Stephan Orth: Behind Putin's Curtain: Friendships and Misadventures Inside Russia [aka Couchsurfing in Russia]

Postwar Chechnya works like this: “Putin sends money, meaning we have to play by the rules. The local powers are ass-kissers, they couldn’t care less what the people think, they are only interested in what Putin wants. Whoever says something positive about the president appears on TV and hopes to gain some sort of benefit from it.”

Investments from Moscow are always coupled to some demand or other: “If you want to open a café or a shopping center, then it’s okay. But a new factory? Impossible. We are supposed to remain dependent. All industry was totally eradicated by the war.”

After a short scuffle about who will foot the bill, which I manage to win, we drive to Murad’s house, just outside the center of town. An almost ten-foot brick wall with a heavy steel door protects an overgrown garden, in which he parks the car. He lives on a construction site: the ground floor, with three rooms, a huge bathroom, and a kitchen, is almost finished. The concrete staircase leads up to the attic, and here the floorboards and paneling are missing; planks and paint buckets are scattered around. “I have to earn a bit of money before I can carry on,” explains Murad. He dreams of organizing trips for tourists one day in the future. Before that happens the security situation will have to improve and foreign offices will have to be convinced to change their travel warnings.

Maybe it would be advisable to prepare a revised version of the current “Visit Chechnya” brochure, which he handed me. In it, the deputy director of a tour organization called Tour Ex poses clenching a knife. The text beneath the photo states that whoever travels with him is “guaranteed a comfortable trip.”

A collection of Chechen postcards, on the other hand, is more inviting. Among them are pictures of illuminated mosques at night, flowering meadows against a hill landscape, and historical watchtowers.

THE NEXT MORNINGwe put on our best clothes, polish our shoes, and drive to Ingushetia. We’re visiting relatives in the neighboring republic: Murad, his brother, their father (who dropped by the previous evening), and me. “You’ve chosen the best day of the year; today we celebrate the end of Ramadan,” says Murad. He turns on the car stereo and we head down the highway toward the outskirts of Grozny listening to the songs of Scooter: “Mesmerized,” “Metropolis,” and “Psycho.” Sterile music to match the sterile houses and sterile streets; everything clean, highly polished, and artificial. But something isn’t quite right with this placidity; it feels like a Truman Show idyll, a Potemkinesque illusion. People here are frightened of their government; they haven’t yet come to terms with the trauma of the last war, which only ended in 2009. I notice that disabled veterans are nowhere to be seen.

Chechnya is a unique experiment in radical reconciliation with the past: Can you simply pave over the traces of two wars? Can you slap new asphalt and a new city on top, put an authoritarian potentate in charge, and be done with it?

The First Chechen War, from 1994–96, was about independence from Russia; so was the second war, which started in 1999 and lasted ten years. It was an era of terror, with a death toll of more than 150,000 and the whole spectrum of war crimes and atrocities that people are capable of.

IN ALKHAN-YURT WEpass a crimson-red house with a Rolls Royce parked outside. “Dr. Bayev is entertaining some VIPs,” explains Murad. “He is a doctor who during the war treated the wounded from both sides. A real hero. But his fame is down to one single operation: he amputated Shamil Basayev’s right leg after he had stepped on a mine. He saved his life.”

Basayev was like Russia’s Bin Laden: the most wanted terrorist in the country. After the amputation he could no longer be an active assassin, which didn’t hinder him from planning the taking of hostages at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and at a school in Beslan in 2004, as well as the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov. The Russian government offered a bounty of US$9.5 million for Basayev, dead or alive; he was eventually assassinated by the FSB, Russia’s security service.

Police with Kalashnikovs stand at many crossroads; at each entrance to the village, huge portraits of the rulers hang on archways above the street. The bearded elder Kadyrov, mostly pictured in a black-and-white pillbox hat and spotted tie, smiling like a wise shepherd. Or sometimes in a thinking pose, with his hand clutching his chin: “Hmm… which dissident’s toes are we going to chop off today?” One particularly irritating poster shows a veiled woman and the ex-leader in two heart-shaped frames linked with the text From Heart to Heart . His son is presented either in military uniform with an array of medals on his lapel or dapper in a blue jacket with a red tie. And President Putin holds himself as you would expect: earnest, slightly looking down his nose, and emotionally neutral. A cult of leadership that we recognize from other autocratic regimes. “Before, there were even more images where you could see all three in one picture,” says Murad. “But they quickly earned the nickname ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’ Once people started making fun of them, many were taken down.”

Ramzan Kadyrov is less sensitive about being a potential butt of jokes in his Instagram profile, which has more than two million followers. There he posts photos and videos of political gatherings, martial arts competitions, and children’s birthday parties. Sometimes he can be seen posing with a rifle at a shooting range while bad-mouthing his enemies; other photos show him in more private settings, working out in a fitness center or holding a cute pet in his arms.

The most absurd publicity stunt so far is a video of him wrestling a crocodile, which is so heavily edited that it’s not quite certain how heroic his triumph actually is. He has already posted more than eight thousand times, and his media team ensures that he is depicted as a strong leader with a soft heart. The number of emoticons in some of his posts seems less than statesmanlike, as does the fact that he comes across as an over-enthusiastic Chechen tourist, forever snapping selfies. But maybe his age is to blame. At forty, after ten years in office, he is still one of the youngest of his métier.

But the laid-back appearance is deceptive. Kadyrov, who once fought against the Russians before changing sides, is considered a ruthless despot and intimidates his people with the aid of his private army. Human rights activists accuse the government of kidnappings, contract killings, and rape, and in the prisons, torture methods from the Middle Ages are daily business. After the murder of a well-known opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov, a number of clues pointed to Kadyrov’s inner circle, but of course he disclaims any connection.

In front of us is a white Hyundai SUV with the letters KRA on the license plate. “That stands for ‘Kadyrov Ramzan Akhmadovich’ and it means that the driver is close to the ruling family,” explains Murad.

We stop at a house with a large courtyard enclosed by a fence. In the kitchen a wooden table bends under the weight of countless delicacies. “A cousin,” says Murad as a tall man approaches us. Chechens greet each other with a kind of half-hug with your forearm glancing off the other person’s forearm, as if you both have wet hands. This custom also apparently applies to men greeting female friends and relatives, so already on the second day I have broken my airplane companion’s rule of not touching women. The feast consists of chicken legs and filled pastries, small meatballs and vegetable soups, mountains of fruit, cookies and cakes, and bars of chocolate.