Georgia: local residents return to Gori

For the fifth day already, Russian militaries are patrolling the city of Gori in Georgia and the adjacent territory. In spite of this fact, some of the city dwellers began to return home.

Indications have appeared evidencing the beginning of withdrawal of Russian troops from Gori. Thus, last night Russian forces closed two checkpoints in the city, as the correspondent of the Tbilisi bureau of Radio Liberty reports.

Basically, adult men and women come back, with their children remaining in Tbilisi or other cities and settlements of Georgia with their relatives.

The correspondent of the "News-Georgia", who is now in Gori, reports that there is a Russian checkpoint at the entrance to the city, which examines all the cars and passengers' documents. According to Russian militaries, the aim of these measures is to exclude any import of weapons to the city.

At the same time, Georgian journalists and local patrol policemen are not let into Gori so far. Only the journalists who live in the city have managed to get there.

Local administration of the Gori District and Shida Kartli, regional governor, are already working in place.

According to the correspondent, the damage inflicted by bombardments of Gori is great, but not evaluated yet.

The tank unit, which was earlier deployed in Gori and was exposed to bombardments, practically does not exist any longer. Five five-storey houses located near this military unit were completely burnt down.

The buildings of the city administration, post office, university and hospital were partially damaged; some houses in the city centre were also burnt down after shelling. The buildings of the company "Trialeti" and the central city shopping centre were also damaged.

The branches of the TBC-Bank, Bank of Georgia and ProCreditBank were plundered. There are video materials filmed by internal surveillance cameras showing a group of persons dressed in Russian military uniform cracking into bank rooms, opening safes and cash dispensing machines and bringing out money and computers.

An official of the Russian command has promised that any manifestations of offensive attitude to the local population and facts of marauding by Russian soldiers will be cut short in place.

On August 19, in the eyes of residents, Russian militaries arrested one of their comrades-in-arms for threatening the population: the soldier had rushed into a house, drunk and disorderly, demanded drinks and shot into air from his automatic fire-arms.