From the series “My Tajik and Afghan Stories”
By Tatiana Logunova-Nugayeva, ORT correspondent in Tajikistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s
After flying by helicopter from Kulob to Afghanistan, into the Panjshir Valley, that evening we set off to meet Ahmad Shah Massoud — a meeting we had been promised back in Tajikistan.
Together with Massoud’s men, we drove into the mountains. The road ended abruptly. Beyond it, there was only a narrow path running along the edge of a precipice. Far below us to the left, hundreds of meters down, the Panjshir River roared through the valley. The darkness was so dense that we could see only what the moonlight managed to pull from the blackness. At the time, I had not yet realized just how frightening it could be to walk in the dark.
Several Afghan guides and an interpreter walked ahead of me. Behind me were cameraman Boris Aramov and two more guides. I had taken perhaps thirty steps when I lost my footing. A stone slipped from beneath my boot and went tumbling down. The distance from the path to the river was roughly the height of a ten-story building. One wrong step — and that would have been the end...
Fear overwhelmed me completely. I immediately thought of my mother and told myself how fortunate it was that she had no idea where her daughter was at that moment.
I stopped and told the guides:
“That’s it. I’m not going any farther. I’m afraid.”
They replied calmly but firmly:
“There is no way back now. We’ll move carefully and slowly.”
So I kept going. Every step took effort, and the path seemed endless. Finally, a cave appeared ahead of us. For security reasons, this was where Ahmad Shah Massoud had established his headquarters — the Afghan Tajik who had once fought Soviet troops alongside his mujahideen and who now led the Northern Alliance in its struggle against the Taliban. The man who was then known as the Lion of Panjshir.
Our conversation with Massoud took place in three languages: a little in English, a little in Russian, which he understood to some extent, and mostly in Dari through an interpreter.
I decided not to ask him about the Northern Alliance’s strategy or its plans against the Taliban.
Instead, I simply said:
“You see, anything can happen in life. I was born in the Soviet Union — the country you fought against.”
He replied calmly:
“Yes, life is a complicated thing. My mujahideen and I did indeed fight against the forces of the Soviet Union. Intelligence services were operating on both sides...”
And he recalled one particular incident. Several hours before an air strike, they received information from an officer that Soviet aircraft were going to bomb the Panjshir Valley. His mujahideen had time to prepare: they gathered charcoal, placed it inside their scarves, and wrapped the scarves around their faces so they could breathe more easily through the smoke and dust — simply to survive.
“It was easier for us to fight,” Massoud said. “We knew the mountains. We were in our own home.”
I asked him, “You chose fighting as your path in life. What would you wish for your children?”
And he answered like a father:
“I have five daughters and one son. It is easier for the girls — they will marry and have families of their own. But for my son, I would wish for a different path. I would want him never to know the tactics of warfare as I do. I would want him to study for a peaceful profession, to become a scholar — and then I would be proud of him.”
Those words deeply moved me. A warrior who dreams that his son will not become a warrior. A man who wants not glory for his child, but peace.
At that time, the Northern Alliance was in desperate need of assistance — military and humanitarian aid, as well as media coverage of what was happening. Massoud suggested that we visit a camp where Taliban prisoners of war were being held.
The following day, on his recommendation, our film crew went there. There were surprisingly few guards, as though no one seriously feared that the prisoners might escape. But it seemed to me that the Taliban prisoners were somehow not themselves — perhaps under the influence of some substance — because they kept laughing for no apparent reason.
One Taliban prisoner stood out among the others. He was not laughing. He stood there calmly, wearing glasses, with a beard and a camouflage jacket. We were told that he had sixteen wives and twenty-three children by them. He could not remember the names of all his wives, but he knew the names of his children — every single one.
I had my photograph taken with him. After all, where else would you meet a man with twenty-three children?
As we drove away from the camp, I kept thinking about how many human stories — even if they were Taliban stories — remained there, behind the barbed wire...
About the Author:
Tatiana Logunova-Nugayeva is a well-known Russian journalist and special correspondent for Channel One Russia. She gained widespread recognition for her professional work in conflict zones during the 1990s.
