At Verkhniy Lars, people lose their humanity

I arrived in Russia to visit family on the morning of September 21. I should have turned around and gotten the hell out immediately after the address. But I didn’t. Big mistake.

On the way back, I took a train to Moscow, then a flight to Mineralnye Vody, then a train to Vladikavkaz. It took 2.5 days, because finding same-day tickets is a nightmare.

I arrived in Vladikavkaz on the 26th, took a taxi for 2,000 to the start of the traffic jam. From there, with a heavy backpack and suitcase, I hauled my stuff 15 km on foot. It was extremely hard and hot. The suitcase wheels were completely wrecked by the time I got there. The walk took 5–6 hours to the checkpoint.

Along the way, not a single store was open. They were closed and almost empty of goods. Water could only be filled in one spot — a faucet. I may have already caught some parasites from it. Or from the river, but you definitely shouldn’t drink from there, because people use it as a toilet. People go to the toilet everywhere, actually, because there’s nowhere else. On the road to Lars, there are at least some bushes, but in the neutral zone there are cliffs on both sides. Want to use the bathroom — ask people to turn off their headlights, or forget about modesty.

Near the checkpoint, I found my friends' car — they’d been standing there for four days. I just got in with them. And we continued standing in the traffic jam. The guys were in terrible shape — four days without amenities or proper sleep is hell.

That day they brought in an APC. It was to intimidate the local population. Traffic cops, local drivers, and various hustlers are raking in millions there. Old wrecked Soviet bicycles sell for 50,000, a ride to the checkpoint with a police escort — 200,000, moving 200 meters forward in traffic — 40,000, gasoline — 60,000. Many people get genuinely scammed. And at night, this mafia stages fights and shootouts. Supposedly the APC was sent to control all of this.

We got through the Russian checkpoint around 9–10 p.m. As a woman, I wasn’t asked a single question. My guys were asked about military obligation and mobilization. And then the nightmare happened. One of the boys wasn’t let through. They told him: “A draft notice has been issued for you.” We all panicked, were terribly upset, said goodbye — our friend was taken away.

Two hours pass, we’re standing in line in the neutral zone, and suddenly he comes running up. We thought we were hallucinating from hunger, cold, and sleep deprivation.

It turned out the damn border guards take men — preferably those with small children — into offices and frighten them with draft notices. They promise to “solve the problem” for a fee. Luckily, my friend was shrewd — he calmly insisted on rechecking or a written refusal. Yes, people are genuinely turned back at the border based on lists (of those subject to mobilization — SP), but on top of that, these border scum, banking on people’s exhaustion, fatigue, and fear, press on their vulnerabilities and extort bribes.

We stood in the neutral zone from around 10–11 p.m. until 8 a.m. Everything was absolutely dead, so we tried to sleep. My whole body is covered in bruises from sitting in one position, tons of stuff, small car. But having a car there is a privilege. Yes, the car moves slower than a pedestrian or a bicycle, but at least we can warm up. Although it’s freezing even in a car with the heater on. Without a car, all they have for sleeping at night are tunnels with mice and the duty-free near the Georgian checkpoint, where people sleep on top of each other. Some set up tents.

Guys would get into our car and ask, very frightened, how much it costs to warm up. We let them in for free, obviously, because it’s insane to charge money for someone not dying of cold in the mountains at night! They also asked for food. We only had bread left — we gave it out. They asked for money, fearfully. The mafia raking in millions there seems to have broken the psyche of most of the people stuck in traffic.

At the Georgian border, your heart breaks separately for the guys from the North Caucasus. If you’ve made it this far but your passport says birthplace: Grozny, for instance, prepare to spend another 2–3 nights sleeping on cardboard at the Georgian checkpoint. Even if you’re a top-notch IT worker who lived in St. Petersburg, but you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, they’ll interrogate you and drag things out, and there’s no guarantee they’ll let you through.

It’s not just a traffic jam — it’s a genuine humanitarian catastrophe, and it needs as much attention as possible. People aren’t getting any help there; more often they’re scammed and abandoned. There’s an ambulance — a spot in which through the checkpoint costs 30,000 rubles. Money is extracted from absolutely everything.

No food, no water, no proper toilet, no way to wash, no way to sleep. Your life passes in a traffic jam. Day after day. Only the mountains change slightly depending on whether it’s Chmi or Nizhny Lars. Traveling with children or dogs is a separate ordeal. Every child I saw was dirty and hungry. I won’t even mention the adults.

At Verkhny Lars, people lose their humanity. Getting through it in one day is enormous luck. Only now, when I’m safe and home, does it hit me what I went through there and what I saw. I think I have a kind of PTSD from all of it — I urgently need a therapist. And that was only one day — what about those who, like my friends, stood there for four and a half days?

And all of this against the backdrop of the complete madness in the Verkhny Lars chat and the “Crazy Lars” chat. The second one was my favorite channel this past week. I realized people were suffering, but I’d laugh at the dumb questions. Well, I won’t be laughing anymore. The stupidity of the questions I read while not being there has now become clear to me.

You’re standing in hell with nothing. A million pieces of news per second. Terrifying news in the background. Most likely your children are crying. There’s no guarantee you’ll be let through. Any dumb question in the chat is justified by the state people are in, and I will never laugh at it again.