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Then the Chechen Government; Kadyrov’s Administration; Stanislav Iliasov, Minister for Chechnya; the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation as represented by its Migration Service, which is responsible for forcing refugees out of Ingushetia and back into the zone of what the President calls the continuing “struggle against international terrorism;” two Boards for rebuilding, one in Grozny and the other in Moscow; all of them held a great big meeting and dreamed up a proposal to the Russian Government to turn this camp which the flood victims had spurned into, in Iliasov’s expression, an “excellent location for refugees choosing to return from Ingushetia.” It was a moment of pure bureaucratic black magic, although they didn’t tell you afterwards how they had done it. Commissions came from the capital and the Southern Federal Region. Grave gentlemen furrowed their statesmanlike brows, condemned the concrete floors which, according to the specification, were already covered with linoleum, and resolved that there should at least be floorboards.

They then pronounced the shacks (costed at 775,000 roubles apiece!) suitable for well-appointed occupation. Reports were sent to the Kremlin that everything was ready and only the wicked refugees, reeling under Maskhadov’s propaganda, were continuing to persist in refusing to enjoy their good fortune. The Kremlin set a deadline, March 1, before the election. The issue of the consequences of a war that had been started before the previous election was to be laid to rest. In January, Ella Pamfilova was sent here on behalf of Putin’s Administration to give her deeply sincere verdict.

“Pamfilova liked it. Why are you trying to stir things up?” the workers mutter darkly.

“Would you want to live here permanently yourselves?”

“What do you mean, permanently?” the foreman says. “It’s only for a time, until their own houses are rebuilt.”

“But you know yourself how things get rebuilt here! Has anybody gone back to their rebuilt houses yet?”

The brigade don’t reply. Nobody has gone back at all, and everyone knows it.

There are supposed to be two approaches to rebuilding in Chechnya. The first is to transfer money to people’s bank accounts and let them organise it themselves. The second is for the work to be done for you up to a set value, but for no money to pass through your own hands.

In reality these approaches merge like the confluence of two rivers. You don’t have to go far from Okruzhnaya to see the evidence. In fact, you only need to cross the road. The people living on Transportnaya Street are not those whom officialdom tried to force into the camp in Okruzhnaya after the River Sunzha burst its banks last year. The people here have experienced both the first and second approaches to “rebuilding.” They were supposedly paid compensation by the Government, and the relevant sums of money, to judge from the documents, were transferred to the citizens’ personal bank accounts so that they could repair their houses. But …

What do we see? The hovels are unchanged, only they have dried out. The occupants have patched them up themselves. The whole of Transportnaya Street looks like that. How were the payments to personal bank accounts made? Brigades arrived from the Grozny Board and said, “You are required to undertake work to a value of 771,000 roubles (the actual estimate by the Commission of the repair bill for a family whose name is known to Novaya gazeta), but we have to give the Kadyrov Administration a kickback, and also the Moscow Board, so we have had only 30 per cent of your money paid to us, and with that we can only put your roof back on.” Which they then did. The family signed for 771,000 roubles.

Things will be no better with the “rebuilt accommodation” for refugees returning from Ingushetia. Nobody doubts that the temporary huts in Okruzhnaya will become permanent dwellings the moment the refugees cross the threshold.

The foreman continues:

“Stop worrying. They will come and sort everything out themselves.