I went to Chechnya on assignment for an American news magazine that no longer exists in that form. The brief was pretty broad – I was to photograph what was happening in Chechnya six months after the destruction of its capital, Grozny.

These days, America is reeling, trying to come to terms with why two young men, the brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who had grown up in multicultural suburban Boston, would decide to commit an act of terrorism against their adopted nation.

Chechnya hit world headlines in 1994 when the brutal winter battle for the capital Grozny saw thousands die. Grozny was the prize for Chechen separatists who wanted to be free of hundreds of years of living under Russian rule, be it under the guise of the Tsars, the Soviets or modern Russia.

This militancy came as a surprise to many, but a couple of years before, Chechen militants had made their presence felt in the heart of Europe during the Bosnian war. Volunteer Chechens joined other ‘Jihadists’ to help the outgunned and overwhelmed Bosnian Muslims fight both Serbian and Croat forces in Europe’s first major conflict since WWII.

It was after the Second World War that Chechen anger and resentment really began to grow, when Stalin saw fit to use collective punishment against a nation for their supposed Nazi collaboration. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia were forced out of their homes to other, less idyllic parts of the Soviet Union – Siberia and Central Asia. Thousands were executed.

The Tsarnaev family was among those deported by Stalin and eventually allowed back under Nikita Khrushchev’s more permissive rule.

One can image the family and national stories that were fed to the children, generation by generation. And then came the Nineties, and open war with Moscow. While the brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan, in today’s world of global Jihad, it is little wonder how the children Tsarnaev grew up to be influenced by their history; they are heirs of a generation of battle-hardened and brutalised men. It is little wonder they would prove to be perfect models of universal sleeper terrorists.

Here is a tale of a nation that was formed in the perfect crucible of violence, and unfathomable courage:

Chechnya, the summer, 1995

The tiny Chechen republic to the south of the former Soviet Union is home to Russia’s worst mafiosi. They have threatened to detonate an atom bomb in Moscow. The Chechens are criminals, and Muslim fundementalists to boot. Well, that is what the Russians say. A journey through these badlands in a series of thrice cursed vehicles gave a different view, one of the brutal repression of a nation wanting to be free.

A walk through the capital Grozny makes it even more difficult to believe anything will dislodge the occupiers. Despite closely following the televised drama of the heroic Chechen resistance to the Russian assault, the degree of physical destruction wrought on Grozny is a spectacular shock when first seen in the flesh. It is a technicoloured version of Dresden after the February 1945 carpet bombing. Buildings are skeletal fragments of their former selves. Apartment blocks look like sieves. Next to the bustling market, where young widows come to sell their wedding rings to feed the children, are apartments built during the Soviet Sixties. There are many who might say that reducing the ugly buildings to rubble is an act of architectural euthanasia, but hundreds of people called it home. Still do.

Razyet Uspanova, 37, and her five children, live in the shell of their sixth-floor apartment. After shrapnel and bullets gouged the walls and ceiling, after incendiary ammunition had scorched it, Russian troops looted everything inside. The family has collected a few pieces of furniture from friends and relatives. The husband is dead and they live off the charity of those slightly less hard hit. Razyet is lethargic, depressed and slips into nostalgia often. She keeps a creased old black and white portrait of herself propped up behind the kitchen sink, perhaps to help her get through the pile of unwashed dishes filling the porcelain.

In the rubble-strewn streets, pimply Russian boy soldiers strut, shirtless and arrogant. They are dressed in an array of mismatched pieces of uniform and non-uniform. Not much of a resemblance to the disciplined Soviet soldiers who used to parade every May Day through Red Square. It is in Grozny that the Russians and Chechens are holding negotiations to find a political and military solution to the war. The opposing bodyguards occupy the street outside the nondescript house where the talks are going on. Dark haired fighters, mean eyed with lack of sleep, stand side by side with blonde Russian conscripts. The Russians wear helmets and flak vests, their armoured vehicles close by, just in case. The Chechens laugh off body armour. Their looks alone are enough to turn bullets away. Beyond the barricades, a sweating, shuffling circle of Sunni Muslims grunt and sing ancient chants. The loping shuffle and rhythmic utterances are hypnotic, the participants edging towards ecstasy. Fierce women make another circle and shriek in Arabic.

This is the Chechen cheerleading squad. It is also where mothers and sweethearts wait for a glimpse of the fighters they have not seen in months. When, at the end of a negotiating day, the Chechens stand on the back of a truck to report on progress, proud and tearful mothers call to sons standing on the back of trucks. “What have you done to your hair?” one mother asks her shaven-headed son. He smiles back, unsure how to respond, more than a little embarrassed. Other guerrillas take a minute from duty to pose stiffly for Polaroid pictures alongside their moms. Polaroids are big business in Grozny. There is one snap being circulated showing a Russian soldier holding up a bloodied youth by his hair. They claim the Russians had beaten him. True? Who can tell, but it certainly is in keeping with the belief that everyone hisses at me in explanation of the country’s problems: “Ruskie schwein!”

One of the fighters, Shamil, says it is a phrase he often heard while serving with the Soviet army in what was then East Germany. He enjoys the irony. To let you in on a little secret, this is the password for access to the Chechen side. Just hiss “Ruskie schwein!” and a way to slip through the impenetrable ring of Russian tanks into free Chechen territory is miraculously found.

Another way to escape from Russian territory may be when a former police detective appears at the door of the friend’s apartment you are staying in, as there are no hotels left standing in the city and ushers you into a Volga. The Volga is one of those archetypal Soviet cars that are built like tractors; these cars go forever, they say. But like all other Soviet vehicles, the starter motor is not meant to last more than six months. I never came across one that worked. You either push or crank the motor with the hand crank that, no surprise, is standard issue. Imagine Stalin executing his driver as he tries in vain to push start the Zil stretch limo on a frosty Moscow morning. For a country that can invent the Mig 29, the planet’s best helicopters, put the first man in space and who have kept the remarkable Mir space station in orbit for years – something even the U.S. has not been able to do – they sure make bum cars.

In the southern village of Sefanyurt I make contact with the fighters. The village has been razed by the Russians and the inhabitants are desperately trying to do basic repairs before the winter sets in. Magamet is our contact. He lifts his head from under the bonnet of one of several cars in the yard. His is a hatchet face with a perennial five o’clock shadow. As usual, tea is offered. A visitor soon learns that tea means a full meal and that everyone offers you “tea” immediately after saying good day. It is the Chechen tradition of hospitality that is without precedent.

Gostiprimnost, as it is known.

After a couple of weeks of heavy grease-laden, admittedly delicious food, it is a toss-up as to who will get you first: the Russians with bullets and shells, or the Chechens with cholesterol and gout.

So, tearing ourselves away from another killer meal, we begin the journey into the liberated zone. Documents are looked at and returned by Russian soldiers at checkpoints without a hitch. We cross a swift and clear stream rushing over polished pebbles and then the struggling Volga sedan lurches uphill, into the mountains. As we pass a cemetery, my travelling companions all hold their hands upturned before them in prayer. Then, alongside the grave of a holy man, they lift their butts off the seat until the shrine is passed. How the car doesn’t go off the edge is a bit of a mystery.

After some time we pass some arcane reference point and Magamet reaches over from the back seat and taps my wristwatch. “Change it. We do not follow Moscow time anymore.” At this, the perennially dour Chechen partisan flashes a grin that boasts four gold teeth and three silver ones. We are in free Chechnya. It is fairy-tale land. The landscape is of gentle slopes with trees laden with fruit. We turn off the gravel road onto farm tracks through grassy meadows covered by white, yellow and red flowers. After half an hour, the car can go no further. From here we have to hike along paths hidden from the Russian snipers to get into the villages. It is not exactly Spartan-like: there are two young women with us who do the walk in sandals and floral dresses. Somewhere in these mountains hides the president-on-the-run Dzokhar Dudayev, folk hero Shamil Basayev and the last Chechen warriors.

During the first day’s walk, my guide suddenly stops, urgently signalling me to halt. I do, unsure of what the threat is. He points down to the ground under his feet and says “Mine!” My blood freezes. We have wandered into a minefield. I stare down at the disturbed soil beneath my feet, and try to imagine how to extricate myself. I look up again and my companion is laughing. Laughing? Then he starts jumping up and down, stamping his boots into the ground, “No, no!” I gasp. He is cackling and can barely get out the words, explaining it is anti-tank mines that the Chechens have planted.

It would take a weight of several hundred kilograms to set one off. But I think of just how bad Russian cars and televisions are, and wonder why anyone would put their life in the hands of Russian technology.

Despite the ceasefire that is officially in place during the talks, the days are punctuated by the heavy thud of artillery and the rattle of machine gun fire, while the nights are lit up by arrays of Katyusha rockets screeching overhead and the intermittent harsh glare of flares that make shadows race across the ground alarmingly. The Russians rarely hit anything, but then, they do not mean to. It is psychological warfare, to keep the fighters on edge and to break the villagers’ willingness to resist. They do not have much hope.

The Russians have been trying to bring the restive Chechens to heel for almost two hundred years. A Tsarist general on a mission to pacify the hill tribes built a fort on the plains and called it Grozny, meaning Horrible. He was right. In the Second World War, despite the Chechens repelling the German attack, Stalin claimed they had collaboration with the Nazis and sent hundreds of thousands of Chechens to gulags or labour camps in 1943. Few returned. Think about it: if they had been collaborating, Stalin would not have been able to get his bear-like paws onto them in 1943. And now Yeltsin is insisting that Chechnya remain under Russian rule. The Chechens have had their share of Russian rule and now want out. So in the face of overwhelming force, appeasing statements from Western democracies and even less from fellow Muslim states, the Chechens decided it was time for shock tactics.

A commander called Shamil Basayev and one-hundred-and-fifty fighters drove down from the mountains, straight along the main road and into the Russian town of Budyonnovsk. They took over the hospital and held the patients and staff hostage in order to get the Russians to stop bombing their villages and towns. How did that unit get through? Simple: the Chechens know the enemy and just bribed the checkpoint charlies as they went. $50 a throw. Another story says that the fighters lay in coffins in trucks given a fake military code 9 clearance, meaning the trucks contained the bodies of dead Russian soldiers from the front. It was a regulation the Soviets used to enable them to quickly and secretly get the bodies of their boys back from the war in Afghanistan, when they could not admit to getting whacked by hairy mujahedin. Even grieving mothers were warned to remain silent about their sons’ deaths. Whatever, it worked. And after the hostage drama was ended by the Russians being forced to the negotiating table, Basayev had another trick up his sleeve, to ensure the Russians remained honest. He announced to the media that he had been given an atomic bomb by allies and that he could have exploded it in Moscow if he wanted to. But as a gesture of good faith, here it is. Take it back. Yet insiders say that the Chechens actually acquired two bombs and only gave one back.

In a jerrybuilt plywood hospital in the village of Benoy, teenage war veterans listen to Koran readings by an older fighter, a mullah. They were all severely wounded in the Budyonnovsk hostage saga. Some are amputees, others blind. But there is nothing going on at the moment; I am just listening to shells landing nowhere and eating too much. Nice holiday, but perhaps it is time to get back down to the Russian-occupied towns at the base of the mountains. Hopefully thing will be a bit more dramatic.

I take up residence with a family, opposite the Médecins Sans Frontierès (Doctors Without Borders) house. That night there is some kind of an emergency; Médecins Sans Frontierès’ Katherine and Marc race off to the hospital after midnight. A Chechen male is pronounced dead on arrival. He had been shot at close range with a shotgun. His name was Alhuzar Tupsuev and he was twenty-two years old. He had been shot by his younger brother and his mother had been the first to find him, bleeding to death. Alhuzar was the proverbial bad apple; he had been seen riding with Russian troops on their tanks and drinking vodka with them. Others say he was selling vodka to the Russians. And it is when the Russian conscripts are drunk that they begin shelling and shooting at random, often killing civilians. His younger brother had twice warned him to desist, on pain of death. They quarrelled furiously. Like all older brothers, he laughed off his sibling’s threat. And so he received both barrels of a shotgun in his chest. Vodka for Ivan, death for Allah. My friends nod and cast knowing looks at me.

Things are happening. There will be more.

The deep thud of exploding shells and the rattle of machine guns echo from the surrounding hills, but the market women in the Chechen town of Vedeno continue to haggle without missing a beat. The talk among the old men leaning on their sticks, eyes shaded by felt hats, is of rumours that Chechen fighters have taken the nearby Russian garrison town of Shali. They say that people are holding daily meetings in the town square. It is difficult to believe or verify.

Among the Chechens, fierce discussions mix rumour parading as fact, and lies accepted as rumours. Rumours that the fighters will be coming down from the mountains, perhaps even tonight, but definitely by Monday. A Russian Interior Ministry soldier tells the Médecins Sans Frontierès couple to prepare themselves, as there could be many wounded. Soon. Maybe even tonight. The occupying Russian army seems in tight control of all but the southern-most mountains of this querulous land. But after the second day of these rumours, I rouse myself from the midsummer torpor I have fallen into. The hot afternoons are custom-made for siestas, and I feel I am challenging divine design by not napping. The thud of outgoing tank shells and the following, rounder crash as they explode in the hills where the last separatist Chechen rebels are holed up. It should be a quick ride on the rough idling Russian motorbike with sidecar I am borrowing, but it has no documents to get past the Russian army checkpoints. (It also needs a bit of repairing after I have driven it into a wall, but let’s rather let that story slide.) Instead, I wave down a bus, the driver denies he is going to Shali and pulls off, but about a hundred yards down the road it stops and the door opens. I jump on and he says: “You are not a spy, are you?” No, no, of course not. “Welcome.” The other passengers are babushkas and clerks with the puppet administration installed by the Russians after they drove Dzhokhar Dudaev‘s independence-minded government from Grozny. They argue politics for the duration of the ride. The radio news speaks of agreements signed, of fighters disarmed and the Russian army of occupation leaving.

It is the usual fear-driven nonsense; rumours of war, I’m sure. But after the old women at the market whisper that it really is true, I decide I’d better check it out.

It seems unlikely that the last of the Chechen warriors were going to come whooping down from their mountain redoubt and take on the entrenched Russian positions. The Russians have thousands of tanks and armoured vehicles, combat helicopters they call “crocodiles” and an endless supply of MiGs from the former Soviet stockpile. It is one thing to hold a defensive position, quite another for guerilla fighters to take on heavily defended garrison towns.

The bus stops at the Shali roundabout where a rusting Soviet tank perches inelegantly on a pedestal, a reminder of some victory or the other. There is no plaque. Or maybe it was a defeat that has been twisted to resemble a triumph. Everything looks normal. No sign of wild-eyed fighters. But further into the town, at the square where once a statue of Lenin gazed imperially at the masses, there is now a clutch of green flags hanging limp in the hot, still air. Below, thousands of people wave green banners and yell out “God is great!” Young men in civilian clothes and dark glasses stroll around with AK47s and bazookas slung over their shoulders. A man is beaten in the front of the crowd for some reason I cannot fathom. Babushkas slap him and he scuttles from the scene, blood dripping from his forehead.

It dawns on me that it is true, not a rumour: the Chechens have taken Shali. Ismael, a student of International law in Ankara, back home for a holiday, confirms this: “Yes, we took the Russian commander hostage to force the troops out.” Truckloads of Chechen patriots from nearby villages arrive, trailing the green of Islam. A little convoy of heavily armed fighters arrives to raise the temperature even higher. But what about the Russians? There is no sign of then. What the hell is going on? Ismael is also confused. It is exhilarating, but still confusing. Soon, the commander takes me to one side and says perhaps it is best to return to Vedeno.

“Why?” I ask, “Is something happening? Will the fighters take it too?”

“We can’t say anything; it might be good if you take the next bus back. But first, you must eat something with us.” After a plate of borscht, the fighters walk me to the roundabout and warn the driver not to charge me for the fare, on pain of death. The fare is about eighty cents.

An hour later, the slow bus drops me at the centre of Vedeno. Nothing seems amiss, but I spot a green scarf hanging from a telephone pole. I hurry in through the old gates, and a group of Chechen fighters sit behind it eating watermelon. I recognise two from the mountains. They insist I sit and eat. It is like a Kalashnikov picnic – all around infantry weapons abound – and one fighter prays on a tiny prayer mat. Despite their calm exterior, at every approach of heavy vehicles, they jump up with the RPGs and AKs, but so far, no Russian reaction. Perhaps the Russians have not even noticed this tiny band of warriors.

Further in, towards the administration building and the leafy park, hundreds of women are gathered. They form a circle inside in which the pretty girls dance to traditional music played on an accordion and a wooden box being beaten to a pulse-raising beat. Some fighters and overweight shopkeepers join them. The male role is that of the aggressive sexual hunter; the woman must gracefully shy away as is expected of Chechen women, but her eyes should flash a different story.

Back at the gate, the Russian tanks have finally roared up with a belch of diesel, a platoon of the dreaded Interior Ministry troops perched on them. The fighters stand up and face them with their RPGs. I get banjo leg just thinking about 150mm tank shells crashing into our little group. But the Chechens are as cool as screen heroes. The deputy commander, Hussein, hops over the wall and walks towards them. The machine gun in the turret follows him. The Russians decide it is better to talk about all this.

The talks are in a tacky boardroom from the Soviet era. The Interior Ministry commander is a massive man with military tattoos on his forearms. There are the local militia commanders, the Chechen rebel commander and the mayor, an aging creep in a shiny grey suit that sets off his golden teeth admirably. He tries to preside over the meeting, to show his authority, but it doesn’t come off. He knows his time has come to an end.

Outside, a little girl sweeps up broken glass in the town’s only cafe. It had been damaged in the initial fighting and closed, but now it re-opens, selling naan-like bread and tea. Old women hug and kiss the fighters, welcoming them with tears. A few days pass in much the same way: wary standoffs, talks in smoke-filled rooms, volatile public gatherings, tearful prayers for the dead and more erotic dancing. But one morning, the fighters come to pick me up. “There is something you must see.” Since my bad luck bike now has a tooth on the rear differential missing, I am back to walking and cadging lifts. Surely it can’t be the way I change gears? We pile into a Lada and drive towards the nearby village of Vergatoj, some nine kilometres away. On the way, a suspension strut comes loose and they tie it back on with wire. Nothing unusual. We are to see the body of Musa Usmanovich Timiev. His body had been retrieved from a shallow grave where it had been rotting for two days.

Crowds of relatives and villagers pray and sing outside. On the porch, women weep. In the lounge, a group of men stands around a sheet-draped body laid out on the floor. Patches of blood show through the cloth. They gently pull it off and the sickly sweet reek of decaying flesh is just a foretaste of the shocking sight. His head is formless from repeated beating that caved the skull in, his throat is slit from ear to ear and there are holes and wounds gouged out all over the torso. He had been severely tortured. He had also been castrated before death gave him relief. Horrific. The work of Russian mercenaries, the family says. On the way back to Vedeno, we pass another funeral. An architect had come back to his home village from Grozny. The day before, he had been whistling and excited to be able to go fishing in the clear, bubbling river of his childhood. But as he waded into the water, he stepped on a Russian mine.

I wrote this is 1995. Chechnya is still a land of strife, though things have improved. But one can imagine how the brothers who bombed the Boston marathon grew up, were raised on stories of horror and hatred, of defiance and revenge. And their enemies have multiplied, it is not longer just the Russians, but all nations that they consider to be enemies of Islam. DM