Wait, wait... Just wait, what decision will Said finally make? Will he return only Lesha Anisimov, as he promised the Pskov delegation? Will he release three more—privates Sergey Naumenko, Konstantin Losev, and warrant officer Mikhail Lobkov, as he just hinted to me? Will he change his mind at the last moment and not give anyone back?

It's up to him and only him. He's in charge, Said.

Not Senator Yu. A. Shmatov, Chairman of the Pskov Regional Legislative Assembly, who has been rushing around Chechnya for a week because of one Pskov boy taken prisoner (it happens, such leaders still exist!)... Not I, a member of the State Duma's Security Committee. Not Lecha Idigov, Chechnya's plenipotentiary representative in Ingushetia, who is right now in that half-ruined car service building, persuading Said. And not even Aslan Maskhadov, the lawfully elected president of Ichkeria!

No, only he, Said.

Four Russian prisoners are his catch, his merchandise...

He bought them two months ago from another field commander. Bought them not for resale, no. For barter.

The prisoners—in exchange for having the federal search warrant against him lifted in Samara, far from Chechnya.

"I was informed from Samara that if I released four FSB officers, the search warrant against me and my brother would be lifted. I searched for them, for a long time, but I'm afraid they are no longer alive. Then I was asked to find captive officers. I bought three soldiers and one warrant officer. I was told that two of the soldiers I bought were actually in their unit. 'How can they be in their unit when they're with me?' I wondered and sent their photographs to the 205th brigade. 'Yes, these are them, but they're not suitable, as they are deserters. And the third soldier too. We don't need such people. The warrant officer is suitable.' Then I was informed that the warrant officer wasn't needed either—also a deserter."

I heard this story from Said half an hour ago, when, after spending a whole day searching for him, we finally learned: he's here, fixing a car at the auto repair shop.

I listened to this story and thought about those scoundrels in colonels' and generals' uniforms who first brought untrained boys to Chechnya, then abandoned them here, then forgot them, then disowned them.

Yes, after the war, our prisoners became merchandise: they could be bought, sold, exchanged. So they wandered from one Chechen family to another. The going rate was a thousand dollars and up. They were objects of trade, live material to be exchanged for equally live Chechen guys held in Russian prisons and pre-trial detention centers.

It makes one's soul turn black!

But I also understand Movladi Udugov, who became furious at my timid question of how, at the end of the 20th century, one could arrive at slave trading.

"And who started it? We?! We?! Russian troops who detained people at checkpoints and then sold them! And does your Russian public know about how they traded the corpses of Chechen fighters here? What are you talking about now?"

We brought the Middle Ages here to Chechnya ourselves! We, on our bombers! We, with our "Grads." We, with deep-penetration bombs that we hurled at residential areas! We, ourselves...

What is there to talk about today?...

I hadn't been to Grozny for almost two years - last time at the end of January 1995, at the height of the battles.

I had never been to Grozny before and can only imagine how clean, green, and enormous that city was.

Now, there is no shooting here. Bombs don't fall. The noise of the "Grad" doesn't force one to flatten oneself on the ground.

But the nightmare doesn't end.

"Here was a cinema... Here—a bakery... Here—a children's hospital... Here—the Pioneers' Palace... Here—the former Party Regional Committee building..." Lecha Idigov monotonously lists as we twist and turn through the ruins.

"And where is the presidential palace?" I ask in surprise, recognizing and not recognizing the city center.

Two years ago, the palace, the former party regional committee building, though ruined, still stood. I remember, before my eyes, a Chechen sniper's bullet knocked down the Russian flag, which another idiot had ordered to be hoisted over the roof, losing dozens of lives in the process (whose glory haunted him? Marshal Zhukov's or his horse's?).