The central water supply system was damaged during the war, and many people had to get drinking water from a spring on the city outskirts. It was there that I met this woman.
I was particularly struck by the look in her eyes, a look of anguish intermingled with despair, fear and uncertainty in the future. It made me wonder how many hardships women had to endure – after all, women along with children and the elderly are always hit the hardest during times of war.
Some say that eyes are the window to the soul, and I for one agree with this phrase entirely. I am not just trying to brag about my photograph: those eyes really made a strong impact on me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them for a long time.
Two years later I ran into that same woman again, only this time in the city centre. I could see that her weary eyes had brightened up since I had first seen her, although there still was a hint of fear in them. I got to talk to her for a while. She told me that she was selling goods at the local market for a living and that she earned enough to make ends meet, but that is it. She said “but that is it” with such desperation in her voice that anyone who was aware of the current situation in South Ossetia would empathise with her.
That meeting once again immersed me in deep thought and I realized that it is vital to put more efforts into improving the position of women irrespective of their ethnic origin. All the women of South Ossetia have common problems, they all experienced the same loss and sorrow during the war, and they are the ones who need to continue giving birth and raising children in the future.
I am very grateful to COBERM for supporting our 2011 project “Developing the peacemaking potential of Georgian and Ossetian women in South Ossetia” that was initiated by me. The project’s main goal was to contribute to the building of peace and trust within the South Ossetian society through Georgian and Ossetian women.
I must admit that it turned out to be a very complicated task, and it was especially hard to find participants for the discussion groups. Our volunteers interviewed potential participants, explained to them the purpose of the discussions and emphasized that we do not have any political affiliations. Most women were reluctant to take part, stating that their nerves were too frayed, so they could start crying during the meetings, as they would inevitably think back to the war horrors sooner or later. Others reacted in quite an aggressive or rude manner, with exclamations like “I’m not being any part of this” or “Go find someone else”. And only few women expressed genuine interest in the project.
The discussion groups met in our office. By the end of each meeting women tended to open up and shared their feelings more freely than at the beginning. One of the participants (an ethnic Georgian woman) was quite open during the discussions but became very anxious when we started taking photos of the event. Even when we assured her that they were just for our donor she still looked rattled, so we stopped taking pictures. After the meeting she asked permission to fill out the participant’s questionnaire at home and return it to our office later, but she never showed up again.
Ethnic Georgian women seemed to be the most oppressed. Even though they knew both Russian and Ossetian languages, they tried to speak only Georgian; it was very fortunate that both the coordinator and psychologist understood the Georgian language. The women told us how hard it was for them to find work and how they couldn’t find a use for their native language in South Ossetia. On the whole, their stories conveyed an impression that there was very little place for Georgian women in the South Ossetian society. Discussing issues of work or language led to an open dialogue and sometimes even slight arguments between the Georgian women, while we were merely spectators. It clearly showed the need for some sort of platform for their communication.
The ethnic Georgian women confided that they felt very lonely and missed their relatives whom they couldn’t reach because the roads were closed. Moreover, even though no one mentioned it during the meetings, we are aware that most Georgians who had stayed in South Ossetia during the first Georgian-Ossetian conflict feel that “we are not wanted in Georgia, we are regarded as traitors” and “in Ossetia we are seen as the enemy”. The latter belief is further consolidated by their perception of war reports in the local media.
Psychologically, women from mixed families suffer the most. They admitted that in conversations with Georgians they tried to come across as purely Georgian, while with the Ossetians tried to appear as purely Ossetian.
We also couldn’t help but notice how unhappy the women’s private lives seemed. Since most men were traumatized by the war experiences, a heavy burden is now imposed solely on women. The discussions revealed a number of fears and problems shared among the women of South Ossetia. Namely, most women were overly pessimistic and concentrated only on the future well-being of their children with no regard for themselves, let alone personal social convictions, hopes for positive changes in society, female leadership etc.
As a result of the project, we have come to several conclusions regarding women’s attitudes and perception:
they generally don’t trust NGOs;
they are skeptical about the possibility of any positive changes and peace restoration in the society;
they are worried about their safety (the reaction to photographs is a clear evidence of that).
Back in 2010 our NGO initiated a project called “The Pathway to the Church” during which a priest from the Church of the Holy Virgin held a series of spiritual talks with students of a local public school, an art studio for children, and Tskhinvali art school. After the talks the students were asked to create artworks (in ink, watercolor, pencil, and chalk) on a spiritual subject. And for the period of women discussion group meetings, we purposely put these works on display in our hallway for the participants to see. That way we were hoping to remind them that both the Georgians and the Ossetians are Orthodox Christians, which could be a pathway toward peacemaking.
I myself have been singing in a church choir since the age of 17. When I lived in Tbilisi I used to sing in the St. John the Theologian Church, and after our family was forced to leave Georgia I now sing in the Church of the Holy Virgin in Tskhinvali. It was excruciatingly hard for me to part with Tbilisi, the city where I grew up, finished school, graduated from the university, got married and gave birth to my children. By now I forgot all about the material losses (the apartment and all its contents), but for many years after moving to Tskhinvali I’ve been haunted by dreams about the psalm singing in the St. John the Theologian Church. And in the dreams I would sing my soprano part as well as all other parts again and again. Words cannot fully express how I feel about it.
After the discussion phase we conducted a training session with a composite group of women of Georgian, Ossetian and mixed origin (we picked the most active participants of the discussions). The training session was held at a picturesque highland resort in Tsei, North Ossetia. Most of the women took an active part in the training and were enthusiastic in expressing their thoughts and opinions, although the Georgian women did seem more restrained at first. The main topics touched upon during the training included the social roles of men and women in the multinational South Ossetian society, typical gender models and expectations, gender constructs of the society, conflict and violence, conflict analysis, needs and fears assessment, and the role of women in the peacemaking process. The behaviour of the women during the session suggested that they are confronted with these issues in their everyday life. Consequently, with the help of the coach they quite successfully assessed their needs and fears in detail, drawing from their personal experiences.
The trust-building process seemed to go on rather smoothly but when at the end of the training session everyone was asked to identify the problems specific to ethnic Georgian women, it caused a very awkward reaction. Personally, I felt like all our efforts turned out to be in vain (I was the project coordinator and the coach’s assistant), as Georgian women and women of mixed origin just didn’t voice their plight, while Ossetian women were claiming that Georgian women didn’t experience any special issues. However, having the first-hand knowledge of such issues, I expressed my emotions regarding the situation and started naming some of the problems. After that the women felt more at ease and finally started voicing the problems they had experienced: for instance, degree certificates from Georgian institutions, which made it impossible for them to find work; no compensation for their lost homes, etc.
Some of the participants alleged that even though everyone lived within the same society in South Ossetia, they had a very vague idea of each others’ problems. The most important thing is that the positions of women of Georgian, Ossetian and mixed origin have finally been examined. It is clear that now they share some common grounds, and there is no open hostility which existed right after the war. Women have a lot of common problems irrespective of their nationality and political viewpoints, and we believe that an organized platform would greatly facilitate their further cooperation.
The participants of our discussion groups expressed many ideas for further collaborative projects, but unfortunately at the moment we have no resources to finance them. Even though we are currently not able to sustain the work of the “Developing the peacemaking potential of Georgian and Ossetian women in South Ossetia” project, we are still hopeful to find sponsorship. I recently spoke to one of the Georgian women who took part in our project, and she told me that she ran into another participant, a woman of Ossetian origin, in the city. She said that their meeting was very warm, like a reunion of two close friends who had known each other for years. This story proved to me that all our efforts were not in vain after all.
