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Soccer returns to Chechnya's capital

Chechen soccer fans wave flags showing Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's picture during the region's first soccer league match in 14 years on Friday in Grozny. PHOTO: AFP

Professional soccer has returned to Chechnya's capital for the first time in 14 years, the latest sign that Kremlin efforts to end years of violence in the Russian region are taking root.

Thousands of dignitaries and carefully screened fans attended the newly renovated, 10,200-seat stadium on Friday to watch local favorites Terek face off against Krylya Sovyetov in the opening match of this year's Russian Premier League season.

The match was played at the same site where Akhmad Kadyrov -- Chechnya's first Moscow-backed president and the father of President, Ramzan Kadyrov -- was killed in a May 2004 bomb blast, an assassination that shook the Kremlin's effort to pacify the region.

Security was exceptionally tight across Grozny in the hours and days leading up to the match, and regional sporting officials pleaded with Chechens to behave themselves during the game.

Police were out in force on the grounds of the stadium; match attendees were prohibited from bringing cigarettes, lighters or even ball point pens. Russian media said cellphone coverage would be blocked during the match. Tickets to the match were free.

Ramzan Kadyrov told reporters before the match that he expected a victory from Terek.

"We absolutely should be first. It's better to be dead than to be second," a smiling Kadyrov said in televised comments.

But Terek lost 3-0.

Under Ramzan Kadyrov, a semblance of normalcy has been returning to Chechnya -- part of the Kremlin strategy to crush continued rebel resistance and co-opt former fighters in the predominantly Muslim region.

Large-scale battles in the region ended years ago, but rebels stage regular guerrilla raids against federal forces and local allied paramilitaries.

Grozny continues to rebuild. Newly painted apartment houses, landscaped pedestrian walkways and a new airport are gradually replacing the rows of blasted-out buildings that have lined the city's streets for years.

Still, Kadyrov is tainted by widespread accusations of abuse by his paramilitary forces. His frequent public statements of fealty to Russian President Vladimir Putin have raised questions about how he will govern when Putin hands over Russia's presidency to Dmitry Medvedev in May.

Officials spent millions to renovate the stadium and install a modern field with artificial turf. Terek's permanent home will ultimately be a new facility built on the site of the stadium where the team played until 1994, when it was disbanded amid the beginnings of the first Chechen war.

Before Friday's match, many Chechens said the game was a sign that life was returning to normal. Others, however, lamented that regular work is still hard to come by, and many of the improvements were superficial.

"Like before, I'm living in someone else's apartment and paying for it with the crumbs I sometimes earn," said Umar Saitov, a 56-year-old day laborer warming himself over a fire and hoping to find work.

In one of the still-half-destroyed apartments, Zalina Malikova, 38, said she has more important things than soccer to worry about: her three young children are constantly hungry and her husband was arrested on trumped-up charges.

"There's only one thing in my head now -- how to feed my children," she said.
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