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Caucasus – Terra Incognito

Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Ossetia, not even the more experienced travelers can pin-point all these places on a map. Neither could I before I traveled this region for one month in the summer of 2019.  But isn’t this the best reason to head out to such very off off the beaten tracks? Most of the time I travelled on my own on public transport. I felt completely safe, actually I was overwhelmed by the help I received from total strangers. For a few days I joined six other people to visit South Ossetia, since a special invitation is required for this tiny country. It was the perfect mix, four weeks on my own knowing about 20 words of Russian might have been a bit lonely.

Russia’s Caucasus Region

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Chechnya’s Rebirth

What comes to your mind when you think of Chechnya, and Grozny in particular? A bombed-out city, bearded men and veiled women? Well, you could not be more wrong. When I visited in August 2019, not only the capital, but an entire country did not show the slightest traces of war.  I was baffled, it was only 15 years earlier that a brutal war was raging in this country between Islamic separatists and the Russian army. What erased this part of Chechnya’s recent history was the program “Chechnya without Traces of War”. It started in 2005, one year after the war ended and made Chechnya, cities and also rural areas, look brand new. Nothing should remind of the horrible war, no ruins, abandoned buildings nothing.

Grozny - downtown

Grozny – downtown

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