NEWS

Anna Arutunyan

For Heda Saratova, a Grozny human rights worker, murders, kidnappings and disappearances, as well as the excesses of the local law enforcement agencies, are all too common.

Yet the newly-acquired comforts her family now enjoys - such as adequate housing, schools and transport - are evidence that, step by step, Chechnya is being rebuilt. And the opening of a new international airport this month, just in time for the Hajj to Mecca, is a big psychological boost.

"My son, Shamil, goes to a big, beautiful school. Yesterday I walked to my mother's house at midnight - I would be too scared to do that in Moscow," Saratova said by telephone from her home. For all the problems, "it is simply a sin to say that everything is bad," she said. "Just look out into the street to see what's changed. We used to live without gas, water and electricity, with bombs falling on us. Look how far we've come."

Saratova, who is on the expert council of a national human rights agency, heads her own local independent group, Objective, which helps Chechens tackle social problems that still plague the republic after the conflicts of the last two decades.

"Often people come to us asking to sort out rights to their apartments. After the war, up to 10 or 15 people could lay claim to a single apartment, there were multiple documents and deeds," she said. "Now some people are insisting that they live in an apartment when they actually don't. What are the actual residents supposed to do to defend their rights? Not everyone can go to Ramzan [Kadyrov]. We help them."

The first international flight out of Grozny in 15 years - taking 200 pilgrims to the Saudi city of Medina on Nov. 16 - restored some pride to a restive republic ravished by a separatist conflict in the last two decades. For its strongman president, Ramzan Kadyrov, insisting on a return to stability has been a point of honour in recent years. Experts single out the upgrade of Grozny's airport to international status as one of the two events this year that gives those claims extra validity. The other was an official end to counter-terrorist operations announced in April.

Sergei Markedonov, an expert on the North Caucasus, said that the end of the counter-terrorist operation could have led to the spike in violence seen over this summer, but also allowed the airport to resume international flights. In that sense, even if it was a public relations move, it was still significant, he said.

Chechnya's government can also point to the restarting of industrial production, albeit on a modest scale, as an achievement, particularly since the republic has been dependent on federal subsidies in recent years.

Progress has been made in construction, Kadyrov's spokesman Alvi Kerimov said by telephone. According to the State Statistics Agency, investment in the republic has more than tripled over the year, now totaling more than $700 million. "Until recently, [Chechnya] shipped cement [and bricks] from neighboring republics. It was therefore expensive and of poor quality," he said.

The roads, already suffering damage from bombs and tank fire, had also deteriorated.

"Today we can produce our own cement. The northern road from Grozny has practically been built anew. Roads have been repaired in all districts."

A few factories have opened in the republic, such as the Chiri-Yurt Cement Plant, the Transmash automotive plant in Grozny and the Zhiguli car plant in Argun. But Soviet-era industrial giants like the Krasny Molot plant or the Lenin and Sheripov oil refinery plants have yet to be restored.

"To someone else it might not sound serious, that we're proud of our cement and brick production," said Kerimov. "Just two years ago there wasn't a single cement or brick plant. We can produce our own building materials now."

According to Kerimov, the government is aggressively dealing with persistent problems that plague the republic, such as unemployment. Traditionally, Chechnya has one of the highest jobless rates in the country.

Kerimov said the real level of unemployment in Chechnya was about 50 per cent, but Saratova puts the figure much higher, at about 80 per cent of the population.

According to the State Statistics Agency, the number of officially jobless people as of October is 189,000 - 112 per cent more than last year. Meanwhile, the total figure for wage arrears is one of the highest in the country - 227 million rubles (nearly $30 million).

"The labour and social development ministry has opened departments across the republic to monitor unemployment, find jobs and offer them to the jobless," Kerimov said. "The government is hosting seminars and forums that train young people to work in professions that are in demand, to train them to start their own business. A large number of people are now finding jobs in construction."

Given the volatility of the republic, where terrorist attacks are still common and rights activists Natalya Estemirova and Zarema Sadulayeva were killed this year, unemployment can be a dangerous problem, Saratova said.

"A young Chechen man needs money to get married," she said. "When he can't, it is very demeaning." This could provide a motive to join the militant groups "in the forests", she said.

Kadyrov, meanwhile, has set a target of bringing down Chechnya's unemployment rate to the nationwide average by 2012, and is seeking foreign investment in the republic.

Markedonov said a lack of private business was one factor behind the high unemployment rate. "Most people who are employed work for the government," he said. Indeed, official statistics show that only a few small businesses operate in Chechnya.

Kerimov insists that Kadyrov's government is doing everything it can to encourage more small businesses to operate. "Small workshops create 20 to 30 jobs each," he said, adding that they make window frames, bricks and other construction materials.