I milled about in the hallway, held my shortwave radio and moved from window to window until I found a spot for good radio reception. The BBC news bulletin began with an announcement that Communist Party activities in Moscow had just been suspended. I could not believe what I heard. The Communist Party held the Soviet Union together. It was impossible to imagine the Soviet Union could survive without it. I shouted to friends in the hallway. They crowded around to listen to the broadcast. English speakers translated the news for Ukrainians.
When the broadcast ended, people drifted away. I tried to absorb the implications of what we had just heard. I went back to the press gallery. Soon MPs returned. The Rukh independence motion was read out for a vote. A friend translated the motion as follows: “As of 24 August, 1991, Ukraine is an independent democratic state. Only the constitution of Ukraine and its government’s resolutions are valid on Ukrainian territory.”
I sat on the edge of my seat as MPs below pressed their buttons for the vote. I had moved to Kiev and stayed through those early difficult months, hoping for this very moment.
An electronic board displayed the tally — only two MPs voted against independence. We leaped out of our seats in the press gallery and leaned far over the railing to watch MPs below. Bursting with excitement, we speculated about what would happen next; mostly, though, we took a minute to savour the moment. We had just witnessed history. I wanted to gauge the reaction outside, so I ran out into the lobby and peered down from a window at the square. A huge crowd stood by the main door to Parliament. People held a Ukrainian flag the size of a football field stretched out between them. Then the door to Parliament opened. A small group of MPs marched the flag into the chamber.
The next morning my mind still raced to understand what had tipped the balance in Rukh’s favour and made hardline Communists vote for independence. I thought maybe they felt cast adrift when Moscow suspended Communist Party activities and that a vote for Ukrainian independence was a vote for the survival of the Ukrainian Communist Party. I went for a morning walk up the hill, toward the Communist Party headquarters. A small group of people stood outside.
“They’re about to seal the doors,” a stranger told me. “City Council has already cut off communications inside.”
“But the Communist Party still legally exists here,” I said, confused.
“The building stands on city land, so the council says it’s authorized to seal it,” the stranger explained. I stood with the crowd, curious to see what would happen next. A few men walked up the steps of this massive white columned building into the lobby. More followed. I trailed behind. We climbed the central staircase. Small groups had already entered a main office. When I arrived, papers lay strewn across the floor. One man riffled through a filing cabinet. Another one shoved Communist Party letterhead in his pockets.
Then someone shouted “I found it!”
I turned and saw a man who waved a pad of ink. He also held a Communist Party stamp. I understood his excitement. I had waited so many months for visas and accreditation with that type of official stamp that I almost wanted to grab the stamp from him and hold onto power for a while. I realized, though, that what was worth so much a day ago was worthless now.
Stamps and paper aside, the looters took nothing of value. Soon they left as a group, walked down the stairs and lined up to polish their shoes on a machine by the door. When everyone had left the building, City Council members sealed the big wooden doors with offically stamped paper. Soon prominent figures, including Leonid Kravchuk, announced their resignations from the Communist Party. Kravchuk said that he had actually quit the party on the first day of the coup.
So many people wanted to know what was happening in Ukraine. All of us filed stories daily and became almost nonchalant about those once-coveted bylines. With such rapid change, it was hard to decide which stories to cover and where to go. Ukraine had pledged to become non-nuclear in its declaration of sovereignty, but the Americans, in particular, worried about what would happen to nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. Russia threatened revision of its border with Ukraine if Ukraine seceded from the union. I flew down to Crimea, where I investigated rumours that Crimea might break away from Ukraine and join Russia. Ukraine began to build an army and refused to remit hard-currency funds to Moscow.
Then one day in early November Bill called.
“You know how the Chechens joined up with the Ingush, declared independence and voted General Dzhokhar Dudayev as their president last month?” he said. With all that had been happening in Ukraine, I hadn’t paid much attention to events in Russia’s Caucasus region.
“What! Russia’s unravelling?” I shouted.
“Yeltsin’s declared a state of emergency and is flying troops down to restore order. I’m going to Grozny to cover it. I’ve got to run.”
After we hung up, I sat in my kitchen and thought about what Bill told me. Chechnya was in Russia, so I had no claim on the story, but I wanted to go anyway. I called the foreign editor and got permission. After our conversation, I felt queasy, almost weak in the knees, and wondered if I should cancel. I phoned Stephen instead. He was also planning a trip to Chechnya. We decided to travel together.
6
CHECHNYA
“Do you have a will?” I asked Stephen. “No,” he said. “Perhaps it’s time to write one.” We sat on hard chairs in the departure lounge at Boryspil airport, the air clouded with cigarette smoke, waiting for our flight to board and our journey to Chechnya to begin.
I felt discouraged by Stephen’s answer. I thought he might just make a joke and dismiss my question, but if someone so rational considered a will necessary then he must also think death a possibility. I rummaged in my knapsack for a pen and paper and wrote out my will, though I wondered if it would be legally valid. I had a mother, father, brother and sister, few possessions and only a little money. I divided everything that I had, tucked the will away in a money belt with my passports, recapped my pen and then searched the departure lounge for food. I did not want to think about death any longer.
Our flight left on time. The plane climbed steeply. The temperature in the cabin dropped. I wore my winter coat and now reached inside the pockets for gloves that I put on. I dozed fitfully as our jet lurched through the air. We received no comfort or an explanatory announcement from crew members when the plane dropped suddenly. Heads banged and a dog barked. I heard the clang of buckles as people strapped themselves into their seats, not all successfully. One man, whose seat belt had become unattached trapped a stewardess in the aisle. He waved the seat belt that should have been attached to his seat and demanded that it be secured there again.
We faced a long trip. The airport in Grozny was closed, so we flew to Mineralnyie Vodi, a Russian city still a long drive from Grozny. When we landed, we found a taxi and began our journey south through the Caucasus mountain range — Nazran first, the capital of Ingushetia (a Chechen ally), and then Grozny. With so many hours stretching ahead in the taxi, I forgot about our destination and slipped into a zone of timelessness. I watched scenery unfold through the windows. We meandered across dusty foothills, mountain valleys and up steep roads, through passes with views of craggy snow-capped mountains.
“Mount Elbrus is the tallest,” Stephen said, “about 5,600 metres.” I could not process such a figure but felt contained securely behind rock walls. Conflict nearby seemed unimaginable; these bucolic valleys radiated peace, not bloodshed and strife. We stopped at a hotel for the night. The next morning we woke to see the mountain peaks lit with the soft glow of early day sun.