04.2008 - Source: Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation

When Ramzan Kadyrov became president, impressive construction programmes were started; some 39,000 persons have received government compensation by 2004, but payments have been on hold since 2005 ("Summary of the ACCORD-UNHCR Country of Origin Information Seminar on Chechnya; Vienna, 18 October 2007") [ID 22958]

"When the presidency changed from Alu Alkhanov to Ramzan Kadyrov, it was the beginning of impressive construction programmes in Chechnya. Not only President Kadyrov himself, but also private businessmen and the Russian government raised a lot of money for the region, which is being used for the reconstruction of roads (e.g. from Nazran in Ingushetia to Grozny), houses, schools, hospitals, streets, streetlights, power lines etc. As often mentioned, what was reconstructed first of all in Chechnya were the mere facades in the centre of Grozny with nothing behind. But in the last years the renovation of the city centre has been finished, and by now the building activities have achieved a decent quality.

The primary objective of the government is to get people out of the temporary accommodations and back to their home districts. In July 2003, the government introduced compensation programmes through Decree # 404 of the Russian Federation. Under this programme, persons who have totally destroyed property and choose to continue to reside in Chechnya are entitled to 350,000 roubles. According to the Federal government, some 39,000 persons have received compensation by the end of 2004. The payment of compensation, as well as the processing of applications, has been on hold since 2005, affecting approximately 50% of those eligible for this programme. There has often been contested ownership over destroyed properties and there are reports of corruption.

As the price of building materials continue to rise in the North Caucasus, these amounts are not sufficient to build a house or purchase an apartment. (...)"

Document(s): Open document

31.08.2007 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Corruption and fake documents means many flats are disputed by two or even more people ("Grozny’s Housing Chaos") [ID 21089]

"Corruption and fake documents means many flats are disputed by two or even more people.
The city administration concedes that the issue of providing housing for the needy in Grozny, a city devastated by bombing and artillery in two military campaigns is a “tangled knot”. “Recently, we have come across an increasing number of cases involving forged documentation about the purchase or sale or registration of flats,” deputy mayor Rezvan Bakharchiev told IWPR. According to the city administration’s data, there are 8,000 units of housing in the city’s housing stock that have been surrendered by their owners for compensation and which can be allocated to those who need them. “These surrendered flats are provided to persons, who lost their housing during the fighting - the poor, single mothers and orphans,” said Bakharchiev. According to Bakharchiev, an official commission has annulled 2,000 housing contracts on the grounds that either the owners had obtained the flats illegally or used them for commercial facilities, while living elsewhere. A total of 188 of these cases went to court between March 23 and August 20 this year. But some experts blame the city authorities themselves for the confusion. “There are frequent cases, when the same flat turns out to have several registered owners,” said a human rights lawyer who did not want to be named. “For instance, a person has a permission to own a flat dated 1998-1999, but this does not stop the city hall from issuing an order for the same flat to some other person. “Another common problem is that people who bought their housing before [the start of the first Chechen war in] 1994, mainly, from Russian-speaking residents, find out that the flats they have lived in for 10-15 years have been given up [to the authorities] by their original owners, who fled the republic and received compensation for them.” The reconstruction work underway in Grozny has only added to the confusion. Residents of houses scheduled for demolition are often given flats formally belonging to other people. “This has resulted in a great amount of litigation,” said the lawyer. Zara Tsurova, who used to live in a block of flats that has by now been pulled down, said, “All the residents of our house were given flats of equal value in another district. But all these flats turned out to have owners. Now we all have been spending all our time in court.” The city administration denies that it’s responsible for solving these disputes. “We are not a law-enforcement body, not a court, it is not up to us alone to decide,” said the deputy mayor. “If both sides have the documents, an expert study will find out whose documents are authentic. There are law-enforcement agencies, whose competence these matters lie in.”  (...)
 Bakharchiev acknowledged that the housing chaos is largely a result of too many people seeking too many places to live in a city whose apartment blocks had been ravaged by war. He said that the two thousand apartments that were now available for allocation were simply not enough to satisfy everyone. “We can’t reassure people that these 2,000 flats will settle our housing problems,” he said. “Before the conflict, the city’s housing stock included 4,900 blocks of flats. Today it’s five times less than that, while since 1994 the population has only increased.”"

Document(s): Open document

13.08.2007 - Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (formerly Global IDP Project)

People displaced within Chechnya mainly live in private housing or collective centres ("Government efforts help only some IDPs rebuild their lives; A profile of the internal displacement situation") [ID 21201]

"People displaced within Chechnya mainly live in private housing or collective centres. At the beginning of 2007, there were 26 Temporary Accommodation Centres (TACs) and 25 Temporary Settlements (TSs) in Chechnya, respectively housing 30,407 and 21,704 IDPs (UNHCR, June 2007). There were also some 6,700 IDPs living in private accommodation in Chechnya in late 2006, according to government figures (www.regions.ru, 18 October 2006)."

Document(s): Open document

06.09.2006 - Source: Freedom House

Many refugees who return live in appalling conditions in tent camps, abandoned buildings, or cramped quarters with friends or relatives; well over 100,000 long-term homeless ("The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2006") [ID 17265]

"While many external refugee camps have been closed and Chechens who fled the violence have been pressured to return to their homes, tens of thousands of refugees still remain outside of Chechnya. Many refugees who return live in appalling conditions in tent camps, abandoned buildings, or cramped quarters with friends or relatives. There are tens of thousands of additional internally displaced persons inside the region and well over 100,000 long-term homeless, many of them orphaned children and teens. Travel to and from the republic and inside its borders is severely restricted. After the resumption of the war, the Russian military failed to provide safe exit routes from the conflict zones for noncombatants."

Document(s): Open document

06.04.2006 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Hundreds of Grozny residents remain homeless because of bureaucratic obstacles, although government entitled thousands of families whose homes were destroyed by war to claim compensation or have their homes rebuilt ("Chechens Cheated of New Homes") [#48477],  [ID 16901]

"The thousands of Chechen families whose homes were destroyed by war are officially entitled either to claim compensation or to have their homes rebuilt at the government’s expense, but two groups of Chechens are not being re-housed because of bureaucratic obstacles. The first category is former owners of homes that have been inhabited since 2000 by federal soldiers. The people in the second group are onetime residents of apartment blocks who decided to wait for their flats to be rebuilt rather than seek compensation, but now say the civilian authorities have failed to keep their promises to rehouse them. As a result, hundreds of Grozny residents are practically homeless, staying with friends or relatives, hoping that some day the government will take notice of their plight. Experts estimate that up to 85 per cent of homes in Grozny were destroyed, mainly by artillery and bombing in 1994-6 and 1999-2000. Only a small proportion has been restored. Compensation payments are paid out for 350,000 roubles (over 12,000 US dollars) but, even if they manage to surmount the bureaucratic obstacles needed to get the money, it is not enough, particularly for larger families, to buy a new property. Some 45,000 Chechens are yet to receive housing compensation. That is one reason why many hope to rebuild property on the land where their houses once stood."

Document(s): Open document

02.03.2006 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Grozny: Despite restoring services to individual houses cellars continue to flood ("Grozny Residents Still in Dark Age") [#45578],  [ID 16711]

"The local government has so far focussed its efforts on restoring services to individual houses and apartment blocks. But cellars continue to flood in these newly-repaired houses, since not all the pipes could be dealt with. Grozny residents are dependent on electric water pumps, as water does not flow even in restored houses. On Karl Liebknecht Street in 2001, owners of three houses saw their cellars and yards flooded with sewage water just a few months after repair work was completed."

Document(s): Open document

06.01.2006 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Thousands of orphaned children in Chechnya, but currently only three orphanages ("Chechnya: Forgotten Orphans") [#41425],  [ID 16712]

"Chechnya’s labour and social development ministry estimates that the republic needs at least ten orphanages to house needy children. But currently it only has three -the one in Grozny where Madina lives and two others in the villages of Gvardeiskoe and Kurchaloi, as well as two rehabilitation centres in the towns of Argun and Shali. The problem of orphaned children hit Chechnya suddenly and on a scale it still cannot cope with. Chechens say the republic never required children’s homes because traditionally orphans have always been looked after by relatives or neighbours. The first two children’s homes in Chechnya appeared only in the 1960s. It was always considered a disgrace if the child of a friend ended up in such an institution. More than a decade of conflict has changed everything. According to data from the labour ministry, of 450,000 children under 18 in Chechnya today, over 1,200 have lost both parents and 25,000 have lost one to the fighting in the republic that has raged intermittently since 1994. Another 19,000 children are disabled. Yet only 420 of these orphans are in children’s homes or rehabilitation centres. The Grozny orphanage relies heavily on private donations to keep going, as international humanitarian organisations have not contributed towards its upkeep for some time now. Although the institution struggles, it rarely puts up children for adoption, after some unfortunate experiences."

Document(s): Open document

11.2005 - Source: Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker

42 temporary homes for Chechen refugees, housing 37 000 people, most of whom are refugees from refugee camps in Ingushetia, who have been forced to return to Chechnya ("Schleichender Völkermord in Tschetschenien") [#41300],  [ID 16713]

"Im Moment gibt es in Tschetschenien 42 so genannte temporäre Wohngebäude für tschetschenische Flüchtlinge, in denen 37.000 Personen leben. Viele von ihnen sind Flüchtlinge, die aus den Lagern in der in der Nachbarrepublik Inguschetien in ihre Heimat zurück gezwungen wurden. Die sanitären Bedingungen aber auch die Versorgung mit Grundnahrungsmitteln und Trinkwasser sind vollkommen unzumutbar. Eine von der tschetschenischen Verwaltung eingesetzte Kommission bestätigte diese Eindrücke und machte auf die Gefahr aufmerksam, die Situation könne außer Kontrolle geraten, da schon Unruhen in diesen Unterkünften ausgebrochen seien."

Document(s): Open document

17.02.2005 - Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Chechnya: Especially in the districts bordering on Georgia and Dagestan, Shatoi, Itum-Kale, Vedeno and Nozhai-Yurt more than 20 villages have been wholly or partially depopulated because of bombings, mop-up raids and special operations by Russian forces ("Chechnya: Conflict Empties Villages") [#29069],  [ID 16714]

Document(s): Open document

01.09.2003 - Source: ReliefWeb

Chechnya: Report on the housing situation of Chechen returnees in Grozny ("Fading hope for onetime refugees in capital of Chechnya (AFP)") [#15680],  [ID 16715]

Document(s): Open document