It sounds like a Soviet propaganda organization: the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. But it has become the only port of call for the frantic families of Russian soldiers seeking information about their relatives.
The walls of the tiny Moscow office are lined with pleas for information: "Has anyone seen Sergei Podinoda of the V/241450 regiment? Give him my telephone number." This was written by a woman whose son served in the same regiment as Podinoda, before he died in Grozny.
There are snippets of information: "The Northern Naval Fleet has arrived in Mozdok." "Three prisoners were taken in Alkhazurovo. One of them is named Yury Yurbed."
On one wall is a list of names, under three headings: the wounded; those taken prisoner; and the dead. In this war, the military is not even observing the formal courtesy of sending a letter to the families of the dead.
There is one Defense Ministry telephone "hotline," 293-5592, for the whole of Russia. But according to the committee it is always either busy or rings without answer. Members say that callers who are persistent enough to get through are given a standard reply: "Your son does not appear on the list of the dead, the missing or the wounded."
Some of the relatives lost in this Kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy, closed doors, unanswered telephones, and official silence have traveled to Grozny. Others come from all corners of Russia to the committee's one-room office in Moscow. Here three volunteers do their best to cope with the distressed women, and with the 80 to 100 calls a day received by the committee, which Monday won an international peace prize from the Geneva-based International Peace Bureau.
Yelena Zhitskaya wept. She was tired, and close to despair, but she had come to Moscow with a mission to find her nephew, Denis, who was sent to Chechnya with his regiment. She is a determined woman.
She clutched her worn address book as if her life depended on it. Her tears smudged the ink. She kept stabbing her finger at the page. "This number," she said, "is the Interior Minister, and this number is the hotline."
Zhitskaya said she had spent hours trying to get through on both numbers.
So had her sister-in-law Tamara, Denis' mother. It was she who had asked Yelena if she would go to Moscow to find out what happened to Denis. Yelena had come from Yuchnov, 300 kilometers from Moscow, because Tamara lives in Shushenskoye, in Siberia. The third-class train ticket, costing 150,000 rubles (about $40), is equivalent to her entire monthly salary.
Denis, 19, served in Germany. When the Russian army pulled out last summer, he was overjoyed. He wrote telling his family that he was coming home. But he never arrived, Yelena said.
The family is not sure where he went, and for four months they did not receive any letters. Then last Monday Denis' father telephoned Yelena. He had received a letter from Denis, dated Dec. 21. He wrote: "Papa, my unit has been sent to Chechnya. I don't want to go."
Yelena wept: "We are afraid he took part in the assault on Grozny on Dec. 31."
The ill-fated New Year's Eve assault was an abortive attack, and many Russian soldiers were killed.
Although officially the number of dead has been put at 250, people who have visited Grozny estimate the toll is nearer 1,500.
Yelena said she has found no success in Moscow. Interior Ministry officials said they could not help unless she could give the name of the relevant person in the ministry responsible -- an impossible task.
"I don't know what our boy is doing there. I don't know what to do or where to go -- to Nazran, Mozdok, or Grozny. All I have is the number of his unit," she said.
Dina Salochina is the chairwoman of the Yekaterinburg branch of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. Her two sons are now safely at home. She traveled to Chechnya to look for other lost sons. In the field hospital at Mozdok she traced two soldiers from Yekaterinburg.
She described conditions in the hospital as "filthy." One soldier had had his leg shot off; the other had a piece of shrapnel in his chest. Both were 19-year-old conscripts. They asked her not to tell their mothers they were wounded.
"I would like to hope that all this would stop," she said. "But I do not believe it."
"We were brought up with lies. We (mothers) are the only people doing anything -- because our sons are dying."
The walls of the tiny Moscow office are lined with pleas for information: "Has anyone seen Sergei Podinoda of the V/241450 regiment? Give him my telephone number." This was written by a woman whose son served in the same regiment as Podinoda, before he died in Grozny.
There are snippets of information: "The Northern Naval Fleet has arrived in Mozdok." "Three prisoners were taken in Alkhazurovo. One of them is named Yury Yurbed."
On one wall is a list of names, under three headings: the wounded; those taken prisoner; and the dead. In this war, the military is not even observing the formal courtesy of sending a letter to the families of the dead.
There is one Defense Ministry telephone "hotline," 293-5592, for the whole of Russia. But according to the committee it is always either busy or rings without answer. Members say that callers who are persistent enough to get through are given a standard reply: "Your son does not appear on the list of the dead, the missing or the wounded."
Some of the relatives lost in this Kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy, closed doors, unanswered telephones, and official silence have traveled to Grozny. Others come from all corners of Russia to the committee's one-room office in Moscow. Here three volunteers do their best to cope with the distressed women, and with the 80 to 100 calls a day received by the committee, which Monday won an international peace prize from the Geneva-based International Peace Bureau.
Yelena Zhitskaya wept. She was tired, and close to despair, but she had come to Moscow with a mission to find her nephew, Denis, who was sent to Chechnya with his regiment. She is a determined woman.
She clutched her worn address book as if her life depended on it. Her tears smudged the ink. She kept stabbing her finger at the page. "This number," she said, "is the Interior Minister, and this number is the hotline."
Zhitskaya said she had spent hours trying to get through on both numbers.
So had her sister-in-law Tamara, Denis' mother. It was she who had asked Yelena if she would go to Moscow to find out what happened to Denis. Yelena had come from Yuchnov, 300 kilometers from Moscow, because Tamara lives in Shushenskoye, in Siberia. The third-class train ticket, costing 150,000 rubles (about $40), is equivalent to her entire monthly salary.
Denis, 19, served in Germany. When the Russian army pulled out last summer, he was overjoyed. He wrote telling his family that he was coming home. But he never arrived, Yelena said.
The family is not sure where he went, and for four months they did not receive any letters. Then last Monday Denis' father telephoned Yelena. He had received a letter from Denis, dated Dec. 21. He wrote: "Papa, my unit has been sent to Chechnya. I don't want to go."
Yelena wept: "We are afraid he took part in the assault on Grozny on Dec. 31."
The ill-fated New Year's Eve assault was an abortive attack, and many Russian soldiers were killed.
Although officially the number of dead has been put at 250, people who have visited Grozny estimate the toll is nearer 1,500.
Yelena said she has found no success in Moscow. Interior Ministry officials said they could not help unless she could give the name of the relevant person in the ministry responsible -- an impossible task.
"I don't know what our boy is doing there. I don't know what to do or where to go -- to Nazran, Mozdok, or Grozny. All I have is the number of his unit," she said.
Dina Salochina is the chairwoman of the Yekaterinburg branch of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers. Her two sons are now safely at home. She traveled to Chechnya to look for other lost sons. In the field hospital at Mozdok she traced two soldiers from Yekaterinburg.
She described conditions in the hospital as "filthy." One soldier had had his leg shot off; the other had a piece of shrapnel in his chest. Both were 19-year-old conscripts. They asked her not to tell their mothers they were wounded.
"I would like to hope that all this would stop," she said. "But I do not believe it."
"We were brought up with lies. We (mothers) are the only people doing anything -- because our sons are dying."
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