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This is a remarkable turnaround. Europe supported the Muslim Bosnian cause against the Serbs, Islamic Chechnya against Russia, the Palestinians against the Israelis and Muslim Albanian insurgents against both Serbs and Macedonians. Nor was this consistent pro-Islamic orientation a novelty.
In this fertile wooded strip, rich in vegetation, has dwelt as far back as memory runs the fine warlike and prosperous Russian tribe belonging to the sect of Old Believers, and called the Grebensk Cossacks. Long long ago their Old Believer ancestors fled from Russia and settled beyond the Terek among the Chechens on the Greben, the first range of wooded mountains of Chechnya.
We had an army captain in Chervlena who was my kunak: a fine fellow just like me. He was killed in Chechnya. Well, he used to say that the preachers invent all that out of their own heads. "When you die the grass will grow on your grave and that's all!" The old man laughed. 'He was a desperate fellow. 'And how old are you? asked Olenin. 'The Lord only knows! I must be about seventy.
Both are being held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom.
Both are being held back from reaching their full potential: Russia by the legacy of communism, economic turmoil, a cruel and self-defeating war in Chechnya; China by the illusion that it can buy stability at the expense of freedom.
A few weeks ago, a Russian general in Chechnya refused Putin's orders publicly and with impunity. Additionally, according to numerous opinion polls, the vast majority of Russians oppose an Iraqi campaign.
To the south, beyond the Terek, are the Great Chechnya river, the Kochkalov range, the Black Mountains, yet another range, and at last the snowy mountains, which can just be seen but have never yet been scaled.
But Putin is not Boris Yeltsin, his inebriated predecessor who over-played his hand in opposing NATO's operation in Kosovo in 1999 only to be sidelined, ignored and humiliated in the postwar arrangements. Russia wants a free hand in Chechnya and to be heard on international issues.
"Not the same sort of men!" retorted the old man, mimicking the Cossack lad. 'I was not that sort of Cossack at your age. 'How's that? asked Lukashka. The old man shook his head contemptuously. 'Daddy Eroshka was simple; he did not grudge anything! That's why I was kunak with all Chechnya.
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