Lost in the desert - From despair to meaningful existence: A chechen refugee family crossing borders

Abstract

Can your medical center help me in selling my kidney? These words, which caused a shock-like state of several colleagues sitting around the table in our treatment center in Tbilisi (Georgia) belonged to Kazbeg, a man of 40 years, refugee from Chechnya. This was his first visit to our center. Kazbeg's grandfather was a participant of 1944 Chechen rebellion against Soviet Regime and by Stalin's order, together with his family (Kazbeg's 7 years old father among them) and some 1 million Chechens has been deported to Central Asia stuffed in railway car for cattle. The itinerary from Chechnya to Kazakhstan was extremely long and full of suffering. After 6 weeks of journey, only half of the million Chechens managed to survive. However, that did not break their spirit. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes in his Archipelago Gulag: The Chechens never sought to please, to ingratiate themselves with the bosses. As far as they were concerned, the local inhabitants and those exiles who submitted so readily belong more or less to the same breed as bosses. They respected only rebels. And here is an extraordinary thing - everyone was afraid of them. No one could stop them from living as they did. The regime which had ruled the land for thirty years could not force them to respect its laws. (as cited in Baiev, Daniloff, & Daniloff, 2003, pp.3-4). In 1957 Chechens were allowed to return home and start over a new life, however they were not rehabilitated formally. During years of living in extremely harsh conditions in exile, Kazbeg's grandfather and 2 uncles died alongside many others under forced labor. Kazbeg's father refused to leave Kazakhstan, and the family separated. Kazbeg's pregnant mother, older sister and grandmother returned to their native town of Grozny in 1963, the year that Kazbeg was born. He and his sister were growing up in caring family, among loving women, mother and grandmother. From those years of his childhood and adolescence, Kazbeg developed deep respect of women and belief in their power and outlook. After graduation from the secondary school, Kazbeg became a student of civil engineering department in Moscow. During one of his holidays back home, he met Khava, a beautiful Chechen young girl of 18, fell in love with her and soon they married. The couple went to Moscow, where after graduation from the university Kazbeg started to work. Their family was quite wealthy. They gave birth to three boys. After Chechnya declared independence, the family decided to return to homeland. Their fourth child, a baby girl was born in Grozny. When the first Russian-Chechen war broke out (December, 1994-August, 1996), Kazbeg's family seriously suffered, like many others. Bombardment damaged his house, the walls came apart, caught fire and his elder son, who then was 13, burned his legs. There was no place to hide 3 infants (2-year-old twin boys and a baby girl of 10 months). In the following year, during continuous bombings, Khava had a miscarriage of twins because of stress. One day soldiers of Russian federal troops broke into Kazbeg's house. He was severely beaten (especially on his head) with feet and guns, and threatened that his wife and children will be executed. The assault lasted for more than an hour. The soldiers were demanding "information", money and gold. "It was the hardest when they pointed a gun at my wife and asked if I could see her killed and still say nothing," told us Kazbeg. Khava too has undergone physical and psychological abuse (mocking, threatening). After that, he was arrested and held in custody in the basement of the Gudermes Prison. They interrogated him about the Chechnyan Resistance and since he "did not know anything", he was subjected to a severe torture. They tortured him for 10 days and he ended up with a broken collarbone and perforated appendix. Then they threw him unconscious out into the street where he spent all frosty night. Upon termination of the first Russian-Chechen war, Kazbeg together with his wife and children left for Ukraine. In Ukraine, he met a Tibetan lama, who determined Kazbeg's further life outlook - a philosophy of active non-violence. The Tibetan lama preached that a human being had to resist injustice with all his spirit and energy. One has to be free, although not through war and brutality, but through active nonconformity and non-violence. Kazbeg was so fascinated by this concept that he started introducing this philosophy to his fellow Chechens in Ukraine. He created a forum for non-violent struggle and organized a conference for promotion of non-violent vision of resolution of the Chechen conflict. For majority of his compatriots this philosophy was unacceptable, since "historically, Chechens are fighters". Unfortunately, violence reached his family again. Before the outbreak of the second Russian- Chechnyan war (in 1999), Khava, together with her elder son and little daughter, returned to Chechnya to visit her family. One night, during a regular "Zachistky1" the Russian soldiers burst into their house and arrested her 26 year old brother. "They did not even allow him to put on his clothes" remembers Khava. All this was happening in front of the family members, accompanied by physical and psychological abuse. The soldiers pointed a gun at Khava's head and at her small daughter threatening them with execution. Khava was crying, trying to defend her brother and was seriously beaten, especially on her head. Finally, soldiers took her brother and after that, nobody has ever heard of him. That night many men were taken away from their homes. Khava later described that "despite the summer heat, I froze and I was shivering". She could hear how her daughter was weeping and begging to be taken away from the house. After that incident, whenever her daughter saw uniformed people, she always tried to hide, starting crying and asking for help. That time Khava's psychological state deteriorated. She developed a fear of being left alone, a fear of darkness and uncontrolled shivering. Her daughter started to suffer from night enuresis. Since it was not possible for Khava and her little daughter to leave for Ukraine, Kazbeg with his sons immediately returned to Chechnya, but soon upon his return he was taken by Russian soldiers to a filtration camp2, where he spent 10 days kept in waist-deep water. He has again undergone insults, threats, beating. He was released only after his relatives had paid the ransom. After having witnessed all this terror, Kazbeg's elder son, despite his father's arguments and reprimands left the house and joined the resistance fighters. In autumn 1999, Kazbeg moved with his family to Georgia, and left his mother, who refused to leave Grozny, behind. In 1999, the Georgian Government declared its readiness to accept refugees from Chechnya and settle them in Pankisi Gorge, a place populated by ethnic Kists. Historically Chechens and Kists have the same origin, they speak the same language and share common customs and traditions. The refugees were granted a group refugee status, meaning that they did not receive individual documentation and were restricted in their traveling within the country. The State did not take any responsibility to provide refugees with shelter or material assistance and addressed international humanitarian organizations to support the refugees. However, those refugees who would leave the Gorge and settle somewhere else in Georgia would not receive any assistance whatsoever. Nevertheless, a certain number of refugees chose to live in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia instead of being trapped in Pankisi Gorge. Kazbeg was among those refugees. The family lived in harsh circumstances and poverty. Very often they did not have money to pay their bills and were left without electricity and gas. After spending two years in Tbilisi Kazbeg learnt about our center, which provided medical and psychosocial assistance to refugees from Chechnya. © 2007 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. All rights reserved.