Russian claims appear inflated

Zakharova, the doctor, spent the days of heavy fighting in the rancid basement of the hospital, where staff members set up metal cots and thin mattresses and treated patients under the glow of bare lightbulbs. She insisted that visitors climb down to see the basement, where cobwebs clot the ceiling and the air is thick with the stench of human waste and blood.

"The world should know," she said firmly. "This should not happen again."

Recalling the arrival of Russian troops, her blue eyes flooded with tears. "They were our saviors," she said.

By Sunday, Ossetians were out in the streets, tidying up and swapping stories of their ordeals as refugees or cowering in bomb shelters. Wreckage was piled along the sides of the roads in the town's leafy center, and talk was beginning to turn to the future.

It is unclear what will come next for South Ossetia. Russia has pledged to back the province's drive for independence from Georgia. Many people here say they already count themselves as Russians; most hold Russian passports, the Russian ruble is the going currency, and the elderly receive pensions from Russia.

Across town, South Ossetian spokeswoman Irina Gagloyeva sat with other officials in the yard of the government building. Ossetian militiamen milled around in ragtag camouflage, with knotted bandannas and half-grown beards. Ordinary life was beginning to stir on the streets -- girls in flowered dresses wandered past, and clusters of old men gathered.

"You see what the Georgians have done here," Gagloyeva said. "They see Georgians as murderers."

South of town, past the checkpoint where Ossetian militiamen sprawled on a junked bed, the silent country road ran back into Georgia proper. All along the way, Russian soldiers had dug in. They hauled tree branches and cinder blocks into the road to erect checkpoints, and pitched their tents in encampments.

The Russian soldiers were practically the only glimmer of life in a war-drained landscape.

The stench of death hung in the nearly deserted villages around Tskhinvali. At least two corpses were sprawled on the main road, swelling in the summer heat. A few old women wobbled along in flapping dresses and head scarves. Every once in a while, a skinny Georgian man would appear on the roadside, trying to hitch a ride south to join his countrymen.

--

megan.stack@latimes.com