May 25, 2001

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At about 6.20, half a kilometer from the village of Beshil-Irzu, Nozhai-Yurt district, the corpses of residents of the settlement of Shovkhal-Berd Zh.Shahidov and R.Usmanov were found with signs of violent death.

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At about 11 a.m., Russian servicemen opened indiscriminate machine-gun and automatic fire at the central market of Grozny in the area of the Fashion House and at vehicles moving along Prospekt. Victory; A 35-year-old A. Kurbanova, a resident of the village of Prigorodnoye, Grozny District, died. The woman was on a bus that made flights between the city and the village of Chechen-Aul (according to other sources, it was a bus of the city route No. 107).

A young man passing by was seriously injured. On the way to the hospital, he died. Several other people in the market were injured.

The reason for the shelling was the explosion of a smoke bomb thrown from a UAZ military vehicle under the wheels of an armored personnel carrier following it in one column. The servicemen, who were on the armor of the combat vehicle, opened fire on people in response.

Eyewitnesses of the incident said that a detachment of OMON of the Chechen Republic promptly arrived at the Fashion House. His employees, firing from machine guns into the air, tried to detain the military, but they failed. Sellers and visitors to the market, accusing the riot police of cowardice, demanded that they fire aimed at the killers.

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Three local residents were fishing on the lake between the villages of Berkat-Yurt and Staraya Sunzha in the Grozny region. One of them, 57-year-old Sultan Khamidovich Yaskaev, settled down in a thicket of bushes not far from the others. He sometimes talked to them. When, at about 11 o'clock, the sound of an engine was heard nearby, he called out to them again, but no one answered him.

Carefully pushing the bushes apart, Sultan Yaskaev headed to the side where two other fishermen were supposed to be. On the shore of the lake, he saw an armored personnel carrier and military men in masks. They noticed him and ordered him not to move. Then, threatening with weapons and insulting, they pushed the armored car into the hatch and drove somewhere at high speed. Later it turned out that in Khankala. Two other fishermen were brought to the military base a little earlier.

For two days they were subjected to beatings, wet rags were put on their heads and electrical wires were connected. During the torture, the military demanded that the detainees confess that a "lemon" grenade had been confiscated from them.

As soon as it became known about the disappearance of the fishermen, the relatives organized a search. They managed to find out that Sultan Yaskayev and his comrades had been taken away in armored personnel carriers towards the military base in Khankala. They decided to go there. Oddly enough, it worked. All three fishermen were taken to a field near the village of Michurina and thrown out there. It is known that they were brought there by servicemen of the 160th motorized rifle regiment of the Russian Defense Ministry. They also told the released people that they should pay them 10,000 rubles a ransom. In case of non-fulfillment of this condition, they threatened to take it away again, but forever. Some time later, the military came to one of these people. Perhaps for ransom.

From the book "People Live Here", Usam Baisaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006