Issue 9
18.07.02

Chechen diary

17 July 2002  V. Ilyushkin: peacemaking in Chechnya

Vitaly Ilyushkin is an icon-painter. He lives near Volgograd in the village of Berezovskaya. But one can rarely find him there. As a rule, he goes there once a year, in spring, to help his father do the farming. Over the past two years Ilyushkin has been spending almost all his time in Chechnya. He and his brother, a frontier-guard, have set up a committee "Peace in Chechnya" at the Volgograd culture department. On their own money they are buying paint and paper for Chechen children. "Paint and paper is a weapon that can destroy fear and hatred in children who survived the war", Vitaly says. He is a devoted Christian and believes that art can bring peace and rest to children's hearts. He is sure they need it no less than food and clothes. V. Ilyushkin brings good to Chechnya and is adamant in his belief that good will endure. Now, Ilyushkin is eager to set up painting classes for children. He wants them to know more about art, to encourage them to paint not only what they have experienced - burning houses and helicopters, but flowers, trees, their present life. V. Ilyushkin has collected more than 100 drawings by Chechen children and exhibited them in Moscow and Volgograd. In return, children from these cities sent their drawings to Chechen peers. A school student from Moscow wrote on her drawing: "Chechen children! I want you to have peace on the New Year". One believes peace will come. An icon-painter from Volgograd Vitaly is doing his part in the peacemaking effort that is on track in Chechnya. He is doing his best for Chechen children to foster faith in good and inspire them to stand up for the cause of peace. (more from Chechen diary)

16 July 2002  US and Europe deliver humanitarian aid to Chechnya

At a meeting with the Russian Federal Minister for Chechnya's development Vladimir Yelagin, American Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow emphasized that his country was doing its best to stem funding from abroad to Chechen terrorists. "We believe that a stable and peaceful Chechnya is in America's national interests", said the Ambassador. He also noted that settling the conflict in Chechnya was "fully under Russia's authority" and "our Russian partners have every right to choose the most suitable negotiators in their effort to find political solution to the conflict". Mr. Vershbow pointed out that the United States intended to continue delivering humanitarian aid to Chechnya. Chechnya is also receiving aid from other foreign countries and public bodies. The Danish Refugee Council has delivered humanitarian package including vegetable oil, nearly 150 tons of flour, 15 tons of sugar, and 3 tons of salt to Argun and neighbouring Shalinsky district. Unfortunately, part of humanitarian packages still ends up in terrorists' hands. 150 14kg cases with humanitarian aid from the Danish Refugee Council have been lately found near the village of Chozhi-Chu in the Achkhoi-Martan district. Deputy Commander of the Russian federal troops in the North Caucasus Boris Podoprigora said it was not the first time when humanitarian package delivered by the Danish Refugee Council gets into terrorists hands. (more from Chechen diary)

15 July 2002  Chechengazprom Company plays a key role in bringing the situation in Chechnya to normal

The general director of the Chechengazprom Company Said-Amin Umaev says that the republics energy sector is of utmost importance. The company received the federal status in November 2000 and has been under the Russian Energy Ministry. According to S-A. Umaev, the restoration of economic infrastructure, government institutions and peace starts with Chechnyas energy area, especially gas sector. The Chechen economy is mainly consist of mainly cottage industries and various criminal structures. And the government is represented by army and law enforcement agencies. This is abnormal and incorrect. But the number of servicemen and the security service agents can be reduces only when the economy works and industry starts to function. Economic must force out war. The offices of the companies Chechengazprom and Chechenenergo still stand among ruins left by the war but they are forerunners of peace. According to Umaev, the Chechengazprom Company has made significant progress owing to the support by the Russian Fuel and Energy Ministry and state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom. The Chechen Company could start the restoration of technological infrastructure and production quickly after establishing business ties with the Gazprom. S-A. Umaev emphasizes that the Chechen authorities also do there best develop the gas industry. He said that the staff of the company consisted of professionals and highly devoted people has rendered great service in achieving progress. (more from Chechen diary)

Chechen traditions

The pre-islamic customs, manifest in farming festivals
The day of the thunderer Sela

A Chechen legend of the pre-Islamic period says only god Sela, and no one else, had fire in his fireplace at the creation of the world. A thief crept into Sela's house to steal the fire. Furious, Sela hurled a burning log at the thief, glowing embers of which fell down to Earth. Earth would, but for those embers, have remained a cold and desolate place. The Chechens paid tribute to Sela by calling the lightnings Sela's torches, and the rainbow - Sela's hunting bow. They named the month of May and the day we call Wednesday after Sela. It was forbidden to throw away fire ashes and to give one single ember to anyone on Sela's day. Remnants of temples and sanctuaries where people worshipped Sela can still be seen in Chechnya. The ancestors of today's Chechens described this god as "the honorable Sela," "the bright and tactful Sela" and "god of the stars, lightning and fire." They used to bestow special honors on the bodies of people stricken by a lightning. Such dead bodies were entombed in a sitting position and with all their armor in crypts made of hewn slabs of mountain rock. The place where a flash of lightning struck a human being or an animal was considered sacred. Water brought from the sanctuary of Sela was believed to be endowed with healing properties.Highpriests would spoon it out to the ailing and used it to treat eye disorders. Sela the Thunderer's day of the old Chechens shares some of its characteristics with Eliah the Prophet's day of the Christians. Sela's day fell on a Wednesday of the month of Sela - May 22 to June 22. Prayers were said and offerings were made at Sela's sanctuary. A typical prayer would run like this: "Make the sky burst often with thunder. Make the sun heal with its warmth. Let the rain anoint the Earth and let what has been planted grow. Don't let the wind blow heavily in autumn." Or something like this one: "Sela, take people out of harm's way, protect what we have planted from hailstorm and flood, make us take in good crops." (more about traditions...) 

Chechen history

Chechens one the worlds most ancient people

Chechens (self-assumed name nokhchi) are the worlds most ancient people with unique anthropological type and culture. They are the largest ethnic group in the North Caucasus (more than 1 million people). The neighbouring Ingush people are very similar in genotype, culture and religion. Together they form the Vainakh people related by blood, common history, territorial, economic and cultural links and language. Vainakhs (Chechens, Ingushes) are aborigines of the Caucasus and speak Nakh, a language that belongs to the Iberian-Caucasian language family. The Vainakh (Chechen) ethnic and cultural complex was formed on the basis of various aboriginal people. Historically the Chechen community was formed as multi-ethnic and it kept absorbing ethnic elements of nomadic people and neighbouring high-landers, the evidence of which being the non-Vainakh origin of many Chechen clans. The history of Chechnya can be described as a continuing struggle for freedom and independence against outside enemies, in which periods of prosperity alternated with defeats and new attempts to revive the statehood. In the early Middle Ages (4th-12th centuries) Chechens had to take up arms to defend themselves against invaders from Rome, Sasanid Iran, Arab Caliphate and Khazar Kaganate. The centuries-long struggle forged a military union of highlanders and laid the foundation for their statehood.
Early class states on the territory of Chechnya and Daghestan
A state structure of early class type known as Serir kingdom existed in the mountains of Chechnya and Daghestan in the 4th-12th centuries; and the Alan multi-ethnic early feudal state was formed on the plains and foothills of the North Caucasus.The steppes of present-day Chechnya were part of the Khazar Kaganate. So, in the early Middle Ages Vainakh tribes together with kindred peoples of the Caucasus attempted to create their own statehood.The ancestors of Chechen people took an active part in the political life of medieval Georgia, Serir, Alania, Khazaria.
The difficult process of the formation of the Chechen nation
In the 13th 14th centuries Chechens were forced to retreat to the mountains by the Tatar-Mongols. In the late 14th century Tamerlanes troops defeated Semsim state that existed on the territory of Chechnya, after which Chechens suffered a long period of decline. The physical, material and cultural losses of the Vainakh people after the invasion of Tamerlane were so great that the historical link of times and cultures was once again broken. After the fall of the Golden Horde Chechens gradually descended from the mountains and colonized the Chechen plain anew. By that time Chechens knew only too well what the yoke of foreign conquerors and their own feudal lords was like and rejected serfdom as incompatible with the whole of their previous history. In most of Chechnya they revived their traditional lifestyle on a qualitatively new level setting up free communities, where personal freedom became a value in itself but was limited by democratic and strict common law known as Adat. Since then belonging to tribal or feudal aristocracy was not enough for power to become hereditary. Individualism, cult of freedom and democracy were developed so strongly among the Vainakhs that at a certain stage they turned against the people themselves and began to hamper the process of the formation of the Chechen people. It was not accidental , that Chechen communities were at war with one another, and for fear of the elevation of people in their own midst that would create a precedent of power being hereditary, they chose rulers from representatives of either Kumyk or Kabardin dynasties, which, if need be, were easy to get rid of (which they did). Tribal Chechnya was afraid of elevating representatives of any of the Chechen clans. Hence they invited an impartial foreign prince (and the consequences of the baneful tradition are still making themselves felt). Tribes and communities of highlanders all over the world live in big isolation and are notable for their independence and bellicosity. Slavery and serfdom are alien to mountain communities, where every man is a warrior. Feudal lords were able to spread their power on separate areas only and holding it was possible only when there was voluntary support from free and belligerent people. In the mountains family and tribal interests often prevailed over the national interests, so it was difficult to build a stable state structure there. The Chechen community has always been a sort of non-state ethocratic one (in Greek etos means customs). Chechens had a tradition of holding peoples meetings, at which temporary warlords and community chiefs were elected but Vainakhs never had a tsar. For them the problem of consolidation was always a pressing one. Officer of the Russian Imperial Army Umalat Laudaev, a Chechen by origin, wrote in 1872 that a Chechen tribe consisting of numerous families that had quarreled with one another from time immemorial unanimity was alien. Hence residents of Nazran were irreconcilable enemies of Chechens living on the lowlands and on the Terek River; they robbed and killed one another; residents of Shatoi attacked those of the right bank of the Terek River, who responded by kidnapping Shatoi people and selling them into slavery to west Caucasus. Aukhs are closer to Kumyks and Nazranites to Ossetians and Kabardins rather than to their Chechen fellow tribesmen. This absence of unanimity on the part of Chechen communities reduced to minimum the political importance of the country they live in.
The structure of the Chechen society
However, a constant threat coming from foreign enemies made the Chechen society relatively homogeneous and consolidated. Vainakhs institutes of tribal and military democracy and democratic principles of ruling the country lasted longer and developed in conditions different from those of other Caucasian peoples . Due to peculiarities of historical development (fighting against outside enemies) the level of social stratification among Chechens was not high and accordingly, social and class distinctions were underdeveloped. Whatever social conflicts flared up, they were effectively settled within the bounds of a tribe on the basis of common (Adat) and Islamic (Sharia) law. As a result, Chechens, who had a comparatively high level of spiritual, material and household culture, never knew feudalism in its classical form and lived in self-ruling communities. Every clan lived on its historical territory, which was in tribal ownership. All problems of fellow tribesmen on that territory were resolved by the council of elders. Government power and settlement of international, inter-tribal and inter-clan relations fell on elected members of the countrys council, known as mekhka kkhel, which dealt with issues that concerned all Chechen people. If it was necessary the council elected a temporary military chief of the country or byachcha. A characteristic feature of the Chechen society is maximum concentration of power on the local level and delegating power upward if need be. Traditional for the loosely-structured Chechen society was collective-decision making , formed on the basis of consensus. Independent Chechen communities never tolerated autocratic rule and tyranny and never bowed to superiours let alone elevated them. Most developed among the Vainakhs was the sense of honour, justice, equality and collectivism. This is a peculiar feature of Chechen mentality. (more about history...) 

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