This photoessay is the result of collaboration with a colleague in Chechnya, who could not be named for fear of threats or violence. We sent him a camera and asked him to take photos of what Grozny looks like today and to explain to us how these photos reflect a society changed by conflict.

In 1944, Josef Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Chechen population to Central Asia.  As many as three out of every ten Chechens died, and those who survived were not allowed to return home until 1957.  Targeting not only a people, but also their memory, Soviet authorities demolished mosques and cemeteries.  Gravestones were used in the construction of roads, livestock sheds, and foundations.  Recovered in part, these gravestones now lie in a memorial dedicated to the victims of the 1944 deportation.  Our colleague told us that this memorial “is the main connection between the past and future.  The gravestones of fathers and mothers who were at one time deported into faraway lands were returned to their own roots and their land.”

It was not the last time Chechens would face destruction and violence. In 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin militarily crushed Chechnya’s move to post-Soviet independence.  And then in September 1999, a massive Russian military force again entered Chechnya, all but destroying the Chechen capital of Grozny and initiating a policy of targeting Chechen civilians.

In the years since, Chechens have struggled to remember the past as they recover from its trauma.  It has not been easy.

Over the winter months in 2008, our colleague captured images of daily life in Grozny.  His work reveals a city immersed in contradictions: sparkling new buildings tower over squares of rubble; women sift through the ruins of once thriving marketplaces; and new monuments guarded by well-armed militiamen celebrate former President Akhmad Kadyrov and his son, pro-Russian Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, whose personal paramilitary guard is well known for its ruthlessness.  Mandatory displays of presidential posters populate every state, educational, and cultural institution.  Our colleague writes, “They are at every entrance to every village and town, at intersections, at markers for administrative borders.  Everywhere that it is possible and even where it is not.” Even evidence of the city’s post-war calm – a photo of a man fishing by the river – reminds the photographer of the corpses that once floated by in water that could still be contaminated today. 

A few of the photos portray the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque. Construction of the mosque began in 1997, in between the wars when the Chechen government was de facto independent. Situated on the location of some of the most brutal fighting of the first Russian-Chechen war, the mosque was intended to be a memorial to scores of volunteers who died defending Grozny. However, the project was not completed until 2008, under the pro-Moscow Kadyrov administration on what is now named Kadyrov Square, which sits on Kadyrov Avenue, opposite a monument to Kadyrov.

These photos illustrate a nation in the midst of rebuilding. Grozny, a city reduced to rubble, is slowly returning to life.  Beneath the surface, however, questions remain: Will stability hold? At what price?  What will the legacy of violence mean for future generations?  Will human rights be protected and group identities preserved? In the answers to these and many other questions lies the future of the Russian republic.

Posted By: Michael Graham | July 27, 2009 | Comments (0)