In the Shade of Sidrat

The book presents heartfelt stories about people who experienced the war in the Chechen Republic. They did no harm to anyone: men, women, children, the elderly—they simply wanted to live, learn, work, fall in love, raise children, and be content. When war erupted, their dream was to stay alive, and for their loved ones to survive. In the face of war, representatives of all nationalities united as one people, for they were all created by the One Almighty for peace and creation on Earth.

© Maryam Nashkhoeva, 2024

ISBN 978-5-0065-1004-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Dedicated to my beloved parents, my brother Aslambek, and the entire Chechen nation!

The simplest things bring the greatest happiness.

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Maryam Razambekovna Nashkhoeva is a writer, translator, English language teacher and Сandidate of Philological Sciences, employee of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Associate Professor of Chechen State University, author of numerous scientific works on linguistics and a public figure.

About the Author

is a member of the Writers’ Union of Russia, the Women’s Union of Russia and NATE – the National Association of English Language Teachers. She is also an Ambassador of the Eurasian Creative Guild ECG London. Maryam Nashkhoeva

She was nominated for the All-Russian National Literary Prize “Writer of the Year – 2017” in the “Debut” category for her story “Sing me a Lullaby, Dad!”. She was also nominated for the “Heritage – 2017” literary award for her story “The Smell of Happiness”. In addition, she was nominated for the Russian National Literary Prize “Writer of the Year – 2019” for her story “In the Shade of Sidrat”. She has been nominated for the “Writer of the Year – 2020” award in the “Debut” category for her story “Dazzling Mind”, and for the “Writer of the Year – 2021” award in the “Debut” category for her short story “The Locket”.

Maryam’s stories were also published in the collections “Catalogue of MMKVA-2021”, “RSP. Prose 2021” and “Anthology of Russian Prose 2022”. Her short story “The Smell of Happiness” was included in the youth literary anthology “Debut – Constellation of Words and Colors” of young writers and artists of the Chechen Republic in 2020.

Maryam Nashkhoeva’s contribution to the development of Russian literature was also marked by the medals “Ivan Bunin 150 years”, “Fyodor Dostoevsky 200 years” and “Anna Akhmatova 130 years” struck in honour of Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Anna Akhmatova. The medals holding the status of public awards were awarded by the President of the Russian Union of Writers D.V. Kravchuk.

Maryam was also awarded the medal of the Women’s Union of Russia at the presentation of the book “In the Shade of Sidrat” at the House of Nationalities in Moscow. The medal is awarded to exceptional women for their creative and professional achievements.

The book is edited by Vera Norova-Lukina.

In the Shade of Sidrat

In everyone’s life, there are moments they are eager to frequently recollect, quietly closing their eyes and trying to reproduce every detail of these beautiful events. People want to go back to the past for even a moment, experience the same emotions, see the dear people they cherish, and become as happy as they used to be in those magical moments. There are also moments you try to hide in the farthest corner of your mind so that you would never experience the poisonous emotions waving your mind again: fear, hopelessness, despair, and emptiness.

With his eyes closed, dam was lying on a sofa pierced by shards and covered with an old cotton blanket. The fresh spring March wind was blowing in through the windows, gently stroking the semi-transparent torn tarpaulins that covered the broken windows. Happy moments of his life emerged in his memory: his last pre-war birthday, his father’s kind look, his mother’s tender embrace. Then everything changed with the roar of planes, explosions of shells, and his consciousness clouded with gunfire, cries for help, and his heart began to beat harder, his breathing quickened. The faces of loved ones, their tears, and last words flashed before his eyes.

Adam quickly opened his eyes, unwilling to bring back the recent bloody events to his memory. Indeed, just a couple of months ago, he had never thought he would survive.

Adam slowly got up and went outside to take a breath of fresh air. Standing on the porch of a stranger but almost familiar house, Adam looked up at the boundless, clear blue sky – everything seemed so peaceful and calm.

“Admiring this tranquil sky for a long time, one might think there was no war at all”, – he whispered to himself gazing at the yard. Then Adam slowly walked towards a tree standing separately and proudly in the far corner of the yard. There was a small stool under the tree. He approached the tree, sadly looked at its broken, dried branches, sat on the stool, and uttered:

“How many tears have I shed sitting here under your tortured branches? How many people have I buried next to you on cold frosty days? Only the Almighty knows! Look, it’s spring outside! Soon the first buds will appear on your branches, followed by the first sweet cherry. Keep blooming, like a beautiful paradise tree, giving its sweet fruits to innocent souls. Look at the traces of the Almighty’s mercy, how He revives the earth after death, beautiful flowers have already begun to grow in place of the graves. Everything has its time”. 1

Then he covered his face with his hands and mentally went back to those terrible days. It all started in the fall of 1999. The war in the Republic did not take long to arrive, and the majority of civilians left the city, but Adam’s parents did not leave, hoping for a good outcome of the events.

Adam’s parents, Akhmed and Khava, were hiding from bombings in the bomb shelter of their home where they lived. They were already elderly, and Adam was their late and only child. There were many people from neighboring houses, yards, and even other areas in the basement: women, senior citizens, children, all those who believed in a positive outcome. On November 1st, the day marking their one-month sheltering in the basement, Adam had his birthday. He turned sixteen.

– Adam, how quickly you have grown! It seems like only yesterday you were born, and now you are already sixteen! Unfortunately, we are not in the best situation now, but it will all end soon! I just want to tell you something important: no matter what happens in your life, never lose faith in the Almighty and know that everything comes only from Him! Everything is according to His will, and He is always with us! Never let hardships break you, thank the Almighty for everything, got it? For everything good and bad! Life in this world is only a moment, a path to the eternal world awaiting for us, where there will be no war, pain, sadness, or oppression, remember this! Go through this trial with dignity so that at the end of the road, looking back, you will have no regrets! We will always be with you!”, – Akhmed said, patting his son on the shoulder.

– Dad, what are you saying? It’s like you’re saying goodbye to me”, – he replied, smiling.

– Son, this is war, and we must be prepared for whatever comes. We have to say goodbye every minute here. You are already a grown man and understand everything. We have given you everything we could, everything children dream of, but the most important treasure we leave you is your sincere faith, your humanity, and your kind heart. Never lose these qualities under any circumstances, they will never lose their value. Always be a real man!”, – Akhmed added.

– Dad, don’t worry, I will be the way you and mom raised me, you will be proud of me, Adam replied.

– I have no doubt about that! – Akhmed said, smiling.

– Everything will be fine, don’t worry! Dad got a little emotional today, it happens at his age, – Khava said, hugging Adam tightly.

– Mom, I love you so much! – he replied.

– Shh! What are you doing? There are people here, everyone can hear, it’s not nice to say such things in public! – she said, embarrassed.

– So what? Let everyone hear, you said it yourself that paradise lies at the feet of mothers, that we should carry you on our hands and tell you how much we love you more often! – Adam said loudly, standing up from his chair.

There were about fifty people in the basement, and everyone laughed and supported Adam. When they found out it was his birthday, they started congratulating him one by one, shouting warm wishes. Suddenly there was a loud bang, the house shook so hard that people fell from their seats. Then there came silence. One man shouted:

– Adam, this salute is in your honor! Accept congratulations!

People became quiet again, fear crept into their souls. Not for themselves, but for their loved ones. Every person in the bomb shelter was afraid of seeing death. It was easier to pass away first.

After a couple of minutes, there was another loud bang, children burst into tears, people became agitated, but there was no panic as such, only quiet voices of people praying to the Almighty in different languages in the dim light of a kerosene lamp.

– Don’t worry, no matter how many times we have been shaken like this before, they will play around for a bit and calm down. We’ll even have a festive dinner before bed, – Adam exclaimed loudly, trying to cheer everyone up.

But then the real bombing began. He tightly hugged his parents and began praying to the Almighty. The house shook every minute, neighboring houses were bombed, and each subsequent missile could hit their house. Time stood still at that moment, and everyone mentally said goodbye to each other. That time the plane dropped its terrifying weapon – a depth charge – precisely onto their shelter, and not just one. Hundreds of innocent people were killed that day.

Adam opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything. He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. It was dark and quiet, as far as he could tell. He started calling for his parents.

– Mom?! Dad?! Where are you?! I can’t see you! I can’t hear you! Why are you silent? – he shouted at the top of his lungs, but no one answered.

Suddenly, someone started pulling him hard by the shoulders. After a while, he found himself on the street, an unknown man had pulled him out from under the rubble of the house.

– You’re very lucky, kid. You were born under a lucky star. What’s your name? – the man asked, sitting down on the ground next to Adam.

But Adam didn’t hear anything. He was deafened. After a while, the man asked again, what his name was.

– Adam… Help me! Help me get my parents out of the shelter, they’re alive in there! – he replied, trying to stand up.

– There’s probably nobody alive in there, kid, and you’re lucky. After the bombing, you were lying by the stairs, apparently the blast wave threw you there. I barely pulled you out from under the rubble, safe and unharmed, – the man said.

But Adam didn’t hear him. The faces of those people who were buried under the rubble of the house and, of course, his parents were in front of his eyes.

– I know they’re alive! I’ll get them out myself! There are still many people there, small kids… old people… we must help everyone… Mom, Dad… how can they all be dead? – Adam asked with tears in his eyes.

– I’m really sorry to say, they’re likely to. We’ll check again if there’s anyone alive until it gets dark. Give me your hand, I’ll help you up. My name is Akhmed, – the man replied.

– My father’s name is Akhmed too, – Adam answered.

The man helped him up, made sure he was okay, and then they headed towards the bomb shelter. Descending the stairs, they saw that everything inside was covered with house slabs, and only bodies lay by the stairs, their faces disfigured making it impossible to identify the person.

Pulling the bodies out onto the street, Adam began to scrutinize the faces, wiping them with a piece of his clothing. He immediately recognized his mother, her eyes closed. He hugged her tightly for the last time and placed her on a nearby cart. Then, among the bodies, he recognized his father, and carefully placed him on the cart next to his mother.

– Adam, let’s quickly get out as many people as we can from under the rubble and bury them in my brother’s yard nearby, in the private sector. I live nearby, – Akhmed said.

– Okay, – he replied, in a state of shock.

Then they loaded about ten people onto the cart and quickly headed towards the private houses. Adam was walking quickly, followed by Akhmed who was pushing the cart from behind. The cart was hanging on by a thread… from the load and endless transportation of dead people. It was already getting dark. There wasn’t a soul on the city streets, only the sound of the cart’s wheels could be heard, like a loud echo of a dead city.

Who knows what thoughts filled the head of the sixteen-year-old boy who suddenly lost his family and was heading with a complete stranger to bury his parents in a foreign yard. This path seemed endless to him. He clenched his teeth tightly to hold back tears, and his father’s last words echoed in his mind:

– It’s all God’s will!

When they reached the ruined house, they quickly entered the yard and began burying the people. That day Adam became not a single year, but several years older. The sixteen-year-old boy had his first gray hair and a scar on his heart.

– Akhmed, whose house is this? – Adam asked.

– My older brother’s. Mine is next door, – he replied, pointing to the nearby brick house.

– If you have nowhere to go, you can stay with me. There are many of us locals here in my basement. We’ll get through this horror together. After everything is over, we’ll re-bury everyone at the cemetery. It’s dangerous to go anywhere now.

– Right, – Adam replied, grabbing a shovel. He didn’t shed a single tear the whole time.

After a while, they finished, and Akhmed quietly said:

– Well, that’s it! We have fulfilled our duty to the murdered… to God. I hope if something happens to us, there will be someone to bury us, otherwise the dogs will eat our bodies. Let’s go to my house now, and I’ll introduce you to the others.

Adam just glanced sadly at him, and they headed to the neighboring house. It was already dark and cold. Outside, the barking of hungry dogs could be heard, as they were roaming about the city in search of food and shelter from bombings. People tried to bury the corpses immediately to prevent the hungry dogs from eating them. That was the reality of a cruel and merciless war.

They hurriedly walked towards the house. Descending into a small basement, Adam glanced at the people who were there: on the narrow iron cot on the right he noticed two little children wrapped in warm blankets.

The kids – Alexei at the age of five and four-year-old Alexandra – were sleeping -, while their mother Sonya was sitting next to them. She appeared to be forty years old, but in reality, she was only thirty – the war had aged people significantly.. Sonya had buried her husband Semyon in their yard, he died from a shell hitting their house. The family, like many others, didn’t have time to leave the city.

On the left there was Akhmed’s wife Markha sitting on a worn-out mattress in the company of their children – Makka and Magomed. Makka was six years old, Magomed was ten. The children were attentively examining the new inhabitant of their “little house”, as Makka called the basement. Next to them Adam saw an elderly woman with very tired, sunken eyes, her name was Alla, she was there with her daughter Vera. Vera was very beautiful: a young blue-eyed blonde with a beautiful smile seemingly in her twenties. They did not want to leave the city, hoping, like the other citizens, that everything would soon be back to normal. Adam took them in as they lived nearby and it was dangerous to stay on their own. Vera’s father had died during the first attack of the city, in the very first hours of the war, caught under fire when he was returning home from work.

In the dim light of a kerosene lamp, their faces looked dark and gloomy, their eyes tired, and only the children’s big eyes were shining like beacons of endless hope. Everyone remained still, as if frozen in space.

– Meet our brother Adam, he needs to rest, – said Akhmed, following him into the basement.

Adam was silent. At that very moment, when he looked at these people, tears filled his eyes. In each of them, he saw the people he had shared the bomb shelter with for a month. Then he slowly took a stool and sat down lowering his gaze to the floor. The terrible events of the day flashed before his eyes. He raised his head and looked carefully at everyone sitting in the basement. His heart was breaking with pain, at that moment he wanted to be in the damp earth with his parents.

– Adam, you are now also a member of our little international family, – Akhmed said with a smile, trying to cheer him up.

– He has lost his family today; you will understand his grief. We are all created by the Almighty, and to Him we return! – he added calmly.

Everyone looked at him with great sympathy, no one asked any questions, and the children were also silent, as if understanding the vast universal pain of a man who had suddenly lost the most precious thing in his life. A silence, not typical of wartime, prevailed. Everyone was exhausted and trying to rest, even for a short while. Adam dozed off, sitting on the stool, he didn’t want to eat or drink… the only thing he wanted was to close his eyes and never open them again, so as not to see this cruel and unfair world. This way passed his first night without his father and mother.

It was already dawn when Adam woke up and decided to go out to visit his parents’ graves. He quietly climbed up the stairs, lifted the heavy trapdoor of the basement, and walked quickly to the neighboring house. It snowed for the first time that night. The street was unusually quiet. November turned out to be cold this time, and the white snow covered everything around with its white blanket, as if trying to hide cruel human crimes. Adam immediately headed to the backyard. After a while, he heard some noise in the yard and quickly returned. There he noticed Akhmed collecting snow in two small iron buckets.

– Good morning, Adam! I hope you’ve had some rest, if it can be called so. We’ve run out of water supplies, but luckily it snowed. We will melt it and drink this water. We used to collect rainwater, but now we have to collect snow. I guess, you’re used to such harsh conditions, as you also lived in a bomb shelter for some time? – Akhmed said, smiling. But Adam did not answer, he just sadly shook his head in response.

– Well, it’s good that you are not a white-collar worker. A real man! Take one bucket, let’s collect some more while it’s clean, and then go back home, – Akhmed told him, then they returned to the basement together.

Descending, they plunged into inky darkness. Daylight couldn’t reach the basement, only a kerosene lamp illuminated the small room. In the “little house”, everyone was busy with their own business. Markha tried to feed everyone with the last supplies of food offering a luxurious breakfast of biscuits and canned food accompanied with the rainwater leftover. The elder children were playing a city name game, Vera was reading her favorite book “Jane Eyre”, taken as the only valuable thing when they ran away during another bombing.

Alla and Sonya were melting the snow brought by Akhmed. Everyone was in warm clothes round the clock, as it was very damp and cold in the basement. They lit a small fire from makeshift materials: frames of broken wooden windows, sticks, newspapers, magazines, apart from books – they were strictly forbidden. The library was off-limits. Adam remained silent. The women tried to talk to him, but in vain.

– Akhmed, he talked to you, didn’t he? The boy isn’t dumb? – worried Markha asked.

– No, not at all, what are you saying? We talked yesterday. Apparently, his parents’ death affected him. It’s great he survived, he was born lucky, he didn’t even get a scratch after all that bombing. Don’t disturb him now, when he recovers from the stress a little, he’ll start talking, – Akhmed replied.

– He’s sitting on that stool again, staring at one point. I feel so sorry for him. Try talking to him, ask him to eat something. He might get sick, – Markha said.

– He’ll be fine. He’s young, his whole life ahead of him, – Akhmed replied, doing his best to look on the bright side of things.

– What life? We don’t know if we’ll be alive tomorrow, – Markha said sadly, waving her hand.

– Let’s not be pessimistic! Hope always saves a person in any situation. Our people survived in exile, and now everything will be fine. Let’s hope for the Almighty! I don’t want to hear such words from you again! – Akhmed replied.

– As you say, captain! – Markha said.

After a while, everyone gathered around a small table with food: pieces of crackers, two cans of preserved food, melted snow for drinking – that’s all that was left for the past couple of months. First, the children ate, and then the adults, if there was anything left. But despite such terrible conditions – hunger and cold – the children did not get sick. When there were no strong bombings, local markets worked, brave and courageous women went out before dawn to earn money to feed their families.

Thus, one day passed after another within the four damp walls of the “little house”. The children were very afraid of planes and loud explosions, but the adults did not show any sign of being scared. There were times when each of them just wanted to cry out loud, to sit outside where nobody could hear, and scream at the top of their lungs! About their pain, their losses, their shattered lives, the ones who had passed away, and the unheard-cruelty of people. Over that month, everyone became so close as if they had known each other for their whole lives, they shared their experiences, cried and laughed together, and even shared their last piece of bread.

War always reveals the true face of a person: real people become even more compassionate, kind, and responsive, while beasts become more savage, losing their humanity. Some people are nobler in times of war, while others are turned inside out, revealing the worst in them.

December passed by in an agonizing anticipation of the war’s end, taking many lives forever. New Year’s Eve of 2000 arrived to let the mankind into a new era of the 21st century. In all cities, people were preparing to celebrate the New Year, setting tables, rejoicing, laughing, and making wishes. But in Chechnya, they dreamed only of a peaceful sky above their heads and salvation from this real hell.

There was no news of a ceasefire or the end of the military actions. The old radio receiver had long since stopped working, and people were left with only foolish hopes of salvation. Despite the hopelessness and helplessness of the situation, New Year’s Eve remained a magical holiday for children, the time t of miracles. So, that day, Akhmed decided not to deprive the children of a little joy and to create a real fairy tale for them.

– War is war, but our children should have a Christmas tree! – he said with a smile and went out in search of any kind of tree early in the morning. Markha tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. After a couple of hours, he returned like a real Santa Claus, with a red hat on his head that he made from some fabric found in the house, a small artificial tree, and a couple of toys.

– Uncle Akhmed, are we celebrating the New Year – little Alexandra asked, surprised.

– Of course, my dear! We will have the most beautiful tree in the universe! Can you help me decorate it? – Akhmed hugged the girl and answered.

– Of course, I’ll give you a hand! I always helped my dad decorate the tree! But he’s far away in heaven now, but I think he can see us and be happy for us, – she replied sadly.