大虐殺 of the innocents:?More than 330 people - 含むing 186 children - died at Beslan. 報告（する）／憶測ing on it gave 新聞記者／雑誌記者 Tom Parfitt nightmares which he finally overcame by trekking through the 地域's mountains

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High Caucasus

by Tom Parfitt (Headline £25, 332pp)

The children arrived at school on September 1, 2004, the first day of the school year, ‘carrying new satchels and bunches of flowers for their teachers . . .’

One of the first-graders, seven-year-old Dzera Kudzayeva, had been chosen for the ‘first bell’ ritual, in which a new girl is hoisted on the shoulders of one of the oldest boys and （犯罪の）一味s a handbell. The town was called Beslan.

すぐに after the children 組み立てる／集結するd, the 交戦的なs arrived, jumping off a flat-bed トラックで運ぶ, 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing (a)自動的な／(n)自動拳銃 ライフル銃／探して盗むs in the 空気／公表する and shouting Allahu Akbar!?

They 発射 two 安全 guards and then took hundreds of children and their teachers 人質 inside the school.?

Terror: Schoolchildren are 救助（する）d from the 包囲 in 2004 after 存在 held 人質 with their teachers by Chechen 交戦的なs?

Days passed; the 状況／情勢 became 大混乱／混沌とした, with 地元の men arming themselves with guns, and Russia’s ruthless special 軍隊s, Spetsnaz, arriving.

The 交戦的なs were Chechens, 捜し出すing 復讐 in the プロの／賛成の-ロシアの Christian 共和国 of North Ossetia for the countless brutalities Russia had （打撃，刑罰などを）与えるd on their own イスラム教徒 母国 of Chechnya, 支払う／賃金ing brutality 支援する with even worse brutality.

They 解放（する）d a few breastfeeding mothers and their babies, but the 残り／休憩（する） of the 捕虜 children were made to （土地などの）細長い一片 to their underwear, herded into a baking hot 体育館 and 否定するd drinking water. They were 軍隊d to drink their own urine.

Finally, 大混乱 爆発するd, 爆弾s 爆発するd, 解雇する／砲火／射撃 broke out and the building was 嵐／襲撃するd ― resulting in the deaths of 333 people, 含むing 186 children.?

Parfitt, a 特派員 in Moscow for British newspapers, saw it all.

‘In a man’s 武器, a girl of nine or so had 血 trickling from the corners of her mouth . . . the 死体s of four children lay covered in sheets . . . a man in 偽装する with his 握りこぶしs raised in 血まみれの rags . . .’

Many 新聞記者／雑誌記者s 証言，証人／目撃する dreadful things to bring us the news, but Beslan was an 特に hideous 大虐殺 of the innocents.?

Even though Parfitt 主張するs, bravely, that he didn’t を煩う PTSD afterwards, he certainly struggled.

Tom?Parfitt, a 特派員 in Moscow for British newspapers, saw the 大虐殺 in Beslan first-手渡す and experienced recurring nightmares in the 影響. Realising he had to do something, Parfitt turned to nature

Soon there （機の）カム recurring nightmares, 特に one in which he saw a mother who had just lost her child in the 大虐殺, 落ちるing to the ground in slow 動議, ‘floundering, 急落（する），激減（する）ing before my helpless sight. Three seconds torn from a reel of terror and decelerated into endless purgatory.’

One evening, ‘I was pulling on my socks when I began gabbling incoherently’. He decided he had to do something.?

And so he did what many traumatised 生存者s have done: he turned to nature, to mountains, to forests and rivers, and to the slow, wordless 魔法 of a very, very long walk.

He would trek from end to end across the Caucasus mountain 範囲, through its many troubled but beautiful 共和国s, like Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Chechnya itself: eight 地域s in all, with the Foreign Office advising against visitin g all but two of them.

Parfitt hoped to experience a more tranquil 地域, to find his own peace, and try to understand how something so atrocious could have happened.

The result is this 調書をとる／予約する, High Caucasus, one of the most harrowing, beautifully written and finest accounts of a mountain trek that I have ever read ― an instant classic.?

You might 述べる it as a 世俗的な 巡礼の旅 in search of some 肉親，親類d of 救済, or at least 部分的な／不平等な 傷をいやす／和解させるing and understanding.?

Parfitt comes to 絶対 love this landscape: ‘The North Caucasus had cast a （一定の）期間 over me that no place has matched, before or since.’

Parfitt met 非常に／多数の jolly, if often tipsy, shepherds, always keen to 圧力（をかける） vodka upon this exotic foreign walker, and discuss the world together

A harrowing and beautifully written account of a mountain trek, Parfitt's High Caucasus is an instant classic?

He vividly evokes a world where life is very 堅い, but so are the people: a world where Abkhazian women trek miles across the 国境 to sell armfuls of mimosa blossoms for a few ルーブルs to the ロシアのs, while the menfolk shoot 耐えるs and then ‘sell the fat for people to rub on their chests when they’re ill’.

He 会合，会うs 非常に／多数の jolly, if often tipsy, shepherds with 抱擁する moustaches, wearing sheepskin jackets, spending months up in the high summer pastures with their flocks, defending them from wolves and sleeping in sparse huts.?

They are always keen to 圧力（をかける） vodka upon this exotic foreign walker, and discuss the world together.

An 正統派の priest tells him he has heard that London is very bad for 罪，犯罪. ‘East 17,’ he said. ‘Same as the group.’ ‘Ah,’ says Parfitt, ‘Walthamstow.’

There are many such comic moments, as when he 恐れるs he’s 長，率いるing into a gunfight, 審理，公聴会 弾丸s 飛行機で行く, but a 地元の 保証するs him: ‘More likely a wedding.’

Headline £25, 332pp

Soon he 遭遇（する）s ‘a pristine blue Rolls-Royce Phantom with a man sitting on the 乗客 window and 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing a Kalashnikov into the 空気／公表する’. All very cheery, nothing to worry about.

Parfitt 結論するs his 広大な／多数の／重要な adventure with the feeling that history is something all peoples must both remember and forget, so as not to be 罠にかける into 態度s of smouldering 憎悪 and longing for 復讐.

And yes, nature 傷をいやす／和解させるs, as do long days with simple but far from stupid people.

At last the Caucasus comes to mean not just the horrors of Beslan, but also ‘a curtain of cloud rising like smoke over a 山の尾根 . . . a bowl of mulberries on a sunlit windowsill’, while ‘above all, filling the horizon from west to east in a chain of wonder, rises the frosty palisade of the mountains: 広大な, sparkling, immutable’.?

A magical 調書をとる／予約する.