Chechen capital gets facelift

05 October, 2008, 15:56

Chechen Republic’s capital, Grozny, a city that's almost 200 years old, is getting a radical facelift. Ten years ago it was in ruins after two violent conflicts, but now the city is becoming a tourist attraction.

This year the capital of the Chechen Republic is marking its 190th anniversary. The city’s main street was renovated on the eve of the holiday. The largest mosque in Europe, which can hold about 10,000 people, will open its doors to locals and tourists in a few days.

Many years of conflict and anti-terrorist operations in the region during the 1990s left the land distressed, but for the last seven years millions have been spent to restore the southern Russian republic. But there’s still a lot of reconstruction work to be done in the region.