Albert

Chechens Yearn to Return to Mountains

Deserted villages are mute testimony to a history of deportation and war.

As the mountain road winds its way past the Chechen mountain village of
Shatoi higher to the small settlement of Tuskharoi, the signs of
habitation get fewer. At one point, you glimpse the breathtaking sight
of two whitewashed houses deep in the heart of a virgin forest.

Tuskharoi lies at the very top of the mountain. Fifteen years ago, a
90-year-old old man named Alauddin lived here next to a family of
Chechen herders, who had left behind good jobs in the Baltic port of
Kaliningrad to resettle in their ancestral village.

When Stalin deported the entire Chechen population from their homeland
in 1944, these mountain villages - the oldest Chechen settlements - fell
into disrepair. When the Chechens were allowed to return from exile by
Nikita Khrushchev in 1957, they were forbidden to resettle in the
highlands. Those who defied the ban and tried to live in their ancestral
villages were forcibly moved down to the plains.

Only in the early Nineties, when Chechnya declared unilateral
independence from Moscow, did people begin to repopulate these old villages.

In recent years, as war has raged in Chechnya, history has repeated
itself and the highland areas have again become a no-go area, accessible
only to the Russian military. Now a struggle is under way between
locals, the military and the Chechen government to determine who has the
right of access to these ancient beautiful areas.

Chechen experts say the restricted border zone along the frontier with
Georgia should extend only five kilometres into the interior, and must
skirt inhabited areas. So a village like Tuskharoi, 40 kilometres from
the border, should be openly accessible. However, this village of 35-40
households is still deserted and the owners have yet to return because
of a long-running dispute with the military.

Magadin Albastov, who comes from the village but now lives in lowland
Chechnya, told IWPR, “My father and brothers were among those who
rebuilt Tuskharoi in the early Nineties. I lived in my home village too,
earning a living for my family from farming. I am ready to return to the
land of my ancestors at any moment – but the military gives us no chance
to do so.

“We cannot live in an area where the military are located, nor do we
want to. This is a small area high in the mountains where you can’t
build a house at a distance from other people. And the reality of
Chechnya is that it isn’t safe to stay next door to men who are armed to
the teeth.”

Ismail Munayev, who heads the Chechen branch of the Russian service for
protecting cultural heritage, said a military barracks had been built in
Tuskharoi without consultation with the local authorities, and without
his consent.

The highland areas are home to Chechnya’s most valuable architectural
heritage. For centuries, inaccessible steep-sided gorges, ravines and
high cliffs have protected hundreds of ancient mountain towers, vaults
and shrines from marauders.

However, these buildings have suffered badly from the years of conflict,
and have also been damaged by the Russian soldiers deployed in the
mountains.

The old buildings are supposed to be cared for by the Argun Museum
Reserve, which covers a large area of the southern and south-eastern
Chechen mountains. But the whole area has been controlled by the Russian
military and border guards for the past several years, after airborne
troops captured it in 2000.

Said Saratov, director of the Argun reserve, said military leaders had
told him that they would now agree to the return of the highland
villagers, but he said the trouble was that the villagers feared living
in proximity to Russian soldiers.

“The mountain villagers themselves don’t want to live in villages and
hamlets side by side with the military; they want the units to be
withdrawn. That’s the disagreement, one that cannot be resolved for the
time being,” he said.

It is only within the last year, as fighting has ebbed in Chechnya, that
heritage officials Ismail Munayev and Said Saratov have been allowed
back into the area.

Since then there has been confusion about who owns these lands. In
December, the Chechen government decided to lease more than 3,000
hectares of the Argun reserve’s territory to the military and border
guards. Then in February, the government overturned its own decision.

“Besides, the Argun Museum Reserve has [Russian] federal status,” said
Munayev. “And it’s up to the federal authorities to take decisions
regarding reserve lands.”

In an attempt to ease tensions, the military has offered compensation to
the residents of Tuskharoi, but some villagers have refused to accept
it, saying they want to be allowed to return home unconditionally.

“Some mountain villagers did receive compensation for lost property,”
said Shamil Tangiev, head of the Grozny office of the human rights
organisation Memorial. “But since they’d given up hope of returning to
home, they spent the money on day-to-day things.”

Some 20 villages in the remote Vedeno and Shatoi regions are still
off-limits to Chechen officials and villagers alike.

“This [off-limits] territory includes the medieval settlements of Khoi
and Makazhoi, where a large number of monuments are concentrated,” said
museum director Saratov. “Even as director of the reserve, I have been
unable to influence the situation, as access to the area has been
blocked, and my ID card means nothing at checkpoints located any further
up than than Kharachoi.”

Saratov said he had asked a Russian military commander for a written
permit to pass through checkpoints but had been refused.

Even when the highland villagers do get back home, says non-governmental
activist Yelena Burtina, there is almost nothing for them there. Most of
the houses have been destroyed and there is no infrastructure in the
mountain villages. The villagers have no money to start farming, and
their livestock is under threat from wild predators, which have
proliferated in the absence of human settlement.

The Chechen authorities are beginning to edge closer towards saving
their ancient medieval settlements from destruction, but it will be many
years before they can actually be inhabited.

Source: IWPR/Caucasus Reporting Service, CRS No. 386 5-Apr-07)
Author: Amina Visayeva, a correspondent with the Groznensky Rabochy newspaper.

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Голосуем!

Mister

Why russians do not let chechens to return to these mountain villages?
Probably because mountains affect people's spirit, will and make them less submisive?

Samian

Or maybe it'd be harder to keep an eye on them if they move into the mountains

Mister

How do you keep an eye on people who live in cities or flatlands? In Iraq there are no mountains in the center of insurgency, does it make any difference in an ability to keep an eye on them? I don't know.
But there must be a good reason to keep them off the mountains.

PooDooooF

Why chechens should move to the mountains? U really think, that they`ll live there? Like shepherds in the last century? Chechens thus will go downwards, without progress. Who need it? To whom is it necessary?
If they want to keep an eye on people, they wuold do it everywhere.

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Идея борьбы так же стара, как и сама жизнь, ибо жизнь сохраняет только тот, кто растаптывает чужую жизнь. В борьбе выигрывает ловкий, а неловкий, слабый, проигрывает.Борьба - отец всего. Не по принципам гуманности живет человек и воцаряется на мирои животных, а только с помощью самой жестокой борьбы...