Issue 2
24.06.02

Chechen diary

24 June 2002  A month-long campaign to improve and plant trees in the Itum-Kale district

The residents of the mountainous district of Itum Kale have decided to put their settlements in order. They planted thousands of apricot and plum trees in vacant plots and lime and fir trees along the roads. They cleaned fences and painted them, put the gardens in order and repaired roads and bridges. The heads of rural administrations and enterprises organized people to remove garbage. According to the chairman of the commission in charge of the campaign, deputy head of the Itum-Kalinsk administration Saludin Bakhaev, the active participants will be awarded certificates of the administration in a ceremony. Among them are the head of the departments of trade and culture Makaschev and Zaurbekov. The workers of the road maintaining enterprise also worked well. Teachers will receive special thanks for using the campaign to cultivate love to work and hometown in children. They worked together with their pupils. After the campaign the villages of Veduchi, Tasbichi, Gukhoi and Guchum-Kale became more clean and beautiful. Residents of the district hope that they will rebuild and repair all houses shortly. The Chechen government is now selecting a general contractor to do the construction work in Itum-Kale. (more from site)

23 June 2002  Public organization Bart marks its 10th anniversary

Public organization Bart or Accord has marked its 10th anniversary in Volgograd. It embraces about 60 000 Chechens living in the city on the river Volga and its vicinity. They mainly live in shepherd villages. One of them Musa Ukhiev has been living there since he left Chechnya almost 30 years ago. He has been herding sheep at the state pedigree sheep farm. He says that Chechens and local people live in harmony. When bandits abducted the daughter of the chairman of the farm several years ago he and other Chechens had to experience a difficult time. Chechens helped to find the girl and went to Chechnya. Fortunately, they could return her to her parents. The girls father did not accuse local Chechens even in the disparate days. There were several such incidents and Chechen elders helped to find the abducted people. The chairman of the organization Bart Vakhid Schamaev says that the Chechens living in the region try to maintain good relations with local people. The organization cooperates with the local authorities. This is the reason why no ethnic conflicts break out in the region. (more from site)

Chechen culture

Traditional Folk Arts
Mens and womens national costume

This costume reflects accepted esthetic principles and traditional lifestyles. Most materials for it are produced locally. They are leather, sheepskin, wool, woolen cloth and thick felt. Most men traditionally wore a waisted garment called beshmet a sort of tight semi-caftan reaching 8 to 10 centimeters above the knee (or a little lower in older men) and usually buttoned up from the waist to the neck using string buttons and button nooses of string. It has a stand-up collar and banana sleeves with buttons of the same type. It sometimes also has a wool or cotton wool lining for warmth. Materials for beshmets range from crude cotton cloth to expensive industrially-manufactured woolen cloth or even satin and silk, depending on occasion and wearers means. The colour may be anything from grey to bright red or blue. In old times, no undergarment was supposed to be worn underneath the beshmet. Mens pants sharply narrow down and disappear into knee-high stockings of woolen cloth, usually with leather garters under the knee. In combination with soft footgear of morocco leather or rawhide, such clothing makes for easy and noiseless movement across difficult mountainous terrain and is ideal for hunting, herding and waging war. It also stresses virility by accentuating thin waist, broad shoulders, elegance and good bearing. On festive occasions, Chechen men supplemented the beshmet with a light overall called cherkeska in fact another beshmet of thin woolen cloth, but without a collar, with a single button on the waist and with flared sleeves reaching below the hands. Such sleeves are usually seen rolled up. The cherkeska is recognizable by its symmetrical chest rows of gazyrnitzas narrow vertical patch pockets for shotgun or rifle cartridges. The advent of the repeat rifle in the late 19th century reduced the gazyrnitsas to traditional decoration. A narrow waist belt around a buttoned cherkeska usually served for carrying daggers, swords and pistols. Chechnyas high-rise environment often required the wearing of one more overall called burka a bell- shaped sheepskin cover for keeping warm and dry, particularly on horseback. In the nighttime, a burka became an almost ideal sleeping bag. (in detail...) 

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