"I keep seeing it and thinking it's exactly the sort of thing I should be looking at. But then never looking at it. What a chump."
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Chechnya, and why Ramzan Kadyrov is my hero. Or not.
Succeeding what was left of his father (violently assassinated in an explosion that ripped through Grozny’s main stadium), Ramzan Kadyrov has recently convinced Dutch footballing legend Ruud Gullit into accepting the role of head coach at local Russian Premier League team Terek. It must be the same persuasion which this week brought a Brazil team featuring players who won the 2002 World Cup to play a game here, ostensibly as a “mark of respect” to the Chechen people. Gullit must presumably be hoping Kadyrov can work his considerable magic on the Dutchman’s own family, who were ‘unable to settle’ when he was in his last coaching position. In Los Angeles.
For now though, one of the world’s few (and the former Soviet Union’s many) fantastic Bond villain-esque characters has contented himself with playing a key role in this friendly kick about, before treating those gathered to a traditional Chechen dance at half time. You really couldn’t make it up.
Not merely a stooge of Medvedev (who in turn is very much a stooge of Putin’s), Kadyrov controls a volatile republic in a dangerous and complex area of the world in what is, admittedly, probably the only way possible. Even with Russian backing, no shrinking violet is going to last long here. Along with shameful views on women’s rights (who are the property of their husband), a large percentage of Chechnya’s violent and fatal crime is attributed to his henchmen, and that isn’t forgetting what could be his own personal chapter of alleged human rights abuses. Still, I suppose he’d make the trains run on time. If there were any.
That is unfair actually, there are trains operating here. Though access for foreigners is complicated to say the least, not least because of the tribal nature of the north Caucusus and the protection and danger money that has to be spent along the way. The “World’s Most Travelled Man”, Charles Veley, was rumoured to have spent tens of thousands of Euros just to safeguard himself for a few hours as he was taken in and out of Chechnya safely. More money than sense perhaps, but who wants to be the world’s most sensible man?
