Smith - Allahs Mountains

Sebastian Smith is a prize winning author and journalist. He has been a correspondent in Washington, Moscow and London for the English-language service of Agence France-Presse and is currently living and working in Georgia.

Heads of state and their foreign ministers should be forced to read and ponder this book Professor George Hewitt

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Published in 2006 by Tauris Parke Paperbacks
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First published in 1998 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
Copyright 1998, 2001, 2006 Sebastian Smith

Cover image: Female Chechen rebel fighter Heidi Bradner/Panos

The right of Sebastian Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

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ISBN 978 1 85043 979 0
eISBN 978 0 85773 076 3

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For my Father

Maps

Acknowledgements

The first people I owe thanks are those in Chechnya who risked their lives to protect mine, or to help me get the story for my news agency, usually for no reward. In true Caucasus style, many others ignored considerable hardships to house and feed me.

Some are named in this book, but many are not. A special thanks to Mussa Damayev of Shali, Salamu Turlayev of Novy Tsenteroi, Khanzad Batayev and Movladi Yermolayev of Bamut, Ali Atuyev of Stary Achkhoi, Islam Gunayev of Hadji Yurt, Yussup of Serzhen Yurt.

I am grateful to all those in other parts of the North Caucasus who displayed such magnicifent hospitality and also to the many academics and officials who gave me their time. Especially: in Dagestan, Sayid Khabetov of Novoselskoye, Natasha Stoyanova of Makhachkala and Gussein Gazimagomedov of Gimry; in Ingushetia, Boris Khaniyev; in North Ossetia, Anatoly Isayenko at Vladikavkaz University and Vladimir Shakbazidi at the Greek Society; in Kabardino-Balkaria, Kazir Dzhammal and his family in the mountains; in Karachai-Cherkessia, Karachai leader Kazbek Chomayev and mullah Kazbek Shamatayev, Rasul and friends; in Adygea, Khamzet Kazanov, Aslan, museum director Almir Abregov and national dance troupe director Amerbi Kulov; also the staff of the Severny Kavkaz newspaper, especially Tatyana Mamkhyagova in Cherkessk.

For their great help in knocking sense into my manuscript, I am forever grateful to Andrew Harding, James Meek, Carey Scott and Antony Smith. I also thank Anna-Maria Boura, Laurence Peter, Andrei Piontkovsky and Dmitri Trenin for their comments on the text, and Agence France-Presse and the Moscow Times for their archives, and the Centre for Global Energy Studies and Philip Armstrong for maps.

Also thanks to my AFP boss Paola Messana for giving me time off to write and an unlimited chance to work in Chechnya; to Natasha Fairweather for helping me find a publisher; to Marina Lapenkova and Valentina Blinova for teaching me to enjoy the Russian winter; to the late Peter Braestrup and to Jack Kneece sne Seierstad for their early encouragement; to fellow journalists in Chechnya, some of whom, but not all, are mentioned in this book, for their company and support; and finally to Anna Enayat at my publishers I.B.Tauris for taking on the book and being so patient at my rewrites and delays.

This book could not have been written without help from previously published works. They are listed in the bibliography, but I am particularly indebted to the various works of Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush on Islam under the Soviet Union; to Robert Conquest for his definitive account of the deportations The Nation Killers; to Marie Bennigsen Broxup et al for The North Caucasus Barrier a classic reference on the region and to Moshe Gammer for his detailed history of Imam Shamils reign in Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. For understanding the history of the 19th-century wars, there is still no better book than John F. Baddeleys 1908 work The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. And for understanding the nature of the opposing sides, there are no more accurate accounts than those by Tolstoy in Hadji Murat and The Cossacks, and by Lermontov in A Hero of Our Time; for help in entering the world of Lermontov, I am grateful to Laurence Kelly for his Lermontov. Tragedy in the Caucasus.