The Information Channel Felist.Com -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 79 25.03.03 Actual News from Chechnya News update Interior Ministry troops will keep stronger security measures in force in Chechnya until Wednesday Units of the Interior Ministry troops will keep stronger security measures in force in Chechnya until Wednesday, Deputy Commander of the Interior Ministry Troops Lieutenant General Stanislav Kavun, who coordinates the work of all Interior Ministry units during the referendum in the republic, said on Monday. "The mission to maintain security of the republic's population and polling stations assigned to Interior Ministry formations, in particular, the 46th detached operational purpose brigade permanently stationed in Chechnya and to Chechen Interior Ministry bodies, has been accomplished successfully. The constitutional referendum went smoothly on the entire territory of the republic, and no incidents took place," Kavun told Interfax-Military News Agency. He said that Interior Ministry units will keep stronger security measures and preventive checks of vehicles in force until Wednesday. "All Interior Ministry formations will remain on high alert until the official announcement of the referendum's results scheduled for March 26," Kavun noted. He stressed that maintenance of stronger security measures involves the 15 commandant's offices of the Interior Ministry troops located in the valley part of Chechnya, where 80% of its residents are living. "The personnel of the commandant's offices together with police departments of the republic's Interior Ministry, is busy establishing peaceful life in the region," Kavun noted. more... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=Moseng) Chechen Election Commission: Constitution of the Republic had been adopted The chairman of the Chechen Election Commission, Abdul Kerim Arsakhanov, stated that the Constitution of the Republic and the laws on the election of the president and the parliament had been adopted. According to RIA NOVOSTI, this conclusion can be drawn on the basis of the preliminary data at our disposal, underscored Arsakhanov at a news conference on the occasion. The final results will not change the picture substantially, he is sure. According to Arsakhanov, by 13:00 hours, 62 percent of the voting papers had been counted. 95.93 percent of the voters had cast their ballots for the constitution, and only 2.7 percent of them - against. The law on the election of the president has been supported by 94.99 percent of the voters who took part in the voting. The number of those who voted against this law amounts to 3.59 percent. As many as 95.6 percent voted for the law on the election of the parliament, 2.73 were against. Arsakhanov believes that after the final results are summed up, this dynamics will remain. The chairman of the Chechen Election Commission also said that the highest percent of those who voted "against' had been registered in the mountainous Shatoi and Itum-Kalin districts of the republic. Eight percent of those who took part in the referendum in those districts voted against the Constitution and the election laws, said Arsakhanov. (more... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=Moseng) Chechen history Chechnya | Questions and answers To Reader This pamphlet is about Chechnya , a Russian territory which has witnessed the most tragic events over the past decade. The book is the latest update on the Chechen Republic . And this is very important, since a lack of fresh and accurate information about events in Chechnya generates many distorted conceptions and rumours - both within and outside Russia . For example, that Chechen society is allegedly inherently alien to Russia , that pro-Russian elements in the republic are marginalised; and lastly, that Russian power structures are fighting the Chechen people, rather than armed bandit groups. The reality, however, is that only with the return of the legitimate authorities are villages and towns being restored, children going to school for the first time in many years, and pensioners receiving long-forgotten pensions, i.e. a social rebirth is underway. Lying ahead are a referendum on a new Chechen constitution, and parliamentary and presidential elections. These votes will be held, despite continued attempts by bandit groups and their leaders to scupper the process of normalisation in the republic, the latest terrorist act being the bombing of the republican government building. The war being waged by Chechen separatists against federal forces and more often than not against their own co-citizens is by no means a "national liberation struggle of the Chechen people", but an episode in the overall offensive by international terrorism on the fundamental principles of modern civilisation. The facts show that being a part of the Russian Federation in no way threatens the Chechen Republic 's cultural identity, the free use of its own language, and preaching Islam. On the contrary, it was during de facto "independence" from Russia that the Chechen people suffered a humanitarian tragedy on an unprecedented scale. Hostage-taking, the slave trade and plundering came to form the economic basis of the new regime, while chaos and war became the form of its political existence. We want to emphasise once more: Chechnya is part of Russia , geographically, politically and civilisation-wise. So a hypothetical triumph of radical Islamism on its territory would be anti-historical. Such a development would signify the establishment in the midst of Europe of a Taliban-like regime, with all ensuing consequences for the international community. The corporate author - journalists of the Russian Information Agency Novosti - have attempted to be as brief as possible on providing answers to the most-often asked questions (above all posed by a foreign audience) about the Chechen issue. Hence the book's title: " Chechnya : Questions and Answers". It draws heavily on information provided by various Russian ministries and departments that in one or another way are involved in normalising life in the republic. Russian Information Agency Novosti (in detail ... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?section=answerseng&lng=eng) Chechen ethnos Chechens as an ethnic group Alarm signals A detailed system of warning signals was elaborated in the mountains. Stone watch towers had been built on high hills, within a seeing distance from one another. As soon as nomads showed up in the valley, a fire was lit on top of a tower. The smoke spelt danger. The smoke signal was passed over from one tower to another, and the fires on top of the towers alerted people to defend their homes. Two words - "Orts dala" - were heard everywhere. They are the short for "Ortsakh dovla," that is, "flee to the mountains, to the woods, save yourself, the children, the cattle and whatever else of your property." Men immediately turned into warriors. The military terms prove the Chechens were well prepared for defense: they had special words for infantry, guard, mounted warriors, arrow shooters, spear bearers, orderlies, swordsmen, shield bearers, company commanders, regiment or division commanders, army commanders, etc. The ethnic communities of the North Caucasus had for a long time yet been engaged in fighting off the Tartar-Mongol invaders. A papal emissary in Russia, Plano Carpini, named "a certain part of the land of the alans" as territory that would not bow to the Tartars, in the mid-40's of the 13th century. He said that the Tartar-Mongols had for 12 years been besieging "a mountain in the land of the alans." The mountain offered stubborn resistance to the invaders: "Many Tartars, noblemen to boot, had been killed." Folk tradition considers those who defended that mountain the forefathers of today's Chechens. Other contemporaries also wrote about the North Caucasiaans' valiant struggle of the North Caucasians with the Tartar-Mongol invaders. An emissary of the King of France - Rubrukvis - wrote in the 50's of the 13th century that the land of the Circassians would not bow to the Tartars. He said the Tartar-Mongols had failed to conquer that land even though one fifth of the troops of Khan Sartak had been committed to action. (more... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=etneng&row=9) Chechnya: news | arguments | facts 24 Mart 2003 Chechen athletes to take part in all All-Russia championships this year Chechnya s minister for sport and physical culture Haidar Alkhanov has said that Chechen athletes would participate more vigorously in Russian competitions. The Graeco-Roman wrestling tournament of the Southern federal district among 14 and 15-year olds in Mahachkala featured 12 wrestlers from youth sport school in Naurskaya. The Chechen team was led by Arbi Machuraev. Overall, the event brought together more than 200 athletes. S. Usmanov from the Kirov village became champion in the most prestigious 87-kg weight. I. Magomadov from Naurskaya stanitsa became bronze-winner in the 35-kg division. Both booked a spot in the finale of the Russian Graeco-Roman wrestling championship that starts in Volgograd on April 9. The Chechen team participated in the youth free-style wrestling championship of the southern federal district that wound up in Elista. The results showed that Chechen wrestlers are yet unable to square up to athletes from Dagestan and North Osetia. The Chechen team did not win any medals. However, six Chechen athletes will take part in the finale of the Russian championship that will take place early in April in St. Petersburg. More than 150 sambo fighters from 15 cities of Russias 4 federal districts took part in the third championship among 10 to 14-year olds that was held in St. Petersburg in commemoration of the paratroopers of the 6th expeditionary force company killed in Chechnya . Chechnya was represented by 5 athletes. Its team was led by H. Abdulaziev from youth sport school in Argun and Z. Ahmadov from profile sport school of the Olympic reserve. The wrestlers competed in two weight groups, 13-14 year olds and 12-10 year olds. Four Chechen athletes featured in the first group and one in the second. All five won medals. 32 kg H. Ahmadov from Argun and 72 kg I. Islamov from Argun too became gold-winners. 38 kg H. Jabrailov from the settlement of Aldy competed among 12-10 year olds. Losing three points to hosting fighter in the final bout, he accomplished a four-point throw seconds before the end and took the title. There is also one silver and one bronze medal in Chechnya s tally. Silver-winner A. Ayubov from Argun was declared best wrestler of the tournament. The trip of the Chechen athletes was funded by the Chechen youth affairs committee. Gudermes hosted the Chechen heavy athletics championship. There are about 10 heavy athletics training groups now in the republic. In recent years, they prepared several Russian champions and medal winners of European tournaments. The present Chechen championship featured two Russian masters of sport and several candidate-masters. On teams standings, heavy lifters of the Grozny rural district left others behind. Pupils of K. Magomadov from the Berdekel village grabbed the bulk of medals. They were followed by athletes from Urus-Martan and Gudermes. (more News from Chechnya http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=§ion=diaryeng) 21 Mart 2003 Peace through the eyes of Chechen artists An exhibition of Chechen artists has opened in the nationalities house in Moscow as part of the Days of Chechen culture in the Russian capital. It comes under the aegis of the Moscow committee for cross-regional relations of the nationalities policy, the Moscow nationalities house and the Chechen center Culture of peace and non-violence. The display features works by Chechen artists of various generations: Amandi Asukhanov, Azamat Abaskhanov, Movladi Gatsiev, Mikhail Reutov, Hasan Sidiev, Ilyas Tataev, Ruslan Tumliev and many others. Most works are landscapes and still life. Light and harmony are the general air about the paintings even though they were created in hard times for the Chechen republic. Many of these paintings were created during the war. Nevertheless, they are life-asserting, bright and optimistic. They fit in the atmosphere of a holiday that we wanted to invoke for Muscovites and visitors from all across Russia in the days of the festival of Chechen culture, writer Said-Hamzat Nunuev said at the opening of the exhibition. These paintings will be available not only to residents of Moscow but also to those of Yaroslavl and Mahachkala. There is an agreement with mayors of these cities to arrange Days of Chechen culture there. (more News from Chechnya) 20 Mart 2003 The work of builders and physicians in Chechnya Life in Chechnya is gradually returning to normal. But this has not led to the reduction of the number of patients! Many health facilities have yet to be rebuilt. This is the reason why the Chechen physicians have to treat much more patients than other doctors in Russian regions. The work of builders is very important for Chechen doctors. There is a shortage of builders and physicians in both cities and rural areas in the republic. The clinical hospital No. 1 in Grozny is one of the best-equipped health facilities in the republic. It has four wards, cancer, surgical, orthopedic and gynecological. The builders plan to commission another two buildings by the end of the year and the hospital administration hopes to open a diagnosis ward in one of them. Patients get therapeutic and surgical treatments in the leading cancer ward. Since the ward was has no equipment for radiation therapy yet patients are being sent to other Russian regions. The hospital has qualified oncologists. Among these doctors are Professor Umkanov, a leading oncologist not only in Chechnya but also in the North Caucasus and Roza Malaeva, the former chief physician at the republican ontological centre. The first stage of the new district hospital was commissioned in the mountainous Nozhai-Yurt district in March and it has surgical and maternity wards. The Chechen Prime Minister Anatoly Popov considers the opening of a maternity ward is extremely important because the district has the highest birth rate, 28 babies for one thousand women. The ward has 40 beds. The surgical ward has two sections; one for emergency operations and the other for planned ones. It has room for 50 patients. The construction of the hospital will be completed in autumn. It is equipped with local equipment produced in St. Petersburg, which are as good as imported ones. (more News from Chechnya...) 19 Mart 2003 Chechnya's farming complex gets 150 mln rubles The Chechen agroindustrial complex has received 150 mln more rubles in gift from the reserve fund of the Russian government. Chechen deputy prime minister Dukuvakhi Abdurakhmanov says all this sum will be spent on spring sowing. Sixty million rubles will be spent on mineral fertilizers and pesticides, 43 mln - on seeds, about 40 mln - on fuel and lubricants and about 10 mln - on spare parts for the agricultural machinery. Chechnya took in a bumper crop of grain - 350,000 tons - last year. Abdurakhmanov expects it to harvest at least as much this year and says that this year's crop of technical cultures will exceed last year's. Chechnya put in operation 6 food factories and 2 canneries last year. The number of its food processing plants is expected to rise to 20 before the end of 2003. The federal ministry of farming and the Chechen Administration sealed a cooperation agreement in Grozny on March 12. Federal deputy prime minister Aleksei Gordeyev and the head of the Chechen Administration Ahmad Kadyrov put their signatures under that document. Gordeyev pledged effective support to the agroindustrial complex of Chechnya which is capable of giving jobs to two thirds of able-bodied Chechens. Gordeyev feels that Chechnya may, within a few years, be able to meet its own demand for food. (more News from Chechnya...) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. (more... http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=historyeng&row=1) Chechen cuisine "The Chechens, like the rest of the highlanders, avoid extremes in their eating and drinking habits. What they usually eat is chureks or corn bread with mutton lard spread on it, and wheat stew with lard in it; water is their basic refreshment." "...Unleavend wheat or barley bread baked on charcoal, milk and cheese constitute their daily menu; meat is eaten, very rarely, by the richest of the Chechens." That was written about the Chechen eating habits in the 19th century. And it was not until the late 19th century that many vegetables grown in Europe - tomatoes, cabbage, radish - had found their way to the kitchen gardens of mountainous Chechnya. Chechen farming units have, since times immemorial, been self-sufficient, with only spices and sweetmeats being bought at the market. And, although they have become familiar with the cuisines of many other ethnic communities, the Chechen women cherish the very special culinary traditions of their own. 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