Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [221]
Anna has been born into that different world completely normal and perfect.
Her killers are heading the same way, and they will be monsters.
I remember …
A Healthy Dog in a Big City
Van Gogh the bloodhound joined the Politkovskaya family just over two years ago. The puppy had problems, and his need was not so much for food and injections (well, not only that), as for selfless and all-enveloping love. He wallowed in love, and gave as good as he got to his owners.
Anna related this extraordinary doggy history, which says no less about her as a journalist and a human being than her reports and investigations, in the pilot color issue of Novaya gazeta in September 2005. We reprinted the article (Novaya gazeta, No. 77, “A Sick Dog in a Big City”) two days after the tragedy at Lesnaya Street. Readers responded with a barrage of phone calls asking what had happened to van Gogh. At our request, Anna Politkovskaya’s daughter Vera updates us on van Gogh:
Van Gogh is fine. His mood seems to have returned to normal. At first, of course, he appeared rather lost, but he is feeling much better now. For the first week after October 7 it was as if he was waiting for someone. He was off his food and didn’t play with his toys. Anybody with a dog will recognise the symptoms.
Now van Gogh is leading a normal doggy life. We take him to the vet regularly, but he is healthy now and does not need special treatment. My mother simply rescued him from a dire situation when he was a puppy. We despaired and did not know what to do, but she nursed him back to health and now he is over those problems and behaves quite normally, except that he is still afraid of people, especially men.
Van Gogh is living with us and enjoys all the blessings of a normal life. He and I have been friends for a long time: when my mother was away on assignments, she left me in charge of van Gogh, so we have loved each other for years. Nobody knew him better than Mother and I.
Van Gogh shows no signs of giving up old habits. You can say goodbye to any boots or shoes left unattended in the hallway. His preference is for leather shoes but recently, in the absence of such delicacies, he chewed his favorite toy to pieces. It is beyond repair. He used to bring it to everyone who came into the house if he wasn’t afraid of them. It was his traditional way of showing he trusted someone, and since traditions should be respected we will find him a replacement toy.
He has a trainer who helps us when some particular aspect of his upbringing is beyond us, but we no longer have the earlier problems with him. He is a bloodhound, of course, a hunting dog, but two years ago we bought a puppy with the sole aim of having a friend living in our family.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA’S AWARDS
2000
January. Moscow. Golden Pen Prize of the Russian Union of Journalists for reports on the struggle against corruption.
2001
January. Moscow. “Journalists Against Corruption” Prize, Russian Union of Journalists with support from the Soros Foundation.
Special prize of the Russian Union of Journalists, “A Good Deed and a Kind Heart.” For aid to an old people’s home in Grozny. During bombing Anna managed to organise the evacuation of old and forgotten people to safe regions.
February. Moscow. Winner’s Certificate in the Golden Gong 2000 competition, with a bronze statuette of the goddess Iris. For a series of articles from Chechnya.
April. Washington. Inaugural winner of the Artyom Borovik Prize for Investigative Journalism, established in the USA by CBS and the Overseas Press Club and awarded by the Pulitzer Committee. For detailed chronicling of the Chechen War.
July. London. Global Award for Human Rights Journalism, Amnesty International’s highest award. For a series of reports on torture in Chechnya, and for many years of reporting from the Republic.
2002
London. Most Courageous Defence of Free Expression Prize from Index on Censorship.
October. Los Angeles. Courage in Journalism Award of the International