Chechnya had become synonymous with 'hell' for most of the 1990s. Even three years ago, people wondered if the nationalistic Islamic insurgency against the Russian-backed national government could ever be defeated.
Today, the capital Grozny is a changed place, thanks in part to the ruthless hand of Chechnya's President Ramzan A. Kadyrov and extraordinary investment in fixing the shattered city.
Mr. Kadyrov’s human rights record is chilling, and allegations of his government’s patterns of brutality and impunity are widespread. Yet even his most severe critics say he has developed significant popular support, in part because of the clear changes that have accompanied his firm and fearsome rule.
Fighting has been sporadic and small in scale for a second year. A large rebel offensive did not materialize this summer, as the separatists had predicted. Buoyed by a sustained lull in fighting and flush with cash, Mr. Kadyrov’s government has rebuilt most of its capital and outlying areas.
Like Stalingrad after World War II, Grozny, the Chechen capital, has reappeared from the rubble. It has done so more swiftly than European cities revived by the Marshall Plan.
As recently as early 2006, Grozny was less a city than rows of shattered buildings overlooking cesspools. It now has electricity almost around the clock and reliable natural gas service. Many neighborhoods have water. Block upon block of housing complexes have been rebuilt, and families have moved into buildings that a year ago were buckling shells.
Markets are crowded with products, from computers and furniture to air-conditioners, flat-screen televisions and new cars.
Improvements have also been made in outlying towns. Services are being extended into the Caucasus Mountains, the separatists’ former stronghold. Many residents speak of a degree of peace they had not seen in 13 years.
“I compare how we used to live, and it is like we are in a fairy tale now,” said Zulika Aliyeva, 46, whose home was destroyed when Russia sacked Grozny in 1999 and 2000 and who spent years squatting in a ruined building. The building she moved to recently has been partly repaired.
Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center who studies Chechnya and recently visited the republic again, said the pace of change was astounding. “I couldn’t believe I was in Grozny,” he said.
Russia’s defeat of the heart of the rebellion in Chechnya appears to flow, in the simplest sense, from a two-stage formula: extraordinary violence, followed by extraordinary investment. One corollary has been that allegations of human rights abuses by both Russia and its local allies have been largely ignored.
At the center of this formula has been Mr. Kadyrov, the rebel turned Kremlin ally who was widely labeled an illiterate bandit when he entered public life three years ago after his father, then the president, was assassinated.
Mr. Kadyrov, like the republic he leads, has defied the dark projections. As Chechnya’s president since this spring, he has become a populist who has managed to embrace Sufi Islam, Chechen ethnic identity and Kremlin authority simultaneously.
Addendum
The BBC had a similar story back in March.