14.04.2009 23:13 | Why?

The 9th of August, 2008 was the last day of Abaeva Leila Pavlovna life. She used to live in Moscow with her family, but three years ago she came to Tskhinval to see her old mother, who didn’t want to leave her house and go miles and miles away not at any price. “What should I be doing in Moscow? My home is here and I am going to spend here the rest of my life” – she used to say. Leila loved Tskhinval very much too, it was her native town, and great number of her friends lived there. On the eve of well-known August events the tensions were growing with every day. There was not a day or a night without heavy shelling of peaceful Tskhinval. A lot of townspeople went from Tskhinval as far as possible. They advised Leila to return to Moscow too, but she always answered that her house was here now and she had to share her nation’s fate till the last. Though, as she confessed, her heart was heavy and she was gripped by mortal fear when the next bombardment used to begin.

But could she suppose her young, beautiful life would come to the end and she would be killed by Georgians, with whom she became related many years ago and dreaming of love and happiness cast in her lot with that nation.

Valentina Sanakoeva, Leila`s friend:

"On the night of August, 8, when the city was under massive artillery bombardment, people in panic took cover in the basements and other shelters. The telephone communication and electricity supply was cut off almost at once. We were isolated from the world, knew nothing about our families and friends. During the first day the shelling was so heavy that we couldn’t go out. But in the morning of August, 9 it became a bit calmer and first of all I decided to reach the house of my friend to see her, the more so because we lived not far away from each other. Having seen their destroyed house from a distance I had a gut feeling there was something wrong with them.

Having reached a place I realized that the shell hit the house. I found Leila and her mother in a bathroom. The house was a wreck, there was puff of smoke. The old wounded woman called her daughter but she did not respond. Leila was lying facedown, her head was covered with blood.

Shewasdead…

The bombardment started again and having no case to give the last honors to the dead I had to return to the basement. This terrible picture is still before my eyes. How did it come about that so many people were killed with someone’s immitigable hand? Why did they kill my cheerful, kind and beautiful friend? What treasures and the world's goods are worth even one human life?!

… And a few hours after only ashes were left of our five-storey building. When the Georgian tank drove into a court yard, we hid in a basement of the burning house, being afraid to be found out. The tank’s muzzle twisted to and fro and then he left, probably, decided that there was nobody alive there. Having waited a little we moved to the basement of a nearby house…"

On August, 11 Leila Abaeva was buried in a kitchen garden of her house, situated at

, 34, and a week later they reburied her in a cemetery. Later the expert examination established that the shells of “Grad” rocket system hit their house.

Inconsolable mother and the sister of dead Leila still live in this house. And every day is a torture for them, when they look at a place where their dear Leila shed her blood and where her wounded body found temporary shelter.

And in distant Moscow Abaeva Leila`s son and a daughter live, they are ethnic Georgians.

Diana Vaneeva, South Ossetia

Translated by Tatiana Inozemtseva