Ossetian Youths Dread Army Call-up

The Russian army’s spring call-up got underway in North Ossetia this month – but increasing numbers of the area’s young men are expected to try to dodge the draft.

Colonel Khabish Kushkhov of the army’s second division recruitment office has confirmed that the number of evaders is increasing every year. The official figure for the autumn 2004 call-up was 90, but the real one is believed to be far higher.

Poor conditions, low pay and the risk of violent bullying from senior soldiers - a practice known as “hazing” - have combined to turn youngsters away from military service.

Igor Kasoyev, 19, told IWPR that he was willing to risk the one-year suspended sentence handed down for draft-dodging. “I don’t want to serve in the Russian army,” he said. “It makes people stupid and embittered, and it cripples and debases them.”

And 18-year-old Soslan said that he planned to buy a so-called “red book” – the identity document which confirms that a person is serving his compulsory term in the military.

“You can buy a red card for around 700 US dollars, and if you have one, you won’t have any problems,” he said. “My parents will find the money.”

North Ossetia is the most militarised republic in the Northern Caucasus, brimming with Russian soldiers. According to some sources, the number could be as high as 20,000 – around three per cent of the population of the republic.

Bullying is rife here and serious injuries can result from clashes between young conscripts and older recruits – who are known as “dedovshchina” after the word for “grandfather”.

Three or four soldiers are brought to the Vladikavkaz garrison medical centre every day with fractures and other injuries after suffering beatings from their fellow soldiers, according to a hospital duty officer. Many such victims run away and go into hiding.

Former Russian army private Alexander Avakov told IWPR that he began his service in the southern town of Kamyshina, alongside some of his friends. But the hazing started from the very first day.

“Before we had even taken the oath, one of the sergeants had knocked out two of my teeth and broke one of the fingers of my left hand,” the 19-year-old said.

“The [older soldiers] hurt us physically and humiliated us for insubordination, and forced us to wash their things at night. The officers knew what was going on but they turned a blind eye.”

As a result, he ran away from his tormentors and hid in a small village in Volgograd region for about a month, where he did household chores for people in return for a crust of bread. When he had saved enough money, he left for home.

“My family hardly recognised me,” he said. “While in hiding I had turned into a tramp.”

Following advice, Alexander handed himself into the local recruitment office and told them his story of abuse. However, the army sent him to finish his service in a unit near the Chechen border, where the hazing started afresh. “I was forced to run away again or they would have handicapped me,” he said.

The military prosecutor’s office is due to make a final decision about his future – but until it does, Alexander is refusing to go back to life in the barracks.

Similar cases are widespread. Commanders and officers battle against hazing, but often even the former - usually the younger among them - are violent towards recruits.

Colonel Alexander Tebloyev, military prosecutor for the Vladikavkaz garrison, told IWPR that his unit was committed to combating bullying in the ranks, but declined to put a figure on the number of such cases reported each year.

IWPR understands that military investigators believe that hazing is often used to justify desertion and thereby avoid the criminal charges that result from abandoning one’s post.

If this is found to be the case, the offenders are sent back to their barracks, while genuine victims of hazing are assigned to different units.

The poor reputation of military service and the rise in numbers of those who seek to avoid it have resulted in an alternative being introduced – employment in low-skilled state sector jobs.

But officials say that the number of takers has been very low. Seventeen young men, all Jehovah’s Witnesses, have chosen this option to date.

For those with a higher education, alternative service lasts two years – twice as long as army conscription – or three and a half years for those with a basic education. The option has proved unattractive because the jobs on offer are considered low grade and poorly paid.

As a result, even the those conscripts with a dim view of the army end up choosing military service, despite all the humiliations and bullying it can entail.

Conscript Alexei, who is originally from the central Russian town of Belgorod and is doing his service in North Ossetia, told IWPR that he is regularly forced to beg for food for the battalion’s celebrations and events.

“Our command organises different get-togethers at weekends to mark one thing or another. The day before they send us into the village to get food and vodka. We walk around from morning to night with our hands out, begging for meat, potatoes, money,” he said.

“Sometimes people take pity and give us a few roubles, but more often they send us away. But the platoon commanders beat anyone who comes back to the barracks empty-handed.”

Military psychologist Irina Dubinina told IWPR that hazing had to be eliminated, and conditions generally improved, before the Russian army’s prestige could be raised.

“Today many of us witness how soldiers doing their military service walk the streets and work to feed themselves,” she said. “What parent, seeing them, would want to let their child go into the army?”

Murat Gabarayev is a correspondent for the Regnum news agency in North Ossetia.