History & News
Essay on Chechen history: by Edward Kline
Books on Chechnya: from Amazon.com
Ecological disaster in Chechnya: photo essay
Chechnya news: comprehensive selection of sources
Latest news about Chechnya: various sources
Chechen conflict: full coverage by Yahoo!

Photos
For pictorial accounts of trips to Chechnya, click here.
Also see Grozny pictures

Web Sites

Travel Tips
Accreditation

Office of the president's special representative Sergei Yastrzhembsky:
7 (095) 206-0831 (reception)
7 (095) 206-2478
7 (095) 206-1466

Getting There (almost)

A two-hour flight from Chkalovsky military airfield near Moscow and you are in Mozdok, or a more difficult route: a two-hour flight from Moscow Vnukovo to Mineralnye Vody plus a three-hour drive to Mozdok.

For successful operation in Chechnya, a reporter or TV crew member will need, apart from proper accreditation (no one will be able to tell you what it is), the following items:

  • a satellite phone: all other phones just don't work. When a line of friendly soldiers or colleagues wishing to make phone calls to girl-friends in Tyumen or file reports from your sat phone gets too long, explain your boss has got mad and disconnected all phone numbers but the one at your office. This doesn't apply to Yastrzhembsky!
  • tall rubber boots: it's REALLY muddy there
  • a spare pair of jeans or pants: you WILL occasionally fall into the mud
  • warm clothes: in case you'll have to sleep in the open
  • toilet paper: and be prepared for shaky wooden outhouses (Click for picture)
  • a flashlight (torch): to visit the above facilities in the dark, and it gets dark early in the south
  • disposable cups: for vodka taken from Moscow; NEVER buy local vodka, or at least don't drink it yourself
  • bottled mineral water: goes well with vodka
  • a shortwave radio: if you care what's happening back in Moscow or your home country
  • fifty and hundred ruble bills, rather than 500-ruble banknotes: you'll soon find out why
  • lots of spare batteries for your equipment: there may be no electricity to recharge them

    Food and transportation

  • at Khankala, you likely will eat at an officers' mess (Click for picture); take your own food if you stay elsewhere or hate smoked pork fat
  • helicopter (Click for picture) is the main means of transportation (Click for picture)

    Work

  • if you are lucky, you will see the ruins of Grozny (Click for picture); if not, settle for this source of information (Click for picture)

    Bon voyage!

    Questions? Email to newsbee



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