Kadyrov's world of crime (weekly review) By Vadim Borshchev, special to Prague Watchdog
Ramzan Kadyrov has long been one of the most popular characters on the Russian-speaking Internet, where he has become established less as a real figure than as an exotic form of speech. The absurdities, stupidities and monstrosities with which he constantly regales his grateful fans consistently draw avid attention. LiveJournal users reproduce the leader of the Chechen Republic’s statements, adding detailed and malicious commentaries of their own. They laugh at his incoherent speech, they worry when he utters his not invariably clear but always threatening words, they curse, swear and giggle. It’s a rare bird that gives Kadyrov a tender glance, but that does occasionally happen,it cannot be denied.
Yet despite all the horror stories that are circulated about him, Kadyrov has not grown into a genuine monster. The denizens of the Russian-language Web see him as a crooked little figure from the comics, a perversely gifted teenager who goes around wearing a sheet and pretending to be a wicked ghost. The fact that there are fresh bloodstains on the sheet is of little concern to the Internet. The inhabitants of the virtual world are cynical and don’t consider it necessary to open their doors when reality knocks on them.
Without being aware of it, Kadyrov gives a hundred reasons to serve as a target for the ridicule of bloggers and forum posters. But his tongue-tied awkwardness is only a secondary problem – the main one lies elsewhere. Kadyrov is terribly out of touch with fashion. He comes across as an example of the hopelessly outdated style of behaviour which was current on factory housing estates in the 1990s. These people had their own uniform -- a shell suit made in China and a crimson jacket for appearances in public. They died in their thousands in illegal wars and drunken fights, poisoned their livers with cheap alcohol, and queued up to fill the prisons and labour camps.
Ramzan Kadyrov is a reflection in two mirrors – in one as the original, and in the other as a parody of himself.
Last weekend he gave an interview to Radio Liberty’s Chechen correspondents. In the course of it, he poured out “forty fish in a barrel” on his interviewers. If any other leader of a federal Russian republic had allowed such abuse and obscenity to pass his lips, it would probably have been a national scandal. But for Russia’s Internet users, who point their fingers and savour the juiciest moments of the show, it is all quite okay. When Kadyrov defames the recently deceased, his observers enthusiastically discuss what is taking place: "You see the way it's accepted among them to behave!" In the interview, Kadyrov’s declaration of love for Vladimir Putin is not much different from the oath of eternal devotion to the gang leader, complete with drunken tears and tearing of the shirt. It’s a normal part of the rite of initiation into the criminal underworld. He believes every single word that he says: “What I do best in life is waging war. I’m a very good strategist. I have never had any losses, though I’ve taken part in fighting, been in direct command of groups of men and successfully carried out all my special operations. I’ve killed hundreds and hundreds of bandits, thousands, I may say, and the leaders of their bandit groups.“
The average Internet user may not know that Kadyrov was unable to take part in the bloody battles of the Chechen wars. In the first war he was still too young, and in the second he immediately ended up in the rear, where his father was being transported by the Chechen troops. The art of retelling stories in this way reveals the sort of ability that makes it possible to depict a raid on a beer stall as the battle of Waterloo.
Picture: diary.ru.
(Translation by DM) (P,DM)
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