Russian girls are in slavery to the Chechens. Slaves of the freedom-loving mountaineers

Once again, the central media remembered the “Russian slaves in Chechnya,” twin people with the same, albeit somewhat vague, biography (they were deceived into the mountains, kept in a pit, and used for forced labor for years).

A SLAVE who does not want to free himself from slavery deserves double slavery, said Dzhokhar Dudayev. In 1979, I was forever far from this truth, because I grew up reading textbooks, where in black and white, in bold, calligraphic handwriting, it was written: “WE ARE NOT SLAVES. WE ARE NOT SLAVES.” From this Soviet “Our Father”, having received a ticket to life, I took the most active life position in it - I remained at my own school as a senior pioneer leader. I hope that there is still a generation alive that remembers this stage in the work history of Komsomol members.
With burning eyes and a flying gait, I was equally in a hurry to work and home. From head to toe - ideological, purposeful, in love with her pioneers and all of humanity (without any irony, believe me), who believed in social justice in the Land of the Soviets and periodically joined the fight for
the liberation of either Angela Davis or Luis Corvalan, I suddenly one day came face to face with a sonorous, biting, backhanded name - Scourge! Yes, yes - by name. One for all.
On this day, having solemnly celebrated the birthday of V.I. in the pioneer squad. Lenina, I came home in an excited and elated mood. At the door I ran into a neighbor who was already leaving us. “I’ll go feed the whips,” the young woman told me by way of greeting. Since this word in relation to a living creature was not yet widespread in our area, I asked my sisters if I understood correctly that we were talking about a person? In response, the sisters laughed merrily, and my mother, suspecting that revolutionary ferment was taking place in me, hastened to explain the shocking word “scourge” as understandable - drunkard. But I was already rushing to the neighbors.
My hosts were not surprised by my visit. The head of the family, Charon, is a modest, shy man, intelligence was in his blood. According to etiquette, he introduced us to each other, calling each whip by name and patronymic.
The year 1979 was declared by UNESCO as the World Year of the Child. Starting from this most humane topic, I imposed small talk on these utterly degraded people of various professions. Charon sat at a distance, smiled and did not interfere in the conversation.
Speaking about the merits of the Great October Revolution, about the immortality of Lenin’s deeds and ideas, I taxied to the native Soviet government, which liberated the great Russian people from their enslavers, and asked directly: “What makes you, Russian people, today do not work in a factory in the city or in an enterprise (and there are more than forty of them in the village), why did you come to bend your back to one Chechen Owner?”
Discussions about high matters (which are, generally speaking, great artists for whipping) could not hide the prosaic reasons for their downfall: drunkenness and flight from alimony. My soul-saving speeches did not spoil their appetite at all.
Less than a week had passed before people in the village started talking about entire brigades of whips. The beginning of spring in Kazakhstan has always been associated with seasonal work - covens. Chechens, local and those coming from the Caucasus by this time, worked until the first snow on collective farms, sheepherds, and built houses and other objects throughout the Semipalatinsk region. This spring, for the first time, they openly brought Russian tramps with them to work.
Having learned that fourteen scourges settled in Aidrus’s bathhouse, I considered it my duty to bring some sense, if not to the Russian people who do not want to squeeze a slave out of themselves, then at least to their Chechens.
Aidrus's mother, a very corpulent, overweight old woman, stood at the stove with swollen legs and stirred some kind of brew in an enamel bucket. Respecting my ideological obstinacy, about which there were funny jokes in the village, the old woman, from whose light hand the nickname Lenin stuck to me for a long time, without hesitation agreed to my political education of their scourges, hoping in this way to ease her fate. Having met unexpected guests in the first days according to all the rules of mountain customs, the old woman was forced to give in to them in the strangest desires. First the whips refused the sheets, then the plates, then the pots, then they asked to move to the bathhouse, which immediately created a lot of inconvenience for the entire family.
Finally Aidrus arrived. He was good with humor. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he disarmed me with the question: “Do you know where I caught them?” The effect worked, and Aidrus finished off my philanthropy: “In the sewer manholes in the city!”
But the season - that's why it's a season to end.
Winter in Semipalatinsk comes at the height of autumn. The shabatniks, having paid off the scourges, returned to their families. The saddest thing began precisely at this time: the whips begged the Caucasians to take them with them to the south. There was no limit to their humiliation. Rarely did any of the visiting Chechens risk taking with them on the road a person whose solid three or four months' earnings were enough for several days of drinking and fighting. And yet there were compassionate women who persuaded their husbands to help the unfortunate.
I happened to see one of these scourges about ten years later in the village of Goyty, Urus-Martan district. His name was Fedya. He was an elderly man who took care of cattle in a very pious family. All attempts to seat him at the table always ended the same way: having transferred everything that was prepared for him from the plates into his bowl, Fedya went to the threshold, sat down on the ground and ate. The owners were never able to get used to such human self-abasement and did not go to the table while a man of respectable age sat at the threshold, like a faithful dog.
In Grozny, just before the war, in the house of my new in-laws, I again encountered a “slave” of about forty-five years old, nicknamed Bosun. All that was his responsibility was to graze a single cow ten steps from the house. The establishment of “constitutional order” in Chechnya ended with at least one brilliant operation: the boatswain finally put himself in order! He now walks around the yard like a dandy, a gogol, a master. He proudly showed me his worn-out naval officer's certificates, indicating that he, too, had once been a badass. During my forced absence, the scourge became indispensable in the family. Yours! The change in Bosun irritated me. But for some reason only me. Later I realized that what brought him closer to his owners was his experience in this massacre. When I arrived, I was a person from another life. Peaceful.
"How much are Russian slaves on the Chechen market?" - Russian newspapers ask today. Television is once again showing a Russian slave who spent almost decades in Chechen captivity. The astronomical sums allegedly paid for their release are mentioned. But among the Chechens, the most despised people at all times were considered to be laiyas, that is, slaves. Who would think of valuing the life of a scourge at hundreds of millions of dollars when he himself values ​​it no more than half a liter?
Another thing is hostages. Yes, people are being kidnapped and even killed in Chechnya today, otherwise you won’t be able to raise the ransom price. Yes, human trafficking has become a business, and families whose breadwinner is a man with a machine gun live in this criminal business. But, as we know, in Moscow, which was more prosperous in comparison with the devastated Chechnya of the 90s, they also steal, torture and kill people (which did not happen in the 80s), and who calculated where the share of crime per capita is higher and how many people here and there they still want to earn bread with their labor. How will you get it? In Goyty, my 27-year-old second cousin, the father of three children, got on a tractor, drove out into the field and on the very first day was blown up by a mine. A little later, in the same field, two more tractor drivers, my husband’s relatives, ran into a mine. One also died. The second one became disabled.
Why, however, are “Russian slaves” useful to Russian politicians and the press again when they suddenly filled another dull information gap in the Chechen topic? And to remind: it is not the war that is to blame, not the devastation, not the mines, not the poverty, but the Chechens themselves. This is historically the kind of people who are to blame for their own troubles, from time immemorial they do not want to work, they want to live at the expense of others, no matter how much money you give them, they will still be stolen, Russians are hated from the very beginning, they are forced to work hard, they are killed by folding their corpses in a cross. And, as Ermolov said, they only understand the language of force.
What the people’s image-makers don’t realize (now this is openly called information support for war) is that no matter how deep a ditch is dug along the perimeter of the Chechen border, Chechnya itself will not go anywhere. And the instilled anger and alienation only gives rise to anger, and the dynamics of this alienation are now on the border of Chechnya and Russia as high as ever. A politician thinks that this is for a while, but it turns out that it will last for many years. Yugoslavia is an example of this. But, unfortunately, Annushka has already spilled the oil...
It is unlikely that Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov himself will be convincing to the generals, who are again hoping for another “two hours with one regiment.”

“A long time ago,” the poet returns us to the origins of evil, “near clear waters.
...Near the border of foreign land.
The peaceful villages were blooming,
They were proud of their mutual friendship;
Every traveler found it there.
Accommodation and feast are hospitable...
Their songs breathed with joy.
They didn't know then.
No gold, no Russian steel!..."

In Chechnya, two labor slaves from the Astrakhan region were freed. One worked for a month on a livestock farm for pennies, the other worked for six months. Former slaves Oleg and Valery told how they got chained and why human trafficking in the North Caucasian Federal District is a profitable business.

Last December, Oleg wanted to change his life: get a job, get back on his feet. However, in one place the salary was not impressive, in another he was not suitable as an employee. Wandering from employer to employer, Oleg ended up at the Astrakhan train station. Started drinking. First alone, then in the company of cheerful but unfamiliar people.

Having learned about Oleg’s “wanderings,” his drinking buddies offered him a job at one of the enterprises in the Astrakhan region: high salary, housing, food. Oleg cheered up - the long search had come to an end. The comrades drank several more bottles of vodka for the “new life.” The Astrakhan resident woke up on the way to Chechnya.

Oleg became a labor slave on a livestock farm in the village of Avtury. Naturally, no one told the man about the new status. At first, he firmly believed that he was independent and free to leave at any moment. The owner of the shed, Amrutdi, promised him good money and shelter. Oleg decided to work for several months and then return back. But, patting the pockets of his pants and jacket, the Astrakhan resident could not find his documents.

Reality Far from Promises

At the cattle farm, Oleg himself was turned into a “draft horse” and was treated accordingly. A comfortable life remained an illusion. Oleg worked hard for food: he cleaned up after the cattle, heaped feed on them. Six months passed like this.

In June, Valery was brought to the shed. The new “free labor” recruiter was also picked up at the station.

Friends in misfortune decided to act together. “After receiving a refusal to their requests to leave the shed, our heroes immediately began to look for help on the Internet until they came across our organization,” - representatives of “Alternative” report.

On July 1, human rights activists’ hotline received two messages via SMS and WhatsApp: “Hello, my name is Oleg, please help me, I’m being held illegally. I’m in the Chechen Republic village of Avtury, they’re not letting me go anywhere.” (spelling and punctuation of the original - editor's note).

The alternativeists sent a volunteer from Grozny to the rescue. “The guys insisted that they be helped to get out “quietly” because they were very afraid of their owner named Amrutdi. There was no point in involving the police,” - explained in “Alternative”.

Human rights activists do not say how Amrutdi reacted to being deprived of cheap labor. It is known that in Grozny Valeria and Oleg were bought clothes and sent by taxi to Astrakhan.

On topic

The head who was directly involved in all the recent high-profile criminal scandals in the North Caucasus has retired from the Russian General Prosecutor's Office. Ivan Sydoruk is 68 years old, so experts call his resignation a natural change of personnel in the law enforcement department.

The republic's prosecutor's office became interested in the case. Department officials took personal control of the investigation.

Slave trading Caucasus

The story of Oleg and Valery is similar to many similar ones: they were seduced by work on the sea coast, promised salary, housing and food. A few days later it turned out that everything was a hoax.

The coordinator of the “Alternative” movement in Dagestan, Zakir Ismailov, has been rescuing unlucky workers for four years now.

“The largest number of labor slaves in Russia are in Dagestan. People are working hard in brick factories and farms. Slave labor is also used in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kalmykia,” - says Ismailov.

Mostly people who come to Moscow from the provinces in search of work fall into slavery. They can’t find a place, they can’t or don’t want to go back. As a result, they spend the night at the station. Here recruiters look out for them: they offer work in the south, a salary of 20-25 thousand rubles, food and accommodation. Bonus: the sea is nearby.

Recruiters are looking for those who cannot stand up for themselves and will not ask unnecessary questions, reports the Internet portal “This is the Caucasus.”

“Now they are recruiting not only in Moscow, but also from Saratov, Stavropol, Samara. This is a very profitable business. For one person, the recruiter receives 4-5 thousand rubles. And when these people come to Dagestan, the owner already pays 15-20 thousand for each,” - explains Zakir Ismailov.

According to the human rights activist, slaves sign an employment contract. In fact, it has no legal force - it is drawn up by hand, there is no seal of the enterprise. A person can work all year and get nothing.

“As a result, the average brick factory earns about 20 million rubles a year using free labor,” - “This is the Caucasus” quotes Ismailov.

Almost no factory has fences. However, slaves rarely escape - they are afraid of cruel guards.

“Sometimes the guards take the contacts of relatives and say: if you run away, we will find your family,” - says the human rights activist.

How the "Alternative" frees the slaves

Information is sent to the “Alternatives” hotline or a letter is sent to the post office. Sometimes the relatives of the missing write, sometimes the slaves themselves write.

Human rights activists ask to describe the plant and name the slave owner.

“If there is no data, we contact law enforcement agencies. Two or three days of operational work, and we will find out the address and leave,” - says Andrei Lesnik, coordinator for the search for missing persons.

In Dagestan, we have heard a lot about human rights defenders. Slave owners usually don’t fight and immediately release the worker, sometimes even paying wages.

According to the movement, about five thousand people disappear in Russia every year. Most of them “settle” in the Caucasus. For some reason the police turn a blind eye to this.

“There are no labor slaves in Dagestan. When we check brick factories, it turns out that there are employment contracts and workers receive wages. Even pennies, but if a person agrees to work for them, then he is not a slave,” - says the head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic Ruslam Ibragimgadzhiev.

Human rights activists believe that police officers need to act more severely. Otherwise, the slave traders will become bolder and begin to work on an even greater scale.

For the first time, they went to Dagestan together. They returned from there with five freed slaves and an established intelligence network. Now the government and security forces have joined in the liberation of slaves

Oleg Melnikov, leader of the Alternative Social Movement, hopes that Dagestan will become the first republic in Russia where slavery will be completely defeated. The first, but not the only one.

Watch an expert interview with the leader of the Social Movement “Alternative” Oleg Melnikov. For about a year now he has been searching for and freeing slaves in Russia.

Interview transcript:

— Oleg, first question: is there slavery in Russia?
- Yes, this, unfortunately, is a problem that has not been eradicated since ancient times. This is not a problem for Russia, it is a problem for the whole world. Just recently I talked with colleagues from Holland, who said that they have the exact same situation with visiting Poles, Romanians, or someone else who comes to work in Holland, does not know the language and ends up in such situations. Not to mention the Dutch themselves.

— Is there an article in the Russian Criminal Code that regulates this area of ​​activity?
— Yes, this is an article about the illegal use of slave labor, which implies up to 15 years of imprisonment.

- Let's look at the chain that turns a normal free person into a slave. How does this happen in Russia?
— Often this is not a Muscovite. These are quite open-hearted and open-hearted people from the regions who, due to the lack of jobs in the villages where they live, go to Moscow. They arrive at the station. They are offered work and a good salary under various pretexts. Some are offered Olympic construction, others are offered work in a hotel. As a result, most of them end up in brick factories in Dagestan. There they are told that money was paid for them and until they work there for a year, they will not leave. They are promised some money at the end of the year, but as a rule they do not pay anything.

- You said they paid money for them. And what money do they pay for them?
- A girl who works in a sauna and is forced into prostitution - about 150 thousand rubles. A man who will work at a brick factory - about 15 thousand rubles.

— Was there something similar in the Soviet Union? “Reed Paradise” - is it the same story, or has something changed now?
- Actually, of course it has changed. This is a question of attitude towards these people. If we take the case in Moscow, in Golyanov, with citizens of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, then the hostess there had a need - if she did not see blood, she would not calm down, she beat the girls until they bled. As for the situation with Dagestan, and the North Caucasus in general, it is not profitable for the owners to beat up their workforce, since it will work worse. But they work for 12-14 hours and are periodically made drunk, given food and frightened by the fact that if they go beyond the fence, they will be killed by militants or security forces, who will later pass them off as terrorists. Those. people are often afraid to leave there. In addition, their documents are taken away. I don't know how similar it is to reed paradise.

— You said that they are offered work under various pretexts. But I recently recorded a resident of Smolensk freed from slavery and he said that he was given clonidine, he lost consciousness and they were all loaded into the luggage compartment of the bus. Does this happen too?
- This is one of the wildest cases. There have been three such cases in our practice, when local agents became so insolent, with the connivance of the local police, that they managed to take people away like this. Under various pretexts they invite you to drink tea and in the end the person ends up in Dagestan or somewhere else. At the same time, the police officer who stopped this bus, when he was told that I didn’t want to go anywhere, for some reason he put the people back on the bus and the bus went on to Makhachkala. It was at a post in Kalmykia, we found out.

— Yes, but now we need to make a short background story, since the audience may not have seen this plot. Indeed, they were poisoned with clonidine, as a resident of Smolensk said. Eight people loaded them onto the bus, into the luggage compartment. They were stopped at the checkpoint, but the police officer did not help them in any way and they drove on. In connection with this, I already had this question then and now it arises: there were 8 healthy men. I've seen at least one, it's quite strong. They were driven by a driver; they had no security. This is what the psychology of people can be like, there are 8 of them, they are being transported in the luggage compartment and they cannot do anything. They can’t, roughly speaking, twist this driver and take away his passport?
- I can only say one thing. Of the applications that come to us, in general these people are similar to each other. They even look similar. They are very open people, very calm, they do not go into conflict. These are really people from the village who are afraid to say an extra word, afraid to do something else. The last person is Vyacheslav, whom we brought to Moscow from our last raid; he came here to work from Belarus. He was told that he would earn a lot. He went there. As a result, he was not paid anything for the 4 months that he worked. He did all the menial work that was available. One day he tried to leave there in the KAMAZ truck he was using to transport stones from a local quarry. They caught up with him, beat him, and he was afraid to ask about the opportunity to go home, because all the people had weapons. Fear. Unfortunately, if you look at how our world works in general, even one person can control a large mass, despite the fact that this mass is much stronger.

- Well, what happens anyway? A slave is a little different. Who is a slave? A slave is a person who can be sold, given away, a person who can be killed, responding only financially - you will lose the slave. It's a little different here. They are not shackled. It turns out that this is a person with a certain psychotype who is malleable, he cannot...
- You can remember the slaves in Rome, in America - Africans, they were not shackled either, they simply had nowhere to go from there. Roughly speaking, if you find yourself in Somalia, you are unlikely to realize that you can run somewhere or go somewhere. Especially without knowing the language. Here, in the North Caucasus, in some village, when you have a job at a brick factory, there are a lot of threats from the owner and a gloomy dream that you will one day get out, because the owner promised that you will be released in a year. This is actually what they live for.

“But it turns out that even if they are released after a year, they are not paid any money.” Those. they just leave with nothing. Or they are not released at all and they continue to work until...
“Unfortunately, I know how good factories are, where people were actually paid wages and were released several times. I also know the factories from where we had to take people who were there for 2 years, 17 months. Local residents also report that they have remained since the first Chechen war. This is a separate type of search, since they are usually kept high in the mountains.

— And how many slaves do you think now could be in the territory of the North Caucasus or, at least, Dagestan?
— After the latest events, I don’t know whether this is connected with our arrival or not, but a large number of brick factories, according to the mayor of Makhachkala, will be closed by his decree. And so it was done. All factories in Makhachkala were closed. We made sure everyone who worked for them was sent home. Also, a large number of brick factories are now closing. But according to my calculations, about 5-7 thousand people remain there now. But these are very approximate data. But due to the fact that the new season begins, new ones will be recruited. We will oppose this. We agreed with the local authorities that our activists would stand at the entrance to Dagestan and, together with police officers, check buses, and in general all transport on which slaves could be taken.

— And is there a possibility that this problem can be solved systematically?
- We are trying to do this. Still, this is not our task, but the task of the security forces. We only, as an active civil society, must help them.

- Now let's tell you how it all began. When did you start doing this and why?
— About 9 months ago we met a woman who told us how they helped their friend get out of such slavery.

— Was he in Dagestan?
- Yes. How did he contact them? I had little faith in it because the concept of slavery could not fit into my mind. Well, how is it that a person cannot escape, cannot leave?! I decided to check it all out. My friend and I went to Dagestan together. About 8 months ago. Then we managed to establish active interaction with local residents. Then they helped us in every possible way.

-Did you go after this man?
- No, we just went.

— Just the two of us, to see what’s going on at the brick factories?
- Yes. But in reality it was quite difficult. When we introduced ourselves as just guys and asked to talk to people, naturally we were driven out of the factories. But then we learned to get around. We took with us a large number of local youth who are actively against this.

-Where did you get them? How did you meet them?
- Once you meet just one guy there, he will make a lot of friends.

- Why did they need it?
— You understand, there is a stereotype that in Dagestan everyone has a slave. No. There are slaves there for a small group of people, scum, and often there are very good people there. Moreover, this contrast is very visible. For example, when they learned that we had come here to liberate people, many taxi drivers drove us for free. This is how, in fact, we met local residents, who later turned into our informants. They gave us information about certain people. And on the first trip we freed 5 people: three men and two girls from the sauna.

— That is, you came together, somehow managed to meet the locals...
- This is the most problem-free thing. They are very hospitable.

“But it’s still dangerous.” In addition to the men, you released 2 more women, and they cost 150 thousand rubles each. Those. the one who supported them lost 300 thousand rubles. I understand that this is a stupid question, but wasn’t it scary?
- In general, no. If you look at the situation there, there is tremendous support from the local population. Of course there are fighting, but they are between the security forces and local Salafis and Wahhabis. They don't affect...

— But it turns out that it is not the Wahhabis who keep slaves, well, brick factories or prostitutes. Is this a business and not a gang?
- No. Those. This is a gang, but a unique one. It has no religion, no faith. They just make money from it.

- Well, come on, you have already been there 5 times, what is the algorithm for freeing slaves. Are you coming with some company, so what?
— I told you about the first time.

- Well, yes, the first one is very adventurous. Not without God's help this happened.
- Yes. We didn't expect anything from this, but it happened. It was a matter of desire and strength from above. Our second trip was already more prepared. We have a small detachment that is helping us in our liberation. We never advertise it, and they know how to professionally storm buildings.

—Are you bringing him with you from Russia?
- It's a secret. Nobody knows where they come from or where they go. They know how to free people professionally, and with their help we actually carry out operations. There are several days to work on a plant or sauna, when we monitor it and find out how many people are there. One day we made a mistake. Instead of 4 it was 9 and it was terrible. We did not have the means to send the other 5 people; they lived at the transshipment base. This has its own specifics. We release people, they spend a day or two at the transshipment base, then we, as necessary, provide them with documents and send them home. But there is an even more peaceful situation. In any case, they have to take the sauna by storm, because for 150 thousand they will fight for 150 thousand. And 150 thousand in Dagestan is not 150 thousand in Moscow. For them, 15 thousand is considered a good salary. With brick factories, the boss is often afraid to contact us, especially after the last incident, and lets people go simply when we arrive, or accompanied by our people, and the last 2 times already accompanied by security forces who are actively cooperating with us. Those. It’s a little easier with brick factories.

“But theoretically, this should be done by the security forces.” At first you didn’t contact them. By the way, why didn’t you immediately contact the security forces and involve them?
— There are two reasons: first, we were afraid of a leak; second, we did not have the proper level of understanding of the whole situation, of what was happening there. In the last two trips, they asked us to help at a fairly high level and connected us with the Minister of Mass Communications of Dagestan, who already connected us with the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan and they - the press service - agreed that they did not know where they were going . We were just showing the way. Again, so that there is no leakage. And on the spot we already gathered people and the police officers drew up all the necessary protocols. But the last time, when we released 9 people, only fraud was registered there.

— Why weren’t they paid?
- Yes. Contracts were not drawn up, wages were not paid. Well, even now this man who was holding people was fined by the gas workers, the sanitary and epidemiological station, well, that is. 18 million, in addition to fraud, he will now have to pay.

“But it turns out that it is difficult to hold brick factory owners accountable. Why?
“Our municipal authorities are very afraid to admit this problem and therefore it is difficult to initiate a criminal case under this article.

— It turns out that the authorities are putting up some obstacles?
- Well, yes, if history does not add stars to their uniforms, they are trying in every possible way to make concessions so that we can negotiate with them so that a criminal case will not be initiated under this article.

“But it still turns out that there is some kind of systematic solution to this matter.” You started out adventurously - two people went. Then, no less an adventure - paramilitary units, i.e. it's illegal. And now you are already making contact with the authorities. And you say, after the last time. What happened the last time?
“The last time we were able to meet with the Minister of Mass Communications, who admitted that this problem exists and they are ready to solve it. But due to the fact that they still have a large number of other problems, they simply do not have enough hands. And the authorities made concessions to us: when we need them, they hand over people - police officers who go with us to one or another station to inspect a plant or something else.

— But at the same time, you still continue to act as a public organization. You don't have funding. What about financing? Approximately how much do you spend to breed one slave? You don’t take money from them, as I understand it.
— On average, it costs about 10 thousand rubles to take one person out. This is the minimum amount of clothing he needs to buy, send him to Moscow and from Moscow to some other region. But here it’s easier, we usually find relatives who buy them tickets. But from Makhachkala to Moscow, food and clothing cost about 10 thousand rubles, plus some additional time of living in Moscow.

- And you don’t have funding and now, it turns out, you’re doing it with your own money.
- Yes, which have already ended.

— And do you hope to continue doing this?
“I once thought that once or twice everything would be defeated.” It turns out not. There are slaves not only in Dagestan, they are also in the Orenburg region and Moscow. Therefore, to my great regret, I will have to do this for a long time.

— But still, there is hope with Dagestan, if the security forces and the minister are now involved, the factories are closing. Those. It turns out that you are such elusive avengers. You appear... If before you appeared simply adventurously, now you appear with the law that follows you.
— Moreover, I assume that Dagestan is the first region, if they continue at the same pace, in which slavery will be defeated in Russia.

— And is there a possibility that soldiers from the first Chechen war will be found?
- I really hope so. If they are there, we will definitely find them, with the given support of the authorities.

— Very bright prospects. This problem, it turns out, was the result of the efforts of two people who simply went somewhere, then somehow organized themselves and managed to defeat slavery in Dagestan. Is it possible to systematically solve the problem of slavery in Russia in general, and can the government and government agencies somehow participate in this?
“The government cannot solve this problem separately, just as two people cannot solve this problem separately. Only together, of course, I think we will win. And I don’t want this to be a program until 2015 or 2014. I think if our whole country actively gets involved in this, we should win this year. Only on the condition that the whole country gets involved.

You can find out more about the movement to free slaves on the website: http://kupiraba.ru

For any questions, you can contact Oleg personally: 8 964 573 7207

Vladimir LOMOV
Dmitry PAVLOV
Natalya KALENCHUK

The day before, privates Alexander Komissarov and Mikhail Britov were released from Chechen captivity. They remained in captivity for about a month. As they say, they are still lucky. They were not sold into slavery.

Viktor Zimin spent two and a half years in Chechen hell. He could not even imagine that a short-term business trip from Moscow to Chechnya would turn into a year of hard slavery. He was captured in the vicinity of Gudermes.

Viktor Zimin: “We wanted to take it to Urus-Martan and sell it. Khabas says: “We’ll sell it here now.” A Chechen with a machine gun drove up: “Will you take a worker for yourself?” He: “I already have three.” - Take more. - Well, So he took it. His name was Ashan. Well, they started doing earthworks there and cleaning up the garden. Then they ran out of gardens and started planting garlic and onions for the winter."

All this time he and two Russian soldiers were kept in a hole and practically not fed.

Viktor Zimin: “They threw the potatoes directly raw. They’ll throw them into 4 leaves of cabbage and eat. They call us “Russian pigs, here, eat for you.” They beat us for everything. I can’t reach my ear with my hand, because I was beaten so badly.”

Victor was freed by Russian soldiers. The rest of the prisoners died. The militants managed to bury them alive. Most often, Russian troops release prisoners during purge operations.

Operational shooting:

"Who is in that room?

Russian".

The owners of the houses are always armed to keep their slaves at bay, who no longer have any illusions about escaping.

Hostage: “I left twice. They caught me and beat me. They taught me. They brought me back and beat me.”

Hostages with construction skills were in greatest demand among the militants.

Hostage: “I worked in Grozny, in the center of the city - opposite was Raduev’s headquarters. I built a store there. I renovated residential buildings and apartments nearby. Well, the owner for whom I worked, he received money for it.”

The release of people from Chechen captivity is a common occurrence for the North Caucasus Regional Directorate for Combating Organized Crime. However, they say here that there are now fewer slaves in Chechnya.

Ruslan Yeshugaov, head of the North Caucasus Regional Directorate for Combating Organized Crime: “Over the past two or three years, we have observed a downward trend, both in all the republics of the North Caucasus and in the region as a whole. Today, statistics indicate a 47 percent decrease in the number of kidnappings.”

It is now almost impossible to convict a slave owner and prove his guilt due to imperfect legislation.

Alexander Mukomolov, deputy. Chairman of the Peacekeeping Mission in the North Caucasus: “We have laws, but, unfortunately, they are not applied. And there is not even a precedent. For kidnappings - yes. Quite a lot have been convicted. But for the fact that a person is kept as a slave and where - then they use it - I have not heard such a thing."

No one can say for sure how many more people are forcibly held in Chechen captivity and when the last slave will leave the republic. It is known that somewhere in the mountains hundreds more hostages are waiting for their release.

In ITUM-KALE, NG correspondents had the opportunity to meet with newly freed slaves who live at the location of the local temporary police department. Once upon a time, these people were deceived and taken from different regions of Russia to Chechnya, where before the arrival of federal forces they eked out a miserable existence. And now, temporarily living next door to Novosibirsk police officers while awaiting a decision from the migration authorities, they are eating off and gaining strength. Tired, exhausted people looked at us with interest and suspicion. Few of them shared memories of their previous lives, some still dared to come closer and start a conversation. When photojournalist Artem Chernov asked them to stand next to each other and not look at the camera, they all obediently and almost simultaneously followed his instructions. This is the story one of them, Vladimir Stanislavovich Rosman, told us.

I came here before the first war, in 1992. In Astrakhan I met a Chechen, he offered to earn money in Chechnya. I am a builder: a roofer, a mason, a painter and plasterer, I worked all the time on construction sites and sabbaticals. He deceived me - he didn’t pay. From Shali, where he brought me, I went to Argun - there was no money there either, it was also a deception. From there he fled to Grozny, wanted to leave Chechnya, because he realized that there was deception all around.

Did you feed?

They fed them, but you have to work for them! In the city they sent me to a special detention center, and there the police caught people like us and sold them...

Official internal affairs bodies?

Yes, official. They sold it for only 50 thousand rubles. And I was sold. I came here to herd sheep. My former owner, Magomed Amirov, has now been appointed Commissioner for Agriculture here.

How? A former slave owner received a position under the current government?

What should I do? He is an oppositionist. He was in the opposition in that war and in this one. There are no more such people here, there is no one to trust with power. Even though he is a slave owner, he suits this government.

Did you want to get out of here?

This desire has always been there. But over time I somehow got used to it. They promised to give me a loan, cattle, they said that you will be your own master, but words remained words. I believed, I believed all the time, I waited, and finally I got it...

Do you have an apartment, a house?

My mother lives in Ossetia, and there is a house there. From here I’ll go to my mother, naturally. It’s already been seven years since I lost contact with her.

The fates of such people are basically similar. Another prisoner is Pyotr Shapovalov, he is 60 years old and from the Rostov region. I spent 12 years in Chechnya - since 1988. Lame, there is not a single tooth in his mouth. His story is also banal: he worked for 3 months in Chechnya, was not paid a penny for his work, tried to escape, was caught, beaten, the same thing the second time.

Another example is Gennady Shuliko from the Urals. In 1983, he ended up here, in Itum-Kale, into slavery. At one time he was a trumpeter in a restaurant orchestra. They simply drugged him, promised him mountains of gold, and drove him drunkenly into the territory of Chechnya from Astrakhan. I tried to run 3 times towards Georgia along the pass. And each time he was returned back, each time his escapes ended in severe beatings. He has a family that is probably waiting for him. He said that he would go home when he was at least slightly back on his feet.

At the beginning of May, there were 15 former slaves on the territory of the military commandant’s office of the Itum-Kalinsky district. 11 of them were released by intelligence officers of the commandant’s office, 4 by employees of the temporary local police department. I asked the senior intelligence officer of the Itum-Kalinsk military commandant’s office, Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Shchukin, whose reconnaissance soldiers found 11 people in the sheds in the mountains, to comment on this situation.

Of the 11 people, only two were brought here by force, the rest were taken by deception, especially those who have been here longer. As a rule, they were met at train stations when they did not have money for a ticket. They started a conversation, treated me to a restaurant or somewhere outdoors, a bottle of vodka, an offer to earn extra money. Then they brought us here, to the mountainous regions, took away our documents and forced us to work for practically a piece of bread. The attitude towards these people was different: some came across good owners who fed them from their table, others were kept from hand to mouth - a piece of flatbread, water.

Did they have the opportunity to escape?

They had, but only at a time when our troops were on the territory of Chechnya. And then they fled in fear, because many of their attempts had previously ended in failure. Any Chechen who met them on the road, seeing that it was a Russian, detained them, found out where their owners were, and brought them back, could have bought them, or could have simply killed them... All these stone houses, mansions that you see , were built not by Chechens, but by these deceived people, taken, by the way, not only from the territory of Russia. Here, in Itum-Kale, there lives one Georgian. His owner left and now lives, paradoxically, in Georgia, and he maintains his farm, grazes his flock, takes care of the cattle... When we took them out, at first they refused to go. We didn’t take anyone by force, but in the end they themselves thanked us for it.

The military personnel of the commandant's office also told the story of the construction by Russian slaves of a mountain road laid through a gorge. We saw this road: starting in Itum-Kale, rising higher and higher into the mountains, serpentinely encircling the gloomy rocky slopes above the Argun seething below, it disappeared in a foggy haze among the impassable passes beyond which Georgia lies. According to Chechens and Russian prisoners, this road was built after 1996, during the break between the first and second wars. The Chechens strictly guarded the road: they set up posts and barriers. It was not completed, it does not reach the Georgian border at all. According to Lieutenant Colonel Shchukin, more than one thousand people were needed for its construction; perhaps there were also prisoners of war. One day, reconnaissance officers from the commandant’s office discovered the half-decomposed corpse of a serviceman, apparently captured somewhere on the territory of Dagestan at an early stage of hostilities. The soldier’s body bore signs of abuse: his hand was cut off, his ribs and arms were broken, and half of his skull was blown off. Local residents said that it was a scout. The corpse was taken to Rostov-on-Don for identification. But of the 11 Itum-Kalinsky slaves, not one directly said that he participated in the construction of the road. The prisoners spoke about this only in hints. These people are scared to the limit and fear that this will become known to their former masters, they will be tracked down and any information could cost them their heads.

Itum-Kale - Moscow