Actual News from Chechnya

News update

CEC head Alexander Veshniakov tells the agency ITAR-TASS the Commission plans to hold a special sitting on the matter on February 28th. It will hear from Chechnya's first minister, from the head of Chechnya's Regional Electoral Commission and from senior Generals in the army and the Interior Ministry. European and Japanese diplomats will attend the meeting, and probably also representatives from the Executive of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Europe's security organization the OSCE. The latter three received formal invitations on Friday. Alexander Veshniakov says his Commission will offer the guests every available piece of information on what happens in Chechnya ahead of the referendum on the 23rd of March.
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Spokesman for the Command Colonel Ilya Shabalkin tells the agency RIA-Novosti that new Russian technology successfully puts the terrorists off planting roadmines. The technology automatically detonates a terrorist explosive device the moment this gets primed. The guy who handles the device gets his brains blown out. There have been such blow-outs outside an army camp near Vedeno, outside the Agishty village in the District of Shali and in the Lenin District in Grozny. The remains of the bomb-planting thugs were never identified.
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Chechen economics

In spite of the terrorist act of last December 27, Grozny lives on. More houses are built and rebuilt in that city. The chief of the construction department of the Grozny Administration Malika Mamedova says that all its construction agencies are functioning as they normally do. A government commission accepted 5 temporary residence centers for 3500 to 4000 people. It gave the construction workers a few days for the elimination of slight imperfections and expects the new residence centers to welcome in their first residents later this month. Everything is ready for the return of the forcibly displaced people from the tent camps of Ingushetia. Separately standing boiler houses make the new buildings warm, there is a functioning sewage system, and the temporary residence centers are provided with potable water and water for technical use. There are kitchens with gas stoves on every floor of each of the five residence centers. One of the leading construction companies of the republic, "Interbiznes- 55", is trucking away the debris and construction sweepings. It has a sufficient number of vehicles and working men to be able to put in order Grozny's Minutka Square, Lenin Avenue and Pobeda Avenue, as well as the place where some precast panel houses were blown up early last year. Garbage trucked away, the soil will be recultivated, plants planted and new buildings built in that neighborhood. The master plan sees the central part of Grozny as an area of offices and administrative buildings. A bank building will soon rise at Garazhnaya Street - construction workers from Moscow are engaged in this project. Blueprints have been drawn up and a pit for the foundation has been excavated for a new building of government offices. The results of the initial stage of their efforts indicate, Malika Mamedova says, that the construction workers will meet the schedule and finish work on the government building by the end of April. Zavodskoi and Oktyabrsky of Grozny's administrative districts are, according to Mamedova, concentrating most heavily on housing construction. Work is nearly finished on apartment houses at Prospekt Revolyutsii. The Rosagropromstroi company is restoring privately-owned cottages near city hospital #9 (between the central marketplace and Mayakovsky Street) and at Ordzhonikidze Avenue (as it goes from the railroad station in the direction of Pobeda Avenue.) Along with all that, construction workers are concentrating on the social infrastructure. Work will soon be finished on a day care center and secondary school #33 of the Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny.
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Russia - Chechnya

Public organizations to Chechnya

International humanitarian organizations are expanding their activities in Chechnya, as the situation in the republic is growing more stable. As UNISEF envoy to Russia and Belarus Rosemarie McCririe said at a meeting with Ingushetias President Murat Zyazikov, the UNs aid to Chechnya in 2003 would account for 56 percent of all funds allocated to the North Caucasus. UN donors have already subscribed 34 million dollars to the North Caucasus for 2003. Employees of the International Red Cross Committee will station in Nalchik and Nazran but will visit the Chechen republic several times a week. 110 000 Chechen residents will receive help from the IRCC. According to IRCC general delegate for Europe and America Beatrice Mezhevan-Roggo, the emphasis of the humanitarian aid will be shifted to restoration of infrastructure in 2003. More attention will be paid to ensuring sanitary and hygienic communal conditions. Surgical aid to hospitals is planned to be increased two-fold. Patients of medical institutions will receive food and 43 000 schoolchildren from socially disadvantaged families will receive clothes and footwear twice a year. Overall, IRCC is planning to earmark more than 30 million dollars for humanitarian efforts in the North Caucasus. Switzerlands Embassy in Russia has shipped 5 tons of medications for local hospitals in Gudermes, Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno and Shali. The humanitarian fund International aid to the Chechen republic works together with district and local administrations, public and non-state organizations. The fund monitors the population to help the most socially disadvantaged citizens. It also mapped a series of efforts to help displaced persons return to places of permanent residence.
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Issue 69
18.02.03

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

18 February 2003  Training of young specialists in Urus-Martan district of Chechnya
The Chechen government is ready to provide support for the young people of Chechnya in getting a profession that will enable them to work for the good of the republic. Branches of higher and vocational training institutes and colleges are opening in all district centers of Chechnya. Urus-Martan boasts a medical and teachers training college, a branch of the Chechen State University and a commercial college, which are fully operational. In October 2002 the educational establishments were joined by a branch of Grozny Technical College 26. The administration of Urus-Martan district provided the premises and did the repairs. All classrooms are heated and a canteen is open for the students. Among more than 130 students currently studying at the college are residents of Urus-Martan and nearby villages. Stipends are paid regularly. At first, the college took in students for the textile department only, training seamstresses and tailors. It then began to accept students in book-keeping, construction and office work. The college is now planning to open a computer class and offer a wider range of professions for young people, who are determined to take up civilian trades.
(more News from Chechnya)

17 February 2003  Chechnyas cultural sphere: what federal money is spent on
A Russian government program called The Culture of Russia in 2001-2005 devotes a whole chapter to the restoration of the cultural sphere of Chechnya. In 2002 the federal government allocated 11 million rubles for measures to preserve the republics culture. The money went to replenish Chechen libraries and film collections, restore historical and cultural monuments and provide music schools with instruments. The result was the revival of the leading Chechen stage performers: the dance ensemble Vainakh, the Philharmonic Society, the Puppet Show, the Kh.Nuradilov Drama Theatre. Vainakh took parting an international folk music festival in France. French audiences were impressed by the virtuoso performance and high professionalism of the musicians. The Kh.Nuradilov Drama Theatre was awarded with the honourary diploma of the Festival of North Caucasian Folk Theatres Stage Without Frontiers. However, not famed groups alone get the funding. Restoration work is underway at the Republican Concert Center, the Naursky House of Culture and Childrens Art School. Cultural centers are being rebuilt in the village of Engel-Yurt in Gudermes district, Voskresenovskaya village in Shelkovskaya district, Urus-Martan and Achkhoi-Martan in Vedeno and Shatoi districts. The government is also funding the repairs of culture houses in Zakan-Yurt and Anda villages in Achkhoi-Martan district, which were damaged badly during the summer floods. The National Library of Chechnya, the Republican Childrens Library and the Library for the Blind are functioning normally, just as the Centralized Library System of Achkhoi-Martan, Naursky, Shelkovskaya, Gudermes and Nozhai-Yurt districts, and the cities of Grozny and Argun. The Republican Art School is training librarians, choreographers, artists all in all, more than 300 students. The classes are conducted by highly-qualified specialists. On decision by the Russian Culture Ministry the most gifted will receive personal scholarships.
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15 February 2003  An exhibition of works by Radchenko artists from Chechnya
An art exhibition is on at the National Cultural Foundation Gallery in Moscow from the 7th to 28th of February. The exhibitions motto is Dont Shoot! People Live Here! It features works by members of the Radchenko family: Boris Georgievich, Nadezhda and their son Pavel. All three were born in Grozny and lived there until 1998. The family is currently living in Kislovodsk. On display are more than one hundred water-colours and drawings made in pencil. The author of most of them is the head of the family, Boris Georgievich, who paints women portraits and Chechen landscapes in multi-layer water-colours. Works by his wife, Nadezhda, were painted in their last years in Chechnya and many reflect the events of the years. Pictures by the young painter, Pavel Radchenko, show Chechnya of the early 1990s. Pavel was born in Grozny in 1986 and began to draw at the age of 3. He then went to Childrens Art School 1 in Grozny, where his mother taught. In June 2001 Pavel participated in an exhibition of endowed children of Russia organized by the Moscow Union of Artists and was among those to win the Russian Ministry of Culture scholarship. The exhibition at the National Cultural Foundation Gallery was opened by Ali Dimaev, a popular composer and singer, who heads the culture department of the Chechen representative office in the Kremlin. Mr.Dimaev described the Radchenko family as people highly revered across Chechnya. A message from the Chechen representative in the Kremlin Adlan Magomadov said the artists know their homeland to the slightest detail and portray life in it as it is. The message underscored that the exhibition tells a lot about Chechen culture and introduces the visitors to its most gifted representatives. Your art, - Mr.Magomadov said in his message addressing the artists, - facilitates better understanding between people. It fills the world with peace, good, harmony, beauty and hope. The exhibition attracts crowds of Moscow residents and guests to the Russian capital. For more details about the Radchenko family go to Chechnya multinational in the section The fellow countrymen.
(more News from Chechnya...)

Chechen culture

Cultural events

The Grozny-based theatre company was known across the former Soviet Union for its broadly cross-cultural repertoire which included plays by Shakespeare, Moliere, Lorca, the Kyrgyz writer Tch.Aitmatov, the Byelorussian playwright A.Makayenok, the Georgian dramatist O.Ioseliani and the Osetian dramatist V.Hugayev. Sultan Dokayev tells us his company has already resurrected 'Bloody Wedding' by Garcia Lorca, the comedy 'Marriage' by Nikolai Gogol and the comedy 'Bozh-Ali' by the Chechen dramatist Abdul-Hamid Hamidov. 'Bozh-Ali' has won the company the first place at a North Caucasus ethnic theatre festival in Vladikavkaz in North Osetia. The company employs 22 actors and actresses including such old timers as People's Artists of the Russian Federation David Mirzayev and Nellia Khodzhiyeva and Merited Artists of the Russian Federation Dagun Amayev and Raisa Gichayeva. Students of the Drama Department of Grozny State University are often taken on casts. The company pins particular hopes on boys and girls in the 'Nakhi' drama studio of Mimalt Soltzayev at the Moscow Culture and Arts University. Director Sultan Dokayev, People's Artist of the Russian Federation Musa Dudayev and the former Nuradilov actor and current 'Nakhi' minder Magomed Didigov act as a Chechen-based branch of the Moscow Culture and Arts University's admission office. The Nuradilov drama company is currently based in Gudermes and rehearses plays on the premises of a local kindergarten. Dokayev tells us about hopes to return to Grozny as soon as his company's building in Makhmud Esambayev Avenue is habitable again. Unfortunately, the house is off reconstruction plans for this year. At a meeting with Chechen intellectuals and figures in culture on January 9th, the Chechen regional head Akhmad Kadyrov promised them to bring forward the start of repair work on the theatre building. Director Dokayev tells us his company is going to take its production of 'Bozh-Ali' to potentially big Chechen diaspora audiences in the region of Volgograd, including the city of Volgograd itself. Given funding, the Director says, the company can expediently complete work on two one-act plays by the classical Chechen writer Halid Oshayev (born 105 years ago on January 1). The company is hiring a Moscow college to coach auxiliary staff for it, such as stage hands, makers-up and experts in properties and lighting effects.
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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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