30 May 2005

A trip to Ingushetia by Martin Kaul

Martin Kaul in "Die Zeit" on Ingushetia (In German)

This report from Ingushetia is good written and haunting, allthough the headline "Why the Russians will loose the Caucasus" is not really answered and filled with some vague speculations.
I liked the sharp observations on the state of agony of officials and simple citizens of the Northern Caucasus and the ability of the author to balance facts with concernment. The Caucasus, Ingushetia, the kindness of its people and the harshness and absurdity of its daily life seems to make the stranger very fast involved and even sympathizing. I personally hope Martin Kaul will soon come back here again and write more. Those unsolved problems can not get enough publicity. A small mistake: Ingushetia is to the west of Chechnya.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Why the Russians will loose the Caucasus" is not really answered and filled with some vague speculations.

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If one reads the article I found that this is very well answered.

Anonymous said...

the article originally was supposed to be published with the headline "With my backpack to the Caucasus", then the newspaper changed it to "Why the Russians gonna loose the Caucasus" and now, after my intervention it is available under "Is Russia loosing the Caucasus?".
As you see, especially headlines are often the main victim in the game between authors and papers, so one should not focus on them too much. Sincerely, the author

Hans said...

Dear Mr. Kaul,
I read the article now the third time.
I am also convinced, that the Russians can not win the Caucasus the way they acted there the last 200 years. But quite some people in the North Caucasus even want to belong to the Russian Federation. Others will be independent over the next years. I think the article is one of the best I read in the last month. From other Journalists I like very much the work of Andrea Strunk