She survived horrors that most people could never imagine. Her true story of abduction, captivity and survival tells the frightening events and the one thing that kept her going – hope.
By Elena Nikitina
Abduction
“The fear settled inside me… It was excruciating… It was rapidly destroying me.”
Imagine you are walking home alone one evening. Suddenly, you are assaulted, drugged and kidnapped. Strange men drive you through the night and keep you prisoner in a dark, tiny room. You don’t know who they are. You don’t know what they want. They speak a language you don’t even understand.
This happened to me.
When I was 21, I was abducted off the streets of my hometown in southern Russia by a group of Chechen criminals. It was 1994. Three weeks after my 21st birthday, in the evening of October 4th, I was hanging with my friends out at the restaurant, just across the road from my home. We were having fun, celebrating our youth, beauty, bright future and great hopes. I got into an argument with my boyfriend over something silly and decided to leave the party.
And the next thing I knew – I was in a car surrounded by strangers speaking in the foreign language. My abductors kept me prisoner in a tiny room at first, then later in a dirt cellar under a house. I was utterly alone – no friends, no family, nothing… Every day, I had to knock on the door to my room, so that a blank-eyed gunman with an AK-47 would let me out and walk me to the bathroom under his supervision.
During my first days in captivity, I had no idea where I was, why I was there, and I didn’t even understand what anyone was saying. After a while they told me I was kidnapped and they tried to ransom me back to my mother. They told me I was taken to Chechnya.
Endless Days
Every day was the same – it did not come to an end, but transitioned to the next, looking exactly like the previous one. Short dreamless nights turned into endless, pointless days, full of hope in the morning and sorrow by nightfall. I would have preferred to never wake up at all, until the day of my salvation. I was pretty certain that one dark night the salvation would come. The special police forces – a SWAT team – would storm into the building and save me.
Then a brutal civil war broke out. Chechnya had declared its independence from Russia, and Russia would not allow it. The Russian army invaded Chechnya, but no SWAT TEAM was coming for me. All contacts were cut off. The country plunged into darkness. There was no electricity, and no telephone service.
Events went from bad to worse. Life became very cheap, very quickly. Tiny Chechnya became an apocalyptic killing zone. There could be no negotiations for my release. I was one lost soul, powerless, and at the mercy of hardened killers in a land where innocent people were dying every day. I was always in darkness, always under threat. I felt like one lost soul, totally powerless, at the mercy of criminals. But now these gangsters suddenly saw themselves as patriotic freedom fighters. And I was their enemy – the face of the invader.
Everywhere – horror in captivity
I saw decapitated young soldiers, their heads decorating the trees like Christmas bulbs. I saw bloodstained city streets, the bombed out wrecks of tanks and jeeps still burning. The captors threatened to cut me into pieces and shoot me. I saw things I have trouble thinking about.
Through eight horrifying months of captivity – witnessing atrocities, surviving bombings and sexual violence – I fought desperately to stay alive, stay sane and to not lose the one thing that kept me going: hope.
Survival
I survived to tell my story. My book, GIRL, TAKEN – A True Story of Abduction, Captivity and Survival,” became my closure and rekindled the spirits of other people with similar experiences.
Listen to an interview with Elena Nikitina here.
Author Bio: Kidnapping and war survivor, Elena Nikitina is the author of “Girl, Taken – A True Story of Abduction, Captivity and Survival.” She was born and raised in Russia, immigrated to the USA in 2000 and received political asylum. She is a proud mother, public speaker and Ohio Licensed Real Estate Agent, currently working on her next book.
