Today’s post is not our typical legal blog. Instead, we dedicate this space to remember those who were victims of Russian occupation, to honor the heroes who sacrificed their lives for Georgia. This is yet another powerful story of aggression against our people, a reminder of the resilience of ordinary individuals who endured unimaginable hardships. We owe no apologies; we are 100% in the right, and there can be no alternative opinion. Their strength and courage live on as an eternal testament to our nation’s spirit.
Below is an excerpt from one of the survivors, Ms. Manana Nachkhepia, who recounts her harrowing days in captivity and the atrocities endured in Abkhazia.
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...Our production chief called, saying Abkhazians had entered the factory. My husband stepped in front of me, saying, ‘I won't let you go.’ Then my brother and I decided to go to headquarters. When I saw my brother, Tasso, my heart stopped—his eyes were red, and he was covered in blood. ‘Don’t ask me anything,’ he said. ‘Let the boys die; I won’t leave. I need to be buried with them.’
Later, he found a car, and we went to my sister’s with my husband and son. Now I had to look after my mother, my sister, my nieces, and my husband, who had lost an eye.
On September 21, we received the call that Tasso had died. For the first time, I tasted the soil that had become so bitter to us. My hero brother was laid to rest at home. Our cousin, broken by the loss, didn’t recognize him at the medical examination because the granade ripped his face off. She couldn’t stand or sit; she lay on the floor, crying continuously.
In the midst of the worst moments, one woman risked her life to mourn with us—Abkhazian Luda, who had been very close to my brother. She knelt by Tasso’s body, weeping and apologizing. Tasso’s superior also came to pay respects, saying, ‘I would have let someone else take that task, but he insisted—how could I let the father of three die?’
On September 25, we realized we couldn’t take Tasso to the cemetery where our father is buried. The cemetery was already under enemy control. So, we dug a grave in our yard and covered it with our own hands.
Captivity
On September 27, I glanced at Tasso’s wristwatch on his grave. It was six in the morning. At the same moment, sun rise and a large truck entered our yard, carrying Russians, Cossacks, Armenians—a group of savage men, filthy and filled with hatred, bloodlust clouding their minds. I knew then that our final moments had arrived.
They asked Tengo for his last name, and he answered. That hateful crowd began cursing him, beating him, throwing him to the ground, and kicking him mercilessly. He lay silent, refusing to beg for mercy. When daylight broke and his tormentors were satisfied, two of them dragged him to the truck, beating him as they pulled him away. My brave, steadfast husband was left covered in blood, urine, and filth…
Then it was our turn. A vile man approached my mother and sneered, asking why she was dressed in black. ‘My son died,’ she replied. His response still echoes in my ears: ‘Mamochka, what are you muttering? Your family is filthy, all of you fought against us!’ As he moved to strike her, I shielded her and he grabbed me by the throat. In that moment, I thought that if death had arrived, I would face it as Tasso did. I looked him in the eye and boldly said, ‘I am Tasso Nachkebia’s sister, a Georgian.’
‘You’re a Georgian, you whore?’ he screamed, then struck my face, shattering my glasses. I staggered back, kicked repeatedly until the pain blurred my consciousness, slipping in and out as blood filled my mouth. They threw my mother and me into the truck and took us to our neighbor Boria Kacharava’s house, where they had set up a kind of headquarters.
There, they stripped me, forced me against the kitchen wall, and fired shots around me, the bullets hitting the walls. My heart nearly stopped. And then the unthinkable happened—what every woman fears and what I have been ashamed to speak of for so long…
Now I understand that I must tell the world to reveal their true colors. After endless torture, they shaved my head, boiled and froze me, beat me relentlessly… When they thought they had broken and subdued me, they began a new kind of attack. They no longer sought to harm my body; now they wanted to claim my soul.
For the third time, I heard the same words Anya and Valera had once spoken to me. Now, a Russian, with a mocking smile, whispered, ‘Know that your Georgians did all this to you,’ and demanded that I repeat it. When I refused, they struck me in the face, stomach, and ribs, shouting, ‘Say this is Abkhazian land!’ I shook my head in defiance, and they hit me again. Somehow, I found the strength to raise my head and say with pride, ‘I graduated from the first school in Sukhumi. They taught us there that Abkhazia is Georgia!’ Enraged, they sneered, ‘Then eat your soil,’ and forced my mouth full of dirt. They shoved my mother and me into a pigsty…
Later, I realized that my actions weren’t born of heroism. It was the certainty of death that gave me strength, a desire to draw closer to the Lord. My love for my homeland surpassed their hatred toward us…
We spent two days in piggery. Then they loaded us into a truck covered with tarpaulin, taking us somewhere along with other Georgian women and children—beaten, violated, and shattered, just like us. To this day, I do not know where I spent that next, hellish month… Have you ever seen infants shot in front of their mothers?
Vacuum
When they covered the truck with a tarpaulin and ordered us out, I didn’t recognize where we were. They forced us into a dark basement, where others were already gathered. We were told they first raped the women and then executed them. Although I had accepted the inevitability of death, somehow it still mattered where I was. But there, stripped of everything—without clothes, my skin blistered, my head shaved, and my body full of cuts and bruises—I was consumed by the unbearable stench: the thick, suffocating smell of excrement, urine, sweat, and blood. It seeped into the darkness, mingling with the dampness of the basement and the raw, pervasive fear.
The light from the men’s lanterns meant that someone would die. We waited in agonizing suspense. Each time one of them entered, I felt an urge to rise and go willingly, but my mother clung to me in fear. I couldn’t leave her…
One day, Vova Akrba entered the basement. He had been the police chief of Sokhumi during peacetime. His wife and I were friends; they lived near the school, and a sick child was growing up in their family. I had always felt deeply sorry for them, so every day, when my mother brought me snacks to school, I would run to their home to share them with that child. Their family had no need for them, but they graciously accepted my childish sympathy. In the basement, I didn’t recognize Vova at first, but he approached me, lifted my head with the butt of his rifle, shone a lantern in my face, and said, ‘Marina, are you here?’ I replied, ‘Yes, but I’m no longer the same Marina you once knew.’ After that, he left, and I never saw him again. Yet, something shifted—an Abkhazian began bringing us condensed milk, then water. The rest, however, continued as before. Armenian-Russian, Armenian-Abkhazian, or Kazakh men would come, select women and children, and take them away. No one ever returned, but my mother remained untouched.
One night—though I couldn’t tell if it was morning or midnight—a man named Daur Ochamchirsky approached me quietly, saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone. I’m here on behalf of Vova Akrba.’ Only then did I realize Vova had been protecting us all this time. He asked if I could share the whereabouts of any remaining family members. I told him what I knew, though I was certain that none of them had survived.
One day, my mother and I were taken out of the basement with numbers tied to our backs. They brought us to the yard. I wondered if we were about to be shot. Perhaps it would have been a relief, knowing I would be reunited with my father, my children, my husband, and the Lord. But instead, they led us to a clock in front of City Hall, placing us back-to-back and ordering us not to move.
Then I saw my frail, young husband approaching us. For the first time, I think, I lost the ability to think—I was overwhelmed with joy. It was as if the heavens had opened. Shortly after, my son appeared, followed gradually by others. Soon buses arrived, and we, the numbered prisoners, were loaded inside.
Our convoy of buses eventually reached burned down Gali, escorted by Abkhazians. The Abkhazian women were especially hostile, jumping and hurling insults. Then, a group of them lifted their skirts, bared themselves, and threw garments at us—this was how they escorted us out.
Before we could cross into Georgian territory, we had to pass the Abkhazian and Russian checkpoints. The Abkhazians beat us, the Russians cursed us, and once we reached the Georgians, we knelt and lay on the ground. I crossed over, bringing with me the mother of my hero brother, Abkhacent Nachkebia. I had survived without Tasso and was finally close to my family once again.
Tengiz Chargeishvili
Once we found a semblance of peace, I told Tengo I needed to confess something... I wanted to apologize for my shame. He covered my mouth gently with his hand and said, ‘I know everything, and I don’t think there’s any need to talk about it. Nothing—absolutely nothing—has changed between us.’ At the time, it could have sounded like empty words, but later, as I saw many displaced families broke up by this very reason, I watched our life together more closely. I realized that my husband had risen above the horrors inflicted on us, transcending this terrible chapter until his death in exile.
Tbilisi
We arrived in Tbilisi hungry and filthy. Though I had relatives here, I couldn’t bring myself to knock on their door. I didn’t want them to see us like this. So, hoping social services would find us some shelter, we went to an ‘apartment’ at the station. The children slept on the windowsills, my mother and I on chairs. But even a chair or windowsill was a luxury; Tengo would take off his turtleneck, lay it on the dirty, spit-stained floor, and curl up in the corner for a few hours as if it were a feather bed…
Our landlord was nowhere to be seen.
At dusk, I would go to the empty market and gather discarded apples and vegetables. This is how we survived for a week... Finally, I forced myself to visit an old family friend. Their kindness touched my heart, and I remember pleading, ‘Please don’t touch me, I’m dirty...’
With pain, but also pride, I remember seeing the grief on their face.
This is neither the beginning nor the end… It is only a fragment of the horror, for which we must apologize. There is a pain worse than the worst, one we didn’t know could exist..."
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Author: Marina Nachkhepia
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