With Russia's presidential poll around the corner, many Chechen war refugees face the newest round of a familiar cycle -- pressure to leave tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia and return to their war-ravaged republic.
The camps, where people took shelter from Russian bombs more than four years ago at the start of the Russo-Chechen war, are an embarrassment to the Kremlin -- a constant reminder that its declarations that Chechnya has "normalized" ring hollow.
Many refugees refuse to come back to the ruined republic, where 477 people were kidnapped last year, 322 of whom were later found dead or still missing, according to the Memorial human rights organization, which monitors less than a third of the republic's territory.
The displaced attract humanitarian organizations and steady criticism of Moscow's policies in the region in the international arena.
And so before major political events -- last year's March constitutional referendum in Chechnya, its October presidential election, and the national parliamentary vote in December -- authorities turn up the the pressure for the refugees to return home.
The March 14 presidential election -- widely seen in Russia as a re-coronation of Vladimir Putin who as prime minister launched the Chechen war in October, 1999 and won his first term in March 2000 on the back of popular support for it -- is no exception.
What's different is the technique by which authorities get the people to leave.
Unlike the closure of the Aki Yurt camp in December, 2002, when police forced refugees to leave their tents, currently the people are being enticed to leave with promises of receiving compensation for their lost homes and assurances of temporary accommodations in Chechnya.
Sometimes the pressure is a bit less subtle -- as when gas was cut to settlements housing more than 2,000 people in late February, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Supplies were restored after UNHCR protests.
Ingushetia currently houses more than 65,000 displaced people, 5,678 of them in the three largest tent camps of Bart, Sputnik and Satsita, according to UN estimates. Russian authorities put these figures at 50,000 and 5,000, respectively.
The Bart camp is the smallest, housing 600 to 800 people at the beginning of February and the place where authorities have concentrated much of their efforts during the past month.
Today the camp is nearly deserted, with a few dozen tents remaining.
"They always try to get the number of people under a thousand in the camp," said an official with an international aid agency, who requested anonymity. "One thousand seems to be the magic number -- as soon as the number goes below, authorities argue that it's not cost effective to keep the camp open."
"Bart will be closed before the election and then they'll start on Sputnik," which currently has just over a thousand refugees, the official said.
Marika, a 41-year-old mother of three, is one of the people who recently left the camp and today is living in a temporary housing unit in Chechnya's capital Grozny.
"They told us that we would get compensation for our home if we left," she said, nervously playing with her headscarf. "As soon as I get my money, I'm going to leave."
"Of course it's better here than in the tents -- there is a roof over your head. But I don't want to live here. Truthfully, I am sorry I came. It's not safe here. I have a 20-year-old boy. They are the ones most likely to get taken away. I am afraid every time he goes outside."
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