. There is blood on the door. “We've been ramming the gates with KamAZ for the fourth time, but we don't reach it,” says a young guy in a respirator. He has sunglasses over his eyes.

Someone smashes one of the lamps on a nearby street lamp with a rock. Immediately, the second lamp goes out. Repairing the truck continues in total darkness until the light suddenly comes on again. “One driver was killed, and we drove back and now we will go again,” the masked guy explains. KamAZ stubbornly refuses to start. They are trying to start him with a push.

Three hundred meters away, on Kievskaya Street, there is a pogrom. First of all, they smash the Narodny supermarket to smithereens. This is a whole network of stores, which, according to the opposition, was seized by the president's son Maxim Bakiyev by a raider seizure. After his father, he is the most hated figure for the opposition.

22.00

It's not clear where they're shooting from. Some shots are heard from the direction of the White House. Short. A few more automatic bursts sound in a nearby alley. Six people run to the medical center - they carry the wounded or the dead. We come closer - the face is covered with a white handkerchief. So, killed. Crying, his relatives load him into a green minibus. A guy with a windsurfboard wrapped in cellophane is walking down the street - this is smashing sports goods.

About ten young people burst into the medical center and shout “Sniper! Sniper!" rush into the yard. They check if there is a sniper on the roof. Snipers are looking all over the block. Then, late at night, one of the doctors will tell how one shooter, allegedly a Ukrainian mercenary, was found on the roof of the Ministry of Defense, dismembered and thrown down. Another sniper was allegedly burned alive on the roof of the Prosecutor General's Office. There are many such rumors.

Sources in law enforcement agencies will later confirm to us that it was Kyrgyz snipers from the presidential guard who fired and that only the commander-in-chief, that is, Bakiyev personally, could give the order to open fire to kill. This order was probably signed on Wednesday afternoon. In addition, it will be confirmed that the snipers only worked from the roof of the White House, and not from neighboring buildings.

22.30

Again shots. A small gray-haired man with his head thrown back is brought into the first-aid post. A huge mustachioed guy rushes along the corridor. When he runs to the end of the corridor, the doctors carry the dead old man out of the office and quickly load him into a corpse truck. He has a direct wound to the heart. The guy is back. He is told that the old man was taken to the hospital. “This is his son,” the woman doctor explains. - He shouted that if his father was killed, he would run to the sniper with his bare hands. And he would have run. And so, until the morning, he will look for his father in hospitals. ” Surgeon Egemberdi Tuganbaev gives the latest report on his department: "More than 30 wounded and 15 killed."

23.00

The shooting is growing. Pandemonium in the infirmary. The wounded are carried one by one. They run down the corridor and throw them on the bed. Those who do not have enough beds are put on mattresses. Who does not have enough mattresses - on the floor. They brought seven - four wounded and three corpses. Only the girl has a slight wound - in the arm. “They shoot to kill, professionally,” explains the surgeon Tuganbaev. He himself is a military doctor, until 2008 he served in the protection of President Bakiyev. “These are non-humans,” he says, “no power is worth a human life. These are nonhumans, these are barbarians.” “They shoot in the head, in the chest or in the scrotum,” adds another doctor. Wounds are calculated on an internal hemorrhage. “I didn’t take at least four to the hospital after bandaging,” says physician Urmat Turdukolov. During the evening, he alone made 25 walkers from the first-aid post to nearby hospitals - in one trip he transported three wounded: two lying and one sitting.

From the growing shooting, the crowd goes into a rage. Not risking going to the White House, people rush to passing cars. Each foreign car is accompanied by a hail of stones. Ten minutes later, everything calms down. "KamAZ"-ram suddenly starts up and leaves with a whistle and hooting in the opposite direction from the White House. The shooting subsides.

23.30

On Ala-Too Square, a spontaneous rally - several thousand people. A young guy with a bottle of beer in his hand shouts into a megaphone: "To storm, to storm!" People bring Molotov cocktails. Dozens of bottles. A drunken demonstrator mistakes them for vodka, quickly grabs one and looks at the rag hanging from the neck. Someone snatches the bottle from his hand. “Where are the opposition leaders?! Where are they all?! What to do?" shouts to us, recognizing non-local faces, one of the demonstrators. He is not the first to complain about the complete absence of any organization of assault actions.

Thursday, April 8

00.00

The Parliament building is quiet. There are several dozen people and a dozen cars on the street. Opposition leaders sit inside. Bolot Sherniyazov was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of the provisional government. On April 6, he was arrested in Talas, where he had come to hold an opposition rally. It all started with this arrest. Sherniyazov was released the same day, he returned to Bishkek, and Talas came under the control of the opposition. “Now my first task as a minister is to stop the looting,” Sherniyazov says as we walk down to the exit of the parliament.

Outside, he gets into a used Pajero. There are two guards on both sides, a driver and another shooter in front. I'm in the trunk. We're going to the Interior Ministry. Behind is another escort jeep. Andrey Rudakov is in it. They let Sherniyazov into the Ministry of Internal Affairs immediately, but do not salute him. He goes inside, takes command and immediately signs a decree to combat looting. We are driving around the city with him again. “The second task,” he continues, “is to stop the shooting from the White House. This is the protection of the president, she is not subordinate to the government.”

At a distance of two or three blocks from the White House, everything is calm. “There is no such looting as in 2005,” Sherniyazov says. Only a few shops were destroyed. The tax inspectorate of the Pervomaisky district is on fire. “The firefighters have already begun to work,” Sherniyazov comments with satisfaction, nodding in the direction of the crews deploying hoses.

Returning to the parliament, the minister calls the special forces. Immediately, strong men in leather jackets run up and thrust paper for him to sign. It contains the names of employees who must be immediately hired and empowered. “Work by word of mouth. Only by word of mouth,” Sherniyazov evades. A bus with SOBR arrives. Two dozen fighters in full ammunition line up in front of the minister and are ordered to guard the parliament. The commander of the Sobrists through his teeth angrily mutters: “Fuck the Parliament. Marauders must be caught." Fireworks go off somewhere nearby.

01.00

The White House is already in the hands of the opposition. When the government resigned, the presidential guards gathered and left the government residence. Under her cover, snipers also left. People entered the White House without firing a shot. In front of the entrance, a pile of household appliances is on fire: TVs, computer blocks. Kinescopes explode. People are pouring out of the building, with printers and computers. Behind, limousines are dismantled for parts. What they cannot carry away, they set fire to.

An elderly man in glasses comes out through a broken gate with a pile of books under his arm: “These are all mine. I just took one." His name is Shermukambek. “This is the Kyrgyz Republic's Code of Elections,” he says. "I'm not a marauder, I'm an intelligent person." He says it's a bibliographic rarity. Shermukambek says that he actively participated in the 2007 elections - it was then that the opposition accused President Bakiyev of numerous falsifications. Now, with the code, he is ready for new choices. An hour later, the head of the interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, will promise in an interview with Newsweek that elections will be held in six months.

01.30

Leaders of the opposition came to the White House. Roza Otunbayeva climbed into the back of a Chinese KamAZ truck, with which protesters rammed the gates during the day. The cabin was on fire. The front side smolders and smokes. The crowd is chanting: “Rose! Rose!" Dozens of hands reach out. Otunbayeva patiently presses them. From below, from the crowd, it carries a heated fumes at her.

"We will not forget the young guys who gave their lives for our victory!" - Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of the Ata-Meken party, shouts into a megaphone. Otunbayeva gets off the truck and leaves to represent the new Defense Minister Ismail Isakov to the generals. He has just been released from prison. At the end of March, he was given eight years for illegally privatizing an apartment. He was already defense minister under Bakiyev, but last year he went into opposition. The verdict against Isakov, a popular general from the south, hit Bakiyev's image hard. We are traveling with Otunbayeva.

• Rosa, are you prime minister now?
• No, I am the chairman of the provisional government. This means that we are, let's say, a symbiotic government. Today we represent the parliament, the government and the president all rolled into one. Bolot Sherniyazov headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ismail Isakov is now being taken to the Ministry of Defense, Keneshbek Dushebaev becomes the Minister for Security Service. We also have a Minister of Health, because there are victims.
• Did you expect that such bloodshed in Bishkek is even possible?
• We did not expect. Most of the dead are in Bishkek.
• What do you feel?
• Feeling of bitterness. It all happened again five years later - in this form. Repressions against people turn into anger, an outburst of discontent that is difficult to contain. For example, Ismail Isakov was in prison for nothing. Bakiyev commented on this very hypocritically - he said that he had not heard and did not know about it.

02.00

Otunbayeva, surrounded by guards, breaks through the dense crowd into the Ministry of Defense. We go up to the second floor and go into the minister's office. One of the oppositionists rips off the wall a portrait of Bakiyev's last defense minister - "Get that bastard out of here" - and tramples on it. Ismail Isakov, a short, elderly man in a dark jumper and black baseball cap, sits next to Otunbayeva.

• When were you released?
• Yes, two hours ago. - Isakov, without taking off his baseball cap, sits down in the minister's chair. He moves, now without a baseball cap, to a long conference table. Otunbayeva sits on the left hand. - Then we went on television with an appeal to citizens. I appealed to the servicemen with a request not to take up arms against civilians and to assist in the detention of their former leaders.
• Did the army intervene?
• Intervened! The special forces of the Ministry of Defense were transferred to Talas. Naturally, they went against the people.
• And who here, in Bishkek, shot at people?
• These are mercenaries, not citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic. They were mixed between services, they opened fire to kill and shot civilians.
• Could such bloodshed be expected?
• We expected. Because they knew that the Bakiyev clan would do anything.
• You were under him the Minister of Defense.
• I know my fault. It was thanks to us that he became president, we believed him - as a citizen, as a military man who always tells the truth. But it turned out that he was deceiving us. I had to write a report openly and leave. From that moment on, persecution began, and I was imprisoned.

The cabinet includes a dozen high-ranking officers. Otunbayeva stands up: “Here is your new defense minister, whom you already know well. Now not only the army, but also the border service is subordinate to him.” Isakov and Otunbayeva embrace, and she leaves. Fifty people surround her on the street. A miniature woman in a red jacket says that the opposition is in power and that the relatives of the dead and injured will be compensated. The men listen to her, sitting in a circle on the cards. Nearby, they begin to smash the Svetoch clothing and shoe store. A man walks by silently, bending under the weight of either a pedestal or a safe.

02.30

Otunbayeva leaves. The latest data from the hospital at the corner of Kievskaya and Panfilov: 33 corpses and about a hundred wounded were registered at this point alone. All the city's hospitals are overcrowded, the doctors speak with one voice. There has never been such bloodshed in Bishkek.

Looting is spreading throughout the city. It won't stop the next night. Merchants create self-defense units. They are called "bazaar". In the afternoon, the police will begin to collect reservists and cadets - all in civilian clothes, with colored ribbons on their hands: white, blue, red. They will move around the city in detachments of one to two hundred people, shooting into the air, but being afraid to contact large groups of marauders. Sherniyazov will give the order that fire can be opened on the marauders. On the night of April 9, the crowd will smash the Bishkek Rublyovka - the Kirgizia-1 microdistrict.

The first people in uniform will appear in Bishkek only on the afternoon of April 9. It will be the traffic police.

04.00

A few groups of drunken and aggressive young people remained at the White House. Some are looking for a reason to fight, bullying passers-by. Others are photographed on a padded armored personnel carrier.

05.30

The call of the mullah for the morning prayer is heard. After another half an hour, the dogs wake up, and their barking resounds through the hushed city.

08.30

The plane arrives from Moscow. It turns out that the flight was not canceled, but postponed during the curfew. After the White House surrendered, the airport was the only one that continued to operate on the orders given by Bakiyev. People gradually fill the area around the White House. Some pick up police shields, others pick up smoke bombs.

11.00

The Provisional People's Government gives the first press conference and announces the victory of the opposition. True, with a caveat. "Bakiyev has not resigned yet," says Otunbayeva, "and there is a threat that he will try to split the country into north and south."

Friday, April 9

Several thousand people gathered at the White House for a mourning chogulush - a spontaneous commemoration. People are squatting, reading the Quran and praying. Sometimes someone gets up and says something. “We are the descendants of Manas. What you did here was a feat. In two days they removed the dirty government,” the old woman exclaims. A white sheet hangs on the fence. With an inscription in the Kyrgyz language: "For the Kyrgyz people, for the land, for the dead young guys." Flowers in the fence.

20 kilometers from Bishkek, on the territory of Ata-Beyit, a memorial to the victims of Stalinist repressions, a tractor is digging fresh graves. How many of them is unknown. The official figure is 76 dead, but several more people are in hospitals in a very serious condition. This is the job of snipers.

All those killed are men aged 25-30, mostly from Talas, Chui district, Narym, although there are also students from Bishkek. There are also accidental victims - for example, the deputy prosecutor of the Issykatinsky district, who just went to the hairdresser's. Most died from head wounds. Aimed shooting in the scrotum was not confirmed.