Fear, terror and violence still reign in Grozny

It seems that in the middle of this dusty desert from the ruins, a pirate ship ran aground. On a deck, overlapped with sand bags, someone with a naked torso sits, boasting of his strength. He inflicts just a tattoo on the back of his comrade, tied his head with a scarf from the sun. Under the bright midday sun, a Russian tricolor appears instead of a skull with crossed bones.

It seems that in the middle of this dusty desert from the ruins a pirate ship focused. On a deck, overlapped with sand bags, someone with a naked torso sits, boasting of his strength. He inflicts just a tattoo on the back of his comrade, tied his head with a scarf from the sun. Under the bright midday sun, a Russian tricolor appears instead of a skull with crossed bones.

The lower deck with its boxes with ammunition and concrete blocks will observe the defense, two riot police soldiers serve on it - mirror glasses from the sun on the nose and the Kalashnikovs on the right bare shoulder. "Block Postics"-this is the name of such checkpoints in Russian. Anyone who moves around the Chechen capital is forced to pass through them every five minutes. “All of them take a road fee, these gangsters,” reports the Chechen merchant APTI.

A trip to Chechnya is a trip to the raped country. In the villages, houses surrounded by gardens with signs "Sold" flicker past. For 150 euros, you can purchase the estate. On the roadsides of the street, men are squatting, spit with husk from seeds. The unemployment rate is more than 80 percent. However, the fields are cultivated. A platform for market trade. On the counter is a sluggish fish, in the refrigerator - Baltika beer, girls smile from boxes with chocolate sweets.

Chechnya, whose area is the same as the land of Schleswig-Holstein, was forced to survive two wars and a false world in one decade. Today, perhaps a million people live there. Nobody knows the exact figure. 150,000 Chechens remain so far as refugees in the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia. In any case, they should, in any case, want this to Russian President Vladimir Putin, returning to Chechnya until September. They say that the time came, in the end, according to Putin, "the military stage of the anti -terrorist operation is completed. The Chechen government is separated from its people with barbed wire, tank dunnings and concrete walls. The government building in the center of the Terrible resembles a strongly protected object. The head of government Stanislav Ilyasov, the mercy of Putin, is cracking in his office about successes that can still be possible. Rather, to the field of wishes, 300,000 returning refugees, well -established cooperation between the army and the population, in short: “We achieve success, we restore the country, we find support,” he says, not taking his breath. Refugees? "They can return even now, everything is prepared." In the next office, the deputy - Chechenka Amnat Batysheva draws a different picture. "The recovery does not move forward at all. There is no money to restore hospitals or schools. The roofs are leaked, the children are sitting on a concrete floor. The construction of residential buildings is not being carried out." But the money allocated for recovery disappears. Refugees? "There are no basic conditions for their return." Children still went to school.

On the facade of the 9th hospital, to which we drove up on terribly bumpy streets are bullet marks. Doctors Roslambek Mashoev and Salman Yandarov are trying to bring at least the appearance of order in the building. The hospital is accustomed to extreme conditions. During the war, doctors amputated their arms and legs without anesthesia. Today, thanks to Western assistance, there are again medicines and dressings, even in insufficient quantities.

In the wards are six to eight patients. Bilal (he was 20 years old) was blown up by a trap mine when he collected bricks at a tin plant. The left leg is fragmented, a rough wound on the stomach is covered with green. The situation in Chechnya is as bad as before, says Bilal. Three days ago they took the neighboring 18-year-old son of Islam. There are three brothers nearby. Hassan (18 years old) stepped on a mine, Ali (17 years old) only broke his leg, and the younger Mansur (7 years) fell under the car. “They torment us every day during their laid,” says Ali, who, before an accident, worked on the construction site among the ruins of the Lermontov Theater. How many people are arrested during the sweeps, even the prosecutor Nikolai Kostyuchenko cannot say. During the conversation, he calls numbers within 65 and 500.

With their raids, the Russians deserved the glory of the invaders. The fact that during the items in the villages of residents they are forced to sign receipts, which say: "I confirm that I give two rams, a refrigerator and their gold jewelry," the Russian police officers call "the usual expression of hospitality for these places."

Russian armed forces, the number of which in Chechnya, according to official figures, is 87,000 people, are equipped for a long time. At the Base "Severny" and in Khankala, where the group headquarters is located, there is a construction of barracks, schools, kindergartens. In the evenings, the Black Shark helicopters are returning, one cannot help but hear the noise of the engines of combat aircraft that strike at the mountain regions in the south. At night, an artillery cannonade is heard. The militants are still not produced. They lay mines, attack military columns. The losses are huge. According to official figures, since the beginning of the war, the Russians have lost more than 4,000 people, 10,000 people were injured. The militants, according to Moscow, lost 12,791 people. This is most likely a very approximate figure. Victims among the civilian population do not fall into any statistics.

Until the war, 600,000 people lived in Grozny, today - 150,000. In three repaired nine -story buildings along Karl Libknecht Street, 7/7 should enter 100 families. Azina was able to tear out a three -room apartment for herself and her eight children. She does not want to talk about her new dwelling, which she is proud. On her village, Makhketi, she says, raided Russian aircraft. 24 killed, among them her son -in -law. "Torn legs, parts of the body, here - a hand, there is a body, blood is everywhere."

In these June days, no one talks about the political resolution of the conflict. At that moment, when we were in Chechnya, the situation was considered calm. This means: during an attack on the Block Poest, three troops were killed in Urus-Martan, eight people were injured as a result of explosion and shells, and aviation raids were carried out. During the raids, 13 grenade launchers and flamethrowers were confiscated, a gun, six machine guns, 31 machine guns, three pistols and ten hunting rifles, as well as 3.4 kilograms of explosives.

On the way back, our column of three armored vehicles and a mini-auto-bus is stopped. The road is blocked. Soldiers are looking for an explosive laid, they have already found an anti -tank mine. After half an hour, we pass the Terek River and the car of our accompaniment collides in the nose with an army truck. As a result of the collision, five people die, including Oleg Shmakov, a captain from Siberia. The armored personnel carrier with five frozen figures on the tower signals the back, they demand that they continue to move.

Translation: Tow Vladimir, inosmi.ru
Published on the website inosmi.ru: 03 July 2002, 12:45
Original publication: TSCHETSCHENENENENENENE EIN VERGEWALTIGTES LAND

Chechnya. Rapted country ("Die Welt", Germany)