What Chechnya has Become under Kadyrov – a Checklist of 20 Things Many Don’t Know

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 1 – Now that Ramzan Kadyrov’s flamboyant and threatening statements have again put Chechnya at the center of Russian media discussions, Russian Business Consulting offers a list of 20 developments in that North Caucasus republic that have taken place since he became its head in 2007.

            A team of researchers from that news and analysis portal have investigated the situation and come up with what is virtually a checklist of the most important trends in Chechnya under Kadyrov not only for Chechens and Russians but for all those analyzing developments in the North Caucasus (rbc.ru/research/society/01/02/2016/56ae68679a7947d73142182d).

1.      A Subsidized Republic. Over the last nine years, Chechnya has received more than 539 billion rubles in subsidies from Moscow, making it along with Daghestan and Sakha one of the regions most heavily dependent on the center. To put that in context, Chechnya has received just a little less than Moscow spent in Vladivostok to prepare for the Asian-Pacific summit. Federal aid fell only twice, in 2010 and 2013, but it increased in 2015 even as Moscow was cutting back elsewhere.

2.      A Demographic Boom Now and In the Future. The republic now has 1.4 million residents, a little less than one percent of the population of Russia. Almost two-thirds live in rural areas. It has the highest natural growth rate (births over deaths) in the country, fewer divorces than anywhere else, and the largest share of people under 18 of any federal subject.

3.      High Official Unemployment but High Real Employment. Grozny reports that 16.7 percent of Chechens are unemployed, but that figure, many experts say, is inflated and intended to extract more money for Moscow.  Most adults are working, albeit not always on the books or in official structures.  Over 40 percent of incomes in Chechnya are “’from other sources,’” according to surveys. And real incomes are growing, although they are still low by all-Russian standards.

4.      Outmigration Continues But Isn’t Large.  More Chechens leave Chechnya to live and work elsewhere than return, but their numbers are relatively small (12,000 left in 2014) and consequently Chechnya ranks 54^th among Russia’s regions and republics.

5.      “Crime Down but Terrorism Continues.”  Statistics show crime declining, with most cases now involving drug sales and trafficking or theft rather than violent actions.  But despite that, the RBC analysts say, “Chechnya is one of the few regions of Russia where open attacks by militants in the capital are possible.”  And Chechnya still ranks second after Daghestan in terms of the number of terrorist incidents.

6.      An Enormous Siloviki Presence.  Statistics are hard to come by, RBC says; but the number of uniformed personnel from the defense ministry, MVD, FSB and judicial agencies as well as in Chechnya’s own forces is by all accounts far larger per capita than in any other part of the Russian Federation.  Kadyrov himself controls as many as 10,000 to 12,000 fighters personally.

7.      Poor Health Care and Education. Chechnya is next to last of the federal subjects in the number of hospital beds per capita and last in terms of the number of doctors and nurses. It has far fewer places in its kindergartens than there are applicants, and the number of schools has grown far less than the population.

8.      Fast Foreign Cars for the Elite. Chechnya leads in the number of expensive foreign cars owned by the elite.

9.     
More Mosques Per Capita than Any Other Russian Region. There are 931 mosques in Chechnya, or about one for every 1490 residents. In Daghestan, that figure is 1908, and in Tatarstan 2610.  There are seven Russian Orthodox parishes, although five of them opened only in 2014.

10.  Number of Russians Continues to Fall Precipitously.  Most ethnic Russians left Chechnya in the 1990s, but between 2002 and 2010, the number of ethnic Russians there declined from 40,600 to 24,300.  As a result, Chechnya is now the most mono-ethnic non-Russian republic in the Russian Federation.

11.  Housing Boom, Much of It in Private Homes.  As Chechnya seeks to recover from the two post-Soviet wars, it has experienced a housing boom. The share of private homes among all housing that has been constructed is 95.5 percent, the highest of any region in the country.

12.  A Powerful GONGO. Chechnya has one major NGO, the government-Kadyrov Foundation which builds mosques, schools and housing for those favored by the regime.  It operates completely without transparency and many view it as a kind of slush fund for the Chechen president.

13.  Few Businesses. Only 9700 businesses are registered in Chechnya, and most of those are very small. Only 125 of them had incomes greater than one million rubles (1500 US dollars) last year.  Nonetheless, per capita GDP has been rising, although it is still the lowest in Russia.

14.  Too Risky for Outside Investment. Chechnya is still rated too risky for outside investors and has attracted little money except from the Russian government.

15.  Chechens Love I-Phones and Other High Tech Items.  Chechens spend far more of their incomes on I-phones and other high tech items than do people in other regions of the country.  They especially like Apple computers.

16.  Sports are Big Government Business. Kadyrov supports a football team and a boxing club and almost never misses a match.  He has poured enormous but uncounted sums into the development of both.

17.  Kadyrov a Major Presence on Social Networks. Although he only set up his Instagram account three years ago, Kadyrov now has 1.65 million readers and viewers, more than almost any other regional leader and only slightly fewer than Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

18.  Kadyrov Likes to Receive Awards and to Give Them. Like his Soviet predecessors, the Chechen leader likes to receive medals and other awards and to give them.  According to RBC, he has received at least 59 medals, orders, and other marks of distinction over the last nine years; and he has handed out thousands of awards to Chechens and others.

19.  Kadyrov Can Deliver the Vote.  The Chechen leader has established an electoral system that even Soviet leaders would envy: he routinely ensures that Chechen cast more than 99 percent of their ballots for Vladimir Putin and his preferred list, as well as for himself.

20.  Kadyrov Clan Controls Chechnya.  Russians see Kadyrov as someone who controls his republic and have a more positive view of him perhaps as a result than they did when he first came to power.

Five Possible Scenarios for Resolution of Dispute over Presidency in Tatarstan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 1 – One issue that has been bubbling just below the surface for the last two months in Russia is the fate of the office of the presidency of the Republic of Tatarstan.  Russian law required that Kazan abolish this title as of January 1, although Vladimir Putin has said that it is up to the people of Tatarstan to decide.

            For the last 31 days, Tatarstan has remained in violation of the Russian law, a situation that has become more critical both because Kazan has refused to break with Turkey as Moscow has demanded and perhaps even more important because other non-Russian republics are watching to see what happens there as a measure of where federalism in Russia may be heading.

            At present, no one knows exactly how this conflict will play out, but the editors of Kazan’s Business Online portal have suggested five possible scenarios, and officials and activists in Kazan, Moscow and in the non-Russian republics are watching which of these will take place (business-gazeta.ru/print/148387/ and asiarussia.ru/articles/11008/).

            The first scenario would see both Moscow and Kazan simply kicking the issue down the road, delaying any change until the current treaty between the two on the delimitation of powers runs out in mid-2017 or until 2020 when the current term of the incumbent Tatarstan president ends.

            That would in principle require a change in both Russian legislation and Tatar legislation, unless the two are prepared to continue to live with one side in violation of the other. But at present, the Kazan resource says there are no indications that either Russian or Tatarstan legislators are preparing such bills.

            The second scenario would be one of direct confrontation. Moscow will at some point demand that Tatarstan obey, and Tatarstan will say no and appeal to the Russian Constitutional Court.  That is the direction Kazan has indicated it will go and Sergey Shakhray, one of the authors of the Russian basic law says that Kazan is in the right in this case.

            But of course under Russian conditions, that is no guarantee that Kazan will win the case. However, if Kazan is certain that it is right and refuses to budge even after a court ruling against it, Moscow’s reaction “could be still more harsh,” triggering nationalist responses not only in that Middle Volga republic but around the periphery of the Russian Federation.

            The third would involve a complete capitulation by Tatarstan.  That would end this dispute, the editors say; but “this would be a direct hit on the authority of the powers that be in the republic and whether Moscow wants this or not on the image of the federal authorities” not only there but elsewhere.

            The fourth scenario, the portal continues, would be the repeal or amendment of the federal law. “As fantastic as this outcome might seem, it would not mean a loss of face for Putin.” Not only has he said Tatarstan has the right to make the choice but “it is not unimportant” that the law in question was signed by Dmitry Medvedev not by him.

            And the fifth scenario, the one the editors call “the most difficult,” would be one in which both Moscow and Kazan would make concessions. Under its terms, Moscow would acknowledge the right of republics like Tatarstan to take such decisions; and Tatarstan would acknowledge that it has decided on its own not to have a president in these difficult times.