CauKazEthnoexp. II. Nalchik, Beslan, Nazran, Vladikavkaz, Grozny, Makhachkala, Kaspiysk

July 18–20, 2010

Nalchik

People here are very concerned that someone might think Nalchik isn’t part of Russia. That’s why there’s a triumphal arch and a monument in the center of the city which both say “With Russia Forever.” Nonetheless, cars with Russian license plates are treated with suspicion, and many are simply refused entry into the city under the excuse that transit through the center is prohibited. A monument that says “With Russia for Now” would have been more honest.

With Russia Forever, Nalchik

There are fancy new traffic lights downtown, painted yellow like in New York.

Traffic signs are hung on arc-shaped fixtures, like in Krasnodar.

Also, in some places there are advisory speed limit signs with a digital display, like in Novosibirsk.

Beslan

A gilded bust of Stalin stands matter-of-factly right in the center of the city.

To the left and right of it stretches a little boulevard, beautified with matching but nonetheless utterly horrendous benches and trash cans.

Almost every major city in the Caucasus has advertising billboards with photographs of wrestling champions. There’s no shortage of wrestlers.

You are the pride of our city. Soslan Ktsoev, Besik Kudukhov

By the way, in the Russian part of the Caucasus, a car with Moscow plates is considered the epitome of coolness.

United Russia

Beslan has several traffic lights with round sections and fairly short visors. Models like this one are found throughout the whole Caucasus region.

Nazran

The city—totally medieval—is closed off with gates on all sides. The gates are guarded by armed men, concrete blocks and sandbags. You’re not actually leaving the territory of Russia or anything, and yet there’s a barrier gate with a “No Entry” sign on it across the federal highway.

Ezdiycha naha—ezdiy daar.

Elite food for elite people! Malsagov Product. Premium. Refined taste, excellent quality.
Tire balancing and repair, argon welding, steel and titanium hubcap repair

Nazran is a faceless, dusty, low-rise shopping village, the most un-citylike of all the cities I’ve seen in the world.

Photo 1: 16 Albogachieva St. We make advertising billboards. Fresh flowers. Gifts with delivery. Photo 2: Cheeky Fellow: goods for children and teens. Windows. German quality. Electronics and household products, low prices. Photo 3: Gorgeous dinnerware here. Photo 4: Payment processing. Mobile phone repair and parts

A traffic light like the ones in Beslan.

The Ingush people have a national sport: building as sturdy a house with as tall a fence as possible.

Photo 1: Kodzoeva St. Photo 4: Praise Ingushetia! Praise Russia!

The Ingush used to live in ancestral towers, which for many hundreds of years met the criteria of “as sturdy as possible” and “as tall as possible.” The ancestral towers are located at the country’s border (with Georgia), so getting to them without help from high places is doubly difficult. But the effort is worth it—there’s nowhere else in the world with such ancient beauty set against such an unpopulated and magnificent landscape.

The Ingush always built crypts next to the ancestral towers. The well-planned design of the burial vaults in conjunction with the incessant mountain winds created ideal conditions for bodies to turn into clean bones. If you peer into a crypt, you’ll see the bones still lying there, untouched.

Why is this place not a world-renowned tourist site, a Russian Machu Picchu? I’ll answer with a photo:

Vladikavkaz

The speed bump has been extended so there’s no temptation to drive around it on the road shoulder.

Bus stop support poles are designed with Caucasian elegance—they look like they’ve been sat on by an elephant.

Telephone half-booths, like in Stavropol.

Garbage dumpster lots.

Photo 3: 5 Kost Prospect, Ecology Center

You can stumble across some interesting artifacts.

Photo 3: NKVD Division Street (Note: the NKVD, or the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, was a government body that existed in the Soviet Union from 1934–1946 and included the secret police organs that carried out Stalin’s repressions.)

From Vladikavkaz, you can begin to see the Caucasus Mountains themselves.

But the Soviet relics are much more noticeable.

Ossetia Russia, Kosta Khetagurov (an Ossetian poet and cultural figure).

Grozny

Contemporary Chechnya most resembles Egypt. The same wide roads along endless stores with food and housewares.

I was last here three years ago. There are even fewer traces of the war remaining in the republic since then. And almost no portraits of Putin. And about ten times fewer portraits of either of the Kadyrovs. One place, observing etiquette, has a photo of Medvedev on display.

Exemplary Grozny young women.

An exemplary Grozny young man.

An exemplary Grozny street.

V.V. Putin Prospect

A traffic light model that we’re already familiar with.

Federal Russian traffic rules are being passed off as Chechen ones.

Attention! The maximum speed limit outside city limits on highways in the Chechen Republic is 90 km/h.

But Chechnya is the only Russian constituent territory in the Caucasus where you can see that money allocated for highway construction was actually used to construct a highway. An exemplary highway.

Chechnya is the calmest of all the insurgent republics. The cops here didn’t even pay attention to our expedition.

Makhachkala

But as soon as we entered Dagestan and attempted to pass through Khasavyurt, we were detained by Russian policemen who didn’t know how to speak Russian.

The level of intelligence, knowledge of Russian and equipment capabilities of the checkpoint leaving Khasavyurt were comparable to Yemen. One car was detained under the pretense of verifying some paperwork.

An extremely rude Federal Security Service officer copied down the crew’s passport numbers into his little notepad. When asked to address us as “Sir” and not in an improperly familiar manner, he turned purple with rage, jumped up from his chair, hissed “Do you know who you’re talking to?” and pulled out a document jacket on which, in cheaply embossed gold Literaturnaya type, it said: FSB of Russia.

Every time, I tease my readers with comments about how Dagestan is part of Russia politically but not so much in practice. In fact, it’s not Russia at all. Dagestan is a semi-hostile, savage, barely civilized state. It doesn’t matter what’s painted which color on the map.

Nothing has changed here since last time.

Do not leave unattended

The observation deck offers the same view of a trash dump.

Russian words are still contracted. Although why one would contract the word “drilling” to “drill’ng” is a total mystery. It seems the length of Russian words is a source of endless suffering for the authors of the inscriptions.

Drill’ing demolit’n concrete

A monument to how not to design monuments.

Kaspiysk

Kaspiysk has its own unique road sign, which looks like two aspirin tablets screwed into a pair of glasses for the blind.

And there are ekranoplans (aircraft that glide on an air cushion, also called ground effect vehicles) rotting in the open air, destined never to fly again.

It must be mentioned that this summer was hot not only in Moscow. It was 40-45 degrees Celsius outside every day, so no one was in a rush to leave their car without good reason. Practically the entire ethnographic expedition was spent behind the wheel.

If new graffiti appears, fine → 5000 rubles. Video surveillance