Chrystal Callahan , is a Toronto-born American Canadian visual artist, photographer, journalist and fashion model.
Chrystal Callahan , is a Toronto-born American Canadian visual artist, photographer, journalist and fashion model.
In 2015, Callahan released the photo series, "The Dirty War - Selfies of Terrorism, Virtue and Covert Sexuality" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine which appeared in ELLE Magazine. [1] Callahan works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of attires and props. She shoots her photos alone in her studio, embracing various roles as the subject, director, hair & make-up artist, stylist, model and photographer.
Callahan began hosting Highlights of the Week with Chrystal Callahan in June, 2009. It was a subtitled English-language television show in Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Chechnya.
In 2008, Callahan wrote, produced and directed Greco Roman Grozny, a film about three teens attempting to escape war torn Chechnya through competitive Greco Roman wrestling. [2]
In July 2010, Callahan launched a new program called "Chechnya Through The Eyes of Chrystal Callahan". It is focused on travel / tourist destinations in the Chechen Republic, Islam and Chechen Culture.
Callahan has been dubbed the "Maverick Model". She embarked on a singing career under the stage name of KRISTALL and became a popstar in the North Caucasus. She performed songs in the Russian and Chechen language. [3]
Callahan has had some criticism for working in Chechnya. Critics see her as a supporter of pro-Russian Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov and accuse her of being a propaganda tool for the Chechen government. Callahan has been compared to Walter Duranty, the British journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on the Soviet Union. [3] [4] CNN featured Callahan in the summer of 2010 and credited her as being a symbol of stability and peace after years of conflict in the unstable region. [3] [1] [5] [4] [6] [7]
Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, close to the Caspian Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia-Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.
Grozny is the capital city of Chechnya, Russia.
The First Chechen War, also referred to as the First Russo-Chechen War, was a struggle for independence waged by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the Russian Federation from December 1994 to August 1996. This conflict was preceded by the battle of Grozny in November 1994, during which Russia covertly sought to overthrow the new Chechen government. Following the intense Battle of Grozny in 1994–1995, which concluded as a pyrrhic victory for the Russian federal forces, their subsequent efforts to establish control over the remaining lowlands and mountainous regions of Chechnya were met with fierce resistance from Chechen guerrillas who often conducted surprise raids.
The Second Chechen War took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009.
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is a Russian politician and current Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist-appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.
Hamzat (Ruslan) Gelayev (Russian: Хамзат Гелаев; Chechen: ГелагIеран Ӏабдулхьамидан воI Руслан, romanized: Gelaevhervan Abdul-Hamidan vol Ruslan was a prominent commander in the Chechen resistance movement against Russia, in which he played a significant, yet controversial, military and political role in the 1990s and early 2000s. Gelayev was commonly viewed as an abrek and a well-respected, ruthless fighter. His operations spread well beyond the borders of Chechnya and even outside the Russian Federation and into Georgia. He was killed while leading a raid into the Russian Republic of Dagestan in 2004.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, known simply as Ichkeria, and also known as Chechnya, was a de facto state that controlled most of the former Checheno-Ingush ASSR.
Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev (Yandiev) was an Ingush insurgent fighter, who disappeared in February 2000 after being filmed in the company of a Russian Army general who ordered him to be taken away and shot. To this date, his body has not been found.
The 1999 war in Dagestan, also known as the Dagestan incursions, was an armed conflict that began when the Chechen-based Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB), an Islamist group led by Shamil Basayev, Ibn al-Khattab, Ramzan Akhmadov and Arbi Barayev, invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan on 7 August 1999, in support of the Shura of Dagestan separatist rebels. The war ended with a major victory for the Russian Federation and Republic of Dagestan and the retreat of the IIPB. The invasion of Dagestan served as the main casus belli alongside the series of apartment bombings in September 1999 for the Second Chechen War.
The 1999–2000 battle of Grozny was the siege and assault of the Chechen capital Grozny by Russian forces, lasting from late 1999 to early 2000. This siege and assault of the Chechen capital resulted in the widespread devastation of Grozny. In 2003, the United Nations designated Grozny as the most destroyed city on Earth due to the extensive damage it suffered. The battle had a devastating impact on the civilian population. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed during the siege, making it the bloodiest episode of the Second Chechen War.
In Chechnya, mass graves containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.
In June 2000, the North Caucasian Chechen separatist-led Chechen insurgents added suicide bombing to their tactics in their struggle against Russia. Since then, there have been dozens of suicide attacks within and outside the republic of Chechnya, resulting in thousands of casualties among Russian security personnel and civilians. The profiles of the suicide bombers have varied, as have the circumstances surrounding the bombings.
Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya is a book by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad published in 2007, which gives an account of everyday life in the war-torn Russian Republic of Chechnya. The book was also printed under the title Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War.
Natalya Khusainovna Estemirova was a Russian human rights activist and board member of the Russian human rights organization Memorial. Estemirova was abducted by unknown persons on 15 July 2009 around 8:30 a.m. from her home in Grozny, Chechnya, as she was working on "extremely sensitive" cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. Two witnesses reported they saw Estemirova being pushed into a car shouting that she was being abducted. Her remains were found with bullet wounds in the head and chest area at 4:30 p.m. in woodland 100 metres (330 ft) away from the federal road "Kavkaz" near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia.
Elena Valeryevna Milashina is a Russian investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta. She has received multiple awards for her work.
Polina Zherebtsova's Journal: Chechnya 1999-2002 is the edited diary kept by Polina Zherebtsova while she was living in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic. It was published in September 2011 in Russia. Zherebtsova wrote the diary when she was 14–17 years old, from the beginning of The Second Chechen War until December 2002. It tells the story of ethnic relations between Russian and Chechen peoples and of the lives of civilians during the war. This book is non-fiction, but real names were changed by the author in the book.
Polina Zherebtsova is a Chechen Russian documentarian, poet and author of the diaries Ant in a Glass Jar, covering her childhood, adolescence and youth that witnessed three Chechen wars.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Grozny, Chechen Republic, Russia.
Ant in a Glass Jar: Chechen Diaries 1994–2004 (Russian: "Муравей в стеклянной банке. Чеченские дневники 1994–2004" is a 2014 documentary book that is an author's diary about the years spent in Chechnya from 1994 until 2004. It was written by Polina Zherebtsova, while she was 9–19 years old.