Actual News from Chechnya

News update

The head of the Chechen government Ahmad Kadyrov has told the Interfax-South news agency that Chechnya has no intention of seeking a special status inside the Russian Federation. "The people of Chechnya have had their fill of independence and sovereignty," - Kadyrov said. Although work has already begun, on his instructions, on a draft agreement between Moscow and the Chechen Republic, Kadyrov was not yet ready to say how this new document would be titled.
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Russia's deputy prosecutor-general Sergei Fridinsky reports the detention of a fourth participant in the terrorist attack on the Chechen government compound carried out on December 27, 2002. Fridinsky describes the detainee as a suspected "brain behind that terrorist act." He has told the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS that the detained terrorist was a member of the Shamil Basayev's unit but the investigating officers are not yet sure whether Basayev could also be charged with complicity in the terrorist attack of December 27, 2002. "If he is, indeed, the brain [behind that terrorist act] and we find documents to prove this," - Fridinsky said, -"Basayev will face legal charges." Charges have already been pressed on three earlier-detained residents of Chechnya.
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Chechen history

19. Prohibition law for servicemen is proposed for the period of their service in Chechnya.
20. Convincing information is required about inquiries into terrorist acts, crimes against civilians, trials and tribunals.
21. Russian politicians, journalists and public activists, who openly call for granting independence to Chechnya, have to face moral pressure. Calls of this kind lead to further bloodshed, are immoral towards most of Chechen people and demoralize the army.
22. Large-scale measures have to be taken on the international scene to defend the policy of the Russian government and clarify the situation in Chechnya.
23. News media should tell more about the life and work of Chechens in Chechnya and outside as part of Russian fellow citizenship, stop portraying Chechens as proud savages and show how Chechens normalize the life in the republic and fight the rebels. A special emphasis should be given to the business activity of Chechens living elsewhere in Russia and support for such business on the part of authorities of every level. The opinion of scientists, who spoke in the course of the conference Chechnya: From Conflict to Accord, and the conferences recommendations were included in the government program to rebuild the Chechen republic and are taken into consideration in the work of government bodies, including in Chechnya.
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Chechen ethnos

Chechens as an ethnic group

The Chechen nation originated in Shem Country thousands of years ago. They subsequently lived a long time in Nakhchuvan wherefrom three brothers moved on to Kazygman to join their fathers relatives living there, including their uncle. They spent 10 years in Kagyzman. After their youngest brother died, the two other brothers headed for Erzrum where they lived for six years. Another brother died and the oldest one who remained then spent some time with the Khalibs who inhabited the southeastern coast of the Black Sea. There he lived for some time with his wife, three sons, four daughters and a nephew. The latter subsequently got married and stayed with the Khalibs, while the eldest bother took his family to the banks of the river Baksan wherefrom his posterity moved north toward what is now the Chechen republic. The legend mentions a place called Khalib. There is no such place now but in ancient times the Khalibs used to live along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea Which means that the legend about migration is not just a piece of the Chechen mullahs imagination because the mullahs simply knew nothing about that.
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Issue 76
14.03.03

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

11 Mart 2003  Aid to disabled people in Chechnya improved this year as compared with the last one
According to the Chechen Ministry of Labour and Social Development, some 32,000 invalids make their home in Chechnya. Of this number 1050 need prosthetic appliances. In 2002 217 Chechen residents were given free orthopaedic services. This year another 600 crippled people must be provided with artificial limbs, or more than twice as many maimed people as last year. This has become possible thanks to the fact that an orthopaedic service centre has been set up in Grozny recently. Chechen invalids will no longer have to travel to Rostov-on-Don, Vladikavkaz, Stavropol or other cities to get artificial limbs. The prosthetic and orthopaedic centre in Grozny has been restored with the assistance of the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Development. The Russian Cabinet granted Minister Alexander Pochinoks request for funds to do repair and restoration work, and also purchase and take to Chechnya special purpose equipment by the German company Ottoboko. The International Red Cross has also proved helpful in training personnel. It funded the training of eight Chechen specialists at a similar facility in Sochi. Of course, there is more to social assistance for Chechen invalids than just providing them with artificial prosthetic appliances. Invalids of the Great Patriotic War and other people, entitled to similar privileges under the law, receive Oka mini-cars free. Last year 20 such cars were given to war invalids, this year the figure is due to increase notably. The Chechen Ministry of Labour and Social Development has already paid for 50 Oka mini-cars. Also, ever more disabled people are sent to resorts and sanatoria for treatment. In 2001 44 invalids were treated at sanatoria, in 2002 the figure jumped to 303, while this year the Chechen Ministry of Labour and Social Development plans to send 600 disabled people to resorts and sanatoria. According to the chief of the Ministrys Department of invalids rehabilitation and social integration Ismail Gagalov, the Government has to pay 8,920 roubles for a place in a sanatorium for 21 days thats granted to an invalid for free. The Chechen Government draws on the federal budget to get the money to pay for places at sanatoria, as well as for other kinds of social assistance for invalids.
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13 Mart 2003  Russian youth can get education at the secondary schools, high schools or professional technical collages where they can master a specialty and work individually. There are 19 professional and technical collages in Chechnya. Here is a dispatch from our correspondent Aminat Oznieva who visited the professional and technical collage No. 2 in Grozny. The collage has been functioning since 2000. Youth follow courses in motor mechanics, book keeping and clerical work. At present there are one thousand students in the collage and 900 out of them study in its branches in the village of Prigorodnoe, Grozny Rural district, Shalazhi, Urus-Martan district, Yalkhoi-Mokhk, Kurchaloevsky district and Nozhai-Yurt. The main building of the collage in Grozny had long been restored and was opened in 2002. Chechnyas Education Ministry finances the reconstruction. The second floor of the building has already been repaired, boiler is functioning and the canteen has been opened. The work in the motor-mechanics workshop will be completed soon. Now the workers are installing equipment in it. In addition to education the students are trained in several areas. The college has organized a shop to make concrete slabs for roads. In fact, these slabs were among the best one hundred goods in a competition of best quality goods held early this year in Moscow It was awarded a certificate of quality. The collage pays special attention to orphans. The government pays for their education in full. Orphans get money to buy forms and food. The graduates get material aid to buy necessary instruments. Collage has established contacts with similar education establishments in Moscow. Lately, a group of teachers and instructors have visited the collage No. 304 in Moscow to exchange experience. Their Moscow colleagues gave them methodological and material assistance. The students of the college collected books and toys and sent to Chechnya. The Muscovites invited the Chechen students to follow a training course at their college.
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14 Mart 2003  Chechen artists are applauded in Moscow
A festival of Chechen culture opened with a gala concert on March 11 at Moscow's concert hall "Rossiya." The head of the Chechen government Ahmad-Haji Kadyrov had arrived from Grozny specially for this and was joined at the opening concert by the federal minister for Chechnya Stanislav Ilyasov. A deputy mayor of Moscow, Mikhail Men, opened the Chechen festival. Kadyrov took the floor to thank the government of Moscow for the opportunity to hold a festival that "employs means of art and culture in a bid to show the true face of a gallant and talented people." The almost four-hour concert featured presentations by the Popular Artist of the Chechen and Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Suleiman Tokayev, the Popular Artist of the Chechen Republic Ali Dimayev, young artists Ruslan Omayev, Yevgeny Surtayev and Liza Akhmatova and Chechen performing groups. It featured a moving tribute to the memory of celebrated Chechen artist Makhmud Esambayev. A Popular Artist of Chechnya and Ingushetia Maryam Tashayeva devoted a song - "My Idol" - to Makhmud Esambayev. And photographs and film footage of Esambayev's presentations was, while she sang, shown on a concert hall screen. Then the audience applauded those who come in the footsteps of that great dancer - the "Ziya" children's dance company and the ten-year-old winner of an international award Mansur Musayev. The festival of Chechen culture will close on March 17. A Chechen painting exhibition has also opened in Moscow, and a meeting has been scheduled of Chechen and Moscow-based fiction writers and journalists.
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Religion in Chechnya

At different times forefathers, forebears and ancestors of Chechens and Ingushes (Veinakhs, Nakhs) had different religious beliefs. Apparently, male and female names Khalad, Anu, Ashura, Alalu, Ashtati, Nanna, Diki, Kibela, Nuba-dit, Aruba and Kuzhukh date back to early paganism, the times of Hurri-Urartu states. Between 3000 and 1000 B.C. the names were used to call various gods. As a rule, every natural phenomenon or heavenly body had ts own god. Depending on the nature of the wish offerings were made to this or that god, be it the god of sun, rain, war, love or fertility. Religious traditions are the most lasting ones in the culture of an ethnic group. They stay on even after conversion to another faith. In the Chechen community you can still hear vows such as Tsu dashochu malkhor (Swear by golden sun), Tsu lyattor (Swear by earth), Tsu byapkor (Swear by bread). People pronouncing vows of this kind will be deeply hurt if they are told that by doing so they depart from Islam and commit a grave sin. The pagan and Christian past of ancestors and forefathers of Chechens and Ingushes is reflected in legends, folklore, ancient and medieval cultural monuments and archaeological discoveries. The Assinovsky gorge is known to have three Christian temples (Tkhaba-Yerda, Albi-Yerda and Targimsky). Similar temples and churches, according to legends, were also in other parts of the mountain chain but Tkhaba-Yerda was the biggest, occupying more than 100 square meters. Rich Christian burial places were discovered under the churchs floor and by its walls. The temple, experts say, was built no later than the 10th century A.D. by Georgian architects, who wanted it to be the biggest church in Central Caucasus. According to researchers (M.B.Muzhukhoev. The Spread of Christianity among Veinakhs), Tkhaba-Yerda Temple was erected on the site of a heathen temple devoted to Tkhaba deity. Today the name is etymologized on the basis of Nakh languages and is compared to the ancient pagan deity Tkhya.The process of christianizing Chechens and Ingushes got further development during the reign of the Georgian Tsarina Tamara. Indications of that were the appearance of two new churches around Tkhaba-Yerda.
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Chechen Language

The Chechen Language

Chechen, together with Ingush and Bats, belongs to the Veinakh group of the Iberian-Caucasian family of languages. The Chechen and Ingush languages have developed a written tradition. Not so the Bats language. The earliest description of the Veinakh languages is found in the Big Comparative Dictionary of Russian Empress Catherine the Great (second half of the 18th century.) The Dictionary presents about 400 Chechen words and their Ingush and Bats equivalents. Baron P.K. Uslar described the Caucasian languages on instructions from the general staff of the Russian Army. His voluminous "The Chechen Language" came off print in 1888. It contains a grammar of the Chechen language. The languages of the Veinakh group are the widest spoken of the Northern Caucasus. Ethnic Chechens and Ingushis can communicate without a translator. The idea of "veinakh" ("our people") brings them close together. The Bats people live in the Pankisky Gorge of Georgia. Their language has come under a heavy influence of Georgian, which is why neither Chechens nor Ingushi can understand it. The Chechen language is also spoken by the Chechen communities of Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Syria. The Chechen language brings together a number of dialects and tongues. The Chechen language of the written tradition rests on the Grozny dialect of flatland Chechnya. Works of fiction, newspapers and magazines, textbooks and scholarly treatises have been written in that dialect of the Chechen language. Classical fiction writings have been translated into it. It was not until 1925 that written Chechen switched over from the Arabic to the Latin alphabet. In 1938 it gave up Latin for Cyrillic. An unsuccessful attempt to return to the Latin alphabet was made in 1992. As they opened up new frontiers, the Chechens and Ingushis could not help getting in close contact with other ethnic communities. That is why the Chechen word stock as many foreign borrowings: up to 500 words from Georgian, up to 700 words from the Turk languages,a good number of Arabic, Persian, Ossetian and Daghestani words, and a great many words from the Russian language.
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