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Alu Alkhanov Doesn't Want to Be Chechen President
// He'd rather change the republic's name
President of the Chechen Republic Alu Alkhanov wants to rename the republic and take the word “Chechen” out of use because, he says, “it is used negatively and has no legal base.” Alkhanov suggests calling it the Nokhchiin Republic at the Russian-Arab Business Council meeting in St. Petersburg. “Chechens and other people living in the republic never use that ugly word,” Alkhanov said. “Based on the name of the people, we are Nokhchi. The republic should have another name.”
Alkhanov's press secretary Said-Magomed Isaraev commented that “We are only talking about the possibility of making such a decision. We are not sure, of course, that our initiative will be supported… A year ago, the president gathered scholars and suggested that they think of a new name for the republic… The words Chechnya' and Chechens have become synonyms for dangerous place' and dangerous people.'” Most likely, the proposal was made for the sake of public resonance. The president lags far behind his subordinate Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov in popularity.
Speaker of the lower house of parliament Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov said that the proposal's future was in the hands of the Chechen prime minister. “I don't think that the question is so pressing that it has to be settled immediately,” Abdurakhmanov commented for Kommersant.
Scholars say that there is nothing offensive in the current name. President of the Chechen Academy of Sciences Shakhruddi Gapurov thought that the name change is unnecessary. The words “Chechnya” and “Chechen” have a local origin, he explained. “In the 16th century,” he said, “the first Russians appeared in our area and they stayed in the largest valley settlement, Chechen-Aul. When they returned to Russia, they called our area by the name of the aul of Chechen and its inhabitants Chechens.”
Musa Muradov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 05, 2006
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