Grozny

7 Oct 2010 - A few years ago I almost made it to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, but it was too dangerous and I remained in neighboring Ingushetia, where thousands of Chechen refugees struggled for survival. The story of Chechnya is one of the forgotten stories of the 1990s and early 2000s. The small state was completely devastated by internal conflict and war, and thousands of people lost their lives - often in the most brutal manner. Since a few years Chechnya has stabilized, and Russian photographer Ilya Varlamov obtained rare access to the capital Grozny. His pictures can be seen on the BBC site, but are unfortunately too unsharp to copy and paste here. The city is being rebuilt, and this image shows the Akhmad Kadyrov mosque - named after the Chechen rebel turned President. The President was murdered in 2004, but his son Ramzan is now Chechnya's Russian backed President. Life seems to get back to normal in Chechnya, although it is probably still one of the most dangerous places on the planet.