The sweet shame of prosperity

By Usam Baysayev, special to Prague Watchdog

Oslo, Norway

On his blog an old acquaintance of mine has been wondering whether his life has improved after fifteen years of war. His answer is predictable: no, it hasn't. Only a completely cynical person, one who lives in an ivory tower and doesn’t care about what other people think, could say anything other. After all, there are very few people who can openly admit that the war is the reason for their wealth and celebrity. For it could well be a cause for shame to suppose that one’s biography is woven not from one’s own merits but from the misfortunes of others.

I am not ashamed. When the war first started, I was just thirty. Thirty plus two days and several hours, to be precise. I had been out of work for a year and a ...

Chechnya. Forget it.

By Andrei Babitsky, special to Prague Watchdog

Prague, Czech Republic

In this text I want to combine two lines of thought, as to me they seem interrelated. The first is a couple of comments on  Sergei Markedonov’s article ‘15 years of war...’, while the second is an assessment of the outcome of the war as it looks today. Regarding the article, the theses in it which I find unacceptable are muted and not obvious. But in general the message can be grasped without much difficulty. As I understand it, the article says that Russia had a right to send troops into Chechnya, which it considered to be part of itself, because the republic had no "single centre of decision-making and executive power." To me this looks like an artificial excuse. Since when has a country's internal confusion been considered grounds for starting ...