Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
19
was horrified by the war and the deaths of underfed, underpaid teenage con-
scripts in pointless firefights. Even Dudayev's death in 1996 didn't improve the
Russian forces' lot, and in August that year the two sides signed a peace deal
allowing Chechnya greater autonomy. Yet the Chechens proved unprepared to
govern themselves, and the republic sank into lawlessness. Reconstruction
funds were blatantly embezzled, and kidnapping for ransom became the
engine of the Chechen economy (in addition to siphoning oil from pipelines
leading out of the Caspian Sea). Nearly no outsiders dared enter the region,
whether federal official, journalist, or aid worker.
In August 1999, Chechen bands raided the neighboring Russian republic of
Dagestan and seized several villages, pledging to create a regionwide Islamic
state. Soon afterward, apartment bombings in Moscow and two other cities
killed 300 civilians and terrified the nation. Yeltsin sent troops back to Chech-
nya, and his new prime minister, Vladimir Putin, successfully “sold” the war to
the Russian people, who by then were eager for determined leadership and an
end to Chechen crime and terrorism. Putin's popularity soared amid early suc-
cesses for Russian troops, and within months he had replaced Yeltsin as presi-
dent.
And the war rages on. Chechnya's remaining warlords continue to stage ter-
rorist attacks on civilian targets, including the hostage-taking in a Moscow
theater in 2002 and the seizure of a school in Beslan in 2004, both of which left
scores of dead. Such attacks only strengthen Russian resolve against peace
talks. The Chechens' funding, which appears steady, is believed to come from
various Islamic extremist groups. A decade ago most Chechens were casual in
their observance of Islamic custom, but the war has changed that. Many now
sport long beards, forego alcohol, and adhere to
sharia
law. The Kremlin has
claimed for years that Chechnya is “normalized,” but Russian police and the
Chechens who cooperate with them are killed regularly in guerrilla raids on
mountain roads, and Chechen families suffer routine torture in Russian
“cleanup operations” on villages thought to harbor rebels. Chechnya's Kremlin-
backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov, is widely feared, and his militias are
believed to act with impunity against perceived threats. International pressure
failed to persuade Putin to rethink his Chechnya policy.
2
frightening father figure would be even
worse than with him. Nikita Khrushchev's
eventual rise to power brought a thaw;
political prisoners were released and there
was a slight relaxation of censorship amid
continued postwar economic growth. But
he also put down protests in Hungary in
1956 and nearly provoked nuclear war in
the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrush-
chev was eventually ousted by more con-
servative colleagues in a bloodless coup.
Soviet space successes during this time—
including sending the first satellite, first
man, and first woman to space—awed
