A Chechen family living in a crumbling building in central Grozny

TIME.com: Grozny hasn't exactly been in the news for some time. What motivated you to go there now?

Paul Quinn-Judge: The crucial thing is that this conflict is larger and bloodier than most of the Balkan conflicts we watch with horror, and yet nobody's paying attention to it. And one of the key reasons why nobody is paying attention is because Moscow is making it as difficult as possible for journalists to get there and see for themselves. The standard way of doing it is to wait until the official government press service arranges a trip to Grozny that literally [EM] without exaggeration [EM] consists of waiting around for hours in the main military base while being told that no transport is available, and then eventually being given a quick ride into Grozny on the back of an armored personnel carrier, which makes a great photo opportunity, but it's lousy journalism.

As we watched what was going in Chechnya from Moscow, it became clear that the city was not the great, newly liberated and future capital of Chechnya; it seemed to be the most dangerous place in the country. So I decided to go down and see what life was really like for the people who live there.

How do you go about getting the story if you're bypassing the official Russian channels?

You try not to draw any official attention to yourself. You drive around in a scruffy old car, and wherever possible, you try to avoid checkpoints in the city. If you're stopped at checkpoints, usually you let your driver, a local person, do the talking. And usually he manages to talk his way through. There's no such thing as a hotel in Grozny [EM] in fact, there are very few undamaged buildings. So you sleep with families, and you keep moving. Although those families were very hospitable, we never imposed on any one host for more than one night.

What was the attitude of people living inside Grozny to the West?

People were calm and hospitable, and they had no expectations of the West. Mostly, they're just trying to survive, scraping together something approaching a normal life. But when you get into conversations, they usually return to the subject of why everyone is ignoring what is happening in Chechnya. They ask why Grozny can be razed from the face of the Earth but nobody cares. And why the West cares so much about Kosovo, but not about them. And those are questions to which one has no answer.

You even managed to meet guerrillas while inside the city itself. What was their outlook on the future?

If I was a Russian, the most chilling thing for me would be the fact that guerrillas are everywhere inside Grozny itself. On the whole, they were quite well educated [EM] more so than I expected. Young and articulate. And essentially, what we might call Islamic fundamentalists.

What about the morale of the Russian forces?

This time, I tried to avoid contact with Russian soldiers. But I heard from many people there who had previously been sympathetic to the Russian offensive in Chechnya that the Russian army is pretty demoralized and undisciplined these days. Even Chechen officials appointed by Moscow to the pro-Russian government complain regularly and bitterly of Russian abuse.

What do the ordinary people do for food and money?

The only people we could find who were working for a salary were those in government employ, and even they complained that they hadn't been paid. Others are depending on other means. Those with money are able to buy food and the daily basics in improvised but scruffy markets. There's not much sign of any other economic activity, except scavenging for bricks in the rubble and reselling them. And, of course, a lot of drugs. A lot of kids with nothing else to do taking a lot of drugs.

Were there any signs of hope amid all that despair?

There were many people of remarkable courage and commitment there [EM] the doctors, nurses and teachers who'd stayed on when they could have found work elsewhere. Tremendously educated, cultivated, interesting people living in absolute misery because they feel some obligation to help get the city back on its feet. But these people, who were for the most part very opposed to guerrillas and the leadership of Aslan Mashkadov in the past, are now bitterly resentful of the Russians. And even more disturbing, they want to get out. Out of Chechnya, and out of Russia because they feel that Chechens will always be regarded as outcasts.

How does it feel leaving behind a situation of such despair?

It's a horrible, draining feeling. It takes some time to recover. You find it hard to sleep. The hardest thing is realizing how much hope people there place on you when they tell you their stories, and how little you're really able to do for them.

By Tony Karon

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