Please find below a constantly updated list of informational events related to the North Caucasus and Chechnya for the current calendar year. Events from previous years are in a separate archive of events. Events organized by CAN, in cooperation with our partners, are identified as "A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event". Other events are organized by different institutions and advertised below as a service to interested audiences. We list events from all over the world as long as they are actually relevant to our target area; if you want to advertise an event here, please contact us at can@chechnyaadvocacy.org (we reserve the right to determine whether an event is relevant and appropriate). If you would like to receive emails about upcoming events, you may subscribe to our email service in the box on the right.

“Image of War in Chechnya” with Zarema Mukusheva

113 Barco Law Building
University of Pittsburgh
3900 Forbes Avenue
Oakland
6pm

Zarema Mukusheva, an H.J. Heinz Company Foundation fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, will deliver a lecture titled “Image of War in Chechnya”. Until taking up her fellowship, Zarema Mukusheva worked with the human rights organization "Memorial" in her native Chechnya as a human rights defender and film maker. She is a 2005 laureate of the Reebok Human Rights Award and received the Boundary-breaking Best Short Film Award at the 2008 Sydney Underground Film Festival for her documentary "Missing Lives". Zarema Mukusheva holds a degree in history from Chechen State University.

The event is part of the Global Issues Lecture Series at the University of Pittsburgh. For more information, contact Veronica Dristas at 412-624-2918 or dristas@pitt.edu.

Holiday Concert held by the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations and the Russian Consulate in New York

Russian Consulate
9 East 91 Street
New York
6:30pm

The program includes classical music performances (Chopin, Schumann, Bartok, Rakhmaninoff etc.) by young musicians as well as Chechen folk dances performed by children from the Makhmud Esambaev Art School and has been arranged in cooperation with the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation.

To RSVP, please call the consulate at (212) 348 1717 or Ms. Tamara Lagutin at (805) 252 6845. (Attention: the consulate is closed for Russian national holidays until January 8.)

Holiday Concert at the Embassy of the Russian Federation

With Participation of a Chechen children's dance group from the Makhmud Esambaev Art School

Embassy of the Russian Federation
3875 Tunlaw Rd., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
(entrance through the Tunlaw Rd. gates)
7pm

The Embassy of the Russian Federation in the United States of America cordially invites you to an exclusive performance by young Russian prodigies from Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation and Makhmud Esambaev Art School on Friday, January 9, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. at the Embassy’s Concert Hall. The program “Children of the World against Terrorism” includes classical music masterpieces, traditional and folk dances.

To secure your participation, please RSVP:
fax (202) 298-5751 or e-mail rusembconcert@gmail.com.
http://www.rccusa.org/

Book Talk: Asne Seierstad’s “The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War”

A Chechnya Advocacy Network/Harriman Institute Event

Room 1219
International Affairs Building
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street
New York
6:30pm

Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad has reported on the conflict in Chechnya from its very beginning. She traveled in disguise and at great risk to herself to the region while working as a foreign correspondent in Moscow during the early days of the war in 1995. For The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War (Basic Books 2008), Seierstad decided to return to Chechnya and spent two years living undercover there to try to understand what life was like under the startlingly brutal conditions in this beleaguered region, a society traumatized by constant violence and disorder. Seierstad focuses particular attention on the orphans and children who suffer from this forgotten war. From 1994 to the present, twenty-five thousand children in Chechnya have lost one or both parents.

These orphans of Chechnya have grown up surrounded by war and accustomed to violence. Some are homeless. Some have already become young criminals. Some may grow up to join the resistance and contribute to the violence that continues to grip their society. The “Angel” of the title is a Chechen woman who started taking in homeless and abandoned children to create a makeshift orphanage. Seierstad asks the most vital question: What will happen when these children try to shape the future of Chechnya? It is the first book that takes a close, inside look at Chechen society after the wars. The book documents a society that is shattered, ailing and scared. Unlike most books on Chechnya, the author, who spent a lot of time in Chechnya undercover as a Chechen woman, extensively covers the lives of Chechen women. The Angel of Grozny also features some of the most perceptive and revealing coverage of the new regime of Ramzan Kadyrov.

In The Angel of Grozny, Seierstad has written both a valuable personal account and an informative history. She lived amid the violence, and even came under fire herself. But she also interviewed and had first-hand encounters, with both the children of Chechnya and the decision-makers in Grozny, the capital city. This combination has produced a powerful and important example of literary reporting at its best. Read recent reviews by the International Herald Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor.

Asne Seierstad is an award-winning journalist who has reported from such war-torn regions as Chechnya, China, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. She is the author of A Hundred and One Days as well as The Bookseller of Kabul, an international bestseller that has been translated into 38 languages.

Launch Party for I live here, by Mia Kirshner, J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge & Michael Simons

Idlewild Books
12 W.19th St. (near 5th Ave.)
New York, NY 10011
7pm
RSVP to events@idlewildbooks.com

Sonny Mehta and Idlewild Books invite you to celebrate the launch of I live here, an intimate journey to humanitarian crises in four corners of the world: war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, economic dislocation in Mexico, and AIDS in Malawi. This unique book is a visually stunning narrative — told through journals, stories, images, and graphic novellas — in which the lives of refugees and displaced people become at once personal and global. The voices featured are those of displaced women and children, in their own words or in stories told in text and images by noted writers and artists.

Canadian actress Mia Kirshner's journals guide us through a unique paper documentary brought vividly to life in collaboration with J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge, and Michael Simons, with featured works by Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner, Chris Abani, Karen Connelly, Kamel Khelif, and many others.

From the book's Journeys - Ingushetia:
The border of the Russian republic of Ingushetia is not even fifty miles from Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya. Today, some 15,000 Chechen refugees live in Ingushetia. Mia Kirshner and Joe Sacco traveled here together, returning with first-person accounts, video, photographs, and other materials gathered in Nazran and Moscow. The chapter includes journals by Mia Kirshner, the story of a young refugee as told by J.B. MacKinnon, the story of a young piano virtuoso as told by Ann-Marie Macdonald, and a graphic novella of Chechen refugees by Joe Sacco.

Reception sponsored by Moet.

June 13, 2008:

Conference: Islam in the post-Soviet Caucasus - Legal, Social and Political Aspects

Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (http://www.soas.ac.uk/cccac/)

B102, Brunei Gallery
SOAS
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London
9am- 6pm

A one-day conference about (mostly) contemporary developments concerning the role of Islam in politics, society, culture and armed conflict across the Russian North Caucasus, with local, Russian and international experts presenting field and archive-based research.

Speakers/Chairs:
Anna Zelkina (SOAS, Centre for Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus)
Domitilla Sagramoso (Kings College, London University)
Moshe Gammer (Professor, Department of the Middle East History, Tel-Aviv University)
Aude Merlin (Universite Libre de Bruxelles)
Ahmet Yarlykapov (Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow)
Naima Neflyasheva (Caucasian Studies Centre, Institute of African Studies, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow)
Michail Roschin (Institute for Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow)
Amir Navruzov (Institute of History Archeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Science, Daghestan)
Shamil Shikhaliev (Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Science, Mahachkala)
Vladimir Bobrovnikov (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow)
Sylvia Serrano (Centre d’Etudes du Monde Russe et Sovietique - EHESS/CNRS, Paris)
Musa Basnoukaev (Department of Economics, The Chechen State University, Groznyi)
Galina Khizrieva (Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow)
Ahmet Sultygov (PhD Candidate, Russian Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow)

Download a detailed schedule, including titles of presentations, here. To register, please email Anna Zelkina.

Between war and peace, tradition and modernity: women in Chechnya and their role in rebuilding, development and social change
A presentation by Gistam Sakaeva

Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (ICCNC)
1433 Madison Street
Oakland
7 pm

Gistam Sakaeva is a board member and project officer of the Chechnya-based women's organization Doveriye. Under her leadership, Doveriye has been running bold and far-reaching programs for women in Chechnya, in areas like income-generation, psychological help for
victims of rape during war and campaigns against gender-based violence. Ms. Sakaeva is a consummate expert on gender issues in Chechnya and an outspoken leader for change. Her work has been recognized by the International Rescue Committee's Women's Commission,
which has chosen Gistam as a winner of its 2008 Voices of Courage Award. Before working with Doveriye, Ms. Sakaeva had a decade-long career with international humanitarian aid organizations like Care, Doctors Without Borders and Handicap international in the North
Caucasus. In 2007, she spent a two-month fellowship at the International Center for Tolerance Education in New York, during which time she studied disability and women's programs in the US. She returned to New York in March 2008 to attend the annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women as an NGO delegate, the first ever from Chechnya. During both visits she gave presentations about her work at universities across the US, including Cornell University, Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a degree in English language and literature from Chechen State University. Ms. Sakaeva is currently visiting the US to receive the 2008 Voices of Courage Award

The event is open to the public and sponsored by the Chechnya Advocacy Network, American Friends Service Committee, ICCNC and Interfaith Women for Peace.

The Russia Project and the International Women’s Program cordially invite you to a discussion on

Women’s Rights and Social Change in Chechnya

With guest speaker Gistam Sakaeva (Doveriye - Reliance) and an introduction by Rachel Denber (Human Rights Watch)

Open Society Institute
400 W. 59th Street (between 9th & 10th Avenues)
New York, New York
3rd Floor
2pm – 3pm

Gistam Sakaeva is a board member and project officer of the Chechnya-based women’s organization Reliance. Under her leadership, Reliance has been running bold and far-reaching programs for women in Chechnya, in areas like income-generation, psychological help for victims of rape during war and campaigns against gender-based violence. Her work has been recognized by the International Rescue Committee’s Women’s Commission, which selected Sakaeva to receive its 2008 Voices of Courage Award. Before working with Reliance, Sakaeva had a decade-long career with international humanitarian aid organizations in the North Caucasus including Care, Doctors Without Borders and Handicap International.

Rachel Denber is Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. Prior to her current post, Denber was the head of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office from 1992–1997. She has written about and traveled widely throughout Russia, the southern Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Baltic states.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Please send your RSVP to events@sorosny.org with the event title in the subject line, and include your full name and affiliation.

Note: seating may be limited.

“Berkat and Marsho” – Happiness and Freedom

A documentary about the formative years and experiences of Chechen children growing up in refugee camps and post-war Chechnya, followed by a discussion with Jana Hradilkova, co-founder and program director of the Czech civic association “Berkat” working with the Chechen children.

A Chechnya Advocacy Network/Harriman Institute Event

Room 1219
International Affairs Building
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street
New York
12pm

About Marsho and Berkat (David Ealek / Czech Republic / 2007 / 52 min)
The children's dance group Marsho came into being in the Sputnik refugee camp on the Chechen-Ingush border. Over 9,000 Chechen refugees have been living here for more than five years. Following the massacre of civilians in Chechnya, an organisation called Berkat was set up in the Czech Republic with the aim of helping victims, in particular women. In 2003 Berkat set up a tour by the Marsho children’s dance group in the Czech Republic. The aim was both to allow the children to experience something other than the horrors of war, and to draw the attention of Czechs to the desperate situation in a country with a media blackout. In 2006 Berkat decided to invite the children again. In the meantime the Sputnik camp had been broken up and the children had been scattered around Chechnya. Many things had changed in their lives. They themselves had also changed and their reception in the Czech Republic was different too. They were no longer pitiful war children grateful for cuddly toys. Suddenly they had become demanding young people with an uncertain future seen by some as young terrorists.

Berkat has worked with Marsho since 2001. The film was produced from footage shot over three years and includes an introduction to the conflict in Chechnya. It screened at the Czech film festival “One World”, where it was voted an audience favorite. In addition to interviews with journalist and Berkat founder Petra Prochazkova and Berkat program director Jana Hradilkova, there are interviews with young Chechens with whom Berkat has been working since they were children. The film is fundamentally about the importance of building lasting relationships between an isolated Chechnya and the open societies of the outside world.

A documentary about the formative years and experiences of Chechen children growing up in refugee camps and post-war Chechnya, followed by a discussion with Jana Hradilkova, co-founder and program director of the Czech civic association “Berkat” working with the Chechen children.

An American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus (ACPC) at Freedom House event

Goethe Institute
812 Seventh Street, NW
Washington, DC
6-8 pm

About Marsho and Berkat (David Ealek / Czech Republic / 2007 / 52 min)
The children's dance group Marsho came into being in the Sputnik refugee camp on the Chechen-Ingush border. Over 9,000 Chechen refugees have been living here for more than five years. Following the massacre of civilians in Chechnya, an organisation called Berkat was set up in the Czech Republic with the aim of helping victims, in particular women. In 2003 Berkat set up a tour by the Marsho children’s dance group in the Czech Republic. The aim was both to allow the children to experience something other than the horrors of war, and to draw the attention of Czechs to the desperate situation in a country with a media blackout. In 2006 Berkat decided to invite the children again. In the meantime the Sputnik camp had been broken up and the children had been scattered around Chechnya. Many things had changed in their lives. They themselves had also changed and their reception in the Czech Republic was different too. They were no longer pitiful war children grateful for cuddly toys. Suddenly they had become demanding young people with an uncertain future seen by some as young terrorists.

Berkat has worked with Marsho since 2001. The film was produced from footage shot over three years and includes an introduction to the conflict in Chechnya. It screened at the Czech film festival “One World”, where it was voted an audience favorite. In addition to interviews with journalist and Berkat founder Petra Prochazkova and Berkat program director Jana Hradilkova, there are interviews with young Chechens with whom Berkat has been working since they were children. The film is fundamentally about the importance of building lasting relationships between an isolated Chechnya and the open societies of the outside world.

Please send your RSVPs to intern-acpc@freedomhouse.org.

Russia and the Circassians: An Internal Problem or an International Matter?

Carr Center for Human Rights Policy/ Harvard University
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies/ Harvard University
Jamestown Foundation
Circassian Cultural Institute

John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK St., Taubman building, Nye A,
Cambridge, MA 02138

Full-day seminar on the history and contemporary politics of the Circassian ethnic group in Russia and the diaspora, with experts from Russia, the US, Canada, Europe and Turkey. Details can be downloaded here.

Europe’s Darkest Corner: Photographs from Chechnya 1994-2007
Photo exhibition and conference

Co-sponsored by ECRE, FIDH, Pax Christi Flanders, Human Rights Watch, Norwegian Refugee Council, Etudes Sans Frontieres, IDMC, EPP-ED and MEPs Bart Staes, Helene Flautre and Patrick Gaubert

Photographs by Heidi Bradner - Thomas Dworzak - Mikhail Galustov- Stanley Greene - James Hill - Musa Sadulayev

Reception:
ASP, Rez de Chaussee
Couloir, European Parliament
April 7, 2008, 18:45pm

The photo exhibition will be on view from 7 to 11 April 2008 in the same location.

This reception will be followed the next day by a conference on: Where is Chechnya heading and what role can the EU play?

Eastman 300
Rue Belliard 135
1047 Brussels
April 8, 2008
9.30-12.00

9h30: Welcome - Bart Staes (MEP, Greens)

9h45: Introduction: Overview of positions of the European Parliament on
Chechnya - Helene Flautre (MEP, Greens, chairwoman of the sub-Committee on Human Rights)

10h00: Current human rights situation in Chechnya and North Caucasus
Natalya Estemirova (Memorial)

10h30: Racial discrimination against Chechens in Russia
Svetlana Gannushkina (Civic Assistance Committee)

11h00: Break

11h10: Screening of Human Rights Watch Film on European Court of Human Rights

11h20: Fight against impunity: implementing ECHR rulings
Tanya Lokshina (Human Rights Watch) and Arbi Chitayev, Chechen ECHR applicant

11h50: Conclusions

Between war and peace, tradition and modernity: women in Chechnya and their role in rebuilding, development and social change
A presentation by Gistam Sakaeva

A Chechnya Advocacy Network/Harriman Institute Event

Room 1219
International Affairs Building
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street
New York
4:15pm

Gistam Sakaeva is a board member and project officer of the Chechnya-based women’s organization Doveriye. Under her leadership, Doveriye has been running bold and far-reaching programs for women in Chechnya, in areas like income-generation, psychological help for victims of rape during war and campaigns against gender-based violence. Ms. Sakaeva is a consummate expert on gender issues in Chechnya and an outspoken leader for change. Her work has been recognized by the International Rescue Committee’s Women’s Commission, which has chosen Gistam as a winner of its 2008 Voices of Courage Award. Before working with Doveriye, Ms. Sakaeva had a decade-long career with international humanitarian aid organizations like Care, Doctors Without Borders and Handicap international in the North Caucasus. She holds a degree in English language and literature from Chechen State University. Ms. Sakaeva is visiting New York to attend the 2008 session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women as an NGO delegate.

The event is open to the public.

Columbia University's Russian International Association presents: "Twelve", a new film by Nikita Mikhalkov

Look up events organized by CAN or others since mid-2004 here:
Events in 2007
Events in 2006
Events in 2005
Events in 2004