Street fathers

The President of Chechnya showed the Russian Prime Minister Putin Avenue

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a quick visit to Chechnya yesterday. Even taking into account the relative stabilization in this republic against the backdrop of events in its neighboring regions, it is quite natural that nothing was known in advance about a visit of this level. The prime minister himself said that he had come to find out on the spot how the Chechen authorities were dealing with the consequences of the earthquake. They fight, as it turns out, well.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 with an epicenter in the mountainous Vedeno region occurred on September 11. As a result, 13 people were killed, about a hundred were injured, up to 10 thousand buildings and structures were destroyed and damaged, including residential buildings, schools, hospitals and other facilities. Together with Vladimir Putin, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, also flew to Grozny. He mainly read out the data on the destruction, which vaguely resembled the results of a small war. Vladimir Putin was not embarrassed by this; he asked to sum up the final results as soon as possible and calculate how much the restoration work would cost. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov promised to do this within ten or at most 14 days.

The Russian Prime Minister proposed building new houses in Chechnya taking into account earthquake resistance. During the construction boom of recent years, this factor was simply ignored by designers and builders of many other regions of the North Caucasus, which, like Chechnya, were not affected by military destruction. Grozny, which suffered total destruction during the last battles for the city between the federal army and separatists in 2000, had to be restored from ruins. And although some of the streets have now acquired a completely respectable appearance, residents of many houses complain that behind the bright façade decoration are hidden reinforced concrete frames that are sometimes loosened by shell hits, through holes from aircraft bombs and hastily renovated apartments where communications do not always work. It is possible that some of the construction deficiencies of this shock restoration will now be attributed to the earthquake.

After showing Vladimir Putin the destruction through the window of the helicopter that was taking them from Grozny to Gudermes, President Kadyrov told the Russian prime minister about people who do not dare return to their homes because they are afraid of new seismic tremors. In total, more than 250 so-called aftershocks have been recorded since the first earthquake. The President of Chechnya also spoke about houses that are already being restored using funds from other sections of the republican budget. Vladimir Putin seemed moved by the story of human fear, but recommended that the president of the republic reimburse all costs and no longer violate budget discipline.

In Grozny, the Russian Prime Minister toured the new mosque, scheduled to open tomorrow, and praised the quality and speed of the builders' work. In his opinion, the mosque will be a real gift to all Muslims of Russia and the whole world. Muslims of the world, by the way, will gather today in Grozny for the second Islamic forum “Islam is a religion of peace and creation.” For the sake of the forum, traffic was blocked for four days in the center of the Chechen capital, so Vladimir Putin was one of the lucky few who managed to get onto the avenue named after him that appeared ten days ago.

Ivan SUKHOV