Andrei Dyatlov

Assistant Editor, Rossia

These notes are not a diary in the true sense of the word. It was difficult enough to find time to write at all during those three days. A lot more will come back to me later, gaps will be filled in. But I tried at the time to put down, if only briefly, the things we saw and learned over the three days of the coup. In the following days I added a few things here and there, but largely left those jottings untouched. Rossia, the newspaper of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, is the only newspaper with its editorial offices inside the White House, home to Yeltsin's government.

Monday, August 19, 1991

0730

I took our four year old son to Play School, returning home about 7.30am. My wife Vera opened the door with a shocked look on her face: "There's been a coup... Gorbachev's been removed. A junta's taken over: Yanaev, Kryuchkov, Yazov..." A symphony orchestra on the TV, classical music on the radio, a sure sign someone important was being buried. Now and then 'Echo Moscow' spluttered on to the air, only to disappear again. But they kept repeating that some State Emergency Committee had taken power. Gennadii Yanaev's declaration was read out, then something it seemed by Anatolii Lukyanov, Chairman of the Soviet Supreme Soviet. The announcer said they believed tanks were moving towards Moscow. Then silence and a hissing. Either the station had been taken off the air, or simply shut down.

Larissa Usov, our paper's special correspondent in Leningrad, was staying with us at the time. I asked her to ring Nina Andreeva. Andreeva was the chemistry teacher from Leningrad who had written the infamous manifesto of the forces opposed to perestroika published in Sovietskaya Rossia on March 13, 1988, under the banner headline 'I Cannot Forego My Principles'. At the time, it had created a furore as she was obviously not acting alone. Her declaration was the first major and open attack mounted against Gorbachev by the conservatives, in this case led by Yegor Ligachev, Gorbachev's one-time nemesis within the Politburo. Now, we were interested in knowing her position. Despite the hour, Nina Andreeva sounded wide awake and briskly outlined her position on the coup. She saw it as a way of stabilising the situation in the country, the establishment, finally, of real authority.

At Rossia, they were fully aware of the coup by about 8am. I was ringing our people as soon as I heard about it, telling them to get into work. As it turned out, Sergei Baigarov, the other Assistant Editor, had been doing the same thing. Though at the time we didn't know whether we'd even manage to get inside the building, let alone whether Rossia still existed, or other newspapers for that matter. I asked Vera to hide some documents and letters I had at home, as well as my diaries. She saw me to the door, kissed me, then blessed me.

0830

On the streets it was quiet. The building housing the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, Pavlov's cabinet, is next to the building where I live. Nothing special seemed to be going on there. The Soviet flag was fluttering over it. A number of black Volgas, the sedans so conspicuously linked with one's status and power in the Soviet Union, were parked in the street. On the Metro, I found myself wondering whether people in general even knew what was happening.

0915

At work we had a meeting. Only two questions were discussed: what was going on, and what should we do? Armed guards at the doors were already stopping the press from coming into the building.

Sergei Baigarov announced that Ruslan Khasbulatov, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet and one of Yeltsin's most visible comrades, was here and was trying to make contact with Vice President, and now apparently President Yanaev. Yanaev's secretary had replied: "Gennadii Ivanovich has been working all night, he's sleeping now and has asked not to be disturbed."

0940

Yeltsin's first appeal is brought in, 'To the Citizens of Russia'. None of us has seen Yeltsin himself yet. But we had heard that he had managed to get away from his dacha, though the KGB had been closing in on him. Apparently they missed him by twenty minutes.

Following hot on Yeltsin's appeal are the first documents from the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. [6] While the photocopier is warming up, they're being typed out. A second decree of Yeltsin's arrives: he considers the State Emergency Committee (SEC) announcement anti-constitutional and calls their actions a coup d'etat.

A grinding sound carries up from outside. We look out. Some young men are dragging a bath-tub across the flagstones, beginning to build a barricade. Someone laughs: "The first ever bath-tub in defence of democracy!"

Sergei Baigarov suggests we try publishing a small newspaper - we have the computers and photocopier to do it.

Yura, in charge of layout, sits down at a computer. The others all head out to get material. Our first edition is Yeltsin's appeal, 'To the Citizens of Russia'. We distribute fifty copies from the main entrance of the building to the several hundred people who have already gathered there.

Around 1100

An emergency session of the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet is being held. We're still printing leaflets. The Presidium is trying to pass a decree declaring the SEC unconstitutional, but two of its members, Vladimir Isakov and Vladimir Isaev will not give their approval. Later, news filters in that Isakov and Isaev have dropped their opposition and that the SEC has been declared unconstitutional. A full session of the Russian Supreme Soviet is scheduled for Wednesday morning to discuss the situation that has arisen in the country because of the coup. (Appendix 7)

We're completely mystified as to why the Soviet Supreme Soviet has remained silent. No one has cut the Kremlin off from the world the way they have the White House.

The radio is still playing classical music interspersed with announcements from the Junta. We continue printing leaflets. There are already at least three barricades going up around the White House. Armed guards are patrolling the corridors inside. But we don't know who they are. Rumours are rife that OMON troops have come over to our side. Which OMON? Journalists are still being prevented from entering the building.

1210

Alexander Drozdov, our Chief Editor, has finally arrived, somehow getting in. He was outside Moscow when he heard about the coup. Now we're almost all here. Three are still missing. The radio is relaying the Emergency Committee's latest decree. Most newspapers have been banned. Now everything is clear. The only newspapers being allowed to publish are the 'official' communist newspapers and the army newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda. [7] We get in contact with foreign newspapers in Moscow and begin sending material to them by fax. We don't know why the telephones are still working. Probably because they are all being tapped to find out what exactly is going on in here.

Around 1300

Yeltsin has arrived. Someone said he looked pretty angry and determined. After the emergency session of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet Presidium, Yeltsin holds his first press conference. He finishes with the words: "According to our information, fifty tanks are moving towards the White House. So, you journalists should leave. We'll be staying here a while, we've still got some work to do!"

Galya Filatov, one of our reporters, rings me: "Andrei, we've got tanks under the windows here!"

"Fuck them, get into work!"

"I'm already at work..."

Only then did I understand, she was talking about tanks under our windows, here at the White House.

The tanks were pulled up along the front of the building. We went up to the 11th floor to count them. Fifteen.

The weather is beautiful. Bright sun. The bridge on Kalinin Prospekt over the Moscow River hasn't been closed. Cars are still driving across it. These tanks at the foot of the steps leading up to Parliament look awfully out of place. The girls say nothing. I start to send our proof-readers and sub-editors home, we can get by without them.

They gaze at me steadily and answer evenly: "Fine, you stay the night. What time do you want us in in the morning?"

"Heaven help us, I don't know. Ring. If we're still... Well, just ring."

Inside I'm afraid. I've never felt fear like this before. Nearby some kids are laughing at some joke or other. What's going on?

Back at work we've been warned to stay away from the windows for fear of snipers stationed on nearby buildings. But the window is about the only way we have left of distributing our leaflets. We toss them out the fifth floor window and watch the wind catch them and carry them into the crowd gathered at the back of the building behind the barricade there.

Below us at the bus stop, men are pushing cars out of the way, clearing space for another barricade. Rumour has it that someone has flown in from Vilnius with experience in this sort of thing. They're saying that we have to build four rows of barricades: the first on the corner of Rochdelskii St, the second, thirty metres back, near the bus stop, and the third, beneath our windows. The fourth should be further back, between our window and the back entrances to the building. On the other side of the White House, the stairs leading up to the front entrance have been barricaded. The Comecon building across the street also has barricades in front of it.

1430

I rang home to let them know everything was okay and that we were working. I told them not to go out on the streets. Vera told me tanks were pulled up outside Prime Minister Valentin 'Piggy' Pavlov's nest next door at the Cabinet of Ministers' building. It figured, he had to be in on this. He had been doing everything possible to get his economic programme translated into legislation. Now he had the perfect opportunity of doing so.

1500

Our girls who hadn't gone home, Tanya Voloshina and Lena Moskaleva, have managed to get an interview with Ivan Silaev, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. It was the first interview he has given since the coup began:

"For us, like everybody else, this coup has come as a complete surprise... But we are not going to panic, we are working, and we are convinced that we shall succeed in defending what we have fought so hard for... Russia will rise up! This morning I chaired a meeting of the Russian Council of Ministers. I told those gathered straight out: "Make your decision, you all have to decide where you stand." We are cut off today from every means of mass communication. For this reason, I want to address all Russians through the newspaper Rossia... We are unarmed. We don't have any tanks, rifles or cannons. But we are counting on the support of all Russians and believe that these reactionaries will not win!" He gave Tanya and Lena a copy of the resolution the Council of Ministers had passed condemning the coup. We made copies and distributed it. (Appendix 8)

Around 1800

I go to Khasbulatov's office to talk the guards into letting our people spend the night in the building. They decide to let four of us stay. The man I was talking to simply said: "I don't know who should be making this decision. But if anyone asks you to leave, just give me a ring."

In Khasbulatov's outer office, the armchairs have all been turned on their sides and a large writing table is leaning up against them. A barricade? I leave, wondering who they're kidding.

Outside it's getting dark.

1830

Tanya Voloshina and I are on our way back from Valentin Sergeev's office. Sergeev is head of the Russian President's 'information section'. It was through his office that the Western press was receiving much of its information as he had a fax machine with a direct international line. We had dropped in to see if we could have a word with Silaev so he could check that we had accurately transcribed his interview. Despite his greying hair, Sergeev is brimming with energy. He reads through the interview, at the same time dialling someone, clearly not on our behalf: "Print it! And bring me a copy of everything you've put out so far." Nervous laughter, he wrinkles an eyebrow: "For history's sake?"

After 2100

We can hear tank motors revving in the night. Involuntarily, our heads turn, tracking the sound like a dog following a scent.

Around 2300

The photocopier has broken down. Viktor Berezhnoi is doing his best to fix it. But something quite serious has gone wrong with it. We go down and leave the building through Entrance 8, nicknamed the Press Entrance now (the Russian Supreme Soviet press centre is there). We start shouting: "Is there anybody here who can fix photocopiers?" Two men come forward. The guards let them through once we explain what it's for. It would have been embarrassing to have to stop work now for the sake of a broken photocopier. The people at 'our' barricade are demanding news updates every twenty minutes. The two guys get to work fixing the photocopier.

2310

One of our people, Nikolai Chemyakin, comes back from Domodedovo Airport. He had taken a pile of leaflets out there. The pilots have told him they are ready to go on strike.

Someone has obviously changed their mind about who gets into the building. A lot of foreign correspondents have turned up. I've never had to speak so much English in my whole life! We give them our leaflets and copies of Yeltsin's decrees.

There is a warning that the building might be stormed during the night. We are asked to make do with as little light as possible and draw the curtains on the windows. We can see people on the roof of the building opposite.

I make a bed of sorts out of some chairs. Perhaps I'll even get some sleep.

Berezhnoi has stretched out in a chair beside the photocopying machine. When will they get it going? Can they?

Tuesday, August 20, 1991

0110

The intercom tells us we should put our gas masks on straight away. A doctor is explaining what to do in case of a gas attack. There is a call from a hospital. They have been ordered to clear out their rehabilitation wards and their toxicology units.

Everyone is awake and alert. They say an attack is expected at 3am.

There is a terrible din on the streets. The attack?

Cheers! Gennadii Burbulis, Russia's Secretary of State, has just announced on the intercom that a battalion of paratroopers has come over to our side. He asks the defenders of the White House not to worry if they see armed paratroopers, they're moving into defensive positions. I wonder whether they have any armoured back-up.

0115

Someone comes in with a brief interview with Silaev. I don't know by whom or where the interview was done: "Thank you very much everyone who has stayed and is helping us defend the Russian Parliament. I don't believe either Boris Nikolaievich or myself will be getting any sleep tonight, we're working on a new set of decrees. Meanwhile we've had a couple of quiet hours. Let's hold out till we triumph."

And it really was quieter. If anything, only the rain was noisier, heavier. Fires were burning on the street. I don't know what the people are eating or where they are getting it from. Heavy diesel motors can be heard, first close by, then in the distance. A lot of reports are coming in of troop and tank movements.

0230

We are in the middle of typesetting the 'Appeal of the RSFSR People's Deputies' when we learn that ten tanks have come over to our side. A Major Yevdokimov is their commander. We can hear one of them under our windows somewhere, but can't see it yet. The outside lighting has all been turned off.

Finally it appears. It is pulled up at the corner, by the third barricade. The rain continues. Deputies are with the tanks. The tanks have been positioned at all the key points of the building. But we also learn that the tanks aren't armed. If something does happen, the lads are finished. The troops storming the building won't stand on ceremony with them. You can only admire Yevdokimov. He'll be shot on the spot if the coup leaders decide to take the building.

In the building itself we're again asked to draw the blinds and turn off as many lights as possible. Again we have been warned of snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings. But we can't turn off all the lights in our editorial office. They're still fixing the photocopying machine. Someone has also managed to supply us with a modem. We log into the stock-market database and network which has become an information storage and dissemination system for people across the country opposed to the coup.

Every half hour we toss our pamphlets out the window. The rain comes in heavy bursts. I'm amazed that the people below don't leave. But everyone seems to be staying.

0330

No attack yet. But we can hear tank motors down on Kalinin Prospekt in the direction of the Old American Embassy, then on Kutuzov Prospekt.

Around 0400

We have received Yurii Vlasov's declaration. Vlasov is a former world champion weight-lifter. Now he is a people's deputy of the USSR. This seems to be the first sign of life from the people over there in the Kremlin. Several sheets of yellow paper, typewritten, and obviously in a hurry. In support of Russia. Good for you Yurii. But he is only one man. There is still nothing official coming out of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

0545

Things have finally slowed down a bit in the office. We don't think they're likely to storm the building this late tonight. Fire hoses snake through the corridors. For putting out fires? Or to be used as water cannons against attackers?

Someone from outside brings up a new box of photocopying paper. Gives it to us, smiles, leaves. I have no idea who she is.

A note from the Oleg Rumyantsev's Constitutional Committee is passed to us. The note announces the organisation of a general strike. We haven't finished typing it into the computer yet. Getting the news out has forced us to put it to the side for a moment. I can't get my mind off it. A general strike would be a strong move, but one fraught with dangers, it could be a first step towards civil war.

Dawn breaks. Grey. Rain. 'Our' tank is standing with its hatches open. It's impossible to tell whether the crew is inside or in the White House. People have put cans of powdered milk on the armour behind the turret, as well as fresh bread and canned food under a sheet of plastic. Someone has thrown a bouquet of flowers onto the armour.

Around 0600

A meeting has been announced for noon at the White House. Yeltsin is likely to speak.

0800

Most likely there won't be any attack now. These bastards don't do anything in the light of day. Thinking about the communists seizing power in 1917 in the middle of the night, not much has changed.

Outside, there is a line of people queueing up to add their names to the self-defence brigades being organised at the White House. Ex-servicemen have already organised more than fifteen hundred people into volunteer defence units. A lot of 'Afghantsy', veterans of the war in Afghanistan, and paratroopers are amongst them.

0920

The intercom announces that Yanaev has decreed that everyone inside the White House are criminals. Fine, we're criminals now. None of us show any particular concern. But inside there must be a lot of fear. Genna Shalaev walks in. A voice from one of the corners: "What're you doing here? Spread your legs and up against the wall, you criminal bastard!" We all laugh.

The intercom announces that the Commander of the Moscow Military District is introducing a curfew. The distribution of pamphlets is also forbidden, fine - 1000 roubles. Indiscriminate body searches for pamphlets are being carried out on the streets. It's about what we had expected. We don't pay it much attention, just keep on working. We've nothing more to lose.

I keep my thoughts to myself. But I don't want to die. I promise myself that I'll never ever, even joking, again say that it makes no difference being dead or alive. Right now I know how much I want to live.

The women have arrived at work. Tanya Tyssovskaya has brought in a basket of the most wonderful-looking food. We've been sitting here all night, now we throw ourselves on it. Tanya Voloshina comes in with a bag of boiled potatoes, still steaming. Andrei Maximov arrives with a box of food his wife has put together. Once we've finished, the women take the food out to the others coming in. "Feeding the paper," someone jokes. Meanwhile, shouts of: "Where are the pamphlets?" are already drifting up from the barricades below, bathed in a grey sunless light.

1210

The meeting is underway. There looks to me to be about twenty thousand people. We hurl pamphlets out into the crowd. A guard comes up and suggests we'd be better off taking them downstairs and distributing them from below. Every time we throw them from the window people rush to catch them and end up fighting each other for them.

A huge Russian flag, about a hundred metres long, is hanging from the White House balcony. The stockbrokers carried it up in procession from the Russian Raw Materials Exchange.

We learn that light-armoured and tank battalions of the Ryazan division are on our side. We don't know how many are against us. But in any case, the meeting has something of a festive mood about it. There is a sense of fatalism, none of us have any illusions. If they send professionals against us, we have nothing pleasant to look forward to. Rumours are going around that any attack is going to be led by the Alpha Group from the KGB, the anti-terrorist brigade which, together with Omon troops from the police, stormed the Vilnius television tower in January this year, in the confusion killing, amongst others, their own colleague Shatskikh.

Yeltsin did speak at the meeting, flanked by bodyguards wearing armoured vests and holding an armoured vest in front of him. But the biggest cheers were reserved for Yelena Bonner, widow of Andrei Sakharov. When her diminutive frame mounted the podium to denounce the putschists, the building literally shook with the roar that went up from the crowd.

1345

On the sixth floor, above Khasbulatov's offices, a group of Cossacks are holding a meeting. They had come from the Don region on some other business, but seeing what was going on, have joined in the defence of the building. It was unusual to see these images from forgotten wars mixing with modern day soldiers. Long, drooping moustaches, tall sheepskin hats, uniforms draped with gold cord. In fact it would be difficult to say exactly who is defending the White House. Apart from the people and Yevdokimov's ten tanks outside, inside there are the Omon troops and the paratroopers who have come over to our side. There is a group from 'Alex', a commercial bodyguard agency, a number of Afghan vets, one lad in sailor's uniform and the Cossacks. Then there is Yeltsin's official bodyguard, perhaps thirty to forty in all. Altogether there are about three hundred armed people in the building.

There is commotion off to one side. A number of young men with automatics and wearing bullet-proof vests have gone up to a priest and are asking him to baptise them. Are they thinking about God or themselves? I'd forgotten about God, too much to do, and was feeling guilty now. Obviously these people, if they're fated to die, at least want to die as their ancestors did, inside the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church. Several priests are in and around the building. Earlier, I had seen Father Gleb Yakunin, a prominent member of parliament and human rights advocate who was later appointed to the commission investigating the coup. And yesterday I saw a whole 'deputation' of priests passing through the crowd. The priest in the lead was holding a large cross. I found myself thinking: "Who are they? What church are they from?"

It would be a pity not to know. The official position of the Church had been ambiguous from the outset. The first statement from the Patriarchate read like guarded support for the coup. But then, as the situation changed in favour of Yeltsin's people, and Yeltsin himself called on the Church to give its blessing to the defenders of the White House, the tone of later pronouncements from the Patriarchate shifted towards Yeltsin. (Appendix 9) I heard that there was even one priest out there who was an open supporter of the Russian chauvinist organisation 'Pamyat': "I'm not defending the democrats, I don't even like them, but God's law and the law of man are being broken here, and for that reason I have come to the barricades."

Around 1500

Khasbulatov has been to see Anatolii Lukyanov. The Russian Government is demanding that the Soviet Supreme Soviet recognise its responsibilities in the given situation and that Lukyanov, as its chairman, organise a meeting of Yeltsin, Silaev and Khasbulatov with Gorbachev and the coup leaders. (Appendix 10)

Lkyanov remained impassive to Khasbulatov's request and informed him that the KGB have been ordered to take the building.

Around 1700

The meeting is still going on outside on the square. Anyone who wants to is being allowed to speak. There is an announcement over the loudspeakers asking all women to please leave the square within the next half hour.

1715

The same announcement comes over the building's intercom. All women are being asked to leave the building within the next fifteen minutes. The KGB's Alpha Group is expected to launch an assault at 1800. Things are warming up. We escort our women out, some of them are in tears. I feel like crying too. We are about to enter the lift when Seryozha Danilochkin stops us: "Don't take the lift! Use the stairs. If the lifts suddenly get stopped you'll be stuck there until the victory of communism."

Later, coming up from the ground floor to our offices on the fifth (by lift!), I see one of our reporters: she is pale and clutching a cassette recorder to her chest. I ask her why she hasn't left. She answers weakly: "I can't, I have to get this written up for the paper."

1810

The interior of the building is blockaded. Automatics, bullet-proof vests and helmets have been given to the professionals and volunteers on the ground floor. We decide not to arm ourselves. We'll be of greater use if we just keep on printing pamphlets.

The women are gone. We destroy our employees' records and all our business cards. God help us if any of them get caught, they weren't responsible for the paper, they're technicians.

1815

Alexander Rutskoi, the Russian Vice-President, an Air Force Colonel and hero of the Afghanistan War, is on the intercom and loudspeaker system. He orders the White House defenders to move a further fifty metres away from the building. Two armed men are to take up positions at every window on the first floor. They're to begin shooting at the first sign of any attack.

We turn off our computers. But none of us has the strength to leave.

We stop work for an hour, but then begin again.

2000

The attack hasn't come. The Russian Supreme Soviet is in constant session.

2200

Still no attack.

Incredible tension. The people from Russian TV and radio are broadcasting Rutskoi's orders every ten minutes. People outside are standing in the rain thirty metres from the building. Four unbroken ribbons of people circling the White House. We take our pamphlets downstairs. There is no point in throwing them out the window, the rain is too heavy.

Every now and then silence descends on the square: otherwise it's only the sound of motors, first from one direction, then another. I send Sasha Bomza out with the deputies who have been despatched to talk with the troops. He's to get photos. The deputies have run out of cars and are now driving their own. In the despatcher's office in the official car-park in the basement of the White House there is an amazing scene. The chief despatcher is refusing to allow the Supreme Soviet deputies to use the cars assigned to the Council of Ministers. It's enough to drive you crazy, but the apparatchiks are determined to have their way: "Screw the coup! The Supreme Soviet cannot use the Council of Ministers' cars. That's not the way we do things here."

Wednesday, August 21, 1991

Night, I'm not sure what time.

A roar goes up from the crowd. A group of about eight people is moving quickly through the defence perimeters. I recognise one of them immediately: Eduard Shevardnadze. Grey-haired, a touch stooped.

This triumphant shout goes up twice more. The first time with the arrival of General Kobets, whom Yeltsin has appointed Chairman of the Russian Defence Policy Committee, effectively Commander-in-Chief of the Defence of the White House. (Appendix 11) He has arrived to inspect his 'troops'. The second time I can't at first tell who it is. We are sitting on the window sill of the room next to our office. The light is out, but against orders, we have raised the curtains. I can't work out who they're letting through the cordons: a short man in a cap. Then I recognise him - Mstislav Rostropovich, the celebrated cellist! Later he dropped into our offices. Tanya Voloshina interviewed him. Talk about guts: gets on a plane as soon as he hears about the coup and flies straight in from Paris without even telling his wife, just leaves his will! He explains that his home is here with the people defending the White House, and he doesn't intend leaving.

0300

No attack yet.

On the river (we're up on the 11th floor), it looks like some barges have pulled in. At first I thought it was paratroopers or army, but later we heard that the river fleet had sided with Yeltsin and some barges had come up with fire-fighting equipment in case it was needed.

All the lights are off in the central tower. This makes things very difficult. You're moving around this labyrinth of a building in complete darkness. On the eleventh floor the only lights are in the rooms out of which the BBC are working. Two guards with automatics are standing beside the lift which has been turned off: "Can you tell me how to get down to entrance 20?"

There are also guards standing outside our editorial offices on the fifth floor: lads in camouflage uniform, with gas-masks, but unarmed.

The traders from the 'Alisa' broking firm have brought mountains of food to the White House. They bring a tray laden with sandwiches up for us. Right now though, it's hard to think about food.

0350

We get a phone call that people, from two to ten, have been killed in the city. There was a lot of shooting on Kalinin Prospekt. APCs are burning.

A sharp announcement - if the attackers are going to move at all, it has to be soon. We are warned to be on the look-out for groups of people in civilian clothes carrying suspiciously similar and bulky briefcases.

The lift is running again. I go downstairs for gas-masks. The lift doors open into a viscous gloom. A sharp and cold command of "Who's there?!" stops me. I give my name and job here, explaining I have come down for gas-masks: "Has someone told you to expect a gas attack?" I say no but hadn't we all been ordered to get gas-masks? He assents and takes me over to a recessed window sill. There must be a hundred gas-masks lying there. Going back to the lift I glance down one of the corridors. Anti-tank mines strewn about the floor gleam dully in the murky half-light. For a moment my stomach flutters with panic.

Radio Rossia, which it would seem is no longer broadcasting from its makeshift studios but is now coming from some army radio studio, announces that the Vitebsk paratrooper division is moving towards Moscow.

Around 0500

People's Deputies have talked the Vitebsk division into stopping. They are halted on the ring road.

0740

We learn that Gennadii Burbulis has been on the phone to Kryuchkov, Chief of the KGB, twice during the night. Kryuchkov repeated that we had nothing to worry about. Burbulis also talked to Yanaev. After this call, Burbulis says he feels that the coup leaders are no longer in control of the situation. Yanaev told him that his only intention in joining the State Emergency Committee was to improve the economic situation in the country.

Meanwhile Mstislav Rostropovich has found himself in an amusing situation. His bodyguard has fallen asleep with his head resting on the Maestro's shoulder. Rostropovich picks up the guard's automatic and holds on to it while the kid sleeps. When he wakes up, Rostropovich says: "You trusted me with your automatic, now I can trust you with my cello!"

1345

We find out that in a battle with an APC in the tunnel under Kalinin Prospekt, Vladimir Usov, Ilya Krichevskii and an Afghan veteran whose name we don't know have been killed. That is all we know. We do not know if there were any casualties amongst the soldiers.

We have spoken with one of Alexander Yakovlev's assistants. According to him, there has been a meeting at the Defence Ministry at which it has been decided to lift the curfew and withdraw the troops and tanks from the city.

This news cannot wait for a pamphlet. We simply scream it out the window. The news flies around the White House in a matter of moments. Within five minutes it is already coming back to us.

Around 1400

But our euphoria is short lived. Yura Belyavskii brings us quite a different report about the meeting at the Defence Ministry. He says the rumour is not true that Yazov has been replaced, he chaired the meeting himself. Yazov argued that anyone amongst the military who is opposed to the policies of the Emergency Committee and the measures being undertaken should be arrested. It is true that the troops and tanks are to be withdrawn from the city. But only because they are parade units, the Kantemirov and Taman Divisions. Now professional storm troops are going to be brought in to finish the job. We don't know what to think.

1500

We publish an exclusive interview Yeltsin has given Rossia. Our people managed to get to and corner him despite the fuss made by his personal bodyguards: "First, thank you to all the Rossia journalists here in the building, and to all the other journalists from other papers who have supported us at this time... We shall now be doing everything in our power to overthrow the junta. I don't believe it can last more than another three to four days. The people are behind us and I don't believe the military will now move against the people. This is already being shown by those military units which have declared their allegiance to the Russian Government."

"People are asking me how my meeting with Lukyanov went. I would think that he is now quite worried and is backtracking pretty quickly. I hope to be seeing Gorbachev soon. I appeal to the Western mass media: he is completely cut off in Foros, but I hope that he can hear your voices. Tell him that we are trying to contact him."

Finally we know something of Gorbachev's fate. Rutskoi and Silaev are expected at any moment to fly to Foros to try and bring him back to Moscow.

1600

Yeltsin: "All the conspirators from the Emergency Committee have left for Vnukovo Airport. I propose their immediate arrest."

In the editorial office we see this latest news in a different light. The departure of Yanaev and his band is a bad sign. Now the KGB or the army can storm the building with impunity, and then, if necessary, the Emergency Committee will argue that it had no relationship whatsoever to the attack and that it was some Colonel or other taking advantage of the absence from Moscow of the country's 'new leadership'.

On the other hand it could be that the junta have panicked and fled...

Around 1800

Already now for a number of hours, tanks and APCs flying Russian flags have been leaving Moscow along Kiev highway.

The Don Cossacks pay us a visit. They feel that things are sorting themselves out in Moscow and have decided to return to the Don. But they want a set of all of our pamphlets. There must be about thirty altogether by now. For the third night in a row we bed down in the editorial office. Even with my eyes closed I can't help but see the printer churning out pamphlets, pamphlets, pamphlets...

None of us sleep long. Someone brings in pamphlets and publications which other papers have been putting out. It's the first we've seen of what our colleagues in the press have been doing. We decide that some of us should get to work on putting out a proper issue of the paper. The more so in that yesterday the director of the Kommunar printing house where Rossia is printed, rang us and said he was prepared to publish us, despite the injunction banning the paper.

1830

We learn from Pavel Voshchanov, the President's Press Secretary, that Yeltsin has finally managed to get Gorbachev on the phone. The Soviet President expressed his profound gratitude to Boris Nikolaievich and the defenders of the White House. He is flying to Moscow and is itching to sign a decree deposing the Emergency Committee.

On the square a meeting has been going on all day. Yeltsin, Silaev, Bonner, everyone who wants to has spoken. It feels good just to go out on the balcony and drink in the atmosphere.

In the editorial office it's like a free for all. A crowd of people, most of them unfamiliar faces, are standing around the photocopying machines (we've got three now) running off pamphlets. Most of us are standing to one side watching, smoking, relaxing for the first time in three days. We even begin discussing the possibility of getting home that evening. But first we make a deal with the printing house about getting a special edition of Rossia out. It comes out with the other papers that evening. We feel good about that.

2110

'Vremya', the nine o'clock TV news program, announces that the coup leaders have been arrested.

Andrei Dyatlov

19-21/08/91

Notes

[6] RSFSR - Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Supreme Soviet is Russia's highest legislative body. As a popularly elected parliamentary body it is roughly equivalent to the British House of Commons or the American Congress.

[7] Red Star