MovieChat Forums > Mandariinid (2015) Discussion > Chechen fighting with the Abkhaz?

Chechen fighting with the Abkhaz?


At first I was a bit confused as to why a Chechen would be fighting with the Abkhaz, I thought they would have more in common with Georgians. What made it even more confusing was that Ahmed was Islamic, and given the support Russia gave to the Abkhaz during the war I would've thought if any Chechens were to join a side, it would've been the Georgians.

Also at the end when the soldiers turn up and kill Margus and Niko, was Ahmed being hostile to them during the talk because they were Russian? I'm asking this because they looked slightly different to the Abkhaz militants that came to the house and the language also sounded different.

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Chechens in that war were mercenaries, if you think that they were there because of some special cause, trust me that's just bull *beep* They were just bloodthirsty *beep* fighting for money, they didn't care that they were fighting alongside their biggest enemies, and that's the reason they got their asses handed to them a year later.

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I thought the Chechens won that war? Russians withdrawing, etc.

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First of all, Georgian-Abkhaz conflict was provoked by Russians, who hired Chechen soldiers and used them to fight Georgians. As a result, Georgia lost a territory, which is now governed by Russians. Same for Chechnya.

In the movie, Ahmed finds himself in a senseless venture and finds out where the truth lies. The main idea of the movie is that if there is humanity, justice and faith, even enemies can become friends.

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It is a lot more complex than any one side provoking another.

The Georgians were vicious and conducting systematic ethnic cleaning of many different groups in Abkhazia. That is documented by Human Rights Watch and a number of other respected international organizations. When You have Armenian, Greek and Turkish descent Abkhaz fighting on the same side against Georgians you know it is more complex than you portray

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I'm not trying to make this look any easier and I'm sorry if you think like that. The Georgians weren't conducting any kind of ethnic cleaning and none of the international organizations have mentioned that. How could they? Ethnic cleaning didn't happen in real. Considering how hospitable the Georgians are, they would never do such thing like ethnic cleaning. The proof of that is Georgians living in harmony with the Abkhazian for centuries.

If you have any kind of evidence showing that Georgians conducted ethnic cleaning in Abkhazia, would you share it with us?

I love Abkhazia, I remember it, and I would like to live in Georgia with Abkhazians in peace.

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Georgians weren't conducting any kind of ethnic cleaning


Of course they were. the OSCE reports state this.

Trying to pick a good and bad side in a civil war is absurd.

If you don't agree with us about ethnic cleansing by all sides my guess is you have skin in the game and are not saying so.



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Only etnic clensing was done by russians in bouth abkhazeti and samachablo(so called south osetia) and in bouth case against georgians. Georgians are more prowestern oriented population, there for russians clean them from this two georgian teritories and now there are very big russian military bases, that in russian mind protects russian south borders from posible NATO invaisons.

Chechens been used as mercenaries in all this ragional wars, even in ukraine in this moments are chechen and abkhaz mercenaries. It is russian political game to put all this people against each other.

This movie is about this, estonians, chechens, georgians and abkhaz daying in war that is pland and implemented by russian mylitaries and KGB. This is why no mettar who is killing who, they are all victims of russian war games and in bigger picture russia vs NATO geopolitical games.

So stop blaming georgians in any kind of ethnic cleansing, not even trying to provide at least some pro russian organizacion report about sach war crime.

It is not so hard to find it, ofcorse if they exsist.
http://www.osce.org/odihr/34091?download=true
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_in_Abkhazia

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The ethnic cleansing and massacres of Georgians has been officially recognized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) conventions in 1994, 1996 and again in 1997 during the Budapest, Lisbon and Istanbul summits and condemned the "perpetrators of war crimes committed during the conflict. On May 15, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted (by 14 votes to 11, with 105 abstentions) a resolution A/RES/62/249 in which it "Emphasizes the importance of preserving the property rights of refugees and internally displaced persons from Abkhazia, Georgia, including victims of reported "ethnic cleansing", and calls upon all Member States to deter persons under their jurisdiction from obtaining property within the territory of Abkhazia, Georgia in violation of the rights of returnees".

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"At first I was a bit confused as to why a Chechen would be fighting with the Abkhaz, I thought they would have more in common with Georgians. What made it even more confusing was that Ahmed was Islamic, and given the support Russia gave to the Abkhaz during the war I would've thought if any Chechens were to join a side, it would've been the Georgians. "

Notice that this was going on in 1992, preceding both Chechen wars. The circulated idea in Russia and northern Caucasus back then was that Georgians were oppressing Abkhazs, originally a Northern Caucasian ethnic group.
That was the main reason as to why there would be Chechen warriors on the side of Abkhazia (and Russia.)

Even then, Chechens did not exclusively support Russia, and there were quite a lot who were in fact fighting on the Georgian side. It is just that this particular story was dealing with a Chechen who was sided with Abkhazs.

(The difference today would be that Chechens would be next to impossible to recruit en large for a Russian cause)

As to the religion, it is quite irrelevant. Georgians and Russians are both Christian Orthodox, whereas majority of Abkhazs are also Christian, with the exception of formerly noble minority which adopted Islam late in 18th century to ally themselves with Ottoman Empire against Russian Empire.
Regardless, the religious differences have basically never been relevant in Caucasian politics, as exemplified by the dialogue between Nika and Ahmed, where they explicitly tell each other they have no problem with each others religious beliefs, and in fact, they respect them.

"Also at the end when the soldiers turn up and kill Margus and Niko, was Ahmed being hostile to them during the talk because they were Russian? I'm asking this because they looked slightly different to the Abkhaz militants that came to the house and the language also sounded different"

It is never stated because explicitly politicized messages (anti-Russian) were avoided because the director is Georgian and it would be against the sentiment of the film, however yes, it is highly implied that they are Russian. The reason as to why Ahmed is hostile towards them, though, is that they are dismissive and disrespectful to him.

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It is never stated because explicitly politicized messages (anti-Russian) were avoided because the director is Georgian and it would be against the sentiment of the film, however yes, it is highly implied that they are Russian. The reason as to why Ahmed is hostile towards them, though, is that they are dismissive and disrespectful to him.


I thought the reason Ahmed shot at the Russians was because he had grudgingly grown close to Niko and didn't want him to get shot. Ahmed was trying to protect Niko.




And all the pieces matter (The Wire)

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I thought the reason Ahmed shot at the Russians was because he had grudgingly grown close to Niko and didn't want him to get shot. Ahmed was trying to protect Niko.
As specified upthread, it's only heavily implied that these were Russians, because it's not said so on-screen.

And so, Ahmed was playing his part as he did before, but the Russians near the end were actively provoking Ahmed (who had been fighting as a mercenary on their side), and were very disrespectful towards him, because they didn't believe that he was a Chechen and on their side.

As far as I could see, they were ready to kill Ahmed anyway, but then Niko intervened, and then Ahmed killed the Russians.

So, it wasn't because Ahmed had grown close to Niko, but that in the nick of time, Niko saved Ahmed's life, and they had to protect themselves and their hosts.

As it was, Ivo had thought that he could de-escalate the situation as he did before, but Niko saw from the window, that these weren't mercenaries, so he essentially knew better.

All in all, it didn't end well in the film.

I just saw the movie, so.

To avoid the loss of this post, I published a similar post in my blog before posting this response.

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