• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1115 0

Kadyrov is today rarely to be found at his desk, and the way he spends his time can hardly be described as “leading the Republic.” Kadyrov’s life is divided between his fortress-home in Tsentoroy and Moscow, with a great deal more time being spent in the latter. This should be no surprise. Kadyrov cannot free himself from the past and continues to see keeping the Kremlin sweet as the first priority of his presidency, well ahead of working for the people. Truly he would need to move mountains in order to earn their respect. His “work” in Moscow of late has centerd on the long, drawn-out retirement of Alexander Voloshin, the Head of Putin’s Presidential Administration. Kadyrov was never away from the Kremlin while this was playing out, because his installation in power had been Voloshin’s swan-song project, and without Voloshin he was powerless. He started to become nervous when oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was imprisoned, and frequently travelled to Moscow to try to find a new and equally powerful patron.

Kadyrov in Chechnya is also a pretty gruesome spectacle. When he travels from Tsentoroy to Grozny, “to work,” so to speak, the arrangements are becoming even more spectacular than those in place for Putin’s journeys around Moscow. All roads and footpaths are closed, and cars and Kadyrov’s pedestrian subjects alike find themselves in a state of siege. He is scared that one of his subjects may decide to blow up the champion of their wonderful new life.

Kadyrov’s presidential ideal is also gradually becoming clearer. He has lately started hinting that it is the Turkmenbashi, the father of all Turkmen, who has turned Turkmenistan into the most oppressive of oriental despotisms in the post-Soviet territories. The Turkmenbashi is scared stiff of his people and roots out any semblance of dissent; he allows his officials free rein to thieve, and personally controls the corruption. He has an army of brutal mercenaries and influential backers beyond the borders of his land.

Who would deny that all the world’s dictators share a family likeness? Kadyrov has Putin and the Kremlin as his backers; his murderous campaign against old Isakov and the mullahs; his regal progresses; and his levelling of society by the simple expedient of cutting off any heads showing above the parapet. As for corruption and officialdom, Kadyrov’s Chechnya is one big playground of graft and corruption.

One current example is what has happened to the promised compensation payments, the main plank of Kadyrov’s election campaign and something he and Putin were forever seen talking about on television. It is already November, and no compensation is being paid. The way Kadyrov organised it was to set up numerous special Payments Commissions (with a consequent sharp rise in the number of officials). These are headed by a phalanx of dodgy individuals, and a war is being waged between these officials and citizens who have lost their property and the roof over their heads. The purpose of this campaign is to loot the compensation fund. Just as he himself controls the oil pipeline, just as the Turkmenbashi controls the gas pipeline, so Kadyrov has made a gift to the officials of the compensation pipeline.

Senior compensation officials are hard at it, having mastered the well-known “tube of toothpaste” technique of squeezing out a percentage, a kickback. First they made sure that nobody could simply produce the documents proving their entitlement to compensation and get the money. People had to be registered and re-registered, lists had to be weeded and co-ordinated. Those removed from the lists had to make immense efforts to get reinstated, efforts expressed in terms of a percentage deducted from the compensation payment.

By now the population is so conformable it does not complain. In Avtury, the only person in the village to have received any compensation got 175,000 roubles instead of the 350,000 she was due, the remainder being siphoned off. She is happy and grateful to Kadyrov. In Grozny I could not find any such fortunate person who could say, “Oh, yes. I got