Every day dozens of Chechens try to escape the Putin-proclaimed happy paradise in Chechnya by entering the European Union illegally via the border with Ukraine or Belarus.
Despite the news of general peace and prosperity widely circulated by the news media in the Chechen Republic, more and more people dream of leaving the allegedly problem-free Chechnya. So why are Chechens leaving behind their homeland, the place to which they always feel an invisible connection?
Since the second Chechen war in 1999, almost fifteen thousand Chechens sought refuge in Poland.
At the moment I am concentrating on the large community of Chechens being housed within a run down, refugee centre in Bielany district Warsaw, they live between four floors of an old soviet apartment block in the Spartan Bielany district of Warsaw.