I remember reading an article about a year ago and it told the story of a vegan place somewhere in Georgia (the country) that was attacked by an angry mob because apparently gay and lesbian crowd favored the place but the interesting part is that the attackers were equally pissed off at the fact that some young Georgians decided to go vegan. So they broke in and threw raw meat at the crowd, called them names, threatened them, told them there's more coming their way.

Not that it's directly related but it's pretty much the same area and a very similar mentality.

I know a lot of Chechen (Ingush, Dagestani, Georgian, Abkhaz, what have you) people - so does nearly eveyone here - and I interact with them on a daily basis. I can tell you that they have an utmost respect for their traditions and their traditions prescribe a man, among other things, to eat meat and not be gay. There aren't many people in Chechnya but they have always done a fantastic job of preserving their cultural identity and safeguarding what they perceive to be the Chechen spirit.

Donald Reyfield (a British historian familiar with the topic) once said that throughout their history, Georgian people have never held a grudge against foreigners, because they secretly percieve all foreigners to be complete idiots. That goes for Chechens too.

There is absolutely no way they are going to listen to the media or the politicians or public figures voicing their concerns on the subject, be it Russians, Americans, Chileans, Japanese or Martians. They don't give two fucks about what all of these think simply because they are not Chechens and thus have no way of knowing what is good or what is bad for a Chechen. Failsafe logic, isn't it?

I'm positive that the only way a change might come in this case is from within the region itself, so the best possible thing one can do is show support for all the gays, lesbians, queers and vegans out there, keep their spirits up so that one day they will manage to get their point across.