October 12, 2023

Kadyrov: A Medal for My Son


Kadyrov: A Medal for My Son
Ramzan Kadyrov with his son Adam in the background. Eli Dror, Twitter.

The Head of the Chechen State, Ramzan Kadyrov, awarded his son Adam the "Hero of Chechnya" medal. The reason? In a video recorded by his father, the 15-year-old can be seen beating up a prisoner in a pre-trial jail who has been accused of burning a Qu'ran.

On May 22, Nikita Zhuravel allegedly burned a Qu'ran in front of a mosque in Volgograd and was subsequently arrested on charges of insulting the feelings of believers. Volgograd's authorities have also accused Zhuravel of sending a video of his Islamophobic action to the Ukrainian Secret Services. Zhuravel was sent to a detention center in Grozny, Chechnya, where he awaits trial.

In mid-August, Zhuravel reported that Adam Kadyrov, the son of the Chechen Head of State, had attacked him in a detention center. Chechen police refused to charge the 15-year-old for assault. In fact, Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video of the beating on his social media, applauding his son's actions. Shortly after, he awarded his son with the medal "Hero of Chechnya," the highest regional award, for his extrajudicial punishment of the prisoner.

Kadyrov has governed Chechnya since 2007, not long after his father, then president of Chechnya, was assassinated. A close ally of the Russian president, Kadyrov called for the 2024 elections to be canceled due to the war, or to have Vladimir Putin as the only candidate.

 

You Might Also Like

Strangers on a Train
  • July 09, 2023

Strangers on a Train

A Russian journalist recounts a very telling encounter in a train from Tula to Moscow.
Prigozhin's Uprising
  • June 24, 2023

Prigozhin's Uprising

Russia's home-grown mercenaries have taken over Rostov-on-Don and threaten to march on the capital.
War and Beef
  • June 07, 2023

War and Beef

Sculptures of soldiers and tanks made from ground meat are making waves.
Dentist Kadyrov
  • July 04, 2022

Dentist Kadyrov

Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov isn't a dentist. But that didn't stop him from being awarded the Russian Order of Merit for Dentistry.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

The Latchkey Murders
July 01, 2015

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
November 01, 2012

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955