A na schet chechni.... a podderzhivayu tvoe mnenie. U lyudey v krovi i v gennakh voyna, za stol'ko vekov voevat'. I na samom dele, slozhno prinimat' kakoe libo reshenie dlya pravitel'stva i lyudey kotorye s takim stalknulis'. Mne kazhetsya, chto vse dumayut i nadeyustsya na razum, a zdes'... prosto instinkt... kak u zhivotnykh. Im vse ravno kogo oni vzyali v zalozhniki... Ya ponimayu zhenshchin, kotorye idut na takoe (u nikh ubili brata ili muzha) i vse taki ehto ne povod delat' takie postupki... Odnim slovom, Kavkaz, gortsy..."Well, about Chechnya... I support your opinion. People have war in their blood and in their genes, so many centuries of fighting. And at the same time, it's hard for the goverment or people who have run into this to decide what to do. It seems to me that everyone thinks and hopes for reason, while here... simply instinct... like animals. They could care less who they've taken hostage... I understand women who go into this (someone killed a brother or husband) but all the same it's no excuse for such... In a word - the Caucasus, highlanders..."
Okolo nas, gde ya rosla, bylo selenie sotoyashchee iz odnikh chechentsev. Dlya menya bylo diko videt'... zhenshchiny molchat, khodyat postoyanno v platkakh, za muzhchinami. A kak vyzyvayushchie veli sebya mal'chiki... Oni koroli, vokrug nikh ves' mir krutit'sya... "Chistilishche"... ya ne smotrela. Vernee ya nachala smotret' i vyklyuchila... Ne smogla. Ya boeviki i uzhastiki prakticheski ne smotryu. Redko smotryu takie sobytiya, esli sploshnoe nasilie pokazyvayut... ya ukhozhu. U menya serdtse zamiraet i nachinayut sploshnikom slezy idti.
"Where I grew up, nearby there was a village made up entirely of Chechnyans. For me it looked so wild... women were silent, went about always with scarves, behind the men. But oh how challenging the boys conducted themseves... they were kings, the whole world revolved around them... I didn't see 'Pugatory' (my note: film about the first Chechyan war). More truthfully, I started to watch and turned it off... I couldn't. I practically don't watch war and horror films. Rarely I watch news such as this, if they show outright violence... I leave. My heart dies and tears come."
'I fell on the ground. They were shooting. Then I started running. One guy from our class had a problem with his foot, and I helped him run. I managed to run to the back exit, and there was one of our policemen there. He grabbed a wounded boy and carried him.'