Actual News from Chechnya

News update

Radio Free Chechnya has started to inform its listeners on how the republic is preparing for the referendum. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, radio has introduced new features of Toward the Referendum and For what we will vote in view of the referendum. These programmes include the statements by the members of central election commissions of Russia and Chechnya, interviews with the staff members of the election committees in the districts, cities and villages and opinions from Russian and foreign public figures about the referendum. On Fridays the programmes provide coverage of the work done to prepare for the referendum in the outgoing week. In the programme For what we will vote leading lawyers explain to people the contents of the draft constitution and election law and make comments on its provisions. Chechnya plans to hold its referendum on the 23rd of March.
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The UN agencies have suspended its humanitarian programmes in the North Caucasus for one day to express solidarity with the head of the organization of Medicines sans Frontieres in Dagestan Ariyan Erkel who was kidnapped on the 12th of August. Speaking to ITAR-TASS spokes woman for coordinator of UN humanitarian issues Victoria Zotikova made this statement. According to V.Zotikova, the United Nations is deeply worried over the fate of Mr. Erkel and joins with many appeals by the organization to release him immediately. Moves like the abduction of Mr. Erkel, she said, had undermined the process of giving effective aid to thousands of people in the North Caucasus. The United Nations has expressed its solidarity with hundreds of people abducted in the North Caucasus in the past years and urges to all people who are responsible for doing this to free their captives without making any harm to them.
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Chechen economics

The Chechen economy now employs 360 thousand people. There will be many more jobs as rebuilt food processors come on stream. Engineers in Grozny are installing modern equipment on the site of what is supposed to be the biggest dairy plant in the Russian Caucasus. In Argun, documentation is ready for the rebuilding of a meat processing factory. Construction teams are breaking ground on the site. Hundreds of new jobs are forthcoming together with new possibilities for Chechnya's cattle, sheep and poultry farmers. A partially rebuilt sugar refinery in Argun currently employs 200. They prepare beet for sugar extraction at a refinery in the region of Krasnodar, which currently supplies Chechnya with sugar. As soon as more reliable electricity is available, Argun will start turning out sugar itself. This should create new jobs. A big food plant in Shali - once famous across the Soviet Union - is turning out wild apple and buckthorn juices and jams once again. The output is still very moderate, but new and new products come off production lines as repair work gathers pace. They include pasta and all kinds of sweets. Pickled wild onions from Shali have won gold at a national foods contest in Moscow. Expert management by production director Shakhbudi Batayev helps the company keep down costs and sell its produce at lower-than-average factory-gate prices. The revival of large-scale state-operated food processing strengthens social stability as well as spurring on farming. People with full-time jobs, regularly paid wages and annual leaves consolidate the feel-good factor in Chechnya.
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Russia - Chechnya

To Chechen children

The Head of the Chechen department of the Russian Children Foundation, Ramzan Khasukhanov, believe his organization must strive to improve the lives of children despite any difficulties. The Health and Children program is being successfully implemented in the republic, he remarks, under which over 100 Chechen kids are receiving medical treatment in Moscow hospitals. 45 more children from the Shali orphanage will leave for the Russian capital in assistance of the Chechen Labor and Social Security Ministries. The Chechen programs are likewise being implemented in the framework of the All-Russia Children Foundation. For one, a program for Chechen children whose families suffered in the Chechen wars. The program is headed by Grozny native Lubov Krizhanovskaya who was forced to flee the republic but did not forget about her compatriots. The programs trustee funds are chaired by Iosif Kobzon. 70 children are in charge of the foundation. Deposit accounts with funds raised by sponsors are available for them. The foundations Chechen department functions thanks to efforts of its own and sponsors. Under its charter, the officials work free of charge. All the more estimated their efforts must be. Mr. Khasukhanov says there are many kind people helping the Chechen kids. The Krasnodar schoolboys and girls have gathered coats and school items for the young Chechens. The Russian Charity Organizations Union has granted them three motion picture projectors. The Novo-Ordinsk Company provided the republican endocrinology center with a set of pen-shaped syringes for diabetic children. Through the effort by the Russian-US children foundation four Chechen kids have been sent to the United States for operations. An operation for heart costs at least 80 thousand dollars, but the Chechen children underwent it free of charge. The Chechen department is planning to realize the project called Chechen Children as Peace Ambassadors. Mr. Khasukhanov says they want to include children in the international peacekeeping process and make the world see the situation in Chechnya through their eyes. He says his office is going to collect essays and pictures, in which the young Chechens express their feelings.
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Issue 68
14.02.03

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

14 February 2003  Weighty results of Chechen power-lifters
The Chechen heavy athletics and power-lifting Federation assisted by the republican sports ministry and Gudermes district administration held power-lifting championship in Gudermes engaging more than 80 athletes. Power-lifting is weight-lifting triathlon involving squatting with maximum weight in arms, press and knee-high snatch. The winner is determined on the strength of results in all the three events. This sport is getting increasingly widespread in Russia and Chechnya in particular. At the championship in Gudermes, several athletes not only won medals but also qualified for sport ranks. Israil Musaev from Koshkildy took up 230 kg in squatting, 150 in press and 240 in snatch, 620 kg overall. He qualified for master of sports of Russia. So did 82-kg-division Hanpasha Usumov from Koshkildy too. He took up 260, 150 and 260 kg respectively. 110-kg-division Suleiman Bisultanov from Gudermes showed the result that exceeds the standard of international-class master of sports as he cleared 340 kg in squatting, 220 in press and 330 in snatch, 890 kg overall. But to earn those ranks, athletes will have to clear these bars at the Russian championship in Kazan from February 26 to March 2.
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13 February 2003  Chechnya takes steps to help refugees in Ingushetia to return home
Chechen administration gives priority to the return home of refugees from Ingushetia and try to accommodate them in houses. Out of 30 000 refugees lived in tent camps in Ingushetia last summer only 16 500 have remained there. The rest have been settled in the private sector or rented houses. Those who returned last year were settled in the temporary accommodation centres in Grozny. Another 6 centres have already been prepared for receiving refugees. An estimated 4 000 people can live in these. According to the Chechen committee in charge of refugee affairs, from 40 to 80 people return home from Chechnya daily. The deputy head of the Russian Interior Ministrys migration service Igor Yunash has said that about 8 000 refugees have submitted applications for returning home. Only 6 000 refugees will remain in Ingushetia by the 23rd of March when Chechnya holds a referendum on the draft constitution. Refugees are preparing to take part in the referendum. 3 000 signatures in support for holding the referendum were gathered in January in tent camps. Those who will stay in Ingushetia can cast votes at the referendum too. Polling stations will be set up for them. 10 000 copies of the draft constitution were distributed in the camps on the 7th of February. According to the election committee, the Chechen residents living in private houses of Ingushetia also can cast votes. Russian government spent more than one billion rubles last year to support refugees in and outside Chechnya. This money was spent to pay communal tariffs, buy food, pay compensations for living in private houses and the construction and rebuilding of health and social facilities. The refugees get free-of-charge transport for returning home and food for five months. The Chechen government has decided to give 320 rubles a month to pay rent and 180 rubles per month for food to the refugees returned home. The families accommodated in the private sector will get 3 000 rubles a month. They will receive the money at the post offices, which have a list of names of these people.
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13 February 2003  Ministry for social development of Chechnya in action
There will be two more nursing houses just outside Grozny in the settlement of Katayama beside the already operating one. According to Chechnyas deputy minister for social development Kemsi Mahmudova, one of the nursing houses will be opened in the suburbs of Grozny and the other in Naursky district. Elderly people will shortly receive additional social aid from the republican branch of the Russian Pension Fund. Such support, K. Mahmudova says, has lately been rendered at the request of the republican ministry for social development. 10 Oka passenger cars have been delivered to Grozny from the neighboring Stavropol region for veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Swift and easy-guided cars will be much of use for elderly people. They can use it to see how flocks are pasturing, go shopping or to visit relatives. This is the third batch of the small cars to the republic. K. Mahmudova said that 300 people more would get Oka cars cost-free under the federal law on veterans. Leader of the youth organization Liga molodezhi Muslim Vashaev has also received Oka. The 24-year-old disabled of the 1st group is still moving around in a wheelchair. Head of the Chechen administration Ahmad Kadyrov met with members of the organization and learnt of their plans. Muslim Vashaev will now be able to promote interests of the Chechen youth more efficiently. Chechen pensioners will be getting increased pension starting with February 1. The republican pension fund has begun to recalculate pensions taking into account six-percent increase. According to deputy head of the Russian pension fund department for Chechnya Nurid Aduev, some 200 thousand pension payments have to be recalculated, exactly the number of retired people in the republic. N. Aduev said that initial pension amounts to 450 rubles and after indexation it would grow by 100 rubles. 11-percent increase is expected in April. Orders to recalculate pensions have been submitted to all district branches of the fund. The pension fund has a fine-tuned network with branches operating in all districts of the republic, including mountainous ones. Payments are carried out through post offices without delay. 394 600 thousand children a month receive benefits in Chechnya this year. According to head of the department at the Ministry for labor and social development Isa Yusupov, federal budget funds for children benefits had before been paid based on incorrect numbers about how many children are there in the republic. After the state census, these numbers are being made more precise.
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Chechen culture

Chechen Music

"Pondur" is the oldest, widest-spread and best loved musical instrument of the Chechens. It is as unsophisticated as the Russian balalaika: three chords and a wooden casing. The difference lies in the casing: the pondur one is rather long, it is made of one solid block of wood. The pondur has a soft, rustling voice. Story-tellers used to sing to the accompaniment of this musical instrument. There is a legend about the pondur: Tamerlane asked his generals after a devastating battle with the Chechens whether they had captured the Chechen pondur. On hearing a negative answer the famous military leader said:"If you failed to capture their pondur, we won the battle but failed to break their spirit..." The pipe, the tambourine, the drum, the horn, the whistle and the wedding flapper - ghema are as old as the pondur. The oldest bow instrument was made of bovine shoulder blade. It had two to four chords made of horse hair or well dried tendons. Fiddles were made of small pumpkins. The first accordeons were made of wood. The Russian accordeon is a much later acquisition and it took the men some time to get used to that musical instrument. Young girls and women were the first to develop a liking for it. Each musical instrument was assigned a role of its own. The reed-pipe was played on summer solstice which marks the day of Pkh'armat. Pkh'armat, just like Prometheus of the Hellenes, has brought people fire. A very old Chechen legend says that Pkh'armat carried burning embers in a reed stalk. The embers burnt small holes in the reed. The first reed-pipe was, as a result, a reed stalk with eight small holes in it. The "chiondarg" resembles the fiddle. It was played in the field because its voice made grain grow faster and yield better crops. Nusic occupied a very special place in the life of Chechnya. It helped people to say words of love and peace, give an oath, cure their ailing brethren. A tune has been recorded with the help of which folk doctors eased pain.
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Religion 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.
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