What do the Vietnamese do in Chechnya after plastering? Go to your caravan
“Listen, hey! Listen! Nobody goes this way anymore! Whoever returns will face prison. Let’s all go straight, let’s go there!” With such a “speech” an officer of the Urus-Martan District Department of Internal Affairs addressed the Vietnamese, who were lined up in a column on the border with Ingushetia. There was no translator, but the Vietnamese understood from the “eloquent” gestures of the policeman that they needed to move towards Ingushetia.
Liquidators of devastation
The Vietnamese, like guest workers from Central Asia and Georgia, appeared in Chechnya immediately after the end of the active phase of the war. They were not only cheap labor, but also, in principle, the only men who could move relatively freely around the cities and villages of Chechnya without attracting the attention of the feds, who saw every Chechen as a militant.
Guest workers worked for pennies and tried to complete the assigned work in the shortest possible time, which was very important, given the local traditions and mentality. A Chechen builder could go missing, not come to work (funeral, wedding, etc.), which, accordingly, “froze” construction for an indefinite time...
But then there were few migrant workers. There was a war going on, only vital facilities were restored. The real invasion of labor migrants from Vietnam, China and Central Asia began several years ago, when Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Chechnya was becoming one huge construction site.
Guest workers instantly flooded all public and private construction sites, agreeing to work for devastatingly low wages. They almost completely displaced local workers from the construction industry. Chechens were forced, as in Soviet times, to look for work in neighboring regions, including on construction sites in Russia.
Dissatisfaction with visiting builders grew in society. However, everyone understood that they were beneficial to the local construction business and, as evil tongues claimed, to individual police officers and employees of the Federal Migration Service. There was even information online that the “Vietnamese issue” in the republic was being resolved by a certain Lena, a Vietnamese who spoke Russian and found a common language with local corrupt officials. She allegedly set the rate for documents per Vietnamese: spring-autumn 2000 rubles, and in winter 1000; if Lena helped find a job, she demanded 10% of what she earned.
Ordinary people could not do anything about this, especially in Chechnya, where every construction project was a shock project and under the personal control of you know who. Naturally, it is impossible to verify the reliability of this information in Chechnya for obvious reasons.
Suitcase, station and stomp
Chechnya is a small republic in which any rumor spreads literally in a matter of seconds. A couple of months ago, rumors began to circulate throughout the republic about the severed head of a Chechen who had not paid the Vietnamese for their work, about the molestation of a ten-year-old girl, and about the Vietnamese stealing dogs that they used for food. And even about cannibalism. All this was actively discussed on the streets and on social networks.
Then a video appeared on social networks - unknown people were beating 4 Vietnamese men in a room, accusing them of molesting women and threatening to kill Chechens. There were so many rumors that the Vietnamese literally became the embodiment of evil in the eyes of Chechen society. However, there is not a single criminal case initiated against the Vietnamese in Chechnya. There is official data only on Vietnamese citizens arrested, fined, and expelled from the republic.
But there is another version of such a sharply changed attitude towards the Vietnamese in Chechnya. According to local residents who did not succumb to mass hysteria, the whole point is that the pace of construction in Chechnya has dropped, and the loudest and largest projects, such as Grozny City and Argun City, have been completed. Left without a livelihood, the Vietnamese began to wander around Chechnya in search of work. Naturally, this did not please either the local residents or the authorities, including individual representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Migration Service, who lost interest in the migrant workers who were left without money.
Thank God, it didn’t come to Bartholomew’s Night. The authorities immediately threw all their efforts into catching and deporting the unfortunate unemployed. However, Vietnamese are deported not to their historical homeland, but... to neighboring regions, which ultimately leads to the fact that some of them try to return back in the hope of finding work through their acquaintances among local residents.
“When we poured the underground wine into the toilet, it turned acid pink.”
On October 5, Ramzan Kadyrov turns 40 years old. On the eve of the anniversary, the newly elected head of the Chechen Republic called it “the most stable region” in Europe.
Our special correspondent studied the secret life of the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, visiting a secret alcohol store, a nightclub and learning the peculiarities of local gender relations.
One of the main achievements of the hero of the day was the “prohibition law” he introduced seven years ago - stricter than Mikhail Gorbachev established in 1985 for the entire USSR. Throughout Chechnya there are only a few stores where alcohol is sold strictly from 8 to 10 am. And yet you can drink here at night, but you cannot raise a toast to the health of the birthday boy.
"Don't look me in the eye"
“Don’t look me in the eye,” the hospitable Chechen Rustam with a Ramzan-like beard admonished me at the entrance to the post-war symbol of the republic - the Grozny City high-rise building. On the upper floors of these towers is the only place in the entire republic where alcohol is legally sold not in the morning, but in the afternoon and evening. They no longer serve food at night: the restaurant closes exactly at midnight.
This was arranged for visitors, so that Chechnya would give the impression of a modern, hospitable entity, living like the rest of Russia,” my guide explained. - There are laws here. Follow them and you will make a good impression on the locals.
The symbol of the restored republic is the Grozny City skyscraper.
Most of the rules, of course, are for women. In Chechnya, one is considered one from the moment of puberty, that is, from the age of 11–12. A woman of any age and social status does not walk alone here - neither at night nor during the day.
A Chechen woman is always under supervision and must be accompanied by someone - a man (he walks in front), another woman, or, in extreme cases, a child, even an infant. Of the men, a woman can be accompanied by: husband, brother, father, relative, distant relative, or, in extreme cases, a respectable long-term family friend, although this is undesirable. A woman cannot have male acquaintances whom only she knows, much less friends among male acquaintances.
A man, except for his closest relatives like a husband or father, is strictly forbidden to touch any woman, and a woman is strictly forbidden to touch any man. When meeting, Chechen acquaintances, work colleagues, housemates, students of the same educational institution or their parents, if they are of different genders, do not kiss, hug, pat on the shoulder, or shake hands.
And what if a woman goes with a man to the mountains, he will not shake hands with her at the dangerous crossing?
“He won’t,” Rustam snapped. - Why does a woman even go to the mountains? This is the work of men, this is a test for the horseman. If she’s going there, then let her test herself too and not wait for help. I would offer my hand only if she was falling into the abyss, why take the sin on my soul? But even then through force: touching a woman is an insult to her, which means she is taken for a person of easy virtue.
Another prohibition for women - not to look a stranger in the eye when communicating - is also asked to be observed not only by locals.
At the same time, in Chechnya everyone is very polite, and a woman should be the first to greet any unfamiliar man indoors, for example, in a store. When greeting, you need to smile and look the passerby in the eyes, but only this time. Further, if a stranger asks you what time it is, how to get to the library, or rather, to the mosque, you should answer, modestly looking down.
This is how they live: in the same restaurant in high-rise buildings, a male waiter looks at a female client or a cook, but they don’t look at him.
In the very center of Grozny, directly opposite the “Heart of Chechnya” mosque, there is the only place in the entire republic where people drink openly after sunset.
In the evening, the dress code for women is the same as in the daytime: dresses and skirts - below the knees, preferably to the floor; sleeve - below the elbow. Pants are disguised with a tunic or knee-length jacket; combining them with a blouse is vulgar. No cleavage or bare backs; a cutout at the back of the skirt is not allowed. Hairstyle - if not under a scarf, then at least collected, no loose hair.
But in this restaurant the morals are dissolute,” Rustam continues, “I cannot determine from his gaze his attitude towards “dissolute morals”, since I do not look him in the eyes.
One of its towers is given over to a hotel - but usually fewer people live in it than visit the restaurant at the very top.
The second tower is a business center, but the offices are mostly empty. The rest are like residential buildings, apartments, all purchased, mostly by officials or those close to the authorities for the appearance of filling 18-40-story buildings. But practically no one really lives in them: officials have their own family homes, the meters in the “City” are needed for show. It was here that Depardieu was given an apartment - he sold it and never appeared in the republic again.
If the French actor had stayed, he would have been riding in his tower on a miracle elevator that even Arab sheikhs would envy.
The system of use is amazing. When calling one of the four elevators, the passenger at the bottom presses the number of the desired floor. The system thinks for a few seconds and gives an answer - whether elevator A, B, C or D will arrive. All so that women and men do not cross paths again: during one trip, the elevator serves one client and does not pick up others “along the way.”
The Islam elevator took me to a restaurant nicknamed by my escort “a nest of debauchery.” The assortment is wide, but a glass of cheap Krasnodar dry red wine costs the same as a bottle of expensive French champagne.
Here you are allowed to dance in a separate area. Dances are only non-contact, such as Lezginka. Only none of the Chechens were having a blast on the dance floor. Out of all the alcohol, visitors modestly ordered wine.
What brand did you buy yesterday? Don't remember the picture on the label: tree or house? - the senior manager, called to help by the waiters, tried to understand what the guests wanted. - Did the bottle have a cork or a cap?
“I thought there would really be wine there?”
Well, here's to a peaceful sky over Grozny! For the friendship of peoples! - Abdullah suggested, and we clinked glasses of red.
Hanging out in a hotel restaurant is very expensive and not at all interesting. You won't be able to get drunk and act out there - gatherings take place under the supervision of security guards armed with machine guns. So I “moved out” of the complex and found Abdullah for myself.
Abdullah (left) and his friends drink red wine with a barbecue - cherry juice.
In Chechnya, a woman does not have the right to meet a man on her own: only friends or relatives can introduce them, and these acquaintances have one goal - to create a family. You can’t “just walk” with a man. And before the wedding, all meetings must take place in the presence of someone else.
But there is a loophole for girls - the Internet. Using the Internet, you can make an appointment yourself, without intermediaries. Chechens are on all sorts of websites, all with one goal - to arrange a date.
I found Abdullah through social networks. It seemed like the whole of Putin Avenue, where my friends live, came out to look at him to decide whether he could be trusted with me: on a date, a woman still has to get permission from those who are looking after her. After half an hour of questioning, my family friends let us go.
First we went to an anti-cafe - the fashion for establishments popular in big cities, where you pay not for the amount of food eaten and drunk, but for the time spent inside, has finally reached Grozny.
Inside there were desperate battles in paper board games, which people ask to be brought from America when the opportunity arises, just like jeans used to be. This fall's hit is the adventure game "Africa": you need to be the first to create a specific route across the Dark Continent using your ingenuity.
Gambling is prohibited, but here we bet big,” the Chechens at the next table boasted. I couldn’t look at the guys, but I could look at their money. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be not from the Bank of Russia, but from the “joke bank.”
In Chechnya you can play for money, but only with toy money. The hit of the season is the adventure game “Africa”, imported from America.
In all ordinary cafes the picture is the same: no cigarettes, hookahs, alcohol, or games for money. When we visited all the catering establishments, Abdullah took me to the most promenade place on the very outskirts of Grozny - to the “kebab street”.
This is one continuous row of kebab shops, twenty tents. They grill kebabs from everything except pork, even camels. And they are marinated in a hundred ways, even in kiwi. So here, at the barbecue, how can you avoid being found guilty?
Do you want red or white? - in the tent with the sonorous name “Powerful Juicy Kebab” the choice is more interesting than in “Grozny City” itself.
They grill kebabs from everything except pork, even camels. And they are marinated in a hundred ways, even in kiwi.
Red! Dry if possible! - I was happy.
“We have the same type,” the barbecue man laughed.
Three minutes later they brought us a jug and glasses for whiskey - they didn’t have wine glasses. We poured and clinked glasses for peaceful Grozny and the friendship of peoples. Oh, there’s cherry juice in the glass!
Did you really think there would be wine there? - Abdullah laughed. - No, you can’t have it anywhere, even on this street, but sometimes you want to have a barbecue. So they came up with a trick: pour juice into glasses. Those who want red - cherry, those who want white - grape. Well, we will!
“Here are the sluts”
She said that she liked the red ball so much, oh, what are they doing! - Ibrahim, with whom his best friend Abdullah introduced me, said tensely. He recommended him as the coolest Chechen in all of Chechnya. If you can find secret nightlife in Grozny, it’s only with him.
At 5 o'clock in the evening, Ibrahim and I sat in the most depraved place, according to his many years of observations, in all of Grozny - a restaurant of national Chechen cuisine in the very center of the city, on Putin Avenue. This restaurant was partly a ceremonial restaurant - here, as in Grozny City, delegations and important guests are brought here, but the prices here are several times lower. And no alcohol.
Every now and then a boy walked past the windows with a bunch of red and white balloons. As soon as three loudly laughing Chechen girls in heels and skirts a millimeter above the knee (the acceptable minimum; two millimeters above the knee and they can honk from the car) came inside, he came in too. The girls approached the Chechen men having lunch, the boy followed them.
What sluts,” Ibrahim commented angrily when he listened to their conversation in Chechen. - One said: “I like the white ball so much.” And the other: “Oh, the red ball is so beautiful.” And the third... There are no censored words! I just asked her to buy her a balloon! They are still laughing! It is generally forbidden for a woman to laugh in the presence of a man!
It turned out that in Grozny there are such spy rules of secrecy that Stirlitz himself would appreciate. Do you remember how he drew Professor Pleischner’s attention to the conditioned signal - a flower pot?
The Chechens have balls. Red, white - not important, these two colors are simply sold on the market. If a Chechen woman says that she likes the ball, and even more so if she openly asks to buy it, then she is of easy morals. This is almost the only way to meet people in person (not via the Internet), without intermediaries in the form of relatives or girlfriends. Only through the ball - directly into the open is still prohibited.
The most desperate carnal love is among Chechen women,” Ibrahim shared at the table, where, according to his assurance, the shaitan was sitting between us, since where there are only two, there he is.
There is Shaitan, but there is no sex. At all. In Chechnya this word is banned. Not even Ibrahim uttered it, who admitted, looking at the debauchery in the cafe, that at 33 he himself was dating six (!) women at the same time and all of them were someone’s second or third wives, so they lacked male attention. Men have two extremes in this regard - Abdullah, at 37, is still waiting for his one and only remains celibate...
Men sat along Putin Avenue on folding stools and wearing skullcaps. As we passed by, one of them stood up, stepped towards us and waved a hefty wad of five thousand dollar bills right in front of my nose. The real ones, not like in an anti-cafe.
This is our currency exchange,” Ibrahim suggested. - There are also exchangers, but locals change the old-fashioned way - on the street. It's fair and safe here. And the course is good. In general, the whole city in the evening is probably the safest in Russia: crime is zero.
In Moscow, ATMs are only in buildings, here - right in the middle of the street, not guarded by anyone, under the cover of a canopy from a former telephone booth or mailbox.
Therefore, I was not at all scared when we saw about twenty bearded young Chechens sitting in the gateway. They jumped up from their stools. They did not have bundles of banknotes in their hands.
“These guys don’t have any money at all,” Ibrahim whispered. - This is the local labor exchange. A lot of young people in the republic are without work. They sit on stools all day in the hope that someone from the market will give them a task - to unload the goods there...
In all of Grozny there are only two secret shops where they sell alcohol after sunset. One of them is in the microdistrict where Ibrahim lives. We made our way to it through dark, secret alleys.
“Here we have a brothel,” Ibrahim pointed out, waving his hand at an inconspicuous cafe by the side of the road.
That's where we need to go! - Never before have I been so close to the secret Chechen nightlife.
“Are you crazy?” my companion was indignant.
It turned out that a brothel in Chechnya is not called a brothel at all (there are none here - neither overt nor secret), but a place where a man and a woman can meet without a boy with a balloon.
A waitress in a cafe or a car wash lady at a car wash quietly writes her phone number on the receipt - and that’s it, consider her yours, since there are no other reasons for getting to know each other except for pleasure, people don’t get acquainted here just like that,” Ibrahim revealed the scheme that he I've used it myself more than once.
We reached a regular grocery store (there are no supermarkets in Grozny either), and then for the first time Ibragim asked me to be quiet and not ask unnecessary questions:
If our last outlet is closed because of you, I’ll die,” he joked.
The store was completely secretive: inside there were ordinary rows with all sorts of goods, a sleepy cashier. Ibrahim said something quietly in Chechen, and the owner came out. He invited us to go through the white door, which seemed to lead to a warehouse...
We entered and the white door was immediately closed behind us. Inside it was guarded by two Chechens, and I felt that we definitely wouldn’t leave here without shopping... There really was an assortment for every taste. On endless shelves from floor to ceiling there are boxes of vodka, beer, whiskey, wine and... And that's all.
We don’t carry exotics like tequila - they don’t take them,” the owner shrugged.
The prices are reasonable: a bottle of vodka - 100 rubles, beer - 50, whiskey - 2500, wine - 250. We took Georgian semi-sweet - there was no other.
While we were trying to find dry red liquor in an underground liquor store, the Chechen owner stood on guard
The owner carefully wrapped the bottle in several black bags, although there are no cameras anywhere in the stores in Grozny. At the checkout we simply said what was inside. The cashier didn’t check, and the owner was no longer around: in secret liquor stores everything is on trust and they don’t issue a receipt.
“After the second sip I started to choke”
Come on, do it,” Murad looked expectantly and nodded approvingly: they say, be bolder. Ibrahim blocked the retreat from behind and motioned towards his cousin. When I did what they wanted, my vision went dark...
They forced me to shake Murad's hand. For four days in Grozny, not a single man touched me, I did not look into the eyes of any of them - and now I felt like a waitress or a washer who wrote her number on a check.
Murad asked for forgiveness and explained that in Vienna, where he, having become a refugee thirteen years ago, lives and studies to become a lawyer, everyone does this - they shake hands and look into each other’s eyes. They even hug, although he hasn’t tried it himself.
To drink wine from a secret liquor store, Ibrahim took me to his cousin Murad, who lives alone: if “secret night clubs” in Grozny are organized, they are not in entrances, not in attics or basements, but in apartments. But they are really secret - no one takes pictures there, does not advertise their pastime on social networks - open drinking is prohibited.
Chechens, if they want to have a blast, go to Pyatigorsk,” Ibrahim revealed all his cards. - This is the most depraved city in the entire Caucasus, everything is possible there.
Frankly, many would like to live in a secular way in Chechnya, but Ramzan does not allow it,” added Murad. - There are many refugees like me in the republic who grew up during the Chechen wars in Europe and saw what life was like there. I come to my native Grozny for two or three months a year to visit my relatives. I have three uncles, three aunts and a grandmother here. Of course, I miss European nightlife; Grozny is depressing.
Even if they are unwritten, there will still be laws,” Ibrahim objected.
To add to the debauchery, we turned on a music channel that showed modern video clips. Wriggling half-naked girls in Chechnya look completely different in the presence of Chechens. This is the maximum television allowed here, and this is the usual MUZ-TV for us, not in the public domain, but on a paid satellite dish. Porn channels are blocked even on them.
While Ibrahim warmly commented on what he saw, Murad was looking for something to open the Georgian semi-sweet. Even such European Chechens were not used to drinking - there was simply no corkscrew in his house. We pushed the cork with our fingers and a ballpoint pen.
What a wine, what a corkscrew
It was impossible to drink - after one sip my stomach cramped, after the second I began to choke. Ibrahim, with an experienced eye, determined that, most likely, it was a fake, synthetic.
Yes, that’s all Murad said. - Okay, I'll bring you something stronger and safer.
Ten minutes later he returned with two teapots - a teapot and one for boiling water. Yes, in Grozny, as far as I understand, there are no electric kettles: it is believed that a woman should not leave the stove while something is being prepared on it, even tea, and she should not make the housewife’s life easier in this way.
When we poured the wine into the toilet, it turned an acid pink color.
Over tea, Murad complained that he kept a hookah in the house, bought in Vienna, but his friends stole it - they stole everything except one hose.
The only place in the city where you could smoke a hookah was the Damascus cafe on Rosa Luxemburg Street, but it was closed long ago, Ibrahim recalled. - And Kadyrov personally closed the sauna with the girls. We inherited it from Khankala, a Russian military base.
Apart from wine, the rest of our “secret nightclub” in Murad’s apartment was decent: we sat at different ends of the room, did not dance, did not laugh.
Could I come here in a miniskirt? - I asked the guys.
You wouldn’t have gotten there and you wouldn’t have gotten there,” they said without hesitation. - Yes, and at home we wouldn’t let you change your clothes: we love women, but we don’t want them to behave in our presence the way they do in the cafe on Putin Avenue. Laughing in the presence of men, a skirt above the knees is out of the question.
Would you let a Chechen woman drink like me?
No! Never! - the brothers got excited. - A drinking woman is a shame! We allowed you only because you are not ours, not Chechen, because you yourself asked to buy this wine. If you hadn’t asked, we would never have offered it to you in your life. That’s why, in fact, we don’t have either secret or obvious nightclubs: women have nothing to do there, and without them it’s not interesting. And don’t forget that it’s still impossible to get acquainted without intermediaries, and the main goal of any nightclub is to get acquainted.
For the second time that evening I felt like a girl asking me to buy a balloon.
But there are no rapes in Chechnya,” Murad changed the topic.
“It’s not true,” Ibrahim disagreed. - There are cases, but they do not reach the police, they are ahead of the law of blood feud. If a Chechen woman is raped, her relatives will force her to either marry or pay off. If it turns out that she was a virgin, she will be killed immediately.
We quickly finished our tea - at exactly 23.00 I had to be returned home, this is the deadline before which in Chechnya a woman is allowed to go for a walk. On the way, Ibrahim asked me to chew gum: if the Chechens, friends of my family, had smelled that I smelled of alcohol, albeit synthetic, they would not have allowed me to enter the door.
Having returned from the least crowded and decent “night club” in my life, I kept wondering what they do at night, these Chechens, if everything, absolutely everything is prohibited here, and alcohol is made from acetone.
Rustam is raising two sons, Abdullah is nursing his niece and dreams of his own daughter, Ibrahim and Murad are also busy with business.
Once, officials calculated that the birth rate in Grozny is twice the Russian average, and in Chechnya the same number of children are born per year as in St. Petersburg. Although the city on the Neva is five times larger in population than the chaste republic.
The killers of 33-year-old businessman from Yekaterinburg Sergei Cheban, who was beaten to death in the Vietnamese city of Nha Trang, have not yet been sent to prison. According to our information, the law enforcement agencies of the Sverdlovsk region have no information about the trial of the attackers.
Let us remind you that we wrote about the death of a Ural tourist last summer. On July 24, Sergei Cheban was admitted to a Nha Trang hospital with multiple fractures after a fight in a local bar. He was in a coma for a day, and on the morning of July 25 he died. The businessman’s wife Elena told the site’s correspondent that she, her husband and one-and-a-half-year-old child were vacationing at the five-star Diamond Bay Condotel Resort & Spa. One night Sergei went for a walk and, as his wife later found out, met a Russian girl named Alisa and asked her to show the city and clubs where he could “have a good rest.” Alice took her new acquaintance on a motorcycle to the Roof Top Bar and left. According to relatives, in a bar a crowd of Vietnamese attacked Sergei and beat him.
Initially, Cheban's friends and relatives assured that the local police had arrested two Vietnamese, but immediately released them for lack of evidence. Allegedly, the Vietnamese security forces decided to pass off the murder of a Russian as a suicide. But, according to the latest information, the law enforcement agencies of the Asian republic have nevertheless launched a full-fledged investigation. One of the sources in the security forces told us about this.
- At what stage is the investigation now?
Two criminal cases were opened. One in Vietnam, the other here with us. Since Sergey is a Russian citizen and a crime was committed against him, we could not leave it unpunished.
- Did you manage to achieve anything over these few months?
The problem is that Russia does not interact much with Vietnam in this area, but their structures will still have to provide us with information. The regional Investigative Committee is investigating. He gives instructions to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which carries them out. The main burden will fall on Interpol to negotiate with the Vietnamese side. So far, the details of the investigation have not been revealed to us much.
- At first they said that the Vietnamese security forces released those who killed Sergei.
I haven't heard of any red tape. In any case, the Russian law enforcement agencies opened a case very quickly.
- It turns out that the investigation now largely depends on the Vietnamese authorities?
Suspects will be tried at the scene of the crime. That is, everything will be according to the laws of Vietnam, because they are its citizens. There is no talk of extradition to Russia. The Vietnamese side will conduct an investigation based on the testimony of witnesses and video surveillance that was there. If everything was checked on time and material evidence was confiscated, then they should have already brought it to trial. I really hope that we will get to the bottom of this. You may even have to arrange a business trip and send employees to Vietnam. But again, the interaction is not very well established. There may be difficulties, plus a language barrier. We will have to involve translators who work for our law enforcement agencies.
I recently completed a major renovation of my apartment, which lasted about 2 months. I would like to summarize. So, my problem: a 3-room apartment that needed to be renovated (I don’t even know what to correctly call something that you first break down and then do absolutely everything from scratch? Well, let this action be called renovation, that’s not the point) and redevelopment. At that time I lived in another apartment, in another area of the city. I needed responsible builders who did not need a supervisor, and so that they would do this repair conscientiously.
I began to collect an anamnesis of the life of builders in the Chechen Republic from friends and acquaintances. First of all, the Vietnamese were named to me as the most responsible, unpretentious and, to hide it, the cheapest, then came the Azerbaijanis and Dagestanis, and only then the Chechens. According to friends, the Vietnamese were beyond competition, and the Azerbaijanis and Dagestanis differed from the Chechens only in that the former took a more responsible approach to their work, but there was not much difference in price.
I will say in advance that I was not lucky enough to study construction teams from Azerbaijan and Dagestan; we will only talk about my direct contact with the Vietnamese and Chechens.
Also, I want to note that in no case do I set out to offend the Vietnamese, I am simply describing what happened to me.
After going through all the information, I decided to go to the Rodina state farm, where many new houses are being built closer to the airport, and where, as I was told, the Vietnamese are a dime a dozen. There actually turned out to be quite a lot of Vietnamese there - I don’t want to take them. With difficulty I found one Vietnamese who spoke Russian through the roof, and decided to conclude an agreement with him. His name was Hun. I took this linguist, he took three more accomplices, we went to the apartment, discussed what needed to be done and how, agreed on the price and other points. By the way, in addition to the price for the work, as it later turned out, each employee had to be paid an additional 150 rubles per day; moreover, I had to bring them to their apartment in the morning and take them back in the evening. I didn’t like the fact that they asked to be transported back and forth every day, I offered to spend the night in the apartment, but they flatly refused, citing the fact that it was dangerous for them to spend the night in the apartment, one of the neighbors might inform the migration service, and they They'll arrest you to get your money. It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s just that I always don’t have enough time, and the prospect of being a cab driver made me nervous, to put it mildly. Well, okay, I think, since I called myself a milk mushroom, I will continue to pull my burden. As for the prices for the volume of work performed, as it turned out later, there was a difference, but it was insignificant - a maximum of 500 rubles (I would have rather paid them the same money for a taxi, and would have lived and worked in peace, but they refused, they say, we know the Russians , taxi to attract us).
“Okay,” I say, “we agreed.” Tomorrow I’ll come pick you up at 7:00, make sure you’re not late so that everyone is ready when I arrive, I have to be at work at 8:00. To be late is nicalaso.
-Kalaso, nasalnika, kalaso!
The next day I get up at 6:00 (that is, an hour earlier than my usual rise!), I come to them... I call, they don’t answer the phone, I went to their barracks, and there, at least half of the population of Vietnam, and everyone is SLEEPING. With difficulty I woke up those who were lying closer to the door, they woke up the rest. I look, well, I don’t see a single familiar face from those who were there yesterday. They are all the same! Then I looked closer, one seemed similar:
-Hey, I say, -Hun!!!
And he told me:
“I’m not Hun,” he raises his index finger up, insulted, “I’m MUN!”
Well, what happened next is even somehow awkward to describe.
In short, they all woke up, fidgeted and fussed, and started calling someone, with difficulty they found yesterday’s foreman-translator Hun (he turns out to be on the next street in the same barracks, he slept with the other half of Vietnam), he also poured pepper, he sharply put together a new team of three people...
As I’m writing, I’m experiencing everything all over again, and there’s just not enough evil!
At the first stage it was necessary to remove the plaster on the balcony, in the corridor and in all the rooms. I brought these four archaics to the apartment, gave them four axes and trowels (they ordered these exact tools), their foreman-translator Khun, muttered something to them in his own way, like, instructed them in what and how, they all grabbed the axes and began knock on the wall together, breaking off the plaster. Well I say:
- If you call me, I was late for work because of you. I'll come pick you up in the evening.
-Kalazo, kalazo.
No sooner had I arrived at work than they called me:
-Come, yes, nasalnika, come, kalaso, yes. The person is called. They call a lot!
-What's happened?
-Kalazo, right? Come, the nasal's bistra!
“I can’t,” I say, “my brother will come now, everything will be okay, don’t be afraid.”
I called my brother and said, go to the apartment and see what’s there. My brother went there and called me:
- Here these three say that they are hungry, they didn’t even drink tea in the morning, and they can’t work.
-Go with them to the store, buy what they need... Wait, how are the three of you? There were four of them!
-I don’t know, there are only three of them here.
“I gave them three thousand in advance this morning, so they can buy what they need for themselves.”
It turns out that Hung, after I left, took a taxi home (later it turned out that they had several familiar Chechen taxi drivers who are engaged in delivering Vietnamese), without leaving them a penny.
-They also said that someone was swearing there?
- Yes, it was the neighbors, I explained everything to them, they had already left.
My brother went with them to the store, bought what they ordered, and left.
Two hours later the call came again.
-Nasalnika, come. Yes!!
-What happened now?!
-Kalaso. Should you come, kalazo?
I call my other brother:
-Go to the apartment, the Vietnamese work there, what happened there?
He calls me back:
-They say that they were told to clean one room and a balcony from plaster today, they did it, and now they are asking to go home.
-Who told them this? They were supposed to work until the evening?
-Their chief said so and left. Should I take them?
Well, I think, -Hun, why did you turn out to be such a hun...
-Take the keys from them, close the door, and tell them to work until the evening.
I arrive at the apartment in the evening, the remaining rooms remain untouched. And my hard workers are resting imposingly on the sofa. Being very humane, calm and non-conflict, for some reason I became nervous when I saw this picture. The next day, Hong and his new team of three people spent the whole day regularly, without anyone’s supervision, tapping the plaster, even in those places where it shouldn’t have been tapped (I marked with them the areas on the wall where there should have been doorways and two walls were demolished, and on which the plaster could be left). After that, I settled with them out of harm’s way, yes, and only because they were asleep at 7 am as usual, and again because of them I was late for work.
The second step was to break down two brick walls, build two new walls, and knock two doorways into the concrete wall. I went to look for a new brigade of Vietnamese (on a tip from a friend) in another village. These conditions were the same as the previous ones, with the only difference being that the foreman’s name was Min.
“Okay,” I say, “I’ll take you around, just so that you’re ready at 7 a.m. in the morning, and in addition to payment for work, I’ll give you 150 rubles for food for each worker, so that you have the strength to work.
-Kalaso!
That same evening I googled Russian-Vietnamese translators and texted Mina the following SMS:
“07:00 được sẵn sàng vào ngày mai. Đứng tại 06:00, rửa, đi vào nhà vệ sinh pokušajte, làm thế nào tôi đến tôi đợi bạn sẵn sàng. Ok?"
Which translates to:
“Tomorrow at 7:00 be ready. Get up at 6:00, wash, eat, go to the toilet, so that when I arrive, you are ready for me. Fine?"
At 7:00 they were asleep. I mentally asked the Almighty for patience, I thought, it’s a pity for them after all, they didn’t come to Chechnya (!!!) from Vietnam because of a good life... I calmly woke them up by declaring the manuscript I had prepared in advance (I specifically, learned from bitter experience, printed out important phrases with translation ):
-Hi lười biếng! Hi luyoi biyeng! - Rise, I mean, - loafers!
Then everything was as usual, I brought them to the apartment, a couple of hours later they called:
-The wall is palamala, come the boss.
-Did you do something quickly? Are you sure you did everything?
-Yes Yes. Kalaso, come yes!
I arrived and saw that they had really broken the walls, but had not made any openings.
They make gestures, ask me for a jackhammer (to hollow out openings in a concrete wall), I asked them if they would like to have the keys to the apartment where the money is, and as a bonus I offered ears from a dead donkey. They didn't understand the humor. I would use a jackhammer to make these openings myself. I would buy it if I needed it in the future, but why would I need it?
-I don’t have a bumper, I’ll charge you a thousand for each opening, kalaso?
-Kalaso.
I brought them two crowbars and two sledgehammers, so, I say, per aspera ad astra (through thorns - to the stars)! And after they broke through half of one doorway, in one of them, as I now understand, Niccolo Machiavelli woke up. Call:
-Urgently, urgently. Police! Police!
I washed the talc off my hands, changed my clothes, and rushed to the apartment at full speed. It doesn't smell like police. Min is sad. The police came, he says, and said that he would come tomorrow to take 20 thousand rubles from them (like 5 thousand from each):
- We can’t do this kind of work, we have no money.
In short, he asks to pay for the broken walls and half of the doorway. Paid for the walls. I didn’t pay for the unfinished half of the doorway; I’d still hire another team, and they’d take it for the whole thing.
-If you get it, I’ll pay.
And they:
-No.
“Well, no, and there’s no money,” I say, “Run into the car so that my eyes don’t see you.”
I’m taking them back, and before my eyes, like the credits, are laudatory odes to the Vietnamese... I’m amazed. Apparently, I was lucky, I discovered a new, hitherto unknown species of Vietnamese. Well, I think, out of principle, I’ll contact the Vietnamese three times, maybe I’ll be lucky the third time? It can’t be that everyone is the same, not only externally, but also internally?!
By the way, none of these teams took out the trash after their work; they piled it up, first in one corner of the apartment, then in another, then they completely filled the entire balcony with it, although the trash bin was 50 meters from the house.
“God loves a trinity”... The next day I went for the third brigade of Vietnamese (by the way, neither that day, nor the next, nor during the week, not once did the police appear, which indicates that Minh, indeed, turned out to be encrypted Machiavelli). So, the third Vietnamese brigade was located in another area of the Grozny suburb. Having difficulty finding their location, he began to negotiate. For some reason, I have already concluded for myself that they can only be trusted with work that does not require a supervisor. We agreed that they would take out all the construction waste and lift the ordered bricks and sand into the apartment. This team was distinguished only by its punctuality, after my nightly SMS, at 7:00 they were washed and combed, and smiling in unison they said “Xing Tiao!”, although they, without hiding, were smoking some kind of stinking herb stuffed into an ordinary plastic pipe, imitating a hookah (they said that there is no money for cigarettes, and therefore we smoke “this”), otherwise everything was the same as with the previous two brigades. I was only pleased that they conscientiously plowed until the evening, and to celebrate, I, as a bonus, offered to take them fishing - to get frogs for dinner, but they refused. However, on the way back (they saw an injury in the car) they asked to shoot a stray dog:
- Dog, dog, pooh-pooh, eat kusna! They discussed the mongrel sleeping on the side of the road, savoring it, all the way. They were upset by my refusal.
And then I remembered what I saw as my first team of Vietnamese from the Rodina state farm, butchering meat in the yard, I remember thinking, judging by the ribs - a six-month-old lamb, I was still surprised, they say, they don’t live badly, they eat delicacies ... And that’s what it turned out to be.
The third stage of preparing the apartment for the main renovation remains - finishing off the doorways and erecting brick walls.
I've had enough of the Vietnamese, I think, let's see what's going on among the unemployed of the Chechen Republic. The house council decided to call two distant relatives of relatives (I wrote twice relatives deliberately, because that’s how it was):
-They are without work, but they have families. What difference does it make who pays? So at least they will have more support than some Vietnamese!
To be honest, I was against it:
-Perhaps, I say, look on the “stock exchange”? With strangers, if something goes wrong, at least there will be demand, but with relatives you will have to remain silent.
-No. They are in a difficult situation, we need to help them.
“Well, if so,” I say, “good!”
-We’ll help, we’ll help (here for some reason I remembered a cartoon where a bear climbed into a beehive with his foot, and the whole forest ran after him with the same phrase)!
-We’ll break through the openings, build the walls, no problem!
-Agreed.
Consequence - both walls were built crookedly (then we had to buy additional rotband to straighten them out), the doorways were made smaller than ordered, the reinforcement was left with brackets at the edges (I paid extra to another team for widening the openings and removing the reinforcement). Twice in a week (Monday, Tuesday) they had a funeral at which their presence was mandatory, on Friday they did not work (ruzban-de), and on Saturday one of their relatives got married. Those. They “worked” for only a few hours - on Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. After all these misadventures, fate brought me together with a professional, with a man who took the keys and told me not to worry about anything, everything would be in the best possible way. The only thing that was required of me was the timely delivery of building materials. Otherwise, he had all his own tools, his own car, he bought food himself, he didn’t bother me, he didn’t need a supervisor, he worked from morning to night. He delivered the apartment on time, as promised, turnkey.
P.s. Of course, the point is not in the nationality of the builders, but in their qualifications, responsibility and integrity. It’s funny for me to describe all this now, but then I was really at my limit)) As old man Hemingway said:
-This is how much a person must suffer in order to write a truly funny book.
Michael's managers
Vietnamese pioneers appeared in Grozny about 3 years ago. Since then, their number has been growing rapidly and today, according to various estimates, ranges from 2 to 5 thousand people. This is a lot for our republic. Of course, there is no exact information, since almost 100% of visitors are illegal immigrants. The illegal nature of their appearance and work in Russia can be judged at least on the basis of statistical data. Thus, Chechenstat claims that from January to August 2013, only 95 people from foreign countries arrived in the republic (an average of 12 people per month). And the official work quota is given to only 71 foreigners.
Finding workers from East Asia was not difficult. A 20-minute walk through the streets of Grozny allowed me to meet seven migrant workers.
– How many Vietnamese are there in Chechnya? – I asked this question to each of the foreigners.
- Oh-oh-oh, I don’t know, a lot! - some answered.
- So many! – others added.
Most Vietnamese have difficulty understanding Russian, and those who have more or less mastered the language automatically become a foreman and the workers’ link with the outside world.
Vietnamese Michael (that’s how he introduced himself) has been living in Grozny for the second year. He is well dressed and speaks Russian quite decently; unlike his compatriots, he behaves easily and confidently. Having arrived in Chechnya as a simple worker, Michael eventually began to do completely different things. Now people looking for builders turn to him, he negotiates prices and terms of work, resolves disputes, etc.
– We don’t have work at home. Whoever finds a job receives 150-200 dollars a month. Our people come to Chechnya because they know that there are always a lot of construction projects here, you can earn a lot and there are no problems because of documents,” says “manager” Michael, who has made a unique career for himself in Chechnya, unknown to the vast majority of residents of his country.
If intercultural contradictions between the Chechens and Vietnamese arise, they are insignificant.
“Everyone gives us bread, but we don’t eat bread,” 30-year-old Tan complains about Chechen culinary preferences, after which he either jokingly or seriously adds: “Meow-meow, come on!”
And when asked if he had a family, he answered in an oriental wise way: “ The wife takes the money, first to earn money - then the wife».
His colleague Nguyen came to Chechnya to earn money to open his own business in his homeland.
“There’s money here, there’s a boat in Vietnam, there’s a lot of fish,” he says, after which he makes the sounds of a running engine and makes it clear with gestures that we’re talking about a motor boat.
Quiet, calm, hardworking
Everyone knows that the North Caucasus suffers from unemployment, which in Chechnya is more than 27%, and in Ingushetia a catastrophic 44.5%. It is no less widely known that Chechen construction teams have been working throughout the Soviet Union since the 70s of the last century, and the Chechens themselves were often called “a nation of builders.” Therefore, the fact that visitors from Asia are occupying jobs that are already too scarce should raise eyebrows among observers and dissatisfaction among local residents. But unlike European countries and other regions of Russia, the migration situation in the Chechen Republic does not become a cause of interethnic conflicts, and angry rebuke about those who have “come in large numbers” is almost unheard of.
Of course, there are some incidents. For example, in the summer, several Vietnamese were killed by their own fellow tribesmen who could not cope with the strength of Russian vodka. This incident caused a sharp reaction from the Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, after which 6 people were deported. A little earlier, news appeared that a group of workers had been severely beaten by unknown persons; sometimes they talk about cases of theft. But all these are isolated incidents that do not allow us to talk about any trends and patterns.
– It’s very easy with them. They are quiet, calm, hardworking, can work 10-12 hours a day and do very high quality work. They don’t have to be distracted by weddings and funerals, or any other extraneous matters, as is always the case with local builders. But, of course, the main advantage of Asian workers is that they are ready to work for little money, says businessman Islam, whose house was renovated by the Vietnamese.
Indeed, it is the low cost of services that makes people choose the Vietnamese. Judge for yourself: a Chechen team will take on plastering walls only for 120-150 rubles per square meter, builders from Uzbekistan will ask for 100 rubles, while the Vietnamese will agree for 65-80 rubles. And since every Chechen considers it his duty to build a house (and, as a rule, begins to build it, and it does not matter whether he has money for it or not), the “Asian invasion” is perceived as an excellent way to save money.
– We can get more than 1 thousand dollars a month. You will never earn that kind of money in your homeland,” emphasizes Nguyen, who came from the small town of Chau Doc (this is a different Nguyen - Wikipedia claims that 40% of Vietnamese have the surname Nguyen).
Vietnamese taxis
Migration waves are changing the labor market around the world. Today it is difficult to find a resident of a large Russian city who is ready to work as a janitor or lay bricks on the next new building. Everyone understands that these are low-paid and low-prestige jobs, that “only migrants do this.” As a result, a rapid revaluation of values occurs. More and more Chechens (especially young ones) are refusing even the idea of earning extra money at a construction site. Not many people want to do the same thing as visitors from poor or even impoverished countries.
- Why work hard for pennies? Let the Vietnamese and others do this. I want to work in the civil service. Nowadays no one thinks about working as a builder; I don’t know anyone like that among students. They only go there out of desperation. Everyone wants to be a security officer or an official – you can make very good money there,” Suliman, a 4th year student at ChSU, shared his opinion.
On the other hand, demand creates supply. There is a huge demand for cheap labor, so local builders are finding it harder and harder to compete with visitors in the domestic labor market. Some skillfully use the presence of foreigners for their own purposes. For example, they rent them apartments in which 10-15 people live, and supply them with products of national cuisine. And in Grozny, so-called Vietnamese taxis appeared. Tamerlan, one of these enterprising people, has been engaged in a specific private cab service for six months now.
– I don’t know why, maybe because of fear, maybe because of ignorance of the city, but visitors almost never use public transport. It’s difficult for them to call a new taxi every time, so they negotiate with a specific person who constantly helps them get to the right place. It's convenient for them and beneficial for me. Some even buy a car specifically for this purpose, says Tamerlan.
Www.grozny-inform.ru Information agency "Grozny-Inform"
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