Ahmad (36) is an ethnic Chechen who was born in Jordan. He told me how his ancestors moved there 150 years ago due to persecution during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. In Jordan his family lived in a small but very intimate Chechen community. Nevertheless, they always wanted to go back to their country. After the first Chechen war, which ended with a Chechen victory against Russian federal forces and the de facto independence of the Chechen Repulic of Ichkeria, Ahmad’s family decided to move to their ancestral homeland. He remembers this time as wild, chaotic and free. The youth back then was fascinated with war. Sports, music everything circled around war. There were no rules, a lot of criminal activity, but a sense of national renaissance – brutal and yet fascinating times for an 18 year old. Then the second Chechen conflict started, which “was so terrible, that one cannot describe it with words”. This prompted his family to return to Jordan. He only returned in 2010, when almost all rebel activity had been quelled by Russian and Chechen loyalist forces and peace became more or less stable. He is happy in Chechnya now, as there is finally peace. He believes that Kadyrov genuinely cares about his people and that he is doing a good job, since he is keeping the country stable. According to him Chechens need some kind of authoritarian leadership, due to their culture and political situation. “Sure, the government is brutal sometimes, but it’s necessary”, he said. He speaks Chechen, Arabic and English and only very little Russian, as the Chechens in Jordan would only know Chechen and Arabic.