ARTICLES
Isita Azieva from Yariksu-Aukh is married to Ismail Gayrbekov (30). He has been sentenced to 14 years in a prison camp near Murmansk. Two years ago he was convicted of assisting terrorists and murder. The latter charge is not true, says Isita. The former is true, but he was forced to do it.
'In 2010 two policemen were killed in our village. A counter-terrorist regime (KTO) was imposed and every day the police raided our house, day and night. Nobody said how or why. No one had to, during the KTO regime.
'My husband and a friend were connected with the so-called boyeviks, the rebels in the woods.* They couldn't really do anything about it. The villages here are small, and they know everything about you. The boyeviks threatened them that if they didn't help, something would happen to us. They helped them twice. Twice they drove them back and forth between the forest and village, and twice they brought them food. Then they went to the police, afraid of being associated with the murders. They asked the police for protection against the boyeviks. The government also promised they would get it.
'We were newly married, we had two small children. My husband worked at home in the garden and occasionally renovated houses. He hung up adverts, small pieces of paper promoting his work. That is probably how the boyeviks found him. He was able to resist them twice, but the threats became too much for him. He didn't tell me anything at the time.
‘The police wanted to use my husband and his friend to avenge the deaths of the two policemen. They immediately started threatening them. Suddenly they were suspected of 11 murders. They were held for a year in the police cell in Khazvyurt, the city nearby. One of the men who interrogated them was the dead policeman's brother. He tortured them personally.
‘For the first three days the lawyer was denied access to them. Only when they have been forced to confess was he allowed to visit. We were only allowed to see him again six months later. My husband's friend was taken to Chechnya. You can be tortured more easily there. In the first lawsuit, my Ismail pointed to the policeman and said: he beat me with sticks. The policeman denied it, even though the lawyer had taken photos of the bruises on my husband's back.
‘The police knew they hadn't killed anyone. The first prosecutor also didn't want to charge them with murder. Then a new team came. That's when they were indicted and convicted of murder. Only if you pay a lot of money to the police and prosecutor can you have a murder charge dropped.
‘In our village young men are faced with a diabolical choice. You are either threatened by the police, or you are threatened by the boyeviks. The boyeviks kill you, the police torture you and lock you up. My husband is now in prison in Murmansk. He will be 45 when he is released. His children will be grown up. What kind of life will we have? We still hope to win an appeal. If necessary, we will take the case to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
'We are ethnic Chechens. We are discriminated against in Dagestan. If we had had another, local nationality we could have bought our way out, or used our contacts in the capital to have the sentence reduced. I understand why the dead police officers’ families are angry. But everyone deserves justice. I want this story to be heard; about the conditions under which they were forced to confess; a damp cell where you can't pray; about the evidence that police officers plant in cars and houses; about the war that is raging here; about the powerlessness of our lives. But the only consequence of speaking out is causing problems for ourselves.'
* In Dagestan, a battle is raging between the government, police and army troops on the one side and 'boyeviks' on the other. These are Islamic-inspired groups who claim to want to establish an Islamic emirate in the North Caucasus.
Watch the video in which Isita Azieva explains her situation.
ABOUT THE SOCHI PROJECT
In 2014, the Olympic Games will take place in Sochi, Russia. Never before have the Olympic Games been held in a region that contrasts more strongly with the glamour of the Games than Sochi. Just 20 kilometres away is the conflict zone Abkhazia. To the east the Caucasus Mountains stretch into obscure and impoverished breakaway republics such as Cherkessia, North Ossetia and Chechnya. On the coast old Soviet sanatoria stand shoulder to shoulder with the most expensive hotels and clubs of the Russian Riviera.
Between now and 2014 the area around Sochi will change beyond recognition. The extreme makeover is already underway; refugee flats and poverty-stricken resorts are disappearing at high speed from the partly fashionable, partly impoverished seaside resort of Sochi. Thousands of labourers from across Russia and abroad live in prefab accommodation in order to have the stadiums, hotels and modern infrastructure finished on time. Helicopters fly backwards and forwards with building materials. The economic crisis is glossed over as much as possible.
Photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen plan to document the changes in the area around Sochi over the coming five years. The Sochi Project will be a dynamic mix of documentary photography, film and reportage about a world in flux; a world full of different realities within a small but extraordinary geographic area.
The Sochi Project is a unique, in-depth and as such a costly project. Dutch newspapers and magazines are unable to undertake or afford a project of this scale. We think it is important that independent, documentary journalism continues to exist. That’s why we are doing it ourselves. You can make your own contribution,
by becoming a donor of The Sochi Project.
THE SOCHI PROJECT IN NUMBERS
DONATED IN THE 4TH YEAR
4TH YEAR: APRIL 1, 2012 – MARCH 31, 2013
10,000
20,000
30,000
For the Sochi Project, we want to travel to the region around Sochi at least twice a year for a month until 2014. Each trip costs us approximately € 15,000. Of this amount, around 20% is spent on travel costs, 20% on accommodation and living expenses, 20% on material costs, 20% on an assistant/translator and 20% on general website, design and project-related costs. For more detailed information, please contact
Arnold or
Rob.
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SKETCHBOOK
ROB HORNSTRA & ARNOLD VAN BRUGGEN –
07.04.12. 10 AM
On 1 April The Sochi Project entered its fourth year. Time to take stock of the first three years. Rob has converted all the available statistics into tables and graphs.
€73,036 donated
Since the start of the project in 2009, 582 people have donated to The Sochi Project. About a quarter of those has donated every year. In total we have received almost 1,000 separate donations, which have generated €73,036 – an incredible amount. Of this amount, almost 40% is from gold donors, 45% from silver donors and 15% from bronze donors. About 30% of the silver donations goes back to the donors, in the form of annual publications, postage costs and extras. For gold donors this is around 10%.
Interestingly, the graph shows that we have passed our peak number of donors. A year ago it looked like we were set to reach 500 donors. Currently, some 300 people still support our project. The main reason for this is a 25% drop in bronze donors. These are donors who donate between €10 and €100, which only gives them access to our website. In contrast, the number of gold donors has stayed the same and the number of silver donors has increased. Moreover, more and more donors are inclined to slip us little extras. A bronze donor may suddenly give us €50 instead of €10. A silver donor might transfer €250 instead of €100. One of our best gold donors recently gave us €1,234.56.
Although the vast majority (170) of our donors is still bronze, it is our silver (117) and gold (10) donors who cover our travel and publishing expenses. During readings or workshops we give on crowdfunding that is often our advice to people considering crowdfunding: small donations are good for building momentum and creating a following, but administering them is a hellish job that costs more money than it generates. In our case this is also due to our project’s five-year nature: every quarter, we ask the people who have donated for a year to renew their support, a process that entails numerous reminders and mounds of paperwork. This is why we are increasing the bronze donation to €25.
Dreaming of 753,000 ambassadors
In March 2010 – our project had been online for a year – we started our Facebook page and Twitter feed, where we posted free stories, photos and of course requests to donate. Facebook is a blessing for our project. It fits perfectly with our idea of remaining independent and attracting our own supporters. Our ambition is to get our Facebook followers excited about our work in the hope that they will want to find out more and buy books, visit exhibitions and perhaps become a donor. Facebook statistics tell us that we can reach 753,000 people through our 2,400 'likes' – a number dreams are made of. We do, however, wonder whether our Facebook page isn’t cannibalising our own donors. Why become a donor if you can be kept informed for free?
We mainly use Facebook to tell followers that our project is going well, that we have created interesting new stories or won awards. Positive information, in other words. We don't think Facebook is the medium to bother people with endless administrative or purchasing issues. That policy seems to have a downside. Within half an hour of announcing that Sochi Singers had won a World Press Photo award, two donors cancelled their membership. A project that is already successful doesn't need more money, seemed to be the thinking.
But momentum is one of our goals: by the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, we hope to have a large, loyal base of people who act as ambassadors for our project and spread our alternative story about the far less glamorous side of the Games. So we are trying to retain our donors, who will enable us to keep the project afloat, and are working towards a number of hopefully impressive final publications.
Approximately 70% of our donors comes from the Netherlands. That percentage has changed little in recent years. After the Netherlands, the most donations come from Germany and the United Kingdom. The spread on Facebook is more international. Around a third of our followers comes from the Netherlands and a third from European countries where we have exhibited our work (Germany, Italy and England). The rest is from all over the world, with a recent fairly rapid increase from Russia (about 5% of our followers).
Current financial situation
We took a big financial risk with the release of our latest annual publication, Sochi Singers. We had to sell part of the print run as quickly as possible to be able to pay the printer. Although we were successful, in part thanks to the prizes that Sochi Singers won, there was no money left for a subsequent trip. We were able to finance our most recent visit to Dagestan with support from the Sem Presser Foundation. At the moment we are working on our second Sketchbook. Once again we don't have the money to pay the printer. Anyone hoping to get rich would do well to avoid starting an initiative like The Sochi Project. Even so, we are thrilled to be able to throw ourselves into each stage of the project, which continues to exist largely thanks to our 582 donors.
10,000
20,000
30,000
All numbers in Euro.
For the Sochi Project, we want to travel to the region around Sochi at least twice a year for a month until 2014. Each trip costs us approximately € 15,000. Of this amount, around 20% is spent on travel costs, 20% on accommodation and living expenses, 20% on material costs, 20% on an assistant/translator and 20% on general website, design and project-related costs. For more detailed information, please contact
Arnold or
Rob.
SHARE THIS PROJECT
WITH YOUR FRIENDS
The Sochi Project
In 2014, the Olympic Games will take place in Sochi, Russia. Never before have the Olympic Games been held in a region that contrasts more strongly with the glamour of the Games than Sochi. Just 20 kilometres away is the conflict zone Abkhazia. To the east the Caucasus Mountains stretch into obscure and impoverished breakaway republics such as Cherkessia, North Ossetia and Chechnya. On the coast old Soviet sanatoria stand shoulder to shoulder with the most expensive hotels and clubs of the Russian Riviera.
Between now and 2014 the area around Sochi will change beyond recognition. The extreme makeover is already underway; refugee flats and poverty-stricken resorts are disappearing at high speed from the partly fashionable, partly impoverished seaside resort of Sochi. Thousands of labourers from across Russia and abroad live in prefab accommodation in order to have the stadiums, hotels and modern infrastructure finished on time. Helicopters fly backwards and forwards with building materials. The economic crisis is glossed over as much as possible.
Photographer Rob Hornstra and writer/filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen plan to document the changes in the area around Sochi over the coming five years. The Sochi Project will be a dynamic mix of documentary photography, film and reportage about a world in flux; a world full of different realities within a small but extraordinary geographic area.
The Sochi Project is a unique, in-depth and as such a costly project. Dutch newspapers and magazines are unable to undertake or afford a project of this scale. We think it is important that independent, documentary journalism continues to exist. That’s why we are doing it ourselves. You can make your own contribution,
by becoming a donor of The Sochi Project.
