In an adjoining room, six elderly blind men and women are standing in the darkness, bundled in worn winter coats. A man with a weathered face and a fur hat waits, squinting, clutching a ball of yarn and walking stick. Nobody moves or appears coherent. They cannot leave Grozny, and are being cared for by the remaining families in the building. We leave them a bottle of painkillers.
Russian bombardments are unrelenting.
They take place all day, all night, seven days a week. First, an observation plane appears in the sky, searching for clusters of people. Shortly afterwards come the bombs. It could be the market, the mosque, the water hose or a defensive position - the Russian bombings are unpredictable so as to create a climate of fear. The blasts crescendo, like a terrifying series of thunderclaps.