CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

Who's Afraid of Grozny?

By Yuna Letts

Of course it would it foolish and dishonest with regard to those people simply to go to Grozny with the aim of taking a stroll and "running under the bullets a little". I went there to meet the writer Ismail Mukayev, to discuss an inter-republican project and regular collaboration with Chechen literary organizations. He advised to me to conceal my journalistic certification, not to talk with anyone on the way and not to stick my neck out when I didn’t need to.

I travelled from Nalchik. The Gazelle minibuses that go to Grozny outwardly resemble hearses - black all over: black blinds on the windows, black seats, the drivers in black clothing, dark glasses, with stiff black beards. The passengers were mainly women with children, a few young girls and two lads. The Chechen girls wore skirts and shawls, almost without cosmetics, they seldom spoke Russian. All the women were accompanied by someone.

My looks are generic. If need be, it’s possible to see Chechen features in them, but also Kabardian, or Jewish ones, and even the representatives of the one nationality or the other are deceived by this similarity. But I did a foolish thing - I went in jeans, and so right from the very beginning I attracted the suspicious glances of my fellow-travellers.

I soon got the jitters. The driver was talking in Chechen, and rather rudely, too, shouting something, waving his hands. Then I understood what the matter was: he was asking who hadn’t paid. It was me, of course. The whole minibus turned round and looked at me as though I were an enemy of the people – by now they had realized that I knew no Chechen.

A ticket from Kabardino-Balkaria to Chechnya costs 200 rubles. This a lot of money for Chechens, and so they seldom manage to get to the most peaceful Caucasian republic, only out of necessity - to buy household items and provisions that aren’t available in Grozny. Chechens are not liked here. Locals told me that they once came for the markets of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic – to Nalchik, Maisky, Prokhladny – stood for a day with their wares and never went there again – they were “asked” not to poke their noses into other people’s lands.

I was taken to a special room, where a woman in military uniform said in a serious tone: "Have you any weapons, narcotics, or ammunition? It’s better to hand them in voluntarily." I smiled at the question and opened my bag. Then the woman in uniform asked if I had any more luggage with me, why was I going to Grozny and what had I been doing in Nalchik. I didn’t have any other luggage, I said I was going to Grozny to visit my grandfather, and had relatives in Nalchik. The inspection passed off successfully, my passport was returned to me and I was advised not to travel through such places alone.

When I got back to the minibus, people looked at me as if I had committed some serious crime. The women snorted disapprovingly. I can also see it from their point of view – they weren’t sure who they were sharing the bus with. My neighbour advised me not to show my passport. He explained that when he had been this way last time, two Chechen women from Krasnodar had been taken off the bus at the checkpoint and stripped of 2,500 rubles for crossing borders with "inappropriate documents".

We began to talk about how to avoid the passport examination, and a that point there was a loud impact against the bus. Everyone threw themselves to the floor, I had a sense of total apocalypse, and those black, closed blinds... It turned out that it had just been some stones bouncing off a passing truck.

We crossed the Chechen-Ingush border without surprises. I didn’t show my passport – pretended to be sleeping. In Ingushetia the nature is wonderful: grasses, colourful flowers, small private houses, luxuriant trees, in the fields the rams warming their flanks in the spring sunshine. But as soon as Chechnya begins, the colours change: ruins, armoured personnel carriers speeding through the streets, not many people in the courtyards, not many animals, not much happiness.

When I entered Grozny, I felt like bursting into tears right there, in the minibus, as if this were the land of my birth, as if I were waking up from the bombings. I cannot explain this sensation, when you see a completely dead city, grey streets and grey people. Here in Moscow we think it’s possible simply not to see and not to know - but that will not mean that there’s no war.

I won’t say that Grozny is good or bad; Grozny is simply a fact. It’s the fact of a dead generation, of people who clean teeth as we do, smile as we do, raise children as we do, but inside them is war.

We approach the centre of Grozny, I get out my cell phone - there is no connection. I realize that I am definitely not going to find my writer here. Should I go and ask everyone in the park which of them is Ismail Bulatovich? It turns out that here only Grozny numbers work. It takes no less than six months to get a SIM card, like television sets back home during perestroika. One SIM card costs about three thousand rubles.

My neighbour gets off the bus with me, suggests we walk together. I have no choice. I am wearing torn jeans in the centre of Grozny with no connection to the outside world. In addition, the fellow looks good-natured, not dangerous. I tell him that my father is Chechen, for insurance. After scolding itself for vile stereotypes, I got and look at the city with him. His name is Ramzas, he’s a native of Grozny, about thirty, unmarried, a former athlete, now earns his living by selling sweets.

The centre of Grozny is full of people, young people, old folk, every other man in the crowd carries a submachine gun. We walk through the market. Well, I will tell you, it’s a long time since I made such a reality-journey into the past. Some examples: a kilogram of bananas was 7 rubles, a kilogram of spring onions- 2 rubles, and so on in the same vein. Clothing is also inexpensive, but is also not cheap, especially, children's clothes. Shoes for a one-year-old infant cost an average of 250 rubles, a dress for a little girl - 300 rubles. At the market the grocery stalls alternate with stalls selling shoes, clothing, tobaccos. Men stroll about the place waving bundles of dollars – the exchange takes place right there on the spot, on one's word of honour.

The most frequently encountered item of produce are sloes – the „war berries”, Ramzas explained. In the war blackthorn saved people from hunger. Ramzas remembers crawling here as boy – picking the precious berries from the mud. They are an expensive item for Grozny - 20 rubles for a half-litre jar. When I tried to buy it, my fellow-traveller led me aside and asked to put my money away and not do this again. It turns out that when a woman goes to the market with a man, only the man must pay. From then on, Ramzas made a point of paying for my purchases. I tried to offer him money to pay for my shopping, but he looked at me as though I’d begun to sing Hava Nagila in a mosque.

When a sufficient quantity of Chechen souvenirs had been bought for me, Ramzas suggested a bite to eat. The nameless cafe we entered had been made from an ordinary ground floor apartment. There was a corridor, and three alcoves to the right and left, hung with brown velvety material. In the alcoves it was semi-dark, a rectangular table with no tablecloth and two stools.There were of course no napkins or knives for the meat, everything was natural and straightforward. On the menu were meatballs, pelmeni, cabbage salad. The alcohol was wine, vodka or beer. Ramzas ordered everything there was.

As I eat my fill, more from a kind of groundless nervous anxiety than from hunger, he tells "funny stories". For example, how once a Russian officer who was fighting for Chechnya slapped a Chechen soldier in the face in front of all the men, and the officer was then led along the line of soldiers, each of whom implanted on his face such a savoury slap that the officer’s face began to resemble a large ripe tomato. Or another "anecdote": one day when the city was being bombed, his friends, who had not had time to run back to their homes, jumped into a cesspit; other "casual passers-by" began to crawl into it from above, too – in the end they nearly choked to death on sewage, now that would be a shameful way to die.

Until it was time to take the minibus back again, we walked about the city. Ramzas covered for me, and I took photographs. He said it was better better not to make people angry, journalists are not liked here, people think they come to mock them. The park has also been restored – there are fountains, flower beds, lamps. Here there is even a bistro where ice cream is served in those good old metal dishes.

Grozny’s pride and shame is three elegant houses near the park, houses that were built, as the locals say, for the Russian-Chechen elite. Against the background of ruins and half-wrecked hovels they are really rousing and cheerful. One of the posters shows three great heroes - Kadyrov, Alkhanov and some Russian politician, though I ust confess that neither Ramzas nor I so could not remember who it was. But definitely not Putin. Everyone knows him so well here. Both by his face and his “walk”.

There are a lot of children and young people in the park. Among them there are men in black with an incredible amount of weapons on their belts – the guards. Chechen young men and girls are something of a connoisseur’s item – personally I think Chechens are the most beautiful people in the Caucasus. They have a kind of pep and spirit that is not devised, not painted on, but is a most genuine characteristic – deriving from the fact of their birth. Nokhchi – Chechens, that is – have light-brown hair and light-hazel eyes, or eyes that are quite dark, with black pupils. There is nothing simple here, if you understand difference, then you will always define a Chechen by an elongated face, a slightly compressed nose and, of course, a completely distinctive gaze. The "gaze of a corpse", as someone said.

I left Grozny in the evening. At the checkpoints it was comparatively quiet. Everything went well until the last border with Kabardino-Balkaria. There I was "taken off the bus" and led into a room. The inspection was done by a man. He spent a long time studying each berry, each candy, and kept saying, okay, where are the drugs? I smiled, but he was completely serious.

I even got a little scared when he found my journalist’s certification, hidden in the pocket of my bag. I will explain why. Journalists entering into Chechnya are required to have a special warrant. The press have special conditions for travel, their movements are restricted, and so in order to avoid unnecessary questions, I was also "travelling from my Chechen grandfather’s to my Chechen aunt’s." In other words, I was one of those crazy tourists.

He took away my passport and shut the door. Then he asked me to lift my jacket. Here I nearly I nearly broke the norms of law and order by a flow of bad language. Yes, I realize it’s a border, there are "conflict zones", but women have a right to by searched only by women, and not old frontier-guards with hungry eyes. After that he asked for my phone number and wanted to know when I would be back in Nalchik. I was frightened for the passport. But he wrote down number, returned all my documents and said he would call me. As if to say, he liked me.

Another important addition. It costs nothing to ferry narcotics, ammunition, even an entire machine gun in and out of Chechnya. They don’t look into the passenger cabin, you could take an elephant through, just give the drivers a tip and rest assured.. It’s perfectly possible to take in narcotics – there are no specially trained dogs. The same applies to weapons – as long as you have a Chechen passport you never be subjected to inspection, unless you are in the computerized lists or the big white book of "dangerous surnames".

I don’t know whether my opinion of Chechnya and Chechens changed after this trip. Probably not. It’s just that it has become more complete, more extensive. I am not Chechen and so I don’t see anything subjective about this account. It’s the opinion of a person who is located on the "bright" side of the barbed wire fence, one who has never eaten pigeons or hidden from the bombs in a cesspit.

I don’t mean that I feel guilty before them, for having been born in a "happier place". I mean that we sit in our "happier places" and are afraid to breathe, we’re afraid of people, afraid to live. In our little world we would rather suffer from boredom and take slimming pills, than look around us. If only in order to understand you and I are happy, cheerful people, who have calmness, peace, stability, the possibility of living as we want to. We bear no brand-mark, which denies us employment, which is despised all over the world, which gives no freedom even after leaving prison.

The new generation which has grown up in the war, whose youth is passing in a time of comparative calm, is now now forming an opinion about what is around them, including an opinion about Russians. Everything is being forgotten - including the mistakes of our fathers, leaders, politicians. Now we, the peoples, are coming out into open contact and are building our attitudes - each of us in one way or another is taking part in this.

My trip to Grozny will perhaps be seen by some as foolishness, but I would very much like you to see Chechnya in its "domestic habitat" so that you could try to understand it and its children. Who, by the way, could also be you.

From an abridged Russian version translated by David McDuff.

(MD/T,B)