Proud but war-weary Chechens filled village squares across their battered republic on Friday, celebrating their self-declared independence day and mourning the horrendous cost of their dream of autonomy.
It was five years ago when the late Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev seized power in the republic. Soon afterwards, he was elected president and declared independence from Russia, then part of the Soviet Union.Friday turned into an emotional day of remembrance honoring tens of thousands who died in the separatist struggle.
In Grozny, the ceremonies took place against a backdrop of destruction and poverty, across the street from a heap of concrete and beams that once was the presidential palace, the symbol of Chechnya's resistance. Volunteers dug corpses out of nearby piles of wreckage while elderly Russian women begged and ragged homeless children wandered past. Ammunition cartridges from last month's fighting littered the streets like acorns.
Every building for blocks was a bombed-out shell. Many are still inhabited by desperate residents with no money or nowhere to go, who keep their essentials packed in plastic bags, always ready to flee the next bombardment. "We want to cry and smile at the same time." said Vela Chukalova. "We are free - Russian troops are mostly gone - yet the city and republic are in ruins."
The war began in December 1994 when Russia sent troops to put down the small, predominantly Muslim republic's secession drive. Estimates of those killed since then are as high as 80,000.
Under agreements worked out by Russian security chief Alexander Lebed, there has been no fighting since Aug. 23. Many Russian troops and Chechen rebels have withdrawn from Grozny, and broad plans are in the works for forming a coalition government.
Although previous peace deals have failed, hopes have been strong for the current pact, which contains the key provision of deferring the question of Chechnya's ultimate political status for five years.
"The spine of the war is broken," Lebed said on Russian television Friday.
In Grozny, a mostly solemn gathering was punctuated occasionally by the honking horns and whoops of passing fighters and shouts of "Allah Akbar," "God is great."