Grozny: 9 cities by Olga Kravets, Oksana Yushko, and Maria Morina
Grozny, the capital of war-torn Chechnya, is a melting pot for changing Сaucasus society - the society that is trying to overcome a post-trauma shock of two recent wars and find its own way of life in between traditional Сhechen values, Muslim tradition, to cope with rapidly changing role of a women, increasing contrast between rich and poor and political games.
We generated the idea of the project, being inspired by the idea by Thornthon Wilder's about 9 cities hidden in one, that we found in his book "Theophilus North". The main character of the book is making sort of anthropological research of a city looking for different aspects of its life. We felt it's what we need to explore such different aspects of afterwar life that Chechens are leading.
We've already spent almost 3 weeks in Grozny in November 2009, having started the work on the project (Olga Kravets is off to Grozny for New Year holidays as well, to carry on the shoot), and we've already figured out what our six cities would be. May be we will never find namely nine cities here, or may be we will show even more, because Grozny is the only place in Russia, which has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times, every time getting a new layer of existence. Chechens themselves say that they are used to having war every 50 years, and rebuilding their houses they know for sure that at some point they will be destroyed again.
First city is a modern city that one can find in downtown Grozny. It shows the aspiration of everyone to have a decent home and a normal life again, but in fact it's not what it seems from the first glance. Even though the authorities now are trying to present Grozny as a totally rebuilt, brand-new place, you still get advice not to come out at night (especially if you are a woman), and when one drives outside of downtown Grozny, it's still easy to see the destroyed houses, and their owners have to live in temporary housing facilities, which are either summer houses without heating or dormitories, where families of five or six people live in rooms of 20 square meters. Federal military forces are interested in carrying on security operations (the so-called cleanups), because they are paid extra for killing rebels, so in many cases they kill innocent people, who can not prove their innocence. The Chechen society is clan society, so people bare responsibility for the family members, who really become rebels, and so the presidential forces burn their houses down at the order of Ramzan Kadyrov, former warlord, who is now Moscow-backed regional leader.
Second city is the city of women. Chechen society is very traditional, but during the wars women's role changed dramatically. They acted as real heroes during two wars and now they want to carry on with it, opening their own businesses and leading in families, where husbands' psychic is so destroyed that they have no mental strength. But still, they are treated mainly as sexual objects, and for instance the violent tradition of kidnapping a bride is only seeing a revival after the war, because in many ways men feel that everything is allowed.
Third city is the opposite - the city of armed men. Even though Ramzan Kadyrov loves to say that the war in Chechnya is long over, almost everyone on the streets of Grozny carries a gun and wears the uniform. It's no longer the city that only belongs to federal forces, but the guns remain the symbol of instability. Also, to have a gun for a young man is the same way to show off such as a car for Western boys.
The fourth city is the city formed by the sequence of two wars. It's the city of pain, destruction, fear and aggression. People living in temporary housing facilities are angry that noone is paying attention to their problems anymore, because the officials love to say so much that the war is over. Mothers still mourn death of their children, no matter if they were civilians or rebels. The memories still hurt and the traces of war can be easily seen on the streets - not the main streets though. All the factories were destroyed wars with no possibility to be destroyed and their ruins today form a ghost district just 10 minutes drive from downtown.
The fifth city is the Soviet city, full of memories of Stalin's deportation of Chechens and Ingush to Kazakhstan in 1944, from where they could only return 13 years later. Everyone between 52 and 65 was born somewhere in Kazakhstan, Grozny does not have Chechens of that age, who can consider the city their motherland. And still them and their parents do not have the proper explanation why Stalin committed this act towards two small nations. The time after they were allowed to come back the majority of people remembers with warmth in their voices as the time without racial hatred when Russians, Jews, Chechens and all the other people from all over USSR could live friendly together in Grozny.
The sixth city is the city of ancient rituals that people managed to survived all the wars, conflicts and resettlements. Being mixed with Muslim traditions and modern lifestyle they give Grozny unique flavor.
We decided to work on this project in group of three, because, first, it still relatively unsafe to work on one's own in this area, which in many ways can be considered a hostile environment, and second, in a traditional Muslim male-dominated society, it's almost impossible for women to work one by one. We also generated the idea together and, finally, the amount of work is too big for one person to make all the research, to visit all the necessary places, take all the interviews, videos etc. Also, people are so afraid to speak that they prefer to express their thoughts in a way it really needs time to be ready to understand them totally, that's why the teamwork is essential to give our project the right message.
We also understood from the very beginning that there are many things that would be essential to show in our project, but for various reasons - oppression of journalists, people's fear to speak up, police scrutiny etc. That's why we knew from the very beginning that sound and small videos would be essential for us to show everything we find important.
Over the course of the next year we are planning a set of two-week trips to Grozny every month or two depending on events happening there, agreements on shoots being reached, weather conditions and political climate (it's pretty impossible to be based here now), cause at some point an outsider attracts too much attention.
We were already chosen finalists of the Aftermath Project with 9 Cities project, so by the end of 2010 we have to finish it, to have it featured in the Aftermath Project’s book, but we are planning to apply for more grants, to get at least some funding to sponsor the work. We hope that in the end, when everything is ready, we’ll also manage to organize the interactive exhibit, where we’ll show pictures, multimedia and videos. As we feel the work is more or less ready, we’ll start submitting it to photo festivals and contests.
The selection of pictures we present here, is the one we submitted for the Aftermath Project.
