Chechnya Votes

Behind the Ballot Boxes, Situation Normal

GROZNY, CHECHNYA — Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, Chechnya’s deputy prime minister, was adamant: there is no war in Chechnya. The situation here is perfectly normal, he said, apart from a few bandits. And it is getting more normal all the time. As for some 80,000 refugees that remain in neighboring Ingushetia, often living in very difficult conditions, Abdurakhmanov said he just did not get it. “We are offering them apartments in Grozny. Why do they need to stay in their hen houses in Ingushetia?”

For six-year-old, fair-haired Bislan, the answer to the prime minister’s question is engraved on his belly. Four years ago, Russian forces surrounded his village of Tsotsen Yurt, in western Chechnya, and set his house ablaze. His mother Rosa, a gaunt woman in her mid-thirties, has five other children and is expecting yet another. She cried when she recalled that day.

“The Russians stayed in our village for a week. They dragged the sick out of hospital to beat them up and kill them, they beat me and my husband up, then they seized my husband’s brother, they scarred his face, they carved a cross into his chest with a knife, and finally they cut his throat.” When the mop up operation, or “zachistka” in Russian, was over, many in the village were dead or missing.

Rosa and her family live in dreadful conditions in Altiyevo, a makeshift camp in Ingushetia set up in a former stable, where hygiene is poor at best. The eight of them are cramped in a 15 m2 room. Rosa washes clothes in a manger. There is hardly any work for her husband; humanitarian aid is scarce, and, while there is a kindergarten in the camp, her children often miss school.

But mention to her the possibility of returning to Chechnya, and her answer will be a straightforward “no.” “It is much too dangerous there, we are way too afraid. Here, at least, we are more or less safe,” she said.

Even today, civilians continue to be killed or go missing in Chechnya, said Shakhman Akbulatov, an official with the Ingush office of Memorial, a Russian human rights organization.

“For the last year, federal forces have been resorting less to massive mop-up operations, but the number of targeted operations centering on one apartment, or one family, has increased dramatically, and the number of people killed or abducted is just as high as it used to be,” Arkbulatov said.

“Hooded people will come at night, seize someone and drive away with him. In the best of cases, that person’s body will be found somewhere in Chechnya several months later. Refugees know this, and that is why most of them will not willingly go back,” he added.

So Russian authorities are pressuring them to return, so that they can say that Chechnya is “normalizing.” In the past year, authorities have closed down two of Ingushetia’s largest and best-working camps. The pattern is always the same, said Lokhren Gyunter, a 45-year-old Chechen woman who used to live at Bela camp (shut down in September), and who relocated to nearby Tsatsita camp. The authorities send officials to intimidate the refugees, then they turn off the gas and electricity. Finally, the refugees have no choice but to leave.

“In order to be given a tent in Tsatsita camp,” Gyunter said, “we had to sign a statement saying we will return to Chechnya.” The Russians know the statements are false and that refugees will just go elsewhere in Ingushetia, but this enables them to show official lists of returnees.

But the situation in Chechnya is anything but normal. Drive there from neighboring Dagestan, and the border crossing is shocking. Dagestan is by-and-large a peaceful region, where no particular security measures are visible. But everything changes once you cross into Chechnya. All of a sudden there are heavily armed soldiers everywhere. In Dagestan, our bus of foreign journalists on a Kremlin-organized press tour was accompanied by just one official car. In Chechnya, there are seven police cars in front of us, plus an armored vehicle with ten soldiers (some of them hooded) on top. Other vehicles follow behind. It is the only way foreigners can legally travel around this normalized republic.

Each time our convoy stops, soldiers immediately jump from the accompanying vehicles and deploy themselves on the road, weapons at the ready.

Military checkpoints follow in rapid succession. Large blocks of concrete force cars to slow down. By the side of the road, soldiers monitor the traffic from blockhouses barricaded with barbed wire and sand bags. Most checkpoints are also guarded by tanks.

When we step out of our bus to visit polling stations, Russian soldiers immediately cordon us off, doing their utmost to prevent us from moving about freely and having too much contact with locals.

In Dagestan, Sasha, one of our Kremlin minders, was rather laid back, even occasionally joking. But after entering Chechnya, he underwent a radical change. He is now visibly tense, sometimes bordering on the hysterical, repeatedly checking that we are all there and, when we are outside, constantly demanding that we go back to the bus. Sometimes, when he thinks I linger too long to talk with the locals, he or one of his colleagues physically pushes me back to the bus. The Kremlin may claim to all who care to hear that it has Chechnya under control and that the situation is getting back to normal, but actions speak louder than words.

As we close on Grozny, the Chechen capital, we see an ever-growing number of destroyed houses. A few miles outside the city, we pass Khankala, Russia’s largest military base in Chechnya. It is a huge complex that sprawls over several miles. Several fires are kept burning constantly here. The smoke they produce conceals the movements of helicopters, making them less vulnerable to Chechen rebels firing rocket launchers.

Grozny is the epicenter of destruction in Chechnya. There is hardly a building left standing. Those less damaged are riddled with bullet holes. Many were gutted by artillery shells and air raids when Russian forces stormed the city at the beginning of the war. That was four years ago. With few exceptions, nothing has been rebuilt.

Leninsky Prospekt, which used to be Grozny’s main thoroughfare, is mostly lined with rubble. Yet right in the middle of the ruins a tiny public garden, planted with bright red flowers, has just been built. It creates an eerily surreal feeling.

Not far away, a ceramic portrait of Lenin, still miraculously intact on a factory wall, stares at the destruction.

During the day, there is a measure of life on the capital’s streets. There are many cars, and people on the sidewalks sell poor quality petrol in glass jars. But at night the city seems totally deserted. No one dares to go out, said Alima, a 30-year-old accountant.

“If you go out at night, there is every chance you will be abducted and never return,” she said. “There are armed bands roaming the city at night, and the worst thing is, we do not even know who they are. They might be Russian soldiers, or the police, or God knows who else.”

Like more than half of Grozny’s population, Alima had to leave her home after it was destroyed by an artillery shell. But, since she is fortunate enough to have a steady monthly income (albeit just 100 dollars), she was able to move to another apartment in the capital, which she rents. However, as in almost all flats in Grozny, there is no running water. Alima has to buy her water on the street from private water vendors. Gas is also scarce, and is available only a few hours a day.

In the center of Grozny, 60-year-old Zura and her son Murat, a tall, dark-haired 28-year-old, have an even harder time. Before the beginning of the first Chechen war, in 1994, Zura had a regular job in a factory. But, like most of the city’s businesses, the plant was destroyed. Now, she sells groceries in a makeshift stall. Murat is studying history at Grozny’s university which, amazingly, is still open, as are a number of schools in the city. But Murat nevertheless said he cannot see what kind of future he has. “I am totally in a haze. My studies will not give me a job. I can hardly think about tomorrow, and, beyond that, it is downright impossible. We have been living in chaos for years.”

There is, however, one place in Chechnya that looks like what Moscow would like the rest of the world to believe exists everywhere. It is Tsentoroy, home village of the newly-elected, pro-Kremlin president, Akhmad Kadyrov. There, the war seems never to have happened. Not only are there no traces of destruction, no stories of mop-up operations or insecurity, but the place is awash with freshly-built houses. Tsentoroy looks prettier and more prosperous than many a village in the Moscow region. Everybody, of course, says that they support Kadyrov and that Chechnya should be part of Russia.

But even here there is a darker side: near the center of the village stands the headquarters of Kadyrov’s feared private militia. No one knows exactly how many men answer directly to Kadyrov. The president says fewer than sixty, but most estimates vary from 500 to several thousand. There have been numerous accusations against the militia of abductions, summary executions and pillaging, all denied by Kadyrov. The high walls and gates are heavily guarded by uniformed, sub-machinegun-toting militiamen. Inside, another formidable gate (even more heavily guarded) leads to Kadyrov’s home, where cane armchairs await guests in a pleasant inner patio.

Back at Altiyevo, Ingushetia, teachers at the camp’s kindergarten show visitors drawings made by refugee children. Several of them show armed people, tanks firing at houses and planes dropping bombs. This is nothing to be surprised about, said Raisa, the portly camp head who is herself a Chechen refugee. “When my six year old son gets mad at me, he says: ‘When I grow up, I will be a Russian and I will kill everyone.’”

— Eric Helque