If Chechens have been damaged, by this conflict, then so have Russians, and Seierstad does not take sides when narrating tales of individual misery. When Timur could stand it no longer, he ran away. He and his half-sister Liana were sent to live with an uncle who brutalised them, forcing them on the streets to beg or steal, beating them with a red-hot cable if they came home empty-handed. His father joined the resistance and was killed his mother died a couple of years later. Timur was a baby when Russia invaded the Republic of Chechnya at the end of 1994.
The Angel of Grozny reads at times almost like a novel the pity is that Seierstad isn't making it up. Åsne Seierstad, who has spent time with such children, tells their stories with poignancy and compassion. But he's not a wolf: he's an 11-year-old child, one of many whose lives have been blighted, by the Chechen wars.
Pretending to be a wolf gets him through the days, and gives him courage in the cold and frightening nights.
He knows how to kick and how to smash a dog's skull.
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