Actual News from Chechnya

News update

Sport hunting has opened in five plains districts of Chechnya where, following combat activities, wild life started returning for the first time over the past nine years, Itar-Tass learnt in an interview with chief wildlife inspector of the republic Magomed Dzhandarov. According to the chief wildlife inspector, hunting is permitted in forests and fields of the Gudermes, Naurskaya, Nadterechny, Grozny and Shelkovskaya districts. Licences are issued for hunting wild boar, wolf, fox and jackal as well as for birds. Some 4,000 residents of the republic received hunting certificates and the official status when the Chechen Wildlife Inspection Service started operating in the republic in April 2000. Despite small wages, the service is fully staffed. Some staffers have rich experience, while a wildlife inspector in the Urus-Martan has a 30-year service record. We hope that while the situation in the republic stabilises, hunting will be permitted in southern (mountainous) part of Chechnya, Dzhandarov noted. We have even prepared documents on granting a federal status to the Sovetsky preserve, rich in fauna, situated in mountains of the Shatoi district. Chechnya was always famous for its great numbers of wild boars, bears, deers, foxes, wolves, pheasants and other wildlife. In Soviet times, the party and government elite regarded it prestigious to hunt here.
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A conference of Moslems of Ingushetia, Islam against Extremism, took place in Nazran, Itar-Tass reports. Representatives of the Ingush administration, scientists, intellectuals and clerics from the North Caucasus, the Stavropol and Vladikavkaz dioceses took part in the event. Extremism has centuries-old roots, Ingushetia Mufti Magomed-Hajji Albogachiyev said at the conference. There are many reasons and factors for religious extremism, such as political, economic, social and psychological. Wahhabism, an extremist trend, does not originate from Islam a religion of peace. Analyzing the Russian situation and events of the past few years, which caused numerous casualties and economic losses and endangered the integrity of Russia, one can presume that pseudo-Islamic extremist trends, among them Wahhabism, were a reason to that, Albogachiyev said. He noted that Wahhabism must be outlawed in Russia. (more...)

Chechen history

Chechnya | Questions and answers

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 aked 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
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Chechen economics

The Russian Kraftway computer company expands operations in Chechnya

Kraftway assembles and markets computers and networking equipment. It has supplied heaps and heaps of all this to regional agencies in Chechnya. Under a three-year agreement with Kraftway, Grozny's KomTi has established a service centre for repairing and upgrading Kraftway hardware in the Chechen capital. Repair services include the supplier's guarantees. All orders are performed within two days. Consultation, expendables and latest software are available. Kraftway's deputy CEO for regional operations Mr Igor Murashkintsev says the presence of a top-notch Kraftway service centre on Chechen territory should help his company dramatically expand business in Chechnya. He pins great hopes on all-round normalization in the republic.
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Issue 157
12.01.04

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

12 January 2004  School Children from Sochi Help Chechen Children of the Same Age
Today many Russian regions are contributing to the restoration of Chechnya.The first to give helping hand to the republic were its neighbours in Russia's Southern Federal district. The Krasnodar region is not keeping aside either. School children of the Sochi secondary school No.1 sent text-books to children in Chechnya.As the parcel was sent in the run up to the New Year, it also contained all kinds of sweets and toys for junior school children. To begin from the very beginning a Charity Club appeared in the Sochi secondary school No.1. It was set up by teachers and senior students, members of the school's self-government.The club members help all those in need, including Chechen school children who had to study in complicated conditions. The charity move was entitled "help to Chechen children". The whole of the city joined in the move which was initiated by the board of directors of local schools. And this is not a one-time action. According to a school director, Olga Medvedeva, it will be continued. Residents of Sochi intend to collect and sent fiction books to children of their age in Chechnya. They will try to adjust correspondence with them, to make their acquaintance and , probably, they will act as sponsors of one of the Chechen schools. Teachers of the Sochi secondary school No. 1 want their students to grow up kind and compassionate. Let's hope that their expectations will come true.
(more News from Chechnya...)

12 January 2004  Police detain 3 kidnappers of prosecutors staffers in Chechnya
Police detained three local residents within the framework of the Whirlwind-Anti-Terror security sweep carried out in the village of Pervomaiskaya in the republics Grozny district. The detainees are men from the group headed by local field commander Paizullayev. It has been established that in December 2002, the detainees abducted and held in captivity the Chechen prosecutors aide Nadezhda Pagosova and deputy prosecutor of the Shatoi district Aleksei Klimanov, head of the press service of the North Caucasus Police Directorate Tamerlan Kazikhanov told Itar-Tass. The investigators are currently probing into the detainees complicity in other crimes and taking measures to identify and detain other members of the gang, Kazikhanov noted.
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12 January 2004  Organizers of 1999 apartment bloc blasts to be sentenced in Moscow City Court
The Moscow City Court will pass a sentence on two participants in the apartment bloc explosions that shook Moscow and another Russian city of Volgodonsk in the autumn of 1999. The explosions of two apartment buildings on Moscows Guryanov Street and Kashirskoye Shosse on September 9 and 13, 1999 and an apartment building blast in Volgodonsk on September 16 claimed the lives of 243 people, including more than 20 children. Two culprits are behind the bars. They are Adam Dekkushev, 42, and Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, 37. Both were born in Karachayevo-Cherkessia. They are being charged with terrorism, murder with a high degree of brutality, participation in an illegal armed group, the transportation, production and storage of explosives and illegal border trespassing. The state prosecutor has demanded a life sentence for Dekkushev and Krymshamkhalov. The two terrorists were detained as a result of a joint operation by the Russian and Georgian security services. Dekkushev was extradited to Russia on April 14, 2002. Krymshamkhalov was detained on December 7 the same year after the Georgian security services carried out a mop-up operation in the Pankisi gorge. The investigation has established that both were members of a group led by Achemez Gochiyayev who organized the apartment building blasts in Moscow and Volgodonsk. The trial over Dekkushev and Krymshamkhalov has been on in Moscow since last October. The defendants have pleaded guilty only partially. Dekkushev said that he had known that the explosive devices which he transported were meant for a terrorist act but claimed that he hadnt known that they were going to be used against civilians.

Russia - Chechnya

Chechen traditions

The word "Nokhchallah" does not lend itself to translation . But it may and must be explained. "Nokhcho" stands for Chechen."Nokhchallah" brings together all the specific properties of the Chechen character. It implies a whole gamut of moral and ethical norms. It may be described as the Chechen code of honor. Chivalry, gentility, diplomatic skills, manliness, generosity and reliability are the qualities which a child of a hardline Chechen family imbibes with, as they say, his mother's milk. And the Chechen code of honor is rooted in the remote days of Chechen history. In the severe conditions of bygone years a refusal to open the door to a stranger could lead to lethal frostbites. He could succumb to fatigue or famine, fall prey to a wild beast or highway robbers. The ancestral tradition which has been held sacred, demands that a stranger be welcomed in, seated by the fire, offered food and shelter for the night. Hospitality is, thus, "nokhchallah." The narrow roads and paths of Chechnya zigzag around mountain cliffs and on the brink of precipices. A fight or a heated argument may send one down into the abyss. Politeness and willingness to compromise are "nokhchallah." The strenuous conditions of their life taught the highlanders to help and support one another, which is also "nokhchallah." But "nokhchallah" has nothing to do with the Table of Ranks. There have been neither princes nor serfs among the Chechens. "Nokhchallah" is an ability to deal with people without showing your privileged position. The privileged should be extra polite and accommodating to avert hurting anyone's feelings. If two men meet and one of them is riding on horseback and the other walking, the one who is riding shall be the first to utter words of greeting. If the one who is walking is older that the one who is riding, the rider shall dismount to greet the older man. "Nokhchallah" is friendship that lasts all life: in joy and sorrow. Highlanders hold friendship sacred. Inattentiveness or impoliteness shall be forgiven if they are displayed to a brother, but to a friend - never! "Nokhchallah" is special respect for women. A man dismounts his horse before entering the village where the relatives of his mother or his wife live. And here is a story about a man who asked to spend a night in a house that stood on the outskirts of a Chechen village, without knowing that she was alone. The hostess could not reject his request. She gave him something to eat and made a bed for him. In the morning, the man realized that the woman was alone and that she had spent the night sitting by a lit lantern in the anteroom. As he was hurriedly washing up, he brushed the woman's hand with his small finger by accodent. The man cut the finger off with his knife before leaving that place. Only a man brought up in the spirit of "nokhchallah" will go to such pains to protect a woman's honor. "Nokhchallah" rules out all attempts at subjugation. Male Chechens have, since times immemorial, been brought up as protectors and trained to bear arms. "Come at liberty" is the oldest of the greetings in actual use in Chechnya. The freedom of spirit and readiness to fight to protect it is "nokhchallah." "Nokhchallah" demands that Chechens respect all other men, regardless of their social origins, family background and religious beliefs. The bigger the difference between a Chechen and someone else, the more respect the Chechen shall accord that someone. You have a chance to be forgiven for hurting a Moslem's feelings because, people say, you may meet the person whose feelings you have hurt on Judgement Day. But all is lost if you have hurt the feelings of a person of a different creed, because there is no chance of ever meeting him. The sin will stay with you forever. "Nokhchallah" is no book of do's and don't's. It is of their own free will that the Chechens obey its rules. It is a condensed
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Chechen tarditions

The book "Vainakh Ethics" by Edi Isaev is an utmost important work at a time when the life in Chechnya is returning to normal. Edi Isaev is a historian, Professor at the Chechen State University, writer and publicist directs his book to youth. In introduction he emphasizes: "The norm of Vainakh ethics is the code of wise truths of people that reflects their ideals." The book is educational. It contains the ideas on ethics by thinkers of various people and various times from Epicurus and Confucius A.S. Makarenko and L.N.Toltoi. The second chapter is devoted to ethic norms of Chechens. The third chapter considers in detail traditional family ethic code. The final chapter is devoted to Islamic ethic norms. Materials from the book Vainakh Ethics by Edi Isaev is devoted to customs and traditions of Chechens.
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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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