French photographer Eric Bouvet travelled incognito to Grozny to make these
stunning pictures. Click on each one at left to read in Bouvet's own words the stories
behind the images
I photographed the Russian front as it advanced from Daghestan to Grozny from
October to December 1999. I bought myself a Russian military uniform at a
Daghestan market and thanks to my contacts during the first war in Chechnya, I
was able to befriend three Russian officers. I showed them the photos I had
taken and they understood that I was there to work and not to judge them or
anyone else. Just to bear witness.
Without the help of these three officers it would have been impossible to do my
work. They took me with them as part of the Russian army and I was able to
travel in the Russian helicopters and tanks. They were there when I returned to
Grozny in February and March 2000, and once again they helped me. I do not know
why because they were not only officers, they were Russians. Though they
understood violence and the attacks on civilians, they also understood what it
felt like to see their buddies killed -- and to kill in return. They themselves did
not carry arms.
In February when I entered Grozny, it was as if I was hit by an apocalyptic
vision. In 20 years of covering wars I never had the occasion to feel like a
astronaut landing on another planet. I had visited Grozny four times in the last
war, but this time I couldn't even be sure where I was. Where Minutka Square --
with it imposing buildings that lead to Lenin Avenue -- once was nothing remained,
just a huge, imposing void. The Russians had dynamited the city, leaving it
totally in ruins.
When I returned in March, life seemed to have started over again. People
strolled in the middle of the bombed-out streets. Possibly, life today seemed
better compared to the heavy bombardments of the winter. Only 5,000 civilians
remain. The only thing they fear now is that their building could be dynamited
without them being warned. They are only afraid of being buried alive.
As a photojournalist I am not there to judge who is good and who is bad. My role
is to expose the horror, to serve as a witness to the madness of man so that we
may question this way of life, or death.
French photographer 
I photographed the Russian front as it advanced from Daghestan to Grozny from
October to December 1999. I bought myself a Russian military uniform at a
Daghestan market and thanks to my contacts during the first war in Chechnya, I
was able to befriend three Russian officers. I showed them the photos I had
taken and they understood that I was there to work and not to judge them or
anyone else. Just to bear witness.
