JOST A MON

For the Chechens, the fall of the Soviet Union turned out to be a disaster of unmitigated proportions. For centuries since they were first defeated by the Imperial Russians, they had - along among the tribes of the Caucasus - waged off and on rebellions against authority. During the occasional ceasefire, their martial prowess was absorbed into the Russian army, where, despite their obstreperous natures, they served with iron discipline. Few of them gained the full trust of their ostensible masters, and, like all their fellow highlanders, they were always discriminated against. And so in the brave new world of the Imperium, they were forced to continue in their age-old rhythms of life - loyalty to the clan, a rigid class system, and a deep suspicion of all outsiders.

When the Soviet Union imploded, the Chechens found themselves with a freedom they suddenly couldn't handle. Without an external force to throttle their exuberance, they returned to their traditional pastimes of raiding and pillaging. The elders of the major clans made it clear to the minions that class divisions would continue. Some clans created a Russia-wide network of smugglers, carting across the porous borders all manner of commodities. Everything was fair game: women, drugs, oil, medicines, food. The gun-runners made money off both sides of the internecine wars that erupted all around the Caucasus. The loyalty to clans and the fall of civic authority led to establishment of Mafia families with long reaches deep into every region of the old USSR.

Along with every major republic, the Chechens declared independence in 1991. Immediately, the Russians invaded. They couldn't just stand around, they said, while their country was eviscerated. Sending callow conscripts into battle with scarcely a strategy, the Red Army was savagely crushed by the dzhigits.

Interestingly, throughout this first war, the Chechens maintained their smuggling networks. The Russian soldiers were so badly off that they sold their fuel and weaponry and even each other to obtain food and security. Corruption ruled absolutely. For a price, anybody in the old USSR could be kidnapped or sold. Chechnya became a kidnapper's paradise, a hiding place for kidnappers and their victims.

The Chechens, a proud and manly people, have also been known for their black sarcastic humour. They told a joke about the Russians, who, troubled by all the kidnapping and violent crime going on in Moscow and St Petersburg, decided to send their best spy, Stirlitz, to find out who was responsible in Chechnya for it all.

Stirlitz ponders his move, lying in a ditch after having parachuted from an airplane. "Should I go to the government to find out if they are the villains?" he thinks. "Or should I go to their rivals first? Bah. I'll go to the government."

As he steps out of the ditch, a Chechen warrior appears and fires his machine gun into the air, shouting, "Where are you going?"

Stirlitz says, "To the government."

The dzhigit says, "Better not. You know what they do to people like you? They beat you, they strip you, they take everything you've got, and release you naked as a jaybird."

Stirlitz thinks, "Good to know", and heads off in the opposite direction. Again, the dzhigit fires into the air.

"Don't go that way either! Over there, they'll beat you, strip you, take everything you've got, and release you naked as a jaybird as well."

"So where am I supposed to go?" says Stirlitz, spreading his arms apart.

"You're not going anywhere," yells the dzhigit. "You'll strip right here!"

During the years of 'independence', the Chechens did little to organise their state. Clans fought each other and raised ruckus in neighbouring lands. Some of the Chechens had gotten religion, something that had been pretty much purged out of them during the long years of Communism. Newly returning mujahideen from the Afghan war, seething with nascent Wahhabism, began to exercise their muscle. They derided the old clan loyalties as spurious. Islam alone, they said, was the unifying force. They also revolted against the class system that had ensured the supremacy of the senior clans. People at the bottom of Chechen society found that this egalitarianism appealed to them. Finally, their voices could be heard.

For the old guard, whose faith was somewhat suspect (at the best of times, the Chechens had mixed Islam with old folk beliefs), this two-pronged attack against them came as a considerable surprise. To disdain the new-fangled faith would be suicidal. They began to tout their own religious credentials, hoping to co-opt the bearded men.

Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Chechen president, suddenly becomes pious.

"We are the most devout Muslims in the world," he declares to his people. "We are so pious that we pray thrice a day!"

His deputy, embarrassed by his clear lack of understanding of the tenets of Islam prompts him, "No, Dzhokhar. Not three times, but five."

Completely unabashed, Dzhokhar yells,"And if you like, you can even pray five times a day. That's the kind of freedom we have here."

Pleased by the new egalitarianism, all sorts of ruffians raised private armies. A mighty convict, Ruslan Labazanov, skilled in the martial arts and leader of a prison revolt, decided that he would serve the new Chechen state. For a time he even became Captain of the Presidential Guard. After some slight from Dudayev, Ruslan rushed off to form a party of his own, which he called Justice. He would rob the rich, he said, and pay the poor.

Among the Chechens, he was considered a dim-wit, a clown of majestic proportions. They told this anecdote to each other:

Ruslan raids a rich farmstead and lines up the owners to be shot. "Before I shoot you," he says, "Tell me your names so I know who it is I am killing." He points his gun at the woman.

"Maliha," says the woman, and Ruslan bursts into tears.

"That's my mother's name," he blubbers. "I can't kill someone with the same name as my mother. You may go."

He then points the gun at the husband. "What's your name?" he says.

"Well," says the man. "My passport says Suleyman, but everyone calls me Maliha."

References

1. Wojciech Jagielski, Towers of Stone: The Battle of Wills in Chechnya

[Via Neeka, yet another moving tale from the Russian journal Bolshoi Gorod. I have loosely translated it.]

Polina Zherebtsova was born in 1985 at Grozny. Her mother had arrived in Chechnya from Rostov-on-Don, and prior to the war had worked at a local factory called Red Hammer.

In 1994, the first Chechen war began. During the bombardment of a hospital on Pervomaisky street, Polina's grandfather, Anatoly Zherebtsov, a journalist and cameraman well-known in Chechnya was killed. Scant months later, School №55 where Polina studied, was bombed. In the ensuing ten years, she transferred from school to school as each one fell victim to the crossfire. At the time of the assault on Grozny, the district Polina dwelt in was fired upon by tanks. Her house was partially wrecked.

At the age of nine, Polina began to keep a diary where she wrote down everything that she saw and heard. Throughout the first Chechen war, she and her mother remained in Grozny, several times escaping death only by a miracle. In her diary of the time, she described regular explosions on the streets, and how people were being buried in pits and by the entrances to their houses.

When the second Chechen war commenced, Polina and her mother were traders in the central market. Polina continued to mantain her diary. On October 21, a missile fell on the market. Polina's mother was wounded in the thigh, while her own right leg was peppered with shrapnel, both small and large.

It was dangerous to travel out of the city. There were hardly any free shuttlebuses; those carrying refugees were periodically hit by artillery. In January 2000, members of the Russian forces led Polina, her mother and some neighbours out of their houses, arranged them by a trench and fired into the air, and said later that they were only joking.

Having finished school in 2002, Polina was admitted to a Teaching institute. She published poetry and tales of the war in various newspapers. She was accosted by various people who did not introduce themselves, but bore hints of association with the government. They told her they were unhappy with her publications, threatened her with unpleasantness if she continued. She and her mother were forced to move from place to place; their own apartment was in a dilapidated condition, with the floor having collapsed into the basement.

At the end of 2004, an explosion occurred near the 9^th Grozny Hospital. Polina and her mother decided to leave Grozny, and began to look for shelter in Stavropol. In a year, they changed apartments nine times. Her mother fell seriously ill.

By chance having seen a book published by the Solzhenitsyn Fund, Polina wrote to the author about her life and asked for help finding a job. Several months later, she received a reply, and on Solzhenitsyn's request, his contacts helped her move to Moscow.

Below are extracts from Polina's diary from the autumn of 1999. Daud and several others remembered here perished several months after the events described. Kusum and Maryam survived. Vandam and family managed to escape to a refugee camp. The man who is addressed in the diary as Aladdin also survived, having escaped to Ingushetia.

Polina Zherebtsova is planning to publish a book based on her diaries, and produce an anti-war film.

(Names of people in the diary have been changed. The text of the diary entries has been abridged.)

Part I appears here.