The skyline of Nazran against the Caucasus Mountains on the Russo-Georgian Border.
 

Ingushetia Absorbs the Chechen Crisis

Closer Look  |  Daniel J Gerstle, Dec-Feb 2010

www.Helo-Magazine.com 

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Chechen IDPs started a textile business while living in an abandoned cooking oil factory outside the capitol Nazran. Ten years displaced from Chechnya, they had to make a living. They also bought cows and started a dairy business, with the help of international aid.
 

The Ingush and Chechens have common ties. Collectively, they call themselves "Vainah." Their languages are similar to each other, but no others. Like other southern Russian peoples, their day begins with tea and ends with sweets when they can afford it. They're largely Muslim, so in the last decade of societal change women have begun covering their hair, but until a recent policy in Chechnya, this was considered highly optional.
 

Although Ingushetia has been hit hard by the spillover of the Islamic radical insurgency which originated in neighboring Chechnya, the tiny republic is also still affected by a second conflict. In 1992, the Ingush fought a brief war with neighboring North Ossetia over an area outside the city of Vladikavkaz called, Prigorodny. With Russia's favor, the Ossetians won Prigorodny and thousands of Ingush were displaced, forced to live alongside Chechen refuges in abandoned factories. This woman now lives in Dolakovo, not having seen her home for fourteen years despite it being merely ten miles away.

Despite the hardship of economic depression, isolation from the rest of Russia due to the high security, and for some the loss of home, family units remain very strong. 

Whenever possible, young people study new trades, get second jobs, and try to link to the outside world. Most Ingush are not permitted to travel outside of their Republic without going through a series of military checkpoints. Advanced applications to travel are required in some cases.  

Many of southern Russia's factories and warehouses which stalled in the malaise were transformed into makeshift, low or no-income apartment buildings for displaced families from Chechnya, Prigorodny, and locally.
 

Life among the internally-displace families improves with each wave of aid or job opportunies, but remains at the standards of a great depression. 

The Ingush are uniquely united in their memorialization of those few hundred killed in the war with the neighboring Ossetians over the Prigorodny region. The Russian government only made things more tense on the Ingush side by allowing the Ossetians to house refugees from Georgia in abandoned Ingush homes, then building low-quality shack housing on the Ingush border for those Ingush who remained without solutions. 

With an ongoing insurgency, even aid agencies must be escorted by Ingush Interior Ministry guards. They're not hard to get along with. Many are simply trying to make a living and don't necessarily follow the extreme rhetoric of either side in the fight.

In nearby Vladikavkaz, the capitol of North Ossetia-Alania, the central Mosque which once thrived with Ingush and Kabardian Muslim attendance, now remains largely empty even on the most holy days. The city has tremendous potential, but remains depressed under the pressure of the counter-insurgency largely based in this area.

The internal borders between Chechnya and Ingushetia and between Ingushetia and North Ossetia-Alania are walled off security gauntlets. 

A young Chechen girl living in Ingushetia dreams of being a photographer.