On a country road ankle-deep in muck, a gang of bearded Chechens boils vats of pilfered crude oil, sending up acrid clouds of steam as it brews homemade gasoline of dubious quality.
Hundreds of these roadside refineries sprouted during the anarchy of Chechnya's war, when enterprising Chechens tapped into the region's oil fields and a major pipeline to establish do-it-yourself oil companies."It's a very easy process. You just put the oil in a big tank and light a fire under it," explains Magomed Yakhiyev, who left tomato farming to become an independent oilman in Tsotsi-Yurt, 20 miles southeast of Grozny, the Chechen capital.
Yakhiyev and other small-time operators say in tapping into the oil, they are seeking part of a prize that often is overlooked in the Chechen conflict.
The war focused attention on the David-and-Goliath confrontation between Chechen guerrillas and the Russian army. At the same time, a less dramatic but important struggle has been taking place among several nations and some of the world's biggest oil companies over control of oil throughout the Caspian Sea region.
Separatist leaders in Chechnya believe the tiny, land-locked, Muslim territory can succeed economically as an independent state based on its own oil reserves and a cut of foreign oil transported across its land.
But the nations on the Caspian - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakstan - and several major Western oil companies have been carving up the oil and gas riches in and around the sea. From their perspective, unstable Chechnya is a major inconvenience.
At present, there is only one pipeline that could take Caspian oil to the rest of the world. It crosses Chechnya - not far from Yak-hi-yev's self-made refinery - en route from southern Russia to refineries in Azerbaijan.
The Chechen leg of the pipeline was repeatedly damaged and shut down during the 1994-96 war, though it is expected to be back in working order as early as next month, according to Russian and Chechen officials.
During the war, Chechnya was shut out of plans to build two new pipelines in the region, deals potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenues.
Two separate groups, made up of regional countries and oil companies, have agreed on two pipeline routes bypassing Chechnya, one to the south, the other to the north.
Chechnya's current leader, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, wants the existing pipeline fixed as soon as possible. He has told Chechnya's free-lance oilmen to stop stealing from the line and the surrounding oil fields.
In Tsotsi-Yurt, the oilmen say no action has been taken yet but they expect a crackdown after Chech-nya elects a president and a parliament in polls set for Monday.
"Because of the war, we had no choice but to start this business," Yakhiyev says. "We have to do this to support our families."
Yakhiyev says he is not getting rich but acknowledges that there is more money in oil than in tomatoes.
His grease-stained crew of four obtains the crude oil from a "secret" location, as he called it, though a state-owned oil rig is clearly visible on the horizon.
Yakhiyev's oil is pumped into a 13-ton tank and heated and moved through several short rusting pipes to three additional tanks. After about 36 hours, Yakhiyev says, he has about 8 tons of diesel fuel, 3 tons of gasoline and some kerosene.
"I'd say they're doing pretty well," commented professor Richard Duncan, acting director of petroleum engineering research and technology transfer at Louisiana State University.
He said the process is similar to making moonshine. "The difference being it's much more explosive. And some lighter hydrocarbons are coming off and hanging around you, and they could blow up, too."
While such homemade gasoline will leave deposits and eventually damage a car's valves, "it'll run like a champ," he said in a telephone interview from Baton Rouge, La.
"I tell you what, though," he added. "I don't want to be standing there while they're doing it."
About 100 such refineries sit side-by-side in Tsotsi-Yurt, with hundreds more elsewhere in Chechnya. Neighbors complain bitterly of the fumes, but the ad hoc oilmen say the danger is worth the risk.