OUTCASTS IN OWN LAND.

Documentary testimonies of Russian genocide in Maskhadov Ichkeriya

From the beginning of 1990s more than 300 thousands of Russians have left Chechnya. Only in 1992 according to the official data of the republican interior ministry 250 people of Russian nationality were murdered and another 300 went missing (the numbers are taken from the report submitted by the chairman of Russian Society of Chechnya Oleg Makoveyev).

I have in front of me a copy of the letter written by those who are customarily called “Russian-speaking”. This message addressed to the (now former) Russian premier-minister Primakov with a naïve note on it “pass into his hands personally” is a veritable cry of despair.

“We, inhabitants of Grozny who did not have an opportunity to flee from the city in 1994-1996 have survived in the basements only by miracle. We lost our houses and our possessions. Every day we feel threat to our lives. There are no more than 5 thousands of us, Russian women, old men, and children, who are left in Grozny. We appeal to you as a patriot and an intellectual: save us, admit us to Russia. We are praying for you and believing in you. It is like hell in Grozny and Chechnya for Russians now. ”

I don’t know if the addressee has heard this call of despair. Most probably, no. Neither does the chairman of Russian Society of Chechnya Oleg Makoveev, who came to the editorial office of our newspaper with a whole pile of documents.

Here is only a tiny part of the list of insults and tortures suffered by the Russian population in Chechnya during the years of Dudayev’s and Maskhadov’s regimes he gave to us.

-Nesterovs, Vera and Mikhail were shot dead in October of 1996 in their house near the rail-road station.

-Mikhail Sidor, a pensioner, a Cossack of Grozny district of Terek Cossack Force, shot dead together with his wife and two sons in his house in Grozny on the 6^th of August of 1996.

-Aleksandr Khapryannikov was killed in September of 1996. He lived in Grozny on Rabochaya Street 67.

-Aleksandr Gladilin, a Cossack, a resident of Mekenskaya stanitsa of Naurski district was a head of local administration. In April 1997 he was seized by the security service of Ichkeria, thrown into jail and tortured. Released personally by Maskhadov for 10 tonns of flour.

-From the letter written by Assinovskaya stanitsa residents: “Before 1995 there were 8,400 of us, Russians, living here. Now only 250 left. Since August of 1996 26 Russian families have been murdered, 52 households have been taken from us by force.”

A woman from Gudermes who refused to reveal her name writes: “We came from the cemetery and were at home with our friends the Sapronovs family. When Tanya and Volodya went home, Chechens from a white Zhiguli car shot them dead point-blank with a machine-gun. Sapronovs had a good house; perhaps somebody from the ”title” nation has liked it.

I was fired from my work. They force me to cover my hair with a shawl in accord with shariah law so that my hair could not be seen. But I am not Muslim, I am an Orthodox Christian. Russians are being fired from all top positions, Chechens, even most illiterate ones, are being put on their places. A Chechen whom I know was a shepherd all of his life, after that he fought in the war on Maskhadov’s side, now he is made a head of the depot.”

Orthodox Christians – to slavery.

Purely criminal gangster genocide of Russian-speaking population in shariah Ichkeria was accompanied by the severe persecution according to one’s religion belief. Orthodox Christianity was de facto prohibited by Maskhadov’s authorities on the territory of Chechnya.

From the letter by the senior priest of the Saint Archstratig Mikhail cathedral father Zahari (city of Grozny) addressed to the Moscow Patriarch Alexi II:

“There are no human words to describe the terrible life we are living in Chechnya. It is life in Hell, amid impudent evil and complete lawlessness. Chechens do not want to work peacefully along with other nationalities, they prefer to live by robbery, stealing, and kidnapping. Many of them are armed. They pilfer and rob everything and everyone they can, in industry and in everyday life as well. Slave dealing became a normal thing, everyone profits from it. And we, Orthodox Christians are destined to be slaves for them.”

As if father Zakhari Yampolsky had a second sight. The second priest of the Grozny cathedarl father Aleksandr Smyvin was ferociously beaten in October of 1995, father Anatoli Chistousov and father Sergi Zhigulin were abducted in Grozny in January 1996. In January of 1997 Hieromonk father Eufimi Belomestny and lay brother Alexi Ravilov were taken into captivity. In the spring of 1999 Russian priests father Petr Makarov, father Petr Sukhonosov, and another hieromonk were kidnapped in Assinovskaya stanitsa. Finally, on July 19, 1999, father Zakhari himself was taken into captivity together with the churchwarden Yakov Roshchin and parishioner Pavel Kadyshev.

Until 1994 there have been ten Orthodox parishes in Chechen Republic. Under victorious Maskhadov only one has left – a church of St. Archangel Mikhail. Father Zakhari describes how the parish could survive in the other letter written in May of 1999: “We have acquired a special attitude towards time. If you managed to spend a day without being robbed, humiliated, grossly offended, enslaved, and most of all, murdered, it is a miracle and a good luck. Everything that was earned by the parish for its one hundred years of existence was robbed, destroyed, burnt.”

Will Russians come back here?

It is an axiom that a criminal does not have nationality. Neither does the anti-national regime that served the interests of a handful of scoundrels who seized the power. Chechens themselves have suffered from the bandit tyranny in shariah Ichkeria.

According to the data of the Ministry of Nationalities, more than 5 thousands of Chechens were kidnapped with the purpose of getting ransom in years 1996-1999. About 500 thousands of Chechens who did not share the views of separatists were forced to leave their motherland and found themselves in the various regions of Russia.

But Chechens, whatever you may say, have an effective protection in the form of historical clan relationships and vendetta laws that have to be taken into account even by the most unbridled terrorists. Russian and Russian-speaking population of Chechnya were not only defenceless against despotism of ichkerian authorities, the great Mother Russia herself acted like a stepmother towards them.

An inhabitant of Gudermes is complaining: “Not only Russians are being killed. Chechens too. Everyone is suffering. Bandits don’t care whom to kill if there is something to take, to steal. But Chechens can go to the mountains where they have relatives, and we, Russians, where shall we go? Nobody waits for us in Russia, they are not happy to see us there. They call us Chechen litter, and even worse than that. We are unwanted by any authorities and it hurts. After the war I went with my children to Novgorod, then to Budennovsk, and Georgievsk of Stavropol region. But because of bad attitude towards us I have returned to Grozny. We, who came from Chechnya, are not liked in Russia. There are embittered people who lost someone in the war, but what is our guilt? To be born in Chechnya?”

The leadership of Russian society in Chechnya and Terek Cossacks Force have concrete proposals how to stabilize the situation.

One of proposals is to create a Russian autonomy in originally Cossack Naurski and Shelkovski districts or to return them to Stavropol region, from where they were voluntarily taken by Nikita Khruschev. But it seems that such a solution is unrealistic because it lacks a juridical basis. According to the opinion of specialists, the only way out is to get Russian population back to Chechnya and provide its wide participation in the forming of local organs of power. The representatives of Russian-speaking population and Cossacks must also take part in the new currently forming Chechen government.

Vladimir Yanchenkov.

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