Chechen Republic, present day. Russian troop positions. Aleksandra Nikolaevna is a grand-mother who has come to see her grandson, one of the best officers in his unit. She will spend a few days here, and will discover a new world.

Alexandra: Festival de Cannes Oficial Selection Competition 

In this male world there are no women, no warmth or comfort. Daily life is meagre, people are shy of their feelings here. Or maybe there simply isn’t time or energy for feelings.

Every day and every hour questions of life and death are decided here. And yet it is still a world populated by people.

A short history of the Chechen war

The first Caucasus war started as long ago as 1817, and continued until 1864, becoming one of the longest and bloodiest in the history of the Russian Empire. In 1859 Chechnya was incorporated into the territory of Russia.

From 1920, it was part of the Mountain Autonomous Republic, and from 1936 it was part of the Checheno-Ingush Republic. In 1944 half a million Chechens and Ingush were deported to Kazakhstan and Central Asia, at the personal decision of Stalin, “for aiding and abetting the enemy ”during the Second World War.

After the collapse of the USSR, Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected president of Chechnya in October 1991, and he declared Chechnya’s independence from Russia. The war started on 1 December 1994, with federal troops entering Chechnya.

The war stopped in 1996 with the death of Dudayev and a peace treaty signed in Khasavyurt. In August 1999, the military offensive was renewed after a band of guerrillas under the command of Basayev and Khattab enter territory belonging to Dagestan (Russia).

According to official statistics alone, the first Chechen war took the lives of 50, 000 civilians and up to 6, 000 Russian soldiers.

In the second war, 15-25, 000 civilian lives were lost, and hundreds of thousands of people became refugees.