Empudged city

Once again, I am surprised by the formidable brightness of the evening lights. As if he would not be saturated with the opportunity to burn the lights after the darkness in which he was immersed several years after bombing and ruin. Even from the porthole, a prospect burning with lights is visible, leading from the airfield to the city. As if the plane is going to the place of a large holiday.

Having left the airport building, I notice a new mosque, large and beautiful. “We have built them a lot now,” they meet me.

From the airfield to the city is close, quickly reach the center. Here is the house of the press, the area of ​​friendship of peoples, the alley of journalists ... there are many lights, but people are almost not visible, although it was dark recently and an hour no late ...

The next day, I am surprised by the void of Victory Avenue, renamed two years ago to Putin Avenue. This is not just the central street of Grozny, it is its most important artery, comparable in meaning with Tverskaya Street in Moscow. But strange: the middle of Sunday, but there are no people. It even seems that then, during my first trip to Grozny, when only the remains of stucco molding on bombed houses spoke of the former beauty of the street, there were more people here. True, then there were almost no cars, but now there are many of them. Or does Chechnya prosper so that there are no pedestrians left, everyone moved to private transport?

However, the view of the empty city does not have jokes. A terrible impression is made by new multi -storey buildings that do not show signs of life, in the windows of which there are no flowers or curtains. Obviously, no one lives in these apartments.

I reach the church, I see new gilded domes. Beautiful. In the church - a dressed Christmas tree. I meet a Russian woman, familiar with the time when the temple was completely destroyed, and believers gathered in a small room next to its ruins. Then, even on holidays, the priest did not come here. But there was also a Christmas tree dressed up for Christmas.

A friend tells me how the recent census of the population passed here. They asked for overpriced results very much. They even asked her advice on how to gain more names.

“Where to get them? Few people return, but a lot leaves. There are so many problems here, people are not protected. Three families left our house. Already I am thinking about moving somewhere to relatives under Rostov ... "

I am surprised. She experienced two wars here, did not leave the bombing, and now, when the city in the evenings is all in the lights and domes in the temple gilded, suddenly leave?

I go out to Kadyrov Avenue (former Lenin), I look at a handful of skyscrapers on the banks of the Sunzhi with perplexity, one of which is almost built, shines with brand new tinted glasses. This is the new pride of Grozny, the city center under construction. They tell me that there is the skyscraper that only grows up, they plan to be on 45 floors. I go past the giant construction, I go to the shore of the Sunzhi. And-as if something is turning over in me: I do not recognize the rivers. There were a lot of weeping willow, the whole shore in the trees. Now - not a tree, everything is cut down under the root, from the side of the skyscrapers under construction, the shore is plowed, sorrcorn. Through the avenue behind the fence, I also see a plowed space and a lot of felled trees lying with stacks.

I catch myself thinking that the Sunge in a destroyed city with a bombed bridge looked not as terrible as it is now. Or do they want to take it into granite, make the embankment? Trying to imagine a narrow fast -water Sunzhu in granite ...

And here is the central mosque, large and beautiful. But ... how lost and she fades in the shadow of these skyscrapers! Chechnya authorities were so proud of this mosque. Do they really not see how this architectural dissonance shame its beauty?

But there is no archenadzor, and there are no ecologists. Here, it is unlikely that even someone timidly dares to say that for skyscrapers, if it is so necessary to build them in Grozny, one could choose another place ...

People are not up to it. There are too many other problems.

There is no snow in Grozny, but here, on the square in front of the mosque, it was brought. Either real, or artificial: did not even melt at a plus temperature. A large artificial spruce, it is already dismantled, bulldozers are raked and artificial snowdrifts are removed. I step on the snow. Very similar to the real one. But how much money did it take to bring it to such a large area from afar? The republic is so rich?

The facade of the five -story building, new, but hardly residential, looks at the square. Above the windows of the last floor, the inscription "Ramzan, thanks for the Grozny!" Flaunts. Through the avenue - two large portraits: Kadyrov and Medvedev. I do not remember this style from the very Brezhnev times. But here is the cult of personality in prime. True, there are rumors that Ramzan ordered to remove his portraits from the streets. But it is evident that they are not afraid to ignore such an instruction of the “main one”: you periodically see in the squares and intersections - Kadyrov either with Medvedev in full growth, then with Putin.

Dusty and empty in the city. But the former market has people at stops. Once it was the most lively place in Grozny. It was here that it exploded in October 1999 that claimed hundreds of lives of the rocket. Now there is no market here, there is only a network of knot bus stops.

I sit on a regular bus, I'm going towards a moment, from the bus window - all the same view: new houses, but very hard.

Quarters with private houses also rebuilt. The destroyed house rarely comes across - but five years ago they only consisted of destroyed houses. You go into the houses - all around the repair. True, people complain that they did everything themselves, and at their own expense. But they were promised for a long time that they would renovate everything at the state expense.

Women complain of unemployment, scanty salaries, from which they subtract a good part to some fund. They complain about non -payment of compensation, to a low level of medicine that the missing were not found. That the guys are still taking and cruelly torture.

One woman talks about his nephew, who was recently arrested. True, after three days they released, but beaten so that he was barely alive. I advise you to contact the Committee against torture. She knows about the committee, but the guy’s parents refuse to go this way. Afraid. Anyway, they lost their way here in the legal routes, they believe only in the wrong ones: ransom, repurchase, search for family ties in structures. A deep fear of power is very felt.

Against the backdrop of all this, another complaint that I hear in almost every family seems to be so serious: the girls at school are forced to wear scarves, and now this is not enough - they make the scarves wax. Moreover, women are complained of this, who exclusively, of their own free will have wore scarves and do not want to take them off at all, but they do not understand why shawls in the lessons are first -graders.

I ask the girl:

- Do you like to walk in a handkerchief at school?

- No, I don't like it. (Grimaces.)

- And what is your favorite item?

- Russian language...

Touching. Well, at least children study ...

However, in the evening I get a sad chance to doubt the inviolability of this right of Chechen children when I pass by the hostel in the Staropromyslovsky district. It was already told that people from former temporary placement points, the so-called PEVERS (PVR), are now being evicted for some reason. But here I see with my own eyes: on the street a mountain of things covered with plywood, the owner of the things exposed in the lobby of the hostel: he has nowhere to transport them.

And indeed: families have settled down here, overgrown with a home belongings, they got children - where are they with all this winter? After all, as they settled here - they forgot, no housing, they did not give out any compensations. So they live here - beggars and homeless.

I am going to the administration room. I ask why people are evicted outside in winter.

- The order of the boss! - a woman of a dense physique named Malik, the commandant of the hostel tells me a firm and confident voice.

- What boss? - I perplexed: the boss over the dormitories in Grozny, the head of the district, the mayor of the city ...

Malika looks meaningfully and carefully.

- We have one boss here!

- But who can make you evict families in winter against all laws?

Malika looks even more meaningfully.

“Don't you know who ?”

And in such a tone that the chill is on the skin.

I have already heard this question here and this tone in response to it.

Of course, Malika has no written orders. Everything is on oral orders, on fear of armed people. They came and said: evict. She evicts.

The list for eviction of families lies on the table, as many as two sheets.

Not everyone is evicted, Malika explains to me, but only those who are registered in rural areas. But they are the most disadvantaged.

After all, the hostel is one of those points of temporary accommodation that were hastily rebuilt in the destroyed city for the relocation of refugees from Ingushetia. They lived in tent towns, in cold workshops of closed factories, in abandoned farms. How they were agitated then to return to Chechnya: both hostels are ready for them, and there will be compensation for lost housing - just return! Later, the tent towns were eliminated. And people, mostly the poorest families, who remained in the war without housing, settled in Peverey. Without registration. The registration of people remained the same: in those bombed houses that have long been gone. And the conditions in the hostel leave much to be desired: two tiny related rooms for the whole family, really suitable only for temporary residence. But people live, because they have nowhere else to live, they did not receive compensations for destroyed housing, they have no money to build at least some new house.

Aset has a large family, she herself from the village of Tevzeni, fled from brutal bombing at one time. In 2004, she and her children were evicted from the Sacita tent town and gave a place in this hostel. Since then, her family huddles here. And yesterday, completely unexpectedly, without any warnings, armed people, two policemen and two soldiers came, and demanded to move until the middle of the next day. Threats were forced to write a receipt of voluntary eviction. “Where can I go with my children now? If only to finish the spring to finish ... "

A woman from the village of Chechen-Aul with a rare name Berlant at the beginning of the war fled with her husband and children from bombing, lived in a tent in the camp "Sputnik". When the camp was disbanded, the family wandered at the points of compact residence of refugees in Ingushetia, and in 2008 she found a refuge in this hostel. The children have grown up for the war, the youngest now 10 years old, the eldest son is a disabled person, the Berlant itself is also a disability of the 3rd group. On January 17, armed people came to them, demanded to be postponed until the middle of the next day, under pressure forced to write a receipt of voluntary eviction. "Where do we go?" - Berlant is also lamented.

And there are many.

Yahita is not an eviction for the first time. In 2003, she and the baby were evicted from the Bart’s tent camp, in 2007-from the Grozny PVR Koltsovo. But then at least a place in this hostel was provided. Now she and her 7-year-old daughter are evicted nowhere. There is only one scheme - get out until 12 hours the next day.

I am leaving the hostel in a depressed state, without hope to somehow help these people. Suddenly I notice that a light snowball lies on the ground - the first this winter in Grozny. So long -awaited. But how are people evicted from the hostel under this snow? ..

The next morning, January 18, the snow continues to fall, yesterday's dull landscape is replaced by snow -white winter. I'm going to a stop - I already go to the airport. On the way I walk past the hostel. At the porch - a gazelle with open wings, belongings are loaded into it: a baby cradle, a baby carriage.

And in the evening, the city will light bright lights again. And from the screen of the TV, the words about stormy construction, happiness and prosperity of this long -suffering region will again sound ...