GORI, Georgia — In retreat, the Georgian soldiers were so tired they could not keep from stumbling. Their arms were loaded with rucksacks and ammunition boxes; they had dark circles under their eyes. Officers ran up and down the line, barking for them to go faster.
All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions.
As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again.
One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.
“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”
It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?
Since the conflict began, Western leaders have worked frantically to broker a cease-fire. But for Georgians — so boisterously pro-American that Tbilisi, the capital, has a George W. Bush Street — diplomacy fell far short of what they expected.
Even in the hinterlands, at kebab stands and in farming villages, people fleeing South Ossetia saw themselves as trapped between great powers. Ossetian refugees heading north to Russia gushed their gratitude to Dmitri A. Medvedev and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leaders. Georgians around Gori spoke of America plaintively, uncertainly. They were beginning to feel betrayed.
“Tell your government,” said a man named Truber, fresh from the side of the Tbilisi hospital bed where his son was being treated for combat injuries. “If you had said something stronger, we would not be in this.”
He had not slept for three days, and he was angry — at himself, at Georgia, but mainly at the United States. “If you want to help, you have to help the end,” he said.
Meanwhile, the influx of Ossetians into southern Russia continued Sunday, as the police escorted convoys of minibuses up the Zaramakh highway and through the mountain tunnel that is the only route into Russia.
The Russian authorities estimated that 34,000 refugees had crossed the border, and 3,000 more evacuations were planned for Monday.
The Ossetians emerged onto a four-lane highway whose edges had been chopped to pieces by columns of Russian armor. Around them were mountains shrouded by fog.
Tatiana Gobozoyeva was riding in a van with 20 other refugees, many of whom had spent four days huddled in dirty basements. She said she considered the United States responsible for the Georgian aggression.
Pyotr Bezhov, who fled the violence with his daughter Oksana on Sunday, stood by a dusty dirt road.
“The biggest problem here is you, your country,” he said. “You said that the Soviets were an evil empire, but it’s you that are the empire.
“Not you personally, of course,” he added. “But your government.”
On the other side of the line of battle, Georgians had begun to question the strength of their alliance with the United States.
In recent years, Mr. Bush has lavished praise on Georgia — and the so-called Rose Revolution that brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power — as a model of democracy-building. The feeling was mutual: when Mr. Bush visited Tbilisi in 2005, the authorities estimated that 150,000 people showed up to see him. He famously climbed up on a platform and wiggled his hips to loud Georgian folk music.
Those exuberant days seemed very distant around Gori on Sunday, as people fled, leaving behind corn fields and apple orchards. A group of men tried mightily to push a truck with a blown-out tire, but it got stuck on the road, and they finally abandoned it.
Gato Tkviavi lingered in Tirzini, a village of one-story houses where cows were wandering through the streets.
Asked where the border with South Ossetia was, he pointed at his feet. “The border is where the Russians say it is,” he said. “It could be here, or it could be Gori.”
The grimmest among the Georgians were the soldiers, haggard, unshaven and swinging their Kalashnikovs. A group of them had piled onto a flatbed truck, crowding on in such numbers that some were sitting on the roof, their feet dangling over the windshield.
One, who gave his name as Major Georgi, spoke with anger.
“Write exactly what I say,” he said. “Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society. I was happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us.”
All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions.
As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again.
One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.
“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”
It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?
Since the conflict began, Western leaders have worked frantically to broker a cease-fire. But for Georgians — so boisterously pro-American that Tbilisi, the capital, has a George W. Bush Street — diplomacy fell far short of what they expected.
Even in the hinterlands, at kebab stands and in farming villages, people fleeing South Ossetia saw themselves as trapped between great powers. Ossetian refugees heading north to Russia gushed their gratitude to Dmitri A. Medvedev and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian leaders. Georgians around Gori spoke of America plaintively, uncertainly. They were beginning to feel betrayed.
“Tell your government,” said a man named Truber, fresh from the side of the Tbilisi hospital bed where his son was being treated for combat injuries. “If you had said something stronger, we would not be in this.”
He had not slept for three days, and he was angry — at himself, at Georgia, but mainly at the United States. “If you want to help, you have to help the end,” he said.
Meanwhile, the influx of Ossetians into southern Russia continued Sunday, as the police escorted convoys of minibuses up the Zaramakh highway and through the mountain tunnel that is the only route into Russia.
The Russian authorities estimated that 34,000 refugees had crossed the border, and 3,000 more evacuations were planned for Monday.
The Ossetians emerged onto a four-lane highway whose edges had been chopped to pieces by columns of Russian armor. Around them were mountains shrouded by fog.
Tatiana Gobozoyeva was riding in a van with 20 other refugees, many of whom had spent four days huddled in dirty basements. She said she considered the United States responsible for the Georgian aggression.
Pyotr Bezhov, who fled the violence with his daughter Oksana on Sunday, stood by a dusty dirt road.
“The biggest problem here is you, your country,” he said. “You said that the Soviets were an evil empire, but it’s you that are the empire.
“Not you personally, of course,” he added. “But your government.”
On the other side of the line of battle, Georgians had begun to question the strength of their alliance with the United States.
In recent years, Mr. Bush has lavished praise on Georgia — and the so-called Rose Revolution that brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power — as a model of democracy-building. The feeling was mutual: when Mr. Bush visited Tbilisi in 2005, the authorities estimated that 150,000 people showed up to see him. He famously climbed up on a platform and wiggled his hips to loud Georgian folk music.
Those exuberant days seemed very distant around Gori on Sunday, as people fled, leaving behind corn fields and apple orchards. A group of men tried mightily to push a truck with a blown-out tire, but it got stuck on the road, and they finally abandoned it.
Gato Tkviavi lingered in Tirzini, a village of one-story houses where cows were wandering through the streets.
Asked where the border with South Ossetia was, he pointed at his feet. “The border is where the Russians say it is,” he said. “It could be here, or it could be Gori.”
The grimmest among the Georgians were the soldiers, haggard, unshaven and swinging their Kalashnikovs. A group of them had piled onto a flatbed truck, crowding on in such numbers that some were sitting on the roof, their feet dangling over the windshield.
One, who gave his name as Major Georgi, spoke with anger.
“Write exactly what I say,” he said. “Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society. I was happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us.”
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