Now, as we go to negotiate the fate of prisoners — no, not only the Novosibirsk OMON officers, but all those who became "Caucasian prisoners" three months, six months, a year ago and were forgotten by the callous Pavel Grachev (in the list that the guys from "Memorial" handed me, there are one hundred twenty-nine of them) — yes, now I recall this image and the smiling boy with the "Shmel."

I was here a year ago, at the beginning of this idiotic war. Then Grozny was being taken and the Russian flag was raised over the former regional party committee building. Then at least it was clear where the front line ran—that front line which we ourselves drew on Russian territory. Today, nothing is clear at all. You drive a kilometer—federal blockpost. Another kilometer—Dudayev's militant blockpost. You look right out the car window—a field, mud, dugouts, tanks, APCs, boys in military uniform, gloomily watching us. You enter a village—the same guys with rifles. But not the same ones, others. Opponents of those sitting in the mud. Our guide picks up a man in camouflage. He extends his hand: "I'm the deputy regimental commander for logistical support." And immediately corrects himself: "Of the militia regiment." That is, not ours. The enemy's. The one against whom the federal troops, exhausted by the senselessness of this war, are fighting.

There is no front line here. Here is a highway between Rostov and Baku, with federal troop checkpoints and posts of troops consisting of people, old and young, who just recently went through the same Soviet Army school as their enemies.

Yes, so, Sunday...

"Come on, show your deputy's ID, show our credentials," says Nadyr Khachilaev, chairman of the Union of Muslims of Russia, who, like Bagautdin Magomedov, a deputy of the Dagestan People's Assembly, is part of our delegation for negotiations on the fate of prisoners. "Come on, come on..."

Before us is an army checkpoint. And behind our cars are more cars, mostly trucks, carrying people going to a rally in Grozny.

"Back! I'll shoot! Back!" yells a soldier when I try to explain that we're not going to a rally, we're going to Novogroznenskoye, where a meeting with Aslan Maskhadov is scheduled.

"I'm telling you! Back! Everyone—back!"

And I see in his eyes only the hatred of an exhausted boy, whose fate it was to play at war, but not in a children's sandbox.

We barely found an officer. We waited a long time for him to connect with another officer, and then that one with another, and another, and another...

Behind, Chechens cried out, like a flock of disturbed birds. I look back—a sea of green flags: these are the people with flags, as I learn later, just before my departure, from the daytime "Vesti," who were holding a rally in Grozny.

That's it, that's it... They are ours, but they are different now. I don't know who became older, who younger, but no one will ever make these people, our fellow citizens—former, current, future—stop shouting "Allahu Akbar!" and fighting for their independence.

"Just tell them in Moscow that we are not animals. Chechens are not animals!" an old man approaches me. "You live like this, and we—like this. And then we will love each other again."

Well, that's it, negotiations are over. The tank dug into the ground is already behind us. And the soldier with an aimed rifle. And—the war.

At the entrance to Novogroznenskoye - a market. Children are running. A crowd, women. In the kiosks - almost like in Moscow - Snickers and Pepsi. Here - peace. Just half a kilometer from the war.

Novogroznenskoye is a village between two blockposts, where, a few days before our arrival, the Novosibirsk OMON officers, captured near Pervomaysk, were located, before they were moved to the mountains.

An ordinary village, where nothing reminds one of war. Except for one thing: it is here that the meeting and negotiations about the fate of prisoners with Aslan Maskhadov are scheduled.