The Information Channel Felist.Com -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 17 15.08.02 Chechen culture Education Higher education institutes in Chechnya Three institutes of higher education are functioning in the Chechen capital Grozny at the moment. The Chechen State University was until the late 80s one of the leading institutes in the North Caucasus. Founded in 1972 it had 9 faculties and 34 sub-departments with more than 60 Doctors and over 300 Candidates working there. The University had a solid scientific base, technical laboratories and a rich library. Every year it published collections of works on technical and humanitarian sciences and regularly held international, national and regional conferences and seminars. During the 1994-1996 military operations the Universitys wings were destroyed. But some time later classes resumed on the premises of a boarding-school in Olympiisky district in Grozny and went on until October 1999. In March 2000 the University resumed work again. Despite the difficult times and destruction it published several monographs and text-books and 300 scientific articles. 2 theses for the PHD degree and 7 for the Candidate degree were defended. Last academic year the Chechen University had 5 thousand students. The preparatory department was working full time. This year the majority of entrants chose to go to the finance and economics faculties and the English department of the faculty of languages and literature. Competition at entrance examinations at the faculties was stiff enough with 6 people contesting one seat. The Teachers Training Institute is the republics youngest, opened in 1981. 7 faculties humanitarian sciences, physics and mathematics, technology and economics, teachers training, natural sciences, physical training and correspondence offered training in 17 professions. Now that the main building needs restoration, classes are held in another one. 2325 students are now studying at 6 faculties and 248 teachers are working, of them 4 Doctors and 67 Candidates. Starting from the new academic year the institute is opening post-graduate courses for 16 seats. (more ... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=cteacheng&row=0) Famous Chechens Sportsmen Basketball player Uvays Akhtaev (1930-1978) Uvays Mazhidovich Akhtaev was a prominent basketball player, master of sport in the former Soviet Union. Being a 238-centimeter-high man, he was to be famed for this very sport. The central stadium in Grozny was named after this player. He graduated from the Karaganda Physical Culture college and was going in for boxing, wrestling, track-and-field athletics, putting the shot and discus throwing. As a college student Akhtaev participated in discus throwing competition at a student Olympics in the city of Lvov in 1946. But he was primarily a basketball player by birth. Isaac Camlevich was his first coach in Karaganda. In 1946 Akhtaev moved to Alma-Ata and became a member of the Kazakh team. As a basketball star he was noticed at the 1947 student Olympics. Previously the team was not successful enough, but after Akhtaev became its pivot of a phenomenal height, the team succeeded in reaching the Major League. In 1948 he took part in the countrys basketball championship in Moscow. According to an article issued in the newspaper Sovietsky Sport in September 1948, the play of the Alma-Ata team was formed on a unique technique of a giant player. Other teams coaches were elaborating various tactic scenarios to leave Akhtaev without a ball. But being a slow person in everyday life, Akhtaev acted as a player of great technical skills. Playing at the stadium Dynamo he attracted numerous fans. Uvays Akhtaev participated in the basketball championship in Odessa (1950) and Erevan (1952). In 1956 he played in the Kazakh team at the Soviet Olympics taking a victory over the teams of Moscow and Leningrad. In 1959 he left the sportdom. (more about famous chechens... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=famouseng) Multi-ethnic Chechnya My Compatriots Academician Mikhail Millionshikov-prominent Soviet scientist and a public figure graduated from the Grozny Petroleum Institute The famous Soviet scientist in the areas of aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, applied physics and nuclear energy, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and a prominent statesman and a public figure Mikhail Dmitrievich Millionshikov was born in Grozny on the 16th of January 1913. He spent his childhood and school years in the city. After the secondary education in 1928 he joined the mining and petroleum department of the Grozny technical collage, which was later upgraded to the Petroleum Institute. After the graduation in 1932 he started to work in the institute as an assistant lecture of the theoretical mechanics department of the institute and at the same time worked as an engineer at the drilling laboratory of the Grozny Scientific Research Institute. Several articles on this topic by M. Millionshikov were published at the time in the journal Groznensky Neftyanik. In the middle of thirties he left Grozny to continue education. He joined the Moscow Aviation Institutes for post-graduate studies. He defended his Ph.D. in 1938 and D.Sc. in 1944 on the topic of Hydro-mechanical analysis of several methods used in exploiting oil wells. In the late forties Academician Igor Kurchatov who headed the Institute of Atomic Energy invited Mikhail Millionshikov to work in the institute. At present this institute is known as the Russian Scientific Centre of Kurchatov Institute. Mikhail Millionshikov made a great contribution by fulfilling the tasks before the countrys nuclear science and technology. Some time later he was elected as a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and later he was awarded the full membership. He was the first deputy president of the Soviet Academy of Science from 1962 to 1973 until he died. He paid great attention to train high-qualified experts for the country. He started his teaching at the age of 17 even when he was a student at the Petroleum Institute. Consequently, he read lectures at various institutes. In 1949 he founded a department in molecular physics in the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and was its head for 20 years. As the deputy president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences he made a contribution to develop a network of scientific research institutes in the Soviet republics and autonomous republics. He worked for several years as the chairman of the council for editing and publishing and libraries and the editor-in-chief of the journals Vestnik Academy Nauk USSR, Atomnaya Energia and the international yearly journal of Nauka i Chelovechestvo. (more... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=mfameng&row=1) Chechen diary 15 August 2002 One of Basaevs relative surrenders weapons Chechen militants have started to surrender weapons systematically. The latest event occurred in the administrative city of Bedeno on the 10th of August. This time a relative of the notorious militant Shamil Basaev, an active participant of his gang surrendered. The elders and clergy of the district convinced him to return to peaceful life. The head of the regional staff in charge of carrying out the anti-terrorist operation Colonel Iliya Shabalkin informed this but refused to give his name on security reasons. The former militant confirmed his determination to break off former links and informed the coordinates of the militant bases that have accommodation for several dozes of people for living and rest. The militant says that he did not carry out terrorist attacks and laid no mines. But he admits that he attacked the Russian forces together with other militants. Ilya Shabalkin believes that the militant may not be tried by taking into account the appeal of elders, the surrender of weapons voluntarily and his cooperation with the Russian forces. (more from Chechen diary http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=diaryeng) 14 August 2002 Chechnya is restoring after Julys flooding The recent flooding devastated southern Russia also affected Chechnya, worsening the difficult economic situation in the republic. It has washed away 86 bridges and destroyed or damaged over 3.5 living houses, infrastructures facilities and energy and gas lines. Consequences of the disaster are being eliminated and the situation is slowly but steadily normalizing. According to the Chechen deputy head of the administration Nasrudi Maghomaev, 130 million rubles were allocated from the republican budget to the effect. 58 ruined bridges and 1357 houses of 2747 have been rebuilt. Electric energy and water supply have been also restored in all living areas devastated by the flooding. Moreover, Chechnya was one of Russias regions to start giving temporary accommodation for those suffered the disaster. A town for the displaced with 132 premises have been completed in Grozny; all were supplied with communications, including gas, water and electric energy. Officials of the Chechen Emergency Ministry are offering considerable aid for local facilities to reconstruct everything was ruined or damaged. (more from Chechen diary http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=diaryeng) 13 August 2002 Khanty-Mansiisky autonomous regions sends humanitarian aid to Chechnya The Khanty-Mantsiisky autonomous region of Siberia sent humanitarian aid to Chechnya on the 7th of August. The national and cultural autonomy of Chechens and Ingushs officially registered in January organized the collection of humanitarian aid. According to its head Khusen Ellakh, the organization is aimed to render material and moral support to people of Chechnya who suffered from fighting. Food and essential items, including clothes and shoes were collected in various areas including Nizhnevartovsk, Raduzhny, Megion and Pokachakh. The organization also sent building materials for a school in which the children of refugees who returned home will study and pencils pens and exercise books for them. A delegation of the national and cultural autonomy plans to visit to Chechnya later in August to study the problems at the place and what the people need most. (more from Chechen diary http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=diaryeng) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chechen traditions Modern customs and traditions Inside the family Respect of elders. Every Chechen family, without a single exception, respects and cares about the elder generations of its members, in particular about the parents. Parents usually live together with one of their sons. A good daughter-in-law kicks off the day tidying up the in-laws' part of the house. Free from this, she may attend to other matters. The first thing the sons do when getting back home in the evening, is to go to see the parents, to talk and to share with them the day's joys and sorrows. It is not only their children but all other members of the family who take care of the old couple. Grandfathers are usually called "big fathers," and grandmothers, just "mothers," in Chechnya. Children may sometimes disobey their mothers. They will be forgiven for this. But it is absolutely inadmissible to disobey a grandfather, a grandmother or some other representative of the older generation of the family members or neighbors. Only an ill-mannered person will remain seated in the presence of elder people or will sit down without a repeated request from his seniors. It is inadmissible to drink alcohol in the presence of one's parents or any other older relatives. One should watch his manners and cannot raise his voice in a conversation with an older person. If the parents live separately from their sons, the children are especially attentive to them: the best food shall, for example, be given to the parents. It is an old tradition of the Chechen countryside that the parents live in a separate small house built for them by their children, right by the wall of the children's house. The children try to create the most comfortable conditions for the parents and meet all the requirements of the old age. Relations between family members. Most Chechen families are big. Several brothers usually live, together with their families, in the same village or even on the same plot of land. They observe the age-old rules of conduct in family relations. Conflicts and quarrels between their children or womenfolk are settled by the eldest male or female member of the family. If someone has hurt the feelings of her children, the mother of the family should make no complaint to her husband. She may, under the worst of the circumstances, appeal to either of the husband's relatives, but it is bad manners to pay attention to children's quarrels, grudges and tears. Chechen children know their uncle will be the first to meet a request or come to their aid. An uncle would rather tell his own offspring to leave him alone. But he will never leave unheeded a nephew's or a niece's request. The older members of a family feel responsible for the well-being of the younger generation. The younger generation feel responsible for the elders. The elders are responsible for the consolidation of family relations. The parents must do their best for accord and understanding in their sons' families. They must be very considerate to their daughters-in-law. The father-in-law must avoid hurting his daughters'-in-law feelings: they should not see him undressed and he may not drink alcoholic beverages when either of them is around. Family honor. The Chechens are accustomed to put the merits and shortcomings of an individual on the family bill. If someone has done wrong, the faces of his numerous relatives "will darken," and the whole family will go around with bowed heads. If someone has done well, people say that "nothing else could be expected from a member of that fine family," or that "the son of such a father could not behave in a different way." Children brought up in the spirit of the family tradition are competitive-oriented. They want to be "yakh," that is "better than anyone." Their elders insist that they should be "yakh, that they should under no circumstances be worse than their playmates." They should neither let others hurt a weaker being nor be the first to start a fight. (more about traditions... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=traditionseng) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Religion Islam in Chechnya Penetration of Islam into Chechen and Ingush tribal communities in the 13th 15th centuries was accompanied by peoples consolidation on the confessional principle. As official religion, Islam was first adopted in Simsim kingdom in the south-east of Chechnya in the days of the Golden Horde. The Islamic state, which was situated on the territory of present-day Nozhaiyurt and Gudermes districts, was an ally of the co-religionist Horde, whereas residents of south-western communities (Myalkhs, Melkhistintsys, Lam-Akkis) stayed Christian mainly and adhered to Adat a code of unwritten laws. Islam was adopted by people outside the control of the Golden Horde that called themselves Nashakh freemen community, as they moved on to flat areas. Though the Golden Horde had fallen, Islam had struck deep roots at the foothills of the Caucasus due to its moral laws, social justice and civil freedom that proved more attractive than adat law. Though, in many provisions Adat and Sharia turned out to be allies. Hence , allegations by some Chechen authors and atheist scientists that Islam was taken up by Chechens comparatively recently, are groundless enough. That most Chechens were Muslims back in the 15th 16th centuries, is indicated by the burial rite. The period, to be more exact, 1405-1406, marked the construction of the first known monuments of Muslim architecture the Borg-Kash Mausoleum near the village of Plievo in Nazran district. The mausoleum was erected in honour of a certain Bek-Sultan, son of Khudainado. Intensive penetration of Islam was facilitated by the economic, cultural and political ties between Chechens and Ingushes and people of Kabarda, Kumykia, the Crimean Khanate, Ottoman Turkey and Shakh Persia. In the 16th and 17th centuries Veinakhs established closer economic, cultural and political ties with other peoples of the North Caucasus professing Islam. The mere historical development pointed to the inevitability of Islam taking root in the region and that was an event of historic importance to the mountaineers. With the development of flat areas, farming, cattle-breeding and trade were boostingand people became conscious of the good points of Islam. Legends have it that the first preachers of Islam in Chechen community were Termol, Bat and Bers. They say the sermons brought about all sorts of reaction. And this is understandable, since the history of other peoples and countries knows only too well what difficulties might arise with the adoption of a new faith. As for the highlands, Islam was slow to spread. At the beginning the new religion was taking in age-old traditions trying to adjust to them. Quite often, around family vaults there appeared stelas that were erected over Muslim graves of relatives, who had departed from the old funeral rites but maintained links with pagan kinsmen. An amazing monument of the 16th 17th century is a Muslim tower in Makazhoi community on the border with Daghestan, designed for saying Muslim prayers. Especially famous is a mosque near Etkala village, not far from Itum-Kale in the Argun gorge. The grand mosque was built in line with traditional Islamic architecture. But the minaret is shaped like a miniature, typically Veinakh war tower with a stepped pyramidal roof and narrow loop-holes. Ancient pagan traditions made themselves felt in the ornamental design of gravestone stelas, some of which depict items that in pagan days were buried together with the deceased national costumes, decorations, belts, footwear, daggers, sabers and pistols. Some bear images of people, animals and birds. There is a suggestion of olden times about stelas depicting human beings. Patterns of this sort go back deep into the centuries.All that, however, did not prevent Islam from becoming the Veinakhs dominant and only religion in the course of the 16th through early 19th century. The first big leader of the national liberation struggle was shepherd Ushurma from the village of Aldy, where the Grozny fortress was built later on. Later Ushurma became known under the name of Mansur (the Victor). Mansurs religious and political program got the approval of the clergy of not only Chechnya, but of Daghestan and Azerbaijan. The years 1785-1791 in the North Caucasus were marked by turbulent developments connected with the name of Sheikh Mansur. The wave of popular uprisings subsided in 1791, following the arrest of the mutinous Sheikh. Later on, in the times of Shamil, the main advocates of Islam in Chechnya were Shamil himself and his chiefs. In the middle of the 19th century Chechnya saw the appearance of Sufi Islam, otherwise known as muridism (from murid disciple, follower.The Sufi teaching was propagated by the famous advocate of the principle of non-resistance to evil with violence Sheikh Kunta-Khadzhi Kishiev. But Imam Shamil and his men came to hate Kunta-Khadzhi for his speeches against the war and calls for peace and non-violence. (in detail... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=religioneng&row=2) Copyright CHECHNYA FREE.RU http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: http://felist.com/member/unsub?grp=news.media.chechnyafree http://felist.com/ mailto:ask@felist.com