June divertissement. With an odour of cannabis By German Sadulayev, special to Prague Watchdog
Greetings, dear friends! As promised, I have made a visit to our wonderful homeland, the Chechen Republic. Everyone is alive and well, and they asked after you, sent you their marshalla*.
It is summer, the weather is warm, the trees are in leaf, and in the places where it has not been cut the grass grows to head height. Tomatoes are 30 rubles (1 USD) a kilo. If it’s nekhch* you’re after it’s better not to buy it in the centre of town, it is hard and too salty. But in the small shop near the cable plant the cheese is soft, it fairly melts in your mouth!
In my column before last I said I would inspect the republic with regard to the government’s promise to revive the fish farms and set up business incubators. Well, here is my report: I have seen the fish, and it is being sold by the side of the road in Germenchuk. I am told that it is common carp, of Cyclopean dimensions! However, people in the know advise me not to buy it: it is brought all the way from the Caspian and sold in the open air, with no refrigerators, and not even on ice. I didn’t find any incubators. But all sorts of businesses are hatching out all the same.
The most popular business is plastic windows. Every third Chechen makes plastic windows in his own window factory (garage), while every second inserts them into all the apertures, both suitable and inappropriate. Soon even the chicken coops will have double glazing.
And in general, everything is wonderful. The very air seems to make one drunk!
Especially since from now on only the air will be allowed to make people drunk. Across the entire republic, the sale of alcohol is limited to two hours, from 8 to 10 am. As the saying goes, the early bird catches the plague. The inhabitants of Shali have decided to be stricter than anyone else, and in Shalinsky district the sale of vodka is completely banned.
It is rumoured that Ramzan has said he does not care for Shali. “My father didn’t care for it, and neither do I.” And so they are trying to vindicate themselves in the eyes of the boss. To catch up with and overtake Khosi-Yurt.
The young hardly drink at all. They all make lamaz* five times a day. The older generation still drinks out of habit. The vodka is imported from Dagestan, where a bottle costs 150 rubles (4.85 USD), but in Shali is sold illegally for 300. The “Silver” brand is especially popular – it has a small silver plate inside the bottle. The recalcitrant old folk collect the silver plates, and tell their children: “I’m saving an inheritance for you, a precious metal that isn’t subject to inflation.”
The young women look pretty as they walk about town – they dress as they please, and half of them do not wear the yovlakh*. I ask a father: how can this be? Everyone writes that in Chechnya a girl without a headscarf can’t even enter a school! The father smirks into his greying beard, and replies slyly that these girls are still just children, it’s all right for them. Well, I don’t know. If their anatomical features are anything to go by, they are already adults. It’s time for them to marry, but too soon for them to cover their heads.
It doesn’t matter. On morgushki – dates, that is – they wear a headscarf, look modestly at the ground, and when they catch sight of me walking by they turn to face the wall. The young man is ten metres away from the girl, no closer. What is their conversation like? They lip-read. Everything is as it should be.
But now for the news. And once again it’s from the official Web portal of the Government and President of the Chechen Republic.
The Mufti of the Chechen Republic has expressed his outrage at the actions of the Egyptian government, which is holding some Russian Muslim students under arrest. There are Chechens among them. But, as the Mufti did not fail to notice, none of the nine students who are receiving their instruction under the direction of the Chechen Spiritual Board of Muslims (DUM) were detained. The message? Enrol in our collective, our roof doesn’t leak, not even in Egypt!
And in the Czech Republic scientists are conducting studies of the soil and air in the Chechen Republic. The studies have been initiated in order to determine the relation between the level of toxic substances and their effects on human health. In the view of the Czech specialists, the military operations which have taken place in the past are one of the main causes of pollution in the republic. The findings of their research are bold indeed. But what if the pollution wasn’t caused by the war? What if it was deodorants? Or methyl chloride leaking from domestic refrigerators? Aha!
In Chechnya the public attitude towards the pollution of soil, water and air as a result of the use by Russian troops of weaponry both conventional and unconventional has become a real phobia. It’s said that the most terrible kinds of chemical and biological weapons were tested in the republic.
Let's hope that the independent scientists from the Czech Republic will carry out proper and complete research and publish the results, whatever they may be.
But I am keeping my favourite topic for dessert. The status of the operational situation in the Chechen Republic.
In this section of the website we read that “as part of Operation Mak [Poppy] on the premises of the ‘Achkhoi-Martanovsky’ poultry processing factory located on the south-western outskirts of the village of Achkhoi-Martan, officers of the republic’s interior ministry units engaged in the fight against drug trafficking found plants with a specific odour of “cannabis”, which have now been destroyed .”
For some reason the word cannabis appears in quotation marks. Let us read on.
“As a result of the preventive measures 273 wild cannabis plants were removed. In the Nozhai-Yurtovsky district of the Chechen Republic the police also found plants with a characteristic odour of cannabis. 187 were destroyed and 22 removed and sent for analysis in the Department of Criminal and Forensic Examination (EKTs) of the Interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic.”
In the old days, the police used to destroy the Chechen insurgents. But nowadays it’s plants. With a characteristic odour. There obviously aren’t any insurgents left. But the tactics have been preserved: surround, blockade, then fire a warning shot and forward, to the mop-up!
Aha! the cry goes up. Here it is, a plant! With a characteristic odour! Destroy it – another man shouts. I’m destroying it! And they destroy, destroy ...
But not all of them. Some of the plants are put in captivity and sent for interrogation.
It’s odd that the operation is called “Poppy”, yet it’s cannabis that is being destroyed. I wonder how they destroyed it? Probably by burning it. So that is why...
The very air made one drunk.
And everything around seemed so wonderful.
*marshalla – greetings (Chechen)
*nekhch – cheese (Chechen)
*lamaz – prayer (Arabic)
*yovlakh – headscarf (Chechen)
Picture: "Expert Online 2.0". (Translation by DM) (P,DM)
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