Out of all the sounds that defined my childhood, the one that stands out is the noise from military helicopters crossing the sky in August 2008. I watched them, hoping against hope that they were not Russian. But they were. The Russian letters were clearly visible on their sides. I did not know what an actual fear was until I saw that aluminum flying machine.

For Mariam, 24, the heaviness of silence defines her memories of the 2008 war. 

“I was only nine, but not so little that I did not realize how frightening silence can be.  I could only hear the sounds of the river that flows next to our house and watch my mom staring at one dot in the darkness for a long time. That’s what I got very afraid of, I thought my mother would just freeze in place and never move again. I have never heard this type of silence in my life,” she recalls.  

Even now, 15 years since the war, she always tries to create a space that rejects silence.

Silence also colors the memories of Anka, 24. 

“The voice I remember from the war is the silence. It was the first thing I heard when I woke up that morning. Before that, we could always hear other children chattering,” she says. “The first morning of the war started with silence and it gradually got bigger. We could not hear the joy of 40 children playing in the backyard anymore, but the noises of footsteps of 4 of us silently walking down the village street.”

Psychologist Maia Tsiramua explains that as children are not capable of understanding the true nature of war—or any trauma—their bodies process the experience in different ways. 

“War is the first brutal invasion of the childhood when the system of beliefs is not thoroughly developed yet, when a child does not know what a disaster means,” says psychologist, Maia Tsiramua. “A mother might not voice anything, but if her body is numb, frozen with fear and uncertainty, her body becomes a speaker of the story that is itself silent. Therefore, the child might learn fear from the body language. The trauma might be transmitted from generation to generation by non-verbal nature. The war was passed onto children by silence.”

The Russian war in Georgia, known by the Russian army as “Operation to Force Georgia to Peace,” started on August 7, 2008, when the Georgian government announced that 150 Russian army vehicles had entered Georgian territory through the Roki Tunnel. 

At the time, Anka and her family were on a holiday in one of the small towns of Georgia, Pasanauri, roughly 100 miles (165 km) from the Russian border. As she recalls, it was a phone call that made her think that she and her family were in danger.“This was the first realization I had that my summer holidays were put on hold indefinitely. Everything that resembled a non-stop playground began to suddenly break down as I heard my mom talking to my father on the phone whispering that the war had started. And the fear of uncertainty was unstoppable from that time on.” She remembers it fragmentally, but has a vivid memory of feeling that the rhythm of her life has changed. She recalls standing on the threshold of a door. She wished everything would go back to normal when she would step out. But she was instantly met with much more panic. 

Tsiramua notes that children are not capable of fully realizing the “scale of war.”

“The trauma might embody a person through various ways,” she notes. 

For Anka, the war took shape from the chopping noises from helicopters in the air, sounds of explosions and the constant noises from the radio and TV broadcasting endless reports on how various regions of Georgia were bombed, with horrifying pictures of a young man holding his dead brother, crying for help. At some point, the shock started to seep into every aspect of her life, even the games she and the other children played.

Tinano, 24, recalls a similar reaction as the war unfolded near Tsaghveri, Georgia, where she and her family were vacationing. 

“Feeling-wise, I could not realize I was experiencing a war. I was not bothered by any detail that could interrupt my summer days, as everything would eventually become part of the game. I remember a lot of helicopters and the excitement as we were rushing out every time to see them in the sky. Then one person just mentioned that we should probably be afraid of them. But I do not remember the feeling that something should have evoked fear.” 

Gocha, 24, remembers a strange excitement during those days, as he saw the helicopters for the first time. “After coming back to school, my classmates and I were comparing our experiences, bragging about the amount of aircraft we saw. But I also remember the feeling of endless anger,” he says, recalling how his father would speak about the crowded restaurants in the capital Tbilisi even as people were fleeing other parts of Georgia.

Lasha, 24, was just nine when he and his family experienced the war first hand. They were staying at his village house with his grandmother and one-year-old brother in Senaki, a town in western Georgia that was targeted by the Russians due to a nearby military base. 

“I remember an ear-shattering sound, as if the bomber went over the roof. The whole house shook. The windows got smashed. I remember crying and screaming,” he says. My family reminded me that they could not bring me to my senses for hours.” The desperation lasted for the whole night. After the bombing, some neighbors moved to his grandmother’s house, which had a solid-built first floor. His grandmother said that it endured many wars during her lifetime.

“We dragged the beds on the first floor…Whenever [my mother] went to the second floor to make food for us, I was always afraid that she was so far from me, and – in danger,” he says.

As the situation quickly escalated, and Russians were attacking the region from every side, so the family decided to flee to Tbilisi but they became trapped in Khashuri due to troop movements on the highway. While they were there, the Russians occupied Khashuri, so they took refuge again. 

“We realized, once again, we were not safe. Several times, my father went outside and after coming back, he told strange stories", Lasha says, noting his family spent their evenings inventing ways they would punish then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the war. 

Psychologist Maia Tsiramua explains that when children have been exposed to traumatic events, symptoms can vary. For some, the repercussions linger, at times even developing into a post-traumatic stress disorder that can be triggered by memories or events. 

“For instance, it is characteristic for a traumatized person that the past possesses the present. It has involuntary invasions into present time through triggers, which can be images, sounds and all that is enough for a person to experience that particular past state of being again,” she says.

“When the anniversary approaches, a person might feel on the edge, as the same dates of August might alter their personal emotional state. Even when a person has managed to overcome it, these days do not lose their symbolic significance. This is why people try to be part of rituals, in order to recontextualise it in the present.” 

Anka and her friends have a tradition of meeting at least once a year. 

"The conversation leads to our memories of the August war. That's because the trauma is still vivid,” she says. “2008 is an open wound in my life that has never been healed since."

For Tinano, the entire month of August has come to symbolize the terror of the 2008 war. 

“I believe it is a universal collective experience for our generation to listen to our friends’ wartime stories,” she says.  “Each one of us was touched by it in some way. I do not like August for this reason. From the outset, August is a month of holidays, yet it is entangled with the anniversaries of collective traumas Georgia has experienced.”

She adds that her experiences as a child were brought to the fold when Russia invaded Ukraine.  

“When the war started in Ukraine, you somehow realize that there is a child who is also nine years old, has friends and wants to play, as you once did,” Tinano says. “They cannot comprehend what is going on. This is very painful for me.”

Lasha remembers feeling a wave of helplessness and desperation during the first days of the invasion. 

“It feels like we’re still going through the same experience,” he says. “The old traumas eventually come back, but now with rational minds, we try to reexamine it in our own ways.”

Gocha notes that, as children, they lacked the ability to analyze what was happening in the country or the events that led up to the war. 

“We only have an emotional attachment to the August War. We could not label this experience, as we did not have anything to compare it to,” he explains. “Now, we have collectively come to a universal understanding of what Ukraine currently endures. The feeling of heaviness is always with us as a background, no matter how we might enjoy other experiences in life. No one has helped us to overcome this part of our past. It is as if it froze in time, and melted when the Russo-Ukrainian war started.”

The article was prepared with support from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) South Caucasus Regional Office. All opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of FES.