CHECHNYA

also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia republic in southwestern Russia, situated on the northern flank of the Greater Caucasus range. Chechnya is bordered by Russia proper on the north, Dagestan republic on the east and southeast, Georgia on the southwest, and Ingushetia republic on the west. Chechnya falls into three physical regions from south to north. In the south is the Greater Caucasus, the crest line of which forms the republic's southern boundary. The highest peak is Mount Tebulosmta (14,741 feet [4,493 metres]), and the area's chief river is the Argun, a tributary of the Sunzha. The second region is the foreland, consisting of the broad valleys of the Terek and Sunzha rivers, which cross the republic from the west to the east, where they unite. Third, in the north, are the level, rolling plains of the Nogay Steppe. The great variety of relief is reflected in the soil and vegetation cover. The Nogay Steppe is largely semidesert, with sagebrush vegetation and wide areas of sand dunes. This gives way toward the south and southwest, near the Terek River, to feather-grass steppe on black earth and chestnut soils. Steppe also occupies the Terek and Sunzha valleys. Up to 6,500 feet (2,000 metres), the mountain slopes are densely covered by forests of beech, hornbeam, and oak, above which are coniferous forests, then alpine meadows, and finally bare rock, snow, and ice. The climate varies but is, in general, continental. Chechnya's main ethnic group is the Chechen, with minorities of Russians and Ingush. The Chechen and Ingush are both Muslim and are two of the many Caucasian mountain peoples whose language belongs to the Nakh group. Fiercely independent, the Chechen and other Caucasian tribes mounted a prolonged resistance to Russian conquest from the 1830s through the '50s under the Muslim leader Shamil. They remained successful while the Russians were occupied with the Crimean War, but the Russians used larger forces in their later campaigns, and when Shamil was captured in 1859, many of his followers migrated to Armenia. The Terek River remained a defensive frontier until the 1860s. The constant skirmishes of Chechen and Russians along the Terek form the background to Leo Tolstoy's novel The Cossacks. The Chechen autonomous oblast (province) was created by the Bolsheviks in November 1920. In 1934 it was merged with the Ingush autonomous oblast to form a joint, Chechen-Ingush autonomous region, which two years later was designated a republic. When the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the Chechen and Ingush of collaboration with the Germans during World War II, they were exiled to Central Asia, and the republic of Checheno-Ingushetia was dissolved. The exiles were allowed to return to their homeland, and the republic was reestablished under the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957. Secessionist sentiments emerged in Checheno-Ingushetia in 1991 as the Soviet Union's decline accelerated, and in August 1991 Dzhozkhar Dudayev, a Chechen politican and former Soviet air force general, carried out a coup against the local communist government. Dudayev was elected Chechen president in October, and in November he unilaterally declared Chechnya's independence from the Russian Federation (subsequently Russia). In 1992 Checheno-Ingushetia divided into two separate republics: Chechnya and Ingushetia. Dudayev's aggressively nationalistic, anti-Russian policies undermined Chechnya's economy, and in 1993 he dissolved the Chechen parliament. During 1994 armed Chechen opposition groups with Russian military backing tried repeatedly to depose Dudayev by force, but without success. On December 11, 1994, Russian troops invaded Chechnya but were repelled in their assault on the capital city of Grozny, which was partly destroyed in the fighting that followed. Augmented Russian forces totaling perhaps 40,000 troops managed to take Grozny in March 1995, but at the cost of heavy civilian casualties, and Chechen guerrilla resistance continued in other areas of the republic. Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in 1997 following a peace treaty but returned in late 1999. Heavy fighting followed. The majority of Chechnya's population are urban dwellers, most of whom live in Grozny. The backbone of the economy is petroleum, and drilling is mainly in the Sunzha River valley between Grozny and Gudermes. Petroleum refining is concentrated in Grozny, one of the largest such centres in Russia, while pipelines run to the Caspian Sea (east) at Makhachkala and to the Black Sea (west) at Tuapse. Natural gas is also found in the area. Machinery for the petroleum and chemicals industries is manufactured in Grozny. Manufactures include furniture, parquet flooring, and musical instruments, and there is some food processing. Agriculture is largely concentrated in the Terek and Sunzha valleys. Transportation is mainly by rail, following the Terek and Sunzha valleys and linking with Astrakhan and Baku on the Caspian Sea and with Tuapse and Rostov on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Motor roads join Grozny to other centres within and outside the republic. Area including Ingushetia, 7,400 square miles (19,300 square km). Pop. (1993 est.) including Ingushetia, 1,306,400.