Free Chechnya Radio station

You can listen to Free Chechnya Radio station from 6 AM to 12 PM Moscow time on a frequency of 594 kHz on the medium wave band and on a frequency of 171 kHz on the long wave band. The programme is created with the involvement of the Ministry for culture and mass communication of the Russian Federation.
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Chechen traditions

The Etiquette of Chechen Marriage Customs

The traditional Chechen marriage ceremony, like their other folk customs has always been in its secretive cohesion. It included sing-songs, dance, music, pantomime and narration, which altogether produced a whole spectacle. The elements of the Chechen nuptial ceremony, including horse-riding, bridal introduction into the grooms home, acquaintance with the bride, her movement to a river, a visit of the future groom to the brides relatives and others represent the main features of the Chechen folk theatrics, which manifest a mass creativity, originality, multi-faceted national forms, breadth, and depth of popular fantasy. In general, the playful element spectacle and facial expressions are well developed in the images of a Chechen marriage. This is evident from the very notion of the Chechen marriage known as lovzar which means play. Nuptial ceremonies among Chechens and Ingushis have some differences. With Ingushis it is considered a calamity that s girl gets married without the parents blessing, while Chechens see nothing wrong in that. Sometimes, her relatives go this way in order to avoid extra expenses involved in marriage ceremonies. At the appointed time, a groom with friends would go to an appropriate place (the exit spot for the bride) and take away the girl and this is considered to be getting married (marie yakhar) or nuptials (zuda yalor). The bride is taken to the home of a friend, or brother-in-law or a grooms relative (zuda yossar the brides sojourn) to settle certain formalities. It is necessary to dispatch a man (stag vakhiitar) in order to inform her relatives about her voluntary decision to get married, reconciliation (tam bar), redemption payment (yoikhana or kyovlam) to the girls relatives, preparation of the bride for her nuptials (nuskal kechdar) when the parents send her clothing, sow or buy whatever she needs. This lasts for a week or sometimes longer. And all this time the marriage (lovzar)is being prepared. A retinue (zamuoi) is sent for the bride on the marriage day, including the grooms friends (nevzan nakyosk or best men). On the way to the bride and back the nuptial procession throw up a merry-making. They play harmonica, fire guns and previously Chechen equestrians displayed their shooting prowess, fencing and equestrian skills. While on the way, the brides relatives or her fellow villagers can halt the procession by a burka (shipskin overcoat) or a rope strung across the street and demand a redemption fee. The fee is demanded on the brides exit from her parents home (Ney lazar meaning to hold a door). The bride is taken to the grooms home and is placed fully dressed in a nuptial costume in an honorary spot in a room, usually in the opposite corner from the entry near a window covered in a nuptial curtain (kirkhya).
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Chechen cuisine

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. (more...)

Issue 447
10.04.07

Chechnya: news | arguments | facts

10 April 2007  Two guilty of 2005 train explosion given 18, 19 years in prison
The Moscow Region Court Monday sentenced two men found guilty of blowing up the Grozny-Moscow train in 2005 to 18 and 19 years in prison. On June 12, 2005, an improvised bomb equivalent to three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of TNT was set off 153 kilometers (95 miles) south of Moscow as a train en route from Grozny, the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, to Moscow passed by. Forty-two people required medical attention, and five of them, including a child, were hospitalized. The defendants - Vladimir Vlasov, a businessman, and Mikhail Klevachev, a construction company employee - were charged with terrorism and attempting to kill two or more people for reasons of race or religious hatred. They have not admitted their guilt. Last month, judges decided that the investigation had proved the defendants' involvement in the crimes they were charged with, and 10 of the 12 jury members hearing the case voted for a guilty verdict. The defendants were found guilty on all charges, including terrorism, but the judges decided they deserve leniency. On Monday, Vlasov was given 18 years in prison and Klevachev 19 years, whereas the prosecution had demanded 20 and 22 years, respectively. In December 2006, a Moscow Region court dismissed the jury in the case of the train-derailing blast after it reached a not guilty verdict. "Nine of the jury voted for acquittal, and three for the guilty verdict," jurywoman Alexandra Salamatina said then. But the court dismissed the jury after the verdict was read, upholding the prosecutor's contention that it was pressured. The prosecutor said some on the jury spoke with lawyers before the final court session, but jury members said in turn that prosecutors tried to find fault with them as a reason for their dismissal. Salamatina said: "The court has already made a decision that the defendants are guilty, and if the next jury acquits them, they will be dismissed, too." She said prosecutors' arguments were so vague that it was not necessary to be a lawyer to understand that the case had been fabricated. After the acquittal, the Moscow Region Court dismissed the jury and ordered a new trial. RIA Novosti
(more News from Chechnya...)

10 April 2007  Nearly 140 Chechen militants detained since January - ministry
Russia's Interior Ministry said Tuesday its forces in Chechnya had detained nearly 140 militants and eliminated some two dozen since the beginning of the year, a deputy commander of the ministry's North Caucasus contingent said Tuesday. "The first three months of the year saw 138 militants detained and 21 others eliminated," Alexander German said in a posting on the ministry's Web site. He also said 106 suspected militants had voluntarily turned themselves in over the period. Since the start of 2007, the ministry has solved 1,251 crimes committed in the troubled republic - a 1.2-fold increase on last year. "The number of solved crimes has increased in almost all areas [of Chechnya] and on a whole range of crimes, including terrorist acts, killings, attempts on the life of police, robbery, theft, and embezzlement," he said. In the first quarter of the year, Russian interior forces in Chechnya seized 127 firearms, over 40,000 rounds of ammunition, 653 mines and shells, 338 grenades, 19 homemade explosive devices, and more than 100 kilograms of explosives, German said. Speaking of economic crime, German said 590 such offenses have been uncovered and 130 suspects indicted since the beginning of the year. Pro-Kremlin Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, himself a one-time warlord, said in March that all illegal armed groups operating in the republic would be eliminated within two months' time. Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev told the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper in February that 46 such groups, numbering around 450 members overall, are thought to be still active in Chechnya. More than 600 militants in Chechnya and adjacent provinces reportedly surrendered their arms last year in response to a six-month amnesty declared by the Russian government July 15 for those not involved in any serious crimes. The amnesty followed the killing by federal troops of Chechnya's warlord and number one terrorist, Shamil Basayev, who was behind the 2004 Beslan school siege and other atrocities. RIA Novosti
(more News from Chechnya...)

10 April 2007  Kadyrov nominates Odes Baisultanov for Chechnya's PM
Chechnya 's government will be headed by Odes Baisultanov. Baisultanov's nomination for prime minister was submitted on Tuesday to the People's Assembly of the Chechen parliament, by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the government office and presidential chief of staff Abdulkakhir Izraiilov told Interfax. "The deputies are expected to debate the nomination shortly and then Kadyrov will sign a decree on Baisultanov's appointment to the post of prime minister," he said.
(more News from Chechnya...)

Russia - Chechnya

Chechen history

Chechens (self-assumed name nokhchi ) are the world s 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.
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