Actual News from Chechnya

News update

Lawyers see June verdict on Russian spies in Qatar

The verdict on two Russian spies accused of killing a Chechen rebel leader in Qatar should come this month, their lawyers' spokesman said. The trial is closed to the public but provokes much interest in Russia, where some politicians have called for sanctions against Qatar for arresting the men, who were charged in February with planting the bomb in Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev's car. Yandarbiyev was a leading ideologist for the Chechen rebels and briefly president of a de facto independent Chechnya when Russian troops quit the province after being defeated in 1996. "The state prosecutors will address the court tomorrow, so the date for the verdict will most likely be set tomorrow as well," said Ilya Levitin, spokesman for Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners law firm. "There will be a pause for consideration, which could be three days, but at most will be three weeks, so the verdict should come by the end of the month." Russia admits the two men are spies, but said they were engaged in legitimate counter-terrorism work and officials rebuked the Gulf State for arresting them. An April visit to Qatar by Security Council Chief Igor Ivanov lowered the temperature. He said Russia would respect the court's decision - which many analysts said was a sign of a backroom deal that Qatar would pardon the men after the trial. Yandarbiyev fled Chechnya after the Russian army stormed back into the region in 1999, and went into exile in Qatar. He said he had no active role in the Chechen resistance, which still kills Russian police and troops daily. Yandarbiyev was added at Moscow's request to a list of people with suspected links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, but the rebel has denied the charge.
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Last Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia to be closed down

The last Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia Satsita - will be closed down in three days time. At present there still remain three tents housing no more than 20 people. On June 9 all of them will leave the camp for home. Two months ago Satsita accommodated about 5,000 refugees. All conditions have now been created for their return home and the issue of paying compensations for lost homes is being resolved, Chechnyas Deputy Prime Minister Bikhlis Dadayeva has told Tass. The republican government is now shifting to the solution of another, no less important problem, that of bringing home Chechen refugees from the Pankisi gorge in neighboring Georgia. There are three thousand to five thousand refugees there. Saying precisely how many is impossible at this point. Until recently nothing had been done to help refugees in Pankisi return home, Dadayeva said. Over the past month six families 35 people all in all - have returned to Chechnya from the gorge. (more...)

Chechen history

Chechnya | Questions and answers

To Reader
All about Chechnya, chechens. Chechen Republic | news| history| traditions| music

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

Restoration of fuel and energy complex in Chechnya

The Russian industry and energy ministry has made a report about the restoration of the fuel and energy facilities in Chechnya for the 2000 - 2004 periods. These are the highlights. Oil and gas complex: The restoration work led to the destruction of over a hundred open oil-gushers, including more than 40 hot ones. 14 oil and gas deposits have been explored. As a result of the general repairs carried out in 2003, 16 oil wells have been prepared for exploitation. At the present time, 72 oil and gas wells are being developed and in progress is the repair of auxiliary equipment and transportation means. Gas delivery facilities: About 30 kilometers of gas pipeline and 800 kilometers of pipeline for delivering gas to consumers have been rebuilt and are functioning. All regions in the republic with gas pipeline are receiving gas and gas meters are being installed to track gas consumption. 14 out of the 18 gas distributing centers have been fitted with meters and 4 have gas reducers. The GIS Kumpli for measuring gas at the border with Dagestan has been commissioned and 36 honeycombs and 688 illegal tapping into the gas pipeline have been eliminated. Chechnya is getting uninterrupted gas supplies from other regions in Russia. More than 200 populated areas in which between 80 and 90 per cent of the population live now have electricity. Electricity is supplied to all consumers in a position to use it, including vital life sustaining facilities, such as administrative bodies, and hospitals. The restored transformers have a double reserve capacity guaranteeing a further development of the distributing network. Over 755 kilometers of a high voltage electricity line and 29 high voltage substations have been restored and 5,318 kilometers of distributing networks including 431 in Grozny are up and running. Restoration work is nearing completion on the high voltage line-Vladikavkaz-Grozny-Chir-Yurt, stretching for 214 kilometers. The first generating unit in the Argun Thermal power station with a capacity of 6 million watt has come on stream. Chechnya owes more than 3 billion rubles for already received electro-energy (more than 7,7 billion kilowatt hour)
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Issue 196
08.06.04

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

07 June 2004 UN World Food Program may open its office in Chechnya
In Grozny a delegation of the UN World Food Program discussed the prospects for rendering aid to the republic's population, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the president of Chechnya. "A delegation of the UN World Food Program led by Jonathan Campbell visited Grozny to study the situation in the republic and to plan its further activity," the agency's source said. According to him, if the security conditions on Chechnya's territory improve the US World Food Program is ready to open its office in the republic. "This organization's plans also provide for boosting the supplies of foodstuffs to the schoolchildren of the Nozhai-Yurt and Vedeno districts of Chechnya," the press service official added. More than 15,000 inhabitants of Chechnya currently receive foodstuffs within the Food for Work program envisaging participation in the work to improve amenities in the republic's urban localities. In Grozny 1,500 people are provided with hot dinners.
(more News from Chechnya...)

07 June 2004 Last Chechen refugee tent camp closes in neighboring Ingushetia
The last tent camp housing Chechen refugees has closed in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, a regional official told AFP. "The Satsita camp is closed," Magomet Markhiev, Ingushetia's deputy prime miniter, said in a telephone interview. "There are no more tents there." Most of the refugees from the camp, which once housed thousands of people who fled Chechnya when war between Russian troops and rebels broke out in October 1999, have returned home, Markhiev said. According to the Danish Refugee Council, 549 people or 126 families were registered in Satsita as of June 2. The tent camps in Ingushetia were an embarrassment to Russia, which insists that the war that it launched in the breakaway Caucasus republic four and a half years ago is over and that refugees can safely return home. But many refugees have refused to budge because a guerrilla war between separatists and pro-Moscow forces continues to claim lives on nearly a daily basis and random kidnappings are common. Nevertheless thousands have been returned to Chechnya since the beginning of this year with promises of compensation for their bombed-out homes. As of February 13, 5,678 refugees in the three largest tent camps had registered for assistance with the Danish Refugee Council, which is the UN refugee agency's (UNHCR) implementing partner in the region. In all, 54,000 Chechens still live in Ingushetia in temporary housing and private accommodation, according to the UNHCR.

Russia - Chechnya

Chechen culture

Architecture
Traditional Chechen households

The natural surroundings determined what kind of villages and housing units were to be built in the mountainous and flatland parts of Chechnya. Mountain rock was the main. and wood, clay and straw, the auxiliary building materials. Security was the chief concern of those who settled to live in mountain canyons: their villages were to be well protected. Besides, the highlanders were concerned about the availability of grass and grazing pastures, water, and, last but not least, arable land. Land ought not to be wasted, so houses were built even on top of mountain cliffs. One-storey houses with a flat roof constituted the widest-spread type of buildings in mountainous Chechnya. Two-storeyed houses and three-to-five-storeyed towers were occasionally built, too. Several buildings - the living quarters, a tower and the outhouses - made up what might be called a family holding. Their relative positions depended on the terrain. A mountain village looked a helter-skelter agglomeration of buildings. No straight streets cut through it. Land was scarce. It was divided between kins and no construction blueprints were ever drawn up. The more kinsmen, the bigger chunk of land a kin was entitled to get. As a result, there appeared blocks of family holdings: kinsmen settled to live side by side with one another. Every village had a main square which was dominated by a mosque. The main square was meant for public gatherings. Flatland villages eventually came to imitate the highlanders' planning methods. They stretched on the bank of a river or along a road and were far more populous. A mountain village had 20 to 25 family units whereas a village of flatland Chechnya, over 400. The Chechens usually built their long, flat-roofed, one-storey houses of mountain rock and, less frequently, of straw brick. It took a week to build this unpretentious shelter, and a week was all the time a Chechen could afford to spend on housing construction after his old house was destroyed by an enemy. Other construction materials were used in flatland Chechnya. The walls of the houses were made of a mixture of clay, chaff and fresh manure. The roofs were made of wooden poles covered with tree bark and a layer of clay. The clay was to be tamped with a special rammer, otherwise grass would grow on the roofs.
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Chechen tarditions

The book "Vainakh Ethics" by Edi Isaev
Edi Isaev on Customs and Traditions of Chechens The book" Vainakh Ethics " by Edi Isaev the chechen character

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

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"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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