After a lunch break (pea soup, potatoes, soy meat) Temirbulatov was brought in. It was more interesting to talk to him, because he could not prattle about his innocence. Everybody remembers the video where he shot in the back of the head and killed a Russian soldier.
“Temirbulatov, do you want to talk to the press and do you allow to take pictures of yourself?” asked the zampolit when Temirbulatov fastened by handcuffs to the stool opened his eyes.
“Mr. Warden,” said Temirbulatov in a hoarse and whining voice. As compared to the man we saw in the video of shooting soldiers he seemed half his size. “Thank you, Mr. Warden, for asking. If I can answer the questions I will. The pictures I’d rather not. Because... May I say why?”
“You may.”
“On March 20, 2000, photo journalists made of me what had never happened to me. They made of me, how do I say, Santa Claus, they did. Thank you, Mr. Warden.”
“What does it mean, Santa Claus? A paste-up?” I did not get what he meant.
“No, they just made a clown of me. After all, if you treat me fair, I’m nobody.”
“What does it mean ‘nobody?’”
“You might have heard, I was nicknamed Tractor Driver. I’m a mechanic by profession. But I have never had such a nickname. The journalists who took a picture of me for the first time, asked who I was by profession. I said, a tractor driver. From that day for three years everybody has been calling me Tractor Driver. You make a dozen words out of one.”
“What are your conditions here?”
“I cannot say anything against the rules here. The conditions are normal, I’m treated normally, the food is normal, I have no complaints.”
“I’m not talking about the compliance with the rules, but about strictness.”
“I have no complaints about strictness. Whatever I must do, I have done and will do, I have nothing against it.”
“You have been staying here since August 27 of last year. Do you feel any out of the ordinary changes within yourself?”
“No, I can’t say that. As compared to what they did to me at SIZO [the pre-trial detention center], here it’s very good.”
“And what was at SIZO?”
“Don’t you know? I will tell you then. How I got here, I really don’t know. Most of the time I was unconscious. Everything was with me, everything. Just why I did not kick the bucket, I dunno. Here in this place I came round a little, to tell the truth. Here they treat me well, give decent food, I don’t have complaints against this facility.”
“They say you contracted consumption here?”
“Yes, even back at SIZO. I have a closed variety.”
“Do you communicate with your cellmates?”
“We’re there together, staying together. We listen to the radio, read books, newspapers. At first I did not read very well in Russian, but then I learned all right. I don’t read the Qur’an, because I don’t know Arabic, but I read the ‘Talisman,’ those are prayers.”
“Do you feel remorse?”
“I don’t get you.”
“Do you feel sorry for what you did?”
“To tell the truth, I did not commit any crime. Those who drove us to that, they must answer for this. We had an elected president, parliament, ministries, we had everything, we reported to them. People don’t know anything, people submit to power. I killed at the time when we had Dudayev as president, Dzhokhar Dudayev.”
“Do you have visits with your family?”
“Yeah, they write letters, send parcels. My wife came once, and my uncle.”
“What did you talk about?”
“The main thing is to see each other. Well, as a matter of fact, I consider myself a dead man now. They do not think that, they still hope.”
“Do they give you a good enough medical treatment here?”
“Yeah... medical treatment... enough...”
When Temirbulatov stood again in the Koo posture,” I saw his tears on the floor.
