At 6 AM today, Marina called, scared to death: there was an explosion, and their windows were nearly smashed over at Gldani. Turned out the radars […] that serve the international airport were being bombed.

Yesterday, Khelvachauri, a suburb of Batumi, was bombed, Sandro is staying there with grandfather and grandmother and doesn’t want to go to the village to my parents.

Khatuna and I were walking with kids [at the park], it’s almost empty, and we took them to McDonalds’ – banned in peaceful times, it seems so attractive in the time of war.

Yesterday, crowds of people were marching all over the city with flags, chanting “Sakartvelo” – Mishka didn’t understand what was going on.

- There’s war now, and we are being bombed, and these people are demanding to stop all this.
- And who’s doing the bombing? – Mishka the Ant asked, [his eyes huge with surprise].

I didn’t tell him who was bombing us.

- Let them throw these bombs on themselves, I hate them, – Mishka got angry in a funny way.

Just a week ago we were chatting about some sweet trifles – where they do French manicure better, and where I put that swimming suit, and how to train your husband to hang his wet towel on the rope.

Now we are breaking our heads, [trying to figure out] how to get to Batumi with kids and avoid being shot at, where a safer place to take shelter is, who said what the UN Security Council, whether it is true that people got killed in Poti.

There’s no panic. […] There was shock on the first day, and then it started feeling as if we’ve been living like this for a hundred years. Crowds of people are donating blood. We knew that this is how it would be. […]

We are not leaving anywhere. [Because] all they do is wait for us all to leave.

***

I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow morning. Maybe tanks will enter the city. Mishka is asleep, my little boy, he kept turning around, asking: They aren’t bombing Batumi, are they? He misses his brother. I shouldn’t have told him yesterday. Though this way he is prepared, at least.

All hope for Sarkozy, maybe he’ll convince them – but this is unlikely, too, no one is going to back out at this point – they’ll be eating us hot.

***

The two bloggers above are from Georgia. North Ossetia to be more exact.

Meanwhile:

TBILISI, Aug 12 (Reuters) – At least 150,000 Georgians cheered President Mikheil Saakashvili on Tuesday as he vowed to one day punish Russia for launching the biggest military attack on Georgia since it split from its giant neighbour.

Russia blames Saakashvili for starting the war over the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7 but there was no hint of internal dissent in Tbilisi, where even the normally critical opposition have strongly backed the president.

People streamed down the side streets to see their president. Flanked by bodyguards, Saakashvili arrived about an hour after the start of the rally to applause and cheers.

“I promise you today, that I’ll remind them of everything they have done and one day we will win,” Saakashvili said.

The crowd roared: “Georgia, Georgia!”.

Speakers shook with anger and denounced Russia’s aggression while the crowd waved Georgian flags and posters depicting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a terrorist.

One placard showed Putin in a mug shot. “Wanted: Crimes against humanity and the world,” the caption said.

Georgia announced it has filed a lawsuit against Russia at the International Court of Justice charging ethnic cleansing, the secretary of Georgia’s Security Council said on Tuesday.

Though CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and the broadcast outlets are largely ignoring this war – a war that is still, to this point, in motion – Georgian citizens are beginning to take to the streets back here in the United States of America – Seattle, San Francisco.

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