As a farewell, all guests are traditionally given cotton handkerchiefs. That evening I receive quite a collection: bazaar goods wrapped in plastic with printed brand names like “Pier Karting,” “FC Barcelona Pfoducto Oficial” or “Charles Jourdan Paris.” I learn the Chechen word for thanks—barkall.
At the border to Ingushetia, Murad speaks of a massacre during the recent wars. “Civilians tried to flee by car. The Russians made them line up their cars here and then bombarded them. There were no survivors.” And today? Clean asphalt and, as a border station, a brick house with a Putin poster and a couple of bored Russian soldiers guarding it.
In Ingushetia the landscape becomes greener, the roads worse, and there are no more portraits of leaders. We drive through hilly countryside that would resemble rural England were it not for the places of worship topped with crescent moons and industrial remains rusting away all over the place.
Suddenly Murad’s father begins to swear. “He doesn’t like my driving style, says I’m going too slowly,” says the reviled son, who, in truth, is driving so fast that you can understand why he has installed a beeping alarm system under the roof to warn of approaching speed traps. I notice how he transforms in different situations: according to his passport, he is thirty-seven; when he laughs, he looks twenty-seven; but when he buckles after being scolded by his father, at most seventeen.
In the hometown of Murad’s parents we make a longer stop. We meet his mother, sister, aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces, then walk down the dusty main road to visit some friends.
Everywhere there are richly laid tables, smartly dressed people, and congratulations. At one door I’m greeted in fluent German by a woman; although she had studied the language at university, she had never before spoken to a real-life German. Three doors down, a little old lady with gold teeth says that I should simply stay in the village—she will soon find a beautiful wife for me. In the adjacent garden, another Caucasian experience awaits. A friend of the family draws his Makarov pistol from a pocket and shoots in the air with live ammunition. Eight ear-piercing shots, until the magazine is empty.
“He’s a policeman, he’s allowed to do that,” says Murad. The guy reloads and hands me the pistol. I shoot in the air once, then I hand the thing back to him. Sometimes I’m not so good at practical things; apparently I’m not holding the muzzle at exactly the right angle to the ground. The owner backs up and shouts at me: “Hey, be careful!”
Truth No. 3:
North Caucasian men are not as tough as they seem.
WE DROP MURAD’S dad at home and on the way back to Grozny that afternoon we visit probably the world’s smallest capital. Magas, or “Sun City,” has 2,500 inhabitants and consists of one main road with a palace, a replica of a watchtower, and a huge all-round memorial. This commemorates both the “Great Patriotic War,” as they call the part of World War II where Russia was involved, and the deportation of the Ingushetian population between 1944 and 1957. Stalin accused the people of planning insurgency and cooperating with the German army. Within days he transported 450,000 Ingushetians and Chechens by train to northern Kazakhstan. In transit alone 10,000 died. Today there is still much debate about the accuracy of Stalin’s accusations; what is undisputed, on the other hand, is the brutality experienced by the deportees. It’s also clear that as a result of this history (but also due to conflicts dating back to the nineteenth century), the relationship between Russia and the North Caucasian republics is icy. “We are not southern Russians, we are North Caucasians!” Murad is very insistent about that.
THE NEXT DAY Murad almost loses his car while performing a U-turn on the main road beyond Grozny. A traffic policeman stops us, asks for our papers, and wants to know why the rear windows are tinted. In Chechnya this is only allowed for members of the ruling clan. The usual penalty: confiscation of the car. An ample sum of money can solve the problem, but the bureaucratic process can take weeks or months. Russian traffic police are notorious for their unscrupulous administrative practices. I admire how calm and assured Murad seems while talking to the officials, in spite of the odds.
After five minutes of discussions through the driver’s window we are allowed to progress. “How did you manage that?” I ask Murad.
“I told him the car belongs to my father and comes from Ingushetia, where the rules about the windows don’t apply. And I told him that I was just showing a tourist our country. At some point he just said: ‘Okay, carry on.’”
Not far from Grozny we stop at the Haja Aymani Kadyrova Mosque in the town of Argun. It is a huge, new building next to a traffic circle, and it resembles a gold-striped UFO with three minarets. A guard dressed in black who introduces himself as Harbi greets me in a friendly way. “I like Germany: the punctuality, the tidiness, the beautiful language.” Among his friends he has even acquired the nickname “The German” as he is so tidy. While I’m in the inner room admiring a chandelier the size of a small car, I suddenly hear music coming from the entrance. A song that really has no place in a mosque—“Was wollen wir trinken, sieben Tage lang?” (“What shall we drink for seven days?”), a popular German drinking song—is flowing out of the speaker of Harbi’s cell phone, obviously for my benefit. The good man probably has no idea what the song is about. There is a strict ban on alcohol in Chechnya. Of all the welcoming gestures I’ve received, this must be the most bizarre.
“Why is Moscow investing so much money in Chechnya?” I ask Murad once we’re back home.
He mulls over the question while pouring black tea. “Such investments are saying: ‘If we choose, we can destroy you. And if we choose, you can prosper.’ Some people think that Putin wants to show other ‘troublesome’ regions that they are better off when they cooperate. Or he just wants to bribe us so that things remain quiet.”
“Is it not also a kind of compensation for the war?”
“Everyone who lost a house received money. Almost everyone. It didn’t work out for me, although my house was destroyed.”
He then changes the subject. He doesn’t seem to like talking about the war.
MAKHACHKALA
Population: 572,000
Federal District: North Caucasus
IN WILD KAFKASUS
THE FIRST STOP before I continue on my travels is the bus terminal, the dustiest place in all of Grozny. Spectacularly dressed women with pricey handbags and high heels hurry past; ticket sellers shout out place names. Hurly-burly, bustle, and dirt. I feel as if I’ve just left a theme park only to land in the middle of a Turkish bazaar.
The second stop is two hours later, at the border to the Republic of Dagestan. You know you’ve crossed the border when the bus driver releases his seatbelt and accelerates even though the road surfaces are getting worse. A flat landscape, sunflower fields; the cars are smaller and older, the villages more unkempt. It’s only a hundred miles from Grozny to Makhachkala, but those hundred miles lead to another world, which feels like it’s a few decades in the past.
The Republic of Dagestan, with a population of three million, is infamous as a hotbed of terrorism, and its security situation is the most precarious in all of Russia. Were the situation different, the region would have the qualities to be a favorite destination for cultural tourists from around the world.